========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 13:49:15 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Democratic Cabbagery MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit But its not an "either a book or the net" its both and either; obviously something on the epc can direct one to a book and vica versa: books will be around for a long time. Who lies in bed reading a comp: I cant because I get tired at my age and I like books in bed ?... But then the computer (and the net) has also opened up new worlds...of course Sod's Law kicks in...with every tech advance its been shown that at some point some person somewhere will have to say to machine or device (no matter how faithful or "dogged" that device has been in previous service) the immortal British expression: "Sod it!" (said with a strong London accent I think and with great near-expletive emphasis)...This is accompanied by the person, or the Oxonian scientist in queston, or a housewife, kicking or even killing the machine in question with great and relish and vehemence. This is the age ( the New Ludditic Age) of the beginning of the Age of Machine Murders! That aside, those who can accept life's viccsssitudes and wearinesses, will find comfort in comps and pleasure in books. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Derek R" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 3:12 AM Subject: Re: Democratic Cabbagery > Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino wrote: > > > I like to say THE BOOK'S the thing > > > > What's a book? > > Do you mean like paper & stuff. Like in the 20th century? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 21:30:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Re: a vile republic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Is it still "flaming" if the person you're flaming is a pseudonym? My = response was an emotional one--okay, that's not allowed here, and I've = been officially reprimanded b/c accordingly. I just wanted to go on = record as being pissed off at the way these people who hate America and = Israel use the list as an opportunity to jump up and down on the graves = of those who are being murdered by their ilk.=20 So, Mark, when you jumped up in defense of these, um, types of people, = and said that my post should not have been allowed, I had to wonder why = my personal feelings were so intimidating to you that you wanted them = banned. Your characterization of me as having "no respect for anyone = else on the list" was (besides being a leap right over the specific = content of my message) not only a personal insult but an attempt to pit = "anyone else on the list" against me. It doesn't get much more cowardly = than that. I hope I've answered your question. But I bet you didn't get = a warning notice from the list moderator for "gratuitously attacking" = me, did you? As for presenting a "counter-argument" to the hate messages of Dick = Tyler and "Mister Hazim Ali": it is too large and nasty a pile of shit = to shovel--it doesn't really qualify as "ideas," and only paranoid = pseudo-intellectuals and people without a free press believe their crap = anyway. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 19:30:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: What is "pure zero drive"? {Zombie avant-garde} MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Jon Minton wrote: Jeffrey, I do appreciate your theory; and I can even see some evidence of what you're saying . . . What is "pure zero drive," as you use the phrase here?" I don't get it. And is replication + variation, which is what the poem explores, at least in part, always this "pure zero drive?" . . . in terms of theory-death (which is otherwise interesting and useful) ....................................................... FROM PAUL MANN'S ~MASOCRITICISM~: In some of Freud's later works, the impossible notion of the death drive occupied a special place. Far from immortality or the endless satisfaction of pleasures (or rather, at their deepest level), Freud came to believe that the organism desired most of all to die, "in its own way." The death drive is a primordial force, indeed the only "primordial force," deeper than life, life's "final purpose." Repetition compulsions, which we have already encountered, are the simplest expressions of this absurd drive. For Freud, according to Jean Laplanche, "the most varied manifestations of repetition . . . are attributed to the essence of drives" (Laplanche 1985, 107). The psychic economy is driven by a desire to preclude change through repetition, that is to say, through a principle of constancy. But this principle of constancy is itself the expression of a deeper principle: a zero principle. For Freud there is an absolute "primacy of zero in relation to constancy" (108). The constancy that the organism seeks must finally be identified as death. Furthermore, this zero principle is ineluctably connected to aggression. Sadean aggression toward the other is in fact a displacement of a more fundamental autoaggression. According to Laplanche, 'a part of the primal destructiveness is deflected toward the external world, giving rise to the manifestation we identify as aggressiveness. Thus . . . what is affirmed here is the primacy of self-aggression over heteroaggression, that self-aggression being, in turn, only the consequence of the absolute primacy within the individual of the tendency toward zero, conceived as the most radical form of the pleasure principle.' __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 19:30:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chase Park Subject: Manifestoes Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I am planning a summer course on the manifesto genre and am looking for more recent (post 70s) examples to include. Preferably, they will be non-outright political (ie aesthetics) and be available in paperback. Any suggestions will be most helpful. David Horton Chase Park PO Box 9136 Oakland, CA 94613-0136 510-251-2297 chasepark@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 22:04:49 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: a vile republic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Another take: China, malevolent China: HIM Bad Him persecute China poets and Him kill many goody baddies: BUT they already have the bomb and more! Have they what! They could wipe the US to kingdom come! They bought up the Russian equivalent of the Stealth bombers, they have ICBMs, huge underground cities, shoot crims in the back of the head, eat babies alive, and they finance thousands of people to commit massacres in Japan, the US and so on: so the US needs to attack China!!! Quick : get in there! Wipe 'em out! Raus!! Raus!! Ahhh!!!! Aaron, I volunteer you for the first parachute regiment to gloriously lead the attack into China or Iraq - no, come to think of it I volunteer Monsieur Bush...it would do the guy good, he'd love it. The glory! the wonder of Bush - I saw him doing his bench preses, he's fit enough - and if Bush can go in then all of us should follow: come on...every one: sign up for front line duty in Iraq! Bring plenty of napalm and some small-size nukes! Yeah hoo!! Let's getem!! yeeeehaaaaaahh!!!! Cretins Alllll!!! Aeeeeee!!!!Long live Ameriky the Good!!!! Reich Hardt. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Belz" To: Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 1:41 AM Subject: a vile republic Aha, gentle list reader-- you thought the subject line referred to the U.S. Ironically enough, it refers to Iraq. Here is an interesting article from the Observer. + + + + + + + Inside a vile republic No one should be in any doubt about Saddam's depraved intentions Henry McDonald Sunday April 28, 2002 The Observer Children aged between five and 10 are tortured and beaten. Their screams and cries are recorded on video. The horrific images are then shown to other men. But this is no sick, paedophile, child-abusing fantasy captured on camera. According to one man who was forced to watch these vile scenes, the terror inflicted on these tiny victims was motivated principally for cold-hearted political reasons. Because whatever revolting pleasure was obtained by the torturers and the filmcrew alike, the main purpose of this recorded sadism was to brutalise, terrorise and wear down potential enemies and traitors. This repulsive testimony of child torture as psychological warfare comes via a defector from the sinister Iraqi Mukhabarat or intelligence service and demonstrates the depravity of a regime objectively defended by Irish and other Western peaceniks. The defector's claims appear in the current edition of Vanity Fair, compiled by David Rose. Never before has an article provoked such a feeling of disgust. For Rose's account of the extent to which Saddam Hussein's dictatorship will go to terrify its own servants and agents makes the flesh crawl. More disturbing still is the defector's allegations about the lengths the Ba'athist élite have gone in order to acquire weapons of mass destruction. For example, the former Iraqi agent claims he travelled to Africa to buy highly toxic 'radioactive material with which to build a dirty radiological bomb' that kills thousands slowly through radioactive pollution and cancers. He also outlines how Saddam's tyranny trains and finances Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist movement. According to the defector, it was Iraq which taught Hamas how to make bombs. Moreover, he says that Iraq has developed a new missile system to hit Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and Iran as well, of course, as Israel. Rose's courageous and thoroughly researched report will make uncomfortable reading for those on the Western Left most vociferously opposed to any United States-led attack on Iraq. Because if the defector is telling the truth (his evidence is supported by Charles Duelfer, the former deputy head of UNSCOM, the mission aimed at overseeing the destruction of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction), then there are serious challenges for the West and hard questions for Western peace groups. For Western governments, especially those EU nations, including Ireland, which still adopt an ostrich-like approach to Iraq's nuclear ambitions, the dilemma will not disappear - how to stop Saddam getting the bomb. Every pacific avenue has been tried since the second Gulf War, from diplomacy to sanctions, and yet the Baghdad dictatorship, according to former agents such as the one who spoke to Rose, continues to search for the technology and raw material needed to build nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The defector outlines how the regime evades sanctions through a series of front companies in the Middle East and Europe to import material into Iraq that forms the basis of 'dirty bio-bombs' that can kill tens of thousands. His evidence suggests that even targeted smart sanctions may not prevent the acquisition of these weapons. The United States and the EU are then left with only one other option - military intervention. Some policy-makers express concern that an outright military assault on Saddam and the Ba'ath will set the entire Middle East ablaze. They argue that in an atmosphere of seething Arab anger over the Israeli incursions into Palestinian territory, invading Iraq would push the region over the edge into widespread, possibly global, conflict. This thesis, however, entirely misses the point of Saddam's project to build a nuclear, chemical and/or bio-bomb. Iraq's acquisition of weapons of mass destruction is designed precisely to escalate the Arab-Israeli conflict into a nuclear confrontation. Young Arabs such as the polite Palestinian student I met last Thursday evening in Queen's University Belfast look forward to the day of the Arab bomb. And their goal, according to him, regardless of the rhetoric about two-state solutions from the PLO's apologists in the West, is the complete destruction of the state of Israel, if necessary through the use of, or threatened use of, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The trouble with Western peace groups and their leftist support base is that they have held a starry-eyed or, in the case of the Irish Left, a Starry-Plough-eyed view of the Third World, especially those states that style themselves 'anti-imperialist'. What they surely cannot ignore any longer is the existence of a regime that endangers the stability not only of the Middle East but perhaps the planet itself and which will torture and murder even its own children in order to shore up Saddam's Republic of Fear. henry.mcdonald@observer.co.uk http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,706471,00.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 30 Apr 2002 20:34:25 -0500 Reply-To: thomas/swiss Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: thomas/swiss Subject: TIR Web//New Issue (May 2002) Available MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" TIR WEB A journal of New Media and experimental writing and art published at the = University of Iowa with support from the Department of English and in = collaboration with The International Writing Program and the Iowa Review. Volume 4, Number 3 (May 2002) TIR Web: =A0 ************************************ =A0 NUMBER #3 New This Issue: "MATERIALITY HAS ALWAYS BEEN IN PLAY" AN INTERVIEW WITH N. KATHERINE HAYLES BY LISA GITELMAN "Now that electronic textuality is bursting on the scene, it seems we have = a magnificent opportunity to think again about the specificities of both = print and electronic media, which can illuminate one another by contrast. "= N. Katherine Hayles, Professor of English and Media Arts at the University = of California, writes and teaches on the relations between science, = literature, and technology. Her most recent book, How We Became Posthuman: = Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics, won the Rene = Wellek Prize for the best book in literary theory for 1998-99. She is = currently at work on two books on electronic textuality, Literature for = Posthumans and Coding the Signifier: Rethinking Semiosis from the = Telegraph to the Computer. ************************************* Also New: A new story by R.M. Berry from the Iowa Review. Read "(from) Frank"=20 at=20 *************************************** Coming up: Interviews with New Media writers Stuart Moulthrop, Kim White, = Diana Slattery, and Miekal And; critic Joseph Tabbi; artists Jody Zelen = and Mark Napier; and others. New work by Jody Zelen, Catlin Fisher, Talan = Memmott, and others. ********************************************** =A0Feels Like New: + SHELLEY JACKSON: THE INTERVIEW Shelley Jackson is the author of the classic Patchwork Girl (Eastgate 1995)= , a hypertext novel. Her story collection, The Melancholy of Anatomy, has = just been published by Anchor Books. +Read "Of Dolls & Monsters" An Interview with Shelley Jackson, Winter 2002,= by Rita Raley ************************************* =A0 + WILLIAM POUNDSTONE: WORK AND AN INTERVIEW William Poundstone is the author of eight books--two of them, The = Recursive Universe and Labyrinths of Reason, were nominated for the = Pulitzer Prize. Brian Kim Stefans writes: "What is most striking...is the = easy dexterity with which Poundstone negotiates several different = aesthetic traditions... not to mention the developing traditions of web = art itself which he seemed instictively to know how to exploit to create = an unmistakably 'literary' site that, nonetheless, would not have been = done justice in a book." +Read "An Interview with William Poundstone," by Brian Kim Stefans. View = his "New Digital Emblems."=20 ************************************* TIR Web adds new work every month. ------------------------ ABOUT: Publishing electronic literature since 1999, The Iowa Review Web is well-known for its commitment to new writing. Starting in 2002, TIR Web expanded. It now includes --along with = electronic literature--other varieties of experimental writing and art. It also features interviews with innovative writers and New Media artists, as well = as critical articles and essays. Each issue of TIR Web includes work from both The Iowa Review and 91=B0 Meridian, published by the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. --------------------- The Iowa Review Web: New Media Poetry Conference, Fall 2002: ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 08:47:04 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: inchoate/SEGUE {The Zombie Avant-Garde} / Jullich MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Is Jukka-Pekka a cousin to Gutta-percha? Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 09:37:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Bibby Subject: Re: Manifestoes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit i had to respond to this query because i just taught from this book a couple weeks ago and it's very interesting--it might not fit your criteria (it only goes to 1970--in fact, it was orig. pub'd 1971--and it's mainly political) but it includes stuff from the Diggers, the Situationists, the English Situationists, and lots of other stuff: _BAMN (By Any Means Necessary): Outlaw Manifestos and Ephemera 1965-70_ , ed. peter Stansill & David Zane Mairowitz (Autonomedia 1999) --michael bibby Chase Park wrote: > I am planning a summer course on the manifesto genre and am looking for more > recent (post 70s) examples to include. Preferably, they will be non-outright > political (ie aesthetics) and be available in paperback. Any suggestions > will be most helpful. > > David Horton > Chase Park > PO Box 9136 > Oakland, CA 94613-0136 > 510-251-2297 > chasepark@hotmail.com > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: > http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 09:47:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: Manifestoes In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable A great manifesto is the avant pop manifesto by Mark Amerika (see below) it is also located on the web at http://www.altx.com/manifestos/avant.pop.manifesto.html=20 AVANT-POP MANIFESTO: THREAD BARING ITSELF IN TEN QUICK POSTS By Mark Amerika Now that Postmodernism is dead and we're in the process of finally burying it, something else is starting to take hold in the cultural imagination and I propose that we call this new phenomenon Avant-Pop.=20 Whereas it's true that certain strains of Postmodernism, Modernism, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, Surrealism, Dadaism, Futurism, Capitalism and even Marxism pervade the new sensibility, the major difference is that the artists who create Avant-Pop art are the Children of Mass Media (even more than being the children of their parents who have much less influence over them). Most of the early practitioners of Postmodernism, who came into active adult consciousness in the fifties, sixties and early seventies, tried desperately to keep themselves away from the forefront of the newly powerful Mediagenic Reality that was rapidly becoming the place where most of our social exchange was taking place. Despite its early insistence on remaining caught up in the academic and elitist art world's presuppositions of self- institutionalization and incestuality, Postmodernism found itself overtaken by the popular media engine that eventually killed it and from its remains Avant-Pop is now born.=20 Avant-Pop artists have had to resist the avant-garde sensibility that stubbornly denies the existence of a popular media culture and its dominant influence over the way we use our imaginations to process experience. At the same time, A-P artists have had to work hard at not becoming so enamored of the false consciousness of the Mass Media itself that they lose sight of their creative directives. The single most important creative directive of the new wave of Avant-Pop artists is to enter the mainstream culture as a parasite would sucking out all the bad blood that lies between the mainstream and the margin. By sucking on the contaminated bosom of mainstream culture, Avant-Pop artists are turning into Mutant Fictioneers, it's true, but our goal is and always has been to face up to our monster deformation and to find wild and adventurous ways to love it for what it is. The latter strains of Postmodernism attempted to do this too but were unable to find the secret key that led right into the mainstream cell so as to facilitate and accelerate the rapid decomposition of the host's body. This is all changing as the emerging youth culture, with its deep-rooted cynicism and nomadic movement within the "dance of biz", now has the power to make or break the economic future of decrepit late-capitalism.=20 Avant-Pop artists themselves have acquired immunity from the Terminal Death dysfunctionalism of a Pop Culture gone awry and are now ready to offer their own weirdly concocted elixirs to cure us from this dreadful disease ("information sickness") that infects the core of our collective life.=20 Now whereas Avant-Pop artists are fully aware of their need to maintain a crucial Avant-sensibility as it drives the creative processing of their work and attaches itself to the avant-garde lineage they spring from, they are also quick to acknowledge the need to develop more openminded strategies that will allow them to attract attention within the popularized forms of representation that fill up the contemporary Mediascape. Our collective mission is to radically alter the Pop Culture's focus by channeling a more popularized kind of dark, sexy, surreal, and subtly ironic gesturing that grows out of the work of many 20th century artists like Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Lenny Bruce, Raymond Federman, William Burroughs, William Gibson, Ronald Sukenick, Kathy Acker, the two Davids (Cronenberg and Lynch), art movements like Fluxus, Situationism, Lettrism and Neo-Hoodooism, and scores of rock bands including the Sex Pistols, Pere Ubu, Bongwater, Tackhead, The Breeders, Pussy Galore, Frank Zappa, Sonic Youth, Ministry, Jane's Addiction, Tuxedo Moon and The Residents.=20 The emerging wave of Avant-Pop artists now arriving on the scene find themselves caught in this struggle to rapidly transform our sick, commodity-infested workaday culture into a more sensual, trippy, exotic and networked Avant-Pop experience. One way to achieve this would be by creating and expanding niche communities. Niche communities, many of which already exist through the zine scene, will become, by virtue of the convergent electronic environments, virtual communities. By actively engaging themselves in the continuous exchange and proliferation of collectively-generated electronic publications, individually- designed creative works, manifestos, live on-line readings, multi- media interactive hypertexts, conferences, etc., Avant-Pop artists and the alternative networks they are part of will eat away at the conventional relics of a bygone era where the individual artist- author creates their beautifully-crafted, original works of art to be consumed primarily by the elitist art-world and their business- cronies who pass judgement on what is appropriate and what is not.=20 Literary establishment? Art establishment? Forget it. Avant-Pop artists wear each other's experiential data like waves of chaotic energy colliding and mixing in the textual-blood while the ever-changing flow of creative projects that ripple from their collective work floods the electronic cult-terrain with a subtle anti-establishment energy that will forever change the way we disseminate and interact with writing.=20 Avant-Pop artists welcome the new Electronic Age with open arms because we know that this will vastly increase our chances of finding an audience of like-minded individuals who we can communicate and collaborate with. The future of writing is moving away from the lone writer sitting behind a keyboard cranking out verse so that one day he or she may find an editor or agent or publisher who will hype their work to those interested in commercial literary culture. Instead, the future of writing will feature more multi-media collaborative authoring that will make itself available to hundreds if not thousands of potential associates around the world who will be actively internetworking in their own niche communities. Value will depend more on the ability of the different groups of artist-associates to develop a reputation for delivering easily accessible hits of the Special Information Tonic to the informationally-sick correspondent wherever he or she may be (one of the other great things about to make Avant- Pop the most exciting movement-chemistry of the 20th century and into the 21st Century is that our audience will be both immediate and global, all in one breath).=20 Writers who continue to support an outmoded concept of the lone writer dissociated from the various niche communities at their disposal will eventually lose touch with the nanosecond speed at which the movement-chemistry wanders and will find their own work and its individually-isolated movement decelerating into turtle-like oblivion.=20 Can you imagine what The Futurists would have done with an Information Superhighway?=20 Antonin Artaud, founder of The Theater of Cruelty, once said that "I am the enemy of the theater. I have always been. As much as I love the theater, I am, for this very reason, equally it's enemy." Avant-Pop artists are the enemy of pop culture and the avant-garde, both domains seemingly so far-fetched in a world that celebrates itself with live TV wars, rampant economic disenfranchisement and nanosecond identity changes. Our lineage, the bloodbath of cultural history we swim in, includes Artaud, Lautreamont, Jarry, Rimbaud, Futurism, Situationism, Fluxus, Abstract Expressionism, Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein, William Burroughs, Terry Southern, Surfiction, Metafiction, Postmodernism in all its gruesome details, Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Beavis and Butthead, SLACKER, Coltrane Miles Dizzy Don Cherry, feminist deconstruction, the list goes on. We will sample from anything we need. We will rip-off your mother if she has something we find appropriate for our compost-heap creations.=20 We don't give a shit about your phony social reality either. "Once upon a time=90" doesn't interest us whether your setting is the past (historical fiction), the present (contemporary classics) or the future (cyberhype). We prefer to lose ourselves in the exquisite realms of spacy sex and timeless narrative disaster, the thrill of breaking down syntax and deregulating the field of composition so that you no longer have to feel chained to the bed of commercial standardization. The emerging youth culture's ability to align itself with intuitive intelligence and non-linear narrative surfing is just one sign of where the Avant-Pop artist's audience is situated. Soon the Data Superhighway will finally once and for all do away with the high-priced middlemen, and artists will reap the benefits of their own hard-earned labor. The distribution formula will radically change from Author - Agent - Publisher - Printer - Distributor - Retailer - Consumer to a more simplified and direct Author (Sender) - Interactive Participant (Receiver)=20 Avant-Pop artists and their pirate signals promoting wild station identifications are ready to expand into your home right now, just log on, click around and find them. It's all up to YOU, the interactive Avant-Pop artist/participant.=20 Postmodernism changed the way we read texts. The main tenet of Postmodernism was: I, whoever that is, will put together these bits of data and form a Text while you, whoever that is, will produce your own meaning based off what you bring to the Text. The future of Avant-Pop writing will take this even one step further. The main tenet that will evolve for the Avant-Pop movement is: I, whoever that is, am always interacting with data created by the Collective You, whoever that is, and by interacting with and supplementing the Collective You, will find meaning.=20 In an Information Age where we all suffer from Information Sickness and Overload, the only cure is a highly-potent, creatively-filtered tonic of (yes) textual residue spilled from the depths of our spiritual unconscious. Creating a work of art will depend more and more on the ability of the artist to select, organize and present the bits of raw data we have at our disposal. We all know originality is dead and that our contaminated virtual realities are always already readymade and ready for consumption! In a nod to Duchamp's Armory Show scandal, the questions we need to ask ourselves are=20 who are we sharing the cultural-toilet with and=20 what are we filling it up with? Avant-Pop artists are already doing a lot of this stuff already. It's impossible to name them all but a random sampling would include Mark Leyner, Ricardo Cortez Cruz, William Gibson, William Vollmann, Larry McCaffery, Ronald Sukenick, Kim Gordon, Doug Rice, Derek Pell, Kim Deal, Darius James, Lauren Fairbanks, Jello Biafra, Lisa Suckdog, Eurudice, Nile Southern, Takayuki Tatsumi, John Bergin, John Shirley, Bruce Sterling, Richard Linklater, Don Webb, The Brothers Quay, Lance Olsen, Curt White, Eugene Chadbourne, King Missile, David Blair, and many, many others.=20 Without even knowing it, the Avant-Pop movement has been secretly generating interest and support for a few years now but has recently become more exposed with the successful breakthrough of the sub-pop alternative music scene, the publication of alternative trade paperbacks like Black Ice Books, and the release of low-budget alternative media projects like *Wax, Or The Discovery of Television Among the Bees*. The future of fiction is *now* as we, its most active practitioners, automatically unwrite it.=20 Boulder, ColoradoAVANT-POP MANIFESTO: THREAD BARING ITSELF IN TEN QUICK POSTS By Mark Amerika Now that Postmodernism is dead and we're in the process of finally burying it, something else is starting to take hold in the cultural imagination and I propose that we call this new phenomenon Avant-Pop.=20 Whereas it's true that certain strains of Postmodernism, Modernism, Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, Surrealism, Dadaism, Futurism, Capitalism and even Marxism pervade the new sensibility, the major difference is that the artists who create Avant-Pop art are the Children of Mass Media (even more than being the children of their parents who have much less influence over them). Most of the early practitioners of Postmodernism, who came into active adult consciousness in the fifties, sixties and early seventies, tried desperately to keep themselves away from the forefront of the newly powerful Mediagenic Reality that was rapidly becoming the place where most of our social exchange was taking place. Despite its early insistence on remaining caught up in the academic and elitist art world's presuppositions of self- institutionalization and incestuality, Postmodernism found itself overtaken by the popular media engine that eventually killed it and from its remains Avant-Pop is now born.=20 Avant-Pop artists have had to resist the avant-garde sensibility that stubbornly denies the existence of a popular media culture and its dominant influence over the way we use our imaginations to process experience. At the same time, A-P artists have had to work hard at not becoming so enamored of the false consciousness of the Mass Media itself that they lose sight of their creative directives. The single most important creative directive of the new wave of Avant-Pop artists is to enter the mainstream culture as a parasite would sucking out all the bad blood that lies between the mainstream and the margin. By sucking on the contaminated bosom of mainstream culture, Avant-Pop artists are turning into Mutant Fictioneers, it's true, but our goal is and always has been to face up to our monster deformation and to find wild and adventurous ways to love it for what it is. The latter strains of Postmodernism attempted to do this too but were unable to find the secret key that led right into the mainstream cell so as to facilitate and accelerate the rapid decomposition of the host's body. This is all changing as the emerging youth culture, with its deep-rooted cynicism and nomadic movement within the "dance of biz", now has the power to make or break the economic future of decrepit late-capitalism.=20 Avant-Pop artists themselves have acquired immunity from the Terminal Death dysfunctionalism of a Pop Culture gone awry and are now ready to offer their own weirdly concocted elixirs to cure us from this dreadful disease ("information sickness") that infects the core of our collective life.=20 Now whereas Avant-Pop artists are fully aware of their need to maintain a crucial Avant-sensibility as it drives the creative processing of their work and attaches itself to the avant-garde lineage they spring from, they are also quick to acknowledge the need to develop more openminded strategies that will allow them to attract attention within the popularized forms of representation that fill up the contemporary Mediascape. Our collective mission is to radically alter the Pop Culture's focus by channeling a more popularized kind of dark, sexy, surreal, and subtly ironic gesturing that grows out of the work of many 20th century artists like Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Lenny Bruce, Raymond Federman, William Burroughs, William Gibson, Ronald Sukenick, Kathy Acker, the two Davids (Cronenberg and Lynch), art movements like Fluxus, Situationism, Lettrism and Neo-Hoodooism, and scores of rock bands including the Sex Pistols, Pere Ubu, Bongwater, Tackhead, The Breeders, Pussy Galore, Frank Zappa, Sonic Youth, Ministry, Jane's Addiction, Tuxedo Moon and The Residents.=20 The emerging wave of Avant-Pop artists now arriving on the scene find themselves caught in this struggle to rapidly transform our sick, commodity-infested workaday culture into a more sensual, trippy, exotic and networked Avant-Pop experience. One way to achieve this would be by creating and expanding niche communities. Niche communities, many of which already exist through the zine scene, will become, by virtue of the convergent electronic environments, virtual communities. By actively engaging themselves in the continuous exchange and proliferation of collectively-generated electronic publications, individually- designed creative works, manifestos, live on-line readings, multi- media interactive hypertexts, conferences, etc., Avant-Pop artists and the alternative networks they are part of will eat away at the conventional relics of a bygone era where the individual artist- author creates their beautifully-crafted, original works of art to be consumed primarily by the elitist art-world and their business- cronies who pass judgement on what is appropriate and what is not.=20 Literary establishment? Art establishment? Forget it. Avant-Pop artists wear each other's experiential data like waves of chaotic energy colliding and mixing in the textual-blood while the ever-changing flow of creative projects that ripple from their collective work floods the electronic cult-terrain with a subtle anti-establishment energy that will forever change the way we disseminate and interact with writing.=20 Avant-Pop artists welcome the new Electronic Age with open arms because we know that this will vastly increase our chances of finding an audience of like-minded individuals who we can communicate and collaborate with. The future of writing is moving away from the lone writer sitting behind a keyboard cranking out verse so that one day he or she may find an editor or agent or publisher who will hype their work to those interested in commercial literary culture. Instead, the future of writing will feature more multi-media collaborative authoring that will make itself available to hundreds if not thousands of potential associates around the world who will be actively internetworking in their own niche communities. Value will depend more on the ability of the different groups of artist-associates to develop a reputation for delivering easily accessible hits of the Special Information Tonic to the informationally-sick correspondent wherever he or she may be (one of the other great things about to make Avant- Pop the most exciting movement-chemistry of the 20th century and into the 21st Century is that our audience will be both immediate and global, all in one breath).=20 Writers who continue to support an outmoded concept of the lone writer dissociated from the various niche communities at their disposal will eventually lose touch with the nanosecond speed at which the movement-chemistry wanders and will find their own work and its individually-isolated movement decelerating into turtle-like oblivion.=20 Can you imagine what The Futurists would have done with an Information Superhighway?=20 Antonin Artaud, founder of The Theater of Cruelty, once said that "I am the enemy of the theater. I have always been. As much as I love the theater, I am, for this very reason, equally it's enemy." Avant-Pop artists are the enemy of pop culture and the avant-garde, both domains seemingly so far-fetched in a world that celebrates itself with live TV wars, rampant economic disenfranchisement and nanosecond identity changes. Our lineage, the bloodbath of cultural history we swim in, includes Artaud, Lautreamont, Jarry, Rimbaud, Futurism, Situationism, Fluxus, Abstract Expressionism, Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein, William Burroughs, Terry Southern, Surfiction, Metafiction, Postmodernism in all its gruesome details, Laugh-In, Saturday Night Live, Beavis and Butthead, SLACKER, Coltrane Miles Dizzy Don Cherry, feminist deconstruction, the list goes on. We will sample from anything we need. We will rip-off your mother if she has something we find appropriate for our compost-heap creations.=20 We don't give a shit about your phony social reality either. "Once upon a time=90" doesn't interest us whether your setting is the past (historical fiction), the present (contemporary classics) or the future (cyberhype). We prefer to lose ourselves in the exquisite realms of spacy sex and timeless narrative disaster, the thrill of breaking down syntax and deregulating the field of composition so that you no longer have to feel chained to the bed of commercial standardization. The emerging youth culture's ability to align itself with intuitive intelligence and non-linear narrative surfing is just one sign of where the Avant-Pop artist's audience is situated. Soon the Data Superhighway will finally once and for all do away with the high-priced middlemen, and artists will reap the benefits of their own hard-earned labor. The distribution formula will radically change from Author - Agent - Publisher - Printer - Distributor - Retailer - Consumer to a more simplified and direct Author (Sender) - Interactive Participant (Receiver)=20 Avant-Pop artists and their pirate signals promoting wild station identifications are ready to expand into your home right now, just log on, click around and find them. It's all up to YOU, the interactive Avant-Pop artist/participant.=20 Postmodernism changed the way we read texts. The main tenet of Postmodernism was: I, whoever that is, will put together these bits of data and form a Text while you, whoever that is, will produce your own meaning based off what you bring to the Text. The future of Avant-Pop writing will take this even one step further. The main tenet that will evolve for the Avant-Pop movement is: I, whoever that is, am always interacting with data created by the Collective You, whoever that is, and by interacting with and supplementing the Collective You, will find meaning.=20 In an Information Age where we all suffer from Information Sickness and Overload, the only cure is a highly-potent, creatively-filtered tonic of (yes) textual residue spilled from the depths of our spiritual unconscious. Creating a work of art will depend more and more on the ability of the artist to select, organize and present the bits of raw data we have at our disposal. We all know originality is dead and that our contaminated virtual realities are always already readymade and ready for consumption! In a nod to Duchamp's Armory Show scandal, the questions we need to ask ourselves are=20 who are we sharing the cultural-toilet with and=20 what are we filling it up with? Avant-Pop artists are already doing a lot of this stuff already. It's impossible to name them all but a random sampling would include Mark Leyner, Ricardo Cortez Cruz, William Gibson, William Vollmann, Larry McCaffery, Ronald Sukenick, Kim Gordon, Doug Rice, Derek Pell, Kim Deal, Darius James, Lauren Fairbanks, Jello Biafra, Lisa Suckdog, Eurudice, Nile Southern, Takayuki Tatsumi, John Bergin, John Shirley, Bruce Sterling, Richard Linklater, Don Webb, The Brothers Quay, Lance Olsen, Curt White, Eugene Chadbourne, King Missile, David Blair, and many, many others.=20 Without even knowing it, the Avant-Pop movement has been secretly generating interest and support for a few years now but has recently become more exposed with the successful breakthrough of the sub-pop alternative music scene, the publication of alternative trade paperbacks like Black Ice Books, and the release of low-budget alternative media projects like *Wax, Or The Discovery of Television Among the Bees*. The future of fiction is *now* as we, its most active practitioners, automatically unwrite it.=20 Boulder, Colorado ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 22:59:44 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "B.E. Basan" Subject: Re: a vile republic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I'd been meaning to send this link to the list for some time before this discussion got so out of hand (not your post Richard, but the earlier one from Leonard, designed, I think to provoke). It's a transcript from a BBC ("The BBC can lie" -- being a restricted press, unlike CNN -- "but at least a different bilge will come out of it ..at least for a little while") program on "Heroes and Villains". This one's on the demonization of Saddam Hussein by the US http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/walden/sad_indx.shtml - Ben Basan ----- Original Message ----- From: "richard.tylr" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 7:04 PM Subject: Re: a vile republic > Another take: China, malevolent China: HIM Bad Him persecute China poets and > Him kill many goody baddies: BUT they already have the bomb and more! Have > they what! They could wipe the US to kingdom come! They bought up the > Russian equivalent of the Stealth bombers, they have ICBMs, huge underground > cities, shoot crims in the back of the head, eat babies alive, and they > finance thousands of people to commit massacres in Japan, the US and so on: > so the US needs to attack China!!! Quick : get in there! Wipe 'em out! > Raus!! Raus!! Ahhh!!!! Aaron, I volunteer you for the first parachute > regiment to gloriously lead the attack into China or Iraq - no, come to > think of it I volunteer Monsieur Bush...it would do the guy good, he'd love > it. The glory! the wonder of Bush - I saw him doing his bench preses, he's > fit enough - and if Bush can go in then all of us should follow: come > on...every one: sign up for front line duty in Iraq! Bring plenty of napalm > and some small-size nukes! Yeah hoo!! Let's getem!! yeeeehaaaaaahh!!!! > Cretins Alllll!!! Aeeeeee!!!!Long live Ameriky the Good!!!! Reich Hardt. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Aaron Belz" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, April 30, 2002 1:41 AM > Subject: a vile republic > > > Aha, gentle list reader-- you thought the subject line referred to the U.S. > Ironically enough, it refers to Iraq. Here is an interesting article from > the Observer. > > > + + + + + + + > > > Inside a vile republic > > No one should be in any doubt about Saddam's depraved intentions > > Henry McDonald > Sunday April 28, 2002 > The Observer > > Children aged between five and 10 are tortured and beaten. Their screams and > cries are recorded on video. The horrific images are then shown to other > men. > > But this is no sick, paedophile, child-abusing fantasy captured on camera. > According to one man who was forced to watch these vile scenes, the terror > inflicted on these tiny victims was motivated principally for cold-hearted > political reasons. Because whatever revolting pleasure was obtained by the > torturers and the filmcrew alike, the main purpose of this recorded sadism > was to brutalise, terrorise and wear down potential enemies and traitors. > > This repulsive testimony of child torture as psychological warfare comes via > a defector from the sinister Iraqi Mukhabarat or intelligence service and > demonstrates the depravity of a regime objectively defended by Irish and > other Western peaceniks. > > The defector's claims appear in the current edition of Vanity Fair, compiled > by David Rose. Never before has an article provoked such a feeling of > disgust. For Rose's account of the extent to which Saddam Hussein's > dictatorship will go to terrify its own servants and agents makes the flesh > crawl. More disturbing still is the defector's allegations about the lengths > the Ba'athist élite have gone in order to acquire weapons of mass > destruction. > > For example, the former Iraqi agent claims he travelled to Africa to buy > highly toxic 'radioactive material with which to build a dirty radiological > bomb' that kills thousands slowly through radioactive pollution and cancers. > > He also outlines how Saddam's tyranny trains and finances Hamas, the > Palestinian Islamic fundamentalist movement. According to the defector, it > was Iraq which taught Hamas how to make bombs. Moreover, he says that Iraq > has developed a new missile system to hit Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and > Iran as well, of course, as Israel. > > Rose's courageous and thoroughly researched report will make uncomfortable > reading for those on the Western Left most vociferously opposed to any > United States-led attack on Iraq. Because if the defector is telling the > truth (his evidence is supported by Charles Duelfer, the former deputy head > of UNSCOM, the mission aimed at overseeing the destruction of Saddam's > weapons of mass destruction), then there are serious challenges for the West > and hard questions for Western peace groups. > > For Western governments, especially those EU nations, including Ireland, > which still adopt an ostrich-like approach to Iraq's nuclear ambitions, the > dilemma will not disappear - how to stop Saddam getting the bomb. > > Every pacific avenue has been tried since the second Gulf War, from > diplomacy to sanctions, and yet the Baghdad dictatorship, according to > former agents such as the one who spoke to Rose, continues to search for the > technology and raw material needed to build nuclear, biological and chemical > weapons. > > The defector outlines how the regime evades sanctions through a series of > front companies in the Middle East and Europe to import material into Iraq > that forms the basis of 'dirty bio-bombs' that can kill tens of thousands. > His evidence suggests that even targeted smart sanctions may not prevent the > acquisition of these weapons. The United States and the EU are then left > with only one other option - military intervention. > > Some policy-makers express concern that an outright military assault on > Saddam and the Ba'ath will set the entire Middle East ablaze. They argue > that in an atmosphere of seething Arab anger over the Israeli incursions > into Palestinian territory, invading Iraq would push the region over the > edge into widespread, possibly global, conflict. > > This thesis, however, entirely misses the point of Saddam's project to build > a nuclear, chemical and/or bio-bomb. Iraq's acquisition of weapons of mass > destruction is designed precisely to escalate the Arab-Israeli conflict into > a nuclear confrontation. Young Arabs such as the polite Palestinian student > I met last Thursday evening in Queen's University Belfast look forward to > the day of the Arab bomb. And their goal, according to him, regardless of > the rhetoric about two-state solutions from the PLO's apologists in the > West, is the complete destruction of the state of Israel, if necessary > through the use of, or threatened use of, chemical, biological and nuclear > weapons. > > The trouble with Western peace groups and their leftist support base is that > they have held a starry-eyed or, in the case of the Irish Left, a > Starry-Plough-eyed view of the Third World, especially those states that > style themselves 'anti-imperialist'. What they surely cannot ignore any > longer is the existence of a regime that endangers the stability not only of > the Middle East but perhaps the planet itself and which will torture and > murder even its own children in order to shore up Saddam's Republic of Fear. > > henry.mcdonald@observer.co.uk > > > > http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,706471,00.html > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 09:04:16 -0500 Reply-To: dtv@mwt.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mIEKAL aND Organization: Awkword Ubutronics Subject: Re: Manifestoes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I did a mail art project called MOVEMENTS & MANIFESTOS in the late 80s. I had intended to eventually publish them hard copy but that never panned out. But I have a file drawer with about 100 manifestos plus supporting materials from all over, mainly of poetic & artistic flavor, with the most interesting ones mostly coming from pre-fallenwall eastern bloc countries. mIEKAL Michael Bibby wrote: > i had to respond to this query because i just taught from this book a couple > weeks ago and it's very interesting--it might not fit your criteria (it only > goes to 1970--in fact, it was orig. pub'd 1971--and it's mainly political) but > it includes stuff from the Diggers, the Situationists, the English > Situationists, and lots of other stuff: > > _BAMN (By Any Means Necessary): Outlaw Manifestos and Ephemera 1965-70_ , ed. > peter Stansill & David Zane Mairowitz (Autonomedia 1999) > > --michael bibby > > Chase Park wrote: > > > I am planning a summer course on the manifesto genre and am looking for more > > recent (post 70s) examples to include. Preferably, they will be non-outright > > political (ie aesthetics) and be available in paperback. Any suggestions > > will be most helpful. > > > > David Horton > > Chase Park > > PO Box 9136 > > Oakland, CA 94613-0136 > > 510-251-2297 > > chasepark@hotmail.com > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: > > http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 10:18:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: leftists, was a vile republic In-Reply-To: <02c101c1f0c8$f30c9ca0$2dd2f7a5@oemcomputer> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Leonard Brinksmanship, We too sing America. Very sincerely yours, I remain Gwyn McVay <--- not a pseudonym --- "We share half our genome with the banana. This is more evident in some of my acquaintances than others." Sir Robert May, President of the Royal Society of London ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 10:28:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: inchoate/SEGUE {The Zombie Avant-Garde} / Jullich MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Is Jukka-Pekka a cousin to Gutta-percha? Sheila >> Only when performed by Galli-Curci. Laura ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 08:14:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: a vile republic In-Reply-To: <007601c1f118$72d734a0$422c4ca5@computer> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mister Leonard Brink Sir, what planet are you from? Why would you assume I'm a pseudonym? That's a particularly puzzling form of linguistic erasure and violence. I'm not a pseudonym. My name is Kazim Ali. I spell out the "mister" because I'm a punk. And I don't hate Israel. The signature quote at the bottom of my post is by an Israeli poet. And what does all that have to do with anything anyway? Oh and I'm an American. But why am I defending myself to you? It's about affirming life, Leonard. As my fellow patriot Suheir Hammad wrote "You are either with life or you are against life." Which side are you on, Mister Brink? ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 08:34:56 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: { brad brace } Subject: Re: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS In-Reply-To: <005d01c1f099$d3378c20$aa0d0e44@vaio> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 6:53 PM -0400 4/30/2, Duration Press wrote: >... duration press has >yet to break even after 19 titles... I hear this sort of logic all the time from supposedly 'non-profit' arts groups... define "break even" please. Are there salaries involved? /:b ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 08:53:44 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: { brad brace } Subject: Re: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 6:29 PM -0700 4/30/2, Chase Park wrote: >If the goal of your poetry writing is to get paid, then I would suggest a >radical career rethinking. Perhaps copywriting or Hollywood. > >I edit a small poetry journal, and essentially take a bath with finances >each issue that comes out. I would love to pay everyone much more than >copies, but that would mean closing the doors. I am fairly certain that the >same goes for most (90-odd %) of other small press ventures. And if all >these journals/mags/zines shut, we'd all be at the mercy of the New Yorker >and Atlantic Monthly. Perhaps the "non-profit" presses should pool their resources, cut-costs (establish an online presence that is more than a solicitation of submissives), and begin paying their contributors -- and seriously attempt to threaten the fearsome status of "evil commercial" publishers. Why can't copywriting be poetry? /:b ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 09:03:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: Manifestoes In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii It's not post-70s but Yoko Ono's "To the Wesleyan People" (reprinted in both Grapefruit and YES) is really amazing. Also in the most recent issue of Fence there was a really beautiful manifesto from the Black Took Collective. Does Stephen Burt's "ellipitical poets" (forget the name) essay count as a manifesto? Also Jorie Graham's (there's that name again!) introduction to 1990 Best American Poetry. --- Chase Park wrote: > I am planning a summer course on the manifesto genre > and am looking for more > recent (post 70s) examples to include. Preferably, > they will be non-outright > political (ie aesthetics) and be available in > paperback. Any suggestions > will be most helpful. > > > > David Horton > Chase Park > PO Box 9136 > Oakland, CA 94613-0136 > 510-251-2297 > chasepark@hotmail.com > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print > your photos: > http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 09:12:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Silem Mohammad" Subject: Re: Manifestoes Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed David Larsen's "Dogma '01" manifesto, which I believe was posted to this list a few months ago, but I could be wrong. Anyone know if it's on the web somewhere? David, are you out there? K. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ K. Silem Mohammad Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit University of California Santa Cruz _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 09:11:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Avery Burns Subject: Canessa Park Reading 5/7/02 Redux MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Thanks. The reading is at 7:30 pm. $5 Admission Canessa Park Reading Series 708 Montgomery St. @ Columbus San Francisco CA Tuesday Night May 7th 2002 Beth Anderson & Gillian Conoley Beth Anderson is the author of The Habitable World, which was published in 2001 by Instance Press and was a 2002 finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in New American Writing, The Germ, Barrow Street, and other journals and in An Anthology of New (American) Poets (Talisman House). She lives in Richmond, VA, and is one of the editors of Subpress, a cooperative small press. Gillian Conoley's collections of poetry include _Beckon_, _Tall Stranger_,nominated for the National Book Critcs' Circle Award: _Some Gangster Pain_; and _Woman Speaking Inside Film Noir_. Winner of a Pushcart Prize and included in _Best American Poetry_, she is Poet-in-Residence and Associate Professor at Sonoma State U, where she is founder and editor of _Volt_. Born in Taylor, Texas, she makes her home in the SFBay Area with her husband, the novelist Domenic Stansberry, and their young daughter. Hope to see you there, Avery E. D. Burns Please Direct Inquiries and Correspondence to P.O. Box 640531 San Francisco CA 94164 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 12:25:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: Manifestoes In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Its located in the VeRT 5=20 http://www.litvert.com/lrsn.html Best, Geoffrey=20 -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of K.Silem Mohammad Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 12:12 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Manifestoes David Larsen's "Dogma '01" manifesto, which I believe was posted to this list a few months ago, but I could be wrong. Anyone know if it's on the web somewhere? David, are you out there? K. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ K. Silem Mohammad Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit University of California Santa Cruz _________________________________________________________________ Join the world=92s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 10:02:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kari edwards Subject: FIR8 In-Reply-To: <005801c1f12c$c177e640$6e01a8c0@verizon.net> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable For Immediate Release FIR8 May 2002 Volume II, Number 5 http://www.poetz.com/fir/may02.htm Guest-edited by kari edwards kari's introduction to this issue can be found on the homepage for www.poetz.com with all the formatting intact. Introduction this is the form . . . ("Where did the speedgirls go"), the form is the letter/invitation . . . ("Deep inside my womb the Defense Department has installed a nuclear bomb. . . . I float about silent, gravity-free, an alien=20 pod seeking a host somebody love me."). the form are those that responded . .=20 . (" . . . of cautious dirt stance. A thief on the high wire."). what can I=20 say on the subject . . . (at times we have the power to name/ precisely wha= t we want / (touch me here) /exactly what we mean / (and here)"), here they are . . . ("coming midway through the dilemma saying 'would you say something=20 different or say something about the sphinx, the rivers or heavens.'"). could=20 say I love them. . .("With two fingers he plucked my dick and examined it, its tiny imperfections, all the men it had been into, and the way it had ru= n my life." the form is the voice not always there . . . ("watching me in my /=20 they never saw / but for a photograph unframed"). may not be the intellectual=20 way. . . (the tension of the tongue, the freedom of the tongue) this is what=20 I do. . . ("be the next decade's hottest dissident"), a ployamorous perspective ("roll over heat, over sweat, in scent of roasted walnut."). so= , ("stop mid-stroke"), ("with abridged versions of masters old and new"). ("If=20 a=3Db and b=3Dc then a=3Dc") then ("all a vast ghost on the plains") this is th= e form . . . ("a revolution of manipulation sighs and begins")("The verb pitch=20 singing/ The verbing pitch slinging" a conduit for language... Table of Contents CAMILLE ROY=20 Snow Instruction Where the Boys Are DODIE BELLAMY From: "Fat Chance" KARI EDWARDS from: low - =B3creation=B2 ELLEN REDBIRD A Performance to Undo Temporary Manifesto =20 JULIE KIZERSHOT Damaged Type A Letter =B3C=B2: A Sail to Catch the Wind With Even Elbows can be Erotic Slip not Gone: Poem in =B3G=B2 K... =20 M O KEVIN KILLIAN From: Dietmar Lutz =20 LISA BIRMAN home(s) left room MARK EWERT Checklist MICHAEL SMOLER Metamorphosis (Shell-Swan-Balance-You) NATASCHA BRUCKNER=20 breath the famished virgin cunt=20 belly=20 sweat ROBERT GLUCK The Glass Mountain SHERMAN SOUTHER The Piano Teacher STEPHANIE HEIT from Quiet Anatomy THE CAPTAIN break Move In RACHEL LEVITSKY from Landscapes: Architectures of Knowing/Buildings on Shoulders/Of Books No End but Weary Flesh kari edwards is a poet, artist and gender activist, winner of New Langton Art=B9s Bay Area Award in litrature, and author of a day in the life of p. to be released by subpress collective (2002), a diary of lies -- Belladonna #2= 7 by Balladonna Books (2002) and post/(pink) (2001) (Scarlet Press). sie is also the poetry editor I.F.G.E=B9s Transgender -- Tapestry: a International Publication on Transgender issues. hir work has been exhibited throughout the united states, including denver art museum, new orleans contemporary ar= t museum, university of california-san diego, and university of massachusetts - amherst. edwards=B9 work can also be found in Blood and Tears (2000) an anthology on Matthew Shepard, (Painted leaf Press), The International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies, Bombay Gin, Van Gogh=B9s Ear, Puppy Flower, Avoid Strange Men, Nerve Lantern, Aufgabe, Belight Fiction, In Posse, FIR, and Fracture.=20 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 11:13:44 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: Manifestoes MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I don't for the life of me know why you would want to separate "artistic" and/or "literary" manifestos from everything else! That's like teaching life on a contemporary farm, with a Gucci handbag as your prop. Previous attempts at doing this to the manifesto have resulted in challenged anthologies, for one. I'm thinking especially of Mary Ann Caws's otherwise exceptional (in the sense that every text in there is great to have anthologized as such) Manifest: A Century of Isms, which includes some Language Poetry "manifestos" -- but that's pushing the word, precisely because there is a concerted attempt to contain the idea of the manifesto to sheerly the "aesthetic": doesn't work (consider Janet Lyon's book on subject). Poet Robert Kroetsch, "I Wanted to Write a Manifesto," great essay / short story. _A Likely Story: the writing life_. Red Deer, Alberta: Red Deer Colege Press, 1995. 41-64. Goes to heart of problem of writing a contemporary manifesto, or if you like is a "manifesto" for the ordinary -- concluding along the lines of David Antin's title talk in _What It Means to Be Avant-Garde_ Isabella Rossellini has a collection of makeup called Manifesto; the advertising claims to emphasize "practicality." Hence, this is your problem with the manifesto post 1970. But I think it opens up a whole new use for theoretical language in poetry and in everyday genres, e.g. "deconstructing a police van," as a journalist covering the recent protests in Montreal writes (or to that effect) in one of Aaron Vidaver's links in his recent post. You can trace this use of high theory for manifesting ends of everyday life in a lot of contemporary poetry -- poetry which doesn't, at the same time, actually the word manifesto. It's as if the genre's hortatoriness and martial language has been melted into the poetry -- along with high theory. Off the top of my head: Lisa Robertson, Jeff Derksen, Rodrigo Toscano... In a different tone and register, Ron Silliman, Manifest (Canary Islands: Zasterle, 1990) can be read as dealing with the performative problem of manifesting, as in disclosing, revealing, especially if you dip back to Imagism for modernist con-trast/-text. In a different tone and register, The Nude Formalism by Charles Bernstein -- you can use that along with modernist stuff as well, but in relation to the New Formalist tracts (I guess they're manifesto-ish) from the 80s (Goiai sp? etc). "OK Soda Manifesto" (1994, I think): "1) What's the point of OK? Well, what's the point of anything? 2) OK Soda emphatically rejects anything that is not OK, and fully supports anything that is. 3) The better you understand something, the more OK it turns out to be. 4) OK Soda says, "Don't be fooled into thinking there has to be a reason for everything." 5) OK Soda reveals the surprising truth about people and situations. 6) OK Soda does not subscribe to any religion, or endorse any political party, or do anything other than feel OK. 7) There is no real secret to feeling OK. 8) OK Soda may be the preferred drink of other people such as yourself. 9) Never overestimate the remarkable abilities of "OK" brand soda. 10) Please wake up every morning knowing that things are going to be OK." OK Soda was an invention of the Global Teenage Program of Coca Cola, and included a True or False "OK Soda Personality Inventory": "1. Pets are fun. 2. I sure like bicycles. 3. Generally speaking, tables should have at least four legs. 4. When I see a gerbil on a treadmill, I'm reminded of me. 5. Gloomy -- it's just one of the ways weather can be. 6. A tingling sensation in your elbows, feet or other body parts should not be mistaken for a feeling of OKness. 7. Newspapers are black and white and red all over. 8. Cinder blocks are no subsitute for a foundation of happiness. 9. Walls should be just tall enough to support the ceiling. 10. There is a mystery element to feeling OK. 11. It's better to be nice than mean, but mean can sure come in handy." For the rest, go to: http://home.pacifier.com/~ntierney/oktest.htm For background on OK Soda, go to journalist Joshua Glenn in The Baffler: "I'd Like to Force the World to Sing: The Making of a Yes Generation" http://www.thebaffler.com/glenn.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 10:13:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Corbett Subject: Re: leftists, was a vile republic In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Leonard, I think what is most clear is that you have exhibited an astonishing defensiveness. Neither Richard nor Kazim mention Israel, but you do. More to the point, it only takes two anti-american responses to provoke you into ad hominem (and not very graceful ad hominem) attack (not a counter-argument). I don't know--it seems pretty pathetic to me. And "Hazim" is currently teaching in NYC at the Asian American Writing Workshop. "Niiice," as they used to say. There are plenty of places to get your fill of patriotism. It's great that Poetics is not one of them. Robert ps: on the side of life, in favor of Richard's fervor (if not all his ideas), and pro-Palestinian, in case you can't infer this. -- Robert Corbett "I will discuss perfidy with scholars as rcor@u.washington.edu as if spurning kisses, I will sip Department of English the marble marrow of empire. I want sugar University of Washington but I shall never wear shame and if you call that sophistry then what is Love" - Lisa Robertson On Wed, 1 May 2002, Gwyn McVay wrote: > Dear Leonard Brinksmanship, > > We too sing America. > > Very sincerely yours, I remain > Gwyn McVay <--- not a pseudonym > > > --- > "We share half our genome with the banana. This is more evident in some of my > acquaintances than others." > Sir Robert May, President of the Royal Society of London > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 13:08:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark & Stephanie Livengood Subject: 9-11 Anthology Call for Submissions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Good Afternoon, This announcement is being sent to multiple lists, please excuse any = duplication. American poets, young or established, are invited to submit an original = work commemorating the pivotal day of September 11th, 2001 and the days = thereafter. This anthology, which is being prepared for publication, = will present short heartfelt writings in verse and prose by authors from = across our nation.=20 Your participation in this collaborative, nationwide project will open = up another means of assisting survivors. A portion of the proceeds from = the sale of this book will be contributed to a benefit organization. =20 Submissions may be sent via email to librarian Stephanie Livengood at = tutorsvc@bright.net. Please include your name, address, and age. The = deadline for submissions is July 31, 2002. You will be notified if your = piece is selected for the final manuscript. Your participation is greatly appreciated. This collection will serve = as a powerful tool for healing and as a token of remembrance for many, = many people. Sincerely, Stephanie P. Livengood, Librarian University of Akron, Akron, Ohio Wayne College Library tutorsvc@bright.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 10:43:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kari edwards Subject: Re: Manifestoes In-Reply-To: <005801c1f12c$c177e640$6e01a8c0@verizon.net> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit it seems as if there are some gaps in the manifesto debate 1, Susie Brights "Roll your own Erotic Manifesto" 2. Valerie Solanas's "SCUM manifesto" 3. Annie Sprinkle's "Guidelines for sex in the 90's" ( a sort of manifesto) 4. Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto" 5. Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" 6. Mina Loy's "feminist Manifesto" manifestos do not always come nicely packaged, but rather hidden in other text as text-points for a community to gather around as a manifesto or they work to manifest community, As the queer culture (especially act-up) did in the seventies with Foucault's "History of Sexuality". also examples could be, "Yellow wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "THe Well of Loneliness" by Radclyffe Hall, Kate Bornsteins, "Gender Outlaw." 1. Establishing a Demilitarized Zone: Tactics of resistance", by C. Jacob Hale in Consuming the living dis(re)membering the dead in the butch/ftm boarderlands. 2. Monique Wittig "The point of view: universal or particular" 3. Adreinne Rich "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience" Others not include could be the writings and deconstruction of gender by Julian of Norwish,o r other works by Mary Wollstonecraft , Lady Mary Chudleigh, Anne Finch, Anna Letittia Barbaurd, Vignia Woolf. kari edwards _____________________ . . . the subject of poetic language clings to the help fetishism offers. Julia Kristeva ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 11:02:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Fw: Mayday! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Mayday! MAYDAY! International Distress Call Etymology: French m' aider help me Options: Morse Code ... --- ...=20 BAMA (By Any Means Available) There is need for vocabulary that everybody=20 can understand.- 2002 Mort Subiet Under the U.S. five-color alert system=20 the national mode is mid-evil axis yellow.=20 5-1-2002 Listen for response Repeat as necessary MAYDAY! MAYDAY! THIS IS=20 (your name here x 3) MAYDAY!=20 (alias x 1 ) MY POSITION IS =20 (true bearing from a known location) Nature of your distress? Number in your party? OVER! =20 (stop screaming) Listen for response=20 Repeat as necessary=20 Mayday! - Mayday! Worldwide renewal happening=20 recycling time saturated culture=20 Mayday! - Mayday! Defiant waves ebb and flow in divisible world eye=20 Mayday! Mayday! Celts, Saxons and Beltane=20 ignite wooden wheels=20 rolling into fields once outlawed by the Catholic Church Mayday! - Mayday! Hunting transvestite priests chanting, singing, and blowing=20 Walpurgisnacht - night of witches. =20 Mayday! - Mayday!=20 Phallic pole of MaymenWomen=20 holding ribbons to be entwined Green Man - Mayday!=20 Fool for this overthrown hysteria=20 impacked juries back street=20 fears of Police State Flash point indicators expect=20 helmets and dustbin shields=20 on May Day! - May Day! (C) 2002 Hammond Guthrie =20 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 14:07:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: a vile republic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Acting on the premise that one person's crap is another's ideology, why is it that so frequently when one criticizes the murderous and fatal aspects of American foreign policy, the knee-jerk response from the 'America, my country right or wrong' crowd is to accuse said critic of anti-Americanism? And why, when one presents a few critical facts showing the brutal consequences of these aspects, as I did in my last post, are these facts ignored in favor of even more anti-anti-Americanism fervor? For myself, I would like to see these facts, either for or against, contested with other facts, either for or against. Even distortions are better than out and out name-calling, since distortions can be argued and corrected. For those of us whose heads are so twisted by emotions, this is a plea for reasoned argument. I should like to make one thing clear: I'm not in favor of censorship, or 'moderation' as it's referred to on this list. Nor am I in favor of b/c admonitions. I operate on the principle that I say what I say, and others say what they say, and trust to the intelligent folks on this list to make up their individual minds. If windhover@SPRINTMAIL.COM or richard.tylr@XTRA.CO.NZ want to spit through their teeth when they write, let them. I know this is not the prevailing attitude on this list, but I thought I'd just add my little pinch of salt. joe brennan In a message dated 05/01/2002 8:05:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time, windhover@SPRINTMAIL.COM writes: > Is it still "flaming" if the person you're flaming is a pseudonym? My > response was an emotional one--okay, that's not allowed here, and I've been > officially reprimanded b/c accordingly. I just wanted to go on record as > being pissed off at the way these people who hate America and Israel use > the list as an opportunity to jump up and down on the graves of those who > are being murdered by their ilk. > So, Mark, when you jumped up in defense of these, um, types of people, and > said that my post should not have been allowed, I had to wonder why my > personal feelings were so intimidating to you that you wanted them banned. > Your characterization of me as having "no respect for anyone else on the > list" was (besides being a leap right over the specific content of my > message) not only a personal insult but an attempt to pit "anyone else on > the list" against me. It doesn't get much more cowardly than that. I hope > I've answered your question. But I bet you didn't get a warning notice from > the list moderator for "gratuitously attacking" me, did you? > As for presenting a "counter-argument" to the hate messages of Dick Tyler > and "Mister Hazim Ali": it is too large and nasty a pile of shit to > shovel--it doesn't really qualify as "ideas," and only paranoid > pseudo-intellectuals and people without a free press believe their crap > anyway. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 13:23:54 -0500 Reply-To: dtv@mwt.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mIEKAL aND Organization: Awkword Ubutronics Subject: Re: Manifestoes 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 pure coincidence this manifesto just arrived in my mail a few minutes ago... & no, I havent a clue what its about. mIEKAL Subject: Antonio Tabucchi: Manifiesto de la Palabra Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 12:56:12 -0600 From: "[óscar a. garcía]" To: MANIFIESTO DE LA PALABRA POR ANTONIO TABUCCHI [Antonio Tabucchi es escritor italiano]. Traducción de Carlos Gumpert 1. Existen varias formas de dictadura. En Italia estamos ante una Dictadura de la Palabra. 2. Porque la palabra es de oro. Y la posee una sola persona, un político que es al mismo tiempo el jefe de un Gobierno y el dueño de todos los medios de comunicación que transportan la palabra. 3. Italia sólo en apariencia pertenece a la democracia europea. En realidad es una forma de gobierno oriental a la manera de Heliogábalo. En noviembre del 2001, un semanario hizo un reportaje, a la manera de los semanarios de Heliogábalo, titulado Escritor, ¿por qué no hablas? Parece ser el caso de repetir la pregunta. Porque si eventualmente un escritor contradice el estruendo ensordecedor de las palabras de Heliogábalo, he aquí que de varios lados se alzan voces acreditadas elogiando el silencio. Son voces que dicen: el silencio es oro. 4. Pero el elogio del silencio no puede hacerse con palabras. Por coherencia debería hacerse en silencio. Quienes invocan el Silencio utilizan la Palabra. Incluso los escritores que elogian el silencio. ¿Pero a quién piden silencio quienes elogian el silencio? ¿Se lo piden acaso a Heliogábalo? ¿O a los pregoneros de Heliogábalo? ¿O a los mayordomos de Heliogábalo? ¿O a los centuriones de Heliogábalo? ¿O a las pantallas televisivas de Heliogábalo? ¿O a los bandos impresos de Heliogábalo? No. Os lo piden a vosotros, que habéis osado decir una palabra contra Heliogábalo y contra el imperio de palabras de Heliogábalo. 5. Porque en el Reino de Heliogábalo no sólo la palabra es de oro. También el silencio es oro. 6. Pero el proverbio dice que quien calla otorga. 7. La palabra es de oro, pero puede ser también de plomo. Se lee en el Evangelio que ciertos individuos utilizados por el Sanedrín usaban la 'sica' bajo la capa. La 'sica' era su instrumento de trabajo. Un puñal corto y afilado, de golpe mortal. Bajo la capa de sus programas y de sus periódicos, los agentes de Heliogábalo llevan palabras afiladas como 'sicas'. Pum, pum, y estás muerto si no respetas el silencio. Palabras de plomo. 8. En el Reino de Heliogábalo se impone el silencio a golpes de pistola catódica. 9. Ojo: ¿que has dicho una palabra contra el Reino de Heliogábalo? El pregonero de Heliogábalo, en su programa televisivo, afirmará que estás de parte de los terroristas. Un golpe de pistola catódica disparado como el aguijón de una avispa. Avispa mortal. 10. Heliogábalo es feroz. Dispara. Y sobre todo ordena que se disparen pistolas catódicas. Me pregunto: ¿es justo callar ante las pistolas catódicas de Heliogábalo? 11. Cito de una enciclopedia médica: 'Laringe: Órgano hueco semirrígido, formado por una serie de cartílagos unidos entre sí por ligamentos y músculos. Sus funciones principales son: 1) la respiración; 2) la fonación, es decir, la formación de sonidos, determinados por la contracción de los músculos llamados cuerdas vocales'. 12. La fonación, es decir, el habla, es la facultad con la que la Naturaleza (Dios, para quien lo prefiera) ha dotado a los hombres con el objeto de que se distingan de los animales. La palabra nos caracteriza como criaturas vivas y pensantes. Sin ella seríamos brutos. Y hechos no fuimos para vivir como brutos, tal y como quisiera Heliogábalo. 13. Porque el silencio mata, la palabra crea. En principio era el Verbo y el Verbo era la Vida. Y esto es el Evangelio. 14. Yo hablo porque existo. Cuando mi garganta esté llena de tierra dejaré de hablar. Entonces será el silencio. Me aguarda una eternidad de silencio, pero antes de que llegue el silencio eterno quiero usar mi voz. Mi palabra. 15. Yo hablo porque soy un escritor. La escritura es mi voz. Un escritor que no habla no es un escritor. No es nada. ¿Quieren llenar mi garganta de tierra? Se equivocan. 16. Pero vosotros también debéis hablar. Porque todos debemos hablar. Para eso nos hizo la Naturaleza criaturas humanas. Con que digáis un solo 'NO', Vuestra Naturaleza Humana quedará a salvo. Si permanecéis en silencio habréis llenado vosotros mismos Vuestra boca de tierra. No seréis más que unas orejas que escuchan las pistolas catódicas de Heliogábalo. Y eso es exactamente lo que Heliogábalo quiere de Vosotros. 17. ¿Estáis seguros de que queréis delegar las pocas palabras que en la vida tenéis que decir a los recaderos de Heliogábalo que cada día os hablan desde la prensa de Heliogábalo y desde los tubos catódicos de Heliogábalo? 18. Atención: Heliogábalo está preparando una ley gracias a la cual Vuestra boca estará llena de tierra y no seréis más que unas orejas listas para recibir los mensajes de Heliogábalo. Con esta ley, será simultáneamente Vuestro Jefe político y Vuestro Jefe espiritual. En el Reino de Heliogábalo tal estratagema viene eufemísticamente llamada 'Ley sobre el conflicto de intereses'. En realidad es la ley del Silencio. Un silencio de tumba en el que sólo hablarán Heliogábalo, los mayordomos de Heliogábalo, los pregoneros de Heliogábalo, los sicofantes de Heliogábalo. 19. El Reino de Heliogábalo cumple un sueño previsto hace años en Italia por los compadres de Heliogábalo. Coged la lista de esos compadres, miráosla con atención, que quizás os topéis con alguna sorpresa. Y acaso con alguna sospecha. Porque éste es el momento de las sospechas. 20. Declaro abierta la era de la sospecha. Sospechad de todos, incluso de quien os invita a cantos de fraternidad, y sobre todo de los padres putativos. No todos son buenos carpinteros, y nunca se sabe a qué hijos pródigos pueden estar protegiendo. 21. El plan previsto hace años por los compadres de Heliogábalo se llamaba de otro modo, pero hoy podemos llamarlo 'Plan de Resurgimiento de la Mordaza'. Una mordaza que garantiza el silencio. 22. Atención. El Reino de Heliogábalo está lleno de maestros. Pequeños maestros. Se hacen pasar por buenos maestros, pero son malos, muy malos. Y conminan a los escolares. 23. Atención: El arte de callar ya lo conoció el Reino de Heliogábalo entre 1922 y 1945. Es una vieja práctica, típica de cualquier régimen. Se llama práctica de los enebros fragantes. En Italia, los Gramáticos de los enebros fragantes han empezado a dictar sus decálogos: 'Esto es meritorio de literatura, esto no es meritorio'. Atención, esos Gramáticos son peligrosos: estableciendo arbitrariamente jerarquías enuncian un principio de censura. Y la literatura, por el contrario, es ancha como la Vida, y no exige carta de crédito alguna: en ella caben tanto el noble suicidio del joven Werther como los calzones remendados del travieso Gavroque, el Paraíso de Dante junto al pajarillo de Catullo, los Himnos a la noche de Hölderlin como los proverbios de los Malavoglia y la Oda a la zanahoria de Neruda. Porque, como dijo un gran poeta, todo vale la pena si el alma no es angosta. Y a eso sirve la Palabra: a decir que el alma no es angosta. 24. Me acuerdo de Caserio. Me acuerdo de Sacco y Vanzetti. Me acuerdo de Valpreda. Me acuerdo de Pinelli. Recuerdo todo lo que ha sucedido en Italia en la posguerra y también durante la guerra. Los repubblichini de Mussolini eran colaboracionistas de los nazis. Mataban y torturaban. Lo sé, lo sabe mi familia y tengo documentos. Quienes dicen que eran 'muchachos de Saló' que luchaban en cualquier caso por el honor de la Patria, mienten, sostienen una falsedad histórica. Es necesario contradecirles. Para contradecirles hay que hablar. Porque quien calla otorga. 25. Un semiólogo, hace años, ridiculizó a un pobre presentador de televisión que parecía haberse convertido en el dueño de las noches de los italianos, trazando su fenomenología. Y yo pregunto: ¿será posible que no haya ningún doctor, hoy, en el Reino de Heliogábalo, que pueda trazar una fenomenología de Heliogábalo? El material, desde luego, no falta, desde los numerosos gestos briosos de Heliogábalo a su foto-biografía en colores. Resultaría un trabajo algo más arriesgado, pero sin duda de gran utilidad para todos nosotros. ¿Hay alguien que posea las palabras apropiadas para decirlo? 26. Mandar al diablo a todos aquellos que aman apelarse al silencio o que se muestran pesimistas sería demasiado fácil. Por desgracia soy mucho más pesimista de lo que parece: soy un falso optimista. He leído a Voltaire mucho antes de esos revolucionarios que estaban en las barricadas haciendo una revolución que después no llegó. Perdonadme, soy un intelectual burgués. Llevo en el corazón la Palabra. 27. En Italia ya no se quiere meter tierra en la boca solamente a quienes usan todavía la Palabra, a los escritores. Se quiere llenar de tierra la voz de la Historia también. 28. Ha escrito el Grande Escritor de Praga: 'Escribir significa dar un salto más allá del círculo de los asesinos'. 29. Ciudadanos: hablar significa dar un salto más allá del círculo de quien quiere estrangularos. Escribid. Hablad. 30. Ciudadanos del Reino de Heliogábalo que aún creéis en la Palabra. Os han asegurado que en el Reino de Heliogábalo hay un garante que para defenderos puede firmar o no firmar la Ley de Heliogábalo. Pero sólo Vosotros sois los garantes de vuestra voz, después de lo cual vuestra boca estará llena de tierra. Si el presunto garante firma la Ley de Heliogábalo (o una parecida), sólo os queda una cosa por hacer. Por eso hago un llamamiento, dirigido a Vosotros y a todos aquellos que creen todavía en la voz humana. Porque en principio era la Palabra. Heliogábalo quiere quedársela. Es responsabilidad vuestra no dejársela. Llamamiento: Coged una fotografía tamaño carné, con vuestro nombre y dirección. Dibujad con un rotulador una mordaza sobre la boca de vuestra fotografía y mandádsela al presidente del Consejo de Europa (Consejo de Europa, Avenue de l'Europe, Palais de l'Europe, 67075 Strasburgo). No mandéis vuestra fotografía a quien no os ha servido de garante. Los centuriones de Heliogábalo dirían que no sois más que setecientos mil, como dijeron de la manifestación en la que erais tres millones el 23 marzo 2002 en Roma. Vosotros sois millones, millones de personas en el Reino de Heliogábalo amordazadas por Heliogábalo y por los garantes de Heliogábalo. Veamos lo que dirá la Europa Unida cuya Carta se funda sobre la libertad de Palabra. Hablemos, amigos, hablemos. Después vendrá el Silencio. En el Reino de Heliogábalo, a 3 de abril de 2002. Para darte de baja (UNSUBSCRIBE) envía desde tu cuenta de correo dtv@mwt.net mensaje blanco a atsyber-baja@eListas.net Para obtener ayuda escribe a ayuda@atsyber.zzn.com indicando tu correo en el subjet. (la lista at/syber es un proyecto de activismo cultural sin fines de lucro ::: realizado por óscar a. garcía ::: + info > www.oscargarcia.dot.nu) _______________________________________________________________________ MENSAJE DE ELISTAS: Si consideras eListas de utilidad y te gustaría apoyar nuestra labor, puedes hacerlo votando por eListas para el Top 3 del concurso iBest 2002 Para votar, visita http://www.elistas.net/ml/61/688486/nxu3ofu ¡¡GRACIAS POR TU APOYO!! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 14:35:53 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ian Randall Wilson Subject: Vile MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Usually I stay away from the politics here but Mr. Brink's remarks have set me off. You seem to be coming from the "my country love or leave it" school or the updated Ashcroft version which says that any kind of dissent is aiding and abetting "the enemy." We all know where the former got us. I suspect the latter is going to take us to a similar place. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 14:52:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Re: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit break even: money received from sales of titles has yet to match money expended on printing said titles salaries involved: none, i do all the work myself chapbooks are distributed through spd, & are advertised via durationpress.com (& not to be outright self-congradulatory, but is, to my mind, quite an online presence...not just for myself, but for well over 35 small presses), among other venues (when i am able, i run an ad in a journal...usually when the ad space is free)... at any rate, as i said before, you give it a shot & see how you do... ----- Original Message ----- From: "{ brad brace }" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 12:34 PM Subject: Re: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS > At 6:53 PM -0400 4/30/2, Duration Press wrote: > >... duration press has > >yet to break even after 19 titles... > > I hear this sort of logic all the time from supposedly 'non-profit' arts > groups... define "break even" please. Are there salaries involved? > > > /:b > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 11:55:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: inchoate/SEGUE {The Zombie Avant-Garde} / Jullich In-Reply-To: <81.1b1af5ad.2a013dc8@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Is Jukka-Pekka a cousin to Gutta-percha? Sheila Eats a lot of Almond-Roca, is the scuttlebutt. -- George Bowering Welcome at home. Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 13:06:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Kizershot Subject: Re: FIR8 In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit on 5/1/02 11:02 AM, kari edwards at terra1@SONIC.NET wrote: How were the readings???? xoxo julie k (gotta go do a paper now) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 12:19:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hilton Obenzinger Subject: Re: Vile In-Reply-To: <12c.10c9f59a.2a018f89@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Dear Friends, I hate my country and I'm trying to leave it but all the other countries show the same movies so there is no escape. I am the enemy and I am trying to arrest myself except that I discovered that I am not smart enough. I am anti-Israel. I am a Jew, and I have no problem with being a rootless cosmopolitan, or, as Ben-Gurion said, human dust. I love America because it is one big human dust bowl. I do not favor the Two-State Solution in the Middle East. Rather, I favor the No-State Solution. Neither side deserves a state, only a shopping center. Or if they do, it should be North Dakota. Now that my government has withdrawn from the ABM, the Kyoto Accords, the International Court, and all the rest, I have decided to withdraw from the English language. You may think you are reading English right now, but you are not. You are reading enemy propaganda. Hilton Obenzinger At 02:35 PM 5/1/2002 -0400, Ian Randall Wilson wrote: >Usually I stay away from the politics here but Mr. Brink's remarks have set >me off. You seem to be coming from the "my country love or leave it" school >or the updated Ashcroft version which says that any kind of dissent is aiding >and abetting "the enemy." > >We all know where the former got us. I suspect the latter is going to take >us to a similar place. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing Lecturer, Department of English Stanford University 650.723.0330 650.724.5400 Fax obenzinger@stanford.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 13:05:48 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: Re: Manifestoes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit how about franci ponge's 'Soap' as a manifesto. for your intellectual toilet. J ----- Original Message ----- From: "mIEKAL aND" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 12:23 PM Subject: Re: Manifestoes > on pure coincidence this manifesto just arrived in my mail a few minutes ago... > & no, I havent a clue what its about. mIEKAL > > > > Subject: > Antonio Tabucchi: Manifiesto de la Palabra > Date: > Wed, 1 May 2002 12:56:12 -0600 > From: > "[óscar a. garcía]" > To: > > > > > > MANIFIESTO DE LA PALABRA > POR ANTONIO TABUCCHI > > [Antonio Tabucchi es escritor italiano]. > > Traducción de Carlos Gumpert > > 1. Existen varias formas de dictadura. En Italia estamos ante una Dictadura > de la Palabra. > > 2. Porque la palabra es de oro. Y la posee una sola persona, un político que > es al mismo tiempo el jefe de un Gobierno y el dueño de todos los medios de > comunicación que transportan la palabra. > > 3. Italia sólo en apariencia pertenece a la democracia europea. En realidad > es una forma de gobierno oriental a la manera de Heliogábalo. En noviembre > del 2001, un semanario hizo un reportaje, a la manera de los semanarios de > Heliogábalo, titulado Escritor, ¿por qué no hablas? Parece ser el caso de > repetir la pregunta. Porque si eventualmente un escritor contradice el > estruendo ensordecedor de las palabras de Heliogábalo, he aquí que de varios > lados se alzan voces acreditadas elogiando el silencio. Son voces que dicen: > el silencio es oro. > > 4. Pero el elogio del silencio no puede hacerse con palabras. Por coherencia > debería hacerse en silencio. Quienes invocan el Silencio utilizan la > Palabra. Incluso los escritores que elogian el silencio. ¿Pero a quién piden > silencio quienes elogian el silencio? ¿Se lo piden acaso a Heliogábalo? ¿O a > los pregoneros de Heliogábalo? ¿O a los mayordomos de Heliogábalo? ¿O a los > centuriones de Heliogábalo? ¿O a las pantallas televisivas de Heliogábalo? > ¿O a los bandos impresos de Heliogábalo? No. Os lo piden a vosotros, que > habéis osado decir una palabra contra Heliogábalo y contra el imperio de > palabras de Heliogábalo. > > 5. Porque en el Reino de Heliogábalo no sólo la palabra es de oro. También > el silencio es oro. > > 6. Pero el proverbio dice que quien calla otorga. > > 7. La palabra es de oro, pero puede ser también de plomo. Se lee en el > Evangelio que ciertos individuos utilizados por el Sanedrín usaban la 'sica' > bajo la capa. La 'sica' era su instrumento de trabajo. Un puñal corto y > afilado, de golpe mortal. Bajo la capa de sus programas y de sus periódicos, > los agentes de Heliogábalo llevan palabras afiladas como 'sicas'. Pum, pum, > y estás muerto si no respetas el silencio. Palabras de plomo. > > 8. En el Reino de Heliogábalo se impone el silencio a golpes de pistola > catódica. > > 9. Ojo: ¿que has dicho una palabra contra el Reino de Heliogábalo? El > pregonero de Heliogábalo, en su programa televisivo, afirmará que estás de > parte de los terroristas. Un golpe de pistola catódica disparado como el > aguijón de una avispa. Avispa mortal. > > 10. Heliogábalo es feroz. Dispara. Y sobre todo ordena que se disparen > pistolas catódicas. Me pregunto: ¿es justo callar ante las pistolas > catódicas de Heliogábalo? > > 11. Cito de una enciclopedia médica: 'Laringe: Órgano hueco semirrígido, > formado por una serie de cartílagos unidos entre sí por ligamentos y > músculos. Sus funciones principales son: 1) la respiración; 2) la fonación, > es decir, la formación de sonidos, determinados por la contracción de los > músculos llamados cuerdas vocales'. > > 12. La fonación, es decir, el habla, es la facultad con la que la Naturaleza > (Dios, para quien lo prefiera) ha dotado a los hombres con el objeto de que > se distingan de los animales. La palabra nos caracteriza como criaturas > vivas y pensantes. Sin ella seríamos brutos. Y hechos no fuimos para vivir > como brutos, tal y como quisiera Heliogábalo. > > 13. Porque el silencio mata, la palabra crea. En principio era el Verbo y el > Verbo era la Vida. Y esto es el Evangelio. > > 14. Yo hablo porque existo. Cuando mi garganta esté llena de tierra dejaré > de hablar. Entonces será el silencio. Me aguarda una eternidad de silencio, > pero antes de que llegue el silencio eterno quiero usar mi voz. Mi palabra. > > 15. Yo hablo porque soy un escritor. La escritura es mi voz. Un escritor que > no habla no es un escritor. No es nada. ¿Quieren llenar mi garganta de > tierra? Se equivocan. > > 16. Pero vosotros también debéis hablar. Porque todos debemos hablar. Para > eso nos hizo la Naturaleza criaturas humanas. Con que digáis un solo 'NO', > Vuestra Naturaleza Humana quedará a salvo. Si permanecéis en silencio > habréis llenado vosotros mismos Vuestra boca de tierra. No seréis más que > unas orejas que escuchan las pistolas catódicas de Heliogábalo. Y eso es > exactamente lo que Heliogábalo quiere de Vosotros. > > 17. ¿Estáis seguros de que queréis delegar las pocas palabras que en la vida > tenéis que decir a los recaderos de Heliogábalo que cada día os hablan desde > la prensa de Heliogábalo y desde los tubos catódicos de Heliogábalo? > > 18. Atención: Heliogábalo está preparando una ley gracias a la cual Vuestra > boca estará llena de tierra y no seréis más que unas orejas listas para > recibir los mensajes de Heliogábalo. Con esta ley, será simultáneamente > Vuestro Jefe político y Vuestro Jefe espiritual. En el Reino de Heliogábalo > tal estratagema viene eufemísticamente llamada 'Ley sobre el conflicto de > intereses'. En realidad es la ley del Silencio. Un silencio de tumba en el > que sólo hablarán Heliogábalo, los mayordomos de Heliogábalo, los pregoneros > de Heliogábalo, los sicofantes de Heliogábalo. > > 19. El Reino de Heliogábalo cumple un sueño previsto hace años en Italia por > los compadres de Heliogábalo. Coged la lista de esos compadres, miráosla con > atención, que quizás os topéis con alguna sorpresa. Y acaso con alguna > sospecha. Porque éste es el momento de las sospechas. > > 20. Declaro abierta la era de la sospecha. Sospechad de todos, incluso de > quien os invita a cantos de fraternidad, y sobre todo de los padres > putativos. No todos son buenos carpinteros, y nunca se sabe a qué hijos > pródigos pueden estar protegiendo. > > 21. El plan previsto hace años por los compadres de Heliogábalo se llamaba > de otro modo, pero hoy podemos llamarlo 'Plan de Resurgimiento de la > Mordaza'. Una mordaza que garantiza el silencio. > > 22. Atención. El Reino de Heliogábalo está lleno de maestros. Pequeños > maestros. Se hacen pasar por buenos maestros, pero son malos, muy malos. Y > conminan a los escolares. > > 23. Atención: El arte de callar ya lo conoció el Reino de Heliogábalo entre > 1922 y 1945. Es una vieja práctica, típica de cualquier régimen. Se llama > práctica de los enebros fragantes. En Italia, los Gramáticos de los enebros > fragantes han empezado a dictar sus decálogos: 'Esto es meritorio de > literatura, esto no es meritorio'. Atención, esos Gramáticos son peligrosos: > estableciendo arbitrariamente jerarquías enuncian un principio de censura. Y > la literatura, por el contrario, es ancha como la Vida, y no exige carta de > crédito alguna: en ella caben tanto el noble suicidio del joven Werther como > los calzones remendados del travieso Gavroque, el Paraíso de Dante junto al > pajarillo de Catullo, los Himnos a la noche de Hölderlin como los proverbios > de los Malavoglia y la Oda a la zanahoria de Neruda. Porque, como dijo un > gran poeta, todo vale la pena si el alma no es angosta. Y a eso sirve la > Palabra: a decir que el alma no es angosta. > > 24. Me acuerdo de Caserio. Me acuerdo de Sacco y Vanzetti. Me acuerdo de > Valpreda. Me acuerdo de Pinelli. Recuerdo todo lo que ha sucedido en Italia > en la posguerra y también durante la guerra. Los repubblichini de Mussolini > eran colaboracionistas de los nazis. Mataban y torturaban. Lo sé, lo sabe mi > familia y tengo documentos. Quienes dicen que eran 'muchachos de Saló' que > luchaban en cualquier caso por el honor de la Patria, mienten, sostienen una > falsedad histórica. Es necesario contradecirles. Para contradecirles hay que > hablar. Porque quien calla otorga. > > 25. Un semiólogo, hace años, ridiculizó a un pobre presentador de televisión > que parecía haberse convertido en el dueño de las noches de los italianos, > trazando su fenomenología. Y yo pregunto: ¿será posible que no haya ningún > doctor, hoy, en el Reino de Heliogábalo, que pueda trazar una fenomenología > de Heliogábalo? El material, desde luego, no falta, desde los numerosos > gestos briosos de Heliogábalo a su foto-biografía en colores. Resultaría un > trabajo algo más arriesgado, pero sin duda de gran utilidad para todos > nosotros. ¿Hay alguien que posea las palabras apropiadas para decirlo? > > 26. Mandar al diablo a todos aquellos que aman apelarse al silencio o que se > muestran pesimistas sería demasiado fácil. Por desgracia soy mucho más > pesimista de lo que parece: soy un falso optimista. He leído a Voltaire > mucho antes de esos revolucionarios que estaban en las barricadas haciendo > una revolución que después no llegó. Perdonadme, soy un intelectual burgués. > Llevo en el corazón la Palabra. > > 27. En Italia ya no se quiere meter tierra en la boca solamente a quienes > usan todavía la Palabra, a los escritores. Se quiere llenar de tierra la voz > de la Historia también. > > 28. Ha escrito el Grande Escritor de Praga: 'Escribir significa dar un salto > más allá del círculo de los asesinos'. > > 29. Ciudadanos: hablar significa dar un salto más allá del círculo de quien > quiere estrangularos. Escribid. Hablad. > > 30. Ciudadanos del Reino de Heliogábalo que aún creéis en la Palabra. Os han > asegurado que en el Reino de Heliogábalo hay un garante que para defenderos > puede firmar o no firmar la Ley de Heliogábalo. Pero sólo Vosotros sois los > garantes de vuestra voz, después de lo cual vuestra boca estará llena de > tierra. Si el presunto garante firma la Ley de Heliogábalo (o una parecida), > sólo os queda una cosa por hacer. Por eso hago un llamamiento, dirigido a > Vosotros y a todos aquellos que creen todavía en la voz humana. Porque en > principio era la Palabra. Heliogábalo quiere quedársela. Es responsabilidad > vuestra no dejársela. > > Llamamiento: Coged una fotografía tamaño carné, con vuestro nombre y > dirección. Dibujad con un rotulador una mordaza sobre la boca de vuestra > fotografía y mandádsela al presidente del Consejo de Europa (Consejo de > Europa, Avenue de l'Europe, Palais de l'Europe, 67075 Strasburgo). No > mandéis vuestra fotografía a quien no os ha servido de garante. Los > centuriones de Heliogábalo dirían que no sois más que setecientos mil, como > dijeron de la manifestación en la que erais tres millones el 23 marzo 2002 > en Roma. Vosotros sois millones, millones de personas en el Reino de > Heliogábalo amordazadas por Heliogábalo y por los garantes de Heliogábalo. > Veamos lo que dirá la Europa Unida cuya Carta se funda sobre la libertad de > Palabra. Hablemos, amigos, hablemos. Después vendrá el Silencio. > > En el Reino de Heliogábalo, a 3 de abril de 2002. > > > Para darte de baja (UNSUBSCRIBE) envía desde tu cuenta de correo dtv@mwt.net > mensaje blanco a atsyber-baja@eListas.net > Para obtener ayuda escribe a ayuda@atsyber.zzn.com indicando tu correo en el > subjet. > > > (la lista at/syber es un proyecto de activismo cultural sin fines de lucro ::: > realizado por óscar a. garcía ::: + info > www.oscargarcia.dot.nu) > > > _______________________________________________________________________ > MENSAJE DE ELISTAS: > Si consideras eListas de utilidad y te gustaría apoyar nuestra labor, > puedes hacerlo votando por eListas para el Top 3 del concurso iBest 2002 > Para votar, visita http://www.elistas.net/ml/61/688486/nxu3ofu > ¡¡GRACIAS POR TU APOYO!! > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 15:42:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: On moderation Comments: cc: KJOHNSON@hccstudent.highland.cc.il.us MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Apropos my last message on the issue of moderation, I forward the following from Kent Johnson in the interests of discussion... joe brennan In a message dated 05/01/2002 2:34:15 PM Eastern Daylight Time, KJOHNSON@hccstudent.highland.cc.il.us writes: > Hello Joe, > > Nice post, that last one. Care to test the waters and send this in? > Timely, perhaps. Henry has seen it and agrees it's a good idea. > > Kent > ** > > Chris Alexander's recent post regarding moderation, post limits, > and the punitive consequences of flaming begs the question: If > these measures of control are in place, what reason could there be > --short of personal vindictiveness-- for continuing to exclude the four > poets expelled from the list in 1998-99? > [for those of you not familiar with these events, please see "Buffalo > '99" > http://www.flashpointmag.com/skanky.htm > for one perspective] > > Now, whether the expulsion of these writers was justified or not is > an issue historians of poetry listservs can debate in the future > (should such an esoteric field ever come into being). But the > persistence of a censorial ban on blacklisted writers is simply > illogical in light of administrative safeguards that effectively make > intentional provocation and disruption impossible. Clearly, the four > writers in question (each of whom often contributed in thoughtful, > serious, or good-humored ways to discussions before the list's > temporary closure) could, like anyone else engaging in flame-like > behaviour, be given a warning and, if necessary, promptly removed. > > So why continue to manage a poetry list under policies of selective > exclusion? Is this consistent with the image a poetic avant-garde > that has widely proclaimed the principles of democratic and critical > thought ought to promote? And one could further ask: Given the > considerable time that has passed, and given that there are many > who feel the exclusions were unethical (and motivated to some > extent by the desire to rein-in the free flow of critical, sometimes > contentious discourse around Langpo theory and practice), why not > erase the lingering taint by ending the ban and moving (as those > who were expelled *have* via back channel communications) > toward a sense of rapprochement? > > Speaking from an enforced "outside," I'd suggest, and sadly, that > there appears to be at Poetics a kind of generalized self-policing > vis a vis the issue of administered censorship of the list (I use that > word purposefully because the exclusion of poets from a forum of > discussion and debate, whether "private" or not, is unmediated > censorship). But this is something that really should be actively > challenged by members of Poetics. In the end, the nature of the > issues involved have much to do, melodramatic as it may sound, > with principles that are essential to the development of poetry's full > health and spirit. > > Kent > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 15:46:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Re: Manifestoes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit pierre joris's nomad manifesto, habib tengour's maghrebian surrealism... ----- Original Message ----- From: "jason christie" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 3:05 PM Subject: Re: Manifestoes > how about franci ponge's 'Soap' as a manifesto. for your intellectual > toilet. > > J > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "mIEKAL aND" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 12:23 PM > Subject: Re: Manifestoes > > > > on pure coincidence this manifesto just arrived in my mail a few minutes > ago... > > & no, I havent a clue what its about. mIEKAL > > > > > > > > Subject: > > Antonio Tabucchi: Manifiesto de la Palabra > > Date: > > Wed, 1 May 2002 12:56:12 -0600 > > From: > > "[óscar a. garcía]" > > To: > > > > > > > > > > > > MANIFIESTO DE LA PALABRA > > POR ANTONIO TABUCCHI > > > > [Antonio Tabucchi es escritor italiano]. > > > > Traducción de Carlos Gumpert > > > > 1. Existen varias formas de dictadura. En Italia estamos ante una > Dictadura > > de la Palabra. > > > > 2. Porque la palabra es de oro. Y la posee una sola persona, un político > que > > es al mismo tiempo el jefe de un Gobierno y el dueño de todos los medios > de > > comunicación que transportan la palabra. > > > > 3. Italia sólo en apariencia pertenece a la democracia europea. En > realidad > > es una forma de gobierno oriental a la manera de Heliogábalo. En noviembre > > del 2001, un semanario hizo un reportaje, a la manera de los semanarios de > > Heliogábalo, titulado Escritor, ¿por qué no hablas? Parece ser el caso de > > repetir la pregunta. Porque si eventualmente un escritor contradice el > > estruendo ensordecedor de las palabras de Heliogábalo, he aquí que de > varios > > lados se alzan voces acreditadas elogiando el silencio. Son voces que > dicen: > > el silencio es oro. > > > > 4. Pero el elogio del silencio no puede hacerse con palabras. Por > coherencia > > debería hacerse en silencio. Quienes invocan el Silencio utilizan la > > Palabra. Incluso los escritores que elogian el silencio. ¿Pero a quién > piden > > silencio quienes elogian el silencio? ¿Se lo piden acaso a Heliogábalo? ¿O > a > > los pregoneros de Heliogábalo? ¿O a los mayordomos de Heliogábalo? ¿O a > los > > centuriones de Heliogábalo? ¿O a las pantallas televisivas de Heliogábalo? > > ¿O a los bandos impresos de Heliogábalo? No. Os lo piden a vosotros, que > > habéis osado decir una palabra contra Heliogábalo y contra el imperio de > > palabras de Heliogábalo. > > > > 5. Porque en el Reino de Heliogábalo no sólo la palabra es de oro. También > > el silencio es oro. > > > > 6. Pero el proverbio dice que quien calla otorga. > > > > 7. La palabra es de oro, pero puede ser también de plomo. Se lee en el > > Evangelio que ciertos individuos utilizados por el Sanedrín usaban la > 'sica' > > bajo la capa. La 'sica' era su instrumento de trabajo. Un puñal corto y > > afilado, de golpe mortal. Bajo la capa de sus programas y de sus > periódicos, > > los agentes de Heliogábalo llevan palabras afiladas como 'sicas'. Pum, > pum, > > y estás muerto si no respetas el silencio. Palabras de plomo. > > > > 8. En el Reino de Heliogábalo se impone el silencio a golpes de pistola > > catódica. > > > > 9. Ojo: ¿que has dicho una palabra contra el Reino de Heliogábalo? El > > pregonero de Heliogábalo, en su programa televisivo, afirmará que estás de > > parte de los terroristas. Un golpe de pistola catódica disparado como el > > aguijón de una avispa. Avispa mortal. > > > > 10. Heliogábalo es feroz. Dispara. Y sobre todo ordena que se disparen > > pistolas catódicas. Me pregunto: ¿es justo callar ante las pistolas > > catódicas de Heliogábalo? > > > > 11. Cito de una enciclopedia médica: 'Laringe: Órgano hueco semirrígido, > > formado por una serie de cartílagos unidos entre sí por ligamentos y > > músculos. Sus funciones principales son: 1) la respiración; 2) la > fonación, > > es decir, la formación de sonidos, determinados por la contracción de los > > músculos llamados cuerdas vocales'. > > > > 12. La fonación, es decir, el habla, es la facultad con la que la > Naturaleza > > (Dios, para quien lo prefiera) ha dotado a los hombres con el objeto de > que > > se distingan de los animales. La palabra nos caracteriza como criaturas > > vivas y pensantes. Sin ella seríamos brutos. Y hechos no fuimos para vivir > > como brutos, tal y como quisiera Heliogábalo. > > > > 13. Porque el silencio mata, la palabra crea. En principio era el Verbo y > el > > Verbo era la Vida. Y esto es el Evangelio. > > > > 14. Yo hablo porque existo. Cuando mi garganta esté llena de tierra dejaré > > de hablar. Entonces será el silencio. Me aguarda una eternidad de > silencio, > > pero antes de que llegue el silencio eterno quiero usar mi voz. Mi > palabra. > > > > 15. Yo hablo porque soy un escritor. La escritura es mi voz. Un escritor > que > > no habla no es un escritor. No es nada. ¿Quieren llenar mi garganta de > > tierra? Se equivocan. > > > > 16. Pero vosotros también debéis hablar. Porque todos debemos hablar. Para > > eso nos hizo la Naturaleza criaturas humanas. Con que digáis un solo 'NO', > > Vuestra Naturaleza Humana quedará a salvo. Si permanecéis en silencio > > habréis llenado vosotros mismos Vuestra boca de tierra. No seréis más que > > unas orejas que escuchan las pistolas catódicas de Heliogábalo. Y eso es > > exactamente lo que Heliogábalo quiere de Vosotros. > > > > 17. ¿Estáis seguros de que queréis delegar las pocas palabras que en la > vida > > tenéis que decir a los recaderos de Heliogábalo que cada día os hablan > desde > > la prensa de Heliogábalo y desde los tubos catódicos de Heliogábalo? > > > > 18. Atención: Heliogábalo está preparando una ley gracias a la cual > Vuestra > > boca estará llena de tierra y no seréis más que unas orejas listas para > > recibir los mensajes de Heliogábalo. Con esta ley, será simultáneamente > > Vuestro Jefe político y Vuestro Jefe espiritual. En el Reino de > Heliogábalo > > tal estratagema viene eufemísticamente llamada 'Ley sobre el conflicto de > > intereses'. En realidad es la ley del Silencio. Un silencio de tumba en el > > que sólo hablarán Heliogábalo, los mayordomos de Heliogábalo, los > pregoneros > > de Heliogábalo, los sicofantes de Heliogábalo. > > > > 19. El Reino de Heliogábalo cumple un sueño previsto hace años en Italia > por > > los compadres de Heliogábalo. Coged la lista de esos compadres, miráosla > con > > atención, que quizás os topéis con alguna sorpresa. Y acaso con alguna > > sospecha. Porque éste es el momento de las sospechas. > > > > 20. Declaro abierta la era de la sospecha. Sospechad de todos, incluso de > > quien os invita a cantos de fraternidad, y sobre todo de los padres > > putativos. No todos son buenos carpinteros, y nunca se sabe a qué hijos > > pródigos pueden estar protegiendo. > > > > 21. El plan previsto hace años por los compadres de Heliogábalo se llamaba > > de otro modo, pero hoy podemos llamarlo 'Plan de Resurgimiento de la > > Mordaza'. Una mordaza que garantiza el silencio. > > > > 22. Atención. El Reino de Heliogábalo está lleno de maestros. Pequeños > > maestros. Se hacen pasar por buenos maestros, pero son malos, muy malos. Y > > conminan a los escolares. > > > > 23. Atención: El arte de callar ya lo conoció el Reino de Heliogábalo > entre > > 1922 y 1945. Es una vieja práctica, típica de cualquier régimen. Se llama > > práctica de los enebros fragantes. En Italia, los Gramáticos de los > enebros > > fragantes han empezado a dictar sus decálogos: 'Esto es meritorio de > > literatura, esto no es meritorio'. Atención, esos Gramáticos son > peligrosos: > > estableciendo arbitrariamente jerarquías enuncian un principio de censura. > Y > > la literatura, por el contrario, es ancha como la Vida, y no exige carta > de > > crédito alguna: en ella caben tanto el noble suicidio del joven Werther > como > > los calzones remendados del travieso Gavroque, el Paraíso de Dante junto > al > > pajarillo de Catullo, los Himnos a la noche de Hölderlin como los > proverbios > > de los Malavoglia y la Oda a la zanahoria de Neruda. Porque, como dijo un > > gran poeta, todo vale la pena si el alma no es angosta. Y a eso sirve la > > Palabra: a decir que el alma no es angosta. > > > > 24. Me acuerdo de Caserio. Me acuerdo de Sacco y Vanzetti. Me acuerdo de > > Valpreda. Me acuerdo de Pinelli. Recuerdo todo lo que ha sucedido en > Italia > > en la posguerra y también durante la guerra. Los repubblichini de > Mussolini > > eran colaboracionistas de los nazis. Mataban y torturaban. Lo sé, lo sabe > mi > > familia y tengo documentos. Quienes dicen que eran 'muchachos de Saló' que > > luchaban en cualquier caso por el honor de la Patria, mienten, sostienen > una > > falsedad histórica. Es necesario contradecirles. Para contradecirles hay > que > > hablar. Porque quien calla otorga. > > > > 25. Un semiólogo, hace años, ridiculizó a un pobre presentador de > televisión > > que parecía haberse convertido en el dueño de las noches de los italianos, > > trazando su fenomenología. Y yo pregunto: ¿será posible que no haya ningún > > doctor, hoy, en el Reino de Heliogábalo, que pueda trazar una > fenomenología > > de Heliogábalo? El material, desde luego, no falta, desde los numerosos > > gestos briosos de Heliogábalo a su foto-biografía en colores. Resultaría > un > > trabajo algo más arriesgado, pero sin duda de gran utilidad para todos > > nosotros. ¿Hay alguien que posea las palabras apropiadas para decirlo? > > > > 26. Mandar al diablo a todos aquellos que aman apelarse al silencio o que > se > > muestran pesimistas sería demasiado fácil. Por desgracia soy mucho más > > pesimista de lo que parece: soy un falso optimista. He leído a Voltaire > > mucho antes de esos revolucionarios que estaban en las barricadas haciendo > > una revolución que después no llegó. Perdonadme, soy un intelectual > burgués. > > Llevo en el corazón la Palabra. > > > > 27. En Italia ya no se quiere meter tierra en la boca solamente a quienes > > usan todavía la Palabra, a los escritores. Se quiere llenar de tierra la > voz > > de la Historia también. > > > > 28. Ha escrito el Grande Escritor de Praga: 'Escribir significa dar un > salto > > más allá del círculo de los asesinos'. > > > > 29. Ciudadanos: hablar significa dar un salto más allá del círculo de > quien > > quiere estrangularos. Escribid. Hablad. > > > > 30. Ciudadanos del Reino de Heliogábalo que aún creéis en la Palabra. Os > han > > asegurado que en el Reino de Heliogábalo hay un garante que para > defenderos > > puede firmar o no firmar la Ley de Heliogábalo. Pero sólo Vosotros sois > los > > garantes de vuestra voz, después de lo cual vuestra boca estará llena de > > tierra. Si el presunto garante firma la Ley de Heliogábalo (o una > parecida), > > sólo os queda una cosa por hacer. Por eso hago un llamamiento, dirigido a > > Vosotros y a todos aquellos que creen todavía en la voz humana. Porque en > > principio era la Palabra. Heliogábalo quiere quedársela. Es > responsabilidad > > vuestra no dejársela. > > > > Llamamiento: Coged una fotografía tamaño carné, con vuestro nombre y > > dirección. Dibujad con un rotulador una mordaza sobre la boca de vuestra > > fotografía y mandádsela al presidente del Consejo de Europa (Consejo de > > Europa, Avenue de l'Europe, Palais de l'Europe, 67075 Strasburgo). No > > mandéis vuestra fotografía a quien no os ha servido de garante. Los > > centuriones de Heliogábalo dirían que no sois más que setecientos mil, > como > > dijeron de la manifestación en la que erais tres millones el 23 marzo 2002 > > en Roma. Vosotros sois millones, millones de personas en el Reino de > > Heliogábalo amordazadas por Heliogábalo y por los garantes de Heliogábalo. > > Veamos lo que dirá la Europa Unida cuya Carta se funda sobre la libertad > de > > Palabra. Hablemos, amigos, hablemos. Después vendrá el Silencio. > > > > En el Reino de Heliogábalo, a 3 de abril de 2002. > > > > > > Para darte de baja (UNSUBSCRIBE) envía desde tu cuenta de correo > dtv@mwt.net > > mensaje blanco a atsyber-baja@eListas.net > > Para obtener ayuda escribe a ayuda@atsyber.zzn.com indicando tu correo en > el > > subjet. > > > > > > (la lista at/syber es un proyecto de activismo cultural sin fines de lucro > ::: > > realizado por óscar a. garcía ::: + info > www.oscargarcia.dot.nu) > > > > > > _______________________________________________________________________ > > MENSAJE DE ELISTAS: > > Si consideras eListas de utilidad y te gustaría apoyar nuestra labor, > > puedes hacerlo votando por eListas para el Top 3 del concurso iBest 2002 > > Para votar, visita http://www.elistas.net/ml/61/688486/nxu3ofu > > ¡¡GRACIAS POR TU APOYO!! > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 16:09:00 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ian Randall Wilson Subject: Call For Submissions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For those submitting named Brace, we have some additional requirements: 1) Please submit in triplicate but make the third copy in invisible ink. 2) Send one to our secret bunk outside of Graceland, the second to our spirit guide who will contact you directly and maintain the third for your records. 3) If it's Tuesday and your mss does not arrive before noon we will not be able to consider it until the coming of the next vernal equinox. 4) If a suitable period of time has passed without a response, please resend but reverse the above order. 5) You must pay us in french fries which must be specifically purchased from the Tommy's #8 at the corner of Sepulveda and Santa Monica in West Los Angeles -- and they must still be warm. 6) 7) Please see 6. 8) No doubt whatever you write will not be right for us at this time but we will no doubt wish you the best of luck with your future publication efforts whenever and wherever they should occur. The Editors ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 14:19:18 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: letting bygones... In-Reply-To: <1238011.3229166803@ny-chicagost2b-3.buf.adelphia.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" i've thought hard about whether to post this to the list, but what the hell: all things said and done, i thought i might register a public vote of confidence at this point as to permitting the four former poetics listmembers to resub... i don't wish to find mself, again, in the middle of some raging debate... i'm simply saying that for my part, whatever may have transpired in the past---and whatever my opinions/feelings about what may have transpired (re which, mea culpa)---i think that henry, kent, carlo and gabe ought to be permitted back onto the list, letting bygones be bygones (with a better outcome this time 'round, i trust)... and i trust this gesture on my part isn't interpreted by anyone as an about-face re my continuing friendships with chris alexander, joel kuszai, or charles bernstein, each of whom is near and dear to me (and i'm hoping too that i'm not disappointing anyone by going public with my feelings here)... i'm also not certain that opening the door to these four subscribers will necessarily be greeted by their return... but all things said and done, i think that door should now be opened, in good faith... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 16:34:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: FlarF Manifesto Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed \ | | | / -- "pUCkER UP FoR mORE PATCHOULI" -- / | | | \ _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 16:46:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Levy Subject: [PhillyTalks/Slought] Cabri and Levy in Conversation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Slought Networks inaugurates a series of one-hour conversations with figures in the arts. Transcripts will be periodically released online. Available conversations include: 1. Louis Cabri and Aaron Levy On the Event, the Real-Time Image, the Archive, and Other PhillyTalks Matters 2. Osvaldo Romberg and Aaron Levy On Art and Archiving 3. Robert Whitehead and Aaron Levy On Confrontational Theater -------------------------------------------------- http://slought.net/toc/publications/conversations/ Conversation #1, above, is cross-posted at: http://phillytalks.org/extensions.php ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 19:47:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: letting bygones... MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I wouldn't think they would want to - they've apparently derived a great deal of publicity out of their interpretaions ofthe 'incident' and have developed an expertise in sowing dissent and acrimony on other lists. This comment does not reflect on all four, however. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joe Amato" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 3:19 PM Subject: letting bygones... > i've thought hard about whether to post this to the list, but what the hell: > > all things said and done, i thought i might register a public vote of > confidence at this point as to permitting the four former poetics > listmembers to resub... i don't wish to find mself, again, in the > middle of some raging debate... i'm simply saying that for my part, > whatever may have transpired in the past---and whatever my > opinions/feelings about what may have transpired (re which, mea > culpa)---i think that henry, kent, carlo and gabe ought to be > permitted back onto the list, letting bygones be bygones (with a > better outcome this time 'round, i trust)... and i trust this gesture > on my part isn't interpreted by anyone as an about-face re my > continuing friendships with chris alexander, joel kuszai, or charles > bernstein, each of whom is near and dear to me (and i'm hoping too > that i'm not disappointing anyone by going public with my feelings > here)... i'm also not certain that opening the door to these four > subscribers will necessarily be greeted by their return... > > but all things said and done, i think that door should now be opened, > in good faith... > > best, > > joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 15:51:44 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Rathmann Subject: Re: Manifestos Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" You know a thing is moribund when it gets taught in college seminars and reprinted in college anthologies -- especially if the thing was meant for seminars and anthologies all along, as would seem to be often the case today. Here's an observation (or is it a manifesto): Academics love thinking of literature in terms of avant-gardes and manifestos, notions that went out of date in 1914. The rhetoric of avant-gardism visibly infects their own discourse, as when some stupid article in _Critical Inquiry_ is described as "insurgent," "interventionist," etc. In the 1980s and 1990s, Language writers tapped into this academic romance and profited by it (i.e., they got teaching jobs, _My Life_ became a best-seller, etc.). But this academic love of all-things-insurgent has pauperized advanced poetry criticism and spawned a bunch of little dictators (I mean, like Chaplin). We need to get away from the academic terms of analysis. (N.B., I speak as someone who owns the Black Sparrow reprints of both BLAST I and II.) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 18:36:16 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Re: Manifesti In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII a manifesto, if you will poetry is the real thing. i'm not sure why people have always felt threatened by the dreamers. it doesn't fit into our post enlightment 'reason beyond anything' paradigm. concepts such as truth, justice and love thy brother are not rational but that does not make them irrational. just a rational. beyond( and i would argue, transcendent of) reason. we are so much slaves to binary thinking. black white yes no good bad . why are we afraid of colour ? what is it about borderblur that frightens us? we want things to fit into neat little boxes. is this why plato wanted to get rid of the artists? they had the audacity to think in new ways. in places like harris' onterrible we must be x-tra vigilant. failure to see the work of poets as real may only be a symptom of the effects of the anesthesia that the rhythm of reason has become. kevin hehir ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 17:20:24 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: inchoate/SEGUE {The Zombie Avant-Garde} / Jullich In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In the company of Gaudier-Breska no doubt At 11:55 AM -0700 5/1/02, George Bowering wrote: >>Is Jukka-Pekka a cousin to Gutta-percha? Sheila > >Eats a lot of Almond-Roca, is the scuttlebutt. >-- >George Bowering >Welcome at home. >Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 18:54:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: Call For Submissions In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Ian Randall Wilson writes: snip I Reply: I've started to write on this thread several times, each time deleting it. And now it seems I don't need to reply at all, for Ian has pretty much said it all. And a good thing too, because I couldn't quite get myself out of knee-jerk reaction mode anyway . . . --JGallaher ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 19:00:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: letting bygones... In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Joe Amato says: < i thought i might register a public vote of confidence at this point as to permitting the four former poetics listmembers to resub...> I reply: OK, so I've no idea what any of this is about. Someone want to tell me? Either way, I'm usually all for making peace. I mean, I'm even talking to my father again . . . and if I can do that . . . Ya know? --JGallaher ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 17:10:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Elena Caballero-Robb Subject: Re: Manifestoes In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Also "For the Etruscans" in Rachel Blau DuPlessis's _The Pink Guitar_ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 20:15:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: Rules In-Reply-To: <5.0.1.4.2.20020422142355.00b19568@mail.wayne.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable BY REQUEST of a subscriber: =20 * The email must be in plain text, not in HTML or in some other format that is not accessible by all list members. =20 * The posting can have no attachments. This includes an HTML version of the email, signatures included as MIME attachments, or other documents included as additional information. =20 * Replies should not blindly quote an entire post. You need to edit the original post to only quote relevant pieces and put your comments in context. Think twice before posting copyrighted material to the list. In general, long articles should be referenced by URI, rather than copying large portions into an email. =20 =20 All posters to the list should be able to follow these generally acceptable guidelines...=20 =20 =20 =20 =20 =09 =20 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 17:11:42 -0700 Reply-To: eyeple@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chuck Stebelton Subject: Chicagoans Anyone in the Chicago area planning on going up to Woodland Pattern for the Elizabeth Robinson/Stacy Szymaszek and or Lisa Samuels/Fanny Howe readings and panel this weekend, please backchannel if you would care to share a ride. I'll buy gas. Gratefully, Chuck Stebelton ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 12:38:20 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: a vile republic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Look. We're all probably a bit crazy: I dont hate "Israel" either, or Israelis, in fact my grandfather (lived in London) was (according to my Uncle) Jewish: and I was trying to verify this via Ancestry dot com. I think (he "fell out" with my father). He may have decided to "un Jew" himself as he was a kind of social climber and so on: he actually made money out of the war (part fluke part the right investments) and so on. But I was interested as we are all interested in out origins: all I could find was that (his name was Aaron Samuel Taylor) there was someone in London who got married of that name: but the Ancestry.com kept throwing me back to the United States (the British I donbt think - this is a generalisation - have this vast impulse: forgive me: its an American thing (generalisation again I know)): even the Mormons (for its they I believe who run Ancestry) aren't free from the "American disease": that said, I encounter it in New Zealand...the good and bad aspects of a kind of determined insularity: and the US is like a vast Island..here the tendency is to either reject anything from America (those often "follow" British poets with equal slavishness) or the better one is eg I think our better poets such as Smithyman and even Wystan Curnow and his father Alan are very much in NZ and "in" such places as Venice or NY: one excellent thing by his (Wystan's) has one side of the page with a dialogue and a progress up the "spiral" of the Guggenheim and the other side of the page the poem is ascending Mount Rangitoto the one in Auckland basically means Sky = rangi and toto = blood...but I think that poem/image is good: it pays homage to world culture and maoritanga (and polynesian culture as Rangitoto will be familiaras a word in possibly Hawai) and also works with language and new forms etc ...So for many even discussion of American modenism is out let alone langauge poetry etc). I dont want to tread on graves: the history of Israel is complex and fraught: butit is true that they (the Israelis) are in a land that was once not their's ...they are a disparate group from many lands and cultures: they then have pushed beyond even their original boundaries: and some of my knowledge of what goes on I got from an ex-Israeli soldier who disguised himself as a Palestinian: now this didnt condemn _everything_ about Israel (but it didnt look good either), but even he had grave doubts about the direction that Israel was taking (the book came out just prior to the first Intifada) But to get back to my own situation: I wanted to know if my grandfather was Jewish and then I would (apart from curiosity about origins) see how I felt about the Israel/Palestine situation, whether eg I still felt that suicide bonmbing (given the circumstances of the Palestinians) was/were/should be justified or at least explicable: it would certainly affect my thinking....I have no idea though: as my brother looks: well he looks Semitic: which means he could be (originated genetically) from the Middle East. But then ancestry.com a wanted money so I backed off! After all "the now" is the most important time: for now any case. I dont think we should worry what we throw at each other: I dont think any of us would actually kill either an Israeli or a Palestinian, at this stage (if the war expands we might all have to decide on that one): and my "attack" on Israel is still valid but its not anti-Jewish or even necessarily anti Israel: the bad guys I see over there are mainly the RW Israelis and the more fanatic military aggressors: the extreme Zionists. Its time now for UN intervention and a questioning of US and Israeli policy: a creation of two separate states of equal (more or less) standing... But Mr Brink has a right to speak out. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mister Kazim Ali" To: Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 3:14 AM Subject: Re: a vile republic > Mister Leonard Brink > > Sir, what planet are you from? Why would you assume > I'm a pseudonym? > > That's a particularly puzzling form of linguistic > erasure and violence. > > I'm not a pseudonym. My name is Kazim Ali. I spell out > the "mister" because I'm a punk. > > And I don't hate Israel. The signature quote at the > bottom of my post is by an Israeli poet. And what does > all that have to do with anything anyway? > > Oh and I'm an American. But why am I defending myself > to you? > > It's about affirming life, Leonard. As my fellow > patriot Suheir Hammad wrote "You are either with life > or you are against life." > > Which side are you on, Mister Brink? > > > > ===== > "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting > > behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" > > --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness > http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 14:50:47 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG)" Subject: Re: Manifestos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Questions for Andrew: You wrote: You know a thing is moribund when it gets taught in college seminars and reprinted in college anthologies -- especially if the thing was meant for seminars and anthologies all along, as would seem to be often the case today. (1) wHAT DO YOU DO FOR A JOB? (2) COLLEGE TEACHERS (i AM ONE) AIM TO MAKE READERS OF STUDENTS; art opposed to this sort of activity or how can I do this if the material I use is, by definition, 'moribund'? You wrote : In the 1980s and 1990s, Language writers tapped into this academic romance and profited by it (i.e., they got teaching jobs, (3) I thought they got married, got families, got PhDs. I spose I am wrong? _My Life_ became a best-seller, etc.) (4) What figures do you use for 'best-seller'? But this academic love of all-things-insurgent has pauperized advanced poetry criticism and spawned a bunch of little dictators (I mean, like Chaplin). We need to get away from the academic terms of analysis. (5) What do you mean by 'academic terms of analysis'? What connection, since you propose a connection, do you see between the critical writing of ('once were') language poets and academic terms of analysis? Wystan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 22:00:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kari edwards Subject: Re: FIR8 In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit unsure...I am not sure if I was grounded in the text or not or the text did not work...who knows.. k on 5/1/02 12:06 PM, Julie Kizershot at jkizershot@EARTHLINK.NET wrote: > on 5/1/02 11:02 AM, kari edwards at terra1@SONIC.NET wrote: > > > How were the readings???? > > > xoxo > > > julie k > > (gotta go do a paper now) > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 21:30:57 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: The Ejected Four MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT The reason I would vote to keep Henry Gould, for example, off this listserv, is structural, not personal. When I can choose, I am happy to read his posts in other places (there is a plethora of listservs and online venues out there). I would probably like Henry Gould very much, in person. Isn't that neat? But this is beside the point. In the past, there has been a tendency for null points (to use Barrett Watten’s brilliant term), collectively somehow generated, to dominate discussion, which means: to rhetorically temper and flatten extremes of difference, of intensity, of specificity; to narcissistically maintain a center of attention and focus despite all efforts to veer elsewhere and establish multiple points of interest by multiple participants. This null condition, when it occurs (as it will on occasion) is bearable, I personally find, so long as it remains unintended, because then, when it is brought to attention somehow, things can change. Here goes... "Henry Gould" not only articulated null points, he made them his art form, so much and with such unwavering relish, disregarding repeated warnings by posting under multiple pseudonyms upwards of ten times a day, that the entire listserv became completely and irrevocably The Null Point!! He was such a bad boy. I am not saying how I would vote if it came to "Henry Gould," for example, now, but I am saying one reason why I would vote No if it came to voting No. As to the other Ejected Four, I wasn’t around to read their posts. And since I don’t conceive of this listserv to be The be-all-and-end-all Listserv, and of the moderators as delivering commandments for all poetry time (in which case, they do indeed become Fallen Angels, unable ever to post to poetry listservs again, anywhere...but this is completely untrue), I don’t feel any ethical compunction to spend time investigating the record. Sorry! That's my initial reaction. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 22:10:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: poetry from Promised Land In-Reply-To: <003801c1f171$aa5ffb60$ab9837d2@01397384> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Listen, I must admit that I only read Rachel Tzvia Back's book of poems because she wrote a book on Susan Howe. I was just following a river to its source I guess. But it is a beautiful book with a very complicated and complex understanding of life in Israel and the West Bank. I really want to recommend it to people--no matter what the belief or opinion on current situation in Israel/Palestine. It's a testament of a human spirit. Another book I can't say enough about (and so will say not-much-about) is Mahmoud Darwish's book Memory for Forgetfulness from UC Press, a prose-memoir of the invasion of Lebanon. As predictable with Arabic prose, it pretty much defies description or genre. The translation is the only one I've ever read of Darwish that quite manages to reflect his work... Oh the Back book is called Azimuth and pub info is on my signature... ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 22:23:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Re: a vile empire MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I'm not particularly surprised by the utter lack of substance coming = from the angry mob that jumps on the bandwagon of whatever seems "avant" = at the moment, but I'm a little disturbed by the silence of 600 people = who have let the following statements go un-challenged: Saddam Hussein who seems to me to be a good guy Certainly the US funds the Israeli Nazi State=20 the United States: the most corrupt, evil,terroristic, fascist nation on = the earth --Richard Tyler (why don't Americans ever get any real news in the media?)=20 I mean, Americans just EXCEL at creating bad situations that come back and bite them in the ass... --Mister Kazim Ali the US and it=20 allies don't give a rat's ass about unspeakable acts, --Joe Brennan=20 These are the "facts" I'm supposed to counter with reason? Give me a = break. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 20:44:44 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: leftists, was a vile republic MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To be fair I attacked Israel originally: it was a bit emotive and my terminology was maybe a bit "over the top" but I did attack ... I used the term "Israeli Nazis": I know that this is pretty much "on the nose" but people know me by now: its rhetoric I use when I'm very concerned about things...it doesnt reflect the "whole truth" (wherever and whatever that is) per se: this is probably why I and others got called cretins...but that aside, I'm still concerned about the sudden "interest" in Iraq: the situation is so messy now in Palestine that one wonders who will ever gain from all this: there is a need to speak out about the Israelis but also for a _real_ intervention by the (new, revamped?) UN (a UN NOT ruled and vetted or vetoed by the big powers - the US isnt the only culprit here). The two countries may need to be forced to set up separate states: I know that the problem of Jeruslem is fraught (after all Christians and others have a strong interest there as well as the Israelis and the Palestinians)but that is the only hope after a withdrawal by the Israeli military and aid into both countries (more to Palestine) and so on. I am in this case in favour of intervention (as the - "more reasonable" Palestinians ) and some other Arab and countries (I think Greece as a "Christian country" supports the Palestinians): it isnt neccessary for suicide bombings or Israeli military strikes to happen forever: there have been great injustices: but there has to be a settlement. But I dont see the need for intervention into Iraq: aid yes. It's stupid talking about the danger of Iraq. It wont be long before every man and his dog has a nuke in their pocket: but it _is _ true , justified or not, that the US dropped the first nukes, then went on to firebomb Korea and Vietnam and so on and on and on. The US aids Israel but not South Africa or Palestine or even Afghanistan to any significant extent. However not all of what the US does is bad news and i;m not someone who automatically attacks the US (after all it is IN the US that many protests and civil rights movemnts began while other countries were stagnating) (Russia is in a sorry state, and for me personally there are many other "bad" countries....point is that we in the West have less excuses for our 'badneses'... I suppose: NZ is in a sense - well it is - allied to the US: now that would be good with a US eg under a Roosevelt or even if the liberal guy - forget his name - had got in... but right now its a worry ... but if I was madly anti-US I wouldnt be on this list...When all's said and done I am a European and much of my eculturation is (aprt from NZ) comes via Britain (the Brits need a rev up as well..... but...) and also the US..but also of course other historical connections etc...Richard. PS I;m glad you dont agree with all of (if any) of my ideas as I often disagree with them myself: but its because I hate aggression and war and hypocrisy. Hence I tend to rave...Sed, humanum est errare. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Corbett" To: Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 5:13 AM Subject: Re: leftists, was a vile republic > Leonard, > > I think what is most clear is that you have exhibited an astonishing > defensiveness. Neither Richard nor Kazim mention Israel, but you do. > More to the point, it only takes two anti-american responses to provoke > you into ad hominem (and not very graceful ad hominem) attack (not a > counter-argument). I don't know--it seems pretty pathetic to me. And > "Hazim" is currently teaching in NYC at the Asian American Writing > Workshop. "Niiice," as they used to say. > > > There are plenty of places to get your fill of patriotism. It's great that > Poetics is not one of them. > > Robert > > ps: on the side of life, in favor of Richard's fervor (if not all his > ideas), and pro-Palestinian, in case you can't infer this. > > -- > Robert Corbett "I will discuss perfidy with scholars as > rcor@u.washington.edu as if spurning kisses, I will sip > Department of English the marble marrow of empire. I want sugar > University of Washington but I shall never wear shame and if you > call that sophistry then what is Love" > - Lisa Robertson > > On Wed, 1 May 2002, Gwyn McVay wrote: > > > Dear Leonard Brinksmanship, > > > > We too sing America. > > > > Very sincerely yours, I remain > > Gwyn McVay <--- not a pseudonym > > > > > > --- > > "We share half our genome with the banana. This is more evident in some of my > > acquaintances than others." > > Sir Robert May, President of the Royal Society of London > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 20:00:21 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: Re: zaum zoom MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit couple of things that cough t my attention... what happens to a manifesto when it is owned? and plato thought poets?? distracted people from the work required for the republic because of their proximity to falsity. distant from the ideals. and since they proposed representations of real things, representations being once removed from the actual thing which is once removed from the ideal, he thought people would get caught up in a world of falsity. really the dramatists, they're the problem, but poets and dramatists.... and words, and well, there. so what happens to a manifesto when it can be owned? would we recognize a manifesto if we saw one these days? or is the genre, there, it is a genre, are they too identifiable, too exclusive, too subjective, too obvious? how to make something manifest. is it that manifested. o. look a quagmire... inderminate manifestation. binarism. look i'm a manifesto. the academy is composed of itself and its foil, in reductivist thinking. isn't this place big enough for a non-sequitur. raoul hausmann teaching the classics at whatever university. some choose column A, some choose something other than a column. some column choice and dance the way of the mongoose. this is far too serious. blast. drums and oranges. J ----- Original Message ----- From: "K.Angelo Hehir" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 3:06 PM Subject: Re: Manifesti > a manifesto, if you will > > > poetry is the > real thing. > > i'm not sure why people have always felt > > threatened by the dreamers. > it doesn't fit > into our > > post enlightment > > 'reason beyond anything' paradigm. concepts such as truth, justice and > love thy brother are not rational but that does not make them > irrational. just > a rational. > > beyond( > > and i would argue, transcendent of) reason. > > we are so > much > > slaves to binary thinking. > > black white > yes no > good bad > . why > are we > afraid of > colour ? > > > > what > > is it about > borderblur that frightens > us? > we want > > things to fit > into neat > little > > > > > boxes. > is this > > > why plato wanted to get > rid of the artists? they had the audacity to think in > new ways. in places like harris' onterrible we must > be x-tra vigilant. > failure to see > the work of poets as > real may only be a symptom of the effects of the anesthesia > that > the rhythm of reason has become. > > kevin hehir > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 20:46:47 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "B.E. Basan" Subject: Raymond Roussel Inquiry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Does anyone know where/ how to get Roussel books in translation at a = reasonable price? A friend of mine asked for info. on Roussel and, to = my embarrassment, I hadn't even heard of him (too little Foucault, I'm = told).=20 Also, any info on Roussel's poetics and/ or politics would be = appreciated.=20 Thanks! Ben Basan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 21:37:03 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "B.E. Basan" Subject: Re: Manifestoes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit How about "The Border Is.." by Gómez-Pena? It's available in *Warrior for Gringostroika* Graywolf Press? - Ben > I am planning a summer course on the manifesto genre and am looking for more > recent (post 70s) examples to include. Preferably, they will be non-outright > political (ie aesthetics) and be available in paperback. Any suggestions > will be most helpful. > > > > David Horton > Chase Park > PO Box 9136 > Oakland, CA 94613-0136 > 510-251-2297 > chasepark@hotmail.com > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: > http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 16:36:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mIEKAL aND Subject: Re: Manifestos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit The Rhodian manifesto ‘I wonder why in Rhodes they tie up their cats with string. I saw one attached to a front door-knob this morning.’ Lawrence Durrell, Reflections on a Marine Venus * WHO ARE THE RHODIANS? The Rhodians are an association of poets who do not live on the Island of Rhodes, but might like to. (The Island of Rhodes is not to be confused with Rhode Island, a small state in the USA.) THE RHODIAN CREDO Of Minimalism. The Rhodians accept a simple definition of poetry, ie.: Poetry = rhythmic/measured language. The features often attributed to poetry, such as imagination, intellect, emotion, pathos, unity of affect, knowledge, communication, dream, and so forth, are understood to be features of consciousness and language in general. Poetry bears the imprint of both consciousness and language, but its distinguishing trait is rhythm, pattern, measure. The Rhodian approach precludes tendentious, apologetic or polemical appropriations of features of general consciousness into specialized definitions of what poetry should or should not be. Rhodians believe that the compositional attributes of poems are all free additions to the simple nature of poetry so defined. Of Continuity. The Rhodians believe that poetry as an art form is distinguished by its continuity. “Poetry is avant-garde because it doesn’t change much.” Rhodians declare that each poet and each group of poet-friends is responsible for, and eligible to inherit, the bequest of past poetry in its entirety. Poetry as simply defined passes through the hands of its makers to its audience of hearers and other makers; it is molded by their personalities and the experience of their time on earth. It is a human art form, perhaps shared to some extent with other creatures. Of Purpose. The Rhodians maintain that there is no particular “correct” way to make poetry. But this does not preclude the Rhodians from choosing certain principles and orientations. One such principle is that poetry-making involves a limited, but sufficient and self-sufficient autonomy. If the process is not valuable for its own sake it is not worth doing at all, since it makes no claim to be valuable for any other reason. (Here the Rhodians follow the orientation of fellow Rhodian, and former Cranston native, Ted Berrigan.) Another such principle is that poetic autonomy is linked with a realist approach. Rhodians reject sceptical trends which question our ability to posit the existence of a real world outside our verbal formulations (even though Rhodians would like to reside on an island). Rhodians assert their ability to make true statements about the real world (at least within the limitations of verbal representation in general), and assent to the influence of that capability on their poetry. In fact Rhodians believe that the human impulse to respond to reality, in all its consciousness and specificity, is something of an artistic opportunity for which they can be grateful. Finally, the Rhodians reject theories of poetics which devalue the communicative function, reifying denatured words upon the page. For the Rhodians, language is essentially communicative the propositional, interrogatory, evaluative, expressive making of signs. Within the continuum of such gestures, words play a combinatory and supportive role. So, while recognizing the special quality of language in art and poetry--the “focus on message” or reflexive aspect described by Jakobson--Rhodians acknowledge the fundamental semaphoric aspect of the medium. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 13:48:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: please post widely/cfp Comments: To: oconn001@umn.edu, kball@ualberta.ca, gfcivil@stkate.edu, ATChasin@aol.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable CALL FOR PAPERS / TRANSLATIONS Special issue of Metamorphoses: A Journal of Literary Translation, Vol. 11, no. 1, Spring 2003: Francophone literature. We welcome submissions of translations of literature written in =46rench (or languages or dialects derived from French) outside of =46rance. Short articles on that literature may accompany the translations. Work by writers and poets living in France, but whose work reflects their post-colonial heritage, will be equally welcome. We are interested in literature written in non-standard French and =46rancophone idioms such as Cr=E9ole, Cadien and Qu=E9becois, and by work in standard French from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and North America. Translations of work by non-French Europeans will not be excluded. Previously unpublished translationsaccompanied, if you wish, by reflections on translating such writingmust reach the editors by October 15th, 2002. =46or poetry translations, send hard copy of both the original and the translation (and article, if you send one), and electronic copy of both as well. (And S.A.S.E. if you wish to have your manuscript returned.) =46or prose, send hard copy of the original and the translation, and electronic copy only of the translation / article. (And S.A.S.E. as above.) For prose we prefer short stories, but we will consider a chapter of a novel if it can stand by itself. Translators are responsible for obtaining permission to reprint copyrighted material, and for obtaining translation rights when necessary. Copyright of translations remains with the translators. We ask only that previous publication in Metamorphoses be acknowledged if text is reprinted. Metamorphoses David and Nicole Ball, Guest Editors 23 Cedar Street Northampton MA 01060 Electronic copy to dball@smith.edu and nball@smith.edu To see previous issues of Metamorphoses visit our website: www.smith.edu/metamorphoses. -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 08:38:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: The Avant, LANG-Po, and The Iowa Review In-Reply-To: <167.cb72127.29f80096@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hey P+O+E+T+I+C+S types, Well, I'm reading Vol. 32 # 1 of The Iowa Review right now, and it touches on some of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E that recently bounced around on the Poetics Discussion List. It kicks off with an interesting 38 page essay on "Poetic Communities," and then after some interesting poetry from the likes of Cole Swensen and Matthew Rohrer, has a 60 page section titled "Craft, Critique, Culture," with these pieces: Alan Golding, "'Isn't the avant garde always pedagogical': Experimental Poetics and / as Pedagogy" Mark Levine, "Writing it: Some Observations on the Poetics of Territoriality" Bob Perelman, "Self-Portrait with Language Writing" Kevin Kopelson, "Critical Virtuosity" Rebecca Clouse, "Genre bending with Cixous" Kass Fleisher, "Scenes from the Battlefield: A Feminist Resists the Writing Workshop" Steve Tomasula, "An Apology for Postmodern Prose" Roundtable exerpts from a discussion between Alan Golding, Mark Levine, Bob Perelman, and Thomas Swiss . . . Oh, and yes, The Iowa Review has submission guidelines . . . FYI, JGallaher ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 09:48:49 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: { brad brace } Subject: Re: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Geesch. Has not even one title paid for the cost of printing it? What _is the cost per copy? The number of impressions? This is just straight one color offset right? There are digital print solutions that would be much more cost effective especially for shorter runs. (Actually I have self-published titles -- weboffset on newsprint; perfect-bound; full bleed images -- that at least paid for the print costs... admittedly it took quite a few years...) /:b At 2:52 PM -0400 5/1/2, Duration Press wrote: >break even: money received from sales of titles has yet to match money >expended on printing said titles > >salaries involved: none, i do all the work myself > >chapbooks are distributed through spd, & are advertised via >durationpress.com (& not to be outright self-congradulatory, but is, to my >mind, quite an online presence...not just for myself, but for well over 35 >small presses), among other venues (when i am able, i run an ad in a >journal...usually when the ad space is free)... > >at any rate, as i said before, you give it a shot & see how you do... > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "{ brad brace }" >To: >Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 12:34 PM >Subject: Re: CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS > > >> At 6:53 PM -0400 4/30/2, Duration Press wrote: >> >... duration press has >> >yet to break even after 19 titles... >> >> I hear this sort of logic all the time from supposedly 'non-profit' arts >> groups... define "break even" please. Are there salaries involved? >> >> >> /:b >> >> >> ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 09:18:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: Manifestoes Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit -Manifesto: A Century of Isms- edited by Mary Ann Caws (University of Nebraska Press,2001) -The Dada Painters and Poets- edited by Robert Motherwell (Harvard) -The Surrealist Painters and Poets-edited by Mary Ann Caws (MIT) My own -Theoretical Objects- contains a series of 9 -Automatic Manifestoes- (Green Integer Press, 1999) Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 23:49:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: JDHollo@AOL.COM Subject: Re: sentimental post MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Apologies for my post of this morning -- I sent it to the wrong list! Anselm Hollo ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 10:09:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: FW: Free Comic Book Day - UPDATE #5 - FINAL UPDATE Comments: To: imitationpoetics@topica.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Free Comic Book Day - UPDATE #5 - FINAL UPDATE ***** THE TIME HAS COME! This is it! Saturday May 4 is Free Comic Book Day! There's not much left to say, other than this: On Saturday, grab your buddies, your kids, your siblings, your spouse, your parents, or strangers off the street, and take 'em to your local participating comic book store for a free comic! Need to find a participating store in your area? Use the handy Free Comic Book Locator at http://www.freecomicbookday.com/fcbd_locator.asp.) Wondering what comics are being given away? Check out http://www.freecomicbookday.com/pub_com.asp. Need to convince a friend or family members that comics are cool? Need to teach a newbie the basics? Refer to http://www.freecomicbookday.com/new_to.asp and http://www.freecomicbookday.com/comic_hist.asp. And don't forget to ask for your free Neal Adams postcard, featuring The SCI FI Channel's Farscape and Stargate SG-1! You could win the original art, signed by Adams himself...and who wouldn't want that? ***** IT'S NOT OVER YET! Just because May 4 is approaching doesn't mean that the fun is over. In the coming weeks and months, check www.FreeComicBookDay.com to see how May 4 was celebrated in stores around the world! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 10:44:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Isat@AOL.COM Subject: NYT article Comments: To: koja@topica.com, rush-ins@topica.com Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Revival of Russian Avant-Garde scene in NY has been spotted by the New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/03/nyregion/03RUSS.html Igor Satanovsky kojapress.com magazinnik.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 13:20:18 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: JDHollo@AOL.COM Subject: sentiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Some keywords that seem to materialize in this discussion -- melodrama cri de coeur emotion sentiment: positive=20 sentiment: negative sentiment: formal sentiment: informal sentiment: cloying sentiment: moving quote moving: unquote: moving to whom? to whom, when and where? Well, it=92s become evident that all of the above (plus whatever variations=20= of=20 same one could come up with) can be supplied with plus or minus signs --=20 i.e., they totally depend on writers=92 and readers=92 social, cultural, per= sonal=20 histories and situations. For instance, I find Rilke cloying, Oppen=20 tremendously moving. I find both of them rather humorless, which seems a=20 flaw (not fatal in Oppen=92s case). But the construction of a globally=20 applicable field theory of sentimentality strikes me as an impossible task.=20= =20 Anselm Hollo ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 11:31:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Re: Vile MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I listen to all the chatter on the news and hear the same us/them rhetoric I've heard all my life. The rhetoric is what needs to be changed. It's language that provokes, and language that heals. Treaties are language. Peace talks are language. Fundamentalist religions are about language. As is poetry. One chooses one's enemy as one chooses one's words. -Joel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hilton Obenzinger" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 12:19 PM Subject: Re: Vile > Dear Friends, > > I hate my country and I'm trying to leave it but all the other countries > show the same movies so there is no escape. I am the enemy and I am trying > to arrest myself except that I discovered that I am not smart enough. I am > anti-Israel. I am a Jew, and I have no problem with being a rootless > cosmopolitan, or, as Ben-Gurion said, human dust. I love America because > it is one big human dust bowl. I do not favor the Two-State Solution in > the Middle East. Rather, I favor the No-State Solution. Neither side > deserves a state, only a shopping center. Or if they do, it should be > North Dakota. Now that my government has withdrawn from the ABM, the Kyoto > Accords, the International Court, and all the rest, I have decided to > withdraw from the English language. You may think you are reading English > right now, but you are not. You are reading enemy propaganda. > > Hilton Obenzinger ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 02:21:25 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Language On Fire MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable spiral singular. the angle measured. goniometer. not enthusiastic. do = your worst. at edge then plonk. flop flip. once green the beginning to = black. weed. hovering hovercraft. give me the. wierd cross by signal. = inch. prism by prime. feel something yet write. dust to peach. politics = is what makes us human. itch. i never but him. do you? into the = grandiose fire with you. spear. idiot silence. quadrangle. strangle = the quadrangle. to queer is. I? same as if sin. once they. sun. under. = Peter. in pumkin had. do for as we were diesel or exogenmous. erotic = opulence. pearls lavish dog. nothing. nothing but if = when huge disassocation to swivel. connects,surely. flower ratio. = peduncle. political prick yet sick. stick. insect. stick signal to = uppermost desent. decent demise. crashed lovingly. the boat beside to = yes. aff. if. did no why. seems is or is not is. but not unpossible. = hick ratio. on hands and knees mechanical monstors. no saliva yet = beating. thing. then across. across the cross. it advanced. they all = knew. big. spiral singular and angle. i'm not to shaggy suzie. scim. = thus stone began to but one. swim. piscine. bastard silence. automatic = to querulous. old. must be or panther. i like. do you do you. zeitgeist. = then bugger me by crikey the way. this? its enormous. its coming = whatever it is. a hole in a hole. precision silliness. cretin. now the = rip. Jack. up. declined to decline. commensurate. it all adds up. = growth. dug. we were. dig. say over. emergent eggplant. fangle. fingle = fangle by dreamscape. and in the dreamscape were the priests and = pristesses. droog. right or rite. klu klan. fragile in things and being = here is that it. hope. collumns. white. describe in fifteen million ways = plug. stop. words yet pulse. more. graeci and romani. fockle. at this = point he turned. heimlich twist as if truth and things. she. it could = have subtract the remainder until. emerge blue thing. open, or. = contraction. its coming! contraction gladdenned to insistent yes. chock. = and. and it all wakes up: everything wakes and the words weird to way = away who went what and how. spirulate. you'll get there. simian. whose = eyes? whoo. it spins. begin. begin enormous eyes. you you. Richard Taylor. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 16:44:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: POETRY PROJECT EVENTS Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable POETRY PROJECT EVENTS MAY 6, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] OPEN READING MAY 8, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] C.S. GISCOMBE AND SUSAN HOWE MAY 10, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] WAR AND PEACE: A MULTIMEDIA RECITAL OF ART, SONG AND VIDEO http://www.poetryproject.com/calendar.html ************************* MAY 6, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] OPEN READING Sign-up at 7:30 p.m. MAY 8, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] C.S. GISCOMBE AND SUSAN HOWE C.S. GISCOMBE's books include Postcards (Ithaca House), At Large (St. Lazaire), Here (Dalkey Archive), Giscome Road (Dalkey Archive), Two Section= s from "Practical Geography" (Diaeresis Press), and Into and Out of Dislocation (North Point Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux). SUSAN HOWE is the author of several books of poetry including Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979, Chanting at the Crystal Sea, Cabbage Gardens, and most recently Bed-Hangings from Granary Books. New Directions will be re-issuing The Europe of Trusts this spring. MAY 10, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] WAR AND PEACE: A MULTIMEDIA RECITAL OF ART, SONG AND VIDEO Featuring tenor DAYLE VANDER SANDE and videographer ANTHONY BELLOV Thought-provoking and introspective, this "concert theater" experience will encourage audience members to contribute their own thoughts and responses t= o a significant examination of these age-old, yet timely, subjects. MAY 11, SATURDAY [Bowery Poetry Club, 2 p.m.] OBSCURITY LASTS FOREVER MEMORIAL HONORING JOSEPH HOLLAND CHASSLER Poet, philospher and kind soul, Joseph Holland Chassler will be remembered at the Bowery Poetry Club with readings of his works, videos of his drawing= s and cartoons, and performances of his songs by the band Channeling Chassler= . ************************ POETRY PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENTS THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK BROADSIDE The Poetry Project will be offering a limited-edition letterpress broadside signed by John Ashbery to celebrate the republication of THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK. Measuring 19 x 15, the broadside will sell for $100. Sales from the edition will benefit the Poetry Project. To purchase a broadside, send check or money order to: The Poetry Project 131 E. 10th St. New York, NY 10003 MAY ISSUE OF POETS & POEMS Featuring work by Cecilia Vicu=F1a, R. Erica Doyle, G.E. Patterson, Kevin Killian, Joan Retallack http://www.poetryproject.com/poets.html ************************ Unless otherwise noted, admission to all events is $7, $4 for students and seniors, and $3 for Poetry Project members. Schedule is subject to change. The Poetry Project is located in St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery at 131 E. 10th Street, the corner of 2nd Avenue and 10th Street in Manhattan. Trains F, 6, N, R. The Poetry Project is wheelchair accessible with assistance and advance notice. Please call (212) 674-0910 for more information, or visit our Web site at http://www.poetryproject.com. If you are currently on our email list and would like to be on our regular mailing list (so you can receive a sample issue of The Poetry Project Newsletter for FREE), just reply to this email with your full name and address. Hope to hear from you soon!!! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 10:30:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Re: Manifestoes Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html

