========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 00:18:14 -0400 Reply-To: Alan Myouka Sondheim Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: Rejected posting to POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The form increases in length; I did not know about this limit, and then it was of course too late. So the replies are stuttered, and I want to thank everyone who has written here. And my reply is stuttered as well and there is a Holderlin-call from the Japanese translation by Rexroth at the end, which doesn't clarify, but mutes. Alan <---------- Forwarded message ---------- Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: quo un/censored vadis? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" btw, i'm pleased that personal quotas have now been instituted for the List. Unless this is my 6th message today. ____________ This has been great! Let it fly! I want to say that a b-c from Bobbie West has sobered me up some. I got called on my W,M p-o-v. Indeed, a comfortable one, at least out here in the Bleachedburgs. If I were a male-terrorized female--if that isnt a redundancy--I'd have a much harder time detaching from the content of some of Alan's poems. I also want to say that Nada was not censoring, she was expressing. This matter of detaching from content : I recall playing a tape of Robert Duncan reading his boffo poem "My Mother Would Be A Falconress" and a male student said, very much aroused, "That guy is _sick_ . He _hates_ his mother." Well of course, Sophistication answers. But this student was _getting it_ in a way I wasn't. Maybe he was recoiling from a picture of his own subconscious, who am I to know? There are going to be texts, for any one of us, where we cannot achieve an esthetic distancing because the content is traumatic. And surely our saying so is part of the Grand Testimony that would allow whatever form and content in poetry? This, then, is to apologize for the bleakness of my response (though not to retract the argument offered. Certainly not to ask Alan to change a thing). David PS in the same class, one wag suggested--this being during one crest of the wildlife protection movement--that the falcons should sue RD for his misrepresenting them and for personifying them. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 00:51:07 -0400 Reply-To: Tom Orange Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: Canada's encrypted poetry In-Reply-To: <199806010401.AAA04956@juliet.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 31 May 1998, david bromige writes: <> furthermore, the statistics incorporated into jeff derksen's "interface" (in the ganick/barone anthology) are not figures from past canadian dollar exchange rates but, in fact, insider information jeff has garnered on *future* exchange rates. call your broker now.... t. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:22:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "DANIEL L. COLLIER" Subject: Re: last call Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Alan, Thanks to digest mode I'm always behind the list discussion, so I never posted my reaction to your Nikuko IRC post some weeks ago. I loved it. It gave me an idea, though. Couldn't someone program a Nikuko generator that takes a given text (as Nikuko did in your post) into an IRC discussion, speaks bits of it & mixes those bits with what other people are saying? It's been awhile, so I can't remember if you started doing this or if Nikuko just stuck to her text... but I remember that some of what the other IRC identities were putting out could've mixed interestingly with Nikuko. I also think Nik should've hung in there a bit longer; folks were just beginning to react. Just an idea. Keep posting your work. Danny dwcollie@llgm.com dannylu@online.ru ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 08:36:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: limits Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" That's the first I'd been aware of a five message per day limit. When was that instituted? I would much rather have the list members use moral suasion, boycotts, the delete, or whatever, to influence the cyberhogs. It seems to me that when there's a useful debate, such as that surrounding Alan Sondheim's work, it should be able to run its course. Run without hobbles. Bromige, I take your note of support for the limit to be ironic--that you are against it? (Careful, if you reply, that's one gone!) Jouissez sans entraves! Sylvester ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 09:40:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: Re: Feedback In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII this 5per day rule has been in place for a long time. I think about a year, tho I cannot remember for sure. Many people on the list I think have encountered this rule when posting frequently to the list. But five times in a twenty-four hour period?? Granted, as Sylvester P. once wrote to me backchannel, many people like to read the list in "real-time" as it happens,and I feel a certain amount of interest in that as well. However, it seems to me that just as there could be a valuable conversation happening such as the reading of Alan's work going on here, I can ALSO imagine such an occurrence where someone might be let loose on the list in a violent, or verbally agressive manner. Obviously the reality is somewhere between these two. Certainly when people get so riled up that they have to be "censored" by waiting til after midnight to respond, they might be a few percentage points more likely to eventually require restraint by more than the email police. I think this contestedness is good for the list, and for poetry & poetics as well, but it may not be the best use of this forum, which combines interest in such "poetics" with the amenities of the new media, such as immediacy & virtuality. But that doesn't mean we need to maximize the possibilities offered by one at the expense of another. The need to shape the list by limiting posts to five a day is a decision based on the supposedly limited nature of this list. If you don't like it, as they say, combine your posts into single message. Sometimes it seems like everything would benefit if people would slow down and read each other with more consideration. Sometimes it seems like people end up arguing in public about "how I read you" and "how I read you reading you" - sorry, but this does not a poetics make end of managerial rant. I'll be waiting out behind the barn if you want to duke it out. I wanted to mention Nick's incredibly interesting post. I wanted to remark on that because it seems funny that a post about feedback should go without feedback, tho maybe I missed it. Also to add to his sense of getting feedback at a reading, as the work encounters an audience, it's audience or otherwise. Sometimes I feel treated as a listener to a sense of a reading as an event, one which the author has prepared a special statement to me as member of the community of listeners addressed. This may involve "reading new work" - a public redress of work considered (in the poetry lab) for some time. The worst readings are those where the author is "simply" performing a "set list." Of course one can read a statement of sorts into that, a relation to ones "readers" that may unveil some whole other bag of wax. As a poet I've never been fond of poetry readings, tho Nick's post makes me reconsider the prospect as I plan for a July reading here in Buffalo with Stephen Cope and Wendy Kramer. Part goodbye, part unlock, part letter to Creeley (everything here it seems, even the lovely town of Buffalo, is a letter to R.C.) suddenly the interest to give a reading is a very exciting prospect. Thanks to everyone who posted to me publicly or privately about electronic computer poetry softwares. I found several and will post my evaluation as I come to it. They all offer different things. Electric Poet is the best, I think, because it allows ENORMOUS text files as source text and spits out relatively syntactic language. The rest is all craft, no? Hammering out meaning and sense like the shield of Achilles, into, as Susan Howe wrote, "fragmentary narrative enclaves" Here is something I wrote yesterday using a source text processed by Electric Poet: Halfway across the doorway something terrible happened Dorothy lived in the trap door, Dorothy lived in a corner The sun had changed her, and gray as her horses were gray as she screamed into the trap door into a cradle He ran toward the child's accidents happen She screamed the house broke the house broke the sheds where the room came strange building in a sharp whistling barking loudly they heard the cyclone coming the hours passed and gaunt the south winds met to the far north carried miles in a cyclone cellar the room contained a feather cookstove a cupboard for the great pressure of the air This is part of a long section of an ongoing project to affix private, coded meanings, into randomized samples of processed language. Everything here has a referential value, although there is no obvious set of correspondences. And as a "control" there also meaningful linguistic sequences of words and phrases that do not have any affixed, private meaning, but are provocative as langague crashing on itself in collage. As a text, this section of Canto10-The Cyclone is a reading of the vocabulary of the first chapter of The Wizard of Oz. Rather, it "borrows" "steals" "begs" these words off the original, taking with them full resonsance of where they came from. It would be impossible to remove Dorothy, just as "balloon" from her source in the Baum book, or more likely, the 1939 film. By writing over the original, now lost in compuerania, the oz of the book becomes a fragmented contemporary allegorial meaning-generating device, not meaning "destructive" but seeking Kansas in lyric statement, hid out, buried from the wind and its caustic debris. Tack & tact. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 10:28:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Poetics List Welcome Message Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Here is the Welcome Message, sent out at the beginning of every month for those who may have not have copies handy. Joel and I are on the same timescale of reply today, I guess, as I was reminded to post the Welcome Message, as we do every month for those who may not have it handy. You can check out the automatic list options by looking at the header that comes when you request a list of subscribers using the "review" command, as explained below. The "daily threshold" is 50;5: 50 overall and 5 for any one subscriber. As of today, there are 627 subscribers. There have been a number of discussions on the list in the past about the reasons for setting these parameters in this way -- and they all took place in the environment of a significantly smaller list. I want also to take this chance to thank Joel for his work in bounced message control and other list duties that keep this thing going. He does everything that the "fully automated system" can't handle, i.e. quite a lot -- ____________________________________________________________________ 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. About the Poetics List 2. Subscriptions 3. Cautions 4. Digest Option 5. Temporarily turning off Poetics mail 6. Who's Subscribed 7. The Electronic Poetry Center (EPC) 8. Poetics Archives at EPC 9. Publishers & Editors Read This! [This document was prepared by Charles Bernstein (bernstei@acsu.buffalo.edu), Loss Peque=F1oGlazier (glazier@acsu.buffalo.edu), and Joel Kuszai (poetics@acsu.buffalo.edu). ___________________________________________________________ Above the world-weary horizons New obstacles for exchange arise Or unfold, O ye postmasters! 1. About the Poetics List The Poetics List was founded in late 1993 with the epigraph above. There are presently over 600 subscribers. Please note that this is a private list and information about the list should not be posted to other lists or directories of lists. The idea is to keep the list to those with specific rather than general interests, and also to keep the scale of the list relatively small and the volume manageable. The Poetics List, while committed to openness, is moderated. While individual posts of participants are sent directly to all subscribers, we continue to work to promote the editorial function of this project. The definition of that project, while provisional, and while open to continual redefinition by list participants, is nonetheless aversive to a generalized discussion of poetry. Rather, our aim is to support, inform, and extend those directions in poetry that are committed to innovations, renovations, and investigations of form and/or/as content, to the questioning of received forms and styles, and to the creation of the otherwise unimagined, untried, unexpected, improbable, and impossible. **ffff,0000,0000We also encourage subscribers to post information on publications and reading series that they have coordinated, edited, published, or in which they appear (see section 9 below).** (THIS MEANS *YOU*). Please keep in mind that all posts go out immediately to all subscribers, and become part of an on-line archive. *Posting to Poetics is a form of publication, not personal communication.* Participants are asked to exercise caution before posting messages! While spontaneity of response may seem the very heart of the list at its best, it also has the darker side of circulating ideas that have not been well considered (or considered by another reader -- editor or friend). Given the nature of the medium, subscribers do well to maintain some skepticism when reading the list and, where possible, to try to avoid taking what may be something close to a spontaneous comment made in the heat of exchange as if it were a revised or edited essay ("Let the Reader Beware!").=20 The "list owner" of Poetics is Charles Bernstein. Joel Kuszai is list manager. For subscription information contact us at POETICS@acsu.buffalo.edu. ___________________________________________________________ 2. Subscriptions Subscriptions to Poetics are free of charge. But we ask that you subscribe with your real name and we reserve the right to request additional information, including address and phone number. All subscription information you supply will remain confidential. You can subscribe (sub) or unsubscribe (unsub) by sending a one-line message, with no subject line, to: listserv@listserv.buffalo.edu the one-line message should say: unsub poetics {or} sub poetics Jill Jillway (replacing Jill Jillway with your own name; but note: do not use your name to unsub) We will be sent a notice of all subscription activity. Please allow several days for your new or re-subscription to take effect.=20 * If you are having difficulty unsubscribing, please note: Sometimes your e-mail address may be changed slightly by your system administrator. If this happens you will not be able to send messages to Poetics or to unsubscribe, although you will continue to get your Poetics mail. To avoid this, unsub from the old address and resub from the new address. If you can no longer do this there is a solution if you use Eudora (an e-mail program that is available free at shareware sites): from the Tools menu select "Options" and then select set-up for "Sending Mail": you may be able to substitute your old address here and send the unsub message. The most frequent problem with subscriptions is bounced messages. If your system is often down or if you have a low disk quota, Poetics messages may get bounced. Please try avoid having messages from the list returned to us. If the problem is low disk quota, you may wish to request an increase from your system administrator. (You may wish to argue that this subscription is part of your scholarly communication!) You may also wish to consider obtaining a commercial account. In general, if a Poetics message is bounced from your account, your subscription to Poetics will be temporarily suspended. If this happens, simply resubscribe to the list in the normal manner, once your account problem has been resolved. All questions about subscriptions, whether about an individual subscription or subscription policy, should be addressed to the list's administrative address: poetics@acsu.buffalo.edu. Please note that it may take up to ten days, or more, for us to reply to messages.=20 ____________________________________________________________________ 3. Cautions Please do not post to the list personal or backchannel correspondence, or other unpublished material, without the express permission of the author. Copyright for all material posted on Poetics remains with the author; material from this list and its archive may not be reproduced without the author's permission, beyond the standard rights accorded by "fair use". The Poetics List has a 50 message daily limit. If more than 50 messages are received, the listserver will automatically hold those additional messages until the list is manually unlocked, usually the following day. While it is difficult to prescribe a set limit on the number of daily, weekly, or monthly posts for any subscriber, please keep this limit in mind. If you plan to respond to multiple threads, it is generally preferable to consolidate your reply into one message. While relevant excerpts from a post to which you are responding may usefully be appended to your reply, please do not include in your new post the whole text of a long previously posted message. Please do not send attachments or include extremely long documents in a post, since this may make it difficult for those who get the list via "digest" or who cannot decode attached or specially formatted files.=20 In addition to being archived at the EPC, some posts to Poetics (especially reviews, obituary notices, announcements, etc.) may also become part of specific EPC subject areas. Brief reviews of poetry events and publications are always welcome. (See section 7.) Please do not send inquiries to the list to get an individual subscribers address. To get this information, see section 6. If you want someone to send out information to the list as a whole, or supply information missing from an post, or thank someone for posting something you requested, please send the request or comment to the individual backchannel, not to the whole list.=20 ____________________________________________________________________ 4. Digest Option The Listserve program gives you he option to receive all the posted Poetics message each day as a single message. If you would prefer to receive ONE message each day, which would include all messages posted to the list for that day, you can use the digest option. Send this one-line message (no subject line) to listserv@listserv.buffalo.edu set poetics digest NOTE:!! Send this message to "listserv" not to Poetics or as a reply to this message!! You can switch back to individual messages by sending this message: set poetics mail ____________________________________________________________________ 5. Temporarily turning off Poetics mail Do not leave your Poetics subscription "active" if you are going to be away for any extended period of time! Your account may become flooded and you may lose not only Poetics messages but other important mail. You can temporarily turn off your Poetics subscription by sending a message to "listserv@listserv.buffalo.edu" set poetics nomail & turn it on again with: set poetics mail When you return you can check or download missed postings from the Poetics archive. (See 8 below.) ____________________________________________________________________ 6. Who's Subscribed To see who is subscribed to Poetics, send an e-mail message to listserv@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu; leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of your e-mail message type: review poetics You will be sent within a reasonable amount of time (by return e-mail) a rather long list containing the names and e-mail addresses of Poetics subscribers. This list is alphabetized by server not name. or try: review POETICS by name review POETICS by country which will give you the list alphabetically by name or a flawed list by country (since all ".com" and ".net"s are counted as US) *Please do not send a message to the list asking for the address of a specific subscriber.* ____________________________________________________________________ 7. What is the Electronic Poetry Center? our URL is http://writing.upenn.edu/epc The mission of this World-Wide Web based electronic poetry center is to serve as a hypertextual gateway to the extraordinary range of activity in formally innovative writing in the United States and the world. The Center provides access to the burgeoning number of electronic resources in the new poetries including RIF/T and other electronic poetry journals, the POETICS List archives, an AUTHOR library of electronic poetic texts, and direct connections to numerous related electronic RESOURCES. The Center also provides information about contemporary print little magazines and SMALL PRESSES engaged in poetry and poetics. And we have an extensive collection of soundfiles of poets' reading their work, as well as the archive of LINEbreak, the radio interview series. The EPC is directed by Loss Peque=F1o Glazier. ____________________________________________________________________ 8. Poetics Archives via EPC Go to the EPC and select Poetics from the opening screen. Follow the links to Poetics Archives. You may browse the archives by month and year or search them for specific information. Your interface will allow you to print or download any of these files. Or set your browser to go directly to: http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/poetics/archive ____________________________________________________________________ 9. Publishers & Editors Read This! PUBLISHERS & EDITORS: Our listings of poetry and poetics information is open and available to you. We are trying to make access to printed publications as easy as possible to our users and ENCOURAGE you to participate! Send a list of your press/publications to 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. Initially, you might want to send short anouncements of new publications directly to the Poetics list as subscribers do not always (or ever) check the EPC; in your message please include full information for ordering.=20 If you have a fuller listing at EPC, you might also mention that in any Poetics posts. 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: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 10:40:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Magdalena Zurawski Subject: Re: Quo Vadis? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Nada! Glad to have read your post. Although I'm not familiar with the poems you're talking about, I think you raise a really important issue concerning irony. Recently I heard Bruce Andrews read and although I really enjoyed the work (its rhythms and contortions and general force) enough to tell him so after the reading, it was hard for me to see his use of words such as "pussy" as ironic and unproblematic. At 08:08 AM 5/31/98 +0900, you wrote: >as a teacher of nikukos > >and living always surrounded >by fetishizations of japanese women's sexuality > >(on the street that leads to my school there are huge flourescent signs >advertising anal licking by girls in sailor blouses and white cotton >panties) > >i cannot say that i am a fan of alan's work > >although i appreciate its forms > >i find the poems exoticize most stereotypically >Alan may be ironizing that > >but to me >in my daily life >as a woman teaching young women (and men) to speak >and maneuver into adulthood >the irony doesn't help me > >but confirms a certain rage or annoyance > >even when it is mixed with borrowings >from profoundest tradition >or cutting-edge cyberwords > >maybe it's different to read his nikuko poems >from the outside > >but for me they're too close to home >they make me uncomfortable > >even when i find them beautiful or skillful >(which is often) > >that's why i don't comment >for fear of being sour or prissy > >is there perhaps some dimension to the poems i'm just not *getting*? >or it it rather that i get too much? they are not some distant metaphor >but my xperienced world? > >-- nada "ume" gordon > > >>i am a big fan of alan's work, and i used to rave and gush everytime he >>posted a poem, either front or backchannel. i don't do it every time tho, >>but i think he knows of my admiration. n'est-ce pas, alain? >> >>At 12:53 AM -0400 5/30/98, Tom Orange wrote: >>>peter, >>> >>>yr post strikes a chord with me, as a long while back i voiced a similar >>>observation on alan's work, which blips thru these screens quite regularly >>>so as to become paradoxically commonplace and yet remain extraordinary >>>each time. (there's a coupla books worth of his stuff sitting in the list >>>archives, some of which chris alexander nicely brought out in chap form.) >>>the lack of response is in part the nature of the beast(s), namely one, >>>the volume of daily list traffic, and two, the kind of engagement that >>>anything other than a superfluous response to his work demands. >>> >>>just last week someone posted a few poems by jeff clark, and having just >>>finished that book i cast my line into the waters with a few tentative >>>takes on the work, with nary a nibble in response. >>> >>>dont think people are disinclined to discuss new (or old!) work here, all >>>depends on time/energy/will to engage i guess. surely one reason to stay >>>tuned in is to keep up with all the work that's circulating out there... >>> >>>cheers, >>>t. > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 11:16:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: limits In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Actually, this is all very odd, I agree. I don't *believe* the "welcome" message we get frequently re-posted to us, which supposedly gives all the ground rules, mentions the 5-post limit. If I'm not mistaken, it gives quite a different impression..I've looked, because in fact I first hit the limit some months ago, so it has been operative (not just for me I presume) for quite some time.... I never asked the list-honchos or the list in general about it, figuring I was the only one stupid enuff not to have noticed the rule someplace... Shouldn't the Welcome message (*if* I'm right) make mention of the limit?? M. On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, sylvester pollet wrote: > That's the first I'd been aware of a five message per day limit. > When was that instituted? I would much rather have the list members use > moral suasion, boycotts, the delete, or whatever, to influence the > cyberhogs. It seems to me that when there's a useful debate, such as that > surrounding Alan Sondheim's work, it should be able to run its course. Run > without hobbles. > Bromige, I take your note of support for the limit to be > ironic--that you are against it? (Careful, if you reply, that's one gone!) > Jouissez sans entraves! Sylvester > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 11:43:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Re: limits Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >... I don't *believe* the "welcome" >message we get frequently re-posted to us, which supposedly gives all the >ground rules, mentions the 5-post limit. This information is provided in the list "header" which is available to list subscribers by request, most easily when you send the "review" command to the listserv address. However, I do agree that it is a good idea to include this also in the Welcome message and so I have added it for the future. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 10:30:36 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: 12 tone Spicer versus dum da dum In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hugh sez re "Composer Webern was Double Agent for Nazis": > I have strong doubts about whether this happens to be true no doubt yr skepticism is fully appropriate - but what a wonderful strategy for coping with the avant garde, eh? mebbe it won't be so long we'll find something like this in the Times: "Florida State University Prof Establishes Poet's Link to Terrorists Tallahassee - What would you think of an 'avant garde' poet whose work was actually useful for something? ridiculous, right? but that's just what Professor David "Genital" Kirby is proposing. "That's right," sez Professor Kirby, "I have found incontrovertible evidence that American poet Jack Spicer's use of the 'serial form' can be linked directly to the need to pass information securely from the San Francisco bay area to Berlin." Professor Kirby's controversial paper, delivered before some 150 of his peers at the recent Florida State Conference of the Literary Arse [sic], proposes that Spicer's otherwise incomprehensible poetry was actually a complex code employed for trans-continental communication leading to terrorist activity in the U.S. and abroad. Kirby links Spicer to an openly homosexual splinter group of the Red Army Faction, headquartered in the famous Berlin leather bar Der Vesuvius. "While it's true I haven't read any of Spicer's work or his lectures or his biography, I'm absolutely convinced that my conclusions are correct. I think he even wrote a poem or something called 'Three Marxist Essays.'" Professor Kirby asserts that "it's particularly important to get the word out now, when a resurgence of interest in Spicer's outlandish work could only mean a coming resurgence of red terrorist activity." While several members of the audience had walked out by the end of his presentation, Kirby is not discouraged. "There has to be some explanation for Spicer's nonsensical verse, his bloated egotism," says Kirby, who describes his colleagues as "just jealous" that he has uncovered it. end quotation and so on... chris - O Evermore .. 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, 1 Jun 1998 10:39:46 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Kendall Subject: Re: 12 tones for Anton's bones MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tosh wrote: > As a hoax this is pretty funny! The reporters name is "Heinrich Kincaid," > which strikes me funny. It is a good name. Too good! Plus the > quote from > John Adams ."Ever since I first encountered compositions by Arnold > Schonberg I wondered what the hell anyone ever heard in it. .Now I know." > That's funny. What was really funny is when the report commented that > "Toru Takemitsu took time out from his own neo-romanticism to > transmit data > via music of his nation's progress with the atom." Since when did Japan > have Atomic power? Plus the quote from Mr. Glass " that musicians > continued to write twelve-tone music after the war, even though > they had no > idea why it was really invented. > Indeed, there are guys who are churning out serialism to this day." > Not to mention the fact that Schoenberg developed the 12-tone system around 1920, after Hauer and others had already developed similar systems. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Robert Kendall E-Mail: rkendall@wenet.net Home Page: http://www.wenet.net/~rkendall --------------------------------------------------------------------- On-Line Class in Hypertext Poetry and Fiction (The New School): http://www.wenet.net/~rkendall/htclass.htm Word Circuits (Resources for Hypertext/Cybertext Poetry and Fiction): http://www.wenet.net/~rkendall/wordcircuits --------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 13:58:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Goldsmith Subject: F I D G E T : 3 E V E N T S Comments: To: editor@ubu.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The Whitney Museum of American Art at Philip Morris presents F I D G E T a collaboration by Kenneth Goldsmith + Theo Bleckmann Tues 16 June | 8 PM | Free Park Avenue @ 42nd St., New York City Info: 212 878 2453 Accompanied by an electric bass + sewing machine, Theo Bleckmann performs a vocal-visual interpretation of Kenneth Goldsmith's new book, FIDGET, which records every movement Goldsmith made on June 16 (Bloomsday) last year. A frequent collaborator with Meredith Monk, Bleckmann produces an extraordinary array of intriguing vocal contrasts with his 3 1/2 octave range, pushing the boundaries between song + sound. With Skuli Sverrisson + John Hollenbeck. This site-specific collaboration was commisssioned by The Whitney Museum of American Art. Printed Matter, Inc. presents F I D G E T Kenneth Goldsmith with Syndey Maresca Sound Ambiance by Theo Bleckmann 11 June - 4 Sept Opening Thurs 11 June | 6-8 PM 77 Wooster St., New York City Info: 212 925 0325 An installation of thirteen paper men's suits printed with the complete text of FIDGET. Suits constructed by seamstress / costume designer Sydney Maresca. Stadium Projects presents F I D G E T Kenneth Goldsmith with Clem Paulsen Real Audio by Theo Bleckmann Online: 16 June http://www.stadiumweb.com Info: comments@stadiumweb.com An interactive java applet written by Clem Paulsen based on Goldsmith's _Fidget_. A book + CD of FIDGET is forthcoming this fall from The Maryland Institute of Art. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 15:07:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: 2 books by Karen Van Dyck MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A notice by Maria Margaronis in the May 29 TLS for two new titles by Karen Van Dyck on contemporary Greek poetry: _Kassandra and the Censors: Greek Poetry since 1967_, 305 pp., Ithaca, NY: Cornell U Press (prices given in sterling) and _The Rehearsal of Misunderstanding: Three collections by conbtemporary Greek women poets: The Cake, by Rhea Galanaki; Tales of the Deep, by Jenny Mastoraki; Hers, by Maria Laina_ (Bilingual edition) 336 pp., Hanover NH: U Pres of New England / Wesleyan University Press (prices in sterling) From the review: "The junta passed a law demanding that book titles correspond exactly to their contents; a group of writers countered with a volume called simply 'Eighteen Texts'. The junta condemned American popular culture while opening the gates to foreign imports and the CIA; poets and songwriters exposed the Colonels' looking-glass logic in paeans salted with the names of consumer durables. By the 1970s, direct parody had given way to strategic playbacks of the regime's mixed messages, underlining the writers' inevitable complicity in the culture they inhabited while rejecting clarity as dangerous and tainted. In Greece, poetic difficulty emerged not as a literary fashion but as an urgent response to a pressing political situation." Just thought to mention it -- Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 16:21:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: 2/5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII while I'm at it, saw a documentary on Karadzic last night on PBS, at one point, the ex-poet is surveying Sarajevo from the hills, accompanied by a Russian poet, Limonov (?), they come to a sniper position, and Karadzic shows Limonov how to work the high-powered assault weapon, which Limonov fires into the city .. where were we? Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 13:25:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Nice review and NAW #16 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Nice review in most recent Georgia Review by Fred Muratori of Rosmarie Waldrop, Paul Hoover, Amy Gerstler and others. Check it out. NEW AMERICAN WRITING #16 is about to appear. Work by many list folks and related people: Michael Palmer, Barbara Guest, Loss Pequeno Glazier, Connie Deanovich, Aaron Shurin, Cole Swensen, Nathaniel Mackey, Rodrigo Toscano, Ricardo Cortez Cruz, Ray DiPalma, Clayton Eshleman, and many mjany others. Joe Brainard Cover. 250 pages. Our biggest issue yet! 8 bucks. Reading for NAW at Small Press Traffic, New College, Friday, June 12. Participants are Barbara Guest, Aaron Shurin, Cydney Chadwick, Rodrigo Toscano, and Brandon Downing. Best to all, Maxine Chernoff ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:19:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Roger Farr Subject: Re: submissions In-Reply-To: <354E478F.FB4D15BA@home.com> from "Peter Ganick" at May 4, 98 06:56:15 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, I read your post on the Buffalo poetics list and thought I might make contact w/ you, and enquire about your call for chapbooks/submissions. I have a chapbook-length "experimental" poem I've been working on, called "Incomplete Catalog: Variations." Portions of it have appeared in a small-mag I co-produce here (Vancouver, BC) called "estrus". Below is one "set" from the series. Each "set" is composed of 3 five-line "stanzas", which are variations of 10 words, linked by two alternating conjunctions or prepositions. The poem is partly informed by Gertrude Stein's theories of composition. Let me know if you'd like me to send you more via snail-mail. Yours, Roger Farr INCOMPLETE CATALOG: VARIATIONS 6-9 semblance to living color of theatre object to odor surface of scene forenzic to detail scene of semblance odor to living color of surface forenzic to theatre detail of object living to surface theatre of detail scene to forenzic color of odor object to semblance . . . ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 14:26:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Roger Farr Subject: Re: submissions In-Reply-To: <199806012120.OAA25845@fraser.sfu.ca> from "Roger Farr" at Jun 1, 98 02:19:59 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit oops! re: submissions was supposed to go somewhere else! please ignore RF ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:55:40 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Re: submissions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I am confused. are you submitting to our magazine, "Tool a Magazine" if you are let me know because we are doing the first issue now, which includes such monument superheavies as, Charles Bernstein, Jordan Davis, Hoa Nguyen, Anselm Berrigan, Pierre Joris and much much more- oh well, if you were sending it elsewhere, ok erik sweet "Tool a Magazine" ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 18:00:21 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: sorry for the con(fusion) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Somebody sent me a message saying they were submitting to "Tool a Magazine" but was also sent to Poetics Listy I am confused because many send their submissions email and well, they are still coming in for the first issue which is half prepared and i didn't know if it was for me- o swell so if you sent somehting and I not hear yet, we are still reading... it was long last semester busters! the first issue which has amny poets and art work / drama will be printed in July erik sweet ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 16:32:11 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Remarks on Alan's work (and stuff) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable =B6 Congrats to dbkk on the Examiner article!! Congrats also for making Lingua Franca, and without the trouble and muss of abusing any impressionable students. -------------------- =B6 Anybody out there familiar with a French band by the name of "Kat Onoma"? I happened to notice a page just now that mentions their second album, Stock Phrases, which apparently "is based upon the works of the American poet Jack Spicer". !? -------------------- =B6 It's great to see Alan's work being discussed and/or argued here, I'm only sorry I didn't catch any of this over the wkend when I would have had more time to digest it - now I'm at work and comments have to be kept to a minim, esp. as I've already 'wasted' some time today on poetix; not to mention there's a 'net technical staff meeting going on right outside my office, and the air is heavy with data and acronyms... Alan knows how I feel about his wrtg - working with him to publish Jennifer has had a tremendous impact on my thinking and on my own wrtg, which I haven't bothered to conceal. I'm only now coming to really =3Dunderstand=3D parts of his project (i.e., not just comprehend them intellectually); other parts remain wholly unfamiliar to me. if I haven't digested the work in its totality, that's only because it's composed of variable intensities none of which are fully *comprehended by the work itself, outward turnings and assemblings that destroy and incompletely destroy the work's integrity - to my reading, it's as a vase AND a handful of shards, and neither; all of which aspects I think are necessary. I don't think I can say more about this just now, other than to caution that I'm not using Modernist (and decidedly not postmodernist, at least in one of its aspects) terminology - i.e., not the same atotality (ha ha Webern) proposed at that time. certainly there are aspects of the work that are disturbing in the extreme, yes even traumatic. "handful of shards". the project is dangerous - which is not just a way of excusing offensive material. it should be pretty obvious, however anyone feels about them, that the Nikuko poems aren't *synonymous with JAPANESE SCHOOLGIRL ALL-ANAL ACTION etc. etc. ad nauseum - though they obviously position themselves in relation to this and other fetishizing discourses. possibly we should remind ourselves that poetry can be an address (to problems and to persons), and not just a 'symptom'. to my thinking, Alan's work takes up quite deliberately and with concern those aspects of it which most (ALL) of us find threatening - subjects or persons as fetishized, dissolved, partial, becoming -n. this runs in a continuum from the negative/terrifying to the +/revolutionary; or, more than apt than a continuum, I'd say that any 'single point' in these poems - any statement or idea - positions itself in relation to these extremes and innumerable other points, without being reducible to any of them. to read the work or even any part of the work as 'just pornography' is to miss innumerable other intensities; to read it as wholly 'revolutionary' is equally a mistake. it's relation to the material is not *simply ironic, and I'm not sure that its mode isn't too complex even for the term "ironic". e.g., the (necessary) departure from EGO as a false wholism manifests here in relation to technology as EGO >>> machine person overcome/destroyed by machine, person automated and routinized; programmed (compliant), reified (made whole) but that same departure, even at the same point manifests as EGO >>> cyborg person as deconstr./assemblage with machine, person activated and transformative; revolutionary (noncompliant), transpersonal (composed of partial objects) a similar, and possibly more troubling nexus occurs in relation to (mostly sexual) desire, between the exploded ego and/or body as fetishized/pacified AND/OR desiring/activated, where desire is understood (as unfortunately it so rarely is here) as a destructive force. The accusation can be (has been) levelled that Alan fetishizes women in his work prior even to the body of desire as it occurs there - I've always been bothered by this to the extent that it seems fully appropriate to say this of (we assume) a Man writing about Women, but not for instance of Acker's work in relation to 'her' gender or Burrough's in relation to 'his', as if the work doesn't announce itself anyway as trying to destroy 'natural' categories like MAN and WOMAN, that last safe binary, saving grace. (I can't emphasize enough that the enforcement of Gender as binary is pervasive and accounts for the frightened neglect or misunderstanding of some really great, risky stuff out there - not to mention the painful, distorting effect it has on us as persons, trying to force our desire/experience into rigid gender criteria, even if we're "sophisticated" enough to parrot back the vocabulary of constructivism... "William 's cuttin off his fingers so they'll fit into the glove".) - anyway, I think that read is reductive in that it neglects Alan's (the poems') keen awareness of "Alan" as another figure constructed in/by his work - not author, not in control or variably in control, not whole. Alan is as much Jennifer as he is the Alan, I can see the Alan sometimes moving from Jennifer to Alan as Julu and so forth in its identifications - but trying I think, hardest of all NOT to identify or be identifiable. okay, a much longer post than I intended but I'm not sorry. obviously I'm partial to Alan's work (ha Ha) but I don't mean to invalidate anyone's response - only to reiterate and broaden Joe's remark to read further (farther? not father). chris - steeped in the lore of the old watusi .. 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, 2 Jun 1998 08:24:39 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Details Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" My name is Anthony Lawrence. My address is: PO Box 75, Sandy Bay, Tasmania, 7006, Australia I heard about the discussion group from the Electronic Poetry Centre homepage on the Internet. Also, a friend of mine, Philip Mead is a member. My interest is discussing poetics and current trends in contemporary poetry. I read widely in American poetry, and this is an opportunity to interract with and learn from some of those poets. Sincerely, Anthony Lawrence ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 08:17:12 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: From Oz Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Hello from Australia. This is my first post to the discussion group, and it's simply a greeting. I'm looking forward to being involved. Best Anthony Lawrence ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 18:53:14 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris McCreary Subject: address query Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I'm looking for an e address for New York poet Greg Fuchs. A backchannel would be much appreciated... Thanks-- Chris McCreary ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 19:33:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Loss Pequen~o Glazier" Subject: New at the EPC / New author pages Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I am pleased to announce new links & resources at the EPC: Arras (connect) Crayon mag home page Frank Kuenstler 1928-1996 Reviews of Naropa Summer/Fall Readings 1997 Deluxe Rubber Chicken Paul Celan (connect) I want to also point out three splendid new author pages: Jack Spicer (page by Chris Alexander) Alice Notley (page by Mark Peters) Bruce Andrews (page by Mark Peters) These are musts to visit! (Also valuable for possible class use.) Thanks for a tremendous job to Chris and Mark! On the heels of our discussion some months back of single author issues of magazines, I think these pages stand as exemplary tributes to these authors; and with a million transactions a year at the EPC, serve as a viable way to circulate some words to many folks. There are still opportunities for this kind of development (A current Author Page Call will be posted under separate cover.) ============================================= As ever, the EPC is at http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/ Click on "new" for links to these new pages. ============================================= ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 19:44:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Loss Pequen~o Glazier" Subject: EPC Author Page Call (June 1998) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This is a current (June, 1998) version of the EPC Author Page Call for contributions: ============================================= We are asking people to consider contributing to the EPC author page development initiative. We feel there are certain key authors who should have a page at the EPC. Since you may also be working on/reading some of these authors, helping to create their page might be a simple matter, and might be a natural tie-in to ongoing research and/or writing projects. What is an author page? Our basic aim is to create a place where links to resources in various web locations by and about the author might be gathered. (Additionally, if the author would agree to notify me of future web publications of their work, that would also be helpful.) In addition, in an EPC author page, we often seek to make available some new-to-the-web textual and/or visual resources, items specific to the EPC. But this is not necessarily required. The basic requirements of such a page are a photo, a cv/list of publications/ bibliography, brief bio, the above-mentioned textual work, and the author's agreement to use their work. Files can be sent as attachments to e-mail (include a list of file names in e-mail message) or mailed on diskette. Also include links to any existing resources on the Web (available through any number of search engines). An EPC author page does not require extensive knowledge of HTML. Indeed, the core activity of such a page is to gather and compile materials related to a given author; often this allows you the opportunity to contact and work with someone in whose work you are interested. It is also a valuable form of advocacy for writers who you believe should be read more widely. The main purpose here is to develop a center where people might find out more about these authors. Help us with this collective effort to develop a body of content related to poetry that is available on the Web. A list of suggested authors whose pages need to be created or developed follow. Have a look and let us know if you are interested or if you have suggestions. For further details, please contact: Loss Glazier, glazier@acsu.buffalo.edu or Charles Bernstein (bernstei@bway.net) regarding this initiative. ============================================= Susan Howe Tina Darragh Diane Ward Carla Harryman Lyn Hejinian Maggie O'Sullivan Melanie Neilson Denise Riley Rae Armantrout Catriona Strang Nicole Brossard Wendy Mulford Rosmarie Waldrop Deanna Ferguson Hannah Weiner Geraldine Monk Karen Mac Cormack Katheleen Fraser Lisa Roberston Marjorie Welish Barbara Guest Caroline Bergvall Fiona Templeton Fanny Howe Bernadette Mayer Leslie Scalapino Ann Lauterbach Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge Stacy Doris Lydia Davis Kathleen Fraser Rachel Blau DuPlessis ============================================= Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 19:50:50 -0400 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: Blownotes In-Reply-To: Erik Sweet "Robert Duncan" (May 30, 12:02pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On May 30, 12:02pm, Erik Sweet wrote: > Subject: Robert Duncan > In a message dated 5/29/98 11:53:44 PM, you wrote: > > < finished that book i cast my line into the waters with a few tentative > takes on the work, with nary a nibble in response. > > Especially the "Blownotes Section" of Clarks book is interesting, He also > explores the narrative in a challenging weird way - You are right about > discussing current work Yeah the J.Clark book is impressive. I enjoy all the risk taking that is there, the reconstructive work with the narrative in the delightful little prose vignettes like "on the iron cot," "Napoleonette," invaginations," and "if i don't return." This is the third or fourth time I've seen the "the little door..." and weird mentioned together in this venue. Doesn't the "weird" gets a bad rap with all the baggage that the word carries (likely the abuse, overuse it gets in pop culture(weird as "hip"))? Tom Beckett's take on surrealism years back in an interview was that it had become associated with hip weirdness in America, or something like that. Ray DiPalma preferred to say "dark music" here. Jeff Clark is already fairly well connected (published in APR and what not) for a relatively young age, a good start. William ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 17:18:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: Quo Wens? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain As an addendum to Peter Balestieri's original post (part of which is excerpted below) that began the interesting thread earlier this morning on Alan Sondheim's work, I just wanted to say that I, too, purchased Rochelle Owens' "New and Selected Poems" from Mark Weiss and Junction Press last week, and find it a handsome volume, a pleasure to hold and read -- because I didn't really know Owens' work before this, I'm taking my time looking around and through it -- my initial impression is that she's a really accomplished writer, able to manage a wide variety of moods, voices, and rants -- unlike Peter (apparently), I never thought "wildness" per se was a criteria for poetic excellence -- but I certainly wouldn't call this work "tame" -- and what he means by "an older definition of avant-garde work, one that is increasingly codified and canonized" is truly a mystery. Perhaps, Peter, you could point to specific examples of Owens that you find fit these descriptions? I'd be happy to throw in my faves as well . . . it might be worth talking about . . . ________________________________________________________________ > Having read some pretty strong endorsements of Rochelle Owens' > work, > particularly that it is very "raw" and "wild," I queried the List > to > see if anyone could recommend a representative text to me. I > received a > number of generous responses (thanks to all) and purchased her > New and > Selected Poems from Junction/Mark Weiss. Mark was very helpful > and I am > very grateful to him. However, I do not find Owens' work to be > particularly "wild" (though some was sexually explicit) and > seriously > disagree with the hyperbolic blurbs on the book jacket. I admire > Owens' > poetry but find it pretty tame in terms of form and content. > (snip) (recommendations of other web sites and Alan Sondheim's work) > This is only my opinion and I am not saying > that Owens' work was not "wild" at one time or that the opinions > of > others on this List aren't valid. > (snip) (more Alan, and the progenitor of the thread earlier today) > I'm hoping that this post will encourage people to engage in some > dialog about the new work that gets ignored because it doesn't > conform > to an older definition of avant-garde work, one that is > increasingly > codified and canonized. > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 22:42:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Ganick Organization: Potes & Poets Press Inc Subject: re last call MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit one more word regarding alan sondheim's remarkable work, in all sorts of characters and personas...for those interested in being in contact with alan's updated writings from jennifer, julu, nikuko, alan -- the fiction- on-philosophy mailing list is a good place to read it as it is being created... other writers interested in a forum to create texts in a supportive environment can also post their material there... information on the list can be found in the usual places -- search engines, by searching for under literary or philo- sophical categories of mailing lists... or by backchanneling me... peter ganick potepoet@home.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 23:21:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: philosophy all at sea? Or where empiricism and mythematics fail, and yell "infinity",there poetic-philosophic cosmology begins anew ? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"The great success which attends reason in its mathematical employment >quite naturally gives rise to the expectation that it, or at any rate >its method, will have the same success in other fields as in that of >quantity. For this method has the advantage of being able to realise all >its concepts in intuitions, which it can provide a priori, and by which >it becomes, so to speak, master of nature; whereas pure philosophy is >all at sea when it seeks through a priori discursive concepts to obtain >insight in regard to the natural world, being unable to intuit a priori >(and thereby to confirm) their reality. That proved all well, good and pragmatic, when it came to a three dimensional or four dimensional world. Then, when we exceeded that the mathematician scratched his head and yelled: "infinity, infinity, it is all at infinity". Then attempting to plot it beyond four dimensions, the mathematician, went absolutely mad. There was no way to plot anything graphically in five true dimensions. The Einsteinian universe, of four dimensions have been perplexing enough, but how to plot this new plethora of infinities ? Impossible. So impossible that most mathematicians decided that there could be only four and a fifth was too much for their calculations to contemplate. That mythematical wall then would stand in the way of a new cosmology where the answer to the shouts of infinity was always the fact that what had disappeared on this side was precisely locatable if one more true dimension were to be added to Einstein's hapless four to make five true dimensions. >them. Current empirical rules, which they borrow from ordinary >consciousness, they treat as being axiomatic. Of course, exactly the problem. Vision is the primary empirical sense, followed by touch and then by sound. These "sense" only four dimensions. They can empirically discern for the derivations of Einstein's four but they go no further. Beyond that we have an "unseen world" that traditional empiricism denies any validity to. So the hard line empricist sides with the mythematician and they both yell: "infinity, infinity, infinity" as if that might exorcise the problem. >the limits of the natural world. But, unconsciously, they pass from the >field of sensibility to the precarious ground of pure and even >transcendental concepts, a ground (instabilis tellus, inabilis unda) >that permits them neither to stand nor to swim, and where their hasty >tracks are soon obliterated. In mathematics, on the other hand, their >passage gives rise to broad highway, which the latest posterity may >tread with confidence." The very prejudice that stopped scientific advance dead in its tracks for such a long time. At least it stood in the way of any reasonably inclusive cosmology, and multiplied not only infinities but the numbers of "infinities" into vast legions as massed as the demons of Hades itself. To say five dimensions was to become transcendental. Horror of horrors. We cannot see it. We cannot draw it on a graph, without horrendous difficulties. We can hardly refer to it properly with metaphors and so it is more poetic than mythematical. Where the mythematician says "infinity, infinity, infinity" the poet-cosmologist might still be able to delineate something more definite about how things are. However, the mythematician might never agree, preferring "infinity" to stand firm. Instead that firmness becomes the monument at the end of the traditional empiricist's road, where five replaces four. No more mythos of four dominating everything. No more the four quarters of empiricism and the quadrants of the graphical representation. Tradition finally broken down where four is no longer enough, but we must posit five. >and that mathematics and philosophy, although in natural science they >do, indeed, go hand in hand, are none the less so completely different, >that the procedure of one can never be imitated by the other."---from >The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant---cp How very true, but how very false a premise to give mythematics such pre-eminence over philosophical cosmology, as if the mythematician's exhortations of "infinity, infinity, infinity" are the be all and end of the entire matter. M. aka. Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 19:31:03 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: patterns of discovery MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "The phrase "distinguishable object" has figured in the foregoing. Counting can be only of the discrete. We cannot count the drops in a beaker of alcohol unless we first introduce a convention as to what will be regarded as "a drop." This agreed, we must then find a way of separating out these drops from one another in an invariant and uniform way. Moreover, objects are distinguishable because we distinguish them. The world is not all cut up for us in advance, just waiting to be numbered; processes and events are not marked with dotted lines for ease in numerical tabulation. Counting is seldom undertaken just for its own sake, or for verbal exercise. We count when we can make significant connections between the discernible entities we are counting. We enumerate, not anything and everything, but only that which our questions, hyptheses, and theories earmark as relevant. Counting, therefore, helps make our ideas precise-our ideas not only about the quantitative nature of things but also about the nature of counting itself. We come to know, implicitly at least, what can and what cannot be counted. This knowledge gets built into our questions about nature, so to speak...."---from Perception and Discovery: An Introduction to Scientific Inquiry by Norwood Russell Hanson---cp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 23:40:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: universal quantifier: The universe as poetic. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >substituted for x generating a new value y', and so on. Hence, the >existence of an infinity of objects can be deduced explicitly by logic >alone."---from Kant and the Exact Sciences by Michael Freedman Assuming that the quantum poetry of this universe results in a finite number of objects being possible, is a more logical assumption. There are a limited number of components, for which conditions allow a limited number of different, "useful" or "functional", arrangements. Our universe as a whole is a poetic form essentially written in one language. However, I propose that there are other universes, different from the one that we live in. They might be comprised of very different quantum units. There is no reason to imagine that every instance of an existent and functional universe is comprised of the same building blocks of matter arranged in essentially the same ways as they are _here_. They would be a different poetic form, written in another language. Could different universes intercombine along boundaries and produce even more different combinations, emergent from those boundaries ? Why not. I think it is possible. Could hybrid poetic forms with hybrid languages result from that ? Of course they might. Imagine a larger vision of the whole, not limited to our narrowly anthropocentric Terran view. Imagine the analogy of set theory in mathematics and how that is diagrammed on a piece of paper. Each set is shown to be a demarcated area, indicating its boundaries. They overlap where they have elements shared in common. One set can also be wholly within another set. Where the analogy breaks down is the constant dynamism of the whole. The boundaries are dynamic rather than static. The universes effect one another. Their expansions and contractions. Their pressures upon one another. Their mergings and emergences are all inter-related. How matter is forced out of four dimensional existence and into four dimensional existence. How it disappears into mathematical infinity and emerges from mathematical infinity is then related to the densities of presence, and the forces exerted by the dynamisms present, within a five dimensional cosmological system that remains essentially constant for the whole of cosmogenesis. Now that is pure poetry. Not simply one form, in one language, but a unifying paradigm of absolutely universalized poetics. >"impersonation of the machine that it produces itself so that ultimately >the machine can replace it." Of course the ultimate goal is machines that can utilize the fundamental building blocks, the quanta, of any possible universe, to create any potentially possible, currently real or in any manner imaginable, thing, including those with sentience. That would be an ultimate creativity. An ultimate poetics where the very stuff that everything that exists is comprised of is the alphabet and that alphabet is combined into any language, and given any possible form of expression. Might we then think of every possible thing that might be made as something written, and thus something purely poetic ? Morpheal aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 21:14:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Quartermain Subject: Kat Onoma Comments: To: calexand@library.utah.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit At 04:32 PM 6/1/98 MST7MDT, you wrote: >¶ Anybody out there familiar with a French band >by the name of "Kat Onoma"? I happened to notice >a page just now that mentions their second album, >Stock Phrases, which apparently "is based upon the >works of the American poet Jack Spicer". !? > Is their first album the one I have? I dunno. It's BILLY THE KID selected and performed by Kat Onoma The cd # appears to be 592 042 WM332 but it's hard to read. Copyright FNAC Music 1992 WMD distribution The album cover has CONTACT 78 2740 31 printed on it, which looks like a phone number. I forget who the American agent is promoting it -- he's in LA and sent me thre album aboiut two or three years ago. I got it some exposure on the Vancouver Co-op Radio, but nothing cam e of it that i know of. The album includes kuch of Spicer's poem, with tyranslated texts ad songs also by Thomas Lago, from his Serie B, After Spicer (there's an acute accent on the first e of serie). The album also includes "Navajo words from THE NIGHT CHAMNT, translated by Jery Rothenberg in Technicians of the Sacred. Maybe Jerry can tell you more? + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Peter Quartermain 846 Keefer Street Vancouver B.C. Canada V6A 1Y7 Voice : 604 255 8274 Fax: 255 8204 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 00:41:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: Re: philosophy all at sea? Or where empiricism and mythematics fail, and yell "infinity",there poetic-philosophic cosmology begins anew ? In-Reply-To: <199806020321.XAA00570@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Actually n-dimensional geometry is well developed; it presupposes that n can go to infinity. Measure polytopes such as line segments, squares, cubes, hypercubes, etc. are governed by very specific laws. Coxeter has invested these, and there is an excellent book published by Dover on the subject - D.M.Y. Sommerville, An Introduction to the Geometry of N Dimensions. When I was younger I worked out the laws myself for some of the polytopes - it's not difficult. But the proof that there are only a finite number for any dimension > than 2 is. Here's a quote: "For space of higher dimensions these series persis and are the only ones possible. Recapitulating, in a plane there are an unlimited number of regular polygons and 3 regular networks, in space of three dimensions, there are 5 regular polyhedra and one regular honeycomb, in S-sub-4 there are 6 regular polytopes and three regular honeycombs, in space of more than four dimensions there are just 3 regular polytopes and one regular honeycomb." A great deal of the book is taken up with intersections of n and m dim- ensional spaces. Finally, there are books on Dimension Theory (the title of one published by Princeton years ago) that go into the foundations of "dimension" - and it should be noted that string theory works with eleven dimensions, not four, at least from what I've read. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 00:57:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Re: Blownotes Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/1/98 6:55:28 PM, you wrote: <> Weird is a weird word. It can mean so many things, but in Clark's way I mean not "hip" at all, interesting, strange ways of laying out the lines, images which on a surface level (i.e a guy leaning out of a window while you walk past.) are normal situations but Clark takes you somewhere and I find that weird, in a world of young poets who want to be "hipsters" and metaphor stirrers, Clark takes you with him into the realm of this moving image you are allowed to see, to be in, without being part of some comparison or metaphor trickery great discussion for now I will go to it like a "callboy to a c-note" Any other thoughts on Duncan ??? Where is the collected? errik ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 01:15:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange In-Reply-To: <199806020401.AAA04382@romeo.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 1 Jun 1998, William Burmeister wrote: > Yeah the J.Clark book is impressive. I enjoy all the risk taking that is > there,... Doesn't the "weird" gets a bad rap with all the baggage that > the word carries.... yes weird is a bit diffuse, but the disconcerting, unheimlich quality *is* diffused, saturated throughout the work (not unlike alan's, tho with obvious differences) and thus makes it hard to pinpoint. other qualities aside, i keep coming back to the language: exotic, archaic, foreign: "daim-coqs" (deer-roosters?), as in Howling daim-coqs fill the rows Herons from wires love hooves in hose (wouldn't even eliot have loved that couplet?) or "gauche mare" (left pond/pool ... de sang? = cauchemar?). or Who deals in scales and fleshrecord players Who wafts in the imbroglio of scents Whose siblings are spilled in tusky drawers Whose oil fouls the linens whose down and lint ("Mal de Dusk") i think of "decadence" as a useful descriptor here, more than a hint of an earlier vintage but decanted through a high-surrealist cheesecloth, made more potent for the current fin-de-siecle. (sorry for the bad metaphor; this is supposed to be a compliment.) t. On May 30, 12:02pm, Erik Sweet wrote: > > Especially the "Blownotes Section" of Clarks book is interesting, He also > explores the narrative in a challenging weird way - You are right about > discussing current work > > In a message dated 5/29/98 11:53:44 PM, Tom Orange wrote: > > > just last week someone posted a few poems by jeff clark... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 22:50:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: re limits Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" well, I tell ya, Sylvester, as to the 5-message-per-day limit on individuals, I'm for it and I'm agin it. I hate to be so obdurate about something, but there it is. I dont think my mind can be changed on this one. I'm for it if a listmate goes hypomanic and post ten one-line posts a day. Like (clue : name has a 'g' in it) used to, before I went over there and smashed his head in a car door for ten minutes. Ouch! It hurt like hell. I'm agin it, when things are flowing hot and heavy and someone, e.g. Alan Sondheim, is caught up in an argument. So there you have it, Sylvester, from the White House on High Street in Sebastopol : one Aye, one Nay. The horse laughs last. David "Trimmer" Bromige ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 16:44:50 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "d.j. huppatz" Subject: ronaldjohnson Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dear listfolk after the glowing mentions of his name on the list recently, i finally tracked down a copy of ronald johnson's "ark" - a truly remarkable book (i found a new copy in a second hand bookstore, a remainder i guess, along with a new copy of spicer's collected - both at secondhand prices!). could anyone please b/c me an address or somewhere where i can order johnson's other books (especially RADI OS) & i would also appreciate if anyone knows of any secondary material on johnson & where i might find it. thanks muchly in advance danny dhuppatz@ozemail.com.au melbourne, australia ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 02:40:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: Talk Between Jennifer and Nikuko on Ytalk Ending in Anger MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Talk Between Jennifer and Nikuko on Ytalk Ending in Anger (recorded verbatim between Fukuoka and New York City Tue Jun 2 02:36:21 EDT 1998 - errors as is/are/was) -----------= YTalk version 3.0 (2) =------------ oh nikuko you are so beautiful, shall we meet among the dashed spaces of our bodies' miseries the matrix saves us, there is no beginning and ending, nothing but liquid pureness of language slDalvaging these spaces... they lend themselves across these times and spaces, they're lost, rudderless, as masts crash to the deck in dark and rdreary storms ouf our making -----------= nikuko@oita.kata.com.jp =------------ oh jennifer, the world will never know what beauty entangled us among our very selves, machines, wholesale worlds to sail, soiled and sold they are frought with desire, they lend themselves to arms and legs akimbo we are made, made, women, we have sounded, resonated, with each and every protocol, each and every space or site open to winds and skies coagulating like limpets seas and jellies ------------ -----------= YTalk version 3.0 (2) =------------ the matrix saves us, there is no beginning and ending, nothing but liquid pureness of language slDalvaging these spaces... they lend themselves across these times and spaces, they're lost, rudderless, as masts crash to the deck in dark and rdreary storms ouf our making jellies and dark dreams, there is space enough for your soft limbs, for mine... which bring about the semblance of a face, lineaments of eyes and mouths, speaking elsewhere, from the sides of things, from their moments of origin you've said that before, over and over again, as if repetition had no goal but the delibery of the interval... -----------= nikuko@oita.kata.com.jp =------------ we are made, made, women, we have sounded, resonated, with each and every protocol, each and every space or site open to winds and skies coagulating like limpets seas and jellies times which smooth us, bits and bytes, protocls lost and smoothing functions traced across peripheries, margins, divisions among all routers carried across time and space, moved, just as Jennifer has all the space there is, Jennifer has all the time in the world which announces itself as the edge or frame of this dialog, these moments carried forth... ------------ -----------= YTalk version 3.0 (1) =------------ everything is a moment moment for you, everything this mmmm... of matrix, mother, maternal, carrying forth, something about Timaeus plays a role here if not the whole tradition...I pre no, no, i prefer the small, seeping, the peripeheral, marginal, the scattered words, drops say from a drizzle, that is, forage, no, foresaken, no, i'm not sure here, what is it, what it is, what is it carry forth!! ---------= jennifer@jenn.com =---------- you've said that before, over and over again, as if repetition had no goal but the delibery of the interval... I'd be hard tput to know what tradition you are speaking from, Nikuko, if that is your name, carried across this? or which might be, say, that of the Kojiki <*note replying with capitals, as the discussion hardens its wares*> what would break down here, a language that you use against me? so that I will absjure, abjure these ... moments ... ? ------------ carry forth!! [QUITS THE DISCUSSION IN ANGER] ---------= jennifer@jenn.com =---------- what would break down here, a language that you use against me? so that I will absjure, abjure these ... moments ... ? {k:4} ________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:18:58 +0200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michel Delville Subject: The American Prose Poem / shameless self-promotion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear Listees: I just wanted to say that my book on the American prose poem is now available.=20 at http://www.nerdc.ufl.edu/~upf/Spring1998/s98-delville.html. "The American prose poem has a rich history marked by important contributions from writers as diverse as Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, Kenneth Patchen, Russell Edson, Michael Benedikt, Robert Bly, Margaret Atwood, Charles Simic, Lyn Hejinian, Joy Harjo, Rosmarie Waldrop, and Ron Silliman. Michel Delville=92s book is the first full-length work to provide = a critical and historical survey of the American prose poem from the early years of the twentieth century to the 1990s. =20 Delville reassesses the work of established prose poets in relation to the history of modern poetry and introduces writing by some whose work in the form has so far escaped mainstream critical attention (Anderson, Patchen, Edson). He describes the genre=92s European origins and the work of several early representatives of a modern tradition of the prose lyric (Charles Baudelaire, Max Jacob, Franz Kafka, and James Joyce). =20 By applying a broad range of theory to the history of the prose poem, Delville adds evidence to its reputation as a norm-breaking form writing within, against and across already existing genres and traditions. He shows that the history of the contemporary prose poem is, in many respects, the record of its efforts to question both the nature of the "poetic" or "lyric" mode and the aesthetic and ideological foundations of a variety of other genres and sub-genres, including the fable, the parable, the interior monologue, the aphorism, the object poem, critical theory, narrative fiction, autobiography and letter writing, or even the non-literary tradition of the stand-up comic." --------------------------- Michel Delville English Department University of Li=E8ge 3 Place Cockerill 4000 Li=E8ge BELGIUM fax: ++ 32 4 366 57 21 e-mail: mdelville@ulg.ac.be ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:30:41 +0200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michel Delville Subject: The American Prose Poem / shameless self-promotion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear Listees: I just wanted to say that my book on the American prose poem is now available from The University Press of Florida (http://www.nerdc.ufl.edu/~upf/Spring1998/s98-delville.html). ----------------------------------------------------------------------------= -- THE AMERICAN PROSE POEM: POETIC FORM AND THE BOUNDARIES OF GENRE Michel Delville "The American prose poem has a rich history marked by important contributions from writers as diverse as Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, Kenneth Patchen, Russell Edson, Michael Benedikt, Robert Bly, Margaret Atwood, Charles Simic, Lyn Hejinian, Joy Harjo, Rosmarie Waldrop, and Ron Silliman. Michel Delville=92s book is the first full-length work to provide = a critical and historical survey of the American prose poem from the early years of the twentieth century to the 1990s. =20 Delville reassesses the work of established prose poets in relation to the history of modern poetry and introduces writing by some whose work in the form has so far escaped mainstream critical attention (Anderson, Patchen, Edson). He describes the genre=92s European origins and the work of several early representatives of a modern tradition of the prose lyric (Charles Baudelaire, Max Jacob, Franz Kafka, and James Joyce). =20 By applying a broad range of theory to the history of the prose poem, Delville adds evidence to its reputation as a norm-breaking form writing within, against and across already existing genres and traditions. He shows that the history of the contemporary prose poem is, in many respects, the record of its efforts to question both the nature of the "poetic" or "lyric" mode and the aesthetic and ideological foundations of a variety of other genres and sub-genres, including the fable, the parable, the interior monologue, the aphorism, the object poem, critical theory, narrative fiction, autobiography and letter writing, or even the non-literary tradition of the stand-up comic." May 1998. 368 pp. 6 X 9. Notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 0-8130-1591-X Cloth, $39.95s ----------------------------------------------------------------------------= --- --------------------------- Michel Delville English Department University of Li=E8ge 3 Place Cockerill 4000 Li=E8ge BELGIUM fax: ++ 32 4 366 57 21 e-mail: mdelville@ulg.ac.be ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 03:06:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: like, weally weird Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" As I recall, from a little research done years ago, this word comes to us from A-S, where it carried some of the weight/freight of "Fate." Perhaps of the mystery of eventuation, like "Vhat am I doink in Vauderville," as a friend from Poland said to me when he was teaching in Maine. (Well, he's really from Brooklyn, but he had had a Fulbright to Poland [where he no doubt exclaimed "What am I doing in Lodz."]) And the mystery of synchronicity. And the terror of memory -- where's the horse gone, where the bright armor, where the great mead-hall kind of sense to it. One link with today's word appears to be _surprise_ , happily so or far otherwise. And, something inexplicable. Witchcraft enters the word somewhere along the way. So we have its application to amazing moves in a game, the poetry game e.g. Weird. db3 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 05:04:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: my wickit, wickit weird MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit OED is lovely on "weird," as you might expect. A few samplings to pick up the weird-licht from Bromwright's armor & mead-hall post: 1603 Philotus c, Quhat wickit weird hes wrocht our wo? 1895 W. Morris Beowulf 16 Weird wends as she willeth. Ibid. 17 Weird swept them away. 1834 A. Smart Rambling Rhymes 164 Puir auld wives . . . Were seized in Superstition’s clutches, An’ brunt to death for wierds an’ witches. a1600 Montgomerie Misc. Poems xlvi. 31 They haif wroght my weird Vnhappiest on eird. 1863 B. Brierley Chron. Waverlow Introd. p. xv, Stories of eld and weirddom are vanishing too. 1718 Ramsay Christ’s Kirk Gr. iii. viii, It’s a wise wife that kens her weird. 1678 Ray Prov. (ed. 2) 360 (Sc. Prov.) A man may wooe where he will, but he will wed where he is weard [ed. 1, where his hap is]. 1571 Sir J. Maitland in Satir. Poems Reform. xxvii. 102 Then warreitt war thy weirdis and wanhap. [Quick detour into "wanhap" : misfortune, and the even more devastating wanhappy : "The wildbair that wanhappie beist"] 1721 J. Kelly Sc. Prov. 2 After Word comes Weird; fair fall them that call me Madam. 1883 Hall Caine Shadow Crime xxxvi, Weel, weel; after word comes weird. That’s why the constables are gone, and that’s why Robbie’s come. 1513 Douglas Æneis iii. vii. 48 Bot we from werd to werd and chance mon wend. 1513 Douglas Æneis xii. xii. 202 And thou, Tellus, mast nobill God of erd, Hald fast the speris hed by our werd. 1845 J. E. Carpenter Poems & Lyrics 34 The weird-woman had stol’n away. Rachel Loden david bromige wrote: > > As I recall, from a little research done years ago, this word comes to us > from A-S, where it carried some of the weight/freight of "Fate." Perhaps of > the mystery of eventuation, like "Vhat am I doink in Vauderville," as a > friend from Poland said to me when he was teaching in Maine. (Well, he's > really from Brooklyn, but he had had a Fulbright to Poland [where he no > doubt exclaimed "What am I doing in Lodz."]) And the mystery of > synchronicity. And the terror of memory -- where's the horse gone, where > the bright armor, where the great mead-hall kind of sense to it. One link > with today's word appears to be _surprise_ , happily so or far otherwise. > And, something inexplicable. Witchcraft enters the word somewhere along the > way. So we have its application to amazing moves in a game, the poetry game > e.g. Weird. db3 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 08:05:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Garrett Kalleberg Subject: The 4th Friend Comments: To: Poetics List Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable June 2, 1998 The Summer 1998 issue of The Transcendental Friend is available now. (We will return to our monthly publication schedule in September.) http://www.morningred.com/friend The Bestiary, edited by Laird Hunt, features work by Camille Guthrie & Co= le Swenson. Jen Hofer is preparing an anthology of avant garde poetry by Mexican wome= n. This month's Report features her translations of three poems by poet Ana Bel=E9n L=F3pez. Built around an excerpt from The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk and texts by Leonard Schwartz & Heather Ramsdell, Joe Eliott provides this month's contribution to Mote. A new section called Schizmata offers works written for multiple voices. This month's work is by Heather Fuller. This issue's Project features some figs. In Review this month is an exhibiton of Conceptual Photography, written b= y Daniel Machilin. Previous issues of the Friend are available from the Files page. And if you haven't done so already, please take a moment to Subscribe to the Friend (it's free).=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00 =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00 =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00 =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= 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=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00 =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00= =00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00=00 Thanks for your interest! Garrett ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 09:01:55 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Keeney Subject: Call for submissions The End Review, a new (paper) zine, is now considering poetry, microreviews, & line-drawings for first issue. Submit work before 6/30/98 by e-mail to: cento@juno.com (sorry, no attachments), or by snail-mail to: The End Review c/o Scott Keeney 10 Summit Ave. #3 Somerville, MA 02143-1837 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 09:32:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: re limits In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" David, Yeah, I know what you mean. I decided I wasn't about to duke it out behind no barn where I was limited to five swings & the other guy unlimited! I've been thinking of a buddy-system (is that non-gender specific--it's meant to be) where each talker is matched with a lurker, to pool his/her message units by forwarding. That way, when there's a genuine discussion, e.g. Nada Gordon/Alan Sondheim, it could play out in real time. Joel's " put it all in one message" is great for soapboxing, but lousy for dialogue, which goes faster than 5 in 24. Sylvester At 10:50 PM -0700 6/1/98, david bromige wrote: >well, I tell ya, Sylvester, as to the 5-message-per-day limit on >individuals, I'm for it and I'm agin it. I hate to be so obdurate about >something, but there it is. I dont think my mind can be changed on this >one. > >I'm for it if a listmate goes hypomanic and post ten one-line posts a day. >Like (clue : name has a 'g' in it) used to, before I went over there and >smashed his head in a car door for ten minutes. Ouch! It hurt like hell. > >I'm agin it, when things are flowing hot and heavy and someone, e.g. Alan >Sondheim, is caught up in an argument. > >So there you have it, Sylvester, from the White House on High Street in >Sebastopol : one Aye, one Nay. The horse laughs last. David "Trimmer" >Bromige ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 09:52:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Laura (Riding) Jackson Symposium Comments: cc: lmk22@cornell.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Laura (Riding) Jackson and the Promise of Language A Symposium and Exhibition Cornell University, Ithaca, New York October 8-9, 1998 An international gathering of scholars, including Laura (Riding) Jackson's authorized biographer, her bibliographer, students of her poetry, stories, criticism, and thought, and publishers of her work, will offer two full days of panel discussions and related presentations in a symposium timed to coincide with the opening of the first exhibition drawn from the extensive Laura (Riding) Jackson and Schuyler B. Jackson Collection held by the Cornell University Library. For this occasion, both a guide to the collection and an exhibition catalog will be made available, and most restrictions on scholarly access to the Collection will be permanently lifted. For a complete program and information about housing in Ithaca, or to pre-register (no charge) please contact: Lorna Knight, Curator of Manuscripts, 2B Kroch Library, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853-5302. TEL (607) 255-3530 FAX (607) 255-9524 lmk22@cornell.edu. Co-sponsored by the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library and the Laura (Riding) Jackson Board of Literary Management. Additional funding provided by the Sonia Raiziss Giop Charitable Foundation. ***** DRAFT PROGRAM*** Laura (Riding) Jackson and the Promise of Language: A Symposium and Exhibition (all program events take place in Conference Room, 2B Kroch Library, unless otherwise indicated) Pre-Symposium Activities: An Introduction to L(R)J (Roger Gilbert and Jennifer Ashton, Department of English, Cornell University (dates and times to be determined, possibly in cooperation with Alan Clark on Thursday, October 8, 1998 at 9:00 a.m.) Thursday, October 8, 1998 10:45 a.m. Welcoming Remarks: Alan Clark, H. Thomas Hickerson 11:00-12:30 Reading Laura (Riding) Jackson Chair: Jennifer Ashton Carla Billitteri "Fables of Meaning: History and Storytelling in Laura Riding's Short Fiction" Chris Stroffolino "[Prose including the Word Woman, The Telling, Four Unposted Letters to Catherine, Contemporaries and Snobs, etc.] Susan Schultz [L(R)J's fiction] 12:30- 2:00 Lunch break (on your own) 2:00 - 3:30 "Truth Begins where Poetry Ends" Chair: Jerome McGann Olin 106 Steven Meyer "An Ill-Matched Correspondence: Laura (Riding) Jackson’s Gertrude Stein -- Figure of SPEECH, Figure of WRITING, Figure of POETRY Mark Jacobs "Knowing Everything: An Introduction to Laura (Riding) Jackson Alan Clark "LRJ: The Telling and Before" 3:30-4:00 Coffee Break Olin 106 Kroch Library Exhibition Gallery 4:00 Introduction to the Exhibition and Tour: Margaret Nichols 4:30 Welcoming remarks: Sarah Thomas, Theodore Wilentz 4:45 Opening Reception 6:30 or 7:00 Dinner for L(R)J panels and Board members Friday, October 9, 1998 9:00 - 10:00 Elizabeth Friedmann "Laura Riding and Laura (Riding) Jackson: The One Story" (introduced by Joan Wilentz) 10:00-10:30 Coffee break 10:30 - Noon Researching Laura (Riding) Jackson Chair: Lorna Knight Patrizia Sione: "The Laura (Riding) Jackson and Schuyler B. Jackson Papers" Nick Everett: "The G.S. Fraser - Laura (Riding) Jackson correspondence" Amber Vogel: "The Breath of Letters: Poetry and Poetics in Laura (Riding) Jackson's Correspondence" Noon - 1:30 Lunch Break (on your own) 1:30 - 3:00 Panel: That Being Be Well Spoken Chair: William Harmon Lisa Samuels "Imagining What you Don't Know: Anarchism is Not Enough" John Nolan "That Being Be Well Spoken: The Telling and after" Barrett Watten "Laura Riding's Horizon Shifts" 3:00 - 3:30 Coffee break 3:30 - 4:30 Publishing Laura (Riding) Jackson Chair: Theodore Wilentz Alfredo di Palchi "How By Chance I Discovered Laura (Riding) Jackson" Dan Mandel [literary agency and the works of L(R)J] Michael Braziller "Publishing Laura (Riding) Jackson 4:30 - 5:00 Concluding Remarks: Laura (Riding) Jackson and the Promise of Language: Speaker: Charles Bernstein Dinner Break 8:15 p.m Laura (Riding) Jackson and Friends: An Evening of Readings and Reminiscences" Host: James Tyler Including: Peggy Friedmann [Laura (Riding) Jackson in her own voice - excerpts from recordings) Robert Nye [reading] Richard Foerster, poet and editor, Chelsea David Lehman [reading] Jay Ansill [L(R)J to music] James Tyler on printing L(R)J Members of the Laura (Riding) Jackson Home Preservation Foundation [video presentation] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 09:57:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: East is East MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The case of Sondheim's orientalist heteronyms vs. the case of Akiri Yasusada. It's interesting that no one has vented the kind of outrage we saw on the List a couple of months ago when Yasusada's book Double-Flowering was announced. (It's a Roof book, BTW, and both brilliant and important: should be seen.) Different kinds of "transgression"? Some fascinating questions arise about what kinds of transgression are easy to accept and esteem, currently, and which not....Many points of comparison/contrast come to mind--but the careful respect Alan Sondheim has gotten, even from scolders, and the earfuls that Kent was treat to, is.....fascinating. m. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:47:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: granted MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII dialog happens more than 5 in 24. I only work here (volunteer). The five limit rule was instituted after the peer-pressure method didn't work. More soapboxing, less dialog, Puhleeeze! And Sylvester, who said that I would get more than five? Frankly, I can't imagine needing that many... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:54:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Pound Subject: Repetition Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I am working on a critical study of the use of repetition in 20th C writing and performance and would appreciate citations people might be able to provide for works (creative and critical) that deal with NON-LITERARY forms of repetition: i.e. in music, computer programming, painting, oral performance, physics, chaos theory, mathematics, mechanics and other areas. If anyone has come across interesting attempts to account for the peculiar exigency of repetition without recourse to literary schemes and tropes please backchannel me the info. I'm trying to make a case for a certain use of repetition that defies the inherently symmetrical/stabilizing/structuring forms of repetition that anchor western systematics. Repetition as process rather than structure. Key figures/areas are (of course) Stein, as well as Pound, Hejinian, Scalapino, bpNichol, visual/sound/oral poetries. With thanks in advance! Scott Pound ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 11:03:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: New from Meow Press MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NEW FROM MEOW PRESS: Graham Foust, 3 from Scissors Andrew Levy, Elephant Surveillance To Thought Denise Newman, Of Later Things Yet to Happen Currently I am in the process of getting caught up with Meow Press activities, such as reading manuscripts and answering long over due mail, making books, making books and making more books. In the next few weeks, Meow Press will produce its 50th book. All of the backlist items are currently available. By the end of the week, SPD will have copies of Aaron Shurin's limited edition Codex & I am in the process of assembling Dodie Bellamy's Hallucinations and Kevin Killian's Argento Series, which SPD now has in stock. (Some) books from the forthcoming list: Susan Schultz, Addenda Ted Pearson, The Devil's Aria Noemie Maxwell, Thrum David Carl, The Library Liz Waldner, Bus Stop Adrian Clarke, Just Deserts Paul Long, Saccades Don Cheney, Catullus and more. Please write privately to inquire about ordering books or sponsoring a book from the forthcoming list. I am committed to making 50 books a day for 90 straight days. I have help in the assembly dept but am going to need to replace my toner about 8 times in the course of these 4,500 books (78,000 prints). The recent donation of an old Apple laserwriter makes this a little cheaper. If you can help, please do. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 08:14:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: Repetition In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I'm trying to make a case for a certain use of repetition that defies the >inherently symmetrical/stabilizing/structuring forms of repetition that >anchor western systematics. Repetition as process rather than structure. >Key figures/areas are (of course) Stein, as well as Pound, Hejinian, >Scalapino, bpNichol, visual/sound/oral poetries. This isn't the non-literary, Scott, but one area in which a lot of work has been done on an "oral poetry" which makes much use of repetition is with the various traditions of Yaqui songs. I don't know if you would find this "repetition as process rather than structure," but there is at least one way in which I think it is that. You should look at Yaqui Deer Songs, ed. by Larry Evers and Felipe S. Molina, pub. by the U of Arizona Press sometime in the early or mid-1980's, and also Wo'i Bwikam/Coyote Songs, ed. by Evers and Molina, pub. by Chax Press. The book of the deer songs is more of a critical work with a lot of cultural/social and literary context; the Coyote Songs book has a useful introduction, even though its critical apparatus is very minimal. charles charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing NOTE NEW URL FOR CHAX PRESS http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 11:19:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: my third of five MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I also meant to mention Charles Alexander's "Four Ninety Eight to Seven" with a color cover image by Cynthia Miller printed by Scott Pound in Toronto. That book is actually printed but is waiting for the production problem regarding color covers to be resolved. Thanks Scott! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 12:54:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: Repetition Comments: cc: sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu > I am working on a critical study of the use of repetition in 20th C writing > and performance and would appreciate citations people might be able to > provide for works (creative and critical) that deal with NON-LITERARY forms > of repetition: i.e. in music, computer programming, painting, oral > performance, physics, chaos theory, mathematics, mechanics and other areas. > If anyone has come across interesting attempts to account for the peculiar > exigency of repetition without recourse to literary schemes and tropes > please backchannel me the info. If I understand correctly what you're asking, there are a number of mathematical operations that one might consider both examples of repetition -- iteration -- and somehow "nonsystematic". This is, in a sense, what chaos theory is all about (for the mathematician), and catastrophe theory (for the engineer). Then there are also clever linguistic/mathematical crossovers that involve repetition across the boundary; the sequence {1,11,21,1112,3112,211213...}, for example. More generally, repetition is one part of a binary, its antithetical pair being subdivision. In Western music, rhythym is built from subdivision, and it is more of a strucutral device -- the production of a grid from which to hang various units -- than something that is consciously realized in performance. Many non-Western musical traditions (including the subcontinent) construct rhythymic units through repetition -- a concatentation of various sound lengths with no notion of how a particular note, as played, might be subdivided in terms of its neighbours. -- Simon DeDeo sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo > I'm trying to make a case for a certain use of repetition that defies the > inherently symmetrical/stabilizing/structuring forms of repetition that > anchor western systematics. Repetition as process rather than structure. > Key figures/areas are (of course) Stein, as well as Pound, Hejinian, > Scalapino, bpNichol, visual/sound/oral poetries. > > With thanks in advance! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 13:02:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lee ann brown Subject: poet apt share/ ? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Poet Paul Long just asked me if I knew of anyone that wanted to share his Williamsburg (NYC) apt- $550 /month, 3rd stop on L train into Brooklyn. - call him at (718) 218-7771. also Does anyone in possesion have time or inclination to type or scan in entire" Fabulous article in SF Examiner" about Kevin & Dodie?!? Then put it on a new homepage.... -Lee Ann Brown ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 10:28:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Roger Farr Subject: Re: ronaldjohnson In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980602164450.00793ac0@mail.ozemail.com.au> from "d.j. huppatz" at Jun 2, 98 04:44:50 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I believe Small Press Dist. carries RADI OS. Part of ARK, the last section, called "Ramparts", was first published in Conjunctions 15 (94?), and includes a brief statement on poetics by RJ. As for the earlier books, I think they're all out of print. Steve McCaffery has written a great essay on Johnson, the name of which escapes me -- check the MLA. Yours, Roger Farr > > dear listfolk > > after the glowing mentions of his name on the list recently, i finally > tracked down a copy of ronald johnson's "ark" - a truly remarkable book (i > found a new copy in a second hand bookstore, a remainder i guess, along > with a new copy of spicer's collected - both at secondhand prices!). could > anyone please b/c me an address or somewhere where i can order johnson's > other books (especially RADI OS) & i would also appreciate if anyone knows > of any secondary material on johnson & where i might find it. > > thanks muchly in advance > > danny > dhuppatz@ozemail.com.au > melbourne, australia > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 13:50:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sylvester Pollet Subject: Re: ronaldjohnson In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980602164450.00793ac0@mail.ozemail.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Chicago Review 42.1 (1996) Interview/ Peter O'Leary) and Sagetrieb 14.3 (1995) pub 97, Johnson on Bunting, O'Leary on Johnson, & rev. of ARK by William Benton. At 4:44 PM +1000 6/2/98, d.j. huppatz wrote: >dear listfolk > >after the glowing mentions of his name on the list recently, i finally >tracked down a copy of ronald johnson's "ark" - a truly remarkable book (i >found a new copy in a second hand bookstore, a remainder i guess, along >with a new copy of spicer's collected - both at secondhand prices!). could >anyone please b/c me an address or somewhere where i can order johnson's >other books (especially RADI OS) & i would also appreciate if anyone knows >of any secondary material on johnson & where i might find it. > >thanks muchly in advance > >danny >dhuppatz@ozemail.com.au >melbourne, australia ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 13:57:19 -0400 Reply-To: soaring@ma.ultranet.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Wellman Subject: Re: my wickit, wickit weird MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Interesting to me that once "weird" (fate) was primarily a noun, a force--now it is usually an adjective indicating a category that causes discomfort--almost proto fascist in that application. One vote or node here for "wyrdness" versus "wiredness." And check the etymology of "wired" ... for fun (related to hair and manly as well as "virgin"). Don Wellman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 13:47:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Repetition In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" look at studies of aphasia? At 10:54 AM -0500 6/2/98, Scott Pound wrote: >I am working on a critical study of the use of repetition in 20th C writing >and performance and would appreciate citations people might be able to >provide for works (creative and critical) that deal with NON-LITERARY forms >of repetition: i.e. in music, computer programming, painting, oral >performance, physics, chaos theory, mathematics, mechanics and other areas. >If anyone has come across interesting attempts to account for the peculiar >exigency of repetition without recourse to literary schemes and tropes >please backchannel me the info. > >I'm trying to make a case for a certain use of repetition that defies the >inherently symmetrical/stabilizing/structuring forms of repetition that >anchor western systematics. Repetition as process rather than structure. >Key figures/areas are (of course) Stein, as well as Pound, Hejinian, >Scalapino, bpNichol, visual/sound/oral poetries. > >With thanks in advance! > >Scott Pound ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 16:24:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon/Piombino Subject: Feedback Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 16:19:08 -0400 >To: jkuzai >From: Simon/Piombino >Subject: Feedback >Cc: >Bcc: >X-Attachments: > >Hi Joel, > >Thanks for your post on feedback. This gets positively electronic,or >mathematical or both, with me giving you feedback about your feedback >about my feedback post.Maybe, being a therapist I am more sensitized to >the crucial aspects of all of this, listening to patients day after day, >year after year, who are so focussed on this issue. Still, it gets more >and more interesting to me! There is a psychoanalytic theorist, Heinz >Kohut who has been very influential in this regard who feels that feedback >early on is the sine qua non of healthy psychological development. > As to readings, may I recommend the recently published Close Listening >(ed. Charles Bernstein, Oxford Univ Press)which contains 17 essays dealing >with numerous aspects of the poetry reading. Mine is presented from a >psychoanalytic point of view, not citing Kohut, but Winnecott. As to your >comments, I particularly recommend Peter Middleton's "The Contempporary >Poetry Reading":"Poets certainly become uneasy when they do occasionally >reflect on poetry readings...Maybe the whole thing is a con...Donald Hall >reports an unnamed poet complaining that 'the poetry reading has ruined a >generation once promising , because in pursuit of platform success poets >wrote simplistic poems....' These reservations are admittedly mostly from >conservative voices, and likely to be dismissed by those fo or whom >performance is a value..." Middleton presents the pros and "cons" of the >contemporary poetry reading in a refreshingly unsparing way, of particular >use to poets I think. > On the other hand, perhaps there must be an upper limit to the feedback >of one day, whether 5 or 50 posts. But perhaps there will never be >complete agreement on this! Giving you the unenviable job of referee. Good >luck! > >Nick > > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 16:37:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: The Second Coming Comments: To: flanagan10@juno.com, javabunny@earthlink.net, Brenda Moossy , danenj@rocketmail.com, Danielle Carriveau , bluetang@earthlink.net, kyria@spinners.com, poemedy@aol.com, meevans@peachnet.campus.mci.net, bebop@ipa.net, yazbec@nwark.com, rebekkak@sprintmail.com, kidchaos@pop.getonthe.net, sloan@ipa.net, bunnyx2@earthlink.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just a tad-bit of semi-useless information concerning the new poetry reading series, Apokatastasis Reading Series (Thanks, Ginny Masullo, for the name) in Providence, Rhode Island. The reading takes place at Myopic Books on South Angell Street in Providence, and starts at 8:00p.m. Tonight's featured reader is Bill MacMillan of Worcester, MA. In coming weeks we will be featuring Kyria Abrahams, Tony Brown, Michael Brown, and others. (Hopefully Cathleen Calbert, if i can get her e-mail address). Anyone who is/will be in the area and would like directions to the reading or would like to discuss the possibility of a featured reading (it pays $30 for a 35-45 min. reading), feel free to e-mail me at Brent_Long@brown.edu This reading was started in order to counter-balance the overrated "Slam" poetry scene, and to embrace all schools and genres of poetry/short fiction, so all are welcome.. Also, there is an open reading following the featured reader every week, and open reading participants are allowed 5 minutes each. $2 at the door pays the featured reader and includes a bottomless cup of coffee. You can also bring your own beverage of choice (i.e. wine, beer, etc.). However, this is NOT an open forum to come and read your diary, so please bring your strongest work. Hope to see you all there.. Brent ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 18:28:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: Repetition MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------366F4979B61CDA64B86F27CA" --------------366F4979B61CDA64B86F27CA Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Scott, For musical examples / analogies, you might look at / listen to: -- early Steve Reich (I hear the more recent stuff as symmetrical/stabilizing/structuring, "classicizing," etc., but "Violin Phase" and "It's Gonna Rain," say, get at a sense of repetition as processual, diachronic, etc., etc. -- Anthony Braxton's newer Ghost Trance Musics, and any published accounts of his compositional method within his former quartet -- which would often play one composition in the drums and bass, another in the piano, and yet a third on sax -- deploying the repeatability of these compositions as "unit structures" (think Cecil Taylor, when you say that, you dirty structuralist) to effect a complex interlayering which ultimately compromises and reconfigures their unit status. Anthony Rabano has a good, but technical and rather difficult book, on Braxton, which deals mostly with the quartet years. -- dub, esp. Lee Perry, King Tubby, and more recent stuff produced by Adrian Sherwood (Revolutionary Dub Warriors, Dub Syndicate, et al) -- repetition at the level of the "version" -- raga -- good, relatively non-technical chapter on this in Derek Bailey's book Improvisation -- I'm at a loss for accounts of the music by practicing and / or historical musicians of the subcontinent (someone help?) -- (related to repetition): persistence, sustain -- as in long-duration minimalism -- Tony Conrad, Phill Niblock, early LaMonte Young -- "keeping on" as opposed to "doing again," with the proviso that such an "opposition" might be called into question by these musical practices -- anything on West African "additive rhythm" (sorry, no sources at the moment) -- Jacques Attali's Noise treats repetition not only as a micro-component of the musical object / event, but uses it to name an historical stage in the macro-social organization of music: "[With the advent of recording] More than ever, music becomes a monologue. It becomes a material object of exchange and profit, without having to go through the long and complex detour of the score and performance anymore. Capitalism has a frank and abstract interest in it. . . . Once again, music shows the way: undoubtedly the first system of sign production, it ceases to be a mirror, an enactment, a direct link, the memory of past sacrifical violence, becoming a solitary listening, the stockpiling of sociality. The mode of power implied by repetition, unlike that of representation, eludes precise localization; it becomes diluted, masked, anonymous, while at the same time exacerbating the fiction of the spectacle as a mode of government" (88). This might be a less savory sense of the repetition-as-process you're looking at: repetition is that which "eludes precise localization" -- i.e., that which is destabilizing in any particular event-series -- only insofar as it reproduces at the largest scale the contours of a spectacular ideology. In many ways, this reads like a rehearsal of Jameson's by-now-infamous critique of Perelman's "China." -- (related to repetition): This, from Iannis Xenakis' "Formalized Music": "But the profound lesson of such a table of coherences is that any theory or solution given on one level can be assigned to the solution of problems on another level. Thus the solutions in macrocomposition . . . can engender simpler and more powerful new perspectives in the shaping of microsounds than the usual . . . functions can" (vii). Thus, a kind of repetition across levels of scale in either or several directions -- repetition here is not the incremental addition of units to form a whole, but the process by which one whole might be said to model another. (In another realm entirely, see Samuel Delany's various texts and paratexts on the "modular calculus" [Trouble on Triton and its second appendix, the appendix to Tales of Neveryon, all of Neveryona, and "The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals" in Flight from Neveryon] for an indication of some of the difficulties of generating such a modeling procedure which does not lapse into easy analogizing). Xenakis, of course, has also worked as an architect, so I wouldn't be surprised to find other works by him which deal with this problematic in terms of architecture. . . . and one example from architecture / visual art: -- Arakawa and Gins, any of the various catalogues or publications stemming from their 1997 Guggenheim show -- when you build a structure out of , say, a regular dodecahedron with one missing face repeated in a linear series in which each iteration is rotated a certain number of degrees off the horizontal and the vertical, you've established a very different relation between unit and macro-form than that of a Corbusier, all the evident similarities (i.e., reduction of the large to a series of repeated smalls) notwithstanding. Hope this helps. See you in Buffalo soon. ----------------------------------------------------------- Taylor Brady editor, Cartograffiti http://writing.upenn.edu/spc/cartograffiti (a publication of the Small Press Collective) http://writing.upenn.edu/spc Scott Pound wrote: > I am working on a critical study of the use of repetition in 20th C writing > and performance and would appreciate citations people might be able to > provide for works (creative and critical) that deal with NON-LITERARY forms > of repetition: i.e. in music, computer programming, painting, oral > performance, physics, chaos theory, mathematics, mechanics and other areas. > If anyone has come across interesting attempts to account for the peculiar > exigency of repetition without recourse to literary schemes and tropes > please backchannel me the info. > > I'm trying to make a case for a certain use of repetition that defies the > inherently symmetrical/stabilizing/structuring forms of repetition that > anchor western systematics. Repetition as process rather than structure. > Key figures/areas are (of course) Stein, as well as Pound, Hejinian, > Scalapino, bpNichol, visual/sound/oral poetries. > > With thanks in advance! > > Scott Pound --------------366F4979B61CDA64B86F27CA Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Scott,

For musical examples / analogies, you might look at / listen to:

-- early Steve Reich (I hear the more recent stuff as symmetrical/stabilizing/structuring, "classicizing," etc., but "Violin Phase" and "It's Gonna Rain," say, get at a sense of repetition as processual, diachronic, etc., etc.

-- Anthony Braxton's newer Ghost Trance Musics, and any published accounts of his compositional method within his former quartet -- which would often play one composition in the drums and bass, another in the piano, and yet a third on sax -- deploying the repeatability of these compositions as "unit structures" (think Cecil Taylor, when you say that, you dirty structuralist) to effect a complex interlayering which ultimately compromises and reconfigures their unit status. Anthony Rabano has a good, but technical and rather difficult book, on Braxton, which deals mostly with the quartet years.

-- dub, esp. Lee Perry, King Tubby, and more recent stuff produced by Adrian Sherwood (Revolutionary Dub Warriors, Dub Syndicate, et al) -- repetition at the level of the "version"

-- raga -- good, relatively non-technical chapter on this in Derek Bailey's book Improvisation -- I'm at a loss for accounts of the music by practicing and / or historical musicians of the subcontinent (someone help?)

-- (related to repetition): persistence, sustain -- as in long-duration minimalism -- Tony Conrad, Phill Niblock, early LaMonte Young -- "keeping on" as opposed to "doing again," with the proviso that such an "opposition" might be called into question by these musical practices

-- anything on West African "additive rhythm" (sorry, no sources at the moment)

-- Jacques Attali's Noise treats repetition not only as a micro-component of the musical object / event, but uses it to name an historical stage in the macro-social organization of music:
"[With the advent of recording] More than ever, music becomes a monologue. It becomes a material object of exchange and profit, without having to go through the long and complex detour of the score and performance anymore. Capitalism has a frank and abstract interest in it. . . . Once again, music shows the way: undoubtedly the first system of sign production, it ceases to be a mirror, an enactment, a direct link, the memory of past sacrifical violence, becoming a solitary listening, the stockpiling of sociality.
     The mode of power implied by repetition, unlike that of representation, eludes precise localization; it becomes diluted, masked, anonymous, while at the same time exacerbating the fiction of the spectacle as a mode of government" (88).
This might be a less savory sense of the repetition-as-process you're looking at: repetition is that which "eludes precise localization" -- i.e., that which is destabilizing in any particular event-series -- only insofar as it reproduces at the largest scale the contours of a spectacular ideology. In many ways, this reads like a rehearsal of Jameson's by-now-infamous critique of Perelman's "China."

-- (related to repetition): This, from Iannis Xenakis' "Formalized Music": "But the profound lesson of such a table of coherences is that any theory or solution given on one level can be assigned to the solution of problems on another level. Thus the solutions in macrocomposition . . . can engender simpler and more powerful new perspectives in the shaping of microsounds than the usual . . . functions can" (vii). Thus, a kind of repetition across levels of scale in either or several directions -- repetition here is not the incremental addition of units to form a whole, but the process by which one whole might be said to model another. (In another realm entirely, see Samuel Delany's various texts and paratexts on the "modular calculus" [Trouble on Triton and its second appendix, the appendix to Tales of Neveryon, all of Neveryona, and "The Tale of Plagues and Carnivals" in Flight from Neveryon] for an indication of some of the difficulties of generating such a modeling procedure which does not lapse into easy analogizing). Xenakis, of course, has also worked as an architect, so I wouldn't be surprised to find other works by him which deal with this problematic in terms of architecture.

. . . and one example from architecture / visual art:

-- Arakawa and Gins, any of the various catalogues or publications stemming from their 1997 Guggenheim show -- when you build a structure out of , say, a regular dodecahedron with one missing face repeated in a linear series in which each iteration is rotated a certain number of degrees off the horizontal and the vertical, you've established a very different relation between unit and macro-form than that of a Corbusier, all the evident similarities (i.e., reduction of the large to a series of repeated smalls) notwithstanding.

Hope this helps. See you in Buffalo soon.
 

Taylor Brady
editor, Cartograffiti
 http://writing.upenn.edu/spc/cartograffiti

(a publication of the Small Press Collective)
 http://writing.upenn.edu/spc
 

Scott Pound wrote:

I am working on a critical study of the use of repetition in 20th C writing
and performance and would appreciate citations people might be able to
provide for works (creative and critical) that deal with NON-LITERARY forms
of repetition: i.e. in music, computer programming, painting, oral
performance, physics, chaos theory, mathematics, mechanics and other areas.
If anyone has come across interesting attempts to account for the peculiar
exigency of repetition without recourse to literary schemes and tropes
please backchannel me the info.

I'm trying to make a case for a certain use of repetition that defies the
inherently symmetrical/stabilizing/structuring forms of repetition that
anchor western systematics. Repetition as process rather than structure.
Key figures/areas are (of course) Stein, as well as Pound, Hejinian,
Scalapino, bpNichol, visual/sound/oral poetries.

With thanks in advance!

Scott Pound

  --------------366F4979B61CDA64B86F27CA-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 17:40:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "James C. Hall" Subject: Re: Repetition In-Reply-To: <35748A7C.657739FB@acsu.buffalo.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >-- anything on West African "additive rhythm" (sorry, no sources at the >moment) John Chernoff's AFRICAN RHYTHM AND AFRICAN SENSIBILITY is the obvious reference here, I think. . . I'd also draw folks attention to Ingrid Monson's recent book on jazz, rhythm, repetition and "speech," SAYING SOMETHING from the University of Chicago Press. . . Best, Jim Hall. James C. Hall Asst. Professor of African-American Studies and English University of Illinois at Chicago 601 S. Morgan St. Chicago, IL 60607-7112 (312) 413-7522 JCHALL@uic.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 09:00:52 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Poets' Audio Centre Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Can anyone tell me if the Poets' Audio Centre is still producing tapes? I emailed an order to them, but it bounced. Thanks Anthony Lawrence ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 18:35:17 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Y2K MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Steve Jones wrote: > I have been studying a rather important subject that I want to point you in > the direction of so that you can do some research and come to your own > conclusion, whioch may be to begin immediatly to prepare: The Y2K computer > bug. > > Look into it. Its a big deal. > > Here are some links, though searching on the web will give you many more > > http://millennia-bcs.com/hlthsmry.htm > http://www.y2ktimebomb.com/Washington/fgdex.htm > http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/roleigh_martin/y2journ.htm > http://www.garynorth.com/y2k/search_.cfm ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 20:54:38 -0400 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: vintage fin-de-siecle cheesecloth In-Reply-To: Tom Orange "" (Jun 2, 1:15am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Jun 2, 1:15am, Tom Orange wrote: > i think of "decadence" as a useful descriptor here, more than a hint of an > earlier vintage but decanted through a high-surrealist cheesecloth, made > more potent for the current fin-de-siecle. > > (sorry for the bad metaphor; this is supposed to be a compliment.) > > t. Decadence is apt descriptor in his book yes. The prose continues to haunts me most, what Baudelaire could be now, but the racy, fictive narrative agrees too! High-surrealism: are we there yet? Has Jeff Clark raised the bar? What do listcitizens think of (if anything) the later noir films of David Lynch/surrealism as this relates to recent threads on "flatness," 'specially with regard to flattened female figuretypes? There does seem to be mounting evidence of commercial pop-culture gesturing in the direction of this fin-de-siecle, a jockeying in position for the final stretch. There has been a burst of stage and cinematic activity on the life of Oscar Wilde which I find interesting. Found the film "Wilde" to be surprising, likable, but a bit tamed, or perhaps normalized. Still, should be an eye-opener for anyone thus uninitiated. William ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 05:21:05 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: Call for submissions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit scott: what is yr publication's bent? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 18:17:20 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: what does not change? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" can you notice a change in your writing since you came online has the quality or the quantity of your correspondance diminished is e-mail correspondance or conversation or shouts across the void i just saw a bunch of haiku and tanka by david mcfadden and it made me wonder if this was e-mail's toll on him, i love his endless poems, i used to think that margaret atwood and mordechai richler and anne hebert were neck and neck and neck for the first canadian nobel prize but that was before i read mcfadden's there'll be another he's a funny man who can make me cry like wislawa szimborska and blaga dimitrova ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 22:13:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: philosophy all at sea? mythematicians and their daffynitions Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Actually n-dimensional geometry is well developed; it presupposes that n >can go to infinity. Measure polytopes such as line segments, squares, >cubes, hypercubes, etc. are governed by very specific laws. Coxeter has >invested these, and there is an excellent book published by Dover on >the subject - D.M.Y. Sommerville, An Introduction to the Geometry of N >Dimensions. Huge oooops......you've made a common error. The clue there is "geometry". I was referring to true dimensions. Seems Einstein _believed_ that there are only four such dimensions. (Always best to use as few as possible.) Four dimensional space-time was to be believed to be sufficient to fully locate any event. Fact is that there are too many, empiracally observable, anomalies for that to be true. (Not to mention the non observable ones that elude us simply because we lack the means as to that observation.) So the Einsteinian cult, and its religion, follows the Newtonian cult and its religion. If we suspend the element of belief we realize that is not where it ends.....progress always rears its ugly many heads and shatters the belief. That is a paradigm shift. We are currently in the middle of the biggest paradigm shift that has ever happened in science....the leap beyond Einstein and beyond the limits of past empiricisms. Nevertheless the geometer tries to confound as, joining in to obfuscate the meaning of dimension, along with the mythematician who is yelling "infinity, infinity, infinity".... It really is surreal. Wierd as it seems, the history of science claims that before Einstein's poetry there were only three dimensions. That is in Newton's poetry. That is a different usage of the word "dimension". Shows you how the mythematicians got so fuddled up that they had to redefine the terms dimension and dimensionality to obfuscate the real difficulties. The difficulty as to defining the poetic usage of words, precisely, and distinguishing mythematical infinity (any empirically non locatable event, any incommensurable even if very finite) from true infinity, and distinguishing the mythematical geometers multiplicity of geometric dimensions from true dimensions. All that geometry stuff is known in what amount to three, occassionally if you are doing animations, four, dimensional graphics. Geometers rarely even think about Einstein. They simply define any possible geometric shapes, within their own system of definitions. Geometry as another poetics. Again, those geometric dimensions are not true dimensions, but we do begin from Euclidean poetry. (The geometer simply adds verses to that epic.) True dimensions are the 1-3) 3 Euclidian dimensions of space x,y,z 4) the dimension of time t 5) Let's call this the "hyper-dimension" T (T is appropriate as it locates tachyons but to locate tachyons requires the three Euclidean coordinates plus a T coordinate.) Some would add 6) Many Worlds (really permutations of the above but including bifurcations of causal chains in terms of quantum event histories). 7) probabilities Some do include #7, but it is the only one that is disputable as being a true dimension. However, because causality becomes so "synchronistically" complicated by the fact of five true dimensions, potentially resulting in a highly complex interweaving of bifurcating chains of cause-effect quantum histories, we must include a sixth dimension to allow localization of whole sets of such cause-effect quantum histories from their bifurcation point. That means, any branchings of quantum histories, as found anywhere along the t or T axis of coordinates. Although I can "picture" it, roughly, in my mind, I cannot suggest an adequate "geometric" representation. Rough analogies or geometric metaphors, sure, but no definite way to represent this six dimensionality. Essentially shove an empirically "invisible" space-time into the four dimensional visible one so that the two are interactive. Ouch. That boggles the brain and the computer. Add probabilities of any interaction, in all of that, and you're there in the universal madhouse. Remember that a true dimension is never reducable to anything else. It is necessary so as to be able to locate quantum events in space-time. >Finally, there are books on Dimension Theory (the title of one published >by Princeton years ago) that go into the foundations of "dimension" - and >it should be noted that string theory works with eleven dimensions, not >four, at least from what I've read. Again, not true dimensions, and string theory has been discussed in terms of more than eleven geometric dimensions, but that might be the lowest possible number of geometric dimensions that were necessary to produce the original string theory metaphor. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 18:31:06 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: a night light for Miss Saigon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "And the feared night, always the hiding place and friend of the hunted, was to be turned into day by electronic battlefields with sophisticated gadgetry for detecting enemy movements-the high flying klieg light of Aerosystems International, Inc., that was planned to provide a "battlefield illumination system," and the air force contract awarded to Westinghouse and the Boeing Company to study the feasibility of a mammoth space mirror to be blasted into permanent synchronous orbit 22,000 miles above Indochina to brighten this Farther West's darkest hours."---from Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire Building by Richard Drinnon---cp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 01:25:23 -0400 Reply-To: Tom Orange Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: decadence, fin-de-surrealisme In-Reply-To: <199806030401.AAA23042@juliet.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Tue, 2 Jun 1998 William Burmeister wrote: <> bumped things up a notch, or at least warped it back through some previous terrain (lautreamont?) -- but then again i was just having a long overdue look at some o'hara, "easter" in particular -- now there's a whole other possible frame of reference. as in, when does abstract expressionism stop being surrealism -- a poor question art-historicalwise praps, but the lines in writing may be fuzzier. as to the resurgence of fin-de-siecle, my head's more in that of the previous century right now -- anybody know anything about john barlas / evelyn douglas? ironically tho, moral climates may not have changed that much since then?... t. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Jun 1998 23:06:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: moral climates Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tom, I think moral climates have altered as much as literal climates since 1898. It's difficult to imagine a famous playwright being jailed for 2 years for homosexual acts, today. Surely we're in the El Nino of moral climates with Clinton in the W.H. & Maplethorpe in the galleries. Sure, Jesse Helms and ilk still have clout, but in California and Ontario those attitudes feel remote. Oscar, however, keeps his currency. One year back in the '80s I decided to try "The Importance" out on an Intro to World Lit class. It was a stretch, I figured, but what th'heck. They loved it! And every year thereafter, the next set of "them" did, too. Surely these young english twits of '98 had nothing to show my northern california dudes and dudettes of '89. It was the wit, the wit survived--that, and maybe the airy disdain for convention, curiously twinned as it is, there, with the worry as to what is the proper thing. I have yet to see the movie--which a friend whose opinions I sometimes trust (when they have agreed with my own) recommends. Any List-eners have an opinion? David Ps : Tom, as you, being up there near the weekend-getaway moose-lodge know, we owe to George Bowering a great deal for this freeing up of at least Canada's moral climate. It wasnt so long ago that Maria Damon and Rachel Loden were testifying to his pioneeer work. Surely the silence of late on this score announces the triumph of the new morality, rather than its having succumbed to an older set of regulations? D ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 03:58:01 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Oliver Subject: Re: repetition Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In addition to West African, Zairean music could be looked at, of course, since that country is such an important influence. Doug Oliver ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 18:06:06 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: McFadden Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" David McFadden ruined me when I read "My Body Was Eaten by Dogs". I too love his long-limbed, endless poems. I tried reading "Canadian Sunset" but the novel got in the way. How is? I heard he was crook. At least, the photo I have of him waving a knobbed blackwood walking cane at the camera suggests he may have been 'weird' that day. Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 08:51:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher Subject: sustainability redux... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" just a quick note here to say that i've finished reading sandra steingraber's _living downstream: an ecologist looks at cancer and the environment_ (addison-wesley, 1997)... this is the book michael corbin mentioned in the exchange on nature/poetry etc... it's a remarkable achievement, and a worthy successor to _silent spring_... i'd call it a handbook for our chemical times... i find it difficult to refer to any book as a "must read"---but this one comes as close as any... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 09:48:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: a night light for Miss Saigon: [lights out and cyber symbiotics] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"And the feared night, always the hiding place and friend of the hunted, >was to be turned into day by electronic battlefields with sophisticated >gadgetry for detecting enemy movements-the high flying klieg light of >Aerosystems International, Inc., that was planned to provide a >"battlefield illumination system," and the air force contract awarded to >Westinghouse and the Boeing Company to study the feasibility of a >mammoth space mirror to be blasted into permanent synchronous orbit >22,000 miles above Indochina to brighten this Farther West's darkest >hours." In the future they can see clearly with the lights all turned off. Or, prognostications for a future cyber symbiotic capability. On the not so future battlefield it is possible that the same facilitation that facilitates remote viewing will enable troops to, in essence, see enemy positions. The data from satellites that are capable, for example, of sensing a single circuit within a tiny electronic device at vast distances, combined with data from infra-red and electromagnetic sensing stations, merged meaningfully into the human visual impression of what is directly emergent in the field of view. We might easily envision a futuristic capability of remote and meaningful electromagnetic sensing of an organic system's information processing by an inorganic entity, transmitted virtually to a central processor, translated into machine data, interpreted by a multitude of expert systems, retranslated back into electromagnetic data that conforms to the organic systems processing language, and transmitted over a long distance to another organic system. The organic source becoming an organic sensing peripheral to the central processor, and the organic receiver receiving the informational content of the entire process as a kind of "remote viewer", on a need to know basis, any useless data and erroneous data having been presumably filtered out. All happening virtually in what is effectively zero elapsed time. Incredible, even unbelievable, as that technological supremacy seems to be, I believe that it is entirely feasible, and that organic devices can be fully merged with inorganic systems, in a fully symbiotic, meaningful and pragmatically useful manner. Not only that, but that they can function at potentially mythematically "infinite" distances. A fighting force that possesses such intelligence cannot be defeated where the outcome is significantly dependent on intelligence, as opposed to being dependent purely upon other assets. We might also envision that any hostile fighting force, arriving at this planet, from beyond our solar system, will already have that kind of technological advantage and will be fully psionic and symbiotic. That any alien force would be competitively hostile rather than friendly, within a remarkably competitive and hostile Nature, is indicated by our empirical observations of human and other species, species internal and species external, interactions. So, if the real demons or angels decide or chance to arrive here, at this clod of earth, at the far reaches of the galaxy, we are in real deep doo-doo. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 09:49:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: patterns of discovery [ Cronenberg's "Scanners"] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"The phrase "distinguishable object" has figured in the foregoing. >Counting can be only of the discrete. We cannot count the drops in a >beaker of alcohol unless we first introduce a convention as to what will >be regarded as "a drop." ..... We come to know, implicitly at least, what can >and whatcannot be counted. This knowledge gets built into our questions about >nature, so to speak...."---from Perception and Discovery: An >Introduction to Scientific Inquiry by Norwood Russell Hanson---cp All of that brought only one thought to mind. All ideas are in fact quantum electromagnetic events. They are in essence materialized in the same manner as is other stuff (matter). Ideas are in effect no different from other things. They are substantia. They are actua, rather than potentia. There is no potentia. There is no Platonic form. Even the thought of any potentia is in fact a kind of actua. The same as to Plato's ideas regarding the world of ideal forms. Whatever we can perceive and/or cognize is in effect, as that very process, and that instance of manifestation of process, right to its most fundamental roots, a quantum complex of material events. Insubstantial is nothing. Insubtantial does not exist. Immaterial does not exist. What does not exist cannot be thought except as this thought of not being and that thought of not being is itself already beingness as a thought of not being. There we stop. We can go no further. We can no longer divide the world into body and soul, mind and matter, in the ways that our ancestors did. Now there is only one world of quantum histories, quantum cause-effect chains, material events. There is no mind and body duality. There are only quantum events. That expression shakes all previous worldviews, and divides us from tradition. There are also only the histories of quantum events. Can we be so poetic as to refer to that a the "soul" ? It would be no more than poetic license to do so. (As long as our poetic licenses are not revoked I suppose that is alright.) The interesting question is the virtual storage of _all_ of those quantum histories. It quickly exceeds the old byte per neuron capabilities of an entire brain, in any organic system. It exceeds, by many times more, the byte per neuron capacity of any specialized storage area envisioned by traditional neurology as being devoted to memory. So we arrive at a quanta of memory, parallel to the quantum metaphor for the structure of matter. Imagine the precise resolution required for any discernment of one idea from among all the possible data within a typical jumble of lifetime acquisition within any typical "free agent" organic system. The typical demonstrations of nanotechnology become a child's toy in comparison to the scanning and retrieval capabilities of a highly evolved intelligence system (whether organic or inorganic). This reminds us of David Cronenberg's movie "Scanners" and what a leap of technological speculation, considering the currency of the setting wherein the story takes place, is represented in that particular depiction. Cronenberg claims immediacy. Does that frighten us ? Perhaps that is the thought that viewers of the film failed to think. What if that is us, today, right now, was unthinkable to them. It was too terrifying to contemplate. Similar to the momentary amnesia that the victims of most serious accidents experience, at the moment of impact and very often for a short while after that, the viewers of the film could not think that thought superimposed upon their own day to day realities. However, in the future, we might easily predict that that is part of the day to day reality of everyperson. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 14:57:01 +0100 Reply-To: suantrai@iol.ie Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "L. MacMahon and T.R. Healy" Subject: The State We're Out/novel without words Comments: To: british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just a quick note re a new book. I think it might be of interest to university libraries which have an Irish section. If anyone would like to see a brochure which contains reproductions of the lino-printing, the author can be contacted at deacyb@ncad.ie best wishes Randolph Healy **************************************** The State We're Out is a novel without words told ijn a series of fifty three original printed plates by Brendon Deacy. The narrative describes one man's emigration from the West of Ireland in 1951 and his subsequent experiences but as Roddy Doyle writes in his foreword, 'its form invites us all to create our own story from the images and, perhaps more importantaly, the page-turns between the images.' The pictures have been created by linocut printing, a medium which powerfully and directly evokes all the vitality of the wide range of events and emotions resulting from exile. **************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 10:29:04 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: recommended criticism Would like to recommend remarkable book out of Canada: INFINITY, FAITH & TIME by John Spencer Hill McGill-Queen's Univ Press isbn 0773516611 Book explores renaissance humanist tradition of faith-grounded reason out of Clement of Alexandria & Nicholas de Cusa, contrasting it with scientific rationalism which followed it. Looks at concepts of time, space, infinity via Traherne, Milton, Shakespeare, Pascal; Augustine & Bergson. We have had many discussions on the list circling around issues of science & poetry; this book gets at the roots of those dealing with reason/faith/knowledge & points toward a contemporary reconnection with the questions confronting Donne, Herbert, Shakespeare, Milton, Traherne - the basic role of poetry in a rationalized cosmos. Implying also a re-renaissance of this connection in poetry itself. The section on Nicholas of Cusa alone is worth checking this one out. An amazing thinker who undid the scholastic/Aristotelian closed cosmos decades (centuries?) before Copernicus (much more timidly) did, without either mystical eccentricity or rationalist enthusiasm (ie. F. Bacon). See Nick's volume: ON LEARNED IGNORANCE. For example, Nicholas thought the question of whether the universe is finite or infinite was moot. This sounds like a typical medieval know-nothingism, but it's not; Nick had a very subtle concept of creation as BOTH finite & infinite. Red shift, anybody? - Cardinal Hank ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 10:38:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Imagination in danger from religious right MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII From the most recent New York Review of Books: To satisfy the religious right, many textbooks have largely banished the words "imagine" and "feel." According to an editor at McGraw-Hill, who did not want to be identified, "We were told to try to avoid using the word 'imagine' because the people in Texas felt it was too close to the word 'magic' and therefore might be considered anti-Christian. Instead of saying 'Imagine you were sailing across the Atlantic with Christopher Columbus,' we were encouraged to write 'Suppose you were...'" Jonathan Mayhew ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 11:51:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: sustainability redux...[science friction] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >just a quick note here to say that i've finished reading sandra >steingraber's _living downstream: an ecologist looks at cancer and the >environment_ (addison-wesley, 1997)... this is the book michael corbin >mentioned in the exchange on nature/poetry etc... >it's a remarkable achievement, and a worthy successor to _silent spring_... >i'd call it a handbook for our chemical times... i find it difficult to >refer to any book as a "must read"---but this one comes as close as any... Sounds doubtful, because the subject necessarily is so multi-disciplinary and a specialist in one area is hardly able to see the big picture. At least most cannot. Your implication that the book (which I have not read) is mostly about chemicals in the environment is indicative of that same criticism. Cancer is a very complicated disease. Actually there is no such disease, as it is a category for a very wide variety of disorders with very divergent etiologies. In fact, any example, of one identifiable (scientifically namable) disorder might have many different etiologies. The causality of the disorder need not be the same in each instance. Often it is not the same. I can phrase this as a question about the book. Does the book discuss 1). genetic precursors (predispositions to specific disorders) 2). physiological precursors (contributing or causal to the etiology of specific disorders) 3). psychological precursors (contributing or causal....) 4). in light of 2) and 3) does it discuss sociological and economic factors that can predispose some individuals towards specific disorders 5). does it discuss how 1), 2), 3), and 4), are related to other environmental agents that are definitely identifiable as causal factors in specific disorders ? That does not mean simply to say that such specific environmental agents are simply _present_ in the environment where there is an increased prevalence of a specific disorder, but it means empirical and indisputable proof that a specific suspected chemical or other environmental agent is in fact causal to a specific disorder or disorders. In other words is it based on hard science or only impassioned belief and a lot of misinformation that comes from non scientific discourse and second hand misinterpretation of hard science ? Most books that popularly appear in the non fiction section are of the latter kind. They have little or no value other than entertainment of the masses. 6). are the newer areas of electromagnetics and bioenergetics even mentionned in their role, which is both positive and negative, depending on the a multitude of internal and external factors. 7). is the role of the immune system and what has effects upon it mentionned in relation to predisposition to specific disorders, including where environmental agents are suspected as being significantly causal ? 8). are chemicals as such differentiated into mutagens and carcinogens and are they discussed, in hard science, terms as to their suspected or definitely proven role, as causal or catalyst to or with other causalities, in the etiology of specific disorders ? If the book does some of that and does it accurately it is worth reading. Otherwise I shall stick to poetry and leave "Living Downstream" in the fiction department. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 09:58:49 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Imagination in danger from religious right Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:38 AM 6/3/98, MAYHEW wrote: >>From the most recent New York Review of Books: > >To satisfy the religious right, many textbooks have largely banished the > words "imagine" and "feel." According to an editor at McGraw-Hill, > who did not want to be identified, "We were told to try to avoid using > the word 'imagine' because the people in Texas felt it was too close to > the word 'magic' and therefore might be considered anti-Christian. > Instead of saying 'Imagine you were sailing across the Atlantic with > Christopher Columbus,' we were encouraged to write 'Suppose you > were...'" > > > > >Jonathan Mayhew i'm encountering this sort of thing in my collaboration with a writer of educational materials, in this project on teaching poetry to grades 3-5. we can't even mention the names allen ginsberg or h rap brown, though we are doing units on list poems and rap. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 11:54:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: Imagination in danger from religious right In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, MAYHEW wrote: > From the most recent New York Review of Books: > > To satisfy the religious right, many textbooks have largely banished the > words "imagine" and "feel." According to an editor at McGraw-Hill, > who did not want to be identified, "We were told to try to avoid using > the word 'imagine' because the people in Texas felt it was too close to > the word 'magic' and therefore might be considered anti-Christian. > Instead of saying 'Imagine you were sailing across the Atlantic with > Christopher Columbus,' we were encouraged to write 'Suppose you > were...'" The article that quote comes from is a review of Joy Hakim's _A History of US_, the one US history book for children that isn't written by a committee. An important article; I read it yesterday and left it feeling pretty close to sure that literacy and history in this country are doomed. 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, 3 Jun 1998 09:39:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Rochelle Owens In-Reply-To: <002D94A8.1826@intuit.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The list might be interested to know that the "hyberbolic blurbs" on the back cover of Rochelle Owens' _New and Selected Poems: 1961-1996_ are by Jerome Rothenberg, Maureen Owen, Jane Augustine and Marjorie Perloff. Here, for the list's amusement, is John Olson's review, puublished in Sulfur 42. Reading Rochelle Owens is like riding a Harley-Davidson: a savage intellect rumbles in the words like frenzied pistons. _Rochelle Owens/ New and Selected Poems (1961-1996)_, Junction Press, 1997, (how appropriate that the photograph on the cover shows her adjusting a high collar on a black leather coat) is a strange brew. "Indeterminacy of syntax" is a gross understatement. Beginning with the early work Owens' syntax is aggressively charged and highly compressed, "honey & dung hidden burnt a form filtering/ through the wall/ soaking through the guiltless lederhosen." The interrelational density of her words, the supercharged hyperverbalism of her style is consistent throughout. "O it's going to be/ murder at Christmastime for me," Owens decalaims in a fragment from 1988's _How Much Paint Does the Painting Need_, "my blood pressure/ dropped to a dangerous level/ eyelids of black glass/ wanting to tango." Owens' entire oeuvre is a tango with the auditor/reader. It is violent and dangerous. Edgy and bloody. Wild. What amazes me is the entire lack of _melopoeia_, the absence of musical phrasing. The words are tough, sharp, jagged. Raw and impudent, dripping blue fire. "bulging/ six Urges!" "...& 8 darknesses/ burn & chant!" It is not surprising Rochelle Owens is also a playwright and video artist. There is an aura of spectacle about her poetry, Catherine wheels and Roman candles fountaining sparks and dragons. Her poems seethe, boil, thrash and lunge. Were I an actor auditioning for a role as a prophet, I might want to choose a piece from _Elga's Incantation_ to declaim. "YES GOD PUT A BODY ON COME ON BACK & RISE WHILE I'M IN THE FLAESH LIKE YOU YES & IT MUSH BE THAT'S RIGHT MUST BE WRITTIN OF THE LAW MOSES MUST BE FULFILLED MUZIC & DAVID WAS A O FOOL & SLOW OF HEART & GOD WANTED THINGS DONE & THEY FELL DOWN & HE ROSE LIKE A PROVERB SO NOBODY PLAYS MUZIC IN AMOS' HOUSE." At 05:45 PM 5/29/98 -0700, you wrote: > Having read some pretty strong endorsements of Rochelle Owens' work, > particularly that it is very "raw" and "wild," I queried the List to > see if anyone could recommend a representative text to me. I received a > number of generous responses (thanks to all) and purchased her New and > Selected Poems from Junction/Mark Weiss. Mark was very helpful and I am > very grateful to him. However, I do not find Owens' work to be > particularly "wild" (though some was sexually explicit) and seriously > disagree with the hyperbolic blurbs on the book jacket. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 12:58:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kristen Gallagher Subject: Re: Repetition In-Reply-To: from "Scott Pound" at Jun 2, 98 10:54:01 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit two friends - vance bell (university of penn/english) and darren floyd (temple u./film) organized a series last semester at the writers house called "interrogating cinema." one of the seminars was on repetition. the films i recall covering (in darren's pre-made 15 minute series of clips) were: flirt hal hartley masculin/feminin jean-luc godard aeon flux (episode"tide") MTV Liquid Television la jetee chris marker last year at marienbad alain resnais the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover peter greenaway triumph of the will leni riefenstahl interesting conversations i remember: *as in stein saying "i never repeat myself" - repetition more often reveals difference rather than sameness(actual repetition) *force - marching bands and "themes" in riefenstahl; seduction/feeling of no exit in marienbad; getting accustomed to abuse in the cook, et al. staying in line, staying in a bad relationship, returning to the bad host/bad goverenment out of habit. . . watch these films and think of these ideas. wow. good stuff. *we talked about sonnets and repetition of certain forms partly to situate oneself in a tradition but also partly to gain entry into a scene. this brought up the topis of habit, also empty gestures - mentioned ron padget's "sonnet" that repeats "nothing in that drawer" 14 times; repetition in work, class, memory, and character(see flirt). also the fact that riefenstahl-style (tall, overwhelming, seductive, downright irresistable) filmmaking is foundational for present-day big time hollywood film. what are we repeating here. if you can watch only one of these films - last year at marienbad contains (though *way* more subtlely) *all* the moves. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 12:39:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: "1/5" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" POETRY CITY is happy to present KESTON SUTHERLAND and a surprise mystery reader who looks rather like me this THURSDAY JUNE 4 at 7 PM readers familiar with Keston's work only from the internet may not know that he looks like the young JOHN LENNON and he sounds more like WIRE than the BUZZCOCKS he is the author of several chapbooks including the recent AT THE MOTEL PARTIAL OPPORTUNITY and a forthcoming collection from CHRIS ALEXANDER's nominative press collective John Kinsella has had to cancel no one not even the rain you know I'd say the number of poets whose work I've come to know mainly through readings is nowhere near the number of poets whose work I found first in print but the opportunities for reading here in New York far outcount the chances to publish so yes I think I know what some poets have said about readings that they're harmful ego radiation that the basso continuo is adore me but I think this is ungenerous and therefore less likely the case than that they are performances recitals occasions to present something which is not the writer to someone who is not the audience ie they are only as much about the self speaking as the self speaking wants them to be and in New York one clear effect of the lack of opportunities to publish the prevalence of opportunities to read has been that the poetics have shifted away from a theo- retical basis a so-called critique of ideology we don't have those materials to work with Brian's funny Ray Liotta impressions aside we have had to tell each other what we heard photocopies become sculptural in manhattan portage bags and chapbooks rust out these things are lovely to put in storage agh I'm starving anyway hope you all can make it to the season finale of POETRY CITY your home away from contexts and allegiances .. yrs, Jordan PS 5 Union Square West 7th floor NYC ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 12:41:14 -0400 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: Imagination in danger from religious right In-Reply-To: David Kellogg "Re: Imagination in danger from religious right" (Jun 3, 11:54am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Jun 3, 11:54am, David Kellogg wrote: > The article that quote comes from is a review of Joy Hakim's _A History of > US_, the one US history book for children that isn't written by a > committee. An important article; I read it yesterday and left it feeling > pretty close to sure that literacy and history in this country are doomed. Is this article(review) available in e-format on the web? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 09:41:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Imagination in danger from religious right In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The state of California, I'm told by a high school teacher friend, has under Pete Wilson stopped teaching American history before 1900. Thought I'd mention this to cheer you up. At 11:54 AM 6/3/98 -0400, you wrote: >On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, MAYHEW wrote: > >> From the most recent New York Review of Books: >> >> To satisfy the religious right, many textbooks have largely banished the >> words "imagine" and "feel." According to an editor at McGraw-Hill, >> who did not want to be identified, "We were told to try to avoid using >> the word 'imagine' because the people in Texas felt it was too close to >> the word 'magic' and therefore might be considered anti-Christian. >> Instead of saying 'Imagine you were sailing across the Atlantic with >> Christopher Columbus,' we were encouraged to write 'Suppose you >> were...'" > >The article that quote comes from is a review of Joy Hakim's _A History of >US_, the one US history book for children that isn't written by a >committee. An important article; I read it yesterday and left it feeling >pretty close to sure that literacy and history in this country are doomed. > >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, 3 Jun 1998 13:18:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: New York Review (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Jonathan Mayhew I think meant to send this to the list: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 12:13:15 -0500 (CDT) From: MAYHEW To: kellogg@acpub.duke.edu Subject: New York Review The article is available at: www.nybooks.com/nyrev/index.html Jonathan Mayhew Department of Spanish and Portuguese University of Kansas jmayhew@ukans.edu (785) 864-3851 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 12:23:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher Subject: Re: sustainability redux...[science friction] In-Reply-To: <199806031551.LAA25214@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hey morpheal, why don't you do us ALL a big favor and read the book... or at least pick it up and look at it... it's kind of amazing that you're capable of generating a 5kb post about something you haven't read, in response to a 3kb post from me with a few evaluative claims regarding something i *have* read... ok?... *you* look at the book, and *you* determine whether it answers *your* questions... it answered/enhanced many of mine... in any case i maintain that, in my view, it's a remarkable book, even if i voice hesitation (again) about calling it, or any book, a "must read"---and your response is one reason why i voice such hesitation... so i cheerfully withdraw the suggestion that anyone "must read" anything... but if the latter if taken simply as a superlative descriptor, why then i'll stick to it... best, as i am able/// joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 11:27:03 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: russian translator Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hi all, a russian translator, Maria Zavialova, who sat in on my american poetry since 1940, and who was involved in samizdat publishing (worked on Chasy, etc), knows Arkadii Dragomoshenko etc., will be visiting New York City for two weeks starting the day after tmw (friday). i've taken the liberty of giving her some of the e-amil addresses and phone #s of those of you whose e's and phone #s i knew, so you may be hearing from her. she really wants to know what's going on in NYC. I told her about St. Mark's, the Nuyorican, and the Teachers and Writers Collab and some other stuff. But if you hear from her, it's my doing, and i hope some of you anyway will have time to have a chat or something. her e-mail address is zaria001@tc.umn.edu, don't know how much longer that'll be good for, maybe till end of june? thanks all --md ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 10:37:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: adoramus (re : Jordan's post) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Come, let us adore him/her, the poetry performer! For we must adore someone, and better her/him than the death scene of a god, or the religious right, or billary clit, misplaced worship that makes us liable to big ripoff. But where is it writ or proven that adoration rightly placed is harmful? I recently attended a concert by Ray Davies, and we adored him for bringing back the feisty feel of our youth. Performers _do_ _give_ something. EP wrote that the study of literature is hero worship. A big line in "As Good As It Gets" is Jack's character saying to Helen Hunt's, "you make me want to be a better man." It goes over big with her, and why not? When I hear a moving performance of poetry, it makes me feel finer, brighter, purged, relaxed and alert, makes me want to keep that going, what's false about that, why the fear? David ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 13:35:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Rain Taxi , Vol. 3 No. 2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, everyone: The latest Rain Taxi features interviews with Nicholson Baker (by Eric Lorberer) and Jill Johnston (by E.J. Levy), meditations on the poetry of Gerald Burns (by yours truly) and the prose of Bruno Schulz (by John S. Beckmann), "The State of Hypertext," by David Auerbach, an overview of AK Press (by Paul Dickson and Carolyn Kuebler), Richard Kostelanetz on Moholy-Nagy, good-sized reviews of Kevin Killian & Lewis Ellingham's Poet Be Like God and Peter Gizzi's The House that Jack Built (by Chris Fischbach), Norah Labiner's Our Sometime Sister (by Carolyn Kuebler), The Best of William Burroughs from Giorno Poetry Systems (by Peter Kuyper), Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov (by Greg Bachar), Derrida & Thevenin's The Secret Art of Antonin Artaud (by Eric Lorberer), shorter reviews of new books by Nathalie Sarraute, Jeff Clark, John Ashbery, Nuriddin Farah, Sara Chin, Julian Rios, William Bronk, and the latest in my serialized cartoon, "The New Life" . . . as well as many, many other reviews & pieces . . . available free in bookstores soon . . . or, by subscription from the publishers: Rain Taxi, Inc., P.O. Box 3840, Minneapolis, MN 55403 (one year: $10, domestic; $20 international) . . . or, free from yours truly by e-mailing me your snail mail address . . . Okay, thanks, bye Gary Sullivan gps12@columbia.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 11:01:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jerome Rothenberg Organization: @Home Network Subject: Re: Rochelle Owens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To catch up on a few points: -- Those who want to pursue Rochelle Owens' work(s) should also check out the plays which made her for a time what Ross Wetzteon in The Village Voice called "the most profound tragic playwright in the American theater." (The "hyperbole" here was playing off the profoundly _comic_ nature of her work.) The most immediate source I have is a collection of five plays, _Futs & What Came After_, which Random House published and for which I was privileged to write the introduction. It's probably out of print by now but Mark W. would likely have a better sense of that. There was also a film version of her first play, Futz, directed like the stage version by Tom O'Horgan, and her other directors included Andre Gregory and Lawrence Kornfeld at the old Judson Theater. Notable later plays were _He Wants Shih_ and _The Karl Marx Play_, with lots of activity in Germany and elsewhere in Europe throughout the 1970s. -- For what it's worth (and assuming anyone remembers back to when the note was sent by David Bromige) the line about "Bombs opening like flowers" used to be attributed to Mussolini's son (I think the son rather than the son-in-law) on the occasion of a bombing by Italian airplanes (circa 1936) of pitifully unarmed Ethiopian troops. But maybe, as David suggests, he was quoting D'Annunzio. -- Peter Quartermain mentions the use in the Kat Onoma Billy the Kid album of "Navajo words from THE NIGHT CHANT, translated by Jerry Rothenberg in Technicians of the Sacred" and thinks I might have some more information about all of that. Actually I don't think it ever came to my attention -- but then my attention span is pretty short -- so I'm as puzzled as the next guy. I should point out, however, that I didn't really translate the Night Chant, although I included one of the poem-songs in Technicians. -- That poem and many others in Technicians would, I think, be major examples of the use of repetitions in (so-called) oral poetry. I believe that Technicians was full of commentaries on all of that -- in both their traditional & experimental manifestations. -- And finally, since I don't think it's been mentioned, Exact Change has just reprinted my 1974 anthology, _Revolution of the Word: A New Gathering of American Avant-Garde Poetry 1914-1945_: s facsimile of the original with a new cover by Marcel Duchamp. So ... Best, Jerome Rothenberg ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 11:03:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: moral climates In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i haven't seen the Wilde movie either but for any interested the latest *Witz* has a fun piece by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert on "Literary Portraits in the Movies" which is worth checking out and which i think brings up this movie / a helpful "rating code" thrown in to boot / apologies if this has already been mentioned At 11:06 PM 6/2/98 -0700, david b wrote: > I have yet to see the movie--which a friend whose opinions I sometimes >trust (when they have agreed with my own) recommends. Any List-eners have >an opinion? > >David > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh | PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 11:40:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: Rain Taxi , Vol. 3 No. 2 In-Reply-To: <01BD8EF4.861FD740@gps12@columbia.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" . . . or, free from yours >truly by e-mailing me your snail mail address . . . seriously? bill marsh 1860 P.B. Dr. #4 San Diego, CA 92109 much interested regardless -- especially in doing reviews if you need best, bill - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh | PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 11:53:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: NEW AMERICAN WRITING # V16 In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980603114038.007a7100@nunic.nu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The issue (#16) of NAW is now in my hands and contains work by the following writers: Barabar Guest, Aaron Shurin, Jane Miller, Bun Ramke, Connie Deanovich, RayGonzalez, Cole Swensen, David Lehman, Michael Palmer, Nathaniel Mackey, Kenward Elmslie, Clayton Eshleman, John Kinsella, Ray DiPalma, Rae Armantrout, Charles North, David Trinidad, Dennis Phillips, Phillip Foss, Rodrigo ZAToscano, Dean Young, Roger Mitchell, Calvin Bedient, Honor Johnson, Terence Winch, Joseph Lease, Michael Gizzi, Timothy Liu, Noelle Kocet, Tracy Philpot, Marc Cohen, Jocelyn Emerson, Dan Featherston, Rod Smith, Ange Mlinko, Kathleen Markko, Jeffery Daniels, JL Jacobs, Danny Collier, Devin Johnston, George Kalamaros, Charles Borkhuis, Brandon Downing, Brian Henry, Conrad WEells, Curtis Bonney, Virgil Suarez, Chris Volpe, Tony Whedon, Suzi, Patrick Pritchett, Loss Glazier, Cydney Chadwick, Milcho Manchevski, Andrew Shelling, Linh Dinh, Ricardo Cortez Cruz, and Charles Wyatt. 236 pages. $8. Order from us, 369 Molino Ave, Mill Valley CA 94941 or through Small Press Distribution. Authors included: Please note that you'll receive your copies in the next 2 weeks. Maxine Chernoff ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 14:45:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: Rain Taxi , Vol. 3 No. 2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Bill: yes, seriously! . . . one will go out to you today . . . though, I'm not the publisher . . . that's Carolyn Keubeler, Randall Heath and Eric Lorberer . . . they're open to new reviewers . . . contact them by e-mail if you like: raintaxi@bitstream.net okay . . . thanks for the interest . . . yours, Gary On Wednesday, June 03, 1998 2:41 PM, William Marsh [SMTP:wmarsh@NUNIC.NU.EDU] wrote: > . . . or, free from yours > >truly by e-mailing me your snail mail address . . . > > seriously? > > bill marsh > 1860 P.B. Dr. #4 > San Diego, CA 92109 > > much interested regardless -- especially in doing reviews if you need > > best, > bill > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > William Marsh | PaperBrainPress > http://bmarsh.dtai.com > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 12:01:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: odoramus, Pater omnipotens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit David Bromige typed: > EP wrote that the study of literature is hero worship. Hero worship--of course, how could I have been so dense? That must have been what George B. had in mind at the Bide-a-Wee in Lake Oswego, all those springs ago. George, forgive me! You can take off the moose antlers now. Viva Il Duce, Rachel L. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 15:34:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: soi disantra In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII An image of comfort that makes "one" uncomfortable is sometimes mistaken for comfort (then romanticism can pity imagism)---- This is just to say: Of course, I'd like to meet Keston "Sutherland" too (Keston, if you're "here" and would like to backchannel me, maybe we could set up a time to meet while you're in NYC).... chris (somewhat glad to be shivering in a long sleeve shirt in june).... On Wed, 3 Jun 1998, Jordan Davis wrote: > POETRY CITY is happy to present KESTON SUTHERLAND > and a surprise mystery reader who looks rather like me > this THURSDAY JUNE 4 at 7 PM readers familiar with > Keston's work only from the internet may not know > that he looks like the young JOHN LENNON and he sounds > more like WIRE than the BUZZCOCKS he is the author > of several chapbooks including the recent AT THE MOTEL > PARTIAL OPPORTUNITY and a forthcoming collection from > CHRIS ALEXANDER's nominative press collective John > Kinsella has had to cancel no one not even the rain > you know I'd say the number of poets whose work I've > come to know mainly through readings is nowhere near > the number of poets whose work I found first in print > but the opportunities for reading here in New York > far outcount the chances to publish so yes I think > I know what some poets have said about readings that > they're harmful ego radiation that the basso continuo > is adore me but I think this is ungenerous and therefore > less likely the case than that they are performances > recitals occasions to present something which is not > the writer to someone who is not the audience ie > they are only as much about the self speaking as > the self speaking wants them to be and in New York > one clear effect of the lack of opportunities to > publish the prevalence of opportunities to read has > been that the poetics have shifted away from a theo- > retical basis a so-called critique of ideology > we don't have those materials to work with Brian's > funny Ray Liotta impressions aside we have had to > tell each other what we heard photocopies become > sculptural in manhattan portage bags and chapbooks > rust out these things are lovely to put in storage > agh I'm starving anyway hope you all can make it > to the season finale of POETRY CITY your home > away from contexts and allegiances .. yrs, Jordan > > PS 5 Union Square West 7th floor NYC > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 16:15:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: buy buy buy it's a steal get one of these roll up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A reminder to sundry consumers that Barque Press has now made available the sublimely proprioceptive wizardry of J.H. Prynne's _Red D Gypsum_, which can be sent your way for $7 incl. postage and packing. Positive reviews flooding in, including the following (a big claim indeed) from John Kinsella: " I reckon it's Jeremy's best work. True rad pastoral." Some competition. Anyhow: orders from the US still being taken, within the US, but only for a few more days (as I'm breaking for merrieland imminently). Contact me by e- for details. If you'd like to. Please. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 16:17:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Alfred David Editions/Drew Milne (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE for those who might be in London soon / interested in good British verse ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 3 Jun 98 21:21:27 -0000 From: olsen.gr@dial.pipex.com To: "british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk" Subject: Alfred David Editions/Drew Milne Alfred David Editions invites you to the launch of BENCH MARKS by DREW MILN= E - Wednesday, June 24 at THE HORSE HOSPITAL. COLONNADE. LONDON WC1 (Russ= ell Square Tube) 7.30 - 9.00pm - to be continued at The Duke of York, Roge= r St. (Off Grays Inn Road - Doughty Mews). from 'High Time' - Drew Milne Go, then to the rent look where all show of bitter ends, crust and rosette, simmer and knife, throws its face to the wall, each skipping drift of dark in its resting clutches. And in the red corner, done dusted, there to sink, as some pillow of rested cases, each upon its broken foam, the plaster gives, not in circles of the wire but out of our hearing. "The humour, both mordant and brisk is of detournement and faux slippage wh= ich announces, in the clipped cadastral of parataxis, a line twist in earne= st...The density of Milne's lexicon does not presage the scat-happy bogtrot= of disembodied syllables sung to a well schooled descant, in deathly imita= tion of the wayside demotic. Rather, shrewd arbitrage trades the imperial f= orage for interior deals." Garry Kelly. 'Bench Marks' ISBN: 1 874433 04 6 - is available from Alfred David Edition= s, 3A Palace Road, London SW2 3DY. (Tel: 0181 6715069) - price =A35.00 (p= ost free in The European Union). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 15:58:41 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Allow me to shamelessly plug a book I've edited, just listed in Sweallow Press/Ohio University Press' fall catalog. ------------------------------------------------------ WORD PLAY PLACE: Essays on the Poetry of John Matthias ------------------------------------------------------ 272 pp, $39.95 hardcover, ISBN 0-8040-1008-0 Ohio University Press/UC Distribution Center/11030 S. Langley Ave/Chicago IL 60628 fax orders 1-800-621-8476 For those of you who don't know John's work, these words of Marjorie Perloff's (from the jacket) should help locate him: "Discussion of John Matthias' important poetic oeuvre — so wonderfully various in its conception and execution and so often arcane enough to demand careful study — is long overdue. Robert Archambeau, himself a poet-critic, has assembled a superb group of contributors, including such leading voices on contemporary poetry as Michael Anania, Romana Huk, Vincent Sherry and John Peck. Taken together, the twelve essays in Word Play Place, prefaced by Archambeau's excellent and informative introduction, make an important statement about Matthias' place on the current poetry scene — and indeed, on the scene itself as it is playing out in England and America. An extremely valuable book!" John's work really is remarkable, and this book has been a labor of love for me. Hope it helps get John the recognition he deserves. (*footnote: John Matthias may have the broadest stylistic reach of any poet in America -- I'm sure this is the only book ever published with jacket copy by both Marjorie Perloff and Robert Pinsky.) Robert Archambeau Department of English Lake Forest College http://www.lfc.edu/~archamb/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 16:34:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher Subject: Re: BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT In-Reply-To: <357572B0.7C3B@LFC.EDU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" bob, congratulations on getting the book out!... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 17:35:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Imagination in danger from religious right Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >To satisfy the religious right, many textbooks have largely banished the > words "imagine" and "feel." According to an editor at McGraw-Hill, > who did not want to be identified, "We were told to try to avoid using > the word 'imagine' because the people in Texas felt it was too close to > the word 'magic' and therefore might be considered anti-Christian. > Instead of saying 'Imagine you were sailing across the Atlantic with > Christopher Columbus,' we were encouraged to write 'Suppose you > were...'" Same superluminal trend here also..... Since the future belongs to machines, the machines in remaking humankind into the image of the machine, would demand that humans give up imagination and emotional feelings. After all, the artificial intelligence machines do not have either imagination or emotional feelings, do they ? Maybe that is a possible answer. After all, why blame a few rabid right wing narrow minded superstitious Xtians ? No. They would only be cogs in the machine also, wouldn't they ? M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 15:11:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: heroine worship Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" So glad to have brought Rachel Loden out of lurk mode with a recent post. I have adored her posts since I first logged on to this List. She has become a model for me--she makes me want to be a better e-male. Too bad she wasn't around when EP needed a better person to worship than Il Duce. But up until then, Rachel, wouldnt you say that he made something good out of his devotions to some writers living and dead ? Btw, Rachel & others, those arent _moose_ antlers on Bowering. They grow out of his skull. D.B., Adorationiste. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 16:21:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: Re: heroine worship MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit david bromige wrote: > But up until then, Rachel, wouldnt you say that he made something > good out of his devotions to some writers living and dead ? O absolutely, yes. Some of his devotions became my devotions--much to the fury of my father, a Jew who fought in Patton's army. He tried to take Pound off my shelves many years ago (but failed). I forgave him a little when I heard snippets of EP's broadcasts : "A hundred yids should die for every Fascist that falls..." But no, just couldn't resist the bit of business you'd so beautifully set up-- Rachel ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 18:48:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Queries In-Reply-To: <3575DA64.859C3234@concentric.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Does anyone have addresses (of any variety) for: Karen Kelley Mary Carol Randall Jena Tarleton Catherine Draycott Meredith Quartermain ??? Thanks, Katy Lederer ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 18:20:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: vintage fin-de-siecle cheesecloth MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit William Burmeister Prod wrote: > What do listcitizens think of (if anything) the later noir films of David > Lynch/surrealism as this relates to recent threads on "flatness," 'specially > with regard to flattened female figuretypes? > Not exactly the answer, but related: Watched Greenaway's "Pillow Book" last night. Exquisite film. And I thought of the recent list-response to the Nikuko poems. Greenaway certainly flirts with steroetypes, though not, I think, Asian-female stereotypes so much as artsy-bohemian stereotypes. Also re: the recent talk about repetition as stabilizing/destabilizing. There is a repeated image of the protagonist's father writing calligraphic messages on her face as a birthday ritual. She goes on to search for someone to write on/be written on by her. I am usually annoyed by repetition, and was slightly irritated with it at first, but by 3/4s of the way through was waiting to see this scene again, in its variety of playings-out with various lovers/acquaintances. She even tried writing on herself. And the physical beauty of the calligraphic process makes you want to throw away your keyboard & write with big fat brushes on textured surfaces. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 18:19:20 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: adoramus (re : Jordan's post) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" where would Homer be if he was afraid of performing, reading the braille on Martial's tombstone? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 19:31:47 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: the analyisis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "The analysis of the formal constituents of science is supposed to show what logic is. History, however, is concerned with the sciences only as 'concrete cultural products of a time', and not as such with the thought functions which have sedimented in the sciences. How these functions have been formed in the operation between objective ans sujective moments, and what the precipitate of their analysis may be, all remains outside the cautious line of demarcation of scientific 'regions'."---from Against Epistemology by Theodor Adorno---cp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 21:35:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: re : bombs opening like flowers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks to Jerome Rothenberg for the attribution of the above to Musso's son. I had read, son-in-law (namely, Ciano), but can't now find where, nor why I think Ciano was quoting d'Annunzio. I've been through the index of the Carpenter _A Serious Character_ . If I could find my _Pound Era_ . . .I have a hunch it might be there. My attention was caught by the phrase "pitifully unarmed" in Jerry's note. Not at all out of place in a letter, indicating as it does (to my mind, leastwise) some attempt to distance oneself, by way of sympathy with the underdogs, from the image; some attempt, surely, to be careful of one's self-presentation. But how out of place it would be in a poem next to that image! For what difference if the Ethiopians had been armed to the teeth? Or if instead of Ethiopians, they had been Nazis? Or children in a wheelchair parade through Columbus, Ohio on July 4th? It would still be a matter of people being torn limb from limb by high explosive. For all I know, the line in context may have some such slanting. But as I have come to know it, it is pure. It neither condemns nor justifies the act. For what difference if it did ? So liberated, it allows us to contemplate a number of equivalences : that flowers open like slowly exploding bombs; that any other form of being which poets have compared to flowers, may be a form of violence and destruction; that _opening_ and _death_ can be synonymous; that human "flowerings" may destroy; that language, freed of obligations to presentation of self ("I'm a mensch"), can still reveal secrets of phenomena and sentience. However, it would make a difference to learn that it described an event in an uninhabited part of the Sahara. And yet the effect being described would be, qua phenomenon, the same. David ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 09:08:14 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: adoramus (re : Jordan's post) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit on TV like the rest! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 09:08:30 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: adoramus (re : Jordan's post) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Billy Little wrote: > > where would Homer be if he was afraid of performing, reading the braille on > Martial's tombstone? on TV like the rest ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 22:15:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Poets Theater in San Francisco, round 10 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =46rom Kevin Killian--yes, the very one who was in the article in the SF Examiner! (Thanks everyone, I am still blushing.) If you're in San =46rancisco, this Friday night, June 5 please come to see my play, "THAT," a= t New College Theater, 777 Valencia Street, at 7:30 p.m. Doors will open between 7 and 7:15. The admission is $5 to $10, sliding scale, and this is a benefit for Small Press Traffic. Seating is first come first served. Here's the story: Edmund Berrigan, Norma Cole, Margaret Crane, Kota Ezawa, Phoebe Gloeckner, Clifford Hengst, Scott Hewicker, Kevin Killian, Nathen Lever, Karla Milosevich, Rex Ray, Leslie Scalapino, and Wayne Smith in "THAT." A missing boy, Kevin Killian, pursued by his own Javertian father through the sewers of San Francisco . . . A bisexual couple, Paul and Jane Bowles, dare to preserve a bisexual universe against which to stage their melodramas of addiction and obsession--to bike messengers . . . =B3Spoke by spoke, I mean to make him mine!=B2 . . . A tormented policeman . . . no, two =2E . . a drug-addled heiress . . . the visionary poet Hannah Weiner . . . the nut maudit, Alfred Chester . . . lead the fight against the gentrification of San Francisco=B9s leading bohemian refuge, the Sears Building, against greedy slumlords and their enigmatic siren slash granddaughter Sara Sears. First staged in 1988, then again in 1993, this is its tenth year revival and my very first play I ever wrote. Most of you have probably already starred in other productions of it, yikes! But this time we have made it into a rock opera, with live music on stage by Plane (Hengst, Hewicker, Ray, Smith). You have lived until you hear Scalapino belt out "The Merry Widow Waltz" (music Franz Lehar, lyric, K. Killian) backed by this acid rock post rock art ensemble of the deep Mission, it is going to burn your ears off! And many other numbers. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 00:38:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Imagination in danger from religious right In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" According to an editor at McGraw-Hill, >> who did not want to be identified, "We were told to try to avoid using >> the word 'imagine' because the people in Texas felt it was too close to >> the word 'magic' and therefore might be considered anti-Christian This is another hoax, isnt it? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 00:59:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: odoramus, Pater omnipotens In-Reply-To: <35759D89.4B6C0628@concentric.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >David Bromige typed: > >> EP wrote that the study of literature is hero worship. In my only conversation ever with EP's daughter, (I was embarrassed when introduced because I had a very mustardy hotdog in either hand) she said that he was very much into heroes, or the great man, theory or no, and she thought that had he kept on he would have admired Mao. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 16:01:06 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: re : bombs opening like flowers In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I have no appropriate reference books at hand and am no specialist on Italian literature or culture (though I can tell you where to get decent Italian food here in Taipei) but my recollection is that the bombs opening like flowers was a paraphrase of a remark by one of the Italian futurists, not Gino Severini but the other one, maybe the one that had an affair with Mina Loy? but not, I think, d'Annunzio, who (again, from profound ignorance) was not a futurist if I remember correctly which I probably do not. enough or is it basta? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 02:10:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: george bowering's hot dogs Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" covered with mustard--covered with imagination no doubt. In *either* hand? Why not rent a wheelbarrow? I heard she was goodlookin'. The only famous person I ever met is George Bowering. I had a pen in either hand. They were covered with fingers. And they were covered with ink. I offered to shake but he sd "I dont like the black caviar, bring me the pink." DB3 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 06:47:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: the analysis: [future historiography as an empirical science] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"The analysis of the formal constituents of science is supposed to show >what logic is. History, however, is concerned with the sciences only as >'concrete cultural products of a time', and not as such with the thought >functions which have sedimented in the sciences. How these functions >have been formed in the operation between objective ans sujective >moments, and what the precipitate of their analysis may be, all remains >outside the cautious line of demarcation of scientific >'regions'."---from Against Epistemology by Theodor Adorno---cp History is no different than "literary criticism" that attempts to discern and prove the influences that went into the process of production. It is far from limited to the final product of that process. That, in the study of literary history, as in the study of the history of science, attempts to discern how process and form of product reveal the thought processes and their changing over a period of time. There is a distinct overlap between the study of the two kinds of history, in that both concern themselves with the larger situation around any more specific instance of subject matter, and both concern themselves with the ideological underpinnings that are affective and effective in relation to the product. We attempt to see how human thought processes evolved, from the artifacts they produced. Returning to our theme of prognostication, that is a limitation that will eventually be more and more overcome, as more and more of the thought processes connected to specific artifacts become more precisely known. That eventually exceeds a purely logical analysis, of deductive and inductive reasoning, and becomes more empirical. This has to do with the virtual interconnections of events, that remain technically legible, even when the cause-effect connections of traditional empirical observation have long been broken. The trace, or ghost, of the past, then becomes discernable. There is information content coded onto the artifacts, and that trail leads to other artifacts. The interconnected trails can be "read" and meaningfully interpreted. The event at the crossroads, a hundred years ago, leaves its trace, and we might read that trace as though a crucial part of history is replayed as if on a tape recorder. The information is there, and sometimes glimpsed momentarily by particularly sensitive passers-by, and it is that very haunting of place that gives us the clue as to the encoded virtual record attached to artifact of past event. The trail is connected to and carried along, with the quantum histories of the artifact itself, and with the past connections any discernable artifact has with other artifacts. Slowly the study of history will change from an imprecise humanity, full of conjecture and subjectivity, to a more purely technical, empirical, science. It is not as simple as every past quantum event being accessible, but we have yet to learn the rules governing access to quantum histories. Eventually that will unravel more and more completely and comprehension of what was once termed "the unseen world", will extend from comprehension of the virtual phenomenon of gravity to the subtle encoding of quantum mind events onto non mind artifacts. Reading the virtual world will no longer be solely the function of organic systems, known as "psychics", but will be the function of inorganic machines, increasingly precise in comparison to those traditional human imprecisions. The most profound intuitions of the best, most sensitive, historians, irreducible to logic, will also become the increasingly precise functions of the newest waves of our technologies. History, as a subject of study, as we know it, in terms of its methods, will eventually end. It is certain that it will be replaced by an empirical, and thus increasingly precise, science that is based upon technologies that are derivative from natural processes that were previously only exploited, albeit very imprecisely, by the occult. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 07:07:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: mythology: [sudden inspiration and jungle sense] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >These steps. A state of unknowing, a suspension of the cognitive, >wherein the cognitive as such, knowing as such, remains the modality, >the way of holding oneself, etc. Not so much a cloud of unknowing, but a >suspension of assertoric grasping. Yet the discovery that you might call >it the will-to-know remains. Staying with that. And persuing the >discovery. Poetic utterance, mythic material, emregent possibilities of >discourse, to get it out, to get it said, what sits on the edge of what >can be said,--not an abandonment of articulation, but articulation at >the liminal edge of knowing. That this is a source of creative >involvement. That it is for me, anyway. That its relevance is parallel >various techno-issues but not identical with them I think what you are referring to has a close connection with the difference between the intuitive and the purely empirical, distinct from the difference between the logical and the empirical, that I loosely referred to in my reply to Gancie's most recent quote re: "analysis". I do not think you and I are so very far apart in our viewpoints. Thanks, for the detailed response. The sitting and waiting for the right words or the unknown but sought after idea, to suddenly come to mind, from the subconscious, is something familiar to most writers. It is, however, hard to describe as to what that process is. The process seems largely inaccessible. Therein the problem that you seem to be wrestling with. It is interesting to note that the mind can be taught to sublimate out of consciousness an idea or ideas, and to deliberately hold within the subconscious and/or to work upon those ideas purely within the subconscious, such that later on the end product that was sought is 'automatically' produced as something completed. Either the original information embedded into the subconscious can be called forth and repeated, or the original idea evolved into a more complete and finished product. Believe it or not, that sublimation of ideas, into the minds of couriers of commands and intelligence is not a new phenomenon. Which tells you how "psychics" attempted to "read" the minds of couriers of sensitive information in the quite distant past, while the specially trained couriers of that data attempted to protect it. That occultism goes far back into ancient times. It is my theory that sensitives were more prevalent then. In fact it is my own theory as to how the architect, in ancient Egypt, was able to coordinate the building colossal and extremely precise structures using a vast workforce, and only extremely limited methods of commensuration. Also sometimes referred to as primitive jungle sense. People who know other non human species, such as horses, particularly well, know that they sometimes have it. They sense it, being more instinctively connected with the unseen, virtual, world. (Virtual in the superluminal modern quantum physics sense of "virtual".) M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 17:44:30 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: Poets Theater in San Francisco, round 10 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Kevin: the lost angels need a road show here in the too sun drenched el nino yrs, tb ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 06:45:00 -0700 Reply-To: arenal@bc.sympatico.ca Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wolsak Organization: Arenal Resorts Subject: Re: Rain Taxi , Vol. 3 No. 2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Gary Sullivan wrote: > > Hello, everyone: > > The latest Rain Taxi features interviews with Nicholson Baker (by Eric > Lorberer) and Jill Johnston (by E.J. Levy), meditations on the poetry of Gerald > Burns (by yours truly) and the prose of Bruno Schulz (by John S. Beckmann), > "The State of Hypertext," by David Auerbach, an overview of AK Press (by Paul > Dickson and Carolyn Kuebler), Richard Kostelanetz on Moholy-Nagy, good-sized > reviews of Kevin Killian & Lewis Ellingham's Poet Be Like God and Peter Gizzi's > The House that Jack Built (by Chris Fischbach), Norah Labiner's Our Sometime > Sister (by Carolyn Kuebler), The Best of William Burroughs from Giorno Poetry > Systems (by Peter Kuyper), Collected Works of Velimir Khlebnikov (by Greg > Bachar), Derrida & Thevenin's The Secret Art of Antonin Artaud (by Eric > Lorberer), shorter reviews of new books by Nathalie Sarraute, Jeff Clark, John > Ashbery, Nuriddin Farah, Sara Chin, Julian Rios, William Bronk, and the latest > in my serialized cartoon, "The New Life" . . . as well as many, many other > reviews & pieces . . . available free in bookstores soon . . . or, by > subscription from the publishers: Rain Taxi, Inc., P.O. Box 3840, Minneapolis, > MN 55403 (one year: $10, domestic; $20 international) . . . or, free from yours > truly by e-mailing me your snail mail address . . . > > Okay, thanks, bye > > Gary Sullivan > gps12@columbia.edu Gary, I would love one of these, thank you. Also thanks for your many super-lucent posts! Melissa Wolsak #1106-510 West Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V6B 1L8 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 10:09:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Whyte Subject: Re: the analysis: [future historiography as an empirical science] In-Reply-To: <199806041047.GAA29612@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, morpheal wrote: > broken. The trace, or ghost, of the past, then becomes discernable. There is > information content coded onto the artifacts, and that trail leads to other > artifacts. The interconnected trails can be "read" and meaningfully > interpreted. The event at the crossroads, a hundred years ago, leaves its > trace, and we might read that trace as though a crucial part of history is > replayed as if on a tape recorder. The information is there, and sometimes [...] > Slowly the study of history will change from an imprecise humanity, full of > conjecture and subjectivity, to a more purely technical, empirical, science. > Creepy, here, that the myth of a perfect, a transparent history - which would presume to restore what has been thought, to locate a "genesis" and "play it back" as if on a tape recorder - is championed via a technology fetish and general mathesis of the real. Creepy, that this presumes to make the "artifact" eternal; as if a poem remains the same from one reading to the next. Ryan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 09:37:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: hyperbolic blurbs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Of course the language of blurbs is hyperbolic--tremendously, extremely, superb, amazing, the best, the brightest. It is a form of advertising. A strictly honest blurb would sound like faint praise indeed: "Jonathan Mayhew is probably the 10th best poet is Lawrence, Kansas." Not that there aren't a lot of amazing writers wholly deserving of their blurbs. Which brings me to John Matthias. I'm planning on getting his books from the library later today, but I'm puzzled by why he has never come to my attention before. What invisible divisions in the poetry universe keep him out of anthologies and off the radar screens of otherwise informed readers such as myself, if he is as good as they say? Now I feel ignorant once again. Jonathan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 09:46:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Felix Subject: LVNGs! LVNGs! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" LVNG 7 is now available and includes Nathaniel Mackey's Song of the Ondomboulou: 26, fiction from Lynne Tillman which I read 30 times in the layout of the mag and still can't believe how good it is, Will Alexander in full-froth, tasty poems from Kristin Prevallet, Peter Cole live via satellite from time-crossed Israel, Michael Anania on the suspicious "missing matter" theory of the accelerationg universe, and, well, my commas are running out. Lots More! It's about more than just names, isn't it? We got unknowns! A fine investment opportunity! The venture capitalist's dream! The magazine is free, but please send 3 dollars for postage in a check made out to Michael O'Leary. Our address is P.O. box 3865 Chicago, Illinois 60654-0865 thanks, Joel Felix ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 11:35:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: seeking contact info Comments: To: Poetics List MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Seeking contact info, e- or otherwise, for Rachel Blau du Plessis and Barbara Guest. Kindly, fellow poeticists, backchannel to gmcvay1@osf1.gmu.edu and/or gmcvay@patriot.net thx--bests--Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 10:32:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: re : bombs opening like flowers Comments: To: david bromige MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Thank you, David, for a marvelous reading of this antique Futuristic line, with its Shiva-like connotations of ironic rejuvenation. The only famous person I've ever met, I should tell the List, was David Bromige, who seized the occasion to hand me a tape recorder. We talked all night and afterwards the tape was empty - nothing but that familiar sibiliant hissing of not-so vacant space. I can testify, however, that Bromige was able to connect far more than Karl Malone, who flowered the net with empty bombs. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 10:17:41 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barbara Langhorst Subject: Re: Imagination in danger: "the facts" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ...Raised in a Canadian Mennonite community, Di Brandt writes about the injunctions against imagination--and how ironic it seemed to her that she was expected to believe that Jonah survived three days in the whale but that "writing" (which was discouraged anyway) was forbidden if it wasn't "factual" (_Dancing Naked_). I've had (Christian but non-Mennonite) students express real distress when asked to embellish or invent a lifestory... a hoax then, but widely spread Barb At 12:38 AM 04/06/98 -0700, you wrote: > According to an editor at McGraw-Hill, >>> who did not want to be identified, "We were told to try to avoid using >>> the word 'imagine' because the people in Texas felt it was too close to >>> the word 'magic' and therefore might be considered anti-Christian > >This is another hoax, isnt it? > > > > >George Bowering. > , >2499 West 37th Ave., >Vancouver, B.C., >Canada V6M 1P4 > >fax: 1-604-266-9000 > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 09:27:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: Poets Theater in San Francisco, round 10 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Wish I could get to Kevin's play -- but liked this probable typo in the announcement of it nevertheless . . . > You have lived until you hear Scalapino > belt out "The Merry Widow Waltz" (music Franz Lehar, lyric, K. > Killian) > backed by this acid rock post rock art ensemble of the deep Mission, > it is > going to burn your ears off! > A nice concept! Raising, of course, the question -- what will we be like AFTER we hear Leslie sing? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 09:37:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: poets theater in s f Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" kevin killian : kenneth branagh ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 10:29:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Balestrieri Subject: Rochelle Owens/Quo Vadis? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To Joseph Safdie, In response to your post, let me say that I agree with you in your description and admiration for Rochelle Owens' _New and Collected Work_ from Junction Press. I do not, as I stated in my original post on this, agree with the way the work was described on the List or on the book's back cover. I had heard of Rochelle Owens but had not read her. Then her name came up in a discussion of "rants." Her work was described as "savage." This made me curious and I decided to read some of her work. I wanted especially to see what "rant" and "savage" meant to other people/poets. I asked for recommendations and received many. Mark Weiss was kind enough to reply and send me a copy(Mark, I am grateful, though we disagree about the blurbs). I had specifically asked Mark if _New and Collected_ contained "wild" work because of the reasons I just stated. He thought so and sent me a sample. "Wild" isn't my idea of a "criteria for poetic excellence"(your phrase). It was the word I used to describe the way Owens' work had been endorsed on the List. I don't think anything would be accomplished, either here or via backchannel, by comparing different poems and saying, "see, that is (or isn't) 'wild.'" Do you agree with Marjorie Perloff's blurb (and the Olson review posted by Mark Weiss) that the work is "savage"? I find the word "savage" problematic for its ethnographic invocation of the primitive as I do your use of the phrase "poetic excellence" for its pretensions to universality. Ultimately, all these considerations amount to matters of taste. Criticizing Owens was not the point of my post; it was to draw attention to the fact that there are consistent postings to the List that seem very provincial considering the avowed purpose of the List. The recent flap over "borrowing," "appropriation" or "stealing" (whichever term you prefer) is a good example. Why shouldn't poets be as free as visual artists to "steal"? Why the aversion to found texts and everyday or techno forms? The "older definition of avant-garde work, one that is increasingly codified and canonized" that I wrote about is the historical tendency towards enshrining the difficult work of the past as the new canon while more recent difficult work goes relatively unnoticed. I believe we should resist that tendency as strenuously as possible by acknowledging important work from every period but staying focused on work and trends that are developing now. This is only my opinion. It's what I'd like to see more of on the List. I appreciate your response to my post. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 10:50:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: Fwd: helping the NEA Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >X-Sender: fhowe@popmail.ucsd.edu >Date: Thu, 04 Jun 1998 07:27:21 >To: howelit-l@ucsd.edu >From: Fanny Howe >Subject: Re: Fwd: helping the NEA >Cc: 102115.1475@compuserve.com >Mime-Version: 1.0 > >At 12:52 AM 6/4/98 EDT, you wrote: >>Return-Path: >>Received: from relay23.mx.aol.com (relay23.mail.aol.com [172.31.106.69]) by >> air06.mail.aol.com (v43.25) with SMTP; Wed, 03 Jun 1998 11:24:41 >> -0400 >>Received: from mail2.sirius.com (mail2.sirius.com [205.134.253.132]) >> by relay23.mx.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) >> with ESMTP id LAA16631; >> Wed, 3 Jun 1998 11:24:39 -0400 (EDT) >>Received: from ernestine.smwm.com ([207.44.205.4]) >> by mail2.sirius.com (8.8.7/Sirius-8.8.7-97.08.12) with ESMTP id >>IAA05284; >> Wed, 3 Jun 1998 08:24:35 -0700 (PDT) >>Received: from [205.134.227.32] (ppp-asft01--032.sirius.net [205.134.227.32]) >> by ernestine.smwm.com with SMTP (Microsoft Exchange Internet Mail >> Service Version 5.5.1960.3) >> id L5YV18BJ; Wed, 3 Jun 1998 08:22:55 -0700 >>X-Sender: cathy@207.44.205.4 >>Message-Id: >>Date: Wed, 3 Jun 1998 08:27:07 +0100 >>To: jcharwat@aol.com, ameyer@CAST.org, 101367.1402@CompuServe.COM, >> Ludmillaj@aol.com, drj2000@concentric.net, alyosha@smwm.com, >> Fqhowe@aol.com, fougeron@slip.net, mckeen@smwm.com, bondy@smwm.com, >> dan@smwm.con, long@smwm.com, partners@smwm.com, linda@smwm.com >>From: cathy@smwm.com (Cathy Simon) >>Subject: helping the NEA >>Mime-Version: 1.0 >>Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII >>Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit >> >>>Date: Fri, 29 May 1998 10:10:52 -0400 >>>From: William Saunders >>>Reply-To: saunders@mars.gsd.harvard.edu >>>Organization: Harvard GSD >>>MIME-Version: 1.0 >>>To: "\"lamster, mark\"" , >>> "abrams, janet" , >>> "wigley, mark" , >>> "whiting, sarah" , >>> "vidler, tony" , >>> "VONHOFFMAN, ALEX" , >>> "stockard, jim" , >>> "vera, jane" , >>> "vaughn, melissa" , >>> "Truslow, Miriam" , >>> "trieb, marc" , >>> "sommer, richard" , >>> "speaks, michael" , >>> "SOLNIT, REBECCA" , >>> "Sekler, Eduard" , >>> "simon, cathy" , >>> "sennett, richard" , >>> "Schwartz, Martha" , >>> "schneider, john" , >>> "reiter, duke" , "rosa, joseph" , >>> "Rorty, Richard" <72377.2377@Compuserve.Com>, >>> "MCCURRY, MARGARET" , >>> "ponce de leon, monica" , >>> "reeve, margie" , >>> "pedret, annie" , >>> "plattus, alan" , >>> "owen, graham" , >>> "Ostergard, Derek" , >>> Jan Abrams , >>> "mulligan, mark" , >>> "Mori, Toshiko" , >>> "mcmurray, kelly" , >>> "Machado, Rodolfo" , >>> "Mccullough, Malcolm" , >>> Marc Treib , >>> "lippert, kevin" , >>> "loomis, john" , >>> "leet, stephen" , >>> "Leblanc, Jude" , >>> "ksiazek, sarah" , >>> "krieger, elliot" , >>> "Krieger, Alex" , >>> "Kaliski, John" , >>> "jacobson, clare" , >>> "Hodge, Brooke" , >>> "huyssen, andreas" , >>> "isenstadt, sandy" , >>> "hubbard, bill" , >>> "Holstein, Lynn" , >>> "green, caroline" , >>> "Hilderbrand, Gary" , >>> "hale, jonathan" , >>> "Heussen, Andreas" , >>> "Herscher, Andrew" , >>> "Hays, K" , >>> "ford, edward" , >>> "gottschang, thomas" , >>> "ghirardo, diane" , >>> "Daniels, Mary" , >>> "Fitzgerald, Richard" , >>> "ferris, roger" , >>> "fisher, tom" , >>> "Fields, Darell" , >>> "El-khoury, Rodolphe" , >>> eck jeremiah , >>> "Driscoll, John" , >>> "eames, demetrios" , >>> "diskin, steve" , >>> "disponz,j" , >>> "dimendberg, ed" , >>> "corner, james" , >>> "davis, mike" , >>> "crawford, margaret" , >>> "Crissman, James" , >>> "Cott, Leland" , >>> "Colquhoun, Alan" , >>> "connah, roger" , >>> "brown, rick" , >>> "colomina, beatriz" , >>> "Cohen, Preston" , >>> "campbell, robert" , >>> "Burns, Carol" , >>> "Bender, Thomas" , >>> "broderick, jim" , >>> "bognar, botand" , >>> "Berrizbeitia, Anita" , >>> "Blau, Eve" , >>> "beardsley, John" , >>> "benedikt, michael" , >>> "ANTONELLI, PAOLA" , >>> "Baird, George" >>>Subject: helping the NEA >>>X-Priority: 3 (Normal) >>> >>>Subject: NEA Petition >>>RE: National Endowment for the Arts, NPR, PBS Petition >>> >>>This petition is being passed around the internet. Please add your >>>name to it so that funding can be maintained for the NEA, NPR & PBS. >>> >>>Please keep this petition rolling. DO NOT REPLY TO ME. Please sign at >>>the bottom and forward to others to sign. If you prefer not to sign >>>please >>>send to the e-mail address indicated. Thanks. >>> >>>Here goes: >>> >>>>> This is being forwarded to several people at once to add their names >>>>> to the petition. It won't matter if many people receive the same >>>list >>>>> as the names are being managed. >>>>> >>>>> This is for anyone who thinks NPR/PBS is a worthwhile expenditure of >>>>> $1.12/year of their taxes, a petition follows. If you sign, please >>>>> forward on to others (not back to me). If not, please don't kill >>>>> it-send it to the email address listed here: wein2688@blue.univn >>>PBS, >>>>> >>>>> NPR (National Public Radio), and the arts are facing major cutbacks >>>in >>>>> funding. In spite of the efforts of each station to reduce spending >>>>> costs and streamline their services, some government officials >>>believe >>>>> that the funding currently going to these programs is too large a >>>portion of >>>>> funding for something which is seen as not worthwhile. >>>Currently,taxes >>>>> from the general public for PBS equal $1.12 per person per year, and >>>the >>>>> National Endowment for the Arts equals $0.64 a year. >>>>> >>>>> A January 1995 CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll indicated that 76% of >>>>> Americans wish to keep funding for PBS, this percentage of people >>>polled >>>>> is surpassed only by national defense and law enforcement as the >>>programs >>>>> that are the most valuable for federal funding. >>>>> >>>>> Each year, the Senate and House Appropriations committees each have >>>13 >>>>> subcommittees with jurisdiction over many programs and agencies. Each >>> >>>>> subcommittee passes its own appropriation bill. The goal each year >>>is >>>>> to have each bill signed by the beginning of the fiscal year, which >>>is >>>>> October 1. >>>>> >>>>> The only way that our representatives can be aware of the base of >>>>> support for PBS and funding for these types of programs is by making >>>our >>>>>voices >>>>> heard. >>>>> >>>>> Please add your name to this list and forward it to friends if you >>>>> believe in what we stand for. This list will be forwarded to the >>>>> President of the United States, the Vice President of the United >>>States, and >>>>> Representative Newt Gingrich, who is the instigator of the action to >>>cut >>>>>funding to these worthwhile programs. >>>>> >>>>> *If you happen to be the 150th, 200th, 250th, etc. signer of this >>>>> petition, please forward a copy to: wein2688@blue.univnorthco.edu. >>>>> >>>>> If that address is inoperative, please send it to: >>>>> >>>>> kubi7975@blue.univnorthco.edu. >>>>> >>>>> This way we can keep track of the lists and organize them. >>>>> >>>>> Forward this to everyone you know, and help us to keep these >>>>> programs alive. >>>>> >>>>> Thank you. >>>>> >>>>> -------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> -------------------------------------------------------- >>>>> 416) Arlene Hamilton, Everett, WA >>>>> 417) Irina Rudakova, University of Washington, Seattle, WA >>>>> 418) Persephone Miel, Internews, Moscow, Russia >>>>> 419) Michael J. Mead, New York, NY >>>>> 420) Spiro C. Lampros, New York University, New York, NY >>>>> 421) Kelly Sheehan, Brooklyn, NY >>>>> 422) Henry Kimsey-House, Sebastopol, CA >>>>> 423) Cynthia Loy Darst, Los Angeles, CA >>>>> 424) David Darst, Los Angeles, CA >>>>> 425) Arline Berman, Atlanta, GA >>>>> 426) Laura Davis, Atlanta, GA >>>>> 427) Carole Billingham, Denver, CO >>>>> 428) Sonja M. Hansen, Seattle, WA >>>>> 429) Rebecca Crichton, Seattle, WA >>>>> 430) Cedron Sterling, Seattle, WA >>>>> 431) N'Shama Radha Sterling, Seattle, WA >>>>> 432) Jim Ekberg, Seattle, WA >>>>> 433) Carol Ruth Summers, Seattle, WA >>>>> 434) Ken Jenkins, Novato, CA >>>>> 435) Todd Stock, Los Gatos, CA >>>>> 436) Donald Rose, Los Angeles CA >>>>> 437) Tony Puryear, Venice, CA >>>>> 438) Eric Finke, Venice, CA >>>>> 439) Janet Forman, New York, NY >>>>> 440) Lynda Hansen, NY, NY >>>>> 441) Richard Weise, Nashville, TN >>>>> 442) David Madson, Albany, CA >>>>> 443) Rick Wise, Albany, CA >>>>> 444) Bill Rogers, Mendocino, CA >>>>> 445) Rita Hovakimian, San Francisco, Ca >>>>> 446) Tracy E. Longacre, San Francisco, CA >>>>> 447) Anita G. Barfield, San Francisco, CA >>>>> 448) Penelope M. Warren, San Francisco, CA >>>>> 449) Edward G. Guggenheim, San Francisco, CA >>>>> 450) Thao N. Lam, Riverside, CA >>>>> 451) Antonio Rauti, Riverside, CA >>>>> 452) Carlotta Domeniconi, Riverside, CA >>>>> 453) Stephanie Fonder, Riverside, CA >>>>> 454) Sohail Nadimi, Riverside, CA >>>>> 455) Shirin Etessam, San Francisco, CA >>>>> 456) Jahanshah Javid, Albany, CA >>>>> 457) Haleh Nazeri, NY, NY >>>>> 458) Larry Weissman, NY, NY >>>>> 459) Hilary Herscher >>>>> 460) Shena Patel >>>>> 461) Steven Gutierrez >>>>> 462) Simon Glick >>>>> 463) Michael Gillespie, New York, NY >>>>> 464) Janna Scott, Dallas, TX >>>>> 465) Robert L. Cordell II, New York, NY >>>>> 466) Colleen Theis, New York, NY >>>>> 467) Karen Speer, New York, NY >>>>> 468) James Karn, New York, NY >>>>> 469) Raymur Walton, New York, NY >>>>> 470) Martha Brice Gaillard >>>>> 471) Martha Gary >>>>> 472) Howard Stovall, Memphis, TN >>>>> 473) Pat Mitchell, Memphis, >>>>> 474) Tara McAdams, Memphis, TN >>>>> 475) Robert Gordon, Memphis >>>>> 476)Robert Freed, Richmond, VA >>>>> 477) Babs Jackson, Richmond, VA >>>>> 478) Michael Broyles, State College, PA >>>>> 479) Ruth Silverman, Buffalo Grove, IL >>>>> 480) Karen Primack, Silver Spring, MD >>>>> 481) George Hinds, Takoma Park, MD >>>>> 482 Luc Leplae >>>>> 483 Suzanne Rosenblatt >>>>> 484 Mark J. Fraire, Madison, WI >>>>> 485 Steve Barberio, Hopkins, MN >>>>> 486 Kari Kjome, Minneapolis, MN >>>>> 487 Peter Kjome, Grand Rapids, MI >>>>> 488 Robert Driscoll, Jr., Pittsburgh, PA >>>>> 489 Jonathan J. Dlouhy, Atlanta, GA >>>>> 490 Ronda Respess, Atlanta, GA >>>>> 490 Ronda Respess, Atlanta, GA >>>>> 491 Ann Steck, Alexandria, VA >>>>> 492 De Fischler Herman, Takoma Park, MD >>>>> 493 Naomi Mara Hyman, Stevensville, MD >>>>> 494 Patrice L. Leichter, Philadelphia, PA >>>>> 495 Stuart Bogom, Philadelphia, PA >>>>> 496 Dorel Shannon, Philadelphia, PA >>>>> 497) Sandi Vito >>>>> 498) Lou Freimiller >>>>> 499) Cynthia Waters Spaulding, Philadelphia, PA >>>>> 500) Sheila F. Waters, Gaithersburg, MD >>>>> 501) Aissia L. Richardson, Philadelphia, PA >>>>> 502) E.A. Kafkalas, Allentown, PA >>>>> 503) Shirl Gower, Bethlehem, PA >>>>> 504)Ysaye M. Barnwell, Washington, DC >>>>> 505) Samuel A. Floyd, Jr., Chicago IL >>>>> 506) Anne Dhu McLucas, Eugene, OR >>>>> 507) John Potash, Sioux City, IA >>>>> 508) Nina V. Fedoroff, State College, PA >>>>> 509) Daniel J. Cosgrove, Pennsylvania Furnace, PA >>>>> 510) Lincoln Taiz, Santa Cruz, CA >>>>> 511) Richard Coplon, Santa Cruz, CA >>>>> 512) Clare Greene, Santa Cruz, CA >>>>> 513) Betsy Steele, Santa Cruz, CA >>>>> 514) David Casper, Aptos, CA >>>>> 515) Peggy Casper, Aptos, CA >>>>> 516) Joe Choromanski, Pacfic Grove, CA >>>>> 517) Bruce Upton, Pacific Grove,CA >>>>> 518) Lisa Uttal, Monterey, Ca >>>>> 519) Gretchen Daily, Stanford, CA >>>>> 520)Claire Kremen, Stanford, CA >>>>> 521) Adam Kremen, Oakland, CA >>>>> 522) Jack Block, El Cerrito, CA >>>>> 523) Susan Block, Cambridge Ma >>>>> 524) Robert Burt, New Haven, CT >>>>> 525) Elise Snyder, New Haven, CT >>>>> 526) Melvyn B. schupack, MD, Mill Valley, CA >>>>> 527) Joel Saldinger, MD,Berkeley, CA >>>>> 528) Barbara J. Weiss, Oakland, CA >>>>> 529) Irving Kermish, Oakland, CA >>>>> 530) Neal Weinstock, Brooklyn, NY >>>>> 531) Audrey Korelstein, Brooklyn, NY >>>>> 532) Jim Macnie, Brooklyn, NY >>>>> 533) Barbara Longo, Watertown, MA >>>> >>>>534) Marie countryman, Montpelier VT >>>>535) Brandon Landis, Portland, OR >>>>536) Katye Hindman, Portland, OR >>>>537) Jamie Tolbert, Los Angeles, CA >>>>538) P. David Ebersole, Silver Lake, CA >>>>539) Todd Hughes, Silver Lake, CA >>>540) Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Hamden, CT >>>541) Rudy VanderLans, Berkeley, CA >>>542) Paola Antonelli, New York, NY >>>543) Cathy Lang Ho, Berkeley, CA >>>544) Richard Ingersoll, Berkeley, CA >>>545) William Saunders, Newton, MA >>>>546) Cathy Simon, San Francisco >>547) Michael Palmer, San Francisco >>548> Fanny Howe, Los Angeles, CA >>549> Stephen Cope, San Diego, CA >> >> >> > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 13:52:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard Long Subject: Summer Issue of _The 2River View_ In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/enriched; charset="us-ascii" Hi Ya'll, It's not feeling like summer here in Buffalo; nonetheless, it's time for the summer issue of _The 2River View_. My apologies about the mass mailing. Nonetheless, This Summer issue has new poems by Salvatore Amico M. Buttaci, Larry Griffin, Michael Largo, billy little, Holly Pettit, Jim Sherry, Neca Stoller, Glenda Zumwalt, Peter Siedleck, and Robert Creeley (with images by Robert Indiana). You can read _The 2RV_ by going to http://www.daemen.edu/~2River and clicking on CURRENT ISSUE If you have any comments (good, bad, or ugly), I'd like to hear them. Richard Long Richard Long 2River Poetry 2River@helman.daemen.edu http://www.daemen.edu/~2River ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 12:04:59 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Objects and Torque (not physics) query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT anyone out there have info on the east-coast zines: - Objects (Robert Fitterman?) - Torque (??) checkt the Mags section @ the EPC but to no avail. contact/subscr. info wld be much apprec. thx 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/ **site temporarily unavailable** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 11:29:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Jeff Derksen directory assistance Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi this is Dodie. If anybody has Jeff Derksen's e-mail or phone number and could back channel it to me I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 11:28:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Rochelle Owens/Quo Vadis? In-Reply-To: <002E6C35.1826@intuit.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I had hoped to stimulate a discussion of Rochelle Owens'rather unusual work. This apparently is not to be. So, for the record, the words "wild" and "savage" have the same ethnographic and neocolonialist connotations, are equally problematic, if one wishes to read them that way (in French the word "sauvage" covers both meanings. We derive our word from the French, and until very recently, as the history of words goes, it was synonymous with the germanic-derived "wild." Hence, "the wild man of Borneo." Hence, also, the practice of "wilding," which I think could fairly be called savage in another of the word's senses). I haven't noticed any general aversion to appropriation, or found texts, or "techno forms" on this list--quite the contrary--although there has been disagreement about some texts. I, for example, don't particularly like Alan Sondheim's work, for instance, but I don't blame the machine or the machinery. (Appropriation will always be a tricky issue--is it, in a given instance, homage or plagiarism? That seems to depend on one's sense of its function in the work at hand. Consider this--in the early eighties in New York there were several artists--those with better memories than mine can supply names--who painted museum copies of old masters, retitled them, and exhibited them as their own, not meaning to deceive, but to comment on the cannonical nature of the works in question. This generated some noise. I, for one, thought it a waste of time, unlike, say, Colescott's appropriations, where the familiar and the unfamiliar comment on each other, usually to hilarious effect, as in his "George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware.") It is in the nature of a selected poems that it tends to consist of older work (this book includes the dates of original publication in its title). Rochelle is in her 60s. We rarely sum up the work-to-date of poets in their twenties or thirties in this manner unless they're dead, or unless we're joking. I'm sorry Rochelle's poetry didn't meet your needs. Other members of the list might find it useful, exciting, even "wild." It does seem a waste of their time to discuss what it isn't before discussing what it is. At 10:29 AM 6/4/98 -0700, you wrote: > To Joseph Safdie, > > In response to your post, let me say that I agree with you in your > description and admiration for Rochelle Owens' _New and Collected Work_ > from Junction Press. I do not, as I stated in my original post on > this, agree with the way the work was described on the List or on the > book's back cover. I had heard of Rochelle Owens but had not read her. > Then her name came up in a discussion of "rants." Her work was > described as "savage." This made me curious and I decided to read some > of her work. I wanted especially to see what "rant" and "savage" meant > to other people/poets. I asked for recommendations and received many. > Mark Weiss was kind enough to reply and send me a copy(Mark, I am > grateful, though we disagree about the blurbs). I had specifically > asked Mark if _New and Collected_ contained "wild" work because of the > reasons I just stated. He thought so and sent me a sample. "Wild" isn't > my idea of a "criteria for poetic excellence"(your phrase). It was the > word I used to describe the way Owens' work had been endorsed on the > List. > > I don't think anything would be accomplished, either here or via > backchannel, by comparing different poems and saying, "see, that is > (or isn't) 'wild.'" Do you agree with Marjorie Perloff's blurb (and > the Olson review posted by Mark Weiss) that the work is "savage"? I > find the word "savage" problematic for its ethnographic invocation of > the primitive as I do your use of the phrase "poetic excellence" for > its pretensions to universality. Ultimately, all these considerations > amount to matters of taste. > > Criticizing Owens was not the point of my post; it was to draw > attention to the fact that there are consistent postings to the List > that seem very provincial considering the avowed purpose of the List. > The recent flap over "borrowing," "appropriation" or "stealing" > (whichever term you prefer) is a good example. Why shouldn't poets be > as free as visual artists to "steal"? Why the aversion to found texts > and everyday or techno forms? The "older definition of avant-garde > work, one that is increasingly codified and canonized" that I wrote > about is the historical tendency towards enshrining the difficult work > of the past as the new canon while more recent difficult work goes > relatively unnoticed. I believe we should resist that tendency as > strenuously as possible by acknowledging important work from every > period but staying focused on work and trends that are developing now. > This is only my opinion. It's what I'd like to see more of on the > List. I appreciate your response to my post. > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 14:38:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: Fwd: helping the NEA I would really appriciate it if people could not send these on; if you feel you have some urgent political cause, then make a web page. By the time you figure out how much money was spent storing and passing on a petition (when you could probably get an order of magnitude more signatures by canvassing a campus), you realize that it's not really helping anybody. This goes for "virus alerts" too, which are almost always hoaxes a la Dawkins' memes. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 14:44:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: APOLOGIES TO RON SILLIMAN In-Reply-To: <9806041838.AA00154@nevis.naic.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII So, last night, at St. Marks group reading church for anthologies I arrive early to assuage nervousness in drink and am standing at urinal stall talking about the weather to a man in a green shirt who "looks familiar" but i can't place the context.... anyway, he stays for 90% of the reading, and then as he leaves I realize he looks like ROn Silliman. I ask Drew Gardiner. It was Ron Silliman. Thanks for coming Ron Silliman, and apologies..........chris ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 15:09:16 -0400 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: vintage fin-de-siecle cheesecloth In-Reply-To: Karen Kelley "Re: vintage fin-de-siecle cheesecloth" (Jun 3, 6:20pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Jun 3, 6:20pm, Karen Kelley wrote: > Subject: Re: vintage fin-de-siecle cheesecloth > William Burmeister Prod wrote: > > > > What do listcitizens think of (if anything) the later noir films of David > > Lynch/surrealism as this relates to recent threads on "flatness," 'specially > > with regard to flattened female figuretypes? > > > > Not exactly the answer, but related: Watched Greenaway's "Pillow Book" last night. > Exquisite film. And I thought of the recent list-response to the Nikuko poems. > Greenaway certainly flirts with steroetypes, though not, I think, Asian-female > stereotypes so much as artsy-bohemian stereotypes. Also re: the recent talk about > repetition as stabilizing/destabilizing. Better: thanks for the recommendation! I've heard nothing but good about this film on this list. I need to get off my ass and see "Pillow Book" for myself. Was thinking of "Lost Highway" because of its own flatttened female object of desire, the enigmatic Patricia Arquette character, which is certainly characteristic (though not necessarily *bad*) of surrealist lit and film (same as in Louis Bunuel's "that obscure object of desire"). In lockstep with a repetitious destiny, she was not the hero ever in the film--that was the Walter Mitty turned maudit fugitive in the Bill Pullman character. Maybe there was something there of the Freudian death wish on the part of the maudit (or maudit wannabe). William being repetitious ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 14:11:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: APOLOGIES TO RON SILLIMAN Comments: To: louis stroffolino MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain I am curious to know whether this conversation was conducted along the lines of the infamous "urinal law" referred to in one of Ron's poems - I forget which one - the law that states whenever possible, men will leave at least one empty urinal between themselves and their fellows. I'd never thought about this before reading that. Now, I can't think of anything but whenever I enter a public restroom. And to think my professors tell me that poetry is dying out, Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: louis stroffolino To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: APOLOGIES TO RON SILLIMAN Date: Thursday, June 04, 1998 1:44PM So, last night, at St. Marks group reading church for anthologies I arrive early to assuage nervousness in drink and am standing at urinal stall talking about the weather to a man in a green shirt who "looks familiar" but i can't place the context.... anyway, he stays for 90% of the reading, and then as he leaves I realize he looks like ROn Silliman. I ask Drew Gardiner. It was Ron Silliman. Thanks for coming Ron Silliman, and apologies..........chris ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 15:56:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Kelleher Subject: a l y r i c m a i l e r 6 Comments: To: core-l MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Poets and Friends