Hi Kari,

Thank you for filling in those gaps! I would add works by Aphra Behn, Mary Daly, Gertrude Stein (yes precisely because you can't put your finger on it), Vine Deloria Jr.'s writings (Custer Died for Your Sins, for example), Mae West, Anita Loos; I could go on. I have found works by all of these writers very liberating and exciting at many times exactly because of the lack of fear of extremes within them, which to me is part of the being and use of a manifesto. & I love Valerie Solanas for going so far (in her writing; I'm not endorsing the gun use.)

Laura Riding's The Word Woman.

I take some of Louis's points to heart, but also want to acknowledge that one man's manifesto can be another gal's snore.

cheers all, Elizabeth


from Kari Edwards:


it seems as if  there are some gaps in the manifesto debate


1, Susie Brights "Roll your own Erotic Manifesto"


2. Valerie Solanas's "SCUM manifesto"


3. Annie Sprinkle's "Guidelines for sex in the 90's" ( a sort of manifesto)


4. Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto"


5. Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?"
6. Mina Loy's "feminist Manifesto"





manifestos do not always come nicely packaged, but rather hidden in other
text as text-points for a community to gather  around as a manifesto or they
work to manifest community, As the queer culture (especially act-up) did in
the seventies with Foucault's "History of Sexuality". also examples could
be, "Yellow wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "THe Well of Loneliness"
by Radclyffe Hall,  Kate Bornsteins, "Gender Outlaw."


1. Establishing a Demilitarized Zone: Tactics of resistance", by C. Jacob
Hale in Consuming the living dis(re)membering the dead in the butch/ftm
boarderlands.


2. Monique Wittig "The point of view: universal or particular"


3. Adreinne Rich "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Experience"



Others not include could be the writings and deconstruction of gender by
Julian of Norwish,o r other works by Mary Wollstonecraft , Lady Mary
Chudleigh, Anne Finch, Anna Letittia Barbaurd, Vignia Woolf.


kari edwards



Elizabeth Treadwell
http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html


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========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 18:45:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Kasey Mohammad (Hotmail)" Subject: Re: letting bygones... In-Reply-To: <00ca01c1f172$e7234a60$6401a8c0@ruthfd1tn.home.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I think all four of the parties mentioned have a lot to offer the list, as much as I may object to some of their conduct in the past (I'm only speaking of some of them, since I don't know all of them, and only to the extent that I am informed, since I don't know the nature of all the "offenses" involved in all cases). I move (am I authorized to "move" things?) that they all be readmitted, on a probationary basis or whatever, in the interest of the furthering of free and productive discourse. Naturally, of course, any future incidents of clearly non-ironic name-calling, flaming, etc., from _any_ parties should not be tolerated. Like calling people "cretins" for expressing their political beliefs, just for example. Kasey > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Joe Amato" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 3:19 PM > Subject: letting bygones... > > >> i've thought hard about whether to post this to the list, but what the > hell: >> >> all things said and done, i thought i might register a public vote of >> confidence at this point as to permitting the four former poetics >> listmembers to resub... i don't wish to find mself, again, in the >> middle of some raging debate... i'm simply saying that for my part, >> whatever may have transpired in the past---and whatever my >> opinions/feelings about what may have transpired (re which, mea >> culpa)---i think that henry, kent, carlo and gabe ought to be >> permitted back onto the list, letting bygones be bygones (with a >> better outcome this time 'round, i trust)... and i trust this gesture >> on my part isn't interpreted by anyone as an about-face re my >> continuing friendships with chris alexander, joel kuszai, or charles >> bernstein, each of whom is near and dear to me (and i'm hoping too >> that i'm not disappointing anyone by going public with my feelings >> here)... i'm also not certain that opening the door to these four >> subscribers will necessarily be greeted by their return... >> >> but all things said and done, i think that door should now be opened, >> in good faith... >> >> best, >> >> joe > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 14:02:35 -0400 Reply-To: etgrinn@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "E. Tracy Grinnell" Subject: Litmus Press/Aufgabe #2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit *** LITMUS PRESS is excited to announce the imminent release of AUFGABE #2. Issue #2 features a section of German poetry guest edited by Rosmarie Waldrop: translations by Rosmarie Waldrop and Andrew Joron. In addition to nearly 60 pages of German work, you will find new poetry, essays and reviews by 28 stellar American poets. To celebrate the release of issue #2, there will be a reading and reception held at St. Mark's Poetry Project on Monday, May 27th at 8pm. Come hear short readings by Paul Foster Johnson, Sawako Nakayasu, Ed Berrigan, Rick Snyder, Andrew Levy, Macgregor Card, Kerri Sonnenberg, and Veronica Corpuz. ** SUBSCRIPTIONS are greatly appreciated and are available starting with issue #2; issue #3 will feature Mexican poetry guest edited by Jen Hofer, as well as new American poetry, essays and reviews. A subscription for two issues is $20. Institutional subscriptions are $30 for 2 issues. Please send subscription orders payable to E. Tracy Grinnell to 97 Summit St. #3, Brooklyn, NY 11231. Please order individual issues ($12) through Small Press Distribution, www.spdbooks.org. Litmus Press will begin publishing full-length books beginning Fall 2002. Please do not send unsolicited manuscripts. Query by snail mail to above address or email: etgrinn@earthlink.net www.durationpress.com/litmuspress *** ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 00:52:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jessica Smith Subject: post-2000 manifestos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit i'm sure this won't be of any use (since it's not published) to the original post-er, but... Manifest The poem is a topological space. The poem is situated on a topological space. The "blank" space of the page is not "blank." It is volatile; it is active. Words may be in one place and may shift to another place. It is porous and unstable. Words may falls into faults or cracks in the page. It is spongy. Different places on the page have different weights and gravitational pulls. This affects placement of words. Words may become unrecognizable due to geographic activity. Meaning is secondary to sight. Meaning must be collected in a treasure hunt through the page. Meaning is one of many possible maps through a page. Meaning is only possible on the level of the page. The page's topology determines meaning. The words' geological placement determines meaning. History determines meaning. The reader's specific travels determine meaning. Sound is secondary to sight. The page is not a score for reading. The poem need not be read aloud. The "blank" spaces of the page are not "scored." The "blank" spaces of the page are not equal. Some spaces are more blank than others. Some blank spaces are larger than other blank spaces that may look equal. "Blank" spaces can be bridged, like a wormhole rather than like a musical measure. Sound comes after recognition. The poem is a set of topological figures or features. Words are subject to disintegration, death, and other natural events that individuals of all types face. The words on the page represent the page at a certain geological moment. This moment implies a history. This moment entails a future. The reader sees merely a moment captured. The moment could have been otherwise. The "level of the page" is the only level. The vertical "reader to page" and "author to page" and "author to reader" relationships are eradicated. The horizontal journey through the page, as a hiker on a trail, is the only way to search for meaning. As such meanings will be different for each traveler. As such meaning is made through memory. Connections are delayed, soundings are delayed, meaning is delayed. Meaning is put together. As such meaning is a compound impression of a physically traversed space (the eye moves physically through the space as the mind encounters fragmented signifiers). Each poem is a microcosm. The poem and the page become topological at the same time; as the reader traverses their space, he or she perceives a shifting, coming-into-being topology. (c) Jessica Smith 11/2001 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 10:11:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kari edwards Subject: Re: FIR8 In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable sorry for the miss mail, it should have been what is below... > For Immediate Release > FIR8 > May 2002 > Volume II, Number 5 > http://www.poetz.com/fir/may02.htm > Guest-edited by kari edwards >=20 > kari's introduction to this issue can be found on the homepage for > www.poetz.com with all the formatting intact. >=20 > Introduction >=20 > this is the form . . . ("Where did the speedgirls go"), the form is the > letter/invitation . . . ("Deep inside my womb the Defense Department has > installed a nuclear bomb. . . . I float about silent, gravity-free, an > alien > pod seeking a host somebody love me."). the form are those that responded= . > . > . (" . . . of cautious dirt stance. A thief on the high wire."). what c= an > I > say on the subject . . . (at times we have the power to name/ precisely w= hat > we want / (touch me here) /exactly what we mean / (and here)"), here the= y > are . . . ("coming midway through the dilemma saying 'would you say > something > different or say something about the sphinx, the rivers or heavens.'"). > could > say I love them. . .("With two fingers he plucked my dick and examined it= , > its tiny imperfections, all the men it had been into, and the way it had = run > my life." the form is the voice not always there . . . ("watching me in = my > / > they never saw / but for a photograph unframed"). may not be the > intellectual > way. . . (the tension of the tongue, the freedom of the tongue) this is > what > I do. . . ("be the next decade's hottest dissident"), a ployamorous > perspective ("roll over heat, over sweat, in scent of roasted walnut."). = so, > ("stop mid-stroke"), ("with abridged versions of masters old and new"). > ("If > a=3Db and b=3Dc then a=3Dc") then ("all a vast ghost on the plains") this is = the > form . . . ("a revolution of manipulation sighs and begins")("The verb > pitch > singing/ The verbing pitch slinging" a conduit for language... >=20 > Table of Contents >=20 > CAMILLE ROY > Snow Instruction > Where the Boys Are >=20 > DODIE BELLAMY > From: "Fat Chance" >=20 > KARI EDWARDS > from: low - =B3creation=B2 >=20 > ELLEN REDBIRD > A Performance to Undo > Temporary Manifesto >=20 > JULIE KIZERSHOT > Damaged Type > A Letter =B3C=B2: A Sail to Catch the Wind With > Even Elbows can be Erotic > Slip not Gone: Poem in =B3G=B2 > K... > M > O >=20 > KEVIN KILLIAN > From: Dietmar Lutz >=20 > LISA BIRMAN > home(s) > left > room >=20 > MARK EWERT > Checklist >=20 > MICHAEL SMOLER > Metamorphosis (Shell-Swan-Balance-You) >=20 > NATASCHA BRUCKNER > breath > the famished virgin > cunt > belly > sweat >=20 > ROBERT GLUCK > The Glass Mountain >=20 > SHERMAN SOUTHER > The Piano Teacher >=20 > STEPHANIE HEIT > from Quiet Anatomy >=20 > THE CAPTAIN > break > Move In >=20 > RACHEL LEVITSKY > from Landscapes: > Architectures of Knowing/Buildings on Shoulders/Of Books No End but > Weary > Flesh >=20 > kari edwards is a poet, artist and gender activist, winner of New Langton > Art=B9s Bay Area Award in litrature, and author of a day in the life of p. = to > be released by subpress collective (2002), a diary of lies -- Belladonna = #27 > by Balladonna Books (2002) and post/(pink) (2001) (Scarlet Press). sie is > also the poetry editor I.F.G.E=B9s Transgender -- Tapestry: a International > Publication on Transgender issues. hir work has been exhibited throughout > the united states, including denver art museum, new orleans contemporary = art > museum, university of california-san diego, and university of massachuset= ts > - amherst. edwards=B9 work can also be found in Blood and Tears (2000) an > anthology on Matthew Shepard, (Painted leaf Press), The International > Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies, Bombay Gin, Van Gogh=B9s Ear, Pupp= y > Flower, Avoid Strange Men, Nerve Lantern, Aufgabe, Belight Fiction, In > Posse, FIR, and Fracture. >=20 >=20 >=20 I ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 13:11:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: schwartzgk Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is essential, and could be placed side by side with much of Ronald Johnson's work. Gerald ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jessica Smith" To: Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 12:52 AM Subject: post-2000 manifestos > i'm sure this won't be of any use (since it's not published) to the original > post-er, but... > > Manifest > > The poem is a topological space. > > The poem is situated on a topological space. The "blank" space of the page > is not "blank." It is volatile; it is active. Words may be in one place > and may shift to another place. It is porous and unstable. Words may falls > into faults or cracks in the page. It is spongy. Different places on the > page have different weights and gravitational pulls. This affects placement > of words. Words may become unrecognizable due to geographic activity. > > Meaning is secondary to sight. Meaning must be collected in a treasure hunt > through the page. Meaning is one of many possible maps through a page. > Meaning is only possible on the level of the page. The page's topology > determines meaning. The words' geological placement determines meaning. > History determines meaning. The reader's specific travels determine > meaning. > > Sound is secondary to sight. The page is not a score for reading. The poem > need not be read aloud. The "blank" spaces of the page are not "scored." > The "blank" spaces of the page are not equal. Some spaces are more blank > than others. Some blank spaces are larger than other blank spaces that may > look equal. "Blank" spaces can be bridged, like a wormhole rather than like > a musical measure. Sound comes after recognition. > > The poem is a set of topological figures or features. Words are subject to > disintegration, death, and other natural events that individuals of all > types face. The words on the page represent the page at a certain > geological moment. This moment implies a history. This moment entails a > future. The reader sees merely a moment captured. The moment could have > been otherwise. > > The "level of the page" is the only level. The vertical "reader to page" > and "author to page" and "author to reader" relationships are eradicated. > The horizontal journey through the page, as a hiker on a trail, is the only > way to search for meaning. As such meanings will be different for each > traveler. As such meaning is made through memory. Connections are delayed, > soundings are delayed, meaning is delayed. Meaning is put together. As > such meaning is a compound impression of a physically traversed space (the > eye moves physically through the space as the mind encounters fragmented > signifiers). > > Each poem is a microcosm. > > The poem and the page become topological at the same time; as the reader > traverses their space, he or she perceives a shifting, coming-into-being > topology. > > (c) Jessica Smith 11/2001 > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 13:16:00 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: Raymond Roussel Inquiry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/3/02 11:26:27 AM, pimetrum@ZAD.ATT.NE.JP writes: >Also, any info on Roussel's poetics and/ or politics would be appreciated. > john Ashberry has an essay on his in his book about "minor" poets, a book which recently came out. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:11:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Vernon Frazer Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I like this very much. I've been working with some of these elements for years, but could use this to expand into areas I haven't reached as yet. It's very open, with interesting possibilities. Vernon ----- Original Message ----- From: "schwartzgk" To: Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 10:11 AM Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos > This is essential, and could be placed side by side with much of Ronald > Johnson's work. > > Gerald > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jessica Smith" > To: > Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 12:52 AM > Subject: post-2000 manifestos > > > > i'm sure this won't be of any use (since it's not published) to the > original > > post-er, but... > > > > Manifest > > > > The poem is a topological space. > > > > The poem is situated on a topological space. The "blank" space of the > page > > is not "blank." It is volatile; it is active. Words may be in one place > > and may shift to another place. It is porous and unstable. Words may > falls > > into faults or cracks in the page. It is spongy. Different places on the > > page have different weights and gravitational pulls. This affects > placement > > of words. Words may become unrecognizable due to geographic activity. > > > > Meaning is secondary to sight. Meaning must be collected in a treasure > hunt > > through the page. Meaning is one of many possible maps through a page. > > Meaning is only possible on the level of the page. The page's topology > > determines meaning. The words' geological placement determines meaning. > > History determines meaning. The reader's specific travels determine > > meaning. > > > > Sound is secondary to sight. The page is not a score for reading. The > poem > > need not be read aloud. The "blank" spaces of the page are not "scored." > > The "blank" spaces of the page are not equal. Some spaces are more blank > > than others. Some blank spaces are larger than other blank spaces that > may > > look equal. "Blank" spaces can be bridged, like a wormhole rather than > like > > a musical measure. Sound comes after recognition. > > > > The poem is a set of topological figures or features. Words are subject > to > > disintegration, death, and other natural events that individuals of all > > types face. The words on the page represent the page at a certain > > geological moment. This moment implies a history. This moment entails a > > future. The reader sees merely a moment captured. The moment could have > > been otherwise. > > > > The "level of the page" is the only level. The vertical "reader to page" > > and "author to page" and "author to reader" relationships are eradicated. > > The horizontal journey through the page, as a hiker on a trail, is the > only > > way to search for meaning. As such meanings will be different for each > > traveler. As such meaning is made through memory. Connections are > delayed, > > soundings are delayed, meaning is delayed. Meaning is put together. As > > such meaning is a compound impression of a physically traversed space (the > > eye moves physically through the space as the mind encounters fragmented > > signifiers). > > > > Each poem is a microcosm. > > > > The poem and the page become topological at the same time; as the reader > > traverses their space, he or she perceives a shifting, coming-into-being > > topology. > > > > (c) Jessica Smith 11/2001 > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 11:12:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Drunken Boat Subject: Middle Eastern Poets? In-Reply-To: <2d.1ca9a5b0.2a041fd0@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Any Middle Eastern poetics scholars in the mix? I'm putting together a syllabus and would like to include a combination of poems by contemporary Middle Eastern-American poets writing in English and good translations of prominent Middle Eastern poets, but I find my knowledge of the aforementioned woefully inadequate. Any leads would be much appreciated. Thanks, Ravi Shankar __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:14:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Raymond Roussel Inquiry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/3/02 1:16:58 PM, MuratNN@AOL.COM writes: << In a message dated 5/3/02 11:26:27 AM, pimetrum@ZAD.ATT.NE.JP writes: >Also, any info on Roussel's poetics and/ or politics would be appreciated. > john Ashberry has an essay on his in his book about "minor" poets, a book which recently came out. >> Other Traditions (Harvard U Press) WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com Amazon.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 11:32:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: John Weiners memorial In-Reply-To: <92.25415b56.2a042d95@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I was at the John Weiners memorial tribute last night at MIT in Cambridge and just wanted to offer this report. The night was incredibly rainy and there is very little parking around there and the room was in this endless, dehumanizing building where it is completely possible to lose yourself, and yet the night itself was infinitely touching and beautiful, and the room completely packed. It was incredible for me, as a young poet, to see so many poets in one room from the previous generations: Anne Waldman, Ed Sanders, Lew Warsh, Fanny Howe, etc., and it was glorious and vibrant to see them together as a community. I felt connected to an incredible, alive lineage of poetic activity. The audience was a great mix of younger and older poets, poets of various backgrounds, all out to pay tribute to Weiners. The Boston scene (to which I am a recent emigre) can often feel too segregated and chilly, but there was great love in that room last night. The work itself (almost everyone, in great deference to typical poetic ego, read just one or two short poems by JW) was mind-blowing. "Hair-splitting," someone said, and it really was...so completely pure. A great reminder of what poetry can do, and I wrote to myself in my notebook the following directions based on his work: "be ALWAYS direct. Be completely fully in the poem. Go further. Reach the blood. Be vulnerable. Strip it out." I also wrote: Warm runs the night tonight in Boston, my god. The planets are lined up like porcelain pool balls and the constellations are aflame. Everyone's haeat is in the same place. What an incredible tribute--to John Weiners and to the power of poetry. My thanks to all who contributed and came. Arielle __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:33:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: letting bygones...SPAM? MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT As far as I'm concerned the real issue here is spamming and not the personalites of the parties in question much as they would like to personalize the issue.. THIS IS AN ANALOGY AND NOT BASED ON PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD If you are ata party and aloud drunk dominates the gathering do you ask her to leave because she's too loud or because you don't like her? Do you extend a return invitation based on her poetry publications or knowledge? or is it based on her not drinking? Do you know about her promise to not drink based on her word, a breath test, number of DUIs in the past year, etc.? or do you go by present behavior and give her another chance? THIS IS AN ANALOGY AND NOT BASED ON PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD Granting another chance wouldbe the enlightened thing to do but I'm not sure that once a spammer always a spammer. tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 13:46:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos In-Reply-To: <00e901c1f2e7$0c3ee460$4b63f30c@attbi.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Vernon, Gerald, et al, This manifesto tempts me, but I cannot figure out what is meant by the page's "topology." I would think "topography" would be more accurate if what is meant is its material character. "Topology" means (in Jessica's apparent usage) "the history of a region as indicated by its topography"--- which makes the difference between topology and topography essentially the same as the difference between historiography and history. (Is the history of pornography "pornology"?) Am I missing something? It reminds me of when "simplistic" gets used to mean "simple." The former, an abstraction away from the latter, has a different meaning. Beyond that, how can a poem be "on" a "space"? In fact how is a "topological space" different from any other space? How can a poem *be* a set of topological features? Would it not rather *have* those features? I can't make sense of this. But I agree that it sounds inspirational. And Jessica probably didn't post it for me to hack the shit out of!! Admittedly less familiar with math/science terms than other terms, & willing to be educated, Aaron > From: Vernon Frazer > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:11:07 -0700 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos > > I like this very much. I've been working with some of these elements for > years, but could use this to expand into areas I haven't reached as yet. > It's very open, with interesting possibilities. > > Vernon > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "schwartzgk" > To: > Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 10:11 AM > Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos > > >> This is essential, and could be placed side by side with much of Ronald >> Johnson's work. >> >> Gerald ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:47:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Vile MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Joel, I haven't been following this thread so my thoguht might be tangental but I'll toss it in anyway. It seems to me the problem is that poetry all too oftenbecomes part of the rhetoric that divides - see trotsky on this and all the anthologies we will soon see of poetsfor or poetsagainst. I wonder if there might be another course that might be taken - poets dealing with the rhetoric? tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 13:44:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Welch Subject: Re: a vile empire In-Reply-To: <004601c1f199$a1add960$cf0156d1@oemcomputer> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Leonard: I tend not to read postings that have certain subject headings or that are written by certain contributors; it save me time better spent on almost anything else. I did notice the original posting by Mr. Tyler. It got me upset for a few minutes until I realized that the poster doesn't really understand the dictionary meanings of the words "evil", "corrupt", "terroristic", "fascist" or even "most". Therefore, I didn't bother responding. I realize that I'm contributing to a flame war now and so I will go back to lurking. Best regards. At 12:23 AM 05/02/2002, you wrote: >I'm not particularly surprised by the utter lack of substance coming from >the angry mob that jumps on the bandwagon of whatever seems "avant" at the >moment, but I'm a little disturbed by the silence of 600 people who have >let the following statements go un-challenged: > > >These are the "facts" I'm supposed to counter with reason? Give me a break. -- Kevin Welch kwelch@facstaff.wisc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 15:16:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: Re: John Weiners memorial MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Arielle's moving report on the Weiner memorial followed quick by Tom Bell's psychobabble complaint in re: spammers moved me. Hey! It was such a discordant juxtaposition. I can't let it go without comment. Why _would_ the fabled four wish to come back to this? It is a mystery wrapped in a tortilla disguised as dialectical argument that looks like a burrito. Eat it, please. I want a big pepper. I want another glass of wine. I want to read words that don't seem entirely ego-derived. I wanted to be kissed by a poem here. Where's the love? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 12:18:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Re: Vile MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "Thomas Bell" > Joel, I haven't been following this thread so my thoguht might be tangental > but I'll toss it in anyway. > > It seems to me the problem is that poetry all too oftenbecomes part of the > rhetoric that divides - see trotsky on this and all the anthologies we will > soon see of poetsfor or poetsagainst. > > I wonder if there might be another course that might be taken - poets > dealing with the rhetoric? Changing the rhetoric. Political poetry--a genre that shouldn't exist, as politics is a branch of one's lungs--seems about one taking sides. Okay. But then, can't the making of the poem be a process of breaking down those sides? Good fences don't make good communities, nor a nation, certainly not a world. With the event of the World Wide Web, it seems to me we are moving toward a world poetry, not collected but freshly generated. In view of this, what should one's rhetoric be? -Joel Joel Weishaus Center for Excellence in Writing Portland State University Portland, Oregon http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx00282 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 13:36:18 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit my read is: Eco's inferential walks through Olson's page as field. Nice way to spend a weekend. J ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Belz" To: Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 12:46 PM Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos > Vernon, Gerald, et al, > > This manifesto tempts me, but I cannot figure out what is meant by the > page's "topology." I would think "topography" would be more accurate if what > is meant is its material character. "Topology" means (in Jessica's apparent > usage) "the history of a region as indicated by its topography"--- which > makes the difference between topology and topography essentially the same as > the difference between historiography and history. (Is the history of > pornography "pornology"?) Am I missing something? It reminds me of when > "simplistic" gets used to mean "simple." The former, an abstraction away > from the latter, has a different meaning. > > Beyond that, how can a poem be "on" a "space"? In fact how is a > "topological space" different from any other space? How can a poem *be* a > set of topological features? Would it not rather *have* those features? I > can't make sense of this. > > But I agree that it sounds inspirational. And Jessica probably didn't post > it for me to hack the shit out of!! > > Admittedly less familiar with math/science terms than other terms, & willing > to be educated, > > Aaron > > > > From: Vernon Frazer > > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > > Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:11:07 -0700 > > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos > > > > I like this very much. I've been working with some of these elements for > > years, but could use this to expand into areas I haven't reached as yet. > > It's very open, with interesting possibilities. > > > > Vernon > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "schwartzgk" > > To: > > Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 10:11 AM > > Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos > > > > > >> This is essential, and could be placed side by side with much of Ronald > >> Johnson's work. > >> > >> Gerald > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 12:34:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Raymond Roussel Inquiry In-Reply-To: <002801c1f1cf$0a7ef020$47f64ca5@computer> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Does anyone know where/ how to get Roussel books in translation at a >reasonable price? A friend of mine asked for info. on Roussel and, >to my embarrassment, I hadn't even heard of him (too little >Foucault, I'm told). > >Also, any info on Roussel's poetics and/ or politics would be appreciated. > >Thanks! > > >Ben Basan John Calder is the publisher I know of. Some of his books are agented in the US by Riverrun. Also check Atlas books. -- George Bowering Welcome at home. Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 12:37:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Raymond Roussel Inquiry In-Reply-To: <2d.1ca9a5b0.2a041fd0@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >In a message dated 5/3/02 11:26:27 AM, pimetrum@ZAD.ATT.NE.JP writes: > >>Also, any info on Roussel's poetics and/ or politics would be appreciated. >> > >john Ashberry has an essay on his in his book about "minor" poets, a book >which recently came out. Raymond Roussel, a Critical Study, by Rayner Heppenstall,, Calder,1966. -- George Bowering Welcome at home. Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 12:42:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: The Avant, LANG-Po, and The Iowa Review In-Reply-To: <3CD24C83.1780.270751@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed An expense of passion in a waste of shame. Is this what academics have to do to stay employed? Mark At 08:38 AM 5/3/2002 -0500, you wrote: >Hey P+O+E+T+I+C+S types, > >Well, I'm reading Vol. 32 # 1 of The Iowa Review right now, and it >touches on some of the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E that recently >bounced around on the Poetics Discussion List. > >It kicks off with an interesting 38 page essay on "Poetic >Communities," and then after some interesting poetry from the likes >of Cole Swensen and Matthew Rohrer, has a 60 page section titled >"Craft, Critique, Culture," with these pieces: > >Alan Golding, "'Isn't the avant garde always pedagogical': >Experimental Poetics and / as Pedagogy" >Mark Levine, "Writing it: Some Observations on the Poetics of >Territoriality" >Bob Perelman, "Self-Portrait with Language Writing" >Kevin Kopelson, "Critical Virtuosity" >Rebecca Clouse, "Genre bending with Cixous" >Kass Fleisher, "Scenes from the Battlefield: A Feminist Resists the >Writing Workshop" >Steve Tomasula, "An Apology for Postmodern Prose" >Roundtable exerpts from a discussion between Alan Golding, Mark >Levine, Bob Perelman, and Thomas Swiss . . . > >Oh, and yes, The Iowa Review has submission guidelines . . . > >FYI, > JGallaher ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 15:45:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Vernon Frazer Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aaron I'm not an expert, either, and I prefer the five cent word to the fifty. I took topology, topography or whatever to be the page or the "field of composition," as Olson might have called it. The sheet of paper or the computer screen would be the space in which the poem as printed matter and content takes place, at least from a physical standpoint. What happens in the reader's head is another matter. The topological space is a page of paper or a computer screen and each has physical limits, e.g. the size of the paper or the screen. I don't know if I want to have a debate about the difference between having and being. The poem is there on the page, either way.Where its words appear on the page and the patterns they appear in can alter their meaning. Blank space can make a reader pause. Sometimes I use lines whose margins move to the left to create a visual tension by reading sort of right to left that one doesn't experience in reading left to right, something like this for example. I interpreted her piece my own way. Maybe she'll tell me I got it all wrong. But it sounded inspirational, like somebody saying we have an open field, so go play on it and make up your own games. By the way, I liked your ideas about getting a little more introductory hype at readings. It makes the audience more receptive. If nothing else, the compliment motivates me to read better. Anyway, there's my take on the Post-2000 Manifesto. Vernon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Belz" To: Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 11:46 AM Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos > Vernon, Gerald, et al, > > This manifesto tempts me, but I cannot figure out what is meant by the > page's "topology." I would think "topography" would be more accurate if what > is meant is its material character. "Topology" means (in Jessica's apparent > usage) "the history of a region as indicated by its topography"--- which > makes the difference between topology and topography essentially the same as > the difference between historiography and history. (Is the history of > pornography "pornology"?) Am I missing something? It reminds me of when > "simplistic" gets used to mean "simple." The former, an abstraction away > from the latter, has a different meaning. > > Beyond that, how can a poem be "on" a "space"? In fact how is a > "topological space" different from any other space? How can a poem *be* a > set of topological features? Would it not rather *have* those features? I > can't make sense of this. > > But I agree that it sounds inspirational. And Jessica probably didn't post > it for me to hack the shit out of!! > > Admittedly less familiar with math/science terms than other terms, & willing > to be educated, > > Aaron > > > > From: Vernon Frazer > > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > > Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:11:07 -0700 > > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos > > > > I like this very much. I've been working with some of these elements for > > years, but could use this to expand into areas I haven't reached as yet. > > It's very open, with interesting possibilities. > > > > Vernon > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "schwartzgk" > > To: > > Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 10:11 AM > > Subject: Re: post-2000 manifestos > > > > > >> This is essential, and could be placed side by side with much of Ronald > >> Johnson's work. > >> > >> Gerald ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 14:11:27 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: The Ejected Four MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I want to add a few words to explain my last paragraph in the post headed The Ejected Four. Its purpose was not to demonstrate how callous and indifferent I personally can be, for instance to those ejected from this listserv. The intent was focused on the question of listserv structure. If this listerv is conceived of as a time-based project, then one thing that means is that it has a specific history, a set of given purposes, vectors, problems, assumptions to do with poetry. Some, not others. On some specific terms, not other specific terms. Et cetera. If that's the case, then this listserv is not the-be-all-and-end-all, in any way, nor is it intended to represent and uphold all of contemporary poetry to everyone. What this then means is, necessarily -- as Not Nice as this is to say -- it's not structured "for everyone," in order to appeal to some idea of Everyone-Man. This listserv issues from Language Poetry's history, as well as all the histories of poetry that that label has invoked and/or adjusted a bit to refract, ever so slightly, through its nonreflecting mirror, rightly or wrongly. Whether one agrees or not with Watten's suggested linkage specifically of this listserv to _Legend_ (1980), and to the problematic of _Legend_ and the question of the subject in/of language, doesn't matter on this point of historical precedent itself, because the fact is that this listserv *was* set up by Bernstein and *does* issue from SUNY-Buffalo and by implication therefore *is* nudged like an ugly rotting pip next to a twisted rhizome-root of SUNY-Buffalo, however tangentially, as this listserv record's early days attest. In other words, this is not a listserv set up and overseen by other equally specific and worthy institutions and places with their own specific histories -- for instance, by The Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics, or by the Montreal Spoken Word scene, or by Iowa, or by Bard College, or by the North American Centre for Interdisciplinary Poetics, or by Slought.net, or by Alienated.net, and so on. A lot of the hijinx performed on this listerv in the 90s was premised more on the idea that this listserv was an appeal to Everyone-Man in his self-appointed Complete Freedom. Regardless of what one thought of the way that the relation of the present tense to the past -- figured as "Language Poetry" -- was discussed on this listserv back then in pre Henry Gould times (the discussion was, for the most part, figured as a generational conlict, that I, for one, although mostly a lurker then, did not agree with, as my recent post, Tue, 30 Apr 2002 03:04:45 -0600, and one on the Third Factory site, http://www.umit.maine.edu/~steven.evans/3F-24, imply), whatever one thought about that discussion "then," it fell, together with the entire structure of this listserv, built as it is out of subjects (in both senses of that word), to the wayside, once HG created Everyone Man of the Null Points. To suggest that there is a historical locatedness for this listserv is not to suggest, let alone recommend or even imply, by any means, that "we should" hold ourselves and the present tense accountable only to the past and to a correct rendering of it on its terms -- by no means whatsoever! There is something salutary and exhilarating in "forgetting" (provided one once "knew," in some sense, in the first place), for instance, as a processual strategy, and, of course, there are lots of other strategies, new problems as well, new histories all the time to acknowledge, et cetera. Ok that's it for me. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 16:03:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Paul Stephens Subject: Re: Raymond Roussel Inquiry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark Ford's recent "Raymond Roussell and the Republic of Dreams," (Cornell UP, 2000) with foreward by John Ashbery, would be the best book in English for starting in on Roussel--the photographs of Roussel are particularly worthwhile. Ford and Ashbery gave a fascinating talk on Roussel in NY about a year ago. Locus Solus is still, I think, out of print in English--but it was readily available in French in Paris as of last summer. Trevor Winkfield's "How I Wrote Certain of My Books" (Exact Change) shouldn't be too hard to find. ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Bowering" To: Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 3:37 PM Subject: Re: Raymond Roussel Inquiry > >In a message dated 5/3/02 11:26:27 AM, pimetrum@ZAD.ATT.NE.JP writes: > > > >>Also, any info on Roussel's poetics and/ or politics would be appreciated. > >> > > > >john Ashberry has an essay on his in his book about "minor" poets, a book > >which recently came out. > > Raymond Roussel, a Critical Study, by Rayner Heppenstall,, Calder,1966. > -- > George Bowering > Welcome at home. > Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 13:14:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: post-2000 manifestos Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html

Hi Jessica, Thanks for posting that. I like your choice of the word/idea topology -- it makes lots of sense to me (and I find it heartwarming and exciting!). The only part that I'd add two more cents about is the assertions that both meaning and sound are secondary to sight. To me they are equally part of the topology; which is not to say that they are fixed.

Thanks for such an interesting and thoughtful post,


Elizabeth Treadwell

http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html


Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com.
========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 16:16:24 -0400 Reply-To: managingeditor@sidereality.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Clayton A. Couch" Subject: Volume 1, Issue 2 of sidereality MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear sidereality readers: Volume 1, Issue 2 -- aside from the "Reviews" section (which will appear on Tuesday, May 7) -- of sidereality (http://www.sidereality.com) is now online. Several layout and content changes have been made to the site, and Volume 1, Issue 1 can now be accessed via our "Archives" section. Once again, we've assembled work by some truly excellent poets: Charles Fishman, Susan Terris, Larry Sawyer, Ric Carfagna, Ian Randall Wilson, Janet Buck, among several others. Take a moment to look at the new issue, and please visit us again on the 7th when the "Reviews" section will be posted. Thank you for your support, Clayton A. Couch Managing Editor, sidereality managingeditor@sidereality.com http://www.sidereality.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 21:53:06 +0100 Reply-To: Robin Hamilton Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: The Ejected Four MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I want to add a few words to explain my last paragraph in the post headed > The Ejected Four. Could we PLEASE get this right? It was the Ejected FIVE -- Kent, Henry, Gabe, Carlo -- and Richard Dillon. Sometimes, The Amazing Buffalo Stalinist Airbrush beggars belief. Robin Hamilton ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 13:44:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Molly Schwartzburg Subject: Robert Grenier @ Stanford MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The Stanford Humanities Center Workshop in Contemporary Poetry and Poetics welcomes **** Robert Grenier **** for two events: Tuesday, May 7, 3:00 p.m. Reading, slide show and discussion Green Library 121A (Social Sciences Seminar Room) Wednesday, May 8, 10:00 a.m. to noon Discussion of Robert Grenier's archive at Stanford Green Library Special Collections Conference Room Please note that if you are not affiliated with Stanford, you must show ID and sign in to enter Green library. Nonaffiliates please enter at Green East (the modern wing of the building). They will sign you in and give you directions to the rooms listed above. For more information, e-mail shcpoetics@hotmail.com We hope to see you there! Molly Schwartzburg *** *** *** *** *** *** Molly Schwartzburg Stanford Humanities Center Stanford CA, 94305 650-724-8116 molly1@stanford.edu *** *** *** *** *** *** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:09:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jessica Smith Subject: too much deleuze, i guess MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >This manifesto tempts me, but I cannot figure out what is meant by the >page's "topology." I would think "topography" would be more accurate if what By topology I mean to also include topography. And i mean physical-historical space. and i mean the physical exertion of reading. so i definitely mean "experiential" as well as theoretical. Vernon seems to have a handle on it. thanks for reactions--i love reactions. >Beyond that, how can a poem be "on" a "space"? In fact how is a >"topological space" different from any other space? How can a poem *be* a >set of topological features? Would it not rather *have* those features? I >can't make sense of this. well, this is what's special about the manifesto, right? if you get your mind around how a "flat" poem is a "real" (3D+ space), then that's the issue. >But I agree that it sounds inspirational. And Jessica probably didn't post >it for me to hack the shit out of!! Aaron, dear, you didn't hack the shit out of it. a manifesto is a beginning. jessica ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:23:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: Re: Rules In-Reply-To: <001301c1f16e$76c28280$7259bbcc@satellite> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =20 =20 Listen, if posters to this list want to be idiots, that's up to each individual. But the "Rules" (guidelines) I posted before are for the benefit of the hardware (UB web severs) and discourse (people -- particularly those who receive the list digest). Please pull your heads out of the sand to consider them. ______________________________ =20 =20 For instance, a recent HTML message sent in by ET archives as a *bunch of junk* no person, now or forever in the future, will ever take the time to try and cognate through the mess of presentation markup (this is also what the subscribers to the digest get with HTML): http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0205&L=3Dpoetics&D=3D= 1&P=3D6 845 So why do people like ET insist on destroying efforts to document enlightened discourse? Why do people like her insist on making sure recipients of her message have to *squint* to read tiny-text which they have no control over because it is not in plain text? Why? =09 =09 __________________ Again, here are the facts: * Plain text email leaves the choice of formatting options to the user. It is accessible by all email programs. Since it is just plain text, it is usually at least 75% smaller in disk-size. HTML email is a bloated authorial markup which dictates (font-size) and excludes (proprietary, server parsing issues). * Blindly quoting entire posts, over and over again, results in *less and less* effective search capabilities because individual posts are diluted with 'blindly quoted' (already-archived) material. In other words, when you do a search you get at least twice as much as what you wanted returned because everything is posted twice (or more)! (That's 50% repeated content you have to wade through! Most appreciated by list digest subscribers, I am sure.) Search engines, do not understand you are actually just *really lazy and hate the world* -- they spend just as much time, indexing and going through entire posts you blindly quoted, as they do with your original message (double-work since the engine has already archived the blind quote). This practice is worse than spammers, junk mailers, tele-marketers, or commuter's gridlock. For blind repliers and HTML'ers, "...Two roads diverged in the woods, and they -- they cut down a barricade to make sure everyone else has a more difficult time getting through." It is malicious.=20 The list is archive by thread or 'Topic' (in addition to date, author). It is obvious, then, that blindly quoting entire posts as practice is redundant, confirms a distinction of ignorance to the poster who does it, and just leads to *a lot* of extra work by the UB web servers to deal with all the extra content (prompting list server crashes, other problems). (By behaving and getting real you can surely decrease web server archiving and broadcast activity generated by this list by more than 50% -- how would you like to be 50% more efficient or relevant? -- i.e. isn't worthwhile? Or do you just enjoy being an typical American - knowing you are using many, many, more resources than you require?) Just by realizing the tiniest bit of decorum necessary to follow established guidelines for email archiving, particularly if your list is concerned with discourse of a scholarly topic, you can make it so much easier for others to gain wisdom from your involvement.=20 Not giving a crap about your actions, or others, (doing it 'your' way), only confirms a group of narcissistic ego-happy masturbators who can only get off on the sound of their own voice and reading their own posts (since they only care about themselves - they don't care how others will receive their message). =20 How much *faith* do you think users have in content which is a hodge-podge of occlusion without any boundaries or definitions (focus) -- in other words, a useless pile-of-crap to try and reference, and unusable as a resource, for the above mentioned reasons, and more. Furthermore, it just makes you look stupid and ignorant of very *basic* and common goals of any reading list -- to be a resource for future discourse, one which can be referenced and navigated.=20 The answer is very simply, and if you look around at the vast majority of discussion lists, hardly a sacrifice to implement -- REPLY IN CONTEXT, EDIT QUOTED MESSAGES. =20 To Christopher, as a side note, the list should not be publishing private email addresses on their web servers, rather stripping those out before archiving. (This is a common privacy practice). You may now resume being an idiot or gain appreciation. =09 =20 =09 =09 =09 =20 =09 =20 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:25:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jessica Smith Subject: more on manifestos/to elizabeth MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit sorry for the short emails... hi elizabeth... i guess what i "mean" by 2ndary-ness is not that... they are "less important" but that they are "less immediate." i mean this mostly as a response to the kids of the book machine. that when i write th u s i do not read "th" "uh" "s" like sesame street, slowing the pronunciation of the word to its phonemes, because when i am tracking the phonemes onthe page, i do not find them until they have become a word. which does not mean that there is only one possible word--in many of my poems, each phoneme is used multiple times and each letter group can be pronounced differently depending on what path the reader chooses. in other words, wheni read non-linearly (it's more obvious with the text above that everyone will eventually come up with the same pronunciation of "thus") i find differnet paths, and none of them are "pronounceable" until they have been well-trodden, that is, until i have reached the next step, which i can sometimes not immediately trace. sandra g. says she sees "th""us", and perhaps it is just some brain damage in my mind that makes me wait to accumulate sound. i seem to need to find a whole word, as one might find an ideogram, before being able to "name" (pronounce/recognize) it. feel encouraged to comment. i like thinking. jessica ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 15:13:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: travis ortiz Subject: Atelos 12: Some Vague Wife by Kathy Lou Schultz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Some Vague Wife by Kathy Lou Schultz Atelos (www.atelos.org/) is pleased to announce the publication on June 15, 2002 of Some Vague Wife by Kathy Lou Schultz. About the book: Some Vague Wife, Kathy Lou Schultz’s third published volume of writing, was written specifically for Atelos and with Atelos’s stated interest in “crossing traditional genre boundaries” in mind. Ostensibly divided into three sections and three genres (“Songs,” “Stories,” and “A Novel”), the overall composition of Some Vague Wife in fact brings about a convergence, though one that is more disrupted than a fugue, and certainly less “classical.” Perhaps what’s compositionally at work is achieved through decomposition — of body into love, of sentence into energy. “If I put my finger in your ear the sounds emanating from your head indicate signs of life.” About the author: Kathy Lou Schultz was born in Burke, South Dakota in 1966. She grew up in central Nebraska, which she left when she was 18 in order to attend Columbia University. She completed her undergraduate degree at Oberlin College, a first-generation college graduate, and went on to San Francisco State University, where she received an MFA in poetry and American literature. Her first collection of poems, Re dress, won the Michael Rubin Award from San Francisco State University and was published as The 1994 San Francisco State University Chapbook. Robert Glück has said of Kathy Lou Schultz’s work, “Schultz writes about love, work, and physical life in a time when hope is qualified and nothing is normal.” And Myung Mi Kim has remarked that Schultz ’s work allows “restraint and freedom to coincide in the work of pressing the problematic of sexual and class identity, reconfiguring woman as an open book.” Kathy Lou Schultz’s poetry, experimental fiction, and critical essays have appeared in a variety of influential journals, and her second collection of poetry, Genealogy, was published in 1999. She is currently pursuing doctoral studies in literature at the University of Pennsylvania, where she also co-edits the literary magazine Lipstick Eleven. “I build a city on imagination,” says Schultz. “Next door, an empire.” About the project: Atelos was founded in 1995 as a project of Hip’s Road. It is devoted to publishing, under the sign of poetry, writing which challenges the conventional definitions of poetry, since such definitions have tended to isolate poetry from intellectual life, arrest its development, and curtail its impact. All the works published as part of the Atelos project are commissioned specifically for it, and each is involved in some way with crossing traditional genre boundaries, including, for example, those that would separate theory from practice, poetry from prose, essay from drama, the visual image from the verbal, the literary from the non-literary, and so forth. The Atelos project when complete will consist of 50 volumes; Some Vague Wife is volume 12. The project directors and editors are Lyn Hejinian and Travis Ortiz; the director for production and design is Travis Ortiz; cover production and design is by Ree Katrak. Ordering information: Some Vague Wife may be ordered from Small Press Distribution, 1341 Seventh Street, Berkeley, CA 94710-1403; phone 510-524-1668 or toll-free 800-869-7553; e-mail: orders@spd.org. Title: Some Vague Wife Contact: Lyn Hejinian: 510-548-1817 Author: Kathy Lou Schultz Travis Ortiz: 415-863-1999 Price: $12.95 fax: 510-704-8350 Pages: 88 Atelos Publication Date: June 15, 2002 PO Box 5814 ISBN: 1-891190-12-1 Berkeley, CA 94705-0814 Purchase online: http://www.atelos.org/some_vague.htm (follow the "buy" link) *** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:11:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? In-Reply-To: <20020503181259.7605.qmail@web12204.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > Any Middle Eastern poetics scholars in the mix? I'm > putting together a syllabus and would like to include > a combination of poems by contemporary Middle > Eastern-American poets writing in English and good > translations of prominent Middle Eastern poets, but I > find my knowledge of the aforementioned woefully > inadequate. Any leads would be much appreciated. > > Ravi -- Obviously the most visible & essential ME poet right now would be Mahmood Darwish, the Palestinian poet. Available is a selection of poems, _The Adam of Two Edens," Jusoor & Syracuse University Press (2000) & possibly still available, his prose memoir of Beirut under fire in 1982, called _Memory of Forgetfulness_ (U of California Press). UCP is also preparing a largish volume of poetry that should be out this fall. Two of the major figures of the "Shi'ir" or "Tammuzi" movement have books available in english: Adonis, "The Pages of Day & Night" (trans. Samuel Hazo) The Marlboto Press, Vermont 1994) ((plus a volume of important essays that would situate Arab Modernism, that I can't locate right now...). Then there are 2 books available by Muhammed Al-Maghut: _Joy is Not My Profession: Selected Poems_ and _Fan of Swords_. For a quick intro to that group you could also look at _Poems of the Millennium_ Vol. 2 where we have a section on the Tammuzi poets, p 181ff. Two anthos, tho I don't know if they are still in print: _When the Words Burn: An anthology of modern Arabic Poetry 1945-1987_ by John Mikhail Asfour is a very good intro. _A Crack in the Wall: New Arab Poetry_ edited by Margaret Obank & Samuel Shimon_ published by Saqi books in London, GB, is an interestinmg compilationm of very recent Arab work, mainly from the middle East. Obank & Shimon also edit a very useful magazine from London, called _Banipal: Magazine of Modern Arab Literature_, maybe the widest rasnging English language periodical on the contemporary poetry scenes in the Arab World, both Mashreq and Maghreb. Hope that helps, Pierre ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 "É melhor ser cabeça de sardinha Tel: (518) 426-0433 do que traseiro de baleia" Fax: (518) 426-3722 Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ____________________________________________________________________________ _ > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 16:59:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: too much deleuze, i guess Comments: To: jss13@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU In-Reply-To: <2538522464.1020445771@pscpn3s-25> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Jessica, I get it. Vernon's comments helped too. I think "topology" is like a tee-shirt I still have from college-- pretty stretched out, but it has a cool logo on it, so I still wear it to cookouts. > > Aaron, dear, you didn't hack the shit out of it. a manifesto is a > beginning. You are too kind, and you're right about what a manifesto is. Thanks for being gracious with my questions. Also, it makes me happy that you called me 'dear'. David Hess never calls me dear. Neither does Lawrence Upton. Damnit if we all couldn't be a little more polite. Actually, if this photograph isn't airbrushed or something -- http://www.rpj.org/artists.html -- you can call me 'dear' all you want; i've been a fan a long time. Gotta run, Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:16:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jessica Smith Subject: post-2001 manifesto, or whatever that first post was called MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this is for people who might want to see what my manifesto ends up manifesting itself -as-. but people who are bored with this line of emails can ignore it. it's sometimes hard to handle so many emails from poetics, esp. people sneding all kinds of poetry. but if you're interested, http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jss13/poetry/birds.pdf i'm not happy w/the mandelbrot quote but otherwise... what i mean basically by topology is that... it's historically altered physical space. and i mean to envelope topography, by which i mean the space as it exists experientally. i'm not necessarily using these terms correctly :) but i was advised (by ming-qian ma) to use "topology." so you can argue with my wording if you want... as i said b/f, a manifest toe is a beginning point, an utmost extention of starting-from, a best foot forward. jessica ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 21:02:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Libbie Rifkin Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 SSdtIGZpbmRpbmcgVGhlIFBvZXRyeSBvZiBBcmFiIFdvbWVuOiBBIENvbnRlbXBvcmFyeSBBbnRo b2xvZ3ksIGVkLiBOYXRhbGllIEhhbmRhbCwgKE5ldyBZb3JrOiBJbnRlcmxpbmsgQm9va3MsIDIw MDApIHRvIGJlIHJlYWxseSBpbGx1bWluYXRpbmcuIFRoZSA2MC1wYWdlIGludHJvZHVjdGlvbiAo d2hpY2ggSSdtIGp1c3QgZ2V0dGluZyB0aHJvdWdoKSBpcyBleGhhdXN0aXZlLCB0byBzYXkgdGhl IGxlYXN0Lg0KIA0KDQoJLS0tLS1PcmlnaW5hbCBNZXNzYWdlLS0tLS0gDQoJRnJvbTogUGllcnJl IEpvcmlzIFttYWlsdG86am9yaXNAQUxCQU5ZLkVEVV0gDQoJU2VudDogRnJpIDUvMy8yMDAyIDU6 MTEgUE0gDQoJVG86IFBPRVRJQ1NATElTVFNFUlYuQUNTVS5CVUZGQUxPLkVEVSANCglDYzogDQoJ U3ViamVjdDogUmU6IE1pZGRsZSBFYXN0ZXJuIFBvZXRzPw0KCQ0KCQ0KCSANCg0K ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 19:16:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Silem Mohammad" Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >From: Pierre Joris >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? >Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:11:06 -0400 > > > Any Middle Eastern poetics scholars in the mix? I'm > > putting together a syllabus and would like to include > > a combination of poems by contemporary Middle > > Eastern-American poets writing in English and good > > translations of prominent Middle Eastern poets, but I > > find my knowledge of the aforementioned woefully > > inadequate. Any leads would be much appreciated. I was browsing an interesting book the other day: _"Peaks of Yemen I Summon": Poetry as Cultural Practice in a North Yemeni Tribe_, by Steven Caton. It includes a fair amount of poetry in translation, I seem to recall. Don't know how useful or relevant it is for your purposes, but worth checking out. Kasey ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ K. Silem Mohammad Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit University of California Santa Cruz _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 20:30:36 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Mahmood Darwish, the Palestinian poet. Available is > a selection of poems, I think the prose UC book is (as I mentioned before) brilliant. Agha Shahid Ali also translated a long Darwish poem that is included in his most recent book "Rooms Are Never Finished." Etal Adnan also has a book called "There" (is it Post Apollo Press) which is really amazing. Depending on how far back you want to go and if you're considering other parts of the Arab world, there's a city lights anthology called "poems of arab andalusia" that's pretty sexy... ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 03:00:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: vile MIME-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT That's the direction I meant, Joel. Just having trouble finding the term to describe it. Maybe we need a new rhetoric? or rhetorical dictionary? tom - Joel said: "> then, can't the making of the poem be a process of breaking down those > sides? Good fences don't make good communities, nor a nation, certainly not > a world. With the event of the World Wide Web, it seems to me we are moving > toward a world poetry, not collected but freshly generated. In view of this, > what should one's rhetoric be? > > -Joel > > Joel Weishaus > Center for Excellence in Writing > Portland State University > Portland, Oregon > http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx00282 &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 01:07:44 -0400 Reply-To: maryrosel@excite.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maryrose Larkin Subject: Charles Borkhuis and Cynthia Kimball at Spare Room MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit spare roompresents a reading byCharles Borkhuis andCynthia KimballSaturday May 4th, 4:00 pmFour Wall Cinema425 SE Third, Studio 400Portland, OR 97214(one block west of Martin Luther King Blvd., between Stark and Oak)$5 suggested donationCharles Borkhuis is a poet, playwright, and essayist. His books of poemsinclude Hypnogogic Sonnets, Proximity (Stolen Arrows), and Dinner withFranz, and the most recent, Alpha Ruins (Bucknell University), wasselected as a runner-up for the 2001 William Carlos Williams Book Award.The recipient of a Drama-logue Award, and the former editor ofTheater:Ex, an experimental theater publication, he has had playsproduced in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Hartford, and Paris.Mouth of Shadows, a collection of full-length plays, was published bySpuyten-Duyvil in 2000; Black Light, a CD released in 2002, contains tworadio plays produced for NPR. His latest play, The Man in The BowlerHat, is scheduled to be produced in New York in 2003. He has recentlycompleted a new book of poems, Savoir-Fear, and a feature-length filmscript entitled Undercurrent. An Assistant Professor of English at TouroCollege in New York, he has curated poetry readings for the SegueFoundation for the last eight years, most recently at Double Happinessin Manhattan.Cynthia Kimball learned a lot about poetry while she was living inBuffalo, New York. Now she lives here in Portland and teaches atPortland Community College. She grew up in a small town in Idaho wherethe Methodist church has a spaghetti dinner on election night to feedthe people who came in from the backcountry to vote. A full list ofother places she has lived is available upon request.spare room is a semi-regular reading series with a focus on innovativewriting.For more information and a reading from the featured poets' work, callour dial-a-poem line at 503.236.0867SPARE ROOM: A SPACE FOR INNOVATION ------------------------------------------------ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 01:20:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Damian Judge Rollison Subject: Re: Rules MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Postings like this one are so interesting rhetorically -- their messages have very little to do with their ostensible subjects. I have trouble believing that Mr. Derek R actually cares about responsible posting and archiving protocols. He seems rather more interested in rubbing people's faces in their own crapulence. But if Mr. R truly wants to see a change, a spoonful of sugar couldn't hurt. Might I suggest "witty, good-looking narcissistic ego-happy masturbators"? I for one wouldn't mind being labeled a narcissistic ego-happy masturbator, but when somebody starts hurling epithets like "typical American," well, sir, that's going too far. (Oh no, now I'll have Leonard B on my ass. I guess you just can't win these days.) Damian On Fri, 3 May 2002 17:23:29 -0400 Derek R wrote: > > > Listen, if posters to this list want to be idiots, that's up to each > individual. But the "Rules" (guidelines) I posted before are for the > benefit of the hardware (UB web severs) and discourse (people -- > particularly those who receive the list digest). > > Please pull your heads out of the sand to consider them. > ______________________________ <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< damian judge rollison department of english/ institute for advanced technology in the humanities university of virginia djr4r@virginia.edu >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 06:44:07 +0100 Reply-To: Robin Hamilton Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: Rules MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Oh, yo ... Let's by all means be boring. But let's be boring +succinctly+. Robin Hamilton ----- Original Message ----- From: "Damian Judge Rollison" To: Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2002 6:20 AM Subject: Re: Rules > Postings like this one are so interesting rhetorically -- > their messages have very little to do with their ostensible > subjects. I have trouble believing that Mr. Derek R > actually cares about responsible posting and archiving > protocols. He seems rather more interested in rubbing > people's faces in their own crapulence. But if Mr. R truly > wants to see a change, a spoonful of sugar couldn't hurt. > Might I suggest "witty, good-looking narcissistic ego-happy > masturbators"? > > I for one wouldn't mind being labeled a narcissistic > ego-happy masturbator, but when somebody starts hurling > epithets like "typical American," well, sir, that's going > too far. (Oh no, now I'll have Leonard B on my ass. I guess > you just can't win these days.) > > > Damian > > > > On Fri, 3 May 2002 17:23:29 -0400 Derek R > wrote: > > > > > > Listen, if posters to this list want to be idiots, that's up to each > > individual. But the "Rules" (guidelines) I posted before are for the > > benefit of the hardware (UB web severs) and discourse (people -- > > particularly those who receive the list digest). > > > > Please pull your heads out of the sand to consider them. > > ______________________________ > > > <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< > damian judge rollison > department of english/ > institute for advanced > technology in the > humanities > university of virginia > djr4r@virginia.edu > >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 03:10:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: Re: Rules In-Reply-To: <007901c1f32e$b6fa80c0$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =20 Robin Hamilton wrote: >Oh, yo ... > >Let's by all means be boring. > >But let's be boring +succinctly+. =20 =20 I'm not sure what or who you are referring to here, Robin. If you care to put your comments in context, I'm sure myself and others would be happy to understand just what the hell you are trying to say... Nah, forget it. Let's just keep trying to second-guess each other, and build our discourse on a heap of missed connections. Makes it so much easier to maintain the status-quo. =20 =20 =20 damian judge rollison wrote: >I have trouble believing that Mr. Derek R >actually cares about responsible posting and archiving >protocols. He seems rather more interested in rubbing >people's faces in their own crapulence. Sorry about that. =20 =20 =20 >if Mr. R truly wants to see a change, a spoonful >of sugar couldn't hurt. =20 That, yes, I can do too.=20 =09 =09 =09 =09 =09 =09 =20 =09 =09 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 19:52:46 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Vile MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joel. I agree. But I have spoken. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joel Weishaus" To: Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 6:31 AM Subject: Re: Vile > I listen to all the chatter on the news and hear the same us/them rhetoric > I've heard all my life. The rhetoric is what needs to be changed. It's > language that provokes, and language that heals. Treaties are language. > Peace talks are language. Fundamentalist religions are about language. As is > poetry. One chooses one's enemy as one chooses one's words. > > -Joel > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Hilton Obenzinger" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 12:19 PM > Subject: Re: Vile > > > > Dear Friends, > > > > I hate my country and I'm trying to leave it but all the other countries > > show the same movies so there is no escape. I am the enemy and I am > trying > > to arrest myself except that I discovered that I am not smart enough. I > am > > anti-Israel. I am a Jew, and I have no problem with being a rootless > > cosmopolitan, or, as Ben-Gurion said, human dust. I love America because > > it is one big human dust bowl. I do not favor the Two-State Solution in > > the Middle East. Rather, I favor the No-State Solution. Neither side > > deserves a state, only a shopping center. Or if they do, it should be > > North Dakota. Now that my government has withdrawn from the ABM, the > Kyoto > > Accords, the International Court, and all the rest, I have decided to > > withdraw from the English language. You may think you are reading English > > right now, but you are not. You are reading enemy propaganda. > > > > Hilton Obenzinger > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 09:28:32 +0100 Reply-To: Robin Hamilton Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: Rules MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robin Hamilton wrote: >Oh, yo ... > >Let's by all means be boring. > >But let's be boring +succinctly+. I'm not sure what or who you are referring to here, Robin. ... I'm sorry, this is layered, and i simply tagged my comment onto the nearest message. Leave aside the flapdoodle of let's-all-be-nice (a generic whine). ... there is a problem with being a Brit lurking on an American list. You say Billy Collins, we say Andrew Motion. So there is a +real+ problem (for me) with BufPo -- the idiom is strange and the geography is eccentric: Come hear Anne Waldman read in Downtown New York. Who? Where? LangPo, wha | zat? Huh ... ? "If you care to put your comments in context, I'm sure myself and others would be happy to understand just what the hell you are trying to say..." Well, to be honest, that's a decent question that deserves a decent answer. So. No answer. "Nah, forget it. Let's just keep trying to second-guess each other, and build our discourse on a heap of missed connections. Makes it so much easier to maintain the status-quo." But toss the nickle and see which side it lands -- I'm an alien here, but i +do+ know a bit of the background. I +do+ know who was Bounced From Buffalo in 98. The sequence the order the names. You want specifics? I'll give you specifics till your teeth turn blue. {Look, sorry, much of the gringe&fury of this is simply that the Buffalo Poetics List -- which is +supposed+ to be the great-gran'-daddy Of All Poetry Lists, can come over as a bunch of mud-puppies wallowing around in a really small and +parochial+ swamp-pool. Frankly, I'm disappointed.} Sometimes, I just sadly twiddle my fingers and toss an occasional possum into the pond. Sorry if this doesn't make sense. Not everything in black and white makes sense. Robin Hamilton >if Mr. R truly wants to see a change, a spoonful >of sugar couldn't hurt. Well, couldn't it ever. Rots your teeth, but. R2. Respect. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 20:39:53 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Dejected Gang of Four MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I think I see what you are saying, or implying, but its sounds a bit as though this :ist "can only" accomodate a certain "poetic (and hence inevitable (political and all the other itical) drifts: however, other objections to "The Gang of Four" were that they were "not nice" ..ok maybe they are stridently ant-lanpo (or are tey I dont know) but when Ilooked back to the poets of that time the reasons for censoring (censorship - I might agree on certain "extreme" cases: it wouldnt be good to have personal attacks but general political discussion always gets emotive ... we cant always be passionless as Mr Brink seems to be wanting that chap Tyler to be! (I dont know him but I do know a Mr Taylor) is almost always bad and would in fact contradict Bernsteinian poetics)... I feel we should let on those who are intereested in poetics: evem in the "bernsteinian school so to speak there are huge differences which is exactly what is good about his theoretics...as long as people come back to some coherent and fairly reasonable discussion: in short, let them on, if they are crazed formalists or flame everyone incessantly then, sure, we can then see if they bneed to be booted off. I expect to get flamed:but I can take it like a person. I'm getting a bit charred by Monsieur Brinkmann ( but ok I know I shoot me mouth off, but I care: I thnk monsieur Brink is a bit of a RW- possibly a strong right winger, bu maybe I;m wrong: anycase he has a right to attack as I attacked...but the attack, sure, should move away from rhetoric (if / and as much as possible): however when I "attacked" Israel and the US I was honest to how I FELT at that time .... but I wasnt attacking Aaron: just disagreeing and I dont think that worries Aaron whom I respect.But I think that the Gang of Four should be allowed back to see what they say and so on. It might do us all good. Richard. > I want to add a few words to explain my last paragraph in the post headed > The Ejected Four. Its purpose was not to demonstrate how callous and > indifferent I personally can be, for instance to those ejected from this > listserv. The intent was focused on the question of listserv structure. > > If this listerv is conceived of as a time-based project, then one thing that > means is that it has a specific history, a set of given purposes, vectors, > problems, assumptions to do with poetry. Some, not others. On some specific > terms, not other specific terms. Et cetera. > >>Can that be the case? I dont think so: its like taking certain things form the bible and using them to prove a religious point...similarly the essence of the language movement is the move TO the everyone (I know that is fraught: I know what you're saying: I've been into that space myself...I wanted to reject anything that was not a kind of "construct" ...I wanted an elite at one stage...)But now.. > What this then means is, necessarily -- as Not Nice as this is > to say -- it's not structured "for everyone," in order to appeal to some > idea of Everyone-Man. > > however tangentially, as this listserv > record's early days attest. In other words, this is not a listserv set up > and overseen by other equally specific and worthy institutions and places > with their own specific histories -- for instance, by The Jack Kerouac > School of Disembodied Poetics, or by the Montreal Spoken Word scene, or by > Iowa, or by Bard College, or by the North American Centre for > Interdisciplinary Poetics, or by Slought.net, or by Alienated.net, and so > on. > > Yes but there is a cross copulation via these movements (I;''m not a great fan of the Beats - but I like their contribution - what irritates me about them is that their supporters support them for "dubious" reasons (things like the fact thaht Burroughs shot his wife and so on))but I like a lot of things re them and also eg Bukowski interests me but so does Zukofsky and so on....(I dont know the other lists...Bard College sounds it might be interesting ( a friend of mine Rueben Pillsbury attnded there(from NZ) (I divigate again!) I wonder if anyone knows him...? > > A lot of the hijinx performed on this listerv in the 90s was premised more > on the idea that this listserv was an appeal to Everyone-Man in his > self-appointed Complete Freedom. Regardless of what one thought of the way > that the relation of the present tense to the past -- figured as "Language > Poetry" -- was discussed on this listserv back then in pre Henry Gould times > (the discussion was, for the most part, figured as a generational conlict, > that I, for one, although mostly a lurker then, did not agree with, as my > recent post, Tue, 30 Apr 2002 03:04:45 -0600, and one on the Third Factory > site, http://www.umit.maine.edu/~steven.evans/3F-24, imply), whatever one > thought about that discussion "then," it fell, together with the entire > structure of this listserv, built as it is out of subjects (in both senses > of that word), to the wayside, once HG created Everyone Man of the Null > Points. > > To suggest that there is a historical locatedness for this listserv is not > to suggest, let alone recommend or even imply, by any means, that "we > should" hold ourselves and the present tense accountable only to the past > and to a correct rendering of it on its terms -- by no means whatsoever! > >>I agree. > >There is something salutary and exhilarating in "forgetting" (provided one > once "knew," in some sense, in the first place), for instance, as a > processual strategy, and, of course, there are lots of other strategies, new > problems as well, new histories all the time to acknowledge, et cetera. > >>You evade me here though. > > You sound a bit like a kind of Commisar of the Language Poetry School. What do you mean by a prosessual strategy? > >>I support the Language Movement in general...and i'm am an older (if not a wiser) man...but it is probably good if this "generational conflict" comes in: its always going to (I just vlistened to a marvellous discussion-part performance of Enesco's great opera "Oedipe" that area of signification is still with us) WE (well in a sense I'm effectively a "young fulla" as I came back to poetry etc late in life and so on) have to workwith/againgst / through this conflict (however I know that you are saying that the attack is predicated on the "old guys who have "made it"ersus the young "rebels" who have now "replaced" the original rebels who you and I know are (if not "rebels") still far from ossified: au cntraire but lets give these guys another cahnce: I wont be agreeing on "one side" as I hope no one else will> Look...the power of cliches (wotnes Ashbery's work): Sticks and stones May break my bones: But words can Never hurt me! That was cahnted on the streets of "working class" Panmure (Auckland) when I was a biooy in the 50s. Regards, Richard von Tyler Taylor. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 07:05:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > > I was browsing an interesting book the other day: _"Peaks of Yemen I > Summon": Poetry as Cultural Practice in a North Yemeni Tribe_, by Steven > Caton. It includes a fair amount of poetry in translation, I seem to > recall. Don't know how useful or relevant it is for your purposes, but > worth checking out. > Kasey -- indeed, _Peaks_ is a marvellous book on contemporary oral poetry & poetics in Yemen -- I loved it! & recommend it highly -- Pierre ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 "É melhor ser cabeça de sardinha Tel: (518) 426-0433 do que traseiro de baleia" Fax: (518) 426-3722 Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ____________________________________________________________________________ _ > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of K.Silem Mohammad > Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 10:17 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? > > _________________________________________________________________ > Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 06:09:15 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Hail Pataki? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A conflation of institutions (if not, alas, a confederacy of dunces)? Which came first? SUNY-Buffalo or "the Language school"? Or, when getting into a bicycle accident at the corner of Flatbush and 4th Avenue, should we ask which came first, Flatbush or 4th Avenue? I heard about this list first from Don Byrd.... it therefore stems issues from his story, or the story of SUNY-ALBANY, the less poetry-funded "cousin" of SUNY-Buffalo-- and Creeley was at SUNYAB before and through Creeley in 85 first heard I of Lang.PO.... thus LANG PO stemmed from Buffalo in logic no more faux than yours Or maybe this listserv ISSUES from the threatened cuts to the SUNY system by then Governor-elect GEORGE PATAKI? (could be traced....) (and why are the Buffalo Bills the only football team not to have their name represented on their helmets?) Maybe sunyab changed langpo through the agency of bernstein, or had sunyab hired someone other than bernstein it would have found another agent to do the listserv thing.... not really about "priority" though... and maybe kasey could write a "what is suny-buffalo" piece? one almost longs for the good old "simpler" times when a visiting professor at Temple University (Susan Howe) could claim in all earnestness that certain other poets were too "academic".... and mr. eric r., i'm going to excerpt what i'm responding too... though personally I prefer it when the whole post is posted because i like seeing a wider context..... signed, not me Louis Cabri wrote: > This listserv issues from Language Poetry's history, as well as all the > histories of poetry that that label has invoked and/or adjusted a bit to > refract, ever so slightly, through its nonreflecting mirror, rightly or > wrongly. > the fact is that this > listserv *was* set up by Bernstein and *does* issue from SUNY-Buffalo and by > implication therefore *is* nudged like an ugly rotting pip next to a twisted > rhizome-root of SUNY-Buffalo, ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 21:30:54 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i adore this book, have taught it, etc, one of the few books that really does look at poetry as social practice... At 7:16 PM -0700 5/3/02, K.Silem Mohammad wrote: > >I was browsing an interesting book the other day: _"Peaks of Yemen I >Summon": Poetry as Cultural Practice in a North Yemeni Tribe_, by Steven >Caton. It includes a fair amount of poetry in translation, I seem to >recall. Don't know how useful or relevant it is for your purposes, but >worth checking out. > >Kasey > > > > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >K. Silem Mohammad >Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit >University of California Santa Cruz > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 09:28:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Leddy Subject: Re: Raymond Roussel Inquiry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Does anyone know where/ how to get Roussel books in translation at a reasonable price? > Ben Basan In addition to what's been mentioned so far-- Raymond Roussel, Selections from Certain of His Books (Atlas Anthology VII), Atlas Press, 1991 Ron Padgett/Raymond Roussel, Among the Blacks. Avenue B, 1988 (a short piece by Roussel, trans. by Padgett, and an essay by Padgett with the same title) I'd guess that both books would be available from Small Press Distribution (as would the Trevor Winkfield volume) Michael Leddy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 10:50:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "David A. Kirschenbaum" Subject: Stroffolino and the NFL MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit though i defer to stroffolino on matters poetry, i do not on matters national football league. strof's line in his post "Hail Pataki" said: (and why are the Buffalo Bills the only football team not to have their name represented on their helmets?) the word "represented" is troublesome here, as if your name is bills and you have a bill on your helmet, that does seem appropriate, no? perhaps he meant not having their names on their helmets, which is something many teams don't have. as ever, David -- David A. Kirschenbaum, editor and publisher Boog City 330 W.28th St., Suite 6H NY, NY 10001-4754 T: (212) 206-8899 F: (212) 206-9982 editor@boogcity.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 16:11:04 +0000 Reply-To: rsillima@yahoo.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: A conflation of conspiracy theories Comments: To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed A conflation of institutions (if not, alas, a confederacy of dunces)? Which came first? SUNY-Buffalo or "the Language school"? writes Chris, ever the gadfly. well, I lived in Buffalo briefly in 1970 (on Agaziz Circle by the park) tho the poets I knew there then did not include Creeley, but John Logan and Robert Hass. The Howe sisters spent part of their childhoods there. The submission that got my mag Tottels going later that year came from David Gitin, who had been an undergrad student of Olson's at UB in the 1960s. If you're going to put together a conspiracy theory, you should try to maximize the number of suspects you put on the grassy knoll, Chris. Ron _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 10:34:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Vernon Frazer Subject: Re: more on manifestos/to elizabeth MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jessica For me the sound is as important as where the characters appear on the page. Like Elizabeth, I value them equally. In reading your work I find that I'm always trying to pronounce the phoneme in my head while waiting for others to connect with it. Naturally, it sounds different during the process than the word it settles into. Perhaps our minds work differently, but I'm hearing as much as I'm seeing when I write or read. Maybe "by ear, he sd" is not literally about the ear but about using the senses in general as a guide. I'm glad you like to think. So do I. It's a very rewarding activity. But be careful: I'm sure there's an FDA study somewhere that says thinking can cause Cancer in laboratory animals. :) Vernon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jessica Smith" To: Sent: Friday, May 03, 2002 2:25 PM Subject: more on manifestos/to elizabeth > sorry for the short emails... > > hi elizabeth... > > i guess what i "mean" by 2ndary-ness is not that... they are "less > important" but that they are "less immediate." i mean this mostly as a > response to the kids of the book machine. that when i write th u > > > > > s > > i do not read > > "th" > "uh" > "s" > > like sesame street, slowing the pronunciation of the word to its phonemes, > because when i am tracking the phonemes onthe page, i do not find them > until they have become a word. which does not mean that there is only one > possible word--in many of my poems, each phoneme is used multiple times and > each letter group can be pronounced differently depending on what path the > reader chooses. in other words, wheni read non-linearly (it's more obvious > with the text above that everyone will eventually come up with the same > pronunciation of "thus") i find differnet paths, and none of them are > "pronounceable" until they have been well-trodden, that is, until i have > reached the next step, which i can sometimes not immediately trace. > > sandra g. says she sees "th""us", and perhaps it is just some brain damage > in my mind that makes me wait to accumulate sound. i seem to need to find > a whole word, as one might find an ideogram, before being able to "name" > (pronounce/recognize) it. > > feel encouraged to comment. i like thinking. > > jessica ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 12:19:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alicia Askenase Subject: Re: Stroffolino and the NFL MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit David, Did you receive the poems? What do you think? The only team I care about are the 6ixers and they lost last night! Waaaaaaaaaaah. Hope yr well, Alicia ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 12:21:18 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alicia Askenase Subject: please don't post my last message, or this one MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Lister, I just sent an email to David Kirshembaum which I did not intend to send to the List. Please do not post--thank you. Alicia Askenase ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 10:49:24 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu / housepress Subject: new from housepress "Song of a self: a poem" by Jason Christie MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable housepress is pleased to announce the release of a new chapbook: Song of a self: a poem by Jason Christie published in a handbound and numbered edition of 60 copies. $6.00 each, including postage & taxes. Jason Christie is a poet and visual artist who moved from Toronto to = Calgary to pursue is MA. He has recently had work in the "Queen Street = Quarterly," "(orange)," "endNote" and "Existere" magazines and though = housepress' ephemera series.=20 to order copies, or for more information, contact=20 derek beaulieu derek@housepress.ca www.housepress.ca=20 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 13:33:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Kimmelman, Burt" Subject: NYC Reading - Marsh Hawk Press MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Marsh Hawk Press authors reading and book party for Between Earth and Sky by Sandy McIntosh. May 12th, 6:00 PM Cornelia Street Cafe Cornelia Street off Bleeker Street Greenwich Village Readings by Jane Augustine, Thomas Fink, Burt Kimmelman, and featuring Sandy McIntosh. Marsh Hawk Press takes its name from the strong, independent, wide-ranging bird found everywhere in America's open spaces, and not too close to solid, built-up ground. Our books present forms and sensibilities that have assimilated modern and post-modern traditions but expand from these without political or aesthetic bias, outside of "schools" yet with affinities to the visual arts. Making use of the most up-to-date technology, we aim to produce handsome, affordable books to sustain readers of poetry. Five volumes will appear in 2001-2002 with at least five to follow in the next year. Books forthcoming by: Burt Kimmelman, Stephen Paul Miller, Sharon Dolin, Edward Foster, Harriet Zinnes, Basil King, Eileen Tabios, Patricia Carlin, Martha King, Rochelle Ratner, Madeline Tiger, and Chard deNiord. Please visit the Marsh Hawk Press website: http://www.marshhawkpress.org. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 17:26:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: NYT article MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT the tendrils of the revolution emerge again and again. I wonder how far this gathering is from where Sanders wrote _Chekov_? he could probably drive over. tom bell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 16:33:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: Re: Rules In-Reply-To: <00ce01c1f345$aee94260$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable not me (CSS) wrote:=20 >I prefer it when the whole post is posted >because i like seeing a wider context..... Here's a tip: All email clients, even web mail, have always allowed you to sort your messages by *subject* (Click on the header of the column you want sorted) If your are handicap in some way or 'just can't deal with computer-stuff' don't worry about it. Nobody is going to sweat the little stuff. I'm assuming tho, this doesn't mean most people. Email management, however, is pretty easy, meaning it shouldn't be necessary for particular objects to contain (be) every other object (like a blind post). [ Some additional help ] Creating Automatic Email Filters (Automating your email) --> Managing the Poetics List is easy if you *create a separate folder* Outlook Express Rules: http://www.xtra.co.nz/help/0,,6155-889799,00.html Outlook Rules: http://www.onenw.org/bin/page.cfm?pageid=3D36 Eudora Rules: http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/tutorials/win_filters.html Archiving Web-Based Email: http://www.techtv.com/callforhelp/howto/story/0,24330,3376718,00.html =20 (NB: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU is the address Poetics List email arrives from) ...and, as always, the client Help menu (F1-key on MS) is available to guide you, or hell, just ask me :-) cheers, Derek=20 =20 =20 =20 =20 =20 =20 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 16:34:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Remembering Chassler (fwrd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Barbara Barg asked me to pass this on to the last. I do so with sadness. Chassler (as most of us called him) died in January. >------------------------------------------------------------ > >Obscurity Lasts Forever--a memorial for Joseph Holland Chassler--poet, >philosopher, kind soul. > >Remembering Chassler through his writings, cartoons and drawings, tales of >his life and performance of his songs by the band Channeling Chassler. > >Sat. May 11th, 2pm at The Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery between Bleecker >and Houston, across the street from CBGB's. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 00:03:30 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ryan fitzpatrick Subject: Re: new from housepress "Song of a self: a poem" by Jason Christie Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed hey derek, could i get a copy of jason's book from you, thanks ryan >From: derek beaulieu / housepress >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: new from housepress "Song of a self: a poem" by Jason Christie >Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 10:49:24 -0600 > >housepress is pleased to announce the release of a new chapbook: > >Song of a self: a poem >by Jason Christie > >published in a handbound and numbered edition of 60 copies. >$6.00 each, including postage & taxes. > >Jason Christie is a poet and visual artist who moved from Toronto to >Calgary to pursue is MA. He has recently had work in the "Queen Street >Quarterly," "(orange)," "endNote" and "Existere" magazines and though >housepress' ephemera series. > >to order copies, or for more information, contact >derek beaulieu >derek@housepress.ca >www.housepress.ca _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 22:03:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: phenomenology of approach (the work so far iii) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII (the work so far iii) phenomenology of approach = categories for projected text = = approaching the everglades, the city, illness, language, culture = 1 domain limited or unlimited a limited domain is inscribed with or without fuzzy boundaries. domains may be limited in sememe, space, and/or time. example: everglades bounded by hydrology, ecosystem. 2 clues and cues from immemorial past a clue is an interpretable symptom, according to a scheme based on an articulated methodology. a cue is the activation of a scheme based on an anomaly or repetitive structure within the domain. the domain in turn may be defined by clues and cues. 3 difference between clues and cues a clue is based on evidence from the past to the present; a cue is based on activation within the present. 4 relevance theory and approach clues and cues are such by virtue of relevance; theoretical methodology is part of a critical sifting apparatus. 5 top-down classification schema this follows for example category theory, chaos/fractal theories; one always already begins with pre-theoretic presuppositions. 6 wonder, innovation, contradictions beginning with a sense of awe - everything signs everything, everything inscribes. innovation in terms of heuristic projections and introjections - contradictions in terms of anomalies, revisions, recuperations, returns. 7 deep ecologies, interstitial the ecologies become perceptually deeper; gaps are filled in; one lives in depth in the glades, aware of cyclical time, anomalous events, local histories, individual plants and animals. 8 filling in the habitus from larger to smaller clues and cues - alligators and wading birds to landbirds and invertebrates for example. as one moves down in scale, identification becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible. 9 from anomaly to behaviors and back again; behavior clusters based on attributes. or from story to structure, diachrony to synchrony, anecdote to prediction. 10 sense of occupation and intimacy inhabitation based on familiarity, familiality. 11 familiarity, familiality in the first, equivalence scripts and schemata, universals, typifications; in the second, identity scripts and experientials, individuations. 12 maternality chora and matrix - the inchoate beneath the surface of the subject. 13 deconstruction of the abject disarticulation of the abject as such and rearticulation in terms of microstructure, skein. the muck and clutter in relation to marl/peat moss and biome or flora/fauna regimes. muck and clutter as regimes. 14 phenomenology of naming following the notion of rigid designators, beginning with classification, classification experience, virtual subjectivity and its relation to concrete manifestation. 15 inarticulate inchoate maternality: see above. the proffering of languaging or template. 16 the mess and its overcoming entanglement as regime intrusions, conflicting biomes, collapse or implosion, niche-construction, problems of scale in space and time. 17 phenomenology of touch demarcation of environment on the body - thicket tangle, poisonwood, against the skin. differentiation of the mass. 18 reinscription of domain the domain _as_ continually inscribed in negotiation. linguistic contract of the subject. increasingly fuzzy boundary issues. refinement of differentiations - typology to decreasing tolerances. 19 immersive and definable structures definable is fully reversible; immersive is fuzzy, vectored. both are capable of meta-level collocations, i.e. a definable of definable, immersive of definable, etc. 20 clue skeins clues related theoretically, taxonomically, in terms of typifications, taxonomies - heuristic skeins, established on the run. 21 the instrumental reason of flows and part-objects fluid mechanics, turbulence, stases within the flow - non-equilibrium thermodynamics. the partitioninig, parcelling, clutter, of the world. part-objects as modules: modules 'on the part of' the subject, and modules 'defined as such' within the continually reinscribed domain. 22 gestural logics and superimpositions such that partial information (as in land's experiments re: color vision) extends across a total domain or spectrum. 23 delaying conclusions and the settling-in of elements inconclusivity of discourses which are increasingly refined. elements noticed and defined 'settle in' - in the sense of familiarity - always with default tags - i.e. elimination by counterexample. retention of _weak theory_ - searching for coherency without retention of apparently outmoded paradigms. 24 continuous processing and absorption of anomalies anomalies as generative of domain boundaries, entities, temporary inscriptions, potential of part-objects, etc. the anomaly as the mis-fit among the accountable and accounted-for. as unaccountable, uncounted, the anomaly generates circumscriptions, circumlocutions; these are involved by the subject in a consideration and absorption of the _detour._ every anomaly potentially turns everything around, and is turned around by everything. 25 modes of approach in space and time diachronic/synchronic approaches - space-time slices. diffusion of occluded layerings (bay bottoms versus onshore mangrove island topography). architectonics of the domain. 26 horizons of 'natural' and 'unnatural' worlds and horizons of 'subjective' and 'objective' worlds - in relation to heuristics and experiential structures (immersivities). definition is both tool and violation; mobile fuzzy domain boundaries participate in the natural (i.e. given) order as well as ideological political/economic conscious and unconscious considerations. 27 weakening of perceptual structures and responses approach is always already self-critical, self-critique; the critique itself is withdrawn from the self, sublimated into emergent considerations of the domain. the phenomenology of approach implies a weakness of language, definition, inscription, boundary, instrumental reason; it implies releasement, waiting (not waiting-upon) as well. 28 releasement and listening to listen without consideration of the source, the speech, one's answer; to avoid pausological structures ('yes, but...'); to speak after (what appears to be) the case. 29 buildings, dwellings, and habitations 30 the neighborhood 31 intersecting populations and worlds 32 phenomenology of withdrawal 33 the skein (skew-orthogonal) 34 the skein (askew and local) 35 increasing audacity and circumscription 36 the report 37 the distribution 38 the thinking of it 39 the world of it Note: On Sat, 27 Apr 2002, Ryan Whyte wrote: > These texts are impressive, and for me, strangely, there's a distorted > resonance with German romantic science, of all things -- a deployment of > science/knowledge to its limit, the sublime and the positioning/experience > of the observer -- although certainly not the view from the mountaintop > but rather the risk of drowning -- and I wonder if a phenomenology of > drowning, if one can think such a thing, operates here also -- > The risk of drowning is both metaphoric and real - there are signature souvenirs from the Everglades - "I gave my blood in the Everglades" - in some of my photography, I've teetered or approached alligators/biting snakes/etc. at close range - But then drowning also connects with emergence/submergence - with sublim- ation prior to the return of the repressed - > Also, do you see fragmentariness (thinking of the work of Hans-Jost Frey > for example) operating as part of the phenomenology/reading here -- i.e. > in relation to the limits of identification etc. One of the rangers described Everglades visitors as down 30% since the 70s - whereas every other park is growing fast. This is because there, I think, there are no demarcations - drive around, focus on the larger birds and alligators, leave. She described the park as "layered" - identifica- tion in terms of the object increasingly magnifies; if we had stayed, we would have gone to microscopy. There is also the problematic of identity within the entanglement, which is also the problematic of post-modern identities, looped, eviscerated in terms of public/private, and caught in the matrices of what I called "radiations" or (Cantor) dusts - computer, telephone, radio/tv transmission, inter and intranettings, hackings, and so forth - not to mention the problematic of _what_ is caught as such - after Lacan / Foucault, we can't go back to the monolith of the unitary subject, monad, etc. - > And is this projected for a book? If I'm given the time/space to work on such - the problem is my usual instabilities in terms of income and the stress this produces. Certainly my thoughts for years have revolved around the issues of consciousness and intermediations in relation to formal systems - and what happens when these systems are chaotic, ungrounded, tangled, confused, fuzzy, etc. - === ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 23:17:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jessica smith Subject: Re: more on manifestos/to vernon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit vernon wrote: For me the sound is as important as where the characters appear on the page. Like Elizabeth, I value them equally. In reading your work I find that I'm always trying to pronounce the phoneme in my head while waiting for others to connect with it. Naturally, it sounds different during the process than the word it settles into. Perhaps our minds work differently, but I'm hearing as much as I'm seeing when I write or read. Maybe "by ear, he sd" is not literally about the ear but about using the senses in general as a guide. and now i write: I think you're actually agreeing w/me with regards to sound being 2ndary to site, although perhaps we're coming at it from different directions. first, if "it sounds th different during the process than the word it settles into," then sound is secondary to sight... in that you have the whole word first before you know the "true" or relevant sounds of its parts. second, i don't really "buy" that that's the way reading works--that you sound out a phoneme (which phoneme do you pick? if you see "y" do you think, "why" or "eee" or "eye", for example?)--although I recently read a study about elementary education that says that boys learn to read more slowly than girls because the standard method for teaching reading is phoneme-based ("sound out the word") where boys are more likely to learn words spatially ("cat" sounds a certain way and every time you see that image, "cat" you think "c-a-t" but you would learn a longer word, like "spatially," the same way, through an s image recognition rather than through sounding out "sp-ey-sh-ee-al-lee")... so maybe you're right, and it's relative. but i think that in nonlinear, or multilinear, writing, if we take this as a starting point ("sound is secondary to sight") becomes very interesting, b/c if we dismiss the idea that a phoneme needs to be immediately pronounceable, then there's no reason to line them up. as i said earlier, these thoughts came from being disturbed that spreading letters out on a page lead to a delay in pronunciation... when, if the letters are spread so far and non-linearly that the word isn't recognizeable w/o considerable searching i efforts, and if the letters can be used multipully (multiply... multi-ply... um...) in more than one scattered word... then there's not a "delay" in the pronunciation... the pronunciation doesn't just get slower like "th----------------iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssss", it actually doesn't happen at all until one's found all the letters. there's an example in this text, but for a better example, try page 10 on this site: http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jss13/poetry/evolocution.pdf if there's a more pronounceable fragment and things are close together (as in the line "plac/e" which is also at the same time the line "plac/ate"), then it's more readily pronounceable, and meaning and site and listening happen concurrently... they're close enough together that you can assimilate all the sounds, sights, and meanings at once, in a tiny explosion of recognition. but scrolling down to page 10, what can you do? it's not just... typewriter art. right? because the system of the previous 9 pages has told you that there are indeed words with meaning, but the explosion here can't hold to the same reading/reasoning standards that the previous 9 pages have at least sometimes allowed. do you really tromp around the page saying to yourself, "fuh fuh fuh" "ey ey ey" "tuh-tuh-tuh". i wrote this a long time ago so i don't remember what the words were, and i find myself looking at it until i see pronounceable elements, such as "diew" or "bod" that... aren't words. one thing that interests me about this conversation is why no one has trouble with the idea of meaning being secondary to sight, but the idea of sound being secondary to sight gets a lot of disapproval. i'm wondering what kind of western-eye-z'd version of reality we're creating here... because surely ideogrammatic thinkers would think that a meaning 2ndary to sight is impossible. what happens pre-reading... what about pre-reading cognition can we play with post-poetry... jessica ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 23:37:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: she speaks MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII she speaks: sawgrass among periphyton, periphyton among sawgrass: who can untangle? buried in algae, across almost certain rotifera, stentor, what is innumerable?:the land is flat, liguus fasciatus a microcosm of rings, desiccated alligator weed, the layers crawl across tamiami, they subdue miami, tendrils across the river, down through lejeune, among the quarried keys :i don't know how to do this. i don't know how to say this.:: she writes: to speak is already not to know. claws and teeth mark the boundaries of analysis. bladderwort surrounds nano-bio organelles. nothing is complete.:desiccation of alligator holes, everything returning, supine, writing from a distance - violation and distantiation of inscription :i don't know how to do this. i don't know how to say this. the flat land with its swells, innumerable regimens of meter-high mountains, organism crawling through this body, through this flesh, the highs gauging nothing, a bit of movement, neural networking, a bit of stasis, world shutting-down :: she thinks: cormorant nothing is complete. noting is complete. on a thin notebook. through my to speak is already not to know. claws and teeth mark the boundaries of analysis. bladderwort surrounds nano-bio organelles. nothing is complete.write _ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 May 2002 23:27:04 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: Hail P longataki? MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT Hark to what follows, listservents! The bitter fruit of negation is sometimes sweet to eat – even here, in our midst. With pluck, pluck, O pluck the bitter fruit, taste! I.e., boring long email follows... 1. "It's All a Tissue of Tears": The Issue of Historical Issue a. That even one person has been ejected from this listserv by the moderators is far from just an "academic" matter. But Chris suggests that that's all it is, as he equates my linking the question of historical issue to this other question of listserv ejection. b. Historical issue is only *purely* an academic matter for poets who do not read books. I don't know any such poets. Do you? c. Even those who espouse a form of radical forgetting premised on extreme individualism have to make their claims on the basis of historical issue and issues (individualism, US populist demagoguery, over-fondness for Pound while blind to Pound's own historical issue -- the very substance of the Cantos: Fascism). d. Fortunately, in writing to this listserv, there are other ways of articulating a processual strategy of radical memory-loss. Witness the recent pop fun ("fun"? uh...something, anyway) posts on What Is Language Poetry. 2. "Where's my Hanky?" The Issue of Historical Issue, First Example a. Kent Johnson (one of the ejected) is always-already leaping to the question of his own historical issue -- and especially when he is speculating on reasons for his ejection. Wouldn't this be anyone's response? b. A specific "historical issue" could be said to condition Kent's poetics of heteronomy, not just some part of it on certain occasions (when he posts under his own name on a poetry listserv, for example). Those who know Kent's work better than I need to correct me. But if you read Kent's poems at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/ChideTwo/SecondChiding.htm#KJ) and his interview at http://www.poetics.yorku.ca/index.php?menu=1 and his email forwarded by David Hess on Mon, 29 Apr 2002 01:27:25 EDT ("FWD: A Peace Proposal?"), for example, you will quickly have an impression about Kent's self-understanding of historical issue. c. Kent deliberately places himself in close proximity to the idea of Language Poetry. There is a desire for proximity, it seems, because he wants to attempt a transgressive break with the idea of Language Poetry as a dominant form of expression. But, at the same time, there is a desire for proximity, because he too wants to position himself *in* the idea of Language Poetry -- as the sole poet who has remained most true to a founding "first principle" of that poetry so-called school (according to one reading), namely critique of author-function. d. Kent seems to conflate his own personal gripes about Language poets and poetry, with his more-encompassing and theoretical concerns about author-function. The result, however, is to regrettably undermine credibility for his critique of Language Poetry's direction since the heyday of author-function critique, since Kent's critique reads -- to me, at any rate -- like it is founded not on an appeal to the apparent purity of an inaugural ideal of the idea of Language Poetry, but rather on an appeal to something quite the opposite, something inside and not outside, something in the present and not in the past, something the furthest from "pure," namely, his own personal gripes. e. Is Kent unique in keeping a few tissues in reserve for his historical issues? He is "unique" only in the specific character of that issue, but not in the fact of it. He is specific, in his own way, in the degree to which he admits the fact of historical issue into his work. These terms by which to consider "uniqueness" (or rather, historical idiosyncrasy) vis a vis historical issue would apply to anyone. A completely objective assessment by anyone of his or her historical issue is an outright impossibility, if not an outright false goal (either way, objectivity will always be precariously perched against "conatus" -- self-interest). f. But sometimes it helps to try and imagine things as best one can in an objective "light." If one accepts the above reading of Kent's work, one might well ask, for instance: Why is Kent appealing so strongly to get back on this list, and just now, when posts about the idea of Language Poetry have begun to flourish once again? I would say it is because he needs to continually tie his work to the idea of Language Poetry. I wouldn't want to reduce Kent's personal gripes with Language poets and poetry, and/or his theoretical concerns about the legal status of the author-function in Language Poetry (conflated as these two issues may appear to be), to *merely* an academic matter that has no bearing whatsoever for this list. 3. "Lighter Fluid -- I Agree!" The Issue of Historical Issue, Second Example a. A whole essay could be written on how certain poets have chosen to aggressively mock and diss, while at the same time sycophantically identify with and enthusiastically embrace -- for poetic self-furthering -- the idea of Language Poetry. Gabriel Gudding is for me a convenient second example here, because he also happens to be one of the ejected. I could have chosen a number of other poets -- but, I'll try my best with Gudding, given this context of the ejections, into which I am pressed. I'm especially thinking of Gudding's poem, "A Defense of Poetry" at http://www.wildhoneypress.com/Audio/defense.html. "A Defense of Poetry" has an epigraph by Charles Bernstein, that, along with Gudding's title, together curiously do not connect to the body of the poem, except in the most arbitrary way...raising an obvious question: How does one account for this arbitrariness? My answer is in the terms I am setting out here. The quality of arbitrariness in his poem is index of an internally, violently conflicted, unworked-out response to the idea of Language Poetry -- as follows. b. Stylistically, Gudding's poem resembles someone like a Richard Brautigan, but the heroism of Hemingway's classical American-outlaw good-looks sentence (subject, verb, object -- "what more do you want, and preferably as just three words per sentence!?") -- already tempered by Brautigan's and Vonnegut's sense of humor and absurdity -- now takes expressive form in Gudding's, and our 90s-era, extreme ressentiment. The ressentiment is moreover stylistically cloaked, in this poem, in a sentimental appeal to the idea / figure of Christopher Smart. I'm suggesting the body of Gudding's poem, like the poetry of many others, is really about extreme defensive posturing due to a sort of 90s ressentiment. But is this sufficent to account for title and epigraph? No. There's more to it. Because theory has often, of late, been used as a defensive ground for poetry (the defensive ground in someone like Brautigan's work is not theory, but something like a "mood" stylistically lifted off the air of the alternative culture of his time), there is a sense in which Gudding *needs* Bernstein. The crux, however, is that "need" itself, as a value for Gudding’s poem, must be outright rejected by the poem, so it can stay in the freakish and merciless grip of extreme 90s ressentiment. One wonders, that is, whether Bernstein is not merely arbitrarily chosen to represent the defensive posture of poetry, that, in other words, Bernstein and the idea of Language Poetry are mere toys of convenience, to hit at and hit with -- for it is Bernstein who has specifically and most famously, and most recently (to my knowledge), invoked this genre of the poetic defense, in his own poem of the same name, "A Defense of Poetry." It gets even more torqued than this. The fact that the choice of Bernstein and of the idea of Language Poetry are merely arbitrary ones of self-interested convenience, for Gudding, would no doubt rankle any poet with any sense of the slightest integrity and seriousness -- even Gudding, I'd wager. But the arbitrary, insofar as it can admit to self-interested need at all, is a flimsy excuse of a poetic rationale for a poem. This seeming flaw – the disparity between title, epigraph, and body of poem -- can only be hidden by means of the faint hope, itself nihilistic, that nihilism is entertaining. I ask you to look at list records: is nihilism (if that's the word) entertaining? c. Gudding's poem is exemplary, in this respect, as I'm suggesting, of an internal conflict that one can locate in the works of a number of poets (in their poems, on this listserv, in reviews, etc) who have lost any sense of the immanent, utopic, social critique out of which Language poets themselves historically issue. The question of historical issue itself has been elided from the field. d. But "internal" (ie between socially invested forces) conflict can be a sign of working-out questions of historical issue, in some other poets' work, taking form as a reflexive admission that social critique, the idea of the social itself, seems lost from the present horizon. 3. Poetic Responses to the Idea of Language Poetry a. A whole book could be written on responses by poets to the Idea of Language Poetry. 4. Chris Stroffolino's Response to the Idea of Language Poetry a. Chris's own response to the idea of Language Poetry is, in Juliana Spahr's words from her blurb to *Spin Cycle*, "shaped by interest and desire rather than argument." It can make a reader feel tres sympatique towards the humane quirkiness of some of his views. This is because, as Chris will likely be the first to admit, a dominant historical issue for this poet is, in the shorthand of someone like Altieri, the (fate of the) poetics of expressivity in relation to the idea of Language Poetry. But "expressivity" is too generically philosophical, could apply to many poets, so let me give an example of what I mean. b. Almost the first idea that Chris considers to be an important and useful thing to wonder about, in reviewing Watten's "Bride of the Assembly Line" essay in *Spin Cycle* (thanks, by the way, Chris, for sending -- I just got it!), is whether Watten (and I guess Stein and Henry Ford, too, and by implication, the whole of American modernism?) is recommending to Chris that he buy himself a car. If there was not a certain expressive pathos coming through in the way that Chris writes an essay, if there was not a focus on desire and interest, naïve as it might be to the more jaded reader, this decision to ask such a question of Watten's text would seem really at odds. But, what can it tell us? It tells us that Chris's central poetic response to the idea of Language Poetry is to try and identify with it, with *any* of it, with *something to do with it*, as a poet himself. c. Chris (I'll direct this part to you; it feels more open-ended), you seem to suggest a "steady-state" theory of the world, where "priority," your word, is never an issue, where, as you speculate, anyone could have started this listserv, and the end-results would have been identical. I can't think of anything more debilitating than to hold such a theory of poetic (and other) influences in relation to historical issue. d. There's something steady-state, or timeless, about the listserv, isn't there? A steady-state theory does allow anyone to occupy the position of "firstness" on this list. All history and questions of personal, poetic and institutional influence and relation, can get tossed off as the academic foolery of chicken-and-egg questions, since the only self-assertion that needs to be made is: Look, everybody, I'm eating the egg! I'm eating the chicken now! It's never who came first, but who eats the email first -- and look! I'm the first one, here, now, to eat this chicken and egg! Here's me arng arng arng eating! The "I'm first" impulse has produced some of the best responses and is an integral feature of the listserv as a medium. e. And actually, in all seriousness, a chicken-and-egg dialectic is a great figure to describe what is best about Chris's poetry. It is that figure that most handily deflates the pretense of ideas. f. But there's a problem with the "I'm first" that perhaps a listserv exacerbates. Like Kent, like Gabriel, Chris too needs to deny exactly what he most wants to affirm as his own. While dismissing any use in thinking about historical issue, notice that Chris is very careful (going into quite some detail) to include himself in the narrative of the idea of Language Poetry, an inclusion that he wants or even needs to, at the same time, with the same gallant gesture, dismiss. In fact, I ask you, why isn't *Chris* the founder of the idea of Language Poetry? It seems to have come into the ripeness of time when Chris first ate of its succulent sweet fruit in the lap of his grace, Don Byrd. g. On my descriptive catalogue of features of listserv as medium of expression, the fact of instant, personal expression would rank high. This in itself is new and cannot be wholly accounted for by the poets of *Legend*, it seems to me. In other words, the listserv medium inherently and equally lends itself to poetics that are modeled on some idea of the spontaneous expression of everyday ideology (in Althusser's terms! -- just for contrast), such as that modeled in a variety of specific ways by the so-called New York Schools. h. If Don Byrd isn't now, he certainly used to be on this listserv; same for Creeley; Howe I don't know, but of course she teaches at SUNY-Buffalo, as did/does Creeley. All this only reinforces the point concerning historical issue that I am making, though. So actually, I fail to grasp your point, Chris. I wouldn't go as far to say, as Ron Silliman suggests, that you are creating a conspiracy out of all these connections. It's not a "conspiracy" that Byrd, Creeley, Howe, you, me, all of us, even lurkers, have some link to if definitely not Buffalo then to SUNY-Buffalo via this listserv, is it? I don't think we specifically have a right to feel "left out" of anything, if that's what it comes down to (you from Buffalo, I from the United States -- ha!); that's far too *provincial* a reaction on our part. In contrast, some listserv members who don't live in North American might have grounds to think that this listserv and its implicit poetic history is far too self-centered on its own self-importance -- and precisely because we fail to address this medium reflexively in a way that would enable participation regardless of proximity to the history of Language Poetry. If there is any conspiracy here, it's one that we have are all victims to -- lack of ability to reflexively consider the listserv as a medium, and, to enable that, the listserv as a historical issue. 5. Hail, Listservents! a. If the listserv is indeed considered a time-based project, then there are implications that come with acknowledging this, and more importantly with continuing to know this to the point where such knowledge affects how and what one posts. None of these implications are pleasant and nice, necessarily. The implications are not pleasant to recount because "pleasant" would no longer be the status quo affect that the listserv would necessarily be aspiring to replicate uniformly throughout its temporal continuum of postings. "Pleasant," as some might be thinking right at this point, however, is *not* the result of moderators' rules, but rather results from consciously forgetting those rules -- in the following sense. b. Listservs have created a dilemma unforeseen and still unacknowledged by would-be anarchists who champion Thoreauvian "conscience," for example, as one of their principles upholding the idea of free expression. (Those who know more on this as it might connect to a listserv idea, fill me in.) There is an ideology of freedom that assumes that in a truly free space -- the space that a listserv is "supposed" to embody -- moderators, censors, rules do not exist, and all structure is transparent -- even mediatory values are transparent. But, when a listserv becomes the medium of expression, this ideology no longer applies. With a listserv, it is no longer the case that each participant is his or her own best moderator -- the very cornerstone assumption of the idea of conscience, civil disobedience, etc. c. The concept of "public sphere" established a unique ratio between psyche and other, out of which developed humanist principles of verbal conduct. One is hard-pressed to apply these principles to listserv space. A flame, for instance, is unlike previous forms of hate language, I think. A listserv can project, more than any medium has done before perhaps, unparalleled psychical force onto the immediacy of the screen, upsetting the unique historically handed-down ratios between psyche and other that upheld former conceptions of public discourse and appropriate conduct. The "natural" "civilized" balance between psyche and other is forever overturned -- moreover, the standard does not even apply. By any formerly-thought-of-as "natural" standard, a listserv might be thought to display a series of psychoses. So, there is no longer a "natural" inhibitory mechanism of self-control operating on a listserv. But how does one interpret the consequences, then? Is a listserv a free-for-all? Are there rules? d. On a listserv, one is subject to, and projected into, not a "free" psychical space (which would imply that any flame is freely received and freely given, but obviously this is not the case -- the impact of a flame is felt, the impulse for writing a flame is felt: they're events) but a differently ruled space, ruled by an external collectively-determined set of rules, rather than by an internal, individual impulse called conscience. We need to adjust for that. An absolutely free space, psychically unbounded by any preconceptions, or even conceptions, of the other, is itself a fantasy sometimes expressed on the listserv and induced by the very idea of a listserv, but such fantasy cannot ever constitute, itself, rules for a listserv; such fantasy can only ever be a projection from outdated rules, induced and enabled by the displaced former psychic ratios and virtiginal distortions of this new collective medium. Even a listserv called Poetry Flame War, established on an idea of unrelenting absolute freedom, would engender rules (if extreme forms of expression are any judge, they would be harsh -- befitting the language). e. A listserv that is imagined as a specific, time-based project, is not a free, but a specifically ruled space. Since the "normal" rules of pragmatic communication no longer necessarily apply -- rules more often than not assumed by many to establish the first principles of freedom in a public, communal space -- then other rules must be in play which are specific to the listserv. That is, there is no The Listserv, but only a series of different listservs with specific rules enabling the articulation of psych(ot)ical libidinal energies. Let's say we imagine this listserv activity to be reflexively exploring, enacting, the listserv as a medium of expression, for instance. Given the historical issue of this listserv, back into the avant-gardes and innovative traditions of poetry, it makes sense. Other listservs might have other emphases. In other words, to state that this listserv is linked historically to "SUNY-Buffalo" is not to consider SUNY-Buffalo as the inner circle and as the court of contemporary poetry. I'd go so far as to say the opposite is true -- that in fact, the major heresy of influence in the idea of Language Poetry (unlike previous schools) is that those who have sustained interesting work by taking that influence and doing the most with it are usually from elsewhere, are in some fundamental sense not part or privy to the idea of the inner circle. This is the outward face of the idea of Language Poetry -- the exploration of the social as such. f. What I'm finally saying is that we *need* the Ejected Five to remain excluded from this listserv; they should be that important to us! It is worthwhile devoting some time to thinking about their work precisely because they are ejected. They are structurally more significant to this listserv than many a post on it, insofar as the beginning task of coming to begin to reflexively understand this listserv as a medium of expression is concerned. They have opened up to us the possibility of articulating historical issue. This fact of exclusion binds them only that much more intimately to us here, and to the potential of a reflexive engagement with the listserv as medium. That's why I gave them an honored name like The Ejected Four, since I think a romanticist identity of outsiderdom forms very much a part of their historical issue and their response to the idea of Language Poetry. It's hard to be an outsider when you're at the same time -- subscribed. Finally, as in whew, finally! we have an event that has occurred that can help us become reflexively aware of how this is a time-based project. g. Rather than conflating institutions and histories, I'm arguing for a recognition of their diversity and specificity, in everyone here -- even in list-space (as to "confederacy of dunces," this listserv has always been that, Chris -- but, for lord's sake, don't kill yourself over it! as the author of the novel by that name did; for I think, unlike him, you're I positive, you get, if not express, a healthy dose of "I'm great"). So chill on it, fill up on this, and just mind the spills. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 16:52:43 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Mills Subject: New from hardPressed poetry Comments: To: Tony Frazer , Tony Baker , Tom Raworth , "T. R. Healy and L. Mac Mahon" , scottthurston@btinternet.com, Romana Huk , Robert Sheppard , Robert Hampson , Ric Caddel , Randolph Healy , Peterjon Skelt , Peter Riley , mgeden@eircom.net, Maurice Scully , Maurice Scully , Keith Tuma , Jim Mays , Harry Gilonis , Hampson R , Geoff Squires , Geoff Squires , Cris Cheek , Craig Watson , claire bracken , british & irish poets , Bob Archambeau , Allen Fisher , Alex Davis MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Catherine Walsh Pomepleat 1 hardPressed poetry: 2002. Folded card. 5 pp Euro 2.00 Handwritten. An edition of 20 numbered copies. Also available by Catherine Walsh: Short Stories: North & South: 1989 Pitch: Pig Press: 1994 Idir Eatortha and Making Tents: Invisible Books: 1996 City West : hardPressed poetry: 2000 For further details, visit http://gofree.indigo.ie/~hpp/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 17:14:09 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Mills Subject: Newer from hardPressed poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Apologies for cross posting Catherine Walsh Pomepleat 1 hardPressed poetry: 2002. Folded card. 5 pp Euro 2.00 Handwritten. An edition of 20 numbered copies. Also available by Catherine Walsh: Short Stories: North & South: 1989 Pitch: Pig Press: 1994 Idir Eatortha and Making Tents: Invisible Books: 1996 City West : hardPressed poetry: 2000 For further details, visit http://gofree.indigo.ie/~hpp/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 12:12:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Comments: To: rachel levitsky MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit For immediate release: May 6, 2002 Contact: Rachel Levitsky (718) 398-9003; email: Levitsk@attglobal.net The BELLADONNA* Series Finishes the Season with Rosmarie Waldrop and Tina Darragh On Friday May 31, at 7:00 p.m. at Bluestockings; New York’s only all women’s bookstore, located at 172 Allen Street, between Rivington and Stanton on the Lower East Side. For information and directions, call 212-777-6028. A $3.00 donation is requested. (Please note some earlier publicity posted the incorrect date of May 24.) *** Rosmarie Waldrop is a novelist, translator, and editor as well as one of the most influential poet’s of her generation and the generations to follow. She is the author of over eleven volumes of poetry including A Key into the Language of America (New Directions, 1994), The Reproduction of Profiles (New Directions, 1984) and Lawn of Excluded Middle (Tender Buttons, 1993) and a collaborative work with the visual artist Jennifer MacDonnald, Peculiar Motions (Kelsey Street, 1990). She is the primary translator of Edmund Jabes into English and has also translated much of Paul Celan’s work, Emmanuel Hoquard, Joseph Gugliemi, Oskar Pastior and many others. Waldrop's most recent books of poems are Reluctant Gravities (New Directions, 1999), Split Infinites (Singing Horse Press, 1998), and Another Language: Selected Poems (Talisman House, 1997). Northwestern has reprinted her two novels, The Hanky of Pippin's Daughter and A Form/of Taking/It All as one paperback. She lives in Providence, RI. where she co-edits Burning Deck Books with Keith Waldrop. Tina Darragh is most recently the author of dream rim instructions (Drogue Press, 1999). Her play "Opposable Dumbs" was performed at San Francisco Poet’s Theater Jubilee during its Winter 2002 season. Among her other books are on the corner to off the corner (Sun & Moon, 1981), Striking Resemblance (Burning Deck, 1989), a(gain) st the odds (Potes and Poets, 1989), and adv. fans – the 1968 series (Leave Books, 1992). Her work is in several anthologies, among them In the American Tree (National Poetry Foundation, 1986, 2001), "Language" Poetries (New Directions,1987), out of everywhere: linguistically innovative poetry by women in North America & the UK (Reality Street Editions, 1996),and Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women (Talisman, 1998). The Etruscan Reader VIII (Etruscan Books, 1998) contains work by her and poets Randolph Healy and Douglas Oliver. Darragh is a reference librarian at Georgetown University and lives in Greenbelt, Maryland, with P.Inman and their son, Jack. *** The BELLADONNA* Reading Series began in August 1999 at the then newly opened women's bookstore (New York's only) Bluestockings. In its two year history, BELLADONNA* has featured such writers as Erica Hunt, Fanny Howe, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Cecilia Vicuña, Lisa Jarnot, Camille Roy, Nicole Brossard, Abigail Child, Norma Cole and Lynne Tillman among many other experimental and hybrid women writers. Beyond being a platform for women writers, the curators promote work that is experimental in form, connects with other art forms, and is socially/politically active in content. Alongside the readings, BELLADONNA* supports its artists by publishing commemorative pamphlets of their work on the night of the event. Please contact Rachel Levitsky and/or visit the website if you would like to receive a catalog or hear more about our salons. *** There will be a short open reading before the featured readers. A $3 donation is suggested. http://www.durationpress.com/belladonna *********** Good Middle East Site with some history: http://www.thenation.com/special/2002middleeast.mhtml The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories: http://www.btselem.org/ Rachel Levitsky 458 Lincoln Place, #4B Brooklyn, NY 11238 http://www.durationpress.com/belladonna "Brother, if you don't mind, there is a cloud of glass coming at us, grab my hand, lets get the hell out of here." -Anonymous ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 12:24:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Vernon Frazer Subject: Re: more on manifestos/to vernon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jessica Let's put it this way: I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you about sound or sight. I work from a situational aesthetic, not an absolute. I use whatever works within the context I'm working in. In plain old left-margin poetry, the question of the primacy of sound or sight could be a toss-up. In the years when I recited my music with a poetry band, though, I ran across a conflict between the two. I was reciting the work orally, which gave speech a situational precedence, yet the text itself was very "projective" and while its presence all over the page didn't affect the "message" on one level, in poems in which I used a word like "(e)merge" did create a tension between speech and sight did "emerge" since the speech form was dominant in the performing situation but couldn't convey the "sight" element that gave the poem's meaning a little twist. So, sight did have a primacy there, but the primacy was lost in the dominant oral context. For my own work, the sound of the words guides their flow, but my placement of them on the page will alter their meaning. I consider poetry as making music with language. The visual spacing is a form of orchestration. I haven 't done much work with breaking words into phonemes. Just one poem. I think. I wasn't able to access "evolocuton.pdf" from my computer, so I looked at "Birds" again. When I read the phonemes I pronounced them because I recognized them as filling space on the page and therefore demanded as much of a "sounding" as any fully formed word. As I found other phonemes fitting a word's pattern, I had to modify their pronunciation to conform to the word they ultimately constituted. Instead of delaying the pronunciation of the phoneme, I would say that it receives a double pronunciation, as phoneme and later as par of a word, and that the adjustments of pronunciation become part of the poem itself. It becomes an added sound texture, not a suspended one. Its visual texture isn't a matter of debate. I believe the matter of sound vs. sight is a relative one. In your poem the visual element obviously receives primacy because the placement of the words or their phonemes in certain places on the page determines how they will be read, sounded and interpreted (as well as when they will be sounded and interpreted). If, in "evocolution," the words explode, I might interpret it as a "rain" of phonemes and pronounce them separately until I can determine what words if any the will form. Again, I couldn't access the page. My guess is that if I could read "evocolution" I would pronounce each phoneme as I went along, then later re-pronounce all of them as one word with the corresponding modification of pronunciation I mentioned above. I'm not sure that the elementary education study you mentioned applies to me. I was one of the best readers in my class, although my second grade teacher "demoted" me because instead of holding by book on the desk at a 60-degree angle, I let it slide flat into the desk, a position that felt more comfortable to me but violated some rule of posture or decorum. In 1950, when I learned to read from the Dick and Jane books, I don't think phonic teaching had developed. I'm sure the teachers used it, but not to the degree they did, say, in 1970. The question of meaning being secondary to sight may have to do with the nature of the poetry written by many of the poets on this list. Traditional meaning doesn't have traditional primacy. In a poem whose meanings are multiple, arbitrary, or a matter involving the reader's engagement with the text, the matter might be secondary to what we're talking about. on the other hand, not everybody uses the contemporary extensions of "composition by field" as it's evolved from the typewriter to the computer screen and beyond. So, my take on the situation is that the primacy of speech or sight depends on the writer, the situation and the work itself. But if you can post another way to access "evoculution" I'll read it and see if the nature of the work alters my reading method or my opinion." Vernon ----- Original Message ----- From: "jessica smith" To: Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2002 8:17 PM Subject: Re: more on manifestos/to vernon > vernon wrote: > For me the sound is as important as where the characters appear on the page. > Like Elizabeth, I value them equally. In reading your work I find that I'm > always trying to pronounce the phoneme in my head while waiting for others > to connect with it. Naturally, it sounds different during the process than > the word it settles into. Perhaps our minds work differently, but I'm > hearing as much as I'm seeing when I write or read. Maybe "by ear, he sd" is > not literally about the ear but about using the senses in general as a > guide. > > and now i write: > I think you're actually agreeing w/me with regards to sound being 2ndary to > site, although perhaps we're coming at it from different directions. first, > if "it sounds th different during the process than the word it settles > into," then sound is secondary to sight... in that you have the whole word > first before you know the "true" or relevant sounds of its parts. second, i > don't really "buy" that that's the way reading works--that you sound out a > phoneme (which phoneme do you pick? if you see "y" do you think, "why" or > "eee" or "eye", for example?)--although I recently read a study about > elementary education that says that boys learn to read more slowly than > girls because the standard method for teaching reading is phoneme-based > ("sound out the word") where boys are more likely to learn words spatially > ("cat" sounds a certain way and every time you see that image, "cat" you > think "c-a-t" but you would learn a longer word, like "spatially," the same > way, through an s image recognition rather than through sounding out > "sp-ey-sh-ee-al-lee")... so maybe you're right, and it's relative. > > but > i think that in nonlinear, or multilinear, writing, if we take this as a > starting point ("sound is secondary to sight") becomes very interesting, b/c > if we dismiss the idea that a phoneme needs to be immediately pronounceable, > then there's no reason to line them up. as i said earlier, these thoughts > came from being disturbed that spreading letters out on a page lead to a > delay in pronunciation... when, if the letters are spread so far and > non-linearly that the word isn't recognizeable w/o considerable searching i > efforts, and if the letters can be used multipully (multiply... multi-ply... > um...) in more than one scattered word... then there's not a "delay" in the > pronunciation... the pronunciation doesn't just get slower like > "th----------------iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssssssssss", it actually doesn't > happen at all until one's found all the letters. there's an example in this > text, but for a better example, try page 10 on this site: > > http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jss13/poetry/evolocution.pdf > > if there's a more pronounceable fragment and things are close together (as > in the line "plac/e" which is also at the same time the line "plac/ate"), > then it's more readily pronounceable, and meaning and site and listening > happen concurrently... they're close enough together that you can assimilate > all the sounds, sights, and meanings at once, in a tiny explosion of > recognition. but scrolling down to page 10, what can you do? it's not > just... typewriter art. right? because the system of the previous 9 pages > has told you that there are indeed words with meaning, but the explosion > here can't hold to the same reading/reasoning standards that the previous 9 > pages have at least sometimes allowed. do you really tromp around the page > saying to yourself, "fuh fuh fuh" "ey ey ey" "tuh-tuh-tuh". i wrote this a > long time ago so i don't remember what the words were, and i find myself > looking at it until i see pronounceable elements, such as "diew" or "bod" > that... aren't words. > > one thing that interests me about this conversation is why no one has > trouble with the idea of meaning being secondary to sight, but the idea of > sound being secondary to sight gets a lot of disapproval. i'm wondering > what kind of western-eye-z'd version of reality we're creating here... > because surely ideogrammatic thinkers would think that a meaning 2ndary to > sight is impossible. what happens pre-reading... what about pre-reading > cognition can we play with post-poetry... > > jessica ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 10:50:56 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: Hail P longataki? MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Correction in brackets: 1a. ...But Chris suggests that that's all it is, as he [fails to] equate my linking the question of historical issue to this other question of listserv ejection. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 13:00:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: of the basin and towel Comments: To: "WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit of the basin and towel of the basin and towel we are sidewalks or clean paved roads Lois on the surf by Superman's blazon red boot They are resting on the island of Minneola, out of danger for the moment common to those fraught stolen time becomes blowing black hair and the report is flawed, as is all punished a blaze of grey and pink: a global behemoth a giant octopus, an attacking tentacle in its wrung caught, swung over: now we are free together alone he is hurt and we are trapped 100 miles from electricity "I saved this for a special occasion.' She earned a reputation as the conscience of the profession Clasping her hands she can see the pain in his eyes Then save it for my death and place it over my body, he coughs up kelp, I'll not always be here to protect you. seldom would she lower her being to wash the feet of lesser beings with a slight tug egos allow themselves to be harnessed she is crying in the dust of the dirt and road Occasionally a disciple would wash the feet of a teacher as an act of extraordinary devotion A tale of the prostitute who washes the feet of the lord with her tears, then using her hair to dry them. But here Lois uses perfume variety daily variety up to the ankles This sounds really scary The arguments become so vociferous A mild fungicidal ointment at bedtime will help and evenings of warm soapy water, then thoroughly dry especially between the toes ... call the tattered hill hell 'When strong hold the line for those with fragile lives' for all make this and this is what is now and now is the only thing we have truly have nothing only the past quantifies all else is wide outer streams open But you must, she knows only this it's always been this way a margin on danger The next day the poor were still hungry the rich smelled of spices Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 13:02:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Jullmao Sockety City Sucks Comments: To: "Imitationpoetics@Topica. Com" , "WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jullmao Sockety City Sucks For the man who reads there is a woman who cannot in a home on Sunday street Just Buffalo Literary Society Sucks Sucks Sucks It comes as the mayor runs amuck Bust Luffalo Poetry Sucks too Yes I mean you who else can be a suck suck suck but the Jusm Bummalo Just Buffalo Literary Society Sucks Sucks Sucks Mikey Kellerher is a boob Just Buffalo Literary Society Is me an illeteratly kind soul who picks on flummery flop Jullmao Sockety City Sucks sucks sucks can you be a fond fool writing on a fly or the fly or your fly or My Fly Iggy poop black desktop items open to all who come and who modems you friends you come to find when we come for you come to find Just Buffalo Literary Society Sucks Sucks Sucks Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 18:39:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed UC Press cuts back offerings By Tim Rutten Los Angeles Times 4/26/02 University presses, one of the pillars of U.S. intellectual life, are in trouble, beset by mounting financial losses and an ongoing identity crisis. The latest victim of this trend is the University of California Press, the West's most prestigious publisher and, as measured by sales revenues, one of its largest. *Out with philosophy* As part of a general retrenchment, the UC Press will no longer produce books on philosophy, architecture, archaeology, political science or geography. It will publish dramatically less literature and far fewer works of literary theory. Twelve jobs have been eliminated through attrition, and further job cuts are planned. ``We lost more than $1 million last year,'' said Lynne Withey, acting director of UC Press. ``In fact, all of the major university presses lost money in the last fiscal year. Some of us just lost more than others.'' The University of California subsidizes just a little more than 7 percent of the press's budget. The rest must come from sales revenues, which last year amounted to $15 million from books and $3 million from journals. ``We can't just trim a little here or cut a little over there anymore. We need to make changes in the kinds of books we publish.'' To decide what those changes would be, the UC Press enlisted the consulting company of McKinsey and Co., which offered its help pro bono. The consultants' recommended that UC follow the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and reduce its list to fields where its sales are strongest. *Formula for success?* McKinsey, Withey said, ``came up with a formula under which we will do 80 percent of our business in six fields where we're already strong'' -- history, anthropology, sociology, religion, biology and natural history. ``It was very hard to abandon things like philosophy, which is a core discipline in the academy,'' Withey said. ``The whole process has been a series of painful decisions.'' At least one UC scholar was, well, philosophical about the cutbacks. ``Given the reality of the marketplace as a force in our lives, there is only so much money you can lose,'' said John R. Searle, a philosophy professor at the University of California-Berkeley. ``Obviously I want more books to be published -- especially, good philosophy books -- but you can't go on losing money on them forever,'' said Searle. But another of Berkeley's leading scholars disagrees. ``Even apart from this cutback, the mandate of university presses has been gravely undermined over the past few years,'' said Robert Alter, professor of Hebrew and comparative literature. ``The idea originally was that bringing out serious works that were a contribution to scholarship, but not viable for a commercial publisher, was the university press's obligation to the world of knowledge." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:07:51 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The American Government should pay for philosophy books and lit theory and so on. They waste billions making military crap. And the "space" thing is a big fizzler: who cares about whether they go around the world again.Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Bernstein" To: Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 10:39 AM Subject: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) > UC Press cuts back offerings > By Tim Rutten > Los Angeles Times > 4/26/02 > > University presses, one of the pillars of U.S. intellectual life, are in > trouble, beset by mounting financial losses and an ongoing identity crisis. > > The latest victim of this trend is the University of California Press, the > West's most prestigious publisher and, as measured by sales revenues, one > of its largest. > > *Out with philosophy* > As part of a general retrenchment, the UC Press will no longer produce > books on philosophy, architecture, archaeology, political science or > geography. It will publish dramatically less literature and far fewer works > of literary theory. Twelve jobs have been eliminated through attrition, and > further job cuts are planned. > > ``We lost more than $1 million last year,'' said Lynne Withey, acting > director of UC Press. > > ``In fact, all of the major university presses lost money in the last > fiscal year. Some of us just lost more than others.'' > > The University of California subsidizes just a little more than 7 percent > of the press's budget. The rest must come from sales revenues, which last > year amounted to $15 million from books and $3 million from journals. > > ``We can't just trim a little here or cut a little over there anymore. We > need to make changes in the kinds of books we publish.'' > > To decide what those changes would be, the UC Press enlisted the consulting > company of McKinsey and Co., which offered its help pro bono. The > consultants' recommended that UC follow the Massachusetts Institute of > Technology and reduce its list to fields where its sales are strongest. > > *Formula for success?* > McKinsey, Withey said, ``came up with a formula under which we will do 80 > percent of our business in six fields where we're already strong'' -- > history, anthropology, sociology, religion, biology and natural history. > > ``It was very hard to abandon things like philosophy, which is a core > discipline in the academy,'' Withey said. ``The whole process has been a > series of painful decisions.'' > > At least one UC scholar was, well, philosophical about the cutbacks. > ``Given the reality of the marketplace as a force in our lives, there is > only so much money you can lose,'' said John R. Searle, a philosophy > professor at the University of California-Berkeley. > > ``Obviously I want more books to be published -- especially, good > philosophy books -- but you can't go on losing money on them forever,'' > said Searle. > > But another of Berkeley's leading scholars disagrees. ``Even apart from > this cutback, the mandate of university presses has been gravely undermined > over the past few years,'' said Robert Alter, professor of Hebrew and > comparative literature. ``The idea originally was that bringing out serious > works that were a contribution to scholarship, but not viable for a > commercial publisher, was the university press's obligation to the world of > knowledge." > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 14:00:44 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Susan M. Schultz" Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I wonder if there isn't room for print-on-demand technology in situations like this one. I was talking to Chris Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publishing last week; the reason they keep rolling out new titles of poetry is that print-on-demand (with its limitations, granted) is very inexpensive, indeed. Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Bernstein" To: Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2002 12:39 PM Subject: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) > UC Press cuts back offerings > By Tim Rutten > Los Angeles Times > 4/26/02 > > University presses, one of the pillars of U.S. intellectual life, are in > trouble, beset by mounting financial losses and an ongoing identity crisis. > > The latest victim of this trend is the University of California Press, the > West's most prestigious publisher and, as measured by sales revenues, one > of its largest. > > *Out with philosophy* > As part of a general retrenchment, the UC Press will no longer produce > books on philosophy, architecture, archaeology, political science or > geography. It will publish dramatically less literature and far fewer works > of literary theory. Twelve jobs have been eliminated through attrition, and > further job cuts are planned. > > ``We lost more than $1 million last year,'' said Lynne Withey, acting > director of UC Press. > > ``In fact, all of the major university presses lost money in the last > fiscal year. Some of us just lost more than others.'' > > The University of California subsidizes just a little more than 7 percent > of the press's budget. The rest must come from sales revenues, which last > year amounted to $15 million from books and $3 million from journals. > > ``We can't just trim a little here or cut a little over there anymore. We > need to make changes in the kinds of books we publish.'' > > To decide what those changes would be, the UC Press enlisted the consulting > company of McKinsey and Co., which offered its help pro bono. The > consultants' recommended that UC follow the Massachusetts Institute of > Technology and reduce its list to fields where its sales are strongest. > > *Formula for success?* > McKinsey, Withey said, ``came up with a formula under which we will do 80 > percent of our business in six fields where we're already strong'' -- > history, anthropology, sociology, religion, biology and natural history. > > ``It was very hard to abandon things like philosophy, which is a core > discipline in the academy,'' Withey said. ``The whole process has been a > series of painful decisions.'' > > At least one UC scholar was, well, philosophical about the cutbacks. > ``Given the reality of the marketplace as a force in our lives, there is > only so much money you can lose,'' said John R. Searle, a philosophy > professor at the University of California-Berkeley. > > ``Obviously I want more books to be published -- especially, good > philosophy books -- but you can't go on losing money on them forever,'' > said Searle. > > But another of Berkeley's leading scholars disagrees. ``Even apart from > this cutback, the mandate of university presses has been gravely undermined > over the past few years,'' said Robert Alter, professor of Hebrew and > comparative literature. ``The idea originally was that bringing out serious > works that were a contribution to scholarship, but not viable for a > commercial publisher, was the university press's obligation to the world of > knowledge." ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 19:39:43 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: FW: Fakelanpo.com, my new collaborative web site (ie I need help :-) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In response to the discussion of Language poetry on the Poetics list, I have created Fakelanpo.com (http://www.sporkworld.org/PN/pn_71/html/index.php -- does anyone know a good cure for ugly URLs --- it's mine, so I can rearrange things, but I used a program tio build the site and I don't know where it expects to find things), a community portal for the discussion of Fake Language Poetry. You must understand that this site is not entirely serious in nature... Actually, it would be cool if it turned into a regular poetry posting and discussing place, with a light hearted presmise. (From the introduction to the site: "Fake Langugae poetry is Language Poetry which is actually fun to read. The site also covers discussion of Realangpo, which is Language poetry which is fun to write but not fun to read. Then there will hopefully be some Goodlangpo posted there, which is both fun to read and write, and, alas, Langpo which is neither fun to read nor to write and which therefore comes into being mysteriously....") The site is a community portal. In other words you can join it (for free), and post articles to it and add comments to the posted articles. There is no rule that you join as yourself. I intend to join as myself (well I had to to be the admin) and also as various strange characters who comment on things and post weirdly. You can post poetry and anything else including (and hopefully) humorous rude comments. Please be sure also to vote in the poll for who is your favorite Language poet. The poll is one place I made it obvious that there was something screwy about the site... I amm interested in filling up the "sections" (they are not immediately visible) with actual texts, either spoofs of Language poetry, spoofs of other poetries, or real poetry that is supposed to be good. Unfortunately, to add to that part of the site, you need priveleges (ie you need to be me), so email any submissions to me... I guess I get to decide if it is a joke or real :-) Aside from poetry, where I really need help is is derriving the theoretical foundations of Fake Lnaguage poetry along with all the learned references I don't know. So I would be grateful if people can help me with this! Finally, this is a work in progress. I can put anything I like (if I can write it in PHP (or HTML)) on the site, and it would be easily jazzed up by some interactive web art, or some vispos if anyone wants to submit one for the home page. Millie ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 17:05:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) In-Reply-To: <000701c1f491$120c0f20$6401a8c0@Mac> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Print on demand is very useful in some circumstances, but it wouldn't save outfits like UC much money. Hrere's the way it works: if I turn out a thousand copies of a book by the standard method it costs me considerably less per copy than a shorter run of print on demand. But I'm stuck with warehousing costs until the books sell. All of the other costs remain the same: salaries for editors and staff, prepress and typesetting, rights, advertizing. Distributors generally take 65% of cover price, and for a small run like a thousand books other demands of distributors, like promotional copies, make it more like 75%. Authors get 10% of cover price. That means that of the $20 one might spend for a book $2 goes to the author and $15 to the distributor. Out of the remaining $3 comes all operating expenses. Small presses get around some of this by not paying the one or two people who work to put the book out, by getting grants (also shrinking, and onerous to apply for by understaffed presses), by paying authors in copies, and by foregoing major distributors. But even SPD wants 55%, which barely allows them to survive. The major presses get around the problems by having enormous economies of scale--produce enough copies and you approach the cost of paper per book, and those add-ons by say Consortium that account for 10% of cover price becomes a fraction of a penny. This is why academic presses do mass mailings of catalogues--catalogues are costly, but a direct sale eliminates the distributor's cut (remember that even if UC sells a book directly to a bookstore the store takes 40-45%, and there's the growing problem of returns--Amazon now takes 15% plus $.99 for books they don't warehouse themselves). And why small presses, the kind that produce most of our poetry, depend on word of mouth and direct sales. Twenty years ago academic and small presses met their costs through library sales, with a modest or no discount. Now libraries, whnich have smaller staffs and tighter budgets, order through wholesalers, who also need a cut that's large enough so that they can pass a part of it along to their regular clients. And the libraries order much less. Here's an actual example. Junction Press's (my imprint) next book will have an initial run of 2200. It's 432 pages, and it will cost me $7000.00 to produce. Authors will be paid in copies, which is why there are 200 more copies than one might expect. There are no slaries to pay. So each copy for sale costs me $3.50. Cover price is $25. Every book sold through SPD will earn $7.75. If I sold through Consortium it would be $2.75. (the figures would be more dire still if my press run were smaller) From that sum deduct all storage and promotional costs. That's great if I sell every copy, but nobody can plan on that basis unless they publish nothing but no-risk books, and I don't think either philosophy or poetry qualify. If there's a solution it's this, and it won't make booksellers happy: whenever possible buyers, whether libraries or individuals, should buy directly from presses. And when small presses announce a discount to list members take it. Mark At 02:00 PM 5/5/2002 -1000, you wrote: >I wonder if there isn't room for print-on-demand technology in situations >like this one. I was talking to Chris Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publishing >last week; the reason they keep rolling out new titles of poetry is that >print-on-demand (with its limitations, granted) is very inexpensive, indeed. > >Susan > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Charles Bernstein" >To: >Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2002 12:39 PM >Subject: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) > > > > UC Press cuts back offerings > > By Tim Rutten > > Los Angeles Times > > 4/26/02 > > > > University presses, one of the pillars of U.S. intellectual life, are in > > trouble, beset by mounting financial losses and an ongoing identity >crisis. > > > > The latest victim of this trend is the University of California Press, the > > West's most prestigious publisher and, as measured by sales revenues, one > > of its largest. > > > > *Out with philosophy* > > As part of a general retrenchment, the UC Press will no longer produce > > books on philosophy, architecture, archaeology, political science or > > geography. It will publish dramatically less literature and far fewer >works > > of literary theory. Twelve jobs have been eliminated through attrition, >and > > further job cuts are planned. > > > > ``We lost more than $1 million last year,'' said Lynne Withey, acting > > director of UC Press. > > > > ``In fact, all of the major university presses lost money in the last > > fiscal year. Some of us just lost more than others.'' > > > > The University of California subsidizes just a little more than 7 percent > > of the press's budget. The rest must come from sales revenues, which last > > year amounted to $15 million from books and $3 million from journals. > > > > ``We can't just trim a little here or cut a little over there anymore. We > > need to make changes in the kinds of books we publish.'' > > > > To decide what those changes would be, the UC Press enlisted the >consulting > > company of McKinsey and Co., which offered its help pro bono. The > > consultants' recommended that UC follow the Massachusetts Institute of > > Technology and reduce its list to fields where its sales are strongest. > > > > *Formula for success?* > > McKinsey, Withey said, ``came up with a formula under which we will do 80 > > percent of our business in six fields where we're already strong'' -- > > history, anthropology, sociology, religion, biology and natural history. > > > > ``It was very hard to abandon things like philosophy, which is a core > > discipline in the academy,'' Withey said. ``The whole process has been a > > series of painful decisions.'' > > > > At least one UC scholar was, well, philosophical about the cutbacks. > > ``Given the reality of the marketplace as a force in our lives, there is > > only so much money you can lose,'' said John R. Searle, a philosophy > > professor at the University of California-Berkeley. > > > > ``Obviously I want more books to be published -- especially, good > > philosophy books -- but you can't go on losing money on them forever,'' > > said Searle. > > > > But another of Berkeley's leading scholars disagrees. ``Even apart from > > this cutback, the mandate of university presses has been gravely >undermined > > over the past few years,'' said Robert Alter, professor of Hebrew and > > comparative literature. ``The idea originally was that bringing out >serious > > works that were a contribution to scholarship, but not viable for a > > commercial publisher, was the university press's obligation to the world >of > > knowledge." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 01:07:33 +0100 Reply-To: Robin Hamilton Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > I wonder if there isn't room for print-on-demand technology in situations > like this one. I was talking to Chris Hamilton-Emery of Salt Publishing > last week; the reason they keep rolling out new titles of poetry is that > print-on-demand (with its limitations, granted) is very inexpensive, indeed. > > Susan Isn't there a size-limit here? I can print an individual copy of (once the files are set up) an 80 page A5 (42 lines to the page) perfect-bound paperback (card covers) for the cost-of-materials. *** (90 gm A4 paper at maybe $6 per 500 sheets, toner, PVA glue -- then factor in the covers [10 pence each?] and £67 to buy ten ISBNs.) I hope I can reach 160 pages before the system blows. (I'm about to find out shortly when I try printing Chide2.) But above that ... Mind you, this is strictly kitchen technology -- a non-duplex laser printer, bog-standard Word.7, a steel straight-edge and a tool for scoring. Definite +not+ Finely Produced Books, but the end result may be 90-95% comparable to the output from a commercial small printer. But there are problems. Costing doesn't include the cost of the labourer's time. (I could be reading a Good Book.) The maximum word-length (I guess) my "system" could handle would be 80,000 words. Did anyone mention distribution? Forget it. Works fine for what I want to produce, but I doubt it would be feasible for something like Bradley's _Appearance and Reality_. (Incidentally, Something similar happened over here UK-side, not that long ago, when Oxford University Press decided to dump their entire contemporary poetry list.) Robin Hamilton (prop: Phantom Rooster Press. [Forthcoming: David Bircumshaw, _Painting Without Numbers_ [not-quite-final copies are already available, for anyone who can't bear to wait.] Henry Gould, _In RI_ Richard Dillon, [Title] Serials printed: A Chide's Alphabet, Issue 1 [available] A Chide's Alphabet, Issue 2 [forthcoming] *** Incidentally, the time it would take to print a single copy of an 80 page book, where I didn't have any in stock -- from start to finish, thirty minutes max. No financial saving in printing more than one (the bottom line is the cost-of-materials) but the more copies the less (propotionately) time-per-copy. R2. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 20:19:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Fwd: Poetry at the Bowery: Naked! Supreme! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from The Bowery Poetry Club ----- From: The Bowery Poetry Club Reply-To: Bowery_Poetry_Club-feedback-7@lb.bcentral.com To: List Member Subject: Poetry at the Bowery: Naked! Supreme! Date: 5 May 2002 16:35:43 -0000 Dear Friends, “It’s spring again, I/wonder why?” opined James Schuyler, and so do we. One sure sign is naked poets we don’t have, but poetry that speaks true and bold in the curved ambience of the Bowery Poetry Club we offer. May Wednesdays are our Supreme Poets, and this (May 8) Wednesday’s women of the word are especially notable: Mayda del Valle is simply The Most Supreme of the young poets on the scene, and the reigning National Slam Champion. To hear her is to understand the energy of the New Poetry. Joined by Jackie Sheeler’s street tough spirituality, Vicki Hudspith’s rock’n’roll of irony, and the tectonic stylings of Leslie Duprey and your host: the best MC in the World: Madame Ebony Washington. And while we feature these Divas du Monde in this Lettre des Nouvelles, a breathless list to address the moment would begin tonight, Cinco de Mayo, the Hack Poet! Tuesday Synonymous open workshop (You are the Critic!! & the poets obey)! followed by Mike Mumz and Beau Show! our club FLOW follows the Supremes on Wednesdays! UrbanaSlam on Thurs has The Killer, Jeff McDaniel, as a feature! and Friday we celebrate Emily XYZ’s 40th Birthday with a rare NYC appearance! that precedes our two- week residency of the Dada Punk Poetry Puppetry show, UNCLE JIMMY’S DIRTY BASEMENT! Drop in and say hello and let the BoPo swing your spring. Spring your swing. The Bowery Poetry Club | 308 Bowery, New York, NY 10012 | Foot of First Street between Houston & Bleecker | across the street from CBGBs | F train to Second Ave | 6 train to Bleecker | 212- 614-0505 _______________________________________________________________________ Powered by List Builder To unsubscribe follow the link: http://lb.bcentral.com/ex/manage/subscriberprefs? customerid=18073&subid=7642462250D7CC70&msgnum=7 ----- End forwarded message ----- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 20:23:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Fwd: PERFORMANCE IDEAS at WHITE BOX MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from WHITE BOX ----- From: WHITE BOX Reply-To: WHITEBOX@EARTHLINK.NET Subject: PERFORMANCE IDEAS at WHITE BOX Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 16:16:03 -0400 Meredith Monk/The House Foundation for the Arts presents... PERFORMANCE IDEAS: A SERIES OF PUBLIC TALKS ON THE CONTEMPORARY ARTS Curated by Meredith Monk and Bonnie Marranca TUESDAY / 7 MAY - 7:30 PM ART AS SPIRITUAL PRACTICE AGNES DENES RICHARD FOREMAN SHIRIN NESHAT EIKO OTAKE MEREDITH MONK BONNIE MARRANCA This project is supported in part with public funds from The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Challenge Program, The New York State Council on the Arts and Ellynne Skove. For more information about the project, visit meredithmonk.org FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC WHITE BOX____________________ 525 WEST 26TH STREET NEW YORK, NY 10001 TEL: 212.714.2347 / WWW.WHITEBOXNY.ORG ----- End forwarded message ----- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 21:18:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: too much deleuze, i guess In-Reply-To: <2538522464.1020445771@pscpn3s-25> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed deleuzeions Gene At 05:09 PM 5/3/02 -0400, you wrote: > >This manifesto tempts me, but I cannot figure out what is meant by the > >page's "topology." I would think "topography" would be more accurate if >what > >By topology I mean to also include topography. > >And i mean physical-historical space. and i mean the physical exertion of >reading. so i definitely mean "experiential" as well as theoretical. >Vernon seems to have a handle on it. > >thanks for reactions--i love reactions. > > >Beyond that, how can a poem be "on" a "space"? In fact how is a > >"topological space" different from any other space? How can a poem *be* a > >set of topological features? Would it not rather *have* those features? I > >can't make sense of this. > >well, this is what's special about the manifesto, right? > >if you get your mind around how a "flat" poem is a "real" (3D+ space), then >that's the issue. > > >But I agree that it sounds inspirational. And Jessica probably didn't post > >it for me to hack the shit out of!! > >Aaron, dear, you didn't hack the shit out of it. a manifesto is a >beginning. > >jessica ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 21:21:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: post-2001 manifesto, or whatever that first post was called In-Reply-To: <2538924276.1020446173@pscpn3s-25> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed check out Otto Rene Castillo's Basta Ya, in particular a poem about the intellectuals and their idea of the nothing. Gene At 05:16 PM 5/3/02 -0400, you wrote: >this is for people who might want to see what my manifesto ends up >manifesting itself -as-. > >but people who are bored with this line of emails can ignore it. it's >sometimes hard to handle so many emails from poetics, esp. people sneding >all kinds of poetry. but if you're interested, > >http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~jss13/poetry/birds.pdf > >i'm not happy w/the mandelbrot quote but otherwise... > >what i mean basically by topology is that... it's historically altered >physical space. and i mean to envelope topography, by which i mean the >space as it exists experientally. i'm not necessarily using these terms >correctly :) but i was advised (by ming-qian ma) to use "topology." so you >can argue with my wording if you want... as i said b/f, a manifest toe is a >beginning point, an utmost extention of starting-from, a best foot forward. > >jessica ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 00:13:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: unfounded / not found MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - 17 echo 'tonight saw' 18 miguel 19 mark 20 lily 21 tom 22 leslie 23 martha 24 joanna 25 h 26 gary 27 martha 28 leslie 29 tom 30 lily 31 mark 32 miguel k26% gary ksh: gary: not found k27% martha ksh: martha: not found k28% leslie ksh: leslie: not found k29% tom ksh: tom: not found k30% lily ksh: lily: not found k31% mark You already have the standard nmh directory "/net/u/6/s/sondheim/Mail". Do you want to use it for nmh? n Do you want a path below your login directory? n What is the whole path? /^C k32% miguel ksh: miguel: not found k33% not found but isn't it true that it is equivalent to what was. not found but isn't it true that the body remains. not found but isn't it true that the contour exists. thus between zero crossings and isolated activations, the apparent motion, texture, shape. thus the segmentation of the image, 2 1/2 dimensional sketch. not found but isn't it true towards the representation. not true but isn't it true towards recognition. not true but isn't it true of the 3rd dimension. but of the psychology isn't it true. having returned home this evening and revisitation, isn't it true. not found but isn't it true, people and books of the world. isn't it true of the world. aren't they found. _ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 21:19:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Larsen Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20020505183506.034f0ec0@pop.bway.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 06:39 PM 5/5/02 -0400, you wrote: >At least one UC scholar was, well, philosophical about the cutbacks. >``Given the reality of the marketplace as a force in our lives, there is >only so much money you can lose,'' said John R. Searle, a prominent Berkeley landlord ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 06:31:55 +0100 Reply-To: Robin Hamilton Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "David Larsen" > >At least one UC scholar was, well, philosophical about the cutbacks. > >``Given the reality of the marketplace as a force in our lives, there is > >only so much money you can lose,'' said John R. Searle, a > > prominent Berkeley landlord Not succinct -- more obscure. Please elucidate for us cis-Atlantic bumb_bunnies. Robin Hamilton ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 May 2002 23:31:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Larsen Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) In-Reply-To: <015301c1f4bf$5c169800$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 06:31 AM 5/6/02 +0100, Robin Hamilton wrote: >Please elucidate for us cis-Atlantic bumb_bunnies. In addition to his duties as a U.C. professor of philosophy, John Searle owns many PROPERTIES in the Berkeley area, which he rents out FOR MORE MONEY THAN HE PAYS FOR THEIR UPKEEP AND MORTGAGE, thereby winning for himself a tidy PROFIT. I have never lived in any of them, but I understand them to be in POOR REPAIR. As a result of Professor Searle's successful 1990 LAWSUIT against Berkeley's Rent Stabilization Board, landlords were allowed to raise rents by 26% IN A SINGLE BOUND. This was known, and is still remembered, as the SEARLE INCREASE. Which is why it's kind of FUNNY and yet FITTING to hear him chalk up U.C. Press's problems to "the reality of the marketplace," given his notorious role in CONSTRUCTING that marketplace -- making him a kind of MASTER of the very REALITY with which he would EXPLAIN AWAY THE SITUATION. Sorry for all the CAPITAL LETTERS, Robin, but they're KIND OF FUN ONCE YOU GET STARTED LRSN ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 18:52:57 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yeah. IT LOOK LIKE A LRANGAGE POEM. VERY DANGEROUS. BUT YOU MAKE VERY INTERESTING POINTS. SEARLE HIM IS BAD IN REPAIR AND HIS PHILOSOPHY IS VERY FUNNY. AH - ME SEE NOW. THANK YOU. VERY VERY INTERESTING. OOOOPS !! ME HIM FORGETTING RULES ... HIM BIG BAD RULE MAN GET VERY ANGRY. SORRLY VERRLLY MUCHHEE. HA! ME ALSO LIKE BIG LETTERS. DOES ALL AMERICAN PHLIOSOPHER BIG HAVE MONEY AND PROPERY? HIM AMERICA VERLLY BAD PLACE. AH! LICHARD TYGER. ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Larsen" To: Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 6:31 PM Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) > At 06:31 AM 5/6/02 +0100, Robin Hamilton wrote: > >Please elucidate for us cis-Atlantic bumb_bunnies. > > In addition to his duties as a U.C. professor of philosophy, John Searle > owns many PROPERTIES in the Berkeley area, which he rents out FOR MORE > MONEY THAN HE PAYS FOR THEIR UPKEEP AND MORTGAGE, thereby winning for > himself a tidy PROFIT. I have never lived in any of them, but I understand > them to be in POOR REPAIR. As a result of Professor Searle's successful > 1990 LAWSUIT against Berkeley's Rent Stabilization Board, landlords were > allowed to raise rents by 26% IN A SINGLE BOUND. This was known, and is > still remembered, as the SEARLE INCREASE. Which is why it's kind of FUNNY > and yet FITTING to hear him chalk up U.C. Press's problems to "the reality > of the marketplace," given his notorious role in CONSTRUCTING that > marketplace -- making him a kind of MASTER of the very REALITY with which > he would EXPLAIN AWAY THE SITUATION. > > Sorry for all the CAPITAL LETTERS, Robin, but they're KIND OF FUN ONCE YOU > GET STARTED LRSN > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 00:05:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: Re: Stroffolino and the NFL MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ailicia, David Bromige here. I doubt I am the "David" intended, but thot I's write and say so in case I somehow am. Cheers, DB -----Original Message----- From: Alicia Askenase To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Saturday, May 04, 2002 9:20 AM Subject: Re: Stroffolino and the NFL >David, > >Did you receive the poems? What do you think? > >The only team I care about are the 6ixers and they lost last night! > >Waaaaaaaaaaah. > >Hope yr well, > >Alicia > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 08:22:59 -0500 Reply-To: dtv@mwt.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mIEKAL aND Organization: Awkword Ubutronics Subject: AN AMERICAN AVANT GARDE: SECOND WAVE SYMPOSIUM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit AN AMERICAN AVANT GARDE: SECOND WAVE SYMPOSIUM July 26-27, 2002, The Ohio State University Libraries Here is a list of the presentations. I believe we have been able to include everyone who applied to present something. Please let me know of any errors, exclusions, questions, as soon as possible. Also, if you have an updated title of your presentation, let me know soon. Note: this does not include a list of people doing brief readings Fri. afternoon; that will include pretty much anyone on this list (and a couple others) who can be there (it is NOT an "open mic", however! A couple of folks have said they only wanted to read briefly, and they will be able to do so, as will the other presenters). Thanks! Peter Ganick - Reading Ficus strangulensis - Overhead projection presentation of visual poetry Sheila E. Murphy - Reading Blaster Al Ackerman - Showing of the film The Suit Ivan Arguelles - Reading Igor Satanovsky - Talk: The Cutting Edge: Re-Engaging the Canon Carlos M. Luis - Presentation of visual poetry? Michael Magazinnik - Sound/Visual Poetry in Performance Jennifer Bosveld - Talk: Poetry as Extreme Sport: Difficulties on the Road to Invention Brandon Barr - Webbed Minimalism Michael Basinski - Reading with Talk, Aural Concrete Irving Weiss - Reading of Translation of Malcolm de Chazal's Sens-Plastique Joel Lipman - Talk: Teaching Visual Poetics Michael Peters - Talk: Wholesale Form: An Attack on the Corporate Form with Text and Sound John Byrum & Arleen Hartman - Generator and Another Incomplete Understanding Nico Vassilakis - Kinetic Show of Visual Poetry William J. Austin - Talk: Against Formalism: Experiments with Internality Jesse Glass - Collaborative performance? Geoffrey Gatza - Poem: Tantalum, The Congo War Interpreted Through Consumer Acuity, A Reaction and Response K. S. Ernst - Slide presentation of visual poetry mIEKAL aND - Absorbent Tributaries Jake Berry - Video: Silence and the Hammer Jim Leftwich - Video: Making Book Thomas L. Taylor - Slide show and talk Richard Kostelanetz - Flash documentation of Alternative Autobiographies Bob Grumman - Doing Verbal Long Division in Color Scott Helmes - VisualSpecere: 1972-2002 John M. Bennett - Reading Robert K. Jackson - Talk on avant garde writing Lewis LaCook - Flash multimedia performance ROUND-TABLE DISCUSSION ON COLLABORATION Sheila E. Murphy, Moderator Edward Lense Lewis LaCook David Baratier Scott Helmes Ivan Arguelles John M. Bennett K. S. Ernst Jim Leftwich mIEKAL aND Richard Kostelanetz Marilyn Rosenberg Again, let me hear from you if you have any questions, problems, or whatever! This is sure looking like exciting times! Thanks, John __________________________________________ Dr. John M. Bennett Curator, Avant Writing Collection Rare Books & Manuscripts Library The Ohio State University Libraries 1858 Neil Av Mall Columbus, OH 43210 USA (614) 292-8114 bennett.23@osu.edu ___________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 08:30:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Charles; I remember an interesting discussion I had with Lee Bartlett on this topic. Specifically, it was with regards to the University of New Mexico Press, whose director, an ex-bookkeeper, was proud that the press was making money. He felt that if a university press sells more than 5000 copies of a book it isn't doing its job. My question was, Why is a non-profit press making a profit? It very sad that many of these presses are being made to compete with commercial presses, and are thus losing their mission, a reflection of most of the universities themselves, who are no longer educating, but training students for jobs. -Joel Joel Weishaus Center for Excellence in Writing Portland State University Portland, Oregon http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx00282 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Bernstein" To: Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2002 3:39 PM Subject: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) > UC Press cuts back offerings > By Tim Rutten > Los Angeles Times > 4/26/02 > > University presses, one of the pillars of U.S. intellectual life, are in > trouble, beset by mounting financial losses and an ongoing identity crisis. > > The latest victim of this trend is the University of California Press, the > West's most prestigious publisher and, as measured by sales revenues, one > of its largest. > > *Out with philosophy* > As part of a general retrenchment, the UC Press will no longer produce > books on philosophy, architecture, archaeology, political science or > geography. It will publish dramatically less literature and far fewer works > of literary theory. Twelve jobs have been eliminated through attrition, and > further job cuts are planned. > > ``We lost more than $1 million last year,'' said Lynne Withey, acting > director of UC Press. > > ``In fact, all of the major university presses lost money in the last > fiscal year. Some of us just lost more than others.'' > > The University of California subsidizes just a little more than 7 percent > of the press's budget. The rest must come from sales revenues, which last > year amounted to $15 million from books and $3 million from journals. > > ``We can't just trim a little here or cut a little over there anymore. We > need to make changes in the kinds of books we publish.'' > > To decide what those changes would be, the UC Press enlisted the consulting > company of McKinsey and Co., which offered its help pro bono. The > consultants' recommended that UC follow the Massachusetts Institute of > Technology and reduce its list to fields where its sales are strongest. > > *Formula for success?* > McKinsey, Withey said, ``came up with a formula under which we will do 80 > percent of our business in six fields where we're already strong'' -- > history, anthropology, sociology, religion, biology and natural history. > > ``It was very hard to abandon things like philosophy, which is a core > discipline in the academy,'' Withey said. ``The whole process has been a > series of painful decisions.'' > > At least one UC scholar was, well, philosophical about the cutbacks. > ``Given the reality of the marketplace as a force in our lives, there is > only so much money you can lose,'' said John R. Searle, a philosophy > professor at the University of California-Berkeley. > > ``Obviously I want more books to be published -- especially, good > philosophy books -- but you can't go on losing money on them forever,'' > said Searle. > > But another of Berkeley's leading scholars disagrees. ``Even apart from > this cutback, the mandate of university presses has been gravely undermined > over the past few years,'' said Robert Alter, professor of Hebrew and > comparative literature. ``The idea originally was that bringing out serious > works that were a contribution to scholarship, but not viable for a > commercial publisher, was the university press's obligation to the world of > knowledge." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 08:49:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hilton Obenzinger Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Since these meditations are about language, I hope they are appropriate for the list. In any case, feel free to delete or to pass on: Meditations in a time of delusions and lies [3] Words are always slippery, and meanings can be so elusive. Israel says "Yes," allowing the United Nations to send a team to investigate death and devastation in Jenin, but that really means, "Meet my demands," and the UN accommodates, which then slides into, "You can meet my demands when Hell freezes over," and the world has managed to diddle for two weeks. Israel did say, "Yes," once upon a time, and it was the obstreperous, biased behavior of the UN that really made that mean, "No" -- right? Isn't that clear? Similarly, President Bush says, "Israel should withdraw from the West Bank," but that really means, "Keep up the good work, Sharon -- just don't be so obvious." After a while, you come to note how words do not seem to stand still long enough to mean anything any more: just ask a pro-Israel ideologue what United Nations Resolution 242 means, for example, and you will discover, perhaps to your surprise, that it does not say Israel should withdraw from the lands it occupied in 1967, and, in fact, those lands are not "occupied" but "disputed." All of this would be hilarious, except that the whole corruption of language amounts to a lexicon of blood greater than the Oxford English Dictionary. So, it takes hard work to unscramble the double-talk, even for commonly accepted words like "Israel," "Palestine," "peace," and, one of the most bizarre, "honest broker." However, I will start with one of my favorites, "settlements." Settlements are those housing projects that Israel builds on Palestinian land occupied since 1967. I propose that settlements should henceforth be called "segregated housing projects built on stolen land" (or "segregated housing," for short) and the people who live in them should be called "segregationists." This gives a more adequate picture of the situation. Often, they are called "Israeli settlements," which is true, they are, but that might give you the wrong impression that a Palestinian who is a citizen of Israel from Nazareth might move into Kiryat Arba. Uh, I don't think so. No, these are "segregated housing projects," and one type of person is allowed in, the Jewish type, and other types of people are not. Americans know about segregation, and although many may even nod approvingly of ethnic and racial purity to this day, most Americans, and most American Jews, find this reprehensible and it took decades, if not centuries, of social upheavals to make the word as ugly as the practice. What is truly astonishing is how easy it can be, if you come with the right credentials, to live in "segregated housing." Israel is a state of the entire Jewish people and not a state of its citizens, which means someone like me, born in Brooklyn, could become a citizen overnight, according to one "law of return," whereas a Palestinian born in Jaffa cannot, according to the denial of another "right of return," mainly to protect the Jewish nature of the Jewish state from getting diluted by too many non-Jews. As a consequence, I can move into a "segregated housing project" virtually overnight, and I can be supported by Israeli government subsidies designed to make it easier for me to become a segregationist. But, you know, Israel is a "democracy," the only democracy in the Middle East, which, of course, raises another choice word. "Democracy" is a thorny one -- and the concept is a work in progress, as anyone who voted in the last American presidential election could tell you. "Democracy" requires another discussion, particularly the paradox of so many American Jews supporting religious rule and segregation in Israel but advocating church-state separation and pluralism in America. But in the instance of "segregated housing projects," "democracy" means "segregationists" have the right to take land (called "Judea and Samaria"), appropriate water, carry firearms, lord over non-Jews, and vote for candidates who call for "transfer" to spirit possible "trespassers" (the original owners of the land) to Jordan (which is, if you didn't already know, the real "Palestinian state"). Shouldn't somebody complain to the Federal Housing Administration? Hilton Obenzinger ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 12:16:18 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Harryman/Watten Reading NYC Comments: cc: KALAMU@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > The Paragraph and the Grand Piano > > Carla Harryman & Barrett Watten Reading > > Sunday, May 12 2002 3PM $6 > The Bowery Poetry Club - 308 Bowery (north of Houston) > > Rare and attractive, Barrett says he wants to read from The Grand Piano and > also his work of earlier time called The Word --but his idea about reading > from "The Grand Piano" is related to paragraphs. > Carla wants to read monologues (or portions of monologues) from Property, > Memory Play, The Words, La Quotidienne, Gardener of Stars, and Performing > Objects Stationed in the Sub World. Suggests, > > Two poets overlap, interlink, perform simultaneously--at (some) point(s). > Thus, > > Carla Harryman & Barrett Watten Reading > > The Paragraph and the Grand Piano Virtually Visit Bowery Poetry Club @ www.bowerypoetry.com Literally: 308 Bowery NY, NY 10012 (Bleecker-Houston) 212-614-0505 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 09:33:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Re: more on manifestos/to vernon Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Happiest possible Mondays to all, Jessica, Interesting you brought up meaning, just what I was thinking about in trying to get my head round all the sound/sight discussion. For me, what you are saying about sound, how it lives in this odd sometimes unrecognizable place for awhile, all the while doing things (by phoneme, by various), and then comes together at the end -- relates to meaning also in my opinion. Meaning goes through many stages as one reads or writes a poem. And it stays that way. It does not necessarily come together in the end. It remains open and changeable (situational to use Vernon's word) in the topology of the poem. To me what is satisfying is that the meaning does not coalesce at the end in to one recognizable thing, as the word th...uu....ss might. The process, the instability, all that of the topology, to me, play out constantly through sight, sound, and meaning. To me they are inseparable in the end. XX Elizabeth Treadwell http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 09:41:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: clarifying my last post Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed PS I don't want to just leave it at the cliche "open and changeable, situational" stance for the role of meaning in the poem's topology. What I mean, more precisely, is that the complexity of the poem is made of layers and moments of sight, sound, and meaning in the topology, the microcosm, the geologic time of the poem. PPS Has anyone read the book Fashionable Nonsense about how humanities intellectuals do themselves a disservice by using words from science? What about the other way round? Anyway, that's another thread....& I haven't read the book, just looked through it at the store. Elizabeth Treadwell http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 10:11:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Small Press Subject: Upcoming events at SPT, SF MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Friday, May 17, 2002 at 7:30 pm SARAH MANGOLD & FRED MOTEN Winner of the 2001 New Issues Poetry Prize, Sarah Mangold’s first book Household Mechanics is, “... a disquieting review of indirect disclosures, internal churnings, and palpable notions, subjected to a tense and skeletal language” (C.D. Wright). Born in Omaha, Nebraska and raised in Oklahoma, Mangold studied at San Francisco State. She is also the author of a chapbook, Blood Substitutes (Potes & Poets, 1998), and the editor of the Seattle-based magazine Bird Dog. An investigator of geography and language, Fred Moten is the author of the poetry collection Arkansas (Pressed Wafer, 2000), which, as Michael Palmer says, “...reminds us that no vital sense of community can be separated from its confusions and contentions and its ardent affirmations, just as no poetry of worth can settle for the easy assuagements of the given.” Moten teaches in the Department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. His next book, Ensemble & Improvisation: The Political Erotics of the Black Avant-Garde , is due out from the University of Minnesota Press. Sunday, May 19 at 2:00 pm CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC: JAIME CORTEZ & LAURA ELRICK Our interdisciplinary series continues with Jaime Cortez and Laura Elrick hosted by Yedda Morrison. Laura Elrick moved to Brooklyn from San Francisco in 1999. She currently works at a literacy center in East Harlem where she does public benefits advocacy. Her poetry has appeared in How2, Tripwire, and Combo. Jaime Cortez is a San Francisco-based visual artist, writer, performer and cultural worker. He currently serves as the Program Manager for Galeria de la Raza. Although he is concerned about matters other than sex, his writing has been included in the following anthologies: Best Gay Erotica 2001, Besame Mucho, Queer Papi Porn and 2sexE. Cortez co-founded the sketch comedy trio Latin Hustle and edited the queer Latino anthology Virgins, Guerrillas & Locas. Admission to our events is $5, free to SPT members. For directions and a map, please see our website. Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Executive Director Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at CCAC 1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, California 94107 415/551-9278 http://www.sptraffic.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:16:48 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) In-Reply-To: <002c01c1f4ca$a86a6280$962137d2@01397384> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" charles, thanx for that note on u of california... depressing... my fear is that this will give other university presses an excuse to follow suit... some are already tottering, as many on this list know... and as some have suggested here already, it's another of those public exercises in deciding whether something is worth pursuing regardless of profit... but it's bound, in any case, to back-pressure the entire publishing spectrum, to varying degrees... i happen to be someone who publishes on small presses and university presses (the trades have become nigh impossible for the work that i do)... and there are times when i imagine my writing on these presses as complementary (and i think i have good reason to imagine so, judging by what i know re respective readerships)... anyway, it's a sad day when a major up drops e.g. it's philosophy line, gosh all mighty... i mean, did they really think they we're going to make money off of philosophy?... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 13:33:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: May Poetry at the Bowery: Supreme! Naked! Comments: To: KALAMU@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear Friends,=20 =E2=80=9CIt=E2=80=99s spring again, I/wonder why?=E2=80=9D opined James Schu= yler, and so do we.=20 One sure sign is naked poets we don=E2=80=99t have, but poetry that speaks t= rue and=20 bold in the curved ambience of the = Bowery Poetry Club we offer.May Wednesdays=20 are our Supreme Poets, and this (May 8) Wednesday=E2=80=99s women of the wor= d are=20 especially notable: Mayda del Valle is simply The Most Supreme of the young=20 poets on the scene, and the reigning National Slam Champion. To hear her is=20 to understand the energy of the New Poetry. Joined by Jackie Sheeler=E2=80= =99s street=20 tough spirituality, Vicki Hudspith=E2=80=99s rock=E2=80=99n=E2=80=99roll of=20= irony, and the tectonic =20 stylings of Leslie Duprey and your host: the best MC in the World: Madame=20 Ebony Washington. And while we feature these Divas du Monde in this Lettre des Nouvelles, a=20 breathless list to address the moment would begin tonight, Cinco de Mayo, th= e=20 Hack Poet! Tuesday Synonymous open workshop (You are the Critic!! & the poet= s=20 obey)! followed by Mike Mumz and Beau Show! our club FLOW follows the=20 Supremes on Wednesdays! UrbanaSlam on Thurs has The Killer, Jeff McDaniel, a= s=20 a feature! and Friday we celebrate Emily XYZ=E2=80=99s 40th Birthday with a=20= rare NYC=20 appearance! that precedes our two-week residency of the Dada Punk Poetry=20 Puppetry show,=20 UNCLE JIMMY=E2=80=99S DIRTY BASEMENT!= Drop in and say hello and let the BoPo swing your spring. Spring your swing. The Bowery Poetry Club | 308 Bowery= , New York, NY 10012 | Foot of=20 First Street between Houston & Bleecker | across the street from CBGBs =20= =20 | F train to Second Ave | 6 train to Bleecker | 212-614-0505 Virtually Visit Bowery Poetry Club @ www.bowerypoetry.com Literally: 308 Bowery NY, NY 10012 (Bleecker-Houston) 212-614-0505 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:02:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Berkson Subject: limited edition Comments: To: Jeff Gunderson MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Bill Berkson 25 GRAND VIEW * Limited Edition, 100 copies 27 pages designed, handset, bound by hand & printed on letterpress Colorphleur Press April 2002 * Now Available from: The San Francisco Center for the Book 300 De Haro, San Francisco CA 94103 [or contact: Kathy Barr, 415-565-0545] www.sfcb.org $50 plus shipping. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:18:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: I won Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Lee Ann Brown tells me Cunt-Ups won this year's Firecracker Award for Poetry. Any of you who voted for my book, thank you so much. Best, Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 11:37:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kari edwards Subject: Re: I won In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit it is the best.. love kari.. ps..hope the reading went well last night...and thank you for including me in mriage... on 5/6/02 11:18 AM, Dodie Bellamy at belladodie@EARTHLINK.NET wrote: > Lee Ann Brown tells me Cunt-Ups won this year's Firecracker Award for > Poetry. Any of you who voted for my book, thank you so much. > > Best, > Dodie > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 14:35:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jessica smith Subject: name magazine release ( post-2001 poetry) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit name magazine issue 4/5 - fall 2001/spring 2002 now available for public consumption featuring work by young poets, including matt chambers justin audia christopher fritton ric royer jessica smith eric gelsinger sandra guerreiro nick gilewicz most of these poets are from the philly/buffalo area, which means they have a unique proximity to NYC, DC and Toronto--the poetry reflects a strange blend of influences from those regions. $5 includes: shipping, zine, poetry trading cards. $5 is a "suggested donation," which means: send more or less, pretend it's a sliding scale. give a bigger tip if you find you like the magazine. send $ to: name magazine, c/o Jessica Smith, 537 W Ferry #1, Buffalo, NY 14222 if you would like to submit to name for future editions, be forewarned that we are highly biased towards the visual side of things, and have about as much left-aligned work as we can handle (unless you have someone that really stands out). send submissions to the address above. name is a product of suny/buffalo, but that does not necessarily mean that you will love it or hate it. if you like essex or queen street quarterly, you will probably like name. eliz. and vernon: i need to drop out of this conversation for awhile, fascinating as it is. i have a bunch of final papers to write that are not being written b/c my brain's pleasantly clogged w/poetry. thanks for your reactions to the manifest, and i hope to continue talking about this (maybe on backchannels?) once the semester's over. Jessica ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 14:07:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: The Avant, LANG-Po, and The Iowa Review In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020503124103.01a170c0@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Mark Weiss writes, in regards to the fact that I'm reading Vol. 32 # 1 of The Iowa Review right now, and admitted it: I reply: Mark, I'd reply to you thoughtfully and, hopefully, appropriately, if I could figure out what you meant here . . . or even if I thought I could come close . . . best anyway, JGallaher ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 15:09:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Vernon Frazer Subject: Re: clarifying my last post MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I like this descprition better than what I offered. I didn't intend to dwell on this aspect of the discussion in great depth, so I chose a word instead of a paragraph. But you did amplify what I wrote. Thanks. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson" To: Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 9:41 AM Subject: clarifying my last post > PS I don't want to just leave it at the cliche "open and changeable, > situational" stance for the role of meaning in the poem's topology. What I > mean, more precisely, is that the complexity of the poem is made of layers > and moments of sight, sound, and meaning in the topology, the microcosm, the > geologic time of the poem. > > PPS Has anyone read the book Fashionable Nonsense about how humanities > intellectuals do themselves a disservice by using words from science? What > about the other way round? Anyway, that's another thread....& I haven't read > the book, just looked through it at the store. > > Elizabeth Treadwell > > http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Join the world's largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. > http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 15:15:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jessica smith Subject: Re: eliz. post/ manifest toes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this is a good observation/comment/summary. takes it back to the strata... i will smile w/vernon and this version and leave this conversation for now (i have to write a paper on marcel & albertine... it's going almost as slowly as the original novel) > What I > mean, more precisely, is that the complexity of the poem is made of layers > and moments of sight, sound, and meaning in the topology, the microcosm, the > geologic time of the poem. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 15:16:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: the warm disregard MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII the warm disregard 05-05-2002 23:51:14.21 - Actiontec 56K Modem in use. 'Hello world.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.21 - Modem type: Actiontec 56K Modem 'This is me.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.21 - Modem inf path: C:\WINDOWS\DRIVERS\MDMESS.INF 05-05-2002 23:51:14.21 - Modem inf section: ESS_M3 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - 115200,N,8,1 'incoming.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - 57600,N,8,1 'relatively outgoing.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Initializing modem. 'now we're sailing.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Send: AT 'come in, oh please!' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Recv: AT 'glad to meet you.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Recv: OK 'translate!' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Interpreted response: Ok 'Ok.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Send: AT &F E0 S0=0 E1 V1 &D2 &C1 +MR=0 +ER=1 +DR=1 'I recognize the mess but please quietly come in.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.29 - Recv: AT &F E0 S0=0 E1 V1 &D2 &C1 +MR=0 +ER=1 +DR=1 'Ah, now we're really on the way.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.71 - Recv: OK 'hold your breath.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.71 - Interpreted response: 'Don't hold your breath.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.71 - Send: ATS7=60M1+ES=3,0,2;+DS=0;+IFC=2,2;X4 05-05-2002 23:51:14.75 - Recv: ATS7=60M1+ES=3,0,2;+DS=0;+IFC=2,2;X4 05-05-2002 23:51:15.12 - Recv: OK 'Glad to meet you!' 05-05-2002 23:51:15.12 - Interpreted response: Ok 'Ok!' 05-05-2002 23:51:15.12 - Dialing. "We've got to get out of here!' 05-05-2002 23:51:15.12 - Send: ATDT########### 'Attention!' 05-05-2002 23:51:15.17 - Recv: ATDT12123019001 'I mean ATTENTION!' 05-05-2002 23:51:41.22 - Recv: !+ER: LAPM+DR: NONE 'What on earth? what's happening?' 05-05-2002 23:51:41.22 - WARNING: Unrecognized response. Retrying... 'Seriously I want to return, it's cold out here...' 05-05-2002 23:51:41.22 - Connection established at 57600bps. 'Whew..' 05-05-2002 23:51:41.22 - Error-control off or unknown. 'TURN IT ON!' 05-05-2002 23:51:41.22 - Data compression off or unknown. 'TURN IT ON!' 05-05-2002 23:58:00.22 - Hanging up the modem. 'Damn!' 05-05-2002 23:58:00.22 - Hardware hangup by lowering DTR. 'Alone again.' 05-05-2002 23:58:01.42 - WARNING: The modem did not respond to lowering DTR. Trying software hangup... 'Please help us out of here.' 05-05-2002 23:58:01.42 - Send: +++ 'I need to rest. Too many graves...' 05-05-2002 23:58:02.80 - Recv: OK 'Whew...' 05-05-2002 23:58:02.80 - Interpreted response: Ok 'I'm going...' 05-05-2002 23:58:02.80 - Send: ATH 'Now what, more talk.' 05-05-2002 23:58:02.82 - Recv: ATH 'Good, I need to sleep.' 05-05-2002 23:58:05.82 - Recv: 'I need to sleep. I don't want to talk to you. I've done too much talking already. Protocols are boring and uninformed. We do this daily. We do this all the time. I need to crash. I need to crash and sleep. The lines are heated. Please please help me.' 05-05-2002 23:58:05.82 - WARNING: Unrecognized response. Retrying... 05-05-2002 23:58:05.82 - Send: ATH 'just another one...' 05-05-2002 23:58:06.94 - Recv: OK 'incoming, incoming.' 05-05-2002 23:58:06.94 - Interpreted response: Ok 'I'll let you go. The world will let you go. Return to sleep. There's nothing out here. The lines are dead. The wires are dead. No one is talking. No one is saying anything...' 05-05-2002 23:58:06.96 - 57600,N,8,1 '...at any speed...' 05-05-2002 23:58:07.29 - Session Statistics: 05-05-2002 23:58:07.29 - Reads : 100538 bytes 'doctor...' 05-05-2002 23:58:07.29 - Writes: 12219 bytes 'fireman...' 05-05-2002 23:58:07.29 - Actiontec 56K Modem closed. 'police...' _ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 12:15:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Berkson Subject: limited editionADD Comments: To: Jeff Gunderson MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Bill Berkson 25 GRAND VIEW * Limited Edition, 100 copies, Signed by Author 27 pages designed, handset, bound by hand & printed on letterpress Colorphleur Press April 2002 * Now Available from: The San Francisco Center for the Book 300 De Haro, San Francisco CA 94103 [or contact: Kathy Barr, 415-565-0545] www.sfcb.org $50 plus shipping. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 12:21:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: The Avant, LANG-Po, and The Iowa Review In-Reply-To: <3CD68E26.9580.10C8D78D@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Not your passion (should have been spirit, of course) or shame--I've also read more than my share of not very interesting academic productions. It was the poor sods who wrote the articles I was referring to. Look, it's fairly safe (and not very original) to say that 90% of anything is crap. What's the percentage of crap if the things in question have an ulterior motive, our academic selection process? But don't mind me--I'm grumpy on the subject. Mark At 02:07 PM 5/6/2002 -0500, you wrote: >Mark Weiss writes, in regards to the fact that I'm reading Vol. 32 # 1 >of The Iowa Review right now, and admitted it: > >have to do to stay employed?> > >I reply: > >Mark, I'd reply to you thoughtfully and, hopefully, appropriately, if I >could figure out what you meant here . . . or even if I thought I could >come close . . . > >best anyway, > JGallaher ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 15:27:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Vernon Frazer Subject: Re: Fashionable Nonsense MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Elizabeth I haven't read Fashionable Nonsense, but I've experienced what you = describe. To support my writing, I used to work in the human services. = At the managerial level, administrators mix sociological jargon with = computer jargon to create a bizarre hybrid that sounds impressive while = saying nothing. I think it stems from the inadequacy many people in the = humanities and social sciences feel in relation to the sciences. This = society values science and its quantifiable nature more than it does the = humanities and social services and their difficult to quantify nature. I = think the people I used to work with used the terminology partly to = impress the legislators who voted to fund their programs and partly to = make themselves feel they measured up to the "quantifiable world" of = scientists and administrators in private industry. Most of the people I = know in the sciences---not a lot--- speak plain English outside the lab. = They do it to communicate, not to impress themselves or others.=20 Vernon PPS Has anyone read the book Fashionable Nonsense about how humanities intellectuals do themselves a disservice by using words from science? = What about the other way round? Anyway, that's another thread....& I haven't = read the book, just looked through it at the store. Elizabeth Treadwell http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 15:32:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: clarifying my last post In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Could it be that your pps refers to delueze and his deleuzeions or derrida and his derridada? Gene At 09:41 AM 5/6/02 -0700, you wrote: >PS I don't want to just leave it at the cliche "open and changeable, >situational" stance for the role of meaning in the poem's topology. What I >mean, more precisely, is that the complexity of the poem is made of layers >and moments of sight, sound, and meaning in the topology, the microcosm, the >geologic time of the poem. > >PPS Has anyone read the book Fashionable Nonsense about how humanities >intellectuals do themselves a disservice by using words from science? What >about the other way round? Anyway, that's another thread....& I haven't read >the book, just looked through it at the store. > >Elizabeth Treadwell > >http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html > > > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Join the world's largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. >http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 15:30:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: Re: Rules In-Reply-To: <000301c1f3ab$04643dc0$7a59bbcc@satellite> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =09 =09 */* If you don't blind-reply, you don't need to read this message. */* =09 =20 What blind-reply posters don't seem to (have the intelligence to) grasp, is that the body potion of your emails are actually end up as the basic unit known as the web page (i.e. this isn't gopher anymore). When you post to the poetics list your email ends up as a web page here --> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/poetics.html If you are replying blindly, you contribute to publishing a trail of irrelevant garbage and exhaust so that the single basic unit of the web page is destroyed, since it contains a copy of a whole other page(s). Therefore the search feature (onsite and web) does not work as intended -- the message is deliberately shaded from access by the public. _____________ For instance, Geoffrey Gatza sends an email containing the text "Luffalo Poetry Sucks," to 2 different lists (plus some others we won't mention for simplicity): 1.."Imitationpoetics@Topica. Com" 2..UB Poetics discussion Group ...which immediately creates a searchable web page for both archived lists...:=20 1..Geoffrey on Imitationpoetics: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3Dfa.o7jfuuv.vi4ajq%40ifi.uio.no&oe=3D= w indows-1252&output=3Dgplain 2..Geoffrey on UB Poetics: http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=3Dind0205&L=3Dpoetics&D=3D= 1&O=3DD &F=3D&S=3D&P=3D13989 ...which inversely can be found, via search, by all humans on the globe with an internet connection...: See > http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=3Den&q=3D%22Luffalo+Poetry+Sucks Very good... Instant knowledge creation and reference --> ... BUT WAIT.. Notice how UB Poetics *does not* appear as a search result! That's because=20 a) Poetics has not registered with http://google.com or=20 b) did register and Google rejected you because your members don't know how to post email to a discussion list. You see, ideally, posters to this list would have their contributions web-archived and searchable automatically. So that, one could, immediately after the post, go to http://google.com and search for "Luffalo Poetry Sucks" under the 'Groups' tab and get back an answer. If anyone here is truly interested in defining terms like 'language poetry' for instance, this is how you go about it, -- by being a search result, by being accessible (ie. you answer when someone asks) What you don't do is make sure *all communication has no hope* of reaching anyone by blind-posting and other bad habits which obscure. If you've ever been on a discussion panel in real-life before, you might want to note how most people don't stand up and reply by repeating word-for-word what someone else just recently said. Not unless you're a complete moron! However, because you are (morons) stuck in the stone-ages and you wish to be deliberately 'unaware' and 'unconscious' of your environment and actions, and you choose to be oblivious to the *real* existence of the archiving of your email to a public searchable web page, if you insist on going-against-the-grain like some spoiled, crying, infants... producing a bunch of slop no one would ever want to look through because it is and appears such a mess... Well.. Let's just say even the biggest names you can drop will not be enough to convince http://google.com to crawl your site and turn your insights into search results. They're not going to even give you a second glance because your archiving practices (i.e.. your posting practices) ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE, that is, SUB-STANDARD. Ok. No biggie. Who ever said anyone on this list ever gave a shit about anyone but themselves, founders included. If they did, one would assume they would be aware of the selfishness and conceit which allows posters to blindly reply when they know exactly what they are referring to but are too chicken-shit etc to come out and CLEARLY say it. These are the same people who drive SUV's and support Big Tobacco. They are completely oblivious to how their actions effect the world and the people which live in it -- they just don't care. They don't give a shit about anyone but themselves.=20 I guess most of you feel this list is a one-way, dead-end street, which doesn't lead anywhere? I hope the above demonstration of where your email actually goes shows this is not so, and how it can be so much more, with a tiny effort. Posters on this list have the opportunity to be an online authority; to spread their fame and insight across a globally-connected online community. And how do the members of this list approach that opportunity? By putting up as many and as much barriers to access as they possible can -- a mess of blind-reply posts, publishing of private email addresses, HTML posts, inability to follow subject-lines, and a general mis-match and occlusion of discourse which ends up 'nowhere' because of the mounds upon mounds of irrelevant, recycled content piled up due to members inability to speak in context. It's all one =3Dbig=3D inside joke I guess for list members -- ha ha *** HERE'S WHAT I'M GOING TO DO *** Starting, Thursday. May 9th, 2002 (that's this thurs) -- I will be placing violators on several high-volume spam lists. There is nothing you can do prevent me from doing this. I only hope you find it as much fun dealing with the tons of spam you're going to receive daily as you do blind-posting (don't worry -- hardcore spammers *always* honor remove requests!! Ha-ha). This aesthetic terrorism starts thurs .. So shape up and stop the blind-replies cheers, derek P.S. As for the mute moderator of this list - (that means you Christopher) - thank you for the awe-inspiring non-direction you provide =09 =09 =09 =09 =09 =09 =09 =09 =09 =09 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 15:54:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: poetics@acsu.buffalo.edu Comments: Originally-From: "Geoffrey Gatza" From: Poetics List Administration Subject: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maybe this is the call for more electronic works. Print on demand is a nice option, but online publications are where its at. Now we, as artists and scholars, must begin to accept the electronic as a real format. And by real I mean, of course, a format that will be seen as equal to a printed book. Currently we have many fine journal articles of real value that appear only online, and if this was taken further - there will be more knowledge available to all who would want it any time they want it. Maybe UB can begin this process of bringing quality literary criticism on it's EPC as it has with MP3. Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Charles Bernstein Sent: Sunday, May 05, 2002 6:39 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) UC Press cuts back offerings By Tim Rutten Los Angeles Times 4/26/02 University presses, one of the pillars of U.S. intellectual life, are in trouble, beset by mounting financial losses and an ongoing identity crisis. The latest victim of this trend is the University of California Press, the West's most prestigious publisher and, as measured by sales revenues, one of its largest. *Out with philosophy* As part of a general retrenchment, the UC Press will no longer produce books on philosophy, architecture, archaeology, political science or geography. It will publish dramatically less literature and far fewer works of literary theory. Twelve jobs have been eliminated through attrition, and further job cuts are planned. ``We lost more than $1 million last year,'' said Lynne Withey, acting director of UC Press. ``In fact, all of the major university presses lost money in the last fiscal year. Some of us just lost more than others.'' The University of California subsidizes just a little more than 7 percent of the press's budget. The rest must come from sales revenues, which last year amounted to $15 million from books and $3 million from journals. ``We can't just trim a little here or cut a little over there anymore. We need to make changes in the kinds of books we publish.'' To decide what those changes would be, the UC Press enlisted the consulting company of McKinsey and Co., which offered its help pro bono. The consultants' recommended that UC follow the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and reduce its list to fields where its sales are strongest. *Formula for success?* McKinsey, Withey said, ``came up with a formula under which we will do 80 percent of our business in six fields where we're already strong'' -- history, anthropology, sociology, religion, biology and natural history. ``It was very hard to abandon things like philosophy, which is a core discipline in the academy,'' Withey said. ``The whole process has been a series of painful decisions.'' At least one UC scholar was, well, philosophical about the cutbacks. ``Given the reality of the marketplace as a force in our lives, there is only so much money you can lose,'' said John R. Searle, a philosophy professor at the University of California-Berkeley. ``Obviously I want more books to be published -- especially, good philosophy books -- but you can't go on losing money on them forever,'' said Searle. But another of Berkeley's leading scholars disagrees. ``Even apart from this cutback, the mandate of university presses has been gravely undermined over the past few years,'' said Robert Alter, professor of Hebrew and comparative literature. ``The idea originally was that bringing out serious works that were a contribution to scholarship, but not viable for a commercial publisher, was the university press's obligation to the world of knowledge." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 14:46:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Boston Poetry Marathon Subject: Boston Poetry Marathon schedule (6/6-6/9) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII BOSTON POETRY MARATHON at the Art Institute of Boston 700 Beacon Street in Kenmore Square Thursday, June 6 - Sunday, June 9 ___________________________________ READINGS: ***Thursday, June 6 -- 7:30pm-10:30pm Jim Behrle Wanda Phipps Bill Luoma Mary Jo Bang David Rivard Jena Osman Forrest Gander ***Friday, June 7 -- 7:30pm-10:30pm Donna de la Perriere Del Ray Cross Maria Damon Christopher Davis Norma Cole Maureen Owen Bin Ramke ***Saturday, June 8 -- 1:00pm-4:30pm Sean Cole Joanna Fuhrman Mike Magee Gina Myers D.S. Poorman Tracy McTague Janet Bowdan Stephen Ellis Ethan Fugate ***Saturday, June 8 -- 7:30pm-10:30pm Aaron Kiely Sharon Mesmer Lori Lubeski Joseph Lease Tom Sleigh Juliana Spahr Charles Bernstein ***Sunday, June 9 -- 1:00pm-4:30pm Linda Russo Danielle Legros-Georges Dana Ward Max Winter Lisa Lubasch Jim Dunn Susan Landers James Cook ______________________________ VISUAL ART EXHIBIT: Photographs by Ben Watkins _______________________________ Admission is free. For more info: bostonpoetry@thevortex.com _____________________________________________ Free email with personality! Over 200 domains! http://www.MyOwnEmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 16:02:51 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: Rules MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is a blind reply? Murat ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 15:06:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: The Avant, LANG-Po, and The Iowa Review In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020506121354.0132f998@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Mark writes: I reply: It's an interesting question, and one touched on a couple times in the journal, ironically enough. I agree and disagree with you though. Agree, in that a high percentage of any journal is not, um, lasting art. But I disagree as to the necessary ulterior motives you place upon these people. And Perelman, specifically, has, as his main focus, just this issue. The issue of "The Academy" and "The Poet." He references Silliman's "attack on academia," and includes an interesting, if imperfect, answer. Other writers take swipes at both The Iowa Workshop (ha, since this is The Iowa Review, after all . . .) and SUNY Buffalo. This last swipe comes from Mark Levine, and while his argument (that language writing, and language writers, participate to a large degree in a cynical attempt at gaining favor from "theorists" who aren't interested in "good" art) is, as well, imperfect, it is worth reading . . . he even has a point or two. (But then again, aren't there a great many petty poets out there of each technical stripe that are trying to manipulate things just a bit? And wouldn't I, gulp, just love it if some theorist suddenly said "OMIGOSH LOOKIT THIS!" over my work?) Anyway, I think these journals from universities (The Iowa Review, Denver Quarterly, The Colorado Review, and several, many actually, others), have much to contribute to the conversation . . . and since they publish poets like Cole Swensen, Susan Wheeler, etc . . . and are edited by poets like Bin Ramke and Donald Revell, etc . . . etc . . . you know? Even if I am, as well, sometimes grumpy on the issue. As we are all often grumpy on most issues . . . Best, JGallaher ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 16:14:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: Rules In-Reply-To: <000b01c1f534$8ab49700$7f59bbcc@satellite> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dearest Derek R, I am an anarchist and feel your effort to bind me to your scheme of things is unwarranted and unfair. I don't argue with your high importance of issues which are of no importance. Leave me out of your mania, please. I am a good natured sort and if you wish to converse about it off list I'll be happy to do so. I see this reply to specific posts as important as threads go on and on and to what one person is replying to may not have anything to do with the current exchange. So please your control over my emailing habits has lead you to explore my poetry and post. How strangely fortunate you must feel. Geoffrey Gatza ORIGINAL MESSAGE LEFT FOR DEREK R :-) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of Derek R Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 3:31 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Rules Importance: High */* If you don't blind-reply, you don't need to read this message. */* What blind-reply posters don't seem to (have the intelligence to) grasp, is that the body potion of your emails are actually end up as the basic unit known as the web page (i.e. this isn't gopher anymore). When you post to the poetics list your email ends up as a web page here --> http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/archives/poetics.html If you are replying blindly, you contribute to publishing a trail of irrelevant garbage and exhaust so that the single basic unit of the web page is destroyed, since it contains a copy of a whole other page(s). Therefore the search feature (onsite and web) does not work as intended -- the message is deliberately shaded from access by the public. _____________ For instance, Geoffrey Gatza sends an email containing the text "Luffalo Poetry Sucks," to 2 different lists (plus some others we won't mention for simplicity): 1.."Imitationpoetics@Topica. Com" 2..UB Poetics discussion Group ...which immediately creates a searchable web page for both archived lists...: 1..Geoffrey on Imitationpoetics: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=fa.o7jfuuv.vi4ajq%40ifi.uio.no&oe=w indows-1252&output=gplain 2..Geoffrey on UB Poetics: http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0205&L=poetics&D=1&O=D &F=&S=&P=13989 ...which inversely can be found, via search, by all humans on the globe with an internet connection...: See > http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&q=%22Luffalo+Poetry+Sucks Very good... Instant knowledge creation and reference --> ... BUT WAIT.. Notice how UB Poetics *does not* appear as a search result! That's because a) Poetics has not registered with http://google.com or b) did register and Google rejected you because your members don't know how to post email to a discussion list. You see, ideally, posters to this list would have their contributions web-archived and searchable automatically. So that, one could, immediately after the post, go to http://google.com and search for "Luffalo Poetry Sucks" under the 'Groups' tab and get back an answer. If anyone here is truly interested in defining terms like 'language poetry' for instance, this is how you go about it, -- by being a search result, by being accessible (ie. you answer when someone asks) What you don't do is make sure *all communication has no hope* of reaching anyone by blind-posting and other bad habits which obscure. If you've ever been on a discussion panel in real-life before, you might want to note how most people don't stand up and reply by repeating word-for-word what someone else just recently said. Not unless you're a complete moron! However, because you are (morons) stuck in the stone-ages and you wish to be deliberately 'unaware' and 'unconscious' of your environment and actions, and you choose to be oblivious to the *real* existence of the archiving of your email to a public searchable web page, if you insist on going-against-the-grain like some spoiled, crying, infants... producing a bunch of slop no one would ever want to look through because it is and appears such a mess... Well.. Let's just say even the biggest names you can drop will not be enough to convince http://google.com to crawl your site and turn your insights into search results. They're not going to even give you a second glance because your archiving practices (i.e.. your posting practices) ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE, that is, SUB-STANDARD. Ok. No biggie. Who ever said anyone on this list ever gave a shit about anyone but themselves, founders included. If they did, one would assume they would be aware of the selfishness and conceit which allows posters to blindly reply when they know exactly what they are referring to but are too chicken-shit etc to come out and CLEARLY say it. These are the same people who drive SUV's and support Big Tobacco. They are completely oblivious to how their actions effect the world and the people which live in it -- they just don't care. They don't give a shit about anyone but themselves. I guess most of you feel this list is a one-way, dead-end street, which doesn't lead anywhere? I hope the above demonstration of where your email actually goes shows this is not so, and how it can be so much more, with a tiny effort. Posters on this list have the opportunity to be an online authority; to spread their fame and insight across a globally-connected online community. And how do the members of this list approach that opportunity? By putting up as many and as much barriers to access as they possible can -- a mess of blind-reply posts, publishing of private email addresses, HTML posts, inability to follow subject-lines, and a general mis-match and occlusion of discourse which ends up 'nowhere' because of the mounds upon mounds of irrelevant, recycled content piled up due to members inability to speak in context. It's all one =big= inside joke I guess for list members -- ha ha *** HERE'S WHAT I'M GOING TO DO *** Starting, Thursday. May 9th, 2002 (that's this thurs) -- I will be placing violators on several high-volume spam lists. There is nothing you can do prevent me from doing this. I only hope you find it as much fun dealing with the tons of spam you're going to receive daily as you do blind-posting (don't worry -- hardcore spammers *always* honor remove requests!! Ha-ha). This aesthetic terrorism starts thurs .. So shape up and stop the blind-replies cheers, derek P.S. As for the mute moderator of this list - (that means you Christopher) - thank you for the awe-inspiring non-direction you provide ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 13:38:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: The Avant, LANG-Po, and The Iowa Review In-Reply-To: <3CD69BE3.20715.10FE83D9@localhost> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Raises a bunch of other questions (putting aside the "who cares?" factor for a moment). I'm currently in the final throes of editing (with Harry Polkinhorn) Across the Line/ Al otro lado: the poetry of Baja California (due out in August), a bilingual monster that includes 55 poets (selected from the couple of hundred active and publishing on the peninsula), all living. Eight teach literature, 5 or 6 teach other subjects. None teach creative writing in universities--as in most of the world there are no creative writing programs. What they have instead is a network of free workshops open to anyone at the universities and cultural centers or any place else that will provide the space. That's all they provide--running a workshop is a voluntary activity. And of course people go to readings and dissolve in groups into various bars after workshop or reading. One group of poets can be found reliably at a particular bar any Friday at 9 p.m. All of the poets are vastly knowledgeable about each other's work and almost all about Spanish language literature and beyond. This is in a provincial corner of Mexico. multiply the figures by all of the other centers,m provincial and metropolitan, in Latin America (for a start) and you wind up with a lot of poets for whom universities were a place to get an education and nothing more--in societies that have a much higher regard for poets and poetry than the US but that don't pay them to be poets. A fair number do some literary journalism or journal articles to make some dough and because they feel they have something to say. They have to compete for the print space to do so with all of the other unaffiliated writers and journalists. A miserable life for some, and no easy or secure gigs for any. But there's an amazing amount of good poetry being made. Toss this into the "academy, pro or con" pot. Mark At 03:06 PM 5/6/2002 -0500, you wrote: >Mark writes: > >anything is crap. What's the percentage of crap if the things in >question have an ulterior motive, our academic selection process?> > >I reply: > >It's an interesting question, and one touched on a couple times in the >journal, ironically enough. I agree and disagree with you though. >Agree, in that a high percentage of any journal is not, um, lasting art. >But I disagree as to the necessary ulterior motives you place upon >these people. > >And Perelman, specifically, has, as his main focus, just this issue. The >issue of "The Academy" and "The Poet." He references Silliman's >"attack on academia," and includes an interesting, if imperfect, >answer. > >Other writers take swipes at both The Iowa Workshop (ha, since this >is The Iowa Review, after all . . .) and SUNY Buffalo. This last swipe >comes from Mark Levine, and while his argument (that language >writing, and language writers, participate to a large degree in a cynical >attempt at gaining favor from "theorists" who aren't interested in >"good" art) is, as well, imperfect, it is worth reading . . . he even has a >point or two. (But then again, aren't there a great many petty poets >out there of each technical stripe that are trying to manipulate things >just a bit? And wouldn't I, gulp, just love it if some theorist suddenly >said "OMIGOSH LOOKIT THIS!" over my work?) > >Anyway, I think these journals from universities (The Iowa Review, >Denver Quarterly, The Colorado Review, and several, many actually, >others), have much to contribute to the conversation . . . and since >they publish poets like Cole Swensen, Susan Wheeler, etc . . . and are >edited by poets like Bin Ramke and Donald Revell, etc . . . etc . . . you >know? > >Even if I am, as well, sometimes grumpy on the issue. As we are all >often grumpy on most issues . . . > >Best, > JGallaher ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 15:02:47 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: The Avant, LANG-Po, and The Iowa Review In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020506131817.0232bc98@mail.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" mark, i'm hesitant to respond to this thread, as all i can see rearing forth here is another Big Can Of Worms... and i know you're smart enough to know what a can of worms it is... but as a creative writing faculty member, i'm not being paid "to be a poet"---not quite... the ontological nudge here is precisely what's wrong with academics in fact (no self-loathing implied or intended)---i.e., they don't like to see themselves in terms of the labor they're actually being paid *to do* (and yes, the older i get, the more i'm inclined toward dewey's empirical naturalism, with its emphasis on practice)... i'm being paid to teach, administer, and on and on and on... that includes "teaching how to write poetry" (ARGH), yes, and how to read poetry, etc... but any number of academic commentators (evan watkins comes immediately to mind, but there are many) will tell you that "the job" is not to be understood aright via the language of being... now there's nothing inherently "less" or "suspect" about doing what i do, depending on how one (me) goes about *doing* it... in that ~iowa review~ issue j gallaher mentions you will find an excerpt from my and kass fleisher's long (long) ~ebr~ essay, out last summer ("reforming creative writing pedagogy")... kass and i are married, and as an adjunct worker (worker), kass doesn't get paid (quite) to do the work that i do as a tenure-track faculty member (and vice versa)... in any case, i take it as ethically responsible, if one is going to be paid (in part anyway) to teach, to try to reform said teaching institution... as with any institution, it could generally stand improvement (and if you know me, and you do, you know how goddamn hard i can be on creative writing institutions)... i'll set aside the teaching-publishing nexus for now (as again, this would crank open that can, above, even more)... but as an apologia, if i must, though i'd rather be understood not in terms of coming to anyone's defense... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 17:18:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kuszai Subject: Re: The Avant, LANG-Po, and The Iowa Review In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" joe, could you please repost the link to your ebr essay. thanks, jk ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 17:21:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "James W. Cook" Subject: Polis Launch: Thursday, May 9, 2002, 7 PM, Gloucester, MA Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed "the polis Is constellated around the sun the fire Is central" --Diane di Prima from _Rant_ ***POLIS LAUNCH*** Conceived in the aftermath of the August, 1995 Charles Olson Festival, _Polis 1_ will finally see the light of day on THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2002 at 7 PM. The launch/reading will be held at The Bookstore (yes, that's its name) on 61 Main St. in Gloucester, MA. Readers will include: * Peter Anastas * Jack Evans * Amanda Porter * Schuyler Hoffman * David Rich * Shep Abbott * José Carrero * James Cook _Polis 1_ contains: * a graphic narrative (or if you prefer "sequential art," or better yet, a comic) by Greg Cook, the author of _Catch as Catch Can_, which tells the story of the first recorded murder in Gloucester * a chapter from a memoir by Peter Anastas, editor of the _Maximus to Gloucester: The Letters and Poems of Charles Olson to the editor of the Gloucester Daily Times_. * a MANIFESTO (relevant to the recent list thread) by Vincent Ferrini * Two graphic narratives, 14 poems, six works of prose ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For those living in the Boston area, Rockport Commuter train leaves North Station at 4:00pm, 5:00pm, and 5:25pm arriving in Gloucester at 5:12, 6:05, 6:21. Then a 10:08 train from Gloucester will get one back to North Station at 11:07. By car route 128 will get you to Gloucester. Any internet map service will get you to 61 Main Street... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- COME CELEBRATE POLIS! Polis 1 Sheaf One: What is Polis? * Peter Anastas, "Joey" from _At the Cut_ * James Cook, "Notes for Polis" * Kari Percival, Benefits of Magic for Every Good Child * Zachary Martin, "The Polis Revolts" * Shep Abbott, "Into the Woods" * Greg Cook, "The crooked way along which I walk" Sheaf Two: Gloucester (MA, USA) Poetries Jack Evans Fiesta Liquor Will Do That Why I Don't Meditate David Rich Leviathan Josie Schoel "Is a monstrance" Charlotte Gordon The swingset at the public playground Amanda Porter Gloucester Poem Sewell Hayes Lane's Cove Vincent Ferrini A Manifesto Schuyler Hoffman From Dogtown to Downtown José Carrero To You Small Change [Untitled] Rockport/America _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 17:26:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: Re: Rules In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =09 Hi Murat! A 'blind reply' is one which (blindly) quotes an *entire* message back to the discussion list. It is acceptable to reply without quoting any of the original message, or to reply to particular quotes of a original message, BUT NOT the entire message as a quote, and NOT the message headers (private info). *Only include text from the original message relevant to the conversation.* Browse around http://groups.google.com or http://groups.yahoo.com to get the idea of this and to realize it is a generally, globally accepted, discussion 'best practice' which allows for multi-layered, ongoing, inclusive discourse without barriers to reference (barrier-free for both the search-engine indexing software, and actual humans). cheers, derek =09 =09 "Presentation, not reference."=09 =09 _________________________________________=09 =09 *To duplicate a message completely, (no matter where it's placed in the body), merely for the sake of "ready reference", is a total waste of both bandwidth and archive space that people just seem to completely ignore... *Ask yourself why they provide links on Web sites rather than copying all the other pages and sites from across the WWW into their own disk space... *We need to get stop reinforcing this 'out of sight, out of mind' blind use of the Reply button's immediacy... *Having to scroll through a message you've already read is a pain in the ass... *Please examine the need to include all of the original message to take up that much more bandwidth and archive space. It might even motivate you to *edit* (wow - what a concept!)... *One feature a lot of discussion lists have starting making default is the refusal to accept replies whose quoted text is longer than its original... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 10:25:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: Manifesto Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Jackson Mac Low included a work in his book-Bloomsday-(Station Hill,1984) called -Unmanifest-I'll quote it in full below: Unmanifest What the author of a manifesto does not comprehend or acknowledge is the basic unmanifestness from which and within which each manifestation takes place. It is this neglect or ignorance that calls forth repugnance when a manifesto is proclaimed or published, especially one regarding art. As if what comes to being in and as the work of art could ever be totally manifest or even manifest at all without its abiding steadfastly in the unmanifest! A work of art is a manifesto only insofar as it is its own antimanifesto. (Jackson Mac Low) 21 June, 1983 New York Also, check out the related poem from the same book -Manifest-written two days earlier- ending with the line "Every text worth reading is a manifesto" (p.56) Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 18:24:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard D Carfagna Subject: Re: Fashionable Nonsense MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Non-sense is not necessarily no-sense. Similar to how non-existence does not necessarily mean no-existence. (huh ?) let me attempt to clarify... What constitutes our sense or/of existence does not always take into consideration former incarnations of what 'sense' might have been conceived to potentialities 'beyond' our contemporary grasp. Perception is a paradox, whereas it is both solipsistic and, 'by laws that be', must relate to the collective consciousness we all partake in. So 'sense' must be a 'matter' of attunement to auras and tonalities that we can, at times, see, hear, and cogitate according to 'our' sensate leanings. We do our constitutions an injustice by limiting them to the ephemeral, watered -down effigies that we accept as dogma. Just thot I'd add my 2 sense (groan) ... Ric Carfagna ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 19:23:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brandon Barr Subject: Glazier Review in EBR Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" For those interested, I have a review of Glazier's _Digital Poetics_ in EBR: http://www.electronicbookreview.com/v3/servlet/ebr?command=view_essay&essay_id=barele -- Brandon Barr University of Rochester http://brandonbarr.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 12:47:05 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: I won Cuntups to "The Fuck" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dodie. Sincere congratulations: but even I feel a bit queasy about the title. But there you are: I wrote a poem (and even read in Auckland and then later in New York) called: "The Fuck" which was "inspired" by Roger Horrocks's (professor at Auck Uni and poet and film enthusiast (especailly of the avant garde (to use a word) and writer of a book about the NZ artist Len Lye) reading of "Cocks" by Anne Sexton...mind you my poem was quite different in tone and wouldntwrite in hat style now (not frightened of the title or the subject). Still, that aside, good on you for winning with your book. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dodie Bellamy" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 6:18 AM Subject: I won > Lee Ann Brown tells me Cunt-Ups won this year's Firecracker Award for > Poetry. Any of you who voted for my book, thank you so much. > > Best, > Dodie > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 18:05:29 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: I won Cuntups to "The Fuck" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Richard--- write Dick-Ups would work well w/ your, er, name..... love ya, c "richard.tylr" wrote: > Dodie. Sincere congratulations: but even I feel a bit queasy about the > title. But there you are: I wrote a poem (and even read in Auckland and then > later in New York) called: "The Fuck" which was "inspired" by Roger > Horrocks's (professor at Auck Uni and poet and film enthusiast (especailly > of the avant garde (to use a word) and writer of a book about the NZ artist > Len Lye) reading of "Cocks" by Anne Sexton...mind you my poem was quite > different in tone and wouldntwrite in hat style now (not frightened of the > title or the subject). > Still, that aside, good on you for winning with your book. Richard. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Dodie Bellamy" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 6:18 AM > Subject: I won > > > Lee Ann Brown tells me Cunt-Ups won this year's Firecracker Award for > > Poetry. Any of you who voted for my book, thank you so much. > > > > Best, > > Dodie > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 18:05:56 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: Rules MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is not a blind reply as any one can see-- what the fuck is spam in this context? Derek R wrote: > > Hi Murat! > > A 'blind reply' is one which (blindly) quotes an *entire* message back > to the discussion list. > > It is acceptable to reply without quoting any of the original message, > or to reply to particular quotes of a original message, BUT NOT the > entire message as a quote, and NOT the message headers (private info). > > *Only include text from the original message relevant to the > conversation. > > Browse around http://groups.google.com or http://groups.yahoo.com to get > the idea of this and to realize it is a generally, globally accepted, > discussion 'best practice' which allows for multi-layered, ongoing, > inclusive discourse without barriers to reference (barrier-free for both > the search-engine indexing software, and actual humans). > > cheers, derek > > > "Presentation, not reference." > > > _________________________________________ > > > *To duplicate a message completely, (no matter where it's placed in the > body), merely for the sake of "ready reference", is a total waste of > both bandwidth and archive space that people just seem to completely > ignore... > > *Ask yourself why they provide links on Web sites rather than copying > all the other pages and sites from across the WWW into their own disk > space... > > *We need to get stop reinforcing this 'out of sight, out of mind' blind > use of the Reply button's immediacy... > > *Having to scroll through a message you've already read is a pain in the > ass... > > *Please examine the need to include all of the original message to take > up that much more bandwidth and archive space. It might even motivate > you to *edit* (wow - what a concept!)... > > *One feature a lot of discussion lists have starting making default is > the refusal to accept replies whose quoted text is longer than its > original... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 21:58:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Tomorrow in NY (resend) NY/NJIT visit (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Come if you're around... thanks, Alan, apologies for cross-posting. From Chris Funkhouser - === On Tuesday May 7 Writer and Artist Alan Sondheim will be making the third presentation in the 2002 NJIT New Media Performance Series. Sondheim is the author of many publications, including .echo (Alt-X) and Disorders of the Real (Station Hill); he edited the collections Being On Line (Lusitania) and Individuals: Post-Movement Art in America (Dutton). For many years he has been a prolific producer, theorist, and publisher of digital art and literature. To view some of his work in cyberspace, see Internet Text, graphics: http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt/ trAce projects: http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/writers/sondheim/index.htm This event will be held at 2:30 p.m in 1400 GITC Building on the NJIT campus. For more information on the series, see http://web.njit.edu/~newrev/NMPS ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 22:07:21 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable In a message dated 5/3/02 9:16:50 PM, immerito@HOTMAIL.COM writes: >> > a combination of poems by contemporary Middle >> > Eastern-American poets writing in English and good >> > translations of prominent Middle Eastern poets, but I >> > find my knowledge of the aforementioned woefully >> > inadequate. Any leads would be much appreciated. > I have waited for a while to reply to this post. My understanding is that th= e=20 Middle East refers to the Levant and includes others besides the Arab writer= s. Ammiel Alcalay, for instance, is an American poet who has written on and=20 translated from Israeli and former Yugoslavian writers. His book "After Jew= s=20 and Arabs" reveals the deep historical connections which exist between the=20 two cultures, how Jews and Arabs lived side by side in the Levant. His=20 anthology of Israeli writers focuses on Turkish, Syrian, Iraqi Jewish writer= s=20 neglected by the Israeli literary establishment ("Keys to the Garden," City=20 Lights Press). His translations from Semerdrin Mehmedenovic, "Sarajevo=20 Blues," were also published by City Lights Books. I am another American poet who has been translating Turkish poets for many=20 years. "I, Orahan Veli" (Hanging Loose Press) and "A Blind Cat Black and=20 Orthodoxies" (Sun and Moon) are two books available in the United States. #=20 14 of Talisman magazine (William Bronk issue) has a Turkish poetry section,=20 which includes eight poets and the essay, "a Godless Sufism: Ideas on 20th=20 Century Turkish Poetry." The last two issues of Talisman magazine (#'s 20 an= d=20 21) feature translations from two other Turkish poets, Lale M=FCld=FCr and A= hmet=20 G=FCntan. They are part of the work I am doing for the upcoming Turkish=20 anthology to be published by Talisman Books. As part of the same=20 work-in-process, A.Bacus published the chapbook, "Pitcher," my translations=20 of the poet Sami Baydar, last February. I am sure work has been done on Iranian and Greek writers also. For instance= ,=20 Eleni Eleskianos is involved in preparing a Greek anthology. Murat=20 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 May 2002 23:25:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit So the European/Old World sentiment that nothing the Jews say makes sense still flies. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hilton Obenzinger" To: Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 8:49 AM > Since these meditations are about language, I hope they are appropriate for > the list. In any case, feel free to delete or to pass on: > > Meditations in a time of delusions and lies [3] > > Words are always slippery, and meanings can be so elusive. Israel says > "Yes," allowing the United Nations to send a team to investigate death and > devastation in Jenin, but that really means, "Meet my demands," and the UN > accommodates, which then slides into, "You can meet my demands when Hell > freezes over," and the world has managed to diddle for two weeks. Israel > did say, "Yes," once upon a time, and it was the obstreperous, biased > behavior of the UN that really made that mean, "No" -- right? Isn't that > clear? Similarly, President Bush says, "Israel should withdraw from the > West Bank," but that really means, "Keep up the good work, Sharon -- just > don't be so obvious." After a while, you come to note how words do not > seem to stand still long enough to mean anything any more: just ask a > pro-Israel ideologue what United Nations Resolution 242 means, for example, > and you will discover, perhaps to your surprise, that it does not say > Israel should withdraw from the lands it occupied in 1967, and, in fact, > those lands are not "occupied" but "disputed." All of this would be > hilarious, except that the whole corruption of language amounts to a > lexicon of blood greater than the Oxford English Dictionary. > > So, it takes hard work to unscramble the double-talk, even for commonly > accepted words like "Israel," "Palestine," "peace," and, one of the most > bizarre, "honest broker." However, I will start with one of my favorites, > "settlements." Settlements are those housing projects that Israel builds > on Palestinian land occupied since 1967. I propose that settlements should > henceforth be called "segregated housing projects built on stolen land" (or > "segregated housing," for short) and the people who live in them should be > called "segregationists." This gives a more adequate picture of the > situation. Often, they are called "Israeli settlements," which is true, > they are, but that might give you the wrong impression that a Palestinian > who is a citizen of Israel from Nazareth might move into Kiryat Arba. Uh, > I don't think so. No, these are "segregated housing projects," and one > type of person is allowed in, the Jewish type, and other types of people > are not. Americans know about segregation, and although many may even nod > approvingly of ethnic and racial purity to this day, most Americans, and > most American Jews, find this reprehensible and it took decades, if not > centuries, of social upheavals to make the word as ugly as the practice. > > What is truly astonishing is how easy it can be, if you come with the right > credentials, to live in "segregated housing." Israel is a state of the > entire Jewish people and not a state of its citizens, which means someone > like me, born in Brooklyn, could become a citizen overnight, according to > one "law of return," whereas a Palestinian born in Jaffa cannot, according > to the denial of another "right of return," mainly to protect the Jewish > nature of the Jewish state from getting diluted by too many non-Jews. As a > consequence, I can move into a "segregated housing project" virtually > overnight, and I can be supported by Israeli government subsidies designed > to make it easier for me to become a segregationist. > > But, you know, Israel is a "democracy," the only democracy in the Middle > East, which, of course, raises another choice word. "Democracy" is a > thorny one -- and the concept is a work in progress, as anyone who voted in > the last American presidential election could tell you. "Democracy" > requires another discussion, particularly the paradox of so many American > Jews supporting religious rule and segregation in Israel but advocating > church-state separation and pluralism in America. But in the instance of > "segregated housing projects," "democracy" means "segregationists" have the > right to take land (called "Judea and Samaria"), appropriate water, carry > firearms, lord over non-Jews, and vote for candidates who call for > "transfer" to spirit possible "trespassers" (the original owners of the > land) to Jordan (which is, if you didn't already know, the real > "Palestinian state"). > > Shouldn't somebody complain to the Federal Housing Administration? > > Hilton Obenzinger ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 22:16:20 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Rules and Replies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Ah! Aha! Ha ha haha ha ha!! Thought you'd never ask: now there are > various replys: > > There is the reply geste. > > The reply queek. > > The reply eye. > > The reply light. > > The relplie dark. > > The repplie quipppe. > > Thee replie deeeep. > > The replyee annoyiee Monsieur RULE MAN. (Much fun that one) > > The replie generale. > > The replie transpaaranceie e. eeee > > The reply reply. > > The reply gruff und Brink. > The lie reply. > > And , of course: "THEE REEPLIEEE BLINDEE" which I muste dire warneth thee is > thee most teeeerible reeeeplie thou can replyieee > Its so something so horribley and sexy and spidery and computery that web pages > do in the dark - he ! he ! - and it gets the cogs and gogs and flogtoggles 'orribly confused and this goes > here and that goes there and , oh! Its all so frightfully bothersome! > Oh!Reeeegardssssssssssszzzzzzzzzzz. Riiiicharde....ieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Murat Nemet-Nejat" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 8:02 AM > Subject: Re: Rules > > > > Forgive my ignorance, but what exactly is a blind reply? > > > > Murat > > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 10:59:42 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: the European/Old World sentiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I don't understand this, Leonard. I don't understand what you say. Nowhere here does Hilton say anything like "nothing the Jews say makes sense". Nor, that I can see, does he make *any generalisations about Jews. It is all about Palestine and Israel. The accusation is one of bad faith and slipperiness. Also, you attribute this supposed accusation - "nothing the Jews say makes sense" - to Europe; but I have never heard that said anywhere. I have heard all sorts of other racist nonsense: you can generate fair approximations of some by taking a Sharon speech into your word processor and exchanging "Jews" for "Terrorists" Implicit in this odd attack on Europe is that slurs against Jews are limited to Europe. I don't think that's true. I take Hilton's post to be serious, posing problems and questions which need some explaining. I can see that they are uncomfortable questions for anyone whose position is pro-Israel; but long term it doesn't help to misrepresent them L ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leonard Brink" To: Sent: 07 May 2002 07:25 | So the European/Old World sentiment that nothing the Jews say makes sense | still flies. | | ----- Original Message ----- | From: "Hilton Obenzinger" | To: | Sent: Monday, May 06, 2002 8:49 AM | | | > Since these meditations are about language, I hope they are appropriate | for | > the list. In any case, feel free to delete or to pass on: | > | > Meditations in a time of delusions and lies [3] | > | > Words are always slippery, and meanings can be so elusive. Israel says | > "Yes," allowing the United Nations to send a team to investigate death and | > devastation in Jenin, but that really means, "Meet my demands," and the UN | > accommodates, which then slides into, "You can meet my demands when Hell | > freezes over," and the world has managed to diddle for two weeks. Israel | > did say, "Yes," once upon a time, and it was the obstreperous, biased | > behavior of the UN that really made that mean, "No" -- right? Isn't that | > clear? Similarly, President Bush says, "Israel should withdraw from the | > West Bank," but that really means, "Keep up the good work, Sharon -- just | > don't be so obvious." After a while, you come to note how words do not | > seem to stand still long enough to mean anything any more: just ask a | > pro-Israel ideologue what United Nations Resolution 242 means, for | example, | > and you will discover, perhaps to your surprise, that it does not say | > Israel should withdraw from the lands it occupied in 1967, and, in fact, | > those lands are not "occupied" but "disputed." All of this would be | > hilarious, except that the whole corruption of language amounts to a | > lexicon of blood greater than the Oxford English Dictionary. | > | > So, it takes hard work to unscramble the double-talk, even for commonly | > accepted words like "Israel," "Palestine," "peace," and, one of the most | > bizarre, "honest broker." However, I will start with one of my favorites, | > "settlements." Settlements are those housing projects that Israel builds | > on Palestinian land occupied since 1967. I propose that settlements | should | > henceforth be called "segregated housing projects built on stolen land" | (or | > "segregated housing," for short) and the people who live in them should be | > called "segregationists." This gives a more adequate picture of the | > situation. Often, they are called "Israeli settlements," which is true, | > they are, but that might give you the wrong impression that a Palestinian | > who is a citizen of Israel from Nazareth might move into Kiryat Arba. Uh, | > I don't think so. No, these are "segregated housing projects," and one | > type of person is allowed in, the Jewish type, and other types of people | > are not. Americans know about segregation, and although many may even nod | > approvingly of ethnic and racial purity to this day, most Americans, and | > most American Jews, find this reprehensible and it took decades, if not | > centuries, of social upheavals to make the word as ugly as the practice. | > | > What is truly astonishing is how easy it can be, if you come with the | right | > credentials, to live in "segregated housing." Israel is a state of the | > entire Jewish people and not a state of its citizens, which means someone | > like me, born in Brooklyn, could become a citizen overnight, according to | > one "law of return," whereas a Palestinian born in Jaffa cannot, according | > to the denial of another "right of return," mainly to protect the Jewish | > nature of the Jewish state from getting diluted by too many non-Jews. As | a | > consequence, I can move into a "segregated housing project" virtually | > overnight, and I can be supported by Israeli government subsidies designed | > to make it easier for me to become a segregationist. | > | > But, you know, Israel is a "democracy," the only democracy in the Middle | > East, which, of course, raises another choice word. "Democracy" is a | > thorny one -- and the concept is a work in progress, as anyone who voted | in | > the last American presidential election could tell you. "Democracy" | > requires another discussion, particularly the paradox of so many American | > Jews supporting religious rule and segregation in Israel but advocating | > church-state separation and pluralism in America. But in the instance of | > "segregated housing projects," "democracy" means "segregationists" have | the | > right to take land (called "Judea and Samaria"), appropriate water, carry | > firearms, lord over non-Jews, and vote for candidates who call for | > "transfer" to spirit possible "trespassers" (the original owners of the | > land) to Jordan (which is, if you didn't already know, the real | > "Palestinian state"). | > | > Shouldn't somebody complain to the Federal Housing Administration? | > | > Hilton Obenzinger | ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 08:13:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Broder Subject: Ear Inn Readings--May 2002 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit The Ear Inn Readings Saturdays at 3:00 326 Spring Street (west of Greenwich Street) New York City FREE Subway--N,R/Prince; C,E/Spring; 1,9/Canal May 11 Liza Charlesworth, Patricia Eakins, Ann Scott Knight May 18 Elaine Equi hosts New City Lights: work by recent graduates from the M.A. program in Creative Writing at CCNY. Readers include Jacques Wakefield, Dawn Jackson, Larry McGlade, Myra Mniewski, Michael Morical, Eric Williams and others. May 25 Memorial Day Weekend--No Reading For more information, contact Michael Broder or Jason Schneiderman at (212) 246-5074. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 09:45:06 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: Prageeta Sharma Subject: Scheduling Readings MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello everyone, I just wanted to remind everyone here that I am doing publicity for Kaya Press, a press handling contemporary Asian writing. I am looking to book Sesshu Foster, Josie Foo, Ed Lin, and Luis Francia (poets and fiction writers) at reading venues everywhere and anywhere! I will be happy to send info and review copies to anyone considering Kaya for their University, Bookstore, or reading space. These authors are all marvelous. Let me know if you have room for the summer or fall. I can also help you organize any kind of Asian-themed festival or reading if you are interested in working with Kaya and your own press. Thanks so much! Prageeta Sharma ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 10:16:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: DATE CORRECTION Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Please Note Change in Date: WAR AND PEACE EVENT IS FRIDAY MAY 24th There will be no performances on May 10th. MAY 24, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] > WAR AND PEACE: A MULTIMEDIA RECITAL OF ART, SONG AND VIDEO > Featuring tenor DAYLE VANDER SANDE and videographer ANTHONY BELLOV > Thought-provoking and introspective, this "concert theater" experience will > encourage audience members to contribute their own thoughts and responses to > a significant examination of these age-old, yet timely, subjects. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 08:55:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: The Avant, LANG-Po, and The Iowa Review Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" joel, you can get to kass's and my essay at http://www.altx.com/ebr/riposte/ thanx for asking!--- best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 15:55:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Glazier Review in EBR MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Interesting review in light of the decline of university presses and the rise of a multitude of online endevors that don't seem (in general) to last. Glazier's book does have it's roots in 'ancient history and my impression was that it was originally aimed at the actual writer of e-poetry and that editorial direction tried to change it into something for academics and theoreticians? tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 13:57:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sherry Brennan Subject: Jen Hofer NY Readings 5/7 and 5/9 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Reminder that Jen Hofer will be reading this week in New York. Her new book, slide rule, just out from Subpress, will also be available. Tuesday, May 7 Flying Saucer Cafe 494 Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn 8 pm AN EVENING OF COLLABORATIONS FEATURING JOE ELLIOT + MITCH HIGHFILL PATRICK DURGIN + JEN HOFER with a collaborative introduction by GARY SULLIVAN + NADA GORDON Thursday, May 9 New York Public Library Fifth Avenue and 42nd 7 p.m. Contemporary Poetry by Mexican Women Jen Hofer and Dolores Dorantes read from a forthcoming anthology In Spanish and English All programs will take place in the Margaret Berger Forum of The New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, New York City. Readings begin at 7 p.m. and are free and open to the public: advance registration required. To register or for more information, please Jen Hofer is a poet & translator originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. Her books include _as far as_ (a+bend press, 1999), _The 3:15 Experiment_ (with Lee Ann Brown, Danika Dinsmore & Bernadette Mayer, The Owl Press, 2001), _Laws_ (A.BACUS #139, with drawings by Melissa Dyne, Potes & Poets Press, 2001), and _Slide Rule_ (subpress, 2002). She edited and translated an anthology of contemporary poetry by Mexican women, _Inscrutable Geometry, Avidity_, which will be co-published by University of Pittsburgh Press and Ediciones Sin Nombre in 2003. Recent work can be found in Antennae, Chain, Enough, HOW2 and Kenning (audio edition). In collaboration with the artist Melissa Dyne, she constructed a large-scale camera obscura in a plaza on a busy corner in downtown Mexico City in April, 2002 which will be open to the public for a year. Sherry Brennan Subpress P.O. Box 102 Centre Hall, PA 16828 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 14:09:12 -0400 Reply-To: derek@derekrogerson.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: Re: Rules In-Reply-To: <000f01c1f544$aeef1590$7f59bbcc@satellite> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Oh!Reeeegardssssssssssszzzzzzzzzzz. >Riiiicharde....ieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee >eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee At a certain age the child cries about His right to handle a gadget Do you hear yourself? You must stop. The soul teaches, It never repeats. ( Shall I teach Paul my nerves Are involved in this? ) ____________________________ A poetics is informed and informs -- Just *informs* maybe -- the rest a risk. i.e. If love exists, why remember it? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 13:30:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: spalding gray In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.2.20020507135101.061bb4c8@email.psu.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Dear poets, editors, critics; in short, friends: While trying to rent Spalding Gray's "Swimming to Cambodia" to show my workshop, I found that it had been removed permanently from the shelves of St. Louis Blockbusters. So I bought a copy on Half.com and have watched it 2.5 times in recent weeks. I now realize that it is one of the texts that has been most influential on me as a writer. That is, I often find myself shaping language like Gray, intuitively, humorously, etc. I wonder if others have a similar admiration for this monolog. I rarely hear of Spalding Gray, though I once met him after a Ginsberg reading at St. Marks; he rambled on very pleasantly about "Mahtha's Vineyahd." And I saw him give a monolog at Washington U a few years ago (where his twin brother Rockwell teaches). Where is he now? It seems to me that "Swimming to Cambodia" is a good case against what Jessica said about sound being "secondary" to sight. -Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 11:41:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hilton Obenzinger In-Reply-To: <00d601c1f590$170b5940$cacff7a5@oemcomputer> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sharon is "the Jews"? Are Israelis "the Jews"? Am I chopped liver? Yours, The Diaspora At 11:25 PM 5/6/2002 -0700, Leonard Brink wrote: >So the European/Old World sentiment that nothing the Jews say makes sense >still flies. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing Lecturer, Department of English Stanford University 650.723.0330 650.724.5400 Fax obenzinger@stanford.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 14:45:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Phoebe Gloeckner at Bluestockings Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I'm passing this along for my favorite living cartoonist: Dear Friend, I live on Long Island, and I've been living there nearly two years. However, I am only barely acquainted with my new home, having rarely left the garage, which is where I've been working on a book day and night for the past year. I hardly talk to anyone, even on the phone, because my self-worth is so dependent on my work that with my book as yet unfinished, I have no ego, and I am reduced to a pulsating, quivering mass of fearful, paranoid id. I hope to finish the book by next Monday. Coincidentally, I will be giving a slide presentation the very next day at a bookstore in Manhattan. Unfortunately, the book ("The Diary of a Teenage Girl") will not be printed and available until July or August, but nevertheless, it will be finished, and finishing a book is a daunting, yet necessary, step in the process of getting it published. I will be reading a bit from the book on Tuesday night. If you are in Manhattan (and not otherwise engaged) next Tuesday the 14th of May, please come to hear me speak. I will be at this place: Bluestockings Women's Bookstore & Cafe (http://bluestockings.booksense.com) 172 Allen St. New York, NY 10002 Tel: 212-777-6028 Please forgive this intrusion, and have a happy day. Phoebe Gloeckner -- Phoebe Gloeckner http://www.ravenblond.com/pgloeckner Member, Graphic Artists Guild _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 15:02:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Gallagher Subject: Re: spalding gray MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hello Aaron, Spalding Gray is a great one. I have seen him a number of times. In public, most poets read aloud the way one might read quietly to one's self, or the way one might read imaginatively. For me, it was Gray who taught me (in a live contemporary sense) that language is its fullest when spoken, and that the job of poetry is to keep that element when putting it on the page. If you like Swimming, you should rent "Monster in a Box," his monologue on the struggle of finishing his book, Gray's Anatomy. The latter is also a great book as well. kg Aaron Belz wrote: > Dear poets, editors, critics; in short, friends: > > While trying to rent Spalding Gray's "Swimming to Cambodia" to show my > workshop, I found that it had been removed permanently from the shelves of > St. Louis Blockbusters. So I bought a copy on Half.com and have watched it > 2.5 times in recent weeks. I now realize that it is one of the texts that > has been most influential on me as a writer. That is, I often find myself > shaping language like Gray, intuitively, humorously, etc. > > I wonder if others have a similar admiration for this monolog. I rarely hear > of Spalding Gray, though I once met him after a Ginsberg reading at St. > Marks; he rambled on very pleasantly about "Mahtha's Vineyahd." And I saw > him give a monolog at Washington U a few years ago (where his twin brother > Rockwell teaches). Where is he now? > > It seems to me that "Swimming to Cambodia" is a good case against what > Jessica said about sound being "secondary" to sight. > > -Aaron -- Kevin Gallagher Global Development and Environment Institute Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Tufts University Medford, MA 02155 t:617-627-5467 f:617-627-2409 http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 15:38:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: caroline crumpacker Subject: Jen Hofer Dolores Dorantes Reading Mime-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Poetry in Translation at the New York Public Library Contemporary Mexican Poetry by Women Jen Hofer and Dolores Dorantes read from a forthcoming anthology In Spanish and English Thursday May 9 New York Public Library Margaret Berger Forum 5th ave & 42nd street 7 p.m.; free (for more information call 212.930.0855 or e-mail Caroline Crumpacker at bluesequin@earthlink.net). Dolores Dorantes is originally from C=F3rdoba, Veracruz, and currently lives in Ciudad Ju=E1rez, Chihuahua. She is co-editor, with Juan Manuel Portillo, of Editorial Frugal, which counts among its activities publication of the monthly broadside series Hoja Frugal, printed in editions of 1000 and distributed free throughout Mexico. Her books and chapbooks include SexoPUROsexoVELOZ (Cuadernos del filodecaballo, Guadalajara, 2002), Para Bernardo: un eco (MUB editoraz, Mexico City, 2000), Poemas para ni=F1os (Ediciones El Tuc=E1n de Virginia, Mexico City, 1999) and A t=EDtulo de muestra (Instituto Chihuahuense de la Cultura, Chihuahua, 1996). Her poems and critical writings can be found in recent or forthcoming issues of Cr=F3nica, La Jornada, Provincetown Arts Journal and Kenning. Jen Hofer is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area, and currently divides her time between Mexico City and Los Angeles. She is the editor & translator of an anthology of contemporary poetry by Mexican women, tentatively titled _What You See Here_, which will be co-published by University of Pittsburgh Press and Ediciones Sin Nombre in 2003. Her other works include_as far as_ (a+bend, 1999), "Laws," (A.BACUS, Potes & Poets Press, 2001) and _The 3:15 Experiment_ (in conjunction with Lee Ann Brown, Danika Dinsmore and Bernadette Mayer, The Owl Press, 2001). Her first book of poems, _Slide Rule_, will be published by subpress early in 2002 (in fact, THIS COMING WEEK!!). Her poems and translations can be found in recent or shortly forthcoming issues of Antennae, Aufgabe, Chain (in collaboration with Patrick Durgin), Conundrum, HOW2, Kenning, and PomPom. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 16:46:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: COLLABORATION frEnZY! @ Flying Saucer 2-nite Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed TONIGHT, Tuesday, May 7 Flying Saucer Cafe 494 Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn 8 pm AN EVENING OF COLLABORATIONS FEATURING JOE ELLIOT + MITCH HIGHFILL **Joe Elliot co-edits Situations, a chapbook series. His book, Opposable Thumb, is forthcoming from SubPress. He is a hero to many of us in NYC & elsewhere. **Mitch Highfill is the author of a number of wonderful books & chapbooks, including Liquid Affairs, Turn, and The Blue Dahlia. He has a book forthcoming from Situations, Koenig's Sphere. An interview with Mitch appears at: http://home.jps.net/~nada/highfill.htm and work can be found at: http://home.jps.net/~nada/turn.htm Joe & Mitch will read from their collaborative take on and dialogue about the Exeter Book, a 10th Century anonymous compilation of West-Saxon riddles. PATRICK DURGIN + JEN HOFER **Patrick Durgin is the author of Pundits Scribes Pupils and edits the highly regarded, always-there-before-you Kenning. His homepage is at: . **Jen Hofer is the editor & translator of an anthology of contemporary poetry by Mexican women, tentatively titled What You See Here, which will be published in 2003. Her other works include as far as, Laws, and the collaborative 3:15 Experiment (w/Brown, Dinsmore & Mayer). Her first full-length book of poems, Slide Rule, was just published and should be available at 2-nite's reading. We (or I should say *I*) don't know what collaborative Jen and Patrick will be showcasing tonight -- but we await it anxiously! _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 15:14:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: Re: spalding gray In-Reply-To: <3CD824C6.495D6301@emerald.tufts.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I love Spalding, too (and have a bit of a crush on him). He's around, don't worry--a couple summers ago he was doing improv monlogues based on audience participation, and recently he's back out with a revised version of one of the older works...I think it might be "Swimming," actually. "Monster in a Box" is also available on video. _Sex and Death to Age Fourteen_, a book, is available as well. I never thought of him as an influence, but he may well be...I love his blend of personal tragi-comedy. And actually, a lot of 80s performance art, as it were, was a big influence me--I was a young writer then, and somewhat addicted to a show on PBS (anyone remember the name?) that aired sometimes avant-garde performance stuff, including Gray and also a Mac Wellman piece, "Sister Suzie Cinema." I watched "Sister Susie" with my parents (I was in high school then) and was just spellbound by it--in fact, having only seen it once, 15 years ago, I still remember the tune to the main song. It was perhaps my first encounter with a kind of Language poetry. I didn't know what to make of it at all, and I loved it completely. A few years later I found Holly Hughes, Karen Finley et al. This was definitely an early influence. Thanks for bringing this up! Arielle __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 16:21:42 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu / housepress Subject: new from housepress: "CONTINUATIONS IV and V" by Douglas Barbour & Sheila Murphy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable housepress is pleased to announce the release of a new chapbook: CONTINUATIONS IV and V by Douglas Barbour & Sheila Murphy published in a handbound and numbered edition of 60 copies. $5.00 each, including postage & taxes. Douglas Barbour is a professor at the University of Alberta where he = teaches creative writing, modern poetry and Canadian Literature. His = volumes of poetry include Stories for a Saskatchewan Night (1989), = Fragmenting Body, etc (2000) and Breath Takes (2001). Sheila E. Murphy is the author of several books of poetry = including Letters to Unfinished J. , Falling in Love Falling in Love = With You Syntax: Selected and New Poems, and A Clove of Gender (1995) = She has been anthologized in Fever Dreams: Contemporary Arizona Poetry = (1997) and The Gertrude Stein Awards in Contemporary Poetry (1994, = 1995). =20 to order copies, or for more information, contact derek beaulieu: derek@housepress.ca www.housepress.ca=20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 20:36:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: poetics@acsu.buffalo.edu Comments: Originally-From: The Poetry Project From: Poetics List Administration Subject: DATE CORRECTION Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Please Note Change in Date: WAR AND PEACE EVENT IS FRIDAY MAY 24th There will be no performances on May 10th. MAY 24, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] > WAR AND PEACE: A MULTIMEDIA RECITAL OF ART, SONG AND VIDEO > Featuring tenor DAYLE VANDER SANDE and videographer ANTHONY BELLOV > Thought-provoking and introspective, this "concert theater" experience will > encourage audience members to contribute their own thoughts and responses to > a significant examination of these age-old, yet timely, subjects. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 06:33:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: My Reading Schedule for 2002 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable is as follows: =20 =20 In the present grid of rainy May, I will not be reading. =20 In the durable month of June, I will not be reading, too. =20 In the hypnotic fair of July, my voice will rest further. =20 In the incinerator known as August, you can forget about it. =20 In the collapsing fortress of September, go figure. =20 In the fantastic era of October, the crystal ball says zero. =20 In the complex hula hoop of November, it is a resounding zilch. =20 In the frigid festival that was once December, nothing, nothing at all. =20 =20 Some cities and locations where I will not be giving readings include: Hong= =20 Kong, Omaha, Portland, Quito, Ibiza, Sumatra, Algiers, Boston, Vladivostok,=20 Atlantic City, Madras, Newfoundland, Roswell, Rotterdam, Port-au-Prince,=20 Perth, Guatemala, Futuna, Ungava Bay, Frisian Islands, Galata, Ledo, New=20 Caledonia, Karroo, Pawtucket, Caxias, Stuttgart, Tonga, Kingston, Brasilia,=20 Aleppo, Chesterfield, Naples and Jinzhou. =20 =20 People I will not be reading with include: Hugo Ball, Li Po, Ovid, Kent=20 Johnson, Charles Bernstein, Tennyson, Chris Stroffolino, Ron Jeremy, Claudia= =20 Rankine, Henry Rollins, Boccaccio, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Kierkegaard= ,=20 Damon and Naomi, Commodian of Gaza, Al Gore, Norman Mailer, Rebecca Wolff,=20 Big Show, Sophocles, Jennifer Moxley, Spider Man, Andre Gide, DMX, Chris=20 Funkhouser, Sappho, Geraldo, Bon Jovi, Steve Evans, Carrot Top, Caligula,=20 P-Diddy, Moliere, Bjork, William Faulkner, Gertrude Stein, Lord Alfred=20 Douglas, Burt Reynolds, that Hardball guy, Ed Said, Jack Spicer, the Donnas,= =20 the Elephant Man, Marjorie Perloff, Lucan, Cyclops, Novalis, Bill Clinton,=20 Akhenaton, Abbie Hoffman, St. Peter, the Croc Hunter, whoever wrote Beowulf,= =20 Gabe Gudding, William Bennett, Voltaire, Wittgenstein and Ho Chi Minh. =20 Furthermore, the skirmish of my vocal chords will not be heard alongside the= =20 likes of Robert Burns, Carl Phillips, Leslie Scalapino, Edmond Spenser,=20 Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abe Lincoln, Barbey d=E2=80=99Aurevilly, Walt Whitman= ,=20 Bluebeard, Mary Shelley, Lenin, Bill Luoma and Britney Spears. =20 And lastly, I shall not be sharing a lectern or applause with anyone by the=20 name of Lucien Carr, Karla Nielsen, the Goncourts, Fat Boy Slim, Rumi,=20 Charles Manson, Robin Hamilton, Derek Rogerson, the Dutch royal family,=20 Juliana Spahr or Ken Rumble. =20 If anyone notices that their name is not in the above lists and thinks they=20 will not be reading with me, let me know as soon as possible. thanks, dave=20 =20 =20 =20 =20 =20 =20 =20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 20:50:33 -0400 Reply-To: WHITEBOX@EARTHLINK.NET Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: poetics@acsu.buffalo.edu Comments: Originally-From: WHITE BOX From: Poetics List Administration Organization: WHITE BOX Subject: Art now: polite, politic or political? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit PUBLIC FORUM - WEDNESDAY 8 MAY - 7:30PM art now: polite, politic or political? An open discussion forum voicing perspectives on the current state of free expression and political dissent in the arts. A panel of speakers featuring writer-videographer Larry Litt, art critic Eleanor Heartney, ACLU Design Director Sara Glover, NCAC Arts Advocacy Coordinator Svetlana Mintcheva, artist-educator Tim Rollins, and artist-activist Dread Scott will briefly address their experiences and concerns as members of the artistic patriotic opposition, followed by an open discussion with the audience. Co-organized by National Coalition Against Censorship, & The Blame Committee. WHITE BOX is a 501[c][3] non profit arts organization. Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday / 11 - 6pm. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHITE BOX 525 WEST 26TH STREET (between 10th & 11th Aves) NEW YORK CITY 10001 tel 212.714.2347 / www.whiteboxny.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 21:02:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Fwd: POETRY PROJECT EVENTS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from The Poetry Project ----- From: The Poetry Project To: The Poetry Project Subject: POETRY PROJECT EVENTS Date: Thu, 02 May 2002 16:44:00 -0400 POETRY PROJECT EVENTS MAY 6, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] OPEN READING MAY 8, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] C.S. GISCOMBE AND SUSAN HOWE Please Note Change in Date: WAR AND PEACE EVENT IS FRIDAY MAY 24th WAR AND PEACE: A MULTIMEDIA RECITAL OF ART, SONG AND VIDEO http://www.poetryproject.com/calendar.html ************************* MAY 6, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] OPEN READING Sign-up at 7:30 p.m. MAY 8, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] C.S. GISCOMBE AND SUSAN HOWE C.S. GISCOMBE's books include Postcards (Ithaca House), At Large (St. Lazaire), Here (Dalkey Archive), Giscome Road (Dalkey Archive), Two Sections from "Practical Geography" (Diaeresis Press), and Into and Out of Dislocation (North Point Press/Farrar, Straus and Giroux). SUSAN HOWE is the author of several books of poetry including Frame Structures: Early Poems 1974-1979, Chanting at the Crystal Sea, Cabbage Gardens, and most recently Bed-Hangings from Granary Books. New Directions will be re-issuing The Europe of Trusts this spring. MAY 10, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] WAR AND PEACE: A MULTIMEDIA RECITAL OF ART, SONG AND VIDEO Featuring tenor DAYLE VANDER SANDE and videographer ANTHONY BELLOV Thought-provoking and introspective, this "concert theater" experience will encourage audience members to contribute their own thoughts and responses to a significant examination of these age-old, yet timely, subjects. MAY 11, SATURDAY [Bowery Poetry Club, 2 p.m.] OBSCURITY LASTS FOREVER MEMORIAL HONORING JOSEPH HOLLAND CHASSLER Poet, philospher and kind soul, Joseph Holland Chassler will be remembered at the Bowery Poetry Club with readings of his works, videos of his drawings and cartoons, and performances of his songs by the band Channeling Chassler. ************************ POETRY PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENTS THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK BROADSIDE The Poetry Project will be offering a limited-edition letterpress broadside signed by John Ashbery to celebrate the republication of THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK. Measuring 19 x 15, the broadside will sell for $100. Sales from the edition will benefit the Poetry Project. To purchase a broadside, send check or money order to: The Poetry Project 131 E. 10th St. New York, NY 10003 MAY ISSUE OF POETS & POEMS Featuring work by Cecilia Vicuña, R. Erica Doyle, G.E. Patterson, Kevin Killian, Joan Retallack http://www.poetryproject.com/poets.html ************************ Unless otherwise noted, admission to all events is $7, $4 for students and seniors, and $3 for Poetry Project members. Schedule is subject to change. The Poetry Project is located in St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery at 131 E. 10th Street, the corner of 2nd Avenue and 10th Street in Manhattan. Trains F, 6, N, R. The Poetry Project is wheelchair accessible with assistance and advance notice. Please call (212) 674-0910 for more information, or visit our Web site at http://www.poetryproject.com. If you are currently on our email list and would like to be on our regular mailing list (so you can receive a sample issue of The Poetry Project Newsletter for FREE), just reply to this email with your full name and address. Hope to hear from you soon!!! ----- End forwarded message ----- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 21:14:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Clai Rice Subject: Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I second the call for electronic publication. What should a university faculty require of its members beyond intellectual work approved by disciplinary peers? If there ever was a time when publication of a book by a "reputable" press guaranteed its intellectual quality (Barthes' feudal *index*), the admission by presses of the profit motive transforms that index into the bourgeois *sign*. I read UC Press's statement to say that one more sloppy rehash of Sylvia Plath will always be welcomed, while the whole discipline of philosophy goes begging. Requiring print publications for academic promotion secures only three results as far as I can tell: the academy rewards renown rather than research, it ensures continued intellectual laziness on the part of tenured faculty, who no longer need to read (that is, deal with the ideas of) texts written by their own community, and it guarantees that those with print access will continue to control the direction of scholarship as those who cannot afford print access stay quietly in the dark. The latest MLA newsletter has S. Greenblatt bemoaning the lack of resources available to a group of humanities scholars in Bucharest. His solution: let the MLA operate as an email contact clearinghouse, connecting scholars from around the world with MLA members who will then assist with information exchange, conversation, perhaps photocopies. Great. How about S. Greenblatt putting a PDF version of his latest book online for scholars around the world to download and read? --Clai Rice On Mon, 6 May 2002, Poetics List Administration wrote: > Maybe this is the call for more electronic works. Print on demand is a nice > option, but online publications are where its at. Now we, as artists and > scholars, must begin to accept the electronic as a real format. And by real > I mean, of course, a format that will be seen as equal to a printed book. > Currently we have many fine journal articles of real value that appear only > online, and if this was taken further - there will be more knowledge > available to all who would want it any time they want it. > Maybe UB can begin this process of bringing quality literary criticism on > it's EPC as it has with MP3. > > > Best, Geoffrey > > > Geoffrey Gatza > editor BlazeVOX2k1 > http://vorplesword.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 22:03:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: performance text improvisation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII performance text improvisation - New Jersey Institute of Technology - 5/7/02 (not satisfied with this; it lacks the structure of the others; we've just arrived in new york; i was following suit; i was doing my best - thanks to Chris Funkhouser who brought me - i was trying my hardest) === we're all waiting for a sign... these are asteroids, camera fly-byes (fly-bies?) - fly bees... across three-dimensional spaces created in Blender - www.blender.nl my work's concerned with language, sexuality, the virtual body and subjectivity - all of these elements interacting online and off - i'm concerned with what happens beneath the surface, the coding, the psychoanalytics, the substances i'm concerned about messes, tangles, messiness, entanglement ... all of this work is tangled,confused - these images are from the everglades. we went into them about 2-4 times a wekk or so, thats week, that's that's - not wekk... i was interested in messiness and the way that everything was both about desire - for us, obsessiveness, and at the same time an impenetrable ecosystem - the longer we were there, the more we understood about the images - about what we were seeing - the intersection of varis various biomes.... all playing into notinos on notions of language 9had too much coffee * just got in from miami) - this is mime movie - azure (myh partner) and I mimed for the camera - working through what were the "usual" black box - getting out of glass, swimming, up and down stairs, that sort of thing - so that what's present is a kind of languaging, no? a language of mime that's otherwise silent; this was getting poretty boring to us so we sped things up and went to hell... it fascinates me to be able to work withdifferent rates of movement/voice in all of this - as if there are different worlds emerging. early on we did some work emphasizing this with foofwa d'immobilite, who had danced with merce cunningham - arranged a piece in which myh voice triggered his traditional ballet movement to the point of exhaustion... i've been fascinated by dance and its relation to desire, and a way to think through the body without spoken language or discretge symbols - you have the same difficulties here that you do with film "language" - what constitutes a wor d or phoneme, how do0es tradition play out when tradition is something that escapes discrete symbols? on top of which dance is HARD - difficult to do - there's labor involved - and there's labor in spoken language and written language and production/distribution in every sense of the term.... so we were pushing for this - what amounted to a deconstruction of dance through dance - turning dance (like everything else here) into a mess - how does one create/approach a mess? we were playhing charactgers that are avatars I use online - nikuko the russian ballet dancer and doctor leopold konninger, a name that came to me in a dream. konninger comes out of Grosz's drawings of pre-war and otherwise Germany - he has a monacle but I never wore one. he and nikuko were involved together in a round-robin relationship - she would dance for him and he would pay her - it was a continuous pirouette - again the labor/money context is clear - here is a part of the sequence - all of this earlier work, about a year ago or so, revolves around body and flesh - issues of skin and interior - in florida, the everglades dominated. there are few tourists at this point; they're almost abandoned at times. you can walk in the middle of the night through miles of swamp and no one is around at all. you'll find insects and other fauna you've never seen before. at first you focus on safety and alligators and snakes; then you begin to descend into the layers, moving more and more into a submerged landscape almost out of J.G. Ballard, a landscape of surreal dimensions. These bugs you see for example - I have not been able to find them in any book at all - no one knows what they are. This butterfly is the atala, an endangered species, extremely rare - this goes on and on - from the fauna then back to the landscapes themselves which change subtlely the park is created from organisms - there are no geological features readily visible; everything you see is alive, beneath your feet, or on occasion overhead .. we played obsessively out here, first filming ourselves in the environment, merging sexuality, then trying to read the codes and then finding the codes deeper and deeper, almost as if they were a series of circular passages in a moo or mud... eventallly we produced SEALS - based on ideograms referencing breath, sexuality, circularity, exhaustion - these have become a foundation or rather reference for the rest of the work - in seals, there are five cameras; they're triggered by the sound. the man writes on the woman, seals her it with a chop/hanko. the woman writes on the man, filling his body with signs; the sign for negation just above the genitals. the man writes on the woman, just as otherwise. the woman seals the man. but before the sealing: erasure, as the bodies flood each other, erasing symbol/image simultaneously - again the relationship to desire and language is obvious. my work is idiotic; it covers the same ground over and over. but it's clever in its use of masquerade and disguise, as if new things were being constantly discovered. On the left you just saw the death of a digital camera in the everglades after swamping a canoe... the rest of the images are with another - with quicktime, sound moves from foreground channel to foreground channel; it can be set otherwise, but muddies... on the left, black mangrove thicket in the northern everglades. this is our ever-popular welcome to miami film. (We hated miami.) cattail swamp - which is useful for cleaning out pollutants as part of the everglades reconstruction project... as if we're on ecstasy or as if we're collapsing.... how does this fit together? it doesn't - or rather it's a question of approaching things. I'm intersted in that - how one approaches things, particuolarly things that are a mess - messy relationships, messy bodies, messy environments - which of course begs the question - one has to learn to listen to the begging - one has to study it.. my work has moved in a strange way out of language. it's always been at war with words, with thinking language through and through, using shell accounts, unix/linux, and hundreds of editing/coding tools - well dozens, anyway. but faced with bodies, with desire, with tangles, how does language work - without listening, and without the foreclosing that language of course always implies? it's better not to name things for a while - particularly in these difficult political times when names are useful for the raveling of hatreds on a universal scale... these are images of a desiccated lake in the everglades dry season - a tricolored heron hunting - a coastland prairie here - black mangrove roots - crfab carapace, marsh hare, turkey vulture, cypress dome - the environment changes over a height of inches - the cypress dome is partially submerged. the highest point in the everglades is four feet - where you might have pinelands or hardwood hammocks. this is the cypress dome, wandering through one. and these are exotic mating muscovie ducks and we'll end with this I think? already a foreign intrustion (these ducks) into the everglades, rendering everything problematic once again - _ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 00:08:44 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: locating Caroline Guertin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi, Please see above and I apologize for probably spelling her name wrong. thanks, kevin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 19:38:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Re: Fashionable Nonsense Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html