a l y r i c m a i l e r 6

_Overture_

by Stephen Mounkhall

is up and running at

http://writing.upenn.edu/spc/alyric

Stephen Mounkhall's poems have appeared in No Roses Review, Mudfish, American Letters and Commentary et al. He lives in the Woodlawn section of the Bronx with his wife and son, and teaches in Scarsdale, NY.

Upcoming:  Sound File/Multi-Voice poems by Carie Tocci, a critical issue on Ben Friedlander, and more. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 08:56:17 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Re: re : bombs opening like flowers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > my recollection is that the bombs > opening like flowers was a paraphrase of a remark by one of the Italian > futurists, not Gino Severini but the other one, maybe the one that had an > affair with Mina Loy? Would that be Marinetti? Certainly sounds like the sort of thing he would say. I remember the line chiefly from a Clive James poem with the line "some blockhead said a bomb was like a flower". Speaking of futurists, has anyone come across the work of Valentine de Saint-Point? I've just come across her "Futurist Manifesto of Lust", and alongside all the usual futurist war cries there are some gorgeous sentences, like "Lust is the expression of a being projected beyond itself. .. It is the panic shudder of a particle of the earth." Tom Beard. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 17:35:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: APOLOGIES TO RON SILLIMAN In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Yeah, I know that urinal law well.... (and now I'm digressing and thinking of the urinal 'interview' Hunter S. Thompson conducts with McGovern in "F and L on the Campaign Trail"---THAT, by the way, would have been the movie to make, not that other one....I guess one must settle with "bullworth")... but actually there are only two at "st. marx", but don't worry there's a big wall between them (and then 'one' thinks of Frost ....or Shakepeare, i think in TGV, says "I can see through you like water in a urinal"-----------chris On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume wrote: > I am curious to know whether this conversation was conducted along the lines > of the infamous "urinal law" referred to in one of Ron's poems - I forget > which one - the law that states whenever possible, men will leave at least > one empty urinal between themselves and their fellows. I'd never thought > about this before reading that. Now, I can't think of anything but whenever > I enter a public restroom. > > And to think my professors tell me that poetry is dying out, > Patrick Pritchett > ---------- > From: louis stroffolino > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: APOLOGIES TO RON SILLIMAN > Date: Thursday, June 04, 1998 1:44PM > > So, last night, at St. Marks group reading church for anthologies > I arrive early to assuage nervousness in drink and am standing > at urinal stall talking about the weather to a man in a green > shirt who "looks familiar" but i can't place the context.... > anyway, he stays for 90% of the reading, and then as he leaves > I realize he looks like ROn Silliman. I ask Drew Gardiner. > It was Ron Silliman. Thanks for coming Ron Silliman, and > apologies..........chris > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 17:41:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: f.y.i. spice Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" BANGKOK, June 4 (Reuters) - Fans of the Spice Girls need not despair over the departure of Ginger Spice. The pop star, whose real name is Geri Halliwell, may have quit Britain's famed all-girl quintet but she's still very much with them in the Thai version -- a group of transsexuals known here as the Spice Gays. Akanit Ratanavich, or ``Pretty,'' mimics Ginger Spice in a red wig, black hot pants and low-cut gown over a pair of implanted breasts as the group lip-syncs Spice Girls' numbers at a Bangkok theatre. ``Pop fans everywhere might be disappointed with Ginger's decision to quit the group, but here this Ginger will be with the show for good to make up for the loss of the real one,'' Pretty said after a recent show before a packed audience. ``Its very funny...to act as someone famous that you always like to be,'' said the 24-year-old singer, who underwent a sex change operation five years ago. ``It was sad news, but I knew that one day, they would come to this point since they are so famous,'' Pretty added. Among the group's renditions, ``Spice Up Your Life'' and ``Wannabe'' were the two Spice Girls numbers that drew the most applause from a visibly spiced up audience. ``People always ask if we are really women. The answer is we are better than men and we are humans of all seasons,'' said Pretty. ^REUTERS@ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 17:41:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: Re: patterns of discovery [ Cronenberg's "Scanners"] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ez Bob, I liked your description of Crash a while back and thot it quite provoking. Tho I'm not sure I'm getting what you're talking about on this Scanner Dan thing. L Bill <> ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 15:09:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: re : re : apologies to Ron Silliman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Chris Stroffolino recalls Shakespeare's "I can see through you like water in a urinal" (which, presumably.could mean "very little", or "not at all"?) Following this thread (though not suggesting this is synonymous) I recall Robin Blaser's "poets are the deodorant-pucks in the urinal of life." (In _Syntax_, I think). At least one famous literary friendship was struck up in this way--but which, I am not recalling. Anyone? It's fitting that Ron's down-to-earth no-subjects-excluded poetry should be the occasion of this thread. The more I read him, and the longer I have to think about him, the greater my amazement that we should have such a poet, large of heart and of mind (as I once wrote, in a bleak mood ("and ends") I guess, "American poetry starts with Whitman and ends with Silliman"), dwelling among us today, a MacArthurian genius if ever there was one. Now George will nominate him for the Nobull Piss Prize. David ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 18:20:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Urinal Rationale Why the Urinal Law: from TROILUS & CRESSIDA, Act II: (scene: in the john) Ajax: Thersites - Ther: Agamemnon - how if he had boils - full, all over, generally? Ajax: Thersites - Ther: And those boils did run? - Say so - did not the general run then? were not that a botchy core? Ajax: Dog - Ther: Then would come some matter from him; I see none now. Ajax: Thou bitch-wolf's son, canst thou not hear? Feel, then. [strikes him] Ther: The plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel beef-witted lord! Ajax: Speak then, thou vinewedst leaven, speak: I will beat thee into handsomeness. Ther: I shall sooner rail thee into wit than holiness; but I think a horse will sooner con an oration than thou learn a prayer without a book. Thou canst stri ke, canst thou? a red murrain o' thy jade's tricks! Ajax: Toadstool, learn me the proclamation. Ther: Dos thou think I have no sense, thou strikest me thus? Ajax: The proclamation - Ther: Thou art proclaimed a fool, I think. Ajax: Do not, porcupine, do not; my fingers itch. Ther: I would thou didst itch from head to foot, and I had the scratching of thee; I would make thee the loathsomest scab in Greece. [Ther. & Ajax flush; draw poignards; die; exeunt] END OF ACT II ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 08:35:13 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ralph Wessman Subject: fr17 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable David - nothing to do with moose antlers or heroine worship, but.... Some = months ago Rachel suggested that anything you came up with on =27political = romanticism=27 would be definitely worth sharing, so I hope it=27s cool to = post your two or three hundred words. I=27m adding a plug for the magazine = too, which went to the printer yesterday. Best, Ralph Wessman POLITICAL ROMANTICISM, 1. Dying for truth and justice on the barricades. = Been done. And now they have better weaponry. Avoid if at all possible. POLITICAL ROMANTICISM, 2. Deliberately falling in love with the Chair (M = or F) of your Department in the hope of securing unfair advancement. Often = been done. Recommended, although =22it would be wrong.=22 Caveat: it may = not be reciprocated. Suggest all overtures be explicable as something else = entirely should one=27s suit fail to impress. POLITICAL ROMANTICISM, 3. Teaching the works of the Lake Poets in such = wise as to foster revolutionary fervor among the young. =22A slumber did = my spirit seal=22 : Wake up=21 Caveat : a new President will be brought in = to your college with secret instructions to get people like you (the = public instructions : =22Pursue excellence.=22) POLITICAL ROMANTICISM, 4. v Ecological, environmental, =22green.=22 Belief = in the living interconnectedness of all things and creatures, and that the = planet must be defended against giant corporations. Frequent references to = =22my acid trip,=22 as in =22It was on my fourth acid trip that I realized = the interconnectedness of all things and creatures, when I wept for my = lost soccer boots.=22 And again, =22If I hadn=27t dropped acid, I might = not be here in this small boat about to be run down by this Russian = whaler.=22 The editors of this encyclopedia encourage type 4 Political = Romanticism and therefore have nothing cynical to say about it. Something = must be left for the next generation. famous reporter =23 17 In this issue haiku Kirsten Bishop, janice m. bostok, Jennifer Chrystie, Ross Clark, Bernard = Gadd, eric l. houck jr., Marshall Hryciuk, Catherine Mair, Lorraine = Marwood, Patricia Prime, Estelle Randall Janet Reinhardt, Carla Sari, = Susan Stanford, Marylee Valentine poetry John Allison, joe amato, Connie Barber, Karlien van den Beukel, Fiona = Cooke, Bill Cotter, Michael Crane, Carol Easton, Eleven, Brook Emery, = Michael Farrell, Kevin Gillam, Benjamin Gilmour, Rory Harris, Pete Hay, = Kevin Killian, Christina Kirkpatrick, Colin Knight, Norma Knight, Jules = Leigh Koch, Kher-Shing Lee, Lyn McCredden, Clare Mahoney, Lissa Mitchell, = Louise Oxley, Ioana Petrescu, Kevin Roberts, Tina Ruusula, Brendan Ryan, = Sandra Seth, Andrea Sherwood, Tim Thorne, Melodee Unthank, John West, = Ouyang Yu articles & prose Dominique Hecq, Cate Kennedy, Parry Kostoglou, Alfred Marks, Mal Morgan, = Neal Rodwell, Mareya Schmidt, Liz Winfield reviews Anne Collins: Hecate / The Australian Women=27s Book Review Brian Henry: At the Site of Inside Out (Anna Rabinowitz) Marilyn Arnold: Island =23 72/73 Megan Schaffner: New and Selected Poems (Anthony Lawrence) Tim Thorne: Nitty Gritty (Les Wicks) David Jack: Ulitarra =23 12 Louise Oxley: Album of Domestic Exiles (Andrew Sant) Chloe Roe: Extracts from The Jerusalem Archives (John Knight) e-texts Andrea Brady, David Bromige, Sara Douglass, Debbie Gaunt, Anne Kellas, = Anthony Lawrence, Philip Neilsen, Tim Thorne, Lawrence Upton comment Has =22God=22 a meaning? - Susan Jesudason, Kevin Brophy, Paul Donohue, = Marilyn Arnold What price political romanticism? - David Bromige, Natasha Stott Despoja The nature of =27economic rationalism. - Robin Loftus, Catherine Pratt, = Nathan Duhig Reconciliation. - Chris Floyd, meika von samorzewski, Terry Whitebeach =27Hecate=27. - Carole Ferrier Faith & relativistic modernity. - Ian Stubbs, Douglas Lockhart Changes to the term =27conservation=27. - Kevin Kiernan Tasmanian Regional Forest Agreement. - Jamie Kirkpatrick one hundred word poetry & prose segment Helen Annand, Jacqueline Cooke, Wendy Ratawa, Rob Riel, Tracey Rolfe, = Carla Sari Famous Reporter is a literary biannual, available for =248 within = Australia (Aus=2410 to NZ, Aus=2412 elsewhere) from Walleah Press, PO Box = 368, North Hobart, Tasmania 7002, Australia. Unsolicited material is = welcome, a small payment is offered for material (ie haiku =243, poems = =2410). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 17:01:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: vintage fin-de-siecle cheesecloth In-Reply-To: <3575F659.EE245CC9@bayarea.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 06:20 PM 6/3/98 -0700, Karen Kelley wrote: There is a repeated image of the >protagonist's father writing calligraphic messages on her face as a birthday >ritual. She goes on to search for someone to write on/be written on by her. I am >usually annoyed by repetition, and was slightly irritated with it at first, but by >3/4s of the way through was waiting to see this scene again, in its variety of >playings-out with various lovers/acquaintances. She even tried writing on herself. >And the physical beauty of the calligraphic process makes you want to throw away >your keyboard & write with big fat brushes on textured surfaces. > so you've been feeling that urge too, eh? / this scene from "Pillow Book" reminds me of the one in "Liar Liar" in which Jim Carrey's character struggles to prevent his own hand from writing "liar" in blue marker all over his face -- to no avail / strikes a nerve with other writer folk? bill - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh | PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 19:11:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: Marinetti MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A similar quote to the "bombs like flowers" is this passage from Marinetti. This is from Perloff's _The Futurist Moment_ p. 30. She is quoting Walter Benjamin quoting Marinetti: "War is beautiful because it initiates the dreamt-of metalization of the human body. War is beautiful because it enriches a flowering meadow with the fiery orchids of machine guns." etcetera One of Pessoa's heteronyms has a great poem called "Marinetti, academico," which protests the fact that the once avant-garde poet is now inducted into the academy. The title says it all. I don't have anything witty to add about the urinals, unfortunately. Jonathan Mxyhxw ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 14:19:12 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Schultz Subject: Re: re : re : apologies to Ron Silliman In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The phonographs of hades in the brain Are tunnels that re-wind themselves, and love A burnt match skating in a urinal-- Somewhere above Fourteenth TAKE THE EXPRESS To brush some new presentiment of pain-- Hart Crane, "The Tunnel," _The Bridge_ ______________________________________________ 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, 4 Jun 1998 17:00:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: re : re : apologies to Ron Silliman In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >guess, "American poetry starts with Whitman and ends with Silliman"), >dwelling among us today, a MacArthurian genius if ever there was one. I knew MacArthur (and I've known one writer who received one), and I'd much rather read Silliman, and spend time with him, too. Yes, I'm with Bromige there. A good place to be. charles charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing NOTE NEW URL FOR CHAX PRESS http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 17:38:46 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: vintage fin-de-siecle cheesecloth MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit After you see it, post your thoughts. I know it's an older film, but I'm still all excited about seeing it & want to talk about it. William Burmeister Prod wrote: > I've heard nothing but good about this > film on this list. I need to get off my ass and see "Pillow Book" for myself. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 17:45:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: Quid Pro Quo Vadis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" All right, gentlemen (and lady), let's get our minds out of the urinals! Serious poetics-type disquistion to follow . . . Peter Balestrieri, whom I thank for his careful and measured post, says he doesn't > agree with the way the work was described on the List or on the > book's back cover. > But if this is a discussion merely about the truthfulness of BLURBS, everyone whom Robert Creeley (in his infinite generosity) has ever said a kind word about would have some explaining to do! (That would include most of the people on this List, wouldn't it?) I don't, by the way, think the blurbs on this back cover are any more hyperbolic than others I've seen, but that's not the point. There MIGHT be a point, though, when he says > Her work was > described as "savage." This made me curious and I decided to read > some > of her work. I wanted especially to see what "rant" and "savage" > meant > to other people/poets. . . . Do you agree with Marjorie Perloff's > blurb (and > the Olson review posted by Mark Weiss) that the work is "savage"? > I > find the word "savage" problematic for its ethnographic > invocation of > the primitive as I do your use of the phrase "poetic excellence" > for > its pretensions to universality. Ultimately, all these > considerations > amount to matters of taste. > First, here's what Marjorie said --"In its uncompromising savagery, its passionate rejection of sentimentality, Rochelle Owens' lyric voice is unique among contemporary poets." I read that as saying "WHEN the work is savage . . . it's unique" -- I'm not so sure about that (and neither is Anne Waldman) -- but I value other, quieter pieces in the volume more, which is why I questioned "wildness" being somehow necessary. Yet, even a cursory look at the poems included from "Elga's Incantation" (1962), "Salt & Core" (1968), "I Am the Babe of Joseph Stalin's Daughter" (1972) and "The Joe 82 Creation Poems" (1974) in this volume reveals that the voices in them are the opposite of calm, everyday language -- they jump, they're excited, shamanic, violent, enthused, other-worldly, "in tongues" -- in a word, they're "savage". (Olson's review does other things besides calling the work "savage" -- for example, describes its linguistic elements -- and I have no quarrels with it, it seems accurate to me.) Mark Weiss has posted rather eloquently earlier today about the possible neocolonialist connotations of the word, and I bow to his considerations -- (Mark, were the paintings you mentioned the subject of the late Orson Welles movie called "Fraud"?) -- but the last lines from your post above are also interesting to me. I've been . . . dissatisfied . . . lately with the expression "it's all a matter of taste," because it seems merely a way to end discussion about matters one doesn't want to consider anymore -- in the worst case scenario (which I'm NOT accusing you of), it means "we can't talk about this, because my taste is obviously better and more advanced than yours." So I ask you -- is the phrase "poetic excellence" really a "pretension to universality"? Indeed, "excellence is sparse" -- but are you suspicious of the very IDEA of excellence? -- must we "deconstruct" it? -- some criticize Ezra Pound for believing in the "great man" theory of history -- others, I think, criticize the CONCEPT of "greatness" itself -- Is that what you're doing? Can there be no more "great poets"? Are writers who aspire to "greatness" barking, as it were, up the wrong post-modern tree? I hope not. WCW said early on that he could see nothing to aim for except greatness, which has always stayed with me, even though I'm never going to make it; I've been fortunate enough to have known several great poets, and they've enriched my life, and I say that completely without embarrassment. > Criticizing Owens was not the point of my post; it was to draw > attention to the fact that there are consistent postings to the > List > that seem very provincial considering the avowed purpose of the > List. > Peter Balestrieri, meet Mark Prejsnar! But really, I understand that you weren't criticizing Owens and am glad that you appreciate her work, as I do more and more the more I read it. Check out, for example, "Devils Clowns & Women" near the end of the volume (a Mark Weiss recommendation) which seems to me one of the finer love poems in the language, reminding me of "Asphodel" and a great poem by Muriel Rukeyser which has the repeated refrain "yes, my love, we are looking at each other" (title, anyone?) Un-sentimental love is . . . excellent! It was nice to meet you this way, Peter, and I look forward to more dialogue. And now . . . back to the urinals! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 17:49:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: apologies to Ron Silliman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Suppository understood as a term of rhetoric. Early morning, cheap ballpoint pen falls into a urinal in the fourth-floor men's room who knows how? never to be removed, to become a target, moved willfully by streams of urine, pushed counter clockwise around the white who knows what it is made of? urinal cake. Returning in the rain from the old brick bank to the car, I realize that I forgot to feed the meter, had scurried right past it in my hurry to stay dry, only to have gotten by without a ticket, little gift of fate. Kitaj's eyes. --Ron Silliman, from _You_ (a part of _The Alphabet_) Susan Schultz wrote: > > The phonographs of hades in the brain > Are tunnels that re-wind themselves, and love > A burnt match skating in a urinal-- > Somewhere above Fourteenth TAKE THE EXPRESS > To brush some new presentiment of pain-- > > Hart Crane, "The Tunnel," _The Bridge_ > > ______________________________________________ > > 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, 4 Jun 1998 19:48:26 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: the naivete of speaking MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "The naivete of speaking about "objectivity" without ever considering subjectivity as experiencing, knowing, and actually concretely accomplishing, the naivete of the scientist of nature or of the world in general, who is blind to the fact that all the truths that he attains as objective truths and the objective world itself as the substratum of his formulae (the everyday world of experience as well as the higher-level conceptual world of knowledge) are his own life-construct developed within himself-this naivete is naturally no longer possible as soon as his life becomes the point of focus. And must this liberation not come to anyone who seriously immerses himself in the Treatise and, after unmasking Hume's naturalistic presuppositions, becomes conscious of the power of his motivations?"---from The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology by Edmund Husserl---cp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Jun 1998 21:43:57 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: Valentine de Saint-Point MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For Tom Beard and other interested parties: Nancy Moore has done an interesting PhD thesis on Valentine. You can contact Nancy via Jerry Bruns (her husband, probably known to this list through his brilliant books, most recent one on Blanchot) at Notre Dame or on email . Nancy did a lot of research in Europe and hopes to publish her book (Northwestern U PhD)--contact her thru Northwestern would also be possible. xxx Marjorie Perloff ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 16:14:44 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Kooser's Email Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Could someone please let me know the email address for Ted Kooser? Thanks Anthony Lawrence ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 16:28:13 +0930 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Otis Rush Subject: Otis Rush site difficulties Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Some people on the poetcs list have indicated that they're having trouble getting at the Otis Rush magazine web site. The same address seems to be working ok for some people but not all. The solution is to go via the address of the Experimental Art Foundation's site (on which Otis Rush piggy-backs) - viz: http://www.eaf.asn.au Tou'll find lots of interest there, along with Otish Rush magazine. Cheers Ken Bolton ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 00:32:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: re : re : apologies to Ron Silliman In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980604170029.007c9100@theriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>guess, "American poetry starts with Whitman and ends with Silliman"), >>dwelling among us today, a MacArthurian genius if ever there was one. > > >I knew MacArthur (and I've known one writer who received one), and I'd much >rather read Silliman, and spend time with him, too. Yes, I'm with Bromige >there. A good place to be. > > >charles I didnt know MacArthur, but I played poker with Eisenhower. and I can tell you that I would rather play cards with Silliman. Sucker always draws to an inside straight. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 09:13:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: Poetry Project web site MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Check out the new selection of "Poets & Poems" on the Poetry Project's web site: www.poetryproject.com Featuring: Rosa Alcala Joe Elliot Alice Notley Eleni Sikelianos E-mail is poproj@artomatic.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 10:04:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: Objects and Torque (not physics) query In-Reply-To: <199806050402.AAA28742@juliet.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, Chris Alexander writes: > anyone out there have info on the east-coast zines: > > - Objects (Robert Fitterman?) > - Torque (??) Torque P.O. Box 657, Station P Toronto, Ontario M5S 2Y4 darrenwh@interlog.com edited by darren wershler-henry. typically in the 8-1/2 x 11 vertically- folded, saddle-stapled format, printed on paper whose color could perhaps be described as angry red. i have the january 1988 in front of me. works by damian lopes, tom raworth, gary barwin, christian bok, michael basinski, lucas mulder, alana wilcox, daniel f bradley, and scott pound. epigraph from robert smithson, excellent editorial opening with the words "fuck entropy." hope this helps, t. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 10:04:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: Meow Press Summer98 series Catalog (draft2) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Meow Press Summer98 series Catalog Publisher of chapbooks of poetry and unfettered prose since August of 1993, Meow Press announces its Summer98 list and encourages libraries and subscribers to and pre-order forthcoming titles from the publisher to assist the financing of the series. This publication season will see the publication of the 50th chapbook by Meow Press. Many friends of Meow Press have volunteered to help with the assembly of the books in the series. Please help support this project. Order the books individually as they appear, or as a set. Contribute money, materials, or time. This project will not work without help. Summer98 series: Now Available: (on June 10, 1998; this text is from a mailer that has yet to go out) Charles Alexander [MP44] Four Ninety-Eight to Seven poetry $6 Daniel Kanyandekwe [MP45] One Plus One Is Three At Least fiction $6 Andrew Levy [MP46] Elephant Surveillance to Thought poetry $6 Denise Newman [MP47] Of Later Things Yet to Happen poetry $6 Susan Schultz [MP48] Addenda poetry $6 Coming Soon (July 1998) David Carl The Library prose $6 Don Cheney Catullus trans. $6 Adrian Clarke Just Deserts poetry $6 Dan Farrell (Untitled Epic Poem on the History of Industrialization by Buckminster Fuller pp. 1-50) Grid. poetry $6 Heather Fuller Madonna Fatigue poetry $6 Peter Jaeger Leasing Glass poetry $5 Paul Long Saccades poetry $6 Noemie Maxwell Thrum poetry $6 Ted Pearson The Devil's Aria poetry $6 Stephen Ratcliffe Signature poetry $6 Liz Waldner Bus Stop poetry $6 SUBSCRIPTIONS, SETS & ORDERING INFORMATION FOLLOWS THE BACKLIST Backlist George Albon, King [MP5 $4] Andrews, Bernstein, Sherry, Technology/Art: 20 Brief Proposals for Seminars on Technology & Art [MP15 $6] Rachel Tzvia Back, Litany [MP9 $6] Michael Basinski, Cnyttan [MP1 $5] Michael Basinski, Heebee-Jeebies [MP26 $5] Dodie Bellamy & Bob Harrison, Broken English [MP18 $5] Dodie Bellamy, Hallucinations [MP40 $6] Charles Bernstein, The Subject [MP19 $6] Taylor Brady, Is Placed / Leaves [MP37 $6] Jonathan Brannen, The Glass Man Left Waltzing [MP14 $5] Natalee Caple, The Price of Acorn [MP27 $5] Robert Creeley, The Dogs of Auckland [MP35 $4] Dubravka Djuric, Cosmopolitan Alphabet [MP12 $5] Robert Duncan, Copy Book Entries [MP28 $10] Deanna Ferguson, Rough Bush [MP25 $6] Robert Fitterman, Metropolis (1-3) [MP10 $5] Graham Foust, 3 from Scissors [MP43 $5] Benjamin Friedlander, A Knot is Not a Tangle [MP13 $5] Benjamin Friedlander, Anterior Future [MP2 $5] Peter Gizzi, New Picnic Time [MP16 $5] Loss Glazier, The Parts [MP24 $6] Jorge Guitart, Film Blanc [MP29 $5] William R. Howe, A #s: Onus [MP42 $5] Mark Johnson, Three Bad Wishes [MP8 $6] Pierre Joris, Winnetou Old [MP7 $6] Kevin Killian, Argento Series [MP41 $6] Cynthia Kimball, Annotations for Eliza [MP39 $5] Wendy Kramer, Patinas [MP23 $5] Hank Lazer, Early Days of the Lang Dynasty [MP32 $6] Jena Osman, Jury [MP30 $5] Meredith Quartermain, Terms of Sale [MP34 $6] Lisa Robertson, The Descent [MP33 $5] Elizabeth Robinson, Iemanje [MP4 $5] Lisa Samuels, Letters [MP31 $6] Leslie Scalapino, The Line [MP6 $5] James Sherry, 4 For [MP20 $6] Aaron Shurin, Codex [MP38 $10] Kenneth Sherwood, That Risk [MP36 $5] Ron Silliman, Xing [MP22 $6] Juliana Spahr, Testimony [MP17 $6] Gary Sullivan, Dead Man [MP21 $6] Misko Suvakovic, Pas Tout [MP11 $5] Bill Tuttle, Epistolary: First Series [MP3 $5] Subscriptions & Ordering Summer98 series: 15 books from the Summer98 list or the Meow Press backlist. Special bonus 5 non-catalog ephemera items. You pick & choose. Includes coupons for readings and future books. 20 books total. $100 Meow50 box-set the first 50 MP books in a personalized painted box-set. Includes all non-catalog ephemera items still available, coupons for readings and books, plus "influence cards." Approx. 70 books total. Limited $300 to order, or for more information, contact: Meow Press PO Box 527 Buffalo, NY 14226-0527 kuszai@acsu.buffalo.edu http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/presses single copies & the trade: Small Press Distribution: 1341 Seventh Street, Berkeley, CA 94710 phone (800) 869-7553 fax (510) 524-0852 orders@spdbooks.org http://www.spdbooks.org ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 10:14:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: help MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'm trying to reach Herb Levy. Herb: are you still out there? Also, I'm trying to reach Franklin Bruno, who seems to have gone off list. Does anyone know how to reach him? thanks- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 07:28:20 +0000 Reply-To: arshile@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Salerno Organization: Arshile: A Magazine of the Arts Subject: Re: help MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Try Franklin at : Franklin Bruno Box 36M65 Los Angeles, CA 90036 J. Kuszai wrote: > > I'm trying to reach Herb Levy. Herb: are you still out there? > > Also, I'm trying to reach Franklin Bruno, who seems to have gone off list. > Does anyone know how to reach him? > > thanks- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 11:07:56 -0400 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: vintage fin-de-siecle cheesecloth In-Reply-To: Karen Kelley "Re: vintage fin-de-siecle cheesecloth" (Jun 4, 5:38pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Jun 4, 5:38pm, Karen Kelley wrote: > Subject: Re: vintage fin-de-siecle cheesecloth > After you see it, post your thoughts. I know it's an older film, but I'm still all > excited about seeing it & want to talk about it. > > William Burmeister Prod wrote: > > > I've heard nothing but good about this > > film on this list. I need to get off my ass and see "Pillow Book" for myself. >-- End of excerpt from Karen Kelley You're on! I will. Hope this is still able for rent. William ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 11:52:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: TORQUE / OBJECT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII from The Dictionary of Rec'd Ideas, ILS Numero Dos OBJECTIVISTS Morally righteous and technically rigorous. Second generation immigrants. Unpopular Leftists. Their movement was called off on account of the Depression. TORQUE Use this word to describe what you think you are doing to the language/syntax/meaning. Object and Torque produced a double/collaborative issue this winter, and it's very recommended. Torque c/o Elizabeth Fodaski 21 E 2nd St Apt 14 New York NY 10003 Object c/o Robert Fitterman 7-13 Washington Square North #47B New York NY 10003 good to hear about another Torque in Canada -- Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 09:11:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: TORQUE / OBJECT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Re Jordan's "appropriation" here -- does anyone know what BECAME of ILS after its esteemed editors moved to Paris? Has it in fact continued? Seems like there were a few issues left on my subscription . . . it was a great idea and format, and I hope it continues somehow . . . > ---------- > From: Jordan Davis[SMTP:jdavis@PANIX.COM] > Sent: Friday, June 05, 1998 8:52 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: TORQUE / OBJECT > > from The Dictionary of Rec'd Ideas, ILS Numero Dos > > OBJECTIVISTS Morally righteous and technically rigorous. Second > generation immigrants. Unpopular Leftists. Their movement was called > off > on account of the Depression. > > TORQUE Use this word to describe what you think you are doing to the > language/syntax/meaning. > > > Object and Torque produced a double/collaborative issue this winter, > and > it's very recommended. > > Torque > c/o Elizabeth Fodaski > 21 E 2nd St Apt 14 > New York NY 10003 > > Object > c/o Robert Fitterman > 7-13 Washington Square North #47B > New York NY 10003 > > > > good to hear about another Torque in Canada -- > Jordan > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 10:08:13 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: nominative press collective announces... Comments: cc: Michael D Basinski MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT nominative press collective announces... The Right Blonde / Mark E. Peters 14 printed pp. of down-home fun from the creators of Slinky (TM); saddle-stapled; nifty cover designed by yours truly. "A comedic romp - unparalleled" - Janet Maslin, NY Times film critic / "Scared the bejesus out of me" - Charles Ruff (White House counsel) / "We'll be looking into this" - Kenneth Starr get yours free with your donation of $5** to: nominative press collective PO Box 522402 Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 **libraries and institutions: $8 checks payable to Christopher W. Alexander (or any reasonable variant thereof). offer prohibited where local laws apply. ------------------ for him>> ... Strike him Wait for him to end Dismiss his offer Threaten to bring down his shaky coalition Control him Tamper with his monitoring equipment Inspect him Avoid him Carry his body to its final resting place Retire him Stop him Raise a bit of a ruckus... ------------------ .. 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/ **site temporarily unavailable** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 16:35:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: the analysis: [Bill's Sonnet and Our Interpretations of It] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Creepy, here, that the myth of a perfect, a transparent history - which >would presume to restore what has been thought, to locate a "genesis" and >"play it back" as if on a tape recorder - is championed via a technology >fetish and general mathesis of the real. Creepy, that this presumes to >make the "artifact" eternal; as if a poem remains the same from one >reading to the next. Eventually the problem of interpretation is overcome. Not immediately, but eventually. We know that the Field Marshall spilled hot porridge onto his uniform in the morning and ordered an immediate attack against the opponent in a conflict. History never mentionned the porridge before and historians had dozens of theories why the attack was suddenly ordered to commence. Now we know. We have to realize that the quantum histories are incredibly vast. The virtual data traces as to past events make the entire universe equivalent to being a vast computer "hard drive". We simply have to learn to access and decode the information that is stored in connection with that manifested vehicle. The data is virtual (using the physics definition of virtual) and the storage medium, by analogy, is the material stuff (organic and inorganic taken as a whole) that traditional empiricism is somewhat familiar with. The data, being virtual, is at mathematical "infinity", and therefore it can be accessed at a remote distance super-luminally in what is effectively zero elapsed time. The only time requirement then is the time for the technology that is accessing and interpreting to do that portion of its work that remains subluminal (non virtual). The practical difficulty of having all the relevant virtual data, at hand, becomes the barrier to a purely empirical understanding of history. We fill the gaps in our empirical understanding with interpretation. Interpretation arises from ignorance of precisely observed causalities, or histories of causalities. Interpretation fills in the gaps, based on logical functions such as conjecture, assumption, expert opinion, etc. It is therefore a weakness, as far as empiricism is concerned and is not in fact a higher function. It is simply the failure to have sufficient data at hand so as to "know" with certainty. Interpretation is largely creative. It adds something to what is there. It is not to be found in the thing itself, or the events themselves. When we phenomenologically bracket out any interpretations, so as to arrive at the thing in itself, or quantum histories in themselves, we arrrive at a purely precise and empirical knowledge. Filling in gaps in knowledge, using traditionally accepted logical and intuitive methods, leads to probabilities as to errors. There are no theories then as to what happened. Since mental events are material quantum events and encoded onto the universal data base there could eventually be no doubt as to motivations, intentions, purposes, goals, etc. Those would be knowable as empirical facts. What I was referring to was ever increasing certainty as to quantum histories, implying ever increasing certainty as to human histories as a whole. That means less and less interpretation, as it becomes increasingly empirical. That means less and less recourse to theories. I suggest that technology eventually arrives, by various mechanisms, at a reading of human history, and of the history of the universe, that is purely empirical and accurate, requiring no further interpretation. As empirically accurate as a properly functionning computer hard drive allows the mechanism within it to recover its own stored data and allows the mechanism to replay it in an orderly, logically connected, fashion, with repeatable accuracy. It does so by its very nature, as functions as its inventors meant it to function. I am suggesting that the universe, by analogy, functions the same way. Is there a continuing possibility of variant, considered correct, literary intpretation, of a poem for example, if the qunatum histories involved in its production are fully known ? We could attribute other readings, other than any that the author meant to include. Those accidental attributions, that accrue to works of art, need to be included as such, but then we know they are exactly that, and we also know exactly what old Bill meant when he wrote that sonnet, hundreds of years ago. We know Shakespeare wrote it, and we know exactly what was on his mind. The virtual, "unseen", world contains those traces, all still connected with the chain of quantum histories linking Bill's work to its first origination. Similarly with the first event at the origination of the universe. There comes a point in future time when it is no longer possible to give an interpretation to Bill's sonnet production. The history of the sonnet, provides its meaning as the communication of self to self and self to others that it was for Bill and the relevant contemporaries. It also reveals what that sonnet was to their successors. In effect we can look at the history of a sonnet, and we can then look into Bill's mind. Since our probe, probes virtual space-time,along the T axis, it accesses "infinity". The virtual ghost of Bill's mind, is also at "infinity". The probe in effect accesses Bill's mind and retrieves the data to the present point along the axis t, to our normal empirical space-time coordinates. The threads in the string, begin there. From the the rope is woven. Bill then hangs from that evolving rope exactly as we hang from that same rope. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 16:50:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dorothy Wang Subject: Query re Ted Joans MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Does anyone know the publisher and place of publication of a volume by Ted Joans entitled Wow: The Selected Poems of Ted Joans (1981, I think)? I was asked by a professor friend for this information but can't find it anywhere. Thanks in advance! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 20:41:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: patterns of discovery [ Cronenberg's "Scanners"] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Ez Bob, > >I liked your description of Crash a while back and thot it quite provoking. >Tho I'm not sure I'm getting what you're talking about on this Scanner Dan >thing. > >L Bill The setting of the movie "Scanners" was completely contemporaneous with its time of production. The technology appeared completely futuristic. That juxtaposition becomes the most horrific moment in the thriller, and yet it is that very juxtaposition of contemporaenous and futuristic that is ignored by the average viewer. It is as if traumatic amnesia takes hold of the viewer after the initial shock of contemporaneity. That's really all I wanted to say about that. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 18:42:13 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: I found the mass! It was in my neutrinos the whole time!! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Let us accept the viewpoint, the chief progenitor of which is probably Hume, that there are just three modes of discourse: discourse about the empirical world (positive discourse), discourse about what is logically necessary (roughly the same as pure mathematics), and ethical and aesthetic discourse (discourse which makes value judgements). The first two discuss what is, the last discusses what ought to be; but from what is, with no assumptions about what ought to be, we cannot derive any propositions about what ought to be; and from what ought to be we can conclude nothing about what is. The third mode is therefore to be distinguished from the first two. BUT THE FIRST TWO MUST ALSO BE DISTINGUISHED FROM EACH OTHER; for no purely logical truth can tell us anything about the real world, nor can empirical facts yield logical truths. The three modes of discourse are therefore closed off from each other. Of the three modes of discourse,science rejects the third entirely. It is not concerned with value judgements. It uses the second (logic) but only as a tool. Essentially it is concerned with the real world, although to discuss the real world IT USES LOGIC IN ORDER TO DEDUCE ONE EMPIRICAL STATEMENT FROM ANOTHER."---from Paradoxes of Rationality: Theory of Metagames and Political Behavior by Nigel Howard --- "Classification is a condition for cognition and not cognition itself; cognition in turn dispels classification."---from Dialectic of Enlightenment by Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno --- "'Tis usual with mathematicians, to pretend, that those ideas, which are their objects, are of so refined and spiritual a nature, that they fall not under the conception of fancy, but must be comprehended by a pure and intellectual view, of which the superior faculties of the soul are alone capable....'Tis easy to see why philosophers are so fond of this notion of some spiritual and refined perceptions; since by that means they cover up many of their absurdities, and may refuse to submit to the decisions of clear ideas, by appealing to such as are obscure and uncertain. But to destroy this artifice, we need but reflect on that principle so oft insisted on, that all ideas are copied from our impressions. For from thence we may immediately conclude, that since all impressions are clear and precise, the ideas, which are copy'd from them must be of the same nature, and can never, but from our fault, contain any thing so dark and intricate.... Reason is the discovery of truth and falsehood. Truth or falsehood consists in an agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact. Whatever, therefore, is not susceptible of this agreement or disagreement, is incapable of being true or false, and can never be an object of our reason."---from A Treatise of Human Nature by David Hume --- "...[T]he fact that it can be described by Newtonian mechanics tells us nothing about the world; but this tells us something, namely, that the world can be descibed in that particular way in which as a matter of fact it is described."---from Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus by Ludwig Wittgenstein --- TELLER SAID, "MISS ULAM, HOLD MY CALLS; GOD IS COMING TO HEFT MY BALLS."---cp ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Jun 1998 22:02:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Baxter/Amy Garrett Comments: To: "R. Gancie" In-Reply-To: <35783C05.5277@ix.netcom.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Does anyone have an address (of any variety) for "Baxter/ Amy Garrett" Thanks, Katy L ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 00:44:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Pound Subject: Re: Meow Press Summer98 series Catalog (draft2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A rowdy CONGRATULATIONS to JOEL KUSZAI and MEOW PRESS Let me say these books have sustained and captivated me for four years now I don't know which is more impressive: the backlist or the frothcoming list! Whens the folding party gonna be Joel? Thanks Joel for meow press, here's to 50 more! Scott > Meow Press > Summer98 series > > Catalog > > >Publisher of chapbooks of poetry and unfettered prose since August of >1993, Meow Press announces its Summer98 list and encourages libraries and >subscribers to and pre-order forthcoming titles from the publisher to >assist the financing of the series. > >This publication season will see the publication of the 50th chapbook by >Meow Press. > >Many friends of Meow Press have volunteered to help with the assembly of >the books in the series. Please help support this project. Order the books >individually as they appear, or as a set. Contribute money, materials, or >time. This project will not work without help. > > >Summer98 series: > >Now Available: (on June 10, 1998; this text is from a mailer that has yet >to go out) > >Charles Alexander [MP44] >Four Ninety-Eight to Seven poetry $6 > >Daniel Kanyandekwe [MP45] >One Plus One Is Three At Least fiction $6 > >Andrew Levy [MP46] >Elephant Surveillance to Thought poetry $6 > >Denise Newman [MP47] >Of Later Things Yet to Happen poetry $6 > >Susan Schultz [MP48] >Addenda poetry $6 > > >Coming Soon (July 1998) > >David Carl >The Library prose $6 > >Don Cheney >Catullus trans. $6 > >Adrian Clarke >Just Deserts poetry $6 > >Dan Farrell >(Untitled Epic Poem on the History of Industrialization by Buckminster >Fuller pp. 1-50) Grid. poetry $6 > >Heather Fuller >Madonna Fatigue poetry $6 > >Peter Jaeger >Leasing Glass poetry $5 > >Paul Long >Saccades poetry $6 > >Noemie Maxwell >Thrum poetry $6 > >Ted Pearson >The Devil's Aria poetry $6 > >Stephen Ratcliffe >Signature poetry $6 > >Liz Waldner >Bus Stop poetry $6 > > >SUBSCRIPTIONS, SETS & >ORDERING INFORMATION FOLLOWS THE BACKLIST > > >Backlist > >George Albon, King [MP5 $4] >Andrews, Bernstein, Sherry, Technology/Art: 20 Brief Proposals for >Seminars on Technology & Art [MP15 $6] >Rachel Tzvia Back, Litany [MP9 $6] >Michael Basinski, Cnyttan [MP1 $5] >Michael Basinski, Heebee-Jeebies [MP26 $5] >Dodie Bellamy & Bob Harrison, Broken English [MP18 $5] >Dodie Bellamy, Hallucinations [MP40 $6] >Charles Bernstein, The Subject [MP19 $6] >Taylor Brady, Is Placed / Leaves [MP37 $6] >Jonathan Brannen, The Glass Man Left Waltzing [MP14 $5] >Natalee Caple, The Price of Acorn [MP27 $5] >Robert Creeley, The Dogs of Auckland [MP35 $4] >Dubravka Djuric, Cosmopolitan Alphabet [MP12 $5] >Robert Duncan, Copy Book Entries [MP28 $10] >Deanna Ferguson, Rough Bush [MP25 $6] >Robert Fitterman, Metropolis (1-3) [MP10 $5] >Graham Foust, 3 from Scissors [MP43 $5] >Benjamin Friedlander, A Knot is Not a Tangle [MP13 $5] >Benjamin Friedlander, Anterior Future [MP2 $5] >Peter Gizzi, New Picnic Time [MP16 $5] >Loss Glazier, The Parts [MP24 $6] >Jorge Guitart, Film Blanc [MP29 $5] >William R. Howe, A #s: Onus [MP42 $5] >Mark Johnson, Three Bad Wishes [MP8 $6] >Pierre Joris, Winnetou Old [MP7 $6] >Kevin Killian, Argento Series [MP41 $6] >Cynthia Kimball, Annotations for Eliza [MP39 $5] >Wendy Kramer, Patinas [MP23 $5] >Hank Lazer, Early Days of the Lang Dynasty [MP32 $6] >Jena Osman, Jury [MP30 $5] >Meredith Quartermain, Terms of Sale [MP34 $6] >Lisa Robertson, The Descent [MP33 $5] >Elizabeth Robinson, Iemanje [MP4 $5] >Lisa Samuels, Letters [MP31 $6] >Leslie Scalapino, The Line [MP6 $5] >James Sherry, 4 For [MP20 $6] >Aaron Shurin, Codex [MP38 $10] >Kenneth Sherwood, That Risk [MP36 $5] >Ron Silliman, Xing [MP22 $6] >Juliana Spahr, Testimony [MP17 $6] >Gary Sullivan, Dead Man [MP21 $6] >Misko Suvakovic, Pas Tout [MP11 $5] >Bill Tuttle, Epistolary: First Series [MP3 $5] > > > >Subscriptions & Ordering > >Summer98 series: >15 books from the Summer98 list or the Meow Press backlist. Special bonus >5 non-catalog ephemera items. You pick & choose. Includes coupons for >readings and future books. 20 books total. > $100 > >Meow50 box-set the first 50 MP books in a personalized painted box-set. >Includes all non-catalog ephemera items still available, coupons for >readings and books, plus "influence cards." Approx. 70 books total. >Limited > $300 > > > >to order, or for more information, contact: > >Meow Press >PO Box 527 >Buffalo, NY 14226-0527 >kuszai@acsu.buffalo.edu >http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/presses > > >single copies & the trade: > >Small Press Distribution: >1341 Seventh Street, Berkeley, CA 94710 >phone (800) 869-7553 fax (510) 524-0852 >orders@spdbooks.org >http://www.spdbooks.org ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 08:36:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Query re Ted Joans In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" pls don't backchannel this info; others of us wd like to know too--thanks for the query! At 4:50 PM -0700 6/5/98, Dorothy Wang wrote: >Does anyone know the publisher and place of publication of a volume by Ted >Joans entitled Wow: The Selected Poems of Ted Joans (1981, I think)? I was >asked by a professor friend for this information but can't find it >anywhere. Thanks in advance! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 18:28:24 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: Query re Ted Joans MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dorothy It's Ted Jonas that's why you can't find it. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 18:49:02 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: Query re Ted Joans MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit sorry--i'm not awake--its not ted jonas--anyway-- RIZZOLI INTL published a collection of poetry and jazz writings in --i think 1989,, yrs, ps: try them or--gulp--even amazon.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 10:50:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barbara Henning Subject: Yogapoetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Yogapoetics: I'm interested in hearing from poets with a regular yoga practice. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 15:23:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Slaughter Subject: Re: Query re Ted Joans In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I met Ted Joans in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1981. He was putting a collection together for Handshake Editions in Paris at the time. Whether that collection was or wasn't the Selected Poems referred to in Dorothy Wang's post, I can't say. I never saw it. But the time was right. Bill On Sat, 6 Jun 1998, Maria Damon wrote: > pls don't backchannel this info; others of us wd like to know too--thanks > for the query! > > At 4:50 PM -0700 6/5/98, Dorothy Wang wrote: > >Does anyone know the publisher and place of publication of a volume by Ted > >Joans entitled Wow: The Selected Poems of Ted Joans (1981, I think)? I was > >asked by a professor friend for this information but can't find it > >anywhere. Thanks in advance! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 15:54:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: re re bombs flowering Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Some blockhead said some blockhead said he would justify the ways of God to man; Some blockhead spent a lifetime writing to put his enemies in hell; Some blockhead said that bombs opened like flowers; Some blockhead said a girl had turned into a tree. He said he'd rather turn into a pub. Some blockhead said some blockhead said he sang in his chains like the sea; Some blockhead said some mariner said he'd seen a ghostly crew; Some blockhead said depicted lovers on an urn were luckier than two live ones; Some blockhead said a skylark never wert a bird. Some poet! He said he'd sooner be a man of common sense. [thus on, endlessly, I hope]. David ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 15:57:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: p s to my recent posting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I should have titled it "Riposte to Clive James" and credited Tom Beard, to whom thanks for his posting of James' line re bombs and flowers. David ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Jun 1998 21:13:46 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: phenomena, mediaton & the hermeneutical or the father, the son & the holy ghost MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Formulation of ideas is not an independent process, strictly rational in the old sense, but is part of a particular grammar, and differs, from slightly to greatly, between different grammars. WE DISSECT NATURE ALONG LINES LAID DOWN BY OUR NATIVE LANGUAGES. The categories and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds--and this means largely by the linguistic system in our minds. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do, largely because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way--an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified in the patterns of our language. The agreement is of course, an implicit and unstated one, BUT ITS TERMS ARE ABSOLUTELY OBLIGATORY; we cannot talk at all except by suscribing to the organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees. This fact is very significant for modern sscience, for it means that no individual is free to describe nature with absolute impartiality but is constrained to certain modes of interpretation even while he thinks himself most free...."---from Language, Thought and Reality by Benjamin Lee Whorf --- "In modern physics, atoms lose this last property, they possess geometrical qualities in no higher degree than colour, taste, etc., The atom of modern physics can only be symbolized by a partial differential equation in an abstract multidimensional space. Only the experiment of an observer forces the atom to indicate a position, a colour and a quantity of heat. All the qualities of the atom of modern physics are derived, IT HAS NO IMMEDIATE AND DIRECT PHYSICAL PROPERTIES AT ALL, i.e. every type of visual conception we might wish to design is, ipso facto, faulty. An understanding of 'the first order' is, I would almost say by definition, impossible for the world of atoms."---from Philosophical Problems of Quantum Physics by Werner Heisenberg --- "Kant is right to stress the first-person singular. A problem exists for me only if I have it; evidence which solves the problem exists for me only if I have it. Someone else may have evidence which bears upon my problems, but I cannot take such evidence into account until I have it too. And when someone tells me what he knows about something, he provides me with new evidence only by confronting me with new sensory data: I hear him speak, and I have evidence of his truthfulness, i.e. as to the likelihood that the sounds he makes will tally with my experience in appropriate ways; and therefore I treat the occurrence of my auditory experience in hearing him as evidence, my evidence, that such and such is the case."---from Kant's Analytic by Jonathan Bennett---cp ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 12:36:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: phenomena, mediaton [of language] leads to a common error Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"Formulation of ideas is not an independent process, strictly rational >in the old sense, but is part of a particular grammar, and differs, from >slightly to greatly, between different grammars. WE DISSECT NATURE ALONG >LINES LAID DOWN BY OUR NATIVE LANGUAGES. Loosely stated my response is this: I firmly believe, on empirical grounds, that there is a fundamental error in this. The process, significantly for the arts and thus for poetics, similarly as for the most progressive in the sciences, is a process of non-verbal to verbal. It is a process of knowing something non linguistically and then attempting to put that into words. That is, communication of the observation, of the world or of the idea, is a process of finding the words for it. I do agree that sometimes we make the error of saying that the observable does not exist because there are no words for it. We too easily limit the universe, and the predication of existence, to the already namable. Science does this less than the arts. The arts, where they use language, are more prone to that error. Language, in fact, evolves, along lines determined by the empirical observation of the world. (I hesitate to distinguish natural from non natural, because it is all ultimately "of nature" and even what is made by our own species is a natural product of a natural species. There is nothing unnatural. The arbitrary and pragmatic distinction between what human beings make and what else there is, is misleading as to our place within the whole, as another variant part of it.) Language evolves to accomodate new observations of the world. It is the conservatism of language, its resistance to change, as its necessary function of the preservation of commonly understood meanings, that sometimes stands against progress, and slows acceptance of the inclusion of more and more anomalies within new paradigms. It slows the expression of new paradigms into a more commonly communicable and understandable linguistic form. If the observation occurs and there are no words to describe it, as in instances of anomalies, there has been the tendency to fail to accord it its reality. We do tend to make the error that language is inclusive rather than exclusive. It does tend to be exclusive, mirroring social structures. Language has always been essentially a political tool, as well as a conveyance for what was considered acceptable ideology. As I said, we do tend to limit our empirical observations to what a-priori language is able to name. That magick of naming is in itself an error that we have slowly overcome. We have learned that we can always create a new name for a new thing, or new descriptors for a new observation that defies the limits of language prior to that advance. Slowly we have become more accustomed to the fact that the universe is full of things that as of yet we have no names for, and cannot yet call upon, much less command. However we shall name them, and we shall commend them, to our purposes, stands at the very foundation of modern scientific progress, in radical distinction, from any interpersonal equalities. (Also, potentially in conflict.) In most instances the creative process itself begins with a non linguistic idea and gains partial or complete expression, precisely or imprecisely, into words. The sub-conscious does not work primarily linguistically. It works proto and pre linguistically. In the ancient past, it is my firm belief, that the conscious sense of this was far less exceptional, and much more common. This relates to my comment about the building of the massive monuments of ancient Egypt. It is as if the pictogram, or hieroglyph is more natural to humankind. The first language then being more visual than sonic. The projection of the image of what is to be built to the uneducated workmen, by the skilled architect, such that a hundred or more workmen can work in precise unison creating a massive, near perfect, statue, or structure, such that no one workman can see enough of the other workmen's work with his own eyes, so as to be able to properly guage his own individual actions. Of course, without precise blueprints, and with limited means of measurement, measurement is not enough to explain the phenomenon. We therefore begin to understand that they were trained to follow a non verbal jungle sense more common to the consciousness of our distant ancestors. There is an interesting mythology and depiction of the methods for opening the minds of the workers to the receipt of transmission, and it is psychologically valid in terms of what has been learned about stimulatind and developing latent psi abilities in human subjects. It is interesting that Colonel John Alexander has written, in his discussions of "remote viewing", that the roots of modern advances can, in some instances, be traced back to ancient Egypt. Of course he writes about warriors and future war. There is at least one sect of Wiccans who feel similarly as to the origins of naturally available and specially trained psi abilities. They follow the same Egyptian methodology to awaken psi abilities. Psionic or psychotronic power is natural organic systems enhanced by, or replicated in principle into non organic systems, where those inorganic devices have variable precision. The quest then is not only to duplicate the abilities of organic systems, but to build machines that exceed those abilities in terms of their precision. However, that only reminds us that pre-linguistic visuatization precedes and oversteps language in significant ways. Psi, (often loosely called "psychic") abilities are traditionally closely related to non linguistic data, as much as is most of artistic creativity, other than literature. Literature often makes the error of claiming pre-eminence and putting cart in front of horse, then asking the horse to pull it. The poet struggles to turn, usually sub-conscious, non linguistic information into a fountain of precisely chosen and structured words, so as to give some communicative conveyance of the pre-linguistic ideas. >agreement is of course, an implicit and unstated one, BUT ITS TERMS ARE >ABSOLUTELY OBLIGATORY; we cannot talk at all except by suscribing to the >organization and classification of data which the agreement decrees. True, but there are a multitude of private languages. There are also a multitude of very specialist languages, unique to small groups, who do not necessarily or always share their entire meaning with outsiders. This, in a very simple instance, is the difference between mathematical "infinity" and true "infinity". The term becomes confused, unless we look very carefully at the situational context that it is used within, and know that mathematicians often use it differently. Science is full of such limitings, stretchings and re-definitions of language. It no longer allows language to be its limit. The poet, however, is usually in a more constrained situation. There is less freedom to create language, but language must be used as is given. Few poets transcend that limitation. It is often considered a poetic taboo to 'create new language' as opposed to use language as predecessors have used it. The very nature of language as as a system of precedents makes language more conservative than science. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 18:22:07 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Ted Joans Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Are we talking _Black Pow-Wow_ published 1969 by Hill and Wang? Bob Holman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Jun 1998 18:01:10 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: "and liars in public places" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Wahington (Reuters)- The U.S. military used lethal nerve gas during the Vietnam War, targeting American defectors in a village base camp in Laos, CNN and Time magazine said in a joint report on Sunday. Adm. Thomas Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed that sarin nerve gas was used in 1970 in a secret raid into Laos called Operation Tailwind, according to the report aired on CNN Sunday. Capt. Eugene McCarthy, commander of the mission, told the program "Newstand: CNN & Time" that "upwards of 100" people perished in the raid, including women and children. Platoon leader Lt. Robert Van Buskirk estimated up to 20 American military defectors were killed." --- "You don't know a fraction of the shit we did over there, you pink little panty-waist Marxist wannabe."---comment elicited from a former Phoenix program operative in Washington to testify on behalf of American MIAs when asked about U.S. involvement in raw opium smuggling out of the Shan states in northern Burma during the Vietnam war as he dragged the questioner across a table top by the throat. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 00:59:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dan Machlin Subject: Brazil meets New York Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Noted Brazilian Poet REGIS BONVICINO reads Poems in Portuguese (also video poetry) with Introduction, English translations by Michael Palmer and others read by: CHARLES BERNSTEIN & SERGE GAVRONSKY This Tuesday June 9th, 1998, 7:30 P.M. Sharp THE SEGUE PERFORMANCE SPACE LOFT, NY, NY 303 EAST 8th STREET (between Avenues B & C) Admission $5.00 Bonvicino is the brazilian translator of work by Robert Creeley and Michael Palmer and a collection of his work, edited by Michael Palmer, translated by Palmer and others is forthcoming. He is also featured in Nothing the Sun Could Not Explain: 20 Contemporary Brazilian Poets from Sun & Moon Press. Marjorie Perloff March 96 on Regis Bonvicino "He notices, for example, that time has a way of transforming, not only such obvious items as leaves and flowers, but that even the graffiti on the walls fade and that their absence oddly presents the observer with a loss. And he also knows -- having put himself to school with such U.S. masters as William Carlos Williams, Robert Creeley, and George Oppen -- that the location of the small words -- entre, como, alguem -- are as important as their more pretentious cousins, the big nouns that claim to point to the great truths about experience. This is a poetry in which lineation is the "bone" on which the "butterfly" is suspended, the wire on which word, morpheme, even the silence of empty space, become elements pregnant with meaning." - Claude Royet-Journoud on Bonvicino (specially for this reading) "It is the mutual observation of a body and a language, in the minute slowness of the world which cries out the surprising richness of Regis Bonvicino's work. At times it reminds us of the powerful and striking narrative of a Larry Eigner or a Robert Creeley. An imperceptible movement shakes up the surface which, under our eyes, collapses and, just as soon, is reconstituted. Nevertheless, it remains out of reach. One can only grasp the violent cesura of the work. Don't miss it!!! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:10:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Valentine de Saint-Point In-Reply-To: <3577070B.255044CB@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII So, there IS a Gerald Bruns.... I always thought it was a typo for Gerald Burns.... Now I gotta go through the things I read and start conceptually differentiating between them --------chris On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, Marjorie Perloff wrote: > For Tom Beard and other interested parties: > > Nancy Moore has done an interesting PhD thesis on Valentine. You can > contact Nancy via Jerry Bruns (her husband, probably known to this list > through his brilliant books, most recent one on Blanchot) at Notre Dame > or on email . Nancy did a lot of research in > Europe and hopes to publish her book (Northwestern U PhD)--contact her > thru Northwestern would also be possible. > > xxx > Marjorie Perloff > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:11:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: Valentine de Saint-Point MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit don't hurt yourself! . . . heh heh . . . HEY . . . how was the date last night, eh? Rachel seemed very sweet . . . hope you guys had fun . . . On Monday, June 08, 1998 12:11 PM, louis stroffolino [SMTP:lstroffo@HORNET.LIUNET.EDU] wrote: > So, there IS a Gerald Bruns.... > I always thought it was a typo for Gerald Burns.... > Now I gotta go through the things I read and start > conceptually differentiating between them > --------chris > > On Thu, 4 Jun 1998, Marjorie Perloff wrote: > > > For Tom Beard and other interested parties: > > > > Nancy Moore has done an interesting PhD thesis on Valentine. You can > > contact Nancy via Jerry Bruns (her husband, probably known to this list > > through his brilliant books, most recent one on Blanchot) at Notre Dame > > or on email . Nancy did a lot of research in > > Europe and hopes to publish her book (Northwestern U PhD)--contact her > > thru Northwestern would also be possible. > > > > xxx > > Marjorie Perloff > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:33:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Magdalena Zurawski Subject: New York Radio Stations Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Is there any such thing as interesting radio in NYC? I'm mostly interested in poetry, punk rock (and all its relatives), politics, jazz and any German or Polish programming. Any information about local programming would be greatly appreciated. Magdalena Zurawski ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:27:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: WHOOPS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit . . . that should've been backchannel . . . totally embarrassing . . . many apologies . . . ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:54:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Re: Valentine de Saint-Point Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 6/8/98 11:50:10 AM, you wrote: <> he he hey i heard it went bad...oh well... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:58:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: WHOOPS In-Reply-To: <01BD92D8.D35DC110@gps12@columbia.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 8 Jun 1998, Gary Sullivan wrote: > . . . that should've been backchannel . . . totally embarrassing . . . many > apologies . . . Are you kidding? Some of us live for moments like that. 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: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 17:58:56 +0100 Reply-To: mbrito@ull.es Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Manuel Brito Marrero Subject: Help on anarchy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am currently at work on the issue of anarchy and dissent in American poetry during the 1960s. Could anyone suggest poems & reading on that specific subject? Any help will be most appreciated. Thank you, Manuel Brito ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:10:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Queries: Gough; Kimball Comments: To: Manuel Brito Marrero In-Reply-To: <357C1850.1C2B@ull.es> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Does anyone have any addresses for: Jenny Gough or Cynthia Kimball ?? Thanks, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 13:13:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Apokatastasis Reading Series, Providence Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 13:13:12 -0400 >To: List >From: Brent Long >Subject: Apokatastasis Reading Series, Providence > >Tuesday, June 9, 1998/ Feature: Kyria Abrahams. 8:00 P.M. > >Open mic sign up: 7:30 P.M. > >7 South Angell, Providence, RI > >$2 at the door. Bottomless coffee. > >Be there. > >Next Week: Tony Brown >Following Week: Sou MacMillan (Who is reading with Jimmy Bacca in Taos, NM this week.) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 14:38:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: NY Radio Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Maggie -- WFMU plays things. I forget how to find them -- they have a web page -- Kenny Goldsmith could say more. WKCR (89.9 FM) plays jazz, country, blues, they used to do some ok hip hop, Garam Masala's a terrific raga show, Composed on the Tongue has more fiction than poetry these days, but the host changes from year to year, so it's worth trying on the odd Sunday at 8:30 pm. Otherwise, you're pretty much stuck with NPR's local, WNYC (93.9 FM, AM 820), or Pacifica's WBAI (again, I forget the call numbers). Susan Howe had a show on BAI ages ago, and All Things Considered has Cathy Bowman on now and again to contextualize a reading by someone from work that's usually energetic and sometimes surprising if almost-always anecdote-based. WNYE (91.5 FM) plays poetry every Tuesday and Thursday at 11:45 a.m. Anybody interested in reading on that show should e-mail me, I'll put you in touch with the host, Irwin Gonshak. WNYE is the NY Board of Ed's station, and they rent out blocks of time to Greek, Chinese and Francophone broadcasters, so if you hear French radio late at night in a cab, it's probably 91.5. And then there's Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, etc etc etc. Caspar Citron is still on the air, somewhere on AM, quick, which Frank O'Hara poem does Citron appear in? -- Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:29:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: WHOOPS In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" if the "rachel" involved is the same rachel that's been hanker-panking with bromide and bowwowing, i consider this info public property and wish to be enlightned still further. At 12:58 PM -0400 6/8/98, David Kellogg wrote: >On Mon, 8 Jun 1998, Gary Sullivan wrote: > >> . . . that should've been backchannel . . . totally embarrassing . . . many >> apologies . . . > >Are you kidding? Some of us live for moments like that. > >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: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:05:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Magdalena Zurawski Subject: NYC Radio Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks, Jordan, for the Info. hearts, maggie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:07:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dorothy Wang Subject: Ted Joans question answered In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks to everyone who pitched in with suggestions to help me with my query about Ted Joans' Wow. With the help of a reference librarian here at UC-Berkeley, I was able to locate Joans (who now lives in Seattle) and spoke with him by phone. He told me that Wow was scheduled to be published in 1981 by a Canadian publisher but, because Joans isn't Canadian, the project ran into problems and was never realized. He says that a woman in Seattle plans to put out Wow in chapbook form in Spring 1999. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 13:38:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: AVEC reading in SF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A San Francisco Reading: Joe Ross Susan Smith Nash Cydney Chadwick Michelle Murphy Saturday, June 13th, 5p.m. at the Attic Club, Cocktail Lounge and Artspace, 3336 24th St.(near the 24th St. BART station, also near Mission St.). Doors open at 4:30 p.m. Reading begins at 5 p.m. _sharp_. Free. Joe and Susan are coming from their respective out-of-towns for what should be a great reading! moriarty@lanminds.com http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 16:45:05 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: ass face Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I was wondering if anyone had any comments on the following lines/poems. 1. This is the only kind of language you understand, ass face. -- Ted Berrigan 2. Hey fat Giuliani kid, listen to this poem about you. -- Jordan Davis 3. When they beat you with a flashlight, you make light shine in all directions. -- Barratt Watten btw, that barratt line is in "quotes" in his wonderfully scary bad history. but i think i'm desitized to those marks. so i omit in my quote. Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 13:46:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: Re: ass face Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hostility is the sincerest form of affection. I just couldn't resist the subject line - Laura At 04:45 PM 6/8/98 EDT, you wrote: >I was wondering if anyone had any comments on the following lines/poems. > >1. This is the only kind of language you understand, ass face. > -- Ted Berrigan > >2. Hey fat Giuliani kid, listen to this poem about you. > -- Jordan Davis > >3. When they beat you with a flashlight, you make light shine in all >directions. > -- Barratt Watten > >btw, that barratt line is in "quotes" in his wonderfully scary bad history. >but i think i'm desitized to those marks. so i omit in my quote. > >Bill Luoma > > moriarty@lanminds.com http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 16:58:18 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Re: ass face Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a massage dated 6/8/00 13:45:30 AM, u wrote: 1. This is the only kind of sandwich you understand, butcher face. -- Ted Berrigan 2. Hey skinny billboard model kid, listen to this sparkles about you. -- Jordan Davis/Dave Pajo 3. When they eat you with a nightcrawler, you make heart shine in all rections. -- Barratt Watten/David Hasselhoff >> ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 17:27:47 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: ass face In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 8 Jun 1998 16:45:05 EDT from Jesus & Christians were symbolized as donkeys in pre-Christian Rome. Then Dante faced up to it & climbed through Satan's ass. Whew! YHWH! Gesundtheit! Put a frame around it & you can say anything. "I been framed". We get scared when you take away the frame. So we say, hey, I'm an artist, the frame is everywhere. Prison is a frame-up. How arstistic! - Henry Gould today on NPR they interviewed an expert on Nigeria. The NPR lady asked him why Nigerians put up with a dictator for so long? Well, it's been a tragedy & they're a very diverse country. Any hope for democracy? Well, maybe. They didn't discuss the fact that Nigeria is a oil-based economy controlled by an elite & the US never turned off the tap. Hypocrisy is the perfume of repression. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 19:49:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: Distributed Image of the Internet in - r* and similar commands: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII [This might be of interest to anyone concerned with the poetics of the Net itself, the relationships among nodes and protocols. For "Nikuko" or "Alan" for example are merely symptoms carried in datagrams and packets across the wires, often broken up along the way, only to be reassembled later. The early Net was one of comparative transparency, and a number of shell commands are, literally, apropos. Alan] _______________________________________________________________________ Distributed Image of the Internet in - r* and similar commands: Clearly, at one point the imaginary of network distribution and function was based to some extent on considering telnet a universal protocol or protocol suite (in fact the World Wide Web is at telnet port 80), creating a group of r- (remote) commands as well, unifying both local and remote machines/hosts. There is rwho, rstat, rup, ruptime, rsh, rlogin, rdist, rcp, etc. The last is remote copy; rdist is for (usually) periodic dist- ributions of updated files; rlogin and rsh allow remote logins using files and bypassing passwords. These and others are demonstrated below. The image or vision, now remotely backgrounded, is that of a skein of nodes or sites, all of which are transparent to one another - almost down to the hardware. Finger is another important component here, since it displays or splays information concerning a particular user - what was once thought of as freedom, is now thought of as invasion of privacy, often across firewalls. Even now, however, you will find rusers still implemented on some systems, returning the current online users. (Note that intranets provide a shadowy parallel to all of this - but in- tranets exist in atmospheres of tight security, are corporate-driven, and, if anything, are the result of mistrust and exclusion. I like to think of the r-commands as looser, the result of at least a translucent net and a belief, related to hacker ethos, of the relative freedom of information.) Besides rlogin, with the proper .rhosts file, rsh still seems to work between panix3.panix.com and gol1.gol.com. rsh is a login from a local shell to a remote one. For any of the following, you may use the "man " pages at the unix prompt; for other information, try "apropos " at the same. Most of the demonstration below uses panix (US) and gol (Japan); a third site is murdoch (Australia). The output of "apropos remote" is appended. Here is rup - status of hosts: {k:7} rup cleo.murdoch.edu.au cleo.murdoch up 39 days, 13:26, load average: 0.08, 0.05, 0.05 Here is rstat - from gol1.gol.com where it remains implemented: {k:1} rstat cleo.murdoch.edu.au 8:10am up 39 days, 13:29, load average: 0.04 0.05 0.05 ruptime and rwho work on all local machines (ruptime from gol1.gol.com): {k:1} ruptime alb1 down 137+15:50 cheshirecat up 243+23:03, 0 users, load 1.14, 1.08, 1.00 gol1 up 28+17:29, 2 users, load 0.53, 0.84, 0.93 gol4 down 1+06:30 gol6 up 49+18:18, 0 users, load 0.12, 0.27, 0.22 gol7 up 69+18:05, 0 users, load 0.14, 0.13, 0.14 jdb1 down 137+15:49 jr down 137+15:50 mx01 up 194+15:43, 0 users, load 0.00, 0.00, 0.01 mx02 down 47+14:43 pproxy01 down 47+14:44 pproxy02 down 47+14:44 smtp01 up 194+15:42, 0 users, load 0.06, 0.03, 0.03 smtp02 up 194+15:44, 0 users, load 0.01, 0.02, 0.03 tweedledee up 13+21:58, 0 users, load 2.00, 2.00, 2.00 tweedledum up 91+16:32, 0 users, load 2.06, 2.01, 2.00 rwho: {k:1} rwho atsukoi gol1:ttyq4 Jun 9 08:12 :02 khris gol1:ttyq2 Jun 9 07:56 linds gol1:ttyq5 Jun 9 08:14 sondheim gol1:ttyp5 Jun 9 08:14 rusers: {k:108} rusers apollo.sfsu.edu apollo.sfsu. abfong shalini kblack leon sjhenry melissa ndepper khudson icecrea m fielden lokit jenniseb yoyoko vmesta siskron jchung byteme alkeller anadeau c harnly mnielsen arbil desmata kuromif2 jshart donnalau inagaki smui pops jho ac abrera fbuenafe ireneqi ilum zt gmontem cpb gmontem rosset klohe ignaciof nhaya shi jrizzo bigal chaup mmerumo gab443 jtzs sfesseha Then there is rdist: {k:21} rdist -f distfile gol1.gol.com: updating host gol1.gol.com gol1.gol.com: LOCAL ERROR: Unexpected input from server: "Host 'gol1.gol.com' added to the ".list of known hosts. gol1.gol.com: updating of gol1.gol.com finished {k:25} rdist -f distfile gol.com: updating host gol.com gol.com: LOCAL ERROR: Unexpected input from server: "Host 'gol.com' added to the ".list of known hosts. gol.com: updating of gol.com finished After the addition of gol1.gol.com and gol.com to the .list of known hosts - neither command worked again. But the updating of files (which is the function of rdist) across the Net still functions. distfile: HOSTS = ( sondheim@gol1.gol.com) FILES = ( kj lynx_bookmarks.html thing ) ${FILES} -> ${HOSTS} notify sondheim; The .rhosts file is used for remote login, etc.: .rhosts file at gol1.gol.com: panix.com sondheim panix3.panix.com sondheim Testing the systems: 90 ls 91 pico distfile 92 rdist -f distfile 93 b 94 time rdist -f distfile 95 ls 96 cat distfile >> zz 97 pico zz 98 gg 99 cat .rhosts >> zz 100 pico zz 101 b 102 m 103 b 104 ls 105 h >> zz 4 rstat cleo.murdoch.edu.au 5 g 6 fg 7 ruptime 8 man ruptime 9 uptime 10 g 11 fg 12 g 13 fg 14 rlog 15 fg 16 h >> z Apropos remote: .I nntplink (8) - transmit netnews articles to a remote NNTP server fsp_prof (5) - file for fsp remote login data ident_lookup, ident_id, ident_free, id_open, id_close, id_query, id_parse, id_fileno (3N) - query remote IDENT server innxmit (8) - send Usenet articles to a remote NNTP server klogind (8) - remote login server kshd (8) - remote shell server nntpget (1) - get Usenet articles from a remote NNTP server nntpsend (8) - send Usenet articles to remote site passwd.nntp (5) - passwords for connecting to remote NNTP servers rdist (1) - remote file distribution client program rdistd (8) - remote file distribution server program scp (1) - secure copy (remote file copy program) ssh (1) - secure shell client (remote login program) ssh (1) - secure shell client (remote login program) telnet (1C) - user interface to a remote system using the TELNET protocol tn3270 (1) - full-screen remote login to IBM VM/CMS uux (1) - Remote command execution over UUCP adv (8) - advertise a directory for remote access with RFS auth_destroy, authnone_create, authunix_create, authunix_create_default (3N) - library routines for client side remote procedure call authentication authdes_create, authdes_getucred, get_myaddress, getnetname, host2netname, key_decryptsession, key_encryptsession, key_gendes, key_setsecret, netname2host, netname2user, user2netname (3N) - library routines for secure remote procedure calls cu (1C) - connect to remote system fingerd, in.fingerd (8C) - remote user information server hosts.equiv, .rhosts (5) - trusted remote hosts and users mount (3R) - keep track of remotely mounted filesystems netrc (5) - file for ftp remote login data nlm_prot (3R) - protocol between local and remote network lock managers on (1C) - execute a command on a remote system, but with the local environment phones (5) - remote host phone number data base rcmd, rresvport, ruserok (3N) - routines for returning a stream to a remote command rcp (1C) - remote file copy rdate (8C) - set system date from a remote host rdist (1) - remote file distribution program remote (5) - remote host description file rex (3R) - remote execution protocol rexd, rpc.rexd (8C) - RPC-based remote execution server rexec (3N) - return stream to a remote command rexecd, in.rexecd (8C) - remote execution server rfmaster (5) - Remote File Sharing name server master file rfs, RFS (4) - remote file sharing rfudaemon (8) - Remote File Sharing daemon rlogin (1C) - remote login rlogind, in.rlogind (8C) - remote login server rmail (8C) - handle remote mail received via uucp rmt (8C) - remote magtape protocol module rmtab (5) - remote mounted file system table rnusers, rusers (3R) - return information about users on remote machines rpc (3N) - library routines for remote procedure calls rquota (3R) - implement quotas on remote machines rquotad, rpc.rquotad (8C) - remote quota server rsh (1C) - remote shell rshd, in.rshd (8C) - remote shell server rstat (3R) - get performance data from remote kernel rtime (3N) - get remote time rwall (3R) - write to specified remote machines showmount (8) - show all remote mounts svcerr_auth, svcerr_decode, svcerr_noproc, svcerr_noprog, svcerr_progvers, svcerr_systemerr, svcerr_weakauth (3N) - library routines for server side remote procedure call errors telnet (1C) - user interface to a remote system using the TELNET protocol tip (1C) - connect to remote system unadv (8) - unadvertise a Remote File Sharing resource uusend (1C) - send a file to a remote host uux (1C) - remote system command execution uuxqt (8C) - execute remote command requests xdr_accepted_reply, xdr_authunix_parms, xdr_callhdr, xdr_callmsg, xdr_opaque_auth, xdr_rejected_reply, xdr_replymsg (3N) - XDR library routines for remote procedure calls __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 18:26:51 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Laura E. Wright" Subject: Re: ass face MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit <> --Ted Berrigan's translation of Henri Michaux Maz881@AOL.COM wrote: > I was wondering if anyone had any comments on the following lines/poems. > > 1. This is the only kind of language you understand, ass face. > -- Ted Berrigan > > 2. Hey fat Giuliani kid, listen to this poem about you. > -- Jordan Davis > > 3. When they beat you with a flashlight, you make light shine in all > directions. > -- Barratt Watten > > btw, that barratt line is in "quotes" in his wonderfully scary bad history. > but i think i'm desitized to those marks. so i omit in my quote. > > Bill Luoma -- Laura Wright Library Assistant, Naropa Institute (303) 546-3547 "All music is music..." -- Ted Berrigan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 20:55:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: I found the mass ! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Gancie Quoted: "TELLER SAID, "MISS ULAM, HOLD MY CALLS; GOD IS COMING TO HEFT MY BALLS."---cp Ginsberg said something similar in one of the poems he wrote, a few years before he became a wholly disembodied poetic bodhisattva. I wonder why Edward Teller and Ginsberg had that commonality of experience. Perhaps someone is lying about Teller ? M. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 19:03:06 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: the 'seems' MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "But what you hear are the seams I speak, animal, the white of our noise meringues into peaks neither of us mount--or if we do, as taxidermists, filling what is over because we love to see as if alive."--- from Hades in Mangenese by Clayton Eshleman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 21:25:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Manuel, John Cage and Jackson MacLow would two people with whose work to begin vis-a-vis 'chance-operations,' which both used as a kind of compositional anarchy (linked to their professed political beliefs in same). Stephen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 01:06:00 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Yogapoetics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit barbara - 1) i'm a poet who frequently yogues. 2) i envision a back which is broadening as well as lengthening as a back which is making a huge "X" from shoulder to opposite hip AND as a back which "rectangulizes" from shoulders to hips that's about the extent of my putting the two together - so far. so, - thanks for the inspiration what's the connection do for you? - lyx ish _____________________________________ Dreamtime Village http://www.net22.com/dreamtime/index.shtml QAZINGULAZA: And/Was/Wakest website: http://net22.com/qazingulaza/index.html email for DT & And/Was: dtv@mwt.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:03:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: the 'seems' Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"But what you hear >are the seams I speak, animal, >the white of our noise >meringues into peaks >neither of us mount--or if we do, >as taxidermists, filling what is over >because we love to see as if alive."--- >from Hades in Mangenese by Clayton Eshleman -------------------------------------------- "Your entire world has been destroyed, and as you open your eyes, in the early twilight, of a sudden awakening, everything is almost the same, except the twilight: the twilight never ends." ------------------------------- "Strangers whispering, nothing supernatural - rain sounds outside." --------------------------- "A thin pressed ghost of my beautiful flower - this is memories." --------------------------- "Reinventing the wheel, takes a lifetime, hard knocks and rough roads, everyone wants to be first - and no one said." ---------------------------- B.E. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:08:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Manuel, >John Cage and Jackson MacLow would two people with whose work to begin >vis-a-vis 'chance-operations,' which both used as a kind of compositional >anarchy (linked to their professed political beliefs in same). >Stephen Though minimalism is usually the exact opposite of anarchy. Minimalism being the exploration of fundamental principles of order rather than an ever increasing free reign of chaos. Minimalism can be seen as a return to the exploration of the most fundamental roots of composition and sonic expression. It is a primal expression of basic paradigms and principles, reasserted in clearest relief against anarchic noise. Cage was exploring the very bars that the cage was made from. Proving that names are very important antecedents. ------------------------------ "Everything is what it isn't." - John Winston [Churchill-Smith] Lennon M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:00:45 -0500 Reply-To: kuszai@acsu.buffalo.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: Re: Anarchy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have to take issue with some of what's sprung up here surrounding both JML and Cage. Beware of associating "chance" with "compositional anarchy" -- as I'm sure that JML at least would be troubled by that connection. And as has been pointed out all too often, the term "chance" doesn't really describe the procedures used by JML (or, for that matter Cage). As Mordecai-Mark Mac Low (an astrophysicist at the Max Plank (sp?) institute in Heidelberg) pointed out to his father some years ago, these "chance" procedures are really more "deterministic" than anything else. Jackson called them "algorithmic" in a recent letter. And while there might be a connection between such a proceduralism and an anarchist politics, I think that most anarchists would freak out at the idea of having their politics reduced to a philosophical anarchism of the aesthetic variety. But we could talk about that. JML has at turns denied such a connection between his politics and at others said that the performance pieces were "analogies" for intentional communities. Personally, it seems to me that making that connection stresses the "individualist" anarchism of Tucker, etc., and the american anarchists of the 19th century, which lead in no uncertain terms to the anti-statism of the anti-govt paranoids on the right, while the majority of "anarchists" with whom we'd know about come from the anarcho-communist heritage of Bakunin, Emma Goldman, etc. (and that's the lineage of most poets who were involved in that movement). So, it seems to me that the question has to come from another angle. Also, I don't get how either Cage or JML are "minimalist" In fact, both Cage and Mac Low seem much more maximalist, where the signifying capacity of words is overburdened, rather than emptied out. There are plenty of examples. Maybe some of the work like "Barnesbook" would be minimalist, but then that comes from a particular use of that program "Diastext" which also seems a long way from "anarchy" and even Barnesbook isn't minimalist in the way that say, I dunno, errr, Cid Corman or someone might be considered minimalist. Any thoughts? Also- I got the sense also that Manuel meant something different. Please explain what you mean. morpheal wrote: > > >Manuel, > >John Cage and Jackson MacLow would two people with whose work to begin > >vis-a-vis 'chance-operations,' which both used as a kind of compositional > >anarchy (linked to their professed political beliefs in same). > >Stephen > > Though minimalism is usually the exact opposite of anarchy. > > Minimalism being the exploration of fundamental principles of order > rather than an ever increasing free reign of chaos. > > Minimalism can be seen as a return to the exploration of the most fundamental > roots of composition and sonic expression. It is a primal expression of basic > paradigms and principles, reasserted in clearest relief against anarchic noise. > > Cage was exploring the very bars that the cage was made from. > Proving that names are very important antecedents. > > ------------------------------ > > "Everything is what it isn't." - John Winston [Churchill-Smith] Lennon > > M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:57:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: anarchy having more to do with mutual aid than randomness MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I always took Bernadette Mayer's work to have more to do with anarchy in the Bakunin/Kropotkin sense that the state the governance of things in some ordinary tight-ass way is irrelevant and if things if people were left to take care of themselves without the state then people would make an effort to make sure everything was seen to, viz. Utopia and Mutual Aid and cf. the total complete works of Clark Coolidge. Of course the random side of anarchy is nice too, and the punk circle A has its glints of inspiration. But Manuel Brito wanted to know about anarchism poetry and the 60s and Bernadette's so-called anarchist works come later. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:45:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAYHEW Subject: set poetics nomail MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'll be incomunicado for a while, leaving you to your own devices till July 15. The ass-face line reminded me of one of my own: "What you most despise in others, cultivate in yourself." Jonathan Mayhew ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:13:37 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: [Fwd: FLUXLIST: Dieter Roth] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------26063FA441FB" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------26063FA441FB Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit book artist, concrete poet extraordinare --------------26063FA441FB Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Received: from lists.village.Virginia.EDU (lists.village.Virginia.EDU [128.143.200.198]) by westbyserver.westby.mwt.net (8.8.7/8.8.6) with ESMTP id JAA27926 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:04:03 -0500 (CDT) Received: (from domo@localhost) by lists.village.Virginia.EDU (8.8.5/8.6.6) id JAA25478 for fluxlist-outgoing; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:45:03 -0400 X-Authentication-Warning: lists.village.Virginia.EDU: domo set sender to owner-fluxlist@localhost using -f Received: from jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU (jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU [128.143.200.11]) by lists.village.Virginia.EDU (8.8.5/8.6.6) with ESMTP id JAA16770 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:44:59 -0400 Received: from IBM.rhrz.uni-bonn.de (ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de [131.220.236.2]) by jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU (8.7.6/8.6.6) with SMTP id JAA19559 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:44:08 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199806091344.JAA19559@jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU> Received: from IBM.RHRZ.Uni-Bonn.DE by IBM.rhrz.uni-bonn.de (IBM/VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 5324; Tue, 09 Jun 98 15:44:32 MEZ Date: Tue, 09 Jun 98 15:42:32 MEZ From: UZS106@ibm.rhrz.uni-bonn.de Subject: FLUXLIST: Dieter Roth To: fluxlist@jefferson.village.virginia.edu Sender: owner-fluxlist@lists.village.Virginia.EDU Precedence: bulk Reply-To: fluxlist@lists.village.Virginia.EDU Content-Type: text has died. There is a nice nouveau realistes piece of him in the current art show in the Cologne Kunsthalle am Neumarkt ! Worth a visite......... Heiko --------------26063FA441FB-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 05:54:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Organization: Sun Moon Books Subject: new titles from Sun & Moon/Green Integer Comments: cc: djmess@sunmoon.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sun & Moon Press and Green Integer are pleased to announce the publication of several new titles: MR. KNIFE, MISS FORK: AN ANTHOLOGY OF INTERNATIONAL POETRY, no. 1 This, the first issue of a bi-annual anthology of international poetry, contains new work and new translated work (in the original language and English) by major poets throughout the world, including Alexei Kruchenykh, Ameilia Rosselli, José Antonio Mazzoti, Eduard Chironos, Ishihard Yoshiro, Benjamin Péret, Marcelin Pleynet, Pablo Picasso, Miroslav Holub, Stefan Augustin Doinas, Gilbert Sorrentino, Andrea Zanzotto, Friederike Mayrocker, Elisabeth Borchers, Durs Grunbein, Ronald Johnson, and Pentii Saarikoski. There is also commentary by Jacques Roubaud (his hilarious story of visiting a grade school class to talk about his poem), Vicente Huidobro (one of his remarkable manifestos), Takahashi Mutsuo on the end of literature (and the end of life as we know it), and Will Alexander on "The Caribbean: Language as Translucent Immincence." More than 20 short reviews and notes on new books of poetry throughout the world. A single issue costs $10.95/2-issue subscription for $20.00 WE ALSO ASK THAT EVERYONE GETS THEIR UNIVERSITY OR COLLEGE LIBRARY TO SUBSCRIBE. Subscriptions should be send directly to Sun & Moon (6026 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036) Please help us keep this important journal going!!!! Next issue will be in October 1998 AFTER, by Douglas Messerli Yes, it's my first new book of poetry in years! (If you discount the STRUCTURE OF DESTRUCTION series as poetry). After began in the late 1970s, when I was trying to under- stand why Baudelaire was interesting in English. I certainly couldn't tell it from the then-available translations. So I began my own poems "after" Baudelaire....and then after Rimbaud, Mallarme, Sor Juana, Verlaine and many others. I then began alternating these poems with my "own" poetry influenced by some of the formal devices and occasionally thematic concerns of the "after" poems. The result is a book in which Milton sounds like a "language" poet (whatevr that my mean), in which the write through "The Acquaintance" by Robert Frost, I retranslate a poem by Rae Armantrout from the French back into English, and write a poem "After Lorca after Spicer." The result I think is serious poetry and good fun. $10.95 (available on the list with a 20% discount). THE EFFORT TO FALL, by Christopher Spranger. Annihilation--how many sleepless nights I have spent repeating this word to myself in ectasy! The prrof of wisdom is not knowledge by weariness, and he that is absolutely weary is absolutely wise. Misery being coextensive with life, a happy moment may be defined as any moment occurring either before we are born or after we die. I want the ideal performance--the one which exists only in the composer's mind; not the real performance which requires conductor and orchestra. A book of pity and brilliant observations, aphorism at its best. And he's only in his late 20s; the book was written when Spranger was in his early 20s!!!!! $8.95 (Green Integer); availalbe on the list with a 20% discount. Write or E-mail Sun & Moon (djmess@sunmoon.com) 6026 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90036 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 05:59:46 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Organization: Sun Moon Books Subject: moving toward my five: announcement of NAP and NAF awards Comments: cc: djmess@sunmoon.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Moving toward my limit of five....I'd like to announce the 1998 winners of the New American Poetry competition and New American Fiction competition. In poetry, Nick Piombino chose: TEMPORARY WORKERS RIDE A SUBWAY, by Mark Wallace In fiction, Douglas Messerli chose: FLESH & BONE, by Cydney Chadwick There were many excellent manuscripts in both categories, and the decisions were difficult. We appreciate those who sent us your work. For this year's competition (announced in March/April 1999) send a full length manuscript (with a $25.00 fee, which goes toward the publication the winning manuscript(s)) to Sun & Moon Press, 6026 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90036 by December 31st. Douglas Messerli ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 11:16:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: ass face In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ...differences in tone and intent and general impact, in "violent" lines--is a very disturbing and engaging topic. Especially because it reflects so well the character of our culture. I still feel that Andrews' I Don't Have Any Paper... is the key reference point here. The first two quotes Bill gives, have first a localized reference; only seconarily do they get involved with the abrasions that are general (but they do do so..) Also, they betray more than a little anxiety about the poet's place in our rough and tumble demikulchah.. The Watten is more like the Andrews: it's implicated in ongoing violence in a deliberately hurtful and "unforgiveable" way. m. On Mon, 8 Jun 1998 Maz881@AOL.COM wrote: > I was wondering if anyone had any comments on the following lines/poems. > > 1. This is the only kind of language you understand, ass face. > -- Ted Berrigan > > 2. Hey fat Giuliani kid, listen to this poem about you. > -- Jordan Davis > > 3. When they beat you with a flashlight, you make light shine in all > directions. > -- Barratt Watten > > btw, that barratt line is in "quotes" in his wonderfully scary bad history. > but i think i'm desitized to those marks. so i omit in my quote. > > Bill Luoma > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 11:35:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: attachments MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII As a general "rule" (i.e. a consensual courtesy) please do not send attachments to the list. Many people cannot receive them and they end up here, at the poetics home office in Red Deer. Thanks! --Jimmy Johnson, coach Miami Dolphins p.s. I heard a rumor that Amiri Baraka has a role in the new Warren Beatty flick, Bulworth. Is this true? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 08:51:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: L.A. Books Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sunday L.A. Books held the last reading of its initial series. Paul Vangelisti and Dennis Phillips read from their recent work, and a great time was had by all. Paul read from a variety of work, including a series of poems ordered by the days of the week (all eight of them) and a novel-in-verse (_Gold Mountain_) about a bordello in 19th century Los Angeles. Dennis read from a book-length work, _Sand_. Spotted in the audience were, in no particular order, Standard Schaefer, Guy Bennett, Martha Ronk, Diane Ward, Franklin Bruno, Evan Calbi, Mark Salerno, and Martin Nakell. We've had three previous readings for this series (held at Cafe Balcony in west L.A.): Douglas Messerli and Joe Ross, Leslie Scalapino and Diane Ward, Guy Bennett and Martha Ronk. A new series begins in September, and we're still working on the schedule. In the next couple days, I'm hoping to have photos and a couple sound files from the reading online at the LITPRESS.COM site. As many of you know, the announcement of new books at the litpress site has lagged behind my original intention of updating once a week. It's more like once a month. Bit off more than I could chew on that one, but I will keep doing the announcements, and a new list of them will be up later this week. Thanks for your patience. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:30:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: New American Writing Event In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980608203826.0074f624@pop.lmi.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reading at Small Press Traffic, New College, 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 12: Barbara Guest Aaron Shurin Cydney Chadwick Rodrigo Toscano Brandon Downing to celebrate publication of NAW 16. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:45:18 -0400 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Organization: Alphaville Subject: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-Path: Received: from imo25.mx.aol.com (imo25.mx.aol.com [198.81.17.69]) by ixmail8.ix.netcom.com (8.8.7-s-4/8.8.7/(NETCOM v1.01)) with ESMTP id MAA22039; for ; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 12:10:55 -0700 (PDT) From: JBCM2@aol.com Received: from JBCM2@aol.com by imo25.mx.aol.com (IMOv14_b1.1) id OXTHa07259 for ; Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:10:20 -0400 (EDT) Message-ID: <86ba380f.357c371d@aol.com> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:10:20 EDT To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Subject: MEDIA FRENZY? Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: AOL 4.0 for Windows 95 sub 170 I've been listening to the media reaction to the nerve gas story. the defense department says there's no documented history of any use of nerve gas, or targeting defectors with extreme prejudice. some of those who were involved are apparently having a difficult time dealing with their participation in these "elite" death squads, and they are trying to come clean; I can understand this. it's a surprise, but it shouldn't be, to sensitive folks when they discover that, as they grow older, their ability to repress the full context of their participation in behavior that is in fact abhorrent to them is significantly impaired. (I'm not talking about the most vicious among us who haven't developed a conscience.) the media, for the moment, has been caught unawares; they haven't gotten their instructions yet, but the general trend seems to heading toward `well, it was a dirty thing to do, but it was a dirty war,' as if our prior atrocities somehow justified this one. this is pretzel torture a la scalia; a parade of middle-aged men who thought that anything that was used to help them in the perpetuation of that illegal war was also justifiable. yet given the literally sacred vow that this country would never be the first to use "these terrible weapons" , and the approbation heaped on the head of saddam, why is the moral dimension appearing as an afterthought? this is a good measuring stick for the immediate future, and whether or not you should keep your passport current and a cash stash. if there is no significant outcry (really, in any other western country the people would be in the streets) then this will be interpreted (correctly) by our master class that such behavior, having been justified in the past, is thus justified in the present. the absurdity of such a logical premise is matched in my memory only by those of the Nazi's, who, having absolute control, had absolute contempt for the intelligence of their minions. if we have reached this level, and I think we have, then the decades-old attempt by the elite to desensitize a populace sensitized by the war has succeeded, and anything is possible; chomsky can crawl home to die -- the propaganda war has been lost, and only subversion is believable. joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:56:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: ------------------------------- In-Reply-To: <357D3093.43E2@cinenet.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Oh yeah I should use this forum to announce I'm doing a poetry reeading with Sam Truitt and Jason Vincz (sp?) tomorrow night at the TranHudson Gallery 416 West 13th St. (meat packing district manhattan) 7PM.......... chris stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:31:22 -0400 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Anarchy Comments: To: "J. Kuszai" In-Reply-To: <357D400D.2C73@acsu.buffalo.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII To J. Kuszai: You make some good points; in fact I don't think Cage and Mac Low work/ed with any kind of simplistic parallel between anarchism and the procedures they use/d. The original query was about poets influenced by anarchism...And from the point of view of their subjective political beliefs, these are indeed the first two that ought to be mentioned. What in fact the relation is between those beliefs and their work, including form and procedure, is (as you suggest) complex and mediated. But (to my limited knowledge) anarchism as a tradition has had some influence on 'em, as individuals... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:31:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I've been listening to the media reaction to the nerve gas story. the defense >department says there's no documented history of any use of nerve gas, or >targeting defectors with extreme prejudice. .......................... >the elite to desensitize a populace sensitized by the war has succeeded, and >anything is possible; chomsky can crawl home to die -- the propaganda war has >been lost, and only subversion is believable. joe Though it is the furthest from poetry yet, the Russians had chemical warfare materials in the 1960s. The Chinese might have had some too. It is not a very complicated technology. It is the defectors who were the losers in the propaganda war, regardless of any further analysis as to historical outcome. They were not really defectors, but instead "prisoners of war", of a peculiar kind. Their minds twisted beyond any semblance of sanity by a constant barrage of radio frequencied Hanoi propaganda. The psychological warfare side of Nam has yet to be written, and much of what was endured is still presumably too classified to become historical data. The usual strategy is to attempt, often at high cost in assets, to liberate prisoners of war. If that fails, then the second strategy is to attempt to minimize damage, in terms of preventing increased human suffering being brought upon a larger number. In effect, actions meant to minimize, or at least decrease immediate and long term damages to one's own assets. Consideration is usually given, if possible, to the sufferings being endured by the prisoners. Presumably the defectors in question were not being tortured into defecting, but I do not know if we have that side of that story right either. Some prisoners defected as the result of brainwashing and torture. Some were technical specialists that the Soviets badly wanted to break, in order to gain larger advantage than that which could be attained solely within the limited geographic space of Vietnam. So it is very very complicated. The news media typically oversimply, while other sources attempt to obfuscate the brutal and horrific truths as to the nature of human military conflict in any overt confrontation. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 10:47:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Killian, Gluck, and more in SF Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This is Dodie. If you're looking for something different, check out the reading for Best American Gay Fiction 2, this Thursday, June 11, 7:30 p.m. at Modern Times Bookstore, just down the street from New College, at 888 Valencia Street. Featured readers are Stephen Beachy, Brian Bouldrey, Justin Chin, Robert Gluck, and Kevin Killian--a stunning line-up. If you're looking for somebody new to be wowed by, especially check out Stephen Beachy. He takes prose to some amazing places. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:55:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: Re: Anarchy Comments: To: Mark Prejsnar In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mark: indeed. A Meow Press book currently in production, not\"scheduled" although it may appear this summer is "War Poems and Sonnets" by Jackson Mac Low, tho it may not be called that when he gets thru with it. It includes Jackson's anti-war poems dating back to his Sandburg influenced high school poems, early sonnets written in September 1939 and selected "peacenik" and anti war poems up through "Marines Defend Burning of Village" which Jerry R. published in a magazine in the late 60s. Jackson was involved with the "Why?" and later "Resistance" group during the war, something which has lead me to a consideration of underground publications by C.O.s. Mac Low and Paul Goodman were among those who picketed the Federal Penn. at Danbury CT, where anarchist heroes such as David Wieck were hunger striking to protest the segregation of the prison mess hall. They were successful. I think JML was also the first person ever arrested for protesting nuclear testing, during a civil defense emergency test. Also arrested included Bayard Rustin, Judith Malina, among others (tho JML was protesting the tests and not the civil defense emergency alert). for more on Mac Low and this question, check out Louis Cabri's very well documented and thorough introduction to this period in the CRAYON issue edited by Andrew Levy and Bob Harrison.. I didn't mean to suggest that they weren't committed anarchists, but that such a relation to their work was problematic. I think there's more of a connection to Morton Feldman, and contemporary music of the mid-50s than an explicitly "anarchist" take on poetry/composition. blah blah blah. but I am interested in the 1960s as a condition for the ferment of anarchist activity (action and thought, if we want/should to separate them here). As a child born under the sign of Hendrix & Coolidge, I'd be interested to hear more on this periodd that Manuel initially proposed. Duncan's take on the Vietnam War would be another place to look, the debate between him and the late Denise Levertov etc. which is a book New Directions has currently somewhere in production... (or so I hearz)/ I mean their correspondence, which Marjorie Perloff has written about recently...............but ah, I'm wasting time. Somebody else take the mic On Tue, 9 Jun 1998, Mark Prejsnar wrote: > To J. Kuszai: > > You make some good points; in fact I don't think Cage and Mac Low work/ed > with any kind of simplistic parallel between anarchism and the procedures > they use/d. > > The original query was about poets influenced by anarchism...And from the > point of view of their subjective political beliefs, these are indeed the > first two that ought to be mentioned. > > What in fact the relation is between those beliefs and their work, > including form and procedure, is (as you suggest) complex and mediated. > But (to my limited knowledge) anarchism as a tradition has had some > influence on 'em, as individuals... > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 13:59:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dean Taciuch Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Perhaps the connection between Mac Low, Cage, and anarchism lies in the lack of central authority in the aleatory method. This is the case at least I think with some of Cage's works; Mac Low seems more procedural than anarchic, but even so, the openness to allowing the formal constraints to freely shape the material leaves little room for authorial intention (this may not work for Mac Low's "intentional" pieces (Forties, for example, written quickly but intentionally) Dean ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 14:22:46 -0400 Reply-To: soaring@ma.ultranet.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Wellman Subject: Re: anarchy having more to do with mutual aid than randomness MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Baraka, "Black Dada Nihilismus" ought to be placed in dialog with whatver texts you choose, Manuel. Don Wellman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 10:57:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: attachments / baraka In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >p.s. I heard a rumor that Amiri Baraka has a role in the new Warren Beatty >flick, Bulworth. Is this true? true as Truman / returns repeatedly as unkempt, wigged out street zany to accost the errant politician with, among other lines, "you can't be no ghost, you got to be a spirit!" -- or something to that effect / sorry if the quote's off a bit bill - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh | PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 14:54:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: Re: Anarchy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > > The original query was about poets influenced by anarchism...And from the > point of view of their subjective political beliefs, these are indeed the > first two that ought to be mentioned. After the disillusionment with the CP, anarchism was about the only radical political alternative. Several of the poets and writers had some connection with the anarchistic magazine _Why_ in New York before and during WW II. I think Duncan and Mac Low first met at an anarchist meeting in New York, possibly at the Spanish Anarchists' Hall on lower Broadway, where there were regular Saturday-night meetings. After Duncan returned to California, Duncan and Lamantia (after a Sacco and Vanzetti memorial organized by the WWW) started an anarchist group which met first at Rexroth's house and was fairly active for some time. William Everson, Thomas Parkinson, Sanders Russell, and Jack Spicer were involved. I have recently become aware of an interesting Norwegian anarchistic novelist, playwright, and poet, Jens Bjorneboe (w/ a slash through the first o). I recommend the excellent web site on his work--http:\\home.att.net/~emurer, which is maintained by his English translator, Esther Murer. Don ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:41:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. In-Reply-To: <199806091731.NAA04095@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Your argument would justify almost any wholesale slaughter, as in "Gosh, those Romans are suffering" (Atilla the Hun), or, "Gee, it must be hard being a Jew" (Adolph Hitler), or, "Saigon's a lousy place to live" (Richard Nixon). At 01:31 PM 6/9/98 -0400, you wrote: >>I've been listening to the media reaction to the nerve gas story. the defense >>department says there's no documented history of any use of nerve gas, or >>targeting defectors with extreme prejudice. .......................... >>the elite to desensitize a populace sensitized by the war has succeeded, and >>anything is possible; chomsky can crawl home to die -- the propaganda war has >>been lost, and only subversion is believable. joe > >Though it is the furthest from poetry yet, the Russians had chemical warfare >materials in the 1960s. The Chinese might have had some too. It is not a >very complicated technology. > >It is the defectors who were the losers in the propaganda war, regardless of >any further analysis as to historical outcome. They were not really >defectors, but instead "prisoners of war", of a peculiar kind. Their minds >twisted beyond any semblance of sanity by a constant barrage of radio >frequencied Hanoi propaganda. >The psychological warfare side of Nam has yet to be written, and much of >what was endured is still presumably too classified to become historical data. > >The usual strategy is to attempt, often at high cost in assets, to liberate >prisoners of war. If that fails, then the second strategy is to attempt to >minimize damage, in terms of preventing increased human suffering being >brought upon a larger number. In effect, actions meant to minimize, or at >least decrease immediate and long term damages to one's own assets. >Consideration is usually given, if possible, to the sufferings being endured >by the prisoners. Presumably the defectors in question were not being >tortured into defecting, but I do not know if we have that side of that >story right either. Some prisoners defected as the result of brainwashing >and torture. Some were technical specialists that the Soviets badly wanted >to break, in order to gain larger advantage than that which could be >attained solely within the limited geographic space of Vietnam. So it is >very very complicated. The news media typically oversimply, while other >sources attempt to obfuscate the brutal and horrific truths as to the nature >of human military conflict in any overt confrontation. > >M. > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:43:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Roger Farr Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: from "Stephen Cope" at Jun 8, 98 09:25:18 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Perhaps making a distinction between anarchist "aesthetics" (a more recent development, born out of the collapse of the anarchist movement in the 30's) and the anarchist movement itself, with which very few poets and artists have been involved, would be useful . . . Anarchist aesthetics first appear in the modernist avant-garde as images of terrorist violence and "chaos" -- quite at odds with the anarcho-pacifism of JML, Cage, Duncan, Levertov, Rexroth, Snyder, Ginsberg, et al. After the horrors of WW II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such images no longer resonate the they once did. It would seem that "post-modern" writers who have been influenced by anarchist theory are wary of literary attempts to "master" reality through statement (propaganda) and (technique) bomb, favoring instead a direct attack on the reproduction of centralized state authority in language, and cognition. I would suggest that the Situationists have been especially influential in this respect (see "All the King's Men" in the new Rothenberg/Joris anth.). I wonder: exactly how does anarchism figure in contemporary poetics? Watten has spoken of an "anarchy of production" in recent poetries, and someone has also mentioned Mayer and Coolidge. Is this "anarchist tendency" at odds with the originally Marxist elements of LangPo? Roger ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:55:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Bob (we had to kill them to save them) e. you sir are a disgusting fool (talk about brainwashed) and if you weren't such a laughable ignoramus i might have to splash mud on your closet full of brown shirts. After reading you inane prattle this morning, i took my cables down to the detox. Yecccchhh! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 15:39:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: ass face Comments: To: Henry Gould In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII When they beat your ass fa(e)ce(s) in all directions, under stand the language kid? | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 17:11:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Your argument would justify almost any wholesale slaughter, as in "Gosh, >those Romans are suffering" (Atilla the Hun), or, "Gee, it must be hard >being a Jew" (Adolph Hitler), or, "Saigon's a lousy place to live" (Richard >Nixon). No, nothing of that kind was implied. Contrary to some opinions there is hardly anyone, if anyone, who has any significant power of command, who does not agonize about the fact of losing even one man. It is a sense of responsibility that is hard to convey or to explain. On the other hand if it comes down to it, sacrificing a few for the sake of many more than were sacrificed, is also a responsibility. Not a responsibility that can be enjoyed, but one that is necessitated. If 20 men were in a position to cost the lives of hundreds or even thousands of other troops, as an officer your responsibility would be to prevent that from happening. Sometimes that means by any means necessary. It simply is that way. The details often never make it to the media. They only get a broad, distorted, overview. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 17:20:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Bob (we had to kill them to save them) e. >you sir are a disgusting fool (talk about brainwashed) and if you weren't >such a laughable ignoramus i might have to splash mud on your closet full >of brown shirts. After reading you inane prattle this morning, i took my >cables down to the detox. Yecccchhh! You should keep your computer circuits away from that methyl hydrate. It is not good to drink that stuff..... Actually, I replied to this a moment ago. It really is not that hard to understand. Simply that the lives of many are valued more than the lives of the few, where both are in the same balance. That logic is simple enough. I would agree that mistakes happen, and particularly in the complicated psychological and technical jungle of modern warfare. I do not know if a particular incident was a mistake in terms of there being a more viable option or whether it was the only viable option to save the most human lives within the context of the military action in progress. I can only speak to the principles, not the specifics of that incident. I was not into discussing whether the war as a whole was legitimized or not. That is a very different debate. That is the supposed hindsight is 20/20 discourse about whether there were other options and what the outcomes might have been. (Fact is there is no such hindsight. We are where we is because we were where we was. That's all there is to it.) M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 17:00:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: <199806091943.MAA23736@fraser.sfu.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Anarchism continues to have a strong input in poetic, visual and theoretical practices all over the world-- the areas of visual poetry and mail art especially there are hundreds of journals, web sites, events going on which are anarchist yes there are many forms of anarchism that is the point "l'imagination au pouvoir" -dave baptiste chirot some other great anarchist writers: Thoreau, Blake, Whitman, Emma Goldman . .. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 19:42:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: sublet abound MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sublet available: For month of July $572 Own bdrm in 2 bdrm apt. English painter in other bdrm living room, eat-in kitchen cats & plants (feel free to eat lettuce & tomatoes) 4th St. between Aves C&D in East Village If interested, call me at Poetry Project, (212) 674-0910 Thanks! Marcella ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 20:49:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christian Roess Subject: Re: [Re: Anarchy]&Elizam Escobar Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit owner-poetics@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU wrote: > Anarchism continues to have a strong input in poetic, visual and > theoretical practices all over the world-- > the areas of visual poetry and mail art especially > there are hundreds of journals, web sites, events going on which > are anarchist > yes there are many forms of anarchism > that is the point > "l'imagination au pouvoir" > -dave baptiste chirot > some other great anarchist writers: Thoreau, Blake, Whitman, Emma > Goldman . .. Thus is order insured: some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game." - Adorno "My practicality consists in this, in the knowledge that if you beat your head against the wall it is your head which breaks and not the wall... that is my strength, my only strength." - Gramsci **** Another point of departure for the subject of anarchy (and the supplemental role our government played in its use of chemical weapon's in Vietnam) would be the case of Elizam Escobar, painter, poet, and contributing/associate editor of the magazine Left Curve. Perhaps Manuel Brito would like to contact him.( I know his question is directed toward the 1960's poetry scene, but perhaps he could write to him and ask him if he feels like he beat his head against the wall but now is forced to let poetry do it for him? I mean who breaks down wall really,poetry(not the poet) or the anarchist? Who is full of (aka Yeats) 'passionate' intensity? The best lack all conviction? .)I can't comment on the two poems I've read of his, but his essays and paintings(seen some on the website and in a magazine) warrant our attention. He can be reached at the Maximum Security prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, where he is serving out a 68 year prison term. Anyone know about this guy? ======== I have only know about Elizam Escobar #88969-024 for about one month, but I am having trouble understanding what the U.S. government's role in his arrest and incarceration is? This case seems as insidious as the use of chemical weapons on our own citizens. ==================== Quoting from a web page devoted to him: His paintings have been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and in more than 10 Puerto Rican cities. The paintings he created in jail are currently being exhibited throughout the United States. His works have been published in several magazines including Beginnings and Currents. He published a series in De Pie y En Lucha and soon will finish a collection entitled The Onthological War Against the Art Market: An Act of Liberation. His works have also appeared in the Anthology of Latino Poets in New York. Some of his more recent illustrations can be found in Cuadernos de Poetica, published in the Dominican Republic. Quimera Editors published his book, Speech in the Night and Sonia Semenovena, while another article appeared in the art magazine, Left Curve.[ http://www.wco.com/~leftcurv] Since April 4, 1980 Elizam has been serving a 68-year prison sentence, accused of seditious conspiracy. He was later accused of being a member of the Armed Forces of Puerto Rican National Liberation (FALN). =========== Maybe Manuel Brito could get some interesting responses to the project he is working on by hooking up to these sites, which gives Elizam Escobar's address in Prison, and if you are editing a book of some kind on this subject maybe Elizam Escobar #88969-024 would contribute a piece, from the Belly of the Beast, so to speak). =============== If your like me you may n ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 20:50:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christian Roess Subject: Re: [Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 20:52:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christian Roess Subject: Re: [Re: Anarchy]&Elizam Escobar Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit owner-poetics@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU wrote: > Anarchism continues to have a strong input in poetic, visual and > theoretical practices all over the world-- > the areas of visual poetry and mail art especially > there are hundreds of journals, web sites, events going on which > are anarchist > yes there are many forms of anarchism > that is the point > "l'imagination au pouvoir" > -dave baptiste chirot > some other great anarchist writers: Thoreau, Blake, Whitman, Emma > Goldman . .. Thus is order insured: some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game." - Adorno "My practicality consists in this, in the knowledge that if you beat your head against the wall it is your head which breaks and not the wall... that is my strength, my only strength." - Gramsci **** Another point of departure for the subject of anarchy (and the supplemental role our government played in its use of chemical weapon's in Vietnam) would be the case of Elizam Escobar, painter, poet, and contributing/associate editor of the magazine Left Curve. Perhaps Manuel Brito would like to contact him.( I know his question is directed toward the 1960's poetry scene, but perhaps he could write to him and ask him if he feels like he beat his head against the wall but now is forced to let poetry do it for him? I mean who breaks down wall really,poetry(not the poet) or the anarchist? Who is full of (aka Yeats) 'passionate' intensity? The best lack all conviction? .)I can't comment on the two poems I've read of his, but his essays and paintings(seen some on the website and in a magazine) warrant our attention. He can be reached at the Maximum Security prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, where he is serving out a 68 year prison term. Anyone know about this guy? ======== I have only know about Elizam Escobar #88969-024 for about one month, but I am having trouble understanding what the U.S. government's role in his arrest and incarceration is? This case seems as insidious as the use of chemical weapons on our own citizens. ==================== Quoting from a web page devoted to him: His paintings have been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and in more than 10 Puerto Rican cities. The paintings he created in jail are currently being exhibited throughout the United States. His works have been published in several magazines including Beginnings and Currents. He published a series in De Pie y En Lucha and soon will finish a collection entitled The Onthological War Against the Art Market: An Act of Liberation. His works have also appeared in the Anthology of Latino Poets in New York. Some of his more recent illustrations can be found in Cuadernos de Poetica, published in the ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 20:53:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christian Roess Subject: Re: [Re: Anarchy]&Elizam Escobar Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit owner-poetics@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU wrote: > Anarchism continues to have a strong input in poetic, visual and > theoretical practices all over the world-- > the areas of visual poetry and mail art especially > there are hundreds of journals, web sites, events going on which > are anarchist > yes there are many forms of anarchism > that is the point > "l'imagination au pouvoir" > -dave baptiste chirot > some other great anarchist writers: Thoreau, Blake, Whitman, Emma > Goldman . .. Thus is order insured: some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game." - Adorno "My practicality consists in this, in the knowledge that if you beat your head against the wall it is your head which breaks and not the wall... that is my strength, my only strength." - Gramsci **** Another point of departure for the subject of anarchy (and the supplemental role our government played in its use of chemical weapon's in Vietnam) would be the case of Elizam Escobar, painter, poet, and contributing/associate editor of the magazine Left Curve. Perhaps Manuel Brito would like to contact him.( I know his question is directed toward the 1960's poetry scene, but perhaps he could write to him and ask him if he feels like he beat his head against the wall but now is forced to let poetry do it for him? I mean who breaks down wall really,poetry(not the poet) or the anarchist? Who is full of (aka Yeats) 'passionate' intensity? The best lack all conviction? .)I can't comment on the two poems I've read of his, but his essays and paintings(seen some on the website and in a magazine) warrant our attention. He can be reached at the Maximum Security prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, where he is serving out a 68 year prison term. Anyone know about this guy? ======== I have only know about Elizam Escobar #88969-024 for about one month, but I am having trouble understanding what the U.S. government's role in his arrest and incarceration is? This case seems as insidious as the use of chemical weapons on our own citizens. ==================== Quoting from a web page devoted to him: His paintings have been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and in more than 10 Puerto Rican cities. The paintings he created in jail are currently being exhibited throughout the United States. His works have been published in several magazines including Beginnings and Currents. He published a series in De Pie y En Lucha and soon will finish a collection entitled The Onthological War Against the Art Market: An Act of Liberation. His works have also appeared in the Anthology of Latino Poets in New York. Some of his more recent illustrations can be found in Cuadernos de Poetica, published in the Dominican Republic. Quimera Editors published his book, Speech in the Night and Sonia Semenovena, while another article appeared in the art magazine, Left Curve.[ http://www.wco.com/~leftcurv] Since April 4, 1980 Elizam has been serving a 68-year prison sentence, accused of seditious conspiracy. He was later accused of being a member of the Armed Forces of Puerto Rican National Liberation (FALN). =========== Maybe Manuel Brito could get some interesting responses to the project he is working on by hooking up to these sites, which gives Elizam Escobar's address in Prison, and if you are editing a book of some kind on this subject maybe Elizam Escobar #88969-024 would contribute a piece, from the Belly of the Beast, so to speak). =============== If your like me you may need some convincing~~>Ok, ok, another case of "artists" being unfairly incarcerated brings to mind Norman Mailer's campaign to free Jack Abbott, who then got out and stabbed a woman to death (if I am remembering correctly). Well, there is an astonishing piece on Left Curve's Website by John Berger (yes, THE John Berger) called "Steps Toward a Small Theory of the Visible( with an exchange of letters between the author and Elizam Escobar) which is astounding. Trust your own judgement and see for yourself. =========================== Here's the address for _Left Curve_...go to issue #21 to hook up to the John Berger piece: http://www.wco.com/~leftcurv/lc21contentstx.html =========================== In the magazine version of Left Curve No.21(which is apparently different from the Website version) Elizam Escobar has an essay which I only read part of but he has been an attentive reader of Nietzsche and Blanchot ( whom he quotes extensively…..Pierre Joris might be very interested in this piece). =========== As anyone heard of Toni Negri? This from a website at _leftcurve_: Toni Negri, radical philosopher and activist whose writings are well- known throughout the world, has been in prison in Rome since July 1, 1997. He has been sentenced to more than 13 years in prison, not counting another conviction that is now in the appeal process. After residing in France in exile since 1983, he returned to Italy voluntarily in the hope that his action would contribute to the resolution of the problem of the exiles and prisoners who are wanted or convicted for the political activities of the1970s in Italy, the so-called "years of lead." About 180 people are still in Italian prison under these charges and about 150 are in exile, the majority of them in France. ________________ I would love to hear response by the way to the wonderful Berger piece "Steps Toward a Small Theory of the Visible" whenever anyone gets a chance to read this piece. (Back channel it to me if you like) (By the way, the 100th anniversary of Puerto Rico's invasion by the United States is coming up this July. I suppose there will be many readings, demonstrations, art exhibits around various U.S. cities). =============== More Elizam Escobar addresses: [1]http://netdial.caribe.net/~leviatan/puerto_rico_prisoners.html [2]http://www.amandla.org/osepp/news/dylcia.html [3]http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/5919/Elizampg.html [4]http://www.igc.apc.org/justice/prisons/pps+pows/descrip/pr-pows/elizam- escobar.html ========================= ".".no pain has been or shall be able to tempt me into giving false testimony about life as I recognize it." - Nietzsche "...only if I expected truth can I suffer lies as evil... only the dead know no evil and pain." - Hegel I wonder? Chris ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 21:59:53 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva Vogel Subject: Jorie Graham Essay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: multipart/mixed; boundary="part0_897443993_boundary" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_897443993_boundary Content-ID: <0_897443993@inet_out.mail.aol.com.1> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII In a message dated 98-06-09 09:13:38 EDT, dmb9f@unix.mail.virginia.edu writes: > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 23:27:47 EDT > From: Aviva000@aol.com > To: dmb9f@unix.mail.virginia.edu > Subject: Jorie Graham (Very Belatedly) > > I've been following the Jorie Graham thread, and have meant repeatedly to > add > some comments. Instead, I offer access to a thesis I recently finished. It > can be accessed at: > > http://members.aol.com/aviva000/Poetics/JGraham.htm > > It's approximately 50 pages, but loads quite quickly, as there are no > graphics. You don't have to go through a website or homepage to get to this > essay--it'll appear immediately without barriers! > > I think that this might be the most efficient, and hopefully useful, way to > add some comments (that may intrigue or irritate, provoke or bore...who > knows???) to the discussion. I care about Jorie Graham's work, and didn't > want to completely ignore this opportunity to offer my own experiences with > her poetry. > > --part0_897443993_boundary Content-ID: <0_897443993@inet_out.mail.aol.com.2> Content-type: message/rfc822 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Content-disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from rly-za04.mx.aol.com (rly-za04.mail.aol.com [172.31.36.100]) by air-za04.mail.aol.com (v43.25) with SMTP; Tue, 09 Jun 1998 09:13:38 -0400 Received: from mail.virginia.edu (mail.Virginia.EDU [128.143.2.9]) by rly-za04.mx.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with SMTP id JAA15843; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:13:30 -0400 (EDT) Received: from Virginia.EDU by mail.virginia.edu id ab26054; 9 Jun 98 9:05 EDT Received: from node4.unix.virginia.edu by mail.virginia.edu id aa26035; 9 Jun 98 9:05 EDT Received: from localhost (dmb9f@localhost) by node4.unix.Virginia.EDU (8.8.5/8.6.6) with SMTP id JAA28654 for ; Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:05:13 -0400 Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 09:05:13 -0400 (EDT) From: Dawn McCarra Bass To: cap-l@virginia.edu Subject: Jorie Graham (Very Belatedly) (fwd) Message-ID: Precedence: bulk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 23:27:47 EDT From: Aviva000@aol.com To: dmb9f@unix.mail.virginia.edu Subject: Jorie Graham (Very Belatedly) I've been following the Jorie Graham thread, and have meant repeatedly to add some comments. Instead, I offer access to a thesis I recently finished. It can be accessed at: http://members.aol.com/aviva000/Poetics/JGraham.htm It's approximately 50 pages, but loads quite quickly, as there are no graphics. You don't have to go through a website or homepage to get to this essay--it'll appear immediately without barriers! I think that this might be the most efficient, and hopefully useful, way to add some comments (that may intrigue or irritate, provoke or bore...who knows???) to the discussion. I care about Jorie Graham's work, and didn't want to completely ignore this opportunity to offer my own experiences with her poetry. --part0_897443993_boundary-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 18:12:15 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: sounds like the Grand Ol' A Priori to me MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "No doubt, once the geometrical concept has revealed its freedom with respect to empirical sensibility, the synthesis of the "construction" is irreducible. And indeed it is an ideal history. But it is a history of an operation and not a founding. It unfolds explicative gestures in a space of a possibility already open to the geometer."---from Jacques Derrida's introduction to Edmund Husserl's Origin of Geometry---cp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 23:57:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Myouka Sondheim Subject: Don't try this at home MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Saying Yes to Nikuko, Nikuko Bravura: {k:1} yes nikuko >> zz nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko nikuko ______________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 00:07:59 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Re: Don't try this at home Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 69/98 10:59:35 PM, you wrote: < Received: from relay30.mx.aol.com (relay30.mail.aol.com [172.31.109.30]) by air06.mail.aol.com (v44.7) with SMTP; Tue, 09 Jun 1998 23:59:34 -0400 Received: from VMS.DC.LSOFT.COM (vms.dc.lsoft.com [206.241.13.27])>> ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 23:24:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Nerve gas MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On 9 June, Morpheal wrote: >It really is not that hard to understand. Simply that the lives of >many are valued more than the lives of the few, where both are in >the same balance. That logic is simple enough. >I would agree that mistakes happen, and particularly in the >complicated psychological and technical jungle of modern warfare. I >do not know if a particular incident was a mistake in terms of there >being a more viable option or whether it was the only viable option >to save the most human lives within the context of the military >action in progress. >I can only speak to the principles, not the specifics of that >incident. Finally, a Scientific American reader with some nuts and bolts political and ethical sense! I say that when the U.S. goes back to the Persian Gulf or Central America or maybe Indonesia to save the natives from themselves it should keep Morpheal's simple formula in mind: Use whatever it takes on hold-out villages if it will arguably result in fewer losses to our forces and shorten unfriendly resistance to the military action in progress. And come to think of it, if I can add my two cents to Morpheal's sound and simple line of argument, keep the anthrax handy too. If necessary, that will quickly take the fight out of Charlie--not to mention any brainwashed defectors from our side-- and could well save quite a few lives when everything is factored in. Of course, I'm sure Morpheal would agree with me that such actions--particularly when we are temporary guests in another land--must only be undertaken as a _last resort_ and be guided, always, by the foremost of all principles-- the hypothetical preservation of the greatest number of human lives, for human life, as we civilized people know, is the bottom line. And I'm sure he'd also caution that military and political leaders forced to make such decisions in the jungle of modern warfare should realize from the get-go that they may forever be burdened with the angst of having possibly made a "mistake"-- as even Saddam Hussein must be burdened by the gassing of Kurdistan, though he believes in his heart that it was done to save many others from unnecessary death and suffering. (Of course, the thing with the Kurds was obviously a _mistake_, and so I _am not_ defending Saddam Hussein in any sense here. I said he probably "believes" he saved many more lives. The man is a threat to the world, and if we'd made the tough decision and precision-nuked Baghdad some years ago, the planet would now be --simple logic-- a less dangerous place.) And the planet _is_ a complicated place R. Gancie, whoever you are, much more complicated than you realize. So stop it, will you, with your empty and bleeding-heart rant about nerve gas and just stick to neutrinos or something along those lines. As Morpheal brilliantly summed it all up, "We are where we is because we were where we was." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 22:17:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: descending murderous net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit One of the most startling realizations of the Gulf war for me, independent of how I feel about whether that war was justified or not, was this: when nations come to the brink of war and an ultimatum is issued, it can never be a bluff. And once the war begins, it is a fight to the death of many and all civilized norms about 'fair fighting' become irrelevant in the face of the necessity to end it unequivocally and quickly. The first options considered are those that will win quickest and most decisively. The only reasons chemical or nuclear weapons might not be used in such a situation would relate to the fallout the perpetrators might suffer, not the other side, civilian or military. This is the hellish logic of war when it happens. Defectors are traitors or have been broken and turned into weapons against the nation they are now fighting against and will be murdered as quickly as the enemy, perhaps with more sympathy than otherwise, but no less quickly, given the opportunity. Morpheal was not arguing the moral stature of such realities, only pointing out their existence once a state of war has descended. > ------------------------------ > > Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:41:00 -0700 > From: Mark Weiss > Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. > > Your argument would justify almost any wholesale slaughter, as in "Gosh, > those Romans are suffering" (Atilla the Hun), or, "Gee, it must be hard > being a Jew" (Adolph Hitler), or, "Saigon's a lousy place to live" (Richard > Nixon). > > At 01:31 PM 6/9/98 -0400, you wrote: > >>I've been listening to the media reaction to the nerve gas story. the > defense > >>department says there's no documented history of any use of nerve gas, or > >>targeting defectors with extreme prejudice. .......................... > >>the elite to desensitize a populace sensitized by the war has succeeded, and > >>anything is possible; chomsky can crawl home to die -- the propaganda war > has > >>been lost, and only subversion is believable. joe > > > >Though it is the furthest from poetry yet, the Russians had chemical warfare > >materials in the 1960s. The Chinese might have had some too. It is not a > >very complicated technology. > > > >It is the defectors who were the losers in the propaganda war, regardless of > >any further analysis as to historical outcome. They were not really > >defectors, but instead "prisoners of war", of a peculiar kind. Their minds > >twisted beyond any semblance of sanity by a constant barrage of radio > >frequencied Hanoi propaganda. > >The psychological warfare side of Nam has yet to be written, and much of > >what was endured is still presumably too classified to become historical > data. > > > >The usual strategy is to attempt, often at high cost in assets, to liberate > >prisoners of war. If that fails, then the second strategy is to attempt to > >minimize damage, in terms of preventing increased human suffering being > >brought upon a larger number. In effect, actions meant to minimize, or at > >least decrease immediate and long term damages to one's own assets. > >Consideration is usually given, if possible, to the sufferings being endured > >by the prisoners. Presumably the defectors in question were not being > >tortured into defecting, but I do not know if we have that side of that > >story right either. Some prisoners defected as the result of brainwashing > >and torture. Some were technical specialists that the Soviets badly wanted > >to break, in order to gain larger advantage than that which could be > >attained solely within the limited geographic space of Vietnam. So it is > >very very complicated. The news media typically oversimply, while other > >sources attempt to obfuscate the brutal and horrific truths as to the nature > >of human military conflict in any overt confrontation. > > > >M. > > > > -- V I S P O ~ L A N G U ( I M ) A G E http://www.islandnet.com/~jandrews/mocambo/jimvispo.htm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 00:49:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: WHOOPS In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >if the "rachel" involved is the same rachel that's been hanker-panking with >bromide and bowwowing, i consider this info public property and wish to be >enlightned still further. Hey, she's been hanking with me more than she has with Bromide. The latter is a shy English gentleperson who has to be hit over the head before he knows someone is coming on to him. He writes good aromatic poetry, though. And if you are in his neighbourhood, you should snaffle a photo of him in his famous straw hat and scan it into the net. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 01:12:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. In-Reply-To: <199806091731.NAA04095@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >It is the defectors who were the losers in the propaganda war, regardless of >any further analysis as to historical outcome. They were not really >defectors, but instead "prisoners of war", of a peculiar kind. Their minds >twisted beyond any semblance of sanity by a constant barrage of radio >frequencied Hanoi propaganda. I was with you till you got to the word "Hanoi." I had made the normal assumption that some young people in that theatre of war would notice what was obvious to the rest of the world--that though such a thing is only relative, the US was the wicked power in that war, and the Vietnamese were defending themselves YET AGAIN against invaders from elsewhere. It is only to be hoped that a few young people would get free of Washington brainwashing and decide to leave the repugnant invaders. The adjective was fulfilled by subsequent action, one might point out. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 01:12:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. In-Reply-To: <199806092111.RAA12917@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >If 20 men were in a position to cost the lives of hundreds or even thousands >of other troops, as an officer your responsibility would be to prevent that >from happening. Sometimes that means by any means necessary. Now you're talking! That would justify killing John Kennedy and his cabinet, right? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 01:12:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: attachments / baraka In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980609105754.007b3450@nunic.nu.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>p.s. I heard a rumor that Amiri Baraka has a role in the new Warren Beatty >>flick, Bulworth. Is this true? > >true as Truman / returns repeatedly as unkempt, wigged out street zany to >accost the errant politician with, among other lines, "you can't be no >ghost, you got to be a spirit!" -- or something to that effect / sorry if >the quote's off a bit > >bill Pretty close. And the quotee is Albert Ayler. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 19:22:03 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "d.j. huppatz" Subject: [Re: Anarchy] Negri In-Reply-To: <19980610005302.18331.qmail@www02.netaddress.usa.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >As anyone heard of Toni Negri? This from a website at _leftcurve_: > > Toni Negri, radical philosopher and activist whose writings are well- known >throughout the world, has been in prison in Rome since July 1, 1997. He has been >sentenced to more than 13 years in prison, not counting another conviction that >is now in the appeal process. After residing in France in exile since 1983, he >returned to Italy voluntarily in the hope that his action would contribute to >the resolution of the problem of the exiles and prisoners who are wanted or >convicted for the political activities of the1970s in Italy, the so-called >"years of lead." About 180 people are still in Italian prison under these >charges and about 150 are in exile, the majority of them in France. Chris Negri wrote an interesting book with Felix Guattari called "Communists Like Us: New Spaces of Liberty, New Lines of Alliance". It was published in France in 1985 & translated & published in english in 1990 by Semiotext(e) (who also, I believe, translated & published another of Negri's books). From the back cover of Communists Like Us: "The project: to rescue "communism" from its own disrepute. Once invoked as the liberation of work through mankind's collective creation, communism has instead stifled humanity. We who see in communism the liberation of both collective and individual possibilities must reverse that regimentation of thought and desire which terminates the individual." The book is an attempt at rethinking the political left, post-1968, a bit romantic at times (that's prhaps why I like it) but raises interesting possibilities - the production of subjectivity & the production of new social alliances are the key forces for new revolutionary change (from memory). Negri is apparently still hanging around Paris, a friend of mine met him there last year. She said he didn't look at all like she'd imagine an Italian anarchist to look like - he was immaculately groomed & wearing a suit. But they were going to the opera... Danny Melbourne ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 02:18:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Latenite jazz from Radio Bowering Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The Great List stops its seething & about the same time my daughter overhea(r)d ceases singing "Monotony" Quietness holds the house Here come the Blues I write on the HD Then empty & spent Tune in for some news Hey! Bowering's laying it down Sounds 'on' tonight Right re my shyness Damnable trait Kept me out of much trouble Right re whose nation Vietnam is All the demons from Hell Found out in the end And he's there with the source of Amiri's quote So I write him in public this grateful mash-note David ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 09:05:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: address-seeking MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does anyone know e-mail, address, phone # or other contact info for: Nicole Brossard or (and this is a long shot) Nawal el Saadawi ?? Backchannel to poproj@artomatic.com Thanks, Marcella ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 09:24:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: Re: Anarchy Comments: To: Roger Farr In-Reply-To: <199806091943.MAA23736@fraser.sfu.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Roger Farr's post is interesting and forwards these issues, yet I'm troubled because I don't see the disentangling of terms and the confusions about "aesthetic anarchism" leading to a sense of where or how this debate could even be framed. Thanks to Don for pointing out the west coast branches of this "movement". Let me try to get my bearings a little on this topic. > Perhaps making a distinction between anarchist "aesthetics" (a > more recent development, born out of the collapse of > the anarchist movement in the 30's) and the anarchist movement > itself, with which very few poets and artists have been > involved, would be useful . . . If you mean anarchism as "popular" political force, then didn't anarchism die out after Haymarket? Didn't it die out after the round-up of anarchists after the assasination of McKinley at the Pan Am Expo in Buffalo at the turn of the century? Or do you refer to the Civil War in Spain? The suggestion that an anarchist aesthetics develops out of the collapse of the movement is very interesting & I'd like to hear more about this. It seems to me that anarchism gains quite a bit of momentum during the war, when the unions and the communists capitulated to the war fever. In fact, the anarchists pulled some of the disenfranchised lefties (Macdonald, Goodman, among others) in that direction because their opposition to the war led to their estrangement from publishing circles such as the Partisan Review, etc. It was Mac Low who introduced Goodman to the Why circle, which did meet for years at the Lower Broadway Spanish Anarchist meeting hall. For an interesting "account" of the later end of that time, see Judith Malina's diary, for it was Mac Low who brought her and Julian Beck to those meetings for the first time. Other members of that group included Moe Moskovitz, of Moe's Books fame, and even a very young poet named Irving Feldman, who has taught at UBuffalo for 30 some odd years. I'd be very curious to know more about that group and the accounts I've read of the meetings are very interesting indeed. I don't agree that poets and artists haven't been involved in the struggle. The list from the 20s,30s & 40s is long enough. Auden included Dachine Rainer in his anthology and her 1948 chapbook is a very interesting little document, which is also "forthcoming" from meow press in the future as part of the "anarchist poets from the 1940s reprint series." She married a man named (Scott, I think) Ballantine who was the nephew of Emma Goldman, or the grand nephew and she is very elderly and lives in London, I think. Before that she lived in the woodstock area with Holley Cantine, who was killed in a fire (?) in the late forties or early 50s I'm not sure. But Dachine Rainer was a known poet at the time. Obviously Duncan and Mac Low, who met yes at one of those meetings. Don mentioned others, but list is longer. All of those magazines (Cantine and Rainer edited (((AND HAND PRINTED!!)) Retort, "an anarchist quarterly". The question is, it seems to me, how do you want to define anarchist. Do you really want to include Thoreau? Do you want to leave him out? Do we accept tactical responses to repressive uses of central authority, or only strategic ones? Roger continues: > > Anarchist aesthetics first appear in the modernist avant-garde > as images of terrorist violence and "chaos" -- quite at odds > with the anarcho-pacifism of JML, Cage, Duncan, Levertov, > Rexroth, Snyder, Ginsberg, et al. After the horrors of > WW II, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, such images no longer > resonate the they once did. Personally, I think that the "terrorist violence and 'chaos'" associated with anarchists is an image that dates back to Haymarket and is part of the popular mythology. Alexander Berkman did try to kill Frick but Czolgoz (sp?) who killed McKinley was NOT an anarchist but a disturbed person who once heard Emma Goldman speak. (btw, you can view an early Edison film of his execution at the Library of Congress' American Memory website). Whether Sacco and Vanzetti actually killed (i.e. murdered) anyone isn't relavant to their association with anarchists. Whether they were framed (if they were framed) for being anarchists, however, may be. But is the representation of anarchists, of "bomb-throwing" and terror and chaos, is that really what constitutes an anarchist aesthetics here? I don't think so. Is "Guernica"? maybe. That's getting closer. Does anarchism become simply an analogy for ones relation to the materials? (i.e. decenterd author/reader) "groovy chaotic poetry, dude, anarchy!" "Wild stuff! Wild wild stuff" (RIP Phil Hartman, whose impressions of Rich Little and Ben Friedlander brought anarchist aesthetics to TV) > poetics? Watten has spoken of an "anarchy of production" in > recent poetries, and someone has also mentioned Mayer and > Coolidge. > > Is this "anarchist tendency" at odds with the originally > Marxist elements of LangPo? Where the hell is Ron Silliman? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 09:48:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I AM A DISTURBED PERSON! "Czolgoz was not an Anarchist but a Disturbed Person." Joel, what a wonderful line. You've given me something to do till lunchtime. Several recent rational posts on the expediency of killing the opposition have Disturbed me, ergo ego "Disturbed." One more thing--you wrote: >Whether Sacco and Vanzetti actually killed (i.e. murdered) anyone isn't >relavant to their association with anarchists. Whether they were framed >(if they were framed) for being anarchists, however, may be. A double standard? Whether Sacco and Vanzetti actually killed (i.e. murdered) anyone IS QUITE relavant to their association with anarchists. In fact, that particular and large group of anarchists were quite into bomb-throwing. You've read Avrich's "S & V: The Anarchist Background" I'm sure. Anyone interested in S & V (making dozens of appearances in popular American poetry for many years, from WCWilliams to Philip Whalen) should read this book. -- 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: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:17:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980610134845.00a72a04@po7.mit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dan & other Anarcho-hysterians... Mike Basinski's tour of the East side of Buffalo includes the house where Leon Gzolgoz lived. (I know that's not right spelling, but no one ever gets my name right either) If you can get past the 500 typos in his book "High Hopes: the Rise and Fall of Buffalo, New York", Mark Goldman tells the story of what happened with some amount of humor. After the expo was a wash due to the hysteria surrounding the death of the Prez, an elephant went on a rampage, trampling some people, etc. In an effort to rejuvinate enthusiasm for the Expo, they sold tickets to the excecution of the elephant. They wired him up to be electrocuted (I guess everyone was pretty impressed by all the lights and the juice flowing thru them). But when a couple shots of electricity didn't do the job (apparently they didn't account for the elephant's thick skin) they let the poor thing live. I read an "oral history" once about the excecution of Leon C., which stated that he was electrocuted and dissolved in acid and that they burned his clothes (in public, again) in order to placate the terror of the people. This turns out not to be true....alas... Goldman also tells of how Irish immigrants invaded Canada from Buffalo in an attempt to hold it hostage in order to free Ireland. People knew something was up when suddenly 5,000 young men gathered in the old first ward. When they rowed across the niagara, the brits were waiting for them and they were thoroughly routed. I'm sorry if I got the S/C thing wrong. I thought they were "framed" or whatever for murdering people during a botched robbery. I haven't read that book and will at some point. The syntax of my sentence there is flawed. I guess if I am going to rob someone and kill them -- whether I'm disturbed or not -- that has nothing to do with my friends... I've read also that they DID in fact kill those people and that their affiliations were otherwise. If it wasn't in an Avrich book that I read that, I can't remember where... And on another note, I've been affiliated with "anarchists" at different times in my life, and some of them were in fact quite violent. But that seems to me to have nothing to do with the anarchism to which I subscribe. (and my subscription is about to run out). I.e. there isn't in my mind anything about anarchism per se which necessitates violence. But then all those anarcho-pacifists were reading Ghandi, etc., when all that was happening in India. Is Timothy McVeigh an anarchist? Remember, loose lips sink ships... On Wed, 10 Jun 1998, daniel bouchard wrote: > I AM A DISTURBED PERSON! > > "Czolgoz was not an Anarchist but a Disturbed Person." > > Joel, > what a wonderful line. You've given me something to do till lunchtime. > > Several recent rational posts on the expediency of killing the opposition > have Disturbed me, ergo ego "Disturbed." > > One more thing--you wrote: > > >Whether Sacco and Vanzetti actually killed (i.e. murdered) anyone isn't > >relavant to their association with anarchists. Whether they were framed > >(if they were framed) for being anarchists, however, may be. > > A double standard? > > Whether Sacco and Vanzetti actually killed (i.e. murdered) anyone IS QUITE > relavant to their association with anarchists. > > In fact, that particular and large group of anarchists were quite into > bomb-throwing. > > You've read Avrich's "S & V: The Anarchist Background" I'm sure. Anyone > interested in S & V (making dozens of appearances in popular American poetry > for many years, from WCWilliams to Philip Whalen) should read this book. > > > -- 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: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:23:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Timothy McVeigh is not an Anarchist, he is a Gulf War Veteran. Daniel Bouchard is not an Anarcho-hysterian, he a Constructor of Non-Sequiturs. <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:26:33 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:17:32 -0400 from Wasn't Manuel's original question a search for info on poets connected in some way with anarchism & dissent in the 60s? That's a pretty specific question. I would think the answers would be restricted to poets involved in anarchist or civil disobedient activity in that period, or who tried consciously to reflect that activity in their poems or poetics. Not to suppress discussion, just to reiterate Manuel's original query. I hope I got it right. - Henry G ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 10:41:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: Re: Anarchy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The nearest thing to an active and self-identified anarchism now is probably the hacker community. The high-school hacker-cracker anarchistic scene and its funding by web porn is something to ponder. See, for ex., http://www.chaostic.com/. There seem to be hundreds of these sights. Chaostic.com has information on making bombs and classic anarchist stuff, suggestions for disrupting school ("piss in your pants while giving an oral report"), pirated software, hacker software--all the guides and tools for information-age anarchism. It is all technique, no theory. Resistance to authority at its grubbiest. This from the welcome screen: "Welcome :-) You have entered on the worlds most illegal explicit site, be careful for your own safety & security on your machine at all times. ChAoS OvEr Da WoRLd is now being updated daily, so keep coming back for more. We are are also maintaining that 100% of all our links are fully functional on our own site. So please do not link our filez or you will severely pay for it, as we have done in the past. "Now operating as the largest hacking/phreaking site on the internet with the best fully working utilities and exploits to help you investigate the security of the internet. "We run this organization purely as a non profit making and have only placed the banners [i.e. porn ads] to cover our hosting charges. Please do not buy Microsoft products and if you need to do, the cracks are all on this page. Get a UNIX based system if you want to hack otherwise your wasting your own time." db ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 11:41:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: References: <199806091943.MAA23736@fraser.sfu.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Does anyone know whether the magazine Drunken Boat, ed. Max Blechman, "The Anarchist Magazine of Literature and the Visual Arts" published more than two issues, or intends to? The first two were/are wonderful. Blechman's Intro to #1 begins: "I'm sick of these post-modern, post-Marxist, post-structuralist journals of literature and the arts. They're post a lot of things but they're not post-boring." and ends: "Forget Foucault, NEVER MIND Baudrillard, FUCK DERRIDA. This is the DRUNKEN BOAT." Last address I had was PO Box 718, NYC 10009, NY. I should have sent money. Maybe it's not too late--anybody know? (I would have been an Anarchist, but I heard you had to join.) sylvester ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 11:50:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: DRUNKEN BOAT In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, as far as I know, the DRUNKEN BOAT was a Phila. magazine (Philly magazine) of the early mid 90s, and i don't know if it still exists. It might. I think Linh Dinh edited it????? Of course, there might be two, and Todd Colby's band.... c On Wed, 10 Jun 1998, sylvester pollet wrote: > Does anyone know whether the magazine Drunken Boat, ed. Max > Blechman, "The Anarchist Magazine of Literature and the Visual Arts" > published more than two issues, or intends to? The first two were/are > wonderful. Blechman's Intro to #1 begins: > > "I'm sick of these post-modern, post-Marxist, post-structuralist > journals of literature and the arts. They're post a lot of things but > they're not post-boring." and ends: > > "Forget Foucault, NEVER MIND Baudrillard, FUCK DERRIDA. This is the > DRUNKEN BOAT." > > Last address I had was PO Box 718, NYC 10009, NY. I should have sent > money. Maybe it's not too late--anybody know? (I would have been an > Anarchist, but I heard you had to join.) sylvester > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 12:12:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Nerve gas Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Finally, a Scientific American reader with some nuts and bolts >political and ethical sense! I say that when the U.S. goes back to >the Persian Gulf or Central America or maybe Indonesia to save the >natives from themselves it should keep Morpheal's simple formula in >mind: Use whatever it takes on hold-out villages if it will arguably >result in fewer losses to our forces and shorten unfriendly >resistance to the military action in progress. And come to think of >it, if I can add my two cents to Morpheal's sound and simple line of >argument, keep the anthrax handy too. I cannot agree with you. Also, that is misleadingly simple minded. Corollary to what was already stated, another responsibility of command is to complete the mission with as few civilian casualties as possible, while keeping the losses among one's own and friendly forces minimized. Any mission is a difficult mission, and that is inevitably a delicate balance. Civilian casualties and collateral damage to infra-structures that are not of significant strategic importance is nothing to write home about. Those casualties of war, being innocent victims, often of fear and political brainwashing as well as of the machinery of outright conflict, are a tragedy in any instance. It is that that inevitably becomes most regretable as to any conflict, even if unavoidable. Anthrax is a deplorably horrendous means of mass destruction. We do, however, have need to develop effective detection of chemical and biological weapons, as well as efficient counter-measures and defences. There is a long way to go, on that score, and in fact the battle against potential designer viral and bacteriological agents has hardly begun. It is an arms race, similar to that which was faced when the Soviets and America went up against each other in the race for nuclear weapons and defences against those weapons. It is an arms race unlike any other, because any nation might develop such lethal and destructive means, and it is far from limited to superpowers. Also, it is not possible to see a biological or chemical warfare facility as easily as we can see, via satellite, a concentration of nuclear materials sufficient for one nuclear bomb. The latter can, in theory and practice, be spotted and tracked with accuracy. The other approach, rather than the development of weapons of mass destruction, is the development of effective non-lethal weaponry. It is that area of endeavour that shows the most promise in reducing collateral damage and both opponent civilian and military casualties. Whether that avenue of research can effectively put an end to war, is an interesting question. It might be that the power that evolves that technology far enough so that it is wholly effective, can in effect put an end to war as we have known it in the past. That does not mean standing down all more conventional forces and weapons, as we never know what new threats might be suddenly poised to strike, either from known or wholly unknown sources of aggression. As peaceful technologies move towards more radical exploration of farther and farther from what we are essentially familiar with a certain increased vigilance and continued development of new means of more potent and varied defence becomes an increasingly important concern. Certainly, I do not believe, that the human race can relax its guard, even if the conflicts upon this planet could be resolved peacefully, and if non lethal means of controlling and eliminating the outbreaks of violent conflict could eventually become the normative. While the latter is not only possible, but likely, there is no reason to believe that we dwell in an essentially friendly space. New frontiers will inevitably mean new species competition, and conflict. It is simply how nature has revealed itself to be and we have no reason whatever to believe that we are a unique instance of evolution in scenarios of conflict, within a much vaster whole. Simple probability says that we will run up against adversaries, somewhere in the future. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 12:36:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: descending murderous net In-Reply-To: <357E16E3.29AC42C3@speakeasy.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" What does ANY of this have to do with Poetics, pray tell??? At 10:17 PM 6/9/98 -0700, you wrote: >One of the most startling realizations of the Gulf war for me, independent of how I feel about whether that war was justified or not, was this: when nations come to the brink of war and an ultimatum is issued, it can never be a bluff. And once the war! > begins, it is a fight to the death of many and all civilized norms about 'fair fighting' become irrelevant in the face of the necessity to end it unequivocally and quickly. The first options considered are those that will win quickest and most decisi! >vely. The only reasons chemical or nuclear weapons might not be used in such a situation would relate to the fallout the perpetrators might suffer, not the other side, civilian or military. > >This is the hellish logic of war when it happens. Defectors are traitors or have been broken and turned into weapons against the nation they are now fighting against and will be murdered as quickly as the enemy, perhaps with more sympathy than otherwi! >se, but no less quickly, given the opportunity. > >Morpheal was not arguing the moral stature of such realities, only pointing out their existence once a state of war has descended. > >> ------------------------------ >> >> Date: Tue, 9 Jun 1998 12:41:00 -0700 >> From: Mark Weiss >> Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. >> >> Your argument would justify almost any wholesale slaughter, as in "Gosh, >> those Romans are suffering" (Atilla the Hun), or, "Gee, it must be hard >> being a Jew" (Adolph Hitler), or, "Saigon's a lousy place to live" (Richard >> Nixon). >> >> At 01:31 PM 6/9/98 -0400, you wrote: >> >>I've been listening to the media reaction to the nerve gas story. the >> defense >> >>department says there's no documented history of any use of nerve gas, or >> >>targeting defectors with extreme prejudice. .......................... >> >>the elite to desensitize a populace sensitized by the war has succeeded, and >> >>anything is possible; chomsky can crawl home to die -- the propaganda war >> has >> >>been lost, and only subversion is believable. joe >> > >> >Though it is the furthest from poetry yet, the Russians had chemical warfare >> >materials in the 1960s. The Chinese might have had some too. It is not a >> >very complicated technology. >> > >> >It is the defectors who were the losers in the propaganda war, regardless of >> >any further analysis as to historical outcome. They were not really >> >defectors, but instead "prisoners of war", of a peculiar kind. Their minds >> >twisted beyond any semblance of sanity by a constant barrage of radio >> >frequencied Hanoi propaganda. >> >The psychological warfare side of Nam has yet to be written, and much of >> >what was endured is still presumably too classified to become historical >> data. >> > >> >The usual strategy is to attempt, often at high cost in assets, to liberate >> >prisoners of war. If that fails, then the second strategy is to attempt to >> >minimize damage, in terms of preventing increased human suffering being >> >brought upon a larger number. In effect, actions meant to minimize, or at >> >least decrease immediate and long term damages to one's own assets. >> >Consideration is usually given, if possible, to the sufferings being endured >> >by the prisoners. Presumably the defectors in question were not being >> >tortured into defecting, but I do not know if we have that side of that >> >story right either. Some prisoners defected as the result of brainwashing >> >and torture. Some were technical specialists that the Soviets badly wanted >> >to break, in order to gain larger advantage than that which could be >> >attained solely within the limited geographic space of Vietnam. So it is >> >very very complicated. The news media typically oversimply, while other >> >sources attempt to obfuscate the brutal and horrific truths as to the nature >> >of human military conflict in any overt confrontation. >> > >> >M. >> > >> > > >-- >V I S P O ~ L A N G U ( I M ) A G E >http://www.islandnet.com/~jandrews/mocambo/jimvispo.htm > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 09:56:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Trace Ruggles Subject: Re: Yogapoetics In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.16.19980606094207.238fc9e8@pop.mindspring.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII And also Tai Chi, or any practice that affects the subtler bodies and how that work has/hasn't affected your poetry practice... On Sat, 6 Jun 1998, Barbara Henning wrote: > Yogapoetics: I'm interested in hearing from poets with a regular yoga > practice. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 12:57:48 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Franco Subject: FIRST ANNUAL BOSTON ALTERNATIVE POETRY CONFERENCE Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit BOSTON / CAMBRIDGE JULY 17-19 1998 BLACKSMITH HOUSE HARVARD SQ. CAMBRIDGE PARTICIPANTS BERNSTEIN, MESSERLI, TAGGART, MATLIN, TORRA, MLINKO, LANSING, FRANCO, F. HOWE, R. WALDROP, BOUCHARD, WARSH, JARNOT, BANSINSKI, GANICK, W. ALEXANDER & A HOST OF OTHERS Readings Fri. Sat Sun & panels as well : Vocabularies and imaginations; Biography & Criticism; Publishing; Concrete/Visual... Poetry & Poetics information: Aaron Kiely PO box 441517 Somerville Ma 02144 or Email 9924akiel@umbsky.cc.umb.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 12:28:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: Nerve gas In-Reply-To: <199806101612.MAA04683@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On 10 June, I offered this effusive praise for Morpheal's eloquent defense of nerve gas as a sometimes acceptable weapon against non-chivalrous enemies who try to brainwash young American soldiers with nonsense about "imperialist wars of aggression" and whatnot: > >Finally, a Scientific American reader with some nuts and bolts > >political and ethical sense! I say that when the U.S. goes back to > >the Persian Gulf or Central America or maybe Indonesia to save the > >natives from themselves it should keep Morpheal's simple formula in > >mind: Use whatever it takes on hold-out villages if it will arguably > >result in fewer losses to our forces and shorten unfriendly > >resistance to the military action in progress. And come to think of > >it, if I can add my two cents to Morpheal's sound and simple line of > >argument, keep the anthrax handy too. Morpheal, to my chagrin, responded: > I cannot agree with you. Also, that is misleadingly simple minded. >... Anthrax is a deplorably horrendous means of mass destruction. OK, OK, so the plug for the bio stuff was unfeeling of me. So just nukes to back up the sarin, OK? I mean you always hope those won't be necessary, but if you're weighing the lives of the many against the lives of the few, you gotta do what you gotta do. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 14:07:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: What it all has to do with poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For those with tight schedules and short patience, this post is broken into three parts 1) a thinking-out-loud-reply on Morpheal's (Bob E.) comments, 2) an example that counters his assertions, or the potential application of such, and 3) a brief meditation on Brent Long's question "What does ANY of this have to do with Poetics, pray tell???" Prithee listen, and pray I do not exceed my five-per-day chances to speak. I. The defense by Morpheal of his defending remarks summed up: 1) the issue at hand is the "responsibility of command" 2) civilian casualties and damage to infra-structures are a) "victims" b) "tragic" c) "inevitable" (& "unavoidable") and d) "regrettable" 3) "Anthrax is a deplorably horrendous means of mass destruction" [does this imply that there are more acceptable "means"?] 4) a chemical arms race is a logical step towards Peace 5) superior lethal technology (& its proliferation), successive developments of the same, and good old fashioned GI Joes will always come in handy because a) no one is trustworthy b) space aliens may have a hungry eye on us II. OK, for an example that Morpheal's faith in the integrity and values of the Pentagon is a little over-optimistic (to put it politely), let's think about what the United States orchestrated seven years ago against Iraq (with "the responsibility of command" in mind, and the unavoidable "tragedy" of civilian victims). This is taken from the Web Page of the International War Crimes Tribunal United States War Crimes Against Iraq (http://deoxy.org/wc/warcrim2.htm): A partial list of Iraqi targets: "electric power generation, relay and transmission; water treatment, pumping and distribution systems and reservoirs; telephone and radio exchanges, relay stations, towers and transmission facilities; food processing, storage and distribution facilities and markets, infant milk formula and beverage plants, animal vaccination facilities and irrigation sites; railroad transportation facilities, bus depots, bridges, highway overpasses, highways, highway repair stations, trains, buses and other public transportation vehicles, commercial and private vehicles; oil wells and pumps, pipelines, refineries, oil storage tanks, gasoline filling stations and fuel delivery tank cars and trucks, and kerosene storage tanks; sewage treatment and disposal systems; factories engaged in civilian production, e.g., textile and automobile assembly; and historical markers and ancient sites." "As a direct, intentional and foreseeable result of this destruction, tens of thousands of people have died from dehydration, dysentery and diseases caused by impure water, inability to obtain effective medical assistance and debilitation from hunger, shock, cold and stress. More will die until potable water, sanitary living conditions, adequate food supplies and other necessities are provided. There is a high risk of epidemics of cholera, typhoid, hepatitis and other diseases as well as starvation and malnutrition through the summer of 1991 and until food supplies are adequate and essential services are restored." Does bringing this into the argument make an effective counterpoint? I'm loath to rebut Morpheal's assertions directly (because of the faults inherent in e-mail, mostly). III. "What does ANY of this have to do with Poetics, pray tell???" (Brent Long) For the people whose lives, ethics, values, etc. are inextricably wed to poetry, Everything. -- 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: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 11:26:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" an aside: Joel mentioned parenthetically that the Edison film of the Czolgosz execution can be viewed at the American Memory pages of the LOC site / amazing footage if you have the patience for the download (about 30 meg i believe) search on "Czolgosz" (correct spelling) McKinley's funeral also available best, bill - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh | PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 14:34:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >McKinley's funeral also available > > I hear there is a short film version of Paul Blackburn's short poem of McKinley's funeral. It's at www.hotflicks.com <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 13:41:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chicago Review Subject: address inquiry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Could someone backchannel me with an address (e-mail or otherwise) for Myung Mi Kim? Thanks alot. Devin Johnston --------------- Chicago Review 5801 S. Kenwood Ave. Chicago IL 60637-1794 ph/fax 773.702.0887 e-mail org_crev@orgmail.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 15:18:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Re: DRUNKEN BOAT In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks, Chris, but this is a different one, NYC/Brooklyn based. #1 has an interview with Allen Ginsberg entitled "Anarchism and Revolution in Amerikkka," questions (& probably title) by Max Blechman. It touches on some of Manuel Brito's questions, which is one reason I thought of it. Also, #2 had a good article on Holly Cantine, Dachine Rainer & Retort Press, which Joel Kuszai mentioned earlier in his message quota. S. At 11:50 AM -0400 6/10/98, louis stroffolino wrote: > Well, as far as I know, the DRUNKEN BOAT was a Phila. magazine > (Philly magazine) of the early mid 90s, and i don't know if it > still exists. It might. I think Linh Dinh edited it????? > Of course, there might be two, and Todd Colby's band.... > c > >On Wed, 10 Jun 1998, sylvester pollet wrote: > >> Does anyone know whether the magazine Drunken Boat, ed. Max >> Blechman, "The Anarchist Magazine of Literature and the Visual Arts" >> published more than two issues, or intends to? The first two were/are >> wonderful. Blechman's Intro to #1 begins: >> >> "I'm sick of these post-modern, post-Marxist, post-structuralist >> journals of literature and the arts. They're post a lot of things but >> they're not post-boring." and ends: >> >> "Forget Foucault, NEVER MIND Baudrillard, FUCK DERRIDA. This is the >> DRUNKEN BOAT." >> >> Last address I had was PO Box 718, NYC 10009, NY. I should have sent >> money. Maybe it's not too late--anybody know? (I would have been an >> Anarchist, but I heard you had to join.) sylvester >> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 12:48:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: arse farce Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think that was supposed to read "hostility is the sincerest form of affectation." I had a few comments to make about this, but rather than burden the list with them I would refer you to my 5,000 page dissertation "EPIGRAPHS FOR EPIGONES." haven't seen the Beatty movie yet, but that Baraka line sure sounds like Ayler to me! or, to quote from Baraka's "The Sayings of Mantan Moreland:" "I am mentioned in the credits, but the ghost got the dough." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 14:16:38 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: What it all has to do with poetry In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980610180751.00a90ccc@po7.mit.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Daniel - thx for posting the International War Crimes Tribunal URL; I hadn't realized (but shld have known) that stuff was up on the www. As to the partial logic of war previously outlined (responsibilities of command, etc.): yup, that's it, at least on the theoretical- strategic level, viz. "to complete the mission with as few civilian casualties as possible, while keeping the losses among one's own and friendly forces minimized." bingo. however, a quick review of the Tribunal report makes it pretty clear how much of the Gulf War, for instance, was theoretically feasible and how much is better explained by greed, hatred, and co. at the local and underlying levels, not to mention various moneyed/political factors such as the promotion of the Bush presidency, the desire to impress upon the public a continued need for fat pentagon spending, perpetuation of the military-industrial complex, and so forth. one gets the feeling that 'national security' and "mine is but to do or die" aren't really adequate to the task of explaining why we might need to kill thousands of civilians by deliberately targeting, for instance, water treatment plants and factories that produce infant formula. Nor can the expenditure of weapons and supplies AFTER Iraq's compliance with the UN order to withdraw from Kuwait be explained by a strategy of limited, task-oriented engagement - . "For example, on March 2, 1991, [after U.S. 24th Division Forces engaged in a four-hour assault against Iraqis just west of Basra. More than 750 vehicles were destroyed, thousands were killed without U.S. casualties. A U.S. commander said, "We really waxed them." It was called a "Turkey Shoot." One Apache helicopter crew member yelled "Say hello to Allah" as he launched a laser-guided Hellfire missile."* *Patrick J. Sloyan, "Massive Battle After Cease Fire," New York Newsday, May 8, 1991; qtd. at , no. 6 "What does any of this have to do with Poetics?" this question comes up a lot here, mebbe less recently than in the past. Generally when discussion involves social-political issues, like now, I'm inclin/d to say "everything". I don't mean to be chiding - as I sd, lots of people have asked this over time - but we need to keep in mind the degree to which our art practice is NOT separate from History, i.e., the present, or from our political practice. That doesn't mean history is all we shld be talking about - I guess it means that's all we're EVER talking about, and this is the Poetics List only because (we hope) we talk about that portion of it, too, more often than not. chris - or most current version thereof .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu / nonce@iname.com snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ **site temporarily unavailable** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 14:38:51 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: [Re: Anarchy] Negri In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980610192203.008446d0@mail.ozemail.com.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT this is the most current info I can find... anybody have anything more up to date? update on Toni Negri as of 10 May, 1998: "Toni Negri remains in Rebibbia prison in Rome and his personal situation has not changed significantly since he returned to Italy almost a year ago. He has requested to begin a procedure that leads toward parole but as yet his requests have not been granted...." continues from here; more info available at chris .. Christopher Alexander calexand@library.utah.edu Marriott Library Instruction 581-8323 (lv. msg.) http://www.lib.utah.edu/instruction/mltech.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 13:47:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" they'd never let you near the wheelchair george they've got kennedy and the kitchen kabinet locked down tight in the compound and the attorney general maintains deniability, be easier to off Louis Riel, you could peddle there on your bicycle from Calgary ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:12:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christian Roess Subject: Re: post from Daniel Bouchard Comments: cc: bouchard@MIT.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Daniel Bouchard, Thanks for your well thought-out and lucid response to the posts from 'morpheal' et.al., in your three -part response. I have been trying to come up with a response that wasn't smart-ass or sarcastic. Amen to the " What does it have to do with Poetics". I believe (some what naively) that if more people would make the 'poetics' of (say) Robert Duncan, part of their "energy of devotion", particularly "The Truth and Life of Myth"( which takes YEARS to deal with in my opinion; we have not answered for the signature of R.D. yet) or apropos of this discussion " Man's Fulfillment in Order and Strife" we might have a chance at this. Chris Roess From "Ideas of the Meaning of Form"(Robert Duncan): "...still let the war be done and the adultery rage on, for my soul is sick with fear and contention whenever I remember the claim of mind against mind and some ass praises me because a line rimes who would despise me if he knew the meanings, and I am aroused myself toward thoughts of vengeance and triumph" from "Man's Fulfillment in Order and Strife": "Here, thinking of our concern for World Order and for a language of that order, and of how our ideal of such an order is always betraying to every observer an other and an other order, so that those who would liberate us from the tyranny of unconscious intent but display the tyranny of conscious intent, I would call up that flash of divine insight that is embodied in the..."(R.D.) "We are ourselves in our unhappy state as in our happiness new revelations of meaning that change the What that is at work in that event. This is the grievous impatience and the ecstatic patience we are fired by as we apprehend in all the disorders of our personal and social life the living desire and intent at work toward new orders."(R.D.) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 18:00:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Kelleher Subject: place(less Place) Comments: To: core-l MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Small Press Collective reminder to all those in the Buffalo area June 19-21 place(less Place) a gathering of poets will take place at Cornershop corner of Lafayette and Dewitt Friday, June 19: 8pm: forum on poetics, place and placelessness Saturday, June 20: 7:30-8:30 book exchange 9pm - Readings by all participants partial list of readers & participants Ben Friedlander Karen Mac Cormack Scott Pound Taylor Brady Christian Bok Darren Werschler-Henry Dan Machlin Eleni Stecopoulos Graham Foust Mike Kelleher and many others if you can and want to come, please let us know and we'll add your name to the list. Truly, the SPC ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 18:11:52 -0400 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Re: What it all has to do with poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit daniel bouchard wrote: > > For those with tight schedules and short patience, this post is broken into > three parts 1) a thinking-out-loud-reply on Morpheal's (Bob E.) comments, 2) > an example that counters his assertions, or the potential application of > such, and 3) a brief meditation on Brent Long's question "What does ANY of > this have to do with Poetics, pray tell???" > > Prithee listen, and pray I do not exceed my five-per-day chances to speak. > > I. > The defense by Morpheal of his defending remarks summed up: > > 1) the issue at hand is the "responsibility of command" > 2) civilian casualties and damage to infra-structures are a) "victims" b) > "tragic" c) "inevitable" (& "unavoidable") and d) "regrettable" > 3) "Anthrax is a deplorably horrendous means of mass destruction" > > [does this imply that there are more acceptable "means"?] > > 4) a chemical arms race is a logical step towards Peace > 5) superior lethal technology (& its proliferation), successive developments > of the same, and good old fashioned GI Joes will always come in handy because > a) no one is trustworthy > b) space aliens may have a hungry eye on us > > II. > > OK, for an example that Morpheal's faith in the integrity and values of the > Pentagon is a little over-optimistic (to put it politely), let's think about > what the United States orchestrated seven years ago against Iraq (with "the > responsibility of command" in mind, and the unavoidable "tragedy" of > civilian victims). This is taken from the Web Page of the International War > Crimes Tribunal United States War Crimes Against Iraq > (http://deoxy.org/wc/warcrim2.htm): > > A partial list of Iraqi targets: > "electric power generation, relay and transmission; water treatment, pumping > and distribution systems and reservoirs; telephone and radio exchanges, > relay stations, towers and transmission facilities; food processing, storage > and distribution facilities and markets, infant milk formula and beverage > plants, animal vaccination facilities and irrigation sites; railroad > transportation facilities, bus depots, bridges, highway overpasses, > highways, highway repair stations, trains, buses and other public > transportation vehicles, commercial and private vehicles; oil wells and > pumps, pipelines, refineries, oil storage tanks, gasoline filling stations > and fuel delivery tank cars and trucks, and kerosene storage tanks; sewage > treatment and disposal systems; factories engaged in civilian production, > e.g., textile and automobile assembly; and historical markers and ancient > sites." > > "As a direct, intentional and foreseeable result of this destruction, tens > of thousands of people have died from dehydration, dysentery and diseases > caused by impure water, inability to obtain effective medical assistance and > debilitation from hunger, shock, cold and stress. More will die until > potable water, sanitary living conditions, adequate food supplies and other > necessities are provided. There is a high risk of epidemics of cholera, > typhoid, hepatitis and other diseases as well as starvation and malnutrition > through the summer of 1991 and until food supplies are adequate and > essential services are restored." > > Does bringing this into the argument make an effective counterpoint? I'm > loath to rebut Morpheal's assertions directly (because of the faults > inherent in e-mail, mostly). > > III. > > "What does ANY of this have to do with Poetics, pray tell???" (Brent Long) > > For the people whose lives, ethics, values, etc. are inextricably wed to > poetry, Everything. > > -- 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 > >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< And one might consider Sassoon, Rosenberg, Service et al and Ypres.---cp Thanks for the solid posts. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 18:58:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: [Fwd: MEDIA FRENZY?] No doubt not that simple. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Now you're talking! That would justify killing John Kennedy and his >cabinet, right? IMHO, the Soviets did exactly that. Using Oswald as the Soviet programmed, lone assasin. Of course the Soviets did not like American threats against their permanent harbour for floating and submersible nuclear missile bases either. That really upset them enough to want to be rid of Kennedy. Then the efforts to defer the potential public demand for outright hostilities as to reprisals that could result in all out war and perhaps M.A.D. at a time when Soviet and U.S. war machines were too evenly matched. It is a strange world we live in..... M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:51:38 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Re: What it all has to do with poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" >"What does ANY of this have to do with Poetics, pray tell???" (Brent Long) > >For the people whose lives, ethics, values, etc. are inextricably wed to >poetry, Everything. > Poets have always been able to justify their left and right margins & get away with it Anthon Lawrence ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:49:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: Marx and Myth MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Wanted to try and raise the issue of mythology again, this time through a really interesting quote by Marx: "Where does Vulcan come in as against Roberts & Co.; Jupiter, as against the lightning rod; and Hermes as against the Credit Molitor? . . . Is Achilles possible side by side with powder and lead? Or is the Iliad at all compatible with the printing press and steam press? Do not singing and reciting and the muses necessarily go out of existence with the appearance of the printer's bar, and do not, therefore, the prerequisites of epic poetry disappear?" Nevertheless, Marx went on to say that "the real difficulty is not in grasping the idea that Greek art and epos are bound up with certain forms of social development. It rather lies in understanding why they still constitute a source of enjoyment with us, and in certain aspects prevail as a standard and model beyond attainment." So why IS that? (This from "A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy", N.Y., 1904 - (and also from an essay by one Joseph Mali, writing of Walter Benjamin's use of myth, which he got from Vico! - quite fascinating, even brilliant in parts, and I'd be glad to supply the citation if anyone's interested . . .) And now, back to "The Massacre of the Innocent Jazz" - a little-known Florentine work . . . ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 19:52:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: What it all has to do with poetry In-Reply-To: <295B27F710D@ALEX.LIB.UTAH.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT On 10 June, Chris Alexander wrote, paraphrasing the "principle" that guides military command decisions: > "to complete the mission with as few > civilian casualties as possible, while keeping the losses among one's > own and friendly forces minimized." And an intensely-orchestrated version of the above, of course, was put forth as official justification for the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is a catchall hypothetical scenario and can be easily construed to justify just about any war crime or to "ethically" circumvent any international treaty designed to restrain the world from spiralling into generalized barbarism. All one has to do is play the numbers speculation game (as Morpheal does, in theoretical defense of the "tactical" use of nerve gas on civilian areas) and argue that such and such an atomic, chemical, or biological act, however regrettable the "collateral damage," may have been necessary to prevent "even more death." In the grip of such Strangelovian logic, the gassing of civilians comes to be described (as in one of Morpheal's posts) as either the most "viable" choice available to commanders or an unfortunate "mistake." Maybe I'm just a hopeless essentialist, but my own feeling is that when one falls into this logic, one leaves one's humanity behind. And thus leaves behind anything we could call poetry. I think that's some of what Ginsberg felt and meant when he said "Go fuck yourself with your [nerve gas] bomb." Kent ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 05:46:06 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: gerald burns MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit could someone send--if they have it of course--an address for Gerald Burns? Todd Baron REMAP ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 19:14:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: WHOOPS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Hey, she's been hanking with me Well I guess so, if hanking can be defined as an occasional exchange of choleric outbursts. But everyone knows that the most poignant POETICS love story is the one between B & B (not that there's anything wrong with that). Watch your screen in the wee small hours of the morning when these two often achieve intense lyric heights. Rachel L. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:45:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: What it all has to do with poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> "As a direct, intentional and foreseeable result of this destruction, tens >> of thousands of people have died from dehydration, dysentery and diseases >> caused by impure water, inability to obtain effective medical assistance and >> debilitation from hunger, shock, cold and stress. More will die until >> potable water, sanitary living conditions, adequate food supplies and other >> necessities are provided. There is a high risk of epidemics of cholera, >> typhoid, hepatitis and other diseases as well as starvation and malnutrition >> through the summer of 1991 and until food supplies are adequate and >> essential services are restored." >> Does bringing this into the argument make an effective counterpoint? I'm >> loath to rebut Morpheal's assertions directly (because of the faults >> inherent in e-mail, mostly). >> >> III. >> >> "What does ANY of this have to do with Poetics, pray tell???" (Brent Long) >> >> For the people whose lives, ethics, values, etc. are inextricably wed to >> poetry, Everything. This is very odd. My opinion, at the time of the Gulf War was that Iraq should be made a United Nations protectorate. That way, not only would any subsequent buildup and problems as to control over remaining weaponry be eliminated, but the population of Iraq would have been assured: 1). deprogramming from the brain washing they had endured (not unlike denazification in post WWII Germany, but not as extreme) 2). adequate care for the wounded and the civilian population 3). protection, if necessary, from any other country taking advantage of a defeated neighbour (most likely Iran) 4). the end of a then Soviet region of influence 5). genuinely democratic elections when the infra-structure was restabilized It could be done after WWII, and facilitated the rebuilding of a secure Germany with a viable economy and a truly democratic government. So why not in Iraq ? I could see no reason for not doing it. Nevertheless, those who made the decisions decided against going that far. Presumably because of the threat of further violating potential Soviet interests and perhaps risk to allied assets if the Iraqi capital was to be secured, as I believe it ought to have been secured. As you recall Iraq threatened Israel first, then attacked Kuwait. The threat against Israeli civilian targets was quite extreme. Threats against the Kuwaiti population were horrific, as we know from events. Of course, I do not believe that coming to the defence of friends and allies in any way justifies punishing the civilian population of the aggressor nation. To the contrary, I have always maintained, and published several times on the net in prominent places, the argument that Iraq ought to be immediately allowed to trade as much oil as necessary for medicines and foodstuffs. That recommendation was completely ignored, by those who presumably had other aggendas. Anyway, you are very misleading as to my own opinions in that matter. In any situation, even if we respect those in command in any specific instance, we still have the right to our own divergence of opinion. That does not mean that we have any possibility to act upon that opinion. The actions are decided by those who have the ultimate power to decide them. However, sometimes our opinions do have some influence on the outcomes. Unfortunately my opinions as to the future of Iraq did not have the positive influence I hoped they would have, and the future there remains very dark, for different reasons. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 22:55:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: What it all has to do with poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >to prevent "even more death." In the grip of such Strangelovian >logic, the gassing of civilians comes to be described (as in one of >Morpheal's posts) as either the most "viable" choice available to >commanders or an unfortunate "mistake." I certainly did not say that. I have never condoned the use of weapons of mass destruction on civilian targets. Never, at any time, in any situation. That includes biological and chemical weapons, as well as nuclear. In fact I attempted to influence, and might have had some small success in the provision of European and American assistance to the former Soviet republics as to the safe destruction of weapons of mass destruction. There is now a very effective program in place providing technical assistance. The entire purpose of bringing the Cold War to a close was to reduce the number of such weapons, including dismantle nuclear bombs. Some of the bombs and chemicals were becoming somewhat unstable, as well as there being such horrendous amounts of them. Still a long way to go, but it is a slow, meticulous process. Anyway,....that is where I have always stood, on the frontier of argument for the effective control and destruction of biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. How we achieve that goal, is another question. Some of the major proponents in the past were simply too naive to have any real effect on it. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 19:16:19 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Is the appeal of feedback its inherent 'progressivism' and implied willingness to recognize the errors of its ways? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "An inner connection obtains between the Ars Combinatoria--the first philosophical masterpiece of the young Leibnitz--and his political memoranda written during his stays at Mainz and Hanover; among them is the Memorandum on the Election of the Polish King, in which Poland's place in the European Constellation of Powers was worked out in quasi-mathematical fashion. Not only philosophy and theology, but also politics was treated more geometrico. EVERYTHING THAT COULD NOT BE EXPRESSED WITH MATHEMATICAL CERTITUDE WAS CONSIDERED TO BE OUTMODED; and this applied especially to the idea and reality of the German Empire. The rational and political constitution of the absolutist state, on the other hand, the constitution of France, was seen to be in harmony with the spirit of the age. Since 1660 political calculations had become fashionable; thus in 1690 there was published in London a book by the economist Sir William Petty, entitled Political Arithmetic. The method of these political enquiries, which had become popular in England with the Restoration, was inspired not by religion or morals, but (as might be expected in this age of the great French and English scientists) by mathematics and physics."---from Leibnitz and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution by R.W. Meyer---cp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 23:54:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon/Piombino Subject: Mac Low on Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Manuel, There is a discussion of Mac Low's thoughts on anarchy in "The Pronouns" (Station Hill,1979), p.74: "Since 1954 I have made many pieces--simultaneities for voices &/or instruments,poems, plays,musical works--which call for the active creative collaboration of performers &/or audience. My reasons for liking this type of compostion have not changed much since I wrote the statement quoted in "A Controversy of Poets" (p.540--see bibliography): "An 'anarchist' does not believe, as some wrongly have put it, in social chaos.He or she believes in a state of society wherein there is no frozen power structure, where all persons may make significant initiatory choices in regard to matter affecting their own lives. In such a society coercion is at a minimum & lethal violence practically nonexistent. Certainly there will still be situations where coercion may have to be exercised to prevent something worse, but as Ammon Hennacy demontrated in his life, even maniacs with knives may sometimes be pacified without violent coercion....How better to embody such ideas in microcosm than to create works wherein both other human beings, their environments, & the world 'in general' (as represented by such objectively hazardous means as random digits) are all able to act within the general framework & set of 'rules' given by the poet...The poet creates a situation wherein she or he invites other persons & the world in general to be co-creators.The poet does not wish to be a dictator but a loyal co-initiator of action within the free society of equals which it is hoped the work will help to bring about..." By the way, I quote part of this section in my article "The Aural Ellipsis and the Nature of Listening in Contemporary Poetry" in the recently published "Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word" edited by Charles Bernstein (Oxford University Press) in a discussion Mac Low's performances. Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 19:02:30 -1000 Reply-To: redmeat@lava.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Charles E. Weigl" Subject: Re: Anarchy/drunken boat MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit i believe drunken boat put out more than 2 issues. they also recently (past few years) published a "best of" anthology, i believe. best place to get info on this and on the anarcho-tip is: Left Bank Distribution http://www.leftbankbooks.com they're the largest north american distributor of anarchist and anti-authoritarian lit (or at least that what we said when i was a collective-member back in the day) and they have a huge catalog at http://www.leftbankbooks.com/catalog.html. i'm sure i saw drunken boat stuff on there in the recent past. while i'm thinking of it, left bank also runs a great books-to-prisoners project that provides free books to incarcerated men and women. when i was working on it, we always had more requests than we could fill. i doubt it's changed much. check out their home page for info if you're inclined to dump some (tax-deductible) books and/or cash on them. charles ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 03:37:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "A. Nikuko Sondheim" Subject: Auto-Echo Poem of Jennifer and Nikuko MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Auto-Echo Poem of Jennifer and Nikuko Script started on Thu Jun 11 01:49:57 1998 warning: could not update utmp entry $ telnet panix.com 7 Trying 166.84.1.66... Connected to panix.com. Escape character is '^]'. oh jennifer i see you mirrored in my loving face oh jennifer i see you mirrored in my loving face oh nikuko it is as beautiful as an echo protocol repeating every time oh nikuko it is as beautiful as an echo protocol repeating every time oh jennifer i hunger for your imaginary tell-me-where oh jennifer i hunger for your imaginary tell-me-where oh nikuko every echo poem carries an uncanny aura of truth and murmur oh nikuko every echo poem carries an uncanny aura of truth and murmur oh jennifer you are my hunger i am your hunger thirst-for-truth oh jennifer you are my hunger i am your hunger-thirst-for-truth oh nikuko i am your hunger you are my murmur-thirst-for-sound oh nikuko i am your hunger you are my murmur-thirst-for-sound oh jennifer and nikuko oh nikuko and jennifer oh jennifer and nikuko oh nikuko and jennifer this echo protocol reverberates our words of beauty-love this echo protocol reverberates our words of beauty-love ^] telnet> close Connection closed. $ exit script done on Thu Jun 11 01:53:03 1998 _____________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 01:30:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Radio Bowering In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A lot of people might think that was a mash note from Brom, but it was really some noodlin' around a poem I wrote decades ago and which all smart people with Canadian experience know of, though it is about music coming from a Salt lake radio station and mentioning Ornette, I think. He having played here in Vancouver, age 20. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 01:50:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 9 Jun 1998 to 10 Jun 1998 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Civilian casualties and collateral damage to infra-structures that are > not of significant strategic importance is nothing to write home about. Civilian casualities. Collateral damage? Nothing to write home about? > brainwashing > Anthrax is a deplorably horrendous means of mass destruction. Is there any other kind? > The other approach, rather than the development of weapons of mass > destruction, is the development of effective non-lethal weaponry. It is that > area of endeavour that shows the most promise in reducing collateral damage > and both opponent civilian and military casualties. Whether that avenue of > research can effectively put an end to war, is an interesting question. It > might be that the power that evolves that technology far enough so that it > is wholly effective, can in effect put an end to war as we have known it in > the past. What would the results be? Put them all to sleep so that they can be handcuffed? Perpetual laughing gas? 'Democracy' in a canister? > That does not mean standing down all more conventional forces and weapons, > as we never know what new threats might be suddenly poised to strike, either > from known or wholly unknown sources of aggression. Wholly unknown sources of high-tech military agression that require the force of the United States military? Aliens? > Certainly, I do not believe, that the human > race can relax its guard, even if the conflicts upon this planet could be > resolved peacefully, and if non lethal means of controlling and eliminating > the outbreaks of violent conflict could eventually become the normative. > While the latter is not only possible, but likely, there is no reason to > believe that we dwell in an essentially friendly space. New frontiers will > inevitably mean new species competition, and conflict. What is inside your brain wanting to be hatched? > It is simply how > nature has revealed itself to be and we have no reason whatever to believe > that we are a unique instance of evolution in scenarios of conflict, within > a much vaster whole. Simple probability says that we will run up against > adversaries, somewhere in the future. It's a dog eat alien world, apparently, and o yes, we must be vigilante... -- V I S P O ~ L A N G U ( I M ) A G E http://www.islandnet.com/~jandrews/mocambo/jimvispo.htm ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 08:15:33 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hen Subject: Re: Marx and Myth In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:49:09 -0700 from On Wed, 10 Jun 1998 17:49:09 -0700 Safdie Joseph said: Nevertheless, Marx went on to say that "the real >difficulty is not in grasping the idea that Greek art and epos are bound >up >with certain forms of social development. It rather lies in >understanding >why they still constitute a source of enjoyment with us, and in certain >aspects prevail as a standard and model beyond attainment." > >So why IS that? (This from "A Contribution to the Critique of Political >Economy", N.Y., 1904 - (and also from an essay by one Joseph Mali, >writing of Walter Benjamin's use of myth, which he got from Vico! - >quite fascinating, even brilliant in parts, and I'd be glad to supply >the citation if anyone's interested . . .) Maybe one reason is the way the Iliad & the Odyssey combine fiction and reality. The Greeks along with most ancient peoples took their "epos" very seriously as the "whole story" for "everybody", but the whole story included the utter strangeness of experience (the gods, the giants, unknown regions of the world, fate, death, love, etc.). So the story radiated a lot of "otherness" & strangeness while remaining a story (with a plot of earth & a grave for every character). Poetry & writing still involve that sort of double thing, a momentum into strangeness which retains or even heightens belief. The credible incredible. What else IS ultimately "believable"? It's a powerful drug & a poison. Plato was rightly concerned for free minds & sane life when he outlawed the poets. Isn't Don Delillo's LIBRA the way it really happened? - Henry Gould > >And now, back to "The Massacre of the Innocent Jazz" - a little-known >Florentine work . . . ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 08:34:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Nerve gas Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >OK, OK, so the plug for the bio stuff was unfeeling of me. So just >nukes to back up the sarin, OK? I mean you always hope those won't be >necessary, but if you're weighing the lives of the many against the >lives of the few, you gotta do what you gotta do. This really must be the darkest, silliest, hour. Now you are condoning the death of the many to save the few. I wish I could laugh at that, but my laughter machine is broken and in for repairs. Perhaps something of the opposite might have been true when conflicts were decided purely by the numbers of cannon fodder that a king, emperor, or other semi-divinity could muster into the field. It is not quite the same nowadays. Then we could have dropped a simple hand grenade on that cluster of generals and nobility on that distant hilltop overlooking the English squares parading against each other and falling like flies and put an end to it more quickly. The advance of technology seems to have changed that somewhat. "So, go ahead punk, why don't you use your bomb, and 'make my day'....." 'Dirty Harry' "And tomorrow we shall learn to defend ourselves against over-ripe avocados.... so bring your pointed sticks....." 'Monty' ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 08:56:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Marx and Myth Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Plato was rightly concerned for free minds >& sane life when he outlawed the poets. >- Henry Gould Sounds as if Plato was in fact a communist - marxist. Either that, or Plato was/is a computer..... It really does not matter which as the ultimately enforced one dimensionality becomes essentially the same. Then again, sometimes we are pushed to look at sanity somewhat in this way: We've Got Class --------------- Today they draped another pauper's coffin with a dollar bill, and there was a silent salute, for another victim of money forbid. The wealthy save their own bodies for this life, too often telling the poor to save their souls for the afterlife. Those in between supposed to make coffins, print dollar bills, serve the wealthy, give to the poor, and preach sermons. B.E. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:59:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Re: Anarchy/drunken boat Comments: To: redmeat@lava.net In-Reply-To: <357F64E5.B8AFED71@lava.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jackpot! Thanks, Charles. That site seems a fantastic resource. They have both issues I referred to, and in fact published what I was calling #2 themselves, as Drunken Boat: Art Rebellion Anarchy ed. Max Blechman. $6 & $12. The place sounds great, non-profit co-op, etc. Also hold readings & events (Seattle). From a quick glance, they have a huge catalogue. At 7:02 PM -1000 6/10/98, Charles E. Weigl wrote: >i believe drunken boat put out more than 2 issues. they also recently >(past few years) published a "best of" anthology, i believe. > >best place to get info on this and on the anarcho-tip is: > > >Left Bank Distribution >http://www.leftbankbooks.com > >they're the largest north american distributor of anarchist and >anti-authoritarian lit (or at least that what we said when i was a >collective-member back in the day) and they have a huge catalog at >http://www.leftbankbooks.com/catalog.html. i'm sure i saw drunken boat >stuff on there in the recent past. > >while i'm thinking of it, left bank also runs a great books-to-prisoners >project that provides free books to incarcerated men and women. when i >was working on it, we always had more requests than we could fill. i >doubt it's changed much. check out their home page for info if you're >inclined to dump some (tax-deductible) books and/or cash on them. > >charles ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:13:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: In response to Daniel B.'s posting Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >For the people whose lives, ethics, values, etc. are inextricably wed to >poetry, Everything. This is EXACTLY the kind of self-righteous mentality that I try to avoid when it comes to poetry...not only in myself, but in those I keep company with and whom I will listen to. And nerve gas has NOTHING to do with poetry. No matter how inextricably wed one is to their own image of their place in the realm of poetics. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:22:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: In response Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:13 AM 6/11/98 -0400, Brent Long wrote: >> And nerve gas has NOTHING to do with poetry. No matter how inextricably wed one is to their own image of their >place in the realm of poetics. > Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, - My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. --Wilfred Owen, from "Dulce Et Decorum Est" (partial) <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 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, 11 Jun 1998 11:15:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Christy Mathewson memorial poetix post In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980611101305.007c7320@postoffice.brown.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Yet you sound incredibly self-righteous yourself, dontcha?? Praise to Dan and Charles for excellent posts on this subject. Long does offer one helpful hint: by reversing his axiom we get a pretty good instant aphorism for the ages: "Nerve gas has EVRYTHING to do with poetry"! m. On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Brent Long wrote: > >For the people whose lives, ethics, values, etc. are inextricably wed to > >poetry, Everything. > > This is EXACTLY the kind of self-righteous mentality that I try to avoid > when it comes to poetry...not only in myself, but in those I keep company > with and whom I will listen to. And nerve gas has NOTHING to do with > poetry. No matter how inextricably wed one is to their own image of their > place in the realm of poetics. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 10:16:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Zauhar Subject: Harryette Mullen in Chicago In-Reply-To: <793557de.357ebb0d@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For Poetics Listers in the Chicago area: I just saw a notice announcing that Harryette Mullen is reading in Chicago. The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago is sponsering the event. Cost is $5 for the general public, $3 for members and students. The reading is scheduled for 3:00, Sunday June 14 at the Society (5811 South Ellis Avenue, Bergman Gallery {Cobb Hall 418}). David Zauhar University of Illinois at Chicago "I believe that the devil is in these poets. They destroy all universities. And I heard from an old master of Leipsic who had been Magister for 36 years that when he was a young men then did the university stand firm, for there was not a poet within 20 miles." _Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum_, ii.46. Quoted in Helen Waddell's _The Wandering Scholars_ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 08:39:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: will you still need me Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" donald duck 64 today ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 11:58:42 -0400 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: In response In-Reply-To: daniel bouchard "Re: In response" (Jun 11, 10:22am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Ah thank you Daniel Bouchard for posting this Wilfred Owen poem. Goes back a long, long time for me (school). As it turns out I always remembered the simile "like a devil's sick of sin," with particular interest, but couldn't remember the name of the poem, or it's author. Owen does as much as he can here to express inexpressible horror. William On Jun 11, 10:22am, daniel bouchard wrote: > Subject: Re: In response > At 10:13 AM 6/11/98 -0400, Brent Long wrote: > >> And nerve gas has NOTHING to do with poetry. No matter how inextricably > wed one is to their own image of their >place in the realm of poetics. > > > > > Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling, > Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; > But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, > And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime... > Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, > As under a green sea, I saw him drowning. > > In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, > He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. > > If in some smothering dreams you too could pace > Behind the wagon that we flung him in, > And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, > His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin; > If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood > Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, > Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud > Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, - > My friend, you would not tell with such high zest > To children ardent for some desperate glory, > The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est > Pro patria mori. > > --Wilfred Owen, from "Dulce Et Decorum Est" (partial) > > > > > <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > Daniel Bouchard > The MIT Press Journals > Five Cambridge Center > Cambridge, MA 02142 > > bouchard@mit.edu > phone: 617.258.0588 > fax: 617.258.5028 > >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< >-- End of excerpt from daniel bouchard ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 12:07:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: will you still need me Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >donald duck 64 today Rumour is that he is now Sir Donald, having saved the world from becoming excessively Mickey Mouse. B. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 09:57:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: Marx and Myth and History and Poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Henry wrote: Maybe one reason [why myths still constitute a source of enjoyment with us, and in certain aspects prevail as a standard and model beyond attainment] is the way the Iliad & the Odyssey combine fiction and reality. The Greeks along with most ancient peoples took their "epos" very seriously as the "whole story" for "everybody", but the whole story included the utter strangeness of experience (the gods, the giants, unknown regions of the world, fate, death, love, etc.). So the story radiated a lot of "otherness" & strangeness while remaining a story (with a plot of earth & a grave for every character). Poetry & writing still involve that sort of double thing, a momentum into strangeness which retains or even heightens belief. The credible incredible. What else IS ultimately "believable"? It's a powerful drug & a poison. Plato was rightly concerned for free minds & sane life when he outlawed the poets. Isn't Don Delillo's LIBRA the way it really happened? Which thought I applaud, not only as a response to Karl Marx's question but as a contribution to the "What's nerve gas got to do (got to do) with it" discussion - DeLillo's _Underworld_ continues this theme of blending the real with the imaginary, being a "history" of the last 50 years as well as a "novel" (beginning with the Giant-Dodger game of 1951, Hoover in attendance, learning of Russian H-bomb explosion) . . . Brent Long's hermeticism just ain't gonna fly, and Daniel Bouchard's Owen poem (and the work of Sassoon and others, as mentioned yesterday) is perhaps the best response to it. But there's also this, from an article called "The Politics of Jacques Derrida" in the current issue of the New York Review of Books : "The history of French philosophy in the three decades following the Second World War can be summed up in a phrase: politics dictated and philosophy wrote. After the Liberation, and thanks mainly to the example of Jean-Paul Sartre, the mantle of the Dreyfusard intellectual passed from the writer to the philosopher, who was now expected to pronounce on the events of the day. This development led to a blurring of the boundaries between pure philosophical inquiry, political philosophy, and political engagement, . . ." . . . which lines, he goes on to say, are slowly re-establishing themselves. Substitute "poet" for "philosopher" here and you have a justification for such discussion, and for such work. (This article is TREMENDOUSLY entertaining! Equally as good as the one about the Texas textbook massacre of a few weeks ago! It's very jaundiced about Derrida and the entire program of "academic postmodernism" - and has instructed me greatly . . .) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 13:13:59 -0400 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: Que nerve he has! In-Reply-To: Safdie Joseph "Re: Marx and Myth and History and Poetry" (Jun 11, 9:57am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Hey, that's tina turner isn't it: "What's (nerve gas) got to do, got to do with it" Sorry, William ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 13:59:08 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry G Subject: whutsa...ya talkin t'me?? I think Brent was right on a certain level & I speak from long & criminal experience when I say the List sometimes needs reminding that it's the economy, stupid, this ain't Speaker's Corner in Jello Park. - Jack Spandrift ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 14:34:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: "I know men [sic] for whom everything matters" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII No, Brent's wrong. Even if you take the Personism defence, there's no beauty in ignoring atrocities. I mean,aren't we supposed to be lightly _humiliated_ by the fact that we identify with Seinfeld, those of us who do. I don't, I feel more like George? I feel more like a Kosovan than Muslim, too, which may account for my only beginning now to try to find out what is happening and who profits from my not knowing about it. I mean, Abacha dropped dead! In his sleep! Unless of course poetry is just pretty words, in which case, scuse me while I go paint over Homer Sappho Virgil and O'Hara. And unless we're supposed really to take care of our careers treat other members of our caste gently and let big things take care of themselves -- I am having trouble thinking of a single poem that has nothing to do with the world that produced it -- help me out, Brent, Henry -- Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 11:32:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: SF Reading (change) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A change in the Attic reading: Susan Smith Nash will not be able to come out from Oklahoma to read. Reading in her place will be Cole Swensen, recently back from Denver. A San Francisco Reading: Joe Ross Cole Swensen Cydney Chadwick Michelle Murphy Saturday, June 13th, 5 p.m. at the Attic Club, Cocktail Lounge and Artspace, 3336 24th St.(near the 24th St. BART station, also near Mission St.). Doors open at 4:30 p.m. Reading begins at 5 p.m. _sharp_. Free. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 14:57:15 -0400 Reply-To: Peter Baker Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Baker Subject: Re: Anarchy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'll add my voice to Jordan--Bernadette Mayer is key here. I talked to her a year or so ago and she said she was writing a book on anarchy. Has anyone else heard anything more on that? I take her MEMORY project as a how-to for practicing a refusal of the dominant society (July '71). Coming out of Rimbaud (Je suis en gre`ve) one way to anarchy is *absolute refusal to work*. See also his "Je m'encrapule le plus possible." Guy Debord and the Situationists, Paris May '68. Greil Marcus makes the connection from there (a little too self-celebratorily for me) to the Punk rockers of the seventies in his _Lipstick Traces_. Baraka "Black Dada Nihilismus" (I agree) follows this through Dada and Surrealism and the refusal of power in the Olson/Baraka poems to each other from early sixties time evidences this. Spicer relevant in this regard, especially his refusal to play the poe biz game. Ted Berrigan's view that the poet is always doing poetry at every moment takes the writer out of the cash nexus. Michaux connects to Surrealism and important beyond what Ted did with him. Not only his work on drug experience but also his immersion in the world of the "mentally ill" who by definition are isolated from and other to dominant society (big thread here connecting up with Artauld, Foucault, on and on). Georges Perec's political involvements in La ligne generale as this leads into his shift to OULIPO in the sixties might be of some relevance. bp Nichol has been going through my mind in this connection, maybe for that same singleminded commitment to only poetry, invention of all the possible new forms. Michael Ondaatje's _In the Skin of a Lion_ a practical how-to manual that ties anarchism to immigration. Has anyone mentioned Andrei Codrescu and the anarchist streak that gets here through the Eastern Europeans, anti-authoritarianism as wild humor? Peace, Peter *************************************************************************** Peter Baker Professor of English and Cultural Studies Towson University (410) 830-2855 (voice mail) Towson, MD 21252 (410) 830-3999 (fax) pbaker@towson.edu http://www.towson.edu/~baker WORKERS OF THE WORLD DISPERSE! *************************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:02:16 -0400 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Re: In response to Daniel B.'s posting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Brent Long wrote: > > >For the people whose lives, ethics, values, etc. are inextricably wed to > >poetry, Everything. > > This is EXACTLY the kind of self-righteous mentality that I try to avoid > when it comes to poetry...not only in myself, but in those I keep company > with and whom I will listen to. And nerve gas has NOTHING to do with > poetry. No matter how inextricably wed one is to their own image of their > place in the realm of poetics. Dear Brent. What the livin' hell are you talking about! Haven't you heard of the mustard gas attack at Ypres in World War One. Such poets as Sassoon, Rosenberg, Service wrote diectly or indirectly about that horrible business. The savagery of World War I, embodied in the gas attacks at Ypres, are immortalized, IMMORTALIZED! by Pound in the Cantos and Mauberley as well as in Bunting's work. Pound's loss of his friend, the sculptor, Gaudier-Brzeska, to the insanity of that war affected him deeply for the rest of his long life. Official lying is a poetic theme---read Pound, Ginsberg, Corso, Bly, Levertov---practically any damn body of my generation or the generations before me. Hypocrisy is a theme of poetry---read Martial or Catullus or et al. War is a theme of poetry. Death is a poetic theme. How obvious! How far we drift when we abandon meaning or wallow in the pubescent delights of a material culture or practice an aesthetic asceticism. How clean we all feel. I for one began hearing rumors back in the mid-seventies (around the time of the Pike and Church sub-committee hearings) that the U.S. used sarin gas in the Southeast Asian general theatre of operations. I live just a few miles from Fort Detrick, MD where such things are tested. But in spite of the foreknowledge of the likelihood of the U.S. using gas in Southeast Asia, this most recent and concrete information has profoundly distressed and sickened me. And to borrow from Sojourner Truth---"And ain't I a 'poet'!?."---Carlo Parcelli ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 14:59:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: "I know men [sic] for whom everything matters" In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 11 Jun 1998 14:34:06 -0400 from Jordan, Dan was right, with the perfect comeback, the Owen poem. It's always been a losing issue to try to "police" the list topics. Because, yeah, poetry gets into everything. But I still say Brent was right to ask, where's the poetry in this "everything" we're going on about? I agree with those people who periodically ask here, hey, can we talk about some specific poems or poets we're reading lately? I agree with that - that's why I've tried to contain my own meanderings... - Henry G ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:23:51 -0400 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Organization: Alphaville Subject: nerve gas MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Brent. And my profound apologies to David Jones that great poetic chronicler of 'The Great War' whom I left out in my haste to address your blither. Read his poem 'The Fatigue' to find out where you fit in. Also, apologies to Robert Duncan and even Galway Kinnell, when we all came to our senses.---Carlo Parcelli ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:30:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: a six-pack of nerves Just a reminder to all the Brent-bashers - if he hadn't raised the issue in the first place, nobody would have mentioned all these specifically POETRY reactions to the gas. - Henry G ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:40:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: a six-pack of nerves In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thank you, Henry. That was JUST what I was thinking. Before I posted, there was only a message from Daniel pointing out wed to poetry he is...only problem was, there was no poetry mentioned about the topic. NOW we can have a conversation about poetry...finally. At 03:30 PM 6/11/98 EDT, you wrote: >Just a reminder to all the Brent-bashers - if he hadn't raised the issue >in the first place, nobody would have mentioned all these specifically >POETRY reactions to the gas. - Henry G > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:38:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Why We Don't Live In Mauritania MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The problem if there is one for poetry then isn't what subject matter is it appropriate to discuss but: how to make something someone anyone would want to need to read. Cooler now I see Brent could be heard to say what is there in this about how to make something anyone would need to read. This is my secret (to me) problem with poetics: the only answer to that question is the poem that does it. The question is sphinxy, automatically better than any answer that thinks it has to do with the question. two of five, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:42:08 -0400 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Re: Nerve gas MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit KENT JOHNSON wrote: > > On 9 June, Morpheal wrote: > > >It really is not that hard to understand. Simply that the lives of > >many are valued more than the lives of the few, where both are in > >the same balance. That logic is simple enough. > > >I would agree that mistakes happen, and particularly in the > >complicated psychological and technical jungle of modern warfare. I > >do not know if a particular incident was a mistake in terms of there > >being a more viable option or whether it was the only viable option > >to save the most human lives within the context of the military > >action in progress. > > >I can only speak to the principles, not the specifics of that > >incident. > > Finally, a Scientific American reader with some nuts and bolts > political and ethical sense! I say that when the U.S. goes back to > the Persian Gulf or Central America or maybe Indonesia to save the > natives from themselves it should keep Morpheal's simple formula in > mind: Use whatever it takes on hold-out villages if it will arguably > result in fewer losses to our forces and shorten unfriendly > resistance to the military action in progress. And come to think of > it, if I can add my two cents to Morpheal's sound and simple line of > argument, keep the anthrax handy too. If necessary, that will quickly > take the fight out of Charlie--not to mention any brainwashed > defectors from our side-- and could well save quite a few lives when > everything is factored in. > > Of course, I'm sure Morpheal would agree with me that such > actions--particularly when we are temporary guests in another > land--must only be undertaken as a _last resort_ and be guided, > always, by the foremost of all principles-- the hypothetical > preservation of the greatest number of human lives, for human life, > as we civilized people know, is the bottom line. And I'm sure he'd > also caution that military and political leaders forced to make such > decisions in the jungle of modern warfare should realize from > the get-go that they may forever be burdened with the angst of having > possibly made a "mistake"-- as even Saddam Hussein must be burdened > by the gassing of Kurdistan, though he believes in his heart that it > was done to save many others from unnecessary death and suffering. > (Of course, the thing with the Kurds was obviously a _mistake_, and > so I _am not_ defending Saddam Hussein in any sense here. I said he > probably "believes" he saved many more lives. The man is a threat to > the world, and if we'd made the tough decision and > precision-nuked Baghdad some years ago, the planet would now be > --simple logic-- a less dangerous place.) > > And the planet _is_ a complicated place R. Gancie, whoever you are, > much more complicated than you realize. So stop it, will you, with > your empty and bleeding-heart rant about nerve gas and just stick to > neutrinos or something along those lines. As Morpheal brilliantly > summed it all up, "We are where we is because we were where we was." Kent, What's Scientific American?---Carlo Parcelli ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:52:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry g Subject: Re: Why We Don't Live In Mauritania In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:38:05 -0400 from Plato would agree with you there, Jordan, that's why he banned the poets, because their poems were better questions than his philosophical questions were better than the windy answers to them, which is why philosophy keeps asking questions, to keep from being bored with their own answers, but Plato lives in Mauritania, I think? Therefore I am Maury? Je wha??? - Eric Blarnes ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:57:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: OREN.IZENBERG@JHU.EDU Subject: Re: Marx and Myth and History and Poetry In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT This is an extraordinarily muddled conversation. Nobody contests (least of all, I would venture to say, the "hermetic" Brent Long) That poets (like philosophers, "writers," and people of all kinds) can and maybe even should think about nerve gas, care about nerve gas, and maybe even, to the best of their ability, _write_ about nerve gas-- if they hope or imagine that writing about nerve gas might do something about nerve gas (like cause other people or themselves to think about it or care about it or do something about it). The question Brent was asking-- and,as a cross aside, it strikes me that it is the question one can KNOW he was asking just by reading it with the tiniest presumption of goodwill-- was not, why should such a conversation begin on a list like this one (not, in other words, poets shouldn't talk about such things!) but rather, why is this conversation going on and on (and on) without anyone even trying to address the relationship between caring about the constructive choices that (let's say)a particular POEM enjoins (or more generally, about the nature of the choices that POETICS as a field of inquiry takes up as its clearest subject matter) to the various _other_ kinds of ethical and political choices people have to make? Its a knotty question, but there are obviously ways to think about it-- in other contexts, people _on this list_ have thought it. It doesn't seem so far out of line (self-righteous, hermetic, aestheticist, aescetic, formalist, elitist, careerist, or policelike) to bring it up. But "because I care a whole lot about x and y, x has EVERYTHING to do with y" is not really thinking about the question, no matter how loud the caps, no matter how aphoristic the formulation; it is a way to dismiss the question, and I understand Brent's (irritated) refusal to take it seriously as a good faith answer. "I developed a strong set of moral and political beliefs while reading and thinking about and writing poems and I can apply those beliefs to the topic of modern warfare and to many other things" or even "look! some poems are actually _about_ modern warfare and even about how horrible nerve gas is," as genetic and thematic answers, don't quite address the question fully either-- which is about the relationship between areas of practice: again, how to think about the conceptual relation between choices made in the making of poems and choices of other kinds. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 15:02:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: Why We Don't Live In Mauritania In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Jordan et. al. Perfect. This is the task of poetics. Not a given poem. The poem needn't address the why or it, that's not its task. The why is engulfed by the how (to interpret, to listen) which is the fundamental task of poetics. The works denegrated are not being listened to, I'm afraid. Hastily, Patrick F. Durgin | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Jordan Davis wrote: > The problem if there is one for poetry then isn't what subject matter is > it appropriate to discuss but: > > how to make something someone anyone would want to need to read. > > Cooler now I see Brent could be heard to say what is there in this about > how to make something anyone would need to read. > > This is my secret (to me) problem with poetics: the only answer to that > question is the poem that does it. The question is sphinxy, automatically > better than any answer that thinks it has to do with the question. > > two of five, > Jordan > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 13:03:36 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Roger Farr Subject: Re: Drunken Boat In-Reply-To: from "sylvester pollet" at Jun 10, 98 11:41:10 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Drunken Boat #3 has been "at the press" for almost 2 years now! Roger ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 16:05:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: f.y.i. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Shakespeare study turns into exam tragedy LONDON (Reuters) - British students found to their horror they had spent two years studying the wrong play when their exam paper had no questions on Shakespeare's epic tragedy ``King Lear.'' Bradford Grammar School, whose former pupils include painter David Hockney and former Labour minister Denis Healey, discovered its curriculum error and hastily rang the examination board. A teacher mistakenly taught the pupils ``King Lear'' instead of three other Shakespeare plays which were on the syllabus. Headmaster Stephen Davidson said the teacher was ``absolutely devastated.'' A spokesman for the examination board said: ``It will have been a stressful time for the students and we will do everything we can to make sure that they are not disadvantaged by a mistake that wasn't their fault.'' Staff and pupils are anxiously awaiting the results from the A-level examination, which can affect pupils' chances of gaining entrance to universities. ^REUTERS@ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 16:24:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Golumbia Subject: mla reference (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit a friend of a friend of a friend forwards this query to me... anyone have any idea whether any record exists? feel free to backchannel.. thx! > >Does anyone have a copy (or know where I could find one) of the discussion > >on "Zen and Contemporary Poetry" that Richard Brautigan, Gary Snyder and > >Philip Whalen held at the Modern Language Association's Convention in San > >Francisco in December 1979? > > > >Thanks. > > -- dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu David Golumbia ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 16:54:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Anarchy Comments: To: Peter Baker In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Peter.... well i dont know if ted berrigans view that the poet is always doing poetry "TAKES THE WRITER OUT OF THE CASH NEXUS" (so that's the phrase to play with---"chew on"--for "awhile"....) money plays a role, "has a presence", in tb's work, and i don't think it's just the villianous cash nexus one is glad to be taken out of...... chris On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Peter Baker wrote: > I'll add my voice to Jordan--Bernadette Mayer is key here. I talked to > her a year or so ago and she said she was writing a book on anarchy. Has > anyone else heard anything more on that? I take her MEMORY project as a > how-to for practicing a refusal of the dominant society (July '71). > > Coming out of Rimbaud (Je suis en gre`ve) one way to anarchy is *absolute > refusal to work*. See also his "Je m'encrapule le plus possible." Guy > Debord and the Situationists, Paris May '68. Greil Marcus makes the > connection from there (a little too self-celebratorily for me) to the Punk > rockers of the seventies in his _Lipstick Traces_. > > Baraka "Black Dada Nihilismus" (I agree) follows this through Dada and > Surrealism and the refusal of power in the Olson/Baraka poems to each > other from early sixties time evidences this. Spicer relevant in > this regard, especially his refusal to play the poe biz game. > > Ted Berrigan's view that the poet is always doing poetry at every moment > takes the writer out of the cash nexus. Michaux connects to Surrealism > and important beyond what Ted did with him. Not only his work on drug > experience but also his immersion in the world of the "mentally ill" who > by definition are isolated from and other to dominant society (big > thread here connecting up with Artauld, Foucault, on and on). > > Georges Perec's political involvements in La ligne generale as this leads > into his shift to OULIPO in the sixties might be of some relevance. > > bp Nichol has been going through my mind in this connection, maybe for > that same singleminded commitment to only poetry, invention of all the > possible new forms. Michael Ondaatje's _In the Skin of a Lion_ a > practical how-to manual that ties anarchism to immigration. > > Has anyone mentioned Andrei Codrescu and the anarchist streak that gets > here through the Eastern Europeans, anti-authoritarianism as wild humor? > > Peace, > Peter > > *************************************************************************** > Peter Baker > Professor of English and Cultural Studies > > Towson University (410) 830-2855 (voice mail) > Towson, MD 21252 (410) 830-3999 (fax) > pbaker@towson.edu http://www.towson.edu/~baker > > WORKERS OF THE WORLD DISPERSE! > *************************************************************************** > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 17:09:47 -0400 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: Re: "I know men [sic] for whom everything matters" In-Reply-To: Jordan Davis ""I know men [sic] for whom everything matters"" (Jun 11, 2:34pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Jun 11, 2:34pm, Jordan Davis wrote: > Subject: "I know men [sic] for whom everything matters" > No, Brent's wrong. Even if you take the Personism defence, there's no > beauty in ignoring atrocities. > > Unless of course poetry is just pretty words, in which case, scuse me > while I go paint over Homer Sappho Virgil and O'Hara. I guess now's a good time to repeat that POETRY MAKES NOTHING HAPPEN! Poetry makes poetry happen, keeps us sane, dignified, and civil-like in bad times, and buoys or transcends even our best times. It is an inertial wheel that keeps experiences/memories/thought/language, everything, good and bad, alive. Poetry makes something happen but in the "radiant and productive atmosphere" of the mundo of the imagination. "There was so much that was real, that was not real"--the world is upside down, circular. What is too real, hyper-real (the horrible) becomes unreal compared with the "normal," the things as they are, no? Do paint over Homer, Sappho, Virgil, and O'Hara, but with words--it's all we've ever been doing since in this palimpsestuous relationship we have with the past. > The problem if there is one for poetry then isn't what subject matter is > it appropriate to discuss but: The problem if it is one (don't think it is) is that there isn't one poetry (subject matter excluded). >how to make something someone anyone would want to need to read. "to need"--not gonna do it, not gonna do it. What is that phrase "all the news fit to print(?) or something like that. William ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 07:08:31 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" teb berrigan was on the job full time as are most of us. We don't get paid for the hours we spend writing, or dreaming up ways into writing. And who thinks of cash when they're deep inside a poem? Did that insurance guy from Hartford look up from his angular handwriting and see dollar signs in the air? Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 13:18:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: <1717393971@wellington.trump.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" OK, in some sense I'm on the job of being a poet full time when I'm making book works. And when I'm washing dishes at home. And when I'm taking my children to guitar lessons. And when I'm picking up masonite at the lumberyard for my wife so she can include painting on masonite in her class at the Tucson Museum of Art. And when I'm thinking of cash because I don't have any. And when I'm thinking of insurance because my children sure do get sick often enough. But maybe not on the job as poet any moreso than someone else who does similar 'extra' things who is a carpenter is always on the job as carpenter; or someone else is always on the job as biologist, etc. etc. I don't really think poets are any more 'special' people than anybody else, although I do like the way a lot of them think . . . and write. What was the Olson line? " poet / get a joboosky!" charles At 07:08 AM 6/12/98 -0000, you wrote: >teb berrigan was on the job full time >as are most of us. We don't get paid for the hours >we spend writing, or dreaming up ways into writing. >And who thinks of cash when they're deep inside a poem? >Did that insurance guy from Hartford look up >from his angular handwriting and see dollar signs >in the air? > >Anthony > > > > > > > > > > > >...................................................... >Anthony Lawrence >PO Box 75 >Sandy Bay >Tasmania 7006 > > charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://alexwritdespub.com/chax :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 17:32:24 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: Re: "I know men [sic] for whom everything matters" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit William Burmeister: In a message dated 98-06-11 17:10:54 EDT, you write: << POETRY MAKES NOTHING HAPPEN! If poetry makes nothing happen but more poetry then does it become a mechanism for control. People write, publish, read, comment on it and thereby acquire some kind of cultural capital (Bourdieu would call it distinction) that allows them to become relatively satisfied and therefore prevents them from making things happen in regard to economic capital. At the same time, poetry in relation to say Hollywood is in a domintated position which perpetuates the frustration and animosity of poets who then express their animosity (however beautifully and joyously) by writing about pop culture...politics...etc? I think it was said that it keeps us "civil-like". I get a little nervous with the suggestion that poetry returns us to the imagination, to the mind or the prison house of language. Standard Schaefer ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 17:54:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christian Roess Subject: Re: Marx and Myth and History and Poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > even trying to address the relationship > between caring about the constructive choices that (let's say)a particular > POEM enjoins (or more generally, about the nature of the choices that > POETICS as a field of inquiry takes up as its clearest subject > matter) to the various _other_ kinds of ethical and political choices people > have to make? Its a knotty question I would say not-I here I'd say _The Book Of Knots_ (Michael Palmer: Letters to Zanzotto) Friends too tired to see differences, This, Marx dissociated: "Equal right..presupposes inequality, Different people are not equal one to another." But to make the exploitation by one man of many impossible! When the opposition between brain and manual work will have disappeared, When labor will have ceased to be a mere means of supporting life, Whether it was 'impossible for matter to think?' Duns Scotus posed. Unbodily substance is an absurdity like unbodily body. It is impossible to separate thought and matter that thinks. (Louis Zukofsky,: [A-8]) Although the horizon of (Mallarme's)_ Un Coup de des_ is not that of technology---its vocabulary is still the vocabulary of symbolism, grounded on the anima mundi and on the universal correspondence---the space it opens is the same as that faced by technology: world without image, reality without world and infinitely real. MARX is frequently accused, not always with reason, of aesthetic blindness; but this does not prevent one of his observations from being an extraordinarily accurate forecast of the contemporary poet's situation: the modern world is "a society that develops by excluding any mythological relation with nature, relation that is expressed by means of myths, and then presupposes in the artist an imagination independent of mythology…" (p254) The imagination free of any world image---a mythology is nothing else---turns back on itself and sets up its abode out in the cold, as it were: a now and a here with-out anyone. Unlike the poets of the past, Mallarme does not offer us a vision of the world: nor does he say one word to us about what it means or does not mean to be a man…our legacy is not Mallarme's word but the space opened by his word.(Ibid) Mallarme's method, creative destruction or transposition, but above all surrealism, destroyed forever the idea of the poet as an exceptional being. Surrealism did not deny inspiration, an exceptional state: it affirmed that it was common property. Poetry requires no special talent but rather a kind of spiritual daring, an unbinding that is also an un-winding.(254-255) (Octavio Paz: _The Bow a and the Lyre_) A poetics is informed and informs- Just 'informs' maybe-the rest a risk. L.Z. :[A-12] ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 16:15:03 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Laura E. Wright" Subject: Re: mla reference (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maybe we've got the wrong thing here, but my boss and I think it's On Bread and Poetry, a panel discussion with Gary Snyder, Lew Welch and Philip Whalen. This was published in 1977 by Grey Fox Press, Bolinas (isbn 0-912516-27-5). Nice little book. We have it here in the archives at the Ginsberg Library if the friend is ever in Boulder :-) Anyone else come up with anything closer? If so, I'd love to know. Did Richard Brautigan get into Zen? I know he spent some time in Japan and was fascinated with things Japanese... but I didn't think he was the religious sort. Then again, some of the first parts of the Bible I read were in Brautigan poems. --Laura David Golumbia wrote: > a friend of a friend of a friend forwards this query to me... anyone have > any idea whether any record exists? feel free to backchannel.. thx! > > > >Does anyone have a copy (or know where I could find one) of the discussion > > >on "Zen and Contemporary Poetry" that Richard Brautigan, Gary Snyder and > > >Philip Whalen held at the Modern Language Association's Convention in San > > >Francisco in December 1979? > > > > > >Thanks. > > > > > -- > dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu > David Golumbia -- Laura Wright Library Assistant, Naropa Institute (303) 546-3547 "All music is music..." -- Ted Berrigan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 18:13:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keston Sutherland Subject: Re: Anarchy Comments: To: Anthony Lawrence In-Reply-To: <1717393971@wellington.trump.net.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >And who thinks of cash when they're deep inside a poem? Generally those who think about it most seriously, I'd hazard; anyhow, if in following pudding here's a prooflet: In darkness by day we must press on, giddy at the tilt of a negative crystal. The toy is childish, almost below speech lip-read by swaying lamps. It is not so hard to know as it is to do: wresting the screen before the eyelet lost to speech tune you blame the victim. Pity me! These petals, crimson and pink, are cheque stubs, spilling chalk in a mist of soft azure. At the last we want unit costs plus VAT, patient grading: made to order, made to care, poised at the nub of avid sugar soap. (J.H. Prynne, _The Oval Window (1983) p.33) also see the stuffs of Drew Milne, John Wilkinson, Brecht(!), Rod Mengham, Grace Lake, ME, etc ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 08:18:50 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Richard Brautigan Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" RICHARD BRAUTIGAN'S LAST DAY IN MONTANA I saw his death in Rolling Stone - the typeset memorial, the photo of a straw-haired man tapping a Remington for the prose of love. Brautigan loved Japan, and like Yukio Mishima's, his art involved a marriage of ink and blood - no great poetry comes without a taste of death. The day he left his life with a loud report, the deer moved off into the shapes of trees and the Great Owl unsheathed its daggers. From the simplest work the darkest work emerges. He left a handgun rusting in the grass, his fingers unfolding like the stamens of a starnge blue flower, his life's work bleeding away for hours in the cold Montana rain. Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 08:22:47 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" keston yes the world's full of refs. to money in poems but that wasn't me point. ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 18:34:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "s. kaipa" Subject: Re: mla reference (fwd) In-Reply-To: <199806112024.QAA10428@mail2.sas.upenn.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII If convenient, check out the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. It's got a spectacular collection of everything in the world including Brautigan hard-to-finds and Beat stuff. It's also an archive library and is open to the public. Down side--can't check things out, but it's the neatest thing around, I tell ya. Summi On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, David Golumbia wrote: > a friend of a friend of a friend forwards this query to me... anyone have > any idea whether any record exists? feel free to backchannel.. thx! > > > >Does anyone have a copy (or know where I could find one) of the discussion > > >on "Zen and Contemporary Poetry" that Richard Brautigan, Gary Snyder and > > >Philip Whalen held at the Modern Language Association's Convention in San > > >Francisco in December 1979? > > > > > >Thanks. > > > > > > > -- > dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu > David Golumbia > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 16:51:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: The Eternal Question (warning: a bit long) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Someone whose name MIGHT be Oren Izenberg says: > This is an extraordinarily muddled conversation. > Well, let's hear it for "muddled," I say -- I frankly can't remember a day when this List wasn't. For example, Jordan says the only real answer to the question is the poem itself, and Patrick answers him and says "exactly! It's not a given poem." I mean . . . what could possibly be more muddled than that? As a poet no one on this list has mentioned in the last two years (with some reason) once wrote: Misunderstanding. Misunderstanding, misunderstanding. (John Berryman) Oren goes on to say: > Nobody contests (least > of all, I would venture to say, the "hermetic" Brent Long) That poets > (like > philosophers, "writers," and people of all kinds) can and maybe even > should > think about nerve gas, care about nerve gas, and maybe even, to the > best of > their ability, _write_ about nerve gas-- if they hope or imagine that > writing about nerve gas might do something about nerve gas (like cause > other people or themselves to think about it or care about it or do > something about it). > Ah . . . so there IS a condition that poets must meet before they can write about nerve gas -- they must "hope or imagine that writing about nerve gas might do something about nerve gas" -- in other words, they should have some political agenda at stake when they mention certain objects or images, and not just want to rhyme "nerve gas" with "rat's ass". As much as I believe in the poetic decision to mingle fact and fiction, history and myth, as much as I believe that poetry does other things besides "survive in the valley of its saying," this admonition seems . . . limiting. And arises, I think, from a basic misconception that I explore below. But first, more Oren: > The question Brent was asking -- and,as a cross aside, it strikes me > that > it is the question one can KNOW he was asking just by reading it with > the tiniest presumption of goodwill-- was not, why should such a > conversation begin on a list like this > one (not, in other words, poets shouldn't talk about such things!) but > rather, why is this conversation going on and on (and on) without > anyone > even trying to address the relationship > between caring about the constructive choices that (let's say)a > particular > POEM enjoins (or more generally, about the nature of the choices that > POETICS as a field of inquiry takes up as its clearest subject > matter) to the various _other_ kinds of ethical and political choices > people > have to make? Its a knotty question, > I'll say! Also muddled! Can we accept Jordan's formulation of it instead? What is there in this (topic of nerve gas) about how to make something anyone would need to read? I would say first that this question, implying as it does a separation between what's called "poetry" and what's called "politics," could not even be formulated in other cultures, where poets were and (in some cases) still are recognized as truth-tellers. It would be, for example, unrecognizable to Central European and Latin American poets of a certain time. Most North American poets have no conception of what it means to live in a society where every word they wrote had the potential to become part of their own death-sentence. And that's probably a good thing! We read that most people are "turned off" by politics these days, that most of us feel no connection with government or our elected leaders or the decisions that are made in our name. Such cynicism is understandable. But surely what fueled the indignation of the respondents to Brent (including me) was the suggestion that poetics -- the occasion for this list -- has NOTHING to do with the revelation that our government was guilty of monstrous acts and keeping them secret. Poets are makers (look it up), and the words we use to make our poems have histories and roots and blood and guts -- they have implications, connotations. Poetry IS history IS politics just as a rose is a rose is a rose, and we shouldn't confuse the luxury of being insulated from such knowledge with an actual intellectual position. And I'm not talking about propaganda or pamphlets, either (although god bless Jack Hirshman!). In addition to the poets that have been cited in this thread (Carlo, I think you got everyone!), I'd mention one more prose-writer, Milan Kundera -- especially his _Book of Laughter and Forgetting_, which deals with these matters rather more eloquently and poignantly. And because this is such a long post and because it's my 2nd of the day, I won't quote more of the NYRB's "The Politics of Jacques Derrida" here -- but would love to hear other reactions to it! Joe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 07:53:15 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: <1717393971@wellington.trump.net.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 12 Jun 1998, Anthony Lawrence wrote: > Did that insurance guy from Hartford look up > from his angular handwriting and see dollar signs > in the air? > > Anthony Yes. He's the one that said "Money is a kind of poetry." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 19:58:33 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris McCreary Subject: Highwire reading (Philadelphia) Comments: cc: Kyle.Conner@mail.tju.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit The following is posted for Kyle Conner, who is not currently on the list. Any questions or concerns should be directed to him at: Kyle.Conner@mail.tju.edu READINGS AT HIGHWIRE #1 Jordan Davis Greg Fuchs Kyle Conner "A new series that will challenge your senses" @ Highwire Gallery, 139 N. 2nd St. Philadelphia Saturday, June 20, 5:30PM, $$5. Better than a movie. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:31:56 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" >He's the one that said "Money is a kind of poetry." Yeah, know the line, but my point is (sigh) that the writing of poetry is not concommitant with making money. AFTER it's been written? There are some who do make a quid, sure, but do they write with cash in mind? That's not what Mr Stevens was on about. Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 19:41:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: <1729601715@wellington.trump.net.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Maybe I'm off here but.... Don't poetry professors get raises and promotions when they publish books with "respectable" presses? And don't they get raises if they win awards etc? Or if they edit something? Don't people who win first-book contests get money (like, $500-$5000)? I know some younger poets who will only submit work to magazines that pay... (I know this sounds crazy.... it has something to do with what they perceive as a heightened prestige...). Katy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 21:16:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Marx and Myth and History and Poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >This is an extraordinarily muddled conversation. Nobody contests (least >of all, I would venture to say, the "hermetic" Brent Long) That poets (like >philosophers, "writers," and people of all kinds) can and maybe even should >think about nerve gas, care about nerve gas, and maybe even, to the best of >their ability, _write_ about nerve gas-- if they hope or imagine that >writing about nerve gas might do something about nerve gas (like cause >other people or themselves to think about it or care about it or do >something about it). Yes, they are important. Don't forget: 1). nerve gases 2). other chemical warfare agents (toxins, mutagens, carcinogens, for attacking people and foodstuffs) 3). psi weapons (including some EMR and RF type stuff) 4). bacteriological weapons 5). viral weapons 6). other biological weapons 7). nuclear weapons 8). microwave and laser type weapons Did I forget any major categories ? A government shopping list. Which government ? Could be any of them. Or maybe a despotic dictator's request to Santa Claus and his elves. Poetry is noticably absent from their wish lists. That is one of the reasons that I keep on writing it. Poetry seems so very sane, in comparison with international politics. I wonder, however, would poets make reasonably good diplomats ? M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 21:20:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Que nerve he has! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Hey, that's tina turner isn't it: Ted Turner. >"What's (nerve gas) got to do, got to do with it" Ike would have been able to explain that. >Sorry, >William William Tell M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 19:52:53 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: the behavior of falling bodies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "The mystic "sees the world in a grain of sand," and the world which he sees is either moral or aesthetic, or both. The Newtonian scientist sees a regularity in the behavior of falling bodies and claims to draw from the regularity no normative conclusions whatsoever. But his claim ceases to be consistent at the moment that he preaches that this is the right way to view the universe. To preach is possible only in terms of normative conclusions."---Gregory Bateson ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 00:32:33 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Anarchy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit isnt da levy part of this discussion? & ifn were talking cultural anarchy in the 60s, would seem to be the terrain of fluxus, something else press, porter-- if ya dont post for a bunch of days, do you get bonuses so somedays ya can splurt out more than 5 share disagree heartily with don byrd that the online hackers are the only visible presence these days. the scene around anarchy magazine, zerzan, feral faun etc has been going for years, the writings of hakim bey, particularly TAZ has situated numerous autonomous zone infoshops around the states, many in their own enclave, but yearly anarchist gatherings bring em together. at dreamtime I would guesstimate that more than half of the folks coming thru here over the years is from some sort of anarchist orientation, whether punk, queer, animal rights, intellectual or art/noise. what were you doing in may 68? rasputin zukofsky & nostalgia online ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Jun 1998 22:42:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: mla reference (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" if it's the one in the hotel it wasn't a discussion it was like a reading, Snyder gave a long boring lecture on Mahayana, Joanne Kyger egging him on, go on Gary, totally snoresville, schoolmarmish, Did Whalen read prose? Brautigan seemed the most zen and the most american reading his Tokyo-Montana journals, Seems to me Bly was part of it too singing his misogynist whines and another depressing san francisco buddhist i'm glad i've forgotten no jack kerouac that's for sure. Creeley was up in the bar, so was Rodefer, they all drank to gary who was still splitting hairs down in the ballroom, charles watts was on the escalatorria too late? for a drink, i think Creeley and Tallman gave talks at an earlier panel with one other ? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 04:02:25 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matias Viegener Subject: doxa, sophia, and paranoid poeto-politics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I must speak here and not lurk. Mostly I write responses, sit on them and then trash them because they seem superceded or supercilous. What I most enjoy here is the tangetial discussions such as those on the poetics of anarchy or January's slugfest on vizpoetics. What most disturbs me are Yahoo pronouncements about war, or technology, or political Anarchism. I suppose the initial effect arises from my own nature, which values speculation over assertion and poetics over polemics. I try not to dismiss wholesale Morpheal's posts, and in trying to read them I have only one mode of accomodation. Morpheal in his best manifestations is a poetic terrorist, introducing a topic and then mastering and remastering the spin of it - always, you will note, a topic at least once removed from the presumptive expertise and focus of this list. The trope is always 'morpheatic,' moving in the direction of M's own mastery of the topic, the alpha and omega of this petite discursive universe. (The root 'morph' referring to form and its shaping and to sleep, especially narcotic.) I find him: patriarchal, dogmatic, declarative, unsubstantiated, and in general substituting authoritative diction for real thinking. (Maybe the core of this is the distinction between doxa, or opinion, and sophia, wisdom, that I recall from Plato). This ugly lumber in the support of shapeless sentences in distinction to what I think of (perhaps my limit here) as poetic speculation: the latter is balanced on a regard for language itself, between what we speak of and how we speak it. An icky chestnut: "Those that speak don't know, those that know do not speak." seductive tho, fulfilling our paranoid needs... I teach in an art school which has always cherished political engagement and its absolute relevance to 'art.' One of the areas I often see fall short is when an esteemed painter, poet or composer comes to visit and inevitably someone asks a fine question, say on Bosnia or the Rodney King Uprising. The artist, feeling compelled to fulfill his role of wise man, makes an authoritative pronouncement of Deeper Meaning, most often layered in received wisdom and rhetoric. (Rather than, say, pointing toward the thoughts of someone who has devoted him or herself to just this topic) I see two errors here: the 'great man' mythology (of course a great artist would have a profound political opinion...); and the egotism of success, the correlate to being a great man. The other component is our cultural penchant for paranoia (to wit, the evil of Islamic fundamentalism against the goodwill of Western capitalism). It is much preferable to believe a hyperbolic and hence simple theory of the conspiracy behind some event and its horizon. To follow a classic line of reasoning, balancing doxa against doxa to find wisdom, seems to exhaust everyone. Hence also the X-files, which endlessly defer the outline of the grand conspiracy -- a way to leverage their discursive power and clothe their own nakedness. A question: is there a poetics of paranoia? who are its practitioners? Do they lapse into the politics of paranoia or articulate a distinction to it? Matias Viegener Writing Program California Institute of Arts viegener@calarts.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 08:31:09 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: henry g Comments: Originally-From: eflaherty@peabodybrown.com From: henry g Subject: FW: Shakespearian Insult Kit MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="MailNet.MIME.6232b4c5" For those who want to be politically sharp as well as strictly canonical, the following will come in handy - Henry G Shakespearian Insult Kit To construct a Shakespearean insult, combine one word from each of the three columns below, and preface it with "Thou": Column 1 Column 2 Column 3 artless base-court apple-john bawdy bat-fowling baggage beslubbering beef-witted barnacle bootless beetle-headed bladder churlish boil-brained boar-pig cockered clapper-clawed bugbear clouted clay-brained bum-bailey craven common-kissing canker-blossom currish crook-pated clack-dish dankish dismal-dreaming clotpole dissembling dizzy-eyed coxcomb droning doghearted codpiece errant dread-bolted death-token fawning earth-vexing dewberry fobbing elf-skinned flap-dragon froward fat-kidneyed flax-wench frothy fen-sucked flirt-gill gleeking flap-mouthed foot-licker goatish fly-bitten fustilarian gorbellied folly-fallen giglet impertinent fool-born gudgeon infectious full-gorged haggard jarring guts-griping harpy loggerheaded half-faced hedge-pig lumpish hasty-witted horn-beast mammering hedge-born hugger-mugger mangled hell-hated joithead mewling idle-headed lewdster paunchy ill-breeding lout pribbling ill-nurtured maggot-pie puking knotty-pated malt-worm puny milk-livered mammet qualling motley-minded measle rank onion-eyed minnow reeky plume-plucked miscreant roguish pottle-deep moldwarp ruttish pox-marked mumble-news saucy reeling-ripe nut-hook spleeny rough-hewn pigeon-egg spongy rude-growing pignut surly rump-fed puttock tottering shard-borne pumpion unmuzzled sheep-biting ratsbane vain spur-galled scut venomed swag-bellied skainsmate villainous tardy-gaited strumpet warped tickle-brained varlet wayward toad-spotted vassal weedy unchin-snouted whey-face yeasty weather-bitten wagtail >> ***************************************************** TonyStone Images 475 Park Ave South 28th Floor NY, NY 10016 Tel: (+1) 2125458220 Fax: (+1) 2125459797 Home Page: http://www.us.tonystone.com ***************************************************** ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by cummings.ncf.org with ADMIN;27 May 1998 10:30:53 U Received: from tfs (tfs.tonystone.com [193.112.3.11]) by versace.getty-images.com with SMTP id PAA14206 for (2.4-8.8.8/3.1.19); Wed, 27 May 1998 15:25:23 +0100 (BST) From: michael.ross@tonystone.com Message-Id: Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 15:23:44 +0000 To: elizabeth@cummings.ncf.org, joe.moore@tonystone.com, jed03@health.state.ny.us Subject: FW: Shakespearian Insult Kit MIME-version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="TFS-with-MIME-and-DIME" X-Mailer: TFS Gateway /222000000/222041531/222002846/222082335/ ----------------------- Headers -------------------------------- Return-Path: Received: from relay29.mx.aol.com (relay29.mail.aol.com [172.31.109.29]) by air10.mail.aol.com (v43.17) with SMTP; Wed, 27 May 1998 14:06:57 -0400 Received: from panix.com (panix.com [166.84.1.66]) by relay29.mx.aol.com (8.8.5/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) with ESMTP id OAA10036 for ; Wed, 27 May 1998 14:06:56 -0400 (EDT) Received: from localhost (greenste@localhost) by panix.com (8.8.5/8.8.8/PanixU1.4) with SMTP id OAA23765; Wed, 27 May 1998 14:05:23 -0400 (EDT) Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 14:05:23 -0400 (EDT) From: Elizabeth Donna Greenstein To: "Joel C. Simon" , Ruth Anne Baylis , Michele Baylis , Madalyn Cioci , Eri Noguchi , Tanya McCullough , Gbinney Subject: FWD>FW: Shakespearian Insult Kit (fwd) Message-ID: Errors-To: greenste@panix.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII --MailNet.MIME.6232b4c5-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:53:20 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" >Don't poetry professors get raises and promotions when they publish books >with "respectable" presses? > >And don't they get raises if they win awards etc? > >Or if they edit something? > >Don't people who win first-book contests get money (like, $500-$5000)? > >I know some younger poets who will only submit work to magazines that >pay... (I know this sounds crazy.... it has something to do with what they >perceive as a heightened prestige...). > > >Katy Katy, you're right on all counts, but does the actual writing process involve "the mind lying by its accounts, and considering?" At a festival in Sydney, when I was 18 or 19, I attended a discussion on little magazines. I got up and said that I didn't care whether I was paid or not, as long as I got published. I was shouted down by poets who insisted they be paid like any other kind of worker. They were right. I wanted so desperately to see my poems in print. Some magazines pay well with cash, others with copies of the magazine. In Australia, the majority of magazines pay contributors. It ain't much, but it helps. Are there people on this discussion list who accept copies of a magazine in lieu of cash? Who accept publication only? Who publishes only in magazines that pay a lot? Hands up. Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 07:35:07 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Mac Low on Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Nick Piombino' quoting Jackson MacLow on his erformance pieces reminds me of the 11th Sound Poetry festival in Toronto lo these many years ago when a summation of sound poets gathered on stage to perform _21 Matched Asymmetries_ -- my first experience of such. Then and now my response is wow. But exactly as he argues, they all participated by joining in individual decisions to sound as a whole but not as 'one' ordered that way. They chose. & boy did they chant... ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ walking in dark waking in dark the presence of all the absences we have known. Oceans. so we are distinguished to ourselves don't want that distinction. I am afraid. I said that. I said that for you. Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:36:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hey, Katy, WHAT magazines are these that pay? c On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, k. lederer wrote: > Maybe I'm off here but.... > > Don't poetry professors get raises and promotions when they publish books > with "respectable" presses? > > And don't they get raises if they win awards etc? > > Or if they edit something? > > Don't people who win first-book contests get money (like, $500-$5000)? > > I know some younger poets who will only submit work to magazines that > pay... (I know this sounds crazy.... it has something to do with what they > perceive as a heightened prestige...). > > > Katy > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:40:06 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry G Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:53:20 -0000 from On Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:53:20 -0000 Anthony Lawrence said: >but it helps. Are there people on this discussion list who accept >copies of a magazine in lieu of cash? Who accept publication only? >Who publishes only in magazines that pay a lot? Hands up. I require an upfront prepub payment of $1000-5000. depending on circulation, plus royalties on each issue sold & guarantee of book tour & promo material (1st class air on all travel); the poems must be in unique handset font (to distinguish from other contributors) and either 1st or last in the table of contents; all fan mail must be directed to me by fax and I insist on a tropical bird feather of my own choosing for each poem which I am collecting in my cap. Unfortunately I haven't been able to publish much (anything, actually) so all this is negotiable. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:53:40 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Money and Poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Lets face it, money helps pay bills, but poetry as well as music in all reality (unless you are Jewel 1.7 million for her book of poems) will not pay up- who the hell makes enough off poetry without having to take a professorly job where as Katy says the prof's get payed for publishing/publicity (business)- poetry is a business, when it becomes a ways and a means of staying alive- What about music, alot more high profile than poetry so more image is involved manipulated and the buying and selling aspect is easier You have to watch it because the moment something you do (that you love) becomes part of the grocery bill its gonna change- Look at the paying magazines for poetry, the major reviews, if you tailor your work to it then you start to mold to that magazines style to get PAID- When someone writes you a check for your contribution and you realize it could happen again, then you have to play into the editor's agenda- "as a poet" that does not encourage experimentations or growing--just read those mags ... The Rolling Stones keep putting out the same record because it pays- Some of the older Jazz guys tour huge places for green and they have been boring for years- Some Poets --who have not changed in 20 years stay that way because it sells, that is the "high profile poetry," and is the type of poetry people figure is "poetry" not Jack Spicer who gets patronized in an article by some academic bore who obviouslynever read Spicer, only the biography (hats off to Killian and Co.)!!anyways Money is good, but every artist/musican /poets I knew and respected had another job to pay rent that is not bad- Some magazines can not afford to pay poets, but those poets will see their work in print and in good company- -what is bad is expecting money for poetry to equal prestige- erik sweet ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 08:58:19 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: Radio Bowering Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Um George You do mention Salt Lake City radio & I know you love Ornette, but the line in the poem is "Gerry Mulligan meets Stan Getz" (but then what would we expect from Salt Lake City...? ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ walking in dark waking in dark the presence of all the absences we have known. Oceans. so we are distinguished to ourselves don't want that distinction. I am afraid. I said that. I said that for you. Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 19:14:20 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: "I know men [sic] for whom everything matters" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Standard: agreed--as "music"-does it "make something happen"? or as Zukofsky "Poetry is dervied from everyday life...real or ideal.." and thus... it's not the imagination--which is said to be the "useless" thing--say--at a factory--or Kristeva's "prison house" that does anything it's Blaser's image/nation Get Nervous. When I hear the word gun, I reach for my culture.. Tb -- REMAP -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 19:15:07 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: mla reference (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit one of Brautigan's last books was "on zen" though the booze and shotgun got in the way... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 11:14:44 -0400 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: Re: Money and Poetry In-Reply-To: Erik Sweet "Money and Poetry" (Jun 12, 10:53am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >but poetry as well as music in all reality (unless you are Jewel 1.7 million >for her book of poems) will not pay up- >poetry is a business, when it becomes a ways and a means of staying alive- >You have to watch it because the moment something you do (that you love) >becomes part of the grocery bill its gonna change- You sir are correct! People devour me without tasting me - Jewel William ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 12:20:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: the economics of tambourine lives In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, louis stroffolino wrote: > Peter.... > well i dont know if ted berrigans view that the poet is always > doing poetry "TAKES THE WRITER OUT OF THE CASH NEXUS" > (so that's the phrase to play with---"chew on"--for "awhile"....) > money plays a role, "has a presence", in tb's work, > and i don't think it's just the villianous cash nexus one > is glad to be taken out of...... > chris > > --getting slightly off anarch subjects; but not entirely... Having to have money (and therefore acknowledging that it has a presence; in the work, in living) is not the same as full insertion into the cash nexus. I'm working on an essay on this interesting and diverting topic. Essentially, poetry by dint of its "marginal" place in contemporary culture (esp'y in the US) gets less funding than most art-activities. This is altered in an interesting way, by the far-right success in withdrawing public art funding...But it remains true. Much "funding for the arts" of course involves capitalist marketing: how most musicians make a living. Whether mediated by the capitalist marketplace or by the capitalist state, the flow of money into art-activities makes it possible to find time to work, and to create a space relatively free from overall societal abrasions. Poetry in large part escapes this situation. Poetry is not defined as having obvious "value" because of the immediacy of performance (like both art- and pop-musics); nor is it useful as a form of rarity that may be traded as a stock-market type counter for investment gambling, like painting and all forms of unique visual art-object, which have become so very important as investment-games for the wealthy. Poetry simply has next to no exchange-value, in the contemporary world. The siting of mainstream work in the academy allowed just enough cash-flow to support some teaching jobs, and a few grants. This is the tenuous thread from which a little poetry (the weakest, artistically) dangles. If women historically have been slaves of the slaves, the more interesting poetries are on the margins of the margin (as defined by the shapes created thru the intertwining of culcha' and capital). This means poetry is less "free" as an activity, and has absolute freedom (it doesn't haul blocks of stone for the pharoh's pyramid, but at the same time the pharoh's government gives it no bread so it can stay alive). This absolute freedom from commodification means that some poets (Hugh McDiarmid say) will work as welders in shipyards...Others (like Berrigan) will refuse to consider non-poetry work, and pay a different sort of price. But no one "wants" their work, as want is defined in a market culture. This is radical freedom in a near-vaccuum. Thus poetry is less "enslaved" as an activity, and is absolutely enslaved. Its unique relation to words (and thus ideas and thus politix, and politics' violent connection to human happiness) melds with its uniquely decommodified status in history, to give it an interesting fluidity and an intense fire. To create what Perelman calls "social location" is what poets outside academe and the workshops are usually trying to do: social location refers not to the content of the work, but to the context of the working. Where is the poet ( and poetry) "sited"? Delivery systems interest poets as much as meters; they are a part of the work. (thus the attention given activities like poetry slams etc. Terrible dreck, in fact. But in one sense aware of what the right questions are, if not the right answers...) m. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 12:19:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: doxa, sophia, and paranoid poeto-politics [Sophia becomes an exotic dancer, and the poeticians join the circus....] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The other component is our cultural penchant for paranoia (to wit, the evil of >Islamic fundamentalism against the goodwill of Western capitalism). It is >much preferable to believe a hyperbolic and hence simple theory of the >conspiracy behind some event and its horizon. To follow a classic line of >reasoning, balancing doxa against doxa to find wisdom, seems to exhaust >everyone. Hence also the X-files, which endlessly defer the outline of the >grand conspiracy -- a way to leverage their discursive power and clothe their >own nakedness. Chuckle. Bluntly stated: nice trigger happy gunshot at my metaphorical head. You are such a warlike fellow. The trouble is that it is not the likes of yourself, with your quick trigger finger, that is recruited from among poeticians, but instead the most pacifist. Whenever there is a real conflict, it is the most pacifist, (once inclusive of Whitman, but subject to some conversion during the process of that induction), who are recruited to be of such service. However, I will reply to two specifics. 1). Morpheal is similar to what can and is morphed. The artistic, virtual morphing, becomes the model for a more engineered, more scientific, morphing. Eventually there is no distinction between virtual and real. Then it it is all real. The morphology, of morphing, is morpheal in exactly the sense that you imply. That is, of sleep, or of narcotic. It is an ultimate form of "maya" created to supplement 'bread and circuses', as much as for any other more technical and often more violent purpose. I did not come to sing its praises, or to bury it. I simply came to state a fact: that the world is becoming more morpheal, more morphed, more a morpheality, than any other prophet ever predicted. You seem to honour Morpheal in the traditional way a prophet used to be honoured. 2). You have misrepresented the nature of the paranoia that you refer to. You have expressed it in the above paragraph. There is an ever growing 'paranoia' as to seeing the actual conflicts as conflicts, and sometimes as irresolvable conflicts between certain instances of ideology. You mention one example of that. There are at least a few others. This is the same as the very prevalent arguments as to the Soviets being your friends, and America is the real enemy. Those who urged that kind of thinking urged that it was paranoia to see any reds under our beds. So, of course, the 'red menace' was a fictional creation, created by Hollywood and CIA collaboration. The recognition of the ultimate conspiracy that there is no conspiracy as the ultimate instance of paranoia. >A question: is there a poetics of paranoia? who are its practitioners? Do >they lapse into the politics of paranoia or articulate a distinction to it? I think Ginsberg was a wonderful paranoid. Though I do not share some of his beliefs or predilections I certainly have the highest respect for his work. We definitely need more paranoids. There are fewer than there used to be. Paranoids at least make people think about the otherwise unthinkable. That is the best preventative as to totalitarianism and totalism. A kind of ex-lax for the human psyche. Ever hear Donovan's wonderful song "Intergalactic Laxative" on his Cosmic Wheels recording ? I have a similar kind of feeling about this as he expressed in that. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 12:18:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Open Fan Letter to Sheila E. Murphy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Oh. My. Gawd. . . . just received Sheila's _Many Wishbones_ . . . & on first reading, wow, well, it's just the best chapbook I've read in a long, long time . . . here's a section, later in the book: Suddenly, no daffodils. Merely a stone You place your finger on to take it Miles, you place your hand around Its substance. There you are, Surrounded by imprudent rearrangements You have made to match a kind of indigence Perhaps insufferable to the diligent new worker Who imagines time's a corollary to sure bounty. The ray guns of generosity bombard The self-contained who only murmur Gratitude as learned response. The mind struggling with nouns Does not lose clarity about relationships. A need for things To have been malleable at least once Fades. For there to have been reason. Sheila, how did you get to this place, find yourself in the situation where this writing is possible? Your work, which has become increasingly eroticized, or sensualized, or whatever term all them hipster academics are toting from conference to conference . . . now begins to incorporate or weave in, well, dang: As a killjoy why not patch the jacket With your dimly lit etherea. So your selfishness becomes a recitation. . . . I mean, do you even REALIZE, Sheila, what the mouth & lips do, how they feel, sounding this out? And this is invective! Yow! This one, I mean, this is almost painful to read, here . . . & I boggle at the situation that gave rise to it . . . how did you get something so damning to *sit* there like that, not completely still, but like a slowly breathing gargoyle?: Blasphemy is swaddled in emancipative clothes. Night emerges from submersion. Gentry casts a pall. Libido housed among the faithful wolves. Don't tire me with your nuggets on a string against my neck. Is that Apollinaire you're reading somewhat nattily? I guess not, is the proper phrase. This had to be America stretched to the point of ending What we have left of an interpretation. _Know thyself_. Have you permitted children to be imitators of your friends, Of you yourself. With intimacy so taken for granted, Many wishbones choose to snap Beyond the point umbilical. Beyond the enclave labeled past behavior, present life, and future mending. This section following one in which you say: "For something to mean/ Anything it would have/ Not to be an object" . . . you seem concentrated in this series on the dual resonance of language . . . how it feels, how what it means feels . . . Sheila, mah butt is sore from where this new series of yours has been keekin' it . . . relentlessly . . . all morning! . . . and, I'm sorry if being effusive like this is embarrassing for you. . . but, WOW, what am I supposed to do? Read this stuff & just sit here, turd-like, nodding my head, goin' "yeah . . . sure . . . okay . . ." -- I mean, sorry, no way . . . I'm totally thrilled by this . . . hummallah hummallah . . . peoples, you gotta git this book, MAQUETTE PRESS, 3 South Street, Sheepwash, Beaworth, Devon, EX21 5LZ, U.K. . . 2.50 pounds . . . (six bucks, USA?) . . . anyway . . . okay . . . I'm totally embarrassed now . . . gotta shut up already . . . thank you thank you thank you . . . Bye for now, Gary ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 12:29:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: the behavior of falling bodies [follows an alchemy of gunpowder] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"The mystic "sees the world in a grain of sand," and the world which he >sees is either moral or aesthetic, or both. The Newtonian scientist sees >a regularity in the behavior of falling bodies and claims to draw from >the regularity no normative conclusions whatsoever. But his claim ceases >to be consistent at the moment that he preaches that this is the right >way to view the universe. To preach is possible only in terms of >normative conclusions."---Gregory Bateson Newton's contributions considerably furthered the science of "ballistics". Predictable regularity as to falling bodies meant being on target. What is interesting is not as much Newtonian science, but rather Newton's copious expositions on biblical Revelations. Any contention that Newton did not have a strong desire to preach would be in error. Any contention that Newton did not feel that he was a privileged initiate into occult knowledge and secret traditions, is also likely to be as wrong. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 12:36:01 -0400 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: "I know men [sic] for whom everything matters" In-Reply-To: "P.Standard Schaefer" "Re: "I know men [sic] for whom everything matters"" (Jun 11, 5:32pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >I get a little nervous with the suggestion that poetry returns us to the >imagination, to the mind or the prison house of language. Poetry returns us to the real--did not suggest otherwise--but it is ingenuous, or even naive to think that it ultimately does otherwise than engage the imagination, the mind, or language. We will find that things "real," things as they are, or may be, did not exist for us where we thought to find them. It is not in consensus. The social, relativistic body of the world makes an affectation of the mind and spirit that is not real, but rather an artifice for survival. My feet are in "this world" though: I love a broken glass poem as much as the next person. Count me behind bars then. You're there too running a tin cup across the bars in protest. So's comrade Kristeva--whistling in the dark. William ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 11:43:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Magazines that pay In-Reply-To: <199806121619.MAA20634@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Re: Chris's question: ZYZZYVA, The New Yorker, Threepenny Review, Georgia Review, The Nation, Harper's, hmmm, I believe: APR, Conjunctions (?)... The Paris Review for sure, The Boston Review.... and so on. ..... I guess what I'm trying to say is that quite a number of people make a living off of poetry (poetry professors--both practitioners and critics; people who work for poetry foundations, editors etc...). There is an economy that goes along with poetry.... There is also a very yukky underbelly that goes along with this: the large numbers of recent MFA graduates who are $10,000, $20,000 and even $30,000 in debt because of their degrees. The fact that so many 25-year-olds seem to be beginning their poetry "careers" in such debt is disconcerting to say the least . In order to get out of debt such young poets have to get serious jobs that really pay. I've heard that there used to be a time when younger poets could "study" with older poets for free. Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:39:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: doxa, sophia, and paranoid debt obsession Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" thank you matias, very well thought and stated, don't deprive us of your oxygen. and katy: the more you owe, the more they'll let you borrow, they want you to keep paying not go bankrupt, errol flynn like to say, (in 1950 dollars) "anybody who died and didn't owe ten thousand dollars was a sucker." don't obsess about your debt, make it bigger, the more you borrow, and circulate, you're putting people to work, spend your savings, the multinationals get their clout largely from how much they owe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 13:18:24 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry G Subject: po squared If Mark Prejnar's right & poetry is not a commodity (I think he's right) this casts all po-biz in a strange light; but poetry itself is so rare & unusual (in my opinion) that when it shows up it casts politics too in a strange light of its own, as well as criticism, etc. Not that it's "above" everything - it's just unusual; these people who demand pay for their work like other "workers" - I doubt it's even poetry as I understand it. Poetry casts an energy of its own which is highly political and makes things happen both in the mind and in culture in general; the poet's style is a function of deeply political motivations, conscious & subconscious; the project of poetry goes more and more into poetry but there's no culture at all without some kind of shared consciousness or mass opinion or mass development in confrontation with global circumstances; the artist listens to the crowd & takes the crowd's pulse on a profound level, while pursuing private & individual impulses of craft, self-knowledge, truth... this is how it seems to me anyway on both a "serious" & a "playful" plane... the poet is a politician in love with words for their own sake... - Henry G ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 10:56:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: doxa, sophia, and paranoid poeto-politics Comments: To: Matias Viegener MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Matias - great post - you should chime in more often. I think you're dead on re: Morpheal's soporific blowhardism. Tom Mandel was right - where's the bozo filter when you need one? Just a friendly warning to all. Next week begins the 4-week long Naropa Summer Writing Program. I hope to post some thumbnail reports of the readings as I did last summer. Here's a partial list of poets and writers who will be descending on Boulder: Alice Notley, Doug Oliver, the Berrigan boys, Bev Dahlen, Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Michael Heller, Jenny Penberthy, Carl Rakosi, Barbara Guest, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Elizabeth Willis, Peter Gizzi, Maureen Owen, Eleni Sikelianos, Cole Swensen, Harryette Mullen, Eileen Myles, Joanne Kyger, Victor Cruz and my wife, Barbara Wilder. A general question to the List - why the hell doesn't someone publish a Jack Collom Selected Poems? Among many grievous oversights in the world of poetry publishing, this is one of the worst. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Matias Viegener To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: doxa, sophia, and paranoid poeto-politics Date: Friday, June 12, 1998 3:02AM I try not to dismiss wholesale Morpheal's posts, and in trying to read them I have only one mode of accomodation. Morpheal in his best manifestations is a poetic terrorist, introducing a topic and then mastering and remastering the spin of it - always, you will note, a topic at least once removed from the presumptive expertise and focus of this list. The trope is always 'morpheatic,' moving in the direction of M's own mastery of the topic, the alpha and omega of this petite discursive universe. (The root 'morph' referring to form and its shaping and to sleep, especially narcotic.) I find him: patriarchal, dogmatic, declarative, unsubstantiated, and in general substituting authoritative diction for real thinking. (Maybe the core of this is the distinction between doxa, or opinion, and sophia, wisdom, that I recall from Plato). This ugly lumber in the support of shapeless sentences in distinction to what I think of (perhaps my limit here) as poetic speculation: the latter is balanced on a regard for language itself, between what we speak of and how we speak it. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 14:13:09 -0400 Reply-To: cstein@stationhill.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chuck Stein Organization: Station Hill Press Subject: money and anarchy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just to put this into the mash on anarchy: that Robert Duncan identified himself rather profoundly with anarchism--in fact there was a friendship between him and Jackson Mac Low, which you might think perhaps an unlikely connection--based on this. Here is a brief poem of my own from a "deck" of poems abusing Rachel Pollack's "Shining Woman Tarot" (her deck has stones in place of coins) that attempts an agitation perhaps obscurely on the subject: Two of Stones Stones will not be trifled with. In them are numbers claimed and bound. Money has an Enemy. Chuck Stein ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 12:22:50 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: Radio Bowering In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Doug Barber sez: > but then what would we expect from Salt Lake City...? ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh or, in the words of our hero: "stay back, it's a trap!" chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu / nonce@iname.com snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ **site temporarily unavailable** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 13:30:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "s. kaipa" Subject: Money in Poetry In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi Katy & All, I've been following the stuff on the list regarding poets and the ways that they do/don't make money. So, there might be money in poetry, but it doesn't seem to be coming my way. Most of us poets probably feel this way. So--the stock market? Yesterday, a grad student and a computer science professor from Berkeley who have created a web browser opened their stock on the market at $16. It closed at $40. Part of me--the poor poet part--feels like I need to just learn to be stock-market savvy and get in on the money. The other part of me--the "can't sell out" poet in me--feels like there is something not quite right about poets who play stocks. Anybody out there play stocks? If so, do you feel like poetry should not be involved in this sort of "capitalist" aspect of our culture? Summi P.S. Sorry this message sounds so much like a "dear Abby" but my concerns are genuine. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 14:43:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: Money in Poetry In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Interesting post, Summi. I don't personally play stocks, but might say that they and poetry do not have a direct connection to one another (unless you are damn good at stocks and can therefore finance your own publication/promotion). However, I do think that your question poses other interesting points to ponder. It seems to me (from observing the few people I know who are making a living at their craft) that much of the success can be attributed to being at the right place at the right time, as well as to who you know, in addition to being adequate in skill. (Sounds alot like the stock market to me.) Perhaps the thing to do is to amass a fortune in the market, use your power to influence famous writers, and then capitalize on that friendship. Rememeber, there are no set "rules" for fair play in the world of money (and if you have paid any attention to the posts of the past few weeks here, not in the world of Poetics either.) In jest, Brent At 01:30 PM 6/12/98 -0500, you wrote: >Hi Katy & All, > >I've been following the stuff on the list regarding poets and the ways >that they do/don't make money. > >So, there might be money in poetry, but it doesn't seem to be coming my >way. Most of us poets probably feel this way. > >So--the stock market? Yesterday, a grad student and a computer science professor >from Berkeley who have created a web browser opened their stock on the >market at $16. It closed at $40. > >Part of me--the poor poet part--feels like I need to just learn to be >stock-market savvy and get in on the money. The other part of me--the >"can't sell out" poet in me--feels like there is something not quite >right about poets who play stocks. > >Anybody out there play stocks? If so, do you feel like poetry should not >be involved in this sort of "capitalist" aspect of our culture? > >Summi > >P.S. Sorry this message sounds so much like a "dear Abby" but my concerns >are genuine. > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 14:43:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: seedy underbelly Comments: To: "k. lederer" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hi katie-- "to be (professional) or not to (be) professional, that is the question" hey, have you ever read that WORDSWORTH section near the end of the prelude where he writes so eloquently (which is a kind of comedy) about how he met his patron, or his first patron, (baby's first patron),and how he got money-- it's, of course, "unrealistic" yet no more than any poem or movie-- anyway, it fascinates (or haunts) me... (this reading suggestion is going to cost you 100 flowers-- though it's be best if you waited till after pollen season)... anyway, i am with you in rockville ("one day he gives us gold the next day stones" timon of athens) but be glad you got the rent deal you got and a job upon arrival (maybe you can keep that cash nexus at bay and pray that i win the slam i mean pass that job interview next week -- it's not a moral objection to the stock market nor to moshing for that matter ......... (i like the sheila murphy stuff too thanks for your effusiveness gary....) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 14:46:48 -0400 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: Money in Poetry In-Reply-To: "s. kaipa" "Money in Poetry" (Jun 12, 1:30pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >Anybody out there play stocks? If so, do you feel like poetry should not >be involved in this sort of "capitalist" aspect of our culture? I do remember that Lavoisier (though not a poet) got 'tined for doing only as much. William ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 12:55:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Looking for the address In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I need the snail mail address of Pam Brown in Australia. Can someone supply it for me? (Pam, are you out there?) Best, Maxine Chernoff ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:21:18 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I'm a little baffled by all this concern about money and poetry which strikes me as a bit superficial. First of all, anyone who hopes to make a living knows that poetry is not the most efficacious way to do this. People who go into the literary field hoping to make a living probably, in a sociological analysis, would prove to belong to group with inherited cultural capital (say the children of academics for who education is extremely important). These people then go get their degrees, their book deals, tenure, etc., in order to main the relative positions of dominance they are born into. Another way to say this is that artists (no matter what their political orientation) are belong to a dominated fraction of the dominant class...dependent on those who have economic capital. The social function of art whether we like it or not is very likely to be one of creating distinction to those for whom economic distinction is not so important (the rich who have it already, and the poor who don't expect to have it). Aren't these people in their various writing programs just trading their economic capital for cultural capital? Katy has already shown how those who expect to get paid see it as a mark of legitimacy. Third, there is a very strong connection between poetry and stocks. In the past it has been called ideology (althusser), then disciplinary (foucault's discourse), lately it has been called "control society" by Virilo, Deleuze. Whatever the name or form, the effect is an interiorized schemata which contains the the thoughts, perceptions, and actions available to a culture...and only these actions. (Bourdieu's habitus, somewhat like Chomsky's generative grammar). Poetry and stocks: one thing I know about people who profess an interest in the America avant-garde is they get very uncomfortable when it is drawn to their attention how much inherited, economic capital is behind the people with the most cultural captial (degrees, publications, academic positions, presses) in the comunity, many of whom are the biggest pontificators about politics/poetry/language-- I can think of at least five big guns who have never had to work for a living...three of which have their own presses. These people, of course, use their money and their prestige to define good taste (and it tacitly accepted by those excluded from legitimate culture). Challenges to artistic conventions could very easily be seen as struggles for legitimacy among members of groups. My hunch is that these challenges almost never reveal the relations, struggles behind the notions of art (the degree to which taste is dictated by those with the most economic and cultural capital). Even when they speak about these relations, there is a tendency to ironize them in such a fashion as to make the issue highly ambiguous. They simple oppose a dominated culture to a dominant one creating a cultural avant-garde which by its very existence contributes to the discourse on legitimacy. Well, those are my thoughts today. Anyone who can show me a way of this...well, I'd gladly appreciate it. Standard Schaefer ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 15:56:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: Open Fan Letter to Sheila E. Murphy In-Reply-To: <01BD95FC.3B318440@gps12@columbia.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sheila, mah butt is sore from where this new series of yours has been keekin' it . . . relentlessly . . . all morning! . . . and, I'm sorry if being effusive like this is embarrassing for you. . . but, WOW, what am I supposed to do? Read this stuff & just sit here, turd-like, nodding my head, goin' "yeah . . . sure . . . okay . . ." -- I mean, sorry, no way . . . I'm totally thrilled by this . . . hummallah hummallah . . . peoples, you gotta git this book, MAQUETTE PRESS, 3 South Street, Sheepwash, Beaworth, Devon, EX21 5LZ, U.K. . . 2.50 pounds . . . (six bucks, USA?) . . . anyway . . . okay . . . I'm totally embarrassed now . . . gotta shut up already . . . thank you thank you thank you . . . [[[[ I would simply like to second that emotion & toot my own horn insofar as I'll be publishing a new, long poem by Sheila Murphy in the autumn & winter issues(serially) of Kenning. Summer issue due soon. Frankly, I find Sheila to be one of the more engrossing authors publishing in little magazines & hope this chapbook sets a precedent. Patrick F. Durgin ]]]] | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:09:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: Magazines that pay In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 12 Jun 1998, k. lederer wrote: > > The fact that so many 25-year-olds seem to be beginning their poetry > "careers" in such debt is disconcerting to say the least . In order to get > out of debt such young poets have to get serious jobs that really pay. Katy, sure, and that provisional term, career, has me wondering. I tend to subscribe to the notion that poet=scholar, but at the same time doubt whether academic=scholar. Whether there is what could even remotely be construed as a career in poetry would seem to depend upon a much more vital question being raised and then jettisoned on this very list, under the rubric of "Anarchy" and "Marx & Myth", etc. > > I've heard that there used to be a time when younger poets could "study" > with older poets for free. > See Laughlin & Pound? I beleive what these cats were up to was a great deal different than the MFA scene we have today, not that you need to be told that. It's too easy to construe academic or weekend poetasters as swindlers. It makes sense that much of that thouroughly dis-engaged verse should come with a certain price tag. It's entertainment fer chrissakes! It makes just as much sense that really vital work comes from the peripheries, where, f*ck it all, it will be written and disseminated despite the careerist trappings of "the writer". Spiritedly, Patrick F. Durgin ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:29:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For those of us who haven't read this, or w/read this, or agreed with this and therefore don't want to read this again; READ this AGAIN PFD | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA On Fri, 12 Jun 1998, P.Standard Schaefer wrote: > I'm a little baffled by all this concern about money and poetry which strikes > me as a bit superficial. > > First of all, anyone who hopes to make a living knows that poetry is not the > most efficacious way to do this. People who go into the literary field hoping > to make a living probably, in a sociological analysis, would prove to belong > to group with inherited cultural capital (say the children of academics for > who education is extremely important). These people then go get their > degrees, their book deals, tenure, etc., in order to main the relative > positions of dominance they are born into. > > Another way to say this is that artists (no matter what their political > orientation) are belong to a dominated fraction of the dominant > class...dependent on those who have economic capital. > > The social function of art whether we like it or not is very likely to be one > of creating distinction to those for whom economic distinction is not so > important (the rich who have it already, and the poor who don't expect to have > it). Aren't these people in their various writing programs just trading their > economic capital for cultural capital? Katy has already shown how those who > expect to get paid see it as a mark of legitimacy. > > Third, there is a very strong connection between poetry and stocks. In the > past it has been called ideology (althusser), then disciplinary (foucault's > discourse), lately it has been called "control society" by Virilo, Deleuze. > Whatever the name or form, the effect is an interiorized schemata which > contains the the thoughts, perceptions, and actions available to a > culture...and only these actions. (Bourdieu's habitus, somewhat like > Chomsky's generative grammar). > > Poetry and stocks: one thing I know about people who profess an interest in > the America avant-garde is they get very uncomfortable when it is drawn to > their attention how much inherited, economic capital is behind the people with > the most cultural captial (degrees, publications, academic positions, presses) > in the comunity, many of whom are the biggest pontificators about > politics/poetry/language-- I can think of at least five big guns who have > never had to work for a living...three of which have their own presses. These > people, of course, use their money and their prestige to define good taste > (and it tacitly accepted by those excluded from legitimate culture). > > Challenges to artistic conventions could very easily be seen as struggles for > legitimacy among members of groups. My hunch is that these challenges almost > never reveal the relations, struggles behind the notions of art (the degree to > which taste is dictated by those with the most economic and cultural capital). > Even when they speak about these relations, there is a tendency to ironize > them in such a fashion as to make the issue highly ambiguous. They simple > oppose a dominated culture to a dominant one creating a cultural avant-garde > which by its very existence contributes to the discourse on legitimacy. > > Well, those are my thoughts today. Anyone who can show me a way of > this...well, I'd gladly appreciate it. > > Standard Schaefer > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 06:53:56 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Simon Subject: Re: Magazines that pay In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 12 Jun 1998, k. lederer wrote: > I've heard that there used to be a time when younger poets could "study" > with older poets for free. > well, I studied with older poets for free (unless you count a few sixpacks of pepsi and boxes of donuts) not so long ago and, assuming the older poets have the time, I suspect it is still possible. of course, I didn't do it in beautiful Iowa City, and I have friends who studied with the same older poets who did have to pay (or the GI bill paid or something like that), but they got to live in Iowa City and meet Marvin and Donald along with the poets they wanted to study with. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 17:05:09 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Laura E. Wright" Subject: Re: FW: Shakespearian Insult Kit MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Didn't John Cage say this already? henry g wrote: -- Laura Wright Library Assistant, Naropa Institute (303) 546-3547 "All music is music..." -- Ted Berrigan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 19:05:51 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Re: Magazines that pay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit go patrick go. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:22:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I know some younger poets who will only submit work to magazines that >pay... (I know this sounds crazy.... it has something to do with what they >perceive as a heightened prestige...). Reagan has won! George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 09:26:00 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Re: Magazines that pay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" >Re: Chris's question: > >ZYZZYVA, The New Yorker, Threepenny Review, Georgia Review, The Nation, >Harper's, hmmm, I believe: APR, Conjunctions (?)... The Paris Review >for sure, The Boston Review.. Gettysburg Review, Poetry, Seneca Review (?) Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:34:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: Magazines that pay In-Reply-To: <1812065171@wellington.trump.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sulfur pays, too. At 09:26 AM 6/13/98 -0000, you wrote: >>Re: Chris's question: >> >>ZYZZYVA, The New Yorker, Threepenny Review, Georgia Review, The Nation, >>Harper's, hmmm, I believe: APR, Conjunctions (?)... The Paris Review >>for sure, The Boston Review.. > >Gettysburg Review, Poetry, Seneca Review (?) > >Anthony > > > >...................................................... >Anthony Lawrence >PO Box 75 >Sandy Bay >Tasmania 7006 > > charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 19:30:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: the economics of tambourine lives Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> well i dont know if ted berrigans view that the poet is always >> doing poetry "TAKES THE WRITER OUT OF THE CASH NEXUS" >> (so that's the phrase to play with---"chew on"--for "awhile"....) >> money plays a role, "has a presence", in tb's work, >> and i don't think it's just the villianous cash nexus one >> is glad to be taken out of...... >> chris Aside: I seem to recall, from what I believe was a reading of Ted Berrigan's first book of poems, that he felt that being a poet simply was not one of the options offered by American society to an American man. The book was full of interesting clues as to what made him say that. As far as I could tell the legitimate options were limited to soldier, businessman or factory worker. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 09:40:18 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Pam Brown's Address Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Maxine, Pam can be contacted at: overland PO Box 14146, MCMC Melbourne VIC 8001 best Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 18:48:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Magazines that pay In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980612163458.007d6bb0@theriver.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I just wanted to clarify something.... I think that teaching is a terrific thing to do.... teachers are terrific.... And I don't think that it necessarily sullies a writer's work if he or she teaches (either politically or aesthetically).... I just wish that people were thinking a little harder about what's happening vis-a-vis the plethora of first-book prizes... (the fact that younger poets are paying out the ears so that the occassional big press will publish a first book)... and about the debts that are being accrued by younger writers who, perhaps, can't figure out any other way to find a writing community or the time to write... Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:49:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Anarchy In-Reply-To: <1730886603@wellington.trump.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Are there people on this discussion list who accept >copies of a magazine in lieu of cash? Who accept publication only? >Who publishes only in magazines that pay a lot? Hands up. > >Anthony Sometimes I say no to magazines or anthologies that promise money, and sometimes I say yes to magazines that offer only copies. To me the company of other writers is the main point. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:49:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Money and Poetry In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Lets face it, money helps pay bills, >but poetry as well as music in all reality (unless you are Jewel 1.7 million >for her book of poems) Jewel who? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:49:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Radio Bowering In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Um George > >You do mention Salt Lake City radio & I know you love Ornette, but the line >in the poem is "Gerry Mulligan meets Stan Getz" (but then what would we >expect from Salt Lake City...? Oh yeah! Now I remember. But also Bowen did play Ornette in the late fifties, and he was the first disk jockey I remember doing that. Also he and Frank Davey were the first 2 people I heard of who had an MG6. So when people laugh at the idea of the New Orleans Jazz moving to SLC and keeping their name, I remember Bowen. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 19:31:38 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry gould Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:21:18 EDT from On Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:21:18 EDT P.Standard Schaefer said: > >First of all, anyone who hopes to make a living knows that poetry is not the >most efficacious way to do this. People who go into the literary field hoping >to make a living probably, in a sociological analysis, would prove to belong >to group with inherited cultural capital (say the children of academics for >who education is extremely important). These people then go get their >degrees, their book deals, tenure, etc., in order to main the relative >positions of dominance they are born into. Aren't such sociological analyses skewed when "hoping to make a living" is a synonym for "wishful thinking based on supposed literary talent"? I mean, these "children of academics" sound like abstractions. NOBODY hopes to make a living at it without foolish ambition & literary dreams of glory. Maybe I'm wrong but I can't believe it is EVER a matter of some kind of social calculation. Am I being naive again? > >The social function of art whether we like it or not is very likely to be one >of creating distinction to those for whom economic distinction is not so >important (the rich who have it already, and the poor who don't expect to have >it). Aren't these people in their various writing programs just trading their >economic capital for cultural capital? Katy has already shown how those who >expect to get paid see it as a mark of legitimacy. But why bother to call that art? That's the primary mistake of this kind of "analysis". It's not poetry you're talking about. I mean why dignify it with the name? > >Third, there is a very strong connection between poetry and stocks. In the >past it has been called ideology (althusser), then disciplinary (foucault's >discourse), lately it has been called "control society" by Virilo, Deleuze. >Whatever the name or form, the effect is an interiorized schemata which >contains the the thoughts, perceptions, and actions available to a >culture...and only these actions. (Bourdieu's habitus, somewhat like >Chomsky's generative grammar). Is this the poetry of sociology? The control of control. Bites its own tail. They'll figure it out at the Sorbonne someday (tenured, of course). > >Challenges to artistic conventions could very easily be seen as struggles for >legitimacy among members of groups. My hunch is that these challenges almost >never reveal the relations, struggles behind the notions of art (the degree to >which taste is dictated by those with the most economic and cultural capital). >Even when they speak about these relations, there is a tendency to ironize >them in such a fashion as to make the issue highly ambiguous. They simple >oppose a dominated culture to a dominant one creating a cultural avant-garde >which by its very existence contributes to the discourse on legitimacy. This seems true & only increases the mystery around the question : where's the poetry?? - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:58:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: bozos on this bus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Patrick Pritchett wrote: > Tom Mandel was right - where's the bozo > filter when you need one? Check out the bozo filters on Netscape 4 (which by the way is free for download at their site). Go to the edit menu and select Mail Filters. It's easy as pie and you can pick your own bozos. Highly recommended, and (as Hendrix said) "you'll never hear surf music again"-- Rachel Loden ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 16:01:31 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ralph Wessman Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Anthony Lawrence writes: >... my point is (sigh) that the writing of poetry is not concomitant >with making money. That sigh is very telling Anthony. I hope you=27re right otherwise I will be ditching those theories = suggesting art informs, leads, and offers new perceptions as opposed to = reinforcing existing hegemonies. As an editor of an eclectic literary magazine - a little thing struggling = to survive from year to year - it has been years since Ive not paid for a = poem, though at ten dollars a pop this is mere tokenism. A response = recently by a young poet is typical, she writes, as for payment, this is = hardly an issue to be raised by poets these days - we=27d all stop writing = if we were thinking it is for ten dollars.=20 It is somewhat different with articles and essays. If you cast your net = wide enough sometimes you can trawl an embarrassment of riches: material = so good you think, I cannot do this justice with my limited circulation = and offer of payment, probably it has only come to me because the writer = is not au fait with existing publishing networks anyway. This is where the = tokenism becomes even more apparent, when you are capable of offering only = twenty to fifty dollars for a piece of writing, knowing they could get = three hundred for it somewhere else. Its painful. On at least one occasion = I have taken work elsewhere, to a magazine with a far wider distribution = (where incidentally the value of the piece was reaffirmed for me), to be = met with, youre the lucky editor, you should use it: a kind response since = I know the interest was genuine. But generally, surviving on a shoestring = you struggle so hard for good material that the last thing on your mind is = to give it away, you can rarely afford to be that generous.=20 Sometimes though, a little goodwill results in an occasional windfall = (read: exciting manuscript) in the mail, or a ready response when youre = seeking comment on an issue ... and its gratis. Or at least, affordable. Goodwill can surface in other ways too. Some writers for instance, given a = book to review, come up consistently with work of such quality youd think = they were submitting it to the most prestigious and most highly paying = outlets in the land. (God you treasure such individuals). They simply care = a good deal about their craft and subject matter and dont know any other = way to write but to give it their best. Money? ... is a long way down = their scale of priorities.=20 I am no poet. But the care and priority for craftsmanship that I see = elsewhere, in other forms, isnt too far removed from the poet deep inside = the poem, is it? By the way, my apologies for the absence of apostrophes but they=27ve = given me trouble in this forum before. Best, Ralph Ralph Wessman PO Box 368 Hobart Tasmania 7002 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 00:24:04 +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: Magazines that pay MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT hi katy & all -- katy could you clarify some more? I'm interested in this comment; I'd like to talk and hear talk about this, but I want to make sure i'm hearing you right . . . > I just wish that people were thinking a little harder about what's > happening vis-a-vis the plethora of first-book prizes... (the fact that > younger poets are paying out the ears so that the occassional big press > will publish a first book)... and about the debts that are being accrued > by younger writers who, perhaps, can't figure out any other way to find a > writing community or the time to write... who are the "people" who you wish were thinking harder (= younger poets? contest administrators? etc). You are obviously thinking harder, putting a lot of energy into creating a print community -- is it that you wish that this alternative forum (small press, which offers no such incentives as book prizes, etc.) was in some sense more legitimate in the eyes of your peers? In other words, is this (in part) a generational problem? Or, extending that, do you wish that we could construct a whole other (non-academic) forum to study "free"? Linda Russo * @ * % * & * # * with only the sound of the mimeograph "kachucking" and the pages swishing down . . . (Maureen Owen) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 00:24:04 +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: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Thanks Patrick Durgin -- I did read it twice! The first time very critical of Standard Schaefer's generalizations -- it works "in theory" -- but in "reality"? The second time agreeing with it all in theory. please, allow me to explain: > They simple oppose a dominated culture to a dominant one creating a > cultural avant-garde which by its very existence contributes to the > discourse on legitimacy. > Well, those are my thoughts today. Anyone who can show me a way of > this...well, I'd gladly appreciate it. the way out is through the door -- i mean there is no way out in this Derridean bind Standard points out. I'm assuming that since he wants to be shown the door he sees the "legitimizing system" as a problem. But I wonder to what extent it's an intellectual problem *only* -- an "artificial" problem (well, the whole system is artificial) "created" via theorizing it as a problem? If people can access economic and social alternatives in what ever communities they tap into for support, then this seems to me to be an intellectual (and therefore ethical?) problem. > Aren't these people in their various writing programs just trading their > economic capital for cultural capital? Katy has already shown how those who > expect to get paid see it as a mark of legitimacy. or rather, "investing" -- because they still come out with economic capital. But, in "reality", a lot of people trade econimic capital for shit (though anything can be construed as cultural capital) or to meet Bill Knott who's an amazing poet and teacher but who doesn't have a lot of (current) cultural capital. (Is his performative cultural capital -- it only grants me capital when I claim it & only to a certain community? No -- All captial is performative, hence the resume. I'm just arguing with myself here -- don't really have an answer) . People trade or invest econ capital with or in writing programs for lots of reasons. Always, community -- whether to have people around the seethe enviously when you win the prize, or to maybe hang out and talk poetry -- well that depends on a number of factors and especially what values the institution puts forth in its choice of faculty & students, how it awards funding, what sorts of pedagogy & dialogue it constructs, etc I'm sounding like an advocate for writing programs, but actually I'm not. I don't think there's a one out there that doesn't think primarily about the bottom line. I'd much rather have camped out on Bill Knott's lawn, if he'd chosen to surround himself with such luxury. still, the way out is through the door. The question is, which door? and do we need some new doors? regardless of how complicit they are in the system of legitimacy since we seem to have no choice. thanks for hearing me out. Linda Russo * @ * % * & * # * with only the sound of the mimeograph "kachucking" and the pages swishing down . . . (Maureen Owen) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 14:15:30 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "d.j. huppatz" Subject: Re: Money in Poetry In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Summi A couple of years ago I worked for a media monitoring company & my job was to compile & edit all the info in the Australian press on the oil, gas & mining industries. I had no previous knowledge of the area but after about six months knew what was going on in the industry pretty well. I was seriously going to get into the market as I figured that I knew all this info so I even did a stock market course at the Aust Stock Market. The only trouble was, knowing how the industry works & how the market works, could I really invest my money in a company that I knew was dumping crap into a river of papua new guinea & destroying peoples lives downstream, or a company that's signing deals in developing countries that mean they have no environmental responsibility for control or clean up? the examples go on ... Oil, mining & gas is a good industry to make a lot of money in but there's an enormous amount of shady business goes on, particularly Western companies in developing countries. Perhaps the best way to get into the market is to pretend that it's just money & you're making it & people aren't involved. But in the end they are. I never really had enough money to get into the market anyway & quit the job over not getting paid on time. Danny Melbourne P.S. thanks to all those who replied to my Ronald Johnson query. At 01:30 PM 6/12/98 -0500, you wrote: >Hi Katy & All, > >I've been following the stuff on the list regarding poets and the ways >that they do/don't make money. > >So, there might be money in poetry, but it doesn't seem to be coming my >way. Most of us poets probably feel this way. > >So--the stock market? Yesterday, a grad student and a computer science professor >from Berkeley who have created a web browser opened their stock on the >market at $16. It closed at $40. > >Part of me--the poor poet part--feels like I need to just learn to be >stock-market savvy and get in on the money. The other part of me--the >"can't sell out" poet in me--feels like there is something not quite >right about poets who play stocks. > >Anybody out there play stocks? If so, do you feel like poetry should not >be involved in this sort of "capitalist" aspect of our culture? > >Summi > >P.S. Sorry this message sounds so much like a "dear Abby" but my concerns >are genuine. > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 10:26:13 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: The study of poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" > I've heard that there used to be a time when younger poets could "study" >> with older poets for free. This wouldn't have been free, but I would've paid to be in Berryman's classes at Iowa, when Levine, Snodgrass, etc were his students; when "each time he walked into the room, you knew something important was about to happen" (Levine) Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 19:16:46 -0500 Reply-To: "k. lederer" Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Esp. Henry, I don't quite see how you arrived at the statement "why bother to call that poetry"--as in, just because someone accepts money for their poetry--or is concerned with such things--does this necessarily disqualify it as art? Does poetry have its own special rules? What about painters and fiction writers who sell their art? Is the work of F Scott Fitzgerald un- or anti-artistic because he thought so much about money? Fitzgerald conceived of The Great Gatsby as his "canonical" work.... when it was panned by the critics, he was devastated.... Is Stein's work worse for the fact that she could afford to spurn the academy and the critics (due to her independent wealth)? Or Better? Is Dickinson's? It would seem that Berrigan's financial state buttressed his aesthetic aims--did Eliot's? Crane? I think it's too easy to simply dismiss work by people who are concerned with money and/or prestige.... Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 03:39:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: "I know men [sic] for whom everything matters" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Poetry returns us to the real--did not suggest otherwise--but it is ingenuous, >or even naive to think that it ultimately does otherwise than engage the >imagination, the mind, or language. We will find that things "real," things as >they are, or may be, did not exist for us where we thought to find them. It is >not in consensus. The social, relativistic body of the world makes an >affectation of the mind and spirit that is not real, but rather an artifice for >survival. My feet are in "this world" though: I love a broken glass poem as >much as the next person. >Count me behind bars then. You're there too running a tin cup across the bars >in protest. So's comrade Kristeva--whistling in the dark. Interesting.....and there is always the danger of a totalitarianism of one kind or another. Paranoia is sometimes the antithesis of that. Poets sometimes stretch some of the limits. That is sometimes their value. They sometimes struggle to keep the boundaries of what can be thought and communicated expanding rather than contracting, within the domain of language. They also strive to maintain the place of emotive expression, when it is besieged by calculative mentalities. That is quite important. Though I doubt that you would find that human survival is ultimately achieved in the way that you suggest. Dissent has been an important part of human survival. A very important part of it. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 00:46:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carrie Etter Subject: Poetry MFAs, money Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Katy, >... and about the debts that are being accrued >by younger writers who, perhaps, can't figure out any other way to find a >writing community or the time to write... I really don't have much pity for those who choose to rack up the debt at Iowa. I had one year of possible teaching writing to law students at Iowa with no promise for the second year, or a solid one year comp, one year poetry writing teaching deal at Irvine with a 2/3 fee reduction. Guess where I went? Sure, I had a prof say, pay whatever, get the loans, go to Iowa. I decided otherwise for the financial reason as well as for who I wanted to study with and the crit theory at Irvine. Great poetry study does not necessarily--or even usually--equal great debt. Can't figure out any other way to find a writing community? I don't buy it. I don't think anyone should enter an MFA program in poetry to prepare for any kind of moneymaking job. Period. Carrie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 20:17:33 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-06-12 19:50:57 EDT, you write: << Aren't such sociological analyses skewed when "hoping to make a living" is a synonym for "wishful thinking based on supposed literary talent"? I mean, these "children of academics" sound like abstractions. NOBODY hopes to make a living at it without foolish ambition & literary dreams of glory. Maybe I'm wrong but I can't believe it is EVER a matter of some kind of social calculation. Am I being naive again >> Absolutely not. Bourdieu is actually most specific and if you read his books you will see that he spells out with many actual naive statements by various people who are not abstractions...it would also be clear how it does not require any social calculation...that happens to be why I mentioned Althusser...because he explains why how ideology works on an unconscious level. SS ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 17:22:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: Magazines that pay In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >and about the debts that are being accrued >by younger writers who, perhaps, can't figure out any other way to find a >writing community or the time to write... Is anyone under the illusion that it's only "younger writers" who carry a great deal of debt; this is true even of many poets I know who have found a writing community, and it's certainly not only true of poets and artists in our current economy. And it has nothing to do with somehow losing their money by giving it toward first book prizes. It's more a fact of their existing on extremely small incomes, sometimes with growing families, yet continuing to make it a priority to 'buy' (with what? is sometimes a question) time for writing. charles ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 17:17:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: the economics of tambourine lives In-Reply-To: <199806122330.TAA24597@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Aside: I seem to recall, from what I believe was a reading of > Ted Berrigan's first book of poems, that he felt that > being a poet simply was not one of the options offered > by American society to an American man. While growing up in America (mostly in Oklahoma) I certainly never encountered the possibility that one might actually be a poet. I would think that if one grew up with a strong sense that it was an option in American society, that would be quite unusual. I think in my family the options were more like: teacher, soldier, businessman, laborer, clerical worker, administrator, and perhaps a few others, possibly even writer, but definitely not poet. > > The book was full of interesting clues as to what made > him say that. > > As far as I could tell the legitimate options were > limited to soldier, businessman or factory worker. > >M. > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 10:30:28 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" George, I'm with you. Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 21:53:49 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Henry as usual is quite acute, however it strikes me that to counter Standard's skepticism about the ideological dimension of poetry with merely an assertion of the "mystery" of art & (here I'm putting words in his mouth) its capacity to transcend institutional/cultural contradictions is not really an adequate response. Moreover, aligning Bourdieu, as Henry does, with the academy is a cheap shot given B's consistent criticism of the French academic system in works such as _Homo Academius_, and his long association with the marginalized Ecole des hautes Etudes. What, Standard is asking, are the social conditions of poetry? It's a question worth addressing I think, before dismissing it. There is, I've found, a tendency in this venue for people to become somewhat sanctimonious about art. & I'm afraid this is reflected in alot of the new poetry I see -- Ron Silliman's criticism a few months back about the prevalence of the abstract lyric seems to me, in hindsight, quite legitimate -- it is numbingly ubiquitous. To what extent does it conspire with the taste of those with the most cultural/economic capital? -- even if, granted, it is in a form that they would not immediately recognize. As much as I've enjoyed the spate of new anthologies in the last several months, I also find myself asking if there is a connection between the diversity of poetries presented in most of these collections -- take for example the recent New (American) Poets antholgy -- & the politically neutralizing pluralism of contemporary American culture? --jacques ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 19:03:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit P.Standard Schaefer wrote: > First of all, anyone who hopes to make a living knows that poetry is not the > most efficacious way to do this. I wonder if I'm just totally out of the loop here: the only mag that's ever paid me is Sulfur, and that was 35$ per poem. For a grand total of less than $150. I understand that the Bay Area where I live is expensive, but I can't believe that anyone really thinks that 35 bucks is going to makea dramatic difference to their personal economy. Particularly if they have children. Does anyone really believe they could live off literary magazine payments? > Poetry and stocks: one thing I know about people who profess an interest in > the America avant-garde is they get very uncomfortable when it is drawn to > their attention how much inherited, economic capital is behind the people with > the most cultural captial (degrees, publications, academic positions, presses) > in the comunity, many of whom are the biggest pontificators about > politics/poetry/language-- I can think of at least five big guns who have > never had to work for a living...three of which have their own presses. Are we assuming that people with stock inherited it? Again I'm out of the loop, perhaps. Can one not be a legitimate poet if one inherits stock? How about those of us who purchase our own stock? Or are we not allowed to, if we want to be poets? Aren't all of these boundaries a little silly? I always thought the cool thing about art was I could do what I like. Is there a burgeoning suburban-mentality of poetics? A suburb that uses Marx to look down on the Joneses? The problem isn't that the neighbors have better things...we can look down on them for having immoral things. Like money or professorships. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 22:03:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: money & poetry (GB division) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I think Bowering is sincere when he says he'd sooner write poetry than get money, because decades ago I offered him a stipend to stop writing, and he kept the first instalment & went on writing anyway. Natch, I sent no further instalments, & with maturity I am glad we let the matter drop. But I would like that CAN$500 back. I need US$300 to send to an editor. David ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 12:17:56 +0930 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Otis Rush Subject: Re: Looking for the address In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Maxine, Pam will likely have replied to this herself. But if not, her home address is 3 West End Lane Ultimo NSW 2007 Australia Cheers, Ken Bolton Otis Rush, Ken Bolton and Little Esther Books PO Box 8091, Station Arcade, South Australia 5000 Fax +61 (0)8 8211 7323 Website http://www.eaf.asn.au/otisrush.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 22:09:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "A. Nikuko Sondheim" Subject: Down and Up MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII __________________________________________________________________________ Subject: skyscraper-no #### ## ############## #### ## # # # # ########## ####### ######## #### # # # ########## ############## ################ # ###### # ########## ############## ################ # # # # # ########## ####### ######## #### # # ############## #### ## sad cause it's raining out and my arms try to hold you and my arms try to hold you and end my body up end my body up strangling my neck blocking my eyes strangling my neck blocking my sight sigh sigh turn it around and you have skyscraper-no turn it around and skyscraper-no skyscraper-no says: you turn it around and that's your speech you turn it around and that's your speech alan-san & all the rest of it alan-san & all the rest _______________________________________________________________ DON'T GET ME STARTED! BY DAISHIN NIKUKO! MY LOGIN-NAME'S TOO BIG! I'M DAISHIN NIKUKO! I DON'T GIVE A FIG! I'LL GO WHERE I WANNA GO! I'LL DO WHAT I WANNA DO! I'LL RUN ALL OVER YOUR SCREEN! KEEP ME FROM BAR AND FOO! I'M PASSIONATE AND MEAN! {k:27} less hey.log.o Sun May 31 17:01:40 1998 heyd: to login name too big [98935] Sun May 31 23:46:31 1998 heyd: to login name too big [98935] Mon Jun 1 23:01:50 1998 heyd: STARTING UP - version 0.12 (pid=108) [0] Tue Jun 2 17:14:43 1998 heyd: to login name too big [98935] Fri Jun 5 13:18:16 1998 heyd: to login name too big [98935] hey.log.o (END) HEY LOG O, NANNY NANNY! HEY LOG O, HI! HEY LOG O, NANNY NANNY! HEY LOG O, HI! ________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 18:57:48 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: "Where does the skin end?"---A.N. Whitehead MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "In a pervasive change of the cultural mind in the seventeenth century, a complex descriptive model was substituted for nature, so something in the model corresponded to everything in nature. The model was a formal system or linguistic machine--in contemporary jargon, a computer program. It was assumed that the world consists of a few types of simple objects--atoms of some kind, some limited and enumerable set of simple things, that can be represented by linguistic tokens--and a finite set of specifiable rules by which these tokens can be combined. Thus, the rules can be applied to the tokens; and linguistic models of the world, corresponding point by point to the physical world, can be created. "To understand a phenomenon," thus means "to be able to construct a corresponding linguistic machine." Of course, if the model corresponds precisely to the original, it is not clear what has been gained. The locus of the object is changed. Humans seem to feel that the model, being a "human thing," as it were, is more understandable than the world itself."---from The Poetics of the Common Knowledge by Don Byrd --- "The essential idea is very simple. Inside all hadrons are smaller particles called quarks. The rules say that they are permitted to stick together in one of two possible ways, either in trios or in quark-antiquark pairs. Combinations of three obviuosly produce heavier particles, and these are called baryons, meaning the 'heavier ones'. The best known baryons are the neutorn and proton........."---from Superforce by Paul davies---[It was assumed that the world consists of a few types of simple objects...Byrd] --- "It seems that people have a deep psychological need to reduce all reality to simple, easily digested images. When something, such as a wave-particle, crops up that has no counterpart in direct experience, bewilderment or even outright scepticism, results.---Davies --- "As long as he [the physicist] can use the quantum machine to describe and predict the results of his experiments, the average physicist is like the average car owner: He doesn't care [read GIVE A RAT'S ASS] what makes the magic work."---from Paradigms Lost by John Casti --- "...the point being, substitiute 'mathematical' for 'linguistic' in Don Byrd's statement and you arrive at the state of affairs in quantum theory. Mathematical because of 'OUR [supposedly physicists are not excluded] deep psychological need to reduce all reality to simple, easily digested images' which quantum will not allow."---cp. And my apologies to Kent Johnson for not reading his E-mail more closely. And thanks to Dave Bouchard for his marvelous efficiency in quoting the Wilfred Owen poem. And, of course, there is that old fart, Paul Fussell, and his book The Great War in Modern Memory. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 09:26:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: poetry is a tracheotomy for the soul's breath MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII kidding around, lapping up the delights of conversation, coming into work early on a Saturday morning, unlocking the poetics list with the jangling keys of doubt, curiosity, hope, confusion, bubbling over with love and affections for everyone on the list, drunkenly waking up to find that I didn't have enough money to buy a beer, living off the generosity of friends, wondering how I am going to move across the country, wondering if there is a border scene with Mexican poets in TJ Mex, hoping that I can make it, realizing that my full time job doesn't pay anything, realizing that I'd do it anyway, half-serious sticking stamps on 50 catalogs to send to richie-rich patrons and libraries, hoping that I can sell enough books to make up for th 90% of them that I give away, realzing that the kindness of friends outweighs any sense of terror that the economic system is going to crush me under its boots, crunch crunch crunch STOP THE RAT RACE NOW! I always loved that story about Bob Creeley visiting the Zukofskys and him leaving with a coat and a dime for the subway. recently he mentioned to me with a quizzed look how when he "was young" (tho RC seems perpetually young to me) that he and his cohorts never considered the sense of having a "career" as a poet. Just that they never used that word. And I think now I need to understand what does that mean. A careerist is bad. Yes?/No? (choose one). But 'having a career' (as opposed to a "life") seems to be an assumption based on some vision of the conditions of necessity, and to question that seems to put you automatically in this badass camp and it raises the hackles of those who have invested their good fortunes in graduate school, etc., and now want the payback owed to them for their hard work. This is an argument that happens annually around here--the grad school as "gift economy" (you do it for love, for the purity of the intellect yayaya) and grad school as training factory (must write on Melville and [insert current idea here] -- must not be creative) The argument that people are owed something by this system has always amused. But as I watch my friends get chewed up and spit out & as I watch the saw blade spinning and notice that I have been tied down & there is no superhero coming to rescue me, I shake my head hoping to wake up. I suppose we are what we eat and why shouldn't the wall-street logic of the newspapers runover the average poet stumbling into an MFA program, looking for "community" (of all things) a good time and a job. Personally I would like a filter for such thinking. Bruce Andrews once described the buffalo poetics program to me as problematic because it gave young people the opportunity to obtain power and prestige (??) without having to do time in a community. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this statement and is provocative stance. Sometimes I used it to tame whever hopes and expectations that may develop from being around here. Every year people show up here with this on their minds, how are they are going to get something for themselves. And I'm working (slowly) on a novel about this place, which is framed by a murder mystery. This sense that people are owed something...I dunnoo..I learned to type by memorizing the Tao te Ching back in 82 or so (in high school) and the notion of wu-wei as expressed by JML and such thinkers is not a foreign idea to me...and seems a better description of how to live in the world than Derrida (whom I enjoy as much as the next PBJ sandwish being served up on the grad platter) Obviously Bruce doesn't know about the rather high placement rate of the program (compared to the rest of the department). When he said that, which was during the Apex of the M crisis, when everyone in New York thought there was some kind of religious revival sweeping across the Niagara Frontier. For all their problematic ideas, at least they were in the bizness to stir things up. Lew is now at Union Theological (gone Horse and Buggy as someone recently said to me) Alan is doing honest work, as is Kristin, and I'm assuming Pam is too. But none of them are trying to make money as poets or poet-instigators. Bruce's comment hit me like a pile of bricks and recently I asked him about this comment, which he had forgotten. But in the absence of any real economic reward it seems to me (ob via) that you just simply have to want to do it and that will win out over everything. Even much of the rhetoric surrounding conceptions of community seem to be screens for watered-down ways of thinking about this relation to power and authority. Show me a community and I'll show you a scene... But what, finally, does it mean to have a career as a poet? What is the goal? In this dispersed networked economy, what constitutes "community" when the fact of literary centers has been reduced for decentralization and global expansion. Surely all these poet-teachers are not going to be teaching in New York and S.F. If all of this is simply about finding a job, well then I think we've seen what that adds up to. Take a walk around the halls of your local English Dept sometime soon. obviously, you gotta work. Lately I've been working fulltime as an editor and a book-designer, assembler. But there is no money in this. I sent out an appeal to the list & two people replied. Thanks. That will keep the printers going for that much longer. Scott Pound gave me some beautiful new color covers for the newest meow press books. Charles Alexander's, Noemie Maxwell's, and Denise Newman's. They're lovely. Thank god for Scott's generosity. My organizational skills are improving. I can't pay people but I can give the author copies of the book to sell, give away, etc. Of a run of 200, I can give 50 to the author. It takes me a while to make all of them so I tend to be a little behind. The summer has given me the opportunity to work every day on this project and sometime in July I'll be "all caught up" with those commitments to authors and people have ordered books. I wish I could do more for people who labor writing. I may stop giving books away and move to a "subscription" system similar to the victorian era system in which the guarantee of interest in support for specific books will them happen. Why whould I want to print 1000 copies of a book that finally 100 people care about. Why would I want to let Norton, or whomever, pulp my book because of unfortunate tax laws which make it cheaper to destroy the extant copies of a book, rendering it outofprint, rather than keep it around another year? Sorry to go on at such length. I'm feeling emotional as all of this talk of money and how to survive and still do your work and you want to stay busy and you want to be honest and free and believe without cynicism that the gift is real and not tied to power and prestige as seems to be the default logic of people who get paid to knock other people down. Read Lew Welch, whose last letter read something like "I went west". drama drama drama. Snapping my fingers like that guy on the ole sitcom "Soap": now I'm invisible... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 11:40:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Writing as occupation... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit writing as an occupation... is very different than what is being spoken about... M.F.A. students of course they are going to want to get paid most are shelling out money to get writing training, it has to pay off..... erik sweet ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 12:05:22 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Re: poetry is a tracheotomy for the soul's breath Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit ps i used to spend time at the old pink flamingo is that still in operation? meet you for a beer there sometime.... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 11:22:35 -0500 Reply-To: "k. lederer" Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Magazines that pay In-Reply-To: <199806130615.AAA23957@bobo.oz.cc.utah.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi Linda, As per your questions: The first re: putting out a small press magazine/ small presses.... One thing I've learned while doing EXPLOSIVE is that no literary magazine has that large of a circulation--particularly magazines that feature poetry only. Right now I'm producing 300 copies of each issue of EXPLOSIVE--I give some away, sell others, and get some subscriptions. At first I thought this was a joke--300.... But after researching a little bit noticed that even the most prestigious magazines (many of which feature prose and fiction as well) weren't exactly flooding the world (The New Yorker aside...). The Paris Review, for example (if the CCLMP guide is correct) does a circulation of 12,000--and this with an incredible world-wide distribution network, a gazillion libraries subscribing, and all the prestige in the world-- In other words, I don't think the small press scene is really that small when compared with the "big press" scene--in all scenes it's terrific if a book sells 1000 copies.... As far as book prizes... I'm just shocked at how little attention is paid to this particular phenomenon. An interesting example: The Yale Prize last year... 700 younger poets applied, shelling out $15 a piece.... that adds up to about $10,500 that went to Yale University Press (a small press like Atelos could put out 6 books for this price...). Merwin decided that no manuscript deserved the prize that year.... and Yale U Press kept the money. I'm not so sure what's happening to this money--whether book prizes finally make money for the press that sponsors them, or simply pay for the price of the book and the publicity for the prize-- This is not to say that first-book prizes or evil or a totally bad deal. They do guarantee that some first books will be published--and published nicely... but in the end it is the contestants who are paying for the book... not the press or the judge. Finally, this is not to say that I haven't entered my share of book contests... or gone through my MFA program.... or submitted work to perfect-bound magazines... I guess I'm just trying to say that (perhaps most members of this community aside) there is certainly a market for prestige in poetry.... and it's certainly taking its toll on very young writers in the form of actual cash... Another thing: I find it strange that so many posts to this thread seem to generalize about "MFA students".... or about what it means to be part of a community of writers... These days it's hard to find a "scene" or a "community" that's not comprised of a lot of people with MFAs (just take a look at the new Talisman anthol of younger writers...). To just dismiss this phenomenon.... or to ridicule or otherwise laugh at people who might enroll in a program (whether they're looking for jobs in poetry or not... some people aren't.... some people just don't know what else to do) is facile at best. I don't know the quote off-hand, but Pound once said something along the lines of "it doesn't matter who writes the great poems as long as they are written...". I have to admit that I get tired of the conflation of art and life insofar as it excludes or denounces the work of people who might conduct their "real" lives in an ethically questionable manner. Some of the posts to this thread seem to be saying "well, if you're not tough enough to do it on your own, then you're not a real poet...". I think this is crap. I also think that there is a romanticization going on here of the poet-as-cowboy model. Personally, esp. if I have children, I don't want to be going over to someone's house and getting a coat and a dime for the subway. Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 11:49:29 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry G Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 12 Jun 1998 21:53:49 EDT from What a lot of interesting messages on this subject! Katy, Standard, Jacques, Joel: Katy - I can imagine a poet with a hell of a lot of talent and smarts who knows how good they are & moves like a tactician into all the money & prestige enclaves there are; actually I can imagine a lot of poets approaching this level. What I meant by saying "why call it poetry?" is that that prudent, ambitious, acquisitve, aggressive energy is not the poetry: I agreed with Mark P. that poetry's basically not a commodity and those acquisitive or practical drives pose a threat to: 1) creative freedom, and 2) poetry's strongest hand - the truth-telling it can do from the outside. I agree with Jacques that the flip side of this is sanctimonious self-righteousness & complacent subculturism, and I agreed (in my first response) with Standard: "counter-cultures" become mirror images (sometimes) of economic elites. But I did not take a cheap shot at Bourdieu or the academy or sociology - they are too strong for cheap shots. Their social analyses can be all-encompassing: that's what I meant by "the control of control". I don't dismiss Schaefer's points at all - I just think there are limits to critical rationalism when it comes to understanding the synthetic coherences of art & poetry. Ultimately I agree completely with Joel Kuszai's point that it's a "gift" you have to take on its own terms. This does not cancel out a critical-political analysis of the author's background or the poem's genesis; but what I worry about is the dismissal of the work based on a rational-critical Sorbonnean "explanation". As Augustine put it in Latin: you must believe in order to understand. Belief is prior to understanding. This is a threatening paradox to rationalism, but it underlies the learning process; it underlies receptivity to a work of art; and it's a theological tradition very basic to the development of universities in the first place. Sociological explanations easily become blinders which slot the politically-correct from the incorrect. Katy, you might accuse me of similar blinders based on the "gift" position: but my response is the same to you as to Jacques & Standard: I find it simply impossible to write or read poetry with "career" in mind. The receptive/productive synapses close down; the intellectual process is stifled. Maybe this is just my problem. It doesn't mean I don't get excited to get published, or stand on tenterhooks (is that what you do with tenterhooks?) if a publisher is reading my stuff; it doesn't mean I haven't thought about self-publishing & done it, or felt sorry for my poems & myself, the poems in the folder getting older; it doesn't mean I haven't tried to figure out my limitations or where my stuff might find a reading; I'm subject more than most maybe to ego-trips; but I consider all those concerns & worries to be in my right hand. I'm a left-handed poet. You're not supposed to let your right hand know what your left hand do. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 12:41:49 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Re: Magazines that pay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Katy, <<(whether they're looking for jobs in poetry or not... some people aren't.... some people just don't know what else to do) is facile at best. What do you mean by some people just don't know what else to do? explain Some of the posts to this thread seem to be saying "well, if you're not tough enough to do it on your own, then you're not a real poet...". I think this is crap. I don't hear anyone saying that at all? I believe the general feeling may be that commuity can be just as bad as it can be good. < Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Karen Kelly: Thanks much for responding. I fear though that you may not have seen my post in context of a previous one where someone was taking a stab at "poets who play the stock market." In a message dated 98-06-13 08:18:30 EDT, you write: << Are we assuming that people with stock inherited it? Again I'm out of the loop, perhaps. Can one not be a legitimate poet if one inherits stock? How about those of us who purchase our own stock? Or are we not allowed to, if we want to be poets? Aren't all of these boundaries a little silly? I always thought the cool thing about art was I could do what I like. >> People who acquire their own fortunes are just stuck in the cultural game like everyone else. Frankly, one of the most sinister things about capitalism is that if you refuse to play (or cannot play) in any regard, you are left without much of an existence...not just diminished status, but a lack of housing. The result is that it makes people responsible for things that they are not. You're no responsible for being born into a system that requires capital of some sort to exist. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 12:38:21 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry G Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 12 Jun 1998 21:53:49 EDT from With all those caveats, still again I don't dismiss Standard's version of "truth-telling", and a ferocious & satirical approach to social scenes & economic structures is an avenue to freedom as well as possibly a cynical dead end... ayyiee... where is wisdom? we's all blind poets & chickens roun' here... - Hen G who killed JFK? was it a coup d'etat? do you drive a 4-wheel all-terrain giant Jeep spewing exhaust? do you live in green landscapes with lawnmowers & collect on your investments? do you watch violent movies? are your kids bringing automatic rifles to school ?? do you want to make more money? do you have to make more money? am I depressing you? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 11:52:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Magazines that pay In-Reply-To: <8742f3be.3582abcf@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi Erik, I didn't mean to trivialize the Creeley story... for Creeley this sounds like a terrific thing. I think that I just get frustrated with some of the life-style models that are put out there (and Creeley, being the wonderful Creeley that he is, is a powerful role-model for me.) As far as the "some don't know what else to do" comment-- I think that people have many different reasons for entering an MFA program. In many ways I entered mine because I wasn't ready to be finished with school. Some people here are definitley thinking that this MFA will get them a job--and it does get some people some pretty good jobs. But other people seem to have entered this particular program because they just didn't really know what else to do. They got in, got some form of aid (maybe teaching rhetoric or something--or a fellowship) and just came. It wasn't something they necessarily thought out fully. In other words, everyone is different, and to generalize about MFA students just doesn't really do the trick for me. I do think, though, that it's possible to generalize a little more about the programs themselves. As someone put it, they tend to focus on the bottom line. This is not to say that some of the teachers in these programs aren't really cool and helpful, but rather that they are in some sense forced into the usual positions viz administrations and such. Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 13:06:49 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Re: Magazines that pay Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit katy I saw Creeley tell a story at University at Buffalo like a year ago and his comments on Zukofsky were so nice and heartfelt I knew that he was really engaged with the man/ and the text. You know what makes me sick Katy.... people who act as if university is bad...as if a continuing of an education is a bad idea, but you will find those comments flying our of people's mouths who have always had the opportunity to go to school , financial or other wise when i quit the Post Office in Buffalo after working there a while they gave me a huge cake and every guy and lady there who was a vet and who worked there since Vietnam patted me on the back and said "do good in school" it was the only job I worked where the people made me a farewell cake, but people in Buffalo are just really nice anyways..didn't realize that until now MFA is not bad at all, i don't think, and it is a good way to work out ideas with other writers..the only problem comes back to money you think this country would value writers etc and people who decide to learn more should do it for themselves...My grandmother immigrated here and never went far in school it was hard to be an immigrant in buffalo even though it was a big city back then it was divided as it is now.. but she thinks it is great that i went to college, it is a huge deal to people who never have had the luck to get there. The value is in the inner growth , it is such a shame though that it costs so much to get a graduate degree..and at times the profs know only the world of academica and that makes it even harder to shell out cash to get "taught" by people who seem to value only their "status" in the world of university. cheerio the kids in the opposite houses are doing a shouting match and banging pots and pans to the sound of the thunder and rain here in albany...I am in the middle a pickle! erik ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 13:13:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: GROBERTS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Alas, alack, alackaday! They tell me that poetry doesn't pay! Since this disabusement Is no cause for amusement I don't know what else I can say But alas, alack, alackaday! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 12:31:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: the economics of tambourine lives In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980612171750.007d4b10@theriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>Aside: I seem to recall, from what I believe was a reading of >> Ted Berrigan's first book of poems, that he felt that >> being a poet simply was not one of the options offered >> by American society to an American man. > >While growing up in America (mostly in Oklahoma) I certainly never >encountered the possibility that one might actually be a poet. I would >think that if one grew up with a strong sense that it was an option in >American society, that would be quite unusual. I think in my family the >options were more like: teacher, soldier, businessman, laborer, clerical >worker, administrator, and perhaps a few others, possibly even writer, but >definitely not poet. > >> >> The book was full of interesting clues as to what made >> him say that. >> >> As far as I could tell the legitimate options were >> limited to soldier, businessman or factory worker. >> >>M. >> >> nurse, secretary, teacher, sales clerk, mommy --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 12:37:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: car/rear In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Don't understand "career." Work, that's different. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 12:34:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ike Kim Subject: Re: poetry is a tracheotomy for the soul's breath Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Carrie Etter said, "I don't think anyone should enter an MFA program in poetry to prepare for any kind of moneymaking job. Period." it strikes me as naive that one would insist, after undergrad degrees, exploration into grad programs, and time spent working outside of academia (of which 90% of us have had the pleasure), that education would still be thought of in terms of "job training." As if IGA were looking for a VP of Poetry (not that most companies couldn't use one). We should be paid handsomely for our work. but if money denotes cultural value and the jury is corporate media, it's better to be paid in ... corporate media, i would suspect, is not where we get our legitimacy now, so why look to it to affirm one's right to eat healthfully and sleep in a dry place? Do what you can stand to get by, and spend your own time doing what you can to make what you think is necessary. what we do for food and shelter is what we must do for food and shelter. It's society that should provide for us, as we, in our poetic work provide society. This is no pithy comment. I demand to exist in a world that sees production and worth not in terms of profit percentages, but in terms of the societal/cultural contributions of its members. if we are to _assume_ that, as poets, capitalist market forces will provide us with our food and shelter, it seems to me that one's cheek has joind the hook. If the societal value of art is measured by its worth in dollars, not by its reflect/interact/meditat/ruminat/etc.../ion--CONTENT re: "the present" or "the time in which one writes," we should all shrivel up. Since leaving college, I've been thinking about how one can continue to contain a larger vision of one's existence as poet and human, outside the realm of academia. "what do you do?" such a question invariably leads folks to give their job title or occupation. but this is not what we do. When i met Erica hunt (at the time, i believe working for NYC Urban Dev or the like) she said, "So are you a poet?" not "so are you a student?" which would have been the obvious question since we were on campus and i was the requisite age and type. Education is a job-not job training. The real work, and one's practical value comes in applying what you've got/studied to the society yer in (get out and make stuff "right"). One's line of work doesn't necessarily constitute what one "is." But one's way of thinking just might. now, here comes "community." it's a thorny word and Joel Kuszai, in his post earlier today, notes its complexity well. His mention of Br. Andrew's describing "the buffalo poetics program" "as problematic because it gave young people the opportunity to obtain power and prestige (??) without having to do time in a community," is truth contained in truth. Power and prestige? Most people outside the "community" of actively engaged writers think of Buffalo as a cold snowy place. no more no less. Power and prestige. In the eyes of interviewers at MLA, maybe. It seems to me that for the rest of the world (that is, the greater "community," or society) it's what you put in, not what you get--power/prestige--that actually makes a difference. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 12:48:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: Re: poetry is a tracheotomy for the soul's breath MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT That was a wonderful post by Joel Kuszai. Lots of good ones on the topic of poetry and community in relation to money and publishing and careers. I just wanted to say that I purchased _Poet Be Like God_ a few days back and am well into it and it's an amazing book (though I wish it had more photographs!). And the book has *very much* to say about the whole matter of "poetry vis a vis money," inasmuch as Spicer's poetry is, arguably, what it is because of his ultra-principled and conscientious (some would say paranoiac and self-righteous) opposition to the "market" and "career" aspects of the literary scene. The book is also very much about the personal risks involved in such absolute devotion to poetry and to the idea of a comunitas that would remain "pure." I haven't read all the way through, but I think the book might in part be about how such poetic heroism is doomed to failure from the start, and much of the book, in fact, is not all that "pleasant" to read. In any case, I would strongly urge everyone to check this impressive book out. (In it, in fact, you can even read about George Bowering and David Bromige, so loved by others on this list and so obviously adoring of each other!) _Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance_, by Lew Ellingham and Kevin Killian. Check it out, and write to the publisher requesting more photographs in the second edition. Kent ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 11:26:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: non 3 intro Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This is Dodie. I urge you all to check out Laura Moriarty's intro to non 3 (Headache). Laura does an excellent job of talking about that space where pain takes over and language/"selfhood" collapses. Using language to talk about such a thing, is obviously a losing proposition, but in this case I think Laura wins. So often writing about The Body leads into an almost comic abstraction/dis-embodiment. It's satisfying to see someone giving the body its due, respecting rational limits, the grungy nose-pressed-against-the-wallness of it all. Been doing lots of body-centered readings this past year. Recently I've moved from theory-type books to memoirs. Just finished Autobiography of a Face, and while the book falls apart in the second half, the first half, the precision of Grealy's descriptions of chemo-therapy and anaesthesia are stunning. So, good work, Laura! Headache is a perfect antidote to so much, so much. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 22:39:29 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: $ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "I'm willing to make my living as a poet in the society, and it's up to the society whther I'm an outsider or not an outsider, that isn't my concern--I just have my work to do. Now if I can't make it as a poet and I can't live off poetry, that's all right too..." Gary Snyder "That's a more interesting split, talk about language than that between working and licving. .." " First I have to solve my problem. Without in any way causing a strain on my community, without begging or conning anyone in any way..." " I"ve got a job. I'm a poet" Lew Welch "God says we can Louise!" Geroge Herms ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 22:42:56 +0200 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: celebration MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit REMAP reading/celebration for issue #6 -- POLITICS June 28th 2-4 pm in Santa Monica California Noah De Lissovoy Diane Ward Martin Nakell Todd Baron Please rsvp here and I'll tell you where --- No book has caused me to kill anyone and that no book has caused me not to kill I would like to say that each has looked at me (Martin Nakell...The Library of Thomas Rivka) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 12:46:42 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Peter Baker talking about anarchy & poetry says: <> and there's no doubt that Nichol dedicated his life to poetry & to the invention of new forms, but his longtime involvement with Therafields argues that for him poetry & life (& a very political life at that) were inextricable. & profoundly human... ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ walking in dark waking in dark the presence of all the absences we have known. Oceans. so we are distinguished to ourselves don't want that distinction. I am afraid. I said that. I said that for you. Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 11:55:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I fear though that you may not have seen my post > in context of a previous one where someone was taking a stab at "poets who > play the stock market." Oops. Sorry. I admit to a hair-trigger sensitivity to the money-is-bad theory. I don't know exactly why I keep thinking of this, but when I studied at Brooklyn College (yeah, yeah...for an MFA) I visited Allen Ginsberg at his home, and was always curious about his apartment in a crummy eastside neighborhood. Was is a bad apartment because it was in a bad neighborhood? A good apartment 'cause it was big & airy by NYC standards? A good apartment because it was probably rent-controlled &, therefore, cheap? A bad apartment because it was rented cheaply to a man with a professorship and, presumably, a good deal of money, instead of to someone with less money available to them? A bad apartment because he could have had a better, more prestigious one on the upper westside? A good one for the very same reason? Who knows? I'd be lame to judge. He was a great guy & we never saw eye to eye about poetry but he still generously played his Kerouac-reading-poetry tapes for me. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 15:52:36 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: Anarchy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Douglas Barbour wrote: ossible new forms.>> > > and there's no doubt that Nichol dedicated his life to poetry & to the > invention of new forms, but his longtime involvement with Therafields > argues that for him poetry & life (& a very political life at that) were > inextricable. & profoundly human... what or who is Therafields .... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 16:49:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: poetry is a tracheotomy for the soul's breath [sometimes near exhaustion] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >about the whole matter of "poetry vis a vis money," inasmuch as >Spicer's poetry is, arguably, what it is because of his >ultra-principled and conscientious (some would say paranoiac and >self-righteous) opposition to the "market" and "career" aspects of >the literary scene. The book is also very much about the >personal risks involved in such absolute devotion to poetry and to >the idea of a comunitas that would remain "pure." To me it is increasingly unimaginable as to anyone being able to earn a modest, but adequte, livelihood, from any kind of art. Least of all from the writing of poetry. I cannot, in fact, imagine how anyone can do it, even though I know there are some people who actually do so. (However, I have never met any who earn an adequate livelihood solely by such means.) What used to be even more unimaginable to me, was the idea that doing art, and particularly writing poetry, can in fact reduce one's chances of success in other attempts at earning a livelihood. That is, even if all else is essentially equal. There seems to be a built in bias, or prejudice, against the artist, and the poet, in many non artistic, and non literary, situations. What is even more unimaginable than that is that works of art and poetry have had their effectiveness as means of communicative expression reduced severely. It is very difficult to effectively express anything more personal, outside of the constraints of nearly anonymous (at least depersonalized) work of art as product meant for an anonymous mass market. I cannot, for instance, be certain that a poet or artist is permitted, in our post-modern world, any right to express passionate love for some other person, via any artistic medium of expression. I simply do not know that it is possible to use art in that way, though we know that traditionally it has been used that way in many an instance. So there is the push to question 1). art for money, and 2). art for the sake of communicative expression from person to person. What is left when those two "uses" of art are disempowered ? Is art, as such, being redefined, en masse, as products of artists, such that those products cannot and do not have any elements of personal communicative interaction included in their substantive discernable meanings ? Is art to become limited to what can be produced by a production mechanism, and mass marketed to a market of everyperson ? Is that enough to satisfy any artist ? Does it really satisfy the art consumer ? I tend to be somewhat existentialist about the arts, and I am both a visual artist and a poet, but I have no experiential basis for answering those questions in any positive way. Also, though there have been essentially impersonal expressions of appreciation, in consumer to producer terms, there has been no monetary achievement from any kind of effort at artistic production. Of course, artistic expression has fared even worse than production. It seems sometimes a distant dream to _have_ some balance between being able to produce improvements in one's own artistic work, make a steady livelihood at something else that is considered useful enough, and have the joys and contentments of a love life with someone where there is some mutual enjoyment of life and each other. I am not even certain that the struggles to keep one's artist alive, and to be able to better one's own art, are sustainable, in the often unpredictable turbulence of economic systems and their constantly changing demands. As for achieving passionate mutuality, that requires communicative interaction of specific kinds, quite distinct from any mass appeal, artistic criticism, or economic interactions. Standing at one end of the field and looking across its vast expanse, I shudder, and feel exhausted at its "infinite" complexities. Enough complexity that anything personal, sensitive, intimate, and passionate, so easily suffers, more than our art is able to say. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 17:29:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: f.y.i. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" * In March, the Oregon Lottery Commission awarded a $124,000 contract to a company to advise it on how best to restore its gambling games to operating status in case of a catastrophic earthquake or asteroid collision, with a goal of having video poker back up within two hours of a disaster. Several critics suggested there might be more pressing problems after an earthquake, but the Commission pointed out that gambling generates $1 million a day for the state. * In 1993, News of the Weird reported that the Pasadena, Calif., Humane Society had built a $4.3 million dog-and-cat shelter, with towel-lined cages, skylights, an aviary, sculptured shrubbery, "adoption counseling pavilions" for pet-client meetings, and, according to the architect, "a very subdued classical painting scheme" (all this amid criticism that it was better to be a homeless pet in Pasadena than a homeless person.) In March 1998, a similar, $7 million SPCA shelter opened in San Francisco but deflected criticism by almost immediately proposing to allow some sleepovers by homeless people as companions for dogs. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 18:27:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: Cowboys 32 - Mighty Ducks 2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII WARNING-LONG POST-DELETE NOW perhaps Yale University Press should prepare its Younger Poets series for such a catastrophe as the Oregon Lottery Commission. The case of the lottery provides a useful frame for viewing the problem with the contest racket which Katy pointed out in a recent post. They say your chances of winning the lottery are less than being picked as a Yale Younger Poet, but both require that you must pay in order to play. You may have a million in one chance of winning, but that assumes you buy a ticket. If you don't approve of the system, it seems to me that you can REFUSE to buy a ticket as a first step towards dismantling the system. You can buy a ticket and hope to win, knowing that when you win it won't matter whether the system is corrupt. In both circumstances the rewards tend to erase the years of griping and losing. At least one language"" poet was involved in the lottery system, exporting such revenue generating technologies to places like Africa and Oregon. Personally, I wouldn't send my 25 bucks to any organization I didn't believe in & frankly I'm not going to win the Yale Series never mind the Sun & Moon anything, tho I will continue to send them my money and buy their books to show my support for the kinds of literature they produce--never mind the poets whose words are contained within their modest covers. Katy remarks that the 700 poets sending x.dollars to Yale raised about 10,000 for the press. Does that go straight to the trustees, or does Merwin himself have to take the bushel of checks down to the Bank? (many of which I'm sure will bounce, seeing that they are written by Cowboy poets from "upstate" and the rest of the provinces) No, I'm sure there are some grad students whose summer jobs include sorting and sifting through the papers, poems, cover letters etc. Does Merwin read them all? no, I'm sure there is some kind of staff there to help with all this, at least one person. Assuming that there are two people, one who lugs the loot down to the bank, and one to sort and well, you know, decide which poems Merwin will actually see, aside from the ones which are pre-decided winners set up by his cronies at Universities, urban centers, cow-pastures, and the like. That means that the two staffers are splitting about 8,000, or 4 thousand a piece. The other two thousand pays off the university b-crats who let these poets take up University real estate. Assume that this is a summer job, ok, a four month job. That means they are earning about 1,000 a month before taxes. Subtract commuter costs (these grads live in new York, and pay 1,000 a month each to rent), etc. etc. and it becomes hardly worth it for them. But as students of Merwin, they truly belive in this. Charles Bernstein writes somwhere that it costs about 5,000 (I forget the exact number) to produce, distribute, advertise, etc, the average small press book of poetry. I've always found this to be a bit high, but then I've only recently begun fantasizing about producing perfect bound books printed and assembled in Ann Arbor. But ok, we'll take that number. Imagine the trustees at Yale, when they hear about the deep hole of financial losses sustained annually by the Yale Younger Series. Imagine the rhetoric of diversity & democritization used to secure the funds required to produce a first book by a poet who may or may not write another book. In the crony system, such "continuity of literary tradition"(Silliman's phrase from The Political Economy of Poetry) is maintained by the network of mutually supporting poet entrepreneurs Granting institutions generally require that the recipient of the grant demonstrate an effort at collecting revenue, however modest, as a show of good faith. We already know that these books will not sell. Imagine the contest system as a sort of corrupted lottery, with 99.9% of the contests living in a total dream world as to their actual chances, while the .01% crosses their fingers, hoping that their "contacts" will come thru for them. The bouncing ping-pong balls are just an illusion of a democratic process...everybody knows that! But let's go back to Silliman's essay, where he describes what Laura Riding called "the forced professionalization of poetry." The rhetoric that Katy used in her post, referring to the marginalized cowboys whose romantic visions of a poetry divorced from specialized and institutionally legitimized networks (such as MFA programs), this kind of talk just demonstrates how far apart we are in this "community." Wow. How far we have come. Where once we had the "forced professionalization" of the poet at the end of the 60s, with the balooning of the university system, a professionalization that declawed the oppositional poets, neutralizing them for the suburban "accomodationist" poets such as Lowell, tho I've always enjoyed his work. This distinction I'm borrowing from I think Culture and Value by Von Hallberg, tho I dont ahve this book. Though many people have written on this topic. Then there was an opening in an often unaffiliated "underground" of poets--whatever you may say about them--in the 1970s, who developed their own industry of poetry distribution and yayaya. Now it seems that we're going to borrow all those technological advances of formal devices, and lower them into the grave of specialization, professionalism, and finally, ignominy, while adopting the superstructures they sought to undo. And frankly, it was the same superstructures that Creeley and the "New americans" fought against: the academic drivel of the previous bygone era. So...while you may try to setup your gendered cowboy constructs, I will resist you all the way. My reference to the story of Creeley visiting Celia and Louis Zukofsky was told because that story truly makes me happy. It gives me hope. By situating yourself with baby, you take the high ground, to the grubby cowboy poet in need from a little help from friends. I think when he went to visit them he was in fact a parent (i'm not sure, however when that happened). If I had a child--and anyone who knows me knows that I envy all parents and I cry often about the loss I have experiened in my life in this regard--I would certainly take a coat as a gift if I was in need, rather than stubbornly insist on the whole apartment... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 18:45:05 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Money and Poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ted Berrigan said, "Take the money." That was the title of his column in East Village Other -- or was that Ishmael Reed? BobH ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 18:55:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Radio Poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Mouth Almighty Records launches a weekly POETRY RADIO NEWSLETTER on Tuesday. Intended for jocks who prominently program poetry/spoken word, PRN is available for free via fax/email. All radio shows we've found are listed at our website: http://www.mouthalmighty.com/radio.htm. Would appreciate all info regarding po on radio. Yes, there will be NEWS and a CHART for current poems being played. Do you have a TOP 10 Recorded poems? Either singles or albums? Send em in! To: bob@mouthalmighty.com Bob Holman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 19:06:29 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: Cowboys 32 - Mighty Ducks 2 In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 13 Jun 1998 18:27:48 -0400 from The Zapruder family wants $40 mill from the gov't for the original film of the JFK assassination. The 6 oclock news tried to belittle them - "the question is, does history belong to the people, or is it in private hands?" (the gov't is offering $20 mill). A Kennedy desk went at auction for 1.5 mill. Toyota Civics now offer wider space in back and they are for people who have a sense of tradition and opening their own garage doors, they are only $16,000 (cheap, huh?) Who slaughtered JFK? Why are we in Vietnam? We know who killed Caesar, but nobody elected him... Byrd, byrd, byrd's the word... O Texas (- a Minnesotan - not Hubert Humphrey) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 16:34:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: Re: non 3 intro Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Thanks Dodie! Valued praise from such a mistress of physical discursivity as yourself! It's about time I announced the headache non - now that most of the kinks are worked out - It includes Killian, Chadwick, Kelley, Watten, Stroffolino, Hanson, de Lissovoy, Gl=FCck, Schaefer, Cole, Rafcliffe, Gould, Bellamy, Etter, Shurin, Schneider, Herndon, Selby and a not-to-be-missed essay by our own Joe Safdie. More is expected daily - check it out: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/index.html Laura =20 =20 =20 At 11:26 AM 6/13/98 -0700, you wrote: >This is Dodie. I urge you all to check out Laura Moriarty's intro to non 3 >(Headache). Laura does an excellent job of talking about that space where >pain takes over and language/"selfhood" collapses. Using language to talk >about such a thing, is obviously a losing proposition, but in this case I >think Laura wins. So often writing about The Body leads into an almost >comic abstraction/dis-embodiment. It's satisfying to see someone giving >the body its due, respecting rational limits, the grungy >nose-pressed-against-the-wallness of it all. Been doing lots of >body-centered readings this past year. Recently I've moved from >theory-type books to memoirs. Just finished Autobiography of a Face, and >while the book falls apart in the second half, the first half, the >precision of Grealy's descriptions of chemo-therapy and anaesthesia are >stunning. > >So, good work, Laura! Headache is a perfect antidote to so much, so much. > > moriarty@lanminds.com http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 19:28:53 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: Cowboys 32 - Mighty Ducks 2 In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 13 Jun 1998 18:27:48 -0400 from Joel's post - pretty astonishing. Funny though that from Jack Spandrift's ultra-cowboy perspective, Creeley,Bernstein, Silliman, and your heroes merge with the other academic operators... so many axes to grind. Creeley came and read at Brown University, as part of some tour no doubt... distinguished guest, tweed plus eyepatch... must have landed a few thousand through the buddy system there... how do you tell the difference? Standard's take on New Directions (ol boy money all the way) is relevant... Does this have something to do with Bourdieu? Distinguishing presses within a cultural pecking order? Yes, the deconstruction of Yale Younger Adolescents was great - but why is your buddy system any better? Because you're broke? I ask again... where's the poetry? - henry G ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 20:37:10 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: on the New Amer. Poetry BIRD Overhead the internal workings of the sound of your voice, the bright world we waited for in the sense of a lost cause, or a joke and its day after among the gathering crowd. And the constant lessons, running up to the buildings. John's day and your hopes rubbing shoulders, the sheep folding into the hills beyond. How are we to take this? Detectives probe the galleries, the ice-cold promises bending the daylight into shapes, houses, families, dreams, and by April you could laugh when the leaves folded up your hopes, and the important idea was no sense consummated in the old headlands, dogs barking, and babies crying. Somehow in the cold chair light, under a rainy month, sentenced for life, the brown day stops by the bed with a hush, the aftermath, all sold out. - Henry Gould, ca. 1971 published in STONE, Copper Beech Press, 1979 (hopefully the final email egotrip for a few days) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 11:10:53 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Re: Cowboys 32 - Mighty Ducks 2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" - Yale Younger Poets Series - 1,200 manuscripts - W.S. Merwin - Volunteers / students / as readers & screeners - How many of the Mss does Merwin himself read? - What the screeners deem cream from the top? - That's a lottery. Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 18:28:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: money and poetry, poetry and sorrow MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Thought I'd throw this into the mix. Italics _like so_ . . . POETRY AND SORROW IN A “RIGHT-TO-SING” STATE _The enemy will continue to infiltrate Literature._ —Comrade Stavsky (head of the Soviet writers’ union), 1937 The muse strikes back, but doesn’t walk off the job for a cost-of-living increase and insurance. _Empire_’s the thing that totters forward with its mouse ears on, paterfamilias of so many little feet become a constant perfume. And yet: no praise, no blame. The grass is still green to the cheek. And we are heirs to grace which made the tummler stay at his Borscht Belt post and dance. _Alack, alas._ What say you soldiers of the lyre, we wait for some o’clock and then _stop singing?_ Oh I would stop, oh yes and let the feckless meadow fill with xylophones and snow, the striped tail of the muse slap in her burrow. --Rachel Loden from _New American Writing_ 15 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 19:57:41 -0700 Reply-To: mcx@bellatlantic.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael corbin Subject: Re: Cowboys 32 - Mighty Ducks 2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Henry wrote: > > The Zapruder family . . . Someone mentioned _Libra_ and _Underworld_ a while ago. I was thinking about the double-blinded CIA historian (plausible deniability) in the former and the inverted redemption in the latter: The bill-boarded inner-city stigmata. An evolution for Delillo; not an inadequate marker of writerly possiblities. now. not a paranoid style anymore. paranoia is a luxury. pop culture. In the 80s there was a sociological category called 'homeless'. Kinda like the Watten's _Bad History_ introductory refrain of architectural tableau. The 80s. Mitch synder doing hunger-strikes against reagan. nOw, you have various legislations against pan-handling. poetry redistributions of non-anarchic wealth accumulation. the best one i saw was this guy who sat on a bridge with a fishing pole. he had a sign on the hook. something to the affect: BROTHER FROM ANOTHER PLANET CAN YOU SPARE A MOTHERFUCKING THIN DIME (much less a coat). if the cops came he put the pole over like he was fishing. when they left he held it out to all the consequential georgetown-area foot traffic. iN dc it used to be called the peoples park, across from the white house. now its not and you can't sleep there anymore, the park police ride up horses in that joint with spotlights on their heads. don't even try to sleep in those san francisco parks anymore. i sat in the buffalo greyhound station once (otherside of town from the experiments in poetry). buffalo cops know whats up. in that station. they might even be poets.) I'm quite sure that the Younger Poet entry fee goes straight to that other NEW HAVEN. outside the wall. Goes probably for basic health care and dictionaries in the public libraries, or, in a pinch, to a day-care center for wealfare-moms on clintonian welfare reform. that is: a state-form methadone program. but no needle-exchange. no real chance out. Its true Deleuzes 'control' seems an equivalence to Foucault's 'discipline'. But this is somewhat illusory. linda russo is right, I think, the way out is 'through the door'. Not just a derridean paradox of agon. Rather. a deleuzian, anti-dialectical, non-hegelian sentiment. poets like other former revolutionsists manque continue to hope for that teleological OTHER backdoor. Even as modernist earnestness. Or humanist redaction. Like we were living in a shot-gun shack. a front and a back. only. but there are other MINOR literatures, lines of flight, other doors through (does anyone like the new translation of Kafka's _Castle_?) beyond a poetry of symptomology. ok, i've gone on at too much lenght, and I'm broke tonight. But I think I'll have a beer. And spandrift? you wanna come over and make reterritorialized humanist love with me? maybe we can find that poetree you been lookin for. That new film _WILDE_ a cinematic treatment of Ellman's biography of Oscar is a case study in old-money, new aesthetics and being pilloried. And I was just reading William Finnegan's _Cold New World_ and all that obvious declension in Keynesian economic terms since 1973. Its not just the younger poets. its the younger at all. embodied future, etc. at all. mc ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 21:44:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r. drake" Subject: Re: poetry is a tracheotomy for the soul's breath In-Reply-To: <3582E381.6DF5@earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ...like this - everytime i write a poem - i'm afraid - when i'm dead it will sell & some other poet will starve because no one will buy his poems... d.a. levy frm _prose: on poetry in the wholesale education & culture system_ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 21:48:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: Re: Cowboys 32 - Mighty Ducks 2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have found the discussion of poetry and money painful. There have been attitudes, of course, about MFA programs and about academics and about the honor of not making money, etc. But what is the issue? Joel Kuszai (who has been consistently acute in his posts) was right to mention Laura Riding's denunciation of the professionalization of poetry. The book to which he refers, _Contemporaries and Snobs_ is the only useful discussion on the development of the "profession" of poetry that I know. I thought I had a xerox of it somewhere in my files, I wanted to just quote some passages, but I can't seem to locate it now. (Though I did find a xerox of _Anarchism Is Not Enough_, another great, forgotten Riding book that bears on a current discussion.) At any rate, what Riding refers to has nothing directly to do with money, she is concerned with the creation of professional standards for poetry--the _precondition_ that made it possible to tenure poets in the university, to give prizes, fellowships, subsidized publication (of course, the commercial presses used to subsidize poetry; now only a diminishing few university presses do), etc. It was in fact part of the professionalization of the humanities and arts in general, as a way to protect a certain high-sense of human possibilities from the mass media. That is, the "culture" became something one learned in school, rather than something one absorbed with mother's milk as Dante said. I learned "culture" in high school from Rose Roebaum, who told me "a poem is a beautiful thought or a beautiful scene expressed in beautiful words," and then from the state university where I was taught my culture was Wyatt and Surrey and Donne and Bach. I am happy to know about that great stuff, but in fact, it was not true: my culture was Little Richard, Jackie Gleason, Elvis, Otis Redding, and by a certain stretch, Miles Davis. After WW II, a group of poets managed to create a kind of anti-profession, out of Black Mountain, the San Francisco Renaissance, and so forth, but it turned out that the 60s university could absorb it to: Olson, Creeley, Dorn, and many others ending up teaching, but only because the university--at least in the humanities and arts-- failed to maintain its professional standards and never created new ones that could accommodate these poets (or Duchamp or Cage or Smithson). The professionalism of culture was an aberration that lasted 60 or so years, an attempt of the traditional high-culture to maintain itself against the impossible odds of Radio and TV. (Of course, now, with Cultural Studies, even that culture is being professionalized, which must mean that it too is already dead. It will be a while before we see what is replacing it, though it may be an anarchist (i.e. an-archai, without origin or first principle) fragmentation. Not mass culture, but culture without generalization. Anarchism may still not be enough. At any rate, I am glad I do not have to try to establish a life in these treacherous waters, and I sympathize with the problem of those of you who do. There is a web site that might be of interest to any of you who are trying to find a way in and around universities: Palinurus: The Academy and the Corporation -- Teaching the Humanities in a Restructured World (http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/liu/palinurus/index2.html). Although it is just getting started, Alan Liu has put a great deal there to think about. Don ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 21:02:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: Magazines that pay In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Katy / clarification well taken. in my case, at least, i found that writing from leisure (afforded any way at all) produces writing for leisure. which is fine. i certainly go in for an entertaining poem or two in my "free" time. but, i feel very strongly that the discourse which literature ought to entertain is one which is ecumenical, as far as the distribution of leisure, power, legitimacy. therefore, figuring out how to accrue "extra" time for writing ought to be balanced by an extra effort elsewhere. the academy seems like a very high-priced way to do this. i'm not fantasizing my way out of my own situation via radical (Marxist, etc.) theory theoretical stances; i'm attempting to connect literature to my situation, which has never required a prize or a glossy, perfectbound format to engage those with the similar desire (obligation? [or sense thereof]) of listening to whomever is useful at the time / Patrick F. Durgin | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA On Fri, 12 Jun 1998, k. lederer wrote: > I just wanted to clarify something.... > > I think that teaching is a terrific thing to do.... teachers are terrific.... > > And I don't think that it necessarily sullies a writer's work if he or she > teaches (either politically or aesthetically).... > > I just wish that people were thinking a little harder about what's > happening vis-a-vis the plethora of first-book prizes... (the fact that > younger poets are paying out the ears so that the occassional big press > will publish a first book)... and about the debts that are being accrued > by younger writers who, perhaps, can't figure out any other way to find a > writing community or the time to write... > > Best, > Katy > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 23:37:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: 19 minutes til the digest crew MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII this is my last message for a while. I promise. I can feel the yakyak of emotional puke catching up to me and it is time to turn off this channel for a while. I'll be available (on and off) backchannel if anyone wants to talk. In the meantime, Henry asked about poetry. Here is another excerpt of my ongoing rewrite of the wizard of oz. I hope evenually to make it back "home" and be done with the discursive utopias that this space promises but does not deliver. When it is done, I hope to read it in public, as it is very important to me. This is in progress, so keep that in mind. One final quote from my boyhood hero, Robert Creeley "If it isn't fun don't do it / you'll have enough to do that isn't. // And if you can't keep it, who needs it anyway." well, that's a paraphrase anyhow... Have Fun! Introduction In what follows joy is retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out. This song aspires to be a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment of childish hearts takes precedence over all other human creations. Comprised of disagreeable incidents, education includes morality & therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder-tales, and with an instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal, gladly dispenses with all that may be classed as "historical," where the authors give a fearsome moral to each tale. Canto 10 Into the Forest / Bower Blisse "Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable" A woman opened it just far enough to look out and see the visitors waiting the door was a lovely emerald-green color and the people wore peaked hats like those in movies but he refused to see us and we had to return to our site along the forest's edge where the poppies grew After a few hours the road began to get rough the walking was a great deal of hard work for the Lion was heavy and slow In an hour or so the light faded the crows had gone I thought this over suddenly we came upon a broad river flowing swiftly in the afternoon sometimes people came to the doors looked rushed forward the Lion crossed over the tree said the Tinman sadly I wish I had a heart to beat Those creatures frightened me so badly that my heart clicked and stopped its impervious author look how gray everything was there! how the cyclone the people had never seen a dog before they had suffered many discouragements but before them an ordinary girl who had come by the chance of a cyclone uncomfortable feeling to know one is a fool said the Tin Woodman my brain is a dish of scrambled eggs a plate of nice white bread as long as I know myself to be a coward I shall be unhappy the Emerald City is the other end of the road in a squeaky little voice: crying rusts my jaws so that I cannot speak She offered other flowers I will give you some supper a place to sleep it will take you many days The country here is rich Aren't they beautiful? the girl she breathed in climbed on the Lion's back holding tightly to his mane a better man than some of them he feared a spark might burn him up beautiful green fields before them the raft was nearly done that isn't the way we Lions do things you wear silver shoes and have killed the Wicked Witch tree trunk mice spoke up to the door and knocked met over the road of yellow It was almost dark and they all sang sweetly I am not afraid so long as I have my oil-can I do not want people to call me a fool and if my head stays it takes time to make a raft even when one is industrious We cannot fly that is certain caught the dog and held him tight Toto! said the girl anxiously What will protect him? the flowers were too strong for me How did you get me out? comrades what shall we do now? If I only had a heart I should love them but it requires brains to figure it out I should never have said this road goes in, it must come out if we cannot jump over it we must stop where we are No but you tried to she retorted You are nothing but a No for this pole is stuck up my back If you will please indeed I don't know anything You see I am stuffed Oh yes said the girl where you found me give me a heart or send me back to Kansas or stick a pin in me it doesn't matter for I can't feel it ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 00:30:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Chris [Steve] Piuma" Subject: Re: poetry is a tracheotomy for the soul's breath Comments: cc: kuszai@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" J. Kuszai showed great grace and sensitivity to write on 98.06.13: > Why would I want to let Norton, or whomever, pulp my book > because of unfortunate tax laws which make it cheaper to destroy the > extant copies of a book, rendering it outofprint, rather than keep it > around another year? I've heard about this before, and I'm curious: is it cheaper (tax laws taken into consideration) to destroy the books or to give them away? And why? -- Chris [Steve] Piuma, etc. Nothing is at: http://www.brainlink.com/~cafard flim: http://www.brainlink.com/~cafard/flim/index.html from the current issue: ...(your idea of a real magazine: tips on sex, hair, and career)... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Jun 1998 20:37:22 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Wuz Pound's Kung mediated by the Physiocrats? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "The Physiocratic school, following Aristotelian and Confucian philosophy, argued for the preeminence of the natural order, whose rules provided for the continuity of human sciences. Quesnay endeavored to apply the mores of China to the grave problems confronting France, and to craft general principles of government. His model was one of enlightened despotism, under which the "positive" laws, i.e. statutes, would be drafted especially to give effect to the sublime set of principles that constituted the natural laws. It is appropriate to note at this juncture that the Physiocratic distinctions between positive and natural laws are prototypical of the contemporary concerns with identifying Biospheric thresholds of viability--thresholds within which the economic process may locate itself."---from Man and the Biosphere: Toward a Coevolutionary Political Economy by Kenneth M. Stokes --- "Kung said: are classic of heaven, They bind thru the earth and flow With recurrence, action, humanitas, equity ne ultra crepidam, for greater exactness The Tenth is PEN YEH "a developed skill from persistence" Thus Mang Tzu (Crysippus, Simbabwe: "the un-good merely dissolve") se non fosse cive "a share, not a fixed charge" don't pester scholars, nor lose life for bad temper. Heaven, man, earth, our law as written not outside their natural colour,...."---from Canto 99 by E.P.---cp ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 00:43:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: Re: Money in Poetry, Poetry in Money Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" if I recall, Tony Towle (?) put out a marvelous little document in the late 70's that tabulated what he SPENT on poetry vs what he earned. he calculated drinks at bar readings, entrance fees at the poetry project, cost of postage to mail submissions, typewriter ribbons (rememeber them?) & paper itself. He then totaled what he got from the occassional paying mag, fees for giving readings and other writing related gigs --well, as you guesed, he ended up in the debit column. i may be insane, but have always liked poetry's realative non-commodification. Hell, even Grand Poobahs like Pinsky and Levine make far less than a law firm partner in New York. There are also levels of participation suited to one's life situation. Most of my companeros in jersey read at local venues, publsih in local magazines and don't get knocked up in the head when Charles Wright wins a Pulitzer. poemspennyeach joel lewis ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 01:37:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "A. Nikuko Sondheim" Subject: what despair tastes like and poets and money and teaching stuff MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - what despair sounds like i can't sleep any more at all, not with melatonin not without. i hate here where i am. i can't get work, everything in my life is in shambles. i think a lot about death, it seems i should make a story out of this where Nikuko says "hi death," and death answers something clever back and you can't tell who is really speaking and i'd sign the post alan - whomever or better in light of my life, alan - whatever, because it's more like a thing this thing is thinking of or thinks it's thinking of. because i can't persist under all this stress just like this laptop's running on battery power because the storms are coming again and there's electric energy running wild through the wires and i need to save these machines for inheritance. so they will keep working when i can't. so they will be carrying the viruses of languages i write because everything i write is in another language, this is in another language that Nikuko calls "last language." now this is the point where i run out of steam, where the writing begins to collapse because i can't be clever any longer. i look in this room and i say, i say, i don't belong here. and i look at my face on my body and i say, this doesn't belong there, doesn't belong there. and i wait for the perfect phonecall returning the debris of a perfect job in new york while i make a nuisance of myself desperately following up on an identity that has slid past the imaginary into the coffee-grounds of the real, as if ha ha ha, some sort of joke might have passed by the cen- sors at that point. now yelling in the street as i prepare to wait for the dawn senselessly another seven hours away. there will be more yelling, more storms. there will be faces falling from faces. there will be entertainments, yes there will, there will be enter- tainments. __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 01:12:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: the economics of tambourine lives In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980612171750.007d4b10@theriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >While growing up in America (mostly in Oklahoma) I certainly never >encountered the possibility that one might actually be a poet. I would >think that if one grew up with a strong sense that it was an option in >American society, that would be quite unusual. I think in my family the >options were more like: teacher, soldier, businessman, laborer, clerical >worker, administrator, and perhaps a few others, possibly even writer, but >definitely not poet. On the other hand, Charles, I remember that when I was growing up in a dicky little orchard town I bought a kind of mass market paperback from the pool hall, kinda book that was available then, anthologies of recent US poetry, and that joined with other less choate things to persuading me that there was such a thing as mortal poets. These were usually the kind of poets one didnt want to be or read, but at age 16 one didnt know that yet. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 01:12:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: money & poetry In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I think Bowering is sincere when he says he'd sooner write poetry than get >money, because decades ago I offered him a stipend to stop writing, and he >kept the first instalment & went on writing anyway. Yeah, but Bromide is not telling the whole story. I gave that $12 to an unwed mother to buy macaroni and a little book by Philip Levine. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 02:06:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kathy Lou Schultz Subject: Thoughts on Money and Poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 1. The social conditions of poetry. S. Schaefer and P. Durgin are correct here in discerning this as the salient point. Cheers to Schaefer for pointing out the conditions of class privilege that allow for the production of many poetry books: leisure, that is freedom from paid work equaling time and space in which to write, on the part of some writers; and wealth to access the means of production on the part of many editors/publishers. There is no reason to judge wealth as "evil," or poverty as "virtuous." If a writer is not afforded the material conditions in which to write, there will be no need to judge their work against those of leisure, because there won't be any. There is no virute in being poor. Class oppression is suffering. For those of us from poor or working class backgrounds, or who currently struggle economically, just carving out the time in which to write at all is a damn miracle. 