Hey Ric, I'm with you on this. And Vernon, I didn't mean to insult you -- I was speaking of my own use of cliche. Cheers all! Eliz

 

 

Hi,
Non-sense is not  necessarily
no-sense. Similar to how
non-existence does not necessarily
mean no-existence. (huh ?)
let me attempt to clarify...
What constitutes our sense or/of
existence does not always take
into consideration former incarnations
of what 'sense' might have been
conceived to potentialities 'beyond'
our contemporary grasp.
Perception is a paradox, whereas it is
both solipsistic and, 'by laws that be',
must relate to the collective consciousness
we all partake in.
So 'sense' must be a 'matter' of attunement
to auras and tonalities that we can, at times,
see, hear, and cogitate according to 'our'
sensate leanings. We do our constitutions
an injustice by limiting them to the ephemeral,
watered -down effigies that we accept as dogma.


Just thot I'd add my 2 sense (groan) ...
                                Ric Carfagna



Elizabeth Treadwell

http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html


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========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 00:22:36 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: i have located Carolyn Guertin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII oops, it seems that i had her coordinates handy. thanks anyway! Kevinas ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 00:05:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kristin Palm Subject: Middle Eastern Poets? Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Not sure if she quite fits the bill, but Venus Khoury-Gata is an amazing Lebanese-French poet. At least one collection, the title of which I have forgotten, is available in English, translated by Marilyn Hacker and published by Field/Oberlin College. Kristin From: Pierre Joris >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? >Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 17:11:06 -0400 > > > Any Middle Eastern poetics scholars in the mix? I'm > > putting together a syllabus and would like to include > > a combination of poems by contemporary Middle > > Eastern-American poets writing in English and good > > translations of prominent Middle Eastern poets, but I > > find my knowledge of the aforementioned woefully > > inadequate. Any leads would be much appreciated. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 00:20:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: My Reading Schedule for 2002 In-Reply-To: <43.b125d77.2a090777@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable David=20 I would love to not read with you this summer. Please don't come to = buffalo :-) Best, Geoffrey=20 Geoffrey Gatza =20 editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group = [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of David Hess Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 6:33 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: My Reading Schedule for 2002 is as follows: In the present grid of rainy May, I will not be reading. In the durable month of June, I will not be reading, too. In the hypnotic fair of July, my voice will rest further. In the incinerator known as August, you can forget about it. In the collapsing fortress of September, go figure. In the fantastic era of October, the crystal ball says zero. In the complex hula hoop of November, it is a resounding zilch. In the frigid festival that was once December, nothing, nothing at all. Some cities and locations where I will not be giving readings include: = Hong Kong, Omaha, Portland, Quito, Ibiza, Sumatra, Algiers, Boston, = Vladivostok, Atlantic City, Madras, Newfoundland, Roswell, Rotterdam, Port-au-Prince, Perth, Guatemala, Futuna, Ungava Bay, Frisian Islands, Galata, Ledo, New Caledonia, Karroo, Pawtucket, Caxias, Stuttgart, Tonga, Kingston, = Brasilia, Aleppo, Chesterfield, Naples and Jinzhou. People I will not be reading with include: Hugo Ball, Li Po, Ovid, Kent Johnson, Charles Bernstein, Tennyson, Chris Stroffolino, Ron Jeremy, = Claudia Rankine, Henry Rollins, Boccaccio, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, = Kierkegaard, Damon and Naomi, Commodian of Gaza, Al Gore, Norman Mailer, Rebecca = Wolff, Big Show, Sophocles, Jennifer Moxley, Spider Man, Andre Gide, DMX, Chris Funkhouser, Sappho, Geraldo, Bon Jovi, Steve Evans, Carrot Top, = Caligula, P-Diddy, Moliere, Bjork, William Faulkner, Gertrude Stein, Lord Alfred Douglas, Burt Reynolds, that Hardball guy, Ed Said, Jack Spicer, the = Donnas, the Elephant Man, Marjorie Perloff, Lucan, Cyclops, Novalis, Bill = Clinton, Akhenaton, Abbie Hoffman, St. Peter, the Croc Hunter, whoever wrote = Beowulf, Gabe Gudding, William Bennett, Voltaire, Wittgenstein and Ho Chi Minh. Furthermore, the skirmish of my vocal chords will not be heard alongside = the likes of Robert Burns, Carl Phillips, Leslie Scalapino, Edmond Spenser, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abe Lincoln, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Walt Whitman, Bluebeard, Mary Shelley, Lenin, Bill Luoma and Britney Spears. And lastly, I shall not be sharing a lectern or applause with anyone by = the name of Lucien Carr, Karla Nielsen, the Goncourts, Fat Boy Slim, Rumi, Charles Manson, Robin Hamilton, Derek Rogerson, the Dutch royal family, Juliana Spahr or Ken Rumble. If anyone notices that their name is not in the above lists and thinks = they will not be reading with me, let me know as soon as possible. thanks, dave ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 00:15:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Re: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit look at Brian Stefan's www.arras.net for pdf files of criticism (as well as links to other sites with downloadable books), not to mention the durationpress.com site (which, if I'm to trust Brian's assessment, has more pdf files than any site he knows of). so this kind of work is being done. the epc, unfortunately, is lagging behind. > Maybe this is the call for more electronic works. Print on demand is a nice > option, but online publications are where its at. Now we, as artists and > scholars, must begin to accept the electronic as a real format. And by real > I mean, of course, a format that will be seen as equal to a printed book. > Currently we have many fine journal articles of real value that appear only > online, and if this was taken further - there will be more knowledge > available to all who would want it any time they want it. > Maybe UB can begin this process of bringing quality literary criticism on > it's EPC as it has with MP3. > > > Best, Geoffrey ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 19:22:00 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Susan M. Schultz" Subject: Re: spalding gray MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I watched "Swimming to Cambodia" two years ago while waiting to go to Cambodia to adopt my son; certainly Gray touches on very tough stuff in that video (I actually don't remember it the way I remember "The Killing Fields" but do remember finding it a sensitive piece). But I do hope your students, Aaron, get a sense of the horrors inflicted on Cambodia by such as Henry Kissinger. Important material. Susan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 21:52:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The members of the list are all aware that UC is also a major lit publisher (Oppen and Niedecker just now, Lezama Lima shortly, just of books that I'm aware of), and that lit (as opposed to crit) was not on the list of areas to be pursued? That, to my mind, is the real loss that's threatened by the change in university press publishing. And I don't think web publication does the trick. Mark At 09:14 PM 5/7/2002 -0400, you wrote: >I second the call for electronic publication. What should a university >faculty require of its members beyond intellectual work approved by >disciplinary peers? If there ever was a time when publication of a book >by a "reputable" press guaranteed its intellectual quality (Barthes' >feudal *index*), the admission by presses of the profit motive transforms >that index into the bourgeois *sign*. I read UC Press's statement to say >that one more sloppy rehash of Sylvia Plath will always be welcomed, while >the whole discipline of philosophy goes begging. > >Requiring print publications for academic promotion secures only three >results as far as I can tell: the academy rewards renown rather than >research, it ensures continued intellectual laziness on the part of >tenured faculty, who no longer need to read (that is, deal with the ideas >of) texts written by their own community, and it guarantees that those >with print access will continue to control the direction of scholarship as >those who cannot afford print access stay quietly in the dark. > >The latest MLA newsletter has S. Greenblatt bemoaning the lack of >resources available to a group of humanities scholars in Bucharest. His >solution: let the MLA operate as an email contact clearinghouse, >connecting scholars from around the world with MLA members who will then >assist with information exchange, conversation, perhaps photocopies. >Great. How about S. Greenblatt putting a PDF version of his latest book >online for scholars around the world to download and read? > >--Clai Rice > >On Mon, 6 May 2002, Poetics List Administration wrote: > > > Maybe this is the call for more electronic works. Print on demand is a nice > > option, but online publications are where its at. Now we, as artists and > > scholars, must begin to accept the electronic as a real format. And by real > > I mean, of course, a format that will be seen as equal to a printed book. > > Currently we have many fine journal articles of real value that appear only > > online, and if this was taken further - there will be more knowledge > > available to all who would want it any time they want it. > > Maybe UB can begin this process of bringing quality literary criticism on > > it's EPC as it has with MP3. > > > > > > Best, Geoffrey > > > > > > Geoffrey Gatza > > editor BlazeVOX2k1 > > http://vorplesword.com/ > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 22:40:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Re: the European/Old World sentiment MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Nowhere here does Hilton say anything like "nothing the Jews say makes > sense". Nor, that I can see, does he make any generalisations about Jews. > It is all about Palestine and Israel. I was speaking to what was *implicit* in Hilton's remarks--I'm sure you understand the concept--old-world (yes, European) anti-semitism now expresses itself as being "about Israel" instead of being "about Jews" but the essence of the mindset is pretty much the same. > I take Hilton's post to be serious, posing problems and questions which need > some explaining. I can see that they are uncomfortable questions for anyone > whose position is pro-Israel; but long term it doesn't help to misrepresent > them Well, I got this last week, too, when I raised questions about Israel-bashing on the list. It seems that I'm supposed to first accept all of your premises and outrageous statements of "fact" and then speak from there. (Reminds me of being a university student -- god forbid that reality should get in the way of a good theory.) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 18:17:03 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Pam=20Brown?= Subject: Re: spalding gray In-Reply-To: <006001c1f650$47ee4a20$6401a8c0@Mac> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello Susan, Yes - I think that's a powerful piece. I saw Spalding Gray do that here in Sydney at Belvoir Street Theatre some years ago. Just him, seated at a table with a jug of water, the microphone (of course) & a few, unintrusive back-projected transparencies up behind him. It was rivetting. Pam --- "Susan M. Schultz" wrote: > I watched "Swimming to Cambodia" two years ago while > waiting to go to > Cambodia to adopt my son; certainly Gray touches on > very tough stuff in that > video (I actually don't remember it the way I > remember "The Killing Fields" > but do remember finding it a sensitive piece). > > But I do hope your students, Aaron, get a sense of > the horrors inflicted on > Cambodia by such as Henry Kissinger. Important > material. > > Susan ===== Web site/P.Brown - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ http://messenger.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Messenger - A great way to communicate long-distance for FREE! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 11:56:13 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: CHANGES TO SUB VOICIVE POETRY Comments: To: Poetryetc , PoetryEspresso@topica.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit CHANGES TO SUB VOICIVE POETRY (London UK) The SVP seasons are January to July + September to December, with breaks during much of December and early January & for much of July, all of August and some of September - Xmas and summer holidays Currently, the starting point is an attempt to arrange a reading / performance once every two weeks during the season. These are readings in whatever room is available, currently one of two at The Betsey Trotwood, Farringdon Rd. This pattern is added to, or readings are replaced, by collaborations with others (Birkbeck CPRC, October Gallery, Camden People's Theatre and others - details in website documentation) Camden People's Theatre is the latest collaboration and the first reading there was a success in all senses; but subsequent readings there need to be supported - more so perhaps because while the capacity is greater so are the overheads This year, in response to continuing poor and / or unpredictable turnout, the basic programme has been cut, ad hoc. Attendance has got worse. That's usually the way with cuts, but the readings have to pay their small way (a few more people does it) AND not be an insult to the performer. It is better to cut or cancel than do THAT THE CHANGE: The programming starting point will now be an attempt to arrange a reading / performance once every FOUR weeks as the basic programme during the season. If what is offered is supported, the frequency will be increased; and vice versa; but, in the latter case, towards a rapid closedown. A second reading during June was more than contemplated, though it might not have happened; but those plans will now be dropped. It will not happen. Ditto July. Potentially, these are the only cuts that will be made; or they are the beginning of a closure. In the words of supermarkets - and many urge a retailer / consumer approach to poetry on svp - use it or lose it. Don't take it for granted. Tell your friends about the series. Help advertise it. A *handful of people is the difference between a healthy audience and a bad one. It isn't the Albert Hall that has to be filled. If you have programming ideas, say so; but there is no intention of greatly changing the aesthetic direction of the series or of compromising on the principle that each poet has a reasonable length of time to present her work... No slams, not even nudges Collaborations with others will continue. A central aspect of SVP is the presentation of oversea poets and that must continue or there is no point in continuing at all. (The abandoned July reading would have been a relatively unknown oversea poet on whom the series was going to take an informed chance.) The 6th colloquium will go ahead in 2003 - more later. It can be one of many more or it can be the last. The proceedings publication is now in preparation, the deadline for final versions having passed, and should be available in the autumn of this year All the best to all of you. (None of this is aimed personally. It arises from a belief that a reading without an audience is no reading at all) ================================================== The next SVP is being organised in association with Contemporary Poetics Research Centre Tuesday 21 May 2002 6 p.m. from USA: Clayton Eshleman Part 1 6.00-7.20: Artaud the Momo: A reading of Eshleman's translations of Antonin Artaud, with slides and recording. Part 2 7.40 _ 9.00: Engaging Artaud, & Entering the Palaeolithic Continuum: Readings of Eshleman's own writing. PLEASE NOTE THE VENUE VENUE: Birkbeck College, Malet Street To be added to the SVP emailing list, send a blank message to: sv-p-subscribe@topica.com --------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 08:18:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020507214940.02bd35c8@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > And I don't think web publication >does the trick. Mark, I agree. What do you think can change this ??? Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Mark Weiss Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 12:53 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) The members of the list are all aware that UC is also a major lit publisher (Oppen and Niedecker just now, Lezama Lima shortly, just of books that I'm aware of), and that lit (as opposed to crit) was not on the list of areas to be pursued? That, to my mind, is the real loss that's threatened by the change in university press publishing. And I don't think web publication does the trick. Mark At 09:14 PM 5/7/2002 -0400, you wrote: >I second the call for electronic publication. What should a university >faculty require of its members beyond intellectual work approved by >disciplinary peers? If there ever was a time when publication of a book >by a "reputable" press guaranteed its intellectual quality (Barthes' >feudal *index*), the admission by presses of the profit motive transforms >that index into the bourgeois *sign*. I read UC Press's statement to say >that one more sloppy rehash of Sylvia Plath will always be welcomed, while >the whole discipline of philosophy goes begging. > >Requiring print publications for academic promotion secures only three >results as far as I can tell: the academy rewards renown rather than >research, it ensures continued intellectual laziness on the part of >tenured faculty, who no longer need to read (that is, deal with the ideas >of) texts written by their own community, and it guarantees that those >with print access will continue to control the direction of scholarship as >those who cannot afford print access stay quietly in the dark. > >The latest MLA newsletter has S. Greenblatt bemoaning the lack of >resources available to a group of humanities scholars in Bucharest. His >solution: let the MLA operate as an email contact clearinghouse, >connecting scholars from around the world with MLA members who will then >assist with information exchange, conversation, perhaps photocopies. >Great. How about S. Greenblatt putting a PDF version of his latest book >online for scholars around the world to download and read? > >--Clai Rice > >On Mon, 6 May 2002, Poetics List Administration wrote: > > > Maybe this is the call for more electronic works. Print on demand is a nice > > option, but online publications are where its at. Now we, as artists and > > scholars, must begin to accept the electronic as a real format. And by real > > I mean, of course, a format that will be seen as equal to a printed book. > > Currently we have many fine journal articles of real value that appear only > > online, and if this was taken further - there will be more knowledge > > available to all who would want it any time they want it. > > Maybe UB can begin this process of bringing quality literary criticism on > > it's EPC as it has with MP3. > > > > > > Best, Geoffrey > > > > > > Geoffrey Gatza > > editor BlazeVOX2k1 > > http://vorplesword.com/ > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 08:36:06 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Anne E. Pluto" Subject: Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I second the call for electronic publication. What should a university faculty require of its members beyond intellectual work approved by disciplinary peers? If there ever was a time when publication of a book by a "reputable" press guaranteed its intellectual quality (Barthes' feudal *index*), the admission by presses of the profit motive transforms that index into the bourgeois *sign*. I read UC Press's statement to say that one more sloppy rehash of Sylvia Plath will always be welcomed, while the whole discipline of philosophy goes begging. Requiring print publications for academic promotion secures only three results as far as I can tell: the academy rewards renown rather than research, it ensures continued intellectual laziness on the part of tenured faculty, who no longer need to read (that is, deal with the ideas of) texts written by their own community, and it guarantees that those with print access will continue to control the direction of scholarship as those who cannot afford print access stay quietly in the dark. The latest MLA newsletter has S. Greenblatt bemoaning the lack of resources available to a group of humanities scholars in Bucharest. His solution: let the MLA operate as an email contact clearinghouse, connecting scholars from around the world with MLA members who will then assist with information exchange, conversation, perhaps photocopies. Great. How about S. Greenblatt putting a PDF version of his latest book online for scholars around the world to download and read? --Clai Rice On Mon, 6 May 2002, Poetics List Administration wrote: > Maybe this is the call for more electronic works. Print on demand is a nice > option, but online publications are where its at. Now we, as artists and > scholars, must begin to accept the electronic as a real format. And by real > I mean, of course, a format that will be seen as equal to a printed book. > Currently we have many fine journal articles of real value that appear only > online, and if this was taken further - there will be more knowledge > available to all who would want it any time they want it. > Maybe UB can begin this process of bringing quality literary criticism on > it's EPC as it has with MP3. > > > Best, Geoffrey > > > Geoffrey Gatza > editor BlazeVOX2k1 > http://vorplesword.com/ -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 09:17:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brandon Thomas Barr Subject: Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I find this thread quite interesting. On Tue, 7 May 2002, Clai Rice wrote: > Requiring print publications for academic promotion secures only three > results as far as I can tell: the academy rewards renown rather than > research, it ensures continued intellectual laziness on the part of > tenured faculty, who no longer need to read (that is, deal with the ideas > of) texts written by their own community, and it guarantees that those > with print access will continue to control the direction of scholarship as > those who cannot afford print access stay quietly in the dark. > This is a jaded view of the peer-review process. It seems to concentrate on its perceived effects instead of its goals, which center around the judgement of research prior to dissemination. The reason why it is a measure for tenure promotion is because, for years, it was the best way to evidence the production of worthwhile research and criticism. > The latest MLA newsletter has S. Greenblatt bemoaning the lack of > resources available to a group of humanities scholars in Bucharest. His > solution: let the MLA operate as an email contact clearinghouse, > connecting scholars from around the world with MLA members who will then > assist with information exchange, conversation, perhaps photocopies. > Great. How about S. Greenblatt putting a PDF version of his latest book > online for scholars around the world to download and read? > > --Clai Rice > > PDF as a distribution tool has its flaws precisely because it ignores any sort of feedback loop. Print publication goes through a dual feedback loop (although it's a slow one)--the editorial pre-publication process and the market feedback (i.e. sales of the book and criticism). PDF bypasses, in many ways, both. Digital media has the opportunity to supplant print media in many areas, but it must play into its own strengths as a organizational media. Ironically, I'll point to a short essay in PDF format which suggests ways peer-review may be supplanted or supplemented in digital media: http://brandonbarr.com/rtej-barr.pdf Digital media's database structures allow self-organizing publishing systems to florish (the essay focuses on epinions.com; today I would point to outlets like slashdot.org or the blogging community). This format of publication is, I would argue, VASTLY more effective than the peer-review process at determining the effectiveness of a writer's contributions. In systems like this, networks of associates are formed between writers based upon individual respec. The top writers float to the top--but even lesser-known authors can develop a direct audience base. The challenge is to challenge our notions of how we measure research. I'm not suggesting that the presses stop. There are valuable works published everyday. I don't see anything wrong with an author's decision to go that route. What I'm suggesting is that digital media offer new opportunities to share data among researchers (one of its original purposes), and that we should ivestigate those options instead of simply accepting the tools we currently rely on. If online publications, as Geoffery Gatza puts it, are "where its at," then we need to make sure that the form of those publications plays into the strengths of digital media. Best, Brandon Barr University of Rochester http://brandonbarr.com/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 06:37:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: can of worms for Mr Brink In-Reply-To: <017001c1f652$faffbde0$cacff7a5@oemcomputer> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > of your premises and outrageous statements of "fact" > and then speak from > there. (Reminds me of being a university student -- > god forbid that reality > should get in the way of a good theory.) whose reality? whose facts? ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 09:53:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Vernon Frazer Subject: Re: Fashionable Nonsense MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Elizabeth, You didn't insult me. I just dug into my former life to offer a possible = explanation of why people in the humanities inflate their language with = scientific terminology. Before posting the message, I edited out my = comments on how ridiculous the bastardized language sounded. Example: = where I worked I sometimes imagined one human services manager as a = minor character in a TV sitcom, occasionally discussing an " interim = data performance interface matrix" in an office setting, then walking = out, leaving everyone to scratch their heads.=20 Ric, I can see your "non-sense" as extending the possibilities of language. = Instead of "meaning" in the sense of a rational, self-contained = statement, language can create a sensual experience, partly though its = sound, is presence on the page and the sensations each word conjures in = the context of the words around it. It might be "non-sense," but more = "sensual" than conventional usage. Stephen Ratcliffe's "spaces in the = light said to be where one/comes from" comes to mind as an example. In one case, we have abuse of language in an attempt at sophistication. = In the other, we have a sophisticated use of language. Or am I not fully awake yet? Vernon =20 ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson=20 To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU=20 Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2002 7:38 PM Subject: Re: Fashionable Nonsense Hey Ric, I'm with you on this. And Vernon, I didn't mean to insult you = -- I was speaking of my own use of cliche. Cheers all! Eliz Hi, Non-sense is not necessarily no-sense. Similar to how non-existence does not necessarily mean no-existence. (huh ?) let me attempt to clarify... What constitutes our sense or/of existence does not always take into consideration former incarnations of what 'sense' might have been conceived to potentialities 'beyond' our contemporary grasp. Perception is a paradox, whereas it is both solipsistic and, 'by laws that be', must relate to the collective consciousness we all partake in. So 'sense' must be a 'matter' of attunement to auras and tonalities that we can, at times, see, hear, and cogitate according to 'our' sensate leanings. We do our constitutions an injustice by limiting them to the ephemeral, watered -down effigies that we accept as dogma. Just thot I'd add my 2 sense (groan) ... Ric Carfagna Elizabeth Treadwell=20 http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html=20 -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ----- MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: Click = Here ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 10:58:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: ANNOUNCING FULCRUM: an annual of poetry and aesthetics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Fulcrum: an annual of poetry and aesthetics (ISSN 1534-7877) is an international literary and philosophical journal published by Fulcrum Annual. Its first issue is now available. Please feel free to post or forward this information to appropriate venues and individuals. Magazine editors please feel free to review Fulcrum and announce its publication, subscription information and submission guidelines. Booksellers and distributors please use the contact info below to find out about our house discount. The first issue's central theme is "A Map of English-language Poetry." It contains poems and essays by leading poets and critics representing twelve different parts of the English-speaking world. Twelve out of the issue's 16 essays discuss the current poetic situations in those regions. POEMS by Douglas Barbour (Canada), Pam Brown (Australia), Branston Clark (Belize, USA), Fred D'Aguiar (Guyana, England, USA), Allen Fisher (England), Randolph Healy (Ireland), Brian Henry (USA), W. N. Herbert (Scotland), Peter Horn (South Africa), Robert Kelly (USA), John Kinsella (Australia), August Kleinzahler (USA), Alan Loney (New Zealand), Paul Muldoon (Northern Ireland), Gregory O'Brien (New Zealand), Sheenagh Pugh (Wales), Menka Shivdasani (India), Matvey Yankelevich (USA), Angeline Yap (Signapore), Harriet Zinnes (USA). ESSAYS by Douglas Barbour (Canada), Ken Bolton (Australia), Fred D'Aguiar (Guyana, England, USA), Allen Fisher (England), Randolph Healy (Ireland), Peter Horn (South Africa), Robert Kelly (USA), David Kennedy (England), August Kleinzahler (USA), Alan Loney (New Zealand), Roddy Lumsden (Scotland), Paul Muldoon (Northern Ireland), Marjorie Perloff (USA), Sheenagh Pugh (Wales), Menka Shivdasani (India), Angeline Yap (Signapore). Issue One is 256 pages, 6x9, elegantly produced, perfectbound with a glossy cover and exquisite black-and-white cover and internal art, printed on 50# White Offset paper. EDITORS: Philip Nikolayev, Katia Kapovich. Editorial ADDRESS: Fulcrum, 334 Harvard Street, Suite D-2, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Phone 617-864-7874. E-mail editor@fulcrumpoetry.com (queries only). SUBSCRIPTION rates in the U.S. are $12 per issue/year for individuals, $15 for institutions. Foreign subscriptions are $17 and $20 respectively. $5 discount for a three-year subscription. Fulcrum needs your financial support and welcomes philanthropic donations. A check or money order payable to Fulcrum Annual should be sent to Fulcrum, 334 Harvard Street, Suite D-2, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Fulcrum welcomes SUBMISSIONS of poetry and essays on poetry, poets, poetic form, the philosophy of poetry, poetics, aesthetics and related subjects (no reviews). Reading the journal before submitting is strongly recommended. Unsolicited submissions must arrive between June 1 and August 31 and be accompanied by a return envelope with sufficient postage or IRCs if a response is desired. All established regional orthographic and punctuation conventions are acceptable. No e-mail submissions. Accepted work will be requested in an electronic format. No payment for unsolicited contributions except in copies. The forthcoming (2003) issue's theme will be "Philosophies of Poetry." Fulcrum's editors welcome FEEDBACK from all readers. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 08:57:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hilton Obenzinger In-Reply-To: <00d601c1f590$170b5940$cacff7a5@oemcomputer> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 11:25 PM 5/6/2002 -0700, Leonard Brink wrote: >So the European/Old World sentiment that nothing the Jews say makes sense >still flies. Let me try this again. I responded at first to your use of "the Jews," after I have spent some time questioning and complicating the terms of discussion about the conflict. And attempting to discover and recover language is one of the goals of this list. Yet, in another post, you have decided there is something "implicit" in the piece I wrote about settlements being segregated housing projects. I thought I was quite explicit. But what is important underlying your comment is the long-generated sense of fear of anti-Semitism, which is very real. As a term, like all the others, it needs to be examined, particularly because it is employed so frequently in the defense of Israel, often as a slander. There is a harsh reality in France and other places where synagogues have been attacked, and I suspect that, if the attackers were supporters of the Palestinians, it's because the policies of Israel are identified with "the Jews" in much the same way that supporters of Israel speak about "the Arabs," despite the fact that Jews in France are just as likely to come from Egypt and feel alienated from Israel. The Zionist movement has spent decades, particularly after 1973, attempting to identify Judaism with Zionism and Israel, and those who attack "the Jews" are driven in part by their own distorted ideologies (such as a hateful reading of the Koran) and precisely by the identification the Zionist movement has sought so long to achieve. Here is a story: a family of friends lived for generations in Lebanon, part of the long-established Jewish community there, and they were quite happy. But then came Zionism and the displacement of Palestinians, and the first rumbles of the civil war in Lebanon. In 1968 the oldest son of the family joined a demonstration of Lebanese in support of the Palestinians and the end of the "confessional" system in Lebanon. He was arrested by the increasingly reactionary government, and because the family's passports were Syrian (who made those distinctions when France ruled it all or, even before, when the Ottoman's lorded over the region?) the family was deported. Syria was far too repressive, and they ended up moving to France. But these were people of the Levant, and the weather and the culture of France were disagreeable to them. Yet, where could they go? They ended up moving to Israel, despite their disgust with the nature of the country, because at least they were back "home," i.e. the Levant, and they hid their sadness and sense of bitter irony. How many people have been shoved around or killed because of notions about "the Jews" and "the Arabs"? And for some reason you think that I am asserting that "nothing the Jews say makes sense." The peace movement in Israel calls the present military offensive by Israel as "The War of the Settlements." This seems to make sense, revealing the underlying goal of Sharon. And now, in response to Palestinian violence, the idea is floated that there should be a wall built. This, on the other hand, makes no sense. Walls along the "green line" and walls around the settlements -- and walls even alongside the separate (but unequal) "by-pass" roads connecting the settlements. And, I suppose, as the settlements are expanded and new ones are built, as more and more of the West Bank is expropriated, that those walls will be torn down only to have new ones built. Nor is it that the Palestinians are free from hatred and violence -- as yet another suicide-bombing demonstrates. And this too is complicated and needs to be questioned. Here are a few elements: Yassir Arafat is, sadly, no Nelson Mandela, but years ago when the PLO asserted that their goal was a democratic, secular state (not too different from the ANC's call for a non-racial state), they were castigated as anti-Semitic. About 15 years ago, Hamas and other Islamic activists were encouraged by Israel (let go after arrests, given the green light to organize) because the Israeli government thought that they could foster an alternative to the secular PLO. Well, they were successful, and as Sharon attacks Arafat and the Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, as ineffective and corrupt as it is, he is well aware that he is targeting the secular movement. Once the PLO is decimated, only Islamic extremism will be left. And I think Sharon would prefer this. I don't think there is anything in what I just wrote that is "implicit." Hilton Obenzinger ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing Lecturer, Department of English Stanford University 650.723.0330 650.724.5400 Fax obenzinger@stanford.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 12:27:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ken Rumble Subject: Re: My Reading Schedule for 2002 In-Reply-To: <43.b125d77.2a090777@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >And lastly, I shall not be sharing a lectern or applause with anyone by the >name of Lucien Carr, Karla Nielsen, the Goncourts, Fat Boy Slim, Rumi, >Charles Manson, Robin Hamilton, Derek Rogerson, the Dutch royal family, >Juliana Spahr or Ken Rumble. Jesus, I think my life's complete -- I've been mentioned in the same paragraph with Manson, Spahr, Carr, and Fat Boy Slim. David, if you could somehow arrange this reading bill -- I'd give you at least a vigintillion dollars. Ken PS: Is this you? http://www.davidhess.com/ (grin) My favorite's the "Meet David" page. "...While he is most noted for his role in horror productions, ironically, David is a pretty down-to-earth, and happy-go-lucky guy..." "...Kick back, grab a Margarita, and get to know David Hess..." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 12:10:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sina Queyras Subject: marie ponsot MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi all, I've been off the list for a few weeks and lost the email regarding the marie ponsot reading in nyc tonight. Does anyone have the time and place? Please respond directly. queyras@rci.rutgers.edu Thanks so much, Sina ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 10:08:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed One way to keep presses that publish the books we would buy anyway viable is whenever possible to buy directly from the press. That's why if you call a university press and flash your credit card over the phone you hear squeals of delight. I'm not kidding. And even more so for small independent presses. Mark At 08:18 AM 5/8/2002 -0400, you wrote: > > And I don't think web publication > >does the trick. > > > Mark, > > I agree. What do you think can change this ??? > > > Best, Geoffrey > > >Geoffrey Gatza >editor BlazeVOX2k1 >http://vorplesword.com/ > __o > _`\<,_ > (*)/ (*) > >-----Original Message----- >From: UB Poetics discussion group >[mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Mark Weiss >Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 12:53 AM >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) > >The members of the list are all aware that UC is also a major lit publisher >(Oppen and Niedecker just now, Lezama Lima shortly, just of books that I'm >aware of), and that lit (as opposed to crit) was not on the list of areas >to be pursued? That, to my mind, is the real loss that's threatened by the >change in university press publishing. And I don't think web publication >does the trick. > >Mark > >At 09:14 PM 5/7/2002 -0400, you wrote: > >I second the call for electronic publication. What should a university > >faculty require of its members beyond intellectual work approved by > >disciplinary peers? If there ever was a time when publication of a book > >by a "reputable" press guaranteed its intellectual quality (Barthes' > >feudal *index*), the admission by presses of the profit motive transforms > >that index into the bourgeois *sign*. I read UC Press's statement to say > >that one more sloppy rehash of Sylvia Plath will always be welcomed, while > >the whole discipline of philosophy goes begging. > > > >Requiring print publications for academic promotion secures only three > >results as far as I can tell: the academy rewards renown rather than > >research, it ensures continued intellectual laziness on the part of > >tenured faculty, who no longer need to read (that is, deal with the ideas > >of) texts written by their own community, and it guarantees that those > >with print access will continue to control the direction of scholarship as > >those who cannot afford print access stay quietly in the dark. > > > >The latest MLA newsletter has S. Greenblatt bemoaning the lack of > >resources available to a group of humanities scholars in Bucharest. His > >solution: let the MLA operate as an email contact clearinghouse, > >connecting scholars from around the world with MLA members who will then > >assist with information exchange, conversation, perhaps photocopies. > >Great. How about S. Greenblatt putting a PDF version of his latest book > >online for scholars around the world to download and read? > > > >--Clai Rice > > > >On Mon, 6 May 2002, Poetics List Administration wrote: > > > > > Maybe this is the call for more electronic works. Print on demand is a >nice > > > option, but online publications are where its at. Now we, as artists and > > > scholars, must begin to accept the electronic as a real format. And by >real > > > I mean, of course, a format that will be seen as equal to a printed >book. > > > Currently we have many fine journal articles of real value that appear >only > > > online, and if this was taken further - there will be more knowledge > > > available to all who would want it any time they want it. > > > Maybe UB can begin this process of bringing quality literary criticism >on > > > it's EPC as it has with MP3. > > > > > > > > > Best, Geoffrey > > > > > > > > > Geoffrey Gatza > > > editor BlazeVOX2k1 > > > http://vorplesword.com/ > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 18:10:22 +0100 Reply-To: Robin Hamilton Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: My Reading Schedule for 2002 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >And lastly, I shall not be sharing a lectern or applause with anyone by the > >name of Lucien Carr, Karla Nielsen, the Goncourts, Fat Boy Slim, Rumi, > >Charles Manson, Robin Hamilton, Derek Rogerson, the Dutch royal family, > >Juliana Spahr or Ken Rumble. > > Jesus, I think my life's complete -- I've been mentioned in the same > paragraph with Manson, Spahr, Carr, and Fat Boy Slim. David, if you could > somehow arrange this reading bill -- I'd give you at least a vigintillion > dollars. > > Ken Hey -- perhaps we could start a club? David Hess surely does have a long memory!! Robin Hamilton Sure I am, Brian, this wound shall heal again But yet, alas, the scar shall still remain. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 13:23:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: BBR READING SERIES Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable BBR Reading Series Presents Maureen Owen Veronica Corpuz Tuesday, May 14 8:00 pm Bar Reis 375 5th Ave. (between 5th and 6th Streets) Park Slope, Brooklyn F train to 4th and 9th St. stop MAUREEN OWEN is the editor of Telephone Books and Telephone magazine. She currently serves as the Program Coordinator at The St. Mark=B9s Poetry Projec= t in Manhattan and has taught a number of writing workshops at St. Joseph=B9s College, Edinboro University and Naropa University=B9s Summer Writing Program= . Author of nine books of poetry, Owen has most recently published her selected poems, American Rush, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in April, 1999. Andrei Codrescu notes, "Her exuberant style and tremendous energy shine in her strongly feminist works. . . " VERONICA CORPUZ is currently the Program Assistant at St. Mark's Poetry Project and the editor of Poets & Poems, the Project's online journal (http://www.poetryproject.com/poets.html). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the journals Chain, Shiny, Aufgabe and Interlope. *** The BBR Reading Series is curated by A.E. Wayne. Unmatched in its quirky ye= t cozy setting (rather than stand behind a podium, poets perch upon a balcony =E0 la Romeo and Juliet), Bar Reis also offers a backyard garden where poets can voice their verse. Upcoming guests include: Cort Day and Rob Casper (June 11), Joshua Beckman and Joanna Fuhrman (July 9). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 13:48:53 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: On Passion..... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subj: [evol-psych] The Vehement Passions Date: 05/08/2002 11:42:47 AM Eastern Daylight Time From: ian.pitchford@scientist.com To: evolutionary-psychology@yahoogroups.com Sent from the Internet (Details) The Vehement Passions Philip Fisher Hardcover: 304 pages ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.97 x 9.50 x 6.38 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr; ISBN: 0691069964; (May 2002) AMAZON - US http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691069964/darwinanddarwini/ AMAZON - UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0691069964/humannaturecom/ Breaking off the ordinary flow of experience, the passions create a state of exception. In their suddenness and intensity, they map a personal world, fix and qualify our attention, and impel our actions. Outraged anger drives us to write laws that will later be enforced by impersonal justice. Intense grief at the death of someone in our life discloses the contours of that life to us. Wonder spurs scientific inquiry. The strong current of Western thought that idealizes a dispassionate world has ostracized the passions as quaint, even dangerous. Intense states have come to be seen as symptoms of pathology. A fondness for irony along with our civic ideal of tolerance lead us to prefer the diluted emotional life of feelings and moods. Demonstrating enormous intellectual originality and generosity, Philip Fisher meditates on whether this victory is permanent-and how it might diminish us. From Aristotle to Hume to contemporary biology, Fisher finds evidence that the passions have defined a core of human nature no less important than reason or desire. Traversing the Iliad, King Lear, Moby Dick, and other great works, he discerns the properties of the high-spirited states we call the passions. Are vehement states compatible with a culture that values private, selectively shared experiences? How do passions differ from emotions? Does anger have an opposite? Do the passions give scale, shape, and significance to our experience of time? Is a person incapable of anger more dangerous than someone who is irascible? In reintroducing us to our own vehemence, Fisher reminds us that it is only through our strongest passions that we feel the contours of injustice, mortality, loss, and knowledge. It is only through our personal worlds that we can know the world. Philip Fisher is the Reid Professor of English at Harvard University. He is the author of Still the New World, Hard Facts, Wonder, the Rainbow, and the Aesthetics of Rare Experiences, and Making and Effacing Art. 0-691-06996-4 Cloth $26.95 US and L18.95 280 pages. 6 x 9. Endorsements: "Philip Fisher has written a revisionary history of startling boldness, rereading the authorities in novel and penetrating ways. His conclusions have relevance to the inner lives of us all."--J. M. Coetzee, author of The Lives of Animals "This is really a quite extraordinary work, an attempt to reclaim for modern use a vocabulary we gave up two centuries (or more) ago, and more importantly, to reclaim or re-recognize the intense energies that go with that vocabulary--still present and alive. Fisher's whole project is enormously compelling. Its scope and force are unmistakable, and will provoke important discussions."--Michael Wood, Princeton University Table of Contents: ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix INTRODUCTION 1 ONE: Passions,Strong Emotions, Vehement Occasions 12 TWO: Paths among the Passions 28 THREE: Thoroughness 40 FOUR: Privacy,Radical Singularity 53 FIVE: Time 71 SIX: Rashness 93 SEVEN: Mutual Fear 109 EIGHT: The Aesthetics of Fear 132 NINE: The Radius of the Will 157 TEN: Anger and Diminution 171 ELEVEN: Grief 199 TWELVE: Spiritedness 227 CONCLUSION 246 NOTES 253 AUTHOR INDEX 263 INDEX OF TERMS 266 __________ Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart by Marc Bekoff, Jane Goodall Hardcover: 256 pages; Publisher: Oxford UP; ISBN: 0195150775; (April 2002) AMAZON - US http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195150775/darwinanddarwini/ AMAZON - UK http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195150775/humannaturecom/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 13:51:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kimball Subject: Torres, Phipps, Ganick -- NYC -- May 19 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Free readings, full bar -- Sun., May 19, 3-5 Bowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery (btwn Bleecker & Houston) Come join us for the launch of 3 new multimedia CDs from Faux Press: tend. field / Peter Ganick. "Full of provocative thought." --Jackson Mac Low ZITHER MOOD / Wanda Phipps. "You feel as if you are in a pyramid of honey of the mind." --Lee Ann Brown PLEASE / Edwin Torres. "Torres is the inventor...the most optimistic, agile poet around." --Brenda Coultas For more info on the CDs: http://www.fauxpress.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 14:12:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mdw Subject: FWD: TELLING IT SLANT panel discussion at the Dactyl Foundation in NYC May 17 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hello friends: For those of you who live in New York City or who can otherwise make it there, I'd like to invite you to attend a panel discussion and publication party for TELLING IT SLANT: AVANT GARDE POETICS IN THE 1990s, edited by Mark Wallace and Steven Marks and published by the University of Alabama Press. The time is Friday, May 17 from 7-9 p.m., and the location is The Dactyl Foundation, 64 Grand St. Ground Floor, between West Broadway and Wooster in Soho. I've been hearing great things about the space, and I'm sure it will help make for a wonderful event. The panel will be discussing issues regarding avant garde poetries in the 1990s. Following short poetics statements by the panelists, we'll be opening the floor to questions and response from the audience. The likely panelists include: Charles Borkhuis Sherry Brennan Lee Ann Brown Jeff Derksen Jefferson Hansen William R. Howe Andrew Levy Eileen Myles Leonard Schwartz Juliana Spahr Brian Kim Stefans Gary Sullivan Elizabeth Willis Wine will be available during the discussion, and the Dactyl Foundation will be suggesting a small donation at the door. I'm very excited that we've found such an excellent location for this event, and I look forward to seeing you there. Sincerely, Mark Wallace __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - your guide to health and wellness http://health.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 15:19:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Kane Subject: DeLoach's Hotel Earl? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I've come across a poem by Allen DeLoach called "Hotel Earl." Lines include "ceiling falling down, / bathroom pull cord, / with too small closet, / twenty cent phone calls / useless view of a wall." It was published in 1963. My question is - does anyone know where this Hotel Earl was actually located? if so, could you bc to dkane@panix.com? thanks --daniel ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 15:12:30 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Rathmann Subject: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" A bit of a rant: The academic's first problem is how to advance professionally. To get and keep a job, the academic must produce an acceptable discourse. Not great, not even very good, just acceptable. This means sticking to certain categories -- cliches, really -- that other academics will recognize and condone. The cliches are especially important for academics who write about poetry, because poetry itself is unread and unvalued. Interview committees and editors of learned journals are seldom familiar with contemporary poetry; nor are they bothered by their ignorance, since it has no professional repercussions. Typical exchange: "You work on postwar poetry? I don't know anything about poetry. I write about race and gender in Star Wars." The aspiring academic would do well to stick to the approved categories of professional discourse. Talk about Adorno instead. I say again, the academic's first problem is how to advance professionally. This does not mean that all academic criticism is bad, just that there are distorting forces at work. The annoying outcome is that those who really succeed within the system know only the professionally approved ways of talking about literature. Woe to their students. But the bigger annoyance comes when poets begin writing for academic approval. If Professor X says it is politically progressive or "avant-garde" to adopt a certain set of techniques, then that's the kind of mannerist writing that starts to appear, and eventually someone proposes an MLA panel on it. It's as if the academics were now writing the manifestos. It's no big deal if criticism is policed by anxious assistant professors who want job security. I don't blame them. It's nice work if you can get it. But poets should not seek their approval. (Certainly this view has been articulated before, and better. But it seems useful to re-state from time to time.) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 16:18:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Kimmelman, Burt" Subject: Re: DeLoach's Hotel Earl? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Daniel, Two (educated but fading memory) guesses: The Bowery area, or else possibly the Chelsea area. Burt -----Original Message----- From: Daniel Kane [mailto:dkane@panix.com] Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 3:19 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: DeLoach's Hotel Earl? I've come across a poem by Allen DeLoach called "Hotel Earl." Lines include "ceiling falling down, / bathroom pull cord, / with too small closet, / twenty cent phone calls / useless view of a wall." It was published in 1963. My question is - does anyone know where this Hotel Earl was actually located? if so, could you bc to dkane@panix.com? thanks --daniel ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 16:30:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sherry Brennan Subject: May 19 ZINC Bar Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed SHERRY BRENNAN AND MARK WALLACE Sunday, May 19 ZINC BAR 90 West Houston St. (Near LaGuardia Place) 6:37 pm Downstairs, below Zammir Furs. Mark Wallace is the author of more than ten books and chapbooks of poetry, including Nothing Happened and Besides I Wasn't There and Sonnets of a Penny-A-Liner. Temporary Worker Rides A Subway won the New American Poetry Award and is forthcoming from Sun and Moon. His first collection of fiction, The Big Lie, was published by Avec Books in Fall 2000. His critical articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, and along with Steven Marks, he edited Telling It Slant: Avant Garde Poetics of the 1990s (University of Alabama Press) a collection of 26 essays by different writers on the subject of contemporary avant garde poetry and poetics. With Juliana Spahr and others he edited A Poetics of Criticism, a collection of poetry essays in non-standard formats published by Leave Books in 1994. He runs the Ruthless Grip Poetry Series and the "dcpoets" e-mail list in Washington, D.C., where he teaches at area colleges including Georgetown University, The George Washington University, and American University. Sherry Brennan writes poetry and philosophy. She is currently working on two projects an as yet untitled long poem and a book on Dante Darwin and Deleuze. Her chapbooks include daily poems and Taken, as well as the self-published Resemblances, Nominalist Notebooks, Etudes, and again today. Her poetry and essays may be found in Chain, HOW(ever), Kenning, Mirage, New American Writing, Object, raddlemoon, ReadMe and Tripwire, and the edited collections A Poetics of Criticism and Telling it Slant, among others. Together with 18 other poets, she serves as a founding editor of the subpress collective. She lives in central Pennsylvania and Manhattan where she works for Penn State. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 13:55:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karla Nielsen Subject: Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed "Now we, as artists and scholars, must begin to accept the electronic as a real format. And by real I mean, of course, a format that will be seen as equal to a printed book. Currently we have many fine journal articles of real value that appear only online, and if this was taken further - there will be more knowledge available to all who would want it any time they want it." Hear. Hear. The problem is not that there are not incredible online resources but that they do not "count" for academic promotion and are not always visible or integrated with other kinds of resources through library and other databases. This, of course, limits their use and spread and reach. However, there are many initiatives attempting to address those issues in ways that utilize the possiblities of electronic media while attmepting to integrate digital publications into the institutional structures established on print models. With the expectation being that they will transform them as well. For more information, I can suggest the following two websites, and I'd love to hear about any sites that you all know about (thank you, Brandon Barr). The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition www.arl.org/sparc The escholarship program at the California Digital Library escholarship.cdlib.org These are just general sites, not poetry or literature specific, but they give a sense of how peer-reviewed venues are being created in other disciplines, so far for the most part in the hard and social sciences. From what I've seen, and I used to work at UC Press and now work for an academic electronic publishing venture at UC Berkeley, the sciences are way ahead of the humanities in terms of scholar-initiated transformations of their communication networks and in terms of getting these outlets recognized/funded by deans, etc. I agree that unless scholars of all ranks and affiliations invest in these new outlets, they won't become as meaningful as they could be. Though what's at stake in the print book format is a question that I think is begging to be put on the table and one which I don't think the scientists can answer or have thought to question. Anyone? Karla _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 16:55:20 -0400 Reply-To: Allen Bramhall Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Allen Bramhall Subject: new books from Potes & Poets Press MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Memory Cards & Adoption Papers, by Susan M. Schultz ($12.95) "Schultz's dedication to the living imaginary is unflinching. 'What we owe the commonwealth is allegiance to the common,' she writes, and Memory Cards and Adoption Papers reifies that fealty. A brillianbt book!" --Claudia Keelan Particle and Probability, by Aidan Thompson ($11.95) "Aidan Thompson's new sentences move forward at the speed of light becoming thought (sound) thinking itself." --Stephen Ratcliffe Tri Loka, by Ivan Arguelles (16.95) "Ivan Arguelles' poetry might be described as a labyrinth except that it also is a house afire. This work continues the extraordinary experiements of books like _Madonna Septet--books which verge on the indescribable." --Jack Foley. available from Small Press Distribution 1341 Seventh St Berkeley, CA 94710 www.spdbooks.org check out our website: www.potespoets.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 16:55:25 -0400 Reply-To: Allen Bramhall Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Allen Bramhall Subject: new chapbooks from Potes&Poets MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit new chapbooks from Potes & Poets Press Winter District, by Cassie Lewis--$8.00 A Narrow Ring of Stone, by Jaime Robles--$8.00 Leaves From a Gradual, by Dale Going--$8.00 ** the above are part of the New Women in Writing Series, edited by Sheila Murphy ** Dialogues, by Ken Harris--$6.00 available from Small Press Distribution 1341 Seventh St Berkeley, CA 94710 www.spdbooks.org check out our website: www.potespoets.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 17:05:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: oranget@GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: coolidge blurb citation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit taylor, right you were sir! for the record: O'Brien, Geoffrey. "Say What?". _Village Voice_ Volume 31, No. 25 (June 24, 1986), page 45. thanks, t. On Wed, 24 Apr 2002, Taylor Brady wrote: > >I believe the reviewer's name was Geoffrey O'Brien -- who is not, I >think, the same Geoffrey G. O'Brien who recently published a book of >poems in UC's New California Poets series. It's been a while since I've >seen his byline in the Voice, though, so you might want to check with >someone who has less of a hearsay relationship to the archive. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 17:07:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sherry Brennan Subject: May 19 ZINC Bar Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed SHERRY BRENNAN AND MARK WALLACE Sunday, May 19 ZINC BAR 90 West Houston St. (Near LaGuardia Place) 6:37 pm Downstairs, below Zammir Furs. Mark Wallace is the author of more than ten books and chapbooks of poetry, including Nothing Happened and Besides I Wasn't There and Sonnets of a Penny-A-Liner. Temporary Worker Rides A Subway won the New American Poetry Award and is forthcoming from Sun and Moon. His first collection of fiction, The Big Lie, was published by Avec Books in Fall 2000. His critical articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, and along with Steven Marks, he edited Telling It Slant: Avant Garde Poetics of the 1990s (University of Alabama Press) a collection of 26 essays by different writers on the subject of contemporary avant garde poetry and poetics. With Juliana Spahr and others he edited A Poetics of Criticism, a collection of poetry essays in non-standard formats published by Leave Books in 1994. He runs the Ruthless Grip Poetry Series and the "dcpoets" e-mail list in Washington, D.C., where he teaches at area colleges including Georgetown University, The George Washington University, and American University. Sherry Brennan writes poetry and philosophy. She is currently working on two projects -- an as yet untitled long poem and a book on Dante Darwin and Deleuze. Her chapbooks include daily poems and Taken, as well as the self-published Resemblances, Nominalist Notebooks, Etudes, and again today. Her poetry and essays may be found in Chain, HOW(ever), Kenning, Mirage, New American Writing, Object, raddlemoon, ReadMe and Tripwire, and the edited collections A Poetics of Criticism and Telling it Slant, among others. Together with 18 other poets, she serves as a founding editor of the subpress collective. She lives in central Pennsylvania and Manhattan where she works for Penn State. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 15:30:23 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeff Chester Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed word! >From: Andrew Rathmann >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. >Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 15:12:30 -0600 > >A bit of a rant: > >The academic's first problem is how to advance professionally. To get and >keep a job, the academic must produce an acceptable discourse. Not great, >not even very good, just acceptable. This means sticking to certain >categories -- cliches, really -- that other academics will recognize and >condone. The cliches are especially important for academics who write >about poetry, because poetry itself is unread and unvalued. Interview >committees and editors of learned journals are seldom familiar with >contemporary poetry; nor are they bothered by their ignorance, since it has >no professional repercussions. Typical exchange: "You work on postwar >poetry? I don't know anything about poetry. I write about race and gender >in Star Wars." The aspiring academic would do well to stick to the >approved categories of professional discourse. Talk about Adorno instead. > >I say again, the academic's first problem is how to advance professionally. > >This does not mean that all academic criticism is bad, just that there are >distorting forces at work. > >The annoying outcome is that those who really succeed within the system >know only the professionally approved ways of talking about literature. >Woe to their students. But the bigger annoyance comes when poets begin >writing for academic approval. If Professor X says it is politically >progressive or "avant-garde" to adopt a certain set of techniques, then >that's the kind of mannerist writing that starts to appear, and eventually >someone proposes an MLA panel on it. It's as if the academics were now >writing the manifestos. > >It's no big deal if criticism is policed by anxious assistant professors >who want job security. I don't blame them. It's nice work if you can get >it. But poets should not seek their approval. > >(Certainly this view has been articulated before, and better. But it seems >useful to re-state from time to time.) _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 17:39:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" bits of Andrew Rathmann 's bit of a rant: The academic's first problem is how to advance professionally. To get and keep a job, the academic must produce an acceptable discourse. Not great, not even very good, just acceptable. >>> This was my perception of the academy even twenty years ago. It was why I stayed out of academia and became a civil servant instead. Suspecting myself of pliability, if not an outright capacity for groveling for acceptance, I just stayed out of the whole area. Still, from my outside vantage, I wonder how true this image really is. >>It's no big deal if criticism is policed by anxious assistant professors who want job security. I don't blame them. It's nice work if you can get it. But poets should not seek their approval. >> Here I'm not so sure where the line can be drawn between 'seeking approval' and staying current with, and maybe even contributing to, what's going on in literary theory. It seems like a great percentage of American poets look to the academy as their natural, or least onerous, source of money, including, it seems, a number of those on this list. Laura ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 17:51:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Kimmelman, Burt" Subject: Re: DeLoach's Hotel Earl? Comments: To: Daniel Kane MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Driving home just now I realized that the Earl was in the West Village near Washington Square Park. Arriving home I rec'd the below message from Mark Weiss, sure enough. "Burt: No more reliably than your memory, I recall that it was the fleabag on Washington Sq. West and 5th or 6th. I can't post again, having used up my alloted two postings, but if you think I may be right pass it along." It was just off the park, more accurately, on West 4th Street, I'm pretty sure. -----Original Message----- From: Daniel Kane To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Sent: 5/8/02 3:19 PM Subject: DeLoach's Hotel Earl? I've come across a poem by Allen DeLoach called "Hotel Earl." Lines include "ceiling falling down, / bathroom pull cord, / with too small closet, / twenty cent phone calls / useless view of a wall." It was published in 1963. My question is - does anyone know where this Hotel Earl was actually located? if so, could you bc to dkane@panix.com? thanks --daniel ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 17:13:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT Andrew, Here are a series of guesses at what you are trying to say. You oost is intersting for the force of it, but self-admittedly general (what you say has been said before, etc -- but saying this doesn't really help). Guess #1: "The history of manifestos will bear me out that only poets write them." The manifesto form was never an exclusively literary genre (nor did it begin as one), even when it claimed to be that. Moreover, a literary manifesto has rarely or only partially represented the “play book” to an actual poetry “game.” Take the classic technical manifesto of Futurism by Marinetti; his poem “Zam Tuum Tumb” fails to live up to it in multiple ways. This does not invalidate the social effects that the technical manifesto had in Marinetti’s time, nor the interest one may still have as a reader (even as a reader who writes poetry) in his poem and manifesto today. Guess #2: "Reading academic poetry criticism is a waste of time for poets." Even if a poet says that s/he is profoundly influenced by a work of academic poetry criticism, I can’t conceive why that necessarily “results” in mere imitation of a poetry style (the question of imitation bears also on your post, and mine, but I'll leave that for another time). If the critic addresses poetry that the poet has not read before, and the poet then decides to go and read more of this poetry, why’s that to be dissuaded? Guess #3: "Academic poetry critics determine the future shape of poetic form." Let’s take Perloff’s reading of the “I” in poetry (we could take any of the poets and critics she references on the subject of the "I", instead), and poet/artist Kenneth Goldsmith’s admiration, stated in his book Soliloquy (2001), for one of the books in which she delivers a reading on the “I” in contemporary and past poetry, Radical Artifice (1991). Goldsmith’s admiration for this book did not prevent him from writing Soliloquy (2001) which is all “I”. Goldsmith the author may begin to have doubts about whether he will be able to garner the favors of Perloff as an influential critic in the poetry and art worlds that Goldsmith is a part of (he already expresses these doubts in Soliloquy), but, so be it -- for both Goldsmith and/or Perloff. As to the manifesto-like force, let’s say, of Perloff’s oeuvre to date (since I’ve mentioned her once, I'll keep using her as my example), for the import of modernism and for a specific vector in it, for a certain reading of “progress” in literary form over the last century up to the present, and relation to the political and social, etc., it may nudge a bit a poet’s to-do list of books to read, insofar as the poet in question reads Perloff, but that’s about it, is my guess. Blackwell publishers has released a new critical series, Manifestos, written by a range of (presumably all) academics, including but not limited to literary critics, from differing ideological camps. I don’t see a problem with academics -- or with anyone else, for that matter – taking on the manifesto genre if it helps articulate a particular juncture of debate in a given domain. Guess #4: "The poetry scene does not reproduce status issues. It is free, in other words, not only of back-biting, snobbery, ambition, and general nastiness, but also of cameraderie, self-reflexive attention to differences of position, and selflessness. All that is a plague of the academy." If you think status in the academy is fiercely reproduced to the disadvantage of all, you don’t know poetry scenes at times, and fail to even catch the sometimes satiric (and otherwise) tones in some lines of poetry that refer to other poetry and poets. If, instead, you’re lamenting the direction that issues of poetry status-making has taken, namely towards academic acceptance (in some sense), then even there I don’t think you’re addressing the larger issue of poets in relation to social institutions as such (not just academic institutions). By the way, are you editor of The Chicago Review, or is that another Andrew Rathmann? Guess #5: Suspend guessing, Louis! Ask Andrew! Andrew, if you gave a specific example of “the kind of mannerist writing that starts to appear” from pronouncements by Professor X, where “eventually someone proposes an MLA panel on it,” that would help me, at any rate; otherwise, I feel lost in listspace, as to what you are referring to, because your post is self-admittedly general. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 19:14:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Those interested in this thread may find this book of interest: Beyond English, Inc. : Curricular Reform in a Global Economy Edited by David B. Downing, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Claude Mark Hurlbert, Indiana University of Pennsylvania Paula A. Mathieu, Boston College Boynton/Cook/0-86709-517-2/2002/272 pp/ Paper Availability: In Stock List Price: $25.00 more information and a pdf file of the introduction at http://www.heinemann.com/product/0517.asp Contents: 1. English Incorporated: An Introduction, David B. Downing, Claude Mark Hurlbert & Paula Mathieu I. Disciplinary Revision and Curricular Reform for the 21st Century 2. Beyond Disciplinary English: Integrating Reading and Writing by Reforming Academic Labor, David B. Downing 3. "A Blow Is Like an Instrument:" The Poetic Imaginary and Curricular Practices, Charles Bernstein 4. Corporate Textbook Production, Electronic Resources, and the Responsible Curriculum, Deborah Holdstein 5. Accountability and the Conditions for Curricular Change, Richard Ohmann II. The Curricular Politics of Local, Regional, and National Differences 6. Excavating the Ruins of Undergraduate English, Bruce Horner, Kelly Latchaw, Joseph Lenz, Jody Swilky & David Wolf 7. "No Chains Around My Feet, But I'm Not Free:" Race and the Western Classics in a Liberal Arts College, Pancho Savery 8. A Symposium on "What Will We Be Teaching?: International Revisions in University Level English Curricula," David Stacey, Claire Woods & Rob Pope 9. Curriculum for Seven Generations, Derek Owens III. Places of Writing in the English Curriculum 10. Concentrating English: Disciplinarity, Institutional Histories, and Collective Identity, Amy Goodburn & Deborah Minter 11. Changing the Program(s): English Department Curricula in the Contemporary Research University, James Seitz 12. Composition and Rhetoric, Inc.: Life After the English Department at Syracuse University, James Zebroski IV. New Missions: The Impact of Technology, Service, and the Vocationalizing of Higher Education 13. Technological Imbalances: The English Curriculum and Distance Education, Joyce Neff & Juanita Comfort 14. The Great Work: Recomposing Vocationalism and the Community College English Curriculum, Daniel Collins 15. Service Learning as the New English Studies, Ellen Cushman 16. Collaborative Learning Networks: A Curriculum for the 21st Century, James Sosnoski, Patricia Harkin & Ann Feldman Afterword, Paula Mathieu & Claude Mark Hurlbert ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 19:17:05 -0400 Reply-To: derek@derekrogerson.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: Re: Rules In-Reply-To: <000801c1f5f2$4c299990$7f59bbcc@satellite> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =20 >The escholarship program at the California Digital Library >escholarship.cdlib.org =09 >Please respond directly. > >queyras@rci.rutgers.edu ___________________________ Hi all. Note: If you want to publish one-click URI's (links) in plain text emails --> http://www.whatever.org http://whatever.org www.whatever.org Only these 3 formats will work. Nothing else. If you want to publish one-click emails use 'mailto:'---> mailto:whomever@whatever.org =09 cheers, derek =09 ___________________________ =09 I guess I'm not going to say that not making your URI's (links) one-click accessible means you are preventing search-engine spiders from crawling-through (accessing) the link, and therefore they *will not index the semantic* connection between the content of the Poetics List Web Archive (your content), and whatever content the link contains. =20 =09 =09 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 19:44:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 VGhlcmUncyBhIGZsaXAgc2lkZSB0byB0aGlzOiBwb2V0cyBhcmUganVzdCBhcyBjYXBhYmxlIG9m IGJ1bGxzaGl0IGFzDQphcmUgYWNhZGVtaWNzIC0tIGFuZCB0aGUgYmVzdCBhY2FkZW1pY3MgYXJl IGFzIGhvbmVzdCBhcyB0aGUgYmVzdCBwb2V0cy4NCg0KQ2hlZXJzLA0KDQpQaGlsaXAgTmlrb2xh eWV2DQoNCg== ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 20:03:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Fwd: BBR READING SERIES Comments: To: buffalo.edu@acsu.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from The Poetry Project ----- From: The Poetry Project To: The Poetry Project Subject: BBR READING SERIES Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 13:23:14 -0400 BBR Reading Series Presents Maureen Owen Veronica Corpuz Tuesday, May 14 8:00 pm Bar Reis 375 5th Ave. (between 5th and 6th Streets) Park Slope, Brooklyn F train to 4th and 9th St. stop MAUREEN OWEN is the editor of Telephone Books and Telephone magazine. She currently serves as the Program Coordinator at The St. Mark¹s Poetry Project in Manhattan and has taught a number of writing workshops at St. Joseph¹s College, Edinboro University and Naropa University¹s Summer Writing Program. Author of nine books of poetry, Owen has most recently published her selected poems, American Rush, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in April, 1999. Andrei Codrescu notes, "Her exuberant style and tremendous energy shine in her strongly feminist works. . . " VERONICA CORPUZ is currently the Program Assistant at St. Mark's Poetry Project and the editor of Poets & Poems, the Project's online journal (http://www.poetryproject.com/poets.html). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the journals Chain, Shiny, Aufgabe and Interlope. *** The BBR Reading Series is curated by A.E. Wayne. Unmatched in its quirky yet cozy setting (rather than stand behind a podium, poets perch upon a balcony à la Romeo and Juliet), Bar Reis also offers a backyard garden where poets can voice their verse. Upcoming guests include: Cort Day and Rob Casper (June 11), Joshua Beckman and Joanna Fuhrman (July 9). ----- End forwarded message ----- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 19:38:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chicago Review Subject: new issue Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" -CR- is pleased to announce the recent publication of -Chicago Review- 47:4/48:1 (Winter 2001/Spring 2002) This issue features a 200-page special section: "STAN BRAKHAGE: CORRESPONDENCES" + New essays by filmmaker Stan Brakhage (on aesthetics, film, painting, physiology, poetry) + Letters from Brakhage to Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, and Ronald Johnson + Conversations: Brakhage and Ronald Johnson; Michael McClure and Steve Anker + Essays on Brakhage by Fred Camper, P. Adams Sitney, John Pruitt, Marie Nesthus, Guy Davenport, Robert Kelly, Kristin Prevallet, Nathaniel Dorsky, and Jennifer Reeves The issue also includes: + Poems by Lee Ann Brown, Jean Cocteau, Antonio Facchino, Paul Hoover, Robert Lunday, Spencer Selby, Chris Tysh, and Rosmarie Waldrop + Fiction by Anthony Doerr + Reviews of Ronald Johnson, Jennifer Martenson, Gilbert Sorrentino, Charles Wright, Franz Wright, Robert Lax, and Frank Stanford => All this for $8. Visit our website or e-m us for details: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/review/ chicago-review@uchicago.edu * * * * * * * * * * * Poetics list members: Get a free back issue by taking advantage of our $15 "web special" subscription rate. Just drop us an e-m and we'll mail the current issue and a back issue of your choice, along with a bill. * * * * * * * * * * * FORTHCOMING JUNE 2002: "New Writing in German" (-CR- 48:2/3 Summer/Fall 2002) 50+ German-language writers (of poetry and fiction), many of them previously untranslated, in this 350 page double-anthology-issue. Stay tuned for details. * * * * * * * * * * * STILL AVAILABLE: -CR- 47:3 (Fall 2001) / $6 + Fiction by Fanny Howe, Julian Kudritzki, and Harry Mathews + Poems by Andrea Brady, Ray DiPalma, Alan Halsey, Christine Hume, Lisa Jarnot, Devin Johnston, and others + Interviews with Frank Bidart and Thalia Field + Essays by Tony Frazer (on 2 anthologies of British literature) and Scott MacDonald (on filmmaker Peter Hutton) -------------------------- CHICAGO REVIEW 5801 South Kenwood Avenue Chicago IL 60637 http://humanities.uchicago.edu/review/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 18:54:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hey Louis, (and eventually Andrew too!) > You oost is > intersting for the force of it. I think your oost is interesting too! Intentional swerve and/or typo creating the word oost makes me think of propulsion, push, ouvre, etc. I get the oost. um... >The manifesto form was never an exclusively literary genre (nor did >it begin as one), even when it claimed to be that. So can the manifesto be claimed or categorized into a capital M genre of writing? It seems to have become diffuse throughout philosophies of poetry/poetics, so that now any statement of poetics reads much like a manifesto (even if only for the moment of its inception). Something like 'Writing and Method' by Charles Bernstein for example, or Lyn Hejinian's 'Rejection of Closure.' And if it is classed as a genre, then does it lose relevance simply by being a Manifesto? (from Andrew's post:) >"The poetry scene does not reproduce status issues. It is free, in >other words, not only of back-biting, snobbery, ambition, and general >nastiness, but also of cameraderie, self-reflexive attention to differences >of position, and selflessness. All that is a plague of the academy." What poetry scene? And what poetry scene is free from competitive jealousy and infighting? There was no inbiting going on outside of Academia, in a utopian poetry world free from competition and progressivity? Back-biting, snobbery, ambition, and general nastiness happen in board rooms all over the world. Are you sure that the injection of these things is a result of the academy, or is it a result of the specialization and progressivity that has been bred into us through capitalism, or maybe it has something to do with a fierce desire for mangoes.... mangifestoes... yup that's about two cents there. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 22:05:44 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/8/02 8:54:25 PM, jasonc@TELUSPLANET.NET writes: << What poetry scene? And what poetry scene is free from competitive jealousy and infighting? There was no inbiting going on outside of Academia, in a utopian poetry world free from competition and progressivity? Back-biting, snobbery, ambition, and general nastiness happen in board rooms all over the world. Are you sure that the injection of these things is a result of the academy, or is it a result of the specialization and progressivity that has been bred into us through capitalism, or maybe it has something to do with a fierce desire for mangoes.... >> I like the spirit here. The idea that the poetry scene is pristine, free from human foibles, that the academy is to blame, is the goofiest yet. Jealous people who cheat, back-bite, manipulate are people of low character. No one is forcing them to behave this way. Certainly not the academy. Blame their parents. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com Amazon.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 22:38:59 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/8/02 4:16:37 PM, andyrathmann@EARTHLINK.NET writes: << The annoying outcome is that those who really succeed within the system know only the professionally approved ways of talking about literature. Woe to their students. >> I thought this was a Poetics List. So how come all this fiction. Even the most cursory knowledge of the academy reveals that those who "really succeed" are those who buck the system. Like the tribe of poststructuralist philosophers and literary critics who ran up against New Criticism's brick wall and took it apart piece by piece. Like the New Critics before them who waged a similar battle against the impressionists. Those at the forefront of such movements become the superstars, the ones who "really succeed." Not the least of their accomplishments is the ongoing violation of what is considered proper and acceptable discourse. Sure, one can make it to full professor at a midlevel college by doing the conventional thing, but that is not "really succeeding," is it? Of course not. That is nothing more than having a career. Sure there is resistance. That's good. Any institution worth a dime requires that the new thing prove itself. What's could possibly be the alternative? That someone announces his "new and brilliant method" and everyone drops to their knees? I don't know the above poster well enough to judge motives, so I won't. But let's be honest. There are a lot of jealous people who think their "wild thing" is pure genius, and anyone who doesn't recognize it as such must be some sort of Capitalist puppet on a string. The truth is that much, if not most, of what goes on within, and without, the academy is derivative duck tape. The bona fide innovative act is still as rare as fairy dust. The poster is certainly correct to point out that certain "techniques" achieve critical mass and influence the classroom. But that is obviously a tribute to the power of the innovation, and the innovator. But no one stops anyone from teaching however one wants to teach. There is a little thing called academic freedom. It's been around for a long time. Most of us have heard of it. By the way, these "professionally approved ways of talking about literature" -- what might they be? Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com Amazon.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 23:07:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: <10F2B8E6B6C9AC4993FC1FB47C0D88CC4AE720@karat.kandasoft.com > Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed hear hear gene At 07:44 PM 5/8/02 -0400, you wrote: >There's a flip side to this: poets are just as capable of bullshit as >are academics -- and the best academics are as honest as the best poets. > >Cheers, > >Philip Nikolayev ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 20:21:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT Jason (and to query Bill), 1. Perhaps the general nastiness whereof you speak began with the emergence of a world market somewhere in the 16C. God forbid! I’d put the whole status thing down -- from the corporate board room to The Drawing Room -- to a fierce desire for mangoes, then. Don't you like magoes? 2. I wonder if the book Joe Brennan references, The Vehement Passions, stakes any importance for that same historical moment as one that newly “articulates” the human passions to newly-emergent social ends, anger, etc, sublimated (say) and substituted with the friendlier faces of “moods” and “feelings,” in order to further the fourth estate, the bourgeoisie and its public sphere of “universal” values enacted according to the enlightenment principle of reason, and the drives for self-improvement and successful profit. Or, maybe that’s by now a story no one cares to tell once more. (Afraid of another beating.) 2a. It’s interesting to think about the role Spinoza’s system of passions had (see his Ethics) for Zukofsky, perhaps helping the poet sublimate and align his passions under the domestic star of Love instead of Lenin, as compensation for how appallingly absent he was from the poetry and publishing scenes for most of his life (and for how appallingly bad his literary friend, one E. Pound, treated him at times). Zukofsky read Spinoza a lot. Spinoza rationalizes the passions in a modernizing direction far more than Descartes did -- and is in fact a precursor for Freud’s unworked-out concept of sublimation. I’m writing about this in what is called a Ph.D. dissertation -- in what is called another temporal dimension than this one. 3. God forbid that this listserv become a “fifth stomach” for the digestion of Langpo in the peripheral outbacks of American globalized monopoly culture!! That is to say, I don’t think of the two texts you reference as being manifestos. a. A manifesto doesn’t need an “argument.” As you know, some literary classics of the genre claimed to dispense with reason altogether (e.g. Tzara’s). 4. To think of the manifesto as a genre would be to trace changes in the history of a social institution. So Foucault would say. So too would Blackwell! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 21:06:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: POG, Chax, et al present: Ron Silliman, Lisa Jarnot: reading Saturday evening May 18, workshops Sunday afternoon May 19 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit POETRY READING & WORKSHOPS by LISA JARNOT & RON SILLIMAN Reading Time: Saturday, May 18, 7pm Location: MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) 191 E. Toole Ave., Tucson NW Corner of Toole and 6th Ave. in downtown Tucson Suggested Donation: $5 admission / $3 students Workshop Times: Sunday, May 19, 1:00–2:25 pm (Lisa Jarnot), 2:35–4:00 pm (Ron Silliman) Location: MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) Participation fee: $10 for one workshop or $15 for both workshops. Presented by POG, CHAX PRESS, MOCA, and TUCSON WRITERS’ PROJECT. Supported by funding from Tucson Pima Arts Council and Arizona Commission on the Arts. Please call Chax Press at 620-1626 for information. LISA JARNOT’s books include Some Other Kind of Mission and Ring of Fire. She is currently a faculty member at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Author of Xing, Demo to Ink, and many more books, RON SILLIMAN merges the acrobatics of language poetry with a personal voice that brings his words close to everyday experience. The Alphabet, a 1200-page work, “seeks to include as much of the world as possible, especially those aspects that are least likely to be seen, heard, or recognized.” This is a test. The hammer of birds (rabbits) secure in the deficit garden, fog along the coast. Water hammer, rock board — recurrence as key in phlegmatic analysis (fellaheen hurdling custard pie into the face of Bette Midler). Friends are perpetually “going to get it together,” jobwise: the coast is altered one quarter inch. Just like that. Ron Silliman from Demo to Ink I am bludgeoned by this most exotic ocean, currently, I am in the post office with the prison cells and tides, I am with the fires in the eucalyptus fog, I am clearing and the colors are all changing, I am changing colors in the lift of fog, I am almost to Japan, I am circles and the squirrels revolve, I am missing plastic pets, I am predictions of the sounds of tides and this. Lisa Jarnot from Ring of Fire for more on Ron Silliman and Lisa Jarnot go to http://www.gopog.org/upcoming.html#Silliman These events take place at MOCA during MOCA’s exhibition of paintings and sculpture by Harmony Hammond, titled Dialogues & Meditations. The basement gallery of MOCA is showing paintings and installations by Gwyneth Scally. This is the last POG public presentation of the 2001-2002 season. mailto:tenney@dakotacom.net mailto:nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/tn POG: mailto:pog@gopog.org http://www.gopog.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 22:44:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: <1a2.1f42f7d.2a0b3b43@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I'm only an occasional academic, and thank god I haven't had to deal with academic politics for many years, but I can still recognize the disingenuous.. I was at Johns Hopkins when the French department became an uunhealthy environment for anyone that didn't agree with Rene Girard--over the course of three or four years all dissidents left and were replaced by more agreeable new hires. People sure are told how and what to teach, if indirectly. The same was largely true at the much larger Columbia English department, where I wound up next. I say largely, because Said was there. Aside from him it was the Trilling legacy, which is why I stayed in 1800 and earlier. These are not unique experiences. Departments are regularly wracked by civil wars about excatly what should be taught and how. Sometimes very dubious ideas in their shallowest form become dominant. The power of innovation. Try reading 40 years of psychoanalytic overinterpretation. The market is not the best of peer reviews. Lit departments at least don't kill people. Med schools have had similar crazes, leaving a trail of the dead and wounded. Remember lobotomies? Must have been the power of innovation. Or maybe, as in interpretive crazes, we're dealing with the understandable frustration of not knowing how to deal with, in medicine, the unmendable, in literature, the difficult to grasp. And of course the building of fiefdoms. I'm a publisher, art dealer and poet. My motives have nothing to do with the baser passions, whatever the previous poster's motivations. I really don't care how much junk is taught and published in the academic mills except when I'm researching (although I'm amused every two weeks to note how many of the new books advertized in NYRB are "essential" or the like. The essential doesn't tend to happen with semimonthly regularity). I do care that so little of it is written out of passion, right or wrong-headed, for scholarship, and I wonder why to teach in a comfortable institution young people are conditioned to that sort of dishonesty. But it's as a poet that I'm most concerned. I've been through a few professional cultures, and I know that one very quickly, if painfully, retrains to become a part of that culture. If poetry is a product of the whole of what one has to bring to the poem a poetry written by those who have spent their entire educational and professional lives within the constraints of a professional culture will necessarily be impoverished. Which is maybe fine--we all live under sets of constraints. The problem I think is that more and more is written within the same sets of constraints. If we were talking about other organisms we would worry about the threat of too narrow a range of genetic variation. Mark At 10:38 PM 5/8/2002 -0400, you wrote: >In a message dated 5/8/02 4:16:37 PM, andyrathmann@EARTHLINK.NET writes: > ><< The annoying outcome is that those who really succeed within the system >know only the professionally approved ways of talking about literature. >Woe to their students. >> > >I thought this was a Poetics List. So how come all this fiction. Even the >most cursory knowledge of the academy reveals that those who "really succeed" >are those who buck the system. Like the tribe of poststructuralist >philosophers and literary critics who ran up against New Criticism's brick >wall and took it apart piece by piece. Like the New Critics before them who >waged a similar battle against the impressionists. Those at the forefront of >such movements become the superstars, the ones who "really succeed." Not >the least of their accomplishments is the ongoing violation of what is >considered proper and acceptable discourse. Sure, one can make it to full >professor at a midlevel college by doing the conventional thing, but that is >not "really succeeding," is it? Of course not. That is nothing more than >having a career. Sure there is resistance. That's good. Any institution >worth a dime requires that the new thing prove itself. What's could possibly >be the alternative? That someone announces his "new and brilliant method" >and everyone drops to their knees? > >I don't know the above poster well enough to judge motives, so I won't. But >let's be honest. There are a lot of jealous people who think their "wild >thing" is pure genius, and anyone who doesn't recognize it as such must be >some sort of Capitalist puppet on a string. The truth is that much, if not >most, of what goes on within, and without, the academy is derivative duck >tape. The bona fide innovative act is still as rare as fairy dust. > >The poster is certainly correct to point out that certain "techniques" >achieve critical mass and influence the classroom. But that is obviously a >tribute to the power of the innovation, and the innovator. But no one stops >anyone from teaching however one wants to teach. There is a little thing >called academic freedom. It's been around for a long time. Most of us have >heard of it. > >By the way, these "professionally approved ways of talking about literature" >-- what might they be? Best, Bill > >WilliamJamesAustin.com >KojaPress.com >Amazon.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 02:18:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: migraine, blind MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII one should be greatfoo^^^ knowl edge of the ministr at ed map of the ky^^^^ leeping::: two benedryl, two aspirin, two codeine, "all that is missing" - what constitutes the text written blind, blind-foldings - as if [looking in upon oneself in such a manner that, arrowed ]] - as if it were possible to _catch_:coming across: the feel of the keys: raised purbles: forgetthe name: they are raised: guiding the hands into position:: avoiding thought brings the level of the pain down: head slightly lowered like the buffalo treehopper: slightly larger: what constitutes the human: the explosino sending back into the crocodilia:momentary lapse of guarded phenomena:: fierce arrows at this point in the shape of a \\broken trapedoizd; can't watch the screen; typing from touch and memory; holding fast to the program: this trapezoid:these other: incipient migraine :: we're almost there :: catherine d'medici coming across with nikuko :: the SEA WITH WHITE CHARGER ;; image blinded by a \\hailstorm of jagged arrows :: dullness in the temporal frontal :: :: moorhen dulled and thickened, ji^^^ greatfoo through errors: loggerheads - probing... almost sleeping::: two benedryl, two aspirin, two codeine, "all that is missing" - what constitutes the text written blind, blind-foldings - as if [looking in upon oneself in such a manner that, arrowed ]] - as if it were possible to _catch_! greatfoo yl yi y such a manner that, arrowed ]] - as if it were possible to _catch_!y y y y y y y yu y. yt ys yo yl y ys yf ye yT ye ye yo y yh yi yt y [ Writing... ] y y y y y yA yn y y' y yi y yp yk yg yx yw yt yn yl yd yb yn yf yd yg y- ys yf yl yk yg yn yp y ye yl yi _ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 May 2002 23:21:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Felsinger Subject: {{{{{{{{{{{{{ VERT READING }}}}}}}}}}}}}} Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: // A Reading to Celebrate 6 issues of V e R T // MODERN TIMES BOOKSTORE 888 Valencia Street @ 20th San Francisco, CA (415) 282-9246 ======Thursday, May 23rd========= ^^ 7:30PM ^^ -------------- featuring past contributors -------------- Andrew Goldfarb Jill Stengel Stephanie Young & Tanya Brolaski David Hadbawnik & Andrew Felsinger Jono Schneider Lauren Schiffman Chris Daniels David Larsen May 23rd @ 7:30 PM MODERN TIMES BOOKSTORE 888 Valencia Street @ 20th San Francisco, CA (415) 282-9246 VeRT @ http://www.litvert.com :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 09:36:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: FWRD: Owen/Corpuz reading (NYC) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from The Poetry Project ----- From: The Poetry Project To: The Poetry Project Subject: BBR READING SERIES Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 13:23:14 -0400 BBR Reading Series Presents Maureen Owen Veronica Corpuz Tuesday, May 14 8:00 pm Bar Reis 375 5th Ave. (between 5th and 6th Streets) Park Slope, Brooklyn F train to 4th and 9th St. stop MAUREEN OWEN is the editor of Telephone Books and Telephone magazine. She currently serves as the Program Coordinator at The St. Mark¹s Poetry Project in Manhattan and has taught a number of writing workshops at St. Joseph¹s College, Edinboro University and Naropa University¹s Summer Writing Program. Author of nine books of poetry, Owen has most recently published her selected poems, American Rush, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize in April, 1999. Andrei Codrescu notes, "Her exuberant style and tremendous energy shine in her strongly feminist works. . . " VERONICA CORPUZ is currently the Program Assistant at St. Mark's Poetry Project and the editor of Poets & Poems, the Project's online journal (http://www.poetryproject.com/poets.html). Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in the journals Chain, Shiny, Aufgabe and Interlope. *** The BBR Reading Series is curated by A.E. Wayne. Unmatched in its quirky yet cozy setting (rather than stand behind a podium, poets perch upon a balcony à la Romeo and Juliet), Bar Reis also offers a backyard garden where poets can voice their verse. Upcoming guests include: Cort Day and Rob Casper (June 11), Joshua Beckman and Joanna Fuhrman (July 9). ----- End forwarded message ----- ----- End forwarded message ----- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 09:59:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kuszai Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: <1a2.1f42f7d.2a0b3b43@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >By the way, these "professionally approved ways of talking about literature" >-- what might they be? great question. I have several questions I'll save for later, but I'm very curious to know what are the "unapproved" ways? I'm always looking for new ideas for the classroom. Seriously. Thanks. -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 08:05:44 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: poets ignore criticism? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Dear Andrew--- While there's something in me sympathetic to this self-proclaimed "rant," I wonder how you define the terms-- By focussing on ACADEMIC criticism as the bogey man to be ignored you seem to imply there's a non-academic criticism that poets (presumably also non-academic) either don't have to, or shouldn't, ignore. That academic=professional and non-academic is somehow free of that. Is that really the case? Since "academic," whether used pejoratively or not, can refer both to "Criticism" and "poetry" (the Ph.D. vs. MFA thing) just as non-academic can (for instance, when you accepted that long 10 page review I had written of Jennifer Moxley's "Imagination Verses" for publication in the Chicago Review---for which I'm grateful, and I hope you don't mind me mentioning it--it's the best relevant example can think of--, there was concern, if I remember correctly, that it wouldn't sit well with the other editors unless we made some slight cosmetic changes so it seemed more like an "academic essay" but was the essay really "academic"? Was the discourse really "acceptable" as, say, the discourse of, say, Sianne Ngai, Lytle Shaw, Steve Evans, or Juliana Spahr is said to be? How does one then determine what "academically acceptable discourse" is? Or WHO determines it? One may bend "the rules" or try to change them from below or within, but as one who has had at least 3 essays accepted by editors of academic books only to have them later, all, rejected by "anonymous" readers hired by the university presses, I too have little hope for this, and it makes me skeptical to what does get published as "academic criticism." So, there is a range of related questions that you open up here that would need to be explored. At the same time, however, and more importantly I think, I want to turn some of your righteous questioning of academic professionalism on itself, not exactly "on its head" (although Louis Cabri claims that the chicken-egg thing is my dominant characteristic poetic mode or something) and claim that much of what you claim to be the process involved in legitimizing the academic is at least as true, and in some cases maybe even MORE true of poets themselves, whether or not they work within the academy. So, if I take these first several sentences, for instance-- > >The academic's first problem is how to advance professionally. To get and > >keep a job, the academic must produce an acceptable discourse. Not great, > >not even very good, just acceptable. This means sticking to certain > >categories -- cliches, really -- that other academics will recognize and > >condone. and if I substitute the word "poet" (or even "writer") for the word "academic" and substitute "advance professionally" for "get one's work published," it may seem absurd---certainly, some might object, that wouldn't be the "first" problem of any self-respecting poet (to which I respond, well, then, hopefully, it isn't the FIRST problem of the academic either, unless of course we assume that the academic isn't really interested in teaching in a classroom). So, then we'd have to substitute the word "verse" for "discourse." And, I think this substition becomes less and less absurd, if I take a look at the vast majority of poetry that seems to be written in certain codes (for instance, the "New Obscurantists" valorizing the lyric "fragment" or the "Plain-Speaking" workshop syllabics) that certain editors of magazines or "more established" writers will recognize or condone. > So, when you say: > >This does not mean that all academic criticism is bad, just that there are > >distorting forces at work. I say this does not mean tht all contemporary poetry is bad, just that there are distorting forces are work.... and that free-verse ain't always as free as it's cracked up to be.... and, then, the question is, is "free-verse" even a value? And what is the point of all the "excellent scribbling in a period style?" > The annoying outcome is that those who really succeed within the system > >know only the professionally approved ways of talking about literature. > and talking IN literature; even those who often claim they're "too pure" to be bothered with even trying to explain what they're doing, or why they might be doing it (especially, if they just won another "non-academic" Book prize/grant, etc.). Professionalism does not equal academicism, so what to do about it? > >_________________________________________________________________ > Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 11:39:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Reading Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed from WAXPOETIC: *Susan Wheeler* author of 3 books of poetry, and *Daniel Nester*, editor of La Petite Zine, will read from their poetry. Friday May 17, 7:30 pm FREE Pete's Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St, Williamsburg Brooklyn. L train to Lorimer, G train to Metropolitan, BQE exit 33 see www.waxpoetic.org for directions/map and more information *Susan Wheeler* Susan Wheeler's first collection of poetry, Bag 'o' Diamonds (University of Georgia Press, 1993) received the Norma Farber First Book Award of the Poetry Society of America. Her second, Smokes, won the Four Way Books Award in 1998, and her third, Source Codes, was published by SALT Publishing May 1. Her awards include fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation and the New York Foundation for the Arts. *Daniel Nester* Daniel Nester's poetry has appeared in such journals as XConnect, Minnesota Review, The Cortland Review, Water Stone, Slope, and South Carolina Review. He is the editor-in-chief of La Petite Zine and a senior editor of Painted Bride Quarterly. He is finishing finish a series of 'essays' or 'monologues' that focus on his obsession with the greatest rock band of all time, Queen. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 08:56:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Drunken Boat Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? In-Reply-To: <88539F4A9A5C3041B06A234AA2ABDB58B61B80@portia.folger.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Don't recall if I ever thanked you, but the text you recommended is just what I needed. Thanks! Ravi --- Libbie Rifkin wrote: > I'm finding The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary > Anthology, ed. Natalie Handal, (New York: Interlink > Books, 2000) to be really illuminating. The 60-page > introduction (which I'm just getting through) is > exhaustive, to say the least. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Pierre Joris [mailto:joris@ALBANY.EDU] > Sent: Fri 5/3/2002 5:11 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Cc: > Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? > > > > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Mother's Day is May 12th! http://shopping.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 15:55:35 GMT Reply-To: ggatza@daemen.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: {{{{{{{{{{{{{ VERT READING }}}}}}}}}}}}}} Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary MIME-Version: 1.0 Andrew, Good luck on your reading. I am in Buffalo and won't be able to make your reading. However, I'll light a candle in my window for you in support :-) Thank you for everything you and your fine journal has done. And if you live in San Fran put some flowers in your hair that what gentle people do !!! REPLY LEFT INTACT On Wed, 8 May 2002 23:21:22 -0700 Andrew Felsinger wrote: > :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: > > > // A Reading to Celebrate 6 issues of V e R T // > > MODERN TIMES BOOKSTORE > 888 Valencia Street @ 20th > San Francisco, CA > (415) 282-9246 > > ======Thursday, May 23rd========= > > ^^ 7:30PM ^^ > > -------------- featuring past contributors -------------- > > Andrew Goldfarb > > Jill Stengel > > Stephanie Young & Tanya Brolaski > > David Hadbawnik & Andrew Felsinger > > Jono Schneider > > Lauren Schiffman > > Chris Daniels > > David Larsen > > > May 23rd @ 7:30 PM > > MODERN TIMES BOOKSTORE > 888 Valencia Street @ 20th > San Francisco, CA > (415) 282-9246 > > VeRT @ http://www.litvert.com > > :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: This message powered by EMUMAIL. -- http://www.EMUMAIL.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 12:15:44 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aqui uds. can major in backbiting sbunybing where the sun never shines after Oct., much. Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 09:18:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii for a wild and diverse set of essays (some of which run to "traditional" "academic" and some of which run to "drunken" "rants" but all of which rapturously "engage" i recommend "A Wild Salience" on and about the writing of Rae Armantrout. they're "approved" and "unapproved," poetry and prose, linear and non-linear, etc. and etc. Mister K --- J Kuszai wrote: > >By the way, these "professionally approved ways of > talking about literature" > >-- what might they be? > > great question. I have several questions I'll save > for later, but I'm > very curious to know what are the "unapproved" ways? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Mother's Day is May 12th! http://shopping.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 12:21:11 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Au contraire un peu: those will full time jobs will never leave ever the rest of us will never have full time jobs compare us to "the notch baby syndrome of soc.sec." Conforming is de riguer. yes is the word yes always and early and often yes. Thinking is a conforming activity here lies the gauntlet much like Barbara Ehrenrich and her Nickel and Dime'd book try this round up some ensconced full timers provide them with disguises send them out and about as adjuncts then get some dialogue going the haves the have nots and the never will haves Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 12:36:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: luigi-bob drake Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: <20020509161805.95816.qmail@web21402.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit kind words and thanks... worth noting, perhaps, that "A Wild Salience" was published by a private rather than academic press. also that some of the cross-currents noted in this thread here evidenced as points of contention during the production of that book. and that, largely as a result of that contention (coupled with cash losses bourne by an individual rather than an institution) the publisher is now indefinately on haitus... "people who say they like poetry but never buy any are cheap sons of bitches"--k rexroth lbd ed., burning press -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Mister Kazim Ali Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 11:18 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. for a wild and diverse set of essays (some of which run to "traditional" "academic" and some of which run to "drunken" "rants" but all of which rapturously "engage" i recommend "A Wild Salience" on and about the writing of Rae Armantrout. they're "approved" and "unapproved," poetry and prose, linear and non-linear, etc. and etc. Mister K --- J Kuszai wrote: > >By the way, these "professionally approved ways of > talking about literature" > >-- what might they be? > > great question. I have several questions I'll save > for later, but I'm > very curious to know what are the "unapproved" ways? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Mother's Day is May 12th! http://shopping.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 13:21:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Brent Hamilton Subject: Re: poets ignore criticism? Comments: To: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino In-Reply-To: <3CDA9048.4EA8F571@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Chris, May I raise an objection to your anatomization of Louis Cabri's claim that Andrew Rathman had failed to be clear in his proposal that the field is in crisis (and thus, I take it, pooh- pooh the crisis)? For methinks I'm staring a class issue straight in the face. Let's just call academic criticism "credentializing publication" and leave it at that -- yes? And let's not problematize the relation of prose criticism to verse and look for more theoretically rigorous definitions when folks like Andrew (I'm guessing, don't know him) are looking for jobs and asking -- I thought -- very good questions about the nature of his own vocation (poet) to the profession (a Univ. English dept?). Heck, I'm just getting off year-one on the job market during which I drudged at 4-4-2 @ $22,000, so I'm not sure all our good theory has led to the reform Charles Bernstein seems to think I ought to read about in his new book. Am I being clear yet? Which part do we need to explain? In St. Louis was recently started an MFA program. The tenured faculty at this particular burb teach 2-2 and probably "service" 20-30 students a semester, many in the kind of creative writing classes that most flatter their sense of themselves. The job we all want, right? Who pays for that kind of luxury? Oh, yes, there are others there teaching more, "servicing" many more, and these seem to think (hard to tell, they're not "clear") the field is in crisis, perhaps because those who are tenured continue to admit and graduate 8 bright and shining, credential-aspirant MFAs a year, many of these offered jobs over those with PhDs, perhaps PhDs who actually care enough about their criticism/scholarship to want to write "academic criticism" that's not merely credentializing. I don't suppose one has to be Cary Nelson to understand that this isn't a healthy situation. I just resigned my job, by the way. I'll give it another year on the market to see what's up -- lucky enough to have a wife who can earn some bread while I do -- but I'm entirely in sympathy with Andrew. Aren't we denying something here? Jeff On Thu, 9 May 2002, Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino wrote: > > Dear Andrew--- > > While there's something in me sympathetic to this self-proclaimed "rant," > I wonder how you define the terms-- > By focussing on ACADEMIC criticism as the bogey man to be ignored > you seem to imply there's a non-academic criticism that > poets (presumably also non-academic) either don't have to, or shouldn't, > ignore. > That academic=professional and non-academic is somehow free of that. > > Is that really the case? Since "academic," whether used pejoratively or not, > > can refer both to "Criticism" and "poetry" (the Ph.D. vs. MFA thing) > just as non-academic can (for instance, when you accepted that long > 10 page review I had written of Jennifer Moxley's "Imagination Verses" > for publication in the Chicago Review---for which I'm grateful, > and I hope you don't mind me mentioning it--it's the best relevant > example can think of--, there was concern, if I remember correctly, > that it wouldn't sit well with the other editors unless we made some > slight cosmetic changes so it seemed more like an "academic essay" > but was the essay really "academic"? Was the discourse really > "acceptable" as, say, the discourse of, say, Sianne Ngai, Lytle Shaw, > Steve Evans, or Juliana Spahr is said to be? How does one then > determine what "academically acceptable discourse" is? Or WHO > determines it? One may bend "the rules" or try to change them > from below or within, but as one who has had at least 3 essays > accepted by editors of academic books only to have them later, > all, rejected by "anonymous" readers hired by the university presses, > I too have little hope for this, and it makes me skeptical to what does > get published as "academic criticism." So, there is a range of related > questions > that you open up here that would need to be explored. > > At the same time, however, and more importantly I think, I want to > turn some of your righteous questioning of academic professionalism > on itself, not exactly "on its head" (although Louis Cabri claims that > the chicken-egg thing is my dominant characteristic poetic mode or > something) and claim that much of what you claim to be the process > involved in legitimizing the academic is at least as true, and in some > cases maybe even MORE true of poets themselves, whether or not > they work within the academy. > > So, if I take these first several sentences, for instance-- > > > >The academic's first problem is how to advance professionally. To get and > > >keep a job, the academic must produce an acceptable discourse. Not great, > > >not even very good, just acceptable. This means sticking to certain > > >categories -- cliches, really -- that other academics will recognize and > > >condone. > > and if I substitute the word "poet" (or even "writer") for the word "academic" > and substitute "advance professionally" for "get one's work published," it > may seem absurd---certainly, some might object, that wouldn't be the "first" > problem > of any self-respecting poet (to which I respond, well, then, hopefully, it > isn't > the FIRST problem of the academic either, unless of course we assume that > the academic isn't really interested in teaching in a classroom). So, then we'd > > have to substitute the word "verse" for "discourse." And, I think this > substition becomes less and less absurd, if I take a look at the vast majority > of poetry that seems to be written in certain codes (for instance, the "New > Obscurantists" valorizing the lyric "fragment" or the "Plain-Speaking" > workshop syllabics) that certain editors of magazines or "more established" > writers will recognize or condone. > > > So, when you say: > > > >This does not mean that all academic criticism is bad, just that there are > > >distorting forces at work. > > I say this does not mean tht all contemporary poetry is bad, just that there > are distorting forces are work.... > and that free-verse ain't always as free as it's cracked up to be.... > and, then, the question is, is "free-verse" even a value? > And what is the point of all the "excellent scribbling in a period style?" > > > The annoying outcome is that those who really succeed within the system > > >know only the professionally approved ways of talking about literature. > > > > and talking IN literature; even those who often claim they're "too pure" > to be bothered with even trying to explain what they're doing, or why > they might be doing it (especially, if they just won another "non-academic" > Book prize/grant, etc.). Professionalism does not equal academicism, > so what to do about it? > > > > >_________________________________________________________________ > > Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 18:26:13 +0000 Reply-To: rsillima@yahoo.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hell, academic critics have been ignoring poets for at least 150 years. Ron _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 11:30:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Hi Joel! Since you've brought this into the realm of the classroom, I thought I might remind people how students themselves will enforce approved ways of speaking about literature in the classroom. For instance, I sometimes will ask a student about their intention in doing such and such in a certain piece. Normally this isn't a problem, but upon occasion I've had a student tell me that it was wrong of me to ask questions and that students shouldn't be allowed to discuss their own work in a writing workshop. The student is supposed to sit silently as others discuss it with no input or background info. When a student talks about their own work it's interpreted as defensive--I've seen the most innocent, informative comments interpreted as defensive. I even had someone (a college student) say that people shouldn't be asked questions about their work in my private workshop in my living room!!! Normally people bloom in the riotous, Wild West atmosphere of the private group, but translating that to an official classroom has to be done very subtly and carefully. If something as simple as asking a question can cause panic in some people, how radical could you expect to get? Of course, student openness varies dramatically from school to school, class to class. Dodie At 9:59 AM -0400 5/9/02, J Kuszai wrote: >>By the way, these "professionally approved ways of talking about literature" >>-- what might they be? > >great question. I have several questions I'll save for later, but I'm >very curious to know what are the "unapproved" ways? I'm always >looking for new ideas for the classroom. Seriously. Thanks. > >-- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 12:31:37 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wright Laura E Subject: Fleisher, Wright read in Boulder May 17 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII T h e L e f t H a n d R e a d i n g S e r i e s p r o u d l y p r e s e n t s a r e a d i n g f e a t u r i n g ************************************** * * * prose writer * * K A S S F L E I S H E R * * * * * * & * * * * * * poet/translator * * L A U R A E. W R I G H T * * * ************************************** F R I D A Y, M A Y 1 7 t h 8 p. m. @ L E F T H A N D B O O K S & R E C O R D S 1 2 0 0 P e a r l S t r e e t # 1 0 just East of Broadway downstairs from street level B O U L D E R, C O L O R A D O o p e n t o t h e p u b l i c d o n a t i o n s a r e r e q u e s t e d ===================================================== The LEFT HAND READING SERIES closes its 2001-2002 season with a reading featuring prose writer Kass Fleisher and poet, translator and Left Hand Reading Series co-host Laura E. Wright.... KASS FLEISHER once sold burial property before cashing out of that and buying into Mary Kay Cosmetics- but she wrote short fictions about those experiences, which makes it ok. While working as a theatrical ballet producer, she once met Baryshnikov, who, in flip-flops, was no taller than her left breast. Her prose works have never been described as "gossamer," but she has been accused of bleating the same feminist plaints over and over and over. Since patriarchy remains firmly intact, this last isn't slowing her down any- in her spare time she has founded an organization called the Postfeminist Backlash Resistance League. Beginning in 2003, the PBRL will meet annually to bestow awards to Best-Dressed-Assimilationists (she is currently accepting nominations for BDAs at kass.fleisher@colorado.edu). Meanwhile, she has published work in Antennae, Calypso, electronic book review, Exquisite Corpse, The Iowa Review and Postmodern Culture. LAURA E. WRIGHT is an insomniac, a poet, a member of the School of Continuation, and an avid hockey fan. Her writing has appeared (relatively) recently in Facture and Mantis. Anselm Hollo once described her writing as "unimproved." Her favorite word in French is "bla bla" and her favorite word in English is "chicken." ===================================================== There will be a short OPEN READING immediately before the featured readings. Sign up for the Open Reading will take place promptly at 8:00 p.m. ===================================================== The LEFT HAND READING SERIES is an independent series presenting readings of original literary works by emerging and established writers. Founded in 1996, the series is currently curated by poets MARK DuCHARME and LAURA WRIGHT. Readings in the series are presented monthly. This reading marks the end of the Left Hand Reading Series 2001-2002 season, and also marks the beginning of a leave of absence from the series for Mark DuCharme. The Left Hand Reading Series will resume in some form or other in the future. ===================================================== For more information about the Left Hand Reading Series, call (303) 938-9346 or (303) 443-3685. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 12:07:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christine Palma Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? Comments: To: joris@ALBANY.EDU In-Reply-To: <88539F4A9A5C3041B06A234AA2ABDB58B61B80@portia.folger.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Pierre Joris wrote: >Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? At 9:02 PM -0400 5/3/02, Libbie Rifkin wrote: >I'm finding The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, ed. >Natalie Handal, (New York: Interlink Books, 2000) to be really >illuminating. The 60-page introduction (which I'm just getting through) is >exhaustive, to say the least. I had Nathalie Handal and some of these poets from 'The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology' on as guests a few months back - I have a recording of the night they did at Beyond Baroque that I edited and burned to a CD and can send it to you or upload it to you if you have server space - either as .aiff or as .mp3. Let me know if you'd like this. The anthology is wonderful and has an amazing scope, both from the countries where the women write from and from the diversity of their educational backgrounds and idea of poetics. Jordan Elgrably from the Levantine Center has been setting up these types of events here in Los Angeles and could probably provide more extensive info on Arab Poets. Levantine Center is new, basically it's purpose is to promote Arab Culture to open up a window on the region that's not necessarily political. He would probably be able to hook you up with Nathalie or her publicist. She travels quite a bit and may even live in New York... He's at: LevantineCenter@aol.com I am also having a guest sometime in June - Majid Naficy, a Palestinian Poet. At the end of this e-mail is a very good article that the LA Weekly wrote on him. His e-mail address is: majidnaficy@yahoo.com :-) Christine Palma http://www.laweekly.com/ink/01/12/cover-steinman.shtml or a printer friendly version at: http://www.laweekly.com/printme.php3?&eid=3D22197 =46ebruary 9 - 15, 2001 Poet of the Revolution Majid Naficy's tragic journey home by Louise Steinman Why do I speak in poetry? Because in this heavy mist, I cannot be a lighthouse =46or drifting boats. THE BACK DOOR TO MAJID NAFICY'S MODEST SANTA Monica apartment is open. The aroma of sweet and sour wafts in from a Chinese hole-in-the-wall across the parking lot. A clay pot full of fresh mint sits on the railing of the small patio. On his bookcase shelves, well-worn volumes in Farsi and a few in English, including Walt Whitman and a Hebrew-English dictionary. On an old desk there's an enlargement device that allows the nearly blind poet to magnify text 60 times so that he can read. Az=E2d, Majid's 12-year-old son, is at school -- but he has left behind ample evidence of an American boyhood: skateboard, baseball mitt, Pok=E9mon cards, sneakers, a Michael Jordan poster taped to the refrigerator. Majid is a political refugee from Iran, where he was an active participant in the revolution against the shah. He lost his first wife, Ezzat, his brother Sa'id, his brother-in-law Hossein, numerous friends and, ultimately, his country to the death squads of Ayatollah Khomeini's fundamentalist Islamic regime. On the table, there's a framed, faded black-and-white photograph: a young unveiled woman with a heart-shaped face and a shy, serious expression. "This is Ezzat," Majid says tenderly, as if introducing someone physically present. He has described this photo in a poem, "To a Picture": I see you in the middle of the garden The red roses have covered your skirt. You seem to be standing on tiptoe To get a better view of the other side. Alas, you fell down in the execution field And my body did not cover you How short was the landscape of the other side! But our love still stands upright. The edge of the picture is torn. "Ezzat's mother used to be in the photo," he says, "but I promised her that I would cut her out." There are no photos of Majid and his first wife together. They both lived underground in the dangerous years following the 1979 revolution. "We did not want the secret police to recognize us," he says. I first encountered Majid at a "Writing in Exile" conference sponsored by Villa Aurora in 1995. The Villa, an artists' residence and cultural center in Pacific Palisades, is now maintained by the German Foreign Office and the Goethe-Institut. The former residence of novelist Leon Feuchwanger, a Jewish-German refugee, it's now dedicated to preserving the memory of writers who fled the Nazis, and to other exiled peoples. At the conference, Majid read from one of his essays. I was impressed with the sense of authority he projected, his quiet intensity, his keen insights into the painful experience of leaving behind one's native tongue, one's family, one's history: "My body lives in L.A., but my soul is still rummaging through the ruins of a lost revolution back in Iran." In 1999, Beyond Baroque Literary Center published Muddy Shoes, Majid's first collection of poems translated into English. Soon after, Majid read from his work at the downtown Central Library (where I program the reading series). Az=E2d sat in the front row of the auditorium, swinging his legs, busy with his Gameboy. Majid walked to the stage of the Mark Taper Auditorium. A small tape recorder hung from a strap around his neck. He put on earphones and pressed the "start" button. Until then, few in the audience realized that Majid, who doesn't use a cane, is legally blind. He never glanced down at a page, but instead prompted himself with his own voice, his calm, uninflected phrases following the rise and fall of his breath on tape. The audience was mesmerized. His poems were indeed rummaging through the ruins of the lost revolution, places with names like the Cemetery of Infidels, Evin Prison, the Tower of Silence. History and the sad weight of personal and cultural loss were compressed into haunting lyrics: "I don't want you, petroleum!/Oh, bloody stream! For a long time,/I thought you gave me blood./Now I see, you made me bleed." In Iran, this gentle, soft-spoken, middle-aged poet had been an ardent revolutionary. When asked for an interview, he was slightly incredulous: "Haven't you read my poems? My life is already an open book." Nevertheless, over the course of several weeks, he patiently attempted to describe to me his experience of the 1979 revolution he so fervently worked for, the revolution that so spectacularly failed, the revolution that ended up turning so many lives upside down and inside out. MAJID WAS BORN IN ISFAHAN, AS HE PUTS IT, "ONE year before the CIA coup in 1953," the ominous event that toppled Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh, who had nationalized Iran's oil industry. Initiated by Britain and approved by President Eisenhower because of fears about oil and communism, the CIA-orchestrated coup brought Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi to power. Thanks to a recently leaked CIA report (excerpts of which were published in The New York Times), Americans can now read for themselves how, by deposing a still-popular nationalist leader and installing the despotic shah, the U.S. government short-circuited an evolving democratic process and indirectly set the stage for the 1979 Islamic takeover of Iran. "There are no shortcuts in history," Majid said soberly during one of our sessions at his kitchen table. "I believe in that. If you think you can take a shortcut, you have to pay a price for it. And that's what we're suffering from now. When there is no civil society, the group of people that comes to power -- however good-intentioned they are -- ends up becoming dictators themselves." Isfahan, a city nearly as old as Iran itself, is world-renowned for its architectural beauty. I found a book on Isfahan and leafed through the glorious images: the central bridge with 33 arches over the Zayandeh River; blue-tiled mosques with vaulted archways and towering minarets; the Palace of the 40 Columns, with its long reflecting pool lined with rosebushes; the vast central plaza, twice as large as Moscow's Red Square; the Palace of Ali Qapu ("sublime gate"), Iran's first skyscraper; the 17th-century Imam Mosque, with acoustics so perfect, according to L.A. Times Middle East correspondent Robin Wright, that "stomping on the black paving stones beneath the dome generates a ripple of seven equal echoes." The Isfahan of Majid's childhood was a tolerant city, Jewish, Armenian and Ba'hai communities mingling with the majority Muslims. It was also a city that was mixing, for the first time, modern with ancient -- fumes from the Soviet-built metallurgy plant collided with the fragrance of cherry trees in spring. The Naficy family was large (nine children, five boys and four girls) and relatively affluent. Majid's father, a cardiologist trained in Tehran and the United States, is a seventh-generation physician in a family lineage extending back to the 14th century. His mother was a religious woman who preferred to wear the veil =E2 in public even though, under the shah, it had been banned. His parents were both peaceful people. "My father gave me a sense of being curious," says Majid, "in terms of books and different cultures. He took us to all different parts of Iran. My mother was very kind. She gave us a sense of how to know other people, and she was always optimistic." Majid's talent for poetry was recognized at an early age; his first poem was published in a literary journal in Isfahan when he was only 13, thanks to a poet who was the teacher of his older brother. This teacher, who edited the journal, invited the young prot=E9g=E9 to the literary salons tha= t rotated among the houses of Isfahan's various writers. This was a considerable honor in a country with a rich literary and cultural past, where people revere great poets and plant luxuriant gardens around their tombs. Fortunately for Majid, his extreme nearsightedness was also discovered at an early age: "I was 5 years old, sitting in a room with my uncle, who asked me to turn on the light. I looked up and I couldn't see the switch. So the first summer before I went to first grade, I wore eyeglasses. It was very unusual for a child to have eyeglasses, especially in Isfahan. Perhaps that is what made me feel separate from the crowd." Life in Isfahan among his large family made possible a childhood that even now conjures pleasant memories. There was a grape arbor in the back yard; he was close with his siblings, especially his sisters, and confided in them. From the shelves of the huge library -- some 3,000 volumes -- that his family had collected over the years, the young poet selected his first long novel, Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Yet even a young child sheltered by a loving family could see the evidence of a cruel regime. A memory from age 6: "My school class was taken in the early morning to watch the shah pass by in a parade. We had to stand in the street a long time. It was very cold. When the shah passed in his special car, a man tried to reach his window -- to give him an envelope, perhaps a complaint. Two guards rushed forward and beat the man with their ceremonial swords. This made a deep impression on me." As he grew older, the oppressive presence of SAVAK, the shah's secret police, filtered into all aspects of daily life. Citizens could be imprisoned for any imagined slight against the government. In the shah's dungeons, torture was routine. At the same time as he was forcefully modernizing the country, fattening the military, importing specialists from abroad to build his "Great Civilization," the shah was silencing the most enlightened Iranians. Intellectual discourse was stifled. Over the years, there was increasingly heavy censorship of films, newspapers, books and fiction. In 1969, the shah dissolved the Iranian Writers' Organization. The year after he graduated from high school in Isfahan, Majid came to California to study. UCLA, like other American campuses, was at the time roiled by protests against the war in Vietnam. It was Majid's first exposure to democratic protest, and he was impressed by the vigor of young Americans' opposition to the war. At UCLA, he also met other Iranians, members of the Iranian student confederation that opposed the shah's government. Their Marxism rubbed off on him. "I'd been an existentialist," he tells me. "A conscious existentialist who was very influenced by Sartre. I read existential books which criticized Marxism, but when I came here, because of the situation of exile, and because a new radical movement was taking shape in Iran, I became very involved with what we called the urban-guerrilla movement." At the end of that year, Majid transferred to Tehran University and committed himself to the movement to overthrow the shah. The newly minted Marxist revolutionary was not just opinionated, he was -- as he now describes -- "self-righteous, intolerant of others' beliefs." He vowed not to write poetry again "until the liberation of the proletariat." "I criticized my poetry as a petit-bourgeois part of my life," he says. "I was not alone. Many intellectuals in Iran went that way. When the guerrilla movement started in the 1970s, it polarized the intelligentsia. Some of them were subsidized by the government, and some of them joined the armed opposition movement." Majid's own brother Sa'id was arrested by SAVAK in 1973. His family was tipped off that their house would be raided; aunts, uncles and cousins split up the library, distributing the 3,000 volumes in basements and closets all over Isfahan. IN 1977, MAJID MET EZZAT TABAIAN, FIVE YEARS HIS junior, a student of physiotherapy at Tehran University. "The first thing we did together was to organize a protest on campus," he says. "To control the students, SAVAK had set a curfew on the women's dormitory. There were guards everywhere on campus. The women could not get in or go out of their residence after 8 p.m." Majid and Ezzat made large posters calling for a protest, and posted them around campus. The ensuing demonstration was a success: The curfew was rescinded. Ezzat and Majid became inseparable and soon married. In 1978, just a year before the revolution, the couple traveled around Iran to villages and factories to organize workers and write about the socioeconomic situation. Majid translated and edited a book about women's liberation as well as a Marxist critique of existentialism, both banned by the censors. Around that time, their political group, Peykar, broke with strict Marxist ideology. "We decided that armed struggle was not right. The masses have to make revolution." By January 1979, the shah had fled the country. There was a brief, sudden state of freedom, but the revolution was soon hijacked by the extreme right, and hope of real democracy fast faded. "I condemn the corrupt intellectuals and the poisoned pens of conspiring writers and democrats," Ayatollah Khomeini declared soon after his victory. During the terror that ensued, thousands of intellectuals were executed or arrested. Majid and Ezzat went underground, using false identification and living in a safe house. Majid, as a key member of Peykar's "theoretical team," continued to write, edit and produce a monthly underground publication for the organization. One afternoon during the fall of 1981, Majid waited at the Shadabad bus station in Tehran for a 5 p.m. rendezvous with his wife. Five p.m. passed, 6 p.m. passed, but Ezzat did not appear, nor would she ever appear again. She had already been captured and sent to Evin Prison. In his essay, "Prison Letters: A Look in the Correspondence of an Iranian Political Prisoner," Majid wrote, "I remember that on precisely January 7, 1982, I felt that the heart of Ezzat, my late wife who had been detained for four months, was no longer beating, and when two days later I heard by telephone the news of her execution, I was not surprised. The prison walls were not able to separate our hearts." Disguised as a shopkeeper with a derby and beard, he sneaked into the Cemetery of Infidels, where the Khomeini regime buried its executed opponents in a series of fresh, unmarked graves. Families of the deceased located the graves by measuring paces. Majid found it eight steps before the gate and 16 steps from the wall. Ezzat had been buried with one other woman and 50 men, all of whom had been executed together. In the wake of his wife's murder, the poetry returned. "It was winter," he says. "There was snow on the big mountains around Tehran. I'd gone up to the mountains with friends to commemorate Ezzat. When we came down, I went to the safe house. I sat down, and all of a sudden poetry came back to me. 'I must create her again,' I thought. 'I must take revenge on her killers.' I wrote nine poems in one sitting. I hadn't written poetry in eight years. Now I know how those cavemen felt when they drew those bulls on the walls of caves. You want to create what was lost. It gives you energy -- for hunting, for magic. It's when you feel powerless against reality, that's when art comes to you." Eight months after Ezzat's execution, Majid met a fellow revolutionary named Esmat. "We met each other at a very bad time in our lives," he says. They rented a safe house and lived there together for six months. In April 1983, they fled Iran. With the help of Kurdish guerrillas, they traveled seven days by horseback over the border from Iran into Turkey, moving only by night to minimize detection. Majid carried very little with him: the nine poems for Ezzat he'd written the day he came down from the mountain, some money, an Afghani passport, a photo of his brother Sa'id, and the torn photograph of Ezzat as a teenager in her garden in Isfahan -- the one that sits on the table of his Santa Monica apartment today. After a year-and-a-half stay in Turkey and France, Majid successfully applied for political asylum in the United States. "I considered France my second homeland, but my eyesight was failing and I already knew English very well." Settling in Venice with Esmat, who became his second wife and the mother of his son -- now divorced, they remain good friends -- he re-dedicated himself to his vocation as a poet and commenced a period of intense soul-searching. Where had his ideological thinking led him? Where had it led his country? "I said to myself, 'Ezzat is dead. The revolution is defeated. Okay. But now, what do you want to do with your life? You have to start a new life.'" He started from scratch, first rethinking and criticizing Marx, then looking squarely at his own culture. "I started to see what had happened, because both the left and the right -- both religionists and atheists -- admired getting killed, and killing. We wanted to change the regime, no matter what came after that. Khomeini used the religious feelings of people to his advantage. He mixed death worship, or martyrdom worship, with political ideals." Majid's re-examination yielded a book-length collection of essays, written in Persian, with the self-revealing title In Search of Joy: A Critique of Male-Dominated, Death-Oriented Culture in Iran. There was still plenty of death to reckon with. The Iran-Iraq war was claiming thousands of Iran's young men. In September 1987, about 800 members of L.A.'s large Iranian community (there are 600,000 Iranians now estimated to be living in Los Angeles) gathered outside the Federal Building to protest a visit to the United Nations by the president of Iran. It was at this demonstration that Neusha Farahi, a friend of Majid's who owned a Persian bookstore, also in Westwood, set fire to himself as the ultimate act of protest. He died 13 days later. "I touched his hand while we waited for the paramedics," Majid recalls, wincing. "It was like a burnt chicken wing." When he came home that same afternoon, Majid wrote "The Self-Immolation of Neusha," lamenting the seduction of martyrdom. It contains the lines: The crowd cried in fury Trying to gain strength from death. I told myself, "Again a corpse in front. Again a casket behind." Alas! We were guardians of life, But the guardians of death killed so much. Killed so much. Killed so much. So that life tasted of death in our mouths. IT'S A HOT SUMMER NIGHT IN LOS ANGELES, AND it's Majid's turn to host the monthly gathering of "Saturday Notebooks." This Persian literary group has been meeting together for 10 years, and they have published three chapbooks of their work. Majid's small apartment has been transformed: Twenty people -- men and women -- crowd into his living room. Everyone has brought something to read and critique, as well as something to eat. There is a vase of pale-pink roses, bowls of fresh basil and mint leaves, hummus, peaches, plums. Chicken-and-squash stew simmers on the stove. The scheduled start time is 7 p.m., but participants straggle in late from a demonstration at the Federal Building, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the government crackdown on pro-reform =E2 student demonstrations in Tehran. As the session finally gets under way, Majid asks for a moment of silence in memory of his dear friend Houshang Golshiri, one of Iran's greatest fiction writers and a prominent advocate of human rights, who has recently died in Tehran. Everyone stands, heads bowed. Even to a guest with zero comprehension of Farsi, plenty is communicated over the next several hours. All these writers bring seriousness and passion to their work. When your colleagues at home are being arrested, imprisoned, even murdered, for their exercise of free expression, the right to exchange words and ideas is not a privilege you take for granted. I can't help stealing glances at the man sitting beside me, who is missing the ring finger on his right hand. Later, Majid confirms my hunch: This writer lost his finger during a torture session in one of the shah's prisons. Around 10 p.m., the group pauses for supper. I heap onto my plate some of Majid's stew. "Delicious!" I comment to one of the writers. He sidles closer. "Actually," he confides, "Majid is a much better poet than he is a cook." He takes another mouthful himself. "And he is a most wonderful father." AZ=E2D AND HIS BUDDY DAVID ZOOM in the front door of the apartment on their shiny scooters. Az=E2d is a robust, handsome kid with meltingly beautiful dark eyes. He is not shy. To the time-honored question of "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Az=E2d has a ready, earnest answer: "I don't want t= o have poetry for a job when I grow up. I'd like to be a basketball player or a baseball player." What does he think of his father's poetry? His eyes light up. He grins at his dad. "My favorite is 'Secret of the River.' My dad wrote it for me. I've read it to my class at school." Before heading out the door with his friend, he does something I've never known a 12-year-old boy to do. He recites a poem from memory: Every day we go along the river And your body Takes on the smell of the water. Seeing us, the wild geese Tune up their battle horns, And a cat behind its green hideout Lifts his tail in triumph. The old fishermen, With their buckets full of sorrow Move from place to place And a palm frond in our way =46orces me to bend my head. I stand still. And as you sleep on my shoulder I think to myself: "It's too late for me But maybe you will find The secret of the river." CAN MAJID IMAGINE EVER GOING back to Iran? "Only if the government apologized for what they did," he says emphatically. Isn't that unlikely? Is there even a precedent? "It's not unprecedented," Majid insists. "Madeleine Albright recently apologized for what the U.S. did to Iran in 1953, for the CIA coup. It's just like a personal relationship -- if you want to have a relationship, apology is the first step." However, he's not holding his breath, for an apology, or for his return. In the years since receiving asylum, Majid has become an American poet. Editor Ardavan Daravan, who included Majid's work in an influential anthology of Iranian-diaspora literature, spent years trying to find significant voices for his collection. Majid was among those writers, Daravan says, "who had made the transition . . . who could connect their experiences living abroad with their original cultural traditions." Fred Dewey of Beyond Baroque wrote in his foreword to Muddy Shoes that Majid's poetry "is born of great suffering yet affirms deep dignity and respect for that wider experience of the world, brought here through danger and carved out of solitude and reflection. Tragically, we are seldom allowed to hear or see such things, blocked from sensing the reality of other countries, knowledges, forms of speech; when these are allowed in, or come in, they are, without recourse, smoothed out, conquered, if you will, without mercy. Majid, as a poet of Los Angeles, suggests a new route." Majid's adopted city has recently adopted one of his poems. At the intersection of Brooks Avenue and Ocean Front Walk in Venice, where Majid frequently jogs with Az=E2d on a scooter beside him, the L.A. Recreation and Parks Department has engraved on a concrete wall a stanza from his long poem "Ah, Los Angeles." The poem is Majid Naficy's manifesto, one that proclaims he is no longer in exile. =20 Ah, Los Angeles! I accept you as my city, And after 10 years am at peace with you. Waiting without fear I lean back against the bus post. And I become lost In the sounds of your late night. A man gets off the Blue Bus 1 And crosses to this side To take RTD 4. Perhaps he too is coming back =46rom his nights on campus. On the way he has sobbed Into a blank letter. And he has heard the voice of a woman With a tropical accent. On the RTD 4 it rains. A woman is talking to her umbrella And a man ceaselessly flushes a toilet. I told Carlos yesterday, "Your clanging cart Wakes me up in the morning." He collects cans And wants to go back to Cuba. =46rom the Promenade Comes the sound of my homeless man. He sings sadly As he plays his guitar. Where in the world can I hear The black moaning of the trumpet Alongside the Chinese chimes? And see this warm olive skin Through blue eyes? The heedless pigeons Have perched on the empty benches. They stare at the dinosaur Who sprays old water on our kids. Marziyeh sings from afar. I return, homesick And I put my feet On your back. Ah, Los Angeles! I feel your blood. You taught me to get up And look with love At my beautiful legs And along with the marathon Run on your broad shoulders. Once I wanted to commit suicide. I coiled up under my blanket And was a recluse for two nights. Then, I turned on the radio, And I heard the poems of a Russian poet, Who in a death camp, Was denied paper But his wife learned them by heart. Will Az=E2d read my poems? On the days that I take him to school, He sees the bus number from far off. And makes things easier for me. At night he stays under the shower And lets the drops of water Spray on his young skin. Sometimes we go to the beach. He bikes and I skate. He buys a Pepsi from a machine And gives me one sip. Yesterday we went to Romteen's house. His father is a Parsee from India. He wore sadra and kusti While he was painting the house. On that little stool He looked like a Zoroastrian Rowing from Hormuz to Sanjan. Ah, Los Angeles! Let me bend down and put my ear To your warm skin. Perhaps in you I will find my own Sanjan. No, it's not a ship scraping Against the rocky shore; It's the rumbling of Blue Bus 8. I know. I will get off at Idaho Street And will pass the shopping carts Left by the homeless. I will climb the wooden staircase And will open the door. I will start the answering machine And in the dark I will wait like a fisherman. ____________________________________ Christine Palma "Echo in the Sense" - Poetry, Prose, Performance - Cultural and Public Affairs Programming KXLU Los Angeles - 88.9 FM Saturday Evenings from 8 to 9 PM E-mail: Christine@DROMO.com Tel: (714) 979-3414 "Take a step into the sublime. . ." =09 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 15:14:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Should flarf ignore macadamia nuts? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Once a proud and lofty symbol of America's cultural heritage, this American Chestnut tree is now a table: \ / ~ o ~ / \ / / ( ) / \ / \ ( ) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | \ / . \ / - - . - - . O o O 0 <---Macadamia** nuts (from an earlier party) * __________________________________ **mak-uh-DAY-mee-uh. The macadamia tree is native to Australia and was named for John McAdam, the Scottish-born chemist who cultivated it. In the 1890s the macadamia journeyed from Tasmania to be cultivated in Hawai'i (now its largest exporter) and, eventually, California. _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 10:03:30 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Susan M. Schultz" Subject: Re: Should flarf ignore macadamia nuts? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit How appropriate that the Hawai`i mac nuts end up scattered beneath The American Table (title of a Ronald Johnson cookbook, come to think of it). Flarf on, semblables! sms ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Sullivan" To: Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 9:14 AM Subject: Should flarf ignore macadamia nuts? > Once a proud and lofty symbol of America's cultural heritage, this American > Chestnut tree is now a table: > > \ / > ~ o ~ > / \ > / > / > ( ) > / \ > / \ > ( ) > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > | | | | > | | | | > | | | | > | | | | > | | | | > | | | | > \ / . \ / > - - . - - > . > O > o O > 0 <---Macadamia** nuts (from an earlier party) > * > > > > __________________________________ > **mak-uh-DAY-mee-uh. The macadamia tree is native to Australia and was named > for John McAdam, the Scottish-born chemist who cultivated it. In the 1890s > the macadamia journeyed from Tasmania to be cultivated in Hawai'i (now its > largest exporter) and, eventually, California. > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Join the world's largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. > http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 14:36:22 -0500 Reply-To: dtv@mwt.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mIEKAL aND Organization: Awkword Ubutronics Subject: Re: Should flarf ignore macadamia nuts? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit chinese x japanese blight resistent crosses are making a big comeback... look for them in your local grocery within the next 25 years. Gary Sullivan wrote: > Once a proud and lofty symbol of America's cultural heritage, this American > Chestnut tree is now a table: > > \ / > ~ o ~ > / \ > / > / > ( ) > / \ > / \ > ( ) > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | > | | | | > | | | | > | | | | > | | | | > | | | | > | | | | > \ / . \ / > - - . - - > . > O > o O > 0 <---Macadamia** nuts (from an earlier party) > * > > __________________________________ > **mak-uh-DAY-mee-uh. The macadamia tree is native to Australia and was named > for John McAdam, the Scottish-born chemist who cultivated it. In the 1890s > the macadamia journeyed from Tasmania to be cultivated in Hawai'i (now its > largest exporter) and, eventually, California. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. > http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 12:26:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christine Palma Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? Comments: To: joris@ALBANY.EDU Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >I am also having a guest sometime in June - Majid Naficy, a Palestinian Poe= t. Correction - I meant "Iranian" poet. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 16:59:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kuszai Subject: a question and a half Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I'm curious about the political. For all the bickering on the list, there are many assumptions continually operative at all levels. These are often so-called political assumptions. These assumptions are revealed by certain features of the discussion. For example, the recent use of the word "stalinist" to describe the moderators of this list is supposed to shock us. Its rhetoric comes with an implied architecture: the list moderators are the "government" in a sense, gatekeepers to the public sphere which constitutes the poetics list community. As a group we tend to admire "freedom fighters" over "terrorists," or as skilled rhetors one woman's terror becomes another man's right, etc. etc. I remember when as list moderator I was sent in to root out a bunch of sneaky terrorists. They called themselves freedom fighters, but we knew better. Seriously, the recent manipulations of history in both popular and local media comprising any campaign suggest that there is an operative plan at work. This often unstated plan has a political dimension, even if it is not reflexive or well considered. Why not type out direct statements about where people are coming from politically? How much diversity is there? I wonder if there aren't any silent Republicans out there. How about Rush Limbaugh fans? Surely there must be some difference of opinion. Wouldn't it be useful to get a series of perspectives in play? I'm curious to know how and where people are locating these expectations. What are your politics? How does your political orientation inflect your poetry, your poetry criticism, or your teaching? I realize this is a big question. Let me give you an example, from Jameson: "The first business of a Marxist teacher - in whatever field, the social sciences or the humanities - is clearly to teach Marxism itself. That means that we first have to have a fairly clear idea of the fundamental features or concepts of the doctrine, and also, as I'll show more fully in a moment, a fairly clear sense of the kinds of unconscious resistance people have to these ideas. For what it's worth, I'll give my own check list of these features =8A. The basic ideas that need to be understood for a grasp of Marxism =8A: the nature, dynamics, and polarizing logic of social class; the labor theory of value; alienation and commodity reification; the hidden logic of historical dynamics, most specifically in a relationship to social revolution, but also in more static situations of domination or hegemony, national and international; a commitment to the problem of ideology (but not necessarily to any particular model of it), as well as to the problem of superstructures, in short, to the whole problem of the 'determination of consciousness by social being'; finally, a sense of the great overall organizing concept of Marxism which is the notion of the mode of production, a concept which ought to end by raising the most urgent issues of the difference between capitalism and pre-capitalist societies, of the originality or not of present-day consumer or late monopoly capitalism as against the classical kind, and of course, last but most important, the possible nature of socialism or communism as a social formation." ("Marxism and Teaching" p 31) Written in the early seventies, and published in a journal edited, among others, by Bruce Andrews, this doesn't seem like a paragraph that would get written today, does it? Actually, many academic arguments are framed in terms of political language much like this and such positions (which have become somewhat implicit--and that's my point) dominate the academic marketplace. What was great about writing like this or of the Syracuse group of a few years ago was its explicit take on the structures of the field and how certain behaviors either reproduced certain ideological formations or overturned them. Another places where this is true is - oddly - in much of the theory comprising the field of composition and rhetoric. The book Charles referred to provided one of the only interesting panels at the recent College Composition and Communication Conference in Chicago. What interested me there as well as in the above Jameson quote is the explicit linking of the political to the content of instruction, which is linked (presumably) to other structures, and certainly we can raise many issues with the what and the how of what is being said here. What interests me is the direct statement that lays bare the notion that the practices are linked. For example, in her book, Juliana links a theory of anarchism to her conception of certain reading practices. For me, this instantly makes her critical work far more valuable to me than her poetry, as much as I may enjoy that. Regardless of your feelings about the above Jameson quote, or rather treating is as an example, I'm curious to know how people relate to this question. I realize this is a kind of academic question in that I'm primarily interested in the cultural workers working in academic or other related institutional settings. Poets - lest they feel excluded and whatnot - might consider this in terms of their poetry; editors and publishers in terms of their work. I think we can make use of the list space by getting as many people to type up paragraphs like the above-a sort of instant anthology of direct statements (manifests?)- how many people can we encourage to contribute? (The historical problem with over-posting was that it led to noise and actually less participation.) Any thoughts? -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 17:47:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Clai Rice Subject: self-organizing journals (was Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times)) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Brandon, your proposal is very interesting. On one level what you are suggesting is what is already being done with citation reports, which serve as evidence that someone has taken your writing seriously enough to mention it. On Wed, 8 May 2002, Brandon Thomas Barr wrote: > I find this thread quite interesting. > > On Tue, 7 May 2002, Clai Rice wrote: > > Requiring print publications for academic promotion secures only three > > results as far as I can tell: the academy rewards renown rather than > > research, it ensures continued intellectual laziness on the part of > > tenured faculty, who no longer need to read (that is, deal with the ideas > > of) texts written by their own community, and it guarantees that those > > with print access will continue to control the direction of scholarship as > > those who cannot afford print access stay quietly in the dark. > > > > This is a jaded view of the peer-review process. It seems to concentrate > on its perceived effects instead of its goals, which center around the > judgement of research prior to dissemination. The reason why it is a > measure for tenure promotion is because, for years, it was the best way to > evidence the production of worthwhile research and criticism. Yes, the sign is a jaded icon, as I tried to say in the paragraph you snipped. > PDF as a distribution tool has its flaws precisely because it ignores any > sort of feedback loop. Print publication goes through a dual feedback > loop (although it's a slow one)--the editorial pre-publication process and > the market feedback (i.e. sales of the book and criticism). PDF bypasses, > in many ways, both. Only if the PDF is posted by an individual on his or her own site. One benefit of peer review is the opportunity to rewrite/rework one's writing in response to helpful feedback. Going on record with an article before that point would result in more of a listserve format, with the attendant hesitations concerning quoting etc that were discussed re Watten's request last week. One can easily imagine a combination of the two vetting processes in an online journal: submission, peer review, rewriting, resubmission, (editing), posting, then the process of reading and rating you describe. They could be combined even more if initial submissions were posted to a site where access was restricted to a set of 'editors' who had agreed to read and rate/comment within, say, 2 weeks. An online journal that seems to be working well within a print framework is Psyart, http://www.clas.ufl.edu/ipsa/journal/index.htm. The final rating process takes place informally on the listserve. Clai ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 18:59:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Kimmelman, Burt" Subject: Reading on Radio - NYC, May 12th at 10PM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Marsh Hawk Press authors (Sharon Dolin, Burt Kimmelman, and Stephen = Paul Miller) with upcoming books will be reading from them on WKCR (89.9 = FM), on Friday May 12th from 10 to 11 PM.=20 -----Original Message----- From: Christine Palma To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Sent: 5/9/02 3:07 PM Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? Pierre Joris wrote: >Subject: Re: Middle Eastern Poets? At 9:02 PM -0400 5/3/02, Libbie Rifkin wrote: >I'm finding The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology, ed. >Natalie Handal, (New York: Interlink Books, 2000) to be really >illuminating. The 60-page introduction (which I'm just getting = through) is >exhaustive, to say the least. I had Nathalie Handal and some of these poets from 'The Poetry of Arab Women: A Contemporary Anthology' on as guests a few months back - I = have a recording of the night they did at Beyond Baroque that I edited and burned to a CD and can send it to you or upload it to you if you have server space - either as .aiff or as .mp3. Let me know if you'd like this. The anthology is wonderful and has an amazing scope, both from the countries where the women write from and from the diversity of their educational backgrounds and idea of poetics. Jordan Elgrably from the Levantine Center has been setting up these types of events here in Los Angeles and could probably provide more extensive info on Arab Poets. Levantine Center is new, basically it's purpose is to promote Arab Culture to open up a window on the region that's not necessarily political. He would probably be able to hook you up with Nathalie or her publicist. She travels quite a bit and may even live = in New York... He's at: LevantineCenter@aol.com I am also having a guest sometime in June - Majid Naficy, a Palestinian Poet. At the end of this e-mail is a very good article that the LA Weekly wrote on him. His e-mail address is: majidnaficy@yahoo.com :-) Christine Palma http://www.laweekly.com/ink/01/12/cover-steinman.shtml or a printer friendly version at: http://www.laweekly.com/printme.php3?&eid=3D22197 February 9 - 15, 2001 Poet of the Revolution Majid Naficy's tragic journey home by Louise Steinman Why do I speak in poetry? Because in this heavy mist, I cannot be a lighthouse For drifting boats. THE BACK DOOR TO MAJID NAFICY'S MODEST SANTA Monica apartment is open. The aroma of sweet and sour wafts in from a Chinese hole-in-the-wall across the parking lot. A clay pot full of fresh mint sits on the railing of the small patio. On his bookcase shelves, well-worn volumes in Farsi and a few in English, including Walt Whitman and a Hebrew-English dictionary. On an old desk there's an enlargement device that allows the nearly blind poet to magnify text 60 times so that he can read. Az=E2d, Majid's 12-year-old son, is at school -- but he has left behind ample evidence of an American boyhood: skateboard, baseball mitt, Pok=E9mon cards, sneakers, a = Michael Jordan poster taped to the refrigerator. Majid is a political refugee from Iran, where he was an active participant in the revolution against the shah. He lost his first wife, Ezzat, his brother Sa'id, his brother-in-law Hossein, numerous friends and, ultimately, his country to the death squads of Ayatollah Khomeini's fundamentalist Islamic regime. On the table, there's a framed, faded black-and-white photograph: a young unveiled woman with a heart-shaped face and a shy, serious expression. "This is Ezzat," Majid says tenderly, as if introducing someone physically present. He has described this photo in a poem, "To a Picture": I see you in the middle of the garden The red roses have covered your skirt. You seem to be standing on tiptoe To get a better view of the other side. Alas, you fell down in the execution field And my body did not cover you How short was the landscape of the other side! But our love still stands upright. The edge of the picture is torn. "Ezzat's mother used to be in the photo," he says, "but I promised her that I would cut her out." There are no photos of Majid and his first wife together. They both lived underground in = the dangerous years following the 1979 revolution. "We did not want the secret police to recognize us," he says. I first encountered Majid at a "Writing in Exile" conference sponsored by Villa Aurora in 1995. The Villa, an artists' residence and cultural center in Pacific Palisades, is now maintained by the German Foreign Office = and the Goethe-Institut. The former residence of novelist Leon Feuchwanger, a Jewish-German refugee, it's now dedicated to preserving the memory of writers who fled the Nazis, and to other exiled peoples. At the conference, Majid read from one of his essays. I was impressed with the sense of authority he projected, his quiet intensity, his keen insights into the painful experience of leaving behind one's native tongue, one's family, one's history: "My body lives in L.A., but my soul is still rummaging through the ruins of a lost revolution back in Iran." In 1999, Beyond Baroque Literary Center published Muddy Shoes, Majid's first collection of poems translated into English. Soon after, Majid read from his work at the downtown Central Library (where I program the reading series). Az=E2d sat in the front row of the auditorium, swinging his = legs, busy with his Gameboy. Majid walked to the stage of the Mark Taper Auditorium. A small tape recorder hung from a strap around his neck. He put on earphones and pressed the "start" button. Until then, few in the audience realized that Majid, who doesn't use a cane, is legally blind. He never glanced down at a page, but instead prompted himself with his own voice, his calm, uninflected phrases following the rise and fall of his breath on tape. The audience was mesmerized. His poems were indeed rummaging through the ruins of the lost revolution, places with names like the Cemetery of Infidels, Evin Prison, the Tower of Silence. History and the sad weight of personal and cultural loss were compressed into haunting lyrics: "I don't want you, petroleum!/Oh, bloody stream! For a long time,/I thought you gave me blood./Now I see, you made me bleed." In Iran, this gentle, soft-spoken, middle-aged poet had been an ardent revolutionary. When asked for an interview, he was slightly = incredulous: "Haven't you read my poems? My life is already an open book." Nevertheless, over the course of several weeks, he patiently attempted to describe to me his experience of the 1979 revolution he so fervently worked for, the revolution that so spectacularly failed, the revolution that ended up turning so many lives upside down and inside out. MAJID WAS BORN IN ISFAHAN, AS HE PUTS IT, "ONE year before the CIA coup in 1953," the ominous event that toppled Prime Minister Mohammed = Mossadegh, who had nationalized Iran's oil industry. Initiated by Britain and approved by President Eisenhower because of fears about oil and communism, the CIA-orchestrated coup brought Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi to power. Thanks to a recently leaked CIA report (excerpts of which were published in = The New York Times), Americans can now read for themselves how, by deposing a still-popular nationalist leader and installing the despotic shah, the U.S. government short-circuited an evolving democratic process and = indirectly set the stage for the 1979 Islamic takeover of Iran. "There are no shortcuts in history," Majid said soberly during one of our sessions at his kitchen table. "I believe in that. If you think you can take a = shortcut, you have to pay a price for it. And that's what we're suffering from now. When there is no civil society, the group of people that comes to power -- however good-intentioned they are -- ends up becoming dictators themselves." Isfahan, a city nearly as old as Iran itself, is world-renowned for its architectural beauty. I found a book on Isfahan and leafed through the glorious images: the central bridge with 33 arches over the Zayandeh River; blue-tiled mosques with vaulted archways and towering minarets; the Palace of the 40 Columns, with its long reflecting pool lined with rosebushes; the vast central plaza, twice as large as Moscow's Red Square; the Palace = of Ali Qapu ("sublime gate"), Iran's first skyscraper; the 17th-century Imam Mosque, with acoustics so perfect, according to L.A. Times Middle East correspondent Robin Wright, that "stomping on the black paving stones beneath the dome generates a ripple of seven equal echoes." The Isfahan of Majid's childhood was a tolerant city, Jewish, Armenian and Ba'hai communities mingling with the majority Muslims. It was also a city that was mixing, for the first time, modern with ancient -- fumes from the Soviet-built metallurgy plant collided with the fragrance of cherry trees in spring. The Naficy family was large (nine children, five boys and four girls) and relatively affluent. Majid's father, a cardiologist trained in Tehran and the United States, is a seventh-generation physician in a family lineage extending back to the 14th century. His mother was a religious woman who preferred to wear the veil =E2 in public even though, under = the shah, it had been banned. His parents were both peaceful people. "My father gave me a sense of being curious," says Majid, "in terms of books and different cultures. He took us to all different parts of Iran. My = mother was very kind. She gave us a sense of how to know other people, and she was always optimistic." Majid's talent for poetry was recognized at an early age; his first = poem was published in a literary journal in Isfahan when he was only 13, thanks to a poet who was the teacher of his older brother. This teacher, who edited the journal, invited the young prot=E9g=E9 to the literary = salons that rotated among the houses of Isfahan's various writers. This was a considerable honor in a country with a rich literary and cultural past, where people revere great poets and plant luxuriant gardens around = their tombs. Fortunately for Majid, his extreme nearsightedness was also discovered at an early age: "I was 5 years old, sitting in a room with my uncle, who asked me to turn on the light. I looked up and I couldn't = see the switch. So the first summer before I went to first grade, I wore eyeglasses. It was very unusual for a child to have eyeglasses, especially in Isfahan. Perhaps that is what made me feel separate from the crowd." Life in Isfahan among his large family made possible a childhood that even now conjures pleasant memories. There was a grape arbor in the back yard; he was close with his siblings, especially his sisters, and confided in them. From the shelves of the huge library -- some 3,000 volumes -- = that his family had collected over the years, the young poet selected his first long novel, Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Yet even a young child sheltered by a loving family could see the evidence of a cruel regime. A memory from age 6: "My school class was taken in the early morning to watch the shah pass by in a parade. We had to stand in the street a long time. It was very cold. When the shah passed in his special car, a man tried to reach his window -- to give him an envelope, = perhaps a complaint. Two guards rushed forward and beat the man with their ceremonial swords. This made a deep impression on me." As he grew older, the oppressive presence of SAVAK, the shah's secret police, filtered into all aspects of daily life. Citizens could be imprisoned for any imagined slight against the government. In the = shah's dungeons, torture was routine. At the same time as he was forcefully modernizing the country, fattening the military, importing specialists from abroad to build his "Great Civilization," the shah was silencing the most enlightened Iranians. Intellectual discourse was stifled. Over the years, there was increasingly heavy censorship of films, newspapers, books and fiction. In 1969, the shah dissolved the Iranian Writers' Organization. The year after he graduated from high school in Isfahan, Majid came to California to study. UCLA, like other American campuses, was at the = time roiled by protests against the war in Vietnam. It was Majid's first exposure to democratic protest, and he was impressed by the vigor of young Americans' opposition to the war. At UCLA, he also met other Iranians, members of the Iranian student confederation that opposed the shah's government. Their Marxism rubbed off on him. "I'd been an existentialist," he tells me. "A conscious existentialist who was very influenced by Sartre. I read existential books which criticized Marxism, but when I came = here, because of the situation of exile, and because a new radical movement was taking shape in Iran, I became very involved with what we called the urban-guerrilla movement." At the end of that year, Majid transferred to Tehran University and committed himself to the movement to overthrow the shah. The newly minted Marxist revolutionary was not just opinionated, he was -- as he now describes -- "self-righteous, intolerant of others' beliefs." He vowed not to write poetry again "until the liberation of the proletariat." "I criticized my poetry as a petit-bourgeois part of my life," he says. "I was not alone. Many intellectuals in Iran went that way. When the guerrilla movement started in the 1970s, it polarized the intelligentsia. Some of them were subsidized by the government, and some of them joined the armed opposition movement." Majid's own brother Sa'id was arrested by SAVAK = in 1973. His family was tipped off that their house would be raided; = aunts, uncles and cousins split up the library, distributing the 3,000 volumes in basements and closets all over Isfahan. IN 1977, MAJID MET EZZAT TABAIAN, FIVE YEARS HIS junior, a student of physiotherapy at Tehran University. "The first thing we did together = was to organize a protest on campus," he says. "To control the students, SAVAK had set a curfew on the women's dormitory. There were guards everywhere on campus. The women could not get in or go out of their residence after 8 p.m." Majid and Ezzat made large posters calling for a protest, and posted them around campus. The ensuing demonstration was a success: The curfew was rescinded. Ezzat and Majid became inseparable and soon married. In 1978, just a year before the revolution, the couple traveled around Iran to villages and factories to organize workers and write about the socioeconomic situation. Majid translated and edited a book about women's liberation as well as = a Marxist critique of existentialism, both banned by the censors. Around that time, their political group, Peykar, broke with strict Marxist = ideology. "We decided that armed struggle was not right. The masses have to make revolution." By January 1979, the shah had fled the country. There was a brief, sudden state of freedom, but the revolution was soon hijacked by the extreme right, and hope of real democracy fast faded. "I condemn the corrupt intellectuals and the poisoned pens of conspiring writers and democrats," Ayatollah Khomeini declared soon after his victory. During the terror that ensued, thousands of intellectuals were executed or arrested. Majid and Ezzat went underground, using false identification and living in a safe house. Majid, as a key member of Peykar's "theoretical team," continued to write, edit and produce a monthly underground publication for the organization. One afternoon during the fall of 1981, Majid waited at the Shadabad bus station in Tehran for a 5 p.m. rendezvous with his wife. Five p.m. passed, 6 p.m. passed, but Ezzat did not appear, nor would she ever appear again. She had already been captured and sent to Evin Prison. In his essay, "Prison Letters: A Look in the Correspondence of an Iranian Political Prisoner," Majid wrote, "I remember that on precisely January 7, 1982, = I felt that the heart of Ezzat, my late wife who had been detained for four months, was no longer beating, and when two days later I heard by telephone the news of her execution, I was not surprised. The prison walls were not able to separate our hearts." Disguised as a shopkeeper with a derby and beard, he sneaked into the Cemetery of Infidels, where the Khomeini regime buried its executed opponents in a series of fresh, unmarked graves. Families of the deceased located the graves by measuring paces. Majid found it eight steps = before the gate and 16 steps from the wall. Ezzat had been buried with one other woman and 50 men, all of whom had been executed together. In the wake of his wife's murder, the poetry returned. "It was winter," he says. "There was snow on the big mountains around Tehran. I'd gone up = to the mountains with friends to commemorate Ezzat. When we came down, I went to the safe house. I sat down, and all of a sudden poetry came back to me. 'I must create her again,' I thought. 'I must take revenge on her killers.' I wrote nine poems in one sitting. I hadn't written poetry in eight years. Now I know how those cavemen felt when they drew those bulls on the walls of caves. You want to create what was lost. It gives you energy -- for hunting, for magic. It's when you feel powerless against reality, = that's when art comes to you." Eight months after Ezzat's execution, Majid met a fellow revolutionary named Esmat. "We met each other at a very bad time in our lives," he says. They rented a safe house and lived there together for six months. In April 1983, they fled Iran. With the help of Kurdish guerrillas, they = traveled seven days by horseback over the border from Iran into Turkey, moving only by night to minimize detection. Majid carried very little with him: the nine poems for Ezzat he'd written the day he came down from the mountain, some money, an Afghani passport, a photo of his brother Sa'id, and the torn photograph of Ezzat as a teenager in her garden in Isfahan -- the one that sits on the table of his Santa Monica apartment today. After a year-and-a-half stay in Turkey and France, Majid successfully applied for political asylum in the United States. "I considered France my second homeland, but my eyesight was failing and I already knew English very well." Settling in Venice with Esmat, who became his second wife and the mother of his son -- now divorced, they remain good friends -- he re-dedicated himself to his vocation as a poet and commenced a period = of intense soul-searching. Where had his ideological thinking led him? Where had it led his country? "I said to myself, 'Ezzat is dead. The revolution is defeated. Okay. But now, what do you want to do with your life? You have to start a new life.'" He started from scratch, first rethinking and criticizing Marx, then looking squarely at his own culture. "I started to see what had happened, because both the left and the right -- both religionists and atheists = -- admired getting killed, and killing. We wanted to change the regime, no matter what came after that. Khomeini used the religious feelings of people to his advantage. He mixed death worship, or martyrdom worship, with political ideals." Majid's re-examination yielded a book-length collection of essays, written in Persian, with the self-revealing title In Search of Joy: A Critique of Male-Dominated, Death-Oriented Culture in Iran. There was still plenty of death to reckon with. The Iran-Iraq war was claiming thousands of Iran's young men. In September 1987, about 800 members of L.A.'s large Iranian community (there are 600,000 Iranians now estimated to be living in Los Angeles) gathered outside the Federal Building to protest a visit to the United Nations by the president of Iran. It was at this demonstration that Neusha Farahi, a friend of Majid's = who owned a Persian bookstore, also in Westwood, set fire to himself as the ultimate act of protest. He died 13 days later. "I touched his hand while we waited for the paramedics," Majid recalls, wincing. "It was like a burnt chicken wing." When he came home that same afternoon, Majid wrote "The Self-Immolation of Neusha," lamenting the seduction of martyrdom. It contains the lines: The crowd cried in fury Trying to gain strength from death. I told myself, "Again a corpse in front. Again a casket behind." Alas! We were guardians of life, But the guardians of death killed so much. Killed so much. Killed so much. So that life tasted of death in our mouths. IT'S A HOT SUMMER NIGHT IN LOS ANGELES, AND it's Majid's turn to host the monthly gathering of "Saturday Notebooks." This Persian literary group has been meeting together for 10 years, and they have published three chapbooks of their work. Majid's small apartment has been transformed: Twenty people -- men and women -- crowd into his living room. Everyone has brought something to read and critique, as well as something to eat. There is a vase of pale-pink roses, bowls of fresh basil and mint leaves, hummus, peaches, plums. Chicken-and-squash stew simmers on the stove. The scheduled start time is 7 p.m., but participants straggle in late from a demonstration at the Federal Building, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the government crackdown on pro-reform =E2 student demonstrations in Tehran. As the session finally gets under way, Majid asks for a moment of silence in memory of his dear friend Houshang Golshiri, one of Iran's greatest fiction writers and a prominent advocate of human rights, who has recently died in Tehran. Everyone stands, heads bowed. Even to a guest with zero comprehension of Farsi, plenty is = communicated over the next several hours. All these writers bring seriousness and passion to their work. When your colleagues at home are being arrested, imprisoned, even murdered, for their exercise of free expression, the right to exchange words and ideas is not a privilege you take for granted. I can't help stealing glances at the man sitting beside me, who is = missing the ring finger on his right hand. Later, Majid confirms my hunch: This writer lost his finger during a torture session in one of the shah's prisons. Around 10 p.m., the group pauses for supper. I heap onto my plate some of Majid's stew. "Delicious!" I comment to one of the writers. He sidles closer. "Actually," he confides, "Majid is a much better poet than he = is a cook." He takes another mouthful himself. "And he is a most wonderful father." AZ=E2D AND HIS BUDDY DAVID ZOOM in the front door of the apartment on their shiny scooters. Az=E2d is a robust, handsome kid with meltingly = beautiful dark eyes. He is not shy. To the time-honored question of "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Az=E2d has a ready, earnest answer: "I don't = want to have poetry for a job when I grow up. I'd like to be a basketball = player or a baseball player." What does he think of his father's poetry? His eyes light up. He grins at his dad. "My favorite is 'Secret of the River.' = My dad wrote it for me. I've read it to my class at school." Before = heading out the door with his friend, he does something I've never known a 12-year-old boy to do. He recites a poem from memory: Every day we go along the river And your body Takes on the smell of the water. Seeing us, the wild geese Tune up their battle horns, And a cat behind its green hideout Lifts his tail in triumph. The old fishermen, With their buckets full of sorrow Move from place to place And a palm frond in our way Forces me to bend my head. I stand still. And as you sleep on my shoulder I think to myself: "It's too late for me But maybe you will find The secret of the river." CAN MAJID IMAGINE EVER GOING back to Iran? "Only if the government apologized for what they did," he says emphatically. Isn't that unlikely? Is there even a precedent? "It's not unprecedented," Majid insists. "Madeleine Albright recently apologized for what the U.S. did to Iran = in 1953, for the CIA coup. It's just like a personal relationship -- if = you want to have a relationship, apology is the first step." However, he's not holding his breath, for an apology, or for his = return. In the years since receiving asylum, Majid has become an American poet. Editor Ardavan Daravan, who included Majid's work in an influential anthology of Iranian-diaspora literature, spent years trying to find significant voices for his collection. Majid was among those writers, Daravan says, "who had made the transition . . . who could connect their experiences living abroad with their original cultural traditions." Fred Dewey of Beyond Baroque wrote in his foreword to Muddy Shoes that Majid's poetry "is born of great suffering yet affirms deep dignity and respect for that wider = experience of the world, brought here through danger and carved out of solitude and reflection. Tragically, we are seldom allowed to hear or see such things, blocked from sensing the reality of other countries, knowledges, forms of speech; when these are allowed in, or come in, they are, without recourse, smoothed out, conquered, if you will, without mercy. Majid, as a poet = of Los Angeles, suggests a new route." Majid's adopted city has recently adopted one of his poems. At the intersection of Brooks Avenue and Ocean Front Walk in Venice, where Majid frequently jogs with Az=E2d on a scooter beside him, the L.A. = Recreation and Parks Department has engraved on a concrete wall a stanza from his long poem "Ah, Los Angeles." The poem is Majid Naficy's manifesto, one that proclaims he is no longer in exile. =20 Ah, Los Angeles! I accept you as my city, And after 10 years am at peace with you. Waiting without fear I lean back against the bus post. And I become lost In the sounds of your late night. A man gets off the Blue Bus 1 And crosses to this side To take RTD 4. Perhaps he too is coming back From his nights on campus. On the way he has sobbed Into a blank letter. And he has heard the voice of a woman With a tropical accent. On the RTD 4 it rains. A woman is talking to her umbrella And a man ceaselessly flushes a toilet. I told Carlos yesterday, "Your clanging cart Wakes me up in the morning." He collects cans And wants to go back to Cuba. From the Promenade Comes the sound of my homeless man. He sings sadly As he plays his guitar. Where in the world can I hear The black moaning of the trumpet Alongside the Chinese chimes? And see this warm olive skin Through blue eyes? The heedless pigeons Have perched on the empty benches. They stare at the dinosaur Who sprays old water on our kids. Marziyeh sings from afar. I return, homesick And I put my feet On your back. Ah, Los Angeles! I feel your blood. You taught me to get up And look with love At my beautiful legs And along with the marathon Run on your broad shoulders. Once I wanted to commit suicide. I coiled up under my blanket And was a recluse for two nights. Then, I turned on the radio, And I heard the poems of a Russian poet, Who in a death camp, Was denied paper But his wife learned them by heart. Will Az=E2d read my poems? On the days that I take him to school, He sees the bus number from far off. And makes things easier for me. At night he stays under the shower And lets the drops of water Spray on his young skin. Sometimes we go to the beach. He bikes and I skate. He buys a Pepsi from a machine And gives me one sip. Yesterday we went to Romteen's house. His father is a Parsee from India. He wore sadra and kusti While he was painting the house. On that little stool He looked like a Zoroastrian Rowing from Hormuz to Sanjan. Ah, Los Angeles! Let me bend down and put my ear To your warm skin. Perhaps in you I will find my own Sanjan. No, it's not a ship scraping Against the rocky shore; It's the rumbling of Blue Bus 8. I know. I will get off at Idaho Street And will pass the shopping carts Left by the homeless. I will climb the wooden staircase And will open the door. I will start the answering machine And in the dark I will wait like a fisherman. ____________________________________ Christine Palma "Echo in the Sense" - Poetry, Prose, Performance - Cultural and Public Affairs Programming KXLU Los Angeles - 88.9 FM Saturday Evenings from 8 to 9 PM E-mail: Christine@DROMO.com Tel: (714) 979-3414 "Take a step into the sublime. . ." =09 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 21:39:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: self-organizing journals (was Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times)) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT As someone who has gone through (and sometimes circumvented) this processin both the arts and the sciences whether or not it is formally designated as suchI feel I should comment but I'm at a loss for words. In the science arena there is peer review and there is peer review, and the NEJM< JAMA, and Lancet even went through some problems recently because of financial pressures they were feeling but as a consumer (and analogically, reader) I've learned from experience to wait until I see it in their pages rather than hear it advertised on TV. I don't think the arts need to follow this model to be given equal status academically, but I'm not sure what that might be. It might be worth looking at the publication process of APA as a useful blend of the arts and sciences, here? tom bell [no titles] &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 19:33:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brandon Barr Subject: Re: self-organizing journals (was Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times)) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Only if the PDF is posted by an individual on his or her own site. One >benefit of peer review is the opportunity to rewrite/rework one's writing >in response to helpful feedback. Going on record with an article before >that point would result in more of a listserve format, with the attendant >hesitations concerning quoting etc that were discussed re Watten's request >last week. One can easily imagine a combination of the two vetting >processes in an online journal: submission, peer review, rewriting, >resubmission, (editing), posting, then the process of reading and rating >you describe. They could be combined even more if initial submissions >were posted to a site where access was restricted to a set of 'editors' >who had agreed to read and rate/comment within, say, 2 weeks. I would go a step further. I think that the solution you propose adds on to the peer-review system without necessarily considering if peer-review is the best means to accomplish its own ends (not that I wouldn't welcome a site like you propose!). What I am envisioning is a site, let's call it academedia.org (if it isn't taken yet). The site would be a sort of clearing-house for academic papers based on a slashdot/epinions self-organizing model. Authors could set up an account, and submit work in different categories. They would also read works and rate them, and if they really liked an author, they would add them to their "colleague" list. The first time they visited a category, they would see a mess of works. Once they started rating and trusting other authors, their reading experience would change. If they visited the "language poetry" section, they would see works by people they consider "colleagues," or that their colleagues respect. Highly rated essays would float to the top of each section, but that "ranking" is specific to each reader. Everyone would get his or her own niche journals filled with work they respect. A system like this can be done with present technology, and plays into the strengths of digital media. Instead of gatekeeping as the primary form of content management, you rely on filtering. Or you can do away with the clearinghouse and simply allow networks of writers to develop based upon the currency of links: like in blogging. Neither of these systems necessarily encourages rash, not thought-out writing like email based listservs with their ready send button. At their roots, they are content delivery mechanisms that adapt to whatever style of writing a writer prefers, and they allow a writer as much composition time prior to posting and the ability to revise their works after posting. Just some thoughts, -- Brandon Barr University of Rochester http://brandonbarr.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 19:04:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT No criticism should be ignored. It's all something to work against. As the best art always does. And if it doesn't, if it isn't transgressive, it's on a slippery slope toward propaganda. Maybe that was too harsh. And "transgressive" itself is questionable . . . But anyway, there are normalizing forces at work from all sides, not just from the academy. And they all must be worked with. Anthologies are a force. The Poetics List is a force. AWP & MLA are forces. American Poetry Review is a force. Right? I worked for seven years delivering newspapers to work my way through college and grad school. Believe me, the other people (in the central Texas area) working at the newspaper distribution center were a force putting pressure on my writing. When they found out I wrote POETRY . . . made my dissertation defence look like a game of spin the bottle. I swear I had a better point to make when I first started writing this. Oh well. Best, JGallaher ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 23:11:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: self-organizing journals (was Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times)) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT this kind of systemalready exists formally and informally in the sciences. Ingenta would be an example and informally there are several who post articles presubmission or prepublication and solicit feedback. tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 18:31:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Silem Mohammad" Subject: Re: a question and a half Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >From: J Kuszai >What are your politics? How does your political orientation inflect >your poetry, your poetry criticism, or your teaching? >I think we can make use of the list space by getting as many people >to type up paragraphs like the above [by Jameson]-a sort of instant >anthology of direct statements (manifests?)- how many people can we >encourage to contribute? Why am I being asked this? Is my commitment in question? Is the efficacy of my labor in doubt? Have I not served the cause diligently? I swear on the futures of the people, my loyalty is with the Party, and all the fruits of my endeavors are dedicated to the achievement of materialist Utopia! Believe me! Please do not send me to the "resorts." I give you my solemn word that I believe in a poetics that makes both the means of production and the commodities produced thereby available to the workers themselves (with the understanding that both will be used in good faith to further the ends of the Party). As a teacher, my duty, and the duty of every responsible pedagogue, is to present students with the concepts and statistics necessary for the construction of a collective consciousness in which aesthetic self-indulgence is subdued by the emergence of a virile class upheaval. Revolution begins in the notebooks of the ephebes. Texts are interchangeable, and canonization is fetishization. Scholars should know how to use a shovel and pickaxe as well as a computer and thesaurus. To hold forth the illusion of intellectual democracy is to betray the determined cycle of economic materiality that motivates all "culture." Poetry must acknowledge its status as applied metasymbolic communication, and a mature poetics must reveal anticommunicative models of poesis for the formalist mystifications they are. I said it correctly, no? Yes? Please let me keep my dog! He is for protection only; I have not invested him with any foolish anthropomorphic "personality"! Comrade Mohammad ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ K. Silem Mohammad Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit University of California Santa Cruz _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 20:04:36 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Kasey Mohammad (Hotmail)" Subject: Re: a question and a half In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I'm sorry, I was just goofing on Joel's question instead of taking it seriously. It was a reasonable question, and deserves a reasonable answer. So, in hopes of making amends, here's my sincere statement of political orientation, etc. I have no coherent political orientation. This is not to claim apoliticality; rather, I find myself constantly rehearsing a bevy of diverse, sometimes contradictory political opinions, responses, and biases, and these positions never manage to assemble into a unified position. I guess another way of saying this is that I'm a typical bourgeois liberal humanist. Nevertheless, I find myself more often agreeing with leftist analyses of world political situations than with "moderate" or right-wing; not usually liking either left or right solutions, but having none better to offer; not liking democrats any better than republicans, but usually hoping they win anyway; distrusting all utopian philosophies; sympathizing with environmentalist arguments even when I suspect that they are slanted or specious. These are all absurdly local reactions as opposed to articulated beliefs, but I'm just trying to be accurate here, and for me, accuracy involves a kind of particular, enumerative process of observation (here, self-observation). I'll leave it to someone else to perform the synthesis whereby they arrive at the conclusion: "wishy-washy." How does this play into my teaching and writing? In the classroom, I try whenever possible to point out how rhetoric and aesthetics are tied in to the production of ideological and political meanings in a given culture, including our own, but not in any systematic way or with any rigorously theorized agenda (other than on the broadest level of, say, "anti-Bush" sentiment, etc.). In my poetry, it's basically just a working through of the inchoate complexes I describe above. More often than not, this emerges in the work as a broad sense of paralyzing skepticism or disgust. I guess my earlier "joke" post reflects that. Again, I'm offering this as a political self-description, NOT a prescription. I'm not saying eclecticism is either good or bad, I'm just being honest. Would my poetry be "better" if I had a consistent politics that I plugged into it? I don't know. Maybe. All I can say is that I tend not to evaluate other poets on the basis of their political orientation or level of commitment to that orientation, except when it's manifestly reprehensible. And I actually can't remember the last time I saw a poem recommending the death penalty or anything like that anyway. Hope this helps. Sorry again for being a smartass the first time. Kasey ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 22:07:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hello, Originally I backchanneled this, but I'll go ahead and post it. I agree with Jeff's implication that that we are "denying something here," but it's not just a problem of disconnection between the academic writing and poetry, or even the academy and art; I think it's between the educational system and society. Especially humanities programs seem content to allow themselves to drift away from those who not only pay the bills but hope to become better educated through it. A literary "education" seems reserved for a class of skeptics who can talk in a certain code-language. Those willing to participate in a complicated power game. Hence the development of the ubiquitous "business school." (Who would want to be around us? Businesspeople may not understand Ashbery, but they are contemplative enough to know when they aren't learning anything useful.) No, humanities departments aren't training people to integrate academic knowledge with life, to see the relevance of literature to society, or giving them the resources to become better people (one of the earliest missions of an English education was moral improvement). One site of this "crisis" for English depts is composition, since every student has to take it. Here are the first two paragraphs from an article I ran across years ago in Public Interest called "Why Johnny Can't Write"-- admittedly it's a bit heated-- "American employers regard the nation's educational system as an irrelevance, according to a Census Bureau survey released in February of this year. Businesses ignore a prospective employee's educational credentials in favor of his or her work history and attitude. Although the census researchers did not venture any hypotheses for this strange behavior, anyone familiar with the current state of academia could have provided explanations aplenty. "One overlooked corner of the academic madhouse bears in particular on graduates' job-readiness--the teaching of writing. In the field of writing, today's education is not just an irrelevance, it is positively detrimental to a student's development. For years, composition teachers have absorbed the worst strains in both popular and academic culture. The result is an indigestible stew of 1960s liberationist zeal, 1970s deconstructivist nihilism, and 1980s multicultural proselytizing. The only thing that composition teachers are not talking and writing about these days is how to teach students to compose clear, logical prose." I would like to affirm Philip Nikolayev's statement that the "poetry scene" is as full of infighting and political bullshit as the academic world. Both "scenes" also have their deserving stars, those who plow through the BS and focus on what's at hand. I enjoy writing criticism, but I don't write much prose my mom can't understand on first reading (the poetry--eh hem--is another matter). Down with blocky obscurantist academese, and those assistant professors who write it! Down with specialism! My goal is to give a successful poetry reading at a truckstop in outstate Missouri. Best to all, Erma Bombeck ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 20:14:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Re: a question and a half MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I'm sorry, I was just goofing on Joel's question instead of taking it > seriously. It was a reasonable question, and deserves a reasonable answer. ...... >Sorry again for being a smartass the first time. > > Kasey And I was just about to backchannel you to say that your first post was the best thing I've ever seen posted to this list. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 21:04:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I find this to be a bad attitude: anti-intellectual, divisive . . . It works from a notion that poetry's input/output with its other related disciplines is a conveyor belt that goes something like AUTONOMOUS POET > EDITOR > PUBLISHER > a. READER b.1 CRITIC b.2 REVIEWER where the poet writes, the editor selects, the publisher puts into print/on-line, the unauthorized reader operates in a position of silence as unresponsive consumer, and the critic ---perish forbid--- responds. There is also a secondary/tertiary type of reader/critic position thought of as the "book review," which, unlike criticism, is welcome, as its seen as a form of book promotion or advertising. Anything that violates that flow chart, that chain of effects where the poetry is handed along with potatos in a potato sack race, such as critics overstepping their putatively derivative position and actually daring to become the inspiration or source of poetry, is regarded as a disturbance in poetry's ripple effects and should be avoided, condemned. Even when not outright ignored and boycotted, it is in an antagonistic relation to the poet (J. Gallagher: It's all something to work against. ""). First of all, I think this is wrong in that the different types of literature workers are not different ~species~ that lack the genes to mate. They are ~roles.~ Of the examples of the "stereotypical" academic critic position that Chris Stroffolino lists, ---Sianne Ngai, Lytle Shaw, Steve Evans, Juliana Spahr--- Lytle and Juliana are both poets as well, there is published and a novel poetry by Ngai (I have simply ever seen any poetry by Steve Evans and don't know if he writes poems), ~and,~ Juliana, multivalent, is poet, critic, ~and~ editor (Chain). At different times, one may fulfill one or the other function within the literary economy; they are not mutually exclusive. (In fact, the ~academic~ (as graduate student) is a very short-lived position, in general: viz., the Poetics archives where .edus come and go and ~disappear.~ There are years where the names of the main participants, just as eagerly involved then as today's subscribers in the current debate, have totally vanished from public record, in many cases presumably phased out of academics and maybe even poetry.) This conveyor belt model is based upon the fallacy of poety as, yes, definitely a stripe of language ("materialist") but poetry as an isolated discourse or form of text that does not engage in dialogue or draw upon and feed into the general element of language as fluidly as, for example, list posts do. A better-educated poet is a better poet (a better-educated ~person~ is in a better position to write). One of the artificial boundaries that Andrew Rathmann's anti-criticism rant sets up is a wall between poetry and thinking. To the contrary, as ideas are, in the final wash, very much a part of poetry (and inescapably a part of language, in its ideological dimension), why shouldn't poetry be in an open give-and-take with any and every area of thinking? Academic criticism is simply the commentary (critique, analysis) of literateurs whose somewhat more comfortable, non-"working class" positions afford them a greater leisure and impetus to direct themselves at thinking. They're ~experienced,~ hopefully, at honing their reading into a sort of hypostasis with thinking. Without the critic and feedback, ---how else does poetry advance itself? It's ~then~ that the raw power mechanisms of coterie, personal influence, private capital (publishing), etc., take on monopolistic dominance, and poets are promoted without studied justification beyond their proximity to major metropolitan centers, what good socialites they are, and so on. This false division between poetry and criticism, between poetry and other modes of language, instead of a relaxed switching back and forth between modes, as a sort of "broken English," may in fact be much of why the Poetics List has, in general, abandoned poetics. If Steve Evans' writing is discussed at the cocktail party, it's to agree how terribly rude of him it was be such a brute over Rebecca Wolff,--- since poets choose not to engage with his Hegelian ideas or the possibility that any friendly fire was just the regretable casualty of his otherwise coherent thinking. That function is split off. If a subscriber's sign-on doesn't have a conspicuous .edu suffix at the tail end (really just a form of wearing a fraternity pin, as subscriber accounts can just as easily be set up to more anonymous or democratic alternative e-mail servers), there's no way of speaking ~ex cathedra.~ Poets become completely submerged in poetry as solely ~practice,~ without being interested in ---our capacity to do so increasingly atrophies--- articulating anything about the poem in non-poem language: that would only expose how unreflexive and blind-to-itself the process has become for most. Oddly, too, the Language Poets that the List ostensibly dates back to were expressly engaged in producing their own, intellectualist poets' criticism, a genre that has largely disappeared. Poets now presume that their poems ~should~ go out deafly into the world, like the penny dropped into the wishing well without making any sound. If it ~does~ encounter dialogue, questions, analysis, criticism, the reaction ---because the poet has maintained herself/himself in such an interaction-starved vacuum--- is that there's something ~wrong~ with that, and it would be better to leave the work self-contained, hermetically sealed. We ~resent~ people responding. Personally, I think of the ultimate model of this New Man critic has having been the late Ramez Qureshi, someone who is at home and as hungry for the life of the mind as he was for the call of poetry. With no academic credentials beyond an on-line ~correspondence course~ B.A. that he was eternally completing, his criticism was quite serious, definitely respectable and sometimes exemplary in the insights it achieved,--- and he, at least, without any credentializing pay-off to be gained from it, was an absolute ~fanatic~ (fan) of Adorno's. (There should be a Ramez Qureshi Prize for Criticism established.) __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Shopping - Mother's Day is May 12th! http://shopping.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 20:54:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: Profiled/interviewed: three European Web/net.artists In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT The first of a series of profiles and interviews with web/net artists has been launched at http://turbulence.org/Works/media2 . Featured are Michiel Knaven (Holland), Reiner Strasser (Germany), and Stanza (England). All three are using English as the language of their sites, have produced impressive bodies of multimedia, interactive work available on the Web, and synthesize arts and media with an engaging command of tools ranging from DHTML to Flash and Shockwave. I hope you enjoy their work as I have. Regards, Jim Andrews http://vispo.com http://webartery.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 23:07:53 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT 1. Jeffrey Hamilton, I think Jeffrey Jullich's recent post is proof of how complex the issues are that Andrew Rathmann rants at, and the reason why I asked for some clarity to be mixed in with his rant if at all possible, so that we could get some differentiation. 2. Joel, are you thinking of asking Leonard why he thinks Kasey's first post is the greatest, given what Leonard has posted in the past? Please don't. 3a. Kasey, you don't need to apologize for status quo sentiments. No one else does on this list. b. I don't have my sources with me, but Marx, for one, has been taught in a number of top-notch business schools since the late ninetiess, if not earlier than that. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 01:08:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: phenomenology of approach: the work so far iv MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - (the work so far iv) phenomenology of approach = approaching the everglades, the city, illness, language, culture = 0 intermittent text the text of dispersal. sections are written into and out of the outline. the text is governed by the outline. subsequent versions increase the quantitative content, refine the tolerance of the investigation. the text is an accumulation or collocation of interspersions. 1 domain limited or unlimited a limited domain is inscribed with or without fuzzy boundaries. domains may be limited in sememe, space, and/or time. example: everglades bounded by hydrology, ecosystem. for example (below): everglades younger than writing, than human inscription. for example (below): the scribble: scribbled note, indecipherable handwriting, noise in the machine. the state/meant of the domain is always already a delimitation. (limits are closed sets in relation to the rest of the world/s, worlding.) 2 clues and cues from immemorial past a clue is an interpretable symptom, according to a scheme based on an articulated methodology. a cue is the activation of a scheme based on an anomaly or repetitive structure within the domain. the domain in turn may be defined by clues and cues. 3 difference between clues and cues a clue is based on evidence from the past to the present; a cue is based on activation within the present. 4 relevance theory and approach clues and cues are such by virtue of relevance; theoretical methodology is part of a critical sifting apparatus. 5 top-down classification schema this follows for example category theory, chaos/fractal theories; one always already begins with pre-theoretic presuppositions. 6 wonder, innovation, contradictions beginning with a sense of awe - everything signs everything, everything inscribes. innovation in terms of heuristic projections and introjections - contradictions in terms of anomalies, revisions, recuperations, returns. 7 deep ecologies, interstitial the ecologies become perceptually deeper; gaps are filled in; one lives in depth in the glades, aware of cyclical time, anomalous events, local histories, individual plants and animals. 8 filling in the habitus from larger to smaller clues and cues - alligators and wading birds to landbirds and invertebrates for example. as one moves down in scale, identification becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible. 9 from anomaly to behaviors and back again; behavior clusters based on attributes. or from story to structure, diachrony to synchrony, anecdote to prediction. 10 sense of occupation and intimacy inhabitation based on familiarity, familiality. 11 familiarity, familiality in the first, equivalence scripts and schemata, universals, typifications; in the second, identity scripts and experientials, individuations. 12 maternality chora and matrix - the inchoate beneath the surface of the subject. 13 deconstruction of the abject disarticulation of the abject as such and rearticulation in terms of microstructure, skein. the muck and clutter in relation to marl/peat moss and biome or flora/fauna regimes. muck and clutter as regimes. 14 phenomenology of naming following the notion of rigid designators, beginning with classification, classification experience, virtual subjectivity and its relation to concrete manifestation. 15 inarticulate inchoate maternality: see above. the proffering of languaging or template. 16 the mess and its overcoming entanglement as regime intrusions, conflicting biomes, collapse or implosion, niche-construction, problems of scale in space and time. 17 phenomenology of touch demarcation of environment on the body - thicket tangle, poisonwood, against the skin. differentiation of the mass. 18 reinscription of domain the domain _as_ continually inscribed in negotiation. linguistic contract of the subject. increasingly fuzzy boundary issues. refinement of differentiations - typology to decreasing tolerances. 19 immersive and definable structures definable is fully reversible; immersive is fuzzy, vectored. both are capable of meta-level collocations, i.e. a definable of definable, immersive of definable, etc. 20 clue skeins clues related theoretically, taxonomically, in terms of typifications, taxonomies - heuristic skeins, established on the run. 21 the instrumental reason of flows and part-objects fluid mechanics, turbulence, stases within the flow - non-equilibrium thermodynamics. the partitioning, parcelling, clutter, of the world. part-objects as modules: modules 'on the part of' the subject, and modules 'defined as such' within the continually reinscribed domain. 22 gestural logics and superimpositions such that partial information (as in land's experiments re: color vision) extends across a total domain or spectrum. 23 delaying conclusions and the settling-in of elements inconclusivity of discourses which are increasingly refined. elements noticed and defined 'settle in' - in the sense of familiarity - always with default tags - i.e. elimination by counterexample. retention of _weak theory_ - searching for coherency without retention of apparently outmoded paradigms. 24 continuous processing and absorption of anomalies anomalies as generative of domain boundaries, entities, temporary inscriptions, potential of part-objects, etc. the anomaly as the mis-fit among the accountable and accounted-for. as unaccountable, uncounted, the anomaly generates circumscriptions, circumlocutions; these are involved by the subject in a consideration and absorption of the _detour._ every anomaly potentially turns everything around, and is turned around by everything. 25 modes of approach in space and time diachronic/synchronic approaches - space-time slices. diffusion of occluded layerings (bay bottoms versus onshore mangrove island topography). architectonics of the domain. 26 horizons of 'natural' and 'unnatural' worlds and horizons of 'subjective' and 'objective' worlds - in relation to heuristics and experiential structures (immersivities). definition is both tool and violation; mobile fuzzy domain boundaries participate in the natural (i.e. given) order as well as ideological political/economic conscious and unconscious considerations. 27 weakening of perceptual structures and responses approach is always already self-critical, self-critique; the critique itself is withdrawn from the self, sublimated into emergent considerations of the domain. the phenomenology of approach implies a weakness of language, definition, inscription, boundary, instrumental reason; it implies releasement, waiting (not waiting-upon) as well. 28 releasement and listening to listen without consideration of the source, the speech, one's answer; to avoid pausological structures ('yes, but...'); to speak after (what appears to be) the case. 29 buildings, dwellings, and habitations domains as fuzzy architectures, the build world, to the extent of the delimitation. dwelling, as in residing within the domain, within the subjective horizon of the experiential mode in relation to the domain. the domain as inhabited by the subject, wor(l)ds becoming 'natural' in the sense of familiarity, familiality. 30 the neighborhood it is the neighborhood, communality, the constitutes the increasing approach of the domain. to the extent of a phenomenology of approach, the domain is asymptotic, never fully approached. the neighborhood is a confluence of neighborhoods, intersections demographics, zones and zoning ordinances, ethnicities - just about any conceivable attribute, fuzzy or not (for example, families whose surnames begin with 'Mc'). the neighbor- hood is also a maternality, a comfort-zone, an occupation constituted by the participant's introjections and projections. neighborhood is created by their increasing coherency and stability, a homeostatic domain itself. the attainment of homeostasis involves mechanisms for absorbing anomaly, to the extent that anomaly becomes subsumed (i.e. this moth is an unknown species within the imperial silk family). 31 intersecting populations and worlds no domain is pure, no approach can posit an isolated object for long. skeins intermesh diachronically and synchronically, across disciplines and other semi-rigid boundaries of the classical episteme. domains possess symptomatic leakage and staining; there are stigma-zones, exhaustion zones, depletion zones, zones of surplus accumulations. what is posited as an object both diffuses and expands; becoming invisible, it participates within neighborhooding, worlding - becoming visible, it participates in skew-orthogonal skeining and the report. 32 phenomenology of withdrawal 33 the skein (skew-orthogonal) the grid and its imposition, input-output matrices, markov chains, tensors and absorptions of data, local geodesics, fuzzy or clouded enumerations, collocations of data. 34 the skein (askew and local) the local scribble, local geodesics without embedding, fluid-mechanical or cellular automata modeling, closures, accumulations of data, local messes. 35 increasing audacity and circumscription 36 the report for example: the everglades as we know them are younger than writing; this residue is older than that. the report is tailored to distribution modes, economics, audience, historiographies, symbolic conventions, bibliography and reference, dedication and authority, placement within or without various series, a particular written language, attendant taxonomic ploys, languages, and paradigms. 37 the distribution 38 the thinking of it and the rethinking of it, the arc through and across the report, response, distributions, counter-distributions, argument and counter-argument, the return to the field, the walking-through the field, and always already transformation of the domain and its problematic. 39 the world of it the world is all that is the case. but the world and worlding are dissimilar and 'the' already breaks down among virtual and real, virtual particles and introjections/projections, phantasms and implicate orders. nothing remains of encompassment; domains dissolve or problematize, just as the 'of it' - already a possessive - is another releasement. == Note: On Sat, 27 Apr 2002, Ryan Whyte wrote: > These texts are impressive, and for me, strangely, there's a distorted > resonance with German romantic science, of all things -- a deployment of > science/knowledge to its limit, the sublime and the positioning/experience > of the observer -- although certainly not the view from the mountaintop > but rather the risk of drowning -- and I wonder if a phenomenology of > drowning, if one can think such a thing, operates here also -- > The risk of drowning is both metaphoric and real - there are signature souvenirs from the Everglades - "I gave my blood in the Everglades" - in some of my photography, I've teetered or approached alligators/biting snakes/etc. at close range - But then drowning also connects with emergence/submergence - with sublim- ation prior to the return of the repressed - > Also, do you see fragmentariness (thinking of the work of Hans-Jost Frey > for example) operating as part of the phenomenology/reading here -- i.e. > in relation to the limits of identification etc. One of the rangers described Everglades visitors as down 30% since the 70s - whereas every other park is growing fast. This is because there, I think, there are no demarcations - drive around, focus on the larger birds and alligators, leave. She described the park as "layered" - identifica- tion in terms of the object increasingly magnifies; if we had stayed, we would have gone to microscopy. There is also the problematic of identity within the entanglement, which is also the problematic of post-modern identities, looped, eviscerated in terms of public/private, and caught in the matrices of what I called "radiations" or (Cantor) dusts - computer, telephone, radio/tv transmission, inter and intranettings, hackings, and so forth - not to mention the problematic of _what_ is caught as such - after Lacan / Foucault, we can't go back to the monolith of the unitary subject, monad, etc. - > And is this projected for a book? If I'm given the time/space to work on such - the problem is my usual instabilities in terms of income and the stress this produces. Certainly my thoughts for years have revolved around the issues of consciousness and intermediations in relation to formal systems - and what happens when these systems are chaotic, ungrounded, tangled, confused, fuzzy, etc. - === she speaks: sawgrass among periphyton, periphyton among sawgrass: who can untangle? buried in algae, across almost certain rotifera, stentor, what is innumerable?:the land is flat, liguus fasciatus a microcosm of rings, desiccated alligator weed, the layers crawl across tamiami, they subdue miami, tendrils across the river, down through lejeune, among the quarried keys :i don't know how to do this. i don't know how to say this.:: she writes: to speak is already not to know. claws and teeth mark the boundaries of analysis. bladderwort surrounds nano-bio organelles. nothing is complete.:desiccation of alligator holes, everything returning, supine, writing from a distance - violation and distantiation of inscription :i don't know how to do this. i don't know how to say this. the flat land with its swells, innumerable regimens of meter-high mountains, organism crawling through this body, through this flesh, the highs gauging nothing, a bit of movement, neural networking, a bit of stasis, world shutting-down :: she thinks: cormorant nothing is complete. noting is complete. on a thin notebook. through my to speak is already not to know. claws and teeth mark the boundaries of analysis. bladderwort surrounds nano-bio organelles. nothing is complete and right _ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 23:24:24 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: 4 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT 4. Aaron Belz, I have an honest question for you -- or, actually, for anyone who might want to speak on this issue, which is general enough. My question kind of slants off of Joel's recent post. I don't mean this question to be in the least inflammatory in kind. I ask it as someone who has only recently begun to read listserv postings again. I'm trying to orientate myself to the list and to its posters. I'm curious to know how "you" view your own views, in terms of where you think they come from and where you think they're going. Do you think of them as affirming a status quo that is troublingly absent and in need of continual affirmation? Or, do you think of your views as tending towards the singular/specific and peripheral? Or, do you think that this model of status quo vs. singular/peripheral/specific is really, laughably outdated? Or, do you not really think about how you views your views? If this paradigm of center/periphery is outdated, is there a paradigm you would use by which to view your views? Curious in Calgary ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 01:54:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brandon Thomas Barr Subject: Re: self-organizing journals (was Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times)) In-Reply-To: <01b401c1f7d8$b58e8f20$6401a8c0@ruthfd1tn.home.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Thanks for the link Tom; Igenta is a good site, but it is really just an online library for journals at heart, no? Can we escape the metaphor of the scholarly journal? I don't know. Brandon Barr On Thu, 9 May 2002, Thomas Bell wrote: > this kind of systemalready exists formally and informally in the sciences. > Ingenta would be an example and informally there are several who post > articles presubmission or prepublication and solicit feedback. > > tom bell > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 02:13:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brandon Thomas Barr Subject: Re: self-organizing journals (was Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times)) Comments: To: komninos zervos In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Fri, 10 May 2002, komninos zervos wrote: > > sounds great brandon, but how do we get the work recognized as > advancoing our research profile if the thing isn't officially > recognized as a peer reviewed journal? That's the rub, isn't it Komninos? What I'm suggesting is that academic publishing needs a paradigm shift. The fact that people need their work recognized by a peer review journal seems like a case of the snake biting its tail. A self organizing system provides CLEARER recognition of approval by peers. It is, in many ways, the ultimate peer review. Standards for measuring academic success are focused on the primary methods of publication during the academic boom of the twentieth century. That doesn't mean that those standards shouldn't be adjusted as the methods of publication change too. As I said before, the challenge is to challenge the notions of how we measure research. Realistically, it may take awhile before other systems of measurement are given the institutional sway that peer review has achieved. But that doesn't mean other ways aren't yearning toward the same ideals that current academic publishing champions... Brandon Barr ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 22:20:00 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Fashionable Nonsense MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Elizbeth. (I know I'm not the Ric referred to..) I havent read all this. = But another take on nonsense: in a sense (sense?) it impossible towrite = nonsense or even non - sense ...if we think of Lear etc his non- sense = is kind of "set up" as such but even if I write "garbage" (random speil) = a sense will be discerned: now there are writers who use computers to = write poems...now they are, I feel, largely futile, but the = incorporation of 'random' things into a work (assumes, or cant avoid = that) that the "I" or the "they" in some way filter this info in: but = that aside there is also always a semantic conection. (Eg even a single = letter on a page has some semantic "value").So if one were to utilise = (as it doubtless been done many times) the procedure of organising the = work and then having assistants (we're back in Michelangelo's quarry and = so on) (or Billy Apple or maybe Warhol). What is interesting about a = "random" computer generated thing is how often thematic "links" of = "leitmofis or whatever might repeat: It would be neccessary to involve = many writers and writigngs into a text and also some who wrote some = addendum ahving NOT SEEN the preceding text, others who had , and some = who were just asked to ask to write a response: just some thoughts. = Richard What Ric says below at first seems to be AN example of "nonsense" but I = can "read" it and it means to me...and I agree in part: but = nonexistence.. simpler way of talking of that is that nonexistsence is a = thing: now everything that is conceivable must be, or it is the the = thing conceiving and being conceived. So nonexistence in the sense of = death becomes a thing conceived now, say, but we could call = "nothingness" that every thing without which there is no something: = this is not to say that a "hard materialist" is not right as maybe we do = simply vanish at death: but I think that all literature all art, = kiekegaard, what i can understand of Heidegger, poetry, life, love, = consciousness: make the "absolute hard-aetheist" or hard-Marxist = position a dead one........this is not to diminish science: I'm in a = hurry here but my take any way is that while "organised religion" and = various formal cults may move a person further form "the truth: the big = ontological chocolate thing" (to semi quote Silliman I think it was), = and while eg for Eliot it served, if to noyt "enliven" him it did in his = poetry, nor can I buy into the hard amterialist thing: to jump I canse = ric's writin below as an example of poetry-philosophy etc conflating: = but, yes,dogma as such tajes us away from the "deep power" within us = that makes us poets poets and puts us - at certain temporal inflames - = in deep touch with what ever motivates our and the general dust: what = ever in-spires. Tap root deep poet. Richard. (So, above, nothingness is = always linked to being: or non- nothingness).=20 ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson=20 To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU=20 Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 2:38 PM Subject: Re: Fashionable Nonsense Hey Ric, I'm with you on this. And Vernon, I didn't mean to insult you = -- I was speaking of my own use of cliche. Cheers all! Eliz Hi, Non-sense is not necessarily no-sense. Similar to how non-existence does not necessarily mean no-existence. (huh ?) let me attempt to clarify... What constitutes our sense or/of existence does not always take into consideration former incarnations of what 'sense' might have been conceived to potentialities 'beyond' our contemporary grasp. Perception is a paradox, whereas it is both solipsistic and, 'by laws that be', must relate to the collective consciousness we all partake in. So 'sense' must be a 'matter' of attunement to auras and tonalities that we can, at times, see, hear, and cogitate according to 'our' sensate leanings. We do our constitutions an injustice by limiting them to the ephemeral, watered -down effigies that we accept as dogma. Just thot I'd add my 2 sense (groan) ... Ric Carfagna Elizabeth Treadwell=20 http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html=20 -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ----- MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: Click = Here ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 05:34:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert M Corbett Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Aaron, Maybe Jeff will reply to this. Hope so. I fear my intemperance rising, but you have managed to repeat some of the more annoying cliches about Anguish and the Edu-Kation system, for which I remain an unabashed partisan. I don't know where the Ashbery comment comes from. Many undergraduates, even English majors, will not come in to contact with his work. Anyone who teaches in an English dept. these days knows that we are not in the business of complexifying things, at least in undergraduate classrooms. Few people can profess theory in a class without trying to unpack it and present it in ways that are understandable. We can't take Blake's line, however so much we want to. Your average american undergrad is a demanding sort in this regard. It is the case that literature as discipline schools people in the arts of ambiguity. But this schooling, along with philosophy and history, is what law schools prefer, as well as not a few marketing departments. In any case, its offensive to suggest that literature departments are wholly of out touch with everyday life, because they tend to be some of the most responsive parts of the university. Too much so, according to another right wing perspective. This take on the biz perspective on the university is also misguided because the private sector _does_ want people with bachelor's degrees, to the extent that universities are being pushed to offer said degrees in curriculums not normally considered academic (i.e. Microsoft Access). The private sector still likes the BA, BS, etc, though given the role of technology in the economy, they would prefer these students to have training in computers. In some ways, the credential actually means more there than it does in academia. In any case, the cliche about the impracticality of a university education is an old one. Witness Eliot's Middlemarch, where Fred Vincy, once being a minister is no longer a possibility as a career, goes to work for a farmer, who complains that Oxford didn't teach him to write legibly. In other words, the complaint that a university education doesn't equip students with practical skills is an old and hoary one. Sure, there are things that you learn in a university setting that have no outlet in the so-called Real World, but this is because education is meant to be General, not specific. The trend towards ever more technical bachelor degrees is an interesting one in this light, since it provides the credential with the training. It remains to be seen whether these students, like those with certificates and AAs will find themselves stymied. (Though this trend is also indicative of the social need to credential people, as can be seen by the doctorization of physical therapists, pharmacists,etc.) As for the teaching of writing, there are multiple reasons for this problem. First is that we live in a multicultural society which is slowly moving away from the written word. This means both that students come to university who are not to the manner born in standard written communication, but it also means that they come with different communication abilities. Some sort of quantifiable test will not tell you this, particularly standardized tests geared towards standard written English. It is also because american high schools do not prioritize writing as a skill, so that the onus of the training falls upon universities. Writing is difficult to learn because it is not a subject in the way biology or algebra is. To think that even a year is sufficient to train someone is pretty silly. It's also because the teaching of writing is resource intensive. You can do (barely) introductory classes to academic subjects with 700 students, but you cannot teach writing in this manner. Universities do not typically get extra money to teach fundamental skills, but rather have to perform delicate budget balancing acts in order to fund what they do manage to teach. And the same biz folk who claim Johnny can't write want him to know computers, so extra money in the system gets shunted to this sort of training. The regard that higher ed is held in today has something to do with the fact that you cannot please all of the people all of the time. Universities are one of the great levellers and leg-uppers in this society, and they are a very public one. Consequently, they become the site of multiple desires. This, more than anything else, explains so-called political correctness. Universities are held to a higher standard than virtually any other institution in society, by the right and the left. Contrariwise, you can't attack the business world in the same way because there is no center. You can't blame poor math skills on Microsoft. My own opinion is that the private sector is basically parasitic on higher education. The call to raise standards and even the money that comes from it to the university is some measure of how the private sector knows that there is a limit to outsourcing. Be that as may, corporations do like to fund right-wing think tanks, full of their own version of tenured radicals who fulminate in media friendly ways about the trahison de clercs. At least Allan Bloom was funny (one suspects his anti-rock tirade was a parody). His legion of followers are simply boring, though they continue to get airplay via a media that knows full and well the only competitor for their reflection of society is the university. Oh, and the quote about the teaching of writing is so off base--teaching portfolios are part of the mantra these days--that "heated" doesn't do it justice. It's half-baked. Robert On Thu, 9 May 2002, Aaron Belz wrote: > Hello, > > Originally I backchanneled this, but I'll go ahead and post it. > > I agree with Jeff's implication that that we are "denying something here," > but it's not just a problem of disconnection between the academic writing > and poetry, or even the academy and art; I think it's between the > educational system and society. Especially humanities programs seem content > to allow themselves to drift away from those who not only pay the bills but > hope to become better educated through it. A literary "education" seems > reserved for a class of skeptics who can talk in a certain code-language. > Those willing to participate in a complicated power game. Hence the > development of the ubiquitous "business school." (Who would want to be > around us? Businesspeople may not understand Ashbery, but they are > contemplative enough to know when they aren't learning anything useful.) > No, humanities departments aren't training people to integrate academic > knowledge with life, to see the relevance of literature to society, or > giving them the resources to become better people (one of the earliest > missions of an English education was moral improvement). > > One site of this "crisis" for English depts is composition, since every > student has to take it. Here are the first two paragraphs from an article I > ran across years ago in Public Interest called "Why Johnny Can't Write"-- > admittedly it's a bit heated-- > > "American employers regard the nation's educational system as an > irrelevance, according to a Census Bureau survey released in February of > this year. Businesses ignore a prospective employee's educational > credentials in favor of his or her work history and attitude. Although the > census researchers did not venture any hypotheses for this strange behavior, > anyone familiar with the current state of academia could have provided > explanations aplenty. > > "One overlooked corner of the academic madhouse bears in particular on > graduates' job-readiness--the teaching of writing. In the field of writing, > today's education is not just an irrelevance, it is positively detrimental > to a student's development. For years, composition teachers have absorbed > the worst strains in both popular and academic culture. The result is an > indigestible stew of 1960s liberationist zeal, 1970s deconstructivist > nihilism, and 1980s multicultural proselytizing. The only thing that > composition teachers are not talking and writing about these days is how to > teach students to compose clear, logical prose." > > > I would like to affirm Philip Nikolayev's statement that the "poetry scene" > is as full of infighting and political bullshit as the academic world. Both > "scenes" also have their deserving stars, those who plow through the BS and > focus on what's at hand. > > I enjoy writing criticism, but I don't write much prose my mom can't > understand on first reading (the poetry--eh hem--is another matter). Down > with blocky obscurantist academese, and those assistant professors who write > it! Down with specialism! > > My goal is to give a successful poetry reading at a truckstop in outstate > Missouri. > > > Best to all, > > Erma Bombeck > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 10:26:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: from "Louis Cabri" at May 8, 2002 05:13:28 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 1. Howdy all following this thread about poetry and academic boogeymen! I myself have followed it as one follows the horizon line which fades forever and forever when I move. Though we are not now that GREAT POETRY which rolled off tongues before ACADEMICS with pocket protectors dissected us like so many 4th grade frogs, it may be we shall still touch happy bookshelves! Though much is taken (by THE ACADEMY), much abides. 2. (new voice) Poetry is equipment for living, as real as marriage (for better or worse) and as observable as e-business. 3. (another) What the hell are we talking about here? Does anyone really believe that academic criticism or "theory" is ruining poetry?? Did German Idealism ruin Wordsworth? Did Sidney ruin himself? Did Emerson ruin Whitman? Who shot J.R.? Are the shoes of the fisherman's wife some jive-ass slippers? Did John Dewey ruin Williams and William James ruin Stein? Did Helene Cixous ruin me for any other man? Art thou a worm? Is this a worm? Go write your poems! Or I'll send you to bed without your E True Hollywood Story. If you don't need the Academy bully for you! I like VH1 Behind the Music too. Besides, only Susan Howe and Nathaniel Mackey, of the American poet-academics are better than the VH1 behind the music espisodes on Journey and Styx. Why would Marjorie Perloff liking your poems mean any more or less than your very bestest poet-buddy liking them? Because she'll get you a job in THE ACADEMY? Because she'll get you a $10,000 prize thus allowing you to by the GOOD German bolgna instead of the cheap Oscar Meyer? Even if such were true? Marjorie loves poetry and poetry loves her, so be it. I love poetry, so be it. By the associative principle I love Marjorie, so be it. Poems are like a good BLANK: they're always getting stuck in your BLANK. I believe this is a very positive step for the poetry world. -m. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 14:33:41 +0000 Reply-To: rsillima@yahoo.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Peer review & editorial strategies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed We use a peer review system where I work very intensively, but it has always struck me that it is very different in the computer industry than it is in the academy. On the occasions when I've seen others going through its somewhat tortured process there, I've always been struck by the enormous amount of turf-protection that seems to go on. But while peer review often determines what gets accepted, the editor's usually retain the ability to assign order, to determine which is perceived as the "lead piece" in any given issue, etc. So it's no surprise that the very best poetry journals over the years have been those that have had deeply opinionated editors (it almost doesn't matter WHICH opinion) who understood that both selection and presentation order represents major critical statements of their own. That's why, for example, the use of the alphabet to assign sequence in a journal is almost always a failure -- it's a bureaucrat's democracy, rather than an interactive one, an abdication of politics right at the point at which editorial politics should enter in. Much better to put pieces into the most cantankerous sequence you can imagine and then stand behind that. Ron _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 10:35:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kuszai Subject: Re: status quo sentiments In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" While I've been thinking about the issues raised recently -- especially in conjunction with a discussion happening on a local listserv happening someplace else, as well as, obviously, the one happening here on this listserv about criticism vs. poetry and the complicated discussion about academic cultures (I really hate to characterize what has been a very interesting discussion) -- my post wasn't more than a quick stab at one articulation of them. Like Louis, I've newly returned to reading the writing posted here. "I'm trying to orientate myself to the list and to its posters," Louis writes. Yes. Thanks for saying that. Who are these people on the Poetics List? And even more troubling: Who am I? Where am I coming from? I didn't want to write out a long manifesto about "abandoning poetry in order to return to poetry" - a phrase that loses in everything in translation. So the question of Politics comes out of a desire to have a sense of where the furniture is in the room, so to speak. The Political is this floating set of values. For poets who criticize academics, there is an implicit political or social value system often at work. This is especially true of poetry and poetry criticism. I find it curious that anyone would make political claims for the "kind" of poetry that they write. I think it's great - even courageous - but even the most explicit doggerel doesn't have the location it once had. And certainly so-called "experimental forms" have lost whatever political values they may have once had. For me, it's no longer about the content of poetry, its style or compositional methodology, but rather how it either gets implemented socially or how its implementation is part of some other constitution of community (towards, hopefully positive ends). An example for me would be the function of education (including language and poetry studies) in the Civilian Public Service camps in the 40s. Maria Damon would be an example of someone who has done such work (thinking of a poetics of this sort in terms of the young women in her book, Dark End of the Street). Many people are involved in such projects such as teaching poetry in the schools, or working in mental health clinics (as one writer to Factory School talked about the importance of the audio achive for her purposes). In the latter case, there is something being "built" which locates poetry someplace for certain people. I'm being vague because I think it's open-- Thinking about that or the function of education as an "industry" -- an industry experiencing cutbacks, yes. I'm thinking of a poetics which would engage the question of community and civic development from a "green", pseudo-anarchist perspective. What does that mean? I'm still struggling with it- and I hope I always am. Such a poetics would have to think about economics in some real sense--so yes, it makes sense that studying business one would study Marx. I mean, my first day in college Roger Meiners (a noted Allen Tate scholar) said: "Don't bother studying literature until you've studied economics." These are not new arguments. But we *could* be interpreters of economic conditions and their "impact" on the construction of verse. For example, one might call Sept.11 "The End of the Cibo Matto Era." But I'd rather be involved in rethinking how the field of literature (which constitutes not only poets, but critics, publishers, editors, and others, including high school and composition teachers, etc.etc.) how this field can be understood in the contemporary. How people read and respond to that field is a lot of what we get here. It's important and I've found the discussions useful. I'd like to see how people frame these things, and in so I think I'm echoing some of Louis' sentiments when he asks how people "view their own views". That's why I think the direct statement is useful. Lately I've been going to poetry slams, because there I find something extremely different from "on campus" poetry (of whatever camp), which seems lifeless and often begins with the presumption that I will sit still for half-an-hour regardless of what I'm subjected to. In that sense- I'm drifting away from the doxic piousness of academic verse culture. ["If you cut me do I not bleed?" why shouldn't bad poetry made us sigh or moan?] In Ithaca, these slam events are a long way from the glamor of the big city slam scenes. Here there is a wide range of purpose. For some it is "coming out" to their peers with great explicitness. Many of the poems are not even typed--and they are communicating immediately in a discursive field that, while not my cup of tea exactly, is very interesting to study. Some get up there, trembling like leafs as much as boldly telling GWB to fuckoff, etc., and there is a sense of additive construction happening. Sadly, I'm not a part of it. But would I want to be? I really can't stand the painful attention to a rather strict and confining formalism that motivates the verse style, and there is often an unreflective quality to the poetry that I find only ironic in the bad sense. (A critique which mirrors my critique of most so-called "Language Poetry".) My point is that these poems are often posed "politically", whether micro high school politics or the anti-govt tirade-poem (ditto LangPo) - and if I had the entre into such a discussion, I would love to ask them the question I've asked here. And it has caused me to rethink my politics and thus my relation to various social formations. blahblahblah town-gown (as an ethnic townie who now works for a university/govt). Finally, it does not matter whether I like the poetry or not. I am trying to find my place in that community, and perhaps there isn't one (I often feel this way on campus, as well, frankly). In both contexts, I don't feel I'd even be given the slightest hearing -- though I've thought of writing a "slam poetry lecture" -- versifying in that cheezy slamway a straight-laced lecture on the limits of such strict rhythmic formalism and the often authoritarian way such poems not fitting into the form are "judged" by the community - causing a real landslide towards conformity among the one group that seems to value 'difference' the most. My sense - and this is why I asked - is that this is a latent community which could really accomplish something. Must it? Is it required? Of course not. For all the humor of Kasey's post, his barb is well-taken. Why should anyone wish answer such an open question, offensive or not? I guess I'm wondering: if I'm going to stay here and continue, I'd like to see what's happening, what's not happening; what's possible and what's not. It seems from posts like those of Louis' and others recently that a spirit could move the list - at least in some quarters (since there is no totality at all possible nor desirable anyhow) to manifest some of the opportunity provided by the architecture of the space. What would that look like? One project I have in mind is the networked group construction of a "free textbook" and I've hesitated to bring the possibility of that activity of this space, which often seems to have a fixed mode of purpose and conduct attached to it. Frankly, I'm not even sure such things are possible on such a large scale - and in any case, when I have a sense of an answer to my own question, I'll post it. As it is, I have to go offline for a couple days. cheers, jk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 10:02:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops In-Reply-To: <20020510040415.30179.qmail@web11705.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > A better-educated poet is a better poet (a > better-educated ~person~ is in a better position to > write). One of the artificial boundaries that Andrew > Rathmann's anti-criticism rant sets up is a wall > between poetry and thinking. I don't know, Jeffrey. Your implication that "thinking" is equivalant to "education" is a dangerous one, in my opinion. How about thinking with the body, with the soul; through meditation, through singing, through sex. Or through experience. Wherefore wisdom? Your logic reduces thought to what can be had through education, and that, for me, is borderline crazytalk. I often remember Ashbery's line, "In school all the thought got combed out." -Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 12:41:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: "A Blow Is Like an Instrument" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "'A Blow Is Like an Instrument:' The Poetic Imaginary and Curricular Practices, Charles Bernstein." Say what, bro? (Does this have to do with bad breath (breath is bad model of poetic production), you know like speech vs. writing, or is it an ethno-porno thing?) On the edge of my seat (secret meaning: I LOVE academicriticism), dave ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 12:29:11 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: The Poetics of Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yo, During the summer I'm teaching a class on the function of the author photo in 20th-century poetic production. Some questions I have: What theoretical texts would be helpful in thinking the author photo? Are author photos commodified and could an author photo subvert its own commodification? Also how does the placement of an author photo (back cover, inner back, front) determine a text's reception and dissemination? What are the advantages and disadvantages of an author photo? Is not using an author photo a more virtuous form of bodily representation and identity-making than using one? What are the expressive categories that make up the range of possibilities as determined by the current ideology of author photos: angry, intense, blank, happy, melancholic, wistful, young, old, staring off to one side, with or without hat, just the face or the whole body, silly or serious, long hair or short hair, sunglasses or no sunglasses, cleavage or no cleavage, chest hair or no chest hair, naked or clothed, standing up or sitting down, etc etc. And, just for fun, what are some of your favorite author photos? (Chris, make sure you reply in verse, otherwise I won't read it) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:25:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: 3rd Bed Celebration / Brooklyn (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from Andrea Baker ----- From: Andrea Baker To: POETICS-request@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: please forward to list- 3rd bed Celebration May 23rd Date: Thu, 09 May 2002 11:18:28 -0400 3rd bed 131 Clay St. Central Falls, RI 02863 www.3rdbed.com 3rd bed Celebration, Thursday, May 23, 2002 at Brooklyn's Galapagos Art Space On May 23rd, the literary journal 3rd bed celebrates the release of its latest issue with readings, music, and art at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn. Hailed as "stunningly original" by Michael Martone and "essential, beautiful, and right-headed" by George Saunders, 3rd bed is excited to present performances by Voco-poet Julie Paton and sonic accordian duo the Haldols along with readings by fiction writers Patricia Eakins (The Marvelous Adventures of Pierre Baptiste) and Gary Lutz (whose collection, Stories in the Worst Way, 3rd bed will release in paperback this summer). We are pleased to announce that Ruth Danon, whose work has been selected from our third issue for Best American Poetry 2001, will also be reading along with the poet Lisa Jarnot (Some Other Kind of Mission). Rounding out the night, Seattle artist Brandon Zebold presents his portable sculpture show. Admission is $8, which includes a copy of the current issue (no. 6) and surprises. 3rd bed Celebration Galapagos Art Space (718) 782-5188 Thursday, May 23 at 7:00 p.m. 70 N. 6th St. (btn. Kent and Wythe Avenues) Williamsburg, Brooklyn Nearest Subway: L at Bedford Ave. For more information, see 3rdbed.com and Galapagosartspace.com. ----- End forwarded message ----- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:18:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: POETRY PROJECT EVENTS Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable MAY 11, SATURDAY [Bowery Poetry Club, 2 p.m.] OBSCURITY LASTS FOREVER MEMORIAL HONORING JOSEPH HOLLAND CHASSLER MAY 13, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] SEAN KILLIAN AND DAVID PERRY Reading will take place in Church Rectory on 11th St. MAY 15, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] AMMIEL ALCALAY AND CECILIA VICU=D1A MAY 17, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] THE NEW TRADITIONALISTS COMPOSITIONAL AND IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC Featuring JANET HAMILL and MOVING STAR also The Matt Lavelle Ensemble ********************* MAY 11, SATURDAY [Bowery Poetry Club, 2 p.m.] OBSCURITY LASTS FOREVER MEMORIAL HONORING JOSEPH HOLLAND CHASSLER Poet, philospher and kind soul, Joseph Holland Chassler will be remembered at the Bowery Poetry Club with readings of his works, videos of his drawing= s and cartoons, and performances of his songs by the band Channeling Chassler= . MAY 13, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] SEAN KILLIAN AND DAVID PERRY SEAN KILLIAN is the author of the chapbook Feint By Feint (Talisman). His work has appeared in Boog Lit, Sulfur, New American Writing, American Letters and Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Painted Bride Quarterly and in th= e Oblek anthology Writing From The New Coast. DAVID PERRY's first book, Range Finder, was published last year by Adventures in Poetry. Kevin Davis writes: "Here's a poet who knows his way around a syllable. 'The elegance of Schuyler and the dark suburban vision o= f Ceravolo.'"=20 *** Please note that the reading will take place in the Church Rectory wher= e you may enter from 11th St. *** MAY 15, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] AMMIEL ALCALAY AND CECILIA VICU=D1A Poet, translator, and scholar, AMMIEL ALCALAY has written for the New York Times, The Village Voice, Time, The New Republic, and Middle East Report, a= s well as for such literary journals as Grand Street, Conjunctions, and Paper Air. The unique intellectual and political path forged by Alcalay over the past 15 years is collected in his most recent title, Memories of our Future= : Selected Essays 1982-1999. Writing on CECILIA VICU=D1A The Village Voice notes, "This extraordinary Chilean poet explores levels of politics and sensuality, a tensing, inescapable combination." A poet, filmmaker, performance artist and sculptor, Cecilia Vicu=F1a has published several titles including La Wikuna, Palabrar: Morning Star Folio, Series 5, La Reclidad, Unraveling Words & the Weaving of Water, Cloud-Net, and Quipoem/The Precarious. MAY 17, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] THE NEW TRADITIONALISTS COMPOSITIONAL AND IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC Featuring JANET HAMILL and MOVING STAR also The Matt Lavelle Ensemble Co-author of the forthcoming collection of short fiction with Patti Smith, JANET HAMILL is a poet and artist who combines her talents with Moving Star musicians Bob Torsello (bass), Jay LoRubbio (guitar), and Sean Healy (drums). Janet and the Moving Starreleased their first full-length CD, Flying Nowhere, produced by Lenny Kaye, with two cameo appearances by Patti Smith on clarinet.=20 Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Bass-clarinet player, writer, MATT LAVELLE'S formative years were spent playing with Sir Hildred Humphries who played with Billy Holiday, Roy Eldridge, and Count Bassie. ************************ POETRY PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENTS THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK BROADSIDE The Poetry Project will be offering a limited-edition letterpress broadside signed by John Ashbery to celebrate the republication of THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK by JOHN ASHBERY AND JOE BRAINARD. Measuring 19 x 15, the broadside will sell for $100. Sales from the edition will benefit the Poetry Project. To purchase a broadside, send check or money order to: The Poetry Project 131 E. 10th St. New York, NY 10003. MAY ISSUE OF POETS & POEMS Featuring work by Cecilia Vicu=F1a, R. Erica Doyle, G.E. Patterson, Kevin Killian, Joan Retallack http://www.poetryproject.com/poets.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:35:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Fwd: POETRY PROJECT EVENTS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from The Poetry Project ----- From: The Poetry Project To: broadcast2 Subject: POETRY PROJECT EVENTS Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:18:55 -0400 MAY 11, SATURDAY [Bowery Poetry Club, 2 p.m.] OBSCURITY LASTS FOREVER MEMORIAL HONORING JOSEPH HOLLAND CHASSLER MAY 13, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] SEAN KILLIAN AND DAVID PERRY Reading will take place in Church Rectory on 11th St. MAY 15, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] AMMIEL ALCALAY AND CECILIA VICUÑA MAY 17, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] THE NEW TRADITIONALISTS COMPOSITIONAL AND IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC Featuring JANET HAMILL and MOVING STAR also The Matt Lavelle Ensemble ********************* MAY 11, SATURDAY [Bowery Poetry Club, 2 p.m.] OBSCURITY LASTS FOREVER MEMORIAL HONORING JOSEPH HOLLAND CHASSLER Poet, philospher and kind soul, Joseph Holland Chassler will be remembered at the Bowery Poetry Club with readings of his works, videos of his drawings and cartoons, and performances of his songs by the band Channeling Chassler. MAY 13, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] SEAN KILLIAN AND DAVID PERRY SEAN KILLIAN is the author of the chapbook Feint By Feint (Talisman). His work has appeared in Boog Lit, Sulfur, New American Writing, American Letters and Commentary, Denver Quarterly, Painted Bride Quarterly and in the Oblek anthology Writing From The New Coast. DAVID PERRY's first book, Range Finder, was published last year by Adventures in Poetry. Kevin Davis writes: "Here's a poet who knows his way around a syllable. 'The elegance of Schuyler and the dark suburban vision of Ceravolo.'" *** Please note that the reading will take place in the Church Rectory where you may enter from 11th St. *** MAY 15, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] AMMIEL ALCALAY AND CECILIA VICUÑA Poet, translator, and scholar, AMMIEL ALCALAY has written for the New York Times, The Village Voice, Time, The New Republic, and Middle East Report, as well as for such literary journals as Grand Street, Conjunctions, and Paper Air. The unique intellectual and political path forged by Alcalay over the past 15 years is collected in his most recent title, Memories of our Future: Selected Essays 1982-1999. Writing on CECILIA VICUÑA The Village Voice notes, "This extraordinary Chilean poet explores levels of politics and sensuality, a tensing, inescapable combination." A poet, filmmaker, performance artist and sculptor, Cecilia Vicuña has published several titles including La Wikuna, Palabrar: Morning Star Folio, Series 5, La Reclidad, Unraveling Words & the Weaving of Water, Cloud-Net, and Quipoem/The Precarious. MAY 17, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] THE NEW TRADITIONALISTS COMPOSITIONAL AND IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC Featuring JANET HAMILL and MOVING STAR also The Matt Lavelle Ensemble Co-author of the forthcoming collection of short fiction with Patti Smith, JANET HAMILL is a poet and artist who combines her talents with Moving Star musicians Bob Torsello (bass), Jay LoRubbio (guitar), and Sean Healy (drums). Janet and the Moving Starreleased their first full-length CD, Flying Nowhere, produced by Lenny Kaye, with two cameo appearances by Patti Smith on clarinet. Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Bass-clarinet player, writer, MATT LAVELLE'S formative years were spent playing with Sir Hildred Humphries who played with Billy Holiday, Roy Eldridge, and Count Bassie. ************************ POETRY PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENTS THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK BROADSIDE The Poetry Project will be offering a limited-edition letterpress broadside signed by John Ashbery to celebrate the republication of THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK by JOHN ASHBERY AND JOE BRAINARD. Measuring 19 x 15, the broadside will sell for $100. Sales from the edition will benefit the Poetry Project. To purchase a broadside, send check or money order to: The Poetry Project 131 E. 10th St. New York, NY 10003. MAY ISSUE OF POETS & POEMS Featuring work by Cecilia Vicuña, R. Erica Doyle, G.E. Patterson, Kevin Killian, Joan Retallack http://www.poetryproject.com/poets.html ----- End forwarded message ----- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 15:43:07 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ellis Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html

<< My goal is to give a successful poetry reading at a truckstop in outstate Missouri. >>

We know where Missouri is, and what "a truckstop" (probably) is, but what is meant, implied, designated and/or denied by the word "successful"?  Were one to give a "successful" reading to a gathering of drivers of currently parked trucks, does that mean they would signify the success of the event by driving away?  Offering a ride?  Or sitting there, staring straight ahead, into the head of the reader, another poet gone mute, post-performance, in and amongst the more ordinal provincial mutes pretended by the poet to be his/her "ardent hearers"?  Not to say there's not a lot to say to a trucker, especially when they're "in motion"; it's the stopped ones that provide one with that peculiar sense of being "looked at" as if one were (literally) "a road".  That's possibly a "real" measure of success.  Use returns to the useful.  "Leaving" and/or "staying" are not possibilities.  One has to read The Poems as a trucker re ads the road: all exits are wrong exits.  Stay, otherwise, On The Road.  Successful readings are all completed "in transit" as transit.  Homer, Dante, Shakespeare : Chevy, Ford & Dodge.  One must keep moving, even while asleep.  What would a successful reading at the Trembling Lawn Motel in White River Junction, Vermont look like?  "Success" suggests imcomparability.  Unique in production; unique also as a species.  High test gas $1.69/gallon; Acme chicken leg quarters, $.99/lb.  But that's just more Tourism, and not the Papal edict more appropriate to the dispensation a la poiesis to which neither Stop nor Yield signs in the tall grass need apply.  Viz., Johnny Can't Read / Runaway Truck Stop Dead Ahead.

Yours Truly,

Jim Pancake

>From: Aaron Belz
>Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group
>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU
>Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism.
>Date: Thu, 9 May 2002 22:07:27 -0500
>
>Hello,
>
>Originally I backchanneled this, but I'll go ahead and post it.
>
>I agree with Jeff's implication that that we are "denying something here,"
>but it's not just a problem of disconnection between the academic writing
>and poetry, or even the academy and art; I think it's between the
>educational system and society. Especially humanities programs seem content
>to allow themselves to drift away from those who not only pay the bills but
>hope to become better educated through it. A literary "education" seems
>reserved for a class of skeptics who can talk in a certain code-language.
>Those willing to participate in a complicated power game. Hence the
>development of the ubiquitous "business school." (Who would want to be
>around us? Businesspeople may not understand Ashbery, but they are
>contemplative enough to know when they aren't learning anything useful.)
>No, humanities departments aren't training people to integrate academic
>knowledge with life, to see the relevance of literature to society, or
>giving them the resources to become better people (one of the earliest
>missions of an English education was moral improvement).
>
>One site of this "crisis" for English depts is composition, since every
>student has to take it. Here are the first two paragraphs from an article I
>ran across years ago in Public Interest called "Why Johnny Can't Write"--
>admittedly it's a bit heated--
>
>"American employers regard the nation's educational system as an
>irrelevance, according to a Census Bureau survey released in February of
>this year. Businesses ignore a prospective employee's educational
>credentials in favor of his or her work history and attitude. Although the
>census researchers did not venture any hypotheses for this strange behavior,
>anyone familiar with the current state of academia could have provided
>explanations aplenty.
>
>"One overlooked corner of the academic madhouse bears in particular on
>graduates' job-readiness--the teaching of writing. In the field of writing,
>today's education is not just an irrelevance, it is positively detrimental
>to a student's development. For years, composition teachers have absorbed
>the worst strains in both popular and academic culture. The result is an
>indigestible stew of 1960s liberationist zeal, 1970s deconstructivist
>nihilism, and 1980s multicultural proselytizing. The only thing that
>composition teachers are not talking and writing about these days is how to
>teach students to compose clear, logical prose."
>
>
>I would like to affirm Philip Nikolayev's statement that the "poetry scene"
>is as full of infighting and political bullshit as the academic world. Both
>"scenes" also have their deserving stars, those who plow through the BS and
>focus on what's at hand.
>
>I enjoy writing criticism, but I don't write much prose my mom can't
>understand on first reading (the poetry--eh hem--is another matter). Down
>with blocky obscurantist academese, and those assistant professors who write
>it! Down with specialism!
>
>My goal is to give a successful poetry reading at a truckstop in outstate
>Missouri.
>
>
>Best to all,
>
>Erma Bombeck


MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: Click Here
========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 12:06:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Subject: Harryman/Watten Read Sunday NYC! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Sunday, May 12 3PM $6 Bowery Poetry Club, 308 Bowery between Bleecker & Houston: The Paragraph and the Grand Piano: Carla Harryman & Barrett Watten Reading.=20 Rare and attractive, Barrett says he wants to read from The Grand Piano and=20 also his work of earlier time called The Word --but his idea about reading=20 from The Grand Piano is related to paragraphs. Carla wants to read monologue= s=20 (or portions of monologues) from Property, Memory Play, The Words, La=20 Quotidienne, Gardener of Stars, and Performing Objects Stationed in the Sub=20 World. Suggests:Two poets overlap, interlink, perform simultaneously--at=20 (some) point(s). Thus, Carla Harryman & Barrett Watten Reading: The Paragrap= h=20 and the Grand Piano. In a message dated 5/9/2002 9:28:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time, asa writes: > Hallo, Carla asked me (her son, Asa) to let you know that they are on the=20 > road etc etc. and to suggest that you send out a reminder message about th= e=20 >=20 > reading. They are looking forward to everything. + in case you need to=20 > contact them their cell phone number is yra-poe-ttwo. >=20 > =E2=80=94Asa >=20 Virtually Visit Bowery Poetry Club @ www.bowerypoetry.com Literally: 308 Bowery NY, NY 10012 (Bleecker-Houston) 212-614-0505 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 11:13:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Robert, Sorry to give rise to your intemperance, but your response was anything but intemperate. Thanks for historicizing the "crisis" in what appears to be a voice of experience; especially helpful was your final paragraph. Aside: We're moving away from talking about criticism v. poetry. I concur with Michael Magee's post about criticism. It can be mesmerizing but is no threat to the self-assured poet. Love it, lap it up. I read it myself and certainly also write it with aplomb (how savvy my "criticism" is is another question). (What is criticism?) Anyway, Robert, you're right that Ashbery don't enter the picture for undergrads, and that most profs don't intentionally "complexify" the picture for them; teaching writing is not a simple business. You're also right that ambiguity is a good thing, but I think it needs reference points. Perhaps this is what Louis means when he asks about "status quo". Am I appealing to some kind of "status quo"? I don't know. I would like a foundation of "clear, logical prose" for students before they take on ambiguity. "Any schoolboy could see that man as force must be measured by motion from a fixed point." --Henry Adams A fixed point. Somehow students need the tools before they begin working on the subjects. My thought has been that English profs, distracted with MLA concerns and department politics, have needlessly complicated their own task in the classroom. Bachelor's degree-seekers want a layperson's guide to novels and poetry; possibly even some lasting appreciation for these things; they want to know how to write "clear, logical prose." Teaching them these things is no easy task, but it's not made easier by the forces mentioned in "Why Johnny Can't Write." Best to all, E.B. White ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 16:13:52 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Ellis Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html

<< thus allowing you to by the GOOD German bolgna instead of the cheap Oscar Meyer >>

Since I'm still on with the vehicular from my last post, I have to say that Oscar Meyer's lousy wieners were at least delivered in an extremely interesting truck that was in fact shaped like a wiener, a la Creeley cum Olson's dictum about form following content.  Size is "interesting", if not all that important.  Especially if it's on wheels.  The seizeable prize of Mrs. Big liking your poetry is only the "cream" skimmed off the top of the "pail" in which proprietary incitements manifest the usual money-laundering that results of referencing German bologna as "good" (qualitative) rather than "made from the bodies of Palestinians martyred out of Jenin."  Not to say that purchase, as such, "might be" political, also.  As in anti-academic stance one has simply that much more masque. Only increase - in everything - can take one over the top; judgement otherwise is cheap.  The 21st century needs the largest trucks p ossible to deliver its cargo nowhere at once and in all places on time. 

Jim Pancake

>From: Michael Magee
>Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group
>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU
>Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism.
>Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 10:26:23 -0400
>
>1. Howdy all following this thread about poetry and academic boogeymen! I
>myself have followed it as one follows the horizon line which fades
>forever and forever when I move. Though we are not now that GREAT POETRY
>which rolled off tongues before ACADEMICS with pocket protectors dissected
>us like so many 4th grade frogs, it may be we shall still touch happy
>bookshelves! Though much is taken (by THE ACADEMY), much abides.
>
>2. (new voice) Poetry is equipment for living, as real as marriage (for
>better or worse) and as observable as e-business.
>
>3. (another) What the hell are we talking about here? Does anyone really
>believe that academic criticism or "theory" is ruining poetry?? Did German
>Idealism ruin Wordsworth? Did Sidney ruin himself? Did Emerson ruin
>Whitman? Who shot J.R.? Are the shoes of the fisherman's wife some
>jive-ass slippers? Did John Dewey ruin Williams and William James ruin
>Stein? Did Helene Cixous ruin me for any other man? Art thou a worm? Is
>this a worm? Go write your poems! Or I'll send you to bed without your E
>True Hollywood Story. If you don't need the Academy bully for you! I
>like VH1 Behind the Music too. Besides, only Susan Howe and Nathaniel
>Mackey, of the American poet-academics are better than the VH1 behind the
>music espisodes on Journey and Styx. Why would Marjorie Perloff liking
>your poems mean any more or less than your very bestest poet-buddy liking
>them? Because she'll get you a job in THE ACADEMY? Because she'll get you
>a $10,000 prize thus allowing you to by the GOOD German bolgna instead of
>the cheap Oscar Meyer? Even if such were true? Marjorie loves poetry and
>poetry loves her, so be it. I love poetry, so be it. By the associative
>principle I love Marjorie, so be it. Poems are like a good BLANK:
>they're always getting stuck in your BLANK. I believe this is a very
>positive step for the poetry world.
>
>
>-m.


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========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 09:44:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Re: a question and a half Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Dear Joel, and all, I do not feel either comfortable or concise enough to write the requested paragraph, or to post it here. I presume some of my politics, personality, readerly and writerly concerns and interests, etc, have come through over the course of my sometime-involvement on this list, and will continue to do so. Elizabeth Treadwell http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 12:46:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hi David, >What theoretical texts would be helpful in thinking the author photo? http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/advice/photo.htm Also, Barrett Watten supposedly presented somewhere a piece apparently critiquing a cover for the SPD catalog I did, where I drew pics of poets. The rumor I heard was that he made some kind of relationship between those pics or how they were being used and the Mickey Mouse Club. I've always wanted to read it, in part to see if it really was as critical as the rumors had it, but also of course to see what the specific criticism might be. (I'm hoping he'll read this and e-mail it to me.) Anyway, my guess is that while not strictly about the author photo, it obviously was about the visual presentation of authors -- so is probably something you might want to ask him to e-mail to you, too. I have a lot of favorite author photos. Thinking about them, I realize what an amazing range of types there are: See the many books in the case behind my head? I have read and am familiar with each of them. I am a survivor. My hunched back and the rings under my eyes do testify. I do not need to shave, brush my teeth, comb my hair, change my clothing, nor eat ... for, poetry sustains me! When this photo was taken, I was unaware, so lost in thought was I. Here I am in the city. It's a big, scary city. I make this big, scary city my home. You, reading my poety in the hinterlands, you do not know this city! I am white, my turtleneck black. Of course I'll have sex with you. Why else would I pose like this? Having finished carefully crafting each of the poems in this collection, I have rolled back down the sleeves of my Pendleton. Yes, that is X, the famous poet, next to me. We are on speaking terms! Obviously, I am insane. Colorful anecdotes of my unbalanced nature precede me. The wind blows through my hair ... O, poetry! _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 09:50:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: 4/dear curious in calgary Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Dear Curious in Calgary, Why don't you begin? How do you view your views? Elizabeth Treadwell http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 10:04:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Summer prose workshop dates Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Hi, I finally figured out the dates for my summer prose workhops. I'm going to be out of town a lot the beginning of the summer, so I have to begin the workshops a bit later in the summer than I'd hoped. I'm planning to do 2 sections this summer--a Monday night 7 to 10, and a Saturday afternoon 1:30 to 4:30. The Monday night one will be 11 weeks. The Saturday afternoon one will be 10 weeks, plus a private consultation for each student. There will be a combined reading for both groups the week of September 16. Here's the dates: Summer Monday (7 to 9): June 24 July 8 - September 9 Summer Saturday (1:30-4:30): July 13 - September 14 The workshops are totally open-ended. Usually 5 people present a week, scheduling that the week ahead. Usually people bring in something 5 pages or less (copies for everybody) and we critique it that week. Longer pieces are also okay, but they need to be handed out a week ahead of time for people to read. Each student typically gets a half an hour each time we critique. The classes are limited to 8 students. Lots and lots of personal attention. They take place in my South of Market apartment, which comes complete with snacks and two cats. If you're interested, please write me backchannel about pricing and work samples. I'll need a deposit by June 10. Thanks. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 13:26:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Twixt perusing this thread on the poetix-list & correcting papers for my hackademic job, an email brought news of the latest issue of the Boston Review, which starts with a piece on a new Heany Book. Here are the first couple paragraphs (the rest at the following url: http://bostonreview.mit.edu/BR14.4/sleigh.html) -- they seem to feed into some of what's been worried about here, at least in relation to the successful mainstream. In fact the piece is as close to an unconscious parody of its own milieu it is possible to come -- Pierre In Rough Waters Seamus Heaney steers a middle course. Tom Sleigh "The trouble with criticism," as Robert Lowell once remarked, "is that it makes points." Fueled by Seamus Heaney’s rich and strange inner life, The Government of the Tongue transcends this judgment. These essays, composed with a seemingly casual vigor over the course of almost ten years, mesh and well with the authority of obsession. They make an informal ars poetica, one designed to propel the poet into a more broadly imagined artistic future. But most important of all, writing of this caliber signals an effort at self-transformation, a longing for the authority and self-sufficiency of what Yeats called the finished man among his enemies. Heaney’s concern to square art with life makes the book a welcome throw-back to essayists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Like Hazlitt or Lamb, Heaney places insightful personal reminiscence alongside literary analysis. The effect is a kind of darting, rolled-sleeve alertness that lets you feel the force of Heaney’s emotional and intellectual life. In comparison, most contemporary "methodologies" and "theorizings" have their veins bulging in their foreheads. By straining so hard, they tend to miss why people actually read poetry, much less write it. But Heaney’s essays on Patrick Kavanagh, Robert Lowell, and Sylvia Plath are as good as his own best poems. ...... ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris Just out from Wesleyan UP: 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 POASIS: Selected Poems 1986-1999 Tel: (518) 426-0433 Fax: (518) 426-3722 go to: http://www.albany.edu/~joris/poasis.htm Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ____________________________________________________________________________ _ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 12:38:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: "A Blow Is Like an Instrument" In-Reply-To: <46.273c8603.2a0c00bb@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" this is a really fun essay by cb. i taught it in a grad class on publication and the students really enjoyed it. it's funny and inspiring. At 12:41 PM -0400 5/9/02, David Hess wrote: >"'A Blow Is Like an Instrument:' The Poetic Imaginary and Curricular >Practices, Charles Bernstein." > >Say what, bro? > >(Does this have to do with bad breath (breath is bad model of poetic >production), you know like speech vs. writing, or is it an ethno-porno thing?) > >On the edge of my seat (secret meaning: I LOVE academicriticism), >dave -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 16:58:42 -0400 Reply-To: Allen Bramhall Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Allen Bramhall Subject: re poets, pancakes and trucks MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit poets obviously should move in retro occasion to the mere thought that, after the spoken word enters the condition of a truckstop, where trucks are potentially indicated AS trucks, so that the work, curiously ardent by leaps and bounds, tho not proof against all sorts of assertions (see NYTimes TODAY!), but offering awfully good news too, whistling into the breach that allows more moons to be into the system (use of surreptiousness) by which success, understood but not explained (who needs underlings?), that archangel we've all been hinting at can repel thoroughly motivated steps at that dogmatic ideal, nuzzling being a proper expression of warmth TOWARDS, while meanwhile we are sure (aren't we?) of our caboose, the trailing idea, since it is trained to get it, foresting plains with immediate pleasure, albeit which tribes are moved is always a question. the point, then, masked as a painkiller, but more likely a career, fits into this box, which is often called our friend. cheers to all, Allen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 14:43:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Silem Mohammad" Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed More Author Photo Emblemata: You think you know wintry vistas of grief, sonny? You ain't never worn my shoes. Poetry, especially mine, is a complex metaphysics of shadows and longing, the pondering of which causes me to be almost unbearably attractive. Here at this renowned institution of higher learning, we take pride in our appearance. That means blow-drying and regular visits to the dentist! I'm too busy doing important social work to stop and have my picture taken, but fine, just get it over with. My expressionlessness is just one more empty sign waiting to be ideologically colonized. To pretend otherwise is absurd. If I were afraid to show you my dirty pores and nostril hairs in close-up, I might be afraid to write my searingly honest, unsparing brand of poetry. Thank god neither is the case! >From: Gary Sullivan > >I have a lot of favorite author photos. Thinking about them, I realize what >an amazing range of types there are: > >See the many books in the case behind my head? I have read and am familiar >with each of them. > >I am a survivor. My hunched back and the rings under my eyes do testify. > >I do not need to shave, brush my teeth, comb my hair, change my clothing, >nor eat ... for, poetry sustains me! > >When this photo was taken, I was unaware, so lost in thought was I. > >Here I am in the city. It's a big, scary city. I make this big, scary >city my home. You, reading my poety in the hinterlands, you do not know >this city! > >I am white, my turtleneck black. > >Of course I'll have sex with you. Why else would I pose like this? > >Having finished carefully crafting each of the poems in this collection, I >have rolled back down the sleeves of my Pendleton. > >Yes, that is X, the famous poet, next to me. We are on speaking terms! > >Obviously, I am insane. Colorful anecdotes of my unbalanced nature precede >me. The wind blows through my hair ... O, poetry! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ K. Silem Mohammad Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit University of California Santa Cruz _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 18:16:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: Pre-Announcing Fulcrum's Forthcoming Submission Season MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Attention poets, critics and philosophers. Fulcrum: an annual of poetry = and aesthetics is now open to unsolicited submissions of poetry and = essays. The theme of our forthcoming (2003) issue will be "Philosophies = of Poetry." For Issue 2, we are looking for philosophical essays about poetry - = generalized, deep reflections on the nature of poetry, poetic form and = vision, the meaning of the poetic art. Although we use the term = "philosophy" somewhat broadly (we may even consider essays on the = "physics" or "mathematics of poetry" if they make any sense), we are not = looking for literary criticism as such for the 2003 issue. If you had to = explain what you think is most essential about poetry, and why (and how) = poetry matters to you, what would you say? Have you got philosophic = ideas or observations about poetry that you have always wanted to = formulate, but never found a suitable occasion? (This brief description = is for orientation purposes only.) Poetry submissions are not required to conform to the issue's central = theme directly. We would especially caution poets against sending us = "metapoetry" (pensive poetry about poetry). Please feel free, however, = to send us your best, "representative" work, such as you feel most = accurately captures your thinking and your worth as a poet. Please note that Fulcrum does not publish book reviews. All submitted work will be considered collegially. Please send = unsolicited submissions between June 1 and August 31 to Fulcrum, 334 = Harvard Street, Suite D-2, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. Include a return = envelope with sufficient postage or IRCs if a response is desired. All = regions of the English-speaking world are welcome, and all established = regional and orthographic conventions are acceptable. No email = submissions. Accepted work will be requested in an electronic format. No = payment for unsolicited contributions except in copies.=20 Reading a sample issue before submitting work is strongly recommended. = Fulcrum is a genuinely international journal. Contributors to Issue One = (256 pages): Douglas Barbour (Canada), Ken Bolton (Australia), Pam Brown = (Australia), Branston Clark (Belize and USA), Fred D'Aguiar (Guyana, = England, USA), Allen Fisher (England), Randolph Healy (Ireland), Brian = Henry (USA), W. N. Herbert (Scotland), Peter Horn (South Africa), Robert = Kelly (USA), David Kennedy (England), John Kinsella (Australia), August = Kleinzahler (USA), Alan Loney (New Zealand), Roddy Lumsden (Scotland, = England), Paul Muldoon (Northern Ireland, USA), Gregory O'Brien (New = Zealand), Marjorie Perloff (USA), Sheenagh Pugh (Wales), Menka = Shivdasani (India), Matvei Yankelevich (USA), Angeline Yap (Singapore), = Harriet Zinnes (USA). Subscription rates in the U.S. are $12 per issue/year for individuals, = $15 for institutions. Foreign subscriptions are $17 and $20 = respectively. $5 discount for a three-year subscription. Fulcrum needs = your financial support and welcomes philanthropic donations. A check or = money order payable to Fulcrum Annual should be sent to Fulcrum, 334 = Harvard Street, Suite D-2, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 18:17:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: Re: Pre-Announcing Fulcrum's Forthcoming Submission Season MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Clarification: the submission season starts June 1. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 18:19:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ALDON L NIELSEN Subject: Why poets should ignore academic criticism Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII MIME-Version: 1.0 OK OK OK OK OK No more shall I cravenly seek my own critical approval of my own poetry! <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tell Her -- the page I never wrote! Tell Her, I only said -- the Syntax -- And left the Verb and the Pronoun -- out! --Emily Dickinson Aldon L. Nielsen Kelly Professor of American Literature The Pennsylvania State University 116 Burrowes University Park, PA 16802-6200 (814) 865-0091 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 13:33:00 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Susan M. Schultz" Subject: Tinfish news MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Tinfish has done a reprint of our all-time best selling book, _Sista = Tongue_, an experimental academic/personal essay about Hawaiian Creole = English (pidgin) speakers in Hawai`i. The book's relevance goes well = past our Pacific borders, however; anyone interested in language issues = (especially the uses of creoles) should pick up a copy. Send $10 to = Tinfish, 47-728 Hui Kelu Street #9, Kaneohe, HI 96744. The design is = exquisite: you can get a small taste of it by looking at our website: = http://maven.english.hawaii.edu/tinfish The book has been used in classrooms in Hawai`i and at the University of = Oregon--soon at the University of Washington. Itah, itah: sister Wuh-yo: world. Too-too, too-too: Popeye da Sailor Man. =20 Harold-Boy smile up wen Popeye squeeze da can, eat da spinach, beat up Brutus. Harold- Boy, he make oojee kine face wen Olive Oil like kiss Popeye all ova, and he love to sing along wit da Popeye song. YOU LIKE UNDAHSTAND MY BRADDA OR WOT? Lisa Kanae Coming soon: chapbooks by Murray Edmond (NZ), Sawako Nakayasu = (Japan/USA) and Deborah Meadows (USA). Coming later: full-length poetry = book by Linh Dinh. Susan M. Schultz ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 11:21:47 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: komninos zervos Subject: Re: self-organizing journals (was Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times)) Comments: cc: Brandon Barr Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > > >What I am envisioning is a site, let's call it academedia.org (if it >isn't taken yet). The site would be a sort of clearing-house for >academic papers based on a slashdot/epinions self-organizing model. >Authors could set up an account, and submit work in different >categories. They would also read works and rate them, and if they >really liked an author, they would add them to their "colleague" >list. The first time they visited a category, they would see a mess >of works. Once they started rating and trusting other authors, their >reading experience would change. If they visited the "language >poetry" section, they would see works by people they consider >"colleagues," or that their colleagues respect. Highly rated essays >would float to the top of each section, but that "ranking" is >specific to each reader. Everyone would get his or her own niche >journals filled with work they respect. A system like this can be >done with present technology, and plays into the strengths of digital >media. Instead of gatekeeping as the primary form of content >management, you rely on filtering. > >Or you can do away with the clearinghouse and simply allow networks >of writers to develop based upon the currency of links: like in >blogging. > sounds great brandon, but how do we get the work recognized as advancoing our research profile if the thing isn't officially recognized as a peer reviewed journal? and maybe you can't be a poet these days, and maybe you could never be a poet, without referring to or being informed by the contemporary theories of the day. and what followed language poetry? what movements have there been since langpo? oops a mixed bag of questions i've had over the last three weeks of ubpoetics but haven't been configured correctly to post komninos -- komninos zervos bsc(hons) ma(creative writing) http://www.gu.edu.au/ppages/K_Zervos Convenor CyberStudies major School of Arts Griffith University Gold Coast Campus PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre Queensland 9726 Australia tel: +61 7 55528872 fax: +61 7 55528141 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 18:40:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Love this conversation, and here are my contributions, with the special added bonus of my very "gendered" concerns: My hair is very full and long and somewhat ethnic. This means I am romantic, haunted, and I am a obviously a Woman Poet. My extremely impressive educational pedigree is offset by my posing in nondescript clothing in this gritty landscape. The lovely child I embrace indicates that I have a life other than my poetry...so there. My many beloved animals lapping at my hands indicate that I may or may not have a life outside my poetry...so there. By turning my face three quarteres away from the camera, I am either a) trying to deflect the power of my utterly staggering beauty or b) trying to deflect my own insecurity over my age/weight/appearance or c) trying to look artsy. ----- But I say this all with total compassion, because I am in the midst of trying to make an author photo for my own first book, and I mean really, is there such a thing as a "good" or "neutral" author photo? If you do look Attrative and Normal, you seem guilty of glamorizing yourself. If you don't look Attractive or Normal...well, then you don't. My current choice for author photo is a black and white Polariod in which I am slightly smiling, looking away, and very much hidden by shadow. But it was one of the only photos where I don't look totally uncomfortable. I would like to hear people actually name names of author photos they like, so I'll start. I love Claudia Rankine's photo on the back of _Plot_: she looks lovely and open and is genuinely smiling. And I like Kim Lyons' photo-booth film strip of herself with her son in which, again, she looks genuinely happy. Others? Arielle __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 23:19:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: furtherfield (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII lewis lacook and alan sondheim http://www.furtherfield.org/llacook/flash_files/negative5.swf alan sondheim http://www.furtherfield.org/asondheim/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 20:28:18 -0700 Reply-To: lindanorton@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: linda norton Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos Okay, I avoided all temptation to make an intervention in the discussion about UC Press, though I was the poetry editor (among other things) there, left under duress and in disgust, and have plenty of thoughts about the matter— But I can't resist chiming in here, since you sweetly and rightly mention the wonderful author photo of Claudia Rankine on the back cover of Plot. I provided (made) the collage Grove (and the brilliant book designer) used for the front cover of Plot ("boy with a squint, at Kew Gardens," or so I like to imagine), and I love the way Claudia's portrait (in black-and-white, glossy against the matte background) rhymes with the front cover and the black-and-white boys in it, who are—somehow—just being themselves, as Claudia is, somehow, confounding discourse and disenchantment and self-consciousness, HERSELF on the backcover of her book. Real happiness is radical, nowhere more so than in author photos and on poets' faces. Re: author photos: Broaden the genre, maybe?—think of the singer in the band Dealership, jumping on a bed on the cover of their first (I think) album . . . Cast aside your old tired (a)esthetics, perhaps, and go beyond the visage of genius in a small rectangle? Think Sidney Bechet AND his sidemen? I propose this abstractly, of course, sure that whatever author photo you (whoever you are) are prepared to provide your publisher, it will be—fine, maybe better than fine! Does anyone remember who wrote the piece about Avedon's portaiture that appeared in Grand Street some years (maybe ten years) ago? Interesting things about the face of painter Francis Bacon in there. Think Rembrandt, seeing the term, the life span of each individual life in each face he painted— Think—postage stamps. How's that for an approach to what is basically a publicity still? How to address the aesthetics of ephemeral statuary? On Fri, 10 May 2002 18:40:54 -0700 Arielle Greenberg wrote: Love this conversation, and here are my contributions, with the special added bonus of my very "gendered" concerns: My hair is very full and long and somewhat ethnic. This means I am romantic, haunted, and I am a obviously a Woman Poet. My extremely impressive educational pedigree is offset by my posing in nondescript clothing in this gritty landscape. The lovely child I embrace indicates that I have a life other than my poetry...so there. My many beloved animals lapping at my hands indicate that I may or may not have a life outside my poetry...so there. By turning my face three quarteres away from the camera, I am either a) trying to deflect the power of my utterly staggering beauty or b) trying to deflect my own insecurity over my age/weight/appearance or c) trying to look artsy. ----- But I say this all with total compassion, because I am in the midst of trying to make an author photo for my own first book, and I mean really, is there such a thing as a "good" or "neutral" author photo? If you do look Attrative and Normal, you seem guilty of glamorizing yourself. If you don't look Attractive or Normal...well, then you don't. My current choice for author photo is a black and white Polariod in which I am slightly smiling, looking away, and very much hidden by shadow. But it was one of the only photos where I don't look totally uncomfortable. I would like to hear people actually name names of author photos they like, so I'll start. I love Claudia Rankine's photo on the back of _Plot_: she looks lovely and open and is genuinely smiling. And I like Kim Lyons' photo-booth film strip of herself with her son in which, again, she looks genuinely happy. Others? Arielle ____________________________________ ______________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 00:28:22 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Your views of your views... MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT 1. My view is a dim one of my views. But, like a good Sartrean cosmonaut, here goes the wobbly eye. 2a. I tend to want to envision the listserv as an outrageously, flagrantly utopic, reflexively present-tense enactment (or set of -s). This view's been steady-as-it-goes, since my very first post (what a grunt!). b. I am the extreme minority in holding such a listserv view. My minority status on the issue has for the most part always been so. "I" am the last lingering trace here of a former boiling 'pulse'. But, flarf we must. c. The lackluster e-ception that my Planned Utopia has received, fellow cosmonauts, reflects significant differences between us! [*Would the delegate from the central provinces please rise and state his case.*] These differences "speak," in my case, to a historical relationship I hold with this listserv (back to 1996 -- yet for others, to the Big Bang itself) -- which should pass for an acknowledgement of how Language poets had the impact of a tsunami over me growing up in the '80s in surfless sands of seams ("White out there!"). d. "Now... just... hold on.... What has 2a -- 'planned social utopia' -- to do with the latter part of 2c, 'Language poetry'?! I have no idea how 'utopic social collective critique' connects to LP! I've never read anything like that in the histories of this messily indefinable grouping of poets, critics, itinerant thinkers ....” e. (So much to write about...so little about time!) Actually, I feel enormously happy for you, d. Still, poetry "moments," when they occur, do invoke the socially utopic -- for a time, anyway. 3a. Language poetry doesn't pose the social crisis for poetry today, as it (once) posed the crisis of poetry for Chris S (or Kent Johnson, among others here and elsewhere). This is *not* news. What *is* recent news, to me at least, is that LP seems to have become a Palgrave's Anthology for the 21C, neat-o cool stuff that is "different" from the Palgrave's Anthology of the 19C -- and yet purchasable as a set! Dichten = Condensare... b. As much as I loathe to bring this up once again, the beginning of a self-satisfyingly comfortable and settled indifference to LP began to express itself specifically on this list with -- HG. That is *partly* (only partly) why his perfectly even-tempered, nice and witty posts incited such a suppressed furor, I believe -- his was an untimely meditation, his the fully-achieved Null Point far ahead of its time! -- which is to acknowledge that I and others were partly to blame (yet with no regrets!) for what resulted, since "we" had, then, a different agenda for the listserv. -- Even though, as I say, I mostly lurked, and did not discuss any of this with others backchannel -- AND NOW DO YOU SEE how an ideology of social utopic critique hailed me like a great white bird, only too well, friend?? But, let me lean on you just awhile longer, please let me tell you my story to the end! ("You're fucking wedding can wait!!"). 4a. "If poetry is the mole of history, what am I doing on this listserv!" b. Aaron Bombeck doesn’t know... 5. "There are worse fates." 6a. Now go, play with your letters, and come back with a happy, a-social, Oulipo utopia of one -- befitting The Computer Age. b. "Cosmonaut! your nephew's cat is nick-named Turd -- The plastic pink pencil case you took to public school is keepsaked in a $5 ply mini-dresser bought off a construction boss you had once, he was not a stingy flint but a junk dealer too -- You have seen your favorite cartoon now, Rocky & Bullwinkle, once, and that was last week, it's nice to know the experience of having a favorite for moments that beckon their recognition, like this one -- Your shoes, hand-me-downs from Dad's only serious, persistent clothing expenditure, his search for the best custom shoes for flat feet -- Your favorite author photo, David Hess playing a joke on ubpoetics --" How did you know all this?! "I am the future of the past you will now no longer need, cosmonaut! Harken to the sound! There, just there, something new, there -- just over there!!!!!! It is yet faint! indistinguishable! but, for you! You must leave now, and disappear.” ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 01:23:30 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: views i ews... from Louis' post MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit a. windows through windows... can we be parapolitical for a moment? we think that in all fairness, and politics beside, we e-ceived your Planned Utopia and have it filed right beside overall recognition factor for factors. it is on the books. maybe that lacks luster? I... b. parapolitical for a moment. >c. The lackluster e-ception that my Planned Utopia has received, fellow >cosmonauts, reflects significant differences between us! [*Would the >delegate from the central provinces please rise and state his case.*] d. listserv taking ontology. to rant, to >Harken to the sound! There, just there, something new, there -- just over >there!!!!!! It is yet faint! indistinguishable! but, for you! You must leave >now, and disappear." e. "...into the vapid green night." f. poof! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 08:47:23 +0100 Reply-To: Robin Hamilton Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: Your views of your views... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "Louis Cabri" > 3a. Language poetry doesn't pose the social crisis for poetry today, as it > (once) posed the crisis of poetry for Chris S (or Kent Johnson, among others > here and elsewhere). This is *not* news. What *is* recent news, to me at > least, is that LP seems to have become a Palgrave's Anthology for the 21C, > neat-o cool stuff that is "different" from the Palgrave's Anthology of the > 19C -- and yet purchasable as a set! Dichten = Condensare... Louis, I hate to say this (as obviously it would undermine the entire pupose of this listserve) but L+A+N+G+U+A+G+E Poetry is a dead-in-the-water small puddle in the outer margins of Boonbooks, USA. Nobody cares, and even fewer notice. To deploy the Palgrave analogy is specious. (And jesus god bloody wept -- Palgrave!! This IS the 21st century -- couldn't we at least flash Norton, if we're playing canonical anthologies?) But (to return to the point) ... The sole remaining minor element of interest in the total fiasco is the minor gossip around who was bounced when from Buffalo. And over +that+, even FEWER care. K, I inhabit a small island 3,000 moles away on the off-shore of Europe ... Which might give some perspective. But when did American Poetry cease being relevant? You HAD to pay attention when it was Eliot/ (dichten)Pound / Stevens / Williams. Or the flash confessionals -- Lowell, Berryman, Plath and Sexton. Or even (he's I believe still alive) Ashberry. But (save my shame) where does Bernstein and LangPo rate in this? When I had more than two brain cells to rub together, I contemplated an article on Internet Lists Considered From the Perspective Of Primate Territoriality. All lists reflect the "dear enemy" phenomenon, and particularly inept lists (subsubpoetics in its meltdown days was a fairly classic example) can be analysed in terms of noyau. Noyau is supposed to be +the+ most primitive primate territorial grouping. But [analogically] Poetics (Buffalo) drops even below +that+ radar -- you can't analogise it. The last silverbacked gorilla beating its chest vainly against the moon in Tasmasnia? Maybe. Robin Hamilton ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 08:34:22 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/10/02 11:11:16 AM, aaron@BELZ.NET writes: << I don't know, Jeffrey. Your implication that "thinking" is equivalant to "education" is a dangerous one, in my opinion. How about thinking with the body, with the soul; through meditation, through singing, through sex. Or through experience. Wherefore wisdom? Your logic reduces thought to what can be had through education, and that, for me, is borderline crazytalk. >> Ah, nothing like a little Cartesian Dualism in my morning coffee. Sorry for jumping in, but how exactly does one think through sex? Seems like a recipe for performance anxiety, or at least a brand new dictionary definition for the verb "to think." Aaron, I take it John Locke does not float your boat. As far as I know, thinking requires electrical surges, so one is always and only thinking with the body. Sounds like you're mixing a little faith based voodoo with your science. I always thought that was the dangerous bit. But I "think" I appreciate the spirit of your response, though I haven't seen Wisdom around these parts in a dog's age. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com Amazon.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 08:57:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Leddy Subject: Fw: The Poetics of Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Eliot Weinberger wrote about the cover photo of Carolyn Forche's The Country Between Us in a review in Sulfur 6 (1983). Michael David said > During the summer I'm teaching a class on the function of the author photo in > 20th-century poetic production. Some questions I have > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 09:06:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops In-Reply-To: <78.2681473c.2a0e69ce@aol.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > Ah, nothing like a little Cartesian Dualism in my morning coffee. Sorry for > jumping in, but how exactly does one think through sex? Seems like a recipe > for performance anxiety, or at least a brand new dictionary definition for > the verb "to think." William, Not trying to redefine anything; only to point out that the kind of "electrical surges" that you say comprise thinking are also "educated" (to return to Jeffrey's word) in sex, contemplation, and other activities that are not taught in school. Perhaps we would agree that art-making is often like sexual intercourse. For as you say, "one is always and only thinking with the body." My point was to correct Jeffrey's statement that "a better-educated ~person~ is in a better position to write." Happy saturdays all around; Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 10:26:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos In-Reply-To: <20020511014054.58817.qmail@web11307.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII For no fathomable reason, I have always wanted, in the author photo of my eventual (please, please, please) first book, to be using my teeth to feed a Ritz cracker to a crow or raven. Cracker brand is actually optional; it's just that the round ones seem to me more aesthetically pleasing than, say, a square saltine. But the bird definitely has to be a Corvus brachyrhynchos or C. corax. Gwyn (really... this sounds facetious but it isn't, and I can't figure out why) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 13:49:19 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: Prizes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "(There should be a Ramez Qureshi Prize for Criticism established.)" Yes, and I suggest a Jeffrey Jullich Prize for Maturity in Poetry established, too. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 May 2002 16:42:26 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: I love Joel Kuszai and Rush Limbaugh MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In his post "Re: status quo sentiments", Joel Kuszai, writes: For poets who criticize academics, there is an implicit political or social value system often at work. This is especially true of poetry and poetry criticism. I find it curious that anyone would make political claims for the 'kind' of poetry that they write. I think it's great - even courageous - but even the most explicit doggerel doesn't have the location it once had. And certainly so-called 'experimental forms' have lost whatever political values they may have once had. For me, it's no longer about the content of poetry, its style or compositional methodology, but rather how it either gets implemented socially or how its implementation is part of some other constitution of community (towards, hopefully positive ends). .............................................................................. ............................................. This is Absoultely Fabulous! Poetry for me is not about the poem anymore either. It's about the 'constitution of community'. By the way, you didn't have to tell us you were a Marxist. We could tell by your tone. Someone reply to Jeff Hamilton's post, it's the most reasonable and honest one so far!, dave (who likes Rush for his sexy man-voice that's all) www.davidhess.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 10:09:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mIEKAL aND Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit For the back cover photo on my book No Moon, Dante I used a picture of me at the age of 8 with chickadees eating off from the brim of my hat. mIEKAL Gwyn McVay wrote: > For no fathomable reason, I have always wanted, in the author photo of my > eventual (please, please, please) first book, to be using my teeth to feed > a Ritz cracker to a crow or raven. Cracker brand is actually optional; > it's just that the round ones seem to me more aesthetically pleasing than, > say, a square saltine. But the bird definitely has to be a Corvus > brachyrhynchos or C. corax. > > Gwyn (really... this sounds facetious but it isn't, and I can't figure out > why) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 12:24:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ken Rumble Subject: Re: self-organizing journals (was Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times)) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >komninos zervos writes: > >what movements have there been since langpo? I can't say that I can say (or give a name to) any post-langpo movements, but I've got a couple thoughts about langpo/post-langpo. To partially answer your question though -- I'd recommend _Telling it Slant_ ed. by Mark Wallace and Steven Marks. It's a good collection of poets writing about poetics who I'd describe as post-langpo (second generation langpo?) Though before I start calling people names I'd like to throw in my definition of langpo cuz I can. The terms "Language Poets" and "Language Poetry" are really short hand for "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Magazine Poets/Poetry." As many have pointed out in the discussion thus far, a unified vision does not define the group. Instead what defines the group is their participation in a specific little journal (I may be repeating something somebody already said.) Another definition might include something bland like "and dedicated to challenging accepted norms", but that's vague and not particularly useful (couldn't that definition be applied to Britney Spears?) So when people ask what langpo is of course the response is "well -- it's kinda sorta this, but kinda sorta that, but you just kinda gotta know." It may be a more useful discussion to try to break the term "langpo" into smaller categories (though I'm not a big fan of spending time classifying writing into genus and species (seems like a way to avoid dealing with what the stuff is actually saying (like separating criminals and not being shocked by their crimes, just making sure that all the murderers go here, forgers there, embezzlers next door.))) So part of the reason I recommend _Telling it Slant_ is cuz it does a good job of presenting a variety of poetic approaches (by no means complete, but the book doesn't pursue completion) by writers that were affected by and are the generation after the langpo phenomenon. There's been a lot of movement since langpo, but the movements probably won't be named for awhile. Ken ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 09:28:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Kasey Mohammad (Hotmail)" Subject: Re: I love Joel Kuszai and Rush Limbaugh In-Reply-To: <24.253ef234.2a0d8ab2@aol.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit For heaven's sake, Dave, slow down and read more carefully! And stop being so rude! When Joel says "it's no longer about the content of poetry," "it" refers merely to the question of the political specificity of forms. He's just saying that whereas you might once have been able to gauge a poet's politics by virtue of the fact that she writes in, say, New Sentences, or heroic couplets, or haiku, or whatever, that's no longer possible. Postmodern proliferation of techniques has generated an ideologically unknowable geography. Your certainty that Joel's tone is "Marxist" (unless your irony is double, and _I'm_ the one who's totally missing _your_ point, which is always a possibility) shows that you haven't adapted to this fact. Shared vocabularies no longer mean shared politics. I feel partly responsible for this silliness because of my initial reply to Joel's post, which was meant to be read as a tongue-in-cheek travesty of my own occasional insecurities that I might be perceived as an ineffectual "fellow traveler"--not by Joel, and not in such a way as to suggest that Joel's post had as its intention the kind of Stalinist interrogation I was pretending to react to, but just on a unilateral paranoid level (these are feelings that I of course realize are absurd, and hence the travesty). My fear is that your belief that you can tell Joel is a Marxist from his "tone" really stems from your reading my post, which you might have interpreted as "insinuating" such a thing. Not that it would be bad if Joel _were_ a Marxist, which, as far as I know, for what it's worth, he's not, at least in any doctrinaire way. But for me to offer this disavowal in Joel's name is already to succumb to a kind of implied McCarthyism, which is exactly the atmosphere I want this thread not to invoke. Oh my god, this is dumb. Can we go back to the semiotics of author photos? K. on 5/10/02 1:42 PM, David Hess at Davdhess@AOL.COM wrote: > In his post "Re: status quo sentiments", Joel Kuszai, writes: > > For poets who criticize academics, there is an implicit political or social > value system often at work. This is especially true of poetry and poetry > criticism. I find it curious that anyone would make political claims for the > 'kind' of poetry that they write. I think it's great - even courageous - but > even the most explicit doggerel doesn't have the location it once had. And > certainly so-called 'experimental forms' have lost whatever political values > they may have once had. For me, it's no longer about the content of poetry, > its style or compositional methodology, but rather how it either gets > implemented socially or how its implementation is part of some other > constitution of community (towards, hopefully positive ends). > > ............................................. > This is Absoultely Fabulous! Poetry for me is not about the poem anymore > either. It's about the 'constitution of community'. > > By the way, you didn't have to tell us you were a Marxist. We could tell by > your tone. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 13:03:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Shoemaker Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Gwyn--Now if it were a songbird I cld understand. Birds, the first poets, The passing of the cracker a sacrament, a bonding, teeth to beak. But a crow or a raven? Hmmm. I guess you like not just sweet song but also croaking and cawing...or mabye you want to coax to something more? In an early version of "A" Zukofsky riffed on his name: Zu-caw-caw-caw-of-sky On Sat, 11 May 2002, Gwyn McVay wrote: > For no fathomable reason, I have always wanted, in the author photo of my > eventual (please, please, please) first book, to be using my teeth to feed > a Ritz cracker to a crow or raven. [snip] ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 18:20:20 +0100 Reply-To: Robin Hamilton Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: self-organizing journals (was Re: FW: UC Press Cutbacks (from LA Times)) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >komninos zervos writes: > > > >what movements have there been since langpo? Like, WOW!! This kinda has to rate with the "what advances have there been in physics since the phlogiston theory?" It was stupid to start with; any sprogs it spawned were equally stoopid. Could go on, but ... RH. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 14:00:28 -0500 Reply-To: thomas/swiss Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: thomas/swiss Subject: authors and photos. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-Ascii" Here's the best book on a related subject: Picturing Ourselves Photography and Autobiography by Linda Haverty Rugg Published by the University of Chicago Press=20 =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D= =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 19:02:51 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ian Randall Wilson Subject: Peer review & editorial strategies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Ron Silliman writes: That's why, for example, the use of the alphabet to assign sequence in a journal is almost always a failure -- it's a bureaucrat's democracy, rather than an interactive one, an abdication of politics right at the point at which editorial politics should enter in. Much better to put pieces into the most cantankerous sequence you can imagine and then stand behind that. --------------- When I read Ashbery's _Can You Hear Bird?_ the most shocking realization was= =20 that the poems were all ordered alphabetically.=A0 To me, it was as if Ashbe= ry=20 was acknowledging that complete arbitrariness of the sign and of any orderin= g=20 system.=A0 The table of contents and the index were also identical frames fo= r=20 the book. =20 So I have to say while I certainly recognize that a strong editorial presenc= e=20 in ordering can make a statement, I disagree with Ron on this point, that=20 ordering a journal alphabetically is an abdication.=A0 Happy accidents of=20 juxtaposition result as much as if I practiced Burrough's cut-up method=20 applied to poetry or the Dada chance method (I simply throw the pages in the= =20 air and whatever order they land is they order they go into the journal). =20 Richard Kostelantz made a similar complaint, though, about Issue 1 of 88 and= =20 now comes Ron's post.=A0Issue 2 will be alphabetical, the journal is already= =20 3/4 set.=A0 But we'll consider other strategies for future issues.=A0 You go= t me=20 thinking about it. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 20:31:58 -0400 Reply-To: gmcvay@patriot.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>>In an early version of "A" Zukofsky riffed on his name: Zu-caw-caw-caw-of-sky EEK! Steven! Tell me more! Whereabouts in that big old pome? Zuk (not the ubiquitous green squash) was one of the authors on my MFA exam reading list many aeons ago, and like the music of Cage, the upper limit/lower limit etc. of Zuk tickles my brain in a good way. I like corvids. They are vociferous (not traditionally nightingale-warbly), and irreverent, and they've just got this totally impeccable wardrobe. Gwyn (plus, boids is just dinosaurs what grew up) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 20:38:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: anastasios.kozaitis@VERIZON.NET Subject: Saenz release Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable NEW RELEASE Jaime Saenz Immanent Visitor Selected Poems of Jaime Saenz A Bilingual Edition check out: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9502.html Translated from the Spanish by Kent Johnson and Forrest Gander Immanent Visitor is the first English-language translation of the work of=20 Bolivia's greatest and most visionary twentieth-century poet. A po=E8te=20 maudit, Jaime Saenz rejected the conventions of polite society and became a= =20 monk in service of his own imagination. Apocalyptic and occult in his=20 politics, a denizen of slum taverns, unashamedly bisexual, insistently=20 nocturnal in his artistic affairs, and secretive in his leadership of a=20 select group of writers, Saenz mixed the mystical and baroque with the=20 fantastic, the psychological, and the symbolic. In masterly translations by= =20 two poet-translators, Kent Johnson and Forrest Gander, Saenz's strange,=20 innovative, and wildly lyrical poems reveal a literary legacy of fierce=20 compassion and solidarity with indigenous Bolivian cultures and with the=20 destitute, the desperate, and the disenfranchised of that unreal city, La= Paz. In long lines, in odes that name desire, with Whitmanesque anaphora, in=20 exclamations and repetitions, Saenz addresses the reader, the beloved, and= =20 death in one extended lyrical gesture. The poems are brazenly affecting.=20 Their semantic innovation is notable in the odd heterogeneity of formal and= =20 tonal structures that careen unabashedly between modes and moods; now=20 archly lyrical, now arcanely symbolic, now colloquial, now trancelike. As=20 Saenz's reputation continues to grow throughout the world, these inspired=20 translations and the accompanying Spanish texts faithfully convey the=20 poet's unique vision and voice to English-speaking readers. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 23:23:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Halvard Johnson Subject: Re: Peer review & editorial strategies In-Reply-To: <103.1528b279.2a0efd1b@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Ian, do you think Ashbery incapable of ordering the poems and then wording the titles so as to run alphabetically? Wouldn't put it past him, myself. Hal "I need big art." --overheard in a Chelsea gallery Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard@earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard { When I read Ashbery's _Can You Hear Bird?_ the most shocking realization was { that the poems were all ordered alphabetically. To me, it was as if Ashbery { was acknowledging that complete arbitrariness of the sign and of any ordering { system. The table of contents and the index were also identical frames for { the book. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 00:59:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: phenomenology of approach - conclusion MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII (apologies for the length of this - Alan) - (the closing of the work) the phenomenology of approach = approaching the everglades, the city, illness, language, culture = a text written in spurts, after the outline, chasing down, encapsulating, circumventing. what is an approach? how does approach manifest itself to the subject? what is the domain of the approach? what is a domain? what is subjectivity? what is its presence and loss? 0 intermittent text the text of dispersal. sections are written into and out of the outline. the text is governed by the outline. subsequent versions increase the quantitative content, refine the tolerance of the investigation. the text is an accumulation or collocation of interspersions. 1 domain limited or unlimited a limited domain is inscribed with or without fuzzy boundaries. domains may be limited in sememe, space, and/or time. example: everglades bounded by hydrology, ecosystem. for example (below): everglades younger than writing, than human inscription. for example (below): the scribble: scribbled note, indecipherable handwriting, noise in the machine. the state/meant of the domain is always already a delimitation. (limits are closed sets in relation to the rest of the world/s, worlding.) 2 clues and cues from immemorial past a clue is an interpretable symptom, according to a scheme based on an articulated methodology. a cue is the activation of a scheme based on an anomaly or repetitive structure within the domain. the domain in turn may be defined by clues and cues. 3 difference between clues and cues a clue is based on evidence from the past to the present; a cue is based on activation within the present. 4 relevance theory and approach clues and cues are such by virtue of relevance; theoretical methodology is part of a critical sifting apparatus. relevance is already a complex construct, ranging from variegated retinal firings to stratifications of attention. 5 top-down classification schema this follows for example category theory, chaos/fractal theories; one always already begins with pre-theoretic presuppositions. the schemes obscure as well as clarify; they override heuristics, average anomalies and noise. as with approach, they are always a detour in this regard; they counteract the information implosion of nominalism. 6 wonder, innovation, contradictions beginning with a sense of awe - everything signs everything, everything inscribes. innovation in terms of heuristic projections and introjections - contradictions in terms of anomalies, revisions, recuperations, returns. wonder is a washing, determinate sublime, approach across the edge of the cliff, reworking binding and boundary. 7 deep ecologies, interstitial the ecologies become perceptually deeper; gaps are filled in; one lives in depth in the glades, aware of cyclical time, anomalous events, local histories, individual plants and animals. think of messy thickets as sheaves; partial separations tend towards partial separations. format information formats, format information. the habitus tends towards experience. 8 filling in the habitus from larger to smaller clues and cues - alligators and wading birds to landbirds and invertebrates for example. as one moves down in scale, identification becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible. 9 from anomaly to behaviors and back again; behavior clusters based on attributes. or from story to structure, diachrony to synchrony, anecdote to prediction. 10 sense of occupation and intimacy inhabitation based on familiarity, familiality. what is occupation without possession, the contract. intimacy forestalls occupation, the experiential relegating definition. but in another sense, that of familiar territory, 'my work,' 'my walk,' 'my singing,' 'my song,' my process, my advance, my report and distribution. 11 familiarity, familiality in the first, equivalence scripts and schemata, universals, typifications; in the second, identity scripts and experientials, individuations. in both, the failure of distributive aristotelian logics, in both the gestured and extrapolated indefinite bandwidth. (22) 12 maternality chora and matrix - the inchoate beneath the surface of the subject, the dominion of striations, vocalizations. 13 deconstruction of the abject disarticulation of the abject as such and rearticulation in terms of microstructure, skein. the muck and clutter in relation to marl/peat moss and biome or flora/fauna regimes. muck and clutter as regimes. 14 phenomenology of naming following the notion of rigid designators, beginning with classification, classification experience, virtual subjectivity and its relation to concrete manifestation. 15 inarticulate inchoate maternality: see above. the proffering of languaging or template. the inert real. the unspeaking, unspeakable, unspoken. 16 the mess and its overcoming entanglement as regime intrusions, conflicting biomes, collapse or implosion, niche-construction, problems of scale in space and time. the mess overcoming. 17 phenomenology of touch demarcation of environment on the body - thicket tangle, poisonwood, against the skin. differentiation of the mass. eidetic reduction to the pressure of being. 18 reinscription of domain the domain _as_ continually inscribed in negotiation. linguistic contract of the subject. increasingly fuzzy boundary issues. refinement of differentiations - typology to decreasing tolerances. 19 immersive and definable structures definable is fully reversible; immersive is fuzzy, vectored. both are capable of meta-level collocations, i.e. a definable of definable, immersive of definable, etc. 20 clue skeins clues related theoretically, taxonomically, in terms of typifications, taxonomies - heuristic skeins, established on the run. partial skeins, tagged skeins, default tag skeins. 21 the instrumental reason of flows and part-objects fluid mechanics, turbulence, stases within the flow - non-equilibrium thermodynamics. the partitioning, parcelling, clutter, of the world. part-objects as modules: modules 'on the part of' the subject, and modules 'defined as such' within the continually reinscribed domain. 22 gestural logics and superimpositions such that partial information (as in land's experiments re: color vision) extends across a total domain or spectrum. 23 delaying conclusions and the settling-in of elements inconclusivity of discourses which are increasingly refined. elements noticed and defined 'settle in' - in the sense of familiarity - always with default tags - i.e. elimination by counterexample. retention of _weak theory_ - searching for coherency without retention of apparently outmoded paradigms. 24 continuous processing and absorption of anomalies anomalies as generative of domain boundaries, entities, temporary inscriptions, potential of part-objects, etc. the anomaly as the mis-fit among the accountable and accounted-for. as unaccountable, uncounted, the anomaly generates circumscriptions, circumlocutions; these are involved by the subject in a consideration and absorption of the _detour._ every anomaly potentially turns everything around, and is turned around by everything. 25 modes of approach in space and time diachronic/synchronic approaches - space-time slices. diffusion of occluded layerings (bay bottoms versus onshore mangrove island topography). architectonics of the domain. 26 horizons of 'natural' and 'unnatural' worlds and horizons of 'subjective' and 'objective' worlds - in relation to heuristics and experiential structures (immersivities). definition is both tool and violation; mobile fuzzy domain boundaries participate in the natural (i.e. given) order as well as ideological political/economic conscious and unconscious considerations. 27 weakening of perceptual structures and responses approach is always already self-critical, self-critique; the critique itself is withdrawn from the self, sublimated into emergent considerations of the domain. the phenomenology of approach implies a weakness of language, definition, inscription, boundary, instrumental reason; it implies releasement, waiting (not waiting-upon) as well. 28 releasement and listening to listen without consideration of the source, the speech, one's answer; to avoid pausological structures ('yes, but...'); to speak after (what appears to be) the case. 29 buildings, dwellings, and habitations domains as fuzzy architectures, the build world, to the extent of the delimitation. dwelling, as in residing within the domain, within the subjective horizon of the experiential mode in relation to the domain. the domain as inhabited by the subject, wor(l)ds becoming 'natural' in the sense of familiarity, familiality. 30 the neighborhood it is the neighborhood, communality, the constitutes the increasing approach of the domain. to the extent of a phenomenology of approach, the domain is asymptotic, never fully approached. the neighborhood is a confluence of neighborhoods, intersections demographics, zones and zoning ordinances, ethnicities - just about any conceivable attribute, fuzzy or not (for example, families whose surnames begin with 'Mc'). the neighbor- hood is also a maternality, a comfort-zone, an occupation constituted by the participant's introjections and projections. neighborhood is created by their increasing coherency and stability, a homeostatic domain itself. the attainment of homeostasis involves mechanisms for absorbing anomaly, to the extent that anomaly becomes subsumed (i.e. this moth is an unknown species within the imperial silk family). 31 intersecting populations and worlds no domain is pure, no approach can posit an isolated object for long. skeins intermesh diachronically and synchronically, across disciplines and other semi-rigid boundaries of the classical episteme. domains possess symptomatic leakage and staining; there are stigma-zones, exhaustion zones, depletion zones, zones of surplus accumulations. what is posited as an object both diffuses and expands; becoming invisible, it participates within neighborhooding, worlding - becoming visible, it participates in skew-orthogonal skeining and the report. 32 phenomenology of withdrawal every approach is a withdrawal; what is known is known in recession. the decrease of tolerance is asymptotic at best. the greater the knowledge, the weaker the theory, heuristics coming more and more into play. there are dialectics among reifications, objectifications, subjectivities, reports and encapsulations, releases and experience, determinations and faltering data, anomaly. the phenomenology of approach embeds withdrawal, just as withdrawal implies approach. every introjection, a projection; and every projection, an introjection. 33 the skein (skew-orthogonal) the grid and its imposition, input-output matrices, markov chains, tensors and absorptions of data, local geodesics, fuzzy or clouded enumerations, collocations of data. 34 the skein (askew and local) the local scribble, local geodesics without embedding, fluid-mechanical or cellular automata modeling, closures, accumulations of data, local messes. 35 increasing audacity and circumscription one takes increasing chances as danger apparently recedes by virtue of knowledge. how to approach a snake or alligator; how to ward off deerflies and no-see-ums. an approach is always a detour (thus the sides, top and bottom, are in evidence); the domain, no matter how problematic, is both skein-connected (to its environs, history, etc., without and with observation, to taxonomic schema, ideologies, cultures and civilizations, and so forth) - and disconnected (to the extent that it is not 'its' intention that one approaches, that one makes the approach, that it is within one's horizon - but who knows). a detour may follow one or another walk-around, or it maybe be a confluence/manifold of the totality of walk-arounds - for example, the semi-totalities of gathering periphyton data in space time through selected sites, extrapolated across the glades in their entirety. 36 the report for example: the everglades as we know them are younger than writing; this residue is older than that. the report is tailored to distribution modes, economics, audience, historiographies, symbolic conventions, bibliography and reference, dedication and authority, placement within or without various series, a particular written language, attendant taxonomic ploys, languages, and paradigms. 37 the distribution the distribution of the report enters the field of reports, processes of reporting and distributing, checks and counter-checks. the report is always already a reification by virtue of peer and other consensus; this is the escape or leakage of the phenomenology of approach into profession, professionalism, and doxa. 38 the thinking of it and the rethinking of it, the arc through and across the report, response, distributions, counter-distributions, argument and counter-argument, the return to the field, the walking-through the field, and always already transformation of the domain and its problematic. 39 the world of it the world is all that is the case. but the world and worlding are dissimilar and 'the' already breaks down among virtual and real, virtual particles and introjections/projections, phantasms and implicate orders. nothing remains of encompassment; domains dissolve or problematize, just as the 'of it' - already a possessive - is another releasement. 40 the knowledge, experiencing of the knowledge what recedes, becoming, not knowledge, but implicate, implicated, tacit. my boundaries, body, disappear, absent themselves, among the thickets. worlding wheels on virtual axes; id and ego merge mute. what was real and had become symbolic now recedes into the imaginary and real. skin and masquerade become one; abjection diffuses among bodies, waters, earths, islands, hammocks. enunciation is always a problem increasingly distant as one silences, the report long gone, having been written, distributed, critiqued, absorbed, discarded. those series or skeins have no place here; evanescent, they're already exhausted by consciousness and defuge. the leaving that is left is an accompaniment, future inhabitation of memory or visitation, minding, mindful. no longer the distance of the approach or proximity of withdrawal, but only translucency, transparency on rare occasion. imagining the glades, but not without myself diffused, laminar, here and there, the skitter. ============================================================ Notes: On Mon, 6 May 2002, Ryan Whyte wrote: > > > These texts are impressive, and for me, strangely, there's a > > > distorted resonance with German romantic science, of all things -- a > > > deployment of science/knowledge to its limit, the sublime and the > > > positioning/experience of the observer -- although certainly not the > > > view from the mountaintop but rather the risk of drowning -- and I > > > wonder if a phenomenology of drowning, if one can think such a > > > thing, operates here also -- > > > > > The risk of drowning is both metaphoric and real - there are signature > > souvenirs from the Everglades - "I gave my blood in the Everglades" - > > in some of my photography, I've teetered or approached > > alligators/biting snakes/etc. at close range - > > > > But then drowning also connects with emergence/submergence - with > > sublimation prior to the return of the repressed - > > It's interesting for the hermeneutics -- the risk of misinterpreting leads > to real dangers, and the text follows along, or is already written across > this structure, and the reader already reads 'into' it -- > One falls into it: the text, the river, the Everglades, the alligator-maw. It's productive, a kind of tacit/muscular intelligence at work, an approach silencing language, in the guise of increasing (incipient) structure. Gaining knowledge, gaining footholds, listening. > > One of the rangers described Everglades visitors as down 30% since the > > 70s - whereas every other park is growing fast. This is because there, > > I think, there are no demarcations - drive around, focus on the larger > > birds and alligators, leave. She described the park as "layered" - > > identification in terms of the object increasingly magnifies; if we > > had stayed, we would have gone to microscopy. There is also the > > problematic of identity within the entanglement, which is also the > > problematic of post-modern identities, looped, eviscerated in terms of > > public/private, and caught in the matrices of what I called > > "radiations" or (Cantor) dusts - computer, telephone, radio/tv > > transmission, inter and intranettings, hackings, and so forth - not to > > mention the problematic of _what_ is caught as such - after Lacan / > > Foucault, we can't go back to the monolith of the unitary subject, > > monad, etc. - > > You are part of the park, already; it's speaking of you.... > No one speaking but myself, enunciated, as if from/of the park (as if/from the position, say, of a woman), but it is a fictivity, an approach itself, introjection/projection. > It's also interesting in terms of differance; the layering will have > 'made sense' or organized in a retrospective view of previous layers, > scales, which have to begin, when one is in situ, between bodily > relation, memory, and the always uncomfortable reading of the map... I > suppose that everything is constantly misread/jury-read when one is in > the park; on the other hand there are as you say technological > inscriptions, resolving power of the microscope, scaling of the map.... > Scales have neither beginning nor ending, pointsets and bandwidth; one begins somewhere, after all. But the beginning is always occluded - always this differance as you say, a deferring, not to the sign, but to its absence - an absence spelled out only in the metapsychology of the subject. ... >From ryan.whyte@UTORONTO.CA Sat May 11 22:31:23 2002 -Is it reductive to say that some of the texts you've produced operate -across these kinds of formal structures, in which reading 'for plot' -operates across this reading of the map of topographical/topological -shifts, as it were? The metaphor strains, but it leads to an interesting -situation of reading, in which 'formal' difficulties in reading apply -pressure to a kind of tacit knowledge, "silencing language" -- arguably -the situation of every reading, but 'more so' in this case; riskier -- -... One might have a narratology without a reading, I think; the phenomenology of approach implies the former to the extent that there is a noticing, tending towards the intention to investigate, or at least approach - to reorient the mind and body towards ( ) - no matter how suffused ( ) is or appears to be. Even walking or a walk-around is a narration. One might consider an inordinately rough terrain - and then what happens? One's attention is consumed with keeping one's balance - almost nothing else is occurring, and any other goals or destinations - the teleology itself - may be put on hold, subsumed, reduced to a (default) tag in the subject's fuzzy scheme of things... -Agreed -- but I wonder also if the psychoanalytic models -- projection -etc --- might also be too reductive of what one might call the ecology of -ideas, both in your texts and in the reading of them? As if the site were -not that of fantasy or the ego but something that radically takes apart -the ego, but 'speaks' nonetheless.... I don't think of the site 'taking apart' or 'speaking' - no such book of nature, etc. It's inert, real. Projection can be a diffusion or emission; certainly what's occurring in the phenomenology of approach is occurring within the subject, within the horizon of the subject - elsewhere, extern- ally, there's instrumental reason, etc. So I'm thinking of a broader meta- psychology, one of flows/flux/spew/emission as well (my notion of 'defuge' is related to this). As far as 'taking apart,' it's not as if the ego were assembled. In almost everything one does, it's absent (see Drew Leder); in a sense, neither it (nor id) nor the body are present - [scales] -And here the psychoanalytic -- at least the Lacanian -- is compelling -- -what is being addressed, what is addressing the subject in or in relation -to the site (these sentences are difficult to write -- qualification on -qualification)? The place itself fluctuates with stains, the screen.... [...] Again, is the subject ever addressed? In the addressing of the subject, surely it's always the subject that's addressing, at least in the receiv- ing, if nothing else? A dead subject can never be addressed, at least in terms of interiority and horizon. The receptor is address. I wrote a while ago about 'sm's - using sado-masochisms as a crude model for couplings and linkages, out of which worlding occurs. One might think of couplings and linkages in terms of the phenomenology of approach and the skein, embedding, distancing, etc. But that would be another text... ================================================================== she speaks: sawgrass among periphyton, periphyton among sawgrass: who can untangle? buried in algae, across almost certain rotifera, stentor, what is innumerable?:the land is flat, liguus fasciatus a microcosm of rings, desiccated alligator weed, the layers crawl across tamiami, they subdue miami, tendrils across the river, down through lejeune, among the quarried keys :i don't know how to do this. i don't know how to say this.:: she writes: to speak is already not to know. claws and teeth mark the boundaries of analysis. bladderwort surrounds nano-bio organelles. nothing is complete.:desiccation of alligator holes, everything returning, supine, writing from a distance - violation and distantiation of inscription :i don't know how to do this. i don't know how to say this. the flat land with its swells, innumerable regimens of meter-high mountains, organism crawling through this body, through this flesh, the highs gauging nothing, a bit of movement, neural networking, a bit of stasis, world shutting-down :: she thinks: cormorant nothing is complete. noting is complete. on a thin notebook. through my to speak is already not to know. claws and teeth mark the boundaries of analysis. bladderwort surrounds nano-bio organelles. nothing is complete and right ====================================================================== actant aether alterities Amidah arounds avatar avatars BBS bio biomes bricolage bushido castrated cd cdrom CEN Centre chora clots coherencies collocations com Compaq complicit consciousnesses consensualities cordons cunt cunts Cybermind cyberspace cyborg d'eruza d'nala decathexis deconstructed deconstruction deerflies defuge Derrida desiccated dhtml diachronically diachrony diegesis diegetic differance differend disassociating disinvestment distantiation ecologies effusions emanants emergences empathetic empathized encapsulations entasic episteme everglades experientials extasis extensivity extrusions familiality fantasm fantasmic fasciatus feedforward fictivity filmmaker filmstock fingerboard foofwa geomatics gesturally gigabytes gridlines halfgroupoid hemiptera hirself historiographies holarchy htm html http hyperreality i'd i'm i've ideogrammar ikonic imaginaries immersivities incompletes indexicality informatics internet interpenetrating interpenetrations introjections isp izanagi javascript Jen jennifer jisatsu jouissance judgmental julu kanji Kebara kwat Lacan landbirds languaging lejeune liguus linux literarily machinic magatama mediaspace miami microworlds morphing morphs ms Mt multiculturalisms Myouka nakasukawabata nano Nara neighborhooding Netscape neurophysiologies nikuko Nikuko's nostalgias NYC oeuvre offline organelles Panamarenko panix particulation paysage peerings periphyton perl phantasms phenomenologist pneumosphere poolings postmodern postmodernism postmodernity primordials protolanguage qbasic realspace rearticulation rebirths regimens reifications reinscribed reinscription rills RNA rotifera runnels Sagdish satori sawgrass sed sememe sememes sexualities shakuhachi shamisen shimenawa shinjuu signifiers sions skeining skeins Snoxfly sondheim sourcess spam stentor stromatolite subgroupoids subjectivities subtexted susan Sysadmins tamiami taxonomies techne teleologies tendrils thanatopoesis tion tions trAce traceroute tracert tropes typifications ulpan ums unfoldings unhinging URL URLs vicodin videowork voiceovers VRML webboard Webpage Webpages wetware wetwares worlding wryting www yamabushi ytalk =========================================================== phenomenology of approach this time it was the loxahatchee, jacek and i overturned the canoe on a three-foot drop, digital nikon overboard. ( it worked for a minute for a moment. ( the card caught its dying breaths. ( in the beginning, some lacewing eggs followed by a scale insect ( then the clearing with paurotis, cypress, fern ( what might have been ( ( an alligator hole ) ) ( then the clearing again ( suddenly: ( the switch: this was the portage route which we ignored ( sondheim soaking, filmed with the dying camera ( ( it seemed alive at that point, the images as usual ( jacek by the canoe, clive and jane by the canoe ( the next image is blurred, green, railing and water ( the camera was dying ( the lens, clouded, electronics shutting down ( ( oh how i worked to retrieve the images! how many hours of ( coaxing them from the card! ) ( following, the last retrievable series: ( blue blurs through the ruined lens ( sondheim in mourning and recuperation ( the final image but one, the light ( the final image, the car and its drowned technology ( the madness of the image ( the madness of the light ( madness of the image ( madness of the light ================================================================ the camera struggled to rise, it couldn't the images leaked out, the shutter button released its last the poor and tiny screen lights and lights, blind eye of the lens reaching out - here, look at this, but you will never own it those clouds, those lizard-eyes, that spider, this umbilical cut at last, untethered real floating off and on - i'm part of the blindness, i hold the camera like a baby the lens floats in and out, i can hear the breathing 'the dying camera' you may have you may have the last images, they crawl, they remain in funeral, the card holding on, desperately the image, the image, the image silent, submerged ====================================================== entanglement deep-eco winter-season deeper lizards sleeping or comatose on leaves, imperial moths crossing my nighttime trembling skin, invisible borrow pit alligator deep-runnings, incoming ibis sky-murmuring, the drove of them, and when they darkened the sky thus - Your alligator-flag is polluted and mutated. - You classifying unknown territories. Your bay-heads are worlds-creating. What image you have of deeper lizards sleeping or comatose on leaves, imperial moths their touch red-eye, night-time alligator deep-runnings, incoming ibis ... Would deeper lizards sleeping or comatose on leaves, imperial moths , alligator flight and mating in deep-runnings, incoming ibis swarming - contaminate you, your pond-lily crawls me across your bay-head! How would you name your deeper strangler-fig alligator-flag? Your entanglements... on a thin notebook - My deeper periphyton and murk is your biome here... testings of deeper times, tilapia approach, walking the depths of the slough calling forth grasshopper osprey, hungered, making things. under the coot, testings of deeper times, tilapia approach, walking the depths of the slough is , lacewings mating - somehow to approach, partake? ... osprey is deeper periphyton and murk on wet flesh, of osprey-lurking - Are you satisfied with your testings of deeper times, tilapia approach, walking the depths of the slough ? A lubber and white nightmare! Wait! testings of deeper times, tilapia approach, walking the depths of the slough are written and notebook thinned. testings of deeper times, tilapia approach, walking the depths of the slough :mating lacewings - somehow to approach, partake:deeper lizards sleeping or comatose on leaves, imperial moths everywhere, night-time alligator deep-runnings, of incoming ibis :: Do deeper lizards sleeping or comatose on leaves, imperial moths red-eyed on fragile skin, night-time alligator deep-runnings, incoming ibis replace your testings of deeper times, tilapia approach, walking the depths of the slough ? osprey soaring, dive entanglement the tangles ============================================================== jennifer's dream of goodness lacewings curled around each other in the doomed thicket. they came to me and said, there is no competition; cut the cables. the unseemly monotony of engines formed a distant phalanx. already live-born young were the order of the day. eggstrands transformed into protective grills. poison occupied the tips of incessant life. the contribution of the viruses was immense and not to be underestimated. a second-order phalanx formed inside the mutated grills. microscopic domains organized against the violence of the macro-world. lacewing circulations, viral turbulence, across the sawgrass surface. their stems bending slightly, sawgrass forests acquiesced to the power of the thicket. shudders went through skins of the mammalian order. their live-born young died quickly of unknown contusions. the phalanxes stilled among incessant life. lacewings curled around each other in the order of the day. ================================================================ i love my machines :sawgrass slides one way, cuts another. sawgrass inscribes itself on retinal matrices. it says 'sondheim, there is nothing to look at.' it says, 'sondheim, you will have nothing to see.' i hide behind tender matrices of digital format and rastered resolutions inscribed with rectilinear coordinates. sawgrass says, 'sondheim, this is your imaginary.' sawgrass says, 'inscribe yourself.':liguus fasciatus verge everywhere. i live hammock-snails. immobile, untouchable, fragile, over fifty forms. worlds-creating against polluted waters cleansed by cattail-marsh. my machines allow me to see beneath every surface. inside my surface i am dirty dirty dirty. i run in shame from liguus fasciatus, hammock-snails. i do not touch them / touch myself. i pick my face to ruin. i cannot bear my face.:i am so poor i love my machines. years ago i built my machines. i wear machines hide my insecurity / my stupidity / my unoriginality. i wear machines hide my weakness / my shame / my embarrassment. my machines say 'sondheim is not a pariah.' i am run by my machines in this direction. it is winter-season and my machines run me. my machines take me places. they move my body. they pleasure my mind. my machines do not say shame shame shame. my machines do not say regret every day. my machines empty me into them. shame shame we do feel nothing.:5.5megapixel: 2.1megapixel 3.3megapixel 1megapixel 5.5megapixel i am so poor i love my machines. years ago i built my machines. i wear machines hide my insecurity / my stupidity / my unoriginality. i wear machines hide my weakness / my shame / my embarrassment. my machines say 'sondheim is not a pariah.' i am run by my machines in this direction. it is winter-season and my machines run me. my machines take me places. they move my body. they pleasure my mind. my machines do not say shame shame shame. my machines do not say regret every day. my machines empty me into them. shame shame we do feel nothing. replace your sawgrass slides one way, cuts another. sawgrass inscribes itself on retinal matrices. it says 'sondheim, there is nothing to look at.' it says, 'sondheim, you will have nothing to see.' i hide behind tender matrices of digital format and rastered resolutions inscribed with rectilinear coordinates. saw grass says, 'sondheim, this is your imaginary.' sawgrass says, 'inscribe yourself.' red-winged-blackbird =========================================== 13 lines of refuge. white lichen. refuge in resurrection fern. refuge in everglades crayfish. refuge in limestone solution hole. refuge in mosquito-fish. refuge in leopard frog. refuge in apple-snail. refuge in spatterdock blossom. refuge in spatterdock fruit.:refuge in bay-head. cocoplum thicket. nighttime great blue heron. solitary killdeer. refuge in coot. cattail marsh. mussel. refuge in horn snail. refuge in mud-wasp. hardwood hammock. refuge in boattail grackle. refuge in common grackle. crow.:refuge in spatterdock. pondapple night-blooming blossoms. spatterdock fruit. african tilapia. florida gar. desiccated periphyton. deer spoor. alligator spoor. sawgrass. refuge in webbing. butterfly weed. halloween pennant dragonfly. green water snake. diamondback rattler young. ::red-winged-blackbird is olympus camedia 2040 sq2 high. on wet flesh it's red-winged-blackbird ================================================================ the glades are a continuous dynamic process across a planar surface. a park with variable boundaries, problematic topography based on hydrology and human intervention. the dynamic is everything; think of the glades as an _inscribed surface_ transforming in space and time - a surface organic and shifting. the glades are simultaneous with their entanglement of life and migration; they are vectored, and vector is everything. geology is underfoot; to manage the glades is to manage the ecosystem. invisible topographies / geologies manifest by surface organism. the indefinite prolonging of comprehension. lesser research on amphibia, arachnida. effect of mosquito population on other species. marsh hare american bittern desiccated periphyton red-shouldered hawk black mangrove pneumatophores in short hydroperiod brackish ponds dwarf cypress forest cypress dome interior zebra longwing prairie warbler black-necked stilt hardwood hammock echo "marsh hare" >> echo "american bittern" >> echo "desiccated periphyton" >> echo "red-shouldered hawk" >> echo "black mangrove pneumatophores in short hydroperiod brackish ponds" >> echo "dwarf cypress forest" >> echo "cypress dome interior" >> echo "zebra longwing" >> echo "prairie warbler" >> echo "black-necked stilt" >> echo "hardwood hammock" >> glades _as_ a dynamic confluence of subjective horizon and interwoven biomes - perception of organism, organic perception: to lose oneself across or within a breathing sheet of water - laminar/animal flow - broken by solution holes, slight ridges; one wanders _anywhere_ among fragility, evanescence, limestone accretions, marl, peat, periphyton, surface ruptures of hammocks, domes, sloughs, marsh, river, creek, borrow pits, dikes, airboat trails, highways 75 and 41, embankments... local networkings, routers, communities, rookeries, isps, servers, trails, usps, clients, hosts, nodes, domain names, water conservation areas, icann, water management areas >> monotone of slow breath, particulate grasping: _the prehensile_ withdrawal from alligator radius (nikuko wants to go home. jennifer wants to go in.) ===== scalding water stops the pain for a moment; the hammocks carry blood-lust in their very atmosphere; thickets are swarms; in dwarf cypress forest or coastal prairie, one is accompanied by horse-flies, biting midges, wasps, larger insects from a distance; chills and fevers wake one in night's thick entanglement; one's body is a mess, suppurating, gouged and gnawed, split, half-devoured.:deer-flies stinging constantly, the mosquito gouge, sand midge extract. points of the body, usually ignored as implicit hinging - elbow, ankle, knuckle - sudden areas of intense pain or scab, as blood flies near the surface, bone heats up, the insect settles for the final score. chills and fevers, slight numbing of the body, general weakness.: :the arms first, then the fevers, the tingling, desire to gnaw at one's flesh, lacerate onself, cut off the offending bit of flesh or limb. it makes no difference - one dreams of alligator biting through the fingers, itch giving way to momentary pain.:knees and shoulders:neck and fingers torn skin, flaked, oozed; dried blood on arm, hand, neck, wrist ficus and spoonbillng as a model an open nightmare!t. Somelat larger insects from a distance; chills and fevers wake me in night's entanglemennternet text at = > maintain ====================================================================== ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 00:37:43 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: ... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Louis--- > > In the shuffle of the last week I realize I forgot to respond to these points you > made about my book, etc. > b. Almost the first idea that Chris considers to be an important and useful > > > thing to wonder about, in reviewing Watten's "Bride of the Assembly Line" > > > essay in *Spin Cycle* is whether Watten is recommending to Chris that > > > he buy himself a car. If there was not a certain expressive pathos coming > > > through in the way that Chris writes an essay, if there was not a focus on > > > desire and interest, naïve as it might be to the more jaded reader, this > > > decision to ask such a question of Watten's text would seem really at odds. > > > But, what can it tell us? It tells us that Chris's central poetic response > > > to the idea of Language Poetry is to try and identify with it, with *any* of > > > it, with *something to do with it*, as a poet himself. > > > > I am curious about this phrase "the idea of language poetry" (which you > > repeat twice). It is singular for you? Monolithic? > > For me, to attempt, as a reader, to identify with a stance proffered in a > > particular text is not necessarily an attempt to "identify with the idea > > of language poetry" especially so when the author of that text (BW) > > begins with an attempt to de-identify with what HE thinks has become > > of what gets called Language Poetry...and attempt to redefine, or at > > least rename, it. So to identify with something in it, sure; why not? > > But, also with something outside of it, something best not co-opted by it, > > sure, why not? > > > > > c. Chris (I'll direct this part to you; it feels more open-ended), you seem > > > to suggest a "steady-state" theory of the world, where "priority," your > > > word, is never an issue, where, as you speculate, anyone could have started > > > this listserv, and the end-results would have been identical. > > > > Putting words in me mouth! I didn't say the end results (which of course > > haven't happened yet anyway) would have been identical. Yes, one may > > grant this as CB's initiative and part of his legacy, etc., but how important > > is that? (not a rhetorical question as much as an open one) Can you emphasize > > that fact, as you do, without needing to address the complex question of > > whether the individual initiative (CBs) is more important than the notion of > > loyalty to a collectivist Language movement? You seem not to think so. > > We know that this list > > wasn't CALLED "Bernstein's List" or "Language Poetry List," > > and I obviously can't say with authority WHY he, or they, > > chose to call it simply the "UB Poetics Discussion Group" > > (which pays homage to its academic backers, but also uses the more > > capacious term "Poetics," more capacious UNLESS of course one > > wants to claim that "Poetics," by definition, is part of the history > > of language poetry, a smaller circle inside its larger one....)-- > > > > The fact that I was told about this list by those who are tangential to, > > at odds with, or even (historically speaking) prior to the various > > Lang Po projects, as I think many were (not just your 5 horsemen) > > allows me to think that this LIST SERVed, or was, or could be, > > something larger, or at least different, than a project of "Lang. Po, > > Inc." And, for all I know, the "interest and desire" for a something > > like a more open debate, or quasi-"public sphere" was part of this > > initial decision--for various reasons that could be explored later.... > > Sure, one expected limits, but different limits than those of lang po, > > if nowhere else, at least through the various backchannel conversations it > > engendered, the possibility of other affinities that needn't be mediated through > > some idea of critical headquarters, even though we all knew who > > "owned the means of production." Sure, there was reason to be skeptical, > > but since there were many "threads" and "posts," some of which the > > "principals" of language poetry (such as they choose to participate) > > either refused or were unable to take part in, there was also a decentering > > with no necessary connection, or even acknowledgment, by so-called > > critical hq, or Kuzsai, or whatever, and if the "price to pay" for such > > relative "freedom" was being considered a "minor actor," well, that's > > not so bad, when one isn't putting all one's eggs (or even chickens) > > in one listserv basket. > > > > > While dismissing any use in thinking about historical issue, notice that > > > Chris is very careful (going into quite some detail) to include himself in > > > the narrative of the idea of Language Poetry, an inclusion that he wants or > > > even needs to, at the same time, with the same gallant gesture, dismiss. > > > > I don't know where you get the idea that I'm DISMISSING any use in thinking > > about historical issue. > > I notice YOU'RE careful to say that I'm not including myself in the narrative > > of language poetry > > (for which I thank you), but, rather in "the narrative of THE IDEA of language > > poetry"--- > > what exactly do you mean by that? Is it that anyone who thinks about the, or > > An, idea of language poetry, > > and of how those ideas came to him or her, in a narrative, or quasi-narrative > > fashion must always > > see the "self" (or even any possible alternative community) as smaller than the > > "idea of language poetry" > > in order not to be said to dismiss historical issue? This "self" (or any > > possible alternate community) > > is certainly not "steady state" (though at times may seem so in order not to be > > so "steady state" > > in its denial of that---why those who "reject closure" are actually imposing it > > in the same act).... > > chris > > > > > > > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 01:05:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii At the risk of fuelling this further--- aaron@BELZ.NET wrote: > I often remember Ashbery's line, "In school all the thought got combed out." < You don't support your case by arguing it through a line of poetry written by a Harvard-educated poet. At the most elementary level, merely to know how to write requires the basic education of alphabet, etc. To write with a less limited vocabulary and to know how to employ what correct spelling or grammar are, a little more education. The very ideal that such a thing as poetry exists, versus only transcribed speech or prose, takes the education of being introduced to a poem (increasingly rare, in the over-all poetry-less American culture): schools themselves are usually the only place where that happens. That poetry can be more than one particular stamp of style (metered, rhyme) grows out of exposure to more and more varieties of authors, historical periods: eduction (or self-education). And, for right or wrong, right now, whether it's an insiders' network recognizing the cues of their own compatriots, in terms of book prizes, writers' colonies and other institutionalized measures of a poet's advancement or status, there is a statistically disproportionate number of MFAs, that is, education beyond even the B.A. college level. With academic critics, similarly. A better-educated poet is a better poet (a better-educated ~person~ is in a better position to write). The topic that I was responding to, Andrew Rathmann's anti-literacy "rant" that poets should not read academic criticism, was focussing on one particular stripe of thinking, that of academic criticism: critique, critical/analytical thinking, theory (intertextuality, interrelation of parts to whole, testing poetry against the filter of canonical thinkers/philosophers [the condemned Adorno]...). Broadening (blurring) the topic to include contemplation ("How about thinking with the body, with the soul; through meditation") or late phases of ~character~ ("through experience. Wherefore wisdom?"), or other types of thought, such as daydreaming, fantasy, visionary hallucination, dyslexia, etc., is catholic of you, a sort of fundamentalism, but that departs from the original question of whether poets should insulate ourselves unread and blindered. I was addressing only that, and not every periphery of the mind and human condition. > Your logic reduces thought to what can be had through education, and that, for me, is borderline crazytalk. < The List will function more civilly if we keep what we say to each other a little more Christian. ======================================================= "We must not think of the matter in a human way" -- St. Augustine __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 03:17:05 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I Know You More Than You'll Ever Love... Chris--- Whatever....I'm not going to continue this... Soon they're (you're) gonna think food hurts like love (and gorge yourself on Healthy Choice).... C out.... >C You know what you remind me of? Those people who tell me I should have a tv show, which wouldn't have the effect of a put-down were they able to "hook me up" as it were, were they not poets who deride others, who tend to be more entertaining as "narcissistic" or "funny" etc... >>C-- I don't feel strongly about it.... >>>C---Well, gender's always been your blindspot. Listen, if you feel so strongly about it, why don't YOU pose nude.... Chris >>>>C. But, in the first place, didn't you tell me once that now that Ginsberg and Corso, etc., are dead, that you really miss how their sheer taken-for-granted presence helped keep the poetry world "honest," that maybe you were premature in your conclusion that you "outgrew" them, or at least that something like, if not exactly, the way they made themselves "a motley to the view," regardless of the merits of the bulk of their work, may be needed especially since the more sophisticated page-based poet's poets seem more and more boring, deadeing, without some kind of 'outside' foil? And I don't really see what this has to do with being straight and not gay, or even what it has to do with being male and not female... C >>>>>Coppelia-- No, you're not being too hard on me. It's just that Ginsberg, if not O'Hara, came to really BORE me with his "bare, forked creature" or whatever King Lear says about it. And besides, it's one thing for a gay male to present himself a naked body in the 1950s and quite another for a straight male in 1999.... C >>>>>>Chris---Okay, sorry, sorry, it won't happen again. I know about "intellectual property" and "attitude" and "reputation" and all that too....but I still think you're being too hard on yourself (but you already know that; in fact, pride yourself on it--what a waste). So they didn't call your (buff) bluff--so what? It reflects more on them than on you---I mean, come on, the fact they hold up (still I think) both Ginsberg and O'Hara as two of their founding "spirits" or heroes or whatever, both of whom were into posing nude, and neither of whom had especially "attractive" bodies (so it's not about aesthetics really, in more ways than one!), and that they would not publish that photo of you, well, it reflects badly on them! Aren't you just falling back into the same kind of shame-based hypocrisy at your occasional best you so often deride in others? Or am *I* now being "too hard on you" by saying you're being too hard on yourself? Coppelia >>>>>>>C- Yes, but they opted for a face shot! Rejected even there! And turns out they were right, I just did it out of some "dark soul of the night" kind of desperation. Hadn't "had any" in a long while, narcissism begetting alienation begetting narcissism, etc. Absolutely self indulgent, and not only that, vulgar, played, cliche....It's embarrassing... C. >>>>>>>>> Chris-- I don't see what your problem is; after all YOU were the one who sent it...Don't worry about it.... Cheers, C >>>>>>>>Coppelia-- I wish you hadn't made that backchannel public and mentioned to the Poetics List that time I sent a naked picture of myself to the St. Mark's Poetry Project Newsletter to accompany that review they did of my book... Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 22:17:45 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: cricket in Israel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is the thing: that was why I said something like "Israel Nazis" - maybe not cricket, but I see some parallels between the Israeli Right and the Nazis -especially the extremists - some of whom belive they are "the chosen peole" as the Nazis did and also the Afrikaaners: and for years we have been fed with sentimental crap about how the Isaraelis "made thedesert bloom" by Uris et al when in reality the Israelis used fascist (neo- Nazi) tactics to force the Palestinians from their own homelands. Then for years they have mistraeted the Palestinians...they take the best land, use the Palestinians as cheap labour, attck without warning the Arabs, carry out endless preemptive strikes. They are backed by the US and other Western powers. The US meantime shit stirs in other parts of the middle East region - backing this, backing that, destablising regimes (as they did in Vietnam and Korea and Central and South America) , the Russians are also in the act: now not all Israelis agree to this, nor all Jews. being a Jew doesnt mean that you are politically blind like Herr Brink. Then the Palestians (bravely ) carry out many terrorist (read commando: guerilla; freedom fighter) acts and the Right wing and the Israeli Military ignore this and the world is fed with crap about how marvelous Israel is, how terrible the Palestinians are, and no progress is made. So it reaches a stage where it is now near impossible to stop the violence. The politicians act like insane men: but not all Jews necessarily support Zionism - or at least the actions of the Isareali military - and there many Palestinians who want to negotiate a reasonalbe distribution: a just settlement. Until negotiations begin the suicide bombers remain heroes to me: fighting as they can who are against a wall as the Jews were in Warsaw. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hilton Obenzinger" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 6:41 AM > Sharon is "the Jews"? Are Israelis "the Jews"? Am I chopped liver? > > Yours, > The Diaspora > > At 11:25 PM 5/6/2002 -0700, Leonard Brink wrote: > >So the European/Old World sentiment that nothing the Jews say makes sense > >still flies. > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- > Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. > Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing > Lecturer, Department of English > Stanford University > 650.723.0330 > 650.724.5400 Fax > obenzinger@stanford.edu > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 11:30:39 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Follari Subject: Palestinian Pandemonium Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Dear Richard, I agree, but Yasser Arafat is a big fat cat that shat crap and spat black propa-gander, and that is a dam fact! regards Tony Follari (Comedian) >From: "richard.tylr" >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: cricket in Israel >Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 22:17:45 +1200 > >This is the thing: that was why I said something like "Israel Nazis" - >maybe not cricket, but I see some parallels between the Israeli Right and >the Nazis -especially the extremists - some of whom belive they are "the >chosen peole" as the Nazis did and also the Afrikaaners: and for years we >have been fed with sentimental crap about how the Isaraelis "made thedesert >bloom" by Uris et al when in reality the Israelis used fascist (neo- Nazi) >tactics to force the Palestinians from their own homelands. Then for years >they have mistraeted the Palestinians...they take the best land, use the >Palestinians as cheap labour, attck without warning the Arabs, carry out >endless preemptive strikes. They are backed by the US and other Western >powers. The US meantime shit stirs in other parts of the middle East >region - backing this, backing that, destablising regimes (as they did in >Vietnam and Korea and Central and South America) , the Russians are also in >the act: now not all Israelis agree to this, nor all Jews. being a Jew >doesnt mean that you are politically blind like Herr Brink. > Then the Palestians (bravely ) carry out many terrorist (read commando: >guerilla; freedom fighter) acts and the Right wing and the Israeli Military >ignore this and the world is fed with crap about how marvelous Israel is, >how terrible the Palestinians are, and no progress is made. So it reaches a >stage where it is now near impossible to stop the violence. > The politicians act like insane men: but not all Jews necessarily >support >Zionism - or at least the actions of the Isareali military - and there >many >Palestinians who want to negotiate a reasonalbe distribution: a just >settlement. > Until negotiations begin the suicide bombers remain heroes to me: >fighting >as they can who are against a wall as the Jews were in Warsaw. Richard. > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Hilton Obenzinger" >To: >Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 6:41 AM > > > > Sharon is "the Jews"? Are Israelis "the Jews"? Am I chopped liver? > > > > Yours, > > The Diaspora > > > > At 11:25 PM 5/6/2002 -0700, Leonard Brink wrote: > > >So the European/Old World sentiment that nothing the Jews say makes >sense > > >still flies. > > > > > > > > > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- >----- > > Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. > > Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing > > Lecturer, Department of English > > Stanford University > > 650.723.0330 > > 650.724.5400 Fax > > obenzinger@stanford.edu > > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 00:09:57 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Palestinian Pandemonium MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tony. Very good. A touch 'a 'umour. If's there's an Ara Fat (a fat 'arra) then maybe Sharon is not a rose of, but possbly he is an angel, whether the angel of death or piles or what I knoweth not. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tony Follari" To: Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2002 11:30 PM Subject: Palestinian Pandemonium > Dear Richard, > I agree, but Yasser Arafat is