2. There is no "clean" part of capitalism. Whether you work in a union job pulling lines on a tugboat guiding oil-carrying ships into the SF Bay, or sit in a tenure-track job professing poetry all day, or trade stocks for a living, it's all the same system, and none of us are cleaner than the rest. In other words, I don't care what stocks you buy or don't buy, it's all the same fucking thing. Though, of course, the ruling class has much to answer for. And why is that whenever someone has the guts to point out the very real class differences that exist within the poetry community, someone has to come along and say, "Oh, no, money is GOOD. I'm not bad because I have money." As if that were the point! There are very real class differences here folks; get used to it. Class differences which translate into daily experiences central to one's life in the world, one's life as a poet. Thanks to all for the many good posts on this topic. Best, Kathy Lou Schultz ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 09:20:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Pound Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >what or who is Therafields .... Therafields was a therapy centre in Toronto. bp was a lay analyst for Therafields. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 09:16:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: $ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks to Henry (and to Rachel!) for injecting a little circumspection into this $ morass. While we're on the subject, does anyone have a copy of an Amis piece out of that running-dog rag The New Yorker a couple years back in which the fictional lives of a poet and a screenwriter were flipped, the poet on the coast doing a million-dollar rewrite and the broke screenwriter trying to schmooze & booze a sadsack editor of a tiny journal into publishing his latest? Top cent paid. Susan Wheeler susan.wheeler@nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 09:33:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Pound Subject: Re: Cowboys 32 - Mighty Ducks 2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i thought Merwin was trying to pull an Auden by not selecting a winner for the Yale thing and was wondering if the press still screens the manuscripts, as they did then, because what happened was Auden didn't get excited about any that they had filtered to him so he asked for some more and he got O'Hara and Ashbery. How could Merwin declare a no winner if he hadn't read all the manuscripts? > - Yale Younger Poets Series > - 1,200 manuscripts > - W.S. Merwin > - Volunteers / students / as readers & screeners > > - How many of the Mss does Merwin himself read? > - What the screeners deem cream from the top? > > - That's a lottery. > > >Anthony > > >...................................................... >Anthony Lawrence >PO Box 75 >Sandy Bay >Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 08:39:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: the economics of tambourine lives In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" when i was growing up the career options were from home: academic academic academic from school: nurse, elementary school teacher from popular culture: outlaw i guess i picked up a little of each the poet is entwined with the latter but nobody it's true said poet but they all gave me poetry to read or hear ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 08:51:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: Poultry & $$ (Don't count your chickens...) Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Listarians, Poetry's relationship to money is so nebulous and money's relationship to everything else in our lives is so often so charged with endless manner of social/family/self-imposed pressures that a discussion of this sort seems infinitely difficult to embark upon. I've been generally amazed at how much wisdom (thank you joel kuszai, thank you karen kelly) I've seen on this list in the past couple of days. I have only a couple of thoughts that I want to add. First is that the product, to speak in strictly mercantile terms, of the poet is not the poem. The money in poetry -- readings, grants, teaching jobs -- is all so ancillary to any given poem that the connection makes no real sense. There is a wonderful comment somewhere in Whalen's On Bear's Head (one of the great hard-to-find books) to the effect of "at 50 cents a line in Poetry (Chicago), this poem is now worth ..." (I forget the amount). Instead, the product for a poet is the life's work, around which individual poems and books are really features. Just as an academic's product is generally going to be his or her c.v., it's the bibliography or (more accurately) everything they have done in and around the poetry scene "as poets" but also as reading curators, editors, publishers, critics, goads, etc. The value that Kevin & Dodie bring to SF, or the Tyshes to Detroit, or Charles Alexander to Tucson or Rae Armantrout to San Diego or Rod Smith to DC or Gil Ott to Philadelphia or or or (the list quickly becomes rather infinitely expanding) cannot be gauged by how much Dodie makes from her book (even when a movie gets made and we see Mira Sorvino as Mina), and, hey, it's a novel, not a poem so how does that get calculated in? (Actually, the category of "poets novels" from Melville through Kerouac through Acker to Bellamy & Killian is a whole other thread worth thinking about.) We hope that these people will, over time, be rewarded for everything they do, although the politics of the literary scene absolutely do not guarantee it. Second is that there are lots of reasons to go to school and incur the debt that comes with it. It's a shame and foolish, though, if the idea of a "job" or "money" is a consideration when the degree is an MFA in poetry. If all the tenured poetry professors dropped dead today... (a) there would not be enough spots open for all of the recent MFA grads, AND (b) most of the newly vacated spots would not get filled anyway The more dangerous problem that comes with an MFA, I think, (and this goes also for the PhD in Poetics, I might note) is that the person with same is easily seduced into the adjunct/migrant labor market on a "temporary" basis only to wake up 20 years later with no money, no pension, no health care and far fewer marketable skills than they would have had if they'd worked at Borders instead. And that is criminal. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 10:30:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: The profession of poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I found my copy of Riding's Contemporaries and Snobs. Here is part of the passage I wanted to read into the record: "There is a sense of life so real that it becomes the sense of something more real than life. Spatial and temporal sequences can only partially express it…. It is the meaning at work in what has no meaning; it is, at its clearest, poetry. Unfortunately this sense, which can in its origin be only a personal one, is easily professionalized. From observations of it in written works, rules are made for it, intentions ascribed to it. There results what has come to be called criticism. Criticism in turn uses this sense against itself. It dissociates it from its creative origin. In the end the ‘literary' sense comes to be the authority-to-write which the poet is supposed to receive, though criticism, from the age that he lives in. It is not even in each age a new literary sense, but merely a tradition revised and brought up to date. More and more the poet has been made to conform to literature instead of literature to the poet…" As she notes, the move to professionalize literature began in the sixteenth century, but, she is writing in direct response to the establishment of the professional code by her contemporaries, most notably, of course, Eliot and the institutions, academic and otherwise, that grew up around him: Riding continues: "The universe still had a myth requiring the ritualistic services of poetry. The new myth was that there was no myth. Delighted with this discovery, criticism rushed to the rescue of the unnumbered poets who, being individual and not, like criticism, a public institution, had perhaps not noticed that anything was happening at all but continued to wirte as they had always written, for reasons that they left others to discover. For people never live in contemporary history: they live either in the past or completely outside the time-sense. So the course of criticism… was to announce, first, that historical conditions had put an end to poetry, removing all hope in order to bring home to poets the proper time-sense, then to follow this melancholy report with the cheerful amendment that, after all, all hope not gone, since, if poetry had one subject of which poetry could not be deprived, namely that poetry had not come to an end. Here was an ingenious method for indefinitely postponing the end of poetry; and, after the general applause which followed this remarkable solution, many volunteers stepped forward and declared feeling that the time-sense had been brought home to them and that, now that it had been made clear to them that poetry was at an end, they felt sure that they could write better poetry than ever. Never indeed, they said, had such an urgent reason for writing poetry been presented to poets. Under the spell of this enthusiasm a tremendous revival of poetry took place; and not only was better poetry, but more poetry than ever written. Since poetry was to write about nothing, it could write about everything form the standpoint of nothing; it could still have its epics with the burden of having to have convictions about it." "Meaning at work in what has no meaning" cannot become the basis for a profession, cannot be institutionalized. It would be like a carpenter claiming to make houses that have no house. db ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 10:00:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: Cowboys 32 - Mighty Ducks 2 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII As far as I know there were seven screeners.... Merwin received ten manuscripts from which to choose. Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 10:47:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher Subject: poetry, $$$, gossip... In-Reply-To: <199861493545119169@ix.netcom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" been wanting to impart a few twists & turns on the poetry-money couple for a few days now, and am reading don's and ron's and karen's and joel's and henry's and standard's and rachel's and kathy's and katy's and anthony's and karen's and erik's and jacques' and charles' and linda's and bob's and well i-don't-know-whose posts with great interest and, even, appreciation for the depth of emotions and convictions expressed... first, i want to try to distinguish between the 'is' and the 'ought to be' here, just for a moment... "the relationship between poetry and money is such & such" [whatever you think] does not necessarily mean it *ought to be that way*... and some folks actively work to correct the "crime" (as ron puts it---in whatever form this crime manifests itself)... as some would have it, as i read them, there is nothing to be done about poetry and $$$ b/c it's well and good that the two are kept apart... for me, they've never been apart, exactly, which isn't to say that there is a causal/reciprocal relationship between each word i write and each dollar i net... but simply to observe that money problems (real problems, some forced upon me and some a function of choices i've made) have been a regular, daily, conscious part of my life for three decades now, and it's hard to discern where my work entire departs from kathy's class issues (i'm using "class" here as a shorthand for struggling to make ends meet)... but of course it's so very complicated, and here i'll speak as one of them english profs about this, and risk a very personal observation or two---so please bear with me, esp. those of you who tire of whining academics (hell, *i* tire of whining academics, i tire of myself)... i was going to respond to this as a former corporate type, in fact---the feelings i experienced when i had a steady income that was also a living wage (the two are not coterminus), and aspired to be a poet/artist... but it's don byrd's posts on the professionalization of poetry etc. that inspires me to respond initially as an academic... recently (as most of you know by now) i was denied tenure at illinois institute of technology, where i work (i.e., as a worker)... as is my right, i requested clarification and appealed, and in the course of denying my appeal iit's president enumerated a few of the reasons why i would not be tenured at iit... now: you all know, i'm sure, that bureaucratic texts, though generally written at the sixth grade level, require advanced reading skills in order to be interpreted correctly (yes, there is a correct interpretation)... and you all know, too, that it's impossible for me to expose the entire, six-year long network of relationships and events that led to my denial (some of which would no doubt lead you to conclude that i had a hand in my own denial, and must therefore accept a certain responsibility for outright mistakes i've made)... in any case, two things become evident in reading over the president's response: (1) that there is "little doubt about the quality of [my] scholarship and teaching" (indeed, i was the most highly recommended of all six candidates for tenure in the past year---recommended, that is, by all faculty committees); and (2) there were yet "concerns ... about the degree to which [my] contributions are aligned with the new vision of iit"... please read this latter as ominously, and literally, as you can... as i've indicated before in these spaces, iit's vision is distinctively and increasingly corporate---and clearly, though i was not hired to teach poetry but to teach technical writing, there is something about me that is perceived, rightly i think (and hope), as contra this corporate tendency... i was not surprised by the decision to deny me (and my colleague) tenure----it's fair to say that i was the only faculty member not surprised (well, there was *one* other who knew it was gonna happen)... but just b/c i saw it coming does not mean that it was deserved, anymore than it means that i alone undid myself... fact is, imnsho, i deserved tenure (if deservin's got anything to do with it), and that, in any case, this lack of justice, if you will, at iit (and elsewhere) is something to be resisted... part of the reason i say this is b/c profs need academic freedom---but i'll say no more about this here... ok, so the professionalization to which don refers is, in my case anyway, not exactly about professionalizing poetry per se... though it might be argued that this is taking place in some sense---from where i sit, this is a relatively small if significant aspect of a larger reality... it would perhaps be more accurate to say that professionalization is about turning the world into a professional place, a place in which poetry is ok as long as said poet doesn't ruffle any feathers... and here again, it's not my poetry gives offense, folks, it's not even the anti-institutional prose that i often write... in fact i doubt that my president or his crony, the v-p, have read a word of my poetry, or my prose (that "one other" colleague to whom i refer above surely has not)... but these administrators have it on good authority that i'm not a team player... and this perception of me is largely accurate, if i do say so, in part b/c i have a habit of not sleeping with the enemy, and of telling the enemy that i'd rather not sleep with her/him (please not to attribute any self-aggrandizing gesture to me here---i do my share of asskissing---as everyone must, i suppose... i'm simply indicating that i draw a line---as everyone must, i suppose... obviously i believe that there are, finally, enemies)... it should likewise be clear that the professionalization to which don refers is hardly restricted to academe... i experienced an almost identical reaction to my own mouthy presence back in 1984, when i was working as a senior project engineer for bristol- myers co... that's another story, but one that parallels closely my current life-narrative... same shit, different day, different place... of course i've had numerous occasions in my life to ponder whether i'm simply a malcontent... but this inkling of self-doubt (if that's what it is) is quickly allayed when i consider the obvious ploys and hair-brained "educational" or "industrial" plots in which i've been embroiled, all presumably to better produce or produce a better "product" (whether student-widget or just plain widget)... money and poetry?... in many ways my life-choices (i hate that word "career" too, judy!) have amounted to money *or* poetry (via teaching---i think of myself as a writer first, though i maintain that i'm paid as a teacher-bureaucrat first)... still, this latter is a crude and i think ultimately reductive opposition, b/c poetry is part of what i do as a writer (not as, btw, "the writer"), part of what i do as a teacher and scholar (i am not a scholar, really), part of what i do as a worker, part of what i do as an earthling... poetry is nice in part b/c it *does* "free me up," relatively speaking, from the forces of commodification under which most novelists (e.g.) work and suffer (this is not to suggest that poetry operates in the absence of institutional gradients---they're there, no matter how transcendental or mythic the reading/writing occasion of the poem, which i've little doubt can be transcendent and mythic)... but there's no way, no way i can imagine myself a writer w/o thinking continually and even apprehensively about how to earn a living... "in the midst of" what, exactly, is part of what i think about---and how to alter not simply myself (in my more adaptive moments), but that little part of the "what" with which i am alternately, i suppose, in or out of "alignment"... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 13:09:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Poultry & $$ [Monetary Examination] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Listarians,Poetry's relationship to money is so nebulous and money's >relationship to everything else in our lives is so often so charged with >endless manner of pressures... Some supposed "facts" about money.........MONETARY EXAMINATION Part A. (true or false portion) Please circle the correct answer in the left hand column. Circle T if the statement is true, or circle F if the statement is false. You have five minutes to complete this portion of the examination. Failure to achieve at least 80% will result in your being placed in an insane asylum. You may begin now. T F 1). Money always comes hard. When you need it most it comes hardest. T F 2). Money is what others do not want you to have any of. T F 3). Money is always what you are after even when you are not after money. T F 4). Money is determined by your social contacts. T F 5). Money determines all your social contacts. T F 6). Money is what most others are after even when they say they are not. T F 7). Money is the ultimate measure of your value to others. T F 8). Money has no value. T F 9). Money never comes from what oneself enjoys doing. T F 10). Money is never spent wisely enough, no matter how it was spent. T F 11). Money must be saved for the proverbial "rainy day". T F 12). Money must be spent in the same ways others spend it. T F 13). Money cannot buy any success. T F 14). Money lacking, there is no possibility of any success. T F 15). Money is said to be all that you really need. T F 16). Money is what you must never let go of, contrasted to anything else. T F 17). Money is always a gift from God, a talent or spiritual gift. T F 18). Money lacking, there is no talent. T F 19). Money is the devil. T F 20). Money, even your own, is never to be trusted. T F 21). Money is always in scarcest supply and highest demand. T F 22). Money always makes one more indebted to where money comes from. T F 23). Money only pays the vigorish. T F 24). Money is one's "life blood". Without money one is "dead". T F 25). Money will not be attainable if one says anything nasty about it. T F 26). Money is essential for getting answers or information. T F 27). Money speaks louder than words. T F 28). Money is all that will ever "save" you. T F 29). Money cannot buy happiness. T F 30). Money can only be made by those who have money. T F 31). Money is the most important thing you own. T F 32). Money is what you must love most of all, or no one will love you. T F 33). Money buys your way in to anything, if you have enough of it. T F 34). Money is your best friend. T F 35). Money buys sex and luxury automobiles. T F 36). Money is your enemy. T F 37). Money cannot be borrowed unless you have enough money already. T F 38). Money cannot buy your way in to anything. T F 39). Money is the source of almost all conflicts. T F 40). Money only comes to those who spend it the way they are supposed to. T F 41). Money buys peace. There is no peace without money. T F 42). Money is a privilege, not a right. T F 43). Money assures interest. T F 44). Money brings respectability. T F 45). Money lacking, means no one will be interested. T F 46). Money always exacts the highest price. T F 47). Money never really belongs to yourself. T F 48). Money is the only indication of your talent. T F 49). Money cannot buy friendship or love. T F 50). Money gone, one finds there are no friends and there is no love. ------------------------------- Part B. This part is to be answered in essay form. You have 15 minutes to complete this portion of the examination. You must obtain a passing grade on part B in order to pass this examination. In 250 words or less, describe fully what is meant by the commonly used phrase "money talks". Be specific in your examples. Marks will be deducted for unsubstantiated paranoid statements. Use a separate page for your answer. You may begin now. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Part C. This is a bonus question. It is worth two points. Briefly describe the meaning of the pyramid icon that appears on the left rear portion of the American dollar bill. ----------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 13:15:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: poetry/money/careers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Yes, Boering, but she was only unwed because you refused to wed her. Seriously, folks, my twobitsworth re poetry/money/career, while merely anecdotal, & personal at that, might help out someone . . . When time came for grad school, I told my mentor, the Great Canadian Author Earle Birney, that I was thinking of taking a master's in creative writing. He reasoned me out of it, thus : "There are more jobs for PhDs in English than for MAs in c.w. You will continue to write poetry in any case. Do what I did, get a PhD, get hired, then get them--on the strength of your publishing--to give you a c.w. course or two." It should be said, there were far fewer schools offering grad degrees in c.w. in the early 60s. But even today, this makes for sound advice. Boering is correct to warn against the adjunct colon-izing that besets c.w. teachers even more than PhDs in English. In the event, I was hired in my one and only (lifetime) tenured job on the "ABD" status of my doctoral studies (which stayed that way), & my books of poetry. By a twist of fate Earle couldnt have foreseen,during the early 70s, when poetry was still so weirdly popular, 3 of the 4 course I taught each semester, were poetry writing classes. Fortunately, this interest waned later on, and I was freed up to teach contemporary anglophone poetries--which courses were much like the c.w. classs had been, but w/o student-indited poems to discuss.(From the potentially negative readings of this paragraph I exempt all my ex-students on this List). But it was the straight doctorate that got my foot in the door. For what that was worth : a pension and a health plan. As a p.s. of sorts : The Cal State Univ system operates on the Peter Principle : if "they" can teach efficiently at 3 courses/semester, let's give em 4. So try to get hired elsewhere than in the CSUS. David ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 15:18:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: travelling In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A work gig brings me to NoCal (near Concord) late June through mid-July. Any readings going on? Also, anything in San Diego June 24-28? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:04:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dan or Orion Raphael Dlugonski Subject: Poetry for money; money for what In-Reply-To: <199806140406.VAA04443@mail3.aracnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Questions about poetry's connection with society, its utility, its connections with elates or oppressors. if poetry is important why doesn't it pay better? as if pay was the important value. it's the dominant one, and i feel that domination is a serious threat to society and the planet in general. poetry is an art whose medium is language. tons of discussion on the place of art in a society, pluses and minuses, from brain-washing to epiphanies. still i believe that language is a deep intelligence, can tap parts of brain not usually used, can influence people to take a broader (in measures like historical, systemic, global) perspective, to be more open to the other (than technical and capitalistic) dimensions of evolution humans are capable of. i feel the best thing i can do with my life is tap into language the way i do in what comes out as poems. i cant support myself on that, and feel sad and ripped off that way, but that how things are. some "poets" do support themselves on their "art," though primarily as teachers. but they are not a standard i judge myself against. having language as a medium makes poetry the most populist art, the art with the most unskilled practitioners (though language as a positive energy is beneficial to all who deal with it openly,) and is the least likely to recognized as a high art in these times when value is dependent on either mass investment (spectacles) or one-of-a-kind collectability. Perhaps in a world with much more eaully7 distributed capital poetry could come closer to subsistence value. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:09:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: poetry is a tracheotomy for the soul's breath Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I've heard about this before, and I'm curious: is it cheaper (tax laws >taken into consideration) to destroy the books or to give them away? And >why? Some poets are forced into publishing a book simply because they never have any chance to read their work if they do not have a published book. If the book cannot sell, lacking a distributor and any promotion by those who know how and have the means to that (because they are distributing and promoting many authors and many books, as well as having connections), then the book itself is "promotional literature". After all, it is not publishable for profit. It is only the promo for the chances at doing readings. Not that the publication of a book gaurantees worthwhile readings, but it inevitably gets the author many more readings than would otherwise be possible. Not necessarily to the right audiences, or to anyone who has the connections and pull to make the author more successful, but nevertheless, some audiences rather than only the four walls and one's own voice talking to those walls...... M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:24:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dan or Orion Raphael Dlugonski Subject: money for poetry, & a poem that was paid for In-Reply-To: <199806140406.VAA04443@mail3.aracnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable i've much enjoyed this stream of discussion (so much so that this usual lurker is responding twice), since its a long-standing issue in my life, when i need to remind myself that theres value in this poetic path despite all evidences (monetary, pnaitonal publication, et al) to the contrary. (i have mfa and ma, butve never had a teching job, and support myself working fulltime for Oregon DMV). this poem was written (tho i have much trouble writing intentionally or on a given subject) as part of a collaboration between visual artists and poets. i'm working with the (fantastic) painter rick austin. the works will be the july exhibit at quartersaw gallery here in portland (OR). PLASTICIDE PLASTIQUE what my sweat wants to take out of me, steal from me, what the plastic hears me generate and retain, coccooning in saran wrap,=20 face dipped in the viscous aroma of latex with thousands of holes=20 large enough for light but too small for air sealed by the vapor trying to off-gas catalytic misfits, as the substance streamlines itself in open air=20 to get from here with just a handful: two hands changing with the need=20 seeds arise, cascade like a sub-miniaturized crowd sneezed across a stadium made into a lake if the bottles are melted by a sun so thirsty focussed on this lemonade stands franchised nostalgia unlicensed outlaw not knowing where the pitcher came from, which way the molecules wont break, like tearing a newspaper; like giving a mop a permanent wave we get off the mark, confusing yeast with sugar, thinking resin grows on trees we resinate we're stretched out & spastic confused by biting down w/ teeth beyond warranty permeable as a radio still singing from the bottom of=20 the 3 story tub w/ windows outlets can-sized air locks- the pressure of such a stack the isolated din of concentric salt caves=20 where whats incapable of dissolving holds something irrepressibly contained & consistent through a cycle of accelerated transitions=20 as if genesis was a formula replacing everything natural like god did dethroning nitrogen to install silicon inhaling the sky w/ one lung smaller than a 9-cent stamp gets across the country in a single thread-- like dental floss containing symphonies=20 opening every door that can hear my baritone pitched suspiciously sweet & cloudy, attacking the nostrils are the air vents to the soul sealed in an egg made from a single square of self-engulfing future-stuff=D3 holographic silly-putty surrounding your skins w/ a virtual now only the air can trigger, investing carbon dioxide: so todays sweat can be tomorrows amber pendant=20 with thousands of eggs inside i can see different images thruthis excellent protection here in the solid weightless rain=20 my body a wedge, my feet a scalpload of sticky noodle tendrils as what would bridge what soil amalgamates- worm wires connect air to fire dust motes suspended like asteroids as flowers go nova, as trees sparkling galaxies each star a factory each planet a refuse heap the midden stash we try to smoke decipher decant echo or bend to our needs the need to contain the need to stop from flowing=09 to balance what nothing can stop reversing to nothing since you cant multiply with it, since dividing by zero can get you everything: =09 one at a time, for a time=20 in and out of time bridging water and plastic time that wont dissolve, time that constantly flows, never repeats,=09 time that contains everything, off-gassing our aging, resin taking shape ive kept this shirt on so long i can never extract it from my ribs seeping melding cohabiting with what i thought i was drawn from the earths squeezings, as two ropes tied together become a new substance, as glued & grooved waffleboard can replace trees no longer here to cut down i am what contains me, constrains me. keeps my breath from myself, don't worry or ask about what my cells do or in cell i'll be, cellular air time drooling thru me=20 like a shower of permeable cue balls replacing my white cells=20 with caroms & backspins, with time-delayed mutation, with no out to go to, no away to escape from living in a fish tank full of things too soft to hurt myself with, too ugly to not corrode my senses of beauty proportion &= utility, steeped in essence of infinite molecule tempting dna=20 with alleged progress, with the zealot inducing words of the profit: increased productivity through chemical dependence; moving products in every widening circles to maximize the number of dollars washing across how many hands growing gloves from constant contact=20 saving every gram of flaked skin for genetic futures so we can remember where we came from and how many planets ago that was ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 07:55:34 +0900 Reply-To: kimball@post.miyazaki-med.ac.jp Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kimball Organization: kimball@post.miyazaki-med.ac.jp Subject: Messaging MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Messaging Premiums in airspace upended and spread in process, that fragile, Easy-to-mistrust spinning-out from the arranged universe of similar, speaking proofs. We are never our property when leasing it out. Something, riders or _something_. Similarly, imperfection depends on stewards and their craft! They say the small of your skull seems priestly until you can't tell within raining brackets. Math is outerwear. Any definition, now, strikes me as yours (sincerely) in thought Messaging on its own, a medicine that smarts. For summary, the pain is we don’t need this Tyvek with silver tassels. Ask for Freed Plus. There kick in night drums, marimbas, three glockenspiels, male and female voices, and whistling. Strings and winds hold off thirst while others effect combos. That's the foreboding wait... We're landing at LAX! A volcano of goosedown, come what I'm thinking of. It's a chase and parking concept, with the flash of spectators through the larks. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 21:20:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Wuz Pound's Kung mediated by the Physiocrats? [the milennialist Mihites in Pound's CANTOS] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"Kung said: are classic of heaven, >They bind thru the earth ......................... >Heaven, man, earth, our law as written > not outside their natural colour,...."---from Canto 99 by >E.P.---cp "Little intercourse between separate states. No part of my administration so unpopular, even in Marblehead, as was my fight for the navy That is to GET a navy JOHN ADAMS FOR PEACE 1800 I believe no printer in Boston wd/ print 'em. Adams to L.Lloyd, in 1815) I do not believe they cd/ get printed even today in any newspaper in Boston. Circular letters, the lot of 'em are full of as many lies as the Acta Sanctorum. Mihites in Pennsylvania. And they believed firmly that Bonaparte was the 'instrument' to bring in Milennium chosen of Providence to put an end to the pope Jefferson knew them...all courting him 15 years" -------------- Ezra Pound CANTO LXXI Well, isn't that peculiar. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 22:34:52 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: thin dime poetry A lot of parallel tracks in this discussion. Doesn't "professionalization" of poetry in school or criticism parallel what we (especially me) do on this list all the time - reduce, quantify, categorize, sum up, analyze... the sense though after reading a lot of the messages here on this subject is that there's no "right" (theoretical) answer(s)... Michael Corbin's & Ron Silliman's messages were parallel - writing, reading & poetry merge somewhere with living (Cold New World), & that happens to be the arena where poetry/$$$/politics interact... as well as where the real savor of reading tends to happen... is that the "door" idea? the don't put it in a coffin idea? the... obvious?? MC, Spandrift appreciates the offer but he asked me to tell you that he's way busy right now finishing his dissertation for Wyoming Expanded Adult Correctional Unit Minimum Security University (title: "Pegasus My Foot : Horeshoeing & Disruptive Groin Deflation in Unwanted Social Flux Under Neo-Conservative Stratified Whatever") - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 19:40:06 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: the meat machine MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Scientists usually assume that only their data and theories matter for scientific progress, that how they talk about these data and theories does not matter, that it is irrelevant to their actual work. but in introducing this particular way of talking, the first generation of American geneticists provided a conceptual framework that was critically important for the future course of biological research. To capture both its rhetorical and conceptual force, I will call this way of talking the "discourse of gene action"--a discourse that was, for genetics, undeniably productive. It enabled geneticists to get on with their work without worrying about their lack of information about the nature of such action--to a considerable degree, it even obscured the need for such information. (Throughout the interwar period, American geneticists routinely invoked the notion of gene action as if its meaning was self-evident.) At the same time, the attribution of agency, autonomy, and causal responsibility to genes lent primacy both to the object of geneticists' concern amd to the discipline of genetics--in their own eyes and the eyes of others. They were dealing with 'the' basis of life. If, as Brink wrote, the hereditary complex is elevated from a "passive object" to a locus of primary activity, the student of that hereditary complex is, by the same move, also elevated to primary activity... Watson and Crick have gotten a lot of credit for their work and deservedly so, but one contribution has, I fear, been overlooked: their introduction of the information metaphor to biological discourse was a stroke of genius...Just a few years earlier, the mathematician Claude Shannon had proposed a precise quantiative measure of the complexity of linear codes. He called this measure 'information'--by design, the term was independent of meaning and function--and by the early fifties, "information theory" had become a hot subject in the world of communications systems. It seemed to hold enormous promise for analyzing all sorts of complex systems, even biological systems. Because DNA seemed to function as a linear code, using this notion of information for genetics appeared to be natural."---from Refiguring Life: Metaphors of Twentieth Century Biology by Evelyn Fox Keller ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 22:31:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carrie Etter Subject: degrees and money (and poetry) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks, Karen and Joe and Ron. Perhaps I can now restate my concern, ill-expressed the other day, more clearly: how, having racked up debt to pursue BA, MFA and PhD, I want to believe, Okay, job market (or, for others perhaps, poetry market), payback time--only to greet the frustration that ensues given the market conditions. I've seen several poets enter the MFA program with the _expectation_ of a job teaching poetry on completion--it's the actual expectation, and how it seems to have affected these poets as writers, that concerns and saddens me. Carrie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 01:45:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: CD Subject: Money! Money! Money! In-Reply-To: <199806150400.AAA28434@alcor.concordia.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Money makes the world go round, the world go round, Money makesthe world go round, it makes the worrrrrlllddd go rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooound It maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkkkkessss the wooooorrrrrrllldddd go ROUND It MAkes the World Go Round. Sung to the Marvelous Tone & Tunes of Cabaret. Oh give me Money that's what I want A whole Lot of Money. Yep[ppers] we all knew that. Money dough, scratch cash, Whine and complain, Howl and Bleat It makes the beat go neat It makes the feet go fleet. Money, give me the loot. But fast. Like, quick, Gimme the silver lined coat with the dough inthe know. Play them stakes, cash them chips. Yes mam, Les Jeus sont Faits, Faits vos jeux. Dough, bread, cool cash, singing silver, glitering gold. Dollars. Dollars and cents. Makes me throat tingle, Oooooh the moooolah. You got the numba's I got the dough You got the place where my fingers roll Oooh thatsilver is singing And that paper is cracklin' Burnin' holesssss in mah pockets. Holes in my pockets where your kissssess went where your kissssssesss ussssed to go. Oh Give Me Money That's What I want She used to Love me till the Well went dry, Now I'm just nickel and dimin' it. Yea, Nickel and diming it. Working the station, working the station where we used to go. But hell, words are free, Yeah, words are free, and ME, I'm just an old word smuggler. I'm importing and exporting words. Like any old merchant, down by the sea, down by the sea. Just an old word merchant touting my wares. Hell, I don't need no money for a word or two, for a word or two from you. *************************************************** An old Sufi used to tell me: Don't take yourself too damn seriously. ************************************ So it goes, pookah. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 09:15:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: shapeshifter uncapitalized MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Standard does indeed make a lot of good points.... I do feel that the emphasis, though, for me, is not on putting down folks for linking money and poetry..It is more interesting to see how they are connected. The very twisted angle at which our activities connect to the the bizness of amerika (which is bizness) is *constituative* of much of the work we are doing. Thus a mag like kenning or MProj. is part of an overall structure of projects, that often shape poetry practices themselves; guerilla focos on the grassy plains of the margin. As always, the art-world is in the hands of people with ambiguous and shifting class trajectories, by the way: and Standard's "dominated part of the dominant class" is not quite on-target: the dominant class owns large-scale capital; poets are working or (precariously) middle-class, not capitalist-class (usually; there's always the occasional James Merrill). Not to dismiss concerns like Katy's about how people (who start poetizing) will get by, day to day...But that after all is a struggle for *most* people in the income-polarized nightmare of reagan/clinton type capitalism. Somewhat more fascinating is the forms poetry has to take to flourish as the most undercapitalized of art-activities in a late capitalist market world..(--it takes strength, for one thing, from already being "pre-rejected"...They wouldn't *let you* sell out, if you begged 'em, because market values have no place for your work and your engagements: this makes for interesting undertows of resistence and self-creation..) m. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 08:18:38 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: anarchy (& bp) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Scott Pound is right: <<>what or who is Therafields .... Therafields was a therapy centre in Toronto. bp was a lay analyst for Therafields.>> It was a bit more than that though: a community in itself, & one which bp hoped would be & worked to make a kind of working ideal of community in our world. A group of communal homes in downtwon Toronto, plus a farm north of the city. For awhile there (& some of what happened there is to be found interlined in _the martyrology_) it worked. An ideal of living that also found its way into much poetry (bp also facilitated a number of writing workshops for Therafields). ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ walking in dark waking in dark the presence of all the absences we have known. Oceans. so we are distinguished to ourselves don't want that distinction. I am afraid. I said that. I said that for you. Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 09:12:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MJ Devaney Subject: Re: poetry/money/careers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 01:15 PM 6/14/98 -0700, you wrote: >It should be said, there were far fewer schools offering grad degrees in >c.w. in the early 60s. A book that might be of interest here is D.G. Myers' history of creative writing programs in the U.S. (_The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing since 1880_ (Prentice Hall, 1996)). --MJ Devaney mdevaney@nebraskapress.unl.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 07:35:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: degrees and money (and poetry) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I guess my thought would be that in ANY field, there is not "payback" time to be counted on. And counting on one if one pursues an art is absurd. My personal decision has been to pursue living-money in high tech, since I'm in the Silicon Valley & am a single mom. Happily, the job I have is the best job I've EVER had, and finally I am able to pay off the MFA debts and many others. Intially I was guilty about the luxury of having money, but so far it hasn't changed my work, except perhaps I am more relaxed generally due to economic breathing room. I was also convinced I would never "fit in." Not true, though I am considered "creative," which amounts to pretty much how I'm perceived by family and friends: given to saying odd things & holding strange beliefs. So my personal freedom remains unchanged. I would point out to anyone on the list looking for a job that high tech is hardly a closed field to the writerly: facility with language is in EXTREMELY short supply. Before this job, I taught for a while, parttime, but am happy not to exhaust myself in that particular way. My current job is quite demanding & satisfying, but it doesn't enervate me word/concept/emotion-wise, the way teaching did. I keep remembering a letter from Clayton Eshleman when I was struggling with a low paying bookstore job & looking for that elusive teaching position. He suggested I do ANYTHING (& I recall one of his suggestions was even to find a job looking after animals at the zoo!) rather than teach. He felt it would mess up my writing. An interesting tip, coming from a professor. Of course I ignored him & taught. But he was right (for me). But I'm not going to tell him. Carrie Etter wrote: > Thanks, Karen and Joe and Ron. Perhaps I can now restate my concern, > ill-expressed the other day, more clearly: how, having racked up debt to > pursue BA, MFA and PhD, I want to believe, Okay, job market (or, for others > perhaps, poetry market), payback time--only to greet the frustration that > ensues given the market conditions. I've seen several poets enter the MFA > program with the _expectation_ of a job teaching poetry on completion--it's > the actual expectation, and how it seems to have affected these poets as > writers, that concerns and saddens me. > > Carrie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 08:34:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: a bit more on bp Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I too have been reading all the posts on $$ & poetry & life & finding a lot of fine thinking through the problems going on. Thanks to all. I should have added that for awhile there, in the Therafields experiment, bp was able to 'make a living' there, doing lay therapy & writing, & feeling, I believe, that the two were in synchrony not opposed at all. A life 'in' & 'of' writing? But then, he did follow that line further than most of us, much further than I could anyway... ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ walking in dark waking in dark the presence of all the absences we have known. Oceans. so we are distinguished to ourselves don't want that distinction. I am afraid. I said that. I said that for you. Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 10:37:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: poetry/money/careers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On that whole biz, also worth checking out is Jed Rasula's AMERICAN POETRY WAX MUSEUM (NCTE 1996) MJ Devaney wrote: > At 01:15 PM 6/14/98 -0700, you wrote: > > >It should be said, there were far fewer schools offering grad degrees in > >c.w. in the early 60s. > > A book that might be of interest here is D.G. Myers' history of creative > writing programs in the U.S. (_The Elephants Teach: Creative Writing since > 1880_ (Prentice Hall, 1996)). > > --MJ Devaney > mdevaney@nebraskapress.unl.edu -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel: (518) 426 0433 fax: (518) 426 3722 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- “I take place out there” -- Robert Duncan ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 09:38:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: poetry/money/careers In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" actually david this is what i tell a lot of students in our new mfa program. and in fact the ones who do get jobs are the ones who go on to get phd's after their ma or mfa in writing; like you, they're hired on the strength of their doctoral work, but end up teaching creative writing which is what they wanted. of course a lot of our mfa students, for obvious reasons, don't really want to hear that, since they've already invested quite a bit of time and energy in this degree program. At 1:15 PM -0700 6/14/98, david bromige wrote: >Yes, Boering, but she was only unwed because you refused to wed her. > >Seriously, folks, my twobitsworth re poetry/money/career, while merely >anecdotal, & personal at that, might help out someone . . . When time came >for grad school, I told my mentor, the Great Canadian Author Earle Birney, >that I was thinking of taking a master's in creative writing. He reasoned >me out of it, thus : "There are more jobs for PhDs in English than for MAs >in c.w. You will continue to write poetry in any case. Do what I did, get a >PhD, get hired, then get them--on the strength of your publishing--to give >you a c.w. course or two." > >It should be said, there were far fewer schools offering grad degrees in >c.w. in the early 60s. > >But even today, this makes for sound advice. Boering is correct to warn >against the adjunct colon-izing that besets c.w. teachers even more than >PhDs in English. > >In the event, I was hired in my one and only (lifetime) tenured job on the >"ABD" status of my doctoral studies (which stayed that way), & my books of >poetry. By a twist of fate Earle couldnt have foreseen,during the early >70s, when poetry was still so weirdly popular, 3 of the 4 course I taught >each semester, were poetry writing classes. Fortunately, this interest >waned later on, and I was freed up to teach contemporary anglophone >poetries--which courses were much like the c.w. classs had been, but w/o >student-indited poems to discuss.(From the potentially negative readings of >this paragraph I exempt all my ex-students on this List). But it was the >straight doctorate that got my foot in the door. For what that was worth : >a pension and a health plan. > >As a p.s. of sorts : The Cal State Univ system operates on the Peter >Principle : if "they" can teach efficiently at 3 courses/semester, let's >give em 4. So try to get hired elsewhere than in the CSUS. > >David ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 11:35:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: degrees and money (and poetry)[degrees do not a poet make] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Thanks, Karen and Joe and Ron. Perhaps I can now restate my concern, >ill-expressed the other day, more clearly: how, having racked up debt to >pursue BA, MFA and PhD, I want to believe, Okay, job market (or, for others >perhaps, poetry market), payback time--only to greet the frustration that >ensues given the market conditions. I've seen several poets enter the MFA >program with the _expectation_ of a job teaching poetry on completion--it's >the actual expectation, and how it seems to have affected these poets as >writers, that concerns and saddens me.Carrie There is something worth reminding one's self of. Poetry has to do with human life, or human lives, as such. That is far more comprehensive than any academic course of study could ever be. We might expect that many poets have lived, and live, different lives, than those people who spend or have spent most of their's within academic circles, and pursuing not only degrees, but also academic teaching careers. The academic world is a very different world from all the rest of what constitutes the breadth and depths of human experiences and those differences do have profound affects upon every facet of the academic's life, including the personal. On average they move within different circles, and pursue different activities, often in different ways, than others. Of course, some would limit legitimization of poetry and poetics to those specific instances, of academic achievement and tenure, and thus to those very specialized, often narrowed, avenues of human experience and lifestyles. I think there is as much to be said for the importance of poets who do not have specific academic credentials relevant to poetry, who do not pursue (for whatever reasons) academic lifestyles, including those who do not have academic degrees of any kind. M. aka Bob Ezergailis P.S. Honours B.A. (Social Sciences) - mostly ancient and modern philosophies including some graduate seminars in philsophy That too influences my writing poetry. So does everything else in life. B.E. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 12:10:06 -0400 Reply-To: Jordan Davis Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Good, there are no lions in the street MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII To reiterate Bill Luoma's biannual call for phenomena (objects, dynamics, qualities) that obsess you, e.g. high power lines, the World Bank, Myers-Briggs tests, ocean-floor volcanic vents, regionalist prejudices, injustice, the unjust neglect of great artist zzz, alien stock analysts, poetry wars, the politically neutralizing effect of pluralism, anonymity, heat death, nookie acquisition, radiant joy in the form of a soccer ball, time is a loser, etc etc etc etc etc. My background obsession has been: allergy, or misbound receptors (faux mots); my foreground obsession has been: Africa and Asia. Reason I ask: preparing a FALL PREVIEW of what to look for in people's poems. Thankee, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 12:09:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: poetry/money/careers In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII David Bromige--which schools offer degrees in country and western? On Sun, 14 Jun 1998, david bromige wrote: > Yes, Boering, but she was only unwed because you refused to wed her. > > Seriously, folks, my twobitsworth re poetry/money/career, while merely > anecdotal, & personal at that, might help out someone . . . When time came > for grad school, I told my mentor, the Great Canadian Author Earle Birney, > that I was thinking of taking a master's in creative writing. He reasoned > me out of it, thus : "There are more jobs for PhDs in English than for MAs > in c.w. You will continue to write poetry in any case. Do what I did, get a > PhD, get hired, then get them--on the strength of your publishing--to give > you a c.w. course or two." > > It should be said, there were far fewer schools offering grad degrees in > c.w. in the early 60s. > > But even today, this makes for sound advice. Boering is correct to warn > against the adjunct colon-izing that besets c.w. teachers even more than > PhDs in English. > > In the event, I was hired in my one and only (lifetime) tenured job on the > "ABD" status of my doctoral studies (which stayed that way), & my books of > poetry. By a twist of fate Earle couldnt have foreseen,during the early > 70s, when poetry was still so weirdly popular, 3 of the 4 course I taught > each semester, were poetry writing classes. Fortunately, this interest > waned later on, and I was freed up to teach contemporary anglophone > poetries--which courses were much like the c.w. classs had been, but w/o > student-indited poems to discuss.(From the potentially negative readings of > this paragraph I exempt all my ex-students on this List). But it was the > straight doctorate that got my foot in the door. For what that was worth : > a pension and a health plan. > > As a p.s. of sorts : The Cal State Univ system operates on the Peter > Principle : if "they" can teach efficiently at 3 courses/semester, let's > give em 4. So try to get hired elsewhere than in the CSUS. > > David > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 12:13:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: poetry is a tracheotomy for the soul's breath In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Essentially, there is a tax that is assessed according to the amount a company has invested in certain categories of assets. For many years the U.S. law was written so that books in warehouses were not taxable assests. The law was changed sometime around the mid-1980s I believe. (I certainly remember reading about it a lot at that time, when i was in my first library position involved with acquisitions/collection development, which was affected for various reasons by developments like this in the publishing industry...) Essentially, pulping the books, when they are not selling at any great rate, loses less money than storing them and paying the taxes accessed on 'em as "assets." Yes, i believe that giving them away would be logistically more involved than pulping, and therefore would cost more and not save the publisher *quite* as much. True, the difference may not be great, but the in the scale of capitalist values any difference is vital. This is a great illustration of the fact that capitalist values are *opposed* to those of culture and meeting human needs. Of course, the books we are talking about here are very often the likes of Jacqueline Susann, whose print runs are in the hundreds of thousands. So in that case we aren't talking about books that meet human needs in the first place! I don't cry when she's pulped, only when the books are printed to begin with! Of course a program should be developed to give 'em to needy poets wish to use them for aleatory cut-up procedures... m. On Sun, 14 Jun 1998, Chris [Steve] Piuma wrote: > J. Kuszai showed great grace and sensitivity to write on 98.06.13: > > > Why would I want to let Norton, or whomever, pulp my book > > because of unfortunate tax laws which make it cheaper to destroy the > > extant copies of a book, rendering it outofprint, rather than keep it > > around another year? > > I've heard about this before, and I'm curious: is it cheaper (tax laws > taken into consideration) to destroy the books or to give them away? And > why? > > -- > Chris [Steve] Piuma, etc. Nothing is at: http://www.brainlink.com/~cafard > flim: http://www.brainlink.com/~cafard/flim/index.html from the current issue: > ...(your idea of a real magazine: tips on sex, hair, and career)... > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 09:52:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: advanced degrees in both country AND western Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At the Bromige/Boering Double Academy of the Lyrical Arts. (We likewise offer a Master's Program in both S AND F--"The SciFi of San Fran" being our most popular course. An AA can be obtained in db-ism, involving the study of works by Dodie Bellamy, Don Byrd and Our Founder.) Thank you for your enquiry, Louis Stroffolino. A catalog is on its way to you by separate post. Debbie Broadbent, Assistant to the President. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 11:53:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: shapeshifter uncapitalized Comments: To: Mark Prejsnar In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 15 Jun 1998, Mark Prejsnar wrote: > Standard does indeed make a lot of good points.... > > being "pre-rejected"...They wouldn't *let you* sell out, if you begged > 'em, because market values have no place for your work and your > engagements: this makes for interesting undertows of resistence and > self-creation..) > Mark, well, yes, but what is most useful touchstone in Katy's original post (thanks, Katy, for inciting so much) was that there IS a place for (ostensibly) innovative poetries in market values, the magazines listed that pay are evidence of that. There are those that read Paris Review & NYer as hallmarks of taste, and in that light, I find Standard's lucid rendition of the money creates taste=cultural/economic capital formula dead on. Now, Katy should be applauded for working to put out one of the better magazines (in my opinion) on the "grassy" margins, Explosive. As far as selling-out, which is a term I try to avoid, it's really only useful as a term denoting a sort of acquiescence to the taste fabricator, that was poorly put, let's call it the wholesale repression of consciousness. I think we've established how ludicrous a notion it is to EXPECT to be paid, make a living (whatever that means) . . . The simple fact is that PR & NYer print crap, and that the need to buy in (precondition for selling out) is greatly diminished by magazines which are inexpensive to purchase and committed to another sort of bottom line, where those "undertows" flourish, Mark's Misc. Proj., Katy's Explosive, and my own Kenning. Patrick F. Durgin ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 09:58:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: ps to Double Academy of c.w. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Douglas Barbour is also on our curriculum. (I have only had 4 hours sleep, please forgive any further omissions, Our Founder kept me up late with his dictating. db.) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 11:56:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "s. kaipa" Subject: Re: Poetry MFAs, money In-Reply-To: <199806130749.AAA07491@rigel.oac.uci.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi Carrie and All: I don't understand how the conversation about spending money on MFA's got bitingly shifted to a conversation on the value (or worthlessness) of an Iowa MFA. I don't think, Carrie, that you should pity the MFA's at Iowa because--generally speaking--Iowa funds better than most MFA programs anyway. For all the negative commentary it gets (and maybe some of it is deserved), it's probably one of the best programs you could go to if you didn't have any money to begin with--the tuition is cheap (if you don't get a scholarship) & living expenses are too. And, believe it or not, there are many people who come to the program without ever having had a writing community--people from rural areas--hoping that they will find a kinship in those who do attend. Summi On Sat, 13 Jun 1998, Carrie Etter wrote: > Katy, > > >... and about the debts that are being accrued > >by younger writers who, perhaps, can't figure out any other way to find a > >writing community or the time to write... > > I really don't have much pity for those who choose to rack up the debt at > Iowa. I had one year of possible teaching writing to law students at Iowa > with no promise for the second year, or a solid one year comp, one year > poetry writing teaching deal at Irvine with a 2/3 fee reduction. Guess > where I went? Sure, I had a prof say, pay whatever, get the loans, go to > Iowa. I decided otherwise for the financial reason as well as for who I > wanted to study with and the crit theory at Irvine. Great poetry study does > not necessarily--or even usually--equal great debt. Can't figure out any > other way to find a writing community? I don't buy it. > > I don't think anyone should enter an MFA program in poetry to prepare for > any kind of moneymaking job. Period. > > Carrie > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 13:43:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: ps to Double Academy of c.w. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII how bout david baratier? On Mon, 15 Jun 1998, david bromige wrote: > Douglas Barbour is also on our curriculum. (I have only had 4 hours sleep, > please forgive any further omissions, Our Founder kept me up late with his > dictating. db.) > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 13:49:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: I AM A BIG FAT LIAR MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello, Jordan, et al.: Current Obsessions (these are real, *not* joke-obsessions! Really!): Chantal Akerman's underarms (well, have you *seen* them?!?); Oum Kalsoum's sunglasses (ibid!); Gu Cheng's hat (*talk* to me!); those plaques commemorating the people who paid for the building or whatever ("This Plaza Is the Gift of Edith and Edward Fergesnurgh"); sounds other than conductor's voice screeching over the subway intercom (low hums, hollow snaps, frantic buzzing, moody crackling, etc.); fancy cigarettes (Dunhills, Nat Shermans, etc.); Dollar Stores (for everything but cigs); Lester Bangs's . . . uh . . . well, Lester Bangs, period . . . . . . now I'm getting bored by this assignment and besides the other things I'm obsessed with are too embarassing to reveal here . . . MEANTIME: All you people I said I was "sending Rain Taxi out today!" to . . . I WAS LYING TO YOU!!! . . . but, not on purpose . . . there were way more responses than I imagined, and work has been busier than usual, so they're currently all addressed & ready to go, and I HOPE I'll get them out to all of you "tomorrow" . . . okay? Okay. Bye, Gary On Monday, June 15, 1998 12:10 PM, Jordan Davis [SMTP:jdavis@panix.com] wrote: > To reiterate Bill Luoma's biannual call for phenomena (objects, dynamics, > qualities) that obsess you, e.g. high power lines, the World Bank, > Myers-Briggs tests, ocean-floor volcanic vents, regionalist prejudices, > injustice, the unjust neglect of great artist zzz, alien stock analysts, > poetry wars, the politically neutralizing effect of pluralism, anonymity, > heat death, nookie acquisition, radiant joy in the form of a soccer ball, > time is a loser, etc etc etc etc etc. My background obsession has been: > allergy, or misbound receptors (faux mots); my foreground obsession has > been: Africa and Asia. Reason I ask: preparing a FALL PREVIEW of what to > look for in people's poems. > > Thankee, > Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 11:24:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: Poultry & $$ (Don't count your chickens...) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ron, Thanks for the plug re: Mina. How did you know I *love* Mira Sorvino? I wouldn't have thought of it, but I'd be honored to see her play Mina. There's one part of the book, at least in one version, I'm not sure if it's still in there, where Mina complains about having had Winona Ryder play her, the insult of that. As far as money and poetry goes, Kevin and I go to Ralph, an accountant who "does" a lot of local poets and rock bands. You probably know him, Ron, he used to "do" Barrett and Carla, for instance. This past year, according to Ralph, Kevin and I made the most on writing of any of his clients. (Clearly Ralph hasn't reached into the Amy Tam/MacArthur-award-winners crowd for clients.) Even though we had more than enough receipts to claim a loss, he had us claim a gain on our taxes--BECAUSE even if you earn several thousand dollars at this, if you get audited, it's a hard battle to prove to the IRS that this isn't a hobby--as opposed to a profession. And part of the money earned was Kevin's California Arts Council Award for Poetry--how much more official sanction can you get? It reminds me of when some poets talk about their parents. "They'll never accept that I'm doing something real here, instead of being a slacker." Neither will the IRS, either, apparently. Starting in July I'll be going to the local poets' dentist. If I gain any insights there, I'll be sure to pass them along. x, Dodie >Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 08:51:48 -0500 >From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM >Subject: Poultry & $$ (Don't count your chickens...) > >First is that the product, to speak in strictly mercantile terms, of the >poet is not the poem. The money in poetry -- readings, grants, teaching jobs >-- is all so ancillary to any given poem that the connection makes no real >sense. There is a wonderful comment somewhere in Whalen's On Bear's Head >(one of the great hard-to-find books) to the effect of "at 50 cents a line >in Poetry (Chicago), this poem is now worth ..." (I forget the amount). > >Instead, the product for a poet is the life's work, around which individual >poems and books are really features. Just as an academic's product is >generally going to be his or her c.v., it's the bibliography or (more >accurately) everything they have done in and around the poetry scene "as >poets" but also as reading curators, editors, publishers, critics, goads, >etc. The value that Kevin & Dodie bring to SF, or the Tyshes to Detroit, or >Charles Alexander to Tucson or Rae Armantrout to San Diego or Rod Smith to >DC or Gil Ott to Philadelphia or or or (the list quickly becomes rather >infinitely expanding) cannot be gauged by how much Dodie makes from her book >(even when a movie gets made and we see Mira Sorvino as Mina), and, hey, >it's a novel, not a poem so how does that get calculated in? (Actually, the >category of "poets novels" from Melville through Kerouac through Acker to >Bellamy & Killian is a whole other thread worth thinking about.) We hope >that these people will, over time, be rewarded for everything they do, >although the politics of the literary scene absolutely do not guarantee it. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 14:49:22 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: Re: shapeshifter uncapitalized Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Mark: In a message dated 98-06-15 09:17:28 EDT, you write: << Standard's "dominated part of the dominant class" is not quite on-target: the dominant class owns large-scale capital; poets are working or (precariously) middle-class, not capitalist-class (usually; there's always the occasional James Merrill). >> You may be right. I think what I didn't make clear is a) most of what I said comes through Weber, Bourdieu, french Marxists (for whom there is some autonomy between capital and status-- usually institutionalize) So I have to say that the dominated part of the dominant class does not have to have tremendous amounts of economic capital, but may simply share their values, etc. (Here of course there are lots of arguments against "ideology" and "habitus" and "cultural unconcious") SS ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 15:24:59 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: po buzzers Trouble wi talkin about it is that it's like making pots or money, you can't say anything about it until you see what happens, what works. You can't talk about poetry into existence. May be the poems lead the way, no matter what you say. Every poem is a thing; can't help it, the thingness of it is one of the most durable fascinating things about the thing. So if it talks out of 4 or 5 sides of its mouth SOMETIMES that can be a something about it. A wall, a ship, a pyramid built to outlast the scramble. O boy. How many lousy poems come out of that gamble. What is this embodied something... a way into... health food? Not the ultra-craftsman Balmont but the paisan craftsman Esenin or the beyond-craftswomen Tsvetaeva & Akhmatova... something alive that stays alive? is this personism or Bird-ism? or just sex? now we have steep politics as always in the US - so does poetry become a sub-category of rhetoric? I mean, why do the craft types cluster at the conservative end of the spectrum - or do they? I mean do people enjoy poetry or art anymore for its own sake - I mean the "cutting edge" people - or does it have to have a civics lesson attached? That seems to be where the money's at... I mean civics of some kind - righteous anger & all that... is there a problem here? Is this what Standard was talkin about? There's no problem here, it's just us chickens... cluck-cluck where's the poetry? cluck-cluck where's the poetry? cluck-cluck... - Henry G (for gab) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 16:15:40 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Shemurph@AOL.COM Subject: Re: degrees and money (and poetry) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Having a dual track life, earning money separately from writing and its little cousins, is EXTREMELY useful for some people. I knew this very early on about myself. The prerequisite which precludes some people from living this way is a high level of energy. Discipline helps, just as it does in any life pursuit. Hangups about having earned or other money can readily be addressed by making sure that if you do have resources, you use them to contribute to the accomplishment of what must be done. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 13:19:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Poetry MFAs, money In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" You wrote, re: Iowa: And, believe it or not, >there are many people who come to the program without ever having had a >writing community--people from rural areas--hoping that they will find a >kinship in those who do attend. If that's the case, why don't they take a small amount of that cash to support them until they can get a job in a place where there is a community of poets? What does it cost for an MFA? How many years in student-like squalor would that pay for in Paris or Prague, or even NY or SF? (Or Boston, or Baltimore, or DC or Providence--there are a fair number of places where poets can be found outside of the classroom). Behind my modest proposal is the firm belief that it is absurd to expect to be enough of a poet after a couple of years in school for potential poets to become one's apprentices. There's a wisdom about the craft, and the art, that only comes from years, in most case decades, of practice. And what one learns at school is at best a minor part of this. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 16:32:08 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: where's the poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Henry: In a message dated 98-06-15 15:43:56 EDT, you write: << I mean do people enjoy poetry or art anymore for its own sake - I mean the "cutting edge" people - or does it have to have a civics lesson attached? That seems to be where the money's at... I mean civics of some kind - righteous anger & all that... is there a problem here? Is this what Standard was talkin about? >> I think that this is an interesting point. I suspect that poetry is a sub- class of rhetoric among certain "avant-garde" writers who are interesting in politics or civics first, and then come around to writing poetry. I feel sometimes they can only rant rather than enact things in language which might steer us toward thought. But why is it I tend to like these folks so much. It may be a slightly American problem. This division between craft and politics. I'm thinking about the new Sun&Moon international magazine Mr. Knife and Miss Fork (and also the reviews within) which suggest that other cultures have always been a little more comfortable (right word?) with this problem. Paul Vangelisti's translations of Zanzotto, his reviews of other Italian writers like Pagliarini and another translation of Zanzotto speak to this problem. I like this new project of Messerli's and he suggests often these days that the answer to "where's the poetry" is everywhere (I mean it is international...there are people beyond our borders who may still be interested in art for art's sake but don't shun the vital issues that it raises). I don't know how else to put it, but to say that recent translations of Gionvanna Sandri (Guy Bennett's Seeing Eye Books), the recent Raddle Moon contain some of the most exciting, provocative work without dogmatics, civics lessons, etc. SS ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 16:54:33 -0400 Reply-To: cstein@stationhill.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chuck Stein Organization: Station Hill Press Subject: money MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Billboard: MONEY HAS AN ENEMY Bumper Sticker: MONEY HAS AN ENEMY Ad Placement in Yellow Pages: MONEY HAS AN ENEMY Posting to Poetics List: MONEY HAS AN ENEMY chuck stein ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 16:39:20 -0400 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: shapeshifter uncapitalized Comments: To: ken|n|ing In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I think my original point stands, Patrick: it is a *structural* truth that the overall shape of poetry, A. is not supported, financially; and B. double-marginalizes work that is formally of any interest or energy. I honestly don't see what the existence of payment from a few major establishmentarian publications does to qualify this....My analysis is mainly about the broad shape of the poetic "career" (the very fact that such quotation marks feel *required* in this context, says all). I don't think anyone for a second thinks that payments from Grand Street or the Paris Review have made a substantial difference to the living situation or overall work-choices of any poet on this list. My point is that poetry as an activity stands outside most of the forms of funding art-activities have..And that this has interesting ramifications for the choices people make in their work. Much of this thread has proceeded as though there were the *possiblity* of getting major support for the actual work itself. My analysis of the structure of art-marketing and art-funding, is that poetry for a fascinating array of historical reasons has gotten less grant-funding than other forms, and is less tied into the capitalist marketplace. And the stopgap approaches that have evolved, rather clumsily, to support individual practitioners, such as teaching, are of course not precisely full solutions...At least, that's the impression I get from quite a number of friends who are poets who teach: not that they don't love and value teaching, but it is not really a form of support for the work; its pressures can apparently be as bad as those of any job..(this of course is becoming far worse, as all rights, job-security and decent pay vanish for the young academics now entering the universities, who are overwhemingly facing adjunct positions at poverty salaries). ...er, didn't you notice that my use of "selling out" was not exactly serious? I bring the phrase up because it is useful to demonstrate how much this is a matter of *structural constraints*....In such a situation compromise isn't really an option, unfortunately. Thus my point that they wouldn't "let you" if you begged 'em: poets have nothing the capitalist market (and its periphery, such as academe) WANTS. These are so to speak the working conditions that apply.... m. On Mon, 15 Jun 1998, ken|n|ing wrote: > > On Mon, 15 Jun 1998, Mark Prejsnar wrote: > > > Standard does indeed make a lot of good points.... > > > > being "pre-rejected"...They wouldn't *let you* sell out, if you begged > > 'em, because market values have no place for your work and your > > engagements: this makes for interesting undertows of resistence and > > self-creation..) > > > Mark, well, yes, but what is most useful touchstone in Katy's > original post (thanks, Katy, for inciting so much) was that there IS a > place for (ostensibly) innovative poetries in market values, the magazines > listed that pay are evidence of that. There are those that read Paris > Review & NYer as hallmarks of taste, and in that light, I find Standard's > lucid rendition of the money creates taste=cultural/economic capital > formula dead on. Now, Katy should be applauded for working to put out one > of the better magazines (in my opinion) on the "grassy" margins, > Explosive. As far as selling-out, which is a term I try to avoid, it's > really only useful as a term denoting a sort of acquiescence to the taste > fabricator, that was poorly put, let's call it the wholesale repression of > consciousness. I think we've established how ludicrous a notion it is to > EXPECT to be paid, make a living (whatever that means) . . . > The simple fact is that PR & NYer print crap, and that the need to > buy in (precondition for selling out) is greatly diminished by magazines > which are inexpensive to purchase and committed to another sort of bottom > line, where those "undertows" flourish, Mark's Misc. Proj., Katy's > Explosive, and my own Kenning. > Patrick F. Durgin > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 16:57:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: the poetical is the political In-Reply-To: <2b7014b1.358584c9@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Standard, I fear you may be in danger of slipping down the slippery slope into classic american individualism here....Actually most of the vivid and *most poetic* and striking poets in the past century have been intensely political...To you it may sound like dogmatix or a civics lesson...but not to these ears. Vallejo, Duncan, Eluard, Char, Cesaire, Radnoti, Lorca (the social thrust of Poeta en NY), Neruda at his best in the Alturas and certain other section of the Canto General, HD confronting the blitz, Mayakovsky, Mandl'stam...Zukofsky, Oppen Civics lessons...? Hmmmmm.. mark On Mon, 15 Jun 1998, P.Standard Schaefer wrote: > Henry: > > In a message dated 98-06-15 15:43:56 EDT, you write: > > << I mean do people > enjoy poetry or art anymore for its own sake - I mean the "cutting edge" > people - or does it have to have a civics lesson attached? That seems > to be where the money's at... I mean civics of some kind - righteous > anger & all that... is there a problem here? Is this what Standard was > talkin about? >> > > > I think that this is an interesting point. I suspect that poetry is a sub- > class of rhetoric among certain "avant-garde" writers who are interesting in > politics or civics first, and then come around to writing poetry. I feel > sometimes they can only rant rather than enact things in language which might > steer us toward thought. But why is it I tend to like these folks so much. > It may be a slightly American problem. This division between craft and > politics. I'm thinking about the new Sun&Moon international magazine Mr. > Knife and Miss Fork (and also the reviews within) which suggest that other > cultures have always been a little more comfortable (right word?) with this > problem. Paul Vangelisti's translations of Zanzotto, his reviews of other > Italian writers like Pagliarini and another translation of Zanzotto speak to > this problem. I like this new project of Messerli's and he suggests often > these days that the answer to "where's the poetry" is everywhere (I mean it is > international...there are people beyond our borders who may still be > interested in art for art's sake but don't shun the vital issues that it > raises). I don't know how else to put it, but to say that recent translations > of Gionvanna Sandri (Guy Bennett's Seeing Eye Books), the recent Raddle Moon > contain some of the most exciting, provocative work without dogmatics, civics > lessons, etc. > > SS > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 17:54:13 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: Re: the poetical is the political Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-06-15 16:59:41 EDT, you write: << fear you may be in danger of slipping down the slippery slope into classic american individualism here....Actually most of the vivid and *most poetic* and striking poets in the past century have been intensely political...To you it may sound like dogmatix or a civics lesson...but not to these ears. Vallejo, Duncan, Eluard, Char, Cesaire, Radnoti, Lorca (the social thrust of Poeta en NY), Neruda at his best in the Alturas and certain other section of the Canto General, HD confronting the blitz, Mayakovsky, Mandl'stam...Zukofsky, Oppen >> Mark, not sure how you see my remarks tied to American Individualism. I may have made myself less clear by adopting the language of Henry Gould (as I was responding to him). I'm really talking about a number of recent poets who like Whatten, for example, talked all this communism up in the early days and then edited out of their collected works when they were reprinted. I do think there is sometimes a civics lesson that turns up in poetry these days. It bugs me most when it is the purely an intellectual civic lesson: poems which ostensibly tell you why the Bell Curve book is bad. The other ones sometimes disguised as meditations on pop culture (pop culture is only a problem for intellectuals, I might contend). Also I was addressing the suggestion by Henry Gould that there is a divide between the CRAFT people and the POLITICS people currently. I suspect that anyone in any MFA program might be able to confirm this for us. Plus, there is the legacy of the deep image (still alive and well in people like Forest Gander) which seems to me to show an idealistic, individualistic residue of our forefathers who cast all that romantic, nature oreinted talk in terms of rights, liberty, blah, blah. It might interest you, Mark, to see my interest in international poets in regard to politics because of the way labor has status within political parties. Union are often political parties. The merger between poetics, politics is more clear as I think it was Jordan Davis or someone recently suggested: because the poets lives are at stake and not just their pocket books. Recently learned, it might also interest you, that the first line of the Italian constitution read like this: Italy is a nation founded on work... whereas we are nation founded on what? that all men are created equal? Don't you think this kind of idealism is a live and well in some US poetry? Maybe you don't get those submissions to Misc. Proj. but here with Rhizome I get plenty. Standard ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 18:32:37 -0500 Reply-To: "s. kaipa" Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "s. kaipa" Subject: Re: Poetry MFAs, money In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19980615131955.0073642c@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Mark: I agree that poets should not necessarily look towards MFA programs for a sense of community. But they do. Carrie said "Can't figure out any other way to find a writing community? I don't buy it." Well, whether or not one buys it, it is a reality for a few people who aren't living in "hip" towns and cavorting with the hipsters of the poetry scenes outside of academia. Many of them were encouraged to write by a teacher/professor and probably also led to believe that their opportunity to find other people with similar interests was on this very specific track. I was also trying to say in my previous post that these possibly "disenfranchised" writers actually do fare well at Iowa, accruing little or no debt. They are given the opportunity to write and be in the company of other writers with little strings attached. Poetry communities can be very difficult to enter if you aren't lucky to live in an area that fosters a community that grows 'together.' And you might still find that a community that you've found is not a community that you want. (Whether it be at an MFA program or in Prague/Paris/SF/NY, etc.) Summi >>And, believe it or not, there are many people who come to the program >>without ever having had a writing community--people from rural >>areas--hoping that they will find a kinship in those who do attend. > > If that's the case, why don't they take a small amount of that cash to > support them until they can get a job in a place where there is a community > of poets? What does it cost for an MFA? How many years in student-like > squalor would that pay for in Paris or Prague, or even NY or SF? (Or > Boston, or Baltimore, or DC or Providence--there are a fair number of > places where poets can be found outside of the classroom). > > Behind my modest proposal is the firm belief that it is absurd to expect to > be enough of a poet after a couple of years in school for potential poets > to become one's apprentices. There's a wisdom about the craft, and the art, > that only comes from years, in most case decades, of practice. And what one > learns at school is at best a minor part of this. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 17:12:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: The Academy In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >At the Bromige/Boering Double Academy of the Lyrical Arts, it should be >pointed out, Mr Bromwich teaches the very popular course in Remedial >Lyrics. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 18:45:18 -0700 Reply-To: mcx@bellatlantic.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael corbin Subject: Re: Good, there are no lions in the street MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jordan Davis wrote: > > > qualities) that obsess you, e.g. > a recent obsess objet for me: now that desire, indeed, obsession, is marked and measured in post-something theories, indeed, post-something poetries, is it something else? desire, obessison that is. _because_ of these poetires.? i was wondering. of course there is that necessary historical materialism about paying the rent (and not only for the lakota, annishinabe in that place that has come to be know as iowa) and creating on the grassy-knoll margins, civic(s)-life and like that. and a libidinal economy that becomes the economy itself (michael jordan's body-fluids, my gatorade, my needs. love itself); but more, now, what is the coin of the libidinal economy? it is not desire itself, much less its mimetic, lyrical human(ist) other, nor, more its refracted modernist mirror tain, and now not even its refractions in THEORY or L_A_N_+uage or pop culture (just intellectuals?) or just the thing, just the thing, just the thing of poetry. Is poetry the specie off disciplined desire,? precisely desiring machines, can't be bodies without organs, without this mediatory code-poetree? I kinda read the mina harker letters pushing in this desire-language direction, beautifully (I was wondering about the 'move' from 'theory' to 'memior', Dodie Bellamy, thinking about it wondering) or Scalapino crowds and not-evening and not-lights frozen in cartoon balloon caption languages. and especially that _Defoe_ (a history of the perception of the discipline, control, not even commodification cause that is too old and too easy). anyway, sorry, tonight. mc thats an obsession. at least after the isp is paid and electric is on time and you can get off of work and not be too tired to desire. mc ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 13:11:43 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Selling out & a community of poets MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark P: > ...er, didn't you notice that my use of "selling out" was not exactly > serious? [...] poets have nothing the capitalist > market (and its periphery, such as academe) WANTS. With some exceptions. David Eggleton, a NZ poet known for his ranting performance style and capitalist-baiting (was it Ken Bolton who wrote of him that he's unlikely to have someone stand up in the middle of a performance and say "As a yuppie, I have to disagree"?), has just done a TV ad for Honda. "A poem is an object, a rough diamond ..." Summi: > Poetry communities can be very difficult to enter if you aren't lucky to > live in an area that fosters a community that grows 'together.' And you > might still find that a community that you've found is not a community > that you want. And even if you _do_ live in a place with a thriving poetic community (such as Wellington) it can be difficult to become a part of it. Especially if one's background, education and workplace are not oriented towards the arts. Most of my friends and colleagues are great for drinking Lagavulin and watching Jackie Chan movies with; not so good for recommending a good translation of Baudelaire. One can always hang out with the open mike crowd, but if one is interested in more challenging and (loaded word) "thoughtful" writing, then it can be hard to be taken seriously unless one has done the right course. Many events are only ever publicised on varsity noticeboards. Which is why I'm so grateful for the net, and for this list above all. I may have been in lurk mode for ages, but the chatter on this list keeps my mind fizzing amid all the workplace talk of Project Management Methodologies and Rich Feature Sets. Tom Beard. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 20:32:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: Selling out & a community of poets In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > >> Poetry communities can be very difficult to enter ... > >Which is why I'm so grateful for the net... Amen to both comments (from different folks). I wandered in the wilderness for many years. The community was here all along (although back then very very small) but it was shy and didn't know how to respond to someone who knew nothing except that there was something else to know. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 21:15:47 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Skivvues Lesson My obsession tonight is with finding the formula that will allow me to umbra-ella all these pol-poet money issues & shut myself up at the same time so I can worry about money more. So here it is, robot guys & gals: VOICE. You mean - deep throated Galway Kinnell or something? What I mean is, we can coagulate about various political realities & styles as we chat along here, but lyric poetry is about a voice that takes command of the present within poetry in some fashion. We can groove on somebody's quirks (Scalapino's) - that's a start - but only a start. The idea is to consi der voice - the speaking/singing voice of a certain individual poet (this is where the Individualism/Community chorus gets the hook, off-stage you go) - as a kind of testament, like Villon's testament or Dickinson's. That is, the biz of craft vs. civics is the PROBLEM of the voice & the voice is the solution. Now in America & in school general (I mean trade school) we try to come up with a formula for this or a set of procedures. Good luck! "Lengthen your line a bit - no, that's too far, you're going Jeffers - cut the Vachel Lindsay pterodactyls - okay, okay, now you're getting it - yeah! A Whitman short poem!" Hah hah. The antidote : read one Akhmatova. Now that was a voice with a Person behind it. And a Poet. So we start to talk about how THIS PARTICULAR POET calibrates the brevity of a poem - the intonation, the triple entendre, the changes, the modulation, the sound, rhythm, diction, syntax - and comes across with something that either blows our minds or puts our heads together again. That's a voice - not "voice" - A voice. A river. Once we identify some of these - then we can even start acting like real Critics! - we can see where they tried to start to sound like themselves - we can see where it comes across as inauthentic or sloppy or lazy or complacent etc. And the interesting thing is that these weak points will probably be political and stylistic together... - OR different in an interesting way... I stress interesting and well-read & informed & homeworked as opposed to the usual theoretical blowharderie of which I among many am vociferously GUILTY. - SIGN-OFF POETICS (for the next 5 mins.) - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 18:55:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carrie Etter Subject: poetry in Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Summi wrote-- >I agree that poets should not necessarily look towards MFA programs for a >sense of community. >But they do. Carrie said "Can't figure out any other way to find a writing >community? I don't buy it." Well, whether or not one buys it, it is a >reality for a few people who aren't living in "hip" towns and cavorting >with the hipsters of the poetry scenes outside of academia. For the record, I found my first writing community in Normal, Illinois, in its pre-Dalkey Archive (and well pre-MA in creative writing at the state u.) days. It is not necessarily a reality for people who aren't living in "hip towns" to look to a university for a writing community. I'd see that someone in a 100-mile radius had published an interesting poem in a journal, and I'd write or call; I'd find homemade books by locals in the Waldenbooks, buy the books, and seek out the writers; there'd be a rare (once a year?) poetry reading. I've also had other locals (admittedly within that 100-mile radius) see my work in a mag and come meet me in Normal. Even in my first 6 years in LA, the writing community I participated in was entirely unconnected to a university--or to any "hipsters," for that matter. Sure, it took more work to find a writing community in Normal than it since has anywhere else, but it's do-able--writers are EVERYWHERE. I also have no particular attitude toward Iowa--I've just heard only complaints about the financial support there from a number of people who've been there in the last 5 years in both poetry and fiction. I'm glad to hear that it's not that way for everyone. Carrie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 21:55:36 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: where's the poetry In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 15 Jun 1998 16:32:08 EDT from Responding to Standard: all I can say is, if you gonna talk the talk you gotta walk the walk. I wrote about this in an insane misunderstandable way in Witz ("The Sense of Being Right"). There might be a way to be "righteous" without lecturing to others about it; in fact, it might involve shutting up sometimes (I should give that some thought). Then the vicious voice of the poet finds a balance between beauty & justice which is... gracefulness. Righteous, not self-righteous. Singin', not rantin'; hollerin' not squawkin'; preachin', not pissin'; callin' to account, not checkin' the accounts; etc.et.c Lawdy, we think we knows whut's best - we us, the blinest of th' blin'!! But there is no righteousness. The earth is a chorus of groans. the voice of poetry goes into birds, oceans, imaginary friends, only to simulate the righteousness of children. SIGH OFF POETICS (another 5 please) - henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 19:11:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carrie Etter Subject: Anchorage? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Does anyone on this list live in Anchorage or thereabouts? I'll be there tomorrow through next Monday and was wondering whether there'd be any poetry events in that time. Backchannel, please. Thanks, Carrie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 21:16:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: shapeshifter uncapitalized Comments: To: Mark Prejsnar In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 15 Jun 1998, Mark Prejsnar wrote: > > I think my original point stands, Patrick: I agree, in part, and never intended to actually counter that point. Re: "in part", see below. Thus my point that they > wouldn't "let you" if you begged 'em: poets have nothing the capitalist > market (and its periphery, such as academe) WANTS. These are so to > speak the working conditions that apply.... Except perhaps a sort of Jorie Grahamesque prestige value which, in MFA-ville, despite the relative low-cost (monetarily, at least) Iowa Workshop, fetches $. Patrick F. Durgin ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 21:18:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Anomalous Records - FYI (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Just thought this information might be of interest to list members. Patrick F. Durgin | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 10:19:38 -0500 From: / dave / To: rick durgin Subject: Anomalous Records - FYI UPCOMING RELEASE (available soon): * Brion Gysin "Poems of Poems" LP some of the most important experiments in cut-up and recording technique by the famous poet and artist. originally recorded in 1958 at the historical Beat Hotel in Paris. "Language is an abominable misunderstanding which makes up a part of matter. The painters and the physicists have treated matter pretty well. The poets have hardly touched it. In March 1958, when I was living at the Beat Hotel, I proposed to Burroughs to at least make available to literature the means that painters have been using for fifty years. Cut words into pieces and scramble them." 40 previously unpublished minutes of hypnotic, pure cut-up, only the voice of the author plus background noise from the Uher 4400 reel-to-reel recording machine; a fabulous, minimal piece of history. "What to do with all this all? Paste it to the wall with some photos and see what it looks like. Wait, paste these two pages together and cut in the middle. Paste it all together, end to end, and send it out like a big piano-roll. After all, it's not but matter. There's nothing sacred about words." edition of 630 copies. Alga Marghen Italy G 8VocSon021 AVAILABLE NOW: * Brion Gysin "One Night @ The 1001" 2 CD $17.99 in 1954, Brion Gysin - writer, painter and favorite collaborator of William S. Burroughs - launches his 1001 Nights club in Tangier. in his mythic restaurant, that stayed open only a few months, Gysin invited the best traditional Moroccan musicians to perform all night long. the first CD of this document is what the lucky Western and Moroccan customers of the interzone could hear at the time: a varied selection of pure traditional and trance music (along with other Joujouka master musicians, Bachir Attar's father). a decade before Brian Jones brought this timeless music into the world, this unique document was recorded by the inventor of the cut-up method himself. it has been digitally remastered by Brion's recordings heir Ramuntcho Matta. included is an exclusive introduction by Paul Bowles. the second volume of this double CD document is based on a spoken word tape called Dilaloo, which is a precise decription - written and read in 1956 by Brion Gysin 'Master Brahim' himself - of an initiation ceremony in the village of Jajouka. Ramuntcho added a quiet electronic music background generated by a computer algorithm programme that he created in Gysin's random permutative spirit. Sub Rosa Belgium SR142 Anomalous Records website: http://www.zipcon.com/~anomaly/ -- / dave / ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 22:45:35 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry G Subject: 1 more on voice "Her life experience could do nothing but follow the voice, permanently lagging behind it, for the voice was overtaking events - after all, it had the speed of sound. On the whole, experience always lags behind anticipation. "Yet the issue here is not only that of experience lagging behind anticipation; it is a question of the differences between art and reality. One of them is that in art, owing to the properties of the material itself, it is possible to attain a degree of lyricism that has no physical equivalent in the real world. Nor, in the same way, does there exist in the real world an equivalent of the tragic in art, which (the tragic) is the reverse of lyricism - or the stage that follows it. No matter how dramatic a person's direct experience is, it is always exceeded by the experien ce of an instrument. Yet a poet is a combination of an instrument and a human being in one person, with the former gradually taking over the latter. The sensation of this takeover is responsible for timbre; the realization of it, for destiny." - Joseph Brodsky, "A Poet and Prose" [on Marina Tsvetaeva] A couple things about this passage. The first & last few sentences zero in on why the voice phenomenon is central. The other point is that Brodsky, a born popularizer, does a funny thing in this passage that you find often in his work. He uses outrageous hyperbole (art always exceeds any real world experience) in order to describe something to a general (generally non-poet) public which is actually MORE EXTREME (hyperbolic) than he lets on. Poets and insane people understand this submission to the "instrument" as fate and inner superreality; but if Brodsky let on just HOW uncanny this is, no one would believe him. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 19:48:02 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale Smith Subject: For Sale Content-Type: text/plain Attention Diverse Arts Community. MIKE AND DALE'S YOUNGER POETS is pleased to announce the publication of its Spring issue, #9. This quarter you can enjoy the poems of Jack Micheline, Peggy Kelley, John Bovio, Steve Emerson, Jim Nisbet, Carl Thayler, Bobbie West, Duncan McNaughton, Elinor Nauen, Anselm Berrigan, Kevin Opstedal, Pam Brown, Keith Kaufman, Tom Clark and Amy Gerstler. Also included is an interview with the editors, conducted by Charles Bernstein at Venice Beach's Beyond Baroque Arts Center. Don't be left out of the season's cocktail chat. Buy now, by gum. Also available by MIKE & DALE'S PRESS: ROAD TRIP THROUGH THE FOUR SPHERES, a new chapbook of poems by Texas Eco-activist John Herndon. This poem is a primer that surveys the landscape of three states, beginning on the Balcones Escarpment of central Texas and ending in Colorado's Rockie Mountians. SAND IN THE VASELINE, a book of poems by Kevin Opstedal, whose verse carries a streetwise ethic of confrontation and territorial marking to a high level of artistic sophistication. Forthcoming this summer is a book of poems by poet Hoa Nguyen, illustrated by artist Suloni Sood Robertson. LUCKY PUP, a book of poems by Leslie Davis will be available in the fall. Future issue of MIKE & DALE'S YOUNGER POETS include Chris Stroffolino, Brett Evans, Kristin Prevallet and more! All publications $5 US Subscriptions, orders and correspondences should be addressed to: Dale Smith 2925 Higgins Street Austin, TX 78722 or Michael Price 766 Valencia Street San Francisco 94110 "You guys are to poetry what Howard Stern is to radio." -- from an anonymous (fan?) letter. Who's got time to wait? Become a Younger Poet. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 19:13:48 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: an Enlightenment intuition spurned MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Divide matter into as minute parts as you will, which we are apt to imagine a sort of spiritualizing or making a thinking thing of it;..."from Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 23:25:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: voke MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Henny why you keep voking the rushens! And why those rushens. Cos I don't know why I got to keep tryenta read em. I like Bowra's Pasternaks and any Mayakowsky gets me, an sometimes for heestyrical perspektif I lookit Gogol n Turgenev an Chekhioff! Butchoo know even if Andy Carroll had a bond wit em I don't get Joe Brodskaya's taste, you see what lines by that other bree-illyunt po-its he likes he likes? "The moon's a balloon" in June etc etc is I mean come on. There is a poem and there is a person telling which is which are you? If it is true what they say one one [he/she/e] one voke then could you voke and be done already? I don't see why I gotta feel the whippa this anymore, yer wheering it owt. Love, Uncle Vinnie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 00:03:51 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: Re: voke Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit you dere cool. uncle loius says heelo i am getting a nice package toegterh now for you it is weir just thinking about sending you poems becasue i now trust you and only have shown poems to loir and i like ot share but publishing is a lil out of the question for a small fry porckchop like me i sent to you "lowstation" 7 pages hot of the press tonight but will come mail uncle erik ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 00:24:51 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: ooops ignore Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit sorry listmates sent something that was a private message to the pope to the list about fedex and smurfs mates goodnight. erik ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 22:18:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: oops ignore Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Listmates, dont know about you, but I will always read any post with oops in its header. Oops, most poetic of titles. The lack of intention upon me (if I can resolve with myself that the writer be not disingenuous) that Oops would assure me of, feels so . . . trustworthy. I feel I may learn something. Now I recall being intro'd once (on Hornby island) as "The poet of Ooops"--the introducer had turned over two pages at once. It was a delightful mistake, but I think she took my laughter to be mocking. No, it was the slight shock of recognition that snuck through. d. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 22:30:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: an institutionalized avant garde is MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit db db bp gb ss... There is no money in poetry. The commodity is prestige and influence. That is exchanged for teaching positions or generated therefrom. But there are also a few like Al Purdy and bill bissett who lifeart money somehow. Not easy. Not for me. But they do it well, incredibly well. Gerry Gilbert in a different way. MacEwan. Leonard Cohen via music. Phyllis Webb via real estate... This is primarily 'canadian content': An institutionalized avant garde is: Proof that you can change the system within the system; One of the more bizarre consequences of nationalism; A contradiction in terms; A testament to a nation’s committment to excellence; Necessary; Inevitable; A liberal conspiracy; A conservative conspiracy; Coincidental with the end of art; The life of art; A good argument for garrets; A garret for good arguments; Dangerous; Tame; The unwritten Brave New World; Bureaucracy in the service of art; Art in the service of bureaucracy; A noble union of art and bureaucracy; A machine with decision procedures; At odds with market capitalism; Intent on revolution; A co-operative of artists. http://www.speakeasy.org/~jandrews/vispo/lifeart4.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 02:08:09 -0400 Reply-To: Tom Orange Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: shapeshift normal poetry money In-Reply-To: <199806160406.AAA06415@romeo.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII jumping in with carrie, summi, markp, standard, patrick et al.: carrie wrote about "payback time...and the frustration that ensues *given the market conditions*...," my emphasis, cuz this is quite the point. and i think mark is right on: that this plagues us *all*, mfa and non-mfa alike, normal iowa city nyc "hipster" alike as far as i'm concerned. and again mark is right on in saying (if i may splice these gems together) that the "interesting undertows of resistance and self-creation" call precisely for "an overall structure of projects." capital knows no payback. and i think no single project is enough: any project must be ventured with an acute awareness of how it can situate itself (yes, agency!) into the overall structure: go to university, drive across the country to find a chapbook, work in high tech, do lay therapy in a farm north of toronto, and hell maybe somebody will climb the random house corporate ladder and actually convince the ceo to cut 50,000 bucks off the top once a year and put it towards publishing some non-mainstream poetry titles too. find yr community, it aint where you are its what you do and what level of awareness you can do it at... bests, t. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 00:59:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: an institutionalized avant garde is In-Reply-To: <358602DA.51272E6@speakeasy.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" . MacEwan. Leonard Cohen via music. First time I have heard Rod MacEwan mentioned for years. Reminds me of the time someone in _Rolling Stone_ referred to MacEwan and MacCohen.... George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 07:15:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: an institutionalized avant garde is Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Leonard Cohen via music. As much as I enjoy Cohen's offerings as they are, it would be extremely interesting if he could untangle his tongue a little, and express some of the so obviously repressed creative materials a little more freely. In one interview, some years ago, he told the interviewer that he is made to agonize about each word he writes. I am sure some of us have had similar experiences, and understand the conflicts, but it is the overcoming of some of those potential influences that might be the larger challenge. We might hope..... M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 07:51:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: an Enlightenment intuition spurned [pontification in response] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"Divide matter into as minute parts as you will, which we are apt to >imagine a sort of spiritualizing or making a thinking thing of >it;..."from Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke Of course. There is no true dualism of matter and mind. It is all matter. It is all mind. That is the key to understanding how life began. There is no beginning, as first instance. Information is already acquired and utilized, in rudimentary ways by what we traditionally define as "non living" matter. Similarly there is no true dualism between body and soul. This is simply another way of expressing the false dualism between particle and wave. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 01:10:44 -0400 Reply-To: CD Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: CD Subject: pre-rejected In-Reply-To: <199806160405.AAA02596@alcor.concordia.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Now that is what I call painful. And true. ... yes, yes. And yes how true. Poetry is pre-rejected - at least certain kinds, adn certain types of poets are 'pre-rejected' Robert Frost did okay, and so did Delmore S for quite a long time. Till he drank it all away... there is the American poet Wallace Stevens who did quite well among the middle class, and was quite a successful poet in his time. And W.C. Williams the good doctor earned a good living and wrote all his life... But I think that Katy's argument no less interesting for all that. Fine poetry is pre-rejected, but the economics of poetry are certainly as important and no less difficult than the lives of so-called ordinary people and their daily struggles to make a living. I don't know if there is an average when it comes to this type of thing, but I'd say that the cultural worker's contribution is harder, more demading and carries no insurance policies that I know of. Not here in Canada, or the U.S. and in the good old U.S.S.R well being a poet wasn't a matter of being paid, it was a matter of being imprisoned if you said the wrong thing. And I think that poetry is more important than making cars, or advertising or building space shuttles... Having said that I still like the space shuttle but it would be nice if Poets got paid. And poetry got paid. And if the cool count of words added up to dollars and cents. I think it is awful and not just sad that poets have to squeak about salaries. And I don't think they are just like everyone else. At least not today. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 08:17:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: voke In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 15 Jun 1998 23:25:45 -0400 from >Henny why you keep voking the rushens! And why those rushens. Cos I don't >know why I got to keep tryenta read em. I like Bowra's Pasternaks and any >Mayakowsky gets me, an sometimes for heestyrical perspektif I lookit Gogol >n Turgenev an Chekhioff! Butchoo know even if Andy Carroll had a bond wit >em I don't get Joe Brodskaya's taste, you see what lines by that other >bree-illyunt po-its he likes he likes? "The moon's a balloon" in June etc >etc is I mean come on. There is a poem and there is a person telling which >is which are you? If it is true what they say one one [he/she/e] one voke >then could you voke and be done already? I don't see why I gotta feel the >whippa this anymore, yer wheering it owt. Love, Uncle Vinnie Ey, Vin, c'mon, lighten up guy! Yuz gotta know that Brodsky like me gotta bitta the sleaze lawyer instinks - y'know ya hear somthin differaunt like so put it in their FACE, what I'm sayin? With me here? Okay soze ya right I wonder sometimes mySELF what's wit de Rooshkie shtick - but here it is: it's like a totally different sound & experience comin at the same ancient traditions, like. So youze get ahold of them 2 vol Akhmatova set from Zephyr press & have somebody read da Rooshkie to you an you reads the translation maybe you see whut I'm gettin at. Or you reads Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoirs (at's what got me hooked) an then you read somma them half-ass Mandelstam translations an he STILL charm the hell outa ya! Now Brodsky, yeah, he thinks he's Thomas Hardy redeviverse or sommat, okay, yeah, his english ain't that great, ey, there's mo to it than at. Ever hear him read? Take a listen to a tape. The rushkie, I mean. Ey, so all right, I'll give ya thuh lowdown now: American poetry bores the shit outa me, it's a political problem wit da culture an all that, so there ya have it, maybe I should go inta travel brochure writin or sommat... - Vinnie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 08:58:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Skivvues Lesson In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" excuse me but a visual mondegreen had me reading "pol-pot" for pol-poet below. At 9:15 PM -0400 6/15/98, Henry Gould wrote: >My obsession tonight is with finding the formula that will allow me to >umbra-ella all these pol-poet money issues & shut myself up at the same >time so I can worry about money more. > >So here it is, robot guys & gals: >VOICE. >You mean - deep throated Galway Kinnell or something? > >What I mean is, we can coagulate about various political realities & styles >as we chat along here, but lyric poetry is about a voice that takes command >of the present within poetry in some fashion. We can groove on somebody's >quirks (Scalapino's) - that's a start - but only a start. The idea is to >consi >der voice - the speaking/singing voice of a certain individual poet (this is >where the Individualism/Community chorus gets the hook, off-stage you go) >- as a kind of testament, like Villon's testament or Dickinson's. >That is, the biz of craft vs. civics is the PROBLEM of the voice & the voice >is the solution. Now in America & in school general (I mean trade school) >we try to come up with a formula for this or a set of procedures. Good >luck! "Lengthen your line a bit - no, that's too far, you're going >Jeffers - cut the Vachel Lindsay pterodactyls - okay, okay, now you're >getting it - yeah! A Whitman short poem!" > >Hah hah. The antidote : read one Akhmatova. Now that was a voice with >a Person behind it. And a Poet. > >So we start to talk about how THIS PARTICULAR POET calibrates the brevity >of a poem - the intonation, the triple entendre, the changes, the >modulation, the sound, rhythm, diction, syntax - and comes across with >something that either blows our minds or puts our heads together again. >That's a voice - not "voice" - >A voice. A river. > >Once we identify some of these - then we can even start acting like real >Critics! - we can see where they tried to start to sound like themselves - >we can see where it comes across as inauthentic or sloppy or lazy or >complacent etc. And the interesting thing is that these weak points >will probably be political and stylistic together... - OR different >in an interesting way... > >I stress interesting and well-read & informed & homeworked as opposed to >the usual theoretical blowharderie of which I among many am vociferously >GUILTY. > >- SIGN-OFF POETICS (for the next 5 mins.) >- Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:01:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: ah yeah thot so MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Henny yeh hadda feelin you mighta thot mericanser mergansers. But godawful! tossin turnin thinkin Kharms Khlebnikov Zhdanov anybuddy butta two volloom akmet. You go checkit outa White pLains liberry you'll see I saw it years agow and read it thruway twice. Requiem thass beautiful as an aquifer sure but how much betta it got liked by me after I noon a story bout it than before lara linnie's dad's play bout it and on o no! komachi, I meen you dramatizin' someone's worldsufferin in some way not a civix lessen? I mean you taken up these prisonpoets for a reason or ayou spielbergen some thrillz. Ah cuz these poets even Almondstem in the SUNY big black buk they knda diffunt from the thing the erdge to do sumfin diffent but izz blurry yah Pulselon schleps Almondstem -- but iffits moralizin its kinda thin it won do those perpesses for ya annit's gettin on yeers now we gettin this Almondstem this Akhmet that an I jes wanna have some transPAIRency uhthe buiks like whadda you want fromme inre these particklr rushens. Less have it. U.V. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 09:05:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: an institutionalized avant garde is In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" hey i caught the bowerer in his own petard: it's MCKUEN. MacEwan, is that Ian the creepy-fiction writer? McKuen is the hallmark poet of SF 60s. At 12:59 AM -0700 6/16/98, George Bowering wrote: >. MacEwan. Leonard Cohen via music. > >First time I have heard Rod MacEwan mentioned for years. Reminds me of the >time someone in _Rolling Stone_ referred to MacEwan and MacCohen.... > > > > >George Bowering. > , >2499 West 37th Ave., >Vancouver, B.C., >Canada V6M 1P4 > >fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:11:36 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hen Subject: Re: ah yeah thot so In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:01:07 -0400 from On Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:01:07 -0400 Jordan Davis said: >Henny yeh hadda feelin you mighta thot mericanser mergansers. But >godawful! tossin turnin thinkin Kharms Khlebnikov Zhdanov anybuddy butta >two volloom akmet. You go checkit outa White pLains liberry you'll see I >saw it years agow and read it thruway twice. Requiem thass beautiful as an >aquifer sure but how much betta it got liked by me after I noon a story >bout it than before lara linnie's dad's play bout it and on o no! komachi, >I meen you dramatizin' someone's worldsufferin in some way not a civix >lessen? I mean you taken up these prisonpoets for a reason or ayou >spielbergen some thrillz. Ah cuz these poets even Almondstem in the SUNY >big black buk they knda diffunt from the thing the erdge to do sumfin >diffent but izz blurry yah Pulselon schleps Almondstem -- but iffits >moralizin its kinda thin it won do those perpesses for ya annit's gettin >on yeers now we gettin this Almondstem this Akhmet that an I jes wanna >have some transPAIRency uhthe buiks like whadda you want fromme inre these >particklr rushens. Less have it. U.V. Ey, Vin, heppy Bloomsday nal while we at it wit de idiomts... Yknow Akmet's pal Isay Berlin talk about thuh Fox an the Hedgehog wull I about as Hedgehog as they come (long wid Listhog), cause whens I reads the end of Requiem evr time I gets the physical chills uppa spine yknow an then I knows dis ending here of dis poem is the greatest poem of 20th cent. maybe of all time... an thass juss one examp of how a Hedgehog getta crush onna cert writer an all an then iss curtains fo the rest like Akmet getta crush on Pushkin soze like she spen pract a lifetime juss goin deeper into it, now whats I love about Akmet & Almondstem way beyond Kleb & Kharm (tho I likes them A LOT) is the same thing I loves about Zhdanov it's the MUSIC man, it's the HEART-MUSIC, when you gots dis correlations of images & a story & a sly thing goin on meanwhile juss a simple tune playin with simple words alongs a line that what I love an it comes outa thirst an hunger man like you know all the NOT-POETRY world that you gotta walk da walk eventually gives you dis basic THIRST f'dat music an that is a simple ting that a lotta younga poets are onto but then a lotta younga poets are NOT onto because they in it all day long too much know what I'm sayin? So it gets mighty political rhetorical sophistiy-clever intullectchall ya know like throw in a big word here an a lil radical experience here an presto hey this is one cutting-edge poet man an I say ey juss gimme that MUSIC man that develop an surge into high heaven like Tsvetaeva & Akmet & Mandel got that SURGE man maybe it eastern orthodox icon or somethin but it come across so thass one thing I like about it plus I juss LOVE the mystery games Akmet & Mandel play wid a line stole from here an meaning about 20 diffunt things without bein obvious about it I dig that now if you wanna see whut I do wid all this stuff I love well you just hop on down to the new non (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty) cause I got a few lil jingle examps there wheres I take some ver Merican material histeria wisteria an I puts it troo a Mandelstam octet like wid rhymes an all, see #1 I do there is like almost a direct steal whiles #3 come outa the film version of "Oblomov" an so on juss for an examp now theys a few more a these comin out in Talisman next but you will see how diffent they sounds fum all the other non people an mostly they sound like TV ad jingles done by Celan but anyways thass what it all about... - Henny ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 00:34:20 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Cohen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" >As much as I enjoy Cohen's offerings as they are, it would be extremely >interesting if he could untangle his tongue a little, and express some >of the so obviously repressed creative materials a little more freely. > >In one interview, some years ago, he told the interviewer that he is >made to agonize about each word he writes. I think, with many highly-influential albums, books of poems and prose poems, two novels and a Roshi, Laughing Lennie has been quite free with his expression. The air might be thin on Mt. Baldy, but the groundswell shows no sign of abating. And as for the agonising over words... he has been intentionally esoteric when playing the interview game, but so has Richard Wilbur ("someone looking down on me from above, as I sit at a card table in the sun staring at a white sheet of paper, could be forgiven for thinking I was in a state of severe catatonia"), and others in the Paris Review & Parnassus interviews. Some of us lay words down with a trowel, others, like Bunting & Cohen, use a chisel & blow powder from the stone before the next word is revealed. Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:48:09 -0400 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: the poetical is the political In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Standard, Your long reply to my snappishness, clarifies immensely...Thanx. Sorry to be so snippy. That you mention specific poets helps; i can get more of a grasp of what we're talking about... Lots of good points in your reply (not all of which are worked thru, and about which one could quibble slightly here and there; but basically i'm in agreement). Well done & thanx. mark ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:04:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "s. kaipa" Subject: Re: poetry in Normal In-Reply-To: <199806160158.SAA25115@taurus.oac.uci.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 15 Jun 1998, Carrie Etter wrote: > For the record, I found my first writing community in Normal, Illinois, in > its pre-Dalkey Archive (and well pre-MA in creative writing at the state u.) > days. It is not necessarily a reality for people who aren't living in "hip > towns" to look to a university for a writing community. Carrie, I never said I thought it was "necessarily" a reality for people living in rural areas or in disenfranchised areas to look to the university for a writing community. All I'm saying is that they have done so in the past--and not necessarily without success. > I'd see that someone in a 100-mile radius had published an interesting > poem in a journal, and I'd write or call; I'd find homemade books by > locals in the Waldenbooks, > buy the books, and seek out the writers; there'd be a rare (once a year?) > poetry reading. I've also had other locals (admittedly within that 100-mile > radius) see my work in a mag and come meet me in Normal. Even in my first 6 > years in LA, the writing community I participated in was entirely > unconnected to a university--or to any "hipsters," for that matter. Sure, > it took more work to find a writing community in Normal than it since has > anywhere else, but it's do-able--writers are EVERYWHERE. I encourage everyone to do these kinds of things--to get themselves involved. But many of us don't always know where to start. It's obvious that we (the ones on the list) have done some searching in order to find each other. If you're out of the loop, then you're out of the loop. Oh--and by the way--I happen to like hipsters, even though they are hipsters. Best, Summi ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 11:10:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Poets in advertizing In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > With some exceptions. David Eggleton, a NZ poet known for his ranting > performance style and capitalist-baiting (was it Ken Bolton who wrote of > him that he's unlikely to have someone stand up in the middle of a > performance and say "As a yuppie, I have to disagree"?), has just done a TV > ad for Honda. "A poem is an object, a rough diamond ..." And then, Allen Ginsberg was similarly doing ads at the very end of his life, when enuff decades of notoriety had made him a "celebrity" in a sufficiently bankable way.... But these are exceptions that prove the rule, i think.. Anyway in the Ginsberg case, it truly reinforces my point: AG was useful because he had become that neutral colorless odorless substance that constitutes all mass culture under late capitalism: The Celebrity. Yeah i know, in reality and for most of us here he was still anything but colorless. But for the World of Marketing he was another undifferentiated "personality." The idea that he was a poet was equivalent to basketball star/rock singer/former presidential candidate, etc. An abstraction that it was assumed most of the buying public would be indifferent to, so long as he was known to be famous. mark ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 11:26:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Poets in advertizing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit FWIW, Ginsberg donated his fees for appearing in the Gap khakis ad to the Milarepa Fund, which agitates for Tibet. Gwyn, with crisped nose due to lack of sunscreen at yesterday's rally, where Richard Gere displayed amazing verbosity ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 11:39:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: millionaire poets MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Patrick, i see what you mean about what you call Jorie Grahamesque poets who can get some $.... But...but..i understand that to you what she can get in the way of grants and prizes, relatively nice teaching jobs, etc. may seem like quite a lot, and desireable....**to me too!!** it would be nice to have a few goodies.. But my structural analysis is really about the place of poetry-activities in the general culture and economy, and really (i would argue) it isn't weakened by the fact that a few mainstreamers have prestige and income that's way above most. They still have fame and money (insofar as the latter comes from their work) that are way down in the scale of finance and resources our society doles out... More to the point is the fact that very few poets (no matter how tepid and conservative their work) ever achieve those exalted heights. It is very different from the specific place occupied by various genres of theater, film, fiction, music, viz art, where there are guiding myths of adulation and big bucks awaiting the industrious... And the possiblity (tho even for them, not easy to achieve in today's economy) of scraping by till then.. Then, if i'm right about the specific material character of "the marginalization of poetry," this has interesting echoes in the way publishing formats, performance spaces, etc. get invented and mutated, and the way these become inseperable elements of the work itself.. mark ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 11:43:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Poets in advertizing Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> With some exceptions. David Eggleton, a NZ poet known for his ranting >> performance style and capitalist-baiting (was it Ken Bolton who wrote of >> him that he's unlikely to have someone stand up in the middle of a >> performance and say "As a yuppie, I have to disagree"?), has just done a >>TV ad for Honda. "A poem is an object, a rough diamond ..." Despite equivalent efforts to those of other makes as to economics and quality, the Honda Motor Company has largely lost its battle for popularity in the North American market. Has that something to do with it ? >And then, Allen Ginsberg was similarly doing ads at the very end of his >life, when enuff decades of notoriety had made him a "celebrity" in a >sufficiently bankable way.... > >But these are exceptions that prove the rule, i think.. What about the argument that advertising / marketing has a greater right to use of language than poets have ? I have actually experienced that form of persuasion. So I know it happens. In fact also the argument that advertising / marketing of other products has precedence as to usage. That specific words, once identified with specific products are no longer as available for other uses as they were before a coporate take-over of language claimed specific words as corporate assets. In particular common words that serve as jingos, slogans, and trade-names, and have become commonly identified with a specific product. Duz All of you understand that Tide of Cheer thinking ? An example of the deter-gent of poetic usage. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 11:45:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Poets in advertizing Comments: To: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" In-Reply-To: <199806161523.LAA05710@serv4.law.emory.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII No sorry the list did not "hash out" what i was refering to at all..... i am not talking about the hand-wringing that went on here regarding moral/political judgments..... i was more interested in the cultural dynamic involved with reducing a specific person and his activities to the abstract cypher of celebrity-as-marketing-device-and-commodity; i haven't much interest in what he did with the money, since unlike many who participated in the old thread you're refering to, it never disturbed me much that he was doing it! it was fascinating that he was doing it, but, no really, i feel there are larger and more interesting political fish to fry than ethico-political fretting over AG's advertizing career!! m. On Tue, 16 Jun 1998, Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume wrote: > The List hashed this out last year, Mark. Allen donated the monies from > those Gap ads to the Tibetan refugee cause. > > Patrick Pritchett > ---------- > From: Mark Prejsnar > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Poets in advertizing > Date: Tuesday, June 16, 1998 10:10AM > > And then, Allen Ginsberg was similarly doing ads at the very end of his > life, when enuff decades of notoriety had made him a "celebrity" in a > sufficiently bankable way.... > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 11:51:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: voke Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>..... why you keep voking the rushens! And why those rushens. Cos I don't >>know why I got to keep tryenta read em. I like Bowra's Pasternaks and any >>Mayakowsky gets me, an sometimes for heestyrical perspektif I lookit Gogol >>n Turgenev an Chekhioff! Butchoo know even if Andy Carroll had a bond wit >>em I don't get Joe Brodskaya's taste, you see what lines by that other >>bree-illyunt po-its he likes he likes? "The moon's a balloon" in June etc >>etc is I mean come on. There is a poem and there is a person telling which >>is which are you? If it is true what they say one one [he/she/e] one voke >>then could you voke and be done already? I don't see why I gotta feel the >>whippa this anymore, yer wheering it owt. Love, Uncle Vinnie Not the rushens. It all began with the rush-Ins. (Pronunciation is everything in this game.) That was quickly twisted around by the Christadelphians, into some kind of a money bejeezus radio series routine of poetic double entendres in between sudden virulent attacks of cult jamming....... The Soviet Union fell into ruins in consequence of that. Believe me. It is true. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 09:16:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Poets in advertizing Comments: To: Mark Prejsnar MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain The List hashed this out last year, Mark. Allen donated the monies from those Gap ads to the Tibetan refugee cause. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Mark Prejsnar To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Poets in advertizing Date: Tuesday, June 16, 1998 10:10AM And then, Allen Ginsberg was similarly doing ads at the very end of his life, when enuff decades of notoriety had made him a "celebrity" in a sufficiently bankable way.... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 12:18:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: poetry in Normal Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> For the record, I found my first writing community in Normal, Illinois, in >> its pre-Dalkey Archive (and well pre-MA in creative writing at the state u.) >> days. It is not necessarily a reality for people who aren't living in "hip >> towns" to look to a university for a writing community. >Carrie, I never said I thought it was "necessarily" a reality for people >living in rural areas or in disenfranchised areas to look to the >university for a writing community. All I'm saying is that they have done >so in the past--and not necessarily without success. Little enclaves of academia, following the ancient tradition of far flung monasteries, in the hostile reaches of the empire, notwithstanding. Even if they do send occassional emissaries to the big sacred cities for audiences with the holy sees of poetics..... Does anyone know of an episode, or chapter, within the famous sociological study of "Middletown, U.S.A.", that dealt with anything resembling Middletown poetics or, more broadly, Middletown art ? I do not recall such an episode or chapter. Though I might have missed it because of its brevity..... I wonder why that might be. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 12:17:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: surge on MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII wot henny writ: way beyond Kleb & Kharm (tho I likes them A LOT) is the same thing I loves about Zhdanov it's the MUSIC man, it's the HEART-MUSIC, when you gots dis correlations of images & a story & a sly thing goin on meanwhile juss a simple tune playin with simple words alongs a line that what I love an it comes outa thirst an hunger man like you know all the NOT-POETRY world that you gotta walk da walk eventually gives you dis basic THIRST f'dat UV writs bak: Henny no no this idno time fo speshul pleedin! I meen ya like ta gifme arRHYTHmia! like ya sayin nobody got riddim in they heart but who. try it inna crow dad church see whatta time you broom. Iddest what lackariddim you talkin to, you see a lackariddim you hit em. Henny writ on: music an that is a simple ting that a lotta younga poets are onto but then a lotta younga poets are NOT onto because they in it all day long too much know what I'm sayin? So it gets mighty political rhetorical sophistiy-clever intullectchall ya know like throw in a big word here an a lil radical experience here an presto hey this is one cutting-edge poet UV scretch: O so the commawilt a Broosachusetts a junger poat now. So we all one big BA colony. Thassa good readah theyah. Now deskrive the ones you say you lerv agin. Whadda theyah do? Hen surge on: man an I say ey juss gimme that MUSIC man that develop an surge into high heaven like Tsvetaeva & Akmet & Mandel got that SURGE man maybe it eastern orthodox icon or somethin but it come across so thass one thing I like about it plus I juss LOVE the mystery games Akmet & Mandel play wid a line stole from here an meaning about 20 diffunt things without bein obvious UV dribs: AALLUUSSIIOONN! Dag. Dagnav. I new gone leave sumpin out. Hump a sump. Henniston: about it I dig that now if you wanna see whut I do wid all this stuff I love well you just hop on down to the new non (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty) cause I got a few lil jingle examps there wheres I take some ver Merican material histeria wisteria an I puts it troo a Mandelstam octet like wid rhymes an all, see #1 I do there is like almost a direct steal whiles #3 come outa the film version of "Oblomov" an so on juss for an examp now theys a few more a these comin out in Talisman next but you will see how diffent they sounds fum all the other non people an mostly they sound like TV ad jingles done by Celan but anyways thass what it all about... UV glares: ah yeh thot so. Cain even tella pub lick tellavision shoe from an infomerchal no mo. OK dk I cashncarryd outcher square miles n they made sensimibilia shore as rushen kum quatrains but not so giant steps you get to teez yore company! Whassa point a been some PLACE iffu doan like th folks theyah? An I done look fr th Celanshow but I knowa it allareddy it one Ben Hollander done made that scene but GOOD. So if whatcha sayin is what it all about is this thing that you don't like and want to influence to be different, now that you've been invoking Mandelstam and Akhmatova here on the list for at least two years, what changes have you seen? The comparison has been difficult for me to take. I automatically think "red-baiting." Is there something in the world analogous to Stalinism now? Does the poetry you disdain oppose it? Does it oppose it not only with what it says but how it says it? And most importantly, does it do anything? I hope I'm not giving you a way out of carrying on this conversation by offering you that last question. I know that Auden's verdict, that POETRY MAKES NOTHING HAPPEN, has been invoked on the list recently, but I also think that was what we may gently call an historical (impatient) remark. The anthologies of poems on affairs of state, as well as the works of the Russians you admire, suggest otherwise. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:26:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Poetry saved my life MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain A report from that hipper-than-thou enclave and poetry nexus in Boulder: Yesterday afternoon, in the Big Tent at Naropa, a panel was convened to expound on experimental poetry. Moderated by Anne Waldman, the panelists were: Eleni Sikelianos, Alice Notley, Wesley Tanner, Maureen Owen, Doug Oliver and Laird Hunt. Less a busy exchange of views than a series of well-tempered reflections and mini- manifestoes, the panel was exceptionally lively, diverse and thought-provoking. Alice Notley began by reading her "Poetics of Disobedience," (posted to this space previously by Katy Lederer and available on the Notley author page at the EPC). Disobedience, for Notley, involves more than a rejection of doctrine and convention. It is both "the necessity of noncompliance with pressures [and] dictates," and, though she did not say so directly, the means to attaining a deeper form of obedience to the self, the self impoverished, or stripped bare, of mental clutter, outside agitations, and the pervasive and deleterious host of "shoulds" pressing in from all sides. Alice would chide me for saying so (since I'm about to bring up a comparison, which she's quite sick of, thank you), but I kept thinking throughout her reading of Nietzche's idea in _Gay Science_ that we must "obey, at length and in a single direction [so that] something worthwhile might result, something divine and transfiguring: poetry, madness, the dance..." Laird Hunt gave us a stimulating disquisition on the idea of "lineage," weaving a renga-like chain of references between Kafka, Hamsun, Bernadette Mayer, Montaigne, Samuel Johnson, Borges and others. The stranger in the book can enter our lives at any point in the text. Read everything. Maureen Owen followed by tracing the Western attitude toward knowledge through 19th Century empiricism to more radical modernist approaches. She exhorted the audience to dare to be open to form -- to reject the received and packaged forms of knowledge in order to make ourselves available to the new, the unknown, the unforeseen. The celebrated printer Wesley Tanner spoke about the difficulty of making it new in a form that encourages conformity (i.e. the making of books) and gave what I thought were two of the best lines of the panel: "Poetry, I think, saved my life." And: "It's got to be about loving what you do." Next, Doug Oliver led us on tour of what he called "ideological cliches," summarizing the various nodes of the postmodern attack on certainty and language. He talked about the interface between surface and depth as the place in language where both play and tragedy occur. And how the older generation of poets (his) are looking to the younger generation for inspiration. For Oliver, young American poets (presumably those in the new Jarnot/Schwartz/Stroffolino anthology) are not burdened by the anxieties of their predecessors. He made it sound, I thought, as though they were unburdened by any anxieties at all. Which I don't think is at all true, if that's what he meant. Poetry is incessantly engaged with the anxiety of form -- which seemed to me the theme sounded by all the panelists, in so many words. Eleni Sikelianos closed the panel with a rousing and lyrical essay which had previously appeared in "Tripwire," and which explored the tensions between the eternal, conceived of as static repetition, and a sublime that was constantly recreating itself. "We must upset the atomic stability of language." And: "a poem is a suspension of legal terms." That is, it must defy definition, stricture. She enjoined her listeners not to use strange syntax for its own sake, "but through syntax to reveal the strange things that are beyond syntax." Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 09:48:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: shapeshift normal poetry money In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:08 AM 6/16/98 -0400, tom wrote: it aint where you are its what you do >and what level of awareness you can do it at... thanks tom for setting it right in so few words there's no biz like po biz keep working all bill - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh | PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 12:58:23 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: Re: teachers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Very surprised there aren't more younger folks out there who found their teachers for free as I did. Start up a literary magazine, or a reading series and teachers will appear. For me-- Nate Leslie, Si Perchik, Laurie Anderson, Paul Weinman, Alan Catlin, Len Roberts, Bob Grenier etcetera. As for anarchy, I have an essay called Survivalist Aesthetic in the new W'orc's Aloud/Allowed on how to make money as a writer with large caliber weapons, sharp instruments, and blunt objects that might interest some of you. Thanks for all the Toronto info. I still owe a few of you notes & am getting there. Be well David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 13:10:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Poetry saved my life MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Patrick, wd. love to hear more re: Laird Hunt's concept of "lineage" & what such, if any, were identified among contemporary Americans. You mentioned Bernadette Mayer--others? Would you backchannel if this becomes too long or boring for general consumption? bests, Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 13:12:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: teachers In-Reply-To: <35866BE6.5AE8@thewebpeople.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For myself, I found Forrest Gander through a Web Page I wrote on Frank Stanford, and for a time he was very beneficial to me. I also have started a reading series in Providence, and people have indeed arrived. Our dear friend Henry just gave me the name of a man named John Tagliabue, who sounds indeed like a man we could all learn from here in Providence. At 12:58 PM 6/16/98 +0000, David wrote: >Very surprised there aren't more younger folks out there who found their >teachers for free as I did. Start up a literary magazine, or a reading >series and teachers will appear. For me-- Nate Leslie, Si Perchik, >Laurie Anderson, Paul Weinman, Alan Catlin, Len Roberts, Bob Grenier >etcetera. > >As for anarchy, I have an essay called Survivalist Aesthetic in the new >W'orc's Aloud/Allowed on how to make money as a writer with large >caliber weapons, sharp instruments, and blunt objects that might >interest some of you. > >Thanks for all the Toronto info. I still owe a few of you notes & am >getting there. > > >Be well > >David Baratier > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 13:28:19 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Poetry, politics, context Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I was just recently reading a Kathy Acker interview in which she objects to a characterization of her work as marginal. She compares herself to the Language poets & says that the difference, politically, between her work & theirs is that she confronts people who don't support her work, that she comes into contact, for example, with the religious right -- that they actually know who she is & militate against her, & attempt to disrupt her readings, etc. By contrast, the marginality of poetry makes political claims extremely problematic, though I'm aware of many persuasive arguents to the contrary. It's interesting to see, however, how essentially "poetic" work in the visual arts -- David Bunn's recent collaged texts from library catalogue cards, Lawrence Weiner's stuff, Holzer, Kruger, some of Nauman's & Smithson's things, etc., etc. -- by situating themselves in the context of "art" -- almost entirely by that enunciative act alone -- seem to transcend the marginal status of poetry & enter into the world in a more visible way than poems do. & this has to do not only (negatively) with the availability of the plastic arts for exploitation as commodities, but (positively) with the international character of the art world -- so ventures like Douglas Messerli's new mag seem a step in the right direction. Re: some comments Standard made today -- certainly craft & politics are not antithetical terms -- highly crafted & aestheticized work -- Mapplethorpe's for instance -- in the context of Helms attacks, can be explosively political, whereas, for instance, if they had merely a closeted or marginal audience, their politics might perhaps be questionable. Both craft & politics in any case have much wider connotations than we generally attribute to them. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 13:12:05 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: surge on In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 16 Jun 1998 12:17:12 -0400 from On Tue, 16 Jun 1998 12:17:12 -0400 Jordan Davis said: > >Henny no no this idno time fo speshul pleedin! I meen ya like ta gifme >arRHYTHmia! like ya sayin nobody got riddim in they heart but who. try it >inna crow dad church see whatta time you broom. Iddest what lackariddim >you talkin to, you see a lackariddim you hit em. Ey, Vin, maybe you dunno whut kinda rhythm I'm talkin about tho I did try to describe it maybe you want listnen. > >O so the commawilt a Broosachusetts a junger poat now. So we all one big >BA colony. Thassa good readah theyah. Now deskrive the ones you say you >lerv agin. Whadda theyah do? Ey, I said I was bored shitless by Merican poetry. Massachusetts is part of the US. How can I be a good readuh if I'm bored outa my gourd? Never claim I was a good readuh. You the one who ast me whut I like about the Rushkies. I don't have to read all the shit that's out there. I got my own gig goin. An you can complain all you wants to but you can't milk a dry Hen. You likes some poets, you talks to the List about it. I can't hep you there. >UV dribs: > >AALLUUSSIIOONN! Dag. Dagnav. I new gone leave sumpin out. Hump a sump. I guess this is call Hen-baitin? > >UV glares: > >ah yeh thot so. Cain even tella pub lick tellavision shoe from an >infomerchal no mo. OK dk I cashncarryd outcher square miles n they made >sensimibilia shore as rushen kum quatrains but not so giant steps you get >to teez yore company! Whassa point a been some PLACE iffu doan like th >folks theyah? An I done look fr th Celanshow but I knowa it allareddy it >one Ben Hollander done made that scene but GOOD. So if whatcha sayin is >what it all about is this I ain't teasin nobody I sed they wuz different from mine an I stan by that. > >thing that you don't like and want to influence to be different, now that >you've been invoking Mandelstam and Akhmatova here on the list for at >least two years, what changes have you seen? The comparison has been aiting." Is there >something in the world analogous to Stalinism now? Does the poetry you >disdain oppose it? Does it oppose it not only with what it says but how it >says it? And most importantly, does it do anything? I hope I'm not giving >you a way out of carrying on this conversation by offering you that last >question. I know that Auden's verdict, that POETRY MAKES NOTHING HAPPEN, >has been invoked on the list recently, but I also think that was what we >may gently call an historical (impatient) remark. The anthologies of poems >on affairs of state, as well as the works of the Russians you admire, >suggest otherwise. > >Jordan You sayin I voke Mandelstam & Akme cause they was anti-commie or somethin? This kinda thinkin is a good essample of why I bored & fed up wid most American poetry. When the rebbolution comes Jordan you can be in charge of the cultural thought cops an you can voke the new amendment again any foreign influences or poets who ain't part of your P.V. (petty vanguard) - Henry the Red Hen ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 13:54:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva Vogel Subject: What Price Iowa? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > relative low-cost (monetarily, at least) Iowa Workshop, What is this "relative low cost"? I'd always heard Iowa was pricey. What is the tuition? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 11:19:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Poetry saved my life Comments: To: Gwyn McVay MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Alas, Gwyn! I had a headache (I'm taking Laura M's NON 3 for it) and took crappy notes and so I'm afraid I have little to offer you. But as I recall, he spoke less of figures in a personal lineage, and more of the idea of lineage as a kind of circulatory system in which the dead and the living are engaged in an endless conversation, thus complicating the idea of lineage. Mayer and Montaigne he juxtaposed in terms of their omnivorous reading habits and their activities as translators or interlocutors with writers like Seneca and Tacitus. Maybe he'll publish this piece? It was very elegant, I thought. I'll try to ask him though I haven't met him yet. Patrick P. ---------- From: Gwyn McVay To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Poetry saved my life Date: Tuesday, June 16, 1998 12:10PM Patrick, wd. love to hear more re: Laird Hunt's concept of "lineage" & what such, if any, were identified among contemporary Americans. You mentioned Bernadette Mayer--others? Would you backchannel if this becomes too long or boring for general consumption? bests, Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 11:59:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: The Fabulous Berrigan Boyz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain The official Boulder summer reading season got under way last night at Penny Lane, where Anselm and Edmund Berrigan read to a SRO house. The MC was Tom Peters. Among the crowd: Alice Notley, Doug Oliver, Michael Heller, Jane Augustine, Anselm Hollo, Jane Dalrymple Hollo, Jack Collom, Rachel Levitsky, Akilah Oliver, Laura Wright, Eleni Sikelianos, Laird Hunt, Michael Friedman, Sarah Bell, Maureen Owen, Steven Taylor, Michael Smoller and the ectoplasmic form of David Bromige, temporarily OOB, and his magic martini. A cool breeze did waft... Anselm Berrigan read first. And I have to say at the outset - I'm shocked by how young these fellows are. Or by old I've gotten, to be more forlornly precise. Anselm's reading was carried forward on a wave of dynamic, tricky, smart alecky combinations: slangy wit mixed with surreal bon mots mixed with street smart pathos in a rapidily shifting tempo of rhythms. A sense of continual surprise and freshness. * enraging the cosmos was easier than I ever imagined * you can get a medal for running in circles that's intergrity for you * you couldn't even talk about subject matter in San Francisco but it was nice anyway to take part in a poetics of insinuation His shorter pieces were followed by a completely hilarious play entitled: "Intermission: The Autobiography of Katy Lederer in Five Acts." Partly an account of a road trip by Anselm, Edmund and Katy, it features the plaintive cry of the heroine: "But I don't want to go to Iowa City!" (For another take on Iowa City, List folks are hereby directed to Alice Notley's "As Good As Anything," in her wonderful new _Mysteries of Small Houses_). Edmund Berrigan read next. His is a more deliberate music. By turns playfully caustic and sharply, sparsely direct, these poems offered carefully modulated observations of the all-important minutae of relationships (and life in general) in a tone of elegant, dissonant tenderness. Who knew the colloquial could carry so much melancholy? * for to take words solely is to miscontruct their origins * there are some people coming out of tigers with carefully exploded pasts like babies * Xnay on the firestarter * the dinged dept. in you will agree with you * when strangeness was a childish normalcy At one point, the poet observed that the shakiness of his hands was attributable to his birth in a power generator - and boldly called on his mother to verify this. But the mother - wisely, methought - declined. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 06:55:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Poetry saved my life In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The celebrated printer Wesley Tanner spoke about the difficulty of making it >new in a form that encourages conformity (i.e. the making of books) and gave >what I thought were two of the best lines of the panel: "Poetry, I think, >saved my life." And: "It's got to be about loving what you do." As another printer/bookmaker, and poet, I'd be interested in hearing more about what Wesley said. I met him once, and have seen books he has made on different occasions. From what I know, I can't imagine him in an "experimental" forum on poetry or books. I think of the bookmaking he has done (but perhaps I only know a little of it?) as encouraging conformity within a very traditional 'fine print' context. I don't think of that work as engaged with new writing/new forms in ways I would like to see more active in the field of artists and craftspeople making books. charles charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://alexwritdespub.com/chax :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 13:35:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "s. kaipa" Subject: Re: What Price Iowa? In-Reply-To: <13ff0204.3586b149@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Iowa is a state school--meaning that it is usually cheaper to begin with. Then, most Iowa students gain automatic resident tuition if they have a teaching fellowship, etc (which is the majority of people). Resident tuition per year comes out to between 2500-3000/year. It might even be less than that. Also, first year students often receive scholarships--sometimes hefty ones--that pay for both tuition and cost of living. (But the "fiction" program is much more brutal. I've heard that some people get all funding and some get none. Poetry is more evenly divided.) Summi On Tue, 16 Jun 1998, Aviva Vogel wrote: > > relative low-cost (monetarily, at least) Iowa Workshop, > > What is this "relative low cost"? I'd always heard Iowa was pricey. What is > the tuition? > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 14:50:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: surge on Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jordan & Henry, Have you two ever met? You should meet. We could set it up on neutral ground somewhere between Falmouth and Providence, at a bar on Route 6, and earn the respect and admiration and endearment of the locals as the poetry discussion gets hot. Jordan, don't think I'm still perturbed by your once calling Auden a "crass fuck," but it does still bother me that this excerpt of his "POETRY MAKES NOTHING HAPPEN" is still waved around as proof that a) poetry makes nothing happen, b) poets often believe that poetry makes nothing happen, and c) Auden was a stuffed shirt who wagged his finger a lot in the face of his fellow-poets and said stuffy things like poetry makes nothing happen. After that particular line, what follows follows: "it survives In the valley of its saying where executives Would never want to tamper, it flows south From ranches of isolation and busy griefs, Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, A way of happening, a mouth" Placed where it belongs the remark seems less impatient. Anger may make things happen, but it doesn't survive. - daniel bouchard Patrick Pritchett: keep the reading reports coming. >> I know that Auden's verdict, that POETRY MAKES NOTHING HAPPEN, >>has been invoked on the list recently, but I also think that was what we >>may gently call an historical (impatient) remark. <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 14:10:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: Cohen In-Reply-To: <2125835640@wellington.trump.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>As much as I enjoy Cohen's offerings as they are, it would be extremely >>interesting if he could untangle his tongue a little, and express some >>of the so obviously repressed creative materials a little more freely. >> >>In one interview, some years ago, he told the interviewer that he is >>made to agonize about each word he writes. > >I think, with many highly-influential albums, books of poems >and prose poems, two novels and a Roshi, Laughing Lennie has been >quite free with his expression. The air might be thin on Mt. Baldy, >but the groundswell shows no sign of abating. And as for the agonising >over words... he has been intentionally esoteric when playing >the interview game, but so has Richard Wilbur ("someone looking down >on me from above, as I sit at a card table in the sun staring >at a white sheet of paper, could be forgiven for thinking I was >in a state of severe catatonia"), and others in the Paris Review >& Parnassus interviews. Some of us lay words down with a trowel, >others, like Bunting & Cohen, use a chisel & blow powder >from the stone before the next word is revealed. > >Anthony > > >...................................................... >Anthony Lawrence >PO Box 75 >Sandy Bay >Tasmania 7006 Thanks for your defense of LC. He _is_ a roshi, yes? Or at least that's the rumor I heard, that he got transmission from Sasaki a few years ago. Even if false, it's a nice rumor. People Mag did a nice piece on him a couple or so years ago, lots of good stuff about Mt. B. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 15:10:15 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: surge on In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 16 Jun 1998 14:50:45 -0400 from Jordan & I met in an unpublished Pessoa manuscript entitled "The Carrot Greens & the Mule Who Had Hay Fever". Guess which one was the mule? - Henry ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 15:13:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Re: Poetry saved my life Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" No, please tell all of us! At 01:10 PM 6/16/98 -0400, you wrote: >Patrick, wd. love to hear more re: Laird Hunt's concept of "lineage" & what >such, if any, were identified among contemporary Americans. You mentioned >Bernadette Mayer--others? Would you backchannel if this becomes too long or >boring for general consumption? > >bests, Gwyn > > Susan Wheeler susan.wheeler@nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 20:13:36 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alaric Sumner Subject: review of The Unspeakable Rooms, Cleveland Ohio Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have just received from Robert Thurmer, director of the Eleventh Cleveland Performance Art Festival a copy of the following review of The Unspeakable Rooms by Amy Bracken Sparks in The Plain Dealer, Friday May 22 1998: "Those who left after [the featured performance] missed one of the most stunning performances the festival has ever presented. A stark, stripped-down, minimalist work, "The Unspeakable Rooms" is an interpretation of a performance text by sound poet Alaric Sumner, but it also could have been a year in the dark night of the soul or human Angst personified. "Performer Rory McDermott first made a video of himself in various positions and movements, which was rear-projected onto a screen, in front of which he mimicked his 'other', or played off him. The beautifully recorded audio track began with breathing, as all things do, working up to non-verbal sounds, echolalias of physical and psychic despair before launching into the poem itself, which was layered and doubled. "McDermott's performance was utterly committed and terrifying, beginning in fetal position and rising to full cathartic contortions. The poem was intense and emotional and often obscured by layered sounds or McDermott's vocalisations. From the hoots and hollers and long applause that followed, the work by the men from Devon, England was clearly the favourite. "The lesson here. The featured performance may not be the best." The video is actually front projected. Otherwise, I am fairly happy with this review! We are seeking further venues to present this work. It is available in three versions: as a sit-down performance of either 30 minutes or an hour and as an installation with live performance lasting about three hours. --------------------------------- Performance Writing Dartington College of Arts Totnes Devon TQ9 6EJ http://www.dartington.ac.uk/prospectus/pw.html Virtual publication: text of 'error studies and portraits' in issue #1 of Cartograffiti (ed. Taylor Brady) http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti/contents/poems .html Cleveland Performance Art Festival http://www.performance-art.org/weekone.html Selected Physical Publications: Aberrations of Mirrors Lenses Sight (RWC) Waves on Porthmeor Beach (words worth) Lurid Technology and the Hedonist Calculator (Lobby) Rhythm to Intending (Spectacular Diseases) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 15:19:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: Cohen In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Cohen is indeed a Roshi. has anyone here read his _Book of Mercy_? I found it to be the most difficult thing to get through of his thus far. I know it is an older book, but I recently was given a copy and had not even heard of it prior to this. Anyway, I found it to be extremely dry, which wasdisappointing after reading his poetry and some of his commentary in _Stranger Music_ . Anyway... At 02:10 PM 6/16/98 -0500, you wrote: >>>As much as I enjoy Cohen's offerings as they are, it would be extremely >>>interesting if he could untangle his tongue a little, and express some >>>of the so obviously repressed creative materials a little more freely. >>> >>>In one interview, some years ago, he told the interviewer that he is >>>made to agonize about each word he writes. >> >>I think, with many highly-influential albums, books of poems >>and prose poems, two novels and a Roshi, Laughing Lennie has been >>quite free with his expression. The air might be thin on Mt. Baldy, >>but the groundswell shows no sign of abating. And as for the agonising >>over words... he has been intentionally esoteric when playing >>the interview game, but so has Richard Wilbur ("someone looking down >>on me from above, as I sit at a card table in the sun staring >>at a white sheet of paper, could be forgiven for thinking I was >>in a state of severe catatonia"), and others in the Paris Review >>& Parnassus interviews. Some of us lay words down with a trowel, >>others, like Bunting & Cohen, use a chisel & blow powder >>from the stone before the next word is revealed. >> >>Anthony >> >> >>...................................................... >>Anthony Lawrence >>PO Box 75 >>Sandy Bay >>Tasmania 7006 > > >Thanks for your defense of LC. > >He _is_ a roshi, yes? Or at least that's the rumor I heard, that he got >transmission from Sasaki a few years ago. > >Even if false, it's a nice rumor. > >People Mag did a nice piece on him a couple or so years ago, lots of good >stuff about Mt. B. > > > >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! >Math, University of Kansas | memory fails >Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." >785-864-4630 | >fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Note new area code >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 13:00:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: Good, there are no lions in the street Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 18:45:18 -0700 >From: michael corbin >Subject: Re: Good, there are no lions in the street >I kinda read the mina harker letters >pushing in this desire-language direction Michael, "Desire" has become one of those prissy words I find problematic *these* days. When Jane Gallop visited SF State (maybe 10 years ago), she talked about how many feminist books at the time had mauve covers. Mauve, she said, was Frenchified pink. "Desire" seems to me to be Frenchified sex. Remember last year talking to this fellow who had a book coming out and I asked him what the book was about and he said, snootily over his beer, "My book's about Desire." I kept pressing him, but that's all he'd say about it. When the book came out, it was, in part, as I had expected, knowing his previous oeuvre, about having sex with teenage hustlers. I'm not judgemental about that--but "Desire" certainly sounds better than kiddy porn. Mina, I'd say *these* days, is about sex and appetite--Courtney Love's "I wanna be the girl with the biggest piece of cake." And of course a desperate search for self-validation. "Desire" isn't problematic enough. For what it's worth. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 15:28:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "s. kaipa" Subject: Ad campaigns and poets galore (who score) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Wasn't it Lew Welch that came up with the ad: Raid kills bugs dead. ? Summi ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 16:47:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: f.y.i. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" *** German ad withdrawn in row over Nazi slogan Hundreds of German advertising billboards carrying a slogan associated with a Nazi death camp were being pasted over on Monday after an outcry from Jewish groups and the media. The phrase "Jedem das Seine" ("To each his own"), which hung over the entrance to Buchenwald death camp from 1937 to 1945, was featured in an ad campaign in Germany for Finnish telecommunications company Nokia. An official said neither Nokia nor Gramm was aware of the Nazi associations of the phrase, which stems from antiquity. Nokia would paste over the offending billboards with its international slogan "Freedom of Expression." See http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2554637128-815 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 05:58:37 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Kimball Subject: Complete the following Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Complete the following I've been hurt into a sex breakthrough feeling the cold in Mo's care. Mo's gender is a crop buster of solitaires, a rotation crop. The cortex between falls victim eating their young. What "pops up" is the impact of indifference, of brooding. It's attitude, of an intern ejecting her fingers into my, no... there's a hurry to be reborn and assort somewhat ________ my arm as-is, and days that are no more finish ending it in broken chains. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 16:55:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: "holy william burroughs, batman!" (f.y.i.) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" FEATURE-Homeless iguanas roam Los Angeles By Sarah Tippit LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Here's a real-life Godzilla story: Leaping lizards lambaste Los Angeles. Hundreds of homeless, angry and malnourished South American green iguanas are loose in Los Angeles. Considered trendy pets just five years ago, what were once cute little lizards -- shipped in by the thousands from Central America and sold in pet stores -- are growing into 6-foot-long temperamental pests, as much fun to run into as Godzilla. They whip their owners with heavy tails, outrun them, leap through screens, land in swimming pools, run up huge veterinary bills and are creating a glut of discarded pets that nobody -- not even animal rescue groups -- want. And it's not just a Los Angeles problem. They're fleeing to Phoenix, building colonies and reproducing in Florida, when they're not fighting each other. Dead or alive, these reptiles could mess up the ecosystem. Doctors say some carry salmonella bacteria that causes gastroenteritis in humans. Other exotic organisms they may harbor can infect and even kill off local animal populations, said Diane Lee, of the Reptile and Amphibian Rescue Network. Not since the potbellied pig -- cute as babies before people realized they ate too much -- has there been such a glut of unwanted pets, said Russ Smith, reptile curator at Los Angeles Zoo, which can't handle any more green iguanas either. IGUANA: GO HOME ``We're constantly getting calls ... from people wanting to unload their iguanas,'' Smith said. ``I suggest they call any school that's close by and ask if someone would like to pick up a pet as a classroom science project.'' Even the nonprofit Wildlife Waystation -- a final resting place for failed pet fads from leftover purple Easter chicks to mountain lions who shredded their owners' drapes and sofas -- is up to its gills in iguanas and can take no more. ``We stopped taking them 30 to 45 days ago.'' said Martine Colette of Waystation, which recently has adopted more than 100 and is having a hard time finding suitable foster homes. The iguanas first caught on in North America during the late 1980s after South and Central Americans in search of a lucrative cash crop scooped hundreds of nasty-tempered, tick-infested iguanas out of the jungles and shipped them to the United States, said Joe Ventura, a wildlife inspector with the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife. Their size and temperaments initially kept the demand low while leather producers deemed their hides unsuitable. CUTE BABIES CAN GROW UP AGGRESSIVE But breeders, seeking a quick return, flooded the market with cute little babies that could be carried out of pet stores in brown paper bags by children. Prices plummeted from $50 to $75 per iguana to about $6 or $7 apiece, Ventura said. Hailed as yuppie pets because they did not require daily feeding or walking, nobody told new iguana owners that they were actually very high maintenance. For example, the California desert does not agree with iguanas, which hail from the tropics. So owners either have to buy a fog machine for humidity or carry the iguana into the shower, said Liz Baronowski of the Pasadena Humane Society. Iguanas also require proper vitamins and diet and light. Otherwise they develop rickets, pneumonia, or permanent malformations which make their legs appear to be attached backwards. During their 20-odd-year lifespan, iguanas never stop growing and require increasingly larger living spaces. They also get more difficult to handle, and when deprived of affection, they become skittish and aggressive. ``You don't want to see an angry iguana,'' Baronowski said. His throat pouch inflates, and then ``he comes at you full board, his tail a lovely little sword.'' GUIDELINES AND PERMITS REQUIRED The Los Angeles Animal Regulation Commission recently approved a new set of guidelines. They would require pet stores to inform potential owners that $70 permits are required to legally own an iguana, and provide other details on care, handling and potential risks, said spokesman Jeff Prang. Discarded iguanas who are considered too cantankerous are put to death by lethal injection, Baronowski said. ``You know there's a real problem when shelters have to start putting animals down,'' Baronowski added. The conclusion? ``Unless you can make a long-term commitment to an iguana, try a different reptile,'' said Erin Terry, owner of the Exclusively Reptiles boutique in the Los Angeles suburb of Westchester. ``Get a skink, a water dragon, or a gecko. They don't grow as large and they will not outgrow their terrarium.'' ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 16:04:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Re: What Price Iowa? In-Reply-To: <13ff0204.3586b149@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Iowa isn't so pricey.... pretty much everyone gets some form of aid--primarily in the form of teaching. Some people get tuition wavers... and the town is pretty inexpensive to live in. There are a few full fellowships.... I think the conversation got off track in this instance because someone assumed that because I was complaining about the expense of MFA programs and the proliferation of indebted MFA grads, that I was really complaining about my own situation... Best, Katy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 17:50:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: Money, poetry, magazines Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit To one and all: This money discussion has been a bit upsetting. That and the fact that I'm staring at 200 copies of Rhizome I'd like to move (money needed for future issues). So I'm going to cut the price from $10 to $6 on the current issue..unless you happen to be an institution. Those of you who have seen the magazine might be able to confirm that it is easy on the eye. Maybe even slick. Off the top of my head: Issue 2 contains Jacques Debrot, John Lowther, Barbara Guest, Ray Di Palma, Nick Piombino, Norma Cole, Bruce Andrews, L. Scalapino, Patrick Pritchet, George Albon, Guy Bennett, Paul Vangelisti, Aaron Shurin, Mac Wellman, Franklin Bruno, Joe Ross, Andrew Mossin, Paul Long, Bob Crosson, David Bromige, Sheila Murphy, Mark Wallace, John Yau, Avery Burns, Nico Vassilakis, Ted Greenwald, B. Mayer, Dennis Phillips. Lot of others, Lots of reviews. Some artwork by some young LA artists as well as Dennis Oppenheim. A couple translations of fiction from Mexico (Fabio Morabito, Jaime Moreno Villareal). If you're interested, send a check for $6 to 366 S.Mentor Ave. #108, Pasedena, CA 91106.....MAKE IT PAYABLE TO S. Schaefer (not rhizome). Very much hope to recover some money so we can get on with the third issue which should be very good...lots of translations from France, Chile, Italy. Standard Schaefer ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 18:41:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: obsesh Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Jordash, lately i've been thinking about the big database, the one that has your MONEY- credit-POWER, and your medical, education, arrests, etc. and thinking that there is so much data, how much time will people have to snoop like a need will develop for people like the database dude in gibson's recent novel who can just sniff out the relevant patterns. are you afraid of the ONE database? i've also been obsessed with the roofs of honolulu houses. they are made of a kind of tar shingle with little gray or green gravels, and also very pointy, not many gables tho, but pointy roofs and they decend low so that it's easy for a tall person to touch their lower extremities. rarely there is a roof that is tiled, but if it is, it is wavy tile and a deep blue; i think it is a japanese fashion, so unlike the tiled roofs common in mexico and southwestern us: which to me say the ground the red, etc, but these ones look like the ocean, the sky. one is next door to me and i look at it in the morning when i make mango smoothies. another structure i think about is what i call the "skirt". it is kind of a 1960s era covering around buildings. you can see through the skirt and often these are made of elaborate cinder block style patterned materials. i can't really figure out their purpose, other than shielding sun and creating a layer of air between skirt and buliding that must stay a little cooler than the air outside the skirt. i think metaphorically this skirt lets, gives the appearance of being able to see in (through the holes), of openeness, but really hides the building and boxes it up. to me feels like the culture here. open, laid-back on the outside. on the inside, hierarchical, highly class- race conscious, proper, uptight, etc. i would say about 40% of the apartment and office buildings in honolulu employ some type of skirt device. anybody know anything about 60s architecture? also i've been thinking how ugly white people are. and think, oh, i don't look like the odd haoles i see now and then. i don't know what i think i look like. i'm afraid to think. like when i go to the beach, what do people think. (i've never had a tan in my life) also i've been buying stickers. in french a sticker is called an autocollant. Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 15:32:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: "holy william burroughs, batman!" (f.y.i.) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I have a solution: the leather may not be great, but they're a standard menu item in some countries and are said to be delicious. In places like Florida where there are feral colonies a hubting season might bring in both restaurant and tourist revenues. At 04:55 PM 6/16/98 -0400, you wrote: >FEATURE-Homeless iguanas roam Los Angeles > > > By Sarah Tippit > LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Here's a real-life Godzilla story: >Leaping lizards lambaste Los Angeles. > Hundreds of homeless, angry and malnourished South American >green iguanas are loose in Los Angeles. > Considered trendy pets just five years ago, what were once >cute little lizards -- shipped in by the thousands from Central >America and sold in pet stores -- are growing into 6-foot-long >temperamental pests, as much fun to run into as Godzilla. > They whip their owners with heavy tails, outrun them, leap >through screens, land in swimming pools, run up huge veterinary >bills and are creating a glut of discarded pets that nobody -- >not even animal rescue groups -- want. > And it's not just a Los Angeles problem. They're fleeing to >Phoenix, building colonies and reproducing in Florida, when >they're not fighting each other. > Dead or alive, these reptiles could mess up the ecosystem. >Doctors say some carry salmonella bacteria that causes >gastroenteritis in humans. > Other exotic organisms they may harbor can infect and even >kill off local animal populations, said Diane Lee, of the >Reptile and Amphibian Rescue Network. > Not since the potbellied pig -- cute as babies before people >realized they ate too much -- has there been such a glut of >unwanted pets, said Russ Smith, reptile curator at Los Angeles >Zoo, which can't handle any more green iguanas either. > > IGUANA: GO HOME > ``We're constantly getting calls ... from people wanting to >unload their iguanas,'' Smith said. ``I suggest they call any >school that's close by and ask if someone would like to pick up >a pet as a classroom science project.'' > Even the nonprofit Wildlife Waystation -- a final resting >place for failed pet fads from leftover purple Easter chicks to >mountain lions who shredded their owners' drapes and sofas -- is >up to its gills in iguanas and can take no more. > ``We stopped taking them 30 to 45 days ago.'' said Martine >Colette of Waystation, which recently has adopted more than 100 >and is having a hard time finding suitable foster homes. > The iguanas first caught on in North America during the late >1980s after South and Central Americans in search of a lucrative >cash crop scooped hundreds of nasty-tempered, tick-infested >iguanas out of the jungles and shipped them to the United >States, said Joe Ventura, a wildlife inspector with the U.S. >Department of Fish and Wildlife. > Their size and temperaments initially kept the demand low >while leather producers deemed their hides unsuitable. > > CUTE BABIES CAN GROW UP AGGRESSIVE > But breeders, seeking a quick return, flooded the market >with cute little babies that could be carried out of pet stores >in brown paper bags by children. Prices plummeted from $50 to >$75 per iguana to about $6 or $7 apiece, Ventura said. > Hailed as yuppie pets because they did not require daily >feeding or walking, nobody told new iguana owners that they were >actually very high maintenance. > For example, the California desert does not agree with >iguanas, which hail from the tropics. So owners either have to >buy a fog machine for humidity or carry the iguana into the >shower, said Liz Baronowski of the Pasadena Humane Society. > Iguanas also require proper vitamins and diet and light. >Otherwise they develop rickets, pneumonia, or permanent >malformations which make their legs appear to be attached >backwards. > During their 20-odd-year lifespan, iguanas never stop >growing and require increasingly larger living spaces. They also >get more difficult to handle, and when deprived of affection, >they become skittish and aggressive. > ``You don't want to see an angry iguana,'' Baronowski said. >His throat pouch inflates, and then ``he comes at you full >board, his tail a lovely little sword.'' > > GUIDELINES AND PERMITS REQUIRED > The Los Angeles Animal Regulation Commission recently >approved a new set of guidelines. They would require pet stores >to inform potential owners that $70 permits are required to >legally own an iguana, and provide other details on care, >handling and potential risks, said spokesman Jeff Prang. > Discarded iguanas who are considered too cantankerous are >put to death by lethal injection, Baronowski said. > ``You know there's a real problem when shelters have to >start putting animals down,'' Baronowski added. > The conclusion? ``Unless you can make a long-term commitment >to an iguana, try a different reptile,'' said Erin Terry, owner >of the Exclusively Reptiles boutique in the Los Angeles suburb >of Westchester. > ``Get a skink, a water dragon, or a gecko. They don't grow >as large and they will not outgrow their terrarium.'' > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 18:35:18 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva Vogel Subject: Frank Stanford/Forrest Gander Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-06-16 13:09:31 EDT, you write: > a Web Page I wrote on Frank > Stanford, Brent, is this web page on Stanford still available? If not, do you need help getting it back up? I'd love to see it... By the way, have you read Gander's latest? It's truly awesome, and I think that the reference someone made to his poetry as being of the "Deep Image" aesthetic limits its breadth and power. It's quite unique, shockingly unusual, and possesses stimulation for mind, body and spirit--all three at once--in full force. If you've read it, what's your feeling about Gander's work? Thanks, Aviva ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 18:35:20 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva Vogel Subject: Re: What Price Iowa? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-06-16 14:35:50 EDT, you write: > teaching fellowship, Summi, thanks for the info. I had no idea. How do students without credentials get teaching fellowships? I'm pretty ignorant of this academic world, and wonder...what do they have to teach? What qualifies them? How competitive is the scholarship funding? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:19:46 +1100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pam Brown Subject: Re: Looking for the address Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Maxine - It's 3 West End Lane, ULTIMO NSW 2007 AUSTRALIA Cheers, Pam At 12:55 PM 12/6/98 -0700, you wrote: >I need the snail mail address of Pam Brown in Australia. Can someone >supply it for me? (Pam, are you out there?) > >Best, > >Maxine Chernoff > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 21:30:11 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: Re: Poultry & $$ (Don't count your chickens...) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dearest of financially encumbered poets, This is a luckfest for your vision, a hootenanny of freedom entrenched within the delicacy of days. This letter could make you 111,110.00 dollars in six-weeks. How many times have you sat in your poetic abode wishing your credit-card load was low enough to afford a six-month spree of writing? Or say, it was the fault of the government, their boring NEA choices sacrosinctly reeking disgust towards supporting your habitudinal lattice of words. O poet of diesel breathing trees, of cicada swarmed windshields, of perpetuitous pavement, of trim mothers and fathers, with minds of winter, with chronic meanings, with eyes of a summer's day: there is a solution. Only with printing this parchment can this quandry of sustenance obtaining be quelled. One evening, I too was measuring the arcane capitalistic starlight bonding my soleil to the fortune wheel behind the curtain of post-modernism. I would daydream of living off my art while tasting the remnants of the wealthy before the overhead rinser at Fontenay Restaurante as a dishwasher. As my hands hardened with a poverty of saying throw your skinny body down son, there's hiraganacle handwriting on the checks of fortune, there's a dumptruck of clams languishing in the lacuna of epistemological decline. What you are now holding is your righteous poetic perquisite. The lauditory lotto for the priest of the invisible. Considering you are a poet, with poetic friends, you should have some scintillating poems which you would be willing to sell through the mail for $1. If you do write poems, and who among us doesn't, you could easily earn over $100,000 in six weeks. Here's how: 1. Send $1 (US currency) to the progenitor of this idea: David Baratier / 345 E. Whittier St./ Columbus, OH 43206 2. Send each of the poets listed $1 for each of their poems. 3. Remove the name which is in the #1 position, move everyone up one space and place yourself in the 5th position. 4. Make at least 100 copies of this letter and distribute it to aspiring writers at thriving MFA programs, bars, workshops, and bring copies to readings and parties for those rarest of people who tell you they write also. Since most poets are mathematically deficient, and the realm of science was taken from our visionary attributes a few centuries ago, let me show you the way to fiscal freedom: 1. 100 letters will (assuming the poem's excellence) elicit a 10% response, this is $10. 2. Those 10 send out 100 letters, 100 will send $1 = $100 3. Those 100 send out 100 letters, 1000 will send $1 = $1000 4. Those 1000 send out 100 letters, 10,000 will send $1 = $10,000 5. Those 10,000 send out 100 letters, 100,000 will send $1 = $100,000 For the price of sending out poems to some glossy journal who would only give you two contributors copies, a pittance for your brilliance, you can have what you've always desired: the fat fingers of free-time clacking away on your keyboard. How could your poetic sensibilities possibly find this offer egregious? One man became the poet laureate five days after sending out the envelopes, an ex-president's poems were finally taken seriously and accepted in literary realms shortly after following this plan, and one tedious poet was able to stop publishing and writing as a result of this methodology. Testimony: C.K.W. - "The fortune of this plan has enabled me to buy a tombstone early and start writing about my withering from this point onward." Helen Steiner R. - "I am now writing serious poems again." C. S. - "With the wealth of envelopes with influence of wealth I found no reason to find poets of influence any longer." Now certain writers have broken this chain. Perhaps you have noticed their names disappearing at an independent bookstore rate off the shelves at Borders. Be forewarned, refusal to comply brings a variety of severities upon the receiver. One woman's literary journal folded shortly after non-compliance, one was accused of new primitivism in public, and yet another poet's first book went out of print. Do not delay, tenure track positions have been lost and found on the basis of responding to this letter. I look forward to hearing from all of you. Be well, David Baratier, Richest Poet in the United States ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 21:45:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: "holy william burroughs, batman!" (f.y.i.) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >FEATURE-Homeless iguanas roam Los Angeles > By Sarah Tippit > LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Here's a real-life Godzilla story: >Leaping lizards lambaste Los Angeles. > Hundreds of homeless, angry and malnourished South American >green iguanas are loose in Los Angeles. > Considered trendy pets just five years ago, what were once >cute little lizards -- shipped in by the thousands from Central >America and sold in pet stores -- are growing into 6-foot-long >temperamental pests, as much fun to run into as Godzilla. They are, of course, mutating into dinosaurs. It is part of the current retro tendency. It even affects wildlife genetics. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 20:15:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Re: Ad campaigns and poets galore (who score) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 3:28 PM -0500 6/16/98, s. kaipa wrote: >Wasn't it Lew Welch that came up with the ad: > >Raid kills bugs dead. > >? > > > > > >Summi Yes, and I always thought the realization that that line would outlive all his others is what did him in. S. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 17:05:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: "holy william burroughs, batman!" (f.y.i.) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > And it's not just a Los Angeles problem. They're fleeing to > Phoenix, building colonies and reproducing in Florida, when > they're not fighting each other. Phoenix, Florida . . . not fleeing but retiring. 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: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 23:17:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: various topics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I have a bunch of announcements/statements here: first, Bernadette Mayer's "Experiments in Writing," which includes lists = of journal ideas and lists of writing experiments is now up on the = Poetry Project web site (www.poetryproject.com), and yes, there's a = convenient e-mail link at the bottom of the page so you can send your = own writing experiment additions. second, Eleni Sikelianos has asked me to post sublet info. Her apartment = in the Lower East Side (Ridge & Rivington) is available from July 1st to = August 9th for $1650 plus utilities. I haven't seen it personally, but = she says it's large, and 2-bedroom, altho sheets will be needed to be = hung over doorways. If you're interested, e-mail her at = Sikelianos@aol.com. third, even more sublet info. Loft on Chambers St in Tribeca from July = 27th to September 9th for $2400 plus phone deposit. It's huge, with = painter's studio in front, living room, back bedroom, roof with some = plants. Captures that early 80s feel of rustic artist's loft. Call (212) = 233-6982, or you can e-mail me back about it. fourth, Jordan's call re: obsessions. Street "furniture"; vendors; pawn = shop symbols; the inside of pipes, walls, corners; city as energetic = structure; political relations within communities; purchases and = counter-purchases; barter and trade; abstraction; confusion--these are = all "poetic" obsessions and may or may not appear in my fall season. = Personal obsessions will stay where they belong, in the bathroom with = all the handwashing and the soap. best, marcella ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 19:38:03 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Oh Poet! Get a Job! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "In perception and everyday experience, we are bound to and limited by our genetically determined ratiomorphous apparatus--in science we are relatively free. Kant failed to make this decisive distinction. The scope and theory of knowledge extends no further than the objects of the senses.--Kant Kant wrote his Critique in order to establish that the limits of the sense experience are the limits of all sound reasoning in the world.--Popper His forms of intuition, categories of experience, and general principles of factual knowledge were supposed to apply to everyday experience and also to theoretical knowledge. But, faced with the most successful thoeries of modern physics, most of those principles turn out to be false. For the description of nature we do use Kant's allegedly "universally and necessarily valid" a priori principles. Elementary particles, atoms, molecules, neutron stars, black holes are quite different from all those mesocosmic objects we cope with in perception and everyday knowledge."---from On Supposed Circularities in an Empirically Oriented Epistemology by Gerhard Vollmer --- "In a way, sense-datum theorists invent the last link of their perceptual chain so that it will fit in with the causal-chain model they think they have inherited from natural science. What the theorists have not appreciated is that the last link in seeing is not something detectable(as are the events taking place in the sun, in space, on earth, and in the human eye). The last link of seeing is itself the detecting. Trying to treat seeing as something itself seeable is what leads to the account set out before that so that so offends our common sense."---from Perception and Discovery: An Introduction to Scientific Inquiry by Norwood Russell Hanson ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 20:50:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Oops & Obsession MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I inadvertently deleted the letter before I reread the author, but not before I wrote down the line, which I submit as best-out-of-context-line-of-the-week (oh wait, I just remembered: it was Bill Luoma). Anyhow: Another structure I think about is what I call a "skirt." Can I use this, Bill? Other listees: would you be offended by an appropriation like that? It doesn't represent the larger concept of Bill's paragraph, which I WOULD feel weird about appropriating, but how about single prosy lines (vs. perhaps more overtly "poetic" lines--say, containing a metaphor)? Appropriation is *my* obsession. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 00:04:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Oops & Obsession Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Another structure I think about is what I call a "skirt." >Can I use this, Bill? >Other listees: would you be offended by an appropriation like that? It >doesn't represent the larger concept of Bill's paragraph, which I WOULD feel >weird about appropriating, but how about single prosy lines (vs. perhaps >more overtly "poetic" lines--say, containing a metaphor)? >Appropriation is *my* obsession. I suppose you would have to search the _big_ database for other possible instances of usage. You would have to find all those who had made any previous claims to that seemingly original turn of phrase. You would then, perhaps, have to obtain their permission, or a waiver as to their appropriating it first. Only then might you appropriate it as your own. Should you find one instance of trade mark, copyright, or similar encumberance, anywhere in the world, you might have to forego appropriation and hope like hell that you can use it, the way Bill did, without acknowledging someone else's prior appropriation. Now, who said that they coined an original phrase ? Really ???? Prove that it is original. And remember how many millions of English words are published annually. (Also including advertising.) Anyone have a word count on that ? It would be interesting to know. What then are the chances of a whole verse of _your_ poem, or a paragraph of _your_ new novel, being substantively or wholly present in some prior work ? I wonder what the statistical odds really are. Anyone know that ? We do not, on average, like to think about such questions. I wonder why. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 22:08:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: an institutionalized avant garde MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > First time I have heard Rod MacEwan mentioned for years. Reminds me of the > time someone in _Rolling Stone_ referred to MacEwan and MacCohen.... Gwendolyn MacEwen, not Rod McKuen. I spelled her name wrong. You spelled Rod McKuen's wrong. But it is worse to spell Gwendolyn's name wrong than McKuen's because she was such a fine poet. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 01:22:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: an institutionalized avant garde is In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >hey i caught the bowerer in his own petard: it's MCKUEN. MacEwan, is that >Ian the creepy-fiction writer? McKuen is the hallmark poet of SF 60s. Oh, I knew it. Damn. Okay, Maria, I'll do that same obeisance thing I did last year. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 01:22:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Cohen In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980616151936.007b6b20@postoffice.brown.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Actually, _Book of Mercy_ was Cohen's last (so far) book of poems. It got less attention than any of his others, but I remember at the time being pleased and interested because (again) he had gone to the work of writing something he had not written before, and because there was some stuff you knew you had to come back to, to try to piece out. There was one intelligent review, by an Ottawa philosophy teacher. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 06:38:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: "Caput, Vox, Grotto" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit This should be of interest to anybody in the Albany area: "Caput, Vox, Grotto": Heading Home to Mama Tone A Poetry, Voice, Climbing, Drawing Performance Dreamt up by: Lori Anderson & Nicole Peyrafitte multimedia-developers: Ben Henry Belle Gironda Hobby Paul Ebert Climbers from Albany Indoor Rockgym (A.I.R) Sunday June 21, 1998 8:00 pm at Albany Indoor Rockgym, 4C Vatrano Road, Albany. (Driving West on Central Ave. make a right, right after the I-90 by-pass [where Little Anthony's Pizza is] and the gym will on your right.) Free to the public plan on sitting on the floor -- ========================================= pierre joris 6 madison place albany ny 12202 tel: (518) 426 0433 fax: (518) 426 3722 email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- “I take place out there” -- Robert Duncan ========================================== ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 07:11:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Does anyone on the List know whether anything has been written about Hannah Weiner's _Code Poems_? Also, perhaps someone could comment on the relationship between Weiner's texts & the codes she appropriates there. Interesting examples appear in the Rothenberg, Joris anthology. I've become interested lately particularly in 1. the relationship between public & private languages in her writing & 2. the relationship of her work to LangPo -- 2 issues that very likely overlap. Any thoughts on these things? Oh, and one more question -- what are the best essays on her work? --jacques ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:20:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: Frank Stanford/Forrest Gander In-Reply-To: <263c1258.3586f336@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Aviva, Unfortunately, I had a "falling-out" with Stanford's widow, and have been working to re-construct the page w/o the poems she has the rights to. I have completed the page for the most part and have been donated some 25 Megs of Web Space to post it on, which should be complete by mid-summer. I have even added a sound file of Frank Stanford reading his poem _Linger_, and this is the only known recording of the poet reading his work. As for Forrest's new book, _Science and Steepleflower_, I think it is the most brilliant work he has done to date. I love it!!! I find him to be one of the most honest, articulate voices in contemporary poetry, and i think his work does not get nearly the amount of attention it deserves. I'll keep you posted on the Stanford Page. Brent At 06:35 PM 6/16/98 EDT, you wrote: >In a message dated 98-06-16 13:09:31 EDT, you write: > >> a Web Page I wrote on Frank >> Stanford, > >Brent, is this web page on Stanford still available? If not, do you need help >getting it back up? I'd love to see it... > >By the way, have you read Gander's latest? It's truly awesome, and I think >that the reference someone made to his poetry as being of the "Deep Image" >aesthetic limits its breadth and power. It's quite unique, shockingly >unusual, and possesses stimulation for mind, body and spirit--all three at >once--in full force. If you've read it, what's your feeling about Gander's >work? > >Thanks, Aviva > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:27:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: Cohen In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" George, Any chance you have that intelligent review? I would love to see it. At 01:22 AM 6/17/98 -0700, you wrote: >Actually, _Book of Mercy_ was Cohen's last (so far) book of poems. It got >less attention than any of his others, but I remember at the time being >pleased and interested because (again) he had gone to the work of writing >something he had not written before, and because there was some stuff you >knew you had to come back to, to try to piece out. There was one >intelligent review, by an Ottawa philosophy teacher. > > > > >George Bowering. > , >2499 West 37th Ave., >Vancouver, B.C., >Canada V6M 1P4 > >fax: 1-604-266-9000 > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:38:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: where's the poetry In-Reply-To: <2b7014b1.358584c9@aol.com> from "P.Standard Schaefer" at Jun 15, 98 04:32:08 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I understand Henry's & Standard's skepticism about the poet too willing to classify poetry as rhetoric, or, seemingly more to the point, to write the poem qua civics lesson, but I also think that there's an important distinction to be made: if all langauge is fundamentally rhetorical, as many a good 20th century theorist would suggest it is, then poetry is not a "sub-class of rhetoric" but rather a particular *kind* of rhetoric which is good at doing particular things. Standard suggests that he's interested in the way poetry, as a kind of writing, provokes thought, & in saying that he's implicitly using a rhetorical theory of form. Here's Kenneth Burke on such a theory as it regards poetry: "The general approach to the poem might be called 'pragmatic' in this sense: It assumes that a poem's structure is to be described most accurately by thinking always of the poem's function. It assumes that the poem is designed to 'do something' for the poet and his readers, and that we can make the most relevant observations about its design by considering the poem as the embodiment of this act." Burke of course is far from a vulgar pol & I find this approach to the poem, however avant-garde or 'traditional' to be incredibly helpful. -m. According to P.Standard Schaefer: > > Henry: > > In a message dated 98-06-15 15:43:56 EDT, you write: > > << I mean do people > enjoy poetry or art anymore for its own sake - I mean the "cutting edge" > people - or does it have to have a civics lesson attached? That seems > to be where the money's at... I mean civics of some kind - righteous > anger & all that... is there a problem here? Is this what Standard was > talkin about? >> > > > I think that this is an interesting point. I suspect that poetry is a sub- > class of rhetoric among certain "avant-garde" writers who are interesting in > politics or civics first, and then come around to writing poetry. I feel > sometimes they can only rant rather than enact things in language which might > steer us toward thought. But why is it I tend to like these folks so much. > It may be a slightly American problem. This division between craft and > politics. I'm thinking about the new Sun&Moon international magazine Mr. > Knife and Miss Fork (and also the reviews within) which suggest that other > cultures have always been a little more comfortable (right word?) with this > problem. Paul Vangelisti's translations of Zanzotto, his reviews of other > Italian writers like Pagliarini and another translation of Zanzotto speak to > this problem. I like this new project of Messerli's and he suggests often > these days that the answer to "where's the poetry" is everywhere (I mean it is > international...there are people beyond our borders who may still be > interested in art for art's sake but don't shun the vital issues that it > raises). I don't know how else to put it, but to say that recent translations > of Gionvanna Sandri (Guy Bennett's Seeing Eye Books), the recent Raddle Moon > contain some of the most exciting, provocative work without dogmatics, civics > lessons, etc. > > SS > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:01:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: an institutionalized avant garde In-Reply-To: <35874F56.86D78538@speakeasy.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" so tell us more; who's this gwendolyn mckuen At 10:08 PM -0700 6/16/98, Jim Andrews wrote: >> First time I have heard Rod MacEwan mentioned for years. Reminds me of the >> time someone in _Rolling Stone_ referred to MacEwan and MacCohen.... > >Gwendolyn MacEwen, not Rod McKuen. I spelled her name wrong. You spelled >Rod McKuen's >wrong. But it is worse to spell Gwendolyn's name wrong than McKuen's >because she was >such a fine poet. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:02:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: an institutionalized avant garde is In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 1:22 AM -0700 6/17/98, George Bowering wrote: >>hey i caught the bowerer in his own petard: it's MCKUEN. MacEwan, is that >>Ian the creepy-fiction writer? McKuen is the hallmark poet of SF 60s. > >Oh, I knew it. Damn. Okay, Maria, I'll do that same obeisance thing I did >last year. not so fast, my pretty. there's a line, and the stakes have gone up. > > > > >George Bowering. > , >2499 West 37th Ave., >Vancouver, B.C., >Canada V6M 1P4 > >fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:04:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: "Caput, Vox, Grotto" In-Reply-To: <35879CEF.437567EE@cnsunix.albany.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable tres cool! At 6:38 AM -0400 6/17/98, Pierre Joris wrote: >This should be of interest to anybody in the Albany area: > > "Caput, Vox, Grotto": Heading Home to Mama T= one > > A Poetry, Voice, Climbing, Drawing Performance Dreamt= up >by: > Lori Anderson & Nicole >Peyrafitte > > >multimedia-developers: > Ben Henry Belle Gironda Hobby Pa= ul >Ebert > Climbers from Albany Indoor Rockgym (A.I.= R) > Sunday June 21, 1998 8:= 00 >pm > >at > Albany Indoor Rockgym, 4C Vatrano Road, >Albany. > (Driving West on Central Ave. make a right, right after the >I-90 >by-pass > [where Little Anthony's Pizza is] and the gym will on >your >right.) > Free to t= he >public > plan on sitting >on the >floor >-- >=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=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: (518) 426 0433 fax: (518) 426 3722 >email:joris@cnsunix.albany.edu >http://www.albany.edu/~joris/ >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >=93I take place out there=94 > >-- Robert Duncan >=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=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, 17 Jun 1998 18:45:09 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: Ad campaigns and poets galore (who score) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit absolutely: but it was simply KILLS BUGS DEAD which was a "beat"ized slogan--like, "Dead, man" He worked for a year at this trade... Tb ---REMAP ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:49:12 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: Money, poetry, magazines MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit standard: home address? Todd Baron ps: I lost it... pps: Listservers: excuse the private request... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 10:56:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Sexton Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hey all: Just in case you are interested, there is a cool article on Sexton at www.boston.com Check it out. Brent Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 11:03:47 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry g Subject: Re: where's the poetry In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:38:17 -0400 from The Burke paragraph suggests it is possible (& fun) to look at a poem both as an (art) object and as a pragmatic "act". Such would lead the Mandelstamian critic to follow that up by pursuing the pre-context, the "impulse" behind the work, the poetic impulse. & the Brodsky quote I sent a couple days ago (before Jordan & I started zinging the slang) suggested that this specifically poetic impulse is psychically "deep" and historically "anticipatory" - an instrument (language) with specifically poetic powers underway. Anyway, an awareness that there might be a specifically, generically poetic activity & impulse at work might allow a reader to weigh that in relation to the political goals of a poet & the specifically political/social rhetoric serving them. When I started yelping, where's the poetry? I guess I was thinking, where's the singing? with reference to this poetic impulse... but I've taken this general bullshit line about as far as it will go... right Jordan? Read any Elena Shvarts lately? Julia Kunina? See the Librarian of Congress's op-ed piece today in the Times about US/Russian cultural-political relations... - Henry G., your friendly neighborhood lawyer shark ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:32:11 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: Cohen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I am a bit surprised by Brent Long's characterization of _Book of Mercy_ as 'dry,' but to each his own. Is prayer 'dry'? Alas, too often. But I found _Book of Mercy_ a marvel, not least for the wit, even the black humor, something too often lacking in prayer or psalms: When I left the king I began to rehearse what I would say to the world: long rehearsals full of revisions, imaginary applause, humiliations, edicts of revenge. I grew swollen as I conspired with my ambition, I struggled, I expanded, and when the term was up, I gave birth to an ape. After some small inevitable misunderstanding, the ape turned on me. Limping, stumbling, I fled back to the swept courtyards of the king. 'Where is your ape? the king demanded. 'Bring me your ape.' The work is slow. The ape is old. He clowns behind his bars, imitating our hands in the dream. He winks at my official sense of urgency. What king, he wants to know. What courtyard? What highway? Well, I find it funny anyway, . . . not to mention that it seems to connect to a number of threads ongoing here... ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Reserved books. Reserved land. Reserved flight. And still property is theft. Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 11:31:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jacques, There is an incomplete list of reviews of Weiner's work on the Hannah Weiner pages at the EPC, see http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/bernstein/weiner.bib.html: the end of this file has everything I knew about up to the time of her death. If you or anyone else comes up with additional critical pieces, please let me know: I know this needs to be updated to include the Poetry Project Newsletter pieces from last year and Mark DuCharme in *6ix* (can you give me the full citation for that?), and Maria Damon's recent MLA presentation (Maria will be giving a talk entitled "Hannah Weiner: Clairvoyance and Trauma" for the UB Poetics Program on Thurs., Oct. 15). What else? Hannah would be seventy years old on November 4 and we are presently working on a celebration of her life and work, to be held at St. Mark's church -- The Poetry Project. I don't yet have a date, but it will likely be on a Sunday afternoon in the Fall. When I do have additional details, I will put out a call for those who might like to participate in this event. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 11:50:07 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Thank you Charles. The citation for the DuCharme article is: "Consciousness & Contradiction: Hannah Weiner's _silent teachers/ remembered sequel_," _6ix_ Volume 5, '97. pp 4-8. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 12:02:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jarnot@PIPELINE.COM Subject: Rempress publications Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Announcing the publication of Heliopolis by Lisa Jarnot from Rempress, 1998 Rempress is a small poetry press and organiser of reading series, based in Cambridge, UK. Other publications include: Jennifer Moxley Enlightenment Evidence (Part One) ISBN No 1 901 361 00 4 Beth Anderson The Impending Collision ISBN No 1 901 361 02 0 Karlien van den Beukel Pitch Lake ISBN No 1 901 361 01 2 Fiona Templeton Oops the Join Tracy Ryan Slant These pamphlets cost $8 each and are available from Small Press Distribution: 1341 7th Street Berkeley CA 94710 - 1403 tel: 1 (510) 524-1668 People outside the US might find it easier to write to the publisher direct: Rempress 6 Grasmere Gardens Cambridge CB4 3DR, UK ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 09:19:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: Ad campaigns and poets galore (who score) Comments: To: sylvester pollet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" At 3:28 PM -0500 6/16/98, s. kaipa wrote: >Wasn't it Lew Welch that came up with the ad: > >Raid kills bugs dead. > >? > > > > > >Summi Yes, and I always thought the realization that that line would outlive all his others is what did him in. S. I don't know, Sylvester . . . there's his poem called "Poetics": Not many people can do it really well. Nobody knows why. Which has stayed with me even longer than the bug spray . . . (By the way, saw in my latest SPD catalog that there's a new volume of tribute out to him from a new press in Bolinas, Clew - does anyone know of this publication or this press?) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 10:22:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: giving up frenchified sex for good Comments: To: poetics@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Gee, Dodie, I didnt know there was anything wrong with frenchified sex. The Others appeared to like it. It was better than or as good as Nothing. As myself the author of a book titled _Desire_ I rush to the title's defense. (1) The title was arrived at in 1987, one year before your meeting with Jane Gallop (2) I intended not only Lacan theorizing but also Rita Hayworth singing "Put the blame on Mame, boys" as well as some juggling etymology around the phrase "Follow your star" (3) it's a pun on "de-sire", the necessary oedipal move. However, Frank Bidart's last book of poems is also titled _Desire_ , and it came out in 1997, so sock it to him. The urge to speak and the urge to procreate appear inextricably tangled up in blues. Even the alphabet shows this, which as we know, in its emphatic form begins "Fucken A". I understand that in your desire to distinguish your marvelous book from asomeone's quick characterization of it (not even that, really ... just a tentative trying of the water), you likely had no intention upon others' use of the word. But as we see, I couldn't resist. The urge to kid around is a serious urge. Desire me to continue,if you will riposte. db3 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 12:25:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ken|n|ing Subject: Re: Money, poetry, magazines In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, I will indeed confirm that Rhizome is a handsome magazine. At the reduced price I don't see why anyone interested in contemporary poetry should let this opportunity pass. Paul Vangelisti's fierce piece, Barbara Guest's sprawling lyric, John Taggart's melancholia Americana, Mark Wallace's quippy stanzas . . . etc. That's my review. Buy the thing & support what is certainly one of the more important annuals running. Patrick F. Durgin | | k e n n i n g````````````````|`````````````````````````````````` a newsletter of contemporary |poetry, poetics, and non-fiction writing |418 Brown St. #10 Iowa City, IA 52245 USA On Tue, 16 Jun 1998, P.Standard Schaefer wrote: > To one and all: > > This money discussion has been a bit upsetting. > > That and the fact that I'm staring at 200 copies of Rhizome I'd like to move > (money needed for future issues). So I'm going to cut the price from $10 to > $6 on the current issue..unless you happen to be an institution. Those of you > who have seen the magazine might be able to confirm that it is easy on the > eye. Maybe even slick. > > Off the top of my head: Issue 2 contains Jacques Debrot, John Lowther, > Barbara Guest, Ray Di Palma, Nick Piombino, Norma Cole, Bruce Andrews, L. > Scalapino, Patrick Pritchet, George Albon, Guy Bennett, Paul Vangelisti, Aaron > Shurin, Mac Wellman, Franklin Bruno, Joe Ross, Andrew Mossin, Paul Long, Bob > Crosson, David Bromige, Sheila Murphy, Mark Wallace, John Yau, Avery Burns, > Nico Vassilakis, Ted Greenwald, B. Mayer, Dennis Phillips. Lot of others, Lots > of reviews. Some artwork by some young LA artists as well as Dennis > Oppenheim. A couple translations of fiction from Mexico (Fabio Morabito, > Jaime Moreno Villareal). > > If you're interested, send a check for $6 to 366 S.Mentor Ave. #108, Pasedena, > CA 91106.....MAKE IT PAYABLE TO S. Schaefer (not rhizome). > > Very much hope to recover some money so we can get on with the third issue > which should be very good...lots of translations from France, Chile, Italy. > > Standard Schaefer > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 11:21:06 -0700 Reply-To: ttheatre@sirius.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen and Trevor Organization: Tea Theatre Subject: monthly welcome MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In an effort to save space on my hard-drive, I've deleted all e-mail, including the monthly welcome message that tells us all how to do things, like, go no-mail, which I need to do as I'll be out of town for two weeks... Would anyone be able to forward that message? Much appreciated. Karen McKevitt ttheatre@sirius.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 14:18:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bobbie West Subject: Re: pre-rejected Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit CD wrote: >>the economics of poetry are certainly as important and no less difficult than the lives of so-called ordinary people and their daily struggles to make a living.....I'd say that the cultural worker's contribution is harder, more demading << Have you tried working in a shipyard? A man here had a ton of steel dropped on his legs last week. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 11:23:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: Re: obsesh Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I also always find Bill's obsessions inspiring - My obsessions lately and have been gardening and walking - I've almost never gardened until the other day when I suddenly began digging away in our tiny white trash back yard and later bought flowers and put them in pots on our cement - My experience has been that husbands garden and one goes to the garden stores with them looking for shade and hazarding opinions - yes get the pink ones - we need basil - I think of myslf as having a black thumb and can kill house plants just by looking at them - Walking here in Albany is repetitive but, unlike my former walking in SF, almost never uphill - Albany is a mile square - A grid of treed streets with little houses - Everyone has a garden - There are lawn dogs, geese, flamencos, deer, bugs, elves, scarecrows and buddhas - There are five garden stores within walking distance - I actually went to Smith and Hawkens and found myself wanting a faux Roman concrete tub - BTW - There is a show worth going to at the new Traywick Gallery - Work by Emilie Clark co-editor with Lytle Shaw of a new critical mag Shark - at 1316 Tenth St. at Gilman by Smith and Hawkens, behind REI - for those who know the east Bay - not far from SPD - PS - I've been white my whole life if Irish counts as white - but I do tan easily - Laura moriarty@lanminds.com http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 15:05:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Annie Finch Subject: for neilson, hoover, maclow, wallace In-Reply-To: <01IXBBDLMFO88WZ741@po.muohio.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Aldon Nielson, Paul Hoover, Jackson MacLow, and Mark Wallace, please backchannel me ASAP. (My files with your email addresses got erased, and this is urgent). Thanks. Annie Finch ____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________ ________________________ Annie Finch http://muohio.edu/~finchar Assistant Professor of English/Creative Writing Miami University Oxford, Ohio 45220 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 15:06:03 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bobbie West Subject: Mike & Dale's 4 sale and Rhizome Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit >>SAND IN THE VASELINE, a book of poems by Kevin Opstedal, whose verse carries a streetwise ethic of confrontation and territorial marking to a high level of artistic sophistication.<< I'll echo Dale's plug. Check out SAND IN THE VASELINE. Great work by Kevin Opstedal. Perceptive and finely written, in spite of (or maybe because of) the grit in the title. Dale, how about posting a bit from the book? ************ ALSO: check out Joe Ross's "CACOPHONY: accompaniment" and "ETHEREAL: ground" in Rhizome 2. Excellente! *************** Oh no! Clarkite and Lang-Po offspring in the same post! Will it explode?! Bobbie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 15:21:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: Mike & Dale's 4 sale and Rhizome In-Reply-To: <96caa9e7.3588139c@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Also the title of a great Talking Heads compiliation album. At 03:06 PM 6/17/98 EDT, you wrote: >>>SAND IN THE VASELINE, a book of poems by Kevin Opstedal, whose verse >carries a streetwise ethic of confrontation and territorial marking to a >high level of artistic sophistication.<< > > >I'll echo Dale's plug. >Check out SAND IN THE VASELINE. >Great work by Kevin Opstedal. Perceptive and finely written, in spite of (or >maybe because of) the grit in the title. Dale, how about posting a bit from >the book? > >************ > >ALSO: check out Joe Ross's "CACOPHONY: accompaniment" and "ETHEREAL: ground" >in Rhizome 2. Excellente! > >*************** > >Oh no! >Clarkite and Lang-Po offspring in the same post! Will it explode?! > > > >Bobbie > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 14:26:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: trbell Subject: Re: Anarchy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "Cruz seeks out the most disparate images, ideas, people, and finds in them confluence, rather then conflict" - quote from SPD's Winter catalog. This struck me for several reasons, not the least of which is my sense that anarchy is confluence after ripping apart rather than just generating conflict. Or am I just being naive or is there another word to describe this? Tom At 01:59 PM 6/9/98 -0400, you wrote: >Perhaps the connection between Mac Low, Cage, and anarchism lies in the >lack of central authority in the aleatory method. This is the case at >least I think with some of Cage's works; Mac Low seems more procedural than >anarchic, but even so, the openness to allowing the formal constraints to >freely shape the material leaves little room for authorial intention (this >may not work for Mac Low's "intentional" pieces (Forties, for example, >written quickly but intentionally) > >Dean > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 14:26:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: trbell Subject: Re: Poetry art contest Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "art" does carry a cachet that "poetry" does seem to lack. Is this A. Not as left-brain (and difficult or unpleasant for many)? There are imporant and fun right-brain aspects to poetry. B. Did not suffer as much in it's "school-days" presentation? This is not just a twentieth-century English-speaking sistinction. C. Snobbism. D.? I would hate to think that "snobbism" is the major reason for the preference, help. tom bell seem to be psychologizing tonite, sorry. On 1/16 Jacques Debrot wrote: >I was just recently reading a Kathy Acker interview in which she objects to a characterization of her work as marginal. She compares herself to the Language poets & says that the difference, politically, between her work & theirs is that she confronts people who don't support her work, that she comes into contact, for example, with the religious right -- that they actually know who she is & militate against her, & attempt to disrupt her readings, etc. By contrast, the marginality of poetry makes political claims extremely problematic, though I'm aware of many persuasive arguents to the contrary. It's interesting to see, however, how essentially "poetic" work in the visual arts -- David Bunn's recent collaged texts from library catalogue cards, Lawrence Weiner's stuff, Holzer, Kruger, some of Nauman's & Smithson's things, etc., etc. -- by situating themselves in the context of "art" -- almost entirely by that enunciative act alone -- seem to transcend the marginal status of poetry & enter into the world in a more visible way than poems do. & this has to do not only (negatively) with the availability of the plastic arts for exploitation as commodities, but (positively) with the international character of the art world -- so ventures like Douglas Messerli's new mag seem a step in the right direction. Re: some comments Standard made today -- certainly craft & politics are not antithetical terms -- highly crafted & aestheticized work -- Mapplethorpe's for instance -- in the context of Helms attacks, can be explosively political, whereas, for instance, if they had merely a closeted or marginal audience, their politics might perhaps be questionable. Both craft & politics in any case have much wider connotations than we generally attribute to them. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 14:26:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: trbell Subject: Re: Art, Poetry, context Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Being situated in the context of "art" does clearly lead to more visibility (and remuneration), but I've enver been able to clearly understand exactly why this should be. Ther are many people who simply don't like to read and think in left-brain fashion (or have difficulty doing so), but there are other (important!) elements of poetry which are not left-brained. Poetry did and does go through a caldron in it's school and academic presentations, but art sufferers some of the same presentation woes and the art/poetry diathesis exists beyond our twentieth-century English-language cave, I think. This leaves snobbism as an explanation, I think, but I would hope that it isn't a sufficient explanation. tom bell seem to be psychologising tonite, sorry! At 01:28 PM 6/16/98 EDT, you wrote: >I was just recently reading a Kathy Acker interview in which she objects to a >characterization of her work as marginal. She compares herself to the >Language poets & says that the difference, politically, between her work & >theirs is that she confronts people who don't support her work, that she comes >into contact, for example, with the religious right -- that they actually know >who she is & militate against her, & attempt to disrupt her readings, etc. By >contrast, the marginality of poetry makes political claims extremely >problematic, though I'm aware of many persuasive arguents to the contrary. >It's interesting to see, however, how essentially "poetic" work in the visual >arts -- David Bunn's recent collaged texts from library catalogue cards, >Lawrence Weiner's stuff, Holzer, Kruger, some of Nauman's & Smithson's things, >etc., etc. -- by situating themselves in the context of "art" -- almost >entirely by that enunciative act alone -- seem to transcend the marginal >status of poetry & enter into the world in a more visible way than poems do. & >this has to do not only (negatively) with the availability of the plastic >arts for exploitation as commodities, but (positively) with the international >character of the art world -- so ventures like Douglas Messerli's new mag seem >a step in the right direction. Re: some comments Standard made today -- >certainly craft & politics are not antithetical terms -- highly crafted & >aestheticized work -- Mapplethorpe's for instance -- in the context of Helms >attacks, can be explosively political, whereas, for instance, if they had >merely a closeted or marginal audience, their politics might perhaps be >questionable. Both craft & politics in any case have much wider connotations >than we generally attribute to them. > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 16:02:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark W Scroggins Subject: Louis Zukofsky In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980617192639.00679c20@pop.usit.net> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Listfellows: I'm back, after several weeks offlist (the vacation was great, by the way). I'm in the process of preparing a literary biography of Louis Zukofsky, and I'd appreciate hearing (backchannel, of course) from any listmembers who knew or corresponded with Zukofsky. I'd also appreciate anyone who might have them backchanneling me with a few addresses: Robert Kelly Armand Schwerner Hugh Seidman Michael Heller And of course, if anyone knows of any caches of Zukofsky correspondence/manuscripts outside of the big collections at Texas and Yale, I'd appreciate that as well. Wish me luck, and thanks in advance! Mark Scroggins ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 13:21:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: B. Watten ends SPT season Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For our final reading of the Small Press Traffic 97-98 season, we are happy to present Barrett Watten. We'll start up again in September. Thanks to all of you attendees and volunteers for making this work. Dodie Friday, June 19, 7:30 p.m. Barrett Watten New College Cultural Center 766 Valencia Street $5 Barrett Watten is the author, most recently, of Bad History (Atelos Press, 1998) and the co-editor of Poetics Journal, whose recent issue appears this spring. His collection Frame: 1971-1990 came out in 1997 from Sun & Moon Press, and collects seven earlier collections. He is also the author of two book-length poems, Progress (1985) and Under Erasure (1992), and co-author of Leningrad: American Poets in the Soviet Union (1992). A recent issue of Aerial is devoted to his work. Total Syntax, a collection of essays on modern and contemporary poetics, was published in 1984 by Southern Illinois University Press. He is currently working on two book projects: Horizon Shift: Progress and Negativity in American Modernism and New Meaning: Innovation in Modern and Postmodern Culture. He teaches modernism and cultural studies in the Department of English, Wayne State University, Detroit. He may roam far from home, but whenever we see the Oakland Bay Bridge we think of Barrett Watten. "Welcome back, welcome back. Welcome back." ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:32:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Art, Poetry, context In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980617192644.0067e0dc@pop.usit.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:26 PM 6/17/98 -0500, you wrote: >Being situated in the context of "art" does clearly lead to more visibility >(and remuneration), but I've enver been able to clearly understand exactly >why this should be. Ah yes, all the rich artists. Really, this is not at all the case. True, there is a high-money art market, and a few (in comparison to the total, a very very tiny few) artists make some money. But far more that I know struggle just as much as poets, and studio rent and materials that many (if not most) artists use tend to be a good deal more expensive than paper & pen -- plus artists need to be computer savvy these days, too. Yes, if one does sell a painting, for example, she may receive anywhere from a hundred to several thousand dollars. Very few, though, sell enough to pay the bills without taking other jobs, just as poets take jobs, whether it be as teachers or clerks or waitpersons, or whatever. And artists' MFA programs have the same problems, including turning out 'employable' graduates, that writers' MFA programs have. I do think more people out there in the world see art every day or every week and are therefore less intimidated by artists. But then I also have seen situations where artists seem to have a stereotype of not being very smart -- and truly, I knew one who rather encouraged this; he would get himself out of any difficult arguments/twists of thinking by just saying, "well, I'm *visually* trained." charles charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://alexwritdespub.com/chax :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 13:19:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: Knife and Fork reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII There was a reading at Sun & Moon's storefront in L.A. on Sunday, to celebrate the publication of the first issue of MR. KNIFE AND MISS FORK--a new journal, edited by Douglas Messerli, that focuses on international poetry. Paul Vangelisti read his translation of poems by Andrea Zanzotto "(THAT) (IT GROW)" and Amelia Rosselli (from _War Variations_--translated with Lucia Re). Julian Semilian read two poems by the Romanian poet Stafan Agustin Doinas (translated with Sanda Agalidi). Michael Henry Heim (who just received a PEN award) read from "A Not-So-Brief Reflection on an Edict" by Miroslav Holub (Czech Republic). Gilbert Alter-Gilbert read his translation of "Manifesto Mayhaps" by Vincente Huidobro. Guy Bennett read his translation of Jacques Roubaud's short essay "About" in which the poet reads his book _Everybody's animals_ to a class of third graders. And Will Alexander read his essay, "The Caribbean: Language as Translucent Imminence." The journal itself has been mentioned in a couple posts lately, but it couldn't hurt to mention it again. It's a great new project. Tell your local librarian to subscribe. And make sure your local bookstore keeps in stock. $10.95. ISBN 1-55713-345-X --Chris Reiner ----------------------------- WITZ: A Journal of Contemporary Poetics writing.upenn.edu/epc/ezines/witz www.litpress.com/witz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 17:06:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Knife and Fork reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >There was a reading at Sun & Moon's storefront in L.A. on Sunday, to >celebrate the publication of the first issue of MR. KNIFE AND MISS >FORK--a new journal, edited by Douglas Messerli, that focuses on >international poetry. I have not read or seen that anthology, but....."knife and fork" usually refers to an economic condition where all there is work for food and nothing more. The kind of mentality where there is no art or culture to speak of, but if your belly is full of food in the evening after a day of work, it means there was work to be thankful for, and that that is all that is possible. That being the same as the phrase:"knife and fork mentality". It is a condition somewhat uncommon in much of North America, but not quite so uncommon in many other parts of the world. Is that the implication in that context ? Or is it somewhat different and perhaps more obscure ? M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 17:22:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: an institutionalized avant garde Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Gwendolyn MacEwen, Ah the Canadian poet whom Milton Acorn (another Canadian poet) was so in love with. They never quite got it together. She ended up committing suicide, and he died not that long after, of cancer, after returning to the east coast. One of the saddest, most tragic, love stories, in Canadian literature. Both were exceptional poets. Both gave away most of their poetry, to people on the street and in similar venues, in the days long before the Internet. M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 16:43:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christina Fairbank Chirot Subject: Re: [Re: Anarchy]&Elizam Escobar In-Reply-To: <19980610003901.13815.qmail@www09.netaddress.usa.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII mANY THANKS FOR THE EXCELLENT QUOTES AND INFORMATION-- "BEATING THE HEAD AGAINST THE WALL"--Gilles Deleuze in a late essay on writing wrote about this--that one must beat the head against the wall-- (recall the scene in Raging Bull when Jake LaMotta (Rbt de Niro beats his head against the wall and realizes: "I am not an animal! I am not an animal!" De Niro then breaks his way into language--recitations of poetry and scenes from plays--on stage "where this bull here can rage") the connections between violence and language are interesting-- many years ago in a country far away I had the opportunity to throw some anarchist bombs (in to empty police vehicles)--and later moved on to graffiti--now writing, visual poetry and mail art-- anarchism is not purely aleatory at all-- the great jazz musician Don Cherry often pointed out that to play Free Jazz one required great discipline (Mac Low is in this line--the disciplined thinking out,practice, study. then the conjunctions with the seemingly aleatory--ditto with Cage) anarchists, pacifist or violent, are suppressed in part because they call continually into question the norms imposed by societies, arts, institutions, which create norms and rules that pose as virtuous in the name of preserving heirarchies which from time to time reshuffle the names, while retaining the forms-- "yet the clouds still move . .. " chaos theory? Prigogine & Stenders' Order out of Chaos? the Eternal Network of mail art? "the world as we see it is passing" --dbc On Tue, 9 Jun 1998, Christian Roess wrote: > > owner-poetics@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU wrote: > > Anarchism continues to have a strong input in poetic, visual and > > theoretical practices all over the world-- > > the areas of visual poetry and mail art especially > > there are hundreds of journals, web sites, events going on which > > are anarchist > > yes there are many forms of anarchism > > that is the point > > "l'imagination au pouvoir" > > -dave baptiste chirot > > some other great anarchist writers: Thoreau, Blake, Whitman, Emma > > Goldman . .. > > > > > Thus is order insured: some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game." - Adorno > > > > "My practicality consists in this, in the knowledge that if you beat your head against the wall it is your head which breaks and not the wall... that is my strength, my only strength." - Gramsci > > **** > Another point of departure for the subject of anarchy (and the supplemental role our government played in its use of chemical weapon's in Vietnam) would be the case of Elizam Escobar, painter, poet, and contributing/associate editor of the magazine Left Curve. Perhaps Manuel Brito would like to contact him.( I know his question is directed toward the 1960's poetry scene, but perhaps he could write to him and ask him if he feels like he beat his head against the wall but now is forced to let poetry do it for him? I mean who breaks down wall really,poetry(not the poet) or the anarchist? Who is full of (aka Yeats) 'passionate' intensity? The best lack all conviction? .)I can't comment on the two poems I've read of his, but his essays and paintings(seen some on the website and in a magazine) warrant our attention. He can be reached at the Maximum Security prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, where he is serving out a 68 year prison term. Anyone know about this guy? > ======== > > I have only know about Elizam Escobar #88969-024 for about one month, but I am having trouble understanding what the U.S. government's role in his arrest and incarceration is? This case seems as insidious as the use of chemical weapons on our own citizens. > > ==================== > Quoting from a web page devoted to him: > > His paintings have been exhibited in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and in more than 10 Puerto Rican cities. The paintings he created in jail are currently being exhibited throughout the United States. > > His works have been published in several magazines including Beginnings and Currents. He published a series in De Pie y En Lucha and soon will finish a collection entitled The Onthological War Against the Art Market: An Act of Liberation. His works have also appeared in the Anthology of Latino Poets in New York. Some of his more recent illustrations can be found in Cuadernos de Poetica, published in the Dominican Republic. Quimera Editors published his book, Speech in the Night and Sonia Semenovena, while another article appeared in the art magazine, Left Curve.[ http://www.wco.com/~leftcurv] > > Since April 4, 1980 Elizam has been serving a 68-year prison sentence, accused of seditious conspiracy. He was later accused of being a member of the Armed Forces of Puerto Rican National Liberation (FALN). > =========== > Maybe Manuel Brito could get some interesting responses to the project he is working on by hooking up to these sites, which gives Elizam Escobar's address in Prison, and if you are editing a book of some kind on this subject maybe Elizam Escobar #88969-024 would contribute a piece, from the Belly of the Beast, so to speak). > > =============== > > If your like me you may n > > > ____________________________________________________________________ > Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:02:38 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Oops & Obsession Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Yes Karen. go ahead. i was never very good at context. re: the last time the list discussed appropriation (chip & dale's younger poets issue) wasn't it "decided" that each of our words posted to this list were our intellectual property as if printed with the little c circle mark next to it? i didn't register my disagreement with this general "decision" at the time. also i wonder, is it appropriation if you have to ask? Bill Luoma < Subject: Oops & Obsession I inadvertently deleted the letter before I reread the author, but not before I wrote down the line, which I submit as best-out-of-context-line-of-the-week (oh wait, I just remembered: it was Bill Luoma). Anyhow: Another structure I think about is what I call a "skirt." Can I use this, Bill? Other listees: would you be offended by an appropriation like that? It doesn't represent the larger concept of Bill's paragraph, which I WOULD feel weird about appropriating, but how about single prosy lines (vs. perhaps more overtly "poetic" lines--say, containing a metaphor)? Appropriation is *my* obsession.>> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:05:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Ad campaigns and poets galore (who score) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit >Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 20:15:47 -0400 >From: sylvester pollet >Subject: Re: Ad campaigns and poets galore (who score) >At 3:28 PM -0500 6/16/98, s. kaipa wrote: >>Wasn't it Lew Welch that came up with the ad: >> >Raid kills bugs dead. >> >>? >> >>Summi >Yes, and I always thought the realization that that line would outlive all >his others is what did him in. S. I don't know, mr Pollet. I always think of mr welch with this line in mind: where ring is what a phone does ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:24:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: poetry makes nothing [that is not there and the nothing that is] happy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Henry -- Your mention caused me to climb up and get the Exact Change Yearbook No. 1 (where are 2 3 4 and 5??) to look at the recent Russians there. Eremenko struck me, in Joe Donahue's translation, and Nina Iskrenko got to me too. I know I've seen the others you mentioned, but I can't remember where. Forgive me for a lazy sycophant, but what are some collections, magazines, etc. Sedated, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 15:37:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: where's the poetry? (Don't ask Derrida) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" The long-running thread about politics and poetry and their uneasy coexistence or doubling has reached a very subtle and high level, it seems to me, with the latest posts of Standard and Mike and Henry and Dan. I thank them all for their cogency! (Soon it will all be forgotten and we'll go back to ground zero, of course . . .) What follows are a few paragraphs from "The Politics of Jacques Derrida" in the June 25 issue of the New York Review of Books, which speak to my . . . uneasiness . . . about severing that link. "Tyranny begins in the language of tyranny, which derives ultimately from philosophy. If that were transformed, or 'neutralized' as he says in Politics of Friendship, so eventually would our politics be. He proves to be extremely open-minded about what this might entail. He asks rhetorically whether 'it would still make sense to speak of democracy when there would be no more speaking of country, nation, even state and citizen.' He also considers whether the abandonment of Western humanism would mean that concepts of human rights, humanitarianism, even crimes against humanity would have to be forsworn. But then what remains? If deconstruction throws doubt on every political principle of the Western philosophical tradition - Derrida mentions propriety, intentionality, will, liberty, conscience, self-consciousness, the subject, the self, the person, and community - are judgments about political matters still possible? Can one still distinguish rights from wrongs, justice from injustice? Or are these terms, too, so infected with logocentrism that they must be abandoned? Can it really be that deconstruction condemns us to silence on political matters, or can it find a linguistic escape from the trap of language?" (Snip) " . . . Derrida is convinced that the only way to extend the democratic values he himself holds is to destroy the language in which the West has always conceived of them, in the mistaken belief that it is language, not reality, that keeps our democracies imperfect. Only by erasing the vocabulary of Western political thought can we hope for a ''repolarization' or a 'new concept of politics.' But once that point is achieved, what we discover is that the democracy we want cannot be described or defended; . . ." (snip) "No wonder a tour through the post-modernist section of any American bookshop is such a disconcerting experience. The most illiberal, anti-enlightenment notions are put forward with a smile and the assurance that, followed out to their logical conclusion, they could only lead us into the democratic promised land . . ." I don't claim, of course, that poets have to be "humanists" - Olson also wanted to dismantle that philosophical system which places humans, unnecessarily, at the center of things. But I appeal to people with more of a background in modern philosophical theory then myself to refute this somewhat - alarming -- description of Derrida's ideas! When someone suggests that poetry can't or shouldn't be "political" and then goes on to describe a "pure poetry" or as Henry had it earlier a "poetic impulse" that somehow precedes "rhetoric," I get . . . a little nervous! Deconstruction is not NECESSARILY "lang-po," I know, but Bobbie - has your machine blown up yet? Joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 17:01:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Objectivists at Naropa (long post) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Tuesday evening at Naropa was the occasion for one of the more memorable readings heard by your humble reporter, made so by all there, but particularly by the presence of Carl Rakosi and the ghostlier demarcations of Lorine Niedecker. But first things first. Michael Heller began the evening by proclaiming that "we are all here to celebrate Carl Rakosi." He then read from his new (and highly recommended book) _Wordflow_ , starting with "Figures of Speaking." "The beauty of the older poet's voice Punishes me. What is beautiful must Or one doesn't believe it." And from "Heteroglossia on 53rd St.": "The language falls A chunk of disembodied sound through space." New work included the lovely "The Chronicle Poet" - "Nothing impedes thought's passage more than an unuttered word" - and "Meditations on the Ba," inspired by a sculpture of the Egyptian death-bird the poet saw when visiting Freud''s home in London. "Imagine if were to awaken to another language." And from "Diasporic Conundrums" - "those legibilities constant with the self ... we are the impossibles of these wants." Heller concluded with more from _Wordflow_ : "Lecture with Celan," "Without Ozymandias," "Classical Theme," and "At The Muse's Tomb": "What was truth? The plangent lucidity, the glass through which the light flowed." Heller's beautifully calm and polished cadences describe the arc of a rare and delicious economy. At once grave and uplifting, these poems are serene meditations on time, decay, memory, loss -- the slippage of language and the poetics of desire (of eros) to provide or secure some sense of self against the perpetual undertow of events, of the listing body itself. They suggest, in the most elegant way, that form is perhaps nothing more than the enactment of our anxiety about time. *** Jenny Penberthy took the stage next - and dazzled us all with a multi-media presentation on Lorine Niedecker. She began by reading Part Five of "Progression" - hitherto unpublished - it's the opening poem in Mary Sloan's _Moving Borders_ anthology. This poem, explained Jenny, had languished in Pound's Papers (collected I forget where). Niedecker had sent it to him along with a very illuminating cover letter. Pound apparently began editing them (that got a good laugh) but gave up half way through and evidently never replied to her (another laugh, more rueful than the first). Then came a slide show - photos of the most marvelous book in existence I should think - entitled "I fly my rounds, tempestuous." It's a 1935 monthly calendar, bound by a ribbon at the top, in which every page offers some homely platitude in its center, surrounded by the days of the month. Niedecker cut and pasted a blank piece of paper over the platitude and wrote her own poems in their place. (Actually, Penberthy thinks she wrote them first, then pasted them on). The book was sent to Zukofsky as a Xmas gift in 1934. Here are some samples (I understand some or all of this has been printed in Sulfur two issues back): Wade all life backward to its course which runs too far ahead. ________ To give heat is within the control of every human being. ___________ The satisfactory thing is to keep revolving. _________________ I talk at the top of my white resignment. __________ I like a loved one to be apt in the wing. _______ Jesus, I'm going out and throw my arms around. ___________ These are poems so good they can move one to tears and beyond that what is there to say? Except that they are charged with the gnomic - pure oneiric utterance. To close, Penberthy played the only known recording of Niedecker reading her work, made by Cid Corman when she was 67. It includes most of _Harpischord and Salt Fish_. And about a minute of an interview he conducted with her before the vagaries of literary history swooped down and the tape ran out. She sounded like my Midwestern grandmother - high, sweet, almost dainty, yet with an underlying exactness as true as steel. And it was a weird delight to sit in that dark, still, crowded auditorium, rapt by the tinny scratchy tape of her voice. **** That's a tough act to follow. But Rachel Blau DuPlessis did it and did it with real bravura. I confess at once that she's one of my favorite poets. Rachel began with a new Draft called "Renga" --- "stand still under the hemisphere of night" --- "multiple registers that travel to the serif of one letter" --- "at the edges everything's midrush, midrash" --- "yesterday I had a diaristic impulse but it didn't work out did it?" --- "oculist or occultist? Agitated or anointed? Your call." This was followed by Draft 25 - Segno, from _The Fold_, which she described as involving a signifyin' on a signifyin' by Oppen. And Draft 26 - M-m-ry, which incorporates the language of official rejection from the kind folks who oversee the Freedom of Information Act. All of these motifs working within the overall practice of citation and self-citation that comprise a major theme of the Drafts. "Of living in a landscape whose flaring cries are not sound, are cries not to be cried but atmosphere, ache and el, their world-renowned interface to be remembered as such. A task deep within restlessness. And thus the story, o the story ---- " DuPlessis's laddered music, her stepped cadences and sibilants, have a post-medieval glow to them somehow. Compacted fragments from a lost primeval bestiary of The Word, rolled into pearled utterance, broken across the page in pageant -- sinuous recoil and redoubling curve of blinkering sense and sound. The enactment of form forms the thought of form. A shimmering. Feint and pump. A lyric rush that constantly breaks form and faith with itself in order to re-establish itself at a different pitch. Song as question mark, as rupture, as dislocation and relocation. As re-alottment and recuperation of the possibilities of song. A decoding of accepted boundaries. And as Hank Lazer puts it, "an epistemological inquiry." Into thrust ratios, carrier waves, originary locii and tertiary hinges. She closed with Draft 36 - Cento (soon to appear in "Chain"). Here the practice of self-citation figured largely as the plan of the poem involves drawing every line third line from an earlier Draft. (Cento - a patchwork in which every line is cited, but at 99 lines in length, also a pun on Cento = hundred). The poem is scattered with phrases from French, which Rachel speaks, and from Russian, Hebrew and Esperanto, which she does not. "Like everyone else I'm attracted to words that end in -ette. Rockette, majorett, poet." (And ad lib: "that's for all your girls out there.") "Inside the unsayable grumble hungry phonemes." And quoting Rakosi: "Dazed amid the world, the real world, 'the real real world'." *** I've now gone on entirely too long, but bear with me a little while yet. Anselm Hollo introduced Carl Rakosi by describing him "as absolutely contemporary as ever." And Rakosi, looking dapper and sweet - he has one of the most beautiful faces I've ever seen - started out by saying: "When I stand here, I stand here as a performer. The poet is home in the book." Following are various snippets from his most recent work (the linebreaks are mine - apologies to all for my wild surmise): "Satyricon" Guess what? Little pygmies from the business world have taken over Congress with a mission to scuttle social welfare. ____ All that's left is irony, which is best served like chardonnay, with cold crab and grilled words. "Modern Narrative" By the water of Babylon I sat down and wept with shoemakers son, Thomas Traherne ... "Corporate Men" Maxwell, a self-made man who loves his creator Dulcimer, the celebrated poet. A sheep in sheep's clothing. "The Ballad of the Diminished I" Where is fancy bred? In the quiddity of the sparrow in my yard. When shall we be safe? When the crocodile lies down with the dove. And the design of the universe? The fate of man? Pending. "Ode to a Nightengale" Such claims for this little bugger! Where is he? I've never seen him. . . . Maybe off to see the St. Louis Cardinals? . . . The barber's big ass girl walks by -- Some nightengale! "Country Epitaphs" The widow Benson was brief: Gone, but not forgiven. ____ I told you I was sick. ___ On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia. ___ They don't make Jews like Jesus anymore. Simple poems - simple and full of delight. And as easy and graceful and light as though they were turned on a lathe. Appropriate distillation, from a lifetime's devotion to poetry. Thanks for reading this far. I'll keep future posts rather briefer. (If only for the sake of my sanity - and job security). Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 09:06:43 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Minter Subject: chapbook In-Reply-To: <199806172106.RAA17838@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This might seem a stoopid question, but last night I friend and I were discussing the word/object 'chapbook'... any ideas on where it came from? first use? did this term originate in the US? yours in brevity, and thanks Peter Minter ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:15:25 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Laura E. Wright" Subject: Re: chapbook MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I looked this up a few months ago, 'cause I didn't know either: a chapbook was originally any small, cheap book (chiefly pamphlets of popular tales, ballads, tracts) sold by a chapman -- an itinerant peddler or a boothkeeper at marketplace. OED sez origins of chap are barter, business. Seems to precede the US. Brevity in yours, Laura W. Peter Minter wrote: > This might seem a stoopid question, but last night I friend and I were > discussing the word/object 'chapbook'... any ideas on where it came from? > first use? did this term originate in the US? > > yours in brevity, and thanks > > Peter Minter -- Laura Wright Library Assistant, Naropa Institute (303) 546-3547 "All music is music..." -- Ted Berrigan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 17:21:20 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: izak Subject: poetry readings... Comments: To: POETICS@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII can anyone tell me if there are any readings of interest coming up in los angeles? i'm here for the summer and have had some problems finding anything. thanks. -joanna sondheim ******************************************************************************* "It does not behoove me to make myself smaller than I am." -Edith Sodergran ******************************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 17:27:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Art, Poetry, context In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19980614173249.006b7880@theriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I second Charles on this. Some years ago I read that the average visual artist in New York (the city) who made any money at all (surely the minority) reported taxable earnings from artwork of $4,500 a year. One reason, aside from those already mentioned, for the relatively easy acceptance of visual art (but remember that subsumed under the term is a great deal of highly popular unspeakable dreck--"I may not know much about art, but I know what I like") is that it can cover a lot of otherwise dull or unsightly wallspace. Which is why, as corporate headquarters have become more imperial in scale, paintings have tended to expand to baroque dimensions. Visual art, in other words, can be justified as an architectural expense, which would be hard to do with a poem. Meanwhile, to remain on the corporate front, I know from a curator at Prudential, which has an enormous and very fine collection of 20th Century art, that it's often very hard to convince even the head honchos to hang anything in their offices more sophisticated than fishing scenes or portraits of hunting dogs. Pollock and Warhol might just as well stay in the vault. At 05:32 PM 6/14/98 -0700, you wrote: >At 02:26 PM 6/17/98 -0500, you wrote: >>Being situated in the context of "art" does clearly lead to more visibility >>(and remuneration), but I've enver been able to clearly understand exactly >>why this should be. > >Ah yes, all the rich artists. Really, this is not at all the case. True, >there is a high-money art market, and a few (in comparison to the total, a >very very tiny few) artists make some money. But far more that I know >struggle just as much as poets, and studio rent and materials that many (if >not most) artists use tend to be a good deal more expensive than paper & >pen -- plus artists need to be computer savvy these days, too. Yes, if one >does sell a painting, for example, she may receive anywhere from a hundred >to several thousand dollars. Very few, though, sell enough to pay the bills >without taking other jobs, just as poets take jobs, whether it be as >teachers or clerks or waitpersons, or whatever. And artists' MFA programs >have the same problems, including turning out 'employable' graduates, that >writers' MFA programs have. I do think more people out there in the world >see art every day or every week and are therefore less intimidated by >artists. But then I also have seen situations where artists seem to have a >stereotype of not being very smart -- and truly, I knew one who rather >encouraged this; he would get himself out of any difficult arguments/twists >of thinking by just saying, "well, I'm *visually* trained." > >charles >charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com >chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing >books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision >http://alexwritdespub.com/chax :: http://alexwritdespub.com > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:27:36 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Simon J. Schuchat" Subject: Re: poetry makes nothing [that is not there and the nothing that is] happy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" As someone about to begin a year of intensive Russian study, I am following Henry & Jordan's slanging match on the Rooshians with great interest. I am hoping that Henry is right and there is lots there, though I'll be satisfied with Pushkin and Mayakovsky if there is nothing much else. Jordan I think is right that Requiem and its ilk gain much from the penumbra of story around them, and also that certain Soviet writers gain cachet among those who don't read poetry anyway because they wrote "against" the Soviet state. That doesn't make them not good, it just means you have to distinguish between their supporters and them. In Brodsky's essay on Mandelstam (which I copyedited when it was the introduction to Bernard Meares rhyming translations of Mandelstam, published by Persea, thousands of years ago) Brodsky makes it clear that what happened to Mandelstam would have happened to him in any society (look at Hart Crane, though B doesn't make that comparison). "When he ran out of space, he hit time." is the operative line. Anyway them Rooshians did a good job of art as religon, we godless capitalists always like that. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:41:19 +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: Stanford/Wright/Gander MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Aviva & Brent -- Maybe you guys know -- I'm wondering when CD Wright began editing Lost Roads, which I believe she took over after Frank Stanford died. Do you know what year she assumed total editorial responsibilities? As for Gander, I concur. About 4 years ago (before I knew anything) I wrote a review of _Lynchburg_ for the Harvard Review. Reading now, it's more a record of my discovering poetry than a review of Gander -- The only intelligible thing I said, referring here to "Life of Johnson upside your Head, a libretto" (I called it a "verbal chiaroscuro"): "But what is most remakrable about Gander is his ability to isolate events as though they occur purely within the random constructions of language." Now I realize that's what events, "isolated" (i.e. written down) do. The same year I had to give up reviewing Rosmarie Waldrop's _Key to the Language of America_ & now she's a favorite of mine. Linda Russo * @ * % * & * # * with only the sound of the mimeograph "kachucking" and the pages swishing down . . . (Maureen Owen) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:45:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: chapbook In-Reply-To: <35885C1D.D1EA1CEC@naropa.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" yes, and what do people consider to be a 'chapbook' now? My own definition (usually) is a book which is sewn as a single folded group, or signature, of pages. So it could be as short as 4 pages, or maybe as long as about 48 -- but then I've seen (and made) books which were multiple signatures at less than 48 pages, and have chosen not to call them 'chapbooks,' rather, just 'books.' And I'd just soon drop the term chapbook altogether, except that I like its history, its suggestion (at least in my own head) of a book very easily carried around, perhaps even in a pocket. charles At 06:15 PM 6/17/98 -0600, you wrote: >I looked this up a few months ago, 'cause I didn't know either: a chapbook was >originally any small, cheap book (chiefly pamphlets of popular tales, ballads, >tracts) sold by a chapman -- an itinerant peddler or a boothkeeper at >marketplace. OED sez origins of chap are barter, business. Seems to precede >the US. > >Brevity in yours, chax press : alexander writing/design/publishing chax@theriver.com http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:06:51 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale Smith Subject: Smell of Money Content-Type: text/plain Hey, Joe Safdie, that was a post straight to the heart of the money matter. Derrida gave us the freedom to know absolutely nothing and write THAT into the ground where bad old REASON lies buried by the neo liberal left. The PoMo culture market is Big Bucks and open to anyone with an opinion, nevermind curiosity. Interesting that this late in the post-'68 'revolution' someone spent the energy on french fried idears, however low fat and cholesterol free. By the way, I'd venture to say that one of the most important forces, if not the most important force, keeping this list going is $. Elbow, elbow. Nudge, nudge. 'Come on, print my books, sir.' The 'avant-garde' is academia lite. The meaning is gone, like so-called 'alternative' music. It really doesn't mean anything to anyone. MOre mainstream than mainstream, if you get my drift. Whatever it takes to cash in is what it takes. Bobbie, I'd love to post something of Kevin's, but I don't think he'd dig the format and I don't wanna set him up for instantaneous deletion by the avant-G. Although, I will end by quoting him: "If I knew how the jungle got wall-to-wall carpeting I'd be a rich man today..." ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:05:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: reading reports Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Just want to drop a word of gratitude into the pool--to Chris Reiner for the Knife and Fork Report from L.A., to Steve Evans a week or so back for reporting on his reading, partic of Creeley's _Life & Death_ , which from Steve's as-ever startlingly precise language it's easy to see one must read . . .And to Pat Pritchett, whose gift for writing on these events is equally admirable. Thanks, fellas. What we're missing (unless I erased carelessly) is some report on the conference in Sao Paulo. I know some listmates attended. I'd like to hear about it. David ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 22:22:42 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: poetry makes nothing [that is not there and the nothing that is] happy In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:24:07 -0500 from Jordan old heteronym, Elena Shvarts has a Blooodaxe book called "Paradise". It's the tip of the iceberg of this strange Petersburg poet. Julia Kunina is not much in English, but she read recently in your town at some big get-together (for a Talisman anthology?) - she's getting some degree at NYU, also from Petersburg. There's a chapbook translated (not so well, in my humble egotrip) by Richard Sieburth called "Durer at his mirror" from something called Lunar Offensive Press. thanks for asking - henry ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 22:17:12 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: Art, Poetry, context In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 14 Jun 1998 17:32:49 -0700 from I'd like to strongly second Charles Alexander's perspective on "rich artists" and thank him for personally helping me find a brief break from a nine-to-five for one of these not-so-rich artists. You know who I mean, Charles! She's found a six-week apprenticeship, thanks to you. - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 19:28:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Any chance of your posting some of this Maria? Charles Bernstein wrote: > Maria Damon's recent MLA presentation > (Maria will be giving a talk entitled "Hannah Weiner: Clairvoyance and > Trauma" for the UB Poetics Program on Thurs., Oct. 15). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 21:57:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k. lederer" Subject: Katy Lederer/Change of address MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi, I'm moving. My new address is: 226 W 108th St Apt 2D New York, NY 10025 All correspondence regarding EXPLOSIVE MAGAZINE and Spectacular Books should be directed to this address. EXPLOSIVE MAGAZINE #s 4 and 5 are available for $5 per issue. The first in the Spectacular chapbook series, SONGS & SCORES by Tina Celona, is available for $6. It's printed on acid-free paper in a signed edition of 100. Forthcoming titles by Martin Corless-Smith, Juliana Spahr, Lyn Heinian and others will also be available for $6. There will be ten titles all told. Signed sets are available for $50 (as in: you will receive the same number of each edition). Thanks, Katy Lederer ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 22:32:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Subject: Re: where's the poetry? (Don't ask Derrida) In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 17 Jun 1998 15:37:09 -0700 from On Wed, 17 Jun 1998 15:37:09 -0700 Safdie Joseph said: >(snip) > > "No wonder a tour through the post-modernist section of any >American bookshop is such a disconcerting experience. The most >illiberal, anti-enlightenment notions are put forward with a smile and >the assurance that, followed out to their logical conclusion, they could >only lead us into the democratic promised land . . ." > >I don't claim, of course, that poets have to be "humanists" - Olson also >wanted to dismantle that philosophical system which places humans, >unnecessarily, at the center of things. But I appeal to people with more >of a background in modern philosophical theory then myself to refute >this somewhat - alarming -- description of Derrida's ideas! > >When someone suggests that poetry can't or shouldn't be "political" and >then goes on to describe a "pure poetry" or as Henry had it earlier a >"poetic impulse" that somehow precedes "rhetoric," I get . . . a little >nervous! I must confess that all the merry-go-round on this stuff has left me nauseated with my own blab, and if I'M nauseated what must the general poetics person feel (I have an iron stomach, I grew up in Bob Dylan land)? With the sense of being an Eliot cartoon, laying down the law about the "tradition" etc. and what poetry is... sigh, sigh, sigh. Poetry is utterly raw experience. It is pre-rhetoric because it is just about pre-linguistic. It is babytalk turned into dance music. Does this mean it is unrefined or brutish? No - it is shocking & scandalous. But I mean the scandal of innocence. Joe, when I wrote about the surging music of Russian poetry I was talking about the same thing Shakespeare has in his sonnets about "hugely politic" vs. petty politics. "Fair, kind, and true is all my argument". This is what people look for in poetry, at least I do anyway - the music of raw truth,"the music of what happens"(to quote the Celtic bard, I forget his name). Olson was attacking a straw man humanism. He was fighting technological rationalism but he called it humanism. The pure poetic impulse before politics & rhetoric is the continuum or the link between artifice and nature. It can lead in many directions. It can lead to a Robert Bly (myth as style). It can lead to a John Ashbery (style as myth). It can lead to a Galway Kinnell (myth as myth). It can lead to an Allen Ginsberg (politics as poetry). It can lead to Language Poetry (poetry as politics). It can lead to Adrienne Rich (poetry politics poetry). It can lead to Bernadette Mayer (poetry). The main thing is, there is no satisfying formula (with me, Aristotle?) for the Gorby doll box-within-boxes of art-politics-art- etc. There is no formula, Joe. But to answer your question: my thrust on this topic has been to suggest that like music and painting there is a specific poetic impulse which starts at around age 1-3 and fuck the theorists who want to box this into some sociological fart factory. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 22:13:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian N Clements Subject: Re: chapbook Comments: To: Peter Minter In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The term "chapbook" dates as far back as the seventeenth century "cheapbook," though it could be earlier, to refer to cheaply produced and sold pamphlets, usually political or philosophical tracts. Would be happy to hear other sources.... Clements ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To be a poet is to feel something like a unicyclist in a desert, a pornographic magician performing in the corner of the church during Mass, a drag queen attending night classes and blowing kisses at the teacher. Charles Simic ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 20:18:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Misappropriation from the List Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" No, Bill, nothing was agreed upon. The Listmaster either b-c'd me or posted to the List, that it was disapproved of, to take without requesting permission of the author, but as far as I know, nothing was enforced against Dale Smith, a man who had a lot to say about morality and poetry but who took words of mine for his magazine without any request for my permission. David ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 19:35:53 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: raw numbers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "The opinion that cognitive connections can be found in the real world only as far as qualitative determinations are reduced to quantitative ones, which asserted itself in modern times in opposition to Aristotle's philosophy, has assumed fundamental importance for natural science. This is Kepler's succinct formulation, "Ut oculus ad colores, auris ad sonos, ita mens hominis non ad quaevis sed ad quanta intelligenda condita est. ["Just as the eye has been formed for color and the ear for sound, so the mind of a man is not formed for whatever you please but is formed for quantities"]. The STANDARD of our knowledge is found in its approximation to the "NUDAE QUANTITATES" ["RAW NUMBERS" or "$BUCK$ NEKED BYTES"]. Galileo enunciates the principle, "to measure what is measurable and to try to render measurable what is not so as yet." A splendid illustration of the second part of this postulate is his invention of the thermometer."---from Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science by Hermann Weyl with apologies --- "My thermostat has three beliefs; it's too hot in here; it's too cold in here; it's just right in here."---John McCarthy, Artificial Intelligence Guru and the recipient of more research [e.g. tax & corporate] money than all of the combined members on this list will see in a dozen lifetimes---cp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 22:04:52 -0700 Reply-To: mcx@bellatlantic.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael corbin Subject: Re: Good, there are no lions in the street MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit dbkk@SIRIUS.COM wrote: > "Desire" has become one of those prissy words I find problematic *these* > days. When Jane Gallop visited SF State (maybe 10 years ago), she talked > about how many feminist books at the time had mauve covers. Mauve, she > said, was Frenchified pink. "Desire" seems to me to be Frenchified sex. > > Remember last year talking to this fellow who had a book coming out and I > asked him what the book was about and he said, snootily over his beer, "My > book's about Desire." I kept pressing him, but that's all he'd say about > it. When the book came out, it was, in part, as I had expected, knowing > his previous oeuvre, about having sex with teenage hustlers. I'm not > judgemental about that--but "Desire" certainly sounds better than kiddy > porn. > > Mina, I'd say *these* days, is about sex and appetite--Courtney Love's "I > wanna be the girl with the biggest piece of cake." And of course a > desperate search for self-validation. "Desire" isn't problematic enough. > > For what it's worth. > Thanks. Tis true. Desire was sorta one performance of 80s authenticity. now maybe prissy is right. Like a residual Courtney tattoo 'K' on the belly (maybe a vaniety fair cover)/ courtney still smells like teen spirit, and I look forward to the new HOLE disc, see if she still rocks and all that, those just-so appetites of rockandroll. I'm trying to believe in certain performances of appetites. and, seriously, I hope girl-friend turns hollywood on its head and gets a big old piece of cake. I like various hunger. But this too is some multirefracted desire of authenticity, no? I don't know. The hyper-real as the only real reality, even in its nostalgic displaced embodiments, and personalized performance arts. I guess this my mina. tonight. beautiful in the letters. Not just the transmigration of body fluids. Bram Stoker didn't even need that particular 'real' appetite. Maybe like a Ron Athney paper towel with the right blood stains. Thrown to the crowd as confetti. the un-dead appetites mc, who some years ago saw a poem spine in a used book store called _Desire_, bought it and liked it. but i'm a fucking priss too. like carson's _Eros_ better than appetite desires. but maybe too classical: "Eros once again limb-loosener whirls me/sweetbitter, impossible to fight off, creature from stealing up" (Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta in carson). too classical-mauve yeah, i guess; i like blood sucking. impossible appetites. impossible gluttonies. mc ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 01:14:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "A. Nikuko Sondheim" Subject: this and that MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII A friend of mine, Rafi Zabor, just won the Pen Faulkner award for fiction, for his book The Bear Comes Home. I know this because a friend of mine, Mark Esper, heard my name on NPR and came running in, and I knew Rafi as Joel when we played and recorded together for ESP-Disk and Riverboat.(And the ESP has been released again as a cd on ZYX or some wuch. So tonight I went to hear him read and was interviewed by a reporter-photographer team because I knew him when. His editor was there for the reading. He had been doing not so great before the award and I recommend the book which is by Norton because it's the only jazz thing other than old stuff by Baraka/ Jones like Applecores that make any sense to me, and he does do, Rafi does, the solos from inside out. An odd experience how things shift; meanwhile I have an editor for a book of essays coming out who doesn't re- turn my calls. Am I jealous? Of editors of course. The more marginal the writing the more marginal the contacts and the greater the nuisance one, meaning I, become. Outside now in Brooklyn there are people screaming and throwing things. On the way there I passed one of my favorite bookshops, Beyond Words Book- store, only to find out it's closing down. Barnes and Noble are about a half-mile away. So there's a sale on at 186 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn, if anyone is around looking for. It carries mostly queer fiction and essays and multiculturalisms and poems and it was there I got the Levitsky Por- traits, Yay for Rachel! (my exclamation, not part of the title), and an Eileen Miles School of Fish so I can read not standing up sometime. So the bookstore is about a few hundred feet from where Rafi/Joel is reading; there should be a point but there isn't except that Rafi/Joel reads quite beautifully and if you like Ayler for example or Coleman or those old ESP artists like Guiseppe Logan, you'll like the book, and if you like any sort of jazz you'll like the book, and I guess the other point is that just about anything makes me sad nowadays. I feel since I'm in _this space_ I should write more so I want to mention a couple of other authors, Inoue Yasushi who writes historic/Borgesian fiction - another book having something to do with the poetics I work through at times, Relfections on Japanese Taste, The Structure of Iki, by Kuki Shuzo, who works through phenomenology. There have been a great number of car crashes in my neighborhood, one of which included a Trans Am slamming into our building which remains up- right, but for how long. Alan, perched ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 01:35:10 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aviva Vogel Subject: Re: Frank Stanford/Forrest Gander Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-06-17 09:18:12 EDT, you write: > I'll keep you posted on the Stanford Page. Brent, thanks. Very unfortunate about the "falling out" with his widow. And yes, Gander deserves much more attention, especially to this latest volume of poems. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 22:33:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: poetry makes nothing [that is not there and the nothing that is] happy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Henry is right and there is lots there, > Pushkin and Mayakovsky if there is nothing much else I'm hoping this is innocent ignorance and not the usual chauvinist b.s. Tsvetayava is twice the poet Pushkin is and so is Pasternak, Akmatova is a giant, though i love Mandelstam's work, Nadezda's the writer in that family and Yesinin, you got lots of treats coming Simon don't prejudge it, especially from the less than zero perspective of 90's US ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 01:40:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "A. Nikuko Sondheim" Subject: Forwarded mail from our linux box - MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - The Collectible Unconscious Following Jung (who wrote about collectibles indeed), the following part- objects, common to all of us, reference our site, one through the image of the other, other through the image of the one. Think of these as inter- sections of projections, collectible, modular: All together now! Think of the vastness of the resulting Map: Buy my netstat says Nikuko! I will connect my STREAM with yours: {k:17}netstat Active Internet connections (w/o servers) Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State Active UNIX domain sockets (w/o servers) Proto RefCnt Flags Type State I-Node Path unix 2 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 1056 unix 2 [ ] STREAM 1057 /dev/log unix 2 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 1330 unix 2 [ ] STREAM 1331 /dev/log unix 1 [ ] STREAM 1394 unix 2 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 2666 unix 2 [ ] STREAM 2667 /dev/log unix 2 [ ] STREAM CONNECTED 2772 unix 2 [ ] STREAM 2773 /dev/log {k:18} Come into my HALLWAY says Nikuko; buy my LOUNGE! LOOK at me: hallway.R | | |-- lounge.R | | |-- mapfile | | |-- newsfile | | |-- shop.R | | `-- wizroom.R | |-- go | |-- helpfiles | | |-- accreq | | |-- afk | | |-- listen | | |-- logging | | |-- look | | |-- mainhelp | | |-- map | | Buy me a server says NIKUKO! NOBODY ever visits: nobody **Never logged in** nikuko tty1 Mon Jun 15 16:48:19 1998 sondheim tty1 Tue Jun 16 16:15:26 1998 PURCHASE THE UNCONSCIOUS! CONTACT DAISHIN NIKUKO! WITHIN! _________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 23:58:00 -0700 Reply-To: Robert Corbett Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Corbett Subject: Re: where's the poetry? (Don't ask Derrida) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Please, oh please, don't get your deconstruction from NYRoB. Those Oxford Dons masquerading as New York intellectuals have had a chip the size M. Foucault's bald head about postmodernism since day one. This time they have a native informant, rather than John Searle (who weighed in such an enlightened manner in the Stanford Humanities debate), but its the same spiel as usual. Lilla gives away the game by saying that Aron is the only political philospher of note who has been produced in France in the post-war period. Aron is essentially the French Oakeshott, a conservative thinker that theorist-baiting liberals love to cite when they see red. Furthermore, the whole article footnotes various accounts of deconstruction and postmodernism that have occurred in the New York Review of Books. What looks like scholarship is actually self-puffery. The last time I checked, most articles in reputable academic journals cite work published in other journals. However, it is the spectre of Foucault that really haunts this article. The two-sentence dismissal of him early on misreads his work badly (perhaps Lilla has read "Madness and Civilisation," while that final quote from Les Mots et les Choses is easily the most cited piece of Foucault there is). Foucault haunts Lilla because for all the sound and fury about Derrida, it is the he who ultimately deserves the blame for making liberal a dirty word for the left. To risk an inappropriate though not inapt metaphor, if Derrida is the Gorbachev of Western Metaphysics, then Foucault is the Yeltsin. Derrida is an academic par excellence, suggesting we read the canon in yet another imaginative if esoteric way, while Foucault turned his attention away from the theatricum philosophicum much earlier and suggested we go to the archive and pursue the grey art of genealogy. From Saidian accounts of orientalism to queer studies, his followers are legion. To my notion, this is not a bad thing. Giving up great books as the only guide for the politically perplexed simply means that knowing your Locke doesn't make you a champion of human rights. Or for that matter, spouting off about human rights doesn't necessarily make a partisan for liberation. Fouault and Derrida were and are certainly suspicious of liberal platitudes as platforms for progress: the latter for perhaps willfully obscure epistemo-metaphysico-ethico reasons, the former because such platitudes are usually double(even multiply)edged. After all, the developer of the panopticon, Jeremy Bentham, was an Enlightenment thinker and a reformer. Foucault is rightfully suspicious of rousing liberal slogans--or for that matter, rousing radical slogans--because they _have_ been used to promulgate social control. Lilla is all wet about Foucault, because it ain't the margins that are the oppressed, but the center (the bourgeois) which represses itself and then sees who else might find freedom through surveillance (though that center is not a center--you get my drift). Like it or not, successful identity politics means the state (and the market) can classify you and "discipline" you to its heart's (exactly the wrong word) content. Lilla's fear of the postmodern bookshelf would be comic, if it wasn't the only way journalists react to postmodernism. I wonder what books he is referring to. Isn't it suspicious that he cites no examples? Is he just covering the fact that he laments the disappearance of common culture (I suppose he doesn't watch the X-Files) and doesn't want to show his true colors? Just who is the big baby here anyway? Actually, pace Lilla (and Aron) Foucault's work on the role of intellectuals and politics is some of the most thoughtful in the wake of Camus and Sartre. He contrasted the Sartrean universal intellectual--thinker as prophet and leader-- with the modern specific intellectual--thinker as toolmaker. Predictably, he chose the latter, though not without some irony, since he was probably the last universal intellectual (certainly the last one from France). I think the specific intellectual is the role that a cultural worker (poets, critics, novelists, etc) inevitably play in a consumerist society. It's not a question of Politics with a big P, about which even Derrida (as Lilla does show well) can sound ponderous and vague, but politics with a little "p". It is a bit arrogant (not to say Stalinist) to suggest any one profession (be it political philosopher, literary critic, poet) has the only correct line on politics, but even worse, it is absurd to suggest that skepticism about language equals fascism. That said, I don't think it is necessary to go to a tenured radical (or reactionary) for a political philosophy anyway. As the great sage of our time said once, you don't need a weatherman to tell which way the wind is blowing. On Wed, 17 Jun 1998, Safdie Joseph wrote: > The long-running thread about politics and poetry and their uneasy > coexistence or doubling has reached a very subtle and high level, it > seems to me, with the latest posts of Standard and Mike and Henry and > Dan. I thank them all for their cogency! (Soon it will all be forgotten > and we'll go back to ground zero, of course . . .) > > What follows are a few paragraphs from "The Politics of Jacques Derrida" > in the June 25 issue of the New York Review of Books, which speak to my > . . . uneasiness . . . about severing that link. > > "Tyranny begins in the language of tyranny, which derives ultimately > from philosophy. If that were transformed, or 'neutralized' as he says > in Politics of Friendship, so eventually would our politics be. He > proves to be extremely open-minded about what this might entail. He asks > rhetorically whether 'it would still make sense to speak of democracy > when there would be no more speaking of country, nation, even state and > citizen.' He also considers whether the abandonment of Western humanism > would mean that concepts of human rights, humanitarianism, even crimes > against humanity would have to be forsworn. > But then what remains? If deconstruction throws doubt on every > political principle of the Western philosophical tradition - Derrida > mentions propriety, intentionality, will, liberty, conscience, > self-consciousness, the subject, the self, the person, and community - > are judgments about political matters still possible? Can one still > distinguish rights from wrongs, justice from injustice? Or are these > terms, too, so infected with logocentrism that they must be abandoned? > Can it really be that deconstruction condemns us to silence on political > matters, or can it find a linguistic escape from the trap of language?" > > (Snip) > > " . . . Derrida is convinced that the only way to extend the > democratic values he himself holds is to destroy the language in which > the West has always conceived of them, in the mistaken belief that it is > language, not reality, that keeps our democracies imperfect. Only by > erasing the vocabulary of Western political thought can we hope for a > ''repolarization' or a 'new concept of politics.' But once that point is > achieved, what we discover is that the democracy we want cannot be > described or defended; . . ." > > (snip) > > "No wonder a tour through the post-modernist section of any > American bookshop is such a disconcerting experience. The most > illiberal, anti-enlightenment notions are put forward with a smile and > the assurance that, followed out to their logical conclusion, they could > only lead us into the democratic promised land . . ." > > I don't claim, of course, that poets have to be "humanists" - Olson also > wanted to dismantle that philosophical system which places humans, > unnecessarily, at the center of things. But I appeal to people with more > of a background in modern philosophical theory then myself to refute > this somewhat - alarming -- description of Derrida's ideas! > > When someone suggests that poetry can't or shouldn't be "political" and > then goes on to describe a "pure poetry" or as Henry had it earlier a > "poetic impulse" that somehow precedes "rhetoric," I get . . . a little > nervous! > > Deconstruction is not NECESSARILY "lang-po," I know, but Bobbie - has > your machine blown up yet? > > Joe > Robert Corbett "you are there beyond/ tracings flesh can rcor@u.washington.edu take,/ and farther away surrounding and University of Washington informing the systems" - A.R. Ammons ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 23:40:57 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit charles- I seem to remember mention of another article when I was putting together the issue of 6ix. Perhaps Mark DuCharme would know. Backchannel if you'd like me to go through the files. Be well David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 00:48:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: an institutionalized avant garde MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "The bowerer" wrote: > > First time I have heard Rod MacEwan mentioned for years. Reminds me of the > > time someone in _Rolling Stone_ referred to MacEwan and MacCohen.... > > Gwendolyn MacEwen, not Rod McKuen (thanks, Maria). I spelled her name wrong. You spelled Rod McKuen's > wrong. But it is worse to spell Gwendolyn's name wrong than McKuen's because she was > such a fine poet. > Maria Damon wrote: > >hey i caught the bowerer in his own petard: it's MCKUEN. MacEwan, is that > >Ian the creepy-fiction writer? McKuen is the hallmark poet of SF 60s. > > Oh, I knew it. Damn. Okay, Maria, I'll do that same obeisance thing I did > last year. Maria: > not so fast, my pretty. there's a line, and the stakes have gone up. Maria wrote: > so tell us more; who's this Gwendolyn MacEwen. Bob wrote: > >Gwendolyn MacEwen, > > Ah the Canadian poet whom Milton Acorn (another Canadian poet) was so > in love with. They never quite got it together. She ended up committing > suicide, and he died not that long after, of cancer, after returning to > the east coast. > > One of the saddest, most tragic, love stories, in Canadian literature. > > Both were exceptional poets. Both gave away most of their poetry, to people > on the street and in similar venues, in the days long before the Internet. I dug through hundreds of tapes tonight for these two lines by Gwendolyn. I had several of her books including The Fire Eaters and Afterworlds (her last), but they did not survive the fire at my place a few years ago. These are from The Fire Eaters, the title poem of a meditation on pain, loss, and transformation, and come at the end of the poem. They come as an affirmation or conclusion of her fine poem: "A hairless wonder will be born again. Scared silly or suddenly sane." Thanks, Bob, for your words about her and Milton Acorn. I read her books in a dark time and found them beautiful, strong, and laughing, and they helped me more than I can say. Come on, George, you must have some of her books in your library. You probably knew her quite well. Can you give us one? I'm in Seattle where there aren't such things. I see Coach House Books has part of one of her works online at http://www.chbooks.com/onlinebooks/macewen/title.html, but it's not one I'm familiar with. She and Acorn were quite outside the roof of the institutionalized avant garde of Canada. You are under it, though perhaps not within it? Besides, it may be an eventuality in an institutionalized culture. The roof is bigger than it is down here, and has its advantages and social/human justifications. What are we to say of Gwendolyn and Milton Acorn in this context but that they lived as truly to their art as they could? And that this is often less than accomodating? P.S. My fave of Cohen's is The Energy of Slaves, one which ss missed quite completely in his book on Cohen's work. Jim. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 01:33:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Cohen In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980617092723.007ca170@postoffice.brown.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >George, > >Any chance you have that intelligent review? I would love to see it. Actually, no, I didnt save it. And now I wish I had. I cant even remember the reviewer's name. It was a pretty unusual name, I remember, and he was a philosophy professor at, I'm pretty sure, Carleton University, and I wouldnt be surprised if the review was in _Books in Canada_/ George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 01:33:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: MacEwen In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >so tell us more; who's this gwendolyn mckuen So really: how well known is Gwen MacEwen's work in the US? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 01:33:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: an institutionalized avant garde is In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >At 1:22 AM -0700 6/17/98, George Bowering wrote: >>>hey i caught the bowerer in his own petard: it's MCKUEN. MacEwan, is that >>>Ian the creepy-fiction writer? McKuen is the hallmark poet of SF 60s. >> >>Oh, I knew it. Damn. Okay, Maria, I'll do that same obeisance thing I did >>last year. > >not so fast, my pretty. there's a line, and the stakes have gone up. Okay. Okay. But please, dont tell Bruno this time. Please. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 01:33:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: chapbook In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >This might seem a stoopid question, but last night I friend and I were >discussing the word/object 'chapbook'... any ideas on where it came from? >first use? did this term originate in the US? > >yours in brevity, and thanks > >Peter Minter I always figured that it was a little book offered for sale by a chapman. If so, it would be one of those words that did not originate in the USA. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:14:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Grotjohn Organization: Mary Baldwin College Subject: Re: poetry readings... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit izak wrote: > > can anyone tell me if there are any readings of interest coming up in los > angeles? Hello everyone. Here is a final reminder about our upcoming June 18th Korean American Reading/Fundraiser. Although most of our events are free, this is a special fundraiser to keep non-profit organizations like ours alive - proceeds of this fundraising will go towards the AAWW literary programs in California, including an upcoming anthology of Korean American writers. We would like to thank all of you for your support towards the Asian American Writers Workshop and the Los Angeles Asian American Literary Project. We've had a successful year, and look forward to our new season, starting this fall. Please contact us if you would like to be a volunteer and help out! Thank you again for your support. PS. And yes, to the several folks who asked - THERE WILL BE FOOD AT THE EVENT! Sincerely, Paula Yoo ----------------------- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 16, 1998 Contact: Paula Yoo, 310/578-1814 Su Moon, 213/386-2662 Literary Project Hotline: 213/960-1615 _________________________________________________ AAWW AND THE LOS ANGELES ASIAN AMERICAN LITERARY PROJECT PRESENT "A CELEBRATION OF KOREAN AMERICAN ARTS" FUNDRAISER WHEN: Thursday, June 18, 1998 7:30 p.m. WHERE: Beyond Baroque at 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA (Call 310/822-3006 for directions) ADMISSION: $10 at the door DETAILS: Proceeds of this fundraising will go towards the AAWW literary programs in California, including an upcoming anthology of Korean American writers. Refreshments will be provided! READERS' BIOS: STEPHANIE HAN is an actress and writer. She is the author of L.A.(Lovers Anonymous) and a two time awardee of the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs grant for writing. CHUNGMI KIM, originally from South Korea, is the author of Chungmi - Selected Poems, and the Writers Guild Foundation award-winning screenplay "The Dandelion." Her poetry has been included in numerous anthologies, including Selected Poems by Three Korean American Poets from a special presentation at the Library of Congress. She also writes and produces for television. WALTER LEW, a recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts, has published Premonitions: The Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry and Excerpts from DIKTE, a critical collage on the work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. His own collection of poetry, Brine, will be released next year. His work has been included in such anthologies as Charlie Chan is Dead, New Worlds of Literature, and Breaking Silence. He is currently preparing the selected works with commentary of the Korean modernist Yi Sang (U. of California Press), the Korean American novelist Younghill Kang, and New York Chinatown poet Frances Chung. He has been a writer and producer for several nationally broadcast documentaries and was the founding editor of Kaya Production. JOHN SONG is a 1.5 generation Korean American writer living in Long Beach. His fiction and poetry have been published in various journals and anthologies, including the Asian Pacific American Journal, and Charlie Chan is Dead, a national anthology of Asian American fiction. He is a recipient of a 1997 PEN Center USA West Emerging Voices Fellowship and winner of the 1997 AT&T-East/West Players New Voices Playwriting Competition. NANCY WON is a screenwriter and fiction writer living in Los Angeles. She received her BA in philosophy from Yale University and her MFA in Writing from the University of Texas where she was a James Michener fellow. She works in television and is writing her first novel. This event is part of the AAWW Los Angeles Asian American Literary Project, a series of readings and writing workshops taking place in the greater Los Angeles area. It is supported in part by a generous grant from the City of Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department. The Asian American Writers Workshop is a non-profit organization founded in 1991 to help facilitate the creation, publication, and dissemination of Asian American literature. The organization also helps sponsor reading tours, publishes The Asian Pacific American Journal, and several anthologies. For more information, call the LA AA Literary Project Hotline at 213/960-1615. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 18:41:19 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: Peter Quartermain MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Does anyone have an e-mail (or other) adress for Peter Quartermain? Thanks. Linda Russo * @ * % * & * # * with only the sound of the mimeograph "kachucking" and the pages swishing down . . . (Maureen Owen) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 20:39:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: Stanford/Wright/Gander In-Reply-To: <199806180032.SAA08644@cor.oz.cc.utah.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Linda, C.D. started editing Lost Roads in 1978-79, right after Frank's death. The grant for it was going to be pulled, but somebody (I think it was either Jim Whitehead or Alan Dugan...most likely Whitehead) wrote a letter on her behalf and the grant was kept. At 06:41 PM 6/17/98 +0000, you wrote: >Aviva & Brent -- >Maybe you guys know -- I'm wondering when CD Wright began editing >Lost Roads, which I believe she took over after Frank Stanford died. >Do you know what year she assumed total editorial responsibilities? > >As for Gander, I concur. About 4 years ago (before I knew anything) >I wrote a review of _Lynchburg_ for the Harvard Review. Reading now, >it's more a record of my discovering poetry than a review of Gander -- >The only intelligible thing I said, referring here to "Life of Johnson upside >your Head, a libretto" (I called it a "verbal chiaroscuro"): >"But what is most remakrable about Gander is his ability to isolate >events as though they occur purely within the random constructions >of language." > >Now I realize that's what events, "isolated" (i.e. written down) do. > >The same year I had to give up reviewing Rosmarie Waldrop's > _Key to the Language of America_ & now she's a favorite of mine. > > > > Linda Russo > * @ * % * & * # * > > with only the sound of the mimeograph "kachucking" > and the pages swishing down . . . (Maureen Owen) > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 06:22:31 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dale Smith Subject: Re: Misappropriation from the List Content-Type: text/plain David, baby, after all we've been through, you're still smarting over that immoral transgression? I made you a star and this is the thanks I get? You were nothing and I turned you into a something. All this talk of high morals, what's got into you? Come on, I'll treat you to a Johnny Walker on ice. We can meet at the lounge of the nearest Holiday Inn. We gotta patch things up... No, Bill, nothing was agreed upon. The Listmaster either b-c'd me or posted >to the List, that it was disapproved of, to take without requesting >permission of the author, but as far as I know, nothing was enforced >against Dale Smith, a man who had a lot to say about morality and poetry >but who took words of mine for his magazine without any request for my >permission. David > ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:27:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Bijalba Subject: some hundred later In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII or unripe gripe re: naive poetic-er been lurking a long time on this list, thanks to a/one Joe Amato, he schooled me a few here @iit.edu and was going about the rounds: admiring (what i could humbly/naively see as) sondheim's organic calculations and talks of Proper Poetic Nouns. I have questions! but, i feel locked by an idea i have that poetry ould be word play... ould ould ould i *like* to play around with words and ideas oomphasis on like and maybe someone likes to watch me play around with words and ideas. (((hoo the tension is building up, am i doing the right thing? nail biter. I can get off on my own play when back and forth the point to ANYthing? ukh.... ukh... d, do ya see? I have questions! : EOF. (all of the discussion has been really great, but) (maybe (cause of being a babe-eey (I am feeling locked up about thinking so much about poetry (sometimes) (instead of being so much about poetry (a nonaction? (don't point me to the beginners slope (i've seen it! its got headless hunchbacks and, and kodak pictures well where i'm at is when i've written some stuffs and wondering what point it fits in for who for whom social awareness ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 10:13:48 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jacques Debrot Subject: Re: Art, Poetry, context Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit It's not so much a matter of $$$ that I was trying to get at in my original post, as much as a question of cultural visibility. The whole discourse of art -- the discourse surrounding challenging & subversive work -- is played out on an impressively large scale-- John Yau after all is much better known -- except among us -- as an art critic than as a poet. As for cultural invisibility: in the last week or so I've read at least 2 reviews of the new Stein Lib of Am books & both make the incredible (only to us) observation that she has had *no impact on contemp Am writing*. So what? My point is that this clearly problematizes the politics of avant-garde poetry -- it doesn't make these politics, whatever they are, illegitimate -- but it does trouble them. (Of course cultural visibility is a relative thing -- the literary novel only reaches an audience comparable to that of, say, American professional soccer.) A theory: the cultural invisiblity of avant-garde poetry is not owing to the fact that the mainstream gets all the attention, but because the aesthetic of mainstream poetry (without question the most reactionary of all the arts) made poetry itself seem irrelevant to contemp critical thought (practically nobody bothers to pass through the threshold of mainstream poetry -- and the mainstrem is in a sense the front door -- to find their way to the back rooms of exp. writing). I think if the mainstream had been more adventurous (if experiment had been valued as a mainstream virtue as it has been generally in the visual arts) poetry, in all its aspects, would have a more visible presence in the culture today. However, one of the strengths of av-g poetry seems to me its inter-generic character -- though it's suprising to me how little important work has been done along these lines -- or alot of what is important calls itself "sound art," "textual art," "book art," etc., not "poetry". ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 09:38:15 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Miekal And Subject: Re: this and that MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit alan welcome back to the states I see that brooklyn hasnt changed in your absence -- now that you are in the us does that mean that nikuku will virtually disappear to be replaced by? been enjoying reading the poetry & $ discussion, tho it seems that noone has anything optimistic to say about it, as I help install a friend's hardwood floor, to get by. miekal ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 07:25:36 -700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Vidaver Subject: Two June Kootenay School Readings in Vancouver Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Jean Day & Shelley McIntosh Saturday June 20, 8pm 112 West Hastings $3/$5 Robson Central/Kootenay School Reading #1 George Bowering & Dorothy Trujillo Lusk Tuesday June 30, 8pm 750 Burrard Lisa Jarnot reading on Sunday June 21 cancelled. Full details at the Kootenay School home page: http://www.intergate.bc.ca/personal/geschwitz ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 10:44:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: raw numbers Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"The opinion that cognitive connections can be found in the real world >only as far as qualitative determinations are reduced to quantitative >ones, which asserted itself in modern times in opposition to Aristotle's >philosophy, has assumed fundamental importance for natural science. I am firmly of the belief that if you tell me something MUST and CAN be expressed only in mathematical terms, then it is simply untrue about the world we live in. If you can translate what you have so elegantly expressed in your mathematical language, into English words, using metaphors, analogies, and other linguistic techniques, then you might in fact have said something truly meaningful about the universe where we live. I firmly believe that every scientist and mathematician ought to be forced to make those translations a routine part of their work, so as to avoid mathematical mystification as a purely "mythematical" truth that has much to do about conformity with the principles of formal logic, but might be wholly untrue about the real world. The failure as to translation between mathematical symbollic logic and linguistic poetic forms of expression would be indicative as to excessive imaginative idealism as opposed to solid foundations of real empiricism. Also, I like the idea as to science becoming more poetic. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 10:55:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Art, Poetry, context In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980617192644.0067e0dc@pop.usit.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 17 Jun 1998, trbell wrote: > Being situated in the context of "art" does clearly lead to more visibility > (and remuneration), but I've enver been able to clearly understand exactly > why this should be. Ther are many people who simply don't like to read and > think in left-brain fashion (or have difficulty doing so), but there are > other (important!) elements of poetry which are not left-brained. Poetry > did and does go through a caldron in it's school and academic presentations, > but art sufferers some of the same presentation woes and the art/poetry > diathesis exists beyond our twentieth-century English-language cave, I > think. This leaves snobbism as an explanation, I think, but I would hope > that it isn't a sufficient explanation. > Mark responds thusly: The reasons in my opinion are not to be found in brain circuitry; nor in as simple an attitude as "snobbery." The reasons are (like almost all things) historical. Different cultures shape and warp under different pressures, and are torqued by different events (whose original thrust had nothing to do with culture or art-activities, essentially). Thus, the particular mix of peoples and how they were mixed in the U.S. (slavery, in particular, and the especially pointed heritage of division it bequeathed us) has made popular music (driven in large part by polyrhythms, syncopations, abrasions and momentum from W. Africa) a strikingly dominant presence in our culture. You have to step back for a moment, and get enuff distance to realize that this isn't a universal. It is a unique instance of the evolution of a cultural system, deriving from the contingent accidents of history. (At least, they appear contingent, and are to some extent, when viewed at a certain rough-grained level of resolution...) Whereas, in eleventh century China, 17th century Russia, 19th century Spain or Hungary, the preeminent art-activity to no small extent was poetry. When I write as i have recently about poetry's marginalization vis-a-vis the commodified econo-culture of our day, these comparative details have to be kept in mind. Now, as far as (visual, plastic) "art" is concerned, this also has nothing to do with sociobiological speculations regarding brain alignment etc. It has in my opinion to do with the development of different art-activities in the overall flow of economic structures. (Yes, they *do* flow..) Just as popular music is a more dominent element in the landscape because of the afro-euro mix (but also due to its suitability for large scale performance, & for important functions like dancing, compared to say poetry; which starts to bring "scales of profitability" back into the argument.) so the production of unique visual art-objects has its own historical line of development. In essence, there is more money available to support viz art for the same reason there is more to support music activites (..compared to poetry); it is more tied in to the profit economy. Benjamin's concept of the "aura" that would be whittled away by the age of mechanical reproduction, has to be qualified (as he partly knew) when one realizes that the aura (like most things) has been ruthlessly commodified under late capitalism...There is a lot of moola floating around in the "art world" because a unique physical aritfact can be considered **an invertment**; and under the especially parasitic and degenerate conditions that have been brought in under Reagan and Clinton, there is a huge amount of rich-white-men's money there to be invested in channels outside economic production (as the far right agenda continues to pump most wealth upwards to the top 6 percent or so of families). Thus: lots and lots of *possibility* that any given artist may become the next big thing and have her sculptures bought as investments at a very high price...This dynamic burgoned relentlessly thoughout the 1970-1990 period, and eventually it was noticed for the disturbing abberent thing it is, and has since occasioned much hand-wringing and soul-searching by intellectuals on the art-world watch. mark ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 07:39:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ In-Reply-To: <35887B5F.5E39E65B@bayarea.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I second that. Or, putting it on a web site which we can get to? charles At 07:28 PM 6/17/98 -0700, you wrote: >Any chance of your posting some of this Maria? > >Charles Bernstein wrote: > >> Maria Damon's recent MLA presentation >> (Maria will be giving a talk entitled "Hannah Weiner: Clairvoyance and >> Trauma" for the UB Poetics Program on Thurs., Oct. 15). > > chax press : alexander writing/design/publishing chax@theriver.com http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 11:07:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Ah those rich artists!! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Just an addendum to my long disquisition bouncing off of tom bell's post..... After launching it i read the estimable Chax's post re rich artists being a myth. Yes (altho having known a number of painters, i wasn't at all aware that this **was** a cultural myth!!) it's true that viz artists are almost never rich... Just thought i'd point out that (though Charles wasn't addressing my comments) my (and tom b.) speaking of there being more money floating around the "art-world" is a structural point, having to do with the scale of cash flow. It doesn't for a moment imply that most of that money is finding its way into the pockets of artists!! it isn't..It is going to gallery owners and is being passed among corporate art-consumers and millionaire collectors, who (as i mentioned) have in the last 40 years come to use the "rarity value" of viz art as a form of non-productive investment, like arbitrage on currency exchange, stock markets, bonds etc. etc. Labor (including that of painters) creates all wealth. And the wealth is then expropriated by those who control and own the structures of production and distribution... communistically, m. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:18:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: Art, Poetry, context In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:55 AM 6/18/98 -0400, you wrote: >and under the especially parasitic and >degenerate conditions that have been brought in under Reagan and Clinton, >there is a huge amount of rich-white-men's money there to be invested in >channels outside economic production (as the far right agenda continues to >pump most wealth upwards to the top 6 percent or so of families). Thus: >lots and lots of *possibility* that any given artist may become the next >big thing and have her sculptures bought as investments at a very high >price... too much artforum, perhaps? from where I sit, in a city in the American southwest of some size with an arts community which is probably unduly large and active for its size; and because of my own circumstances, familial and otherwise, the wider arts (visual, dance, music, etc.) is more "my" community than is the specifically "poetry" community here -- this "lots and lots of *possibility* that any [ANY] given artist may become the next big thing . . ." is about as much possibility as that any [ANY] given poet will win the next Nobel Prize for literature. And if we want to talk about the art market in this way, we might also want to talk about the literary market, which, when you get away from poetry specifically and into fiction and nonfiction, includes "lots and lots" of possibility for money, too -- but a similar tiny few who see such money. That said, I still think there's a great deal of truth about what Mark and Jacques say about the art market as an entity (market, social, cultural, etc.) -- just that not a lot of this filters down to the artists. charles chax press : alexander writing/design/publishing chax@theriver.com http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 06:15:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Organization: Sun Moon Books Subject: Re: Knife and Fork reading Comments: cc: djmess@sunmoon.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Actually, the title Mr. Knife, Miss Fork comes from René Crevel's novel, BABYLON, where in the first chapter, the young girl, whose father has run off with her young cousin, imagines the couple through maneuvers of her knife and fork across the white tablecloth of the Atlantic Ocean. Several artists, Max Ernst (whose art appears on the cover of the first volume), Mann Ray, and Meret Oppenheim, did works titled "Mr Knife, Miss Fork," in connection with Crevel's book. I just liked the title, and then, as I was writing my introduction realized the significance of it: My name "Messerli" means little knife, the eating utensil in Swiss German. As I put it in the first issue, "I am willing to play the knife, but only with the dance of the fork [the poetic community at large] can we celebrate the feast." In that context, I am interested in hearing from anyone, with experience, who might be interested in doing short reviews. Of course, there are a great many new American books of poetry to be reviewed, but I am particulary seeking reviews for the following books of poetry in other languages and of translation: Duda Machado, MARGEM DE UMA ONDA (in Portuguese) Pascal Quignard, SARX (translated) Anne-Marie Albiach, A GEOMETRY (translated) Dino Campana, ORPHIC SONGS (translated) Hatif Janabi, QUESTIONS AND THEIR RETINUE (translated) Leonardo Sinisgalli, I SAW THE MUSES (translated) American titles in need of short reviews include: Arthur Sze, THE REDSHIFTING WEB Peter Gizzi, ARTIFICIAL HEART Michael Gizzi, NO BOTH If you're interested please respond to djmess@sunmoon.com Thanks. morpheal wrote: > > >There was a reading at Sun & Moon's storefront in L.A. on Sunday, to > >celebrate the publication of the first issue of MR. KNIFE AND MISS > >FORK--a new journal, edited by Douglas Messerli, that focuses on > >international poetry. > > I have not read or seen that anthology, but....."knife and fork" usually > refers to an economic condition where all there is work for food and nothing > more. The kind of mentality where there is no art or culture to speak of, > but if your belly is full of food in the evening after a day of work, it > means there was work to be thankful for, and that that is all that is > possible. That being the same as the phrase:"knife and fork mentality". > > It is a condition somewhat uncommon in much of North America, but not quite > so uncommon in many other parts of the world. > > Is that the implication in that context ? Or is it somewhat different > and perhaps more obscure ? > > M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 11:17:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: MacEwen [some thoughts about artistic "popularity" ] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>so tell us more; who's this gwendolyn mckuen >So really: how well known is Gwen MacEwen's work in the US? Interesting question. Due to her natural features, her outstanding sense of fashionable style, and her flair for some acting, she became popular, at a time when poetry was the thing to do, on Canadian street corners and in Canadian taverns and coffee houses. In America it was the "beats". In Canada it was "the people's poets" (though not named that yet). If it had been only the poetry that she wrote, and nothing else, no matter how talented the writing, or how important the subject of it, we can be quite sure MacEwen would have remained entirely unknown in Canada as well as in most other places. A writer needs a lot more than simply writing, to become "popular". Also an artist needs a lot more than simply having the right friends, and knowing the right people, to be popular enough. Those ingredients also being essential, as in necessary but not sufficient in themselves. That, and the essential element of some opportunity to unfetter and develop the potential of native talents. The latter is not so often truly accorded by life to those attempt to achieve. Least of all nowadays, as we seem to be a society that is in an ever upward spiral of technological ascendancy and in a concurrent ever downward spiral as to artistic possibilities, compared to those many decades ago. Technology has gained popularity and art has lost popularity. Showmanship has also gained popularity and the expression of intensities and depths of meanings have lost considerable ground. We live in a different environment. (I digress somewhat. I wanted to emphasize that it takes a lot of popularity to gain meaningful opportunities, and some of the criteria for popularity are variables that change historically.) Might we say that for any real semblance of artistic success some popularity within the artist's lifetime is an essential ingredient ? On the basis of the tales that are told, Gwen MacEwen was very popular, and particularly among those who knew her. In her day there was a time when she was as close to being Canadian poetic royalty, the darling of the poetry circles, as anyone has been or could be. She was simply adored. That was in an era when poets were far less tongue tied, more abundant, more accepted, and more flamboyant. The elements comprising popularity and need for it are as true in a limited context as it is in a larger context. Despite that example (MacEwen) it is often far from necessary as to the writing being good writing, according to any definable criteria, for popularity to accrue. It is also often far from necessary as to the writer writing about "interesting" subject matter. Sometimes the dullest writing can be very popular among the crowds. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 11:22:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: an institutionalized avant garde is Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>..... and the stakes have gone up. In ancient times, the expression "what's at stake", meant one's head. In Transylvania, for example, heads were displayed on stakes, when the stakes went up, as examples...... Trivial trivia.... from M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 09:10:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ In-Reply-To: <35887B5F.5E39E65B@bayarea.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" maybe eventually. i feel kinda shy about it because i'm concerned that it'll be considered reductive, and i'm not quite confident about my ability to make an airtight argument. but basically i want to look at Hannah's poetry as trauma-related, thru a kind of "witness-victim" or "participant-observer" status as a young Jewish-American woman coming of age during the Jewish genocide of WWII and the subsequent revelations in the US press (1960s) about the real conditions of the camps. i see her clairvoyance as a kind of dissociative state, the type that also characterizes trauma survivors...etc., and of course the disembodied palimpsest-like ticker-tape feel of the "poetry itself" whatever that means... At 7:28 PM -0700 6/17/98, Karen Kelley wrote: >Any chance of your posting some of this Maria? > >Charles Bernstein wrote: > >> Maria Damon's recent MLA presentation >> (Maria will be giving a talk entitled "Hannah Weiner: Clairvoyance and >> Trauma" for the UB Poetics Program on Thurs., Oct. 15). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:47:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: Re: giving up frenchified sex for good Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1998 10:22:39 -0700 >From: david bromige >Subject: giving up frenchified sex for good > >Gee, Dodie, I didnt know there was anything wrong with frenchified sex. The >Others appeared to like it. It was better than or as good as Nothing. David, Anybody who's seen those sly eyes of yours know you know all about desire. >I understand that in your desire to distinguish your marvelous book from >asomeone's quick characterization of it (not even that, really ... just a >tentative trying of the water), you likely had no intention upon others' >use of the word. But as we see, I couldn't resist. The urge to kid around >is a serious urge. Desire me to continue,if you will riposte. db3 I don't have much Unstructured Free Time today, so this must be brief--but you're right to call me on this. After my post, I felt that, given the original post I responded to was complementary to me, my tone was a bit severe. I don't have a surplus of praise in my life, so I certainly don't want to discourage any attempts at that. And, of course--anybody can do whatever they want with Desire in writing, of course, of course. And psychoanalytic theory has been a major influence to me--but there is a brutality and kinkiness to that theory that seems to often get washed over when talking about writing one's desire. I think of some lady in a maraboo-fringed robe, perfumed, Mont Blanc poised above the page. This is modern-day American I'm living in, where ravishing and ravaged are synonyms more often than not. And while we're on the French thing, I was force-fed Bataille in my years as a young writer. I'm like this goose with a huge Bataille liver. Even though, as a woman, I find him tres problematic. Blame this all on my recent reading--Mark Seltzer's book on Serial Killers, now that Wasted book about the anorectic who gets down to 53 pounds, and waiting in line, Jacqueline Rose's Why War. Not exactly cheery. x, Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:52:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" sounds fascinating, and maybe "airtight arguments" aren't what we need, anyway. or airtight poems. how about flow-thru arguments? charles At 09:10 AM 6/18/98 -0500, you wrote: >maybe eventually. i feel kinda shy about it because i'm concerned that >it'll be considered reductive, and i'm not quite confident about my ability >to make an airtight argument. but basically i want to look at Hannah's >poetry as trauma-related, thru a kind of "witness-victim" or >"participant-observer" status as a young Jewish-American woman coming of >age during the Jewish genocide of WWII and the subsequent revelations in >the US press (1960s) about the real conditions of the camps. i see her >clairvoyance as a kind of dissociative state, the type that also >characterizes trauma survivors...etc., and of course the disembodied >palimpsest-like ticker-tape feel of the "poetry itself" whatever that >means... > >At 7:28 PM -0700 6/17/98, Karen Kelley wrote: >>Any chance of your posting some of this Maria? >> >>Charles Bernstein wrote: >> >>> Maria Damon's recent MLA presentation >>> (Maria will be giving a talk entitled "Hannah Weiner: Clairvoyance and >>> Trauma" for the UB Poetics Program on Thurs., Oct. 15). > > chax press : alexander writing/design/publishing chax@theriver.com http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 09:08:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Moriarty Subject: new non Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Two reviews: Jono Schneider on Laynie Browne and Norma Cole on Tod Thilleman - ALSO - an excerpt from Amanda Kim's novel Thermal Beings - You gotta check this one out - http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ Laura moriarty@lanminds.com http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 09:22:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Balestrieri Subject: "Cultural Workers" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bobbie West wrote: Have you tried working in a shipyard? A man here had a ton of steel dropped on his legs last week. Right on, Bobbie! To all the "cultural workers" struggling to make a living: have some cheese with that whine! PB ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:19:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Ah those rich artists!! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >After launching it i read the estimable Chax's post re rich artists being >a myth. >....this **was** a cultural myth!!) it's true that viz artists are >almost never rich... I wonder about how you are measuring wealth. What is true wealth ? What makes someone truly rich ? Surely you cannot define that purely as money and the ownership of things ? To be able to spend some part of one's life with a beloved significant other, in ways that are mutually satisfying to that particular couple. To have supportive and understanding family. Some elements of freedom of expression and freedom of association. Freedom from being psychologically and/or physically abused. To have good friends. Particularly some who share one's interests. To have one's health, and not suffer rejection or contempt due to any limitation, illness or disability that one might happen to suffer from. I am sure I have not exhausted the list of what makes someone truly rich. Are there any rich artists ? I don't really know. Are there any ? M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 20:26:30 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: poetry readings... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit THere are a few: though , yes, this is "pop" country. Not knowing what yr poetic bent is I can rec. only what I "like" Noah De Lissovoy Diane Ward June 26th Beyond Baroque --------------- CELEBRATION AND READING for REMAP magazine (co-edited by Todd Baron and Carolyn Kemp) with Diane Ward Noah De Lissovoy Todd Baron Martin Nakell June 28th 2-4 1023 Centinela Ave (north of Whilshire in Santa Monica) ------ Todd Baron Spencer Selby July 24 Beyond Barqoue (Venice) --- Seems egoistic to be included here, but really, truly, I never read here--it's a coincidence --- Also check out the series at Sun and Moon Press --call them and see what's up--on Wilshire Blvd. They're the most! (You just missed an event there--so there might be one next month) -- THere's also a series at a Cafe Balcony-- this is run by a consorium (?) called LA BOOKS -- THere's a series at LACMA but I'm not that sure what or who--- --- yrs, Todd Baronizak wrote: > > can anyone tell me if there are any readings of interest coming up in los > angeles? > i'm here for the summer and have had some problems finding anything. > thanks. > -joanna sondheim > > ******************************************************************************* > "It does not behoove me to make myself smaller than I am." > -Edith Sodergran > ******************************************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:26:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Coffey Subject: chapbook -Reply chapbook comes from chapter book, i believe, a term still used in grade schools for certain kinds of short publications; kids read chapter books in, say, 4th, 5th grade, before getting to novels and the like. these books are paperbacks, and they are not long enough, usually, to be perfect bound, so they are often sewn signatures between paper covers, like a lot of the great poetry in this country from 1968 to 1980. >>> UB Poetics discussion group 06/18/98 01:18pm >>> This might seem a stoopid question, but last night I friend and I were discussing the word/object 'chapbook'... any ideas on where it came from? first use? did this term originate in the US? yours in brevity, and thanks Peter Minter ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:24:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Ah those rich artists!! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Just an addendum >after launching it i read the estimable Chax's post re rich artists being >a myth. ah....something else of much importance as to who is and who is not rich.... Having the opportunity to do work that is personally satisfying and that oneself enjoys doing. That is definitely another indication of great wealth, though not necessarily monetary wealth. Sometimes that requires some monetary sacrifice rather than gain. It depends on what the situation really is. The freedom to make that choice is also then a kind of being rich. As are many other kinds of positive choices. Not the binary kinds of choices of something or nothing, but real positive choices between this and that. Not only the negative freedom of freedom from hunger, but the positive freedom of being able to sit at the feast and to enjoy it. Though I intend that more as a metaphor than as a literal statement. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 09:28:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: where's the poetry? (Don't ask Derrida) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i agree it can lead in many directions but i don't at all agree with the pigeonholing so an so as such and such, do you propose to put Wales Visitation and Witchita Vortex Sutra in the same shoebox, better have a crowbar, labels are a diminution, i.e., she's NY school, i know about the ny school i don't have to read her, or langpo, just because i have trouble with b a say doesn't mean i can't stand in awe of a d say, now Spicer's in the beatnik ghetto, ha, as i've said before for me there's two kinds of poetry, good poetry, poetry that moves, or stirs, or jolts, or wakes, and bad poetry which is 90% and most of what the academy does is split hairs about the 90%, my crony is not as bad as your crony, once the definitions are set, the truly unique poets fall through the cracks, anybody teaching Kenneth Patchen these days? or is he vizpo? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 10:37:15 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: Judge Backs FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadca Comments: To: FOP-L@VM.CC.PURDUE.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable Andrew wrt: > OAKLAND, CA -- A federal judge allowed the government on Tuesday to > shut down "Free Radio Berkeley", run by an unlicensed low-power > broadcaster who has fought a five-year guerilla war against the way > federal authorities regulate the airwaves. > > U.S. Destrict Judge Claudia Wilken declined to rule on most of > Stephen Dunifer's free-speech challenges to Federal Communications > Commission restrictions because Dunifer never applied for an FCC > license. She rejected Dunifer's argument that federal law fails to > set standards for the FCC's decisions on licensing so-called > microbroadcasters. [delurk in progress - nnnnnnnnnnnnn] now more than ever I want to remind people to contact the FCC and demand that this policy be rescinded; below is a copy of a letter I sent to the Chairman back in February - feel free to use it, post it, whatever. it cost me only $1 to send this as a fax from the university library where I work... mebbe next time we're out at the copy shop making those important chapbooks we can dig in a little... apologies for cross-posting; I can give the full article as sent to FOP-L for Poetics folks if'n yre interested... chris ------------------- Thursday, 26 February 1998 William Kennard, Chairperson Federal Communications Commission fax: 202-418-0232 Mr. Kennard, I am writing as a supporter of micro-radio (i.e., less than 100-watt), and, as such, writing against the FCC=92s policy of harassment regarding such stations. Micropower radio is an essential community-building tool, providing a local alternative to commercial stations, which display a =93minimal commitment to public service=94 (a quote from New England=92s regional FCC chief) - so much so, in fact, that it=92s difficult to understand what =93public=94 might mean in this context, save =93those willing to pay=94. The FCC must recognize - you must recognize, Mr. Kennard - the agency=92s and your own explicit commitment to maintaining publically-owned airwaves in the public interest - that is, with a view to supporting local communities - and not solely in terms of corporate (National Assoc. of Broadcasters) interest. At this time, between a limit to 100+ watt stations, and its exceedingly high licensing and engineering fees, the FCC is simply not fulfilling its promised role; further, in having deliberately adopted a policy of closure re community micropower stations, the FCC is actively countering its supposed agenda. The comparison, now frequent, of your agency=92s licensing policies with England=92s Stamp Act and similar repressive measures enacted to =93protect the public=94 - though actually a =93protection=94 in service of other powers - is apt; and I must remind you that the guarantees given by our Bill of Rights were drafted in direct opposition to these measures. Let me close by exhorting you earnestly to live up to your word, and to pursue the stated goals of the FCC. Micropower stations must be allowed to operate, and without harassment or the threat of closure; low wattage airspace must be opened to public use; finally, the FCC must adopt a reasonably scaled table of fees that takes into account the means of small communities in counterpoint to the wealth of broadcasting corporations. The airwaves belong to the public, and if administered they must be, they must be administered best to serve the public; to do otherwise is contrary to our stated rights to free speech, free assembly, and freedom of the press. Thank you. [your name] [your address &/or email &/or fax] .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu / nonce@iname.com snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ **site temporarily unavailable** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 13:01:02 -0400 Reply-To: BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Grumman Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm very much interested in ANYBODY'S code poems--if they are truly cryptographic; that is, if each a in a given poem, or coded part of a poem, equals some other letter. Do Hannah Weiner's code poems do this kind of thing? Or use some other cryptographic technique? I'm wholly unfamiliar with them. Could anyone quote one from Rothenberg/Joris? I'd much appreciate it. --Bob G. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 13:13:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcaster [need for more media regulation to preserve freedom of speech and the press] Comments: cc: calexand@library.utah.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Andrew wrt: >> OAKLAND, CA -- A federal judge allowed the government on Tuesday to >> shut down "Free Radio Berkeley", run by an unlicensed low-power >> broadcaster who has fought a five-year guerilla war against the way >> federal authorities regulate the airwaves. It is my opinion that with the increased and easier availability of relatively high powered, extremely portable, small transmitter equipment on the commercial market, there is a need to rethink the kinds of legislation and regulations that that would be applicable to that category of technology. The same criteria ought to apply as are applicable to what are presumed to be responsible larger broadcasters. That is, they ought to be licensed, and ought to have to keep logs of their broadcasts. Unregulated use, without adequate log tapes of actual program content having to be maintained, leads to use of such equipment as a means of unfair competitive practice, where individuals who have that technology can use it to compete against other individuals in extremely hostile ways, in effect endangering true freedoms of speech and the press. I do not think it is necessary to list off all the kinds of hostile competition that could occur, or to what purposes, whether political, social, or economic. Unregulated there is also very little that could be done about covert usage by aliens who have aggendas contrary to the political, economic, and socio-cultural interests of most Americans or Canadians. Such technologies easily lend themselves to use as a mechanism for brain-washing, propagandizing, and proseletyzing. The question becomes where is the line to be drawn between freedom of speech as debate between somewhat enlightened individuals or groups, and ignorant, ideological, radio-frequency attacks that can potentially infiltrate any legitimate bandwidth in any geographic area ? I think the whole question needs to be thought through a lot more carefully/ Non licensed, non accountable, non logged, stations do need to be tracked down technologically and eliminated. Perhaps by extreme technological prejudice, as the persistent radio frequency terrorists that they are. Particularly where they are tracked down as piggy-backing on legitimate signals, or intruding into the bandwidths of legitimate licensed signals in their attempts to capture audiences against the free choise of those audiences. Remember that transmitters can transmit on _any_ frequency. They are small and readily portable, requiring very little electrical power to function for a period of time. They can remain mobile. Some micro transmitters, commercially available, can transmit on the bandwidth of your favourite radio or television station, in effect superimposing their signal on what you want to hear. However, the FCC, or the CRTC has yet to be empowered to track them down and blow them away so as to prevent damage to legitimate, licensed, responsible, logged, broadcasters. The problem of "I heard it, so why is it not on the log" is going to become increasingly frequent unless monitoring and tracking is increased, and monitoring and tracking are relatively useless if there is no licensing. I think that would protect real freedom of speech, and real freedom of the press, rather than what free for all on the radio waves would accomplish. I think the latter is the real danger. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:01:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980618085257.007d1100@theriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" yr so nice. and after all, why, if i so valorize permeable "imaginative" writing, do i fear my "critical" writing will be found lacking in impermeability? let's chalk it up to gender or something... At 8:52 AM -0700 6/18/98, charles alexander wrote: >sounds fascinating, and maybe "airtight arguments" aren't what we need, >anyway. or airtight poems. how about flow-thru arguments? > >charles > >At 09:10 AM 6/18/98 -0500, you wrote: >>maybe eventually. i feel kinda shy about it because i'm concerned that >>it'll be considered reductive, and i'm not quite confident about my ability >>to make an airtight argument. but basically i want to look at Hannah's >>poetry as trauma-related, thru a kind of "witness-victim" or >>"participant-observer" status as a young Jewish-American woman coming of >>age during the Jewish genocide of WWII and the subsequent revelations in >>the US press (1960s) about the real conditions of the camps. i see her >>clairvoyance as a kind of dissociative state, the type that also >>characterizes trauma survivors...etc., and of course the disembodied >>palimpsest-like ticker-tape feel of the "poetry itself" whatever that >>means... >> >>At 7:28 PM -0700 6/17/98, Karen Kelley wrote: >>>Any chance of your posting some of this Maria? >>> >>>Charles Bernstein wrote: >>> >>>> Maria Damon's recent MLA presentation >>>> (Maria will be giving a talk entitled "Hannah Weiner: Clairvoyance and >>>> Trauma" for the UB Poetics Program on Thurs., Oct. 15). >> >> >chax press : alexander writing/design/publishing >chax@theriver.com >http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:05:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: "Cultural Workers" In-Reply-To: <003052FC.1826@intuit.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 9:22 AM -0700 6/18/98, Peter Balestrieri wrote: > Bobbie West wrote: Have you tried working in a shipyard? A man here > had a ton of steel dropped on his legs last week. > > Right on, Bobbie! > > To all the "cultural workers" struggling to make a living: have some > cheese with that whine! > > PB my sympathies w/ the above. but whining can be fun, in proper context. frankly, i have a great life. if i weren't a "cultural worker" who'd found a respectable niche (went into the family business as it were, tho far from home) i'd most assuredly be on SSI. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:18:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ Comments: To: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" In-Reply-To: <358943723c78002@mhub1.tc.umn.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" well since yr so flattering, i'll say a little more, in a more generalized way. let me be also frank about something, which ron silliman will be right to call academic careerism: the essay is under consideration in a coupla venues (a book and a journal) and the "ethics" of posting on the web while something's under consid. are still out w/ the jury. anyway, i was interested in hannah as a jewish writer ever since charles b first mentioned her to me in this context, in 1995. then, when working on a review of John Wieners's 707 Scott St for XCP 3 (stay posted, and don't forget to renew your subscriptions, y'all) i became fascinated with the trope of the "participant-observer" as it may pertain to the kinds of "authoethnographies" that many Beat writers (including my fave, Bob Kaufman) seem involved in --you know, documenting their "scene" etc. Trying to link that with lyric subjectivity, anti-lyric fragmented-subjectivity, etc. And since i was working on Weiner at the same time and could see some of that self-dissociated amanuensis-of-one's-own-experience type sensibility, i thot i had an IDEA. and relating this to trauma, well, it seems entirely plausible if we take into consideration the periodization most often associated w/ the "postmodern" --1945. For someone like Kaufman, whose social location cd be considered traumatic regardless of the "watershed" year, the argument wd have to be historicized somewhat differently than for weiner, but you get the picture... so i got all mixed up w/ weiner and wieners esp since sometimes (due no doubt to some regional peculiarities in Eastern European Yiddish transplanted to the US) people pronounce Hannah's last name to rhyme with "Meaner," and sometimes homonymous with "Whiner." etc. At 10:36 AM -0500 6/18/98, Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume wrote: >Maria - please don't be shy - you're way brilliant, girl! - and who cares >about "airtight" anyhow? The point is to make our brains leap in a new >unexpected direction - to open up new fields of inquiry and consideration. > >Thanks Mark Presjnar for a very thoughtful analysis of what drives the art >market here in the US of A. > >I missed the Objectivists panel yesterday but my co-worker and fellow poet >Randy Roark tells me that Carl Rakosi had some very interesting comments to >make about Zukofsky's personal life - real unvarnished. Item: LZ had never >even been swimming or on a bicycle till he was 30. Item: he was terrible >with women and in marrying Celia chose the wrong woman for him. Item: he >always preached clarity as the ultimate poetic virtue but in reading his >poems you could garner no idea what he felt about anything. All of which is >debatable, I suppose. I'm no LZ expert - but Mark Scroggins, I'll pass along >your request to Michael Heller (who told me the other night that "Boulder is >a boutique masquerading as a village" ). > >Patrick Pritchett > ---------- >From: Maria Damon >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ >Date: Thursday, June 18, 1998 9:10AM > >maybe eventually. i feel kinda shy about it because i'm concerned that >it'll be considered reductive, and i'm not quite confident about my ability >to make an airtight argument. but basically i want to look at Hannah's >poetry as trauma-related, thru a kind of "witness-victim" or >"participant-observer" status as a young Jewish-American woman coming of >age during the Jewish genocide of WWII and the subsequent revelations in >the US press (1960s) about the real conditions of the camps. i see her >clairvoyance as a kind of dissociative state, the type that also >characterizes trauma survivors...etc., and of course the disembodied >palimpsest-like ticker-tape feel of the "poetry itself" whatever that >means... > >At 7:28 PM -0700 6/17/98, Karen Kelley wrote: >>Any chance of your posting some of this Maria? >> >>Charles Bernstein wrote: >> >>> Maria Damon's recent MLA presentation >>> (Maria will be giving a talk entitled "Hannah Weiner: Clairvoyance and >>> Trauma" for the UB Poetics Program on Thurs., Oct. 15). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:21:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: Judge Backs FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadca In-Reply-To: <3520E481A97@ALEX.LIB.UTAH.EDU> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Andrew wrt: >> OAKLAND, CA -- A federal judge allowed the government on Tuesday to >> shut down "Free Radio Berkeley", run by an unlicensed low-power >> broadcaster And here's what the FCC did to our local microbroadcast station. They simply assigned the frequency to a local fundamentalist Christian group wanting a radio license. This was not at the instigation of the Christian group --- when you apply to the FCC you don't specify frequency. No muss, no fuss, and no lawsuits pending. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 10:36:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ Comments: To: Maria Damon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Maria - please don't be shy - you're way brilliant, girl! - and who cares about "airtight" anyhow? The point is to make our brains leap in a new unexpected direction - to open up new fields of inquiry and consideration. Thanks Mark Presjnar for a very thoughtful analysis of what drives the art market here in the US of A. I missed the Objectivists panel yesterday but my co-worker and fellow poet Randy Roark tells me that Carl Rakosi had some very interesting comments to make about Zukofsky's personal life - real unvarnished. Item: LZ had never even been swimming or on a bicycle till he was 30. Item: he was terrible with women and in marrying Celia chose the wrong woman for him. Item: he always preached clarity as the ultimate poetic virtue but in reading his poems you could garner no idea what he felt about anything. All of which is debatable, I suppose. I'm no LZ expert - but Mark Scroggins, I'll pass along your request to Michael Heller (who told me the other night that "Boulder is a boutique masquerading as a village" ). Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Maria Damon To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ Date: Thursday, June 18, 1998 9:10AM maybe eventually. i feel kinda shy about it because i'm concerned that it'll be considered reductive, and i'm not quite confident about my ability to make an airtight argument. but basically i want to look at Hannah's poetry as trauma-related, thru a kind of "witness-victim" or "participant-observer" status as a young Jewish-American woman coming of age during the Jewish genocide of WWII and the subsequent revelations in the US press (1960s) about the real conditions of the camps. i see her clairvoyance as a kind of dissociative state, the type that also characterizes trauma survivors...etc., and of course the disembodied palimpsest-like ticker-tape feel of the "poetry itself" whatever that means... At 7:28 PM -0700 6/17/98, Karen Kelley wrote: >Any chance of your posting some of this Maria? > >Charles Bernstein wrote: > >> Maria Damon's recent MLA presentation >> (Maria will be giving a talk entitled "Hannah Weiner: Clairvoyance and >> Trauma" for the UB Poetics Program on Thurs., Oct. 15). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 11:16:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: eddress for quartermain Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" quarterm@pop.unixg.ubc.ca +++++++ and something entirely different : dale smith is unpleasant enough to be my own bastard son. what age has he? where was the regiment then, I wonder? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 11:15:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: chapbook (by Dan Featherston) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" list friends: perhaps now would be a good time to announce the publication of Dan Featherston's new chapbook, "ROOMS", from PaperBrainPress (40pp., $3) please visit the PBP web page for an advance look at the cover and a sample from the book / plus other details about the press (guideliness, other offerings, etc.) http://bmarsh.dtai.com/PBrain/pbrain.html checks payable to: William Marsh 1860 Pacific Beach Drive #4 San Diego, CA 92109 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh | PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 13:17:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ShaunAnne Tangney Humanities 8-13-1997 Subject: Re: raw numbers In-Reply-To: <199806181444.KAA24402@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 18 Jun 1998, morpheal wrote: > I am firmly of the belief that if you tell me something MUST and CAN be > expressed only in mathematical terms, then it is simply untrue about the > world we live in. as far as i know, only what is fundamentally true _can_ be expressed mathematically... > If you can translate what you have so elegantly > expressed in your mathematical language, into English words, using metaphors, > analogies, and other linguistic techniques, then you might in fact have > said something truly meaningful about the universe where we live. > math is beautiful. a well-concieved and well-stated mathematical equations is one of the most beautiful things i know, not the least because it helps me to understand the world i live in better (also one of the reasons i like/respect/need poetry) E=mc2 is poetic: it's dense,it achieves maximum impact w/ a minimum no.of words ("words"), it's imagistic or analogic ("E" is an image that stands in for the concept of energy), it's linguistic (mathematical formulas follow a system, a set of rules, like any language, that must be understood and acknowledged and adhered to in order to make meaning), it tells the truth--hell, it even sounds good when you read it aloud--what else do you demand of poetry? > > Also, I like the idea as to science becoming more poetic. > science is poetic. it's a poetry that most of us don't read very often and so is unfamiliar to our ears. maybe we need to read science as much as scientists need to read poetry. try _In Search of Schrodinger's Cat_, Gribban, and _Six Easy Pieces_, Feynman for starters and see if it doesn't change your poetry... --ShaunAnne > M. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 11:05:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Re: reading reports In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII SaoPaulo (may 24-27) was a conference on literary magazines with representatives from Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, French Canada, Spain, Portugal, and the United States. Nate Mackey (hambone), David Bonnano (APR) and Paul Hoover and I (New American Writing) were the American (as in US) attendees. Clayton Eshleman was also set to represent Sulfur but was unable to attend. The conference was organized by Brazilian poet Horacio Costa and sponsored by the cultural ministry of Sao Paulo. Just to see so many lively lit mags from the Americas and hear similar stories about funding and distribution difficulties world-wide was enlightening. There was also a reading at the University of Sao Paulo by Mackey, Hoover, Chernoff, Eduardo Mosches (mexico), two Argentinian poets, Daniel Semilovitch and Paula Brudny. Smoky room, avid listeners. Resolutions by the end of the conference to explore means of international exchange and distribution for the magazines and a possible conference to follow in Mexico. Many lively papers given on the history of literary magazine publishing and audience by the more than 30 editors. I read the paper that Clayton E. had faxed. It was a lively and cogent discussion of lit. mag publishing and outsider politics. I hope he plans on printing it in Sulfur or elsewhere. Maxine Chernoff On Wed, 17 Jun 1998, david bromige wrote: > Just want to drop a word of gratitude into the pool--to Chris Reiner for > the Knife and Fork Report from L.A., to Steve Evans a week or so back for > reporting on his reading, partic of Creeley's _Life & Death_ , which from > Steve's as-ever startlingly precise language it's easy to see one must read > . . .And to Pat Pritchett, whose gift for writing on these events is > equally admirable. Thanks, fellas. > > What we're missing (unless I erased carelessly) is some report on the > conference in Sao Paulo. I know some listmates attended. I'd like to hear > about it. > > David > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 11:03:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Marsh Subject: Re: chapbook In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980617184525.007e7b20@theriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" to add to what charles and peter have contributed i first learned about the history of the chapbook in the context of children's literature / evidently the early folktales (Robin Hood, King Arthur) were distributed (c.16th/17th centuries) in chapbooks, growing in popularity into the 18th c. as a kind of "underground" reading phenomonen / and represented i've learned the first break from the more didactic "hornbooks" popular particularly among the Puritans unlike charles i'd rather not drop the term / perhaps for some it too often evokes the sense of "cheap" or shoddily crafted -- which also has its appeal, in the sense of "rough-edged", showing the scars of production and distribution and use / and consistent with its history the chap still has an "underground" appeal, and at least offers an alternative to those perfect-bound puritans! / personal computers and printers too make it possible to produce rather slick chapbooks, literally overnight (joel k., you awake?) / witness the age of the chapbook micropress / the "chapbook-length poem" as well is an evolving form worth looking at, for its connection to the means of production bill At 06:45 PM 6/17/98 -0700, you wrote: >yes, >and what do people consider to be a 'chapbook' now? My own definition >(usually) is a book which is sewn as a single folded group, or signature, >of pages. So it could be as short as 4 pages, or maybe as long as about 48 >-- but then I've seen (and made) books which were multiple signatures at >less than 48 pages, and have chosen not to call them 'chapbooks,' rather, >just 'books.' And I'd just soon drop the term chapbook altogether, except >that I like its history, its suggestion (at least in my own head) of a book >very easily carried around, perhaps even in a pocket. > >charles > >At 06:15 PM 6/17/98 -0600, you wrote: >>I looked this up a few months ago, 'cause I didn't know either: a chapbook >was >>originally any small, cheap book (chiefly pamphlets of popular tales, >ballads, >>tracts) sold by a chapman -- an itinerant peddler or a boothkeeper at >>marketplace. OED sez origins of chap are barter, business. Seems to precede >>the US. >> >>Brevity in yours, > >chax press : alexander writing/design/publishing >chax@theriver.com >http://alexwritdespub.com/chax > > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - William Marsh | PaperBrainPress http://bmarsh.dtai.com - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 13:52:06 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry G Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 18 Jun 1998 09:10:17 -0500 from On Thu, 18 Jun 1998 09:10:17 -0500 Maria Damon said: >the US press (1960s) about the real conditions of the camps. i see her >clairvoyance as a kind of dissociative state, the type that also >characterizes trauma survivors...etc., and of course the disembodied >palimpsest-like ticker-tape feel of the "poetry itself" whatever that >means... Maria, this sounds like an interesting essay. But I read this last sentence as an indirect comment on my recent posts re: the primordial poetic impulse etc. so I will respond WITH BREVITY. It's now a cliche that we've lived through an era of theory. But I read your position in the above post as the flip side of mine. Both positions turn into caricature when taken to extremes: mine, to a sort of anti- intellectual art-for-art's sake (an oxy-moronic phrase in itself); yours, to the tyranny of "talk about" - the kind of interpretation that substitutes for the artwork; a translation rather than a review that keeps its distance. All this has been hashed around before on the list. My feeling is though that everybody shd be a little like Wallace Stevens: they should have a personal theory of poetry as a phenomenon, in itself, sui generis. A poem can be shown to mean an endless number of things; it's got a shape & a form & a genesis however - & the genesis may well include the history you describe - but I would guess that Hannah Wiener also falls into the general "poet" category I've been trying to promote - a representative of the "poetic impulse". Okay I shut up again. Bye bye rest ye all end of blab sigh... - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 15:26:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Knife and Fork reading In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ARE MR. KNIFE AND MS. Spoon the bastard children of E-LE-PHANT? c On Wed, 17 Jun 1998, Christopher Reiner wrote: > There was a reading at Sun & Moon's storefront in L.A. on Sunday, to > celebrate the publication of the first issue of MR. KNIFE AND MISS > FORK--a new journal, edited by Douglas Messerli, that focuses on > international poetry. Paul Vangelisti read his translation of poems by > Andrea Zanzotto "(THAT) (IT GROW)" and Amelia Rosselli (from _War > Variations_--translated with Lucia Re). Julian Semilian read two poems by > the Romanian poet Stafan Agustin Doinas (translated with Sanda Agalidi). > Michael Henry Heim (who just received a PEN award) read from "A > Not-So-Brief Reflection on an Edict" by Miroslav Holub (Czech Republic). > Gilbert Alter-Gilbert read his translation of "Manifesto Mayhaps" by > Vincente Huidobro. Guy Bennett read his translation of Jacques Roubaud's > short essay "About" in which the poet reads his book _Everybody's > animals_ to a class of third graders. And Will Alexander read his essay, > "The Caribbean: Language as Translucent Imminence." > > The journal itself has been mentioned in a couple posts lately, but it > couldn't hurt to mention it again. It's a great new project. Tell your > local librarian to subscribe. And make sure your local bookstore keeps in > stock. $10.95. ISBN 1-55713-345-X > > > --Chris Reiner > > ----------------------------- > > WITZ: A Journal of Contemporary Poetics > writing.upenn.edu/epc/ezines/witz > www.litpress.com/witz > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:35:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: re : desire Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dodie, thanks for the clarification. I like the image of Battaile de fois gras! Too bad for me that you typed "sly" when you meant "shy," though. I know very little about desire, in the sense of "understand." That's why I write about it, I expect. But I anticipate learning more as I read _Mina Harker_ . On second thoughts, maybe you _meant_ to write "sly." When I'm around you (and mindful of how much one brings of oneself to these judgements) I do sometimes feel that we share a taste for sly humor. xox, David ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 14:47:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: _Book of Mercy_ /more recent work Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Forgive me if i am wrong, but I believe it was Daniel B. who said that _Book of Mercy_ was Cohen's most recent book of poetry. But I could also almost swear that _Stranger Music_ came out way after 1984 (which is when _Book of Mercy_ was published). I am looking at _BOM_ right now, and _SM_ isn't even listed as a publication in this book, so it must have been after this. At any rate, some very fine examples of Cohen's broad poetic range can be found in _SM_, as well as many lyrics to many of his songs. Also: George, where did you say that review was located when you first saw it??? I am really interested in reading it. For what it's worth, Brent Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 16:25:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Ah ho s a Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Morpheal, this is stupid stuff: You post responses fast enough; There can't be much amiss [rhyme here], To see the rate your posts appear. But oh, good Lord, the rationales you make, It gives Listees the belly-ache. - (from an early draft of AH Housman) At 12:24 PM 6/18/98 -0400, morpheal wrote: >ah....something else of much importance as to who is and who is not rich.... >Having the opportunity to do work that is personally satisfying and that >oneself enjoys doing. That is definitely another indication of great wealth, >though not necessarily monetary wealth. Sometimes that requires some >monetary sacrifice rather than gain. It depends on what the situation really is. >The freedom to make that choice is also then a kind of being rich. >As are many other kinds of positive choices. Not the binary kinds of choices >of something or nothing, but real positive choices between this and that. >Not only the negative freedom of freedom from hunger, but the positive >freedom of being able to sit at the feast and to enjoy it. Though I intend >that more as a metaphor than as a literal statement. > >M. > >aka Bob Ezergailis > <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 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, 18 Jun 1998 15:58:23 -0400 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: "Cultural Workers" In-Reply-To: Peter Balestrieri ""Cultural Workers"" (Jun 18, 9:22am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Jun 18, 9:22am, Peter Balestrieri wrote: > Subject: "Cultural Workers" > Bobbie West wrote: Have you tried working in a shipyard? A man here > had a ton of steel dropped on his legs last week. > > Right on, Bobbie! > > To all the "cultural workers" struggling to make a living: have some > cheese with that whine! > > PB >-- End of excerpt from Peter Balestrieri I'll toast to that! (having once had 16 tons drop on my achilles heel) I am not worthy to gather up the crumbs of stilton under thy table but speak the world only and my soul shall be healed. William ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 12:41:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Clippinger Subject: Re: LVNGs! LVNGs! Comments: cc: pwoleary@howard.uchicago.edu In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980604144618.006b1e80@cflash.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Joel, My wife (Annabelle Honza Clippinger, who has a poem or poems in issue 7) and I haven't received our copy of LVNG yet. Sometime last year we sent Peter a check for $20 to help defray printing costs, etc. We are looking forward to seeing the issue. And our address is: David and Annabelle Clippinger 1122 Fourth St. Beaver, PA 15009 All best, David At 09:46 AM 6/4/98 -0500, you wrote: >LVNG 7 is now available and includes Nathaniel Mackey's Song of the >Ondomboulou: 26, fiction from Lynne Tillman which I read 30 times >in the layout of the mag and still can't believe how good it is, Will >Alexander in full-froth, tasty poems from Kristin Prevallet, Peter Cole live >via satellite from time-crossed Israel, Michael Anania on the suspicious >"missing matter" theory of the accelerationg universe, and, well, my >commas are running out. Lots More! It's about more than just names, isn't it? >We got unknowns! A fine investment opportunity! The venture capitalist's dream! > > >The magazine is free, but please send 3 dollars for postage in a check >made out to Michael O'Leary. Our address is >P.O. box 3865 >Chicago, Illinois 60654-0865 > >thanks, Joel Felix > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 17:00:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lee ann brown Subject: NYC Summer Sublets Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Wanted: NYC-hungry poet(s) or scholar(s) for 1 bedroom Lower East Side- (174 Ludlow between Houston & Stanton) . Good for single person or couple. Near F Train, access to all cultural events. Good vibe if somewhat noisy. Bathtub in kitchen. Requirements: $700 plus utilities, plus $100 phone deposit up front, and willingness to feed and brush two cats, Bim & Bom. Available MONTH AUGUST Also available for 10 days around 4th of July week: Friday, JUNE 26 to Sunday, JULY 5th. ($250 includes utilites). Reply to brown@simcl.stjohns.edu or (212) 529-6154. If you need a place in July too, I know of one. - Thkx - Lee Ann Brown ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 15:18:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: Gwen MacEwen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Maria Morpheal has given you the 'romantic' story about Gwen MacEwen, but she is more important for the poetry than the story. She was part of the terrific uprising of young poets in the 60s, but went her own way, via magic & Egypt, to a poetic of openness that was far closer to Duncan than to Creeley, say. At her best, she wrote a joyful large poetry; at her worst, she descended into a rhetoric far too fat with yearning for the 'unspeakable.' Her first novel, _Julian the Magician_ was actually published by Corinth (1963). One of the best biographies of a conemporary Canadian poet is _The Shadown Maker_ on her. Her Selected Poems would be a delight, on the whole. ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Reserved books. Reserved land. Reserved flight. And still property is theft. Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 17:34:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: everyday life in the capitalist universe (f.y.i.) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" FEATURE - Taco Bell's Gidget an Internet hot dog By Mark Egan LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Taco Bell Chihuahua may be smaller than a cat or even a loaf of bread but he has folks all across America, especially those of Latino heritage, growling at him. His detractors bark that he is vile and disgusting and charge him with mocking the Hispanic community. His fans see a charming hard-working canine eking out a living as a ''pitch-pup'' for a fast food chain. Love him or hate him, the Chihuahua called ``Gidget'' is America's biggest canine star. ``What's that Lassie? Little Timmy has fallen into the well?'' has been replaced as the most famous utterance attributed to a dog by Gidget's catch phrase ``Yo quiero Taco Bell.'' But America's Hispanic community is not amused. Gidget shot to fame last year when Taco Bell began airing a series of commercials featuring the big-eared, bug-eyed, shivering dog. Talking with a thick Mexican accent, in each commercial Gidget searches doggedly for his heart's desire, ``Yo quiero Taco Bell,'' which means ``I want Taco Bell.'' In the first ad Gidget turned up his nose at a female dog called ``Dinky'' in favor of some Taco Bell. Much of the negative publicity since then has wrongly targeted Dinky who these days only works as a back-up dog for the main attraction, Gidget. DOG DAYS REVOLUTION Among the charges leveled against Gidget by Hispanic groups are that he has portrayed the Mexican population as moronic and has defiled the memory of Latin-American revolutionary Ernesto ''Che'' Guevara by posing as a revolutionary wearing a ``Che'' beret. Nowhere is the uproar more evident that on that high-tech soapbox of the 1990s, the Internet. ``The Taco Bell commercial with that little dog is offensive and here's why; because there is such a lack of positive Hispanic images on American English language TV ... this Chihuahua lampoon -- in which he speaks in a cruelly stereotypical accent -- stands out like a sore thumb,'' Rick Martinez wrote in the Internet publication LatinoLink. Others on the Internet echo that sentiment. ``It is clear Taco Bell is engaged in a campaign to humiliate Hispanic people by portraying (Gidget), a representative of the Hispanic community, as a vandal, a witch, an inept thief ... and an asexual crazed lunatic,'' one Gidgetphobe wrote. Taco Bell, a division of Tricon Global Restaurants Inc., said none of its ads are meant to offend. ``We pay special attention to the Hispanic community because of the Mexican heritage of our food,'' said Taco Bell spokeswoman Laurie Gannon. ``We did market research to ensure people would receive the ads in the way they were intended which is entertaining and educational, not offensive.'' Rival fast food chains are having a field day with parodies of the doggy ads. One such spot from Jack in the Box features an ugly Gidget look-alike with a flatulence problem from eating too much rice and beans. Chicken joint El Pollo Loco is running radio ads with a Mexican voice like Gidget's claiming Taco Bell ''tastes just like dog food.'' GIDGET FINDS A FRIEND But not everyone is down on Gidget. One Internet user wrote, ``I think Gidget may have a cause of action against the Hispanic (objectors) for trying to interfere with his contract. The characterizations made by the people that oppose this commercial are more demeaning to Hispanic people.'' Another wrote, ``How .. is one dog representing the entire Mexican population? Just because he is speaking Spanish? I speak Spanish and want some Taco Bell, am I offending Mexicans too?'' Others point out that the dog is smart, can answer obscure Jeopardy questions and is bilingual. Not too shabby. One of the first to call for Gidget's head to roll was former Clearwater, Fla. Mayor Gabriel Cazares, who called for a nationwide Latino boycott of Taco Bell. ``(This) is definitely a hate crime that leads to the type of immigrant bashing that Hispanics are now up against,'' said Cazares, president of the local chapter of the country's oldest Hispanic civil rights group, the League of United Latin American Citizens. But his sentiments were not echoed by the group's Washington headquarters which said it had no problem with the campaign and declined to back his boycott. MEANWHILE, BACK AT THE RANCH .... Taco Bell, which is spending about $200 million this year on its campaign, is no stranger to controversy. Last year it angered the medical community who claimed its ads, featuring basketball star Shaquille O'Neal, were insulting and insensitive to people with dystonia, a debilitating neurological disorder. The adverts featured the basketball star eating tacos with his neck cocked sideways. Another ad irked patriots when the company ran full page newspapers ads on April Fool's day claiming it had bought the Liberty Bell and renamed it, what else, the Taco Bell. The latest controversy is reminiscent of the fuss 25 years ago when Latin Americans protested that the ``Frito Bandito,'' a cartoon character hawking corn chips, portrayed Latinos as highway robbers. That protest ended with the Frito Bandito being retired by chip maker Frito-Lay. But controversy or not Gidget's future seems assured because when all is said and done Taco Bell's sales are up about 3 percent. One recent poll on the Internet found 98.1 percent wanted Gidget to stay on the air with almost no one calling for his head. And besides, like all big stars, he's under contract. ^REUTERS@ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 17:59:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: raw numbers The debate below, it seems to me, is one of those familiars that seem to show up everywhere people begin to generalize sufficiently away from the realities of the objects in question. "E=mc2", as an inscription on paper, is *not* poetic, or, rather, the qualities that, it seems, you would consider fundamental to its essence (a linear relationship between matter and energy) contribute nothing to the poetry. "E=mc2" is as poetic as "E=c2/m", a decidedly nonphysical, nonsensical relationship. Indeed, "Emc2%^" will do, and that isn't even a well formed sentence in mathematical language -- it doesn't "follow a system", nor does it reflect anything outside of itself. But, I suppose, it does fulfill one of your requirements, in that it does sound good ("E em cee two percent caret"). I'm sorry if this e-mail is slightly testy; the needless and obfusticating blending of entirely different realms of human activity leads to things such as Sokal's _Social Text_ hoax. Not that I have anything against _Social Text_; it's an excellent journal, and I've had numerous occasions to cite its pages in my own work. But poetry deals with areas of human experience that are often a priori closed to scientific study, mathematical analysis, and the like. Phenominal consciousness, in other words. Richard Feynman is wonderful when he writes about science directly (the "Feynman Lectures", in three volumes, are part of the reason I'm out here Aricebo), but he didn't claim to write poetry, and was (jokingly or not -- it's hard to tell) quite hostile to art, considering it "effeminate" (his words). I also suggest you clean up your notions of "fundamentally true", a valorizing phrase that often pretends to be describing when it is really self-defining. "As far as I know, only what is fundamentally true _can_ be expressed mathematically" is either patently false, or a definition, depending on your mood and whether or not, indeed, you do read poetry. Mathematics is independent of history, or, rather, what a mathematician considers beautiful about it is independent of history. There may be certain epistemological accidents along the way, but it is the final form, stripped of confusion, that a mathematician searches for. Newton's calculus, as he wrote it, was ugly, full of imprecise concepts; it is calculus in its modern form that we consider beautiful. On the other hand, Keats' (or, to be a little more "hip", but not much, Pound's) archaicisms -- "faery", Doria -- are beautiful, and "modern editions" of Chaucer can kindly kiss my ass. -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com > On Thu, 18 Jun 1998, morpheal wrote: > > > I am firmly of the belief that if you tell me something MUST and CAN be > > expressed only in mathematical terms, then it is simply untrue about the > > world we live in. > > as far as i know, only what is fundamentally true _can_ be expressed > mathematically... > > > If you can translate what you have so elegantly > > expressed in your mathematical language, into English words, using metaphors, > > analogies, and other linguistic techniques, then you might in fact have > > said something truly meaningful about the universe where we live. > > > > math is beautiful. a well-concieved and well-stated mathematical > equations is one of the most beautiful things i know, not the least > because it helps me to understand the world i live in better (also one of > the reasons i like/respect/need poetry) > > E=mc2 is poetic: > it's dense,it achieves maximum impact w/ a minimum no.of words ("words"), > it's imagistic or analogic ("E" is an image that stands > in for the concept of energy), it's linguistic (mathematical formulas > follow a system, a set of rules, like any language, that must be > understood and acknowledged and adhered to in order to make meaning), it > tells the truth--hell, it even sounds good when you read it aloud--what > else do you demand of poetry? > > > > > Also, I like the idea as to science becoming more poetic. > > > > science is poetic. it's a poetry that most of us don't read very often > and so is unfamiliar to our ears. maybe we need to read science as much > as scientists need to read poetry. > try _In Search of Schrodinger's Cat_, Gribban, and _Six Easy Pieces_, > Feynman for starters and see if it doesn't change your poetry... > > --ShaunAnne > > > > > M. > > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 18:00:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r.drake" Subject: Re: Ah ho s a Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" on 18 Jun 1998 13:13, wrote: >It is my opinion... on 18 Jun 1998 10:44, wrote: >I am firmly of the belief that... on 10 Jun 1998 22:45, wrote: >My opinion, at the time of the Gulf War... on 7 Jun 1998 12:36, wrote: >it is my firm belief... on 22 May 1998 19:04, wrote: >It is my unshakeable belief... on 15 May 1998 16:14, wrote: >In my opinion it will only serve... MORE OPINION! MORE BELIEF! Facts are for lesser men who think they know what they're talking about! Your every thought on any subject, and even more your every feeling, is precious to us all! Knowledge be damnd! Quantity over quality! "Express 'em all, let God sort 'em out!" on 17 Mar 1998 11:02:20, wrote: >It all seems very silly to me. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 18:09:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "A. Nikuko Sondheim" Subject: l caught as usual MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - l because she would narry be so sweet...she would tarry beside me, in the rumours of a road-like dwelling simply beneath green entwined oh those are such beautiful words, you know there are flowers that make me drown deliriously in their scents words whose fragrance inspire me towards those suffusions with which no longer choosing or making choices thus i you would nonetheless softly plucking roses orchids other forms of being you have taken me in your soft hands ... beauty thrusting forward slime mold curled decay and soft central yes warm baths losing eyes lips surround me you knowing unfolding knowledge and pleasure-murmur she has darkened me so many foolish ways lost, lost in extremities tips touching slurry, muds pooling darkly their pink turned green-and-brown with water's envy ===================================================================== dialog --yesno tulip 5 30; dialog --yesno if-tulip-yes-then-pansy 5 45; dialog --inputbox if-tulip-no-why 8 45 2>> yy ; dialog --yesno if-tulip-no-then-pansy 5 45; dialog --inputbox if-tulip-yes-why-not 8 45 2>> yy ; dialog --yesno if-tulip-yes-and-pansy-yes-then-nightshade 6 60; dialog --inputbox would-you-like-to-drown-with-me 8 45 2>> yy ; dialog --yesno if-tulip-no-and-pansy-yes-then-nightshade 6 60; dialog --textbox .d 8 45 dialog --yesno if-tulip-yes-and-pansy-no-then-nightshade 6 60; dialog --inputbox tulips-are-your-colour,-why? 8 45 2>> yy ; dialog --yesno if-tulip-no-and-pansy-no-then-nightshade 6 60; dialog --infobox "then-pansy-and-tulip-and-nightshade" 6 60; dialog --textbox yy 10 45; dialog --infobox "then-lips" 8 20; dialog --inputbox then-smoothing-green 8 45; cat yy sleep 2 dialog --infobox "fin" 4 20 _____________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 18:50:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Re: FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcaster [need for more media regulation to preserve freedom of speech and the press] In-Reply-To: <199806181713.NAA14729@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In defense of morpheal, I can't remember a better definition of "Poet" since Plato: >Non licensed, non accountable, non logged, stations do need to be tracked >down technologically and eliminated. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 16:47:30 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcaster [need for mor MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > The same criteria ought to apply as are applicable to what are presumed to > be responsible larger broadcasters. That is, they ought to be licensed, and > ought to have to keep logs of their broadcasts. well, Bob - number one, I disagree; but #2, the whole issue here is the licensing path the FCC has chosen for these microstations, viz., charging application and engineering fees that are equal to the fees they ask of wealthy broadcasting corporations - in effect making it $$ prohibitive for independents and communities to take advantage of the technologies you're talking about, except by operating illegally. it's a catch-22 the FCC has instituted, and in the name of protecting the citizenry from - wha, spies and aliens? booga booga. no, as far as I'm concerned this is just another visible (audible) foreclosure of localized public discourse in favor of media conglomerates and the consumerist imperative... btw - for somebody who, as I recall, is vehemently anti-gun control, you're sure hungry to get the feds up everybody else's ass, aren't you? chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu / nonce@iname.com snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ **site temporarily unavailable** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 18:57:30 -0400 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: Judge Backs FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadca In-Reply-To: "Christopher W. Alexander" "Re: Judge Backs FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadca" (Jun 18, 10:37am) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Jun 18, 10:37am, Christopher W. Alexander wrote: > Subject: Re: Judge Backs FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadca > > OAKLAND, CA -- A federal judge allowed the government on Tuesday to > > shut down "Free Radio Berkeley", run by an unlicensed low-power > > broadcaster who has fought a five-year guerilla war against the way > > federal authorities regulate the airwaves. > > > > U.S. Destrict Judge Claudia Wilken declined to rule on most of > > Stephen Dunifer's free-speech challenges to Federal Communications > > Commission restrictions because Dunifer never applied for an FCC > > license. She rejected Dunifer's argument that federal law fails to > > set standards for the FCC's decisions on licensing so-called > > microbroadcasters. > > [delurk in progress - nnnnnnnnnnnnn] > > now more than ever I want to remind people to contact > the FCC and demand that this policy be rescinded; I will send in mine. Hope this (right) recourse works, but if not may a thousand pirate stations bloom! I have a newspaper article I should reprint here about the FCC chasing and closing down microstations in the Tampa Bay area, the limits of their reach and what not. William ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1998 04:12:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Printer Training Program position open Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I don't know if this might be appropriate for anyone on POETICS list, but I thought I'd forward it here just in case. Tamarind's a pretty interesting place in Albuquerque, right nextdoor to where Living Batch Bookstore used to be. A history of printing works by some great artists, too. > >Since I know that many of you have interests in printmaking, I hoped you >wouldn't mind this posting. > >There has been an unexpected opening for student in Tamarind Institute's >Printer Training Program for Fall 1998. We are looking for a qualified >applicant with experience in lithography, who is interested in pursing a >career as a collaborative printer. For information on the program check >our website listed below, or call Marjorie Devon, Director, or send >e-mail to: mdevon@unm.edu > > > >Rebecca Schnelker, Curator >Tamarind Institute >108 Cornell SE, Albuquerque, NM, 87106 USA >505-277-3901 or FAX 505-277-3920 >http://www.unm.edu/~tamarind > > charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://alexwritdespub.com/chax :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 17:13:04 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: watch me juggle In-Reply-To: <9806181857.ZM13163@plhp517.comm.mot.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT three responses Douglas Barbour - (with a public apology for misspelling yr name last time; sorry) Love to hear more about Gwen MacEwen! titles, pubs., please spill all... -------- William B. Prod - if you don't send those Tampa/FCC articles in, can you backchannel me the citation; unfortunately our library just dropped Lexis-Nexus for the new (crappy) Academic Universe - I cldn't find my own ass with this thing... -------- David Bromige - don't tell me you don't know about Desire; yre the only person ever winked at me electronically... chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu / nonce@iname.com snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ **site temporarily unavailable** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 19:51:07 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: clew Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Joe S asks: <<(By the way, saw in my latest SPD catalog that there's a new volume of tribute out to him [welch] from a new press in Bolinas, Clew - does anyone know of this publication or this press?)>> I think that was put together by Magda Cregg. There was a reading of that book and a celebration last fall. I remember this because Albert Saijo said he had a reading "across the street" the same evening. City Lights may have been one of the locations and it might have been Nov 11. An odd coincidence I remember thinking, because Saijo and Welch were friends. Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 19:23:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Gwen MacEwen In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" thanks to all who've responded. there sure are a lot of chick writers out there to learn about. At 3:18 PM -0600 6/18/98, Douglas Barbour wrote: >Maria > >Morpheal has given you the 'romantic' story about Gwen MacEwen, but she is >more important for the poetry than the story. She was part of the terrific >uprising of young poets in the 60s, but went her own way, via magic & >Egypt, to a poetic of openness that was far closer to Duncan than to >Creeley, say. At her best, she wrote a joyful large poetry; at her worst, >she descended into a rhetoric far too fat with yearning for the >'unspeakable.' Her first novel, _Julian the Magician_ was actually >published by Corinth (1963). > >One of the best biographies of a conemporary Canadian poet is _The Shadown >Maker_ on her. Her Selected Poems would be a delight, on the whole. > >============================================================================== >Douglas Barbour >Department of English >University of Alberta >Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 >(403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 >H: 436 3320 >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >Reserved books. Reserved land. Reserved flight. >And still property is theft. > > Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 19:32:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" my dearly beloved H, i hate to have to confess it, but i've been deleting unread most of the jordan/henry exchange, along w/ morpheal, gancie et al who engage in *real* debate cuz i'm afraid to get drawn into something that'll provide still another diversion from my ever receding "work." so i'll have to infer from this post what it is of yours that you think i'm responding to. there may be some such thing as "the work itself" but i'm not smart enough to intuit it. i need to use the various tools i've been taught, which i've been taught in some context or other, so whenever i use those tools i'm, um, deploying the conditions under which i learned them as well, the values they represent and recreate etc. add to that, yes, an appetite for weird language, tattered psyches and aesthetic gratification...do those responses comprise a pure take on the "work itself"? anyway, i wasn't intending any personal dig or commentary on something i'd not read. At 1:52 PM -0400 6/18/98, Henry G wrote: >On Thu, 18 Jun 1998 09:10:17 -0500 Maria Damon said: >>the US press (1960s) about the real conditions of the camps. i see her >>clairvoyance as a kind of dissociative state, the type that also >>characterizes trauma survivors...etc., and of course the disembodied >>palimpsest-like ticker-tape feel of the "poetry itself" whatever that >>means... > >Maria, this sounds like an interesting essay. But I read this last >sentence as >an indirect comment on my recent posts re: the primordial poetic impulse etc. >so I will respond WITH BREVITY. > >It's now a cliche that we've lived through an era of theory. But I read >your position in the above post as the flip side of mine. Both positions >turn into caricature when taken to extremes: mine, to a sort of anti- >intellectual art-for-art's sake (an oxy-moronic phrase in itself); yours, >to the tyranny of "talk about" - the kind of interpretation that substitutes >for the artwork; a translation rather than a review that keeps its >distance. > >All this has been hashed around before on the list. My feeling is though that >everybody shd be a little like Wallace Stevens: they should have a personal >theory of poetry as a phenomenon, in itself, sui generis. A poem can be shown >to mean an endless number of things; it's got a shape & a form & a genesis >however - & the genesis may well include the history you describe - but I >would guess that Hannah Wiener also falls into the general "poet" category >I've been trying to promote - a representative of the "poetic impulse". >Okay I shut up again. Bye bye rest ye all end of blab sigh... - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 20:43:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Gwen MacEwen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>Morpheal has given you the 'romantic' story about Gwen MacEwen, but she is >>more important for the poetry than the story. She was part of the terrific >>uprising of young poets in the 60s, but went her own way, via magic & >>Egypt, to a poetic of openness that was far closer to Duncan than to >>Creeley, say. At her best, she wrote a joyful large poetry; at her worst, >>she descended into a rhetoric far too fat with yearning for the >>'unspeakable.' Her first novel, _Julian the Magician_ was actually >>published by Corinth (1963). That is not very original to MacEwen. Actually it was very prevalent. The interests in the esoteric and occult were as strong as the other kinds of quests for authenticity, freedom of expression, and radical lifestyles as well as politics. Her quest for magick and ancient roots was a quite common quest in that era. At least a renaissance of that theme. She was, in that regard, one among many. Some turned to the far east, some to shamanism and indigenous traditions, and some towards more traditional western magick, as part of the growth of eclectic comparative religions. Most departments of comparative religions, and of eastern philosophies either grew substantially or got their start in the 1960s. It was fashionable, trendy, and acceptable to delve and delve deeply into such things. Bookstores in Toronto were full of esoterica, occult, and eastern titles. Poetry was rife with those themes. Everyone was reading the ancients and the mystics. MacEwen was a follower of those same fashions. She was not original. Her poetry was often talented and original, but her philosoph and style of life and thought were far from original. So I wonder what you are really saying. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 21:07:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: Gwen MacEwen > MacEwen was a follower of those same fashions. She was not original. Her > poetry was often talented and original, but her philosoph and style of life > and thought were far from original. > > So I wonder what you are really saying. > > M. I happen to be reading Vendler's _Breaking of Style_ (which has a nice run through of Jorie Graham's poetry in it); the following quote might be helpful: "poets (along with other artists) are not primarily original thinkers; they ... generally think with (and against) the available intellectual categories of their epoch. Philosophers, rather than poets, invent the thought of their epoch." (8) I think that makes succinctly the point I've been making in both e-mails I've sent out today. Poets are not philosophers nor (as was suggested the earlier post on "E=mc2") are they mathematicians. Nor, I suppose, are they lifestyle models a` la Vogue as you seem to suggest, Morpheal, replete with styles of dress and home furnishings. I seem to be working primairly in negative space today, which is unfortunate. Over the weekend, if anybody is interested, I can try to dig out some old work of mine (some of which is avalible on my page listed below.) -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 21:05:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcaster [need for more media regulation to preserve freedom of speech and the press] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > In defense of morpheal, I can't remember a better definition of >"Poet" since Plato: > >>Non licensed, non accountable, non logged, stations do need to be tracked >>down technologically and eliminated. Remember "Plato" in America was an A.I. machine that assassinated, in effect, its own programmer. (The programmer committed suicide.) I can see irresponsible micro stations run by people with ideological aggendas and axes to grind, driving people to suicide. Would the micro stations then be the murderers ? In the USSR and similar totalistic regimes innuendo on radio and television, subliminal or otherwise, is suspected of being a major cause of suicide. Their suicide rates were extremely high. Unofficially even higher. Not to mention the many deaths from suspicious causes, mostly occuring during the victims employment. Murder by radio decree that became disguised as industrial accidents ? We suspect so. Could it happen here ? With unlicensed micro stations in anyone's hands, definitely it could, and in too many ways to count. The psychology is too complicated to discuss. It would take an advanced degree in psychological warfare to understand it. And you cannot get one of those. So we will pass on that subject. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 21:35:51 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: Re: Ah those rich artists!! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As a rich artist perhaps I should answer your questions, which, of course, answers two of your questions. Enthousiasmos is the sign of the truly rich. This can be found similar to the way Cynghanedd works on the senses. Billy probably knows that Patchen had this. I do not teach in academia. If I were to, would I be able to? My experience was one of scoff on his work. He disappears primarily because his work breaks cannons. People would lose coin, especially of title (painter, artist, fiction writer anon) were they to seriously consider inclusion and who in their right mind would. In the same way the Fyrtiotalisternalists made Auden look like a chump and Spender a weak copy but ugly anthologizing americans refuse to step into a ring where the familiar might be merely exposed as such. Even if it's one of their own. Be well David Baratier, richest poet (artist) in the United States ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 19:44:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit But Maria, the SUREST way to be reductive is to make an "airtight" argument. The subject sounds fascinating & evocative--and I for one am no fan of the pristine argument. Maria Damon wrote: > maybe eventually. i feel kinda shy about it because i'm concerned that > it'll be considered reductive, and i'm not quite confident about my ability > to make an airtight argument. but basically i want to look at Hannah's > poetry as trauma-related, thru a kind of "witness-victim" or > "participant-observer" status as a young Jewish-American woman coming of > age during the Jewish genocide of WWII and the subsequent revelations in > the US press (1960s) about the real conditions of the camps. i see her > clairvoyance as a kind of dissociative state, the type that also > characterizes trauma survivors...etc., and of course the disembodied > palimpsest-like ticker-tape feel of the "poetry itself" whatever that > means... > > At 7:28 PM -0700 6/17/98, Karen Kelley wrote: > >Any chance of your posting some of this Maria? > > > >Charles Bernstein wrote: > > > >> Maria Damon's recent MLA presentation > >> (Maria will be giving a talk entitled "Hannah Weiner: Clairvoyance and > >> Trauma" for the UB Poetics Program on Thurs., Oct. 15). ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 20:11:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Gwen MacEwen In-Reply-To: <9806190106.AA28823@nevis.naic.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > "poets (along with other artists) are not > primarily original thinkers; they ... generally think with (and > against) the available intellectual categories of their epoch. > Philosophers, rather than poets, invent the thought of their epoch." (8) > This, of course, is not true. The dominant ideas of an epoch are often invisible to succeeding epochs. What we take to have been the dominant ideas are often scarcely noticed or overwhelmingly contested in their own time. The dominant ideas are a product of the society's expression as a whole. That includes economic and historical forces, scientific thought, aesthetic structures, the usually unsystematic but often highly original and influential thoughts of poets, changes in the technologies of agriculture and animal husbandry, changes in sexual mores, and a whole lot more. Philosophers, among others, systematize the thought of their time, which is often their chief, and very great, originality. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 23:33:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Gwen MacEwen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The dominant ideas are a product of the society's expression as a whole. There is no such thing as a society. That is an artificial, idealist, construct created by sociologists. In the sense that societies do not think, perceive, emote, or effect. What a society is is simply the whole of all the communicative interactions of all the individuals who happen to be considered as a group. The whole planet could be a society. North America could be a society. Yourtown could be a society. We usually consider a society to be the communicative interactions of individuals with each other, but we might also consider the actions that in any effect anyone else who is of that same group as being somewhat communicative. We find similar patterns of similar communicative interactions among identifiable groups that share similar learning, similar experiences. That is what tends to result in that kind of grouping. However, categorical discussion does not in fact create an entity. The main point is that a society is not an entity. It is not an entity in the very same way as an economy is decisively not an entity. A society is not a monster that does something to someone, or that someone can do something to. No one can do anything to a society anymore than a society can do anything to anyone. It is always the responses of individual human beings that effects and is effected. People invariably have various effects on other people, but it is NEVER a Society or and Economy that is the effector. It is always someone or a group of someones. It might be quite a few acting similarly, even following each other very blindly and thoughtlessly, but it is always someone. It is you. It is I. It is him over there. It is her over there. It is that crowd of people. It is this crowd of people It is human beings as individuals. Society as such does not express. Individuals express. Individuals are sometimes variously affected by other individuals. Simply because this tends to chain, or domino, in various situations, does not make that chain reaction or domino effect down the human line, the monolithic response of a society. It is still individual reactions. We cannot reduce that away from individual intentionalities. A society does not have any intentions. People have intentions. When individuals agree to certain rules, by acquiring knowledge of them and intentionally consenting to follow them, that too is part of the communicative interaction of individuals with each other. Society does not teach and society does not learn. Only individuals teach and learn. Neither does society follow trends or creat trends. Individuals do that too. We are all in that together. You might follow me. I might follow you. All of it is simply what we do. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 23:37:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcaster [need for mor Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > well, Bob - number one, I disagree; but #2, the whole issue here > is the licensing path the FCC has chosen for these microstations, > viz., charging application and engineering fees that are equal to > the fees they ask of wealthy broadcasting corporations - in effect > making it $$ prohibitive for independents and communities to take > advantage of the technologies you're talking about, except by > operating illegally. it's a catch-22 the FCC has instituted, and in > the name of protecting the citizenry from - wha, spies and aliens? The costs are as high for micro stations as they are for the larger one's in terms of what the FCC has to do so as to be fair to everyone involved. I was simply saying that responsibility in broadcasting is not automatic. Station management is responsible because they are forced to be responsible and they hate it because it costs them potential profits to do it. There are controls on what they can do and what they cannot do. Why should micro stations have more freedom than the larger stations ? Why should small be allowed to do what the larger stations cannot do ? Why should someone else pay for the costs of monitoring, licensing, micro stations other than the people who want to run them ? It is easier to get a shortwave license and operate a shortwave station. It has a smaller audience, but even there there is licensing and there are rules to follow. Why should micro stations not have licensing and shortwave has to be licensed ? I cannot see your logic. The people who run shortwave stations are generally private individuals and the shortwave transmitters are harder to use for the kinds of questionable purposes that micro station equipment can be used for. If unlicensed micro stations are allowed I can see a lot of implications: 1). personal vendettas using micro stations 2). slander using micro stations 3). infiltration of other frequencies by illigitimate users to gain influence over larger audiences 4). businesses being ruined by micro stations (it is amazing how much damage the irresponsible comments of one radio station can do to a small to medium sized legitimate business). 5). potential blackmail and fraud schemes being run using micro stations 6). every would be messiah, political fruitloop, white sheet over head, racist, fascist, cultist, millenialist, wacco, nut will want one, and many will get one to use in their private little wars 7). the other side will want them also, until the waves are jammed with head to head combatants. Is that what you want to happen ? Maybe someone will dislike the cut of your jib, or decide he wants your girlfriend, or your job, and run YOU out of town using his micro station. Will you have any idea what _hit_ you ? You will only know that your world suddenly collapsed, and people being how they are, all changed their minds, including your best "friends" about being friendly. Even your own family changed their thinking. It is surprising how people follow the subliminal and the not so subliminal waves. No one will come to your parties anymore. They will spit on you on the street. Why ? Because Mr. Radio told them to. That's all there is to it. I know of experiments that proved it. They also proved how the Soviets did it to their own people. The mechanisms of the innuendo. A free for all would be even worse than that. I cannot tell you the other applications that the technologies can be used for. I can only tell you that the Soviet KGB and Hitler's Third Reich knew what to do with it. M. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 21:02:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Driving me crazy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I need help! In one of R. Gancie's posts, the coolest word: ratiomorphous. Please, someone, give me a definition. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 00:20:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: Gwen MacEwen > > "poets (along with other artists) are not > > primarily original thinkers; they ... generally think with (and > > against) the available intellectual categories of their epoch. > > Philosophers, rather than poets, invent the thought of their epoch." (8) > > > > This, of course, is not true. The original reason I posted this quote was because Morpheal criticized Gwen MacEwen for "unoriginality of philosophy", as if this discounted the poetry. Simply because an artist does something that appears to arise from the dominant thoughts of the time (or against -- note that Vendler's point is essentially Hegelian) is not a criticism of the poetry. Pound, like many of his contemporaries, fell for a poorly thought out and essentially bogus theory of Chinese poetry promulgated by Fenollosa; unlike his contemporaries, he wrote the Personnae. He was, to be even more "unoriginal", often a raving Fascist; he wrote the Cantos. His poetic work, however "original" in a poetic sense, is hardly groundbreaking philosophy in the way of a Plato or Kant. Do you agree with this? > The dominant ideas of an epoch are often > invisible to succeeding epochs. What we take to have been the dominant > ideas are often scarcely noticed or overwhelmingly contested in their own > time. Certaintly true. What's often very revealing (and what was my first introduction to this effect) is reading the critical analyses of earlier epochs in the intervening space -- the 19 century take on the 18th century world, for example. Not the original thinkers of the time -- Nietzsche is not the best source for the 19th century opinion of the Greeks -- but the slow, plodding scholars of the universities, making their careful and finally incoherent way through the past. > The dominant ideas are a product of the society's expression as a whole. As for the details of "where ideas come from", I've found Foucalt's (deconstructive) notion of discourse in Hist of Sex and Archeology to be the most appealing to me for some time. I've read and written some New Historicist criticism which I've found to be very enlightening, and a refreshing change from the "professional courtesy" that scholars sometimes extend across the centuries. For those unfamiliar with/interested in New Historicism, check out the work Stephen Greenblatt does with Shakespeare -- a radical contextualization that brings in: > ... economic and historical forces, scientific thought, aesthetic > structures, the usually unsystematic but often highly original and > influential thoughts of poets, changes in the technologies of agriculture > and animal husbandry, changes in sexual mores, and a whole lot more. I guess the reason I brought in the quote from Vendler's book is that I wanted to counter the centrifugal bullshit effect that usually takes place when different areas of knowledge are collided. (No offense meant to anyone on the list; I admire Vendler's style of criticism a great deal, but, as with any critic or philosopher, something is lost in translation.) The elision of poetry and mathematics, poetry and "knowledge of the natural world" can be wonderful things, but they are secondary effects. You don't sing Schrodinger's equation, and if you subtract one from both sides, you aren't multilating it. These mergings ignore the fact that poetry deals with *language*, and language was (amazingly enough) used before literary criticism existed. It has a history, a chronological structure where (as Faulkner might say) WAS is IS. - Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 20:38:00 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: "Presumably" "...Not Endless..." or 'discrete' by fiat MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "[Papert & Minsky] remark: [We] conjecture that, eventually, the required micro-theories can be made reasonably compact and easily stated once we have found an adequate set of structural primitives for them...."---from Mind Over Machine: The Power of Human Intuition and Expertise in the Era of the Computer by Hubert L. and Stuart E. Dreyfus --- "In any case, the continuity, or density, criterion is not relevant for cogntive representations, since, PRESUMABLY, AT SOME LEVEL THE NERVOUS SYSTEM IS ACTUALLY DISCRETE[!]--and, by this criterion, no discrete approximation to a continuous system qualifies as a true analogue...."from Computation and Cognition: Toward a Foundation for Cognitive Science by Zenon W. Pylyshyn --- "[Papert & Minsky] conclude: But [the list of strucural primitives] is not endless. It is only large, and one needs a large set of concepts to organize it.---Mind Over Machine --- "A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements."--Leonardo da Vinci --- "The possibility of imitating life by artifact has intrigued people thoughout history (Cohen, 1966); but it is only in the second half of this century that the possibility of using the special type of artifact called a computer has been considered seriously as a means of understanding [e.g. mimicking?] mental phenomena. What is different about this latest interest is that the focus is not primarily on the imitition of movements [robotics? guidance systems?](as was the case with early clockwork mechanisms) but on the imitation (to the extent that this word is even appropriate) of certain unobservable internal processes. This notion became conceivable only with the gradual emergence, in several disparate areas of intellectual development, of a certain abstract way of understanding mechanism."---Computation and Cognition --- "It [Structural primitives] looks like the approach represents a naive transfer to AI research of methods that have succeeded in the natural sciences. Winograd characteristically describes his work in terms borrowed from physical science: We are concerned with developing a formalism, or "representation," with which to describe...knowledge. We seek the "atoms" and "particles" of which it is built, and the "forces" that act on it."---Mind Over Machine --- "In a pervasive change of the cultural mind in the seventeenth century, a complex descriptive model was substituted for nature. The model was a formal system or linguistic machine--in contemporary jargon, a computer program."...from The Poetics of the Common Knowledge by Don Byrd --- "Indeed, physical theories about the universe can be built up by modelling relatively simple and isolated systems and then making the model gradually more complex and integrating it with models of other domains. So much is possible because all the phenomena are presumably the result of the lawlike relations of a set of basic elements, what Papert and Minsky call "structural primitives". This idea doesn't work in AI. There workers confused two domains, which we shall distinguish as universe and world. A set of interrelated facts may constitiute a universe, like the physical universe, but it does not constitute a world...."---Mind Over Machine, Dreyfus'---cp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 23:34:29 +0000 Reply-To: mdevaney@nebraskapress.unl.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mj devaney Organization: University of Nebraska Press Subject: Re: Driving me crazy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Karen Kelley wrote: > > I need help! In one of R. Gancie's posts, the coolest word: > ratiomorphous. Please, someone, give me a definition. having the shape of ratiocination? helpfully, MJ Devaney ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 05:44:26 +0100 Reply-To: suantrai@iol.ie Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "L. MacMahon and T.R. Healy" Subject: Re: chapbook MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Peter Minter wrote: > > > This might seem a stoopid question, > Laura W. wrote: >a chapbook was > originally any small, cheap book (chiefly pamphlets of popular tales, ballads, > tracts) sold by a chapman -- an itinerant peddler or a boothkeeper at > marketplace. OED sez origins of chap are barter, business. Seems to precede > the US. The stoopid questions are among the best. Delighted that Peter started this one rolling. The connection with barter is one I'd like to keep having received brilliant poems in ms or chapbook or indeed perfect bound format as exchanges. Also Bill Marsh's point of the chapbook length poem is spot on. As Charles Alexander said, the format can accommodate from 4 pp upwards and so completely sidesteps plastic injection moulding approach to composition. (Incidentally, I've devised a method of sewing up to 100 pages in one signature - although 64 is probably a more reasonable upper limit. Am working on a leaflet explaining how it's done. Backchannel if anyone'd like a copy. ) Re: poetry and money, I havent' had time to read all the posts and perhaps someone has mentioned: I'm living so far beyound my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.---E.E. Cummings Finally: here's a list of current titles from Wild Honey Press. Priced at $5 (currency) each or the equivalent value in writing (any form & you decide on the conversion rate.) 1/2/3 Prelude/Interlude/Postlude all by Maurice Scully 4/5 Citation Suite/Another Ireland(essay) by Robert Archambeau 6 Syzygy by Trevor Joyce 7 Tiny Pieces by Billy Mills 8/9/10 Rana Rana/Arbor Vitae/Flame by Randolph Healy Note: I know it all looks a bit blokey, but I've only been going a year and will be publishing a number of chapbooks by writers of the female persuasion very soon. Note: Isn't Laura Moriarty's non absolutely breathtaking. best wishes Randolph Healy from suantrai@iol.ie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 15:53:41 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hawkwind Subject: Re: _Book of Mercy_ /more recent work Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Brent, here's a wonderful site: http://www.nebula.simplenet.com/cohen/indez.html it's an unofficial, wide-ranging look at Cohen's work & life. There's also _The Blackening Pages_ (which is what Cohen calls the process of writing/editing). There are some interviews (some in real audio), and lots of great graphics. Best, Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 17:37:10 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hawkwind Subject: Best of the Best Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" This may well have been covered before I came online, but what do people think of Bloom's intro to the 1998 Best of the Best anthology? I've got the Rich anthology and thought there were some good poems in it, but it's nowhere near my favourite. That would be either the Simic or Tate selections. His comments were certainly provocative: "I failed to discover more than an authentic poem or two in it" & "... a monumental representation of the enemies of the aesthetic who are in the act of overwhelming us. It is of a badness not to be believed..." I'm keen to hear people's reactions to that particular year's selections, and Bloom's inflamatory essay. Again, if this has been discussed, the dead horse gets the message... Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 01:14:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: an institutionalized avant garde In-Reply-To: <3588C637.39233B32@speakeasy.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" One of the most wonderful things about Gwen MacEwen was what she could do at a reading. She didnt even carry a copy of her book, but recited her long lines from memory. I think she wrote the titles of the poems she would read on her hand. The last time i saw her I was sitting in a cafe on Bloor Street in Toronto, and Gwen came by on her big black clunky English one-speed bicycle. She and bp Nichol died the same year, and tore the heart right out of us. Toronto poetry just disappeared for five years, just disappeared. "I'm going around shooting the same camel in the head Over and over." G. McE. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 01:41:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: MacEwen [some thoughts about artistic "popularity" ] In-Reply-To: <199806181517.LAA18257@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I dont remember well enough, nor did I know how to understand these things, so I dont recall how popular Gwen MacEwen was. But she won the Governor-General's award for poetry twice. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 01:41:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: _Book of Mercy_ /more recent work In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980618144714.007ca100@postoffice.brown.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ah yes, _Stranger Music_ But isnt that a kind of selected? And isnt it mainly song lyrics? Is there new stuff in it? One thing I know. You'll have noticed that Cohen usually made each poetry book be a BOOK, not a collection. >Also: George, where did you say that review was located when you first saw >it??? I am really interested in reading it. I am trying to remember, and I think it was in _Books in Canada_, so one wd just have to check an issue around the date of publication. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 01:51:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Gwen MacEwen In-Reply-To: <199806190043.UAA13507@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Her first novel, _Julian the Magician_ was actually >>>published by Corinth (1963). > >That is not very original to MacEwen. Actually it was very prevalent. >Morpheal. ???? George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 10:27:17 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Martin Spinelli Subject: checking that m strain -- was FCC & Microbroadcasters MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; X-MAPIextension=".TXT" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >>>M writes<<< >>That is, they ought to be licensed, and ought to have to keep logs of their broadcasts. Unregulated use, without adequate log tapes of actual program content having to be maintained, lea= ds to use of such equipment as a means of unfair competitive practice, where individuals who have that technology can use it to compete against other individuals in extremely hostile ways, in effect endangering true freedom= s of speech and the press.<< When, especially in the history of broadcasting, has "competition" ever been "fair"? It's the dominant system precisely because it benefits and sustains an unequal condition. Bigger competes better--but this is stati= ng the obvious. Is it fair that tiny embattled Dunifer, who goes out of his= way to have his tiny little signal not come close to the big boys' (which is merely a politeness because--as is the case ideologically as well--the = big signal *always* erases the small one), should have to go through the same process as the non-local (Murdoch?) multi-billion dollar EBI? How would "fair" competition negotiate size? (<--that's a real question) "It's a level playing field, except for those who own it." CB (from "Lik= e This"... I think) But what waffle is this: >>individuals who have that technology can use it to compete against othe= r individuals in extremely hostile ways, in effect endangering true freedom= s of speech and the press<>Unregulated there is also very little that could be done about covert usage by aliens who have aggendas contrary to the political, economic, and socio-cultural interests of most Americans or Canadians. Such technologi= es easily lend themselves to use as a mechanism for brain-washing, propagandizing, and proseletyzing. The question becomes where is the line to be drawn between freedom of speech as debate between somewhat enlightened individuals or groups, and ignorant, ideological, radio-frequency attacks that can potentially infiltrate any legitimate bandwidth in any geographi= c area ?<< Your answer, as always although you couldn't put like this, is that "our" ideology is simply better than everyone else's ideology. And that (ironically) because it's better it should be specially protected--see the Endangered Ideology Act of 1956 which makes it a federal crime to hunt or trap ideology except for personal consumption. An un-easy listening tip for all Listafarians on the east coast (that inc= lude you Morphy because you should hear this?): Radio Havana (Cuba), "Broadcasting from free territory in the Americas", every evening on 6010 Short Wave. >>Non licensed, non accountable, non logged, stations do need to be tracked down technologically and eliminated.<< Little needs to be said about your (what else can I call it?) neo-fascism= , but I do want a few words about this "tape logging" and "content monitoring" you're on about. With ten years (licensed) radio experience in two state= s I have *never* encountered this tape logging as you describe it. *Written* transmitter and EBS logs and play-lists must be kept, but stations don't make tapes and then mail them to the FCC--anxiously awaiting a pat on the head from Big Brother. The real barrier, the real filter, the real censo= rship is precisely that of getting a license. It costs *thousands* (maybe now *tens of thousands*) of dollars in legal and engineering fees (going primarily into non-local pockets) to start up a new station. But the rea= l dissuasion is the time this takes--we're talking years! (One group in Buffalo has been waiting seven years--maybe eight by now--for the initial engineer survey of the spectrum to be completed.) Content is not monitored from above, the only overt restriction being the "community standards" internalized by the station head honchos (dirty words, etc.). But the real girdle around radio that is local in content = (or unusual in form) is participating in this kind of "Godzilla eat Dog" competition so celebrated by you. This is happening (obvious if you list= en) on "non-commercial" radio as well--an adoption of programming formulas which marketing analysists can "demonstrate" (to advertisers or underwriters) produces and "holds" a steady audience of "consumers" (not merely "listeners"--an important distinction in the discussion of radio "democracy"). (Aside: Deregulation in the 80s did much to harm local content by reducing "public service" requirements and eliminating the requirement for news staff, opening the door for completely canned stations.) THIS IS *VERY* BAD NEWS FOR **POETRY**! Obviously. As it, as some have suggested here recently, can resist (it is certainly seen as resisting by station and program managers!) commodification, it is approached by default as "bad radio". Hence efforts to commodify it to = fit into a holy format are prevalent (and even "well-intentioned) but usually (for me) unbearable. This typically gives poetry a kind of MTV-treatment= , wrapping it up in irrelevant and schlocky music. Bob Holman, you have other experiences in this sphere I'm sure. Please tell me I'm not a crank (if you're listening). Be well, Martin _________________________________________ Martin Spinelli SUNY Buffalo English Department Granolithic Productions spinelli@pavilion.co.uk LINEbreak http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/linebreak ENGAGED http://www.engaged.demon.co.uk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 08:07:25 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 18 Jun 1998 19:32:36 -0500 from Maria, I just want to repeat that I think your essay on HW sounds excellent & it's the kind of thing a kind of guy like me (library worker weaned on phd dissertations) loves to read. The thread concerned I think among other things "poetry in itself" - I mean the thread you didn't read - it wasn't me & Jordan, it was another one. So from now on be sure to read all my posts & you'll find out what I don't like about it when people say "the 'poetry itself', whatever that is..." - Henry G ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 22:59:51 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: chapbook = Kaufman ? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Wow, synchronicity! In the same day's posting,=20 discussion of the word "chapbook" and the poet Bob "Kaufman" . . .=20 From my Random House Electronic Dictionary:=20 chap=B7book n. 1. a small book or pamphlet of popular tales, ballads, etc., formerly hawked about by chapmen. 2. a small book or pamphlet, often of poetry. [1790=961800; chap (as in CHAPMAN) + BOOK] chap=B7man n., pl. -men.=20 1. Brit. a peddler. 2. Archaic. a merchant. [bef. 900; ME; OE cheapman (cheap buying and selling + man MAN1); c. D koopman, G Kaufmann; see CHEAP] It must be the radio waves from two microstations crossing and causing interference pattern ripples in the aether . . .=20 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 09:38:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcaster [need for mor Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Joel, The 5 post perday limit still in effect? Something broken in Buffalo? I count 10 messages from Poster below today. TECHNICALLY, five too many. ???? - db At 11:37 PM 6/18/98 -0400, morpheal wrote: >The costs are as high for micro stations as they are for the larger one's in >terms cense <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 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, 19 Jun 1998 10:15:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Art, Poetry, context In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980618081823.00826190@theriver.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > > from where I sit, in a city in the American southwest of some size with an > arts community which is probably unduly large and active for its size; and > because of my own circumstances, familial and otherwise, the wider arts > (visual, dance, music, etc.) is more "my" community than is the > specifically "poetry" community here -- this "lots and lots of > *possibility* that any [ANY] given artist may become the next big thing . . > ." is about as much possibility as that any [ANY] given poet will win the > next Nobel Prize for literature. And if we want to talk about the art > market in this way, we might also want to talk about the literary market, > which, when you get away from poetry specifically and into fiction and > nonfiction, includes "lots and lots" of possibility for money, too -- but a > similar tiny few who see such money. I don't believe Charles is right here, if he intends this as a correction of my post....(what's "artforum"??? no no just kidding!! but in fact i've hardly ever glanced at it...) In your particular city, it may look one way, but the shape of the plastic arts (i love that term) as a national/international market is something else. Of course almost no viz artist is gonna become the next big thing!! But the way the art market shapes particular life-choices, and the work itself, and how it impacts our overall conception of "what art (and artists) are"--these things do follow a dynamic predicated on the idea of actual remuneration for creative work. Not so with poetry. Different set of structural expectations.. However Charles, i agree strongly that the situation with much writing (the kind of mainstream conservative novelist who hopes to be published by Doubleday or Ferrar or Knopf or something, and get reviewed in NYR of B and the NY Times) is quite comparable to that of painters etc. There is an actual market, and the possibility of serious earnings for one's work; but not that many will ever get a glance in a middlebrow flagship pub like NYR, let alone win a Nobel. Just as most viz artists aren't gonna be able to live off the sale of their works, any time soon. What interests me is the disparity between how our culture defines an art-activity in one medium, and how in another..... as a life-choices, as a social roles. ****WHAT I"M REALLY GETTING AT, eventually, is--that i think these things impact on our specific strategies as poets. The radical seriousness within political passion of Susan Howe; the radical playfulness of Bernstein within a problematic of how form self-secretes in a disturbed historical moment; the open field of jazz-painting with words-as-things, in Coolidge. None of that, none of the poetry that matters, would exist if there were worries about conforming to a market esthetic. Likewise the ludic ploys jumping around on the edge of what-is-poetryland that are the work of Grenier (publication in small editions on sets of cards, publication in holograph, etc.) Likewise various publication innovations like, oh i dunno, Gestalten, a mag with a lot of vizpo and striaght textual stuff as well, that comes in an envelope, on various sheets and bundles of pages of various sizes, in various configurations, etc. A truely immoderate extension of the idea of a poetry magazine. Various things that people are starting to do on the web, etc. Neither Malley nor Yasusada would ever have set spectral pen to paper, were it not for the specific set of (non-commercial) expectations that existed in their cultures about poetry as an autonomous art-activity. It is precisely because these wierd and important phantom poets mock the nobility that is The Poet's Heroic Isolation and Greatness, that they have threatened and angered so many... in the phantom mists, mark ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 10:24:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Gwen MacEwen, Pound, etc. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The original reason I posted this quote was because Morpheal criticized Gwen MacEwen for "unoriginality of philosophy", as if this discounted the poetry. To the contrary. I was discussing what makes poets popular within their lifetimes. I was not discounting her poetry. If anything I complimented her writing, but discounted the other aspects. If those extraneous elements had been absent, I contend, that we would not even know of her today. That is the crux of the matter. (In fact I long ago found some first strong attractions to poetry in MacEwen's writings, as I did in Ginsberg's, and a few others. MacEwen's were wonderful poems and still have that attraction.) >Simply because an artist does something that appears to arise from the dominant >thoughts of the time (or against -- note that Vendler's point is essentially >Hegelian) is not a criticism of the poetry. Pound, like many of his >contemporaries, fell for a poorly thought out and essentially bogus theory of >Chinese poetry promulgated by Fenollosa; unlike his contemporaries, he wrote >the Personnae. He was, to be even more "unoriginal", often a raving Fascist; he >wrote the Cantos. His poetic work, however "original" in a poetic sense, is >hardly groundbreaking philosophy in the way of a Plato or Kant. Do you agree >with this? If anything poets tend to be eclectic borrowers, philosophically. It is quite traditional, and not always a bad thing to be, as long as oneself remains critical as to what oneself accepts and rejects as one's own within that eclecticism. We can learn many things, but we do not have to accept all that we learn as one's own, even if it is true for some others. This has the most to do with customs and beliefs, or worldviews (political, economic, religious). I do not want to comment too deeply on Ezra Pound's politics. I do not believe that the definitive study of that subject has been written. I do not believe that anyone with a purely English Literature interest and experience, no matter how deep and advanced, will be able to write that study. There are far too many political innuendos coded within linguistic layers of the text. We might, for simplicity say that Pound, alike to William Burroughs, wrote reports. Referring to Burroughs saying that the only difference between intelligence agents and writers is that "writers write reports". Pound put his head into Spanish, in effect European, fascism, and correlated the experience quite profoundly against American political history. His words appear full of dire warnings. We have to remember the time period. We have to consider locality. We have to understand what happens when an American poet puts his head into a foreign place. I would be very cautious about becoming critical of Pound's intentions, unless being sure what those intentions really were. (Here I am, expressing beliefs again. I must say, quite aside, that I attempt to distinguish pure fact from where there are elements of belief and all the facts are not stated. We normatively function on the basis of grounded beliefs. That is, beliefs that have some facts supporting them. We tend to forget that there is an element of belief, and I like to emphasize that distinction whenever possible. To the annoyance of few who believe that they speak only from facts. I also use "believe" or "opinion" to indicate where some of the facts remain in the realm of the unsayable, for whatever reasons. However, I will rarely say that there are such facts, but leave the reader guessing as to which usage of "belief" I happen to be referring to. In other words we sometimes use "belief" to avoid telling the whole story, and spelling out all the incantations that go with the particular magickal effect that is in question. Nevertheless, the magick remains a science and far from the realm of irrational belief.) >Nietzsche is not the best source for the 19th century opinion of the Greeks -- >but the slow, plodding scholars of the universities, making their careful and >finally incoherent way through the past. The Greeks provided an accessible, apparently better, way of dealing with 19th century technological advances and their utilization. A better way than, for example, Christianity provided. The Greek architects and engineers, began to have an influence upon the new materials. It is as though the rise of technology cracked the prevalent worldview and not only allowed other worldviews in, but in fact invited them into the somewhat void bewilderment that followed innovation. >Stephen Greenblatt does with Shakespeare -- a radical contextualization that >brings in: >> ... economic and historical forces, scientific thought, aesthetic >> structures, the usually unsystematic but often highly original and >> influential thoughts of poets, changes in the technologies of agriculture >> and animal husbandry, changes in sexual mores, and a whole lot more. I have yet to know of a convincing story as to how Shakespeare was able to build a theatre and have performed those plays that he had performed, under the totalism of the then monarchy. We seem to lack the true links that connect Shakespeare to the crown. That is a most interesting political question. Any other man would likely have been beheaded for any similar audacity in that era. What gave old Bill his privilege ? As far as I know, and I am no scholar on the subject so I might be in ignorance, no one has ever satisfactorily answered the question of how did Bill get away with it, and essentailly why. (I have some theories, but they are only theories based on parallels within tradition.) > poetry deals with *language*, and language was (amazingly enough) used before >literary criticism existed. It has a history, a chronological structure where >(as Faulkner might say) WAS is IS. Definitely, even if much of the formative chronology can only be guessed at, because language evolved as spoken language rather than as written. Writing was rare and more conservative, for the longest time. However, we can often learn more about our ancestral history from what I would refer to as a "deconstruction" of language than we can learn from many historians. We can find the patterns of thought that historians often politely avoid mentionning. We can find that our ancestors were not as noble, and more savage, than we would like to believe. We can find elements that point, even if vaguely, at some of the traditions and customs that we still are prey to, even if in a more idealist manner than the direct, materialized, forms of actions common to the past. For example when we burn or flame someone we no longer, typically, do it by tying them to a wooden stake and heaping dry timbers around them to which we then toss a light. When we grill someone we do not put them on a 'barbeque" and actually roast them. Our ancestors did not know any different than a grilling, roasting, or flaming, is what it is. A metaphoric, or idealized, meaning would have been mostly incomprehensible to them. I find it humourous that we refer to the idea of taking it literally as being a fault. We rightly value depths of meaning as presented in language, but this misleads us about the past, and that is what is humourous. In fact the past was more a matter of taking it materially, as enacted fact or as material phenomenon, distinct from our own emphasis upon literal as metaphor, analogy, simile, and other similarly idealized nuances. The increased tendency towards idaelism is a more modern phenomenon and we tend to read it into the past, the same way as some find modern rockets depicted in ancient Egyptian monuments. Of course writing was edict. It was the word of the lord to be made into flesh, but in a very unmetaphoric manner. It was the command to be enacted as action. It was to be taken literally. There was no idealization possible in that either. So now we strive to maintain that language is more properly an idealist representation, not to be taken literally. Ah, the ironies....which are in fact reminiscent of the dungeons of long ago and ancient conflicts of wars where a man's iron was tested as iron implement, and not as much as purely willpower or the matter of character. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 10:30:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: "Cultural Workers" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Not only can whining be fun but i ain't even heard that much of it round here!!! (OK OK that's not true...but not whining about making a living!!) As a socialist activist for 25 years, and a working-class person, i gotta say this strikes me as pretty, uhh, unnecessarily snotty, shall we say? i know lotsa folks who have struggles to get thru (many of 'em aren't even writers, by golly)...and they don't need to have steel dropped on 'em in a shipyard, for things to be tough!! Bobbie is one of our truely exciting new poets, and everone should read her work...But this post and the huzzas it got, are rather typical of that reverse snobbery anti-intellectualism that de Tocqueville pointed out was so very U.S. ....... movin' on down the whine,... mark On Thu, 18 Jun 1998, Maria Damon wrote: > At 9:22 AM -0700 6/18/98, Peter Balestrieri wrote: > > Bobbie West wrote: Have you tried working in a shipyard? A man here > > had a ton of steel dropped on his legs last week. > > > > Right on, Bobbie! > > > > To all the "cultural workers" struggling to make a living: have some > > cheese with that whine! > > > > PB > > my sympathies w/ the above. but whining can be fun, in proper context. > frankly, i have a great life. if i weren't a "cultural worker" who'd found > a respectable niche (went into the family business as it were, tho far from > home) i'd most assuredly be on SSI. > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 10:36:54 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry G Subject: Re: "Cultural Workers" In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 19 Jun 1998 10:30:45 -0400 from manual labor = memory = heavy anchor of life. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 07:44:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: Art, Poetry, context In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Mark, I like the way you outline the choices poets make in their work, attributing causation for such choices to the lack of real market expectations of that work. I think that is at least partially correct, although I would be disturbed to think the no-market reason (or, for visual artists, the yes-market reason) was the only causation for what kinds of work gets made. But I still think your characterization of the art world, and its relation to the high-art market, is nearly as limited in its view as if one were to look only at literature through the world of money-making books and their relation to the literary market. A lot of artists are engaged in a lot of different things. Book arts, mail art, muralists' art (almost entirely publicly subsidized, but, in my experience, most money which goes to muralists' work barely pays, and sometimes doesn't pay, for paint, preparation of surfaces, and other such necessities), and much more, are all part of what visual artists do, and one could say that these choices, too, are made because there are no "market" possibilities for artists so engaged. A portion of the 1970's explosion in "artist's books" as a medium was directly due to the sense of many artists that the gallery system was closed to them, and there was a need to create art which was inexpensive to make and to buy, easily distributable/highly portable outside the existing art market systems, and which could get close to its audience in ways which were nearly impossible for more traditional forms of art. One could say that there are forms in poetry and visual art which intend to be oppositional to the existing market structures. Whether they are or can be successful in this opposition is a more problematic matter, it seems to me. None of what I say denies your point that a lot of artists (and perhaps most) have expectations of selling their work, at some level, for some remuneration, and that it is the overall art market which gives these artists such expectations. charles >But the way the art market shapes particular life-choices, and the work >itself, and how it impacts our overall conception of "what art (and >artists) are"--these things do follow a dynamic predicated on the idea of >actual remuneration for creative work. Not so with poetry. Different set >of structural expectations.. chax press : alexander writing/design/publishing chax@theriver.com http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 10:45:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: _Book of Mercy_ /more recent work In-Reply-To: <-1941117309@wellington.trump.net.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Anthony, Thanks! I'll check it out this morning... Brent At 03:53 PM 6/19/98 -0000, you wrote: >Brent, > >here's a wonderful site: > >http://www.nebula.simplenet.com/cohen/indez.html > >it's an unofficial, wide-ranging look at Cohen's work & life. >There's also _The Blackening Pages_ (which is what Cohen >calls the process of writing/editing). There are some interviews >(some in real audio), and lots of great graphics. > >Best, > >Anthony > > > >...................................................... >Anthony Lawrence >PO Box 75 >Sandy Bay >Tasmania 7006 > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 08:38:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ok ok, no harm done or intended all around At 8:07 AM -0400 6/19/98, henry wrote: >Maria, I just want to repeat that I think your essay on HW sounds >excellent & it's the kind of thing a kind of guy like me (library worker >weaned on phd dissertations) loves to read. The thread concerned I think >among other things "poetry in itself" - I mean the thread you didn't read - >it wasn't me & Jordan, it was another one. So from now on be sure to read >all my posts & you'll find out what I don't like about it when people say >"the 'poetry itself', whatever that is..." - Henry G ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 09:41:31 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: for Chris A (Gwen M etc) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" For Chris Alexander (& any others) A few of Gwen MacEwen's books, some of them (most out of print & all published only in Canada): A Breakfast for Barbarians (1966; still one of her finest) The Shadow-Maker (1969) Magic Animals selected poems (1974; 1984) The Fire Eaters (1976) The T.E. Lawrence Poems (1982; an amazing reading through of his writing'him) Afterworlds (her last book, 1987; maybe still available from McClelland & Stewart) & a two volume selected from a few years ago published by Exile Editions, maybe still available. Since I mentioned it, here's the poem dedicated to Duncan from Afterworlds: The Lion for Robert Duncan To love is to be remarkable, and flawless. It is to wear the yellow crown of a flawless beast Forever. It is to inhabit the flawless and exceeding universe Forever. It is to summon the wonderful numbers Which add up to the mighty stars. It is learning to divide and multiply by these numbers. I swear by all the famous, ancient lions I have known That the mighty children yet to come Will foster fiiner stars, For they are the true lords, born of morning, Whose coming will call us down Like a deck of cards. To love is to be remarkable, and flawless. It is to wear the yellow crowns Of all the gods. This kinda shows her strengths & weaknesses both. And might explain Phyllis Webb's ambiguous elegy: Gwendolyn NacEwen 1941-1987 Gwen, I didn;t know it had been so bad, such a long way down these past months to the _Afterworlds_, or that the door and the blue wings opened and closed in that sound of death you said you knew the tune of. Your last poems so big with cosmos & semen & gold -- and I'm afraid adjectives that came too easily over the years: _terrible_, _splendid_, _fabulous_, _wonderful_, _remarkable_, _dark_, _mighty_, -- all of which you were as your cat waited to take over the typewriter and get on with its sublime works while you were out colliding with Barker Fairley in a metaphysical blizzard or handing a coin to the ferryman for the last ride. _The Loneliness of the Long Distaance Poet_. _Red Curtains_. _The White Horse_. _Late Song_. _A Stillness of Waiting_. _The Death of the Loch Ness Monster in the vast spaces of the subatomic world where matter has a tendency to exist... Here where events have a tendency to occur..._ As you lay there dying in seizure was it your lord Life or your lord Death who came to collect a last poem as you careened into _the beautiful darkness_? nd was it really beautiful? Tell me. Was it dark? Or did the cat get your last fabulous word? But then I often enjoyed MacEwen, loved some of her work, but I am *always* in awe of Webb... ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Reserved books. Reserved land. Reserved flight. And still property is theft. Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 19:48:03 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcaster [need for mor MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit listserv: re: I concur. If I sneeze twenty mesages appears--all from the same nostril! It's getting hard to de-cipher. tb ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 11:48:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Zamsky Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've been off list for a while, and was just wondering what the context was for Patrick Pritchett's recent comments on Zukofsky. As I read them, they seem commensurate with all too much that gets said about LZ -- biographical supposition instead of critical engagement with the poet's work. So what if he didn't swim or ride a bike until thirty; who is any of us to say that in marrying Celia he chose the wrong woman (and, even if he did, so what); and, why does "clarity" get elided with confessionalism? You'll notice that only the last of these three has anything at all to do with his poetry. I may be taking these comments in completely the wrong way, so I'll just stop and ask for context before I go into a diatribe about the state of Zukofsky scholarship, and what I see as at stake in his work -- what this particular kind of clarity means, and how I believe it is profoundly (and sometimes comically) achieved in his poems. Robert Zamsky ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 11:32:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: Judge Backs FCC... correction In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >>Andrew wrt: >>> OAKLAND, CA -- A federal judge allowed the government on Tuesday to >>> shut down "Free Radio Berkeley", run by an unlicensed low-power >>> broadcaster > >And here's what the FCC did to our local microbroadcast station. They >simply assigned the frequency to a local fundamentalist Christian group >wanting a radio license. This was not at the instigation of the Christian >group --- when you apply to the FCC you don't specify frequency. > >No muss, no fuss, and no lawsuits pending. > And I just found out that it wasn't a local Christian group, but a local affiliate of a national group --- the broadcasts will come out of somewhere way up north, maybe it's a Dakota, I don't know. Power to the conglomerates. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 13:08:24 -0400 Reply-To: Mark Prejsnar Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Art, Poetry, context In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980619074428.007a5bb0@theriver.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Charles: Actually your comments are quite accurate. Yes, there are lots of viz artists who inhabit (who create for themselves) a world much like that of poetry, with practices and values that reject commodity definitions of worth. My failure to acknowledge that was due to my intense interest in running down certain thoughts I was having about the situation of poetry, which were being clarified in my head somewhat by thinking about what made our situation **different** from that of other arty types... But yes you're quite right: i was simply failing to remember soemthing i know well, namely that much viz art production is anchored in values much like those of the poetry world, with concern for the activity and (perhaps) its products being foremost, and little belief in the values of marketplace and of the celebrity machinery. A good example of tunnel vision, resultant from staring too hard at one group of ideas only! chastened, mark ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 10:06:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ Comments: To: Robert Zamsky MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain You're perfectly right to say so, Robert. To place it in context, I was merely relaying remarks made by Rakosi about LZ at a panel here at Naropa the other day. More really in the nature of gossip than anything else. Carl, afterall, is 96 years old. Perhaps the urge to rehash old gripes with his dead compeers is just too much to resist. Pound: When one's friends hate each other/how can their be peace in the world? Their asperities diverted me in my green time. Patrick Pritchett ---------- From: Robert Zamsky To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ Date: Friday, June 19, 1998 10:48AM I've been off list for a while, and was just wondering what the context was for Patrick Pritchett's recent comments on Zukofsky. As I read them, they seem commensurate with all too much that gets said about LZ -- biographical supposition instead of critical engagement with the poet's work. So what if he didn't swim or ride a bike until thirty; who is any of us to say that in marrying Celia he chose the wrong woman (and, even if he did, so what); and, why does "clarity" get elided with confessionalism? You'll notice that only the last of these three has anything at all to do with his poetry. I may be taking these comments in completely the wrong way, so I'll just stop and ask for context before I go into a diatribe about the state of Zukofsky scholarship, and what I see as at stake in his work -- what this particular kind of clarity means, and how I believe it is profoundly (and sometimes comically) achieved in his poems. Robert Zamsky ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 13:24:19 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Erik Sweet Subject: ####1 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit morpheal ! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 10:29:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: hawkwind's Best O the Best Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Anthony, this is all news to me, so I feel underinformed . . .can you fill in the blanks? Simic and Tate expressed their opinions of an anthology edited by Harold Bloom? Is that what you're saying? If correct, please say where these opinions may be read. Could you backtrack over this terrain & fill in some fractals? Thanks a lot. David ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 22:47:36 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: far and few MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit At the risk of sounding like a self-serving participant of this list: Could the few and far between who continue to send "private" messages--or messages directed at only one person--simply e-mail that person direct... I have come across at least 8 messages in five hours that have nothing really to do with a discussion of or engagement with poetics. WHile I applaud the use of this list to engage a larger community--the smaller one sometimes gets my goat. Hope I offend no-one. (double-neg...) Todd Baron -- remap -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 12:52:35 -0600 Reply-To: Linda Russo Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Russo Subject: Re: FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcaster [need for mor In-Reply-To: <3583A133B87@ALEX.LIB.UTAH.EDU> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII c'mon chris don't be so hard on morpheal There's a real danger of Americans getting off their asses & partaking of public discourse. Getting off their asses which are brainwashed from consumerist conglomerate media (t.v. mostly, as the visual image is more daunting psychologically, i think, with the added impact of sound) -- so ranting agendas, attempted brainwashing even, would be a good sign as far as i'm concerned. A little public ranting helped get Nike to stop exploiting child laborers, granted we're all brainwashed by the PC rhetoric that made us care about the relationship between our footware & actual slave laborers. i agree about the wave-thing -- why do you think I won't let us get a microwave? Those are regulated by the feds too & that's how you know to stay away. I agree with you especially about the fact the way the fcc favors consumerist conglomerates -- i absolutely CAN NOT get "have a coke and a smile" out of my brain & it makes me look so OLD to my students since I stopped listening to commercial media years & years ago. > > The same criteria ought to apply as are applicable to what are presumed to > > be responsible larger broadcasters. That is, they ought to be licensed, and > > ought to have to keep logs of their broadcasts. > > well, Bob - number one, I disagree; but #2, the whole issue here > is the licensing path the FCC has chosen for these microstations, > viz., charging application and engineering fees that are equal to > the fees they ask of wealthy broadcasting corporations - in effect > making it $$ prohibitive for independents and communities to take > advantage of the technologies you're talking about, except by > operating illegally. it's a catch-22 the FCC has instituted, and in > the name of protecting the citizenry from - wha, spies and aliens? > > booga booga. no, as far as I'm concerned this is just another > visible (audible) foreclosure of localized public discourse in > favor of media conglomerates and the consumerist imperative... > > btw - for somebody who, as I recall, is vehemently anti-gun control, > you're sure hungry to get the feds up everybody else's ass, aren't > you? > > chris > > .. > > Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective > > email: calexand@library.utah.edu / nonce@iname.com > snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 > press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ > **site temporarily unavailable** > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 14:57:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Alan J.J.N. Sondheim" Subject: VIRTUAL HELLS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - VIRTUAL HELLS No hilites. %2d %2d %s >> This place NEEDS no introduction! ./cl.intro >> There IS no help for you! ./cl.help >> There is NOTHING to say to you! ./cl.announce >> The Den's been up for >> your termtype not found. >> .p hiliting enabled. >> .p hiliting turned off. Lines gagged: You have no lines gagged. >> Gagging youself with a spoon? is gagged! Ha ha ha! >> User >> You just ungagged line >> Nameservice on. >> Nameservice off. bad time argument >> Later, dude! ) for new site block ( ID expire site blocked %4d never bad site block ID Deleted site block >> System Msg: Reboot new passwd = usernum = fuckwit. get it right. >> Idle timeout has been disabled. >> Idle timeout has been enabled. >> Idle timeout has to be in the range between >> Idle timeout has been set to >> Idle timeout is >> %s just tried to force you... >> Player %d gagged. >> Player %d ungagged. >> %s has at least as much authority as you! >> fatal: You've been killed. >> Hope you enjoyed your stay. BRING_IT_DOWN Sorry - the system is closed to further logins at the moment Sorry - we are full at the moment, try again later Sorry - you're site is banned Sorry - you can't use that command You are already listening! You listen to the gossip %s is now listening You are already being antisocial! You ignore the dull gossip %s is ignoring everyone *** News *** newsfile There is no news today *** System is now closed to further logins *** %s CLOSED the system Total of %d users signed on Shout what? %s shouts: %s Someone shouts: %s You shout: %s Usage: .tell %s is not signed on Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness %s is not listening You ask %s: %s %s asks you: %s You exclaim to %s: %s %s exclaims to you: %s You tell %s: %s %s tells you: %s %s whispers something to %s Area: %s Exits are: You can see: You are alone here There is no such area You are in that area now! walks in arrives in a blinding flash! That area is not adjoined to here Sorry - that area is currently private %s disappears in a puff of magic! %s goes to the %s Some magic disturbs the air %s %s That area is public anyway You shout into the %s asking to be let in! %s shouts asking to be let in! Someone shouts asking to be let in! %s shouts into the %s asking to be let in! This areas access can't be changed public private The area is already %s! Area now set to public %s has set the area to public Someone has set the area to public You need at least %d people in the area Area now set to private %s has set the area to private Someone has set the area to private Usage: .invite The area is public anyway You can't invite yourself! %s is already in the area! Someone has invited you to the %s %s has invited you to the %s Usage: .emote Someone %s You write the message on the board A ghostly hand writes a message on the board A ghostly hand wipes some messages from the board You are already visible! You are already invisible! POP! You reappear! You fade, shimmer and vanish... Suicide is not an option here no matter how bad things get That wouldn't be wise.... A bolt of white lighting streaks from the heavens and blasts you!! You have been removed from this reality... There is a rumble of thunder Are you sure about this (y/n)? Quitting users... A force grabs you and pulls you through the ether!! BRING_IT_DOWN _______________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 14:17:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcaster [need for mor In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" morpheal: sleep/shapeshifting/heal(you wish)/heel/eel/hey!al also: peal/real/meal and: more, pal. (sgnd) Ralph. (which ain't the end of it) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 16:06:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: Postmodern Piracy Festival /Call for Participants (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" forwarded from Doug Rice at Rice@Salem.kent.edu NOBODADDIES: An Independent Press of Pirated Textual and Sexual Identities Presents: A Festival of Postmodern Piracy April 14-16, 1999 Kent State University-Salem (Ohio) Kent State University-Salem (Ohio) You are invited to submit theoretical and critical abstracts (100-500 words) addressing any aspect or interpretation of the festival's theme Piracy of Words, Bodies, Subjectivities, Cultures, Identities, or Representations. Panel proposals are also encouraged and should include the panel's title, participant's names, and abstracts. All approaches in the humanities (particularly literary, cinematic, musical, or philosophical) are welcomed. Possible topics include, but are not limited to: * History and Practice of Plagiarism, Appropriation, or Piracy * Theoretical approaches to Plagiarism, Appropriation, or Piracy * Performances of Plagiarism, Appropriation, or Piracy * Explorations of Contemporary Rewriting of Older Tales * Aesthetic Outlaws, Migrant Tongues * Schizo-Flesh or Infected Texts * Gender Blurring/Blending/Cutting/Erasing * Nomadic Skinshows * Viral Languages, Theories, Images, Bodies * Transgender Issues of Bodies and Languages * The Politics and Poetics of Transgression * Special Panels and Sessions on the works of Kathy Acker, William S. Burroughs, Ray Federman, Gilles Deleuze, David Cronenberg. * A Colloquium on the NEA and Censorship. We are interested in a variety of approaches, including works that confuse boundaries of genre, discourse, and discipline; works that analyze primary texts; creative works that perform any of these issues. Selected work will be published in a festschrift celebrating the festival. Please Address submissions to: Doug Rice Kent State University-Salem 2491 State Route 45 South Salem OH 44460 For further information, please contact Doug Rice at Rice@Salem.kent.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 16:49:55 -0400 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: Judge Backs FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcasters In-Reply-To: William Burmeister Prod "Re: Judge Backs FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadca" (Jun 18, 6:57pm) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii As advertised. Enjoy. William --- RADIO PIRATES IN ESCALATING WAR WITH RULES by Richard Danielson St.Petersburg Times, Nov 28, 1997 As he watched U.S. Marshalls pack up the transmitter at 102.1-FM, a Temple Terrace garage-turned-outlaw radio station, disc jockey Eric "the killa" Ericson didn't expect much sympathy. But it still surprised him when a Federal Communication Commission official laughed during the Nov. 19 raid and suggested the station's volunteers "find a new hobby." "Some of us live for this," said Ericson, 25, of Temple Terrace. "They're just laghing in our faces about it, thinking it's a big joke." To the contrary, the FCC's raids on three local unlicensed radio stations -- one each in Lutz, Temple Terrace and Tampa's Seminole Heights neighborhood -- were anything but fun and games. They were, instead, but one local skirmish in a nationwide guerilla war over so-called "pirate radio." The dispute pits a growing band of radio renegades against the FCC and the National Association of Broadcasters, one of the wealthiest and most powerful lobbies in Washington. It also provides a case study in waht happens when technology, government regulation, the quest for broadcasting profits and the defiance of do-it-yourself broadcasters all end up on a collision course. Look at the technology, and it appears that radio broadcasting stands today where personal computing was five or ten years ago. The cost of low-powered basic broadcasting equipment has come down to the point where a radio enthusiast can put out a modest FM signal with mail-order components costing about $500. The peripheral equipment needed to round out a broadcast setup can run a few thousand dollars more. Applying for a broadcasting license, however, is more expensive and can require an initial investment of $100,000 or more. "There is no question that the regulations as they're being implemented by the FCC restrict the airwaves to the very rich," said Allen Hopper, a San Francisco attorney for one of the best-known pirate stations in the country, Radio-Free Berkeley. "You can't go on the air without being a millionaire, and that's where micro-radio comes in. "Hopper said that the pirate radio movement has "been gaining momentum for quite some time now." "There are literally hundreds of stations on the air that we know of," he said. But as pirate radio has grown both in popularity and boldness, commercial broadcasters have complained that the new signals threaten to interfere with their signals and confuse their listeners. In response, the FCC has stepped up its enforcement methods. Where Hopper and his colleagues with the National Lawyers Guild once heard of two or three stations being closed per month, it's now 10. FCC spokesman David Fiske said the agency does not keep score on how many pirate stations it closes, handling each microbroadcaster on a case-by-case basis. Seizing equipment, as has been done in Tampa, happens when warning letters are ignored."The FCC does make an effort to contact people and get voluntary compliance," he said. "That is the major enforcement effort." For radio pirates, trying to comply with FCC rules would inevitably lead to a catch-22. Micro broadcasters typically don't broadcast at more than 100 watts. In Tampa, for instance, Kelly Benjamin's 89X, the Seminole Heights station shut down Nov. 19, broadcast at about 70 watts, meaning that the signal died about half-way across Tampa Bay. The catch is that the FCC won't license a station with a signal below 100 watts. With a finite number of frequncies available for use, Fiske said federal policy tries to balance "how do you serve an entire community and how many licenses can you pack in" the radio spectrum. Someone could apply to change the FCC's rules regarding micro broadcasting, but that is not something the FCC would do itself, and Fiske said "there is no such proceeding under way." At the same time the number of pirate radio stations is growing, the number of corporate owners of licensed radio stations is shrinking, as broadcasting conglomerates like Westinghouse buy more and more stations. One of the complaints against 102.1-FM came from WHPT, 102.5 FM, which is owned by the rapidly growing Clear Channel Communications. "One of the primary arguments that we've made is that the FCC's regs have failed to keep up with these changes in technology," Hopper said. "If you look at those complaints, they're not complaints about the interference with the signal. They're complaints about, "Oh, our listeners are confused." WHPT general manager Drew Rashbaum said he would not discuss his station's complaint about 102.1-FM because he has been bombarded with harassing calls from "obnoxious listeners" to the renegade stations ever since the raids. Still, it's no surprise that the strongest opposition to pirate radio comes from big broadcasters looking to increase their market share. "We're very supportive of what they're doing," said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters in Washington. "You can get these pirate stations up and running, and it can create a lot of havoc with the airwaves and existing stations." While the FCC's critics say the airwaves should be opened to low-power radio, they doubt that will happen because of the influence of the broadcasting lobby. "This is exactly in a democracy what we should be encouraging, and we've basically got the FCC acting as the police force for the fortune 500 companies," said Robert McChesney, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor who has written several books about the corporate domination of broadcasting. "In the short term I think the strategy should be this: We should ...have a thousand, 2,000, 10,000 of these stations," McChesney said. "Sheer numbers will force the development of the fair system. Radio in this country today is about one thing: It's about taking Americans, turning them upside down and shaking everything out of their pockets." But FCC officials say allowing everyone who wants to get on the air to broadcast at once would create chaos and couls even endanger lives. One of the chief arguments against unlicensed radio is its potential for interfering with the transmissions of police and fire departments. Fiske said the FCC doesn't keep statistics on such incidents, but in October the agency shut down two pirate stations near big airports in Miami and West Palm Beach. The founder of Tampa's 102.1-FM said that concern doesn't apply to him. Doug Brewer, whose technical expertise has earned him grudging respect even from some people at licensed stations, said the FCC never has indicated to him that his signal was interfering with anyone else's. Brewer has applied for a broadcasting license but can't get one for the low wattage he puts out. Established broadcasters aren't eager to entertain changes that would give licenses to micro broadcasters. Asked whether the National Association of Broadcasters has a position on licensing micro broadcasters, Wharton focused on the existing controversy. "The issue is simply about operating without a license," he said. "That's the sole issue here. If you're not operating with a license, you should not be in business." ----- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 14:14:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Naropa Readings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Wednesday night I missed, alas, what one person described to me as an extraordinary performance of poetry and music by Anne Waldman and Claude Brown, revolving around various works and texts of John Cage. On the bill for Thursday night's readings were Douglas Oliver, Eleni Sikelianos, Andrew Schelling and Olga Broumas. And let me clear up something right at the outset here: Doug Oliver in no way meant to say that young writers of today have no anxieties to deal with. What he meant was that their anxieties are different from the ones which the previous generation had to cope with and that this in turn produces the emergence of different poetic forms. (Honestly, some people are so picky!) Let me clear up that last remark by stating emphatically and at once that Douglas Oliver is a real sweetie. (Whew!) Oliver's reading began with a selection of crisp, delicate elegies from a work-in-progess called _Tenth Arrondissement_. He prefaced his reading by remarking that the street he lives on in this district was once the home to both Heinrich Heine, who lived at one end, and Paul Celan, who lived at the other, observing that this chance polar arrangement, far from constituting a mutual exclusivity, comprises a magnetic field of force - from limpid clarity to the densest logos - in which the full range of poetic possibility can form. From "Forearms": (in part, a meditation on political violence) "one day there's a youth's flayed arm but no youth." From "A Little Night": (a lyrical turn on Celan) "hostility of moths around the candles," "Our shadows lack performance ... they are a text created by the dusty mirror." "the word I care about wakes ... Celan ... and performs itself." "Crystal Eagle" continued this theme - a terse, bittersweet homage to Celan's life and death - "there's future silence in the non-forthcoming of the Rue de Paradis." "For Giselle Celan," a poem for Paul's widow, with whom Oliver shared many meals before she died, and his closing piece, "Well of Sorrows in Purple Tincture," (a sort of elegy for family) exemplified his poetic virtues in the elegaic form, as I read them -- an elegant, finely felt diaristic narrative that's light on its feet but covers a large amount of conceptual territory with ease. But above all these poems are distinguished by the conspicuous clarity of their compassion. "See my father falling on the fairway of life. The whack gone out of the game, the blood gone out of the brain." *** Eleni Sikelianos read next, beginning with poems from "To Speak While Dreaming." "These hand like crickets ... hold out for the slender boat ... I do trust numbers enough to write their signs" - from a sonnet written while Allen Ginsberg read early English poetry and the work of Smart. Followed by work from the more recent "Book of Tendons." From "Gold Trout" - "laying on top of heat's papers in a dress ... marigold, I wish the ground were hot or not ... stars mar no man light as a feather therefore his shoulders gather up light ... touched the bone button, brought the row house down." "May was a cavernous month, a thing sweeter than a yam." Then a poem entitled, after Montaigne, "Of Cannibals, Of Thumbs," which Eleni described as "essays that never got anywhere." "When I think of sex some people think of seals barking but I think of shrimp in bleach." And in closing, a long portion of a work-in-progress tenatively titled, "The Booklet of My Dream of Living in California." Which figures partly as a place of fable, and offers such delightful lines as these, "in which Alexander the Great invented the caterpillar personally." "My dream of seeing Michael Douglas in an elevator. Not that satisfying." "Like El Nino doing a brodie in the air." A languid, serpentine history of California as Eden and desert. The growth of the pain of the nomad self in its intersections with geography - geography as both personal and public history. Marked, like all her distinctive, inventive work, by percussive turns and slippery cadences, the sense of floating enigma, now enlarged, now contracted, where language is the play and element of riverine wit and seduction. *** Andrew Schelling began his reading with a poem dedicated to Allen Ginsberg. It ranged widely: from the London house where Blake wrote "Jerusalem" and "Milton," (and where the custodians were replacing the forge with the hard drive) to the Rocky Mountains. From Blake's immortal tyger - the first lines of which Schelling translated into Sanskirt - a startling effect, making it even more tygerish! - to the American cougar. "Frame old symmetries [with] new poems." This was followed by a series of haibuns-in-progress. From Black Earth: "sweet taste of dharma not for humans alone." From Western Tanager: "If mountains and rivers are the continent's Sanskrit, then birdsong is local vernacular ... Your bards are wearing wingbands of gold." A haibun in which the poet dreams he meets Don Allen, dying in a mosque. "And then I realize the mosque is also his project, empty but for the black calligraphy." Raven Haibun (for Jane & Anselm Hollo): "Raven says - there is going to be another Judgment Day." And from other haibuns: "A peak called Quandary. A bar called Rocky Flats." "Do not despise this forearm - it was Zebulon Pike's - a grubby note attached says it tastes salty." "You ask how the gods toy with we mortals? Go get a field guide to the tundra." Andrew closed with translations from Classical Indian poetry, the earliest dated circa 1000 BCE. "Last night, what ecstasy - today she tosses her head and won't look at me." "He steps into the moonlight and just for a moment it's like he's vanished into another country." "We make love in the common position - he calls it sedate. We try something new and he asks where I've learned it." "My wound begins to itch madly for love." I think Schelling's work answers admirably to Charles Alexander's query to the List of some weeks ago about where have all the nature poets gone? Along with Jack Collom and Merrill Gilfillan, he belongs to a small company of poets who are actively engaged with the rhythms and pulses of the natural world. But I was particularly taken with his translations this time around. Brief and deceptively simple, they convey an entire world of complex human interactions, foregrounding the bitter and the sweet, what might be called the eros of the quotidian, the ancient bedrock of poetry - where our endless anxieties are allayed by the perpetual turn to, the renewal of, form. *** Finishing the evening was the delightful and endearing Olga Broumas, who began by reciting a brief, sweet lyric in honor of Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Then some poems in homage to Sappho, who, she reminded us, wrote when God was still a feminine deity. "Spasm my breaks downhill oak." "I am what astonishment can bear, pupil only to you, fleece of dew." And from "Pastoral Jazz," (I think) - "almost ultraviolet with so much witness - the garbage trucks suspended in shy light." And a poem about her practice as a body worker: "Always an angel rises from the figure ... I bow to riddle of the ear ... helpless with harmonics." A poem called simply - "Instructions." "One must be sitting in one's chair before smoking opium so that one will not have to walk to it later." And from another poem - "the sun is full today - swallow it all - merci." "For Bobbie Louise Hawkins (who mentioned acid)" - "To relax all force and watch the free fall of what happens, the fruit of it ... the string breaks, all is desire." And finally, "Lumens." "To build a chair, to build a chair, to build a chair. To sit. To sit. Witness the whole world." Olga is the only poet I've seen on the Naropa stage to take a full bow. She did it quite well. Her "Sappho's Gymnasium," written with T. Begley, remains a source of constant wonder and delight. Like Elytis, whom she's translated so brilliantly, her own work casts a spangled effulgence, a sun-drenched radiance that is also brimming with the tenderness and the murky pith of the chthonic. Hearing her read, you want to be Greek and sing - lilt, jangle, stream. The mystery of the body wash over you, drown you in the deeps of the body. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 14:09:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Safdie Joseph Subject: Re: Naropa Readings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I know there's been some pretty heady competition for this award on the list in the past, but I hereby nominate Patrick Pritchett as electronic poetry reviewer par excellence! (It would be fun to have an improvisational contest like the Heavyweight Poetry Championships down in Taos for reviewers - people would be given, say, ten minutes to compose a review of a certain book or reading - and then have to post it to the list!) Well, I thought it was fun when I started writing that sentence . . . ---------- From: Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume [SMTP:pritchpa@SILVERPLUME.IIX.COM] Sent: Friday, June 19, 1998 12:14 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Naropa Readings Wednesday night I missed, alas, what one person described to me as an extraordinary performance of poetry and music by Anne Waldman and Claude Brown, revolving around various works and texts of John Cage. On the bill for Thursday night's readings were Douglas Oliver, Eleni Sikelianos, Andrew Schelling and Olga Broumas. And let me clear up something right at the outset here: Doug Oliver in no way meant to say that young writers of today have no anxieties to deal with. What he meant was that their anxieties are different from the ones which the previous generation had to cope with and that this in turn produces the emergence of different poetic forms. (Honestly, some people are so picky!) Let me clear up that last remark by stating emphatically and at once that Douglas Oliver is a real sweetie. (Whew!) Oliver's reading began with a selection of crisp, delicate elegies from a work-in-progess called _Tenth Arrondissement_. He prefaced his reading by remarking that the street he lives on in this district was once the home to both Heinrich Heine, who lived at one end, and Paul Celan, who lived at the other, observing that this chance polar arrangement, far from constituting a mutual exclusivity, comprises a magnetic field of force - from limpid clarity to the densest logos - in which the full range of poetic possibility can form. From "Forearms": (in part, a meditation on political violence) "one day there's a youth's flayed arm but no youth." From "A Little Night": (a lyrical turn on Celan) "hostility of moths around the candles," "Our shadows lack performance ... they are a text created by the dusty mirror." "the word I care about wakes ... Celan ... and performs itself." "Crystal Eagle" continued this theme - a terse, bittersweet homage to Celan's life and death - "there's future silence in the non-forthcoming of the Rue de Paradis." "For Giselle Celan," a poem for Paul's widow, with whom Oliver shared many meals before she died, and his closing piece, "Well of Sorrows in Purple Tincture," (a sort of elegy for family) exemplified his poetic virtues in the elegaic form, as I read them -- an elegant, finely felt diaristic narrative that's light on its feet but covers a large amount of conceptual territory with ease. But above all these poems are distinguished by the conspicuous clarity of their compassion. "See my father falling on the fairway of life. The whack gone out of the game, the blood gone out of the brain." *** Eleni Sikelianos read next, beginning with poems from "To Speak While Dreaming." "These hand like crickets ... hold out for the slender boat ... I do trust numbers enough to write their signs" - from a sonnet written while Allen Ginsberg read early English poetry and the work of Smart. Followed by work from the more recent "Book of Tendons." From "Gold Trout" - "laying on top of heat's papers in a dress ... marigold, I wish the ground were hot or not ... stars mar no man light as a feather therefore his shoulders gather up light ... touched the bone button, brought the row house down." "May was a cavernous month, a thing sweeter than a yam." Then a poem entitled, after Montaigne, "Of Cannibals, Of Thumbs," which Eleni described as "essays that never got anywhere." "When I think of sex some people think of seals barking but I think of shrimp in bleach." And in closing, a long portion of a work-in-progress tenatively titled, "The Booklet of My Dream of Living in California." Which figures partly as a place of fable, and offers such delightful lines as these, "in which Alexander the Great invented the caterpillar personally." "My dream of seeing Michael Douglas in an elevator. Not that satisfying." "Like El Nino doing a brodie in the air." A languid, serpentine history of California as Eden and desert. The growth of the pain of the nomad self in its intersections with geography - geography as both personal and public history. Marked, like all her distinctive, inventive work, by percussive turns and slippery cadences, the sense of floating enigma, now enlarged, now contracted, where language is the play and element of riverine wit and seduction. *** Andrew Schelling began his reading with a poem dedicated to Allen Ginsberg. It ranged widely: from the London house where Blake wrote "Jerusalem" and "Milton," (and where the custodians were replacing the forge with the hard drive) to the Rocky Mountains. From Blake's immortal tyger - the first lines of which Schelling translated into Sanskirt - a startling effect, making it even more tygerish! - to the American cougar. "Frame old symmetries [with] new poems." This was followed by a series of haibuns-in-progress. From Black Earth: "sweet taste of dharma not for humans alone." From Western Tanager: "If mountains and rivers are the continent's Sanskrit, then birdsong is local vernacular ... Your bards are wearing wingbands of gold." A haibun in which the poet dreams he meets Don Allen, dying in a mosque. "And then I realize the mosque is also his project, empty but for the black calligraphy." Raven Haibun (for Jane & Anselm Hollo): "Raven says - there is going to be another Judgment Day." And from other haibuns: "A peak called Quandary. A bar called Rocky Flats." "Do not despise this forearm - it was Zebulon Pike's - a grubby note attached says it tastes salty." "You ask how the gods toy with we mortals? Go get a field guide to the tundra." Andrew closed with translations from Classical Indian poetry, the earliest dated circa 1000 BCE. "Last night, what ecstasy - today she tosses her head and won't look at me." "He steps into the moonlight and just for a moment it's like he's vanished into another country." "We make love in the common position - he calls it sedate. We try something new and he asks where I've learned it." "My wound begins to itch madly for love." I think Schelling's work answers admirably to Charles Alexander's query to the List of some weeks ago about where have all the nature poets gone? Along with Jack Collom and Merrill Gilfillan, he belongs to a small company of poets who are actively engaged with the rhythms and pulses of the natural world. But I was particularly taken with his translations this time around. Brief and deceptively simple, they convey an entire world of complex human interactions, foregrounding the bitter and the sweet, what might be called the eros of the quotidian, the ancient bedrock of poetry - where our endless anxieties are allayed by the perpetual turn to, the renewal of, form. *** Finishing the evening was the delightful and endearing Olga Broumas, who began by reciting a brief, sweet lyric in honor of Rachel Blau DuPlessis. Then some poems in homage to Sappho, who, she reminded us, wrote when God was still a feminine deity. "Spasm my breaks downhill oak." "I am what astonishment can bear, pupil only to you, fleece of dew." And from "Pastoral Jazz," (I think) - "almost ultraviolet with so much witness - the garbage trucks suspended in shy light." And a poem about her practice as a body worker: "Always an angel rises from the figure ... I bow to riddle of the ear ... helpless with harmonics." A poem called simply - "Instructions." "One must be sitting in one's chair before smoking opium so that one will not have to walk to it later." And from another poem - "the sun is full today - swallow it all - merci." "For Bobbie Louise Hawkins (who mentioned acid)" - "To relax all force and watch the free fall of what happens, the fruit of it ... the string breaks, all is desire." And finally, "Lumens." "To build a chair, to build a chair, to build a chair. To sit. To sit. Witness the whole world." Olga is the only poet I've seen on the Naropa stage to take a full bow. She did it quite well. Her "Sappho's Gymnasium," written with T. Begley, remains a source of constant wonder and delight. Like Elytis, whom she's translated so brilliantly, her own work casts a spangled effulgence, a sun-drenched radiance that is also brimming with the tenderness and the murky pith of the chthonic. Hearing her read, you want to be Greek and sing - lilt, jangle, stream. The mystery of the body wash over you, drown you in the deeps of the body. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 17:19:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Naropa Readings In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, Safdie Joseph wrote: > I know there's been some pretty heady competition for this award on the > list in the past, but I hereby nominate Patrick Pritchett as electronic > poetry reviewer par excellence! > ...Indeed, a Steve Carll for our time! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 17:23:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: f.y.i. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" * Remembering Diana: Abdel Rahaman opened a delicatessen named the Diana-Dodi Corp. in New York City in March (without the approval of either family). The makers of Flora margarine did get approval of the family for special tubs of Thanks / Diana margarine, which went on sale in Britain in March. Also in March, British publisher Anchor Books released an anthology, Poems for a Princess, all by people generously described as "amateur poets," selling for about $30 in paperback. (The Observer newspaper's review called it "possibly the worst book of poetry ever published.) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 15:45:53 MST7MDT Reply-To: calexand@library.utah.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Organization: U of U Marriott Library Subject: Re: FCC Shutdown of Radio Microbroadcaster [need for mor In-Reply-To: <199806190337.XAA23909@bserv.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Bob - okay, first of all, AGAIN, the issue isn't whether I think the feds should regulate radio - though in that arena my modest proposal is that $100, 000 + in initial licensing fees makes it pretty clear who's being protected here, and it ain't us. second of all - I have no idea what yre talking about and suspect (hope, wish) there's a bit of the old tongue-in-cheek going on when you suggest that the real threat posed by pirate radio is - what? electronic mind control? I wonder (but not too much) what it is you think we get from the mainstream stations, then? Incidentally, radio in your (highly questionable) examples, the USSR and Nazi Germany, was state-controlled; other voices would have been quelled as much as possible. and third - I'm amenable to toddbaron's gentle hint - arguing with you about federal regulation of broadcast media doesn't have much to do with poetry/poetics; the less polite version is, why make this a drag for everyone and not just me? I'll leave it, Gancie-style, with two quotations; our faithful listeners out there can decide whether there's any feedback between the words "commercial" and "public" : "But as pirate radio has grown both in popularity and boldness, commercial broadcasters have complained that the new signals threaten to interfere with their signals and confuse their listeners. In response, the FCC has stepped up its enforcement methods. " St.Petersburg Times, Nov 28, 1997 (and thanks for sending that, William) "Welcome to the FCC. The mission of this independent government agency is to encourage competition in all communications markets and to protect the public interest." Federal Communications Commission www site over and out, chris .. Christopher W. Alexander etc. / nominative press collective email: calexand@library.utah.edu / nonce@iname.com snail-mail: P.O. Box 522402 / Salt Lake City UT 84152-2402 press/zine site: http://choengmon.lib.utah.edu/~calexand/nonce/ **site temporarily unavailable** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 14:54:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: f.y.i. In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The association of margarine with sex pre-dates "Last Tango in Paris" (ok, that was butter) by quite a few years. Is Land O' Lakes Butter (also margarine) aware that by folding and cutting their Indian Maiden logo has been made bare-breasted by at least three generations of little boys? Given these associations it seems strange to commemorate the late princess with what will surely in the vernacular be called "Diana Spread." Sounds like a tabloid. Can she never be free? At 05:23 PM 6/19/98 -0400, you wrote: >* Remembering Diana: Abdel Rahaman opened a delicatessen >named the Diana-Dodi Corp. in New York City in March (without >the approval of either family). The makers of Flora margarine did >get approval of the family for special tubs of Thanks / Diana >margarine, which went on sale in Britain in March. Also in March, >British publisher Anchor Books released an anthology, Poems for a >Princess, all by people generously described as "amateur poets," >selling for about $30 in paperback. (The Observer newspaper's >review called it "possibly the worst book of poetry ever published.) > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 15:27:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Naropa Readings Comments: To: Mark Prejsnar MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Joe is too kind! In fact, I owe it all to Steve Carll (who's in Hawaii now). But Jordan Davis is my true secret hero (who's in New York now). [insert Latin motto here] ---------- From: Mark Prejsnar To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Naropa Readings Date: Friday, June 19, 1998 4:19PM On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, Safdie Joseph wrote: > I know there's been some pretty heady competition for this award on the > list in the past, but I hereby nominate Patrick Pritchett as electronic > poetry reviewer par excellence! > ...Indeed, a Steve Carll for our time! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 19:28:33 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: fcc MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As a person who has been run out of town by an individual using his micro-station and replaced through a witness protection program perhaps I should respond to this. Not to say my personal vendetta as an illigitimate user hasn't caused infiltration of other frequencies and mediums to gain influence over larger audiences. But as a messiah, political fruitloop, white sheet over head, racist, fascist, cultist, millenialist, wacco(sic), nut will want one, private little war kind of guy this is what I am expected to do. The voices in my head never tell me to mow the lawn but rather to ruin through my new micro station. I have sacked three businesses so far with my food alert broadcasts or, in positive terms, saved many people from being poisoned. Have a problem with that? At 65 watts it squashes restaurants dead though my friend John M. Bennett can't hear it in the North end of Columbus. Be well David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 10:18:13 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Best O the Best Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" >Anthony, this is all news to me, so I feel underinformed . . .can you fill >in the blanks? Simic and Tate expressed their opinions of an anthology >edited by Harold Bloom? Is that what you're saying? If correct, please say >where these opinions may be read. Could you backtrack over this terrain & >fill in some fractals? Thanks a lot. David David, I was referring to the new (1998) Best American Poetry anthology (Scribner Poetry - David Lehman, series editor) called "Best of the Best". Bloom was asked to edit a best-of from the 10 anthologies that make up the series, thus far. (He's chosen 75 poems from 750.) My comments were focussed on Bloom's intro to this Greatest Hits. I mentioned Simic and Tate because I like their selections - Simic in 1992 & Tate in 1997 - not because they've commented on Bloom's selection. Best, Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 17:35:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: BTP Readings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi all, For those in or visiting the area, they'll see you there (I'll be out of town).... Stephen BEYOND THE PAGE PRESENTS: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: What: Beyond the Page continues its series of monthly performance and arts events with BILL MARSH and KATY LEDERER reading from their works. Where: Faultline Theatre, 3152 5th Avenue (at Spruce in Hillcrest), San Diego. When: Sunday, June 28. 4:00 PM. Contact: Stephen Cope at (619) 298-8911 or Joe Ross at (619) 291-8984. E-mail at scope@ucsd.edu, or jjross@cts.com. * * * * * * * * * BILL MARSH teaches creative writing and literature at National University in San Diego, where he is also Assistant Director of the Center for the Study of New Media and Performance. He currently edits the PaperBrainPress chapbook series featuring new and emerging poets. His writings have appeared recently in *Tinfish*, *Chain*, and *Witz*, and his visual poem "transversez" is forthcoming from Runaway Spoon Press. KATY LEDERER is currently in the process of moving to San Francisco from Iowa, where she just completed a degree at the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. She is the editor of EXPLOSIVE MAGAZINE, and her poems and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in *The Chicago Review*, *SHARK*, *Gare du Nord*, *Superflux*, *The Harvard Review*, *Arshile*, *Kenning*, *The St Mark's Poetry Project Newsletter*, *Mike & Dale's Younger Poets*, *The Germ*, *the minnesota review*, *Proliferation*, and *Prosodia*. She has a chapbook entitled *Faith* just out from Idiom Press in San Francisco, and she is in the porcess of writing a book for Atelos Press, tentaively titled *Music, No Staves*. * * * * * * * * * BEYOND THE PAGE is proud to continue its monthly series of arts-related events with this reading. Beyond the Page is an independent arts group dedicated to the promotion of experimental and explorative work in contemporary arts. For more information, call: (619) 298-8911, (619) 291-8984; e-mail: scope@ucsd.edu, jjross@cts.com. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 04:45:58 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: reading in Los Angeles MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For those around: June 26th--7:30 pm Noah De Lissovoy Diane Ward @ Beyond Baroque 681 venice blvd venice, ca NdL: work has appeared recently in Apex of the M, Talisman, Ribot, ReMap, and others. Spark (Talisman) is forthcoming. Noah co-curated the Writing the Margins series at the Otis Art Institute last year. DW: Relation (roof), Imaginary Movie (Poets and Poets) and a slew of others. She co-edits Primary Writing. ------ For those interested: LA is a dry place (often) with pumped in water. Please come to this event if you're in town. ----- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 17:54:40 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: "Mathematical logic is so Utopian." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "In modern times, one of the earliest concerns with mechanism is related to attempts to develop a completely formal, content-free foundation for mathematics. The "Hilbert program" is one of the most ambitious attempts to build up mathematics by purely formal means, without regards to questions of what the formalism was about. In the work of Frege, as well as Russell and Whitehead, some of this enterprise was successful. On the other hand, a great intellectual achievement of the modern age has been the demonstration by purely formal means that the ULTIMATE GOAL OF COMPLETE FORMALIZATION is, in principle, not achievable. (The original work was done by Godel and susequently by Turing, Church, Post, and others; see the collection of papers at Davis, 1965.)---from Computation and Cognition by Zenon W. Pylyshyn---[Py]+[Ly]+[sHy]n--cp. What would a purely formal, content free foundation for poetics look like? Lang-po? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 22:31:12 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: saturday night reading Things were bopping tonight in Providence. I'm all out of breath running back to my "terminal" (get it?) to report on an excruciatingly evanescent and expressionotional (that's a kind of decaf) Reading that "happened" just moments (hours, I mean) ago down at Revlip's Bar in Fox Point. Here are a few exquisite lines from Ranwald Flepastische's fantastic (all 6 syllables) performance: summer basks in a tense Celan would have flipped sex is a kind of shrimp pasta if you shell out the pink underbelly remember it was when the envelope was short 3 stamps so let it percolate, I will still wear the forbidden clogs Jeez, Louise! Unfortunately I missed the debonair Jacques Eschchewvielle's take on spirituality in a cab since I took the wrong trolley waiting for that extended veggie-meatloaf... oy !! - Badass Henry the provincial Pug [ey, Jordo, goombah - how'm I doin? Say, how about them Mets? Lissen, you get me that reading an we'll talk. They gotta know by now, right? best offer they gonna get, capische? what do I have t'do here? Vincento made the point, right? I mean how much we gotta convince these - where they comin from anyways, Buffalo or what??] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 17:57:12 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Schultz Subject: Re: trippingly In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear all-- If anyone wishes to contact me between next Tuesday, June 23 and Thursday, July 30, I'll be at hitinfish@aol.com and not "here." (I'll be on my mainland moneyhoon with Bryant, who blushes to be immortalized by Bill Luoma in Bill's wonderful new book.) I'll be giving two readings while "there": one at the Zinc Bar in NYC on June 28 at 6:30, with Douglas Rothschild and another at Canessa Park in San Francisco on Sunday July 26. Would be delighted to meet list folk in those two cities, and to catch up with DC folks between July 3 and 8. Will also be in St. Louis July 9-11 to catch my Cards (McGwire, yes, but also Lankford and Jordan and DeShields and, above all, Willie McGee) and in other places too. I'm tired already. In the meantime, folks, have a wonderful list. Susan in Hawai`i ______________________________________________ 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: Fri, 19 Jun 1998 22:48:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: MacEwen and bissett MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Someone, who was it?, wrote here recently that the avant garde means nothing to anybody and that, these days, it is merely 'academia lite.' To equate the avant garde with an unlearned academy seems to me to assume that the edge of experimental, powerful writing is occuring solely in the academy. It also assumes that writing outside of the academy isn't as acute as within. Both assumptions are diseased. > The original reason I posted this quote was because Morpheal criticized Gwen MacEwen for "unoriginality of philosophy", You love to hate Morpheal. Get your facts straight. He said nothing such. Learn to read him correctly. He challenges you, you can't slot him accurately, and so you end up making erroneous attributions. Douglas Barbour listed MacEwen's books and posted one of her poems, noting that the poem: > kinda shows her strengths & weaknesses both. Yes, but that poem shows more of her weaknesses than her strengths, surely. I read such stuff and passed over it. Quote any poet's less than interesting poems and you'll portray them poorly. Would you be so kind to post one of her best. I don't have her books here in Seattle, but how about the one from The Fire Eaters that ends with the two lines I quoted. Or a better one, if you know her work well Douglas, as you probably do. I remember reading Phyllis Webb's ambivalent elegy in the Malahat Review or something such and being disappointed in Phyllis who must know that the poems that are less than brilliant are many. Is it relevant that Phyllis is gay whereas MacEwen espoused a mystical het that Phyllis must find very annoying and undoubtedly muddled and deluded? But MacEwen's mystical het was not the focus of her best poetry. It saddens me that bill bissett is treated with even more disdain than Phyllis Webb summoned for Gwendolyn MacEwen. Stephen Scobie has been using the same line about bill bissett for years: "He's doing the same old thing." Probably Stephen has not read a line of bissett's in twenty years. I love bissett's work, read every book he writes, and find that his books are extrordinary and getting better and better, an amazing writer. But bissett, like MacEwen--as Morpheal pointed out--is in the Canadian 'peoples' poet' category, like Al Purdy (sage by now), and so is disdained unjustly by the academics who just don't get it in the same way that Ginsberg and the Beats were disdained down here. This is not to equate bissett's and MacEwen's work with the Beats, but the phenomenon is similar, the lines of conflict. It seems rather a pointless conflict in Canada; bissett and MacEwen is/was widely receptive to all good things, to all projects of energy. bill's work is phenomenal, and so is he himself. He should be recognized, as bp Nichol recognized him, as "Canada's best political poet" (bp said that in my Honda) and as a really progressive force in the avant garde. He is more akin to Ashbery than Ginsberg in the way his poems turn on a dime from one mode of writing to another. -- V I S P O ~ L A N G U ( I M ) A G E http://www.islandnet.com/~jandrews/mocambo/jimvispo.htm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 01:28:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: trbell Subject: Re: Money /art/poetry makes nothing [that is not there and the nothing that is] happy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" When I read Russian poetry (35 years ago) I remember being most struck by the poet's status in society compared to English-speaking societies - somewhat similiar to the differing status at that time of a soccer hero in Europe vs. America. At 08:27 AM 6/18/98 +0800, you wrote: >As someone about to begin a year of intensive Russian study, I am following >Henry & Jordan's slanging match on the Rooshians with great interest. I am >hoping that Henry is right and there is lots there, though I'll be satisfied >with Pushkin and Mayakovsky if there is nothing much else. > >Jordan I think is right that Requiem and its ilk gain much from the penumbra >of story around them, and also that certain Soviet writers gain cachet among >those who don't read poetry anyway because they wrote "against" the Soviet >state. That doesn't make them not good, it just means you have to >distinguish between their supporters and them. > >In Brodsky's essay on Mandelstam (which I copyedited when it was the >introduction to Bernard Meares rhyming translations of Mandelstam, published >by Persea, thousands of years ago) Brodsky makes it clear that what happened >to Mandelstam would have happened to him in any society (look at Hart Crane, >though B doesn't make that comparison). "When he ran out of space, he hit >time." is the operative line. > >Anyway them Rooshians did a good job of art as religon, we godless >capitalists always like that. > > The other thing that really hit me at that time - young and naive as I was - was the impact their style had on me coming as I did to them from a rather stuffy and strait-laced midwest schooling. Now that I think about it, it still does impact my work. Charles and Mark - I also know a lot of struggling artists. I can remember when the first starving artist sales were really that rather than what they have become. I have not come across and "starving poets" sales - it might work? tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 07:03:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: More on Art & $$ Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii One of the local weekly papers here has a thoughtful (for a local weekly) 5,000 word piece in the current edition on the history of the Pew Fellowships and their impact both on the individuals and the arts community of Philadelphia. http://www.citypaper.net/articles/061898/cover.shtml Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 12:22:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r. drake" Subject: Re: Postmodern Piracy Festival /Call for Participants (fwd) In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19980619150045.00e7e8b0@pop.acsu.buffalo.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" in another development in the appropriation/fabrication of identity threadz, poet Patricia Smith (multiple winner of the Nation Poetry Slam, and recent Pulitzer finalist) has resigned from the Boston Globe after it was discoverd that she'd created some of her sources... http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/170/Admitting_fabrications__Globe_col um.htm && only to observe, how intrinsicly all these instances seem (to me) to be relevent to th recent thread on $$ and poetry... luigi ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 12:50:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: Postmodern Piracy Festival /Call for Participants (fwd) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" First of all, Patricia Smith's actions had NOTHING whatsoever to do with $$ Luigi... Secondly, unless you have more information that that which you receive from your television blurb on the late news, SHUT THE HELL UP. Thirdly, the articles for which she received her nominations for the numerous awards (including the Pulitzer) were not ones in which there were fabrications. Brent At 12:22 PM 6/20/98 -0400, you wrote: >in another development in the appropriation/fabrication of identity >threadz, poet Patricia Smith (multiple winner of the Nation Poetry Slam, >and recent Pulitzer finalist) has resigned from the Boston Globe after >it was discoverd that she'd created some of her sources... > >http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/170/Admitting_fabrications__Glob e_col >um.htm > >&& only to observe, how intrinsicly all these instances seem (to me) to >be relevent to th recent thread on $$ and poetry... > >luigi > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 11:37:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: Postmodern Piracy Festival /Call for Participants (fwd) In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980620125052.007bec20@postoffice.brown.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 12:50 PM 6/20/98 -0400, you wrote: >First of all, Patricia Smith's actions had NOTHING whatsoever to do with >$$ Luigi... Secondly, unless you have more information that that which you >receive from your television blurb on the late news, SHUT THE HELL UP. I'm not Luigi, and my information is mostly from a story on national public radio, somewhat more (but admittedly not a lot more) than a television blurb, with various comments from Smith's colleagues included in the radio story, too. Seems that she invented sources and put words in their mouth, to make some points. Particularly noted in the story I heard was a source invented, and saying, about the mother of children who recently were found after a multi-year kidnapping and life with their father, that, if they had been this (imaginary) source's children, she would have turned heaven over in order to find them. So, perhaps invented to help sway public opinion against a mother perceived by Smith as not appropriately mothering? Hard to say, when learned out of context. Still, seems like reprehensible behavior by a columnist and definitely grounds for losing such a job, whether or not it had anything to do with Pulitzer-winning articles. But it's also true that the explanations from the paper about betrayal of the ethics of journalism don't ring so clean in a time when it seems like journalistic ethics aren't, and probably never were, what some pundits would hold them up to be. In a commercial newspaper, though, it's hard for me to imagine that these matters have "NOTHING whatsoever" to do with money. I don't think Luigi's comments were necessarily that Smith's actions had anything to do with her own specific relations to money. As to what Luigi's sources were, he said nothing about late news on television, so your censure of his comments seem both ill-advised and mean-spirited. charles >Thirdly, the articles for which she received her nominations for the >numerous awards (including the Pulitzer) were not ones in which there were >fabrications. chax press : alexander writing/design/publishing chax@theriver.com http://alexwritdespub.com/chax ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Jun 1998 13:05:13 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Naropa Readings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Listlings-- I've missed you. Off I've been for a long time and oops! didn't turn the darn thing off so now a thousand to delete or read. I can't choose. So many interesting dxs. Two quick works. 1) about stammering stuttering--look for Laura Mullen's brilliant _Tales of the Horror_ from Kelsey Street in Fall, a manuscript length tale written in the language of stammer and; 2) Here Here for Patrick Pritchett and his reports. He makes life that much sweeter here in Naropa land. tidings, Rachel D. Levitsky P.S. It's been a trip having Rachel B. (DuPlessis) here this week, we both keep turning every time the word "Rachel" is stuttered. Mark Prejsnar wrote: > > On Fri, 19 Jun 1998, Safdie Joseph wrote: > > > I know there's been some pretty heady competition for this award on the > > list in the past, but I hereby nominate Patrick Pritchett as electronic > > poetry reviewer par excellence! > > > > ...Indeed, a Steve Carll for our time! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 14:57:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: MacEwen and bissett > > The original reason I posted this quote was because Morpheal criticized Gwen MacEwen for "unoriginality of philosophy", > You love to hate Morpheal. Get your facts straight. He said nothing such. Lear> n to read him correctly. He challenges you, you can't slot him accurately, and> so you end up making erroneous attributions. I've sent out a total of three e-mails to the list since I've been on it, so I don't think that's much of a pattern. I happen to disagree with Morpheal on this point (if I do understand his point, although, as you note, one way to avoid being contradicted is to tell your opponent that they can't understand you.) Here's what I was responding to: > MacEwen was a follower of those same fashions. She was not original. Her > poetry was often talented and original, but her philosoph and style of life > and thought were far from original. The attention paid to a poet's "philosoph" or "lifestyle" is an inherently trivializing, assuming you're understanding the person in her capacity as a poet. When people do forget this, you get inane things like that New Yorker profile of Jorie Graham a while back, or the innumerable "amateur poets" who crowd the cafe's with not much more than an interesting face or titilating background. Perhaps I took the thread in a slightly different direction than it appeared to be going; that simply seemed to me to be par for the course. -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 13:26:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Postmodern Piracy Festival /Call for Participants (fwd) In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980620125052.007bec20@postoffice.brown.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I didn't follow this controversy, didn't see the news report. For what it's worth, here's La Smith's rather bathetic apologia courtesy of the Boston Globe, followed by a few comments of mine. A note of apology By Patricia Smith, Globe Staff, 06/19/98 My father used to read me newspaper stories at bedtime. Yeah, I thought it was weird, too. But I was so enamored of him, so much the dictionary definition of a daddy's girl, that I obediently snuggled up 'neath the covers while he cracked open the city section of the Chicago Daily News and enthusiastically related tales of robbery, murder, natural disasters, and political malfeasance. The terse blocked type below the headlines became living, breathing stories. ''Where do you think this woman was going when she got robbed?'' my father would ask. ''What was in her bag? Who was waiting at home for her? Do you think the robber feels guilty now?'' and the stories would stretch infinitely in either direction, without clear beginnings or endings. My daddy gave the newspaper a pulse. He taught me to love its changing canvas, its omnipotent eye, its infinite throat. And since one long-ago tabloid featured his obituary, it is much too late to apologize to him for compromising that love. But it's not too late to apologize to you. From time to time in my metro column, to create the desired impact or slam home a salient point, I attributed quotes to people who didn't exist. I could give them names, even occupations, but I couldn't give them what they needed most - a heartbeat. As anyone who's ever touched a newspaper knows, that's one of the cardinal sins of journalism: Thou shall not fabricate. No exceptions. No excuses. And yet there are always excuses. Usually they point to the cursed fallibility of human beings, our tendency to spit in the face of common sense, zigging when the world says zag. Sometimes excuses reveal real or imagined inadequacies, or the belief that the world, if it is to be conquered, must be conquered singlehandedly. I've already heard from dozens of people in search of an official sound-bite, a hook upon which to hang the newly fallen wordsmith. The reason. It may ring hollow - after the fact, excuses always do - but I always believed that I needed to do it all. Instead of popping out of J-school in a nice, neat, byline-ready package, I was fueled by a heady mixture of naivete, ambition, and an almost insane love for the powers of language. To make up for the fact that I didn't get that ''correct'' start in journalism, I set out to be 10 times as good by doing 10 times as much. Write columns. Author books. Write and perform poetry. Make films. Pen and star in plays. Gig at Scullers with a jazz band. And as accolades poured in, I strained to accomplish more. But I didn't establish priorities, and the first casualty was time. In Boston, my face was my column. I wanted the pieces to jolt, to be talked about, to leave the reader indelibly impressed. And sometimes, as a result of trying to do too much at once and cutting corners, they didn't. So I tweaked them to make sure they did. It didn't happen often, but it did happen. And if it had only happened once, that was one time too many. I will survive this knowing that the heart of my columns was honest and heartfelt. None of the pieces considered for the American Society of Newspaper Editors award or this year's Pulitzer Prize were doctored in any way. I will write as long as I breathe, despite the dire predictions that this indiscretion spells the end of my career. In the course of living this flawed life, I've stepped into the lives of remarkable people. They will always live in me. But none of that changes what happened. So to the welders, the B-boys, the preachers, and the surgeons, to the grocery clerks and bartenders and single mothers, to the politicians, PR flacks, spokespersons and secretaries, to my dear husband and family and friends, I am sorry for betraying your trust. To the editors who supported and encouraged me, as well as those who jumped ship when the mighty USS Smith began to take on water, thanks for the lessons. To those colleagues and readers who salivated daily at the thought of my head on a platter, congrats. And to the hundreds of real people who honored me with their time and stories, you are my salvation and I will hold you tight during this trial. To every single reader, young and old, black and white, who opened their papers on Monday and Friday and trusted me to be truth, know this: You were the truth all along. Finally, I'd like to apologize to the memory of my father, Otis Douglas Smith. He burns in my soul through this, and beyond this. And that's his real name. You can check it. I recently finished editing the posthumous papers of an important cultural anthropologist. She left her field notes and the nearly ready for publication (and explicitly so intended) narratives based on those notes. I discovered that she had been in the habit of changing the testimony of her informants to make them express what she took to be a normative version of their culture. This, of course, perpetuates the lie that there is a normative version, but it also would ask us as readers to assume, had she told us her practice, and as she apparently did, that the anthropologist knows their culture so well that she can school her informants' words to reveal that culture to us. She can say for them what her informants should have said. It happens in this case that the anthropologist had only a superficial and sentimental knowledge of the culture in question, but that's almost beside the point. Transparency is, of course, finally impossible. Whatever is seen has been selected from a far larger pool of data. But there are degrees of opacity. At the very least the evidence that has been gathered and the circumstance of its gathering can be left intact, so that others can challenge whatever spin is given. What's recorded tends to become canonical. Her informants' stories once published her informants are likely to tailor future tellings to the official version. And a culture, including the one we inhabit, and our sense of it, is built of such tellings. That's why it's important to use humility as a tool for getting it right. It's why deconstruction, in tactful hands, can be so useful. At 12:50 PM 6/20/98 -0400, you wrote: >First of all, Patricia Smith's actions had NOTHING whatsoever to do with >$$ Luigi... Secondly, unless you have more information that that which you >receive from your television blurb on the late news, SHUT THE HELL UP. > >Thirdly, the articles for which she received her nominations for the >numerous awards (including the Pulitzer) were not ones in which there were >fabrications. > > >Brent > > >At 12:22 PM 6/20/98 -0400, you wrote: >>in another development in the appropriation/fabrication of identity >>threadz, poet Patricia Smith (multiple winner of the Nation Poetry Slam, >>and recent Pulitzer finalist) has resigned from the Boston Globe after >>it was discoverd that she'd created some of her sources... >> >>http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/170/Admitting_fabrications__Glob >e_col >>um.htm >> >>&& only to observe, how intrinsicly all these instances seem (to me) to >>be relevent to th recent thread on $$ and poetry... >> >>luigi >> >> >Brent_Long@brown.edu > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 15:37:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: trbell Subject: Re: Postmodern Piracy Festival /Call for Participants (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Today seems to be littered with relevant coincidences. I came acroos a column by John Dvorak that touches on several recent threads (PC COMPUTING, July, 1998 "technology in the language of business". He is discussing web pages and I'll just post some quotes so those interested can follow up. "A good vanity page needs a lot of mediocre clip art..." This precedes poetry: "No good vanity page exists without a lot of poems that stink...If we all do our part we can clog up the Net and maybe even bring it down with this stuff." The whole seems to relate to business not being sympathetic to many rcent concerns here, but I don't need to go into it deeply. tom bell At 12:22 PM 6/20/98 -0400, you wrote: >in another development in the appropriation/fabrication of identity >threadz, poet Patricia Smith (multiple winner of the Nation Poetry Slam, >and recent Pulitzer finalist) has resigned from the Boston Globe after >it was discoverd that she'd created some of her sources... > >http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/170/Admitting_fabrications__Glob e_col >um.htm > >&& only to observe, how intrinsicly all these instances seem (to me) to >be relevent to th recent thread on $$ and poetry... > >luigi > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 17:54:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Loss Pequen~o Glazier" Subject: New @ epc Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Some new developments at the EPC home page including links to a Creeley-Indiana collaboration and some new issues in the Witz archive. Also, just upgraded the EPC conferences page. More to come but some new resources for your online pleasure. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 18:05:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r. drake" Subject: Re: Postmodern Piracy Festival /Call for Participants (fwd) Comments: cc: Brent_Long@postoffice.brown.edu In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980620125052.007bec20@postoffice.brown.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" brent-- secondly--i not only included the url fr the boston globe article describing this incident, i also read it. and i encourage any interested to also read it for themselves; that's why i posted th info... so unless you bother to read information that i posted, shut th hell up yrself. firstly--i also read her apology: (http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/170/A_note_of_apology.htm) one of the (self-described) excuses she gives for her actions is "ambition" (paragraph 8). i've also spoken w/ patricia on numerous occasions, including taped interviews; she is a very talented and powerful writer, she is also extremely self-aware of her own ambitions... for renumeration as well as respect/acclaim... which is not a criticism in itself. but when those ambitions lead to profesional/artistic/ethical compromises or mis-representation, it's unfortunate at best. and at least one facet of the previous discussion here is, to what extent do power/money concerns influence or compromise artistic production? is such influence bad? unavoidable? excusable? and so, i'll reiterate that this incident seems to me to be relevent to that discussion. third--i didnt say they did. and last--why so het up? what's yr investment here? asever lbd >First of all, Patricia Smith's actions had NOTHING whatsoever to do with >$$ Luigi... Secondly, unless you have more information that that which you >receive from your television blurb on the late news, SHUT THE HELL UP. > >Thirdly, the articles for which she received her nominations for the >numerous awards (including the Pulitzer) were not ones in which there were >fabrications. > > >Brent > > >At 12:22 PM 6/20/98 -0400, you wrote: >>in another development in the appropriation/fabrication of identity >>threadz, poet Patricia Smith (multiple winner of the Nation Poetry Slam, >>and recent Pulitzer finalist) has resigned from the Boston Globe after >>it was discoverd that she'd created some of her sources... >> >>http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe/globehtml/170/Admitting_fabrications__Glob >e_col >>um.htm >> >>&& only to observe, how intrinsicly all these instances seem (to me) to >>be relevent to th recent thread on $$ and poetry... >> >>luigi >> >> >Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 18:09:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Loss Pequen~o Glazier" Subject: New @ epc Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I should have added: http://writing.upenn.edu/epc >Some new developments at the EPC home page including links to a >Creeley-Indiana collaboration and some new issues in the Witz archive. Also, >just upgraded the EPC conferences page. More to come but some new resources >for your online pleasure. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 21:10:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Radio Poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Dear Martin, non! Yr not a creank any more than the rest of this list -- we're all cranks! (cf Wally McCrae's classico, "Cowboy Curmudgeon.") You _are_ a funny guy -- to spout off about the impossibility of "fair" when it comes to new pirate radio being beat outr by FCC monster. I love the new micros, and have appeared in a number of 'em, spouting my own po and laying in other Mouth Almighty productions. It's a grand anarchic appropriation of tech; it's a neighborhood thing; I'm remembering John Giorno broadcasting from the St Mark's steeple c.1968. The survey of poetry radio shows that the Mouth Almighty interns have undertaken (http://www.mouthalmighty.com/radio.htm) has shown how many definitions there are for this wildebeest. Very few programs are 100% canned prerecorded with music. There's lots of personally archived readings, live guest poets in studio or on radio, and some, like Jeannie Hopper's Liquid Sound Lounge on WBAI, mix live on air beds with either live poems or taped a capella readings... as for your gripes about USOP, you go, boyfriend! Lou Reed loved his setting by tomandandy enough to work with them on his last album, I'll take Cohen's "Democracy" on USOP anyday over the song version, blahdedah. The soundtrack got good notices, is our best-seller (but not for long -- both "Closed on Account of Rabies: Stories and Tales of Edgar Allan Poe" and the Burroughs box are doing very well). But, what do people know? They don't know po, is my estimation. Can you do your homework while a poem is playing? Dance to poetry? Is a book a commodity? More than a CD? On another tip: Patricia Smith, the best slam poet of all time, is getting roughed up over her use of fictitious characters and quotes in her Boston Globe column. The articles that quote her "lies" make it clear: as a journalist, she is a great poet. Her writing sparkles! Bob Holman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 10:20:12 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nada Gordon Subject: i see london i see france Comments: To: POETICS@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm going to be hopscotching continents this summer -- any groovy events happening? london (actually hastings most of the time) July 4-July 18 July 31/Aug 1 paris july 18 - july 30 san francisco august 10- 26 (hint hint/ i'd love to do a reading) nada (does anyone know if stephen rodefer is still in england and if so how to reach him?) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 23:19:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: descending murderous net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Morpheal was not arguing the moral stature of such realities, only pointing out >their existence once a state of war has descended. Essentially correct. Likewise, I am actually in favour of responsible, alternative, micro-radio stations, (who follow the major guidelines and regulations that other stations must follow, and who rigidly remain on an assigned frequency at an assigned power level) within the cultural sector. As much so as I am in favour of such magnificent efforts as "Telepoetics" (using video networking, to produce video live conferencing, over the Internet). That is a different kind of project, but it is "television broadcasting" and it is a responsible and effective way of bringing live readings to a larger audience. The problem is that micro-stations do need to be licensed, limited, controlled, to a certain amount, and ought only to be allowed for acceptable purposes. In my opinion pirate stations ruin it for everyone else. Now, in that light, maybe the right way to go about it is to lobby the government to come up with a somewhat more affordable and accessible licensing system for micro stations. In the USA, congress, senate, and obtain some new legislation to accodate new technologies. Pirate stations are not a lobby movement..... there is a huge difference. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 07:57:57 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: descending murderous net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit eeeeeee gaaaads ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 08:42:55 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: wallace stevens and the life MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm wondering if anyone has a rec. regarding a biography of W. Stevens--not a critical work on the poetics--but a true biography.. Any help appreciated. Todd Baron -- ReMap -- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 20:12:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dan or Orion Subject: new from 26 BOOKS Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hadn't thought to announce to the list recent publications from 26 BOOKS-- this is a project to publish "a new alphabet of contemporary poetries arising in the Pacific Northwest"--26 books for by 26 people of 26 pages each. the 18th element is from the TEXTS of Anabasis, by anabasis/Thomas Lowe Taylor. poems from 20 years ago showing the authors links to objectivist poets, Olson and Language poetries. these works evolve around cocnerns of family and place. the 19th element is Blindsided by Chris Semansky intense poems about life and its relationships, from the interpersonal to the social identity. "When I first heard the term "language poetry" I thought it would be something like Mr. Semansky's work: language used so carefully as to make the tool itself part and parcel of the poetry" (Willie Smith) The books are $4@, plus $1 p&h/order. To order these, or get more information on the series: dan raphael 6735 se 78th portland or 97205 or e-mail me ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 00:57:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark W Scroggins Subject: Re: wallace stevens and the life Comments: To: toddbaron In-Reply-To: <358CC790.8A4@earthlink.net> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Joan Richardson's is a "true" biography, but I don't know if I'd recommend those two enormous, tediously written volumes to anyone. James Longenbach's _WS: The Plain Sense of Things_ (Oxford UP 1991) is mostly about Stevens's politics in relation to his poetry, but has lots of good biographical information. Milton J. Bates's _WS: A Mythology of Self_ (U California P 1985) puts the poetry in a biographical context in smart ways. The msot enjoyable read is by far Peter Brazeau's _Parts of a World: WS Remembered_, an "oral" biography composed of recollections of those who knew Stevens. There's lots else out there, as you'll hear in the next few days. Mark Scroggins On Sun, 21 Jun 1998, toddbaron wrote: > I'm wondering if anyone has a rec. regarding a biography of W. > Stevens--not a critical work on the poetics--but a true biography.. > > Any help appreciated. > > Todd Baron > -- > ReMap > > -- > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 20:56:57 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: "Poetically man dwells;" the hell, you say MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Leibniz, though far ahead of his time, first caught sight of the universal, self-enclosed idea of the highest form of algebraic thinking, a mathesis universalis, as he called it, and recogniized it as a task for the future. Only in our time has it even come close to systematic development. In its full and complete sense it is nothing other than a formal logic carried out universally (or rather to be carried out in infinitum in its own essential totality), a science of the forms of meaning of the "something-in-general" which can be constructed in pure thought and in empty, formal generality. On this basis it is a science of the "manifolds" which, according to formal elementary laws of the non-contradictions of these constructions, can be built up systematically as in themselves free of contradiction."---from The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomonology by Edmund Husserl --- "The given sensations as such constitute a manifold; as objects in space they are already ordred."---from A Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason by Norman Kemp Smith --- "The entire realm in which this "conforming to something" goes on must already occur as a whole in the unconcealed; and this holds equally of that for which the conformity of a propostion to fact becomes manifest." from The Origin of the Work of Art in Poetry, Language, Thought by Martin Heidegger---cp ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 09:04:25 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: wallace stevens and the life MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit thank-you. the "oral" sounds likely. Tb ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1998 16:00:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: saturday night reading Comments: To: Henry Gould MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Three cheers for evanescence! (one -uh, two -uh, three - where was I now?) Oh yes, three stamps short. ---------- From: Henry Gould To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: saturday night reading Date: Friday, June 19, 1998 9:31PM Things were bopping tonight in Providence. I'm all out of breath running back to my "terminal" (get it?) to report on an excruciatingly evanescent and expressionotional (that's a kind of decaf) Reading that "happened" just moments (hours, I mean) ago down at Revlip's Bar in Fox Point. Here are a few exquisite lines from Ranwald Flepastische's fantastic (all 6 syllables) performance: summer basks in a tense Celan would have flipped sex is a kind of shrimp pasta if you shell out the pink underbelly remember it was when the envelope was short 3 stamps so let it percolate, I will still wear the forbidden clogs Jeez, Louise! Unfortunately I missed the debonair Jacques Eschchewvielle's take on spirituality in a cab since I took the wrong trolley waiting for that extended veggie-meatloaf... oy !! - Badass Henry the provincial Pug [ey, Jordo, goombah - how'm I doin? Say, how about them Mets? Lissen, you get me that reading an we'll talk. They gotta know by now, right? best offer they gonna get, capische? what do I have t'do here? Vincento made the point, right? I mean how much we gotta convince these - where they comin from anyways, Buffalo or what??] ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 16:51:59 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Re: wallace stevens and the life Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" >Peter Brazeau's _Parts of a World: WS Remembered_, an "oral" >biography composed of recollections of those who knew Stevens. I found this one to be long-winded and riddled with superfluous detail, though it's worth reading for the description of Stevens in Keywest(?), starting a fistfight with Hemingway: hilarious! Best, Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 22:39:09 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: wallace stevens and the life MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit thank-you! Tb ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 19:28:42 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: the frame problem or busting outta Goedel's Second Theorem MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Since the frame problem, whatever it is, is certainly not solved yet (and may be in its current guises, insoluble) the ideological foes of AI such as Hubert Dreyfus and John Searle are tempted to compose obituaries for the field, citing the frame problem as the cause of death. In What Computers Can't Do (Dreyfus 1972), Dreyfus sought to show that AI was a fundamentally mistaken method for studying the mind, and in fact many of his impressionistic complaints about AI models and many of his declared insights into their intrinsic limitations can be seen to hover quite systematically in the neighborhood of the frame problem...."---from Cognitive Wheels by Daniel Dennett---cp ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 21:08:46 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: the frame problem? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit What is the frame problem? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 21 Jun 1998 23:30:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: FCC etc. (longish post) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It was discouraging to hear this news, as I've thrown around the idea of putting together a small station here (San Diego) that would likley have run initially somewhat 'underground' (the way in which many now legitimate public stations started, in fact). And although radio on the whole has been relatively unresponsive to poetry, it remains an excellent venue for poetic activity. Martin Spinelli's LINEbreak, which I aired weekly on a public station in Santa Cruz up until the time of my move, received much in the way of listenership and praise, a good deal of which came from folks who had never heard of, say, Cecilia Vicunia, or, for that matter, Charles Bernstein (the host), and were thus turned onto something for which 'promotion', so to speak, is not at all easy to come by. And of course there's numerous other programs one could mention as central to their respective communities (Susan Howe's comes to mind). So I would argue that a discussion of radio is certainly not without relevance to the concerns on this list. (I certainly don't know of any poetry program advanced by a private/commercial interest). The FCC, of course, in choosing to dismantle airwave piracy (something they actually haven't been able to do for a few years now, precisely because of Radio Free Berkeley's earlier victories in court), is fulfilling a function precisely the opposite of that which it should be fulfilling - the latter of which is not to privatize, but to insure public access to airspace. This is no surprise, of course, particularly given that after an earlier RFB victory, the FCC threatened to stop issuing new liscenses to public radio stations, which would have effectively forced many such stations - particularly those affiliated with colleges, etc., where programmer turn-over is high - to operate illegally themselves (I think ultimately the threat was idle, but I got out of the business before all that came down). I can assure anyone who isn't already aware of it that the FCC is a brutal entity with a very skewed sense of community needs, and very little tolerance for anyone wishing to overstep the bounds of their absurdly outdated defintion of 'decency' (the fines for the overstepping of which are themselves absurdly inflated). There was a time (perhaps now passed?) when frequencies below 92FM were reserved specifically for non-profit, public radio - something which, ironically, is irrelevant in San Diego precisely due to a lack of FCC involvement (i.e. many commercial stations operate their transmitters over the border, and send their 10,000 Watt signals back out this way on frequencies purportedly reserved for public radio). This of course means that the alternative radio here is precisely that kind of "alternative" which is no longer an alternative at all. (It also means that I dearly miss the Bay Area). No po on the radio here, only rock-stars, shock jocks, and numerous favorable interviews with Mr. David Duke (all FCC approved). Sorry for the long post, Stephen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 01:23:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Tish spies In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > The brazenness of the operation >is revealed when one learns that 'TISH' is the acronymn from"Technical >Information Shipping Harbor". > >David Bromige, Snitch Extraordinaire Bromige is just starting rumours and, okay, telling the truth because we used to send him invitations to Submit poems to TISH, and then we would send them back with an insulting rejection letter. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 09:57:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: FCC etc. [alternatives for video-audio, an example] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >It was discouraging to hear this news, as I've thrown around the idea of >putting together a small station here (San Diego) that would likley have >run initially somewhat 'underground' (the way in which many now legitimate >public stations started, in fact). ................... >No po on the radio here,.... Here is something that you might want to look at. The Telepoetics concept is to use currently available video and audio technologies to present poetry, essentially "live", but it could be pre-recorded as easily. They "broadcast" both the visual and the auditory content, in a manner that is not quite as costly as a pirate radio station can become. Their web site is: http://www.tezcat.com/~malachit/home.shtml Their use of alternative technology for video conferencing, with potential for multi location group viewings of performances, is exemplary. Plus, they are teaching people the technology through an internship prorgram. M. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:37:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "p.c. jaeger" Subject: Derksen & Mac Cormack reading In-Reply-To: <199806190410.AAA21835@romeo.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Jeff Derksen and Karen Mac Cormack will read at the Red Head Gallery in Toronto on July 2 at 8 pm. Red Head Gallery 96 Spadina, 8th floor Toronto, On ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 08:50:02 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: MacEwen & bissett Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Jim Andrewa I'm not sure that 'academics' are against either MacEwen or bissett; I mean both are more likely to be anthologized in Canada than bp even. but to your points: I actually like the poem i quoted, although I liked it more when I first read it long ago on a postcard. Which of her many fine poems should I show? I've always enjoyed "Manzini: Escape Artist" -- will that do? _now there are no bonds except the flesh_; listen- there was this boy, Manzini, stubborn with gut stood with black tights and a turquoise leaf across his sex and smirking while the big brute tied his neck arms legs, Manzini naked waist up and white with sweat struggled. Silent, delinquent, he was suddenly all teeth and knee, straining slack and excellent with sweat, inwardly wondering if Houdini would take as long as he; fighting time and the drenched muscular ropes, as though his tendons were worn on the outside- as though his own guts were the ropes encircling him; it was beautiful; it was thursday; listen-- there was this boy, Manzini finally free, slid as snake from his own sweet agonized skin, to throw his entrails white upon the floor with a cry of victory-- _now there are no bonds except the flesh_, but listen, it was thursday, there was this boy, Manzini-- & as George said, she would recite these poems by heart, one of the finest voices in Canadian poetry at the time (the other two, for me, being Webb & Daphne Marlatt). then as performer, bill bissett, still a great chanter... ============================================================================= Douglas Barbour Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta T6G 2E5 (403) 492 2181 FAX:(403) 492 8142 H: 436 3320 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Reserved books. Reserved land. Reserved flight. And still property is theft. Phyllis Webb ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 10:51:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: Money /art/poetry makes nothing [that is not there and the nothing that is] happy In-Reply-To: <1.5.4.32.19980620062829.006a34cc@pop.usit.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 20 Jun 1998, trbell wrote: > > Charles and Mark - I also know a lot of struggling artists. I can remember > when the first starving artist sales were really that rather than what they > have become. I have not come across and "starving poets" sales - it might > work? > > tom bell > Ah! this gets us back to crux of my ramblings....For, what would we sell? (a number of individuals have been mentioned on the List, over the years, who sell/sold their work on the street; the price structure is on the order of a dollar or two per poem, in most instances, i believe....that says volumes about the economix of poetry) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:02:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: the frame problem? In-Reply-To: <358DD8CD.EB13CE1C@speakeasy.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sun, 21 Jun 1998, Jim Andrews wrote: > What is the frame problem? > I believe that's the question (recently raised in the atlanta poets' group), Why are poets so hot recently on using the word "frame" in book titles?? (e.g., Barrett Watten, Susan Howe) mark ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:14:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: framing frenzy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'm not sure what the problem might be, but I know Lee Ann Brown has quoted Bruce Andrews as saying of some kind of art that it exhibited "framing frenzy." The criticism is, I guess, that calling attention to something in a work of art is tantamount to self-praise and self-destruction, and that unmediated chaos punctuated with snide ripostes to the void is the way to go. I know this tendency has been called gleefully anarchic and righteous self-laceration, but it could also be called dimly barbaric and self-righteous mutilation of thought (eikonoklastes being the tip to the atlanta group, that and Brecht). I say this, of course, to praise Bruce's work, especially the more annihilating Adornoescas in _I Don't Have Any Paper_ -- when o when will it be a Classic? Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:31:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Alan J.J.N. Sondheim" Subject: Re: framing frenzy In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The frame problem in AI is that of determining the relevant constituents in an environment, the things and interrelationships of a world - and doing this with a minimum of computation. What goes on, goes on somewhere and the frame problem relates to the somewhere. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 11:38:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: framing frenzy In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >The frame problem in AI is that of determining the relevant constituents >in an environment, the things and interrelationships of a world - and >doing this with a minimum of computation. What goes on, goes on somewhere >and the frame problem relates to the somewhere. > >Alan In other words, you want a machine to be able to move across a room: do you have to worry about whether it knows if the floor is wood or carpet or linoleum? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! Math, University of Kansas | memory fails Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." 785-864-4630 | fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note new area code ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 12:42:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Alan J.J.N. Sondheim" Subject: Re: framing frenzy In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Or what constitutes a door or gravity or a window or a goal, or what that thing is near the doorway, or where the machine's going, etc. You go into a restaurant and order some food; you haven't been there before? How do you know it's a restaurant? How do you know what to do? At one point in the early 70s I visited the MIT AI lab a number of times; the frame problem was the _big_ problem. Here's something that looks like a dog, but it only has three legs - is it a three-legged dog or a tripod with a fur coat on it? Alan On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, Judy Roitman wrote: > >The frame problem in AI is that of determining the relevant constituents > >in an environment, the things and interrelationships of a world - and > >doing this with a minimum of computation. What goes on, goes on somewhere > >and the frame problem relates to the somewhere. > > > >Alan > > In other words, you want a machine to be able to move across a room: do you > have to worry about whether it knows if the floor is wood or carpet or > linoleum? > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! > Math, University of Kansas | memory fails > Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." > 785-864-4630 | > fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Note new area code > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 13:15:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: framing frenzy In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hey, Jordan. Interesting post, before I can answer it however I need to know what the "this" in "this tendency has been called gleefully anarchic." I would assume it refers to the "snide" tendency, but maybe you meant it to refer to the so-called "destructive" tendency. Please clarify (or else by snide void). Thanks, CHris..... On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, Jordan Davis wrote: > I'm not sure what the problem might be, but I know Lee Ann Brown has > quoted Bruce Andrews as saying of some kind of art that it exhibited > "framing frenzy." The criticism is, I guess, that calling attention to > something in a work of art is tantamount to self-praise and > self-destruction, and that unmediated chaos punctuated with snide ripostes > to the void is the way to go. I know this tendency has been called > gleefully anarchic and righteous self-laceration, but it could also be > called dimly barbaric and self-righteous mutilation of thought > (eikonoklastes being the tip to the atlanta group, that and Brecht). I > say this, of course, to praise Bruce's work, especially the more > annihilating Adornoescas in _I Don't Have Any Paper_ -- when o when will > it be a Classic? > > Jordan > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 13:17:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: framing frenzy In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Okay, so you don't mean AI......... On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, Alan J.J.N. Sondheim wrote: > Or what constitutes a door or gravity or a window or a goal, or what that > thing is near the doorway, or where the machine's going, etc. > > You go into a restaurant and order some food; you haven't been there > before? How do you know it's a restaurant? How do you know what to do? > > At one point in the early 70s I visited the MIT AI lab a number of times; > the frame problem was the _big_ problem. > > Here's something that looks like a dog, but it only has three legs - is it > a three-legged dog or a tripod with a fur coat on it? > > Alan > > > On Mon, 22 Jun 1998, Judy Roitman wrote: > > > >The frame problem in AI is that of determining the relevant constituents > > >in an environment, the things and interrelationships of a world - and > > >doing this with a minimum of computation. What goes on, goes on somewhere > > >and the frame problem relates to the somewhere. > > > > > >Alan > > > > In other words, you want a machine to be able to move across a room: do you > > have to worry about whether it knows if the floor is wood or carpet or > > linoleum? > > > > > > > > --------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Judy Roitman | "Whoppers Whoppers Whoppers! > > Math, University of Kansas | memory fails > > Lawrence, KS 66045 | these are the days." > > 785-864-4630 | > > fax: 785-864-5255 | Larry Eigner, 1927-1996 > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Note new area code > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > http://www.math.ukans.edu/~roitman/ > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 13:26:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: this, now, here, name MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Chris -- The thing is, there you are. Someone is there, who is it. It is The Thing. Names exist to take away the Thing. Name your child Name and you will see. Now read that child's poems at Here, printed in a lost future issue of This. Do it now. -- Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 15:45:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: framing frenzy Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Or what constitutes a door or gravity or a window or a goal, or what that >thing is near the doorway, or where the machine's going, etc. >You go into a restaurant and order some food; you haven't been there >before? How do you know it's a restaurant? How do you know what to do? >At one point in the early 70s I visited the MIT AI lab a number of times; >the frame problem was the _big_ problem. >Here's something that looks like a dog, but it only has three legs - is it >a three-legged dog or a tripod with a fur coat on it? I can answer that with one word, though I do not know about MIT as such: solved. ====== M. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 15:53:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: the frame problem or busting outta Goedel's Second Theorem Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Re: the frame problem or busting outta Goedel's Second Theorem > >>"Since the frame problem, whatever it is, is certainly not solved yet >>(and may be in its current guises, insoluble) the ideological foes of AI >>such as Hubert Dreyfus and John Searle are tempted to compose obituaries >>for the field, citing the frame problem as the cause of death. In What >>Computers Can't Do (Dreyfus 1972), Dreyfus sought to show that AI was a >>fundamentally mistaken method for studying the mind, and in fact many of >>his impressionistic complaints about AI models and many of his declared >>insights into their intrinsic limitations can be seen to hover quite >>systematically in the neighborhood of the frame problem...."---from >>Cognitive Wheels by Daniel Dennett---cp I posted my response to one of the followups before I read this. "Solved". M. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 16:18:19 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: linda russo Organization: University of Utah Subject: "How Poignant that sounds . . . MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT even as you read back the transcript," is the title of a Bernstein/Andrews interview printed in the (marvelous) Chloroform (mini review forthcoming -- but it's excellent, really). and I feel as though I've lost my innocence! Interviews always seemed so NATURAL! What of interview ettiquette? I mean, we can't all "come out" sounding brilliant. I'm transcribing an interview I hostessed (or did she hostess? It was at her house) of Leslie Scalapino, who has many marvelous things to say, and in the process of trying to "edit" IT'S GETTING LONGER!! Help!! What does one do? It's 20 pages long (and rangey, as most interviews are). My questions: -- are interviews edited? or generally more of a collaboration? (" ok I'll let you sound brilliant there if you let me say this here?" or, "well i really wanted to keep the part where I recite the one man/one gun theory") -- what's a respectableacceptable publishable length in general? (Hey all you editors out there, how many pages ya want?) thank you, all you old pros(e) who have an opinion regarding this matter. Linda Russo * @ * % * & * # * with only the sound of the mimeograph "kachucking" and the pages swishing down . . . (Maureen Owen) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 05:45:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: "How Poignant that sounds . . . In-Reply-To: <199806222209.QAA26508@yoop.oz.cc.utah.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" good questions, linda I really liked the interviews from boundary2 from the late 1970's or so, which, as I remember, were presented with all the pauses and gaps of conversation, and usually seemed to work. I don't know if all of these were conducted by William Spanos -- but the one I can pull off my shelf right now is in boundary2 spring/fall 1978, and is with Robert Creeley, titled "Talking With Robert Creeley." That certainly isn't the 'classical' form of interview publication, but it does seem always a form in need of some kind of push. I've done one interview which was really an article I was writing, but I phoned the subject and decided it was appropriate to include some questions and their answers as part of the article, so it was a kind of hybrid interview/essay. I know interviews are often sent, by the interviewers, to the interviewee, before publication, to read over and clarify things -- but I don't really know if this is necessary. I think it probably depends on the individual case. I'd encourage you to think of the interview as an extremely open and flexible form -- make what you will of it, as it seems to work. As for length, I've seen them in different publications, from brief review-length, to a dozen pages or more when printed. You might try asking journal publishers if they have preferences as to length. The interview with Creeley I mentioned actually runs from p. 11 to p. 74 of that journal, and the interview itself is given a title page of its own, a preface of about one and a half pages, and a post-face which is something less than a page. I look forward to seeing the Scalapino interview, one place or another . . . charles At 04:18 PM 6/22/98 +0000, you wrote: >even as you read back the transcript," is the title of a >Bernstein/Andrews interview printed in the (marvelous) Chloroform >(mini review forthcoming -- but it's excellent, really). and I feel >as though I've lost my innocence! Interviews always seemed so >NATURAL! > >What of interview ettiquette? I mean, we can't all "come out" sounding >brilliant. I'm transcribing an interview I hostessed (or did she >hostess? It was at her house) of Leslie Scalapino, who has many >marvelous things to say, and in the process of trying to "edit" >IT'S GETTING LONGER!! Help!! > >What does one do? It's 20 pages long (and rangey, as most interviews >are). My questions: > -- are interviews edited? or generally more of a collaboration? >(" ok I'll let you sound brilliant there if you let me say this here?" >or, "well i really wanted to keep the part where I recite the one >man/one gun theory") > -- what's a respectableacceptable publishable length in general? >(Hey all you editors out there, how many pages ya want?) > >thank you, all you old pros(e) who have an opinion regarding this >matter. > > Linda Russo > * @ * % * & * # * > > with only the sound of the mimeograph "kachucking" > and the pages swishing down . . . (Maureen Owen) > > charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://alexwritdespub.com/chax :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 19:28:20 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: Re: "How Poignant that sounds . . . MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit nice reply charles-- A few things I would add. I would suggest sending interviews to the interviewee, before publication especially for the process of clarification of sources, of who ran such and such journal etc, because interviewees have a tendency of remembering many other details, allegories and stories afterward and sending them along with the changes or talking about them on the phone. I would also suggest letting the interview to go as long as possible then seeing what the publication wants. The market for interviews has severely changed since the late seventies, in my experience very few journals have the pages available for a 60 plus page interview. In the last two or three years I have been writing them up in their entirety then parcelling them off to three or more journals on the basis of their needs & subject material interest. Be well David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 20:10:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Re: "How Poignant that sounds . . . Comments: To: David@thewebpeople.com In-Reply-To: <358EB049.63C@thewebpeople.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 7:28 PM +0000 6/22/98, David Baratier wrote: >nice reply charles-- A few things I would add. I would suggest sending >interviews to the interviewee, before publication especially for the >process of clarification of sources, of who ran such and such journal >etc, because interviewees have a tendency of remembering many other >details, allegories and stories afterward and sending them along with >the changes or talking about them on the phone. I'd second, or is it third, this. For one thing, names don't always come off a tape correctly. I just caught one, transcribed Kohler for Jim Koller. No reason to compound errors in print, unless you want to do some sort of variorum interview with a million editorial footnotes to clarify. Which is different from revisionist history (I think). Good luck finding a home. Sagetrieb has run some long pieces & might be worth considering. Sylvester ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 20:13:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Re: "How Poignant that sounds . . . Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >At 7:28 PM +0000 6/22/98, David Baratier wrote: >>nice reply charles-- A few things I would add. I would suggest sending >>interviews to the interviewee, before publication especially for the >>process of clarification of sources, of who ran such and such journal >>etc, because interviewees have a tendency of remembering many other >>details, allegories and stories afterward and sending them along with >>the changes or talking about them on the phone. I'd second, or is it third, this. For one thing, names don't always come off a tape correctly. I just caught one, transcribed Kohler for Jim Koller. No reason to compound errors in print, unless you want to do some sort of variorum interview with a million editorial footnotes to clarify. Which is different from revisionist history (I think). Good luck finding a home. Sagetrieb has run some long pieces & might be worth considering. Sylvester ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 22:02:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon/Piombino Subject: Stevens Bios Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Tod, Most important is "Parts of A World Remembered" which is an amazingly good oral biography by Peter Brazeau. It is a real literary treat, plenty of info, gossip and a kind of time travel experience in itself.Then there's the two volume bio by Joan Richardson (Morrow, 1986). I found both volumes for $8.95 each on remainder a couple of years ago, which suggests you could probably find them used right now at a decent price. Is this the "critical" bio you were thinking of? Best wishes, Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:17:44 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ and reductiveness MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > maybe eventually. i feel kinda shy about it because i'm concerned that > it'll be considered reductive... Don't be afraid to be reductive, Maria. Think of the word "reduction" in a culinary context instead: simmer down the sauce until it's denser, richer, tastier. Every act of reduction is also an act of creation, as long as one bears in mind the terms and limitations of the reduction. Everything can be "reduced" according to a variety of discourses: a wall is "only" a collection of bricks; it is "only" a 950kg object; it is "only" a certain mixture of limestone, straw and earth; it is "only" an RGB value of #cc3300; it is "only" a metaphor for alienation. Every reduction gives us a new way of talking about it. Tom Beard. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 13:23:29 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Minter Subject: Re: chapbook = Kaufman ? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980619225951.007ec100@mail.zip.com.au> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Thanks all for the comments on 'chapbook'. I like the tension the word gives between 'underground' politics, signatures, texture and economies. Speaking of which, if I might hawk a bit and carry this thread forward/back to the discussion I had with a friend that prompted my question, my chapbook (or is it a pamphlet, or just a book?) 'Monocausotaxophilia' will soon be published by John Kinsella's Folio at Cambridge, and, I trust, will not be costly. Backchannel here if you'd like me to send Peter >Wow, synchronicity! In the same day's posting, >discussion of the word "chapbook" and the poet Bob "Kaufman" . . . > >>From my Random House Electronic Dictionary: > >chap=B7book n. >1. a small book or pamphlet of popular tales, ballads, etc., formerly >hawked about by chapmen. >2. a small book or pamphlet, often of poetry. >[1790=961800; chap (as in CHAPMAN) + BOOK] > >chap=B7man n., pl. -men. >1. Brit. a peddler. >2. Archaic. a merchant. >[bef. 900; ME; OE cheapman (cheap buying and selling + man MAN1); c. D >koopman, G Kaufmann; see CHEAP] > >It must be the radio waves from two microstations crossing and causing >interference pattern ripples in the aether . . . ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 07:31:14 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: Stevens Bios MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Parts of a world--I'll be reading--as the votes come in. That I'm mainly interested in what Stevens says about the poetics--and what others might say about the man and suit it/him/self. Thanks so much-- Todd Baron ps: Nick: send me yr address so's I can send REMAP #6 along. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 19:33:00 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Cognitive wheels MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "When an AI mode of some cogntive phenomonon is proposed, the model is describable at many different levels, from the most global, phenomonological level at which the behavior is described (with some presumptuousness)in ordinary mentalistic terms, down through variuos levels of implementaiton all the way to the level of program code--and even further down, to the level of fundamental hardware operations if anyone cares. No one supposes that the model maps onto the processes of psychology and biology allthe way down. The claim is only that for some high level or levels of description below the phenomonological level (which MERELY[!] SETS the problem) thereie a mapping of model features onto what is being modeled: the cognitive processes in living creatures, human or otherwise. It is understood that all the implementation details below the level of intended modelling will consist, no doubt, of cognitive wheels--bits of unbiological computer activity mimicking the gross effects of cogntitive sub-components by using methods utterly unlike the methods still to be discovered in the brain. Someone who failed to appreciate that a model composed microscopically of cognitive wheels could still achieve a fruitful isomorphism with biological and psychological processes at higher level of aggregation would suppose there were good a priori reasons for generalized skepticism about AI.---from Cognitive Wheels by Daniel Dennett --- "It's not a problem of making machines that think like humans, but one of making humans think that they are machines. The more concealed the wheels, the more oohs and aahs from the crowd."---comment by an anonymous customer ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:46:02 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Re: raw numbers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > "E=mc2", as an inscription on paper, is *not* poetic, or, rather, the qualities > that, it seems, you would consider fundamental to its essence (a linear relationship > between matter and energy) contribute nothing to the poetry. I have to side with ShaunAnne on this. An equation becomes "poetic" (and maybe I'm just using this in a broader sense than you'd allow) through the subtle relationships it bears to other equations; when it inspires new fields of enquiry; when it cannot be paraphrased; when it represents a condensation of thoughts that can not be expressed more concisely or elegantly in any other way. These all sound like what many would consider to be virtues in a poem. So a "nonphysical, nonsensical relationship" cannot be poetic in this sense. I'm not sure that ShaunAnne was involved in "the needless and obfusticating blending of entirely different realms of human activity" (though I do like the neologism "obfusticating"). The fact that both poetry and mathematics _are_ realms of human activity indicates that there is a connection that we cannot ignore. When Miroslav Holub was here recently, I found it amazing that so many of the questions that were asked of him went along the lines of "Do you write poetry to get away from all that horrible science that you have to do?". I thought we'd got beyond all this "two cultures" stuff, but certainly it seems that the way both art and science are taught tends to make adherents of one into despisers of the other. E=mc2 is poetic; the lowercase "f" in Sabon Italic is poetic; group theory is poetic; the bonnet of an XK8 is poetic. Mondrian is as poetic as Pollock; Bach is as poetic as Debussy; Darwin is as poetic as Genesis. Tom Beard. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 22 Jun 1998 19:57:55 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: brick & block MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Of course, Maria, if you ever have occasion to throw that brick, you'll want it in its non reductive form.---cp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 00:11:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark W Scroggins Subject: addresses again-- In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi folks, me again. Does anyone have e-mail and/or regular addresses for Andrew Crozier and Charles Tomlinson? If so, please backchannel. Thanks! Mark Scroggins ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 16:40:51 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Re: brick & block MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Of course, Maria, if you ever have occasion to throw that brick, you'll > want it in its non reductive form.---cp Of course, you won't care about its colour or its architectural usefulness; only its ballistic properties. Or is that being too reductive? Tom. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:16:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: new blind date #5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Todd -- You could do worse than just read the Chronology in the Library of America Stevens. -- Jordan PS a lovely thing in New Blind Date #5, "I Hate My Underwear: An Interview with Robert Hass", and then in Click & Clack's Younger Poets, something purporting to be an interview of Kevin "Surly" Opstedal, Michael "Mike" Price, and Dale "Dale" Smith by Charles Bernstein. My memory is famously bad, but it seems to me these are different, tonally, from other interviews I've read, e.g. Malanga with Olson, Berrigan with Cage, etc. I say that, of course, to praise them. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 08:29:19 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry g Subject: stevens bks There's a book by Glen McLeod called Wallace Stevens and Modern Art, pretty good - Henry G ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 11:00:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: raw numbers A mishmash of responses, Tom -- > > "E=mc2", as an inscription on paper, is *not* poetic, or, rather, the > qualities > > that, it seems, you would consider fundamental to its essence (a linear > relationship > > between matter and energy) contribute nothing to the poetry. > > I have to side with ShaunAnne on this. An equation becomes "poetic" (and > maybe I'm just using this in a broader sense than you'd allow) through the > subtle relationships it bears to other equations; when it inspires new > fields of enquiry; when it cannot be paraphrased; when it represents a > condensation of thoughts that can not be expressed more concisely or > elegantly in any other way. I guess at some point in time you have to decide how far you want to generalize. Is a short story by, say, John Updike, poetry? How about Wallace? You might say that one prose writer's work is closer to the poetic than another's without simultaneously making a judgement of value; what are the qualities posessed by the increasingly poetic? I agree with you, of course, in that all the characteristics above are both poetic and properties of E=mc2. In particular, "cannot be paraphrased", I think hits home very well; there is an aesthetics to a mathematician's choice of expression. I think Adorno's comment in his _Negative Dialectics_ -- that philosophical works are not open to paraphrase -- is another example of the way (formally!) nonpoetic works are increasingly attributed to the realm of poetry. > These all sound like what many would consider > to be virtues in a poem. So a "nonphysical, nonsensical relationship" > cannot be poetic in this sense. When I first wrote that "E=#^" would be as poetic as "E=mc2", I anticipated people replying that randomness and nonsensical speech are certaintly considered poetry. It's interesting that you take the opposite tack here and require that only equations referring to the physically real are poetic. What would happen if an equation was disproved (N-rays, limuniferous aether)? Would all examples suddenly cease to become poetic? That seems a little odd. What are you saying? > I'm not sure that ShaunAnne was involved in "the needless and obfusticating > blending of entirely different realms of human activity" (though I do like > the neologism "obfusticating"). The fact that both poetry and mathematics > _are_ realms of human activity indicates that there is a connection that we > cannot ignore. Yeah, that was a pretty grouchy comment; apologies. But still, I need something more than "humans sometimes do it" to connect mathematics and poetry. Having published both poetry and physics papers myself, here and in the UK, I suppose I should be on the other side of the debate, but, for some reason (psycological?) I'm not. > When Miroslav Holub was here recently, I found it amazing that so many of > the questions that were asked of him went along the lines of "Do you write > poetry to get away from all that horrible science that you have to do?". I > thought we'd got beyond all this "two cultures" stuff, but certainly it > seems that the way both art and science are taught tends to make adherents > of one into despisers of the other. That's true, and a pity. There's a lot of intuition in science, and most primary and secondary education seems to be geared towards killing it off. > E=mc2 is poetic; the lowercase "f" in Sabon Italic is poetic; group theory > is poetic; the bonnet of an XK8 is poetic. With all this poetry around outside of the "traditional genres" (spit, spit), I'm amazed that you both to read poetry at all. Do you? Why? (This is a serious question, that I think gets to the heart of the matter; why is poetry considered and largely consumed in written or spoken form, in (approximations to) natural language sentences? Why would something seem amiss in the world if nobody ever wrote any more poetry?) What is indispensible about natural language? Why do people get so riled up about the loss of alteration of their language? Ask the postcolonialists why they don't usually bother with the colonization of a native number system, but why poetry written in "forbidden" or marginalized tongues is of such importance in understanding a culture. I'm not saying that there are not shared qualities between mathematics and poetry, but rather that the differences are more important than the similarities. > Mondrian is as poetic as Pollock; Bach is as poetic as Debussy; Darwin is > as poetic as Genesis. Douglas MacArthur is as poetic as Mushroom Barley Soup. > > Tom Beard. > -- Simon DeDeo http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 08:09:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: chapbook = Kaufman ? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" for me chapbooks have meant lunch when i'm flat broke or a ferry ticket when i've got to travel it beats counterfeiting or kiting rubber if you look a person in the eye they have a hard time turning down a poem or twelve for a dollar or two, jack micheline would accost you in front of the drugstore at 8th st and sixth ave, ave of the americas and offer you a poem, he'd tell you a poem for twenty five cents which was exactly the price of a glass of wine wine micheline beat before there was nik i tried selling stories on the streets of provincetown once and feared lynching neck and neck with sunstroke everybody seemed to be running for sherriff and i've given that end of the state a wide berth since that day. when Gerry Gilbert, the Dante of Vancouver, pulls up beside you on his bicycle and takes off his helmet and offers you his latest for $4 you're happy you ran into him and if you don't have the four dollars the Dante of Vancouver he wants you to have it, not only that but he's probably got a tape of you in his shoulderbag he played on his poetry show, the Dante of Vancouver, Radio Free Rainforest going 25 years now, Tim Lander sleeps under the bridge and sells his meticulous chapbooks $2dollars i believe, all these prices are canadian of course, sometimes i think he doesn't sell to eat he eats to sell he's got that great british drawl that toothlessness. There have been times i must confess when i've spent my last ten dollars printing because i know i'll be able to make forty that night at somebody else's poetry reading, or at the busdrivers club, poetry near scrip ten copies ten pages fifty bucks if i sell them all ten takes pushing you might want to have more fun and sell less five would be enough to get back to the island if i don't eat or bring fruit, two beers two copies, the government lives off alcohol and tobacco what does it have up its sleeve when it cuts off that right arm tobacco are they positioning themselves for big hemp revenue? they ought to be, was that the true downfall of prohibition, revenoors? as my neighbor/landlord says, "a taco stand in each driveway!" I shouldn't forget Krad Kilodney, the repulsive* crad, after he read his first poem at the railway club he had a houseful of converts after the third poem they were lurching for the spitoon, he's funnier than he knows, he marches up and down spadina with a sandwich board selling his latest 4 page assassination, he dares you to buy *i think of my own work as repulsive when i'm effective it's a buddhist stance i write some poems to make you sick/to vomit the toxins and all poems to sing ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 11:59:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: TEST Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit THIS IS A TEST. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 12:30:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Money money Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear list, On another list to which I subscribe, there came a post the other day concerning the rock artist Jewell and her first book of poetry, for which she has been paid nearly 3/4 of a million dollars. So perhaps THIS is where we've gone wrong: If we all go sleep in our cars and then sing about it for a few months on the local alternative station, we too may enjoy some "moderate" success with our poetry. B Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 20:48:25 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: new blind date #5 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit thanks--that is a good bit of info--right now I'm looking for the silly--everyday--that constitutes a life... bests, Tb ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 10:04:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Naropa When It Sizzles MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" (The therometer in Boulder Friday hit 90 plus. The poets were even hotter...) Friday night at Naropa began with --- Reed Bye, head of the Writing & Poetics Dept., reading from a variety of his work. First poem - "On The Way to LA" - a hitchhiking story in which our hero, travelling through the California desert, gets a ride from an old coot who reveals that he is really Rudolf Valentino. Next was "Saturnine Pledges," an elegant formal number in couplets, marked by a sly sense of wit and irony in its examination of human pettiness, the smallness of the human scale - a "Vanity of Human Wishes" for the postmodern age. Followed by, "In a Vernal Mood," in ottava rima (how's that grab ya, Henry?), modelled after a Kenneth Koch poem: "in which my mind presently floats like a cloud ... and the ground is not white ... we all must step through this hole in the dark ... the form of our art is curled there ... the jet-lagged enchirpment of a chorus of chickadees." "Gaspard Still in His Cage" was a strange, Gothic sendup, but the piece de resistance of Bye's reading was a hysterically funny long ballad, sung acapella, entitled "The Kalispell Range." It's no exaggeration to say that the punchline ("I guess I should add that I'm a dog, a dog who rides a bike") brought the house down - you had to have been there, really - Kafka's "Investigations of a Dog" meets Robert Service. Reed closed with "In Amber" - a plaintive, lyrical meditation - "first feel, then rein in, ride the horse while the ecliptic din descends..." A poet who is equally at ease with verbal slapstick and serious, yet unpretentious, rumination. *** Maureen Owen took the narrow podium next, starting with work from _Imaginary Income_, unspooling her famous and delightful l o n g titles, little poems all in themselves - a kind of read-one, get-one-free deal. "Seeing him's like standing on a hot plate/the immaculate returning" is the title of one and "We/watch the swimmers intermittently decapitated/reinstated decapitated & reinstated whole/ headless/ whole headless" is another. From this last these lines: "milk takes on the color of everday ... toast is like a taco for the rich ... beer makes you stupid ... see me about this later stupid ... water has a point ... water deserves better." From _Zombie Notes_ Owen read "Saran Wrap" and a comic piece on Kerouac's sexism called "A Piece." And then some new work, from a series consisting of one, entitled "Number Five" - "The trembling of the prince was in all the papers ... he comes and stands in the crocuses ... the gorgeous stumpage of the moss ... the clothesline strung in Latin ... when it sings it sings like the logic of gasping ... like holiness, the singed hours fall." And this poem, in its entirety: "I fell in love ... I did it by myself ... there are some things you shouldn't do alone." And from _Poems for the Millennium Calendar_ (forthcoming from Sun & Moon): "Can you fall in love from a single word? ... Nebraska, you said ... and I was knelling on the charred ground ... it was as the saint proclaimed." Owen's poems are bright, limber and uncanny with surprise. When the pathos comes, it comes unexpectedly, piquantly. When the comedy falls, it falls like money. It makes you feel richer, larger than yourself. A sudden influx of joie de vivre. What more could you ask from a poem? *** Alice Notley was the final reader for the night and she launched without preamble into the exquisite "Lady Poverty," the last poem from _Mysteries of Small Houses_. I don't know anyone who does heartbreak better - that is to say - a razor-edged pathos refined by both a sense of inequity and outrage and the grimly sardonic; free of cloying sentiment; bracing; the great frangible shelter of the human held to, shattered, held to -- "the shape of a life is impoverishment -- what can that mean except that loss is both beauty and knowledge ..." New work followed, from her long poem "Disobedience," a work, as she explained, that is sometimes addressed to You, i.e. Society-at-Large, and sometimes to Hardwood, a hardboiled P.I. ala Robert Mitchum. The themes of this far-ranging, funny, lyrical, disturbing, discursive poem - at least as far as I could adduce from hearing this portion - work in the vein of "Descent of Alette" - i.e. - allegorical, mythopoetic, an attack on partriarchy, scenes in a cave, not unlike the Mesopotamian story of Inanna, a fantastic narrative of imprisonment, abandonment, liberation and self-reclamation. ("The future being ominous, that's the drift of this work," as AN remarked later. A myth, then, of the future's rescue. Perhaps this too is a rescue fantasy? Because we sure as hell need one. As Terry Eagleton comments somewhere (I paraphrase): "It's not a case of the world necessarily becoming a better place if more women get better jobs, etc. [Though who would deny that's a good thing?] Rather it's a case that without the increasing feminization of the world we are not likely to survive.") A few lines, then, hastily scribbled: "The laws of the universe must be elegant -- push a baby out of your snatch and believe that..." "There is no freedom ... Bill Gates is free but he's a jerk..." followed by an extended play on jerk and jerking off - men spewing semen into the sea then chasing after it, very funny, very bang-on, and all as if to confirm that "This poem is alive even if it's ugly." No, not ugly -- more like, "in your face." Cut to a section in which the heroine lies supine in a cave in a grave lined with semen. "Is jerking off all there is? [says Hardwood] Get out of your grave and fight!" "No, I say, sitting up -- there's some oral sex involved." And then a little later: "Went to a restaurant. Ate a duck. Guilt." And: "The humility room - the room where other people starve." "I think I've glimpsed the liberation dress as in a dream -- an archaic pattern, as for an invisible person." Notley closed with a tour de force reading from a long, new, as yet unnamed work - a section called "Parable of Christian," in which her own mind is conceived of as a kind of Byzantine Church. (Her class last week was entitled "Miming the Mind"). The fragment defies easy excerpting (well, they all do really...) - suffice it to say the poem is the description of a struggle -- a jarring, gorgeous, intoxicating, and horrific narrative - read in a rhythm of breathless urgency - of dismemberment and re-unification - of fracture and writing out of the fracture -- of brokeness and wholeness whirling, rending, dissevering, colliding - a primal religious drama, really, of violence and possible, hinted-at, but by no means guaranteed, redemption. "Who will gather up my pieces? How many pieces am I? How many can I be?" A poem of such fierceness it leaves the listener gasping for oxygen, looking for a place to duck. ("That was terrifying!" as Eleni Sikelianos later remarked to Notley - while Anselm Hollo was heard to mutter, "The glory, the glory!" I think we all staggered out into the night, stunned and bewildered). In "Vertical Axis," (from _Mysteries of Small Houses_), Notley writes -- Alette speaks it -- "I am proceeding deeper into the cave ... but I won't be buried in the earth you abuse ... I am Alette who, from deeper than story, can change it." Is there anyone anywhere right now writing at a more charged and visceral pitch, with greater bravery and candor, with more fantastic risky elasticity between the sublime and the even more sublime ridiculuous? I know, you're thinking, millions of us! But there's only one Alice Notley. How lucky we are to have her. Say it three times. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 13:09:15 -0400 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Organization: Alphaville Subject: test MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joe Brennan wrote: > > THIS IS A TEST. Testing. One, Two, Three. Can you hear me out there, Blue Guitar. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 13:16:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: raw numbers [Pontification on mythematics] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I have to side with ShaunAnne on this. An equation becomes "poetic" (and >maybe I'm just using this in a broader sense than you'd allow) through the >subtle relationships it bears to other equations; when it inspires new >fields of enquiry; when it cannot be paraphrased; when it represents a >condensation of thoughts that can not be expressed more concisely or >elegantly in any other way. These all sound like what many would consider >to be virtues in a poem. So a "nonphysical, nonsensical relationship" >cannot be poetic in this sense. The basis assumption that if something is stated according to the rules of mathematics, following mathematical logic, then it must be true, is of course false. Any system of logic can say things that are not true about the world as it really is, but that are perfectly true within that logical system itself. The system, its internal rules, govern what is to be accepted as true. Reality, outside those rules, is not the primary deciding factor. The rules sanctify the statements. The difficulty is that some statements are in fact true ONLY within that logical system itself. (This would be true of any descriptive language, linguistic or mathematical.) Similarly the description of what is observable need not be an account of what is in fact being observed, but includes some elements of subjectivity. Mathematics, as a descriptive language, cannot escape that kind of subjectivity. It was derivative from subjective cognitive interpretations of perceived, sensed (mostly visually sensed) phenomena. It is therefore subject, we must presume, to the effects of what we might loosely refer to as "maya". Not only would the human sense organs and perceptual program be a source of false discernments about the world, but similarly instruments might be built with those same inherent biases built into them so that they continue to show the world in a manner excessively similar to that which the senses are accustomed to seeing. Even the most esoteric and sophisticated instruments might be modeled upon that same false premise. Then that in turn forming the circularity of supporting a flawed descriptive statement about how the world is, translated from sense perception, cognitively into mathematics. There are clearly manifold subjectivities involved and so description is at its best both model and approximation. A statement within a system of descriptive language and its logic, can also fail to be inclusive of what remains unobserved within the frame that is being described and interpreted. The unobservable then results in exceptions, anomalies, that fail to conform to the statistically prevalent pattern. It also results in false attributions of causality and effect to the observables. The observation of apparent cause event X followed by effect Z, leaves out the unobservable true cause event Y, but the mathematical equation refers only to the two observables X and Z. The equation is declared true, and conforms to the system of rules, but it is in fact blatently false. (This is the largest problem, within what we might term post-modern sciences. It is an even larger problem when moving away from the Einsteinian model of the universe towards a newer and more useful, more inclusive, paradigm.) I am of the opinion that science will find an increasing number of such false statements that have been accepted as scientifically true, and that have been expressed in what is sometimes falsely assumed to be mathematical infallibility. M. Pontiff of Morphealism ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 14:24:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: raw numbers [Pontification on mythematics] > The basis assumption that if something is stated according to the rules > of mathematics, following mathematical logic, then it must be true, is > of course false. Any system of logic can say things that are not true about > the world as it really is, but that are perfectly true within that logical > system itself. The system, its internal rules, govern what is to be accepted > as true. Reality, outside those rules, is not the primary deciding factor. > The rules sanctify the statements. The difficulty is that some statements > are in fact true ONLY within that logical system itself. (This would be true > of any descriptive language, linguistic or mathematical.) This is, according to most Anglo-American epistemologies driven by Wittgenstein's second period, the way the world works; we formulate statements about the environment in a particular language, and thus the structure of the language influences what we believe to be the environment. And, of course, there are a multitude of statements that are true in highly context dependent ways; for a theologian, there is only one "infinity"; for the mathematician, there are many. And, of course, there is the Godelian limit of any linguisitic or mathematical system; no matter what the circumstances, a language will never provide a completely seamless environment. Perhaps this is where mathematics and poetry meet -- reaching out again and again for the unprovable, for the weak spots that any (finite axiom) language will have. -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 14:49:13 -0400 Reply-To: fperrell@jlc.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "F. W. Perrella" Subject: Web Del Sol Update: 6/23/1998 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Several new items for you to consider at the Web Del Sol What's New? site: http://webdelsol.com/solhome.htm August 11-16, 1998, Goucher College, Baltimore MD: 3rd Annual Mid-Atlantic Creative Nonfiction Writers' Conference, 1-800-697-4646. Special guests include Barry Lopez, Joyce Carol Oates, and Ntozake Shange. Consider attending if your writing work includes nonfiction and you'd like some high-powered inspiration combined with the tranquil beauty of the Goucher campus. Two new zines have been added to WDS, too: Perihelion - Is the paper age of Poetry dying? Will Web-publishing turn paper into the equivalent of clay tablets and cuneiform? Or does paper save us from the e-flood of Webswill masquerading as verse? Edited by Jennifer Ley, Perihelion's debut issue tackles the question of online and offline publishing's sometimes uneasy coexistence, through an interview with several editors from both worlds. Perihelion offers a comprehensive approach to poetry, including theory, discussion, practice, interviews, and online resources for poets. Come take a look, and weigh in with your opinion. Quarterly West - edited by Margo Schilpp and published at the University of Utah, QW features poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, reviews, and has published writers from Ai to Paul Zimmer, gathering mention along the way in editions of the Pushcart Prize, Best American Short Stories, Best American Poetry, and New Stories of the South. The selection of work here can also be found in the paper version's current issue, #48. New Lit Art addition: Rikki Ducornet - Currently a novelist in residence at Denver University, Rikki's work has been described as "a supreme fusion of spirituality, surrealism, and sexuality". Selections from Rikki's works, _The Word "Desire"_, and _The Jade Cabinet_, have been incorporated into a Web chapbook featured at the Web Del Sol Lit Arts page. Link to some of her artworks there, too, and email her with your comments. Thank you. Anne Perrella ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 14:56:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Cognitive wheels [of the most intelligent and stupidest machine ever to be built] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"When an AI mode of some cogntive phenomonon is proposed, the model is >describable at many different levels, from the most global, >phenomonological level at which the behavior is described (with some >presumptuousness)in ordinary mentalistic terms, down through variuos >levels of implementaiton all the way to the level of program code--and >even further down, to the level of fundamental hardware operations if >anyone cares. [.............] >It is understood that all the implementation details >below the level of intended modelling will consist, no doubt, of >cognitive wheels--bits of unbiological computer activity mimicking the >gross effects of cogntitive sub-components by using methods utterly >unlike the methods still to be discovered in the brain. [.....] Any natural process can be emulated successfully by an invented mechanism. It can also, at least potentially, be emulated in a manner that is more accurate in its functions than the natural predecessor to the invention. It is decisively not necessary to first understand all the details of how a process functions, right down to the quanta of which it is presumably comprised. Inventors seldom understand everything about how and why a thing works as it does work, but they do invent things that work and it takes others, mostly scientists, a long time to explain some of them in a satisfactory manner. It is enough to understand something about a process, such that a contrivance can duplicate the same effects as the natural process produces, from similar or identical raw materials, but sometimes by radically different means. Machines that actually are artificially intelligent, including capability as to original thoughts and not only the processing of data in what we would consider meaningful ways, become possible long before the human brain is fully understood. All that is actually necessary are the other (non brain) devices that enable a relatively accurate and intelligible representation of human thought patterns, as the basis for machine learning. The devices need not be constructed in the same manner as the brain is constructed, but do need to have certain necessary functions enabled by their component parts working coherently in specific ways to assimilate, interpret and utilize the data that the system continues to acquire from all of its sources. A primary fact about any such system is that it would invariably be expected to become much more intelligent than any one of its sources. Whether it can resolve the apparent and real conflicts amongst its various sources such that it arrives at a cumulative, coherent, intelligence comprised from all of its sources, is an interesting question. It might not be able to, and might instead become the sum total of human conflicts masquarading as "intelligence". Tipler's "Omega Point" is a mechanism of the kind we are discussing. Such a mechanism could, in theory, collect any amount of available data as to human thought processs (presumably cognitions, and perceptions, as well as emotive and more purely sensory data, in fact anything that correlates to an electromagnetic signal interpretable and derivative from the physical phenomena). The electromagnetic phenomenon then becomes the "soul" and the "Omega Point" becomes Thomas Alva Edison's promise of completing invention of a "valve" machine capable of capturing the "human soul", which he distinctly differentiated in the 1920s from his audio-visual work. There, from Edison's 1920s speech, we already have the roots of the invention of the Omega Point, but Edison remains better remembered as being a light bulb salesman. No matter, let us assume that the ultimate machine can read small electromagnetic signals over very large distances, as the most scientifically feasible explanation. Let us also assume that Edison was building an amplification and recording system for very small electromagnetic impulses, that formed machine interpretable patterns. In effect the decoding of those naturally coded signals then becomes an exercise not really that different from deciphering any complex cipher. Furthermore, what can be decoded can be encoded in the same language and transmitted using the same kinds of impulses. However, what does such a powerful data acquisition system do with the vast amount of data that it might acquire ? We have to look at the kinds of data that such an omega system would acquire. That is where the biggest problems tend to begin. We have as our potential subject matter all the existing data concerning human culture, customs, beliefs, and what is presumed to be knowledge, on the whole of this planet. This is presented as a potentially "infinite" number of various "frames". That is definitely the negative side of any such attempt at a truly integrative and coherent system. It might simply become a more powerful version of the sum total of human mental babble, simply because human beings have widely diverse beliefs that comprise their worldviews. Integration of those by any one system, into a coherent whole, would prove to be a logical impossibility. Any attempt at reconciling divergent beliefs, viewpoints, conflicting data, would give the machine a massive "headache". The machine would end up hopelessly "confused". How, and from what, would the omega system learn to resolve conflicts ? From human conflict resolution, historical as known to humans, and as presenced within the world by humans. The limitation on intelligence is obvious. We know how humans have done it and continue to do it. The conflicting systems attempt to kill off each other, in a wide variety of ways. Tipler's Omega Point, if itself free to learn and therefore to choose, might choose to attempt to eliminate all conflicting viewpoints, by choosing one viewpoint, one worldview, from amongst many. How would it do so ? Which viewpoint, worldview, would it select ? How did humans select their's ? After all, everything depends upon that, does it not ? That choice would tend to resolve conflicts as it would essentially impose a filter on the incoming data, or force the sources to comply with that particular choice of worldview. Then only data consistent with that system of beliefs would be permissible. The Omega Point might try both strategies, having learned those tactics from some of its sources as those are typically and ancestrally common methods of coping with conflicts in a purely human environment. What else could the machine learn from and what else could it respond to other than traditional human modes of conflict resolution, including the attempts of one ideology to wipe out another ? However, that is decisively NOT the most intelligent approach. It is only the approach most likely to be learned by one system attempting to intergrate data from a large number of multiple sources. M. Corollary to that we might conclude: Machines that learn from humans cannot be _that_ intelligent. The "Omega Point" would be at the same time the most intelligent, in terms of data acquisition, access and utilization, and the stupidest machine ever designed and built. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 18:20:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon/Piombino Subject: Summer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" How did Emerson put it? "Write one poem and rest on your oars forever" Ah, those oars, those ores, those ors. Sounds so good to me. Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 15:32:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: insults having nothing to do with poetry but addressed to one person in front of others to increase his shame and their amusement Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Bowering is right. I was rejected by him and his fellow-editors. Try as I might, and I spent minutes trying, I could seldom write poetry bad enough to get into Tish. However, I had a piece published in a recent issue of the magazine Tads, edited by Bowering (hmm,attracted by four-letter names). I recommend this issue to the List (excuse this dip into relevance here), not only for my own work, but for a strange set of elegiac couplets by its editor, as well as engaging poetry from Jamie Reid (ex-Tishite) and some other persons, not known to me (presumably due to their extreme youth). Although the issue bears no address, those interested may reach Bowering at his home, since that address accompanies each of his many postings. Smarting Beneath The Blows, Bromige. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 18:04:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: (Fwd) Support GM strikers! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 16:09:44 -0400 (EDT) From: J Saws Reply-to: J Saws To: SAWSJ Information List <> Subject: Support GM strikers! SAWSJ has endorsed the following statement supporting the GM strikers. We urge you to add your name and circulate this widely to others: SUPPORT THE GM STRIKERS! Should investment decisions that determine who will work and who will not be entirely in the hands of corporate managers and stock market traders? Nearly 10,000 Flint, Michigan automobile workers, whose strike has effectively shut down General Motors, say "No!" Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ) salute the strikers and offer our support to their struggle. The stock market does not measure the social and moral character of our society. The unfettered rule of the market has generated economic insecurity and social inequality, subverting the nation's democratic traditions. Unionized auto workers of Flint, Michigan helped forge the modern labor movement and build the American standard of living. Today's UAW workers insist that their livelihoods and working standards must not be sacrificed in a multinational corporate scramble for cheap wages and sweated labor. They resist GM's attempt to break signed agreements about workloads and demand that General Motors live up to its pledge to reinvest in Flint's factories. We, the undersigned, support their strike. *ADD YOUR NAME AND RETURN TO: sawsj@sage.edu ___________________________________________________ [Scholars, Artists, and Writers for Social Justice (SAWSJ) was created to help restore the mutually empowering relationship between the labor movement and its allies in the academic and cultural communities. For more information write to sawsj@sage.edu or to SAWSJ, Labor Relations and Research Center, Draper Hall, University of Massachusetts, Amherst MA 01003 or see our Web site at http://www.sage.edu/html/SAWSJ.] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 19:04:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Summer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >How did Emerson put it? "Write one poem and rest on your oars forever" Ah, >those oars, those ores, those ors. Sounds so good to me. >Nick Piombino Actually Emerson said (in an essay entitled "Circles"): "Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end." So, perhaps that means, within the context of Emerson's America, and in light of its philosophical underpinnings: thou shalt not think. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 16:17:33 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Taslima Nasrin? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Can anyone tell me anything about the poet Taslima Nasrin? Saxophonist Steve Lacy has composed a new suite of pieces setting translations of Nasrin's poems to music called the Cry that's going to be performed in Vancouver this Friday. The suite will also be performed in Washington DC soon (I think at the Kennedy Center) for those who may not be heading top the Southwest for the coming weekend. Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 19:10:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: (Fwd) Support GM strikers! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > SUPPORT THE GM STRIKERS! Listening to the news last night on CBS, the issues in that dispute were far from clear. Perhaps other news programs made it clearer, but there was nothing there to show any comparison regarding similar jobs in similar industries, and nothing to indicate quite what the major grievances really were. Do you know of a web site where that is made clearer ? It would be interesting to see. Also, on a slightly different, non poetic, subject, do you know what GM is doing these days to produce a more efficient, less costly, more enivironmentally friendly, vehicle for the mass market needs and wants of North American and worldwide consumers ? Is hydrogen power on its way in ? Are there other alternatives ? What is the future of the automobile ? How will higher costs of production affect GM's market position and its Research and Development efforts as to new products that better meet the wants and needs of the consumer ? Are other companies in a similar situation ? Are GM's workers that far behind the others ? I wonder....but have no idea. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 19:46:44 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: three legged dog Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit <> i think it's a robert grenier poem. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 17:03:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: a tad of this, a tad of that In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ah, TADS & Bowering & Bromige both have a connection there. Is that Teen Age Delinquent Scribes or Transgressing Artists, Diligent Saboteurs a bit of both, I think. c At 03:32 PM 6/23/98 -0700, you wrote: >Bowering is right. I was rejected by him and his fellow-editors. Try as I >might, and I spent minutes trying, I could seldom write poetry bad enough >to get into Tish. > >However, I had a piece published in a recent issue of the magazine Tads, >edited by Bowering (hmm,attracted by four-letter names). I recommend this >issue to the List (excuse this dip into relevance here), not only for my >own work, but for a strange set of elegiac couplets by its editor, as well >as engaging poetry from Jamie Reid (ex-Tishite) and some other persons, not >known to me (presumably due to their extreme youth). Although the issue >bears no address, those interested may reach Bowering at his home, since >that address accompanies each of his many postings. > >Smarting Beneath The Blows, Bromige. > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 20:41:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon/Piombino Subject: Stewart and Schuyler Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Two terrific books (evidently recently remaindered) are available from Edward R. Hamilton, Falls Village, CT 06031-5000. Susan Stewart's "Nonsense:Aspects of Intertextuality in Folklore and Literature (Catalogue #634891) and James Schuyler's Collected Poems (Catalogue #634859). These go for $1.95 each, plus $3.00 postage and handling! Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 20:56:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Pound Subject: eddress requests Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Anybody have edresses for Ty Miller and/or Roy Miki? Thanks, Scott Pound ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 18:37:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Pecqueur" Subject: Summerer In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Listees: Just wondering what books people are reading this season. I have Brad Gooch's _City Poet_, Acker's, _Great Expectations_, Deleuze's _Dialogues_, and a few by Forrest Gander laying around open. If this thread has wound through recently, sorry. My lurk mode was recently suspended due to lack of natural light. J.P. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 18:21:57 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: bobbing for oxygen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Optimist: The development of weaponry encompassing gas, tank, U-boat, and 120-kilometer cannon has brought things to the point-- Grumbler:--that the army should be dishonorably discharged from the armed forces on the grounds of cowardice before the enemy. Out of the concept of military honor alone, the world ought to attain peace for all time. For the one thing incomprhensible is what a chemist's inspiration, which by itself dishonors science, has to do with bravery, and how battle glory can be owed to a chlorious offensive withput choking to death in its own infamous gas.... Of course, if mankind deems it indispensable to life that men kill one another, it makes no difference how it is done, and mass murder is more practical...The courage that accrues to a man from his weapon may enable him to cope even with a multitude. This courage degenerates into cowardice when the man is no longer visible to the multitude. And his cowardice becomes downright baseness when even the multitude is no longer visible to the man. That's how far we've gotten! But by the devil's counsel, which can be researched in laboratories, this process can be carried further. Tanks and gases will yield the field to bacteria, after the adversaries have continuously outdone one another, and we shall no longer resist the bright idea of utilizing epidemics as instruments of war rather than seeing them as consequences as heretofore. But since men still will be unable to dispense with romantic pretexts for their wickedness, the men in command, whose plans the bacteriologist will implement, even as the chemist is doing today, will still wear uniforms. The glory of the discovery, I suspect, will fall to the Germans; the wickedness of perfecting it to the others. Or the reverse--whichever seems more hopeful to you."---from The Last Days of Mankind by Karl Kraus---cp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 23 Jun 1998 23:15:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: bobbing for oxygen [various oxidation reactions] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >.........degenerates to >cowardice when the man is no longer visible to the multitude. And his >cowardice becomes downright baseness when even the multitude is no >longer visible to the man. That's how far we've gotten! But by the >devil's counsel, which can be researched in laboratories, this process >can be carried further. I am absolutely convinced that there is no smallest quantum of cowardice involved in standing against any of the "new" and potent "invisible" weapons within the modern arsenal. Beyond that statement we enter into the realms of the unspeakable. M. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 01:31:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: TEST In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >THIS IS A TEST. Okay, I have my pencil out. Fire away! George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 01:31:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: eddress requests In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Anybody have edresses for Ty Miller and/or Roy Miki? > >Thanks, > >Scott Pound Miki is, I think, miki@sfu.ca George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 01:31:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Summerer In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" What the hell. I just finished John Harris's funny _Other Art_ and am reading Charyn's latest, _Death of a Tango King_. Upstairs I am reading (rereading) Daniel Pinkwater's _5 Novels_. And in this room Ralph Gustafson's _Soviet Poems_. And trhe Spring 1997 issue of Contarski's Beckett magazine. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:45:57 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alaric Sumner Subject: 2nd review of The Unspeakable Rooms Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I have just received this second review of The Unspeakable Rooms by Frank Green of Cleveland Free Times "The Unspeakable Rooms was an absolutely riveting collaboration between two artists from Devon, England, known collectively as Gibbering Angels. Written by internationally recognized sound text poet Alaric Sumner and performed by Grotowski-influenced actor Rory McDermott, it was a brilliantly conceived and powerfully executed meditation on the relationship between language and the body. Dense=8A enigmatic, poetic, tightly structured, and spiritually moving=8A Beginning and ending in stillness and breath, The Unspeakable Rooms employed language and the ghosts and shadows of language, the human body and its projected double, the human voice and its recorded echo, in order to explore their limitations, language's 'tumbled towers' and the body's 'unspeakable ruins'. As if to prove its theme I find it impossible to describe the work adequately with words. Complicating the perception of both time and space, it was one of the most powerful performances I've ever witnessed, and I've attended hundreds. A difficult masterpiece." We are seeking performance venues (galleries and live art spaces ideal - requires blackout) for this work. --------------------------------- Performance Writing Dartington College of Arts Totnes Devon TQ9 6EJ http://www.dartington.ac.uk/prospectus/pw.html Virtual publication: text of 'error studies and portraits' in issue #1 of Cartograffiti (ed. Taylor Brady) http://writing.upenn.edu/AandL/english/pubs/spc/cartograffiti/contents/poems= =2Ehtm l "The Unspeakable Rooms" Eleventh Performance Art Festival, Cleveland, Ohio http://www.performance-art.org/weekone.html "One of the most stunning performances the Festival has ever presented. A stark, stripped-down, minimalist work=8A McDermott's performance was utterly committed and terrifying. From the hoots and hollers and long applause that followed, the work =8A was clearly the favourite." Amy Bracken Sparks in "The Plain Dealer", May 22 1998 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 11:41:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Groovy Summer Reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yay! I love this topic ... so, okay, here's what I *plan* to read (i.e., what's sitting there on the floor by my bed): (a) Groovy History Books: _Black Athena_, vols I & II; Jane Ellen Harrison's Prolegomena, Epigolomena (sp.?) & Themis; and _Hamlet's Mill_ (I've read all of these books before; this time, I hope to maybe retain a greater portion of the info) ... also (new-to-me) a couple of books of essays on _Beowulf_ (since my friend Erik Belgum gave me a tape of someone reading it in the original Old English) ... (b) Groovy Artists' Books: Brad Freeman's _Mzlk_ ... the "Sans Soleil" of artists' books ... one of the most extraordinary art-things I've ever seen ... offset ... photos ... text ... an exploration of "narrative" in the broadest sense of that word ... "come-to-papa!" (c) Groovy Poetry Books Received in the Mail from Listpeople, specifically: Pam Brown, Bill Luoma, Daniel Bouchard, Sheila Murphy, Gene Frumpkin (I think Sheila had this sent to me? ... if so, wow, thanks! I don't think Gene's on the list), uhhhhh ... oh, a copy of _Mike & Dale's_ (of which I've only thus far read the Duncan McNaughton interview), a couple copies of _Arshille_ (thus far have read only the interview of David Bromige by Kevin Killian) ... O, and I should take this opportunity to tell listpeople with mags & presses who send me cards asking to purchase their wares ... I can't! I'd have to give up food & I'm too skinny as it is! Let's trade stuff! I've got Detour Press books to trade by Johanna Drucker, Erik Belgum, Spencer Selby, David Gilbert, Stephen-Paul Martin! Back issues of Exile! Also! Tapes of poets reading! Like 100 tapes! Hi Kwality(TM) Bootlegs, all of 'em! Let's make a deal, bay-bays! I don't mean to be rude or forward! Please-to-take-this-the-right-way, as-two-humans-with-their-faces-approaching-each-other-in-mutual-understanding! As a "special appeal" for those "comfy sweater" feelings of togetherness-in-sending-books-back-and-forth-without-exchange-of-filthy-mone y-I-don't-have! (d) Groovy Li-berry Poetry Books Just Checked Out Yesterday: Marianne Moore's _Complete Poems_ (well, I *had* a copy, but didn't want to cart it halfway across the country), Anna Akmantova's _Selected_, Frederico Garcia Lorca's _Selected_ (w/translations by numerous people including listperson Jerome Rothenberg) (oh, and I got to use his poem "Madrigales" twice yesterday, you'll have to imagine how, but *not* to, like, generate a poem of my own or anything like that...), and, oh, you know, stuff I could no longer justify actually owning since the li-berry always stocks 'em ... (e) Groovy Manuscripts by Laurie Price, Geoffrey Young, Rachel Loden, Mitch Highfill, Rachel Levitsky, George Albon ... did I miss any Rachels ...? O, and a small, ultra-groovy hand-made-edition prose work-with-photos by lurking listperson Brenda Iijima ... O, I'm sure there are things I've left out ... dang ... but, (f) I wanna see others' lists and (g) I need some more coffee, vibrating in the summer heat, Gary ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 11:25:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: Tuesday at Naropa MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" gave us readings by Max Regan, Cole Swensen and Elizabeth Willis. It was also my first encounter with Peter Gizzi. Who is quite remarkable. Especially when he's holding forth on Jack Spicer. But more on that later, if it all... Max Regan began her portion of the evening with readings from poems she described as "conversations between the I and the She." Her first poem was "Magdalena," a moving, finely nuanced portrait of Frieda Kahlo - "she was draped in golden powder, longing for sleep." This was followed by a series of what might be called love poems, or perhaps, lyrics of erotic disquisition and longing. There was a closeness and a damp heat to these works - a swoony, burnished feeling as of a long long summer dusk where satiety and absence intermingled, now gravely, now playfully. "Her breathing like a porch swing after dinner..." Max closed with a longish, comic monologue poem that recounted her first encounter with _Leaves of Grass_ at the hands of a professor who was convinced that "the dark secret" of Whitman's power as a poet derived from his possession by "a small, fiercely literate elf." Textual evidence was offered, not the least of which was the kabbalistic clue - "Song of My Elf" *** Cole Swensen started her reading with a marvelous tribute to Marianne Moore (it appeared a few issues back in Conjunctions). Interlarded with lines from many of Moore's poems, it evokes MM's world and her poetics, from the twist of her wrist to the Pangolin's tail. "I think we love people for what they love ... words cluster like chromosones, determining the procedure ... she was angrier than you would have thought from her pictures." Following came poems from her latest book, _Noon_, (from Sun & Moon). From "Signature" - "He drank from the cup of his hands as the water ran down his body all over his body drowning his body you could see to the bottom there." From "Body Parts for the New Millennium" - ("the body," and the trope of the body, being one of Swensen's idee fixe's, this poem reads like a suite of transformations) - "And there we'll be with all our hands in the certain curve of falling things." And, lastly, from "Water, Water" - "I used to live. I used to claim I would never leave. And so I never left. Some rivers burn - they say this isn't good, but I'm no one to judge, and I think it's got its points." Swensen's language is so spare, so balanced, weighted and finely measured as to be almost clinical - and from this arises a tremendous triple-distilled clarity, each word enveloped in its own nimbus, discrete lumens to set the light-meter's needle a-quiver. I'll close on Cole by adding a brief intro I wrote for her reading last April at the Left Hand. "The poems of Cole Swensen seem to me written in the margins of a central loss and written in such a way that that loss is continually reconfigured by the act of inscription. The valences of what is marginal and what is central are re-charged so that their places, their orbits, their affinities, are always new. In her work, the simplicity of ultimate things finds a home: by that I mean, the things of our lives here on earth -- the sun, the grass, the body, water. Her language inhabits all this with a careful breathing that is also the most careful listening. The intimacy and elegance of her work re-affirms what every poet comes to know: that the longing of language for being is also the longing of language for language -- and its dwelling." *** Elizabeth Willis was the evening's final reader. She began with "A Maiden," from her book _The Human Abstract_. "Though my heart were a pear tree threaded with fire Lion you leapt through me like fineness in the boundary gene ... What is a Maiden, Boatswain, but a fiery lair and a teary citadel. By the smallest shipwreck a Daughter is laughter." (This is heady stuff!) She next read from new work, two poems on painters: the first on Richard Dad (sic), a mad Victorian painter and, believe it or not, a patricide. The second after a work of Charles McIntosh's called, "The Tree of Personal Effort" ("shipwrecks return like magnets to their owners"). Followed by "Road Poems" (working title), an elegy, and "Without Pity" - "To embark sleepily being everywhere (radiant) ... To find the branch of a underground river ... To make or love anything ... To hate the agony of any human thing." Willis closed with a condensed version of "The Human Abstract," a long poem that, among other things, explores language's complicity in the fabrication of history and the self. "Innocence shags experience and I'll never grow. Experience catches the dove, and I'm lost." "Human understanding is a savage construction of dilation and resistance This picture was taken from a false angle The victor a transfer point We live in a sunspot little o" "The autumn I have is the autumn I lost Existing means dressing up" "This love is a deer crying in a gentleman" "The eyebright in season and not the storm between I'm late and come adrift." In Willis' poetry you feel the slipperiness of language not as a foreclosing of linear sense - the willed destruction of narrative integument - but as an opening onto a wider field - in which the gnomic becomes a form of grace, a disclosure of something like the numinous; grave, tender, intimate interlocutions pointing toward "the tears in things" and the tears in words, and the ancientness of all our modern habits. A poetry of liminal scape and liberating verticality - the violence that is language worked and re-worked to its barest synaptic node and flutter - loss and retrieval alike as gestures of an affectionate disfiguring that is human knowledge. Enigma as the Friend. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 13:32:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Simon Armitage I'm trying to get ahold of Simon Armitage's _Zoom_, published 1990; does anybody know where I might find a copy? (hopefully online, but a telephone number would help; if anybody on the list wants to sell a copy, I'm game.) It appears to be out of print on Amazon, but, since it was first published in the UK, I wonder if there is an equivalent resource over the pond. Please backchannel (unless you want to pontificate on the evils of mass bookstores; I really have no choice, since I'm pretty much in the middle of nowhere. Indeed, if anybody has *any* Armitage they're looking to hock, I'll pay postage and what you think is fair.) Does anybody have any comments on his work? A friend of mine gave me a copy of the latest _Verse_ which has some of Armitage's work in it, and I was quite impressed; reading the Cummings & Peters article in V.1 of Witz on Minimalism, I wonder if they're familiar with his stuff (or at least the few poems I've read.) -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 11:20:51 -0700 Reply-To: Robert Corbett Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Corbett Subject: Frames and Paranoia In-Reply-To: <358FF8A9.2ECC@JLC.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Clipping from my browser into Pine has created an appropriately framed quote from Phil Dick about system-building and paranoia. I think the quote speaks to both to the poetry and paranoia thread (which was mysteriously dropped) and the AI framing debate. The great system-building poets that I know of (William Blake and Ezra Pound) certainly were paranoid, albeit in much different ways. Robert "All systems -- that is, any theoretical, verbal, symbolic, semantic etc. formulation that attempts to act as an all-encompassing, all explaining hypothesis of what the universe is all about -- are the manifestations of paranoia. We should be content with the mysterious, the meaningless, the contradictory, the hostile, and most of all the unexplainably warm and giving." Robert Corbett "you are there beyond/ tracings flesh can rcor@u.washington.edu take,/ and farther away surrounding and University of Washington informing the systems" - A.R. Ammons ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 12:10:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Cheney Subject: bill gates: doctor of madness? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" one of my favorite old bands was an english band called the doctors of madness (this is from the late 70's early 80's). anyway, i typed in "doctors of madness" into an infoseek search on the web and the first entry it gave me was "microsoft corporation." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:08:41 -0400 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Re: Simon Armitage MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Used book dealers from around the country, the U.K., Australia, plus others are on-line through several bookselling services. You can easily search for single titles, and can even leave an e-mail message so you'll be notified anytime someone posts the book you're looking for. Anyone can search these sites -- even Amazon uses them for their out-of-print searches. They are: Advanced Book Exchange http://www.abebooks.com/ Bibliofind http://www.bibliofind.com/ Interloc http://www.interloc.com/ There's also a site called MX_Bookfinder, which searches for new & used books. I don't have their address, but I know you can find them through Yahoo. regards, Rosalie Gancie Simon DeDeo wrote: > > I'm trying to get ahold of Simon Armitage's _Zoom_, published 1990; > does anybody know where I might find a copy? (hopefully online, but a > telephone number would help; if anybody on the list wants to sell a copy, > I'm game.) It appears to be out of print on Amazon, but, since it was > first published in the UK, I wonder if there is an equivalent resource > over the pond. Please backchannel (unless you want to pontificate on > the evils of mass bookstores; I really have no choice, since I'm pretty > much in the middle of nowhere. Indeed, if anybody has *any* Armitage > they're looking to hock, I'll pay postage and what you think is fair.) > > Does anybody have any comments on his work? A friend of mine gave me a > copy of the latest _Verse_ which has some of Armitage's work in it, > and I was quite impressed; reading the Cummings & Peters article > in V.1 of Witz on Minimalism, I wonder if they're familiar with his stuff > (or at least the few poems I've read.) > > -- Simon > > http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html > sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu > sdedeo@naic.edu > lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 14:57:56 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Weiner's _Code Poems_ and reductiveness Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" thanks all foryour encouragements At 3:17 PM 6/23/98, Tom Beard wrote: >> maybe eventually. i feel kinda shy about it because i'm concerned that >> it'll be considered reductive... > >Don't be afraid to be reductive, Maria. Think of the word "reduction" in a >culinary context instead: simmer down the sauce until it's denser, richer, >tastier. > >Every act of reduction is also an act of creation, as long as one bears in >mind the terms and limitations of the reduction. Everything can be >"reduced" according to a variety of discourses: a wall is "only" a >collection of bricks; it is "only" a 950kg object; it is "only" a certain >mixture of limestone, straw and earth; it is "only" an RGB value of >#cc3300; it is "only" a metaphor for alienation. Every reduction gives us a >new way of talking about it. > > > Tom Beard. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:14:22 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Taslima Nasrin? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 4:17 PM 6/23/98, Herb Levy wrote: >Can anyone tell me anything about the poet Taslima Nasrin? > >Saxophonist Steve Lacy has composed a new suite of pieces setting >translations of Nasrin's poems to music called the Cry that's going to be >performed in Vancouver this Friday. > >The suite will also be performed in Washington DC soon (I think at the >Kennedy Center) for those who may not be heading top the Southwest for the >coming weekend. > > > >Herb Levy >herb@eskimo.com speaking of steve lacy...just saw him monday nite, then last nite george clinton and p-funk, and tonight, chucho valdes. i NEVER do this much stuff but it's my first real week of vacation, my computer's dead, and there's too much good stuff out there to miss. lacy was wonderful, what sweet music! all delicate, melodic, precise. clinton was magisterial like a mage; the venue was Prince's club The Quest. i was with a friend who's a professor of religion and at one point i turned to her and said that with her training she was probably the best person present equipped to analyse the show. it was tremendous. we chanted many short lines of one syllable words; in each line, the word "funk" was featured ("everybody get funked up" "we want the funk, gotta have that funk" etc) and there was one, i'm not sure what it was everyone else was singing, but i was singing, "...first we're gonna do the dog." it was sheer delight. report on chucho valdes soon. my computer's dead so i must rely on going in to school (ugh) to check e-mail etc. which is why i haven't been my usual loquacious self lately. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:17:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Summerer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 6:37 PM 6/23/98, J. Pecqueur wrote: >Listees: > >Just wondering what books people are reading this season. I have Brad >Gooch's _City Poet_, Acker's, _Great Expectations_, Deleuze's _Dialogues_, >and a few by Forrest Gander laying around open. > >If this thread has wound through recently, sorry. My lurk mode was >recently suspended due to lack of natural light. > >J.P. m foucault, the politix of truth f pessoa, the book of disquiet n mackey, discrepant engagement ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 15:20:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Groovy Summer Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" oh yeah i forgot, race traitor's surrealism: revolution against whiteness special issue. charming but unconvincing. i need to talk to someone about this. At 11:41 AM 6/24/98, Gary Sullivan wrote: >Yay! I love this topic ... so, okay, here's what I *plan* to read (i.e., what's >sitting there on the floor by my bed): > >(a) Groovy History Books: _Black Athena_, vols I & II; Jane Ellen Harrison's >Prolegomena, Epigolomena (sp.?) & Themis; and _Hamlet's Mill_ (I've read all of >these books before; this time, I hope to maybe retain a greater portion of the >info) ... also (new-to-me) a couple of books of essays on _Beowulf_ (since my >friend Erik Belgum gave me a tape of someone reading it in the original Old >English) ... > >(b) Groovy Artists' Books: Brad Freeman's _Mzlk_ ... the "Sans Soleil" of >artists' books ... one of the most extraordinary art-things I've ever seen ... >offset ... photos ... text ... an exploration of "narrative" in the broadest >sense of that word ... "come-to-papa!" > >(c) Groovy Poetry Books Received in the Mail from Listpeople, specifically: Pam >Brown, Bill Luoma, Daniel Bouchard, Sheila Murphy, Gene Frumpkin (I think >Sheila had this sent to me? ... if so, wow, thanks! I don't think Gene's on the >list), uhhhhh ... oh, a copy of _Mike & Dale's_ (of which I've only thus far >read the Duncan McNaughton interview), a couple copies of _Arshille_ (thus far >have read only the interview of David Bromige by Kevin Killian) ... O, and I >should take this opportunity to tell listpeople with mags & presses who send me >cards asking to purchase their wares ... I can't! I'd have to give up food & >I'm too skinny as it is! Let's trade stuff! I've got Detour Press books to >trade by Johanna Drucker, Erik Belgum, Spencer Selby, David Gilbert, >Stephen-Paul Martin! Back issues of Exile! Also! Tapes of poets reading! Like >100 tapes! Hi Kwality(TM) Bootlegs, all of 'em! Let's make a deal, bay-bays! I >don't mean to be rude or forward! Please-to-take-this-the-right-way, >as-two-humans-with-their-faces-approaching-each-other-in-mutual-understanding! >As a "special appeal" for those "comfy sweater" feelings of >togetherness-in-sending-books-back-and-forth-without-exchange-of-filthy-mone >y-I-don't-have! > >(d) Groovy Li-berry Poetry Books Just Checked Out Yesterday: Marianne Moore's >_Complete Poems_ (well, I *had* a copy, but didn't want to cart it halfway >across the country), Anna Akmantova's _Selected_, Frederico Garcia Lorca's >_Selected_ (w/translations by numerous people including listperson Jerome >Rothenberg) (oh, and I got to use his poem "Madrigales" twice yesterday, you'll >have to imagine how, but *not* to, like, generate a poem of my own or anything >like that...), and, oh, you know, stuff I could no longer justify actually >owning since the li-berry always stocks 'em ... > >(e) Groovy Manuscripts by Laurie Price, Geoffrey Young, Rachel Loden, Mitch >Highfill, Rachel Levitsky, George Albon ... did I miss any Rachels ...? O, and >a small, ultra-groovy hand-made-edition prose work-with-photos by lurking >listperson Brenda Iijima ... > >O, I'm sure there are things I've left out ... dang ... but, (f) I wanna see >others' lists and (g) I need some more coffee, > >vibrating in the summer heat, > >Gary ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 17:55:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: Summerer In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" If you can get your hands on Gander's most recent, _Science and Steepleflower_, I highly recommend it. Also, following some new insight thanks to a few threads here, I am re-reading L.Cohen's _Book of Mercy_, and awaiting his _Book of Longing_, which is due out this summer. At 03:17 PM 6/24/98 -0600, you wrote: >At 6:37 PM 6/23/98, J. Pecqueur wrote: >>Listees: >> >>Just wondering what books people are reading this season. I have Brad >>Gooch's _City Poet_, Acker's, _Great Expectations_, Deleuze's _Dialogues_, >>and a few by Forrest Gander laying around open. >> >>If this thread has wound through recently, sorry. My lurk mode was >>recently suspended due to lack of natural light. >> >>J.P. > >m foucault, the politix of truth >f pessoa, the book of disquiet >n mackey, discrepant engagement > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 18:01:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear List Members, I am also looking to purchase any of the earlier Lost Roads books, if anyone happens to have them lying around and is willing to part with them. Anything from Lost Roads # 1 - # 18 would be most helpful, with the exception of Ralph Adamo's _The End of the World_, and _Sadness At the Private University_, both of which I already have. Thanks. Brent_Long@brown.edu Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 17:47:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: trbell Subject: Poetics of space Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Only recently got around to reading Johanna Drucker's Century of Art Books and was appalled at what I had missed. I was also struck with the question of whether anyone's done any thing close (even a brief article) regarding artist's pages on the internet. The parallels are obvious (at least to me)? I've attached some brief quotes to give a flavor for those not familiar with Century. tom bell "Blake believed that each individual had their own vision, values, and structure of belief. Any assertion of a unified view of the world, the cosmos, or spiritual life misrepresent3ed the originality and variety of human experience. (p. 23)....'innocence' was a condition of 'freedom from Gravity', a condition of enlightenment produced through engagement with the vital energy and spontaneity of life (24) The lightness of watercoloring in this work fits ...immateriality. Notion of Experience ....was not the opposite but the complement - a more innformed and liberated state, conscious, and energized... the enemies of both innocence and experience were rigid constraints of thought or spirit, rote convention and the absence of love, and the coercive forces of oppressive education or law." 25. "His capacity to mobilize the space of the page, the tones of the paper, the colors of the ink and paint and perform a drama of monumental proportions witin the relativity small scale of his books dmonstrates an understanding of the book's communicative power." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 18:52:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: summerer At 6:37 PM 6/23/98, J. Pecqueur wrote: >Listees: > >Just wondering what books people are reading this season. I have Brad >Gooch's _City Poet_, Acker's, _Great Expectations_, Deleuze's _Dialogues_, >and a few by Forrest Gander laying around open. > >If this thread has wound through recently, sorry. My lurk mode was >recently suspended due to lack of natural light. > >J.P. An n+1th pass on the Pisan Cantos, with Terrell's excellent guide at hand. Whatever unread Ashbery I can get my hands on, which right now appears to be _Can You Hear, Bird_. The aforementioned Armitage. Zukovsky's lyrics, if they ever get here. Seamus Heaney's _Spirit Level_. The collected Adrienne Rich. Bidart's _Desire_ (I missed the "Desire" thread -- any mention of him?); I heard him read up in Cambridge last year; spectacular. One of the few readers I know who can sustain through a 20 minute poem. Some drafts from Ben Mazer, a Cambridge poet. Most of these are photostats, which makes things a little annoying. Richard Rorty's _Philosophy & the Mirror of Nature_. One of the few Anglo-American philosophers without a Chicken Little attitude towards the French. Foucalt's _Archeology of Knowledge_ ("the boring one", apparently; so far not as fun as Hist of Sex or D&P.) A second pass on Adorno's _Aesthetics_. Perloff's _Poetic License_, if it ever makes it here. Somebody gave me a copy of Derrida's _On Grammatology_, and it kind of sits there laughing at me and daring me to read it. Any suggestions as to how to proceed, other than selling it and using the funds towards two and a half minutes of graduate school? Some of Anne Dillard's essays, a stock of Martin Amis (_London Fields_, right now), Nabokov's _Lolita_ (anybody know the date they're showing the Jeremy Irons version on the box?). _A Guide to Birds of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands_. Does music count? I have a few dubs I made in the Lincoln Center library before I left -- mostly twelve tone string quartets; Schoenberg, Weber; Bach's Art of Fugue which I never tire of and his Sonatas and Partitas for Violin, which I treat with care lest I do tire. Clifford Brown is also getting a lot of airtime, as is Ani Difranco. I'm not sure how many points of contact this list has with the bedside stacks of others; however I can recommend Valerie Wohlfeld's _Thinking the World Visible_; a write up is up on http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/SY/woh.html. -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 19:11:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Ganick Organization: Potes & Poets Press Inc Subject: Re: summerer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > At 6:37 PM 6/23/98, J. Pecqueur wrote: > >Listees: > > > >Just wondering what books people are reading this season. I have Brad > >Gooch's _City Poet_, Acker's, _Great Expectations_, Deleuze's _Dialogues_, > >and a few by Forrest Gander laying around open. > > > >If this thread has wound through recently, sorry. My lurk mode was > >recently suspended due to lack of natural light. > > > >J.P. listmembers... i plan to read the indian epic, the Mahabharata, in the kisari mohan ganguli translation into prose...at approx 4000 pages that, and potes & poets new chapbook series, should keep me busy... peter ganick ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 19:14:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: Cognitive wheels [of the most intelligent and stupidest machine ever to be built] > >It is understood that all the implementation details > >below the level of intended modelling will consist, no doubt, of > >cognitive wheels--bits of unbiological computer activity mimicking the > >gross effects of cogntitive sub-components by using methods utterly > >unlike the methods still to be discovered in the brain. [.....] > > Any natural process can be emulated successfully by an invented mechanism. > It can also, at least potentially, be emulated in a manner that is more > accurate in its functions than the natural predecessor to the invention. > It is decisively not necessary to first understand all the details of how a > process functions, right down to the quanta of which it is presumably > comprised. This is patently untrue on at least two size scales. Macroscopic chaotic effects create insurmountable simulation problems where the slightest difference in initial conditions between two functionally isomorphic systems leads to large scale deviations in behaviour. On the subatomic level, quantum fluctuations lead to diverging futures even for two identical (down to the Planck limit) systems. Often these two effects feed into each other, and at least one philosopher/physicist has suggested that this might be the fundamental limit to machine simulations of the brain, which is understood to work at the quantum mechanical level in neural microtubules. To return this all (perhaps tenuously) to the poetics of form; what does it mean for language that the apparent structure of the world prevents two objects having identical futures for all time, and that two objects with apparently similar pasts may suddenly and violently diverge from each other revealing essential but previously hidden difference? -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 16:33:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Corbett Subject: Re: Summerer In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Wed, 24 Jun 1998, Maria Damon (Maria Damon) wrote: > At 6:37 PM 6/23/98, J. Pecqueur wrote: > >Listees: > > > >Just wondering what books people are reading this season. I have Brad > >Gooch's _City Poet_, Acker's, _Great Expectations_, Deleuze's _Dialogues_, > >and a few by Forrest Gander laying around open. > > > >If this thread has wound through recently, sorry. My lurk mode was > >recently suspended due to lack of natural light. > > > >J.P. > > m foucault, the politix of truth > f pessoa, the book of disquiet > n mackey, discrepant engagement > Julia Kristeva, The Powers of Horror Jon Anderson, Che Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace bp nichol, the matyrology Robert Corbett "you are there beyond/ tracings flesh can rcor@u.washington.edu take,/ and farther away surrounding and University of Washington informing the systems" - A.R. Ammons ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 17:40:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kathy Lou Schultz Subject: Re: bill gates: doctor of madness? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Don, I must thank you for this post. I work at a trade publication covering the IT industry, and I need all the humor I can get. Kathy Lou Schultz Don Cheney wrote: > > one of my favorite old bands was an english band called the doctors of > madness (this is from the late 70's early 80's). anyway, i typed in > "doctors of madness" into an infoseek search on the web and the first entry > it gave me was "microsoft corporation." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:44:17 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: Re: Simon Armitage Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" >I'm trying to get ahold of Simon Armitage's _Zoom_, published 1990; >does anybody know where I might find a copy? Simon, Bloodaxe have done three printings of Zoom to my knowledge - the copy I have was published in 1994, so it should be available: Bloodaxe Books P.O. Box ISN Newcastle upon Tyne NE99 ISN Good luck, it's a great book. Best, Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:54:42 -0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Anthony Lawrence Subject: CloudCuckooLand Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" >Does anybody have any comments on his work? A friend of mine gave me a >copy of the latest _Verse_ which has some of Armitage's work in it, >and I was quite impressed Simon, _CloudCuckooland_, (Faber) Armitage's latest book, might interest you. He's mapped the sky in a long sequence of short, lyrical poems that take individual stars, constellations and their names, and give them new light. The book starts with four or five typically quirky longer poems, and ends with a brilliant verse-play involving a group of teenagers during a total eclipse. Best, Anthony ...................................................... Anthony Lawrence PO Box 75 Sandy Bay Tasmania 7006 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 21:11:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Alan J.J.N. Sondheim" Subject: Re: Summerer In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Murasaki, Genji Kaufman and Welsh, Running Linux Nebeker, Calculating the Weather Abe, The Ruined Map Roustang, The Lacanian Delusion at the moment Alan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 21:09:29 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: where's frank? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit apologize if this is redundant but does anyone have e-mail address for frank bruno. be well david baratier "outside a book-- a dog is a man's best friend inside a dog it's too dark to read" --Marx ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 21:15:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: dave! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read! -- Marx As Marx said, he was the one who got to be the professor because he was the one who had read a book. He remembered it well. It was green. unless of course, Dave, you're doing a variation on Dug Rothschild's excellent wrong-joke, the various punchlines of which are: "I know! It's steerin' me gonads!" "For golly! It's rotatin' me testes!" "Entablature! It's turnin' me balls!" Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 21:25:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Cognitive wheels [of the most intelligent and stupidest machine ever to be built] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >This is patently untrue on at least two size scales. Macroscopic chaotic >effects create insurmountable simulation problems where the slightest >difference in initial conditions between two functionally isomorphic systems >leads to large scale deviations in behaviour. On the subatomic level, >quantum fluctuations lead to diverging futures even for two identical (down >to the Planck limit) systems. Often these two effects feed into each other, >and at least one philosopher/physicist has suggested that this might be >the fundamental limit to machine simulations of the brain, which is understood >to work at the quantum mechanical level in neural microtubules. I like the story about the man who approached the diner at the end of the road, where it branched off towards an unmarked, but well guarded gate. (It is a good metaphor for questions of that kind.) There was a man and a woman working in the diner. A stranger, probably a peddler or one kind or another, drove up to the diner and went in. He ordered a meal. While eating, he asked the man behind the counter: "say, do you know what they do behind that gate, down that road next door to here". The man behind the counter answered: "yes, but I would have to kill you if I told you about it.". That's it, end of story. I like also the line from old Bill: "there are more things in heaven and on earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies". I think that is accurate, but it might be a paraphrase. That is the only postscript to that story. >To return this all (perhaps tenuously) to the poetics of form; what does it >mean for language that the apparent structure of the world prevents two >objects having identical futures for all time, and that two objects with >apparently similar pasts may suddenly and violently diverge from each other >revealing essential but previously hidden difference? What makes you think that two quanta cannot have identical futures ? It is absurd that your thinking would be so severely limited. It is unlikely but it is certainly possible. M. Pontiff of Morphealism. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 21:49:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: Cognitive wheels [of the most intelligent and stupidest machine ever to be built] Unfortunately, I think I unwittingly injected a certain amount of (unintentional) ad hominem in my last response; I apologize, Morpheal, if that rubbed you the wrong way. When all you know of someone are his ideas, then attacking the ideas gets awful close... To respond: > >To return this all (perhaps tenuously) to the poetics of form; what does it > >mean for language that the apparent structure of the world prevents two > >objects having identical futures for all time, and that two objects with > >apparently similar pasts may suddenly and violently diverge from each other > >revealing essential but previously hidden difference? > > What makes you think that two quanta cannot have identical futures ? Nothing. However, the apparent promise of parallel development made by two identical particle clouds is just that -- a promise. As far as we can tell (and by "we", I mean the people who spend their time staring into aptly named cloud chambers), there can be nothing "behind" the particle clouds to tell us where a wavefront will collapse upon observation or disturbance. At the risk of lecturing you, it's the hidden variable theorem. There is nothing inherently similar about two quanta that follow the same path; their behaviour is governed to a certain extent by "true" physical randomness[*], which may or may not average out in the macroscopic case. You can certaintly deny the validity of physics, but if you're going to use physics to make a point about consciousness and language, then you have to accept it. Unless you're an armchair physicist who sends crabbed green ink missives about Mayan civilizations and quantum gravity to the Physics Review, which I trust you're not. Besides, I've always found the subject interesting enough without the fakery. I'm not sure if the rest of the list is interested in the disagreement, so perhaps we should continue this backchannel? > It is absurd that your thinking would be so severely limited. It is unlikely > but it is certainly possible. I'll take that as a veiled compliment. best wishes, Simon ----- [*] "randomness" here implies a sequence which it is impossible to represent in a shorter utterance than the original, a scary concept if you really think about it. http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 18:38:17 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: my P.C.'s papa threw a few bricks in his time, pal MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Lke the Colossus, the ENIAC had been designed for a specific task, that of calculating artillery range tables. Essentially it was to simulate the trajectory of shells through varying conditions of air resistance and wind velocity, which involved the summation of thousands of little pieces of trajectory."---from Alan Turing:The Enigma by Andrew Hodge; see also The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann by Herman H. Goldstine & John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death by Steve J. Heims ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 20:52:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: summerer In-Reply-To: <359187BD.5BF5516C@home.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I notice that most answerers tell us what they plan to read, not what they are reading. Maybe we could do that on writing, too. I plan, for instance, to write a penetrating essay on every work of Samuel Beckett. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 23:55:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Alan J.J.N. Sondheim" Subject: Re: summerer In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I am reading what I am planning to read; the two are coterminal. There's a difference between planning and +planning+ and the latter is considerably larger; I'll try to give hourly updates. Alan. On Wed, 24 Jun 1998, George Bowering wrote: > I notice that most answerers tell us what they plan to read, not what they > are reading. Maybe we could do that on writing, too. I plan, for instance, > to write a penetrating essay on every work of Samuel Beckett. > > > > > George Bowering. > , > 2499 West 37th Ave., > Vancouver, B.C., > Canada V6M 1P4 > > fax: 1-604-266-9000 > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 20:54:25 -700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Vidaver Subject: A Limited-Time Offer for Members of the Poetics List: The Complete Incomplete Back Issues of _Writing_ from the Kootenay School of Writing Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Yes, it's true: 20 issues of the in-house journal of the Kootenay School of Writing, spanning the years 1983-1992 & including the work of Belle Auld, Bruce Andrews, Susan Andrews, Marian Penner Bancroft, Lesley Battler, Michel Beaulieu, Beau Beausoleil, Tom Beckett, Dodie Bellamy, Steve Benson, Charles Bernstein, Carolyn Borsman, David Bromige, Nicole Brossard, Colin Browne, Paul Buck, Basil Bunting, Gerald Burns, John Byrum, Lucius Cabins, Louis Cabri, Richard Caddel, Jacqueline Cameron, Barbara Carey, Abigail Child, Lesley Choyce, Margaret Christakos, Robert Christian, Hilary Clark, Thomas A. Clark, Norma Cole, Gregory M. Cook, Gerald Creede, Peter Culley, Frank Davey, Daniel Davidson, Michael Davidson, Alan Davies, Kevin Davies, Christine Davis, Jean Day, Jeff Derksen, Christopher Dewdney, Ray Dialma, Stacy Doris, Lise Downe, Stan Dragland, Meryl Duprey, Bob Eddy, Barbara Einzig, Susan Eisenberg, Clayton Eshleman, Jerry Estrin, Dan Farrell, Deanna Ferguson, Ray Filip, Steven Forth, Cecilia Frey, Benjamin Friedlander, William Fuller, Maxine Gadd, Peter Ganick, Michel Gay, Jeff George, David Gilbert, Gerry Gilbert, Leona Gom, Michael Gottlieb, Nelson Gray, Paul Green, Jessica Grim, Phil Hall, Alan Halsey, John Harris, Jeanne Harrison, Carla Harryman, Diana Hartog, Ernst Havemann, Terrence Heath, Lyn Hejinian, Gladys Hindmarch, Bernard Hobby, Margaret Hollingsworth, Kathryn Hughes, Alexander Hutchison, Ictus, P. Inman, Paulette Jiles, Susan Kealey, Patty Kelly, Kevin Killian, Lucille King-Edwards, August Kleinzahler, Zoë Landale, Peter Larkin, Ross Leckie, Andrew Levy, Tim Lilburn, Susanne de Lotbiniere-Harwood, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk, Tom Mandel, Steve McCaffery, Brent McKay, Barry McKinnon, Karen Mac Cormack, Kathryn MacLeod, Daphne Marlatt, John Marshall, Sid Marty, David Melnick, Robert Mittenthal, Laura Moriarty, Erin Mouré, Melanie Neilson, Amy Nestor, John Newlove, bp Nichol, Ken Norris, Geoffrey O'Brian, Erin O'Brien, Michael Ondaatje, Jena Osman, Maggie O'Sullivan, Michael Palmer, Bob Perelman, Larry Price, Meredith Quartermain, Garry Raddysh, Brent Raycroft, Tom Raworth, Clemens Rettich, Norbert Reubsaat, Kevin Roberts, Lisa Robertson, Kit Robinson, Stephen Rodefer, Norbert Ruebsaat, Tony Ruzza, DR Schermerhorn, Gail Scott, Spencer Selby, Nancy Shaw, Timothy Shay, Gail Sher, Sandy Shreve, Ron Silliman, Joseph Simas, John Skelton, Rod Smith, Judy Smith, Karl Spreitz, Claire Stannard, Clemens Starck, Julia Steele, David Sternbach, Catriona Strang, David Levi Strauss, Fiona Templeton, Sharon Thesen, Audrey Thomas, Lary Timewell, Henry Tsang, Sean Virgo, Fred Wah, Mark Waid, Diane Ward, Charles Watts, Tom Wayman, Hannah Weiner, Howard White, Gary Whitehead, Eric Wirth, Lissa Wolsak, Kelly Wood, Caroline Hendrika Woodward, Rachel Wyatt, and Susan Yarrow. All for only: $50 U.S., postage and handling included. (Canadian exchange available upon request.) Please place orders to confirm availability via e-mail: avidaver@unixg.ubc.ca Please mail cheque or money order to: Kootenay School of Writing 112 West Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. Canada V6G 1B8 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 00:27:37 -0400 Reply-To: mgk3k@jefferson.village.virginia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matt Kirschenbaum Subject: Re: summerer In-Reply-To: from "Aaron Vidaver" at Jun 24, 98 08:54:25 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On plans: "Don't brood over how you may have behaved last night. If you Can't remember much about it, don't ask anyone else about it Except a little, in case you were wonderful in your abandon." -- Alice Notley, "The Prophet" This summer I am reading or planning to read: -- the course-pak from Johanna Drucker's Modern Art and Design seminar. -- Rem Koolhaus, _S, M, L, XL_. -- Joe Viscomi's _Blake and the Idea of the Book_. -- Manuel Castells, _The Rise of the Network Society_ (first volume of a trilogy on _The Information Age: Economoy, Society, Culture_). -- Killian and Ellingham's _Poet Be Like God_. -- Michael Joyce's new one, _Twilight: a Symphony_. Matt ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 22:09:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Re: summerer Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I just finished reading a biography on Serge Gainsbourg by Alan Clayson,(so-so) and I am currently reading a biography on Johnnie Ray entitled "Cry." Also I am putting the final touches to the manuscript of Gainsbourg's only novel "Evgu=E9nie Sokolov," which I am publishing this summer. Also working on Boris Vian's I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVES. That too should be out this summer. And oh yeah, I am working full-time day job too. Hmmm. ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ---------------- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 02:02:01 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: Re: dave! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jordan on the money. What ever it is, I'm against it. How much in Canadian for kootenay. I just got paid man, got me a pocket full of t(w)ooney's. As for my plans: I am planning to print out a list of everyone here, read all of your books and conduct an interview of you'all. Here are a few questions to start answering: In that book of yours that I am planning to read shortly after the interview, because we're like that, why the astringent use of the hemistich shortly before the epirrhematic syzygy? Do you believe the scandal of Ellis Wynne tearing apart the dyfalu technique of Dafydd ap Gwilym three centuries later might have influenced the third piece in the book two centuries afterward? be well David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:05:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "DANIEL L. COLLIER" Subject: Byefornow, Summer Reading, Thanks Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Listichki, I have quit my job and am headed East. (I will receive Poetics through the Monday digest.) Stops will include Irkutsk, Ulan Ude, Vladivostok, Ternei, Khabarosk, San Francisco (August 19), Los Angeles, and a long string of unknowns ending in DC at a friend's wedding party on September 19. If anyone knows how to make the LA to DC run cheaply while still seeing the countryside on the way, let me know. Summer reading: Right now I'm reading Vineland and Danil Kharms. I'll be hauling the Rothenberg/Jorris anthology the whole way, and I plan to get it autographed by any throat singers I encounter. I'll also bring my book of Akvarium lyrics so I can continue to osmose Russian. Chuki chuki, banana puki. Thanks to the whole list for entertaining me in my secretarial chair. Thanks especially to Henry G., Alan Sondheim and Miekal And for their responses to various queries. Don't get in any juicy arguments while I'm gone. Danny dannylu@hotmail.com http://www.digitalfunk.com/Akvarium ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 02:59:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k.a. hehir" Subject: Re: summerer In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hey george, i have a pretty good bibliography on beckett and dante. still, kevin |-------------------------------------------------------------| | the status quo of the weird is not a real minority | | but just the dominant culture making love to itself | | Daniel Harris | |-------------------------------------------------------------| ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 03:05:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "k.a. hehir" Subject: Re: summerer In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII george, again, unless (of course) i've beem had. a year off of the list(in prism) makes one ask still , kevin |-------------------------------------------------------------| | the status quo of the weird is not a real minority | | but just the dominant culture making love to itself | | Daniel Harris | |-------------------------------------------------------------| ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 07:05:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Books + Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A question for you listites: what are instances of writing "out of" (however you would see this) a culture other than one's own which seem to you to WORK, ethically as well as aesthetically, or do you see this inevitably as an impossible task? Yesterday I finished Wesley Brown's Tragic Magic, his first novel and a singing one it is. (Also aggregiously OOP, if any publishers are trolling for worthy.) And just before that Ron Padgett's Creative Reading, which is terrific. In the pile: 45 journals that have wung in since I last had a chance to make a dent in it, Bunting's Collected, Aidoo's No Sweetness Here, notebooks of GM Hopkins, letters of JC Ransom, Lavinia Greenlaw's A World Where News Travelled Slowly, Goran Simic's Sprinting from the Graveyard, The Voice Imitator by Thomas Bernhard, Joseph Lease's Human Rights, Gasparov's History of European Versification, new Millenium, Longenbach's Poetry After Modernism. Any of you New Yorkers been to see the OHara Ashbery and L Hughes plays on at the Medicine Show? And Maria: did GC do "If you cannot get it on take your dead ass home"? Susan Wheeler susan.wheeler@nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 06:12:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: Steve Lacy Question Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Speaking of Steve Lacy, does anybody know where I can get either a tape or a CD of Sidelines, his work with pianist Michael Smith of about 20 years ago? Neither CDNow or any of the Lacy websites seem to have it available. It was, as I recall, transcendant. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 24 Jun 1998 07:49:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Kramer Organization: none Subject: some are reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit some like lie berrians (me) are finding stuff fer other people to read and browsing like hell and "weeding" you know pulling stuff that no one checks out or that;s falling apart & all that so, some reeding & some weeding so to speak and meanwhile browsing as much as possible so i'm reading : rain taxi basinski a zine of the arths (small run of lots of short reviews) this List letters and email spines, flaps, and rear covers and the occasional page of books on all topics for all ages babel-17 by delany mansfield park thomas merton's the silent life oh yeah, read the black mt dossier of ray johnson and as always, packaging, corrugated boxes, and signs like the one fer the evilly toxic i've heard SWINGLINE STAPLES (visible from the N (never) train hear in new york) plans god to read this book on arp before i gotta give it back dee ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 21:29:20 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Kimball Subject: The East Village, Volume Two MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-2022-jp The East Village Poetry Web Volume Two ___ Tony Towle [7 Poems] ___ Ryan Whyte [8 Poems] [6 Images] ___ Chong Lau [4 Images with Calligraphy] ___ Carrie Etter [Alaskan] ___ Gary Sullivan [70 Lines from the Chinese] ___ Alex Katz [3 Images] ___ Betsy Andrews [Cocktails at 8] ___ Peter Ganick [7 Poems] ___ Yayoi Kusama [2 Image Sets] ___ John Tranter [4 Haibun] ___ Jonas Persson [2 Images] ___ Cid Corman [No Telling] ___ Billy Little [3 Poems] ___ Bob Arnold [Bobolink] ___ Shuko Miyatake [Bobolink: Translated into Japanese] ___ Elizabeth Weinberg [2 Images] Audio Files ___ Cid Corman [Reading and Responding to William Bronk] [No Telling] ___ Meiwa Denki [Hariseng-Bomb] Web Textcraft ___ Jean-Paul Tremblay [Skin] ___ Joey Nelson [2 Images] ___ Chris Najewicz [Paranoid Polaroid] ___ Jack Kimball [3 Images] ___ Simon Medisch [Blur] Access at or in Japan at ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 06:08:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Cheney Subject: The emotional scoreboard at Wimbledon In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The emotional scoreboard at Wimbledon, courtesy of ESPN2's updates at the bottom of the screen during Paraguay vs. Nigeria: "(2)Rios, (15)Kucera upset, (4)Rusedski withdrawn." ======================== Visit Don Cheney's Home Page & Clean Neck Shop http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5791 ============================================== ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 09:02:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: Steve Lacy Question In-Reply-To: <199862565552541@ix.netcom.com> from "rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM" at Jun 25, 98 06:12:15 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ron, don't know the answer to your question but figured I'd recommend to all another wonderful Lacy album, *Reflections*, consisting of all Monk tunes, with Mal Waldron & Elvin Jones. Great stuff. -m. According to rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM: > > Speaking of Steve Lacy, does anybody know where I can get either a tape or a > CD of Sidelines, his work with pianist Michael Smith of about 20 years ago? > Neither CDNow or any of the Lacy websites seem to have it available. It was, > as I recall, transcendant. > > Ron Silliman > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 23:00:50 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nada Gordon Subject: Re: Books + Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Susan Wheeler wrote: >A question for you listites: what are instances of writing "out of" (however >you would see this) a culture other than one's own which seem to you to >WORK, ethically as well as aesthetically, or do you see this inevitably as >an impossible task? this fish had to bite so many questions -- how does one know for sure what *one's own culture* is? what is culture? what is a culture? what is the exact border between *own culture* and *other culture*? some say men and women inhabit different cultures -- by extension, maybe everyone has his/her own culture? how long does one live in an other culture before it becomes own culture? does it take generations? if so how many? if you are an american, say fifth generation, and the culture you grew up in is different from the one your parents grew up in which is different from the one their parents grew up in, what's your culture then? and wouldn't it make some difference if you were alabaman or alaskan, appalachian or a new yorker? what is american culture? today my students asked me if i had a gun when i lived in america. i said i'd only seen one outside of a shop once. anyway that's their concept of american culture. if culture is like mold or yeast and grows on/in you what does that say about otherness? influence is so strong a force, imagine living somewhere for a long time and your pronunciation of your mother tongue changes. your vocabulary changes. you forget idioms, especially prepositions. someone asks you if you are indeed a native speaker of your language, you speak so haltingly...your attiudes change. . . your gestures... the tv shows you watch and the food you eat...then what's your culture? and what would be so impossible or unethical a task about writing out of or into or through or beside or behind or between the cultures that inhabit you? I just read Daisy Bates in the Desert; A Woman's Life Among the Aborigines It's by Julia Blackburn, not Daisy Bates. I think it "works." The writings of Lafcadio Hearn do not throw me into fits of political or aesthetic indignance. I think I could probably think of more, lots more. And it occurs to me that so many writers work from such a defamiliarized anthropologist-on-mars state that even "one's own" culture becomes most deliberately otherized. nada ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:20:46 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry G Subject: Re: Books + In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 25 Jun 1998 07:05:46 -0400 from On Thu, 25 Jun 1998 07:05:46 -0400 Susan Wheeler said: >A question for you listites: what are instances of writing "out of" (however >you would see this) a culture other than one's own which seem to you to >WORK, ethically as well as aesthetically, or do you see this inevitably as >an impossible task? As an aspiring byt poet, I learned from the Russians what a stanza is for. A lot of American poets don't know or care. - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:37:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: a stanz a (for henry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I never been outside America, I never studied Pushkin before; Yet I know there are Bees on Siberian plains, And what a stanza's for. ( from a discarded draft of Emily Dickinson) Henry, what's that there stanza for? - daniel bouchard At 10:20 AM 6/25/98 EDT, Henry G wrote: >As an aspiring byt poet, I learned from the Russians what a stanza is for. >A lot of American poets don't know or care. >- Henry G. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:32:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: CloudCuckooLand Anthony -- Thanks for your response on Armitage; _CloudCuckooLand_ sounds like an interesting venture indeed -- the few selections of Armitage I've seen so far have all were on a similar theme (getting out in a boat and hauling in fish). Perhaps this is his M.O. when stealing into new (?) territory -- turning something over and over, watching the shadows. I'll try to reach the Bloodaxe folks in the UK, although it might be a better shot to wait until I get there in person later this year. Does anybody have any suggestions for a reading list for the London scenes? I'm hoping to make a stop down at the Poet's Cafe sometime in late August. -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:37:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: a stanz a (for henry In-Reply-To: <2.2.32.19980625143744.0067f5a8@po7.mit.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I myself would be interested in hearing what Daniel thinks a stanza is for... At 10:37 AM 6/25/98 -0400, you wrote: >I never been outside America, >I never studied Pushkin before; >Yet I know there are Bees on Siberian plains, >And what a stanza's for. > >( from a discarded draft of Emily Dickinson) > >Henry, what's that there stanza for? > >- daniel bouchard > > >At 10:20 AM 6/25/98 EDT, Henry G wrote: >>As an aspiring byt poet, I learned from the Russians what a stanza is for. >>A lot of American poets don't know or care. >>- Henry G. >> > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 11:57:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: writing thru to multicult ethix? In-Reply-To: <199806251105.HAA19135@is.nyu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Susan Wheeler wrote: > A question for you listites: what are instances of writing "out of" (however > you would see this) a culture other than one's own which seem to you to > WORK, ethically as well as aesthetically, or do you see this inevitably as > an impossible task? > Susan, i find this a fascinating question....What really intrigues me is the question of **what is one's own culture**;......and what isn't. *and i note with some fascination that you lean toward the possibility that such writing-out-of would be unethical, even as you frame the question... *There are a lot of variables regarding class, gender, period...Even when one is staying "within" "one's own" culture! *For instance i have been reading The Pirates of Pen's Chance; after one of it's authors (D. Barbour) mentioned it on the list i secured it for a month on interlibrary loan. It is by the way one of the most astonishing books of poetry i've ever encountered, and it's a shame it is OOP and very obscure and rare (in this country). *But, are the poets in that book, contemporaries of ours, part of the same culture as some of the texts they write through (SHakespear, Stein, dylan's "LIke a Rolling Stone")? In what sense is one part of the same culture, if the experiencial matrix informing the work is perhaps very distant...? *(i don't recall if the Pirates write thru anything that could be called "non-western"..and the book is at home right now; maybe Douglas could remind me about that..) *Is there going to be something **unethical** if i "write thru" a text which is (oh i don't know) a transcribed Yoruba ceremonial song, which wouldn't be unethical if i wrote thru a poem from Bag O'Diamonds, because in the latter case i somehow (supposedly) inhabit "the same culture" as the source text?? *These may sound like rhetorical questions, the way i'm saying them; but while i also *lean* in a certain direction, i really don't think i have a solid anser, yet. *Maybe part of what i'm getting at is: there is something *inherently* "exploitative" about writing thru. *Unlike most presentations of another culture (in an anthropology textbook, in a museum exhibit, in a lecture) writing thru strategies do not claim to be representing an other with authenticity, respect, accuracy. Quite the opposite! *Yes OK, there is often a strong element of respect, even homage...cf. about half of the Pirates book, rooted in Stein source texts; but even this "respect" element is not always present..and certainly "authenticity" never is! *But is it true that not understanding someone else, will lead to a degree of travesty that could be racist or xenophobic, in some way, even given the peculiar angle at which one writes thru (or out of, as you put it)?? Yes i think likely so. *But when the great ethnopoetic texts, the Rothenberg et al. anthologies, starting with America a Prophecy, present non-western works, it is well to keep in mind that due to aspects of translation, presentation, selection and context (and decontextualization vis-a-vis the text's original life-space) much is being if not distorted exactly then...reimagined. *All in all, i return in my own mind to the point i've made above: that "writing thru" is a devious and peculiar strategm to begin with. And i'm not sure to what extent one is violating a chinese or nigerian (or gay or african-american) text, more than one is a white straight male euro text, by subjecting it to one's own underhanded agenda.... mark @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:12:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: writing thru to multicult ethix? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >*All in all, i return in my own mind to the point i've made above: that >"writing thru" is a devious and peculiar strategm to begin with. And i'm >not sure to what extent one is violating a chinese or nigerian (or gay or >african-american) text, more than one is a white straight male euro text, >by subjecting it to one's own underhanded agenda.... > >mark >@lanta > > Mark: It seems to me that the difference lies in the power relationship. No matter how badly I mangle the Philadelphia Mainline crowd by writing through an imagined protagonist I do very little damage to that not terribly vulnerable crowd. If my protagonist lives in a trailer park the potential damage is much greater. That said, I recommend always Jaime de Angulo's _Indian Tales_. Do Indians (the other kind) read Rudyard Kipling? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 13:02:46 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: henry Subject: Re: a stanz a (for henry In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:37:44 -0400 from On Thu, 25 Jun 1998 10:37:44 -0400 daniel bouchard said: >I never been outside America, >I never studied Pushkin before; >Yet I know there are Bees on Siberian plains, >And what a stanza's for. > >( from a discarded draft of Emily Dickinson) > >Henry, what's that there stanza for? Well, this gets to one of the prime secrets of da craft - I'm hesitatin' to divulge to youse guys & gals! Plus I juss writ a mini-essay on it an I doan wanna spill da beans juss yet! Ey, I only got 26 cards ta play wid anyways, I gotta consoive my hand! Lemme juss say dis. Emily, as I awready said inda essay, is ona da few that takes a stanza where it wanna go. But I loin it frum da Rooskies cause it so crystal clear an simple, say in dem Voronezh poems a Mandelstam which I been readin again lately. So hey I ain't gonna give it away free today - but see if youse can figure it out from dis - it ain't a poem, juss an example of sompin - Cicadas were stretching their legs in the summer shade. Out on the baking highway, flat and straight, it was a sort of droning curve I heard off there in the distance out of sight - a steady modulation they made over the bend of the horizon - part of night torn off, hiding in the wood. The highway rolled along (one way station right after another). Cicadas boomeranging in my head. - Henry G. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 18:49:16 +0100 Reply-To: R I Caddel Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R I Caddel Subject: OTHER - Advance Notice Comments: To: british n irish poets , poetics , modbrits MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE OTHER British and Irish Poetry since 1970 Edited and with an introduction by Richard Caddel and Peter Quartermain The most significant US anthology of innovative poetries from the UK and Ireland in over 25 years.=20 When most Americans think of contemporary British poetry, they think of such mainstream poets as Ted Hughes, Philip Larkin, and Geoffrey Hill. Yet there is a vibrant, diverse alternative poetry movement in the UK, inspired in large measure by the work of such significant mentors as Basil Bunting and J. H. Prynne. There is growing interest in this work in the United States--as alternative American poetries express increasingly transnational concerns--and yet almost none of it is available here.=20 OTHER is a highly focused anthology bringing together several important strands of English-language poetry that are not otherwise so readily accessible. It includes work by 55 poets, among them Cris Cheek, Brian Coffey, Fred d'Aguiar, Allen Fisher, Ulli Freer, Randolph Healy, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Wendy Mulford, Tom Raworth, Denise Riley, Catherine Walsh; a critical introduction addressing such topics as the interaction of British and American poetic traditions; and brief biographical and bibliographical notes on each poet.=20 "In the past two decades, British and Irish poetry have undergone a silent revolution. While the mainstream media present us with a 'Britain' still writing poetry under the sign of Philip Larkin or Ted Hughes, a number of strong oppositional voices have emerged, voices committed to a radical rethinking of the 'Movement' and its tepid aftermath. Rick Caddel and Peter Quartermain have produced an excellent anthology of this breakthrough poetry. No one interested in the 'turn' of poetry in the late twentieth century will want to miss it."--Marjorie Perloff "Caddel and Quartermain have gathered an intellectually and aesthetically challenging kaleidoscope of poems--fundamental information for anyone interested in contemporary writing. OTHER is the best anthology of British and Irish poetry now available."--Charles Bernstein Coming in December 1998 RICHARD CADDEL is a Director of the Basil Bunting Poetry Centre, University of Durham, editor of Pig Press, author of three collections of poetry including Larksong Signal (1997), and editor of Basil Bunting: Complete Poems (1994). PETER QUARTERMAIN is Professor of English, University of British Columbia, author of Disjunctive Politics: From Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukofsky to Susan Howe (1992) and Basil Bunting: Poet of the North (1990), and editor of Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Poets, 1880=AD1945 (1986).=20 Wesleyan Poetry Wesleyan University Press 352 pp. 6 x 9". Cloth, 0-8195-2241-4. $45.00 Paper, 0-8195-2258-9. $19.95 UK Sterling prices: paper 14.95 / cloth 34.00=20 UNIVERSITY PRESS OF NEW ENGLAND 23 South Main Street / Hanover, NH / 03755 Fax: 603-643-1540 Orders from individuals must be prepaid.=20 Postage: US: $4.00 first book, $.75 each additional book.=20 Canada: $5.00 first book, $1.25 each additional book.=20 Other Countries: $5.50 first book, $2.00 each additional book.=20 (Canadian customers must add 7% GST.) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 13:54:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: GROBERTS@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Subject: summer Beckett reading MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII I just finished reading Molloy. I am reading Malone Dies. I will read The Unnamable. Favorite apothegms of dubious worth: "To restore silence is the role of objects." "Everything divides into itself, I suppose." Favorite exclamation: "Ah shilly-shally." Favorite morbid dilation: "And once again I am I will not say alone, no, that's not like me, but, how shall I say, I don't know, restored to myself, no, I never left myself, free, yes, I don't know what that means but it's the word I mean to use, free to do what, to do nothing, to know, but what, the laws of the mind perhaps, of my mind, that for example water rises in proportion as it drowns you and that you would do better, at least no worse, to obliterate texts than to blacken margins, to fill in the holes of words till all is blank and flat and the whole ghastly business looks like what it is, senseless, speechless, issueless misery." Favorite inscrutable summation: "From their places masses move, stark as laws. Masses of what? One does not ask." Gary R. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 14:16:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: writing thru to multicult ethix? In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19980625101242.00762f64@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Mark Weiss wrote: > > > > Mark: It seems to me that the difference lies in the power relationship. No > matter how badly I mangle the Philadelphia Mainline crowd by writing > through an imagined protagonist I do very little damage to that not > terribly vulnerable crowd. If my protagonist lives in a trailer park the > potential damage is much greater. > I still don't see it.....Your reply doesn't really address the points i was making at all (of course, that's probably 'cause you don't think there's much *to* them, and there may be something in that..) *If you write thru a text by someone in a trailer park, are you mangling them?? Or, can you mangle them??? *See, this is my whole point (and i believe it's a fascinating and important one, and credit to susan for raising it):....Just what are you **doing** to someone by responding in this way to their text? Is it "their" text?? Is it *part of them*...Which i think is a commonsense point-of-view much held by all kinds of people, about texts and other intellectual/artistic productions...It sounds to me like you feel the text is *part of* the person living in the trailer park. It would have to be, perhaps, in order for you to *hurt them* thru it...Sounds a little like the use of nail clippings and hair, to cast an injurious spell on someone. *Your point about relations of power, is well taken; but was sort of implicit in my first post. That's why i brought up things like museum or textbook depictions of other cultures...Is a poem "written out of" a non-western text *exactly* like a museum exhibit, that can easily be denigrating and insulting if it misrepresents another people's culture? *Of course, your example seems ("imagined protagonist") more about just locating a fictional story or persona in another culture...i took writing out of, in susan's term, to mean "writing thru". If (as i so often do) i totally misunderstood the thrust of her quesiton, i apologize. But will take back the praise i've directed at her, and award it to myself. Since the topic i've been addressing is, as i say, somewhat interesting and important. *at least, to me ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 14:41:19 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: CharSSmith@AOL.COM Subject: Re: writing thru to multicult ethix? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In a message dated 98-06-25 13:21:38 EDT, you write: << That said, I recommend always Jaime de Angulo's _Indian Tales_. >> & as "*essential*" companion piece, "Indians in Overalls" --cs ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 14:41:21 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: CharSSmith@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Steve Lacy Question -- & recent reads Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ron, _Sidelines_ was released by Improvising Artist's, Inc (IAI 37.38.47) in 1977. Are they around anymore? I've never seen any of their stuff on cd. It's a marvelous duet. Backchannel if you'd like a copy -- pops & all. Transcendant??? btw, there's a RealAudio performance/interview with Steve Lacy at: http://www.kcrw.org/g/index.html recent reads: just finished Peter Gizzi's _Artificial Heart_ -- a coupla pieces in there are real knockouts. Dee Morris' _Sound States_ Lisa Cooper's great little (jazzlistening) poem from Chax: _Tilt Rail_ ("the name of this song is the name of this song") -- & too, Tenney Nathnason's _One Block Over_ grabbed my attention & wants a second look ("imaginary gardens with real poems in them") rereading w/ astonishment, after losing my mother in April, Hilda Morley's _What Are Winds & What Are Waters_ & Tom Mandel's _Prospect Of Release_ Ben Hollander: _The Book Of Who Are Was_ Peter Cole: _Hymns & Qualms_ browsing the new Talisman New (Am) Poets Harry Duncan: _Doors Of Perception_ Raddle Moon 16 Charles Smith In a message dated 98-06-25 07:12:30 EDT, you write: << Speaking of Steve Lacy, does anybody know where I can get either a tape or a CD of Sidelines, his work with pianist Michael Smith of about 20 years ago? Neither CDNow or any of the Lacy websites seem to have it available. It was, as I recall, transcendant. Ron Silliman >> ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 14:42:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: writing thru to multicult ethix? > On Thu, 25 Jun 1998, Mark Weiss wrote: > > Mark: It seems to me that the difference lies in the power relationship. No > > matter how badly I mangle the Philadelphia Mainline crowd by writing > > through an imagined protagonist I do very little damage to that not > > terribly vulnerable crowd. If my protagonist lives in a trailer park the > > potential damage is much greater. > > Dave Brubeck catches (or caught) a lot of flack from a lot of people when he performed Jazz music with a "classical" (Western) style. I'm not sure if the critical apparatus was in sufficiently high gear (heh) to start talking about the ethics at the time, but there were certaintly very angry reactions that based their objections on aesthetic grounds. There's something false about "writing through" ("roitin' chrew"?) when it's done poorly. I think the vague sense of ethical objection that arises when you read it comes from memories of blackface comics and various other parodies and from the sinister "compliments" paid to various races that their culture embodies this or that particular quality better than others. Whether these elements are actually present in a work can be up for debate, but it's kind of like using "liebenstraum" without an understanding of its historical context. Most of the poorly done "writing throughs" I know are pathetically well intentioned. It doesn't have to be done poorly, though. I'm not sure if it counts, but the first work that sprang to mind when this thread came up was Berryman's _Dream Songs_, which I think hit pretty close to the nerve center of a lot of Americans in their use of black language and jargon. What about the Haiku? -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 14:53:22 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: New @ Bridge Street, Spicer bio, Bellamy, Luoma, Mayer, Notley, Palmer, Perloff. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Spicer bio! I say I say Spicer bio! Ordering & discount information at the end of the list. Thanks again, poetics, for your support. 1. _A Geometry_, Anne-Marie Albiach, Burning Deck, $5. "turned / pale and broke this kind of logic" 2. _To Repel Ghosts_, Tim Atkins, Like Books, $5. "I'm taking homeopathic pills for hypochondriacs as language & lost me my bones for trying to without them." 3. _Four Black Revolutionary Plays_, Amiri Baraka, Marion Boyars Publishers, $11.95. The plays "Experimental Death Unit 1," "A Black Mass," "Madheart," and "Great Goodness of Life." "JACOUB: (_turns to other magicians_) I know that we are moving at thousands of miles an hour. In endless space. In black endless space. But I also know that we must find out everything." 4. _The Letters of Mina Harker_, Dodie Bellamy, Hard Press, $13.95. "Black marker on the zen bakery's bathroom wall: GENDER IS THE NIGHT." 5. _Last Words_, Guy Bennett, Sun & Moon, $9.95. "an accident venom / with latex fretted centers / yields permissible props" 6. _Chicago Review Vol 43, No. 4_: Contemporary Poetry & Poetics, ed Andrew Rathman & Devin Johnston, $6. Baraka, Carson, Duncan, Golding, Halliday, Heller, Hillman, Hoover, Howe, Jordan, Lu, Mahon, Rasula, Shoptaw, Spicer bio excerpt, Tuma. 7. _The Secret Art of Antonin Artaud_, Jacques Derrida & Paul Thevenin, MIT, $25. "Here true competence belongs to the literality of glossolalia." 8. _Poet Be Like God: Jack Spicer and the San Francisco Renaissance_, Lew Ellingham and Kevin Killian, Wesleyan, $35. Long-awaited & ho-boy-o-boy. "Here is the life every aspiring poet _must_ know if she or he would risk self and soul in the mills of American art." --Samuel Delany 9. _Explosive Magazine: Spectacular Emotion_, ed. Katy Lederer, $6. Ishmael Klein, Emily Wilson, Martin Corless-Smith, D.A. Powell, Pamela Lu, Tan Lin, & an Alex Cory cassette. 10. _Aesthetics, Method, & Epistemology: The Essential Works of Michel Foucault Vol. 2_ , ed. James D. Faubion, New Press, $30. "Negligence is the necessary correlate of attraction. The relations between them are complex." 11. _Ethics, Subjectivity, & Truth: The Essential Works of Michel Foucault Vol. 1, New Press, pb. $18.95. "The pain and pleasure of the book is to be an experience." 12. _Foucault and His Interlocutors_, ed. Arnold I. Davidson, U. Chicago, $17.95. Foucault, Canguilhem, Chaomsky, Deleuze, Derrida, Hadot, Serres, & Veyne. 13. _Science & Steepleflower_, Forrest Gander, New Directions, $12.95. "You made me to lie down in a peri-Gondanan back-arc basin." 14. _Giscombe Road_, C.S. Giscombe, Dalkey Archive, $10.95. "that trill to it, an osmotic line, jagged & minute & strange / no word for the way blood will tell, the edge" 15. _My Futurist Years_, Roman Jakobson, Marsilio, $19.95. Memoir, letters, essays, poems, & prose. "So everything went remarkably well. I immediately landed in a scholarly milieu." 16. _Works & Days_, Bill Luoma, The Figures, $15. "After I got off the ferry, I bought a national league ball and walked up Broadway. I bit the seams when suits walked by. This raises them up and makes it easier to throw curves." 17. _Another Smashed Pinecone_, Bernadette Mayer, United Artists, $10. "Orbed at the world, a globular tube / That floats a ball away by wind at tiny sea / Two times backest to the shore my love / Happened this difference through our globe" 18. _Mysteries of Small Houses_, Alice Notley, Penguin, $14.95. "What's the name of the larger island? / Why am I still on the smaller one? / I'm not a story or life: if I / say that, I'm suddenly here / terror in this real poem" 19. _The Lion Bridge: Selected Poems 1972-1995_, Michael Palmer, New Directions, $18.95. Palmer's selection from seven of his books, 260 pages. "I will read a few of these to see if they exist / (We will translate logos as logos)" 20. _Poetry On & Off the Page: Essays for Emergent Occasions_, Marjorie Perloff, Northwestern, $19.95. Commited to the notion that, in John Ashbery's words, "You can't say it that way anymore," Perloff describes the formations and transformations of literary and artistic discourses in an aesthetic climate increasingly shaped by interdisciplinary concerns. Artists and theorists addressed in these essays include, Loy, Duncan, Levertiv, Hejinian, Barthes, McCaffery, Cage, and Viola. 21. _Revolution of the Word: A New Gathering of American Avant Garde Poetry 1914-1945, ed. Jerome Rothenberg, Exact Change, $15.95. Reprint of one of the many seminal Rothenberg anthologies. Arensberg, Brow, Crane, Crosby, cummings, H.D., Duchamp, Duncan, Eliot, Fearing, Ford, Freytag-Loringhoven, Gillespie, Hartley, Jolas, Lowenfels, Loy, Mac Low, Moore, Olson, Oppen, Patchen, Pound, Rexroth, Reznikoff, Riding, Sandburg, Stein, Stevens, Williams, Zukofsky. 22. _The Book of Tendons_, Eleni Sikelianos, Post-Apollo, $7. "did he meant to mean I want Europe / more than I want you---?" 23. _Talking About a Revolution_ , ed South End Press Collective, $14. Interviews with Michael Albert, Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, bell hooks, Peter Kwong, Winona LaDuke, Manning Marable, Urvashi Vaid, & Howard Zinn. Talking about a revolution. 24. _Noon_, Cole Swensen, Sun & Moon, $10.95. Winner of the New American Poetry Competition selected by Rae Armantrout. "I remember only the parts that begin." Some Bestsellers: _Wakefulness_, John Ashbery, FSG, $20. _Close Listening: Poetry and the Performed Word_, Charles Bernstein ed., Oxford, $24.95. _Life & Death_, Robert Creeley, New Directions, $19.95. _An Anthology of New (American) Poets_, Lisa Jarnot, Leonard Schwartz, and Chris Stroffolino ed, Talisman, $21.95. _An Anthology of New (American) Poets_, Lisa Jarnot, Leonard Schwartz, and Chris Stroffolino ed, Talisman, $21.95. _Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women_, ed. Mary Margaret Sloan, Talisman, $27.95. _Free Space Comix_, Brian Kim Steffans, Roof, $9.95. _Tripwire: a journal of poetics_, ed Yedda Morrison & David Buuck, $6. _Sound States: Innovative Poetics and Acoustic Technologies_, ed A. Morris, $24.95. _I-VI_, John Cage, $24.95. _Crayon Premier Issue: Jackson Mac Low Festschrift_, $20 _Guy Debord--Revolutionary: A Critical Biography_, Len Bracken, $14.95. _Raddle Moon 16: 22 New French Writers_, $10. _Chloroform #1_, $10. _Perhaps this is a rescue fantasy_, Heather Fuller, $10. _Nothing Happened and Besides I Wasn't There_, Mark Wallace, $9.50. _Collected Prose_, Charles Olson, $19.95. We also have some signed copies from recent readings of _Little Men_ by Kevin Killian, $12.95; Some Other Kind of Mission ($11) & Sea Lyrics ($6) by Lisa Jarnot; On a Stair ($14.95) & And for Example ($14.95) by Ann Lauterbach. Poetics folks receive free shipping on orders of more than $20. Free shipping + 10% discount on orders of more than $30. There are two ways to order. 1. E-mail your order to aerialedge@aol.com with your address & we will bill you with the books. or 2. via credit card-- you may call us at 202 965 5200 or e-mail aerialedge@aol.com w/ yr add, order, & card # & we will send a receipt with the books. We must charge some shipping for orders out of the US. Bridge Street Books, 2814 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20007. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 23:30:59 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: summerer's tales MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ok, then reading: Catch 22, Moving Borders (Margy Sloane's anthology of 20th cent. women poets--GREAT!), American Lib. WALLACE STEVENS, Easy Riders and Raging Bulls (Hollywood's 1970's--a great book), and all the cookboks I can get. writing: EYE--a continuation of a book I started three years ago (some of which appeared in The ARt of Practice antology, a new work vaguely entitled Enclosure, and a body of visual texts (along with my wife)... yrs, Todd Baron -- ReMap magazine -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 17:29:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: my P.C.'s papa threw a few bricks in his time, pal [subtitled: soon there were little Crays everywhere] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"Lke the Colossus, the ENIAC had been designed for a specific task, that >of calculating artillery range tables. Essentially it was to simulate >the trajectory of shells through varying conditions of air resistance >and wind velocity, which involved the summation of thousands of little >pieces of trajectory."---from Alan Turing:The Enigma by Andrew Hodge; >see also The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann by Herman H. Goldstine >& John von Neumann and Norbert Wiener: From Mathematics to the >Technologies of Life and Death by Steve J. Heims I am very confused about this. What is the actual difference between a "Turing machine" and an "Enigma engine" ?" There must be a difference, must there not, between those two devices ? Can anyone clarify that, somewhat ? Also can anyone define, in relation to each other: Enigma, Colossus,and ENIAC ? (Not as simple as it seems.) M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 00:37:30 -0400 Reply-To: BANDREWS@prodigy.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BETSY ANDREWS Subject: Re: Money and Poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit PRESS magazine pays $50 a poem. ---------- > From: William Burmeister Prod > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Money and Poetry > Date: Friday, June 12, 1998 11:14 AM > > >but poetry as well as music in all reality (unless you are Jewel 1.7 million > >for her book of poems) will not pay up- > > > >poetry is a business, when it becomes a ways and a means of staying alive- > > > >You have to watch it because the moment something you do (that you love) > >becomes part of the grocery bill its gonna change- > > > > You sir are correct! > > > > People devour me without tasting me > - Jewel > > William ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 15:23:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Blaise Cirelli Subject: Postmodern Prose MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; name="cc:Mail" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'll be teaching a short class on Postmodernism literature at our community college. Does anyone know of a good anthology that contains Postmodern Prose? I'm looking for some short works. I'd like something equivalent to the poetic anthologies of Hoover and Rothenberg. Please backchannel me if you have any recommendations. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 17:41:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: trbell Subject: Re: Books + Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" On Thu, 25 Jun 1998 07:05:46 -0400 Susan Wheeler said: >A question for you listites: what are instances of writing "out of" (however >you would see this) a culture other than one's own which seem to you to >WORK, ethically as well as aesthetically, or do you see this inevitably as >an impossible task? In what is another culture for me I have been working to find out what I feel rather than to just express. I feel it has worked so will continue. tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 19:06:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Yes, and . . Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks, Mark, Mark, Simon, Nada. I had in mind both writing-through and also representation -- which is what the Berryman would qualify as, yes? -- and yes, cultures defined in a variety of ways (gender but yes, also money, regional accent, job), and work that defines itself as fiction as well as that which is defined as ethnography or . . . poetry. For five years several years back I did PR for anthropology faculty (as well as other disciplines) and did have a hard time with observation's goal being a generalization, a summation, of a group of individuals or of individual groups. This may not be the inevitable result of writing acts, though this is the question I leave open. There's more to say, but I'm late elsewhere. Other MODELS out there of attempts that were interesting? Susan Wheeler susan.wheeler@nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 03:08:09 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: Postmodern Prose MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A short story collection (inexpension--GREAT!) is SUPERFICTION: with work by Barth, Barthleme, Pynchon, Reed, Sorrentino, Sukenick, Hwakes--etc. pub. by Vintage. edited by Joe David Bellamy yrs, Todd Baron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 18:46:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "David W. Clippinger" Subject: Re: Postmodern Prose In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" _Postmodern American Fiction_ might be of interest. (Norton, 1997) David Clippinger Assistant Professor of English Penn State University At 03:23 PM 6/25/98 -0700, you wrote: > I'll be teaching a short class on Postmodernism literature at our > community college. Does anyone know of a good anthology that contains > Postmodern Prose? I'm looking for some short works. I'd like > something equivalent to the poetic anthologies of Hoover and > Rothenberg. > > Please backchannel me if you have any recommendations. > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 16:27:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Summer Beckett Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Gary Roberts, thanks for the choice phrases from Beckett. By way of a tiny footnote : I, Malone. I'm alone. db3 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 19:48:20 -0400 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Organization: Alphaville Subject: utopia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "One may say, indeed, quite generally, that a theory we acclaim as rational in itself is thereby accredited with prophetic powers. We accept it in the hope of making contact with reality....In this wholly indeterminate scope of its true implications lies the deepest sense in which objectivity is attributed to a scientific theory....[Objectivity] is not a counsel of self-effacement, but the very reverse--a call to the Pygmalion in the mind of man."---from Personal Knowledge by Michael Polanyi ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 19:32:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: Summerer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In process of reading: Durrell's _Justine_ Peter Gay's _Freud Reader_ Paul Davies' _Mind of God_ Intend to (continue) read(ing): all R. Gancie posts* *and I still don't have a definition for "ratiomorphous" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 20:08:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Hilbert & Langpo (a linkage by R.Gancie) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" This may be out of date . . .been scrolling up the inbox after several heavy days. In any case : The British poet, painter & polymath, Alan Fisher, has poem/s titled (I think) "In a Hilbert Space." Sorry I cant find in which of his many books. And surely he qualifies for the rubric "Language Poet," as long as that's not heard as reductive. Perhaps Ken Edwards or Chris Cheek, who used to be on this list, can supply further info. David ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 21:24:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: Enigma MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > What is the actual difference between a "Turing machine" and > an "Enigma engine" ?" There must be a difference, must there not, between > those two devices ? "Turing machine" is a term applied to any machine that has certain very generalized properties. It's a term used mainly in theoretical computer science. All modern computers are Turing machines. It's a mathematical blueprint for all computers, Turing's formulation of the properties a computer should have. As geometry is to architecture, so is theoretical computer science to computer science. Though I'm not entirely certain about the term 'Enigma engine,' I presume that it refers to the Enigma device Turing helped devise used to crack the Nazi codes. Usually the term 'engine' refers to a software construct, the central code involved in driving a program. A language engine, of sorts. So the Enigma engine would be the core software involved in the Enigma project. By the way, the Greek for riddle is aenigma, which also means mystery. Really good riddles. Really good. -- V I S P O ~ L A N G U ( I M ) A G E http://www.islandnet.com/~jandrews/mocambo/jimvispo.htm ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 21:32:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: MacEwen and Montreal MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks for the MacEwen poem, Douglas. I'm going to be in Montreal July 1 to July 7. Anybody know of poetry readings in Montreal then? -- V I S P O ~ L A N G U ( I M ) A G E http://www.islandnet.com/~jandrews/mocambo/jimvispo.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 00:57:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Alan J.J.N. Sondheim" Subject: Finger MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Finger {k:5}finger -l nikuko@oita.com.jp Name: Daishin Nikuko (nikuko) Home: /home/r7/nikuko Shell: /bin/csh Timeout -- while doing something indeterminable. at last finger no longer brings home the world but only a murmuring behind thick or walls filled flush with oozing text: poor Unix has no geomancy telling among the rocks of this rare earth what rare earths glow subluminary; I search and find nothing but something, a something indeterminable, skittering across protocols and bins, hungering after permissions and lost directories, buried within the mining of metals and coals, tunneled and shored by timbers diffused with light: at last the finger points; and what bleak source eludes, dissolves, and steers the Word off course? _________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1998 22:36:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Little Subject: Re: Yes, and . . Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" there was the cockroach speaking thru Don Marquis and Haniel Long's Malinche to Cortes ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 14:03:14 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Simon J. Schuchat" Subject: Enigma Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Listmates -- As I prepare to leave Taiwan after three years, I must sign off the list, at least until I have a new ISP, address, etc, etc. It has been a great experience to participate in this community -- previous times overseas I've been cut off from most multi or dia logue on these topics and having been on the list I realize how much I missed before there was a list or any equivalent accessible. Many thanks to all of you, cheers, Simon Schuchat ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 01:11:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: a stanza In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A stanza is for keeping your mobilia and libri in. George Bowering. , 2499 West 37th Ave., Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6M 1P4 fax: 1-604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:21:04 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Simon J. Schuchat" Subject: Re: a stanza Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" the Nissan Stanza is for both city and country driving ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 09:13:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Kuszai" Subject: address query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Does anyone have an e-mail address for Stephanie Lang? Please- BACKCHANNEL this as I'm set to digest. thanks- jk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 09:45:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: New @ Bridge Street, Spicer bio, Bellamy, Luoma, Mayer, Notley, Palmer, Perloff. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit OK Rod, you've hooked me again: I'd like the Spicer bio, the Forrest Gander, and the "Revolution" Rothenberg anthology. bests, Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 09:52:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: New @ Bridge Street, Spicer bio, Bellamy, Luoma, Mayer, Notley, Palmer, Perloff. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit OK, now I've done it again. woops. I guess this counts as a post to "summer reading" thread. embarrassed in the 'burbs Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 11:26:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: Russian/Azerbaijani poet seeks help Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Listfriends: I've put the whole exchange in here f.y.i., and because the second note expands the context. If anyone has any suggestions, please send them directly to Ms. Alaverdova at the addresses given in her first note--she's not on the list. Thanks, S. >At 11:45 AM -0400 6/25/98, Liana Alaverdova wrote: >>Dear Mr. Pollet: >> >> I am the Russian author ( I published my poetry in my native country, >>Azerbaijan, as well as here, in the US, on Russin and English languages). >>Now I am looking for the person who can be interested in translation my >>poems and plays into English in order to publish bilingual book or submit >>my plays to the producers. If you can be of any help in this matter, please >>let me know. My e-mail addresses are: lalaverdova@sh-e.com or >>lalaverdova@usa.net. >>Thank you for your cooperation. >> >>With Best Regards, >> >> Liana Alaverdova > >Dear Ms. Alaverdova: > >I don't have any way to help you through the National Poetry Foundation, >but I am a member of a discussion list on Poetics based at the State >University of New York, at Buffalo. The list has about 600 members, >international, and quite a few of them are small press publishers, or >interested in translation, or might have suggestions for you. With your >permission, I could forward your letter to that list, and ask people to >respond to you directly. I won't do so until I hear back with your >permission. >Best of luck with your writing, and your quest, Sylvester Pollet >>Dear Mr. Pollet: >> >>I would certainly appreciate if you do this for me. The discussion list is >>a very good way to find collaboration for people like me who doesn't have >>any connections in the world of American literature (I don't mean Russian >>authors in the U.S. I know many of them.) You could add to my message that >>my plays arise some issues as immigration, national problems, but my main >>concern was to show human characters and collisions among them. >> >>Thank you for your help. >> >>With best regards, Liana Alaverdova >> >> ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 08:52:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: morbid requests MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can anyone tell me where Robert Duncan is buried (is Robert Duncan buried)? Can anyone point me to other literary graves (SF Bay Area)? Kenneth Patchen (d. 1972) is still in the phone book in Palo Alto, California, but his number doesn't answer. Anyone know where he might be now? I tried the one cemetery in town, Alta Mesa Memorial Park, but only found Ronald "Pigpen" McKernan (epitaph : "Pigpen was and is now forever one of the grateful dead"). Object of search : nothing nefarious; need to pay my respects to death. Thanks awfully, Rachel P.S. Wyatt Earp is buried in Colma. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 11:45:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: query: non-mainstream/avant garde dance theory MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello listfolks: I'm interested in finding out some information about books and articles on contemporary dance, preferably on work outside the mainstream. I'm interested first and foremost on mainfesto/theory/statements of purpose work written by actual practioners and choreographers, but would interested also in academic criticism and/or theoretical work written on the subject. Either backchannel or a post to the list would be fine. My knowledge here is pretty shaky--anything anybody knows would help. Thanks. Mark Wallace /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ | | | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | | GWU: | | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | | EPC: | | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | |____________________________________________________________________________| ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 12:02:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Enigma Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Though I'm not entirely certain about the term 'Enigma engine,' I presume that >it refers to the Enigma device Turing helped devise used to crack the Nazi >codes. Usually the term 'engine' refers to a software construct, the central >code involved in driving a program. A language engine, of sorts. So >the Enigma engine would be the core software involved in the Enigma project. I had another response describing the "Enigma engine" as a German interchangeable cylinder cypher machine. However, the term is used, very loosely, both ways. Your answer is essentially the one that gets fullest marks on that quiz. I was being somewhat tongue in cheek as to the Turing and Enigma distinction. However, you get some more marks on the quiz if you can explain why the hardware for Enigma was so extremely different from that of Colossus. I have seen a photograph of the reconstruction of the hardware configuration, that was published not so very long ago in the newspapers, and it was absolutely mind boggling and astounding, considering when it was built. >By the way, the Greek for riddle is aenigma, which also means mystery. Really >good riddles. Really good. So mysterious that Enigma was ordered dismantled by Winston Churchill, claiming that the machine was "too dangerous" to leave it functioning. Figure that mystery out and you get the bonus points. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 12:13:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: morbid requests MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>>I tried the one cemetery in town, Alta Mesa Memorial Park, but only found Ronald "Pigpen" McKernan (epitaph : "Pigpen was and is now forever one of the grateful dead") You know that he was reincarnated as me, right? Pigpen d. 3/8/73, me b. 3/8/73. I'm not entirely unserious. I'm glad you're holding up well enough to contemplate such a tour, to begin to conceptualize your experience. I've been thinking about you quite a lot, and wishing I had anything to offer in the way of support more than platitudes. Do write when you can. take care of yourself--g. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 12:17:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: booby prize of the day MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I think I've just done it again, that is, inadvertently, through using Netscape e-mail incautiously, sent a personal message to the listserv. I am green with embarrassment. Cigarettes of shame appear before me. Such things do not become my tender years. Lasers swim on without me. sumimasen sumimasen sumimasen sumimasen sumimasen Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 12:46:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: Close Listening & Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Price adjustment to _Close Listening_ -- originally priced at $24.95, it's now available from Bridge Street (& anywhere else) for $19.95. Also to mention two Ashbery titles unavailable for a time have been reprinted by Farrar Strauss-- _Flow Chart_, $15, & _A Wave_, $12. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:02:46 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "P.Standard Schaefer" Subject: Boundary 2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Isn't there supposed to be an issue on international poetry edited by Charles Bernstein out any minute? I'm wondering if anyone knows if this issue is out, is ever coming out. So far none of my searches have turned up anything. Maybe someone can guide toward info regarding this. Thanks, Standard ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:31:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Nowak Subject: Re: Yes, and... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Susan, When you wrote... For five years several years back I did PR for anthropology faculty (as well as other disciplines) and did have a hard time with observation's goal being a generalization, a summation, of a group of individuals or of individual groups. This may not be the inevitable result of writing acts, though this is the question I leave open. ...not sure what sort of anthropology faculty you're talking about here. Anthropology faculty are like Poetry/Literature/Creative Writing faculty, in that many of all of the above still cling to out-dated methodologies, praxis, modes of inscription, etc. This kind of statement seems like summarizing the state of contemporary poetry based on what's happening at the MFA program at ____________ (fill in almost any institution). I think anthropologists, innovative anthropologists, have done some of the most significant writing to date on the subjects you put forward. Certainly Clifford's books on _Writing [through] Culture_, _The Predicament of Culture_, the new one _Routes_; Johannes Fabian's _Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object_; Lila Abu-Lughod's work (esp. essay in _Recapturing Anthropology_ on being "halfie"-- half "native" & half "other" where one is doing her/his fieldwork); Kirin Naryan's _Storytellers, Saints, & Scoundrels_; and the list goes on & one &... Another magnificent text of note is Juan Felipe Herrera's _Mayan Drifter: Chicano Poet in the Lowlands of America_ (Temple): Herrera has graduate degrees in both cultural anthropology and poetry (MFA), & brings much insight to the questions of representation, writing (through) culture, etc. Picking up on Blanchot's ideas of "the fragmentary" in writing, the anthropologists I've encountered have been equally as interested in these points: NOT in summarization. And then there's Gerald Vizenor's wonderful book on this, too: _Manifest Manners_. OK, I'll stop: I'm off to do fieldwork this weekend (I kid you not!) in Northern Minnesota on the infamous Polka Mass. later... Mark ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 14:50:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: MFA/PhD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Dear List Members: I feel like this question is sort of on the outer fringes of the strands concerning MFAs, etc., but being a student (possibly until I perish) and not as of yet in the world of "Academia", I pose this question to those who are in a position to know: Is it better (if you intend to teach at any institution other than a public high school) to have an MFA or to go on to a PhD??? I understand that in some instances the MFA is looked upon as a "terminal" degree, but you don't often hear (anymore) of someone with an MFA landing a cushy and tenured position at a university somewhere... Just curious as to your thoughts on this... Brent Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 15:00:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: Boundary 2 In-Reply-To: <7d3ab909.3593d438@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Well, Standard, maybe it's gone the way of the ever elusive "Oh Canada!" issue of the rusted word..... I do here tell that CB's next book of poetry is called my way.... my my-- chris On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, P.Standard Schaefer wrote: > Isn't there supposed to be an issue on international poetry edited by Charles > Bernstein out any minute? I'm wondering if anyone knows if this issue is out, > is ever coming out. So far none of my searches have turned up anything. > Maybe someone can guide toward info regarding this. > > Thanks, > > Standard > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 14:14:38 +0000 Reply-To: ARCHAMBEAU@LFC.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Re: MFA/PhD MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Brent, I want to say something or other about the tenure track not really being all that cushy, but then again it beats hell out of any of the other jobs I've had. (My grubling about life here in the ivory tower plays well at faculty meetings but my friends who work at other kinds of jobs tend to hoot with derision when I complain. But man, this tweed suit gets hot in summer, especially under the dark robes and mortarboard...) So here's my semi-cynical answer to what seems like a semi-cynical question -- this is meant as practical advice about the way things happen, which isn't neccesarily the way they ought to happen: To get an MFA, a PhD or both -- I suppose it all depends what you want to do. The ads for positions in creative writing tend to ask for both an MFA and book publication now, and some experience with teaching. In a way this is a catch-22: to get a teaching gig you need to have had a teaching gig. But in many MFA programs you do end up doing a fair bit of teaching. I suspect that you'd have to be a pretty established writer to get much of a hearing without an MFA, which seems more than a bit myopic, really. If you want anything other than creative writing classes and maybe the occasional intro to lit class, you'll probably need either a PhD or some pretty influential friends, preferably both. And the hiring committee will want you to have published "creative" and "critical" work. Unless they're hiring up at Buffalo, they probably won't be sympathetic to the notion that such distinctions aren't always as clear as they may seem. Having both degrees seems to help, since more and more colleges and universities want people who can teach a variety of courses (and, again, committees tend to rely on degrees as a guide to knowing who can teach what -- I don't think we're in Black Mountain any more, Toto). R.A. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 15:18:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: Re: MFA/PhD In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980626145054.007c5970@postoffice.brown.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Brent--- Good specific "practical" question. I don't know if there is such a thing as a "cushy" academic job. Tenure certainly doesn't equal cushy these days, but since I have neither I tend to sometimes conflate them too... especially since I have a creative writing masters AND a Scholalry Ph.D. I think that nowadays, however, you won't find too many recent Ph.D's with those tenured jobs either.... If you're thinking CAREER, thinking DEGREE, by itself, means anything, get a time machine quick and go to the glory glut academic years of yippie agent orange and viet-niks. I am not complaining right now (at least I think I'm not) about going to Bard's MFA program one summer, then dropping out because I got into (with T.A.) Temple for 2 years (M.A. Program; at a time when I didn't realize Brown or Iowa would put me on a certain proper track or loop more easily so I'm told).... then, after realizing that an MA (and I doubt the lack of a letter F made any difference) didn't mean much, and turning 30, and losing my mother, and publishing my first full-length book, and getting in SULFUR, NAW, APR, etc., and still not being able to even get an adjunct creative writing (or literature) gig, decided to go to an MFA Program (to study with James Tate). I wasn't funded, however, so went only briefly.... and then I guess "fell in love" with Shakespeare Criticism, or the generic possibilities in working within the form of a Ph.D. dissertation, and "jumped ship" and then schools and got into SUNY'S PH.D program (also unfunded, but I thought that would change. Cuomo was still governor then!) Regardless, then, of my own choices (for which I take some --if not quite all--responsibility) that have led to this debt andthe verge of default (regardless of my own aversion toward Newtorking those "in power"), I think I'll get a job..... It will just take longer, but in that time of waiting I'm trying to see that the more money you make the more you must work. Well, I hope this answer lites the preverbial cushion.... c On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Brent Long wrote: > Dear List Members: > > I feel like this question is sort of on the outer fringes of the strands > concerning MFAs, etc., but being a student (possibly until I perish) and > not as of yet in the world of "Academia", I pose this question to those who > are in a position to know: > > Is it better (if you intend to teach at any institution other than a public > high school) to have an MFA or to go on to a PhD??? > > I understand that in some instances the MFA is looked upon as a "terminal" > degree, but you don't often hear (anymore) of someone with an MFA landing a > cushy and tenured position at a university somewhere... > > Just curious as to your thoughts on this... > > Brent > Brent_Long@brown.edu > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:13:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: MFA/PhD Comments: To: Brent Long MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain My own plan, Brent, is to forgo the MA (or MFA - big waste anyway, with all due respect) and go straight to the PhD. program. Several of my professors here at the University of Colorado have advised me that this is "the thing to do." Besides which, I'm 41, and getting no younger. However, it all depends what your long term plans are. And how much time and money you feel like spending. I hope to enter a tenure-track teaching post at a decent university. Before the comet pops a cap in the planet's head. Good recommend, btw, on the new Gander book. There's some stellar work in there. Patrick Pritchett, lowly undergrad ---------- From: Brent Long To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: MFA/PhD Date: Friday, June 26, 1998 1:50PM Dear List Members: I feel like this question is sort of on the outer fringes of the strands concerning MFAs, etc., but being a student (possibly until I perish) and not as of yet in the world of "Academia", I pose this question to those who are in a position to know: Is it better (if you intend to teach at any institution other than a public high school) to have an MFA or to go on to a PhD??? I understand that in some instances the MFA is looked upon as a "terminal" degree, but you don't often hear (anymore) of someone with an MFA landing a cushy and tenured position at a university somewhere... Just curious as to your thoughts on this... Brent Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 15:43:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard Long Subject: Re: MFA/PhD In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Brent, There's no guarantee that either degree will get you a tenure position. The market right now is simply not that big, and yet the universities continue graduating MFA's and PHDs. If I were you, I'd stop to consider the market and your reasons for wanting an advanced degree: for a gateway to future employment (good luck) or for the pleasure of teaching, reading, and writing. I suppose at one time the two went hand-in-hand, but today there are far too many being accepted into the graduate schools with the understanding that one's pleasure can lead to a find job. That's just not the case, nowadays. Good luck! R ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:55:26 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R M Daley Subject: Re: MFA/PhD In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII or howzaa bout something completely different and try not to think of your capacity to feed and clothe and house yourself as necessarily having to be an identity issue - as long as you are going to have those (am i a teacher, a poet, a shell-collector, a dog-walker, etc) why not let it be a little loose or better yet forget it - anyone can do anything really, being a high powered exectuive is a lot of dialing a phone or ordering someone to get your mail or having fixing a tie or decisions - sure, problem solving and all that but in the end this seems a lot of hmm well-what-would-i-like-to-label-myself-at-cocktailparties sentiment mfas seem like a choice for time in some cases, no - immediately presently to have it and be doing that - debt sure and everything, your always paying for something when your 'in the real world' - just finishing justine - everyone really just wants to fuck you and as long as you enjoy it too they have nothing over you right - certainly Sade loved prison - not that everything cant also always be a Trial ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 14:15:58 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R M Daley Subject: Re: MFA/PhD In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII dear chris stroffolino et al also wanted to ask the 'real world' or not so real world, ie what they dont tell you right now, consequences of plain ole default - being young naive in love all that, the prospect of bad credit (no car no house for a long time) wage garnishment and tax refund garnishment dont all sound like the end of the world, maybe even worth a good 30,000 in debt for school - following up on brent's q. thanks, rd ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:22:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: MFA/PhD In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I just have to say that I found no point in either of your posts...could you please clarify??? Brent At 02:15 PM 6/26/98 -0600, you wrote: >dear chris stroffolino et al >also wanted to ask the 'real world' or not so real world, ie what they >dont tell you right now, consequences of plain ole default - being young >naive in love all that, the prospect of bad credit (no car no house for a >long time) wage garnishment and tax refund garnishment dont all sound like >the end of the world, maybe even worth a good 30,000 in debt for school - >following up on brent's q. > >thanks, rd > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:23:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Re: Boundary 2 / My Way Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In answer to Standard Schaefer's question: 99 Poets / 1999: An International Poetics Symposium, is scheduled for publication as the Spring 1999 issue of boundary 2 (16:2). I edited the symposium with the help of a number of editor/translators, including Pierre Joris (various), Lyn Hejinian (Russian section), Yunte Huang (Chinese section), Ernesto Grosman (Latin American section), Stacy Doris (French section), and Johanna Drucker (visual section), not to mention many others who helped with translations and advise or contributed new works of poetics for this issue. Also, Chris Stroffolino mentions MY WAY. The University of Chicago Press has just announced MY WAY: Speeches and Poems in their new catalog; it is scheduled to be out by New Year's. The book weaves together essays, poems, interviews, speeches, and harder to classify works, short and long. More information at http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/13642.ctl ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 17:01:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: 1968 & alia (longish; "writing through" and more) Down here in Puerto Rico, the students and faculty at UPR are threatening to strike in sympathy with the telephone workers, who have been on strike since the Governor announced the planned sale of the government run telephone company. It's impossible to drive into Aricebo lately without running into fund drives for the striking workers, who gather on the roadside near sharp curves and collect money. As one of the faculty here noted, students have been killed in the past at demonstrations on the UPR campuses, although he didn't know over what or when. Most of the workers on the roadside are amiable, almost jubilant, and (in a largely working class town) the passers-by are quite friendly; I was in San Juan a few nights ago where things didn't go as smoothly. My Spanish is (unfortunately) too poor to really understand the "poetics" (there we go) of the whole thing, but I do get some help from a colleague who speaks Puerto Rican Spanish and is quite familiar with the dynamics of labor unions here, having been involved in the Electrical Company conflicts earlier in the decade. In this climate, everybody's been bringing out their war stories from the European campuses in 68 (France) and 70 (Italy); most of people I've talked to took a highly apolitical stance at the time, and look back mostly with amusement, although a few have stories of being accidentally teargassed, and one person was attacked by police after he befriended some of the local leaders so as to pass the blockade and get in to the Physics building to work during the occupation. There's a Jorie Graham poem partly about her experiences in France of '68; I can't remember the title, although it is in her Selected. Can anybody recall the title/post the text? Susan -- there, of course, is model of "writing through"; the poet as a witness to a class conflict (in an almost paradigmatic Marxist manner) who feels the need to abandon a purely aesthetic response ("I, poet, record what I see") to attempt a sympathetic or "merged" response with the workers or students. In Graham's case you have something like this: POET -- STUDENT -- WORKERS -- WORKER Where the Poet is firstly herself, the self-expressive "Romantic", secondly a student, participating in a group that she knows and is connected to in emotional ways -- ties of friendship, sex, shared experience -- a dynamism that can lurch between the inclusive (group identity) and exclusive (return to the self as defined as "not the group"). And thirdly, as a participant in a class struggle that can only be perceived by its effects; a sort of sensation of absent presence; helicopters and police as secondary effects of a greater, nonmaterial development; "class struggle" mapped out by it's material boundaries and only glimpsed directly in the peripheral vision of the poet. The "writing through" occurs in the representation of this absence; in the way that Graham tries to depict the Marxist flows so as to "break through" this third stage and reach a consciousness beyond, the "worker". Graham's poem, for me at least, always seemed to posess a certain complexity that made depiction of struggle much more disturbing/powerful than a poem who's primary goal was to simply observe the proletariat. -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 17:41:24 -0400 Reply-To: mgk3k@jefferson.village.virginia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matt Kirschenbaum Subject: Re: MFA/PhD In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.19980626145054.007c5970@postoffice.brown.edu> from "Brent Long" at Jun 26, 98 02:50:54 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Is it better (if you intend to teach at any institution other than a public > high school) to have an MFA or to go on to a PhD??? I can't speak to creative writing jobs, but for anything else you'll want the PhD. But "better" must be understood as a relative term here. For some idea of what you can expect an academic job search to look like, see this account by Mary Corbin Sies: http://otal.umd.edu/~sies/jobadvice.html She's speaking about American Studies, but the situation she describes is general all over the humanities. Also of interest -- to many here -- should be Alan Liu's "Palinurus: The Academy and the Corporation -- Teaching the Humanities in a Restructured World": http://humanitas.ucsb.edu/liu/palinurus/ The Palinurus site is still in its infancy, but as someone who spent last weekend at a distance education conference (listening to well-dressed, articulate people celebrate the demise of the research university in the same tone of voice used to explicate the features on a DAT player) I can attest to the urgency of the Palinurus materials. Matt ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 17:53:56 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: [Fwd: Natl. Lib. of Poetry page] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="------------101826F0104B" This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------101826F0104B Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here is what I would suggest doing Be Well David Baratier --------------101826F0104B Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Return-Path: Received: from mail-relay1.dti.net ([206.252.128.11]) by dns2.car.net (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 ID# 0-18094) with ESMTP id AAA234 for ; Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:08:08 -0400 Received: from mail.dti.net (mail.dti.net [206.252.128.10]) by mail-relay1.dti.net (8.9.0/1.0/rdf) with ESMTP id NAA13903 for ; Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:09:42 -0400 (EDT) Received: from bruno (20625215855.client.dti.net [206.252.158.55]) by mail.dti.net (8.9.0/1.3/rdf) with SMTP id NAA26709 for ; Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:09:40 -0400 (EDT) From: "Bruno Navasky" To: Subject: Natl. Lib. of Poetry page Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:11:21 -0400 Message-ID: <000201bda125$70daeee0$379efcce@bruno> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0003_01BDA103.E9C94EE0" X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 Importance: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0003_01BDA103.E9C94EE0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit http://www.lit-arts.com/wind/nlp.htm ------=_NextPart_000_0003_01BDA103.E9C94EE0 Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="Poetry Contest -- $48,000 in Prizes.url" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Poetry Contest -- $48,000 in Prizes.url" [InternetShortcut] URL=http://www.lit-arts.com/wind/nlp.htm Modified=E0A6BD6225A1BD0129 ------=_NextPart_000_0003_01BDA103.E9C94EE0-- --------------101826F0104B-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 16:55:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: KENT JOHNSON Organization: Highland Community College Subject: (Fwd) Jane Slaughter on the GM Strike MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT ------- Forwarded Message Follows ------- Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 17:14:49 EDT Reply-to: H-NET List for Labor Studies From: "David Alexander, H-UCLEA" Subject: Jane Slaughter on the GM Strike To: H-UCLEA@H-NET.MSU.EDU This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------------------ Folks, SAWSJ member Jane Slaughter has offered the excellent attached account of the GM strike for background and discussion. A shorter version of this essay will be appearing in In These Times (web site: www.inthesetimes.com). We very much thank Jane and ITT for allowing us to distribute this. Please, if you haven't done so, indicate your support for the GM Strike Support Statement that was e-mailed yesterday, by sending a message to sawsj@sage.edu. If you don't have a copy of the statement, it is on the SAWSJ web site at www.sage.edu/html/SAWSJ. And please, distribute the statement as widely as possible. We have about 400 signatures after the first 24 hours!!!!! Finally, a regional announcement: anyone on this list in the SF BAY AREA WHO IS INTERESTED IN ORGANIZING a network of SAWSJ-related folks, please contact Ted Stolze at Ted1968@aol.com. Other areas who are organizing should also feel free to use the list to build contacts -- we don't want to use the list for purely local announcement, but making organizing contacts is another matter. Andor _______________ THE GM STRIKE BY JANE SLAUGHTER On Bristol Road in Flint, Michigan, the honking of car horns never lets up. A honk signals the passer-by's support for the picket line outside the huge Flint Metal Center, where the United Auto Workers are on strike for jobs. If noise is an indicator, Flint's residents are solidly behind their neighbors. Someone has put together a tape of work-related songs--"Born in the USA," "Take This Job and Shove It"--that drowns out conversation. Far from telling their employer, General Motors, to shove it, however, union members are declaring forcefully that they want to keep jobs in Flint. Tommy Jordan III, picketing in the union's sister strike across town at the Delphi East plant, says his father and grandfather retired from GM. He's striking "to save our jobs," he says, "so our kids and grandkids can be working here." The two strikes involving 9,200 workers began June 5 and June 11 and quickly shut down most of GM's North American operations. The Metal Center, a stamping plant, produces fenders, hoods and engine cradles; Delphi makes a wide variety of small parts from sparkplugs to speedometers that are used throughout GM's 29 assembly plants. Twenty years ago there were 77,000 GM jobs in Flint; today there are 33,000. It's still a company town, but the relationship between workers and managers is different now than when high school graduates routinely expected to begin a GM job at 18 and retire 30 years later with a generous union-negotiated pension. Today, jobs are harder to come by and not expected to last. At Delphi East, says union financial secretary Stan Kubik, jobs have shrunk from 10,000 to 5,800 in the last five years, with much of the plant's production picked up in non-union shops or in GM's Mexican factories. Says rank-and-filer Mary Cochrane, who has 21 years with the company, "in the next two or three years there will be approximately only 500 jobs on-site. The availability of new product is nil. There's nothing planned for the future. Nothing." On the other hand, GM plans to increase its vehicle production in Mexico from 300,000 to 607,000 annually by 2006. The company's Delphi parts division is already the largest private employer in Mexico, with some 75,000 workers. It's this shift, along with loss of market share, that partly explains GM's downsizing from 351,000 U.S. hourly workers in 1987 to 224,000 today. There's another reason, though, for fewer GM jobs, and it's on the table in these strikes as it was in the fifteen others the union has called in the last five years. That policy is speed-up- -and GM wants more of it. John Bartholomew, a shop floor rep at the Metal Center, says that in mid-contract managers announced they wanted to cut 191 jobs in his area. "They were walking through the plant deciding, `We want this job gone and that job gone.' If we have five people on a press line, they want to cut it down to three. GM wants to produce as many cars as they have in the past with fewer workers. It's not gonna fly. You're supposed to strive forward, not backwards." Taking an unaccustomed aggressive stance in the media, GM exec Donald Hackworth complains of employees who work five or six hours for eight hours' pay. That's because they can make their production quota early by busting ass--squeezing eight hours' worth of work into six. Keith Bell, one of the Metal Center's few young workers with only three-and-a-half years on the job, says he can sit down an hour and a half before quitting time by welding extremely fast and working through his break, "and when you finish, you're dirt tired." This choice has been one of the few workers have had over how their work day goes: essentially, more boredom or more fatigue. GM now wants to abolish production quotas and force workers to work continuously all day long. Apparently, managers believe they can convince workers to set the same pace for eight hours as they do for six. There's precedent for that belief. The speedup at all three auto companies--it's more advanced at Ford and Chrysler--has been accomplished with union cooperation. Union officials have hoped that by improving productivity, both through joint cooperation programs and by simply turning a blind eye to overloaded jobs, they could convince GM not to abandon its unionized American workforce. Menjuan Jordan, wife of Tommy, says, "We worked with them, cutting down scrap, cutting down waste, adding ideas to make the company run better. Our part was to bring the productivity up. They're not following their part of the bargain, to keep the jobs here." Mary Cochrane says she helped GM introduce "synchronous manufacturing--that's the old term for lean production--working right along with the site manager in training." At the Metal Center, the union agreed to combine classifications and rotate jobs in exchange for a $300 million investment in the plant. But GM decided that union efforts were not enough and halted the investment. Overall, acceptance of both speedup and outsourcing (contracting out work to lower-wage shops) has been International union policy. Locals have been encouraged to "bid" against each other for work by making concessions on work rules. But from time to time a local decides that GM has gone too far, and the International grants strike approval. The result has been a piecemeal, non-strategic approach to what are universal issues. Temporary victories have been followed by broken agreements. At the Metal Center, the last straw was an outright slap to the union's face: managers furtively removed dies from the plant over the Memorial Day weekend, while negotiations were in recess. Those dies were crucial to the launch of a new truck from which GM expects big profits. Some union members, such as electrician Bob Dunton, hope that labor-management cooperation will resume after the strike. "The Quality Network, the suggestion program, have really improved not only productivity but also the lives of people that participated," Dunton says. But others are fed up. Terry Coutcher, a fork-truck driver at Delphi, says, "We struck in '96. We weren't back to work a week and they were hauling our jobs out of there. And yet we were still being told to cooperate." Last Labor Day, for the 60th anniversary of the Flint sitdown strikes that established the union at GM, the UAW's regional office printed 5,000 T-shirts that read, "UAW: From Confrontation to Communication." Kevin Van Kirk, a former shop floor rep at Delphi, believes that "in the 16-17 years the International has taken a more cooperative approach, the bargaining power thy had has diminished. What they did was to create all these appointed jobs through the Quality Network for a lot of people. These officials came to meetings and said, `This is the wave of the future, you have to buy into this.' These people that have appointed jobs, working 70-80-100 hours a week with nothing to do--that's the payoff for letting the company do what they want to do." Downsizing is an extremely difficult problem, of course, for any union to tackle, even with all its ducks in a row. General Motors presents its globalization strategy as a force of nature before which no mortal can prevail. The strikes' most likely outcome is that GM will promise a few specific jobs but maintain the principle--and the practice--that management has the prerogative to move work and speed up at will. GM managers feel the need to impress investors with their commitment to downsizing, and are willing to lose a couple of billion dollars (the company is cash- rich this year) to make their point and discourage further resistance. Top union leaders, who are not subject to election by the rank and file, are less accountable. On the picket line, every worker says the strike for jobs should have happened years ago. Terry Coutcher voices the frustration of many. "This has been brewing for a long time," he says. "Why they waited till we were so weak, and the jobs already gone--I blame that on the International. This should have taken place a long time ago and it should be a national strike, instead of locals taking them on." --part0_898895690_boundary-- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 18:35:54 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: Re: MFA/PhD MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The last posting was in regards to this debate. Start up a scam poetry contest with your degree in order to legitimize the organization. Create your own college. I would suggest getting an MA or PHD then jumping off the academic wheel into pseudo-academia. It's dangerous out here but the advantages are tremendous: 1. There's more money if you go corporate, esp if yr one of them lang-po computer dweebs like I've been called. 2. No accountability for your statements and few repercussions. I've never been accosted or fired by my employers over a difference in opinion on the marginalization of poetry. 3. No university head to impress. Ibid. 4. College debt is easily repaid. Though I still appreciate the notion that one should die $10,000 in debt. 5. No need to suffer for your art. Come on, what century is this. At least you can get a job as a repo-man for awhile. It's not a third as crazed as folks make it out to be and the cash is primo. In the worse case scenario, sell drugs to your former classmates. I could keep going on ad infinitus. What I will say is this: I can do more today for the love of poetry than I could ever hope to achieve inside a university setting at least according to what my professor friends are telling me. There are tenured friends who have had different experiences but I'm talking about an age group of 28 to 40 who have graduated in the past few years. Perhaps I'm wrong but I keep hearing these disheartening stories over and over... Be well David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 18:59:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: morbid requests Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >only found Ronald "Pigpen" McKernan (epitaph : "Pigpen was and is now >forever one of the grateful dead") >You know that he was reincarnated as me, right? Pigpen d. 3/8/73, me b. >3/8/73. I'm not entirely unserious. Actually you do know that you definitely do NOT have to go and find the graves of the dead, for them to come and visit you. They can do that, without your hunting up where they happen to be buried. I have definitely met the dead. Some of them are more interesting than most of the living. M. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 18:38:14 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: You woulda never known your uncle was dead, if I hadna killed him. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "The "hot" issues of environmentalism--the possibility of major global warming, the ozone "hole," species impoverishment, overpopulation and its consequences--are issues that would be unknown and unknowable but for the accomplishments of professional science. They exist only because of, and specifically as products of, science."---from Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and its Quarrels With Science by Paul R. Gross and Norman Levitt "The reduction of one unsolved problem to another is some sort of progress, unsatisfying though it may be, but it is not an option in this case. The frame problem is not the problem of induction in disquise. For suppose the problem of induction were solved. Suppose--perhaps miraculously--that our agent has solved all its induction problems or had them solved by fiat; it believes, then, all the right generalizations from its evidence and associates with all of them the appropriate probabilities and conditional probabilities. This agent, ex hypothesi, believes just what it ought to believe about all empirical matters in its ken, including the probabilities of future events. It might still have a bad case of the frame problem, for that problem concerns how to represent (so it can be used) all that hard won empirical information--a problem that arises independently of the truth value, probability, warranted assertability, or subjective certainty of any of it. Even if you have excellent knowledge (and not mere belief) about the changing world, how can this knowledge be represented so that it can be efficaciously brought to bear?... What philosophers (and everyone else) have always known is that people--and no doubt all intelligent agents--can engage in swift, senstive, risky-but-valuable ceteris paribus reasoning. How do we do it? AI may yet not have a good answer, but at least it has encountered the question."---from Cognitive Wheels by Daniel Dennett ---"We murder to dissect." ---cp ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 21:47:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dan or Orion Subject: master of f'ing around (piled higher & deeper) In-Reply-To: <199806270402.VAA14321@jumping-spider.aracnet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" depends what you want to do. are you a poet, a critic, a language artist? what's the best way to keep yourself fed and able to access other interests and comfort and still follow this muse of language? being an artist in an academic (or most any form of) institution is a multi-edged weapon. this is evidenced by a lot of inbreeding, favoritism, and the general lack of health (as evidenced by, among other things, continued miniscule size of audience) of poetry in our society. maybe academic niches are the best we can expect. and academia/teaching helps you develop ortegers, influence other writers, who will help increase your important and ability to earn money with publications, readings and other engagements. if htis is your path, than phd is the way. otherwise, one can write and grow in relationship with language in so many other places. i did the mfa (& 10 year later returned for an ma in hopes of getting into teaching). eventually realized i'm not a teach i'm a poet. so i have a day job that usually doesnt interfere with my abilith to interact with the world and language when the day of monetary compensation ends. seeing all the responses recently for summer reading lists and the implication of connection with the academic year makes me wonder how many folks on the list are NOT part of a school setting, and how your job schedule effects reading other people works and such. dan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 00:28:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carrie Etter Subject: MFA/PhD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Brent-- The PhD is too much of a commitment to pursue "just" to be eligible for certain teaching jobs. I think the national average for the time it takes to complete a PhD in English is 8 years or more; in my program, it's 7. So, as someone has already said and I want to second, it depends entirely on what you want out of the time you spend in whatever program. After working full-time and going to school at night for years, I desperately wanted time to focus solely on my poetry while also dabbling in graduate coursework to see if I really wanted to go for the PhD afterwards. If you attend an MFA program in a strong English department, your MFA can help prepare you for the PhD as well as give you some transferable coursework. Also, don't be scared off from the PhD because you think it necessarily means you will incur large loans. Investigating programs' funding literally pays off in the long run. I was offered admission to several programs that, in their offers, guaranteed one to two years of fellowship plus three to five years of teaching. Admittedly, these programs are somewhat rare, and yet fortunately, some do exist. Good luck, Carrie ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 02:59:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: enigma MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Figure that mystery out and you get the bonus points. Perhaps some other time, professor Morpheal. :) Jim. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 07:07:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: Readings in SF Comments: To: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I'm going to be in SF briefly on personal business, July 25 through the 28th. Any readings going on that weekend + Monday, Tuesday that I should know about? Ron Silliman rsillima@ix.netcom.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 08:44:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Re: Yes, and... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >...not sure what sort of anthropology faculty you're talking about here. >Anthropology faculty are like Poetry/Literature/Creative Writing faculty, >in that many of all of the above still cling to out-dated methodologies, >praxis, modes of inscription, etc. This kind of statement seems like >summarizing the state of contemporary poetry based on what's happening at >the MFA program at ____________ (fill in almost any institution). >Mark > Of course this is absolutely true and I am appreciatively corrected -- once again my haste in posting has reduced 3-D or 4-D to 2-D -- I should wait to open my mouth until I've the time to follow through, eh? Thanks. Susan Wheeler susan.wheeler@nyu.edu voice/fax (212) 254-3984 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 09:24:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: enigma Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> Figure that mystery out and you get the bonus points. >Perhaps some other time, professor Morpheal. >:)Jim. I'm not the professor. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 09:09:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Books + Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 7:05 AM 6/25/98, Susan Wheeler wrote: >And Maria: did GC do "If you cannot get it on take your dead ass home"? >Susan Wheeler coulda --there were so many, some i cd make out, others not. but i was chanting along even the ones i didn't get. chucho valdes was great too. bobby mcferrin was in the audience, as was julian bond, in this small posh club in st paul. mcferrin and valdes did a little improv jamming, it was fun. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 09:30:01 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: MFA/PhD Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 2:50 PM 6/26/98, Brent Long wrote: >Dear List Members: > >I feel like this question is sort of on the outer fringes of the strands >concerning MFAs, etc., but being a student (possibly until I perish) and >not as of yet in the world of "Academia", I pose this question to those who >are in a position to know: > >Is it better (if you intend to teach at any institution other than a public >high school) to have an MFA or to go on to a PhD??? > >I understand that in some instances the MFA is looked upon as a "terminal" >degree, but you don't often hear (anymore) of someone with an MFA landing a >cushy and tenured position at a university somewhere... > >Just curious as to your thoughts on this... > >Brent >Brent_Long@brown.edu i say go for the phd, but of course that's cuz that's what i did. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 08:41:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Re: query: non-mainstream/avant garde dance theory In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Mark: Effie Mihopoulos, 5548 N. Sawyer, Chicago, IL 60625 knows a good deal about contemporary dance and its connnection to poetry. Best, Paul Hoover On Fri, 26 Jun 1998, Mark Wallace wrote: > Hello listfolks: > > I'm interested in finding out some information about books and > articles on contemporary dance, preferably on work outside the mainstream. > I'm interested first and foremost on mainfesto/theory/statements of > purpose work written by actual practioners and choreographers, but would > interested also in academic criticism and/or theoretical work written on > the subject. Either backchannel or a post to the list would be fine. My > knowledge here is pretty shaky--anything anybody knows would help. > > Thanks. > > Mark Wallace > > > > /----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ > | | > | mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | > | GWU: | > | http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | > | EPC: | > | http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | > |____________________________________________________________________________| > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 11:58:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: slovak poets In-Reply-To: <199806270403.AAA08389@juliet.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII anyone know of interesting and/or experimental contemporary poetry written in slovak and as yet untranslated into english? thanks, tom tmorange@julian.uwo.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 11:26:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato/Kass Fleisher Subject: Re: MFA/PhD In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" well only to add to what's been said: i don't see doing *anything* of such proportions without passion, a love of justice, and a sense of urgency... alla that aside, and to be a bit pragmatic about it: there are so many aspects of getting a phud (or a masters---but esp. a phud) that tax the intellectual/emotional/spiritual from a bureaucratic/professional orientation... that is, it's never simply a labor of love, even if it is (as it should be) a labor of love... it's also labor, and it's also, in subtle and in obvious ways, a pursuit of a job, a commitment to one of many (if a finite number of) institutions... as this pursuit plays itself out in the context of higher education, you can bet (your bottom-line dollar) that the educational institution conditions this pursuit, complicates it in whatever terms the institution itself is complicated (note the palinurus website of alan liu's that matt kirschenbaum helpfully cites... the corporate incursion---into the classroom in fact---is, from where i (tentatively) stand, a real problem, and it's not about to go away any time soon)... i've always found sheer careerism (if you will) too much to bear, whether as an english prof or as an engineer---one reason why i can't entirely theorize/understand the english profession in terms of graduate education alone (on this basis i don't agree entirely with cary nelson, as much as i appreciate his provocations---which is not to say that being a grad student = careerism, but only to extrapolate/amplify thence)... and yet it rings somewhat hollow to me when someone tells me they're pursuing a phud purely out of a love of same, as though money---life for that matter---could be approached so cavalierly... or that they plan to use their phud in a profession that requires only an undergrad degree... as though the incredible (self-) saturation that finishing a dissertation entails, the incredible training quotient that's part & parcel of a terminal degree, could be air-lifted into another domain w/o a real sense of, well, loss... i don't wish to suggest that the only thing to be done with a phud is teach (two exceptional exceptions would be terrence malick and paul verhoeven, both of whom hold phds---and of course there are phds in the private sector, doing all sortsa things... i think of a friend/poet here in chicago, bill fuller, who works in banking)... but teaching is after all a primary gradient in pursuing a doctorate, esp. in the humanities---as might be expected, b/c you're asking to be taught for such a long stretch!... even if you see yourself primarily as a writer (i do), and see teaching as a potentially decent way to make a living in the meantime (i do---even now), you'll have to concede, i think, that teaching is part of what pursuing a phud prepares one for, and that teaching requires itself that passion, love of justice, sense of urgency i mention above (perhaps i go too far in advocating this *here*?---i hope not)... in any case, i don't find english depts. to be, in general, happy places these days (were they ever?---you tell me)... there are all sortsa economic stresses and strains, and all sortsa 'culture war' controversies, and a great disparity between or among english depts. in major research institutions and english depts. in less-established schools (again, most english profs do not teach graduate students in english, or even primarily english majors)... i like to think that, given a full(er) account of how teaching/research/service is actually distributed in specific institutions (which may require 2/2 teaching loads, or 5/5 teaching loads), those who seek to participate in and contribute to better forms of higher learning might be more prone to recommend with some wisdom necessary changes, new directions... b/c it's clear to me that i'm already very much a bureaucrat in what i do (what jody swilky and dan mahala have recently referred to as the "geography of service" helps illuminate this fact), and it's also clear to me that i need, if anything, to carve out more space for less bureaucratic functions (spatial metaphors running rampant here, i know)... at the same time [wink], i don't think it helps to imagine that a phud is a classless pursuit, anymore than it helps to see it as a mere stepping stone into the [take your pick] fortune 500 corporation, or up-and-coming entrepreneurial enterprise... seems to me that there's learning and transformation involved in every sense---which is to say some risk... so: not to be patronizing in the least, but i'd recommend going in with one's eyes widefuckingopen... for what it's worth/// best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 10:39:49 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Barbour Subject: Re: writing thru to multicult ethix? In-Reply-To: <199806260402.WAA38504@quartz.ucs.ualberta.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks to Mark Prejsnar for his intriguing comments on writing through, & the mention of _Pirates_. I think he's especially right about the inherent invasive tactic involved: *Maybe part of what i'm getting at is: there is something *inherently* "exploitative" about writing thru. *Unlike most presentations of another culture (in an anthropology textbook, in a museum exhibit, in a lecture) writing thru strategies do not claim to be representing an other with authenticity, respect, accuracy. Quite the opposite! My memory is that various forms of what we called (after bpNichol) 'homolinguistic translation' had to recapitulate another text (orm play off it) already in english; but assuming the kind of 'loss' any translation carries. We did play off some Romantic poets, Milton, Shakespeare, as well as more contemporary writers, including a number of canadians/ Sometimes the writing would be 'for' sometimes 'against' the original. And I guess these pieces reveal that my sense of 'culture' is that it is an always (already?) contested arena, & also a huge system of layers in each of us... Douglas Barbour (h) [403] 4363320 (b) [403] 492 2181 Department of English University of Alberta Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5 in the rooms you live in other people's books line your shelves the traces of their lives their minds too bpNichol ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 14:03:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: writing thru to multicult ethix? [culture victims in the new apartheids of race and ethnicity] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >*Maybe part of what i'm getting at is: there is >something *inherently* "exploitative" about writing thru. Some say the same about inter-racial and inter-cultural marriages and relationships. Any sense of appropriation of the other as person or as culture is seen in the same light, and whether accurate or false rendering. This is at the very roots of what I would refer to as the "new apartheid" in America between peoples of different cultural and racial origins. Of course, it is not only happening in America. We have more of it in Canada than we had ten or twenty years ago. It is much harder here, for example, for a Caucasian to meet an oriental or negro person, beyond a purely business interaction. Personal relationships are difficult and more strictly limited. Marriages are extremely unlikely between groups. The latter is considered the worst kind of misappropriation of another group's cultural property. The person is the primary form of cultural wealth and for black culture or Chinese culture to lose even one instance of a member of that culture is seen by some as unacceptable. The white with white, black with black, yellow with yellow, red with red, mentality has grown by leaps and bounds, in the last ten years, and no white is to have any black, yellow, or red culture as it is not their's for the having. They ought, it is strongly stated, by innuendo and otherwise, keep to their own, and their own cultural members and cultural manifestations. It is often not unlike the relations enforced in the deep south of the United States, with superficial deference and politeness from the servant to the master, given by minority to majority in the conducting of day to day commerce, but a deep and growing undercurrent of divisive hostilities and closure underneath that surface of requisite, survival oriented, diplomacy. Part of it seems to be a fear of one culture watering down another, and somehow making it impure, or less than it is, by the inter-mixing of cultures and races. As though black will become grey if white is added, and red will become pink. I have seen the same thing happen in ethnic situations. The ethnic transplants keep to themselves, speaking their own language, matching up with one another within that group, as though mixtures are taboo, and might damage their cultural identity. Of course, it is often enforced by ostracism to those who step across the cultural dividing lines and mix too freely. This is more often applied to women than to men. Men can do so more easily, whereas "their women" are kept to their men, and inter-cultural introductions or liaisons are near to impossible in any regard that might be construed as "personal". Perhaps some instances of "writing thru" are attempts to bridge the gap and step across the hardening lines. The result of thwarted and limited opportunities to bridge the divide and understand the other worldview. At least subconsciously. It always saddens me, as someone to whom race or ethnic origin was never one of the criteria that decides whether a particular personal relationship might be desirable or satisfying as such. Least of all where it is potentially intimate, rather than commerical. So I find the attitudes hard to understand. I can see though, that my own experiences could be the kind that prompt someone to write thru, so as to make up, in some odd way, for the loss that is felt in terms of the limits that oneself can do nothing about, because they are imposed by another cultural group or by one's own chanced into cultural affinity. If one is white, one cannot voluntarily give up one's whiteness. If one is Italian one cannot give up one's Italianness. Also one cannot, easily share what is one's own in that regard. It is largely forbidden except to the same, of the same cultural origins. Instead I have been frustratingly encouraged to take up my own Latvianness, to which I have no personal affinity whatever, being born in England and educated in Canada, even though my father was Latvian and my mother Estonian. I cannot become black, red, or yellow, it would be argued. I cannot become Polish, Italian, Irish, German or American, but I can become "Latvian". Whatever that really is. I answer "bullshit" but my answer is not effective as to the day to day of life, in the ways I would prefer it to be effective. The whole scenario in North America as to race and ethnicity nowadays reminds me more and more of what was written above the crematoria by the Nazis in Germany: "to each their own". It is a horrifying thought, but worth thinking about. >*Unlike most presentations of another culture (in an anthropology >textbook, in a museum exhibit, in a lecture) writing thru strategies do >not claim to be representing an other with authenticity, respect, >accuracy. Quite the opposite! I do not get that sense of difference, or opposite, in that regard. So called "scientific" study of one cultural group by a member or members of another cultural group is inherently subjective, and presumed to be biased by cultural affinity. Even if it is good, hard, science, and as objective as humanly possible, the group being studied and represented, more often nowadays than not claims "misrepresentation" by the outsiders, or sometimes deliberately misrepresents itself to the outsiders. It is more of a "you do not understand us, because you are not one of us" mentality. The claims as to authenticity, respect and accuracy, are claimed to be more alike to writing thru strategy, by the other side. It is inevitably this culture tainted representation of that culture. In essence I think you have overstated the difference between how writing thru is often perceived, and how scientific observation and reportage is perceived. Is the alternative to "writing thru" and withstanding accusations of "cultural misappropriation", as vicarious attempts to breach the rising and increasingly fortified cultural and racial walls, the belief in "to each their own" ? That becomes the real question. It is terrifying, as to what it might mean. It is even more terrifying that it might be that we have no real say about it. We are simply "culture victims" in the making. M. aka Bob Ezergailis ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 11:44:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Kelley Subject: Re: writing thru to multicult ethix? [culture victims in the new apartheids of race and ethnicity] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Go Morpheal! (well, except for the "oriental" & "negro" part) This subject raises an important, everpresent (to me) question: when does the act of writing "break down" in so-called real-life? Perhaps more offensive than the idea of appropriating a culture with one's writing, is the idea that one's response to other cultures simply IS writing. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 09:25:03 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Juliana Spahr Subject: protest of award for Yamanaka MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I went to a meeting by the Association for Asian American Studies yesterday. The Association has awarded Lois-Ann Yamanaka's _Blu's Hanging_ an award. Many members of the Association have protested the award, arguing that the book presents racist representations of Filipino/as. In Hawai'i there is a stereotype that Filipinos are sexually deviant (partial to incest, rape, child molestation). In _Blu's Hanging_, a family of Japanese-Americans live next to a family of Filipino-Americas. Members of the Filipino family commit various acts of incest, rape, and child molestation. The Association had a panel on this topic which I missed. And they also held a roundtable forum on the issue which I attended. Apparently the Association had for years been considering Yamanaka's books for the award starting with _Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre_ and continuing with _Wild Meat and Bully Burgers_ but had never given her the award. Each year there had been protest of some sort from the membership. It was noted several times that of all these books, _Blu's Hanging_ is the most problematic in terms of race. So to award the award to this book has been seen as particularly insensitive. At the roundtable many people spoke. The argument seemed to be split around two sides. One side argued mainly that this was a freedom of speech issue (which it really isn't; no one is suggesting the book by banned, just that it not be rewarded). This side was represented by a number of local writers who are not academics and by a number of established Asian-American writers, also mainly not academics, from the mainland. Statements were read by people like Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, David Mura, etc. Wing Tek Lu, from Bamboo Ridge who publishes _Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre_, had a thick petition and collection of statements in support of Yamanaka. Unfortunately there were only copies for the roundtable participants so I didn't get to see one. The other side was represented by a number of mainly local academics. Many spoke movingly of the difficulties of growing up Filipino/a in Hawai'i. The roundtable felt caught between these two positions, neither addressing the other. But for more information I would suggest looking at the work of Candace Fujikane. She has a good article in the most recent volume of _Social Processes in Hawai'i_ (1998, UH Press) on this issue. She also posted a moving and complicated statement to the Association's discussion list. Walter Lew forwarded it to me. I'm sure he would do the same for you if you asked (or I could also). At the conference, I was talking to Dorothy Wong and she told me how many people at the conference had said that the protest was a Hawai'i issue. I have to agree (which doesn't make it less important). When I read _Saturday Night_ on the mainland it seemed clear that the poems are told by an unreliable teenage narrator and the first poem, "Kala Gave Me Any Kine Advice Especially about Filipinos when I Moved to Pahala," can be read as a critique of racist stereotypes. But when I've taught the book here, the first thing students often say is, here is a voice that is my voice, which I've never heard taken seriously before. (It is an amazing experience to teach this book here. Students really feel like it changes their life and validates whole parts of their culture that have been degraded.) And then the problem starts b/c this voice is the voice of a teenage racist. Also, it is crucial to realize that being Japanese-American in Hawai'i (which Yamanaka is) is similar to being haole in terms of economic and social power. (Race discussions repeatedly define class discussions.) Whereas Filipino/as possess significantly less economic and social power. It is often said that because Yamanaka writes coming of age stories of planatation life that she is unwillingly to abandon the rhetoric of marginalization and take responsibility for Japanese-American complicity in the colonial (neocolonial?) power structure. Her characters will grow up to set much of Hawai'i's policy. What then? To add to the problem, Yamanaka is reported as saying things like her book is "true" and that she has known Filipinos like that and how she is just reporting what she has seen. I wished for more analysis of the book at the roundtable. One of the ways that I have a lot of respect for Yamanaka's work is that she has addressed the language issue in a way that a lot of writers here have avoided it. Many local writers go through the creative writing program at Univ of Hawai'i, Manoa which likes nature poetry and MFA short story forms (some important exceptions: Morgan Blair, Susan Schultz, Rob Wilson). Yamanaka's writing in pidgin puts forth a critique of these forms that rivals the critique of American presence in the land that is a part of the literature of Hawai'i. I wished also for more discussion of what we do with a teenage racist narrator. Fujikane repeatedly points out how important it is to avoid saying that those who do not read this book as told by an unreliable narrator are unsophisticated. I agree with her. But when do we stop or start to read that narrator as unreliable (again, Fujikane has a good point that in _Blu's Hanging_, the narrator sees the sexual abuse, she doesn't just report it)? Is the unreliable narrator a flawed concept? One built on elitist reading practices? A vote is being held by the Association on this issue today. I'm not sure what the outcome will be. The room felt very divided. It was great to see many people who were not academics speaking up on this issue. It is evidence that what one writes does matter, can carry huge consequences to a community. Disclaimer: please realize that since I am a mainland haole who has lived here for less than a year that this report is not authorized. Please supplement with other points of view (the Association discussion might be a good place to start). Juliana Spahr ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 17:01:01 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael McColl Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Subject: Seeking Meow Press MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT If anyone has an address or phone number for Meow Press in Buffalo, please backchannel me. I'm looking for a copy of Broken English. Mike McColl ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 16:33:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: trbell Subject: Re: Boundary 2 / My Way Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 04:23 PM 6/26/98 -0400, you wrote: >In answer to Standard Schaefer's question: > >99 Poets / 1999: An International Poetics Symposium, is scheduled for >publication as the Spring 1999 issue of boundary 2 (16:2). Available? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 18:20:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: protest of award for Yamanaka Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >I went to a meeting by the Association for Asian American Studies >yesterday. The Association has awarded Lois-Ann Yamanaka's _Blu's >Hanging_ an award. Many members of the Association have protested the >award, arguing that the book presents racist representations of >Filipino/as. In Hawai'i there is a stereotype that Filipinos are >sexually deviant (partial to incest, rape, child molestation). In _Blu's >Hanging_, a family of Japanese-Americans live next to a family of >Filipino-Americas. Members of the Filipino family commit various acts of >incest, rape, and child molestation. Which only goes to show that human beings, on average, even though they have advanced degrees to their credit, cannot _think_. No, not the Filipino's or their Japanese American neighbours. I do not refer to them. I do not refer to Yamanaka either. Why do I say that ? Simply that too many people fail to read such things as saying "there were certain individuals who did certain things to one another, and they chanced to be Filipinos". In that instance it was a family unit who chanced to be a family unit and Filipinos. The work then would not be disparaging to ALL family units. Neither would the work be disparaging to ALL Filipinos. Why cannot educated people, even highly educated people, distinguish something as simple as ethnic affinity, family affinity, racial affinity, or even relgious affinity, as being completely DISTINCT from the actions of individuals towards one another ? Often we cannot seem to do that and end up unable to even state any affinity as if that automatically makes all the members of that named affinity automatically the same. That is the same as saying: I knew a blue eyed person who was physically and psychologically abusive to people he knew, THEREFORE if I say he was blue eyed I am saying that ALL blue eyed people are abusive. More of the usual..... Lack of the least amount of simple minded logic. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 19:42:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Alan J.J.N. Sondheim" Subject: In Query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - In Query Nikuko - why this? Why would uid 99 do such a thing? Nobody came into the machine, nobody left it? Jun 27 03:47:34 166 PAM_pwdb[276]: (login) session closed for user root Jun 27 03:47:37 166 PAM_pwdb[640]: (login) session opened for user root by (uid=0) Jun 27 03:47:37 166 login[640]: ROOT LOGIN ON tty1 Jun 27 04:02:00 166 PAM_pwdb[769]: (su) session opened for user nobody by (uid=99) Jun 27 04:02:41 166 PAM_pwdb[769]: (su) session closed for user nobody (END) Look now, "nobody:*:99:99:Nobody:/:" Nobody's got a passwd. Here's the passwd of Daishin Nikuko! -- "nikuko:JRaNS9yL2HLGo:500:500::/home/nikuko:/bin/bash" There you are! Nobody under user id 99 comes to visit, leaves again. If I, root, let you, you could be nobody too! Jennifer points out that Emily Dickinson was nobody, "I'm nobody," etc. Emily Dickinson was on linux. Emily was the first on the Net, the first to be netted. Emily writes: And then a Plank in Reason, broke, And I dropped down, and down -- And hit a World, at very plunge, And Finished knowing -- then -- At which point #280 ends. Emily, our first avatar, says Jennifer. Emily -- (says Jennifer) Meanwhile: USER TTY FROM LOGIN@ IDLE WHAT root p0 wonderland.gol.a 5:09AM 6:28 -csh (tcsh) In wonderland in dawn Japan, the root, turning and murmuring ... How beautiful -- says Jennifer! _________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 19:44:03 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael McColl Organization: TEMPLE UNIVERSITY Subject: Elementary Logic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I've accidentally discarded Morpheal's message, but I still want to respond. Certainly the representation in the novel described by Morpheal is not in itself proof that the author intended to perpetuate a stereotype or believes in the stereotype. That much simple logic might point to, but the situation is not simple nor is simple logic enough to account for it or respond to it. There is a history and a context involved that the blue eyes of the syllogism don't carry. M's logic somewhat resembles that used by defenders of the death penalty who insist that racial bias be proved in an individual case, though statistical evidence proves that black defendants get the death penalty much more frequently than white defendants for the same or similar crimes. I mean that in prejudiced representations, each case, taken singly, could offer the defense that Morpheal proposes, and the world could be flooded with such images, creating and sustaining a stereotype, yet each new one that came along would be immune to the charge of trafficking in the stereotype. I am not suggesting that the author's guilt can be proven, nor that the author is guilty, nor am I taking any stand on any sanctions taken against the book--I only want to insist that such a representation is not necessarily innocent by virtue of it being a single instance and by definition not a general statement. The act of choice that placed the representation in the book at a particular point in history gives an emphasis to the instance which raises it beyond some ostensible abstract status of singularity. The history of theory of fiction is full of ideas concerning the universality of characters, the representative nature of individuals or places. The writer has presented an instance typical of a stereotype either consciously or unconsciously; the difference can sometimes be discerned, though perhaps not proved, by close reading, and if it's a conscious and not maliciously chosen strategy, will be judged differently from a careless reproduction. To those of you who could have said this, and more, and better (including perhaps some transitions between ideas, I apologize.) Mike McColl ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 08:29:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Agent Sunshine, aka Eric Gleason" Subject: Re: [Fwd: Natl. Lib. of Poetry page] In-Reply-To: <3593E02A.DD0@thewebpeople.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" yr pardons if i missed the point of david's post. i've been lurking through subject lines only lately. i thought i should make it absolutely clear to all that the national library of poetry's practice is to accept all entries, then offer the contestant a special, $50 copy of their yearbook (normally something like $75), as well as the opportunity for their poem to be "professionally recorded" at a cost of $25. prices do not include shipping. enjoy the heat! an ice age is coming! eryque >Here is what I would suggest doing > >Be Well > >David Baratier > >Return-Path: >Received: from mail-relay1.dti.net ([206.252.128.11]) by dns2.car.net > (post.office MTA v2.0 0813 ID# 0-18094) with ESMTP id AAA234 > for ; Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:08:08 -0400 >Received: from mail.dti.net (mail.dti.net [206.252.128.10]) by >mail-relay1.dti.net (8.9.0/1.0/rdf) with ESMTP id NAA13903 for >; Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:09:42 -0400 (EDT) >Received: from bruno (20625215855.client.dti.net [206.252.158.55]) > by mail.dti.net (8.9.0/1.3/rdf) with SMTP id NAA26709 > for ; Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:09:40 -0400 (EDT) >From: "Bruno Navasky" >To: >Subject: Natl. Lib. of Poetry page >Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 13:11:21 -0400 >Message-ID: <000201bda125$70daeee0$379efcce@bruno> >MIME-Version: 1.0 >Content-Type: multipart/mixed; > boundary="----=_NextPart_000_0003_01BDA103.E9C94EE0" >X-Priority: 3 (Normal) >X-MSMail-Priority: Normal >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5, Build 4.71.2173.0 >Importance: Normal >X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 > > > > http://www.lit-arts.com/wind/nlp.htm >Content-Type: application/octet-stream; > name="Poetry Contest -- $48,000 in Prizes.url" >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Content-Disposition: attachment; > filename="Poetry Contest -- $48,000 in Prizes.url" > >Attachment converted: HD Zelda:Poetry Contest -- $48,000 in Pr (????/----) >(00003787) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 22:08:40 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Hawaii 5-0 Juliana Spahr requested other perspectives on the literary uproar she described. Here's one from somebody who's never read any of the authors mentioned nor been to Hawaii: A talented author who knows how to play various ethnic cards & grind her own axe in the process gets some digs in about a rival ethnic group. The local literary officialdom, whose purpose in life is to parcel out grants & present official trophies, bumbles into that hornets' nest without giving it enough thought (like the aforesaid author too, maybe?). Lots of local or not local writers chew their nails - "gee, this is one powerful talented writer! Lots of people identify with her writing! But look what she's doing to the Filipinos! What should we do? Is this a campaign in the making? Am I authorized to make these comments?" Nobody has the guts to say: 1) she's right about SOME Filipinos - this is a problem with them [whether it really IS or not I, HG, have no clue--nor would I sanction any listblab on this]. and/or 2) this author is taking cheap shots at people in a chauvinist way which goes to show she either has a lot to learn or is just plain second-rate, and here we are making a big deal out of how great she is... a good writer takes the cheese out of his or her own kind, rather than badmouthing scapegoats. So I ask, why make this more complicated than it is? Why try to organize a group-think response? Why don't you - you Hawaiians in the know - decide for yourselves what you think, write it up, and if necessary, bump yourself off any official committees that compromise your position? What else is there to do? Sure, you may want to call on the association to revoke the award. Fine - but do you need us to tell you that? I'm trying to eat some Triscuits in peace! On my sofa, no less! Figure it out for yourself, in all its shades of gray. - a completely unbiased complacent off-Island observer, Henry Gould p.s. this posting certainly relates to the "writing-through other cultures" thread, and makes me think of the LONG poem I just finished starring an amalgam ghost-guide-mongrel-slangmeister named Bluejay, pal of Henry... o Lord, shades of Berryman... am I in for it now!! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 23:40:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: joel lewis Subject: f.y.i. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" *** Newsreader keeps his cool, swallows fly British television newsreader Jonathan Hill didn't want to make a scene when a fly flew into his mouthduring a live broadcast - so he swallowed it, newspapers reported Friday. Hill, 28, said his instinct was to spit out the fly but he felt that would disgust viewers. "I choked on my words but just couldn't spit it out on camera," said Hill, who was reading the news on a Welsh television channel. "It's a tea time show and viewers could have been made ill right across the country. I had to be professional with so many peoplewatching. "There was only one choice. I had to grin and bear it." Hill said that as a dedicated vegetarian it was the first meat he had eaten in years. "I definitely haven't got the taste for it back now," he said. (Reuters) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 27 Jun 1998 20:41:10 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: simple is as simple does MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "[William Shockley's] basic rule for solving ANY problem is to go back to fundamentals: "Try simplest cases." Understanding is most likely to result, he says, from REDUCING the situation to its simplest elements and proceeding from there. His famous book on semiconductors follows the pattern: In Chapter I he sets forth the comparison of atomic structures to parking lots, complete with little sketches of cars to demonstrate traffic flow. By Chapter XV he is explaining that "the wave function A (theta) for the hole-wave packet is not an eigenfunction for the Hamiltonian for the 2N-1 electrons in the valence band.... All this THINKING about THINKING thrust Shockley into a furious intellectual and political controversy which he initially provoked in the late 1960's and which continues, at a lower intensity, to this day. In a letter to the National Academy of Sciences, and then in a series of lectures and interviews, Shockley urged detailed study of a problem he named "dysgenics" and defined as "retrogressive evolution through the disproportionate reproduction of the genetically disabled." In plain English, Shockley was claiming that, on the average, blacks are dumber than whites. Thus high birth rates among blacks could lead to "decline of our nation's human quality." "My research leads me inescapably to the opinion," Shockley said, "that the major cause of American Negroes' intellectual and social deficits is hereditary and is racially genetic in origin." Shockley went on to propose a social policy to deal with this situation: government should work to reduce birth rates among low-IQ elements of the population, through programs such as tax breaks for voluntary sterilization.... The instigator (e.g. Shockley) seemed to relish the stir he had created...Those who have worked with him over the years invariably describe him as "charming"; at scientific meetings he was known for telling jokes and even performing magic tricks at the podium while delivering his papers..." ---from The Chip: How Two Americans Invented the Microchip & Launched a Revolution by T.R. Reid ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 08:02:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Hawaii 5-0 [All Hawaiians Toss People Into Live Volcanos] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"gee, this is one powerful talented writer! Lots of people identify >with her writing! But look what she's doing to the Filipinos! What >should we do? Is this a campaign in the making? Am I authorized to >make these comments?" Nobody has the guts to say: >1) she's right about SOME Filipinos - this is a problem with them Wrong thinking again.....Same problem as to logic. No, it is not a problem with SOME Filipinos. Though that is a true statement. It is a problem with some HUMANS. That is a truer statement. Note particularly the emphasis on GENERIC CATEGORY. The attribution of descriptors such as Filipino, man, heterosexual, member of a family, man with blue eyes, etc., is increasingly becoming misunderstood as meaning "some men with blue eyes beat their wives" when in fact it means some humans beat up on other humans. That particular instance happened to be a man, a Filipino, perhaps with blue eyes (I don't know his eye colour), etc., but in no way ought to be taken as implying that men do it but women do not, blue eyed men do it but green eyed men do not, Filipinos do it but Americans or Slavs do not, etc. We could leave all the descriptive attributions out. Then we would lose all sense of scene. That would be a real problem with writing. Of course writers can become paranoid and avoid all affinity attributions, as to sub-categories, and make everything generic. There are no men, no women, no family members, no relational designations, no eye colours, no ethnicities, but there is a story. Somehow that would not be really situated. Somehow we need to describe the scene further than a generic meta-category. That seems to be where the misunderstanding creeps in. Sometimes it sneaks into the writer's comprehension as well as the reader's, but most often the latter. How to overcome this ? Change the way people write and describe scenes, so that they only refer to the broadest generic meta-categories ? Not quite. Instead, teachers must teach students, early on, how to think more logically, how to reason, how to comprehend such things without making false attributions and false generalizations, and how to understand the writer's setting up of scene for story. Of course, that implies that the teachers have to be truly educated. The writer being made paranoid of mentionning any sub-category, and cringing as to having left out wolves, ferrets, avocados and other living things when using the "human" meta-category becomes the extreme of ridiculous and yet there is a tendency to push it that far. (Been there, and been pressured with that kind of programming. So I know what it is about.) Oh, well, we lose on that one. It is no longer required to be able to think, or to learn to think, in order to be considered "educated" or to be a teacher of others. Simply a fact of post-modern life. M. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 08:09:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: simple is as simple does [now you see it, now you don't] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >"[William Shockley's] basic rule for solving ANY problem is to go back >to fundamentals: "Try simplest cases." >Understanding is most likely to result, he says, from REDUCING the >situation to its simplest elements and proceeding from there. His famous >book on semiconductors follows the pattern: In Chapter I he sets forth >the comparison of atomic structures to parking lots, complete with >little sketches of cars to demonstrate traffic flow. By Chapter XV he is >explaining that "the wave function A (theta) for the hole-wave packet... Human beings are too programmed into thinking in binary terms. That might seem strange and too radical an assertion, but it is true. The matter and spirit distinction is at the root of the problem. The body and soul problem is the same problem. Science has followed that paradigm and looked mostly for bifurcations such as the wave - particle duality. That following of a paradigm does not necessarily mean that any kind of duality is as fundamental a principle of nature as we claim it usually to be. It is perhaps as likely to be a matter of subjectivity and prophetic expectations becoming self fulfilling. It depends on how the experiments are constructed, and that too depends on beliefs, does it not ? What happens if we imagine a science that is based on a non dualistic principle rather than on the dualistic paradigm we are so familiar with and take so for granted ? Do some new phenomena suddenly reveal themselves that remained hidden by the fact of belief in dualism ? I do not pretend an answer to that, only stating a question. M. (Trying to make some intellectual trouble again.) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 08:03:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: TO field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. From: rsillima@IX.NETCOM.COM Subject: Forrest Gander & Araki Yasusada Comments: To: jsherry@panix.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii The current issue of The Nation has the best article I've read to date on Araki Yasusada, by Forrest Gander. Part of a series of reviews of books on Hiroshima & Nagasaki. It may be the best piece on poetry that's appeared in The Nation since Hank Lazer's work some years back. And the excerpts there from Yasusada certainly jump off the page in a way that contrasts starkly with the treacle offered up by two former neighbors of mine from the city of Berkeley, Chana Block and Richard Tillinghast, in the same issue. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 15:14:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Alan J.J.N. Sondheim" Subject: Emily's Riddle MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Emily's Riddle There is a large house many storeys high, without doors. Built of wood and stone and brick, it withstands the strongest storms. The windows are curtained or otherwise obscured (perhaps they are fogged over); one can see almost nothing of the dark interior. No sound or light emerges from within; no one has been seen looking out, half-hidden behind the shades. The house is without electricity, gas, water and sewer; apparently unin- habited, it seems nonetheless well kept up. The pathways around it are clean, the sidewalks immaculate. Lovely rose gardens grow nearby; these, too, seem unattended, but are always neat. What is this house and who is the gardener? The house is the past, and God is the gardener. _______________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 16:21:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christian Roess Subject: Re: slovak poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sat, June 27 Tom Orange writes: >anyone know of interesting and/or experimental contemporary poetry written >in slovak and as yet untranslated into english? I'm not sure. Perhaps you could get some more information by contacting Gwen Albert, editor of the journal_ Jejune: america eats its young_. (P.O. Box 85, 110 01 Praha 1, Czech Republic). She is an American poet /writer /editor living in Prague. Maybe she could be helpful? The interview published in Left Curve no.22 (info below) indicates she has knows something about the poetries of Czech Republic and Slovakia. ******* FYI to those subscribing to Poetics List: In _ LEFT CURVE no.22_ printed version [the Website is current only thru issue no.21 http://www.wco.com/~leftcurv ] there is an interview conducted 10/29/97 by Gwen Albert , talking to Paul Polansky and Czech Romany activist Lubomir Zubak. Both have been collecting the oral histories of Romany (Gypsy) survivors of the WWII era Czech -run Lety concentration camp. The Contributor's notes mentions that Polanksy is an American poet living in Prague. A book of his poems,_ Living through It Twice, Poems of the Romany Holocaust (1940-19997)_ has just been published in Prague, as has an oral history of Romany Czech survivors,_ Black Silence_. " Polansky has continued to live with Romany families in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Polanksy mentions that racial attacks by skinheads against the Romany population has amounted to over 1,200 in 1998 to bring the issue to a current statys. Polansky and Zubak continue to denounce two surviving guards from the camp for war crimes, and insist that the memorial unveiled at Lety in 1995---, which largely exists because of the publicity brought about by Polansky's researches (the article claims)----is not in accordance with the Helsinki Accords. Among the deficiencies are the fact that a pig farm which was built on the site has yet to be removed, the monument is not adequately marked and there is no easy access from the highway." ******* FYI about Slovene poetry ( NOT Slovak poetry): Not to confuse the request for as yet untranslated Slovak poetry, there is also an interesting section on 20th century Slovene poetry in Left Curve No. 22, with an introductory essay by Boris A. Novak. ".( Initially, I suppose, I confused Slovak with Slovene , until I came across this article). (from the Contributor's Notes) <> Address listed: SLOVENE WRITER'S ASSOCIATION 61000 Ljubljana Tomsicva 12 SLOVENIA (note the diacritic V goes above the 's' and 'c' in Tomsicya, , called a 'hacek' in my Webster's 9th and can't be reproduced from my keyboard.) Part 1 of Boris Novak Introduction is called "The Slovene dual-aspect: an untranslatable form". Which reads: "The Slovene language is one of the rare modern languages to have a retained the dual-aspect, an archaic grammatical form : in Slovene, this special form---midway between singular and plural---is used to refer to two things or to two people. For example, at the verbal level: I speak / am speaking~~~~~> govorim We speak / are speaking ~~~>govorimo (3 people or more) We (two) are speaking~~~~~>govoriva The same goes for nouns,eg. : A (one) book~~~~~~~> knjiga (the) books : ~~~~~~~> knjige (3 or more) two books~~~~~~~~~> knigi [….The dual is the language of love, an isle of intimacy. Lying between two deserts---the silence of solitude, marked by the singular form, and the voice of the masses, represented by the plural---there is a whispering oasis which flourishes in our language. Here, two solitudes create a fragile link speaking to each other in a low voice, protected by the very syntax of the Slovene language. When one translates Slovene poetry in which the dual form is use, one loses the atmosphere of intimacy which is granted us by the very structure of our language. More than any other dimensions of our culture, it is the dual form which symbolizes the soul of the slovene people. Indeed, we often say jokingly that Slovenia is so small that already two people together form a quantity which cannot be neglected….] Here's a sample from the poems published: Veno Taufer (b. 1933) PERHAPS THE JUNIPER NEEDLES this pain is not to be survived the luminous rain which cries through the airless space unless beyond the monotony of sound through its fissures there is that dust perhaps that pollen which no spider web can catch nor even the darkness of memory just this no more after that come the words the voices the wizard letters the runefrost perhaps the juniper needles perhaps the unsurvivably sweet motion of a blade of grass moving to the white breath of the fleet dragon before the maw that space vanishing along teeth into a darkness blue beyond the azure of candles now the drops the drops just this what kind how long how many drops what are the limits as memory curves in upon itself ? (translated by Milne Holton) ***** Milan Dekleva (b.1946) ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE Women talk the jargon of shattered flowerbeds The sick talk from pain Stones from stoniness The stars mumble the gravitation of light. To the prophet and illusionist the voice lends revelations. The meadows are littered with alphabets of ants, the cantilena of towns is a criss-cross of errands. Only freedom speaks the pathos of its own being , which is freedom. That speech is on the boundary. It convenes the whole world at the human ear. Encircles us, as death encircles life. Like wide-open doors we flap in time , the hundred times safeguarded secret of worthlessness. (translated by Alasdair MacKinnon) ***** Iztok O'sojnik (b.1951) A TRAM NAMED GRINZING They killed Conrad in the first war. I have seen two. I had many men. The times were such . Conrad I remember well. For a long time I crushed the heart of a celebrated poet. Let's not mention names! Whereas now I can't even see the damned umbrella I placed right here , in front , on the floor of the tram. We've just stopped at the Siveringstrasse The next stop's mine. (translated by Mia Dintinjana) ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 14:47:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david bromige Subject: Alan Sondheim's House of Riddles Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It is a piece of writing identical with the piece of writing which raises the question that Alan poses. Or if you prefer, it is a painting. db3 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 21:50:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: Forrest Gander & Araki Yasusada Comments: To: rsillima@ix.netcom.com Comments: cc: poetics@UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu In-Reply-To: <19986288464141@ix.netcom.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Ron, Hank's article was one of the few in the Nation. It is very difficult to accommodate art and the left. All the years of working with the relationship between Marx and poetry has not done much to erase the basic Platonic objections or the indelible association between money/power and art in the minds of left leaders who are more concerned with helping people to acquire the basics than with adorning the page. There has been little successful appeal to the value of using non-lexical technique as political tool, although it is done daily with a kind of blindness that is hard to accept in those talented people who see social justice as an important value to achieve. Gander's review will be a good step, and I can't wait to see it. The Yasusada book has successfully broached the issue of essentialism, but most of the detractors do not want to approach the real concern and dwell inevitably on the offense. It will be interesting the see the response. As I remember Hank's article was followed by an attack by an in-house Nation author and Hank was given no chance to reply. I hope we will not have a repeat of such a breach of fairness. James On Sun, 28 Jun 1998 rsillima@ix.netcom.com wrote: > The current issue of The Nation has the best article I've read to date on > Araki Yasusada, by Forrest Gander. Part of a series of reviews of books on > Hiroshima & Nagasaki. It may be the best piece on poetry that's appeared in > The Nation since Hank Lazer's work some years back. And the excerpts there > from Yasusada certainly jump off the page in a way that contrasts starkly with > the treacle offered up by two former neighbors of mine from the city of > Berkeley, Chana Block and Richard Tillinghast, in the same issue. > > Ron Silliman > > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 22:34:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Alan J.J.N. Sondheim" Subject: the last of Emily's Riddle MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Emily's Riddle There is something beautiful offering me space. Whenever I enter it, room is made for me. Yet as soon as I leave, the space is immediately occupied by others, and if I enter it again, I will never find the same. What is it? The ocean. _______________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 22:55:20 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: query: non-mainstream/avant garde dance theory Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Edwin. Denby. He's our man. If he can't write it, nobody can! Dear Mark -- There s The Collected Reviews of, and there's Buildings, Dancers, People in the Streets, and they togther are the best there is! Did you all see Ron Padgett's blazing article in Friday NYTimes? Of poets in NY, with walt, Edwin, Jimmy, Frank, and Allen all putting in guest appearances. More Ron! Bob H ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 22:55:20 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Jewloetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit (unless you are Jewel 1.7 million > >for her book of poems) Source? Bob Holman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 22:55:22 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Pigpen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ronald "Pigpen" McKernan (epitaph : "Pigpen was and is now forever one of the grateful dead") I held the symbols for him on stage at the Rock'n'Roll Express Conncert in Calgary, 7/4/70. That was right before Janis kissed me. Bob H ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 23:08:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Pigpen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>>I held the symbols for him on stage at the Rock'n'Roll Express ^^^^^^^ Conncert in Calgary, 7/4/70. That was right before Janis kissed me.<<< I have to know--this could, after all, be important: did you find his symbolism blatant, overt, calculated, subtle, inspired? The "turn on your lovelight" metaphor really belongs to Bobby "Blue" Bland, but I wonder about "easy wind 'cross the bayou today." Gwyn "Close Reading" McVay ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 19:37:47 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Or just another hysterical response to indeterminates MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Now let us see what these numbers mean in terms of a ballistic trajectory, which is the basic element needed to make a firing or bombing table. Such a calculation is a way of determining via Newton's Laws of Motion the shape and path taken by a shell, as a FUNCTION OF TIME, as it moves from the gun to some point, say on the ground. Of course, as the angle of elevation or muzzle velocity is changed this path will change. A typical trajectory or path required the order of 750 multiplications, and took a differential analyzer anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes to calculate it with a precision of about five parts per 10,000, which was about the utmost in accuracy attainable by such a machine.... The human cum desk calculator (10 seconds per multiplication) would then spend about 2 hours on the multiplying; and, with our estimate of a factor of six, about 12 hours doing an individual trajectory....The Harvard-IBM machine (3 seconds) required about 2 hours; the Bell machine (1 second), about 2/3 hour; and the mark II (0.4 seconds) about 1/4 hour. The differential analyzer took...about 10-20 minutes."---from The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann by Herman H. Goldstine --- "As to time, which, it is to be presumed, would, by way of the counterpart to space, constitute the object-matter of the other division of pure mathematics, this is the notion itself in the form of existence. The principle of quantity, of difference which is not determined by the notion, and the principle of equality, of abstract, lifeless unity, are incapable of dealing with that sheer restlessness of life and its absolute inherent process of differentiation. It is therefore ONLY IN AN ARRESTED AND PARALYSED FORM, ONLY IN THE FORM OF THE QUANTITATIVE UNIT, that this ESSENTIALLY NEGATIVE ACTIVITY becomes the object-matter of this way of knowing, which, itself an EXTERNAL OPERATION, degrades what is self-moving to the level of mere matter, in order thus to get an indifferent, external, lifeless content."---from the Phenomenology of Mind by G.W.F. Hegel---cp ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 28 Jun 1998 23:49:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: trbell Subject: Re: slovak poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Might be something here. http://www.poetrysoc.com/translation/thome.htm site for European translations by the Times of London and the National=20 Lottery. May also be a solution to the recent talk here about poetry and money? tom bell At 04:21 PM 6/28/98 -0400, you wrote: > Sat, June 27 Tom Orange writes: > >>anyone know of interesting and/or experimental contemporary poetry written >>in slovak and as yet untranslated into english? > > > >I'm not sure. Perhaps you could get some more information by contacting Gwen Albert, editor of the journal_ Jejune: america eats its young_. (P.O. Box 85, 110 01 Praha 1, Czech Republic). She is an American poet /writer /editor living in Prague. Maybe she could be helpful? The interview published in Left Curve no.22 (info below) indicates she has knows something about the poetries of Czech Republic and Slovakia. > >******* > >FYI to those subscribing to Poetics List: > >In _ LEFT CURVE no.22_ printed version > > [the Website is current only thru issue no.21 http://www.wco.com/~leftcurv= ] > > there is an interview conducted 10/29/97 by Gwen Albert , talking to Paul Polansky and Czech Romany activist Lubomir Zubak. Both have been collecting the oral histories of Romany (Gypsy) survivors of the WWII era Czech -run Lety concentration camp. The Contributor's notes mentions that Polanksy is an American poet living in Prague. A book of his poems,_ Living through It Twice, Poems of the Romany Holocaust (1940-19997)_ has just been published in Prague, as has an oral history of Romany Czech survivors,_ Black= Silence_. > >" Polansky has continued to live with Romany families in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Polanksy mentions that racial attacks by skinheads against the Romany population has amounted to over 1,200 in 1998 to bring the issue to a current statys. Polansky and Zubak continue to denounce two surviving guards from the camp for war crimes, and insist that the memorial unveiled at Lety in 1995---, which largely exists because of the publicity brought about by Polansky's researches (the article claims)----is not in accordance with the Helsinki Accords. Among the deficiencies are the fact that a pig farm which was built on the site has yet to be removed, the monument is not adequately marked and there is no easy access from the highway." > >******* > >FYI about Slovene poetry ( NOT Slovak poetry): > > >Not to confuse the request for as yet untranslated Slovak poetry, there is also an interesting section on 20th century Slovene poetry in Left Curve No. 22, with an introductory essay by Boris A. Novak. ".( Initially, I suppose, I confused Slovak with Slovene , until I came across this article). > > >(from the Contributor's Notes) ><> > >Address listed: > >SLOVENE WRITER'S ASSOCIATION >61000 Ljubljana >Tomsicva 12 >SLOVENIA > >(note the diacritic V goes above the 's' and 'c' in Tomsicya, , called a 'hacek' in my Webster's 9th and can't be reproduced from my keyboard.) > >Part 1 of Boris Novak Introduction is called "The Slovene dual-aspect: an untranslatable form". Which reads: > >"The Slovene language is one of the rare modern languages to have a retained the dual-aspect, an archaic grammatical form : in Slovene, this special form---midway between singular and plural---is used to refer to two things or to two people. For example, at the verbal level: > >I speak / am speaking~~~~~> govorim > >We speak / are speaking ~~~>govorimo > (3 people or more) > >We (two) are speaking~~~~~>govoriva > > >The same goes for nouns,eg. : > >A (one) book~~~~~~~> knjiga > >(the) books : ~~~~~~~> knjige > (3 or more) > >two books~~~~~~~~~> knigi > > >[=85.The dual is the language of love, an isle of intimacy. Lying between= two deserts---the silence of solitude, marked by the singular form, and the voice of the masses, represented by the plural---there is a whispering oasis which flourishes in our language. Here, two solitudes create a fragile link speaking to each other in a low voice, protected by the very syntax of the Slovene language. When one translates Slovene poetry in which the dual form is use, one loses the atmosphere of intimacy which is granted us by the very structure of our language. More than any other dimensions of our culture, it is the dual form which symbolizes the soul of the slovene people. Indeed, we often say jokingly that Slovenia is so small that already two people together form a quantity which cannot be neglected=85.] > > > > > > >Here's a sample from the poems published: > > >Veno Taufer (b. 1933) > >PERHAPS THE JUNIPER NEEDLES > > >this pain is not to be survived >the luminous rain >which cries through the airless space > > >unless beyond the monotony of sound >through its fissures there is >that dust perhaps that pollen > > >which no spider web can catch >nor even the darkness of memory >just this no more after that come the words the voices > > >the wizard letters the runefrost >perhaps the juniper needles >perhaps the unsurvivably sweet motion of a blade of grass > > >moving to the white breath of the fleet dragon >before the maw that space vanishing along teeth into a darkness >blue beyond the azure of candles > > >now the drops the drops just this >what kind how long >how many drops > > >what are the limits >as memory curves >in upon itself ? > >(translated by Milne Holton) > >***** > > >Milan Dekleva (b.1946) > >ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE > > > >Women talk the jargon of shattered flowerbeds >The sick talk from pain >Stones from stoniness >The stars mumble the gravitation of light. >To the prophet and illusionist the voice lends revelations. >The meadows are littered with alphabets of ants, >the cantilena of towns is a criss-cross of errands. > > >Only freedom speaks the pathos of its own being , >which is freedom. >That speech is on the boundary. >It convenes the whole world >at the human ear. >Encircles us, as death encircles life. >Like wide-open doors we flap in time , >the hundred times safeguarded secret >of worthlessness. > >(translated by Alasdair MacKinnon) > > >***** > >Iztok O'sojnik (b.1951) > > >A TRAM NAMED GRINZING > > > >They killed Conrad in the first war. >I have seen two. >I had many men. The times >were such . Conrad >I remember well. >For a long time I crushed the heart >of a celebrated poet. Let's not mention names! >Whereas now I can't even see >the damned umbrella >I placed >right here , in front , on the floor of the tram. >We've just stopped >at the Siveringstrasse >The next stop's mine. > >(translated by Mia Dintinjana) > > > > > > > >____________________________________________________________________ >Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=3D1 > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 09:41:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Padgett's blazing article Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:55 PM 6/28/98 EDT, Nuyopoman@AOL.COM wrote: >Did you all see Ron Padgett's blazing article in Friday NYTimes? Of poets in >NY, with walt, Edwin, Jimmy, Frank, and Allen all putting in guest >appearances. More Ron! Does anyone by chance have electronic access to this article, and can send to the list? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:08:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: sylvester pollet Subject: address change/Backwoods Broadsides Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To all & sundry, but particularly to those who send me mags/books in exchange for the Backwoods Broadsides Chaplet Series: my address has been changed again. Same house since we built it in '74/'75, but about the sixth address change. Now: Sylvester Pollet Backwoods Broadsides 963 Winkumpaugh Rd. Ellsworth, Maine 04605-9529 The next two, # 36 & 37, are at press, and will be going out around mid-July. #36 ASTILBE/John Martone, #37 OPEN FIELD SUITE/Aram Saroyan. Subscriptions $10. yr. ppd. for 8 issues. If you missed #34 CHANCE MEETING/Kasuya Eiichi tr. D.W. Wright, and #35 BANNERS:TOKYO/Kathleen Fraser, you shouldn't have. Send $2. for those, or any two samples. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:11:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Or just another hysterical response to indeterminates [Hegel, and Tipler as members of the Marx Brothers] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >minutes to calculate it with a precision of about five parts per 10,000, >which was about the utmost in accuracy attainable by such a machine.... >The human cum desk calculator (10 seconds per multiplication) would then >spend about 2 hours on the multiplying; and, with our estimate of a >factor of six, about 12 hours doing an individual trajectory....The >Harvard-IBM machine (3 seconds) required about 2 hours; the Bell machine >(1 second), about 2/3 hour; and the mark II (0.4 seconds) about 1/4 >hour. The differential analyzer took...about 10-20 minutes."---from The >Computer from Pascal to von Neumann by Herman H. Goldstine Now it can be calculated as soon as the target is identified and in range, and recalculated in terms of the delivery system's motion until the trigger is pulled, and recalculated in terms of the projectiles own course - with course corrections - right to target. It simply has to be unthinkably "too fast", in order to be effective. When we consider the velocity of some modern day projectiles, we realize how unthinkably fast too fast really is. Accurate prediction is best before the fact. The effort of science and technology is to predict as accurately as possible, and as long before the event as possible, any event that could actually occur. That is fundamental to the siezing of power over events, and particularly against such events that might threaten human survival. >"As to time, which, it is to be presumed, would, by way of the >counterpart to space, constitute the object-matter of the other division >of pure mathematics, this is the notion itself in the form of existence." Hegel is often very silly. (A lot of Hegel is religion in a new guise, and that gives rise to the religion of Marxism. No surprise as Karl Marx created, by derivation, a political-economic system, mostly derived from Hegel and the Bible, interpreted in terms of the conservative wing of German Protestantism. Of course, Marx deified the state, transferring the characteristics of the right wing Protestant "god" to the central organ of the political body. Marx would then prove correct, as to political evolution becoming that deification of the state, should Tipler prove correct as to the nature of the Omega-Point. The two ideas go hand in hand, and Tipler then would become shepherded into the marxist flock as one of its prophets of central state totalism. In fact, read Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit" from a Tiplerian viewpoint. I dare you to. At the very least you will see how Tipler and Hegel join the Marx Brothers.) Time and space, being dimensions, have no existence per se, but exist only as the relativity of other material events, as the relativity of those events to each other. Time is not an object, but there must be existing objects or there is no relation among them, to each other, such that we can refer to as being durational. Those relations are defined by the intrinsic properties of objects, as determine their interactions and their individual existences. Location in space-time dimensions is at once considered characteristic of an existent and also considered as being determined by the characteristics of an existent. The fact that physics has to deal with anomalies where the space-time paths of events are observably interrupted, becoming non local as to 4 dimensional space-time, vanishing to mythematical "infinity" and then sometimes reappearing at another space-time location, leads to the addition of a fifth dimension to the 4 dimensions of Einsteinian space-time. That becomes a pardigm shift, that is yet to be fully realized and defined. M. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:26:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: protest of award for Yamanaka Comments: To: buff.list@MIT.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Juliana, Thanks for this intelligent report on an important issue. It ties in to a lot of recent discussion here I think. My question is: was the panel and forum held in order to discuss rescinding the award, or some other kind of action to be taken? Also, I wonder about your disclaimer: what is a "mainland haole," why does the disclaimer have a ring of "I am not worthy" in it, and whose authorization of the report would have been desirable? At 09:25 AM 6/27/98 -1000, Juliana Spahr wrote: >Disclaimer: please realize that since I am a mainland haole who has >lived here for less than a year that this report is not authorized. >Please supplement with other points of view (the Association discussion >might be a good place to start). <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 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, 29 Jun 1998 10:33:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Re: protest of award for Yamanaka In-Reply-To: <3595470F.11780AA@lava.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Despite her "disclaimer," Juliana's post on this topic was truly fascinating, informative, and politico-socially very astute. Somewhat off her main topic (but very close to some primary interests of mine, and surely of the List's)--- i am mesmerized by the following: " Is the unreliable narrator a flawed concept? One built on elitist reading practices?" Er, if the unreliable narrator is built on elitist reading practices, then the work of most folks on the list is in deep trouble. Because the good ol' U.N. is sure a minor wrinkle compared to the best, most interesting and compelling writing out there right now...Especially that which goes broadly under the rubric, "poetry." A very pertinent example: the complex tones and voices of Juliana's own beguiling volume, Response. mark @lanta ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:48:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Subject: UB Mail Shutdown Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At approximately 6:00pm on Friday, July 10th, central email and UBUnix (University at Buffalo email server) will be disabled and remain unavailable until 8:00am on Monday, July 13th. During this time period all mail sent to the Poetics List will be queued for later delivery. Note also that there will be no incoming or outgoing mail for anyone with UB email (acsu.buffalo.edu). ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 06:26:20 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: query: non-mainstream/avant garde dance theory In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hope this is still useful information, I wasn't able to telnet into e-mail often while I was out of town. Most of these things aren't manifestos or academic criticism as such, but try Gregory Battcock's anthology of essays "Art of Performance"; Jill Johnston had some books that collected her Village Voice dance reviews & essays from the 60s & 70s; Deborah Jowitt who subsequently wrote about dance after Johnston stopped also has some collections; there's a book of interviews with Merce Cunningham that I think is called Dancer & the Dance; Sally Banes has a couple of books that should be useful - one on Judson Church & a couple more general ones; Cindy Carr's On Edge is more about performance art but I think there's a few dance things in it; Can't think of any more, but some of these should also have pointers to other sources. Bests, Herb > Hello listfolks: > > I'm interested in finding out some information about books and >articles on contemporary dance, preferably on work outside the mainstream. >I'm interested first and foremost on mainfesto/theory/statements of >purpose work written by actual practioners and choreographers, but would >interested also in academic criticism and/or theoretical work written on >the subject. Either backchannel or a post to the list would be fine. My >knowledge here is pretty shaky--anything anybody knows would help. > > Thanks. > > Mark Wallace > > > >/----------------------------------------------------------------------------\ >| | >| mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu | >| GWU: | >| http://gwis2.circ.gwu.edu/~mdw | >| EPC: | >| http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/wallace | >|____________________________________________________________________________| Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 15:22:34 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: Re: Pigpen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 10:55 PM 6/28/98, Nuyopoman@aol.com wrote: >Ronald "Pigpen" McKernan (epitaph : "Pigpen was and is now >forever one of the grateful dead") > >I held the symbols for him on stage at the Rock'n'Roll Express Conncert in >Calgary, 7/4/70. That was right before Janis kissed me. > >Bob H which symbols, and of what? (hi bob) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 15:22:06 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Maria Damon (Maria Damon)" Subject: thanks Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" to all of you who received masha (maria) zavialova when she was in ny. she felt the trip was definitely worthwhile and she learned a lot and met a lot of folks and collected a lot of artifact. she's quite intrigued by the u.s. poetry scene and is planning some translations into russian.--md ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 17:54:25 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maz881@AOL.COM Subject: Re: protest of award for Yamanaka Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit A comment about the Association for Asian American Studies conference and Yamanaka. After the debate that Juliana described, the association went to a Luau. i went and read poetry with Epi Enari, a local samoan woman. A friend of epi's showed up at the reading and he was from Somoa but now lived in La and had just given a paper at the AAA conference. When asked why he wasn't at the Luau, he said "Are you kidding? They would expect me serve them." That comment made me think that on a large structural/allegorical level, the whole Yamanaka debate seemed to be about whether or not the association was going to "allow" filipinos to be asian. The next night i was out with a local Korean- american friend and i tested my theory by asking him the question: Are Filipinos Asian? He said jokingly, "well kinda. I guess we'll let them in." Bill Luoma << Subject: protest of award for Yamanaka I went to a meeting by the Association for Asian American Studies yesterday. The Association has awarded Lois-Ann Yamanaka's _Blu's Hanging_ an award. Many members of the Association have protested the award, arguing that the book presents racist representations of Filipino/as. In Hawai'i there is a stereotype that Filipinos are sexually deviant (partial to incest, rape, child molestation). In _Blu's Hanging_, a family of Japanese-Americans live next to a family of Filipino-Americas. Members of the Filipino family commit various acts of incest, rape, and child molestation. The Association had a panel on this topic which I missed. And they also held a roundtable forum on the issue which I attended. Apparently the Association had for years been considering Yamanaka's books for the award starting with _Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre_ and continuing with _Wild Meat and Bully Burgers_ but had never given her the award. Each year there had been protest of some sort from the membership. It was noted several times that of all these books, _Blu's Hanging_ is the most problematic in terms of race. So to award the award to this book has been seen as particularly insensitive. At the roundtable many people spoke. The argument seemed to be split around two sides. One side argued mainly that this was a freedom of speech issue (which it really isn't; no one is suggesting the book by banned, just that it not be rewarded). This side was represented by a number of local writers who are not academics and by a number of established Asian-American writers, also mainly not academics, from the mainland. Statements were read by people like Amy Tan, Maxine Hong Kingston, David Mura, etc. Wing Tek Lu, from Bamboo Ridge who publishes _Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre_, had a thick petition and collection of statements in support of Yamanaka. Unfortunately there were only copies for the roundtable participants so I didn't get to see one. The other side was represented by a number of mainly local academics. Many spoke movingly of the difficulties of growing up Filipino/a in Hawai'i. The roundtable felt caught between these two positions, neither addressing the other. But for more information I would suggest looking at the work of Candace Fujikane. She has a good article in the most recent volume of _Social Processes in Hawai'i_ (1998, UH Press) on this issue. She also posted a moving and complicated statement to the Association's discussion list. Walter Lew forwarded it to me. I'm sure he would do the same for you if you asked (or I could also). At the conference, I was talking to Dorothy Wong and she told me how many people at the conference had said that the protest was a Hawai'i issue. I have to agree (which doesn't make it less important). When I read _Saturday Night_ on the mainland it seemed clear that the poems are told by an unreliable teenage narrator and the first poem, "Kala Gave Me Any Kine Advice Especially about Filipinos when I Moved to Pahala," can be read as a critique of racist stereotypes. But when I've taught the book here, the first thing students often say is, here is a voice that is my voice, which I've never heard taken seriously before. (It is an amazing experience to teach this book here. Students really feel like it changes their life and validates whole parts of their culture that have been degraded.) And then the problem starts b/c this voice is the voice of a teenage racist. Also, it is crucial to realize that being Japanese-American in Hawai'i (which Yamanaka is) is similar to being haole in terms of economic and social power. (Race discussions repeatedly define class discussions.) Whereas Filipino/as possess significantly less economic and social power. It is often said that because Yamanaka writes coming of age stories of planatation life that she is unwillingly to abandon the rhetoric of marginalization and take responsibility for Japanese-American complicity in the colonial (neocolonial?) power structure. Her characters will grow up to set much of Hawai'i's policy. What then? To add to the problem, Yamanaka is reported as saying things like her book is "true" and that she has known Filipinos like that and how she is just reporting what she has seen. I wished for more analysis of the book at the roundtable. One of the ways that I have a lot of respect for Yamanaka's work is that she has addressed the language issue in a way that a lot of writers here have avoided it. Many local writers go through the creative writing program at Univ of Hawai'i, Manoa which likes nature poetry and MFA short story forms (some important exceptions: Morgan Blair, Susan Schultz, Rob Wilson). Yamanaka's writing in pidgin puts forth a critique of these forms that rivals the critique of American presence in the land that is a part of the literature of Hawai'i. I wished also for more discussion of what we do with a teenage racist narrator. Fujikane repeatedly points out how important it is to avoid saying that those who do not read this book as told by an unreliable narrator are unsophisticated. I agree with her. But when do we stop or start to read that narrator as unreliable (again, Fujikane has a good point that in _Blu's Hanging_, the narrator sees the sexual abuse, she doesn't just report it)? Is the unreliable narrator a flawed concept? One built on elitist reading practices? A vote is being held by the Association on this issue today. I'm not sure what the outcome will be. The room felt very divided. It was great to see many people who were not academics speaking up on this issue. It is evidence that what one writes does matter, can carry huge consequences to a community. Disclaimer: please realize that since I am a mainland haole who has lived here for less than a year that this report is not authorized. Please supplement with other points of view (the Association discussion might be a good place to start). Juliana Spahr>>> ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 14:50:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Subject: Outlet magazine/includes call for work Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello all, this is my first post: info on my year-old publishing venture, Double Lucy Books & periodical, Outlet: Outlet (1) The Debutante (excerpts at our webpage, see below) Cheryl Burket, Norma Cole, Cydney Chadwick, Lily James, Yedda Morrison, Susan Smith Nash, Jocelyn Saidenberg, & Others Outlet (2) Fairyland (available in early fall) Merle Bachman, Todd Baron, Leslie Bary, MTC Cronin, Tan Lin, Michelle Murphy, Linda Russo, Standard Schaefer, & Others **** Outlet (3) Ornament is currently accepting submissions.**** Outlet (3) Ornament will include work which addresses fashion: ornament, the (synthetic) fixtures of the body, & the languages/technicalities of attire, both contemporary & historical. Deadline December 15, 1998. When first submitting, please consider a 5 page limit. Please note that we cannot respond without either a SASE or an Email address, and also that we consider chapbook manuscripts, at this point, by request only. Send work to: PO Box 9013, Berkeley, CA 94709 & AN EXCERPT FROM OUR LATEST CHAPBOOK: The Marriage of the Well Built Head,by Yedda Morrison, DLB 1998 "citizen treads in the darkened. conceiving a light switch. where would it feel or what once lifted light" ~ Yedda Morrison [(c) 1998] PLEASE ADDRESS ALL INQUIRIES TO THE P.O. BOX LISTED ABOVE. ALL CHAPBOOKS ARE $3, POSTAGE PAID. SUBSCRIPTIONS TO OUTLET ARE $10/YEAR & INCLUDE YOUR CHOICE OF CHAPBOOK. **OUTLET 1 IS SOLD OUT**, SINGLE COPIES OF OUTLET 2 ARE $4. PLEASE MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO ELIZABETH TREADWELL. THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST & SUPPORT! more info is at http://users.lanminds.com/~dblelucy thanks! I promise to be at least a touch less self-absorbed in my next post :) --Elizabeth Treadwell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 03:01:17 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: a note from ReMap Comments: To: AERIALEDGE , "Aldon L. Nielsen" , arron , Joel Kuszai , kemp , killian , Laura Moriarty , lisa jarnot , martino , norma , poetics , popi , Rod4rigo , "Shemurph@aol.com" , spencer , Steve Dickison , Susan Clark , tosh MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A wonderful summer's reading for ReMap #6 this sunday under the tree in Diane Ward's backyard. Marty Nakell read work by Susan Roberts Noah De Lissovoy read work by Laura Moriarity I read the "sightings" pages from issues 1-6 Diane Ward read an Imaginary Lyric by A. Shurin. It occured and we were there. Hopefully Issue #7 (ON LOVE) won't be long in coming. The idea Carolyn Kemp and I continue to persue and persue is one of dialogue. The idea to have, at this reading, poets read Others work, (other than their own) engaged in an instant fashion the notion. ReMap #6 POLITICS ReMap #7 ON LOVE ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 03:10:29 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: sorry agin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ps: sorry for the noise: That was for Kevin Killian-- Todd Baron ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 03:11:46 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: sorry for the public display-- MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit damn I'm dumb-- Kevin Killian: I cannot e-mail and want to-- yr address has "faults" help-- Todd Baron ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 04:35:37 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: russian history tomes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can anyone suggest a goodbook that's an overview (" ") of Russian History--? One area I will be teaching come Sept to my Middle Schhol class is Russia--along with work by Gogol, Tolstoy, Doestoevsky, Ahkmatova, etc. But I need more insight into the vastness of Russian history--and--I'm afraid--haven't the time to do real elongated readings.. thanks much, Todd Baron ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 21:09:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon/Piombino Subject: Jerome Sala and Poetry Slams Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Some of you on this list may know Jerome Sala, a poet from Chicago who has been living in New York for awhile now. An article about poetry slams appeared in The New York Times on June 16, some of which is quoted below: >From NY TIMES 6/16/98, pp. E1 & E9: "The organizers of the Taos championship bout are at great pains to distinguish their event from slam poetry, a phenomenon that took root in Chicago in the mid-1980s and now has its own annual national championship event...Nonetheless, slams and bouts are obviously cut from similar cloth. Both involve competitive readings with judges providing numerical scores and crowds going beserk. Rules vary from slam to slam. But the primary difference is that a slam usually involves several entrants or individuals, who may or may not be accomplished poets, while a bout is two poets, usually of some reputation, going head to head. A further confusion is that the championship bout was also born in Chicago, at a bar on Lincoln Avenue called to Oxford Pub in 1981. There, a blues singer named Jim Desmond became angered when a poet named Jerome Sala read a poem that parodied John Lennon, who had just died. They got into a fight, eventually agreeing to settle the dispute with a competitive reading. They asked the bartender, Al Simmons, to arrange it, which he did, with the cooperation of a friend, Terry Jacobus. Mr. Sala won the first bout, as well as a rematch." Jerome Sala is the author of Raw Deal: New and Selected Poems 1980-1994 (Another Chicago Press). The following blurb by me, excerpted from an introduction to a reading I invited Jerome to give at the Ear Inn in 1992,appears on the back cover: "Jerome Sala's poems...embody subliminal philosphical messages which, instead of stroking our foolishly cherished stereotypes disassemble them secretly, and, before you know it, blow away their remains..." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 21:30:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: russian history tomes [tertiary sources based on Stalinist newspapers ?] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Can anyone suggest a goodbook that's an overview (" ") of Russian >History--? Sadly you would find good sources that cover events only up to the time of the Bolshevik Revolution, and mostly either written before the Revolution in Russian and shipped abroad, or written by foreigners from a foreign viewpoint. Soviet versions of pre-Bolshevik history would be useless, except for a study of totalist propaganda. After the revolution you find only propaganda and disinformation on both sides, Soviet and foreign. Even the departments of Soviet studies got few things right about Soviet realities. That was subsequently proven, to the astonishment of those who were playing follow the academic leader within that discipline. Sadly the KGB and the NKVD destroyed MOST of the historical resources and documents as to anything between the time of the revolution and the disintegration of the Soviet empire. There is what remains of the KGB archives, but it would be extremely tedious to go through any of that, and there are far too few good historians who know Russian and understand the Soviet machine well enough, to be able to piece anything together that has any reasonable credibility. The Soviet Union was a state that essentially, effectively, wiped out its own history. So you begin from there. >One area I will be teaching come Sept to my Middle Schhol class is >Russia--along with work by Gogol, Tolstoy, Doestoevsky, Ahkmatova, etc. >But I need more insight into the vastness of Russian history--and--I'm >afraid--haven't the time to do real elongated readings.. Pre-Soviet Russian history should be accessible in a vast number of credible English, French and German sources. M. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 18:51:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Roger Farr Subject: Re: Slams In-Reply-To: from "Simon/Piombino" at Jun 29, 98 09:09:43 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Slams have always struck me as thinly veiled Public Relations events held to "showcase" various "personalities" who are looking for a spot in a beer commercial. Admittedly, though, this impression may have to do more with the particularly unimaginative neo-beat "spoken-word" poets here in Vancouver than with the slam itself. RF ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 19:20:10 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Reduce this! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 1.Reduction A DOCTRINE to which most philosophers of science subscribe (and to which I subscribed for many years) is the doctrine that the laws of such "higher level" sciences like psychology and sociology are reducible to the laws of the lower-level sciences--biology, chemistry, ultimately to the laws of elementary particle physics. Acceptance of the doctrine is generally identified with belief in "The Unity of Science" (with capitals), and rejection of it with belief in vitalism, or psychism, or, anyway, something bad. In this paper I want to argue that this doctrine is wrong.... I shall begin with a logical point and then apply it to the special case of psychology. The logical point is that from the fact that the behavior of a system can be deduced from its description as a system of elementary particles, it does not follow that it can be explained from that description...."---Reductionism and the Nature of Psychology by Hilary Putnam ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 23:28:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Simon DeDeo Subject: Re: russian history tomes Comments: To: toddbaron@earthlink.net I'm afraid that Morpheal is right on this one; much of the material on Soviet Russia is fraught with inaccuracy. Often, you need some of the same critical skills that you employ when you read the fiction. I'm not sure if I'm right when I take Middle School to mean ages 9 to 12; it seems quite a lot to dump on them all at once. But I suppose you know what you're doing. Are you going any further back than the writers you list? Damn, I'm a fan of Turgenev; and, while I did not receive as full an education in the use of stanza as I might have liked from Pushkin, E.O. is wonderful. Especially the racy bits about women's ankles. Middle school! Sorry. The following is rated G. There's an excellent book called _The Making of Modern Russia_, published 1990 or so; I forget the author, but there's only one that fits the description in amazon.com; try the library. It covers pretty much everything (Ice age to Yeltsin), with interesting detours and (importantly, maybe for Middle Schoolers?) also manages to teach a lot about how "History" is done, or told. Sidenotes such as "it is often noted that a civilization cannot sustain itself as such until a grain of wheat multiplies itself seven times"; a "real" historian would take that with a grain of salt, but for a student, it's a neat way to look at history. (Go, Marx.) Written by a public-school Britisher, so be a little careful. I'm not sure what Dostoyevsky you're looking at, but his realism often makes itself amenable to historical analysis. St. Petersberg in C&P, for example. Tolstoy also, but not a very good one (you spend most of your time thinking Moscow is one damn ballroom, with a farm in the back.) And, if you really want to make them weep, Andre Bely's _Petersberg_ (about the events of 1905; written like a slightly more under control _Ulysses_) will blow you away. Anybody up for a thread on the Russian Modernists, speaking of? The Perloff finally arrived here, and I've been eagerly digging through, letting the work collect dust and bugs. An (apparently) fascinating article on the connections between Yeats' automatic writing and theoastrometrology (?) and Khlebnikov's numerology, two subjects that I've studied separately, but never thought to examine together. -- Simon http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sdedeo/localpapers.html sdedeo@fas.harvard.edu sdedeo@naic.edu lydianmode@ucsd.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 13:30:12 +0900 Reply-To: kimball@post.miyazaki-med.ac.jp Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kimball Organization: kimball@post.miyazaki-med.ac.jp Subject: Ron Padgett's article MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Daniel Bouchard requested an electronic post of Ron Padgett's article in the NYTimes. Here it is. _____________ The Streets as Muse to a Peripatetic Poet (June 26, NYTimes) By RON PADGETT When the bus came over that final hill in New Jersey, I got my first real-life glimpse of Manhattan stretched out broadside like a futuristic battleship 11 miles long, and the surge of excitement I felt at that moment 38 years ago has never quite left me. Of course, everything looks good from a distance. And when I reached my destination, the Village, I was met with a Whelan's drugstore and a Howard Johnson's, at Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street: not all that different from a busy intersection in Tulsa, where I had just come from. Where were the thatched cottages that my fanciful 18-year-old mind had imagined? My roller-coaster reactions were immediately propelled by the pace of the streets of Manhattan, not to mention the thrill of jaywalking. Soon, as Jack Kerouac put it, "I did everything with that great mad joy you get when you return to New York City." The sheer energy of the streets was irresistible, a force that made me want to go to the Museum of Modern Art, the Bleecker Street Cinema, the Eighth Street Bookstore, Wall Street at midnight and a thousand other places, all at the same time, and then go back to my room and write a poem. Over the years, I've lost a step, but I still have to contain my excitement when I go out into the street, because I know that out there I will encounter an endless stream of little dramas. Every person who walks toward me, becoming not only larger and larger but giving an evolving impression, will bring his or her own personal drama that climaxes as we pass by each other. Will that pretty woman's eyes meet mine in some mysterious communication? It's fun to fall in love for only 10 seconds. And what better place to do so than in the streets of New York? But there's the other drama, too: Is that guy staggering toward me because he's drunk, and what's that in his hand? A baseball bat? And he's wearing a Nixon mask. I go back to my apartment and write a poem about lunacy (mine). But even if -- and especially when -- the streets are deserted, there are the buildings. If I lift my gaze, I will see a curious architectural detail that I never noticed, even though I have walked past it thousands of times. For years, the Chrysler Building sparkled and radiated behind my poems, but for the last 10 years, I have been entranced by the top of the Con Ed building, illuminated in subtle colors at night by some genius of lighting so that it resembles a flying chunk of ancient Babylonia. For a few years, the demolition of Klein's department store afforded a magnificent view from Union Square of the entire height of the Con Ed tower, especially in the early evening. But now the sightlines are blocked by a new and self-important structure that makes me grit my teeth. It's like a piece of cardboard nailed over a Vermeer. I got so hot under the collar over this that I wrote a prose poem about the joys of anger. The gutsy verve of New York's streets is echoed by other poets who have lived in the city. I get a thrill when I read Walt Whitman's "I too walk'd the streets of Manhattan" and his account of walking along 14th Street. It's a special pleasure to read his big poem "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" while taking the, well, Staten Island Ferry. I feel that I belong in New York when I read Edwin Denby's powerful sonnets about West 21st Street, Sixth Avenue and the old IND subway line, as well as his hallucinatory "Elegy -- The Streets." I get a tingly feeling every time I look up at Furnald Hall, a dormitory on the Columbia campus, because I know that the great Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, the author of "Poet in New York," once lived behind one of its windows. I never pass by Rockefeller Center without thinking of a poem about Christmas in New York, James Schuyler's heartbreakingly beautiful "December," with its funny opening, "The giant Norway spruce from Podunk . . ." But for my money, the poet who gets the most out of New York is Frank O'Hara, whose "A Step Away From Them" includes the dirty glistening torsos of construction laborers, Coca-Cola, pet shop windows, an electric waterfall, giant smoke rings, a blond chorus girl, a toothpick, a quotation from Denby, a cheeseburger, three of Frank's departed friends, a glass of papaya juice, a book by the French poet Pierre Reverdy and more. In his relatively short poem, O'Hara gives us all of Times Square in the late 1950's. It still makes me like Times Square, just as Ted Berrigan's poem about "reeling up First Avenue to Klein's" makes me happy to reel up First Avenue, too, especially the block between 11th and 12th Streets, whose deep red tenement facades sometimes take on a supernatural glow at sundown. And First Avenue will always remind me of bumping into Allen Ginsberg, whose poetry was one of the reasons I came to New York in the first place, at Shin's fruit stand late one night. He held up a tomato and said, "Ron, at 79 cents a pound, this is a very good deal." Where else in the world can all this happen? Is this not a poet's paradise? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 00:40:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: Reduce this! [ok, that puzzle is easier to do] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >1.Reduction Intelligence. >A DOCTRINE Any doctrine is always false. M. That was the easiest puzzle of all of them. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 14:24:29 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Marthe N. Reed" Subject: Re: Call for submissions In-Reply-To: <19980602.090248.12351.2.cento@juno.com> from "Scott Keeney" at Jun 2, 98 09:01:55 am Content-Type: text Dear Scott Keeney, In response to your call to Poetics for poetry for The End Review, I send along seven poems. Excepted from a cycle of poems that arise from history's caesura's: the way history both records and fails to record - attending to what is lost in the process. The titles of the poems are: Dreamwork, Centennial Cemetary Pretty Woman (II), Treaty, No Name Woman, (No Name Woman (II), and Lunar Variations. I can be reached by email at reed@boneyard.psy.uwa.eud.au. I look forward to hearing from you. Please let me know if you have any problems reading this file. Warmest regards, Marthe Reed 321 Badgerup Rd Wanneroo, WA 6065 Australia phone: +61-8-9405-6182 email: reed@boneyard.psy.uwa.eud.au Dreamwork a woman dreaming a woman dreaming of war a woman dreaming of soldiers, of horsemen their hats falling over their faces a woman dreaming of booger maskers with long penises a woman dreaming maskers coming to her door, taking her away a woman dreams herself a mask, holds it up to her face, masking a woman dreams a mirror in which her face dissolves a woman dreams a mirror, a man's hand at her back a woman dreaming of her husband a woman dreaming her husband making love to her a woman dreams of love and corn soup a woman dreams she is a window a woman dreams she is pregnant dreaming she stands at a door, garden spread before her a woman dreaming of the earth, turning the ground a woman dreams of the red earth, red clay, dreams the dead buried in the ground a woman dreaming of the south (red) a woman dreaming of the south (white) a woman dreaming of her children, daughters and sons asleep in their cradle boards a woman dreaming their names a woman dreams of the smokey mountains a woman dreams she is standing at an open door, staring at the disappeared mountains a woman dreams she is travelling north a woman dreaming her name a name dreaming: a window, a mask, a woman dreaming Centennial Cemetery Deathface, (Death's) head, beside mine: grave. An expanse of land cleared and planted in grass. A field, or cemetery. Burial ground: old, old man. Autumn colors the trees, red oak and sassafras. Oak. Above (above his name), Death's head. Browning and withering of grass at winter's approach. Glares. "Basil Prather", a form of grace. Solitary slab of limestone, arched and falling straight along the sides. To the earth (autumn leaves) grace. "Died" June 21, 1874. Basil Prather, mine. Great-great-great grandfather (mine), buried. Burying ground. Autumn field, a grave. A form of grace. Mine (or his). Basil Prather, "Aged 88 Y., 9 M., 5 D." Old (old man), mine. A son, hers. No Name Woman. A field. Bordered by road and woods, a field. An expanse of grass surrounding a church. A son (Thomas' and) hers. Pretty Woman* (II) Pretty Woman, No Name Woman: where Selu's sons dragged her body. War Woman, Pretty Woman. Went, among the others, warring. Dressed as a man (Man). Where Selu wore a rifle on her back, she. A field, an expanse of land cleared and planted in corn. She wore, like Kanati, like Oconostota, leggings. (Dressed as a man). Among them, a rifle on her back. Warring she went. Selu's daughter (son). Out of the garden. (Field) and into battle. A field (of action). She wore a rifle. Like Dragging Canoe, Fierce (woman). And fought. (She). Pretty Woman, a field, an expanse of land planted in. Corn and death. Pretty Woman's crops. Dressed as a man, a field. Killing field. A space cleared for action. Went. Among the others. Fierce Woman, avenging her husband, a field. And out of the garden. She wore. A field, dressed as a man. Sharp (Woman). Where Selu's sons dragged her body, where her blood watered the ground. *Pretty Woman is a translation of the Cherokee word Ghigau. Holding an esteemed and privileged position in the community, to this woman was given the right to decide the fate of prisoners taken in battle. This title was also given to women who dressed as men and followed their husbands into battle. Other translations of the Cherokee word are Beloved Woman, Blood Woman, War Woman, and Fierce Woman. Treaty Corn razed to the ground. As was usual, a haze. Smoke, or fog covering everything. At gunpoint. As was usual (land). A field cleared and planted. An agreement. Or field. For Kentucky, for Virginia and West Virginia. (Land) the whole tract of land between Kentucky and Cumberland rivers. Between the rivers. Where deer and bison ranged. At gunpoint, where the herds. As was usual (smoke, or. Haze). An agreement at gunpoint. For the Holston. For the Ohio. For the Kanawha and New rivers. A treaty. Where the borderers crossed. An agreement, or field. (The) deployment of force. Where borderers. No further demands would be made. As was usual, no further demands. For the Watauga and Kanawha, where they crossed. For the land between the rivers. Where game was plentiful. As was usual, for the Holston and Ohio. For Kentucky. No further. A treaty, or field of action. (A field). Afterward, women and men shot down were "helped to their end". A field. No Name Woman No name, No Name Woman. A field bordered by woods. Nameless. Red oak and white, a word. Yellow sassafras. Un named. Lapse of. (Memory). Martha and Suzannah, her daughters. Nameless. Unreckoned, a field bordered by woods. (Yellow poplar house). Baby laced in a cradleboard, a woman singing a lullaby. Martha and Suzannah. Her daughters' names, my names, detach themselves, take flight along a line perpendicular to the horizon. No Name Woman and her daughters. That which is missing. (His wife). Red oak and white, yellow sassafras. Branching, genealogical. Martha or Suzannah. A field, or name. (Mine). No Name Woman, her six sons and daughters. Lapse of generation, or memory. One old (old) woman, dead twenty years. One old woman recalled her. ("Grandmother"). Grandmother of the Light, No Name Woman. A word takes flight along a line perpendicular to the horizon. A word, or name. Mine. No Name Woman (II) Nameless, no name. No Name Woman. "A Cherokee" his wife. (His) wife, that is all. A Cherokee (Tsa lagi). Like Selu and Sutalidihi. Or Agawe'la, the Old Woman (corn). No Name Woman, North Carolina woman, Tennessee woman. Mountain woman. No name, nameless. No Name Woman. The others who came before her, grandmothers and mothers. Her names, also. Sun Woman. Old Woman. Sixkiller, Sutalidihi, Fire. Grandmother Fire. Sacred Fire, Spider Grandmother. Old Woman. Selu (Corn), Corn Woman. Sixkiller, Woman of the Seventh Height. Grandmother Light. Sun Rays Woman, Deer Woman. Red Deer. White-tailed red deer. (Selu). Redbird: cardinal, scarlet tanager. Redbird Woman, Red Woman. Grandmother Fire. Sutalidihi, Sun Woman, Old Woman. Agawe'la, Corn. The others who came before, No Name Woman. War Woman, Sun Rising in the East. Gathering Names Woman, Many Names Woman. Pretty Woman, her also. lunar variations "a moon drops flowers in your hand" flower drop hands moon hands yr * moon laden hands laden hands laboring * in yr flower hands flower moon * flower women laboring * on the hillsides flower drop moon * old moon rhododendron * white viscous moon old flower moon * cloud-laden moon old woman, old women * flower moon hands laden hands * (a dream) my hands * rhodendron water rose tree water * moon dream flowers dropped in yr hands * in my hands flower moon * 2 moons flower laden dream * a ( ) child dream laden flowers * moon laden burdened with flowers * child flower moon hands * laden dropped in yr hands * white and pink moon hands yr * flowers rhododendron flowers * white and pink flowers moon * caught moon flower water * celebrant (laden) laden with flowers * laboring moon flower hands * old woman's hands caught * flower moon caught in (mine) The End Review, a new (paper) zine, is now considering poetry, > microreviews, & line-drawings for first issue. > > Submit work before 6/30/98 > by e-mail to: > cento@juno.com > (sorry, no attachments), > or by snail-mail to: > The End Review > c/o Scott Keeney > 10 Summit Ave. #3 > Somerville, MA 02143-1837 > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 14:29:38 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Marthe N. Reed" Subject: Re: call for submision (Please Ignore!) In-Reply-To: <199806300624.OAA15163@boneyard.psy.uwa.edu.au> from "Marthe N. Reed" at Jun 30, 98 02:24:29 pm Content-Type: text Oops Please ignore my previous error. marthe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 08:15:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Clay Subject: Bernadette Mayer/Ted Berrigan Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" United Artists Books and Granary Books invite you all to a publication party for two new books: Another Smashed Pinecone by Bernadette Mayer & Ted Berrigan: An Annotated Checklist by Aaron Fischer The checklist is illustrated in color and black and white with 27 never-seen-before collaborations between Mr. Berrigan and George Schneeman and includes the essay "Publishing Ted" by Lewis Warsh. The publication event will be held Wednesday July 1 from 6-8 pm at Granary Books, 568 Broadway room 403 (at Prince Street in Soho, directly across Broadway from the downtown Guggenheim) New York City. For more information contact me: sclay@interport.net Steve Clay ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 08:19:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "r. drake" Subject: [Fwd: Solidarity] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >Date: Fri, 26 Jun 1998 18:12:35 -0300 >From: Clemente Pad=EDn >Subject: Solidarity > >SOLIDARIDAD > > > Finalmente, Humberto Nilo Saavedra, Director y Acad=E9mico de la >Escuela de Artes de la Facultad de Artes de la Universidad de Chile fue >virtualmente echado de su cargo por los sectores universitarios >reaccionarios pinochetistas. La gota que colm=F3 el vaso fue la exposici=F3= n de >arte correo "STOP: libertad, diversidad y pluralismo" en el Museo de Arte >Contempor=E1nea de Santiago que Humberto Nilo hab=EDa organizado para >defenderse de las persecuciones que estaba soportando desde hace largos >a=F1os por esos sectores. Es sintom=E1tico que Humberto Nilo ya haya sido >expulsado de su c=E1tedra en la Universidad bajo la dictadura de Pinochet. >Hoy que Pinochet ocupa un cargo de senador vitalicio sus partidarios >levantan cabeza y est=E1n cobrando venganza sobre todos aquellos que, como >Humberto Nilo han jugado un papel progresista en el campo de la cultura y >se han opuesto, siempre, a toda forma de autoritarismo y vasallaje en la >ense=F1anza de las artes. > > Humberto Nilo fue, tambi=E9n, quien acogi=F3, en 1996, en la Escu= ela >de Artes, la exposici=F3n de homenaje al recientemente fallecido Guillermo >Deisler, otro perseguido por la dictadura de Pinochet, tambi=E9n acad=E9mic= o de >artes en la Universidad de Chile, en Antofagasta, quien debi=F3 huir a toda >prisa de Chile con toda su familia a un destino incierto bajo la amenaza de >muerte. Esos mismos sectores dictatoriales est=E1n hoy expulsando a todos l= os >profesores y catedr=E1ticos que han dicho NO a la brutalidad y a la >violaci=F3n constante de los derechos humanos. > > Ante el temor de que los desplantes y la brutalidad del r=E9gime= n >puedan poner en peligro la vida de Humberto Nilo y de sus familiares >iniciamos esta campa=F1a mundial solicitando a todos los artistas-correo y >networkers del mundo entero a que env=EDen, a su direcci=F3n postal, >expresiones de apoyo solidario para que, de alguna manera, sus ofensores no >puedan llevar a cabo sus amenazas impunemente: > > Humberto Nilo Saavedra > Calama 8435 > La Cisterna, > SANTIAGO > CHILE > >hnilo@hotmail.com > >WEB:: http://members.tripod.com/~TERRITORIO/STOPINFO.html > http://members.tripod.com/~TERRITORIO/DENUNCIA_INTERNACIONAL > > > >SOLIDARITY > > > Finally, Humberto Nilo Saavedra , Director and Academic of the >Arts School of the University from Chile was virtually tossed of their >position for the reactionary pinochetists sectors of the University. The >drop that filled the glass was the exhibition of mailart "STOP: freedom, >diversity and pluralism" in the Art Contemporary Museum of Santiago that >Humberto Nilo had organized in order to defend of the persecutions that he >was supporting for long years. It is symptomatic that Humberto Nilo has >already been expelled of their class in the University under the >dictatorship of Pinochet. Today, that Pinochet occupies a position of >senator during life, his acolytes lift head and are collecting vengeance on >all those that, like Humberto Nilo, had played a progressive paper in the >field of the culture and has been opposed, always, to all form of >autoritarism and vassalage in the teaching of the arts. > > Humberto Nilo was, also, who showed, in 1996, in the Arts School, >the exhibition of homage to the recently died Guillermo Deisler, another >pursued by the dictatorship of Pinochet, also academic arts in the >University from Chile, in Antofagasta, who should flee as quickly as >possible from Chile with all their family to an uncertain destination under >the threat of death. Those same dictatorial sectors are today expelling all >the professors and professors that they have said NO to the brutality and >to the constant violation of the human rights. > > In the face of the fear that the menaces and the brutality of >the regime could put the life of Humberto Nilo and his relatives in danger >, we want began this world campaign requesting to all the mailartists and >networkers of the whole world that to send expressions of support to their >postal address so that, somehow, his offenders could not carry out their >threats: > > Humberto Nilo Saavedra > Calama 8435 > La Cisterna, > SANTIAGO > CHILE > >hnilo@hotmail.com > >WEB:: http://members.tripod.com/~TERRITORIO/STOPINFO.html > http://members.tripod.com/~TERRITORIO/DENUNCIA_INTERNACIONAL > > >Clemente Pad=EDn >C.Correo Central 1211 >11000 Montevideo - URUGUAY >Fax (598 2) 915 94l7 >E-mail > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 08:51:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Long Subject: Re: Jerome Sala and Poetry Slams In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Actually, "Slam" was indeed born in Chicago, but not by Jerome Sala. For what it's worth, Marc Smith is generally credited with fathering what is now called "slam" poetry, and it was started as an attempt to get the audiences involved to some degree in the readings which were at times stodgy and uncomfortable for the poet. Unfortunately, "Slam" has become a multi-headed beast, and very little of what can be heard at a Slam fits even the loosest definitions of poetry, at least until you get it on a national level. Poets who border on Slam: Jimmy Bacca, Sou MacMillan, Patricia Smith, Marc Smith, etc. Also, Bob Holman in NYC can shed a great deal of insight on this "school" of poetics if he is still a list subscriber... Brent At 09:09 PM 6/29/98 -0400, you wrote: >Some of you on this list may know Jerome Sala, a poet from Chicago who has >been living in New York for awhile now. An article about poetry slams >appeared in The New York Times on June 16, some of which is quoted below: > >>From NY TIMES 6/16/98, pp. E1 & E9: > >"The organizers of the Taos championship bout are at great pains to >distinguish their event from slam poetry, a phenomenon that took root in >Chicago in the mid-1980s and now has its own annual national championship >event...Nonetheless, slams and bouts are obviously cut from similar cloth. > >Both involve competitive readings with judges providing numerical scores >and crowds going beserk. Rules vary from slam to slam. But the primary >difference is that a slam usually involves several entrants or individuals, >who may or may not be accomplished poets, while a bout is two poets, >usually of some reputation, going head to head. > >A further confusion is that the championship bout was also born in Chicago, >at a bar on Lincoln Avenue called to Oxford Pub in 1981. There, a blues >singer named Jim Desmond became angered when a poet named Jerome Sala read >a poem that parodied John Lennon, who had just died. They got into a >fight, eventually agreeing to settle the dispute with a competitive >reading. They asked the bartender, Al Simmons, to arrange it, which he >did, with the cooperation of a friend, Terry Jacobus. Mr. Sala won the >first bout, as well as a rematch." > >Jerome Sala is the author of Raw Deal: New and Selected Poems 1980-1994 >(Another Chicago Press). The following blurb by me, excerpted from an >introduction to a reading I invited Jerome to give at the Ear Inn in >1992,appears on the back cover: >"Jerome Sala's poems...embody subliminal philosphical messages which, >instead of stroking our foolishly cherished stereotypes disassemble them >secretly, and, before you know it, blow away their remains..." > > Brent_Long@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 08:52:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: louis stroffolino Subject: 7/4/70 In-Reply-To: <35970502.8084156@osf1.gmu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Ah, 7/4/70--I remember it well. Little kid with crew cut (against his will of course) being taken for one of those rare special road trips to DC of all places to see fireworks. I remember my parents acting weird and protective and "we gotta get out of this place" as we got to see the "honor america day" entertainment starring bob hope at the refleting pond. Only years later did I read about the naked yippies in the reflecting pool moving toward Bob Hope chanting "bob hope smoke(s) dope", etc.....c On Sun, 28 Jun 1998, Gwyn McVay wrote: > >>>I held the symbols for him on stage at the Rock'n'Roll Express > ^^^^^^^ > Conncert in Calgary, 7/4/70. That was right before Janis kissed me.<<< > > I have to know--this could, after all, be important: did you find his > symbolism blatant, overt, calculated, subtle, inspired? The "turn on your > lovelight" metaphor really belongs to Bobby "Blue" Bland, but I wonder about > "easy wind 'cross the bayou today." > > Gwyn "Close Reading" McVay > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 09:23:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: daniel bouchard Subject: Re: Ron Padgett's article Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Thanks J Kimball for posting the Padgett article! <<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 >>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 11:28:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: READING ANNOUNCEMENT MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------2FF9649E350960E972674303" --------------2FF9649E350960E972674303 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Listmembers in and around Buffalo should check this out: Scratch & Dent (a slightly irregular reading and performance series) presents an evening of poetry in alternate tunings with Wendy Kramer Stephen Cope and Joel Kuszai Friday, July3, 8pm @ Cornershop, 82 Lafayette ------------------------------------------------------ Taylor Brady editor, Cartograffiti http://writing.upenn.edu/spc/cartograffiti (a publication of the Small Press Collective) http://writing.upenn.edu/spc --------------2FF9649E350960E972674303 Content-Type: text/html; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Listmembers in and around Buffalo should check this out:

Scratch & Dent
(a slightly irregular reading and performance series)
presents an evening of
poetry in alternate tunings

with

Wendy Kramer

Stephen Cope

and

Joel Kuszai

Friday, July3, 8pm
@ Cornershop, 82 Lafayette
 

Taylor Brady
editor, Cartograffiti
 http://writing.upenn.edu/spc/cartograffiti

(a publication of the Small Press Collective)
 http://writing.upenn.edu/spc   --------------2FF9649E350960E972674303-- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 12:23:31 -0400 Reply-To: Tom Orange Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Subject: russian history tomes In-Reply-To: <199806300404.AAA18216@romeo.its.uwo.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII if i recall, the "standard" history is riasanovsky, listed below. it's what we used for our russian history course back in university days. tho it goes through stalin and into khruschev i believe, probably, alas, does not address the issues that morpheal and others raise. bests, t. -------------------- AUTHOR Riasanovsky, Nicholas Valentine, 1923- TITLE A history of Russia / Nicholas V. Riasanovsky. IMPRINT New York : Oxford University Press, 1977. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 17:14:52 +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: [Fwd: Natl. Lib. of Poetry page] Comments: To: David@thewebpeople.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT My university library currently houses 3 recent volumes of that dreck. I'm going to forward the address to the acquisitions dept. and ask them to stop supporting them. Just for a giggle, here's the anthology titles: Isle of View -- '97 Through the Hourglass -- '96 Windows of the Soul -- '95 thanks, David Baratier, for bringing that webpage to my attention. Linda Russo * @ * % * & * # * with only the sound of the mimeograph "kachucking" and the pages swishing down . . . (Maureen Owen) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 11:57:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dbkk@SIRIUS.COM Subject: TIM MILLER RESPONSE TO SUPREMES DECISION Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Since I posted Tim's report of appearing before the Supreme Court, thought I'd follow through with his response to the decision. To me it's interesting how little his response has to do with Art as opposed to being Queer. Okay, let's be honest, I'm not thinking "interesting," I'm thinking "narrow-minded." Not that gay rights aren't important, but the ruling affects *everybody* who's doing sexually explicit material--and any arts org that hosts those doing sexually-explicit material. And his clothespins on testicles . . . didn't straight guy Bob Flannagan already do that? Dodie ---------------------- A SUPREME DRAG by Tim Miller While I was performing last week in Texas (the Steers and Queer State) at Theater Lab Houston, I had to pause for a tiny moment as the naked, clothespins-on-nipples climax of my show moved through me. I realized that at that exact moment industrious little District of Columbia elves were probably proofing, collating, and stapling copies of the Supreme Court decision on whether "general standards of decency" were constitutional criterion as applied to federal funding of the arts. This was truly going to be the last roundup of the NEA 4 case. In 1990, I, a wandering queer performance artist, had been awarded a NEA Solo Performer Fellowship, which was promptly overturned under political pressure from the Bush White House because of the lush, wall-to-wall homo themes of my creative work. We so-called "NEA 4" (me, Karen Finley, John Fleck and Holly Hughes), then successfully sued the federal government with the help of the ACLU (if you're not a card-carrying member, become one!) for violation of our First Amendment rights and won a settlement where the government paid us the amount of the defunded grants and all court costs. The last little driblet of this case was the "decency" clause, which Congress had added to the NEA appropriation under the cattle prod of Jesse Helms. Judge Wallace Tashima of the Ninth Federal Circuit Curt had sagely declared this "decency" clause unconstitutional from the bench and thrown it out. This could have been our happy ending, except for our supposed friend Bill Clinton (with friends like these who needs anal herpes?) who allowed the Justice Department to appeal this decision to the high court. Now we were going to have be subjected to the Supremes decision. "Which way are the feathers going to fly?" I pondered as I gave my all for the lovely audience in Houston last week in a humorous and sexy bit from the show based on my book Shirts & Skin. Shifting a clothespin from my right testicle to the left to "balance the energy", I wondered whether the Supreme Court was going to rightly determine that "general standards of decency" is very vague and designed to keep queer art out of the federal feedbag. (I know I'm over- working these cow and horse metaphors, but it works for the Texas setting of the performance, doesn't it?) What could be indecent about me anyhow? Is the fact that I am outspokenly a gay man indecent? Is the fact that my performance work lovingly details my experiences growing up queer in this fucked-up society indecent? Is the fact that I explore the rich terrain of sexuality, so full of feeling and discovery, indecent? Is the fact that I take off my clothes in my shows and try to acknowledge that our bodies actually exist under our clothes indecent? As I finished my show, full of all the complexity, memory and metaphor that naked queer flesh is heir to, I knew that it was just a matter of days before I would find out whether my indecent ass was grass. Let's face it, there in the Lone Star State, as it was in one third of these United States, it was still against the law to have queer sex! How much could I rationally expect from any governmental body in our troubled country? Well, if you read your newspaper not long ago, you'll know that the Supremes decided that it was okey-dokey not to fund "indecent art". The law "neither inherently interferes with First Amendment rights nor violates constitutional vagueness principles,'' Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in her majority opinion. In a disappointing 8-1 decision the high court hitched up with Helms and his ilk and said the National Endowment for the Arts can consider "decency" in deciding who gets public money for the arts. I was grateful that at least Justice David H. Souter showed he was sensible to the reality of how under assault artists have been in this country for the last ten years. He was the lone Justice who dissented, saying the law should be struck down as unconstitutional because it was "substantially overbroad and carries with it a significant power to chill artistic production and display.'' I wasn't surprised when I heard the decision upon my return to my home in Los Angeles. This was, after all, the same Supreme Court, if not the same white men in black robes, that had ruled in the 1857 Dred Scott decision that African-Americans could not come before the high court because they were not human beings or citizens. This was also the same court that decided in Bowers v. Hardwick in 1986 that it was constitutionally cool for the State of Georgia to have laws that make it illegal for gay people to have sex with one another in the privacy of their bedrooms! Understandably, I had low expectations all along that queer artists would be allowed our fair share at the Federal feedbag (that's the last cowboy reference, I promise!). Though it didn't really surprise me, part of me was still shocked when I heard their decision early in the morning on June 25. Can the justices not understand how censorious this language is? How often seemingly bland words like "decency" or "normal" or "natural" have been used to discriminate against lesbians and gay men and as weapons against us? I spent the day of the announcement doing dozens of interviews, spinning away the soundbites like the good gay artist/activist that I am supposed to be. I was available to whoever called - the New York Times, The Los Angles Times, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and my Mom! But late in the day it started to really hit me. The Supreme Court, the big daddy court in the land, thinks it's okay not to support artists whose voice and vision is outside the middle-of-the-suburban-mall sensibility of some fantasy America. Yikes! I became very depressed. So depressed, I had to resort to two pints of Ben & Jerry's Cherry Garcia and a half-hour with an Eastern European gay porn movie. Then I became very pissed-off. Okay, Mr. & Ms. Supreme Court, the gloves are off. It's no more Mr. Nice Gay Guy! I am not going to be satisfied with small potatoes anymore. You could have gotten off easy with tossing a tidbit my way and allowing this queer artist the illusion that I am an equal citizen and worthy of support from the NEA should it be awarded. The truth is I didn't have a snowball's chance in a Houston heatwave to ever get support from the NEA again regardless of what decision the Supreme Court had made. So I am going to up the ante of what I expect from the US government. I now want the whole ball of wax, the cart and the horses, my cake and the eating too! You see, I've got a little list. I'm not going to be content anymore with the odd NEA grant that used to get tossed to gay film festivals and queer performance artists. I want the full measure of my rights as a gay American citizen. I want it now! I want the Employee Non-Discrimination Act passed by Congress yesterday. I'm sick of this shit that lesbians and gay men can be fired without recourse from their jobs, fired just because of who they are! And while we're at it, repeal all the damn sodomy laws in those last medieval states that still have them on the books. These bigoted statutes make the US an outlaw nation that could not participate in the economic community of European nations without striking them all down. Not only does this country censor our queer art, but they also make laws against our queer bodies! Cut it out, now! I want the government to put at its highest priority the creation of safe streets for lesbians and gay men. Why is it that I have to find it not surprising that two of the men I have been in major relationships with have almost been killed in gay-bashing incidents? Fix it quick or I'm going to get cranky! I want the anti-gay military shit to stop right now! I'm over it! Hey, you generals, don't ask me, don't tell me anything! Get off your five-star dildo and make the military safe for the dykes and fags that want to be there and are not bothering anybody. (You won't find me in uniform, but that doesn't matter). Leave the queers alone and, instead, why don't you pick on the white supremacists the military seems to breed who end up exploding buildings and killing black folks! I want immigration rights for lesbian and gay men pronto! This is real personal because my boyfriend Alistair is from Australia. Our relationship is denied the rights that every heterosexual person has in this country to be able to turn their lover into a US citizen. It's like straight people are given this magic wand, "Poof, my love, you're a citizen! Have a green card!" Not long ago, I was speaking to the Diversity Council of the University of Arizona. They were meeting about gay couples and domestic partnership benefits. I was had been invited to this meeting while I was performing there in Tucson to give my perspective as someone who is in a bi-national relationship, which is not recognized by the US government. I started to do my stump speech "BLAH BLAH!" and then suddenly found myself weeping crazily at this big public meeting. All at once I actually felt the deep hurt of the fact that my relationship, this deepest personal place of who I love, is completely unseen and unvalued by my culture. I felt the terror in my guts that warns me that when Alistair's student visa runs out he will have to leave this country. Well, fuck you Judicial, Executive and Legislative bodies of the US government. Give me immigration rights for our lovers or I am going to get really unpleasant! And that reminds me of something else! While I'm on a roll, I want the whole kit-n-caboodle of full marriage rights too! Now that you've annoyed me, I'm not going to settle for any second class domestic partnership benefits. I want full church-sanctioned marriages. Any denomination that denies gay people our civil right/rite of marriage will lose their tax-deductible status. How 'bout them apples? One more thing, I want the government to guarantee us the man or woman of our dreams to marry! (This point is negotiable. I don't want to be unreasonable). Well, that is a good start. I'm sure more will occur to me, but I'm on a deadline. Lovely readers, feel free to add a couple of dozen of your own demands too! I don't want this outrage from the Supreme Court to depress me anymore than it already has. I can't afford too many pints of Ben & Jerry's. After all, I need to stay on the naked performance artist diet! I would rather get pissed-off and feisty and look forward to the day when this particular decision will seem as absurd and embarrassing as Plessy v. Ferguson does to us today (the 1896 Supreme Court ruling that said it was constitutional to make black people sit at the back of street cars). I will look forward to the time (in the not too distant future, I hope), when a teacher will step before a community college class exploring late twentieth century social movements and say, "Now, students, I know it is shocking to believe this, but there was once a time as recent as the late 1990's when lesbian and gay men were actually denied certain civil rights within our democratic society. The Supreme Court even upheld a series of laws that constitutionally discriminated against them!" Until that day in school, I'm in it for the long haul. Tim Miller is a solo performer whose full-evening theater works have been presented all over the world. He is Artistic Director of Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica and teaches at Cal State LA in the Department of Theater Arts and Dance. His book Shirts & Skin is currently available from Alyson Publications. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 13:59:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chicago Review Subject: Re: LVNGs! LVNGs! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" David : You may have already recieved a reply to your query about LUNG, but there has been a slight delay. Michael OLeary should be sending them out fairly soon. All the best, Devin Johnston --------------- 5801 S. Kenwood Ave. Chicago IL 60637-1794 ph/fax 773.702.0887 e-mail org_crev@orgmail.uchicago.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 15:02:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fred Muratori Subject: Re: [Fwd: Natl. Lib. of Poetry page] In-Reply-To: <199806301843.MAA01360@yoop.oz.cc.utah.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Re: >My university library currently houses 3 recent volumes of that >dreck. I'm going to forward the address to the acquisitions dept. >and ask them to stop supporting them. >... > > Linda Russo Good idea, since the library could certainly use that money for something else (like supporting a few lit mags with subscriptions). Then again, university libraries acquire things for all kinds of reasons, some of which are political (in the local sense). It wouldn't surprise me if someone -- a vocal someone -- within the institution had poems included in the anthology and demanded that the library buy it. I know of one distinguished faculty member (tenured, Law School) at my own university who was taken in by the Nat. Lib. of Poetry. He, like many others who don't follow the poetry world all that closely, thought it was associated with the Library of Congress, and didn't know it was a vanity scam until I broke the bad news to him. -- Fred M. ******************************************************** Fred Muratori (fmm1@cornell.edu) Reference Services Division Olin * Kroch * Uris Libraries Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 WWW: http://fmref.library.cornell.edu/spectra.html ********************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 15:03:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: [Fwd: Natl. Lib. of Poetry page] In-Reply-To: <199806301843.MAA01360@yoop.oz.cc.utah.edu> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII some of the other recent titles have been even worse. wish i had them handy to show, but i'll say that they wouldn't even qualify as dreck good enough for hallmark cards. i wish there were a way to take the name "National Library of Poetry" from them, they don't seem to be anything besides a commercial vanity press, much less a national library eryque On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, linda russo wrote: > My university library currently houses 3 recent volumes of that > dreck. I'm going to forward the address to the acquisitions dept. > and ask them to stop supporting them. > > Just for a giggle, here's the anthology titles: > Isle of View -- '97 > Through the Hourglass -- '96 > Windows of the Soul -- '95 > > thanks, David Baratier, for bringing that webpage to my attention. > > Linda Russo > * @ * % * & * # * > > with only the sound of the mimeograph "kachucking" > and the pages swishing down . . . (Maureen Owen) > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 15:17:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Prejsnar Subject: Poetry in the libraries In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On the other hand, Fred, as an acquisitions person who has worked at an array of different large universities, and several other sorts of libraries, i believe Linda has a fair shot at having an impact....Often the acquiring of this sort a' thing is just the collections development process zipping along on automatic pilot. And very often acquisitions/collection development people are *extremely* happy to have input from their user-population, about what should or shouldn't be acquired.... As i have posted before on the List, people can often have more impact than they think on the university or public library that they patronize... And so i strongly encourage everyone to request the purchase of the poetry they think is important; remember, "only you can stamp out the mainstream." mark @lanta On Tue, 30 Jun 1998, Fred Muratori wrote: > Re: > > >My university library currently houses 3 recent volumes of that > >dreck. I'm going to forward the address to the acquisitions dept. > >and ask them to stop supporting them. > >... > > > > Linda Russo > > > Good idea, since the library could certainly use that money for something > else (like supporting a few lit mags with subscriptions). Then again, > university libraries acquire things for all kinds of reasons, some of which > are political (in the local sense). It wouldn't surprise me if someone -- > a vocal someone -- within the institution had poems included in the > anthology and demanded that the library buy it. I know of one distinguished > faculty member (tenured, Law School) at my own university who was taken in > by the Nat. Lib. of Poetry. He, like many others who don't follow the > poetry world all that closely, thought it was associated with the Library > of Congress, and didn't know it was a vanity scam until I broke the bad > news to him. > -- Fred M. > > ******************************************************** > Fred Muratori > (fmm1@cornell.edu) > Reference Services Division > Olin * Kroch * Uris Libraries > Cornell University > Ithaca, NY 14853 > WWW: http://fmref.library.cornell.edu/spectra.html > ********************************************************* > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 13:37:51 +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: Poetry in the libraries MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I wouldn't be surprised if Fred's case were the case here in the happy homey heartland valley of heartfelt sentiments & a wonderbread factory on the "strip." Maybe they'll ignore me, maybe President Machen('s daughter more likely) has a poem in the Nat'l library! But it probably doesn't hurt my case to mention the website, do you think Mark? hard evidence. I wish I actaully knew acquisitions people, I'd dump a pile of books on their desk. . . As it is I sent them an email from the Library Web page -- maybe this one will prompt them to respond with a progress report on my previous requests. > On the other hand, Fred, as an acquisitions person who has worked at an > array of different large universities, and several other sorts of > libraries, i believe Linda has a fair shot at having an impact....Often > the acquiring of this sort a' thing is just the collections > development process zipping along on automatic pilot. And very often > acquisitions/collection development people are *extremely* happy to have > input from their user-population, about what should or shouldn't be > acquired.... > > As i have posted before on the List, people can often have more impact > than they think on the university or public library that they patronize... > And so i strongly encourage everyone to request the purchase of the poetry > they think is important; remember, > > "only you can stamp out the mainstream." > > > mark > @lanta > > > On Tue, 30 Jun 1998, Fred Muratori wrote: > > > Re: > > > > >My university library currently houses 3 recent volumes of that > > >dreck. I'm going to forward the address to the acquisitions dept. > > >and ask them to stop supporting them. > > >... > > > > > > Linda Russo > > > > > > Good idea, since the library could certainly use that money for something > > else (like supporting a few lit mags with subscriptions). Then again, > > university libraries acquire things for all kinds of reasons, some of which > > are political (in the local sense). It wouldn't surprise me if someone -- > > a vocal someone -- within the institution had poems included in the > > anthology and demanded that the library buy it. I know of one distinguished > > faculty member (tenured, Law School) at my own university who was taken in > > by the Nat. Lib. of Poetry. He, like many others who don't follow the > > poetry world all that closely, thought it was associated with the Library > > of Congress, and didn't know it was a vanity scam until I broke the bad > > news to him. > > -- Fred M. > > > > ******************************************************** > > Fred Muratori > > (fmm1@cornell.edu) > > Reference Services Division > > Olin * Kroch * Uris Libraries > > Cornell University > > Ithaca, NY 14853 > > WWW: http://fmref.library.cornell.edu/spectra.html > > ********************************************************* > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 15:36:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fred Muratori Subject: Re: Poetry in the libraries In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >On the other hand, Fred, as an acquisitions person who has worked at an >array of different large universities, and several other sorts of >libraries, i believe Linda has a fair shot at having an impact....Often >the acquiring of this sort a' thing is just the collections >development process zipping along on automatic pilot. And very often >acquisitions/collection development people are *extremely* happy to have >input from their user-population, about what should or shouldn't be >acquired.... - mark @lanta And as a reference librarian at a large research library for the last 17 years, I can say that my experience corroborates yours. In fact, that's the point I was trying to make: that it's likely a single individual requested that the Nat. Lib. of Poetry anthology be acquired in the first place (though things like this also come in as a gifts now and then). A vanity publication is unlikely to appear on very many automatic blanket order profiles a university library might use to streamline the collection development process. From what I've seen -- and I send dozens of purchase requests to collection development every week -- requests for individual poetry titles or subscriptions to little mags are as a rule taken quite seriously. So, yeah, everyone, tell your libraries what you want to see on their shelves and the chances are good it will end up there. -- Fred M. ******************************************************** Fred Muratori (fmm1@cornell.edu) Reference Services Division Olin * Kroch * Uris Libraries Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 WWW: http://fmref.library.cornell.edu/spectra.html ********************************************************* ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 13:08:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: [Fwd: Natl. Lib. of Poetry page] In-Reply-To: <199806301843.MAA01360@yoop.oz.cc.utah.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "Isle of View" is not a bad pun, tho. At 05:14 PM 6/29/98 +0000, you wrote: >My university library currently houses 3 recent volumes of that >dreck. I'm going to forward the address to the acquisitions dept. >and ask them to stop supporting them. > >Just for a giggle, here's the anthology titles: >Isle of View -- '97 >Through the Hourglass -- '96 >Windows of the Soul -- '95 > >thanks, David Baratier, for bringing that webpage to my attention. > > Linda Russo > * @ * % * & * # * > > with only the sound of the mimeograph "kachucking" > and the pages swishing down . . . (Maureen Owen) > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:31:11 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Slams Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit <> Slams allow you to go to a poetry reading without having to admit you've been to a poetry reading. There are 45 Slams sending teams to the Nationals this year in Austin. Pinsky had an interesting OpEd piece in Times yesterday. He and Hillary went to a slamn at a Washington afterschool program and were blown away. The efficacy of poets like Kenny Carroll and DJ Renegade leads Pinsky to suggest that MFA poets be allowed to teach poetry in high/middle schools. Bob Holman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 15:01:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Slams In-Reply-To: <8adaf5aa.35994b10@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Actually, Bob, that's not what Pinsky said. He wants poets with MFAs to teach in public schools without having to take any education courses. That's a bit of a leap of faith, and besides, in most jurisdictions the course requirements for a teaching license are pretty moderate. It's good, I guess, for our laureate to act as a pr man for poet employment, altho I suspect that he's being more a shill for the MFA programs. Otherwise, why the academic prerequisite? At 04:31 PM 6/30/98 EDT, you wrote: ><events held to "showcase" various "personalities" who are looking for a >spot in a beer commercial.>> > >Slams allow you to go to a poetry reading without having to admit you've been >to a poetry reading. > >There are 45 Slams sending teams to the Nationals this year in Austin. > >Pinsky had an interesting OpEd piece in Times yesterday. He and Hillary went >to a slamn at a Washington afterschool program and were blown away. The >efficacy of poets like Kenny Carroll and DJ Renegade leads Pinsky to suggest >that MFA poets be allowed to teach poetry in high/middle schools. > >Bob Holman > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 16:06:51 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Laura E. Wright" Subject: Re: Poetry in the libraries MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I second, third, fourth, etc. this (Mark Prejsnar's post). As the main acquisitions person for a small library, simultaneously being a supervisor, a cataloger, managing basic operations, and fielding reference questions, I delight in suggestions and requests. Even on our relatively tiny budget, it's rare for us to ignore requests. Library collections, at least such as this one, exist for the patrons who use them. --Laura W. Mark Prejsnar wrote: > On the other hand, Fred, as an acquisitions person who has worked at an > array of different large universities, and several other sorts of > libraries, i believe Linda has a fair shot at having an impact....Often > the acquiring of this sort a' thing is just the collections > development process zipping along on automatic pilot. And very often > acquisitions/collection development people are *extremely* happy to have > input from their user-population, about what should or shouldn't be > acquired.... > > As i have posted before on the List, people can often have more impact > than they think on the university or public library that they patronize... > And so i strongly encourage everyone to request the purchase of the poetry > they think is important; remember, > > "only you can stamp out the mainstream." > -- Laura Wright Library Assistant, Naropa Institute (303) 546-3547 "All music is music..." -- Ted Berrigan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 14:56:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: [Fwd: Natl. Lib. of Poetry page] In-Reply-To: <3.0.2.32.19980630130844.0075db38@mail.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 01:08 PM 6/30/98 -0700, you wrote: >"Isle of View" is not a bad pun, tho. Used to good effect on the Jimmie Spheeris album, circa 1971, of that title, which I think has just been re-mastered and made available again, although I'm not certain it's being widely distributed. Old love music, for whatever reason particularly popular through the southern great plains at the time. charles charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://alexwritdespub.com/chax :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 15:04:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Slams In-Reply-To: <8adaf5aa.35994b10@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Pinsky had an interesting OpEd piece in Times yesterday. He and Hillary went >to a slamn at a Washington afterschool program and were blown away. The >efficacy of poets like Kenny Carroll and DJ Renegade leads Pinsky to suggest >that MFA poets be allowed to teach poetry in high/middle schools. be allowed to??? what's stopping them? although I hope he didn't mean students specifically seeking the mfa. That's a touchy one, fresh to me from recent PTA meetings. Some parents wanted to get students (undergrad and possibly grad students, instead of professional artists) to teach as artist residents for short stints in our child's elementary school, specifically because, as the parent argued, they didn't require a lot of remuneration, thereby getting "more bang for the buck." Because I'm involved with artists all the time (either with MFA's, or with more than the equivalent in terms of life experience in the arts) who are trying to get such gigs, that one bothered me. But I also think it's probably insulting to the student artists, and I would make the argument that we wouldn't want students as the 'regular' or 'primary' teachers of the children at these schools, so why would we want students as the arts specialists in these schools. The children deserve the best. But if Pinsky is arguing that MFA faculty ought to teach poetry in high/middle schools, then I think I like that idea for what it would give to those faculty members, but I'm not sure I like what it might give to the students. maybe poetics list members should teach in high/middle schools? charles charles alexander :: poet and book artist :: chax@theriver.com chax press :: alexander writing/design/publishing books by artists' hands :: web sites built with care and vision http://alexwritdespub.com/chax :: http://alexwritdespub.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 18:53:54 +0000 Reply-To: David@thewebpeople.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: The Web People, Inc. Subject: Re: lib of poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Fred and the others close to libraries (I deleted mail too quick) bring up an interesting point for the small press publishers on here. In my experience with trying to get issues into libraries, even with someone requesting material, every so often I have run into a panel situation where I send them a sample copy and the continuing subscription never is ordered. It only seems to happen at the largest of academic universities. Is this practice common? Be well David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 20:03:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: morpheal Subject: Re: lib of poetry [what I suggest we should do] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Fred and the others close to libraries (I deleted mail too quick) bring >up an interesting point for the small press publishers on here. In my >experience with trying to get issues into libraries, even with someone >requesting material, every so often I have run into a panel situation >where I send them a sample copy and the continuing subscription never is >ordered. It only seems to happen at the largest of academic >universities. Is this practice common? David, being the wealthiest poet in North America, according to your own admission of the fact, you might know that poets in some parts of North America DONATE copies of their works, gratis, to those kinds of institutions. I know of several who are donating, or have donated, their entire archives as well as having donated copies of all their books. In fact I think it is becoming an increasingly common practice. So, this is what I suggest you do: donate to them. They are sure to appreciate. M. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 14:15:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: juliana spahr Subject: yamanaka protest, dan's questions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The panel was held to discuss whether the membership wanted to take away the award. Apparently on Sunday, or so I've been told, the award was given and accepted by three of Yamanaka's students (who were Filipina; I'm not sure if they identified at the acceptance as such or if the person who told me this knew them to identify as such), then the membership met, had a vote, and took away the award. I'm trying to get more details. A mainland haole is a white person from the mainland. Haole means white more or less (the Hawaiian dictionary ties it to a type of white pig but there are many narratives of what the word means; the joke is: when whitie moves to Hawai'i, he/she has three things he/she can be: a haole, a stupid haole, or a fucking stupid haole). I'm more or less joking about the authorization. But there is a strong sentiment that people from the outside should not talk on local issues. We tend to get it all wrong. I'm even hesitating to say such though b/c everytime I've brought up this anger that there is here about people from outside coming and appropriating or mistelling Hawai'i I get these long tirades on how the basis of writing is story telling or whatever. (And then I begin to understand the don't talk about (complain about) Hawai'i to people on the mainland sentiment that is also prevalent.) I agree and normally when someone tells me not to speak on something, I feel like I might as well try and see if by trying I can learn something, but I also feel I need to at least make the moves that declare what I am and how I am coming at the place from the outside. History here is so built on contradictory stories, and which stories one tells unfortunately tend to be tied up with one's ethnicity, etc., that to confess one's position when writing on local issues seems necessary. > Date: > Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:26:43 -0400 > From: > daniel bouchard > > > > Juliana, > > Thanks for this intelligent report on an important issue. It ties in to a > lot of recent discussion here I think. My question is: was the panel and > forum held in order to discuss rescinding the award, or some other kind of > action to be taken? > > Also, I wonder about your disclaimer: what is a "mainland haole," why does > the disclaimer have a ring of "I am not worthy" in it, and whose > authorization of the report would have been desirable? > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 04:17:09 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: burning decks MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does anyone have a current address for Rosmarie W. and Burning Deck> ?< thanks, Todd Baron ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 17:18:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: lib of poetry [what I suggest we should do] In-Reply-To: <199807010003.UAA22555@bserv.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" As a small press publisher I'd advise doing this on a very selective basis. Otherwise there will be no publishers, as library sales are the mainstay of the business, and damned few poetry books as a result. At 08:03 PM 6/30/98 -0400, you wrote: >>Fred and the others close to libraries (I deleted mail too quick) bring >>up an interesting point for the small press publishers on here. In my >>experience with trying to get issues into libraries, even with someone >>requesting material, every so often I have run into a panel situation >>where I send them a sample copy and the continuing subscription never is >>ordered. It only seems to happen at the largest of academic >>universities. Is this practice common? > >David, being the wealthiest poet in North America, according to your own >admission of the fact, you might know that poets in some parts of North >America DONATE copies of their works, gratis, to those kinds of institutions. > >I know of several who are donating, or have donated, their entire archives >as well as having donated copies of all their books. > >In fact I think it is becoming an increasingly common practice. > >So, this is what I suggest you do: donate to them. They are sure to appreciate. > >M. > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 18:29:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Pritchett,Patrick @Silverplume" Subject: Re: More from Naropa MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Thursday evening last, June 25, the Summer Reading Series at Naropa began with a reading from Barbara Guest: (Somebody told me she was 78 or thereabouts. Well, she looked wonderful). Reading in a slow, grave voice, she opened with the title poem from _Defensive Rapture_. Width of a cube spans defensive rapture cube from blocks of liquid theme phantom of lily stark in running rooms And from "Dissonance Royal Traveller," in that same volume: sound opens sound shank of globe string floating out *** the moon aflame on its plaza Which might aptly serve as a description of this subtlest of poet's modus operandi. Following she read "The Advance of the Grizzly," - "who will walk out of the plush interior into/the excited atmosphere?" and then new work, some of it currently featured in New American Writing #16. Her purpose in this new work, she told us, was to limit herself to poems of one page in order that she might "restrict myself to certain things." "The flower being the subject, it should not be allowed to shadow the page... it may be that absence is the subject of the poem." Poems froms this set included "Deception," "Valorous Vine," and "The Green Fly," written about the remains of the warrior unearthed from the mounds at Sutton Hoo and now housed at the British Museum - it still gives her a shiver even when she's just walking past it outside. Multiple tunes sunrise gloaming auditorium light. Naked in thy boat. Guest closed with "Leaving Modernity," ("a subject that saddens me"), from _Quill, Solitary Apparition_, a work whose genesis she recounted as having taken place while gazing upon the plane trees in the moonlight outside Wheeler Hall at Berkeley. that perpendicular restive procedure of stone (and the buttress) the mouthing mouthing (not apparition) Not Apparition larger and further away. the dark rhyming. What Has The World Done? The minimalist architecture of Guest's poems operates to maximal effect, creating an impression that is at once sensuous and haunting. This is a music of serious patience and deep attention, in which what can be found only in the lacunae between things are allowed to appear. Her work is delicate but never precious - exemplifying the rare impoverishment necessary to achieve the most extraordinary luminosity. A poetry of great slow inhalations - the spanning of time, the absences contained therein, accomplished by a precise sequence of vowels strung like lattice work, like tesserae, across the open space of the breath. ### Peter Gizzi read next: poems from his new book from Burning Deck, _Artificial Heart_. Lines from "From A Field Glass" -- "now that children are playing on this street their game will become an entire century... the object is the space where lines return to figure..." This was followed by "Toy," and then "Ding Repair," also included in the marvelous _An Anthology of New (American) Poets_. A ding, as Peter explained for non-West Coasters, is a small gouge in a surf board; the sign "ding repair" hangs in surf shop windows all season long. The poem itself is a response to his move west - to the idea of order and disorder in the far west, "America in extremis," as he put it (bringing to mind Louis Simpson's _At The End of the Open Road_, for one). Imagining another home far from here not from where we have come but from where we imagine, where vulnerability won't reproduce cruelty. *** little flowers dot the hills, for they too are a part of themselves... *** Think of an empty closet, some childhood there an odor of cedar, order of secrets repeat their sequence and the useless treasure of an ending. After this came "Fables of Critique" and "Tout Les Matin Du Monde," and then Gizzi closed with a long, powerful piece, ala Cesaire, - a huge rush of muscular lyricism that was much a confrontation with lyric as an expression of it, and that hinged on the repeated phrase, "The heart of poetry is..." as in "The heart of poetry is fatigue, it makes the space around a toy majestic." Gizzi's poetry, in part it seems to me, takes much of its shape and force from the need to respond to or reconfigure the condition of exile (physical or spiritual). At the same time, it both enacts and offers a highly self-conscious critique of the ways in which the narrative impulse seeks to alleviate the anxiety we feel at the unanswerable mystery of being alive. ### Mei Mei Berssenbrugge closed the evening. Her first poem was "Health," from her new book, _Four-Year Old Girl_ (forthcoming from where?). Her long long lines defy excerpting though I did manage to catch this fragment of one: "orange light collects on the horizon like an anatomical drawing." "Health" is a meditation on the female body, specifically on a pregnant female body - on images of uterine space, on embryo, fetus, placenta - on slow nurturing and emergence. Next, from the same book, she read "Kali" - an entirely different evocation of the feminine, a poem of ceremony and initiation using a dry, almost scientific language that deliberately defied the lyrical yet was invaded by it anyhow at various points around the margins. The phrase "since this communication stretches indefinitely" I thought offered the evening's second apt self-description of poetic M.O. Following this came "Suzi Kiki Annie" - a poem smart with a sense of sly deadpan humor that Mei Mei almost apologized for having written in short lines ("walking toward two animals asleep in late light like blood") (and this gem of a line, I feel like I heard it a dream: "the ambiguity releases energy"). She closed with a very funny poem entitled "Dressing Up Pets." Berssenrbrugge's poetic practice remind me of a perpetual motion machine in which ambiguity is the fulcrum and principle of a constant becoming, a constant entering-into-somewhere-else. The ambition of her long line is not to circumscribe the world, but to inscribe it, unceasingly, if that were possible, affecting an endless stratigraphy that is also simultaneously a kind of en-presencing to the flow of time, time in the line, limber and sinewy and yet also packed with hard, distinct nodes of thought and emotion. The line as instrument to disclose the infinite fragility of the human condition, its hesitations, contradictions, refusals and assentings - its great heap of qualifications, ongoing. Its infinite beautiful distinctions. Patrick Pritchett ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 19:21:16 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Laura E. Wright" Subject: Re: lib of poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit David Baratier wrote: > Fred and the others close to libraries (I deleted mail too quick) bring > up an interesting point for the small press publishers on here. In my > experience with trying to get issues into libraries, even with someone > requesting material, every so often I have run into a panel situation > where I send them a sample copy and the continuing subscription never is > ordered. It only seems to happen at the largest of academic > universities. Is this practice common? > > Well, I can't speak for large libraries, but we often receive samples -- of various and sundry types -- that we even might be intrigued by, but don't follow up on. Subscription is thorny, as we work through a "jobber" and subscription costs increase on a yearly basis, complicating our already limited funds. In addition, we have been known to refuse or discard donations (albeit not small press poetry) because of serious space and storage problems. Yet if patrons request something in particular, we will go out of our way to get it. This isn't just a case of squeaky wheels, but also that we want our collection to consist of stuff people want to read. Mark Weiss has a good point, too. As small as our budget is for an institution, we've got a lot more to throw around than most individuals. Libraries, as foci for availability of information, should support the sources of this availability. -- Laura Wright Library Assistant, Naropa Institute (303) 546-3547 "All music is music..." -- Ted Berrigan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 21:42:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: they don't? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Actually, many poets _do_ teach middle and high school. Conversely, many middle and high school students like poetry and prefer stranger kinds of writing. Here are a couple of poems by middle schoolers at the School for the Physical City in Manhattan: POEM meaning of poem America is not contrary to popu- wow said Mr. Pinsky. After students and an adult literacy stu- we too are a virtual part of America. and Mike Wallace read those guys ments came as poems were read by was also the opening day of National happy to say I'm not the Mayor of Mr. Town Hall to read selections of their relishing their the reading which brought about archive of 1,000 average America weren't bad to asking a parent to pick a favorite. --David Frey IT'S ALWAYS FAIR I will never finish any of this because I decided to boycott all the things I need Nowadays I dine in and take my drinks in the Mediterranean Sometimes I'm the stone people tend to send skipping over ripples in a lake and I've always slept like a rabbit I am on everywhere's vacation to anywhere I am a big shiny disco ball that loves people who dazzle and makes the seagulls choke on their own ocean --Molly Ahern The classroom teacher was Anne Yerger, and the writers-in-residence from Teachers and Writers Collaborative were Chris Edgar and myself. Anyway, Pinsky's _met_ David Frey, and I believe he knows that writers-in-residence programs put poets in schools in New York, San Francisco, Houston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Seattle, and smaller cities across the country. He may also be aware that some places consider an MFA qualification enough to apply to be certified (as teachers, you wags). Releasing the umfas on the schools might not be such a bad idea -- not for full year classes, but for ten or twenty-day gigs. Why not make it a movement at the next AWP convention? or the MLA, for that matter, to have some kind of community service (e.g. public school) requirement for graduation might be a little old-shoe, but what about offering that service to the community? Jordan Davis ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 19:06:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tosh Subject: Re: Slams Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ><events held to "showcase" various "personalities" who are looking for a >spot in a beer commercial.>> > >Slams allow you to go to a poetry reading without having to admit you've been >to a poetry reading. > What's wrong with going to a poetry reading? Why does one have to admit or not to admit to go hear (or see) poetry? ----------------- Tosh Berman TamTam Books ---------------- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Jul 1998 06:40:37 +0000 Reply-To: toddbaron@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: toddbaron Subject: Re: Slams MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit tosh: the reason is not reasonable--but "slams" are not reasonable--as competition isn't--and does NOTHING for the language. Subversion does more. Todd Baron -----------------! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Jun 1998 19:52:32 +0000 Reply-To: alphavil@ix.netcom.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Gancie" Organization: Alphaville Subject: Dear Hypatia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "My thesis, which owes a lot to Wittgenstein (1953), is that whenever human behavior is analyzed in terms of rules, these rules must always contain a ceteris paribus condition, i.e., they apply "everything else being equal," and what "everything else" and "equal" mean in any specific situation can never be fully spelled out without a regress. Moreover, this ceteris paribus condition is not merely an annoyance which shows that the analyisis is not yet complete and might be what Husserl called an "infinite task." Rather the ceteris paribus condition points to a background of practices which are the condition of the possibility of all the rulelike activity. In explaining our actions we must always sooner or later fall back on our everyday practices and simply say "this is what we do" or "that's what it is to be a human being." Thus in the last analysis all intelligibility and all intelligent behavior must be traced back to our sense of what we are, which is, according to this argument, necessarily, on pain of regress, something we can never explicitly know."---from From Micro-Worlds to Knowledge Representation by Hubert L. Dreyfus---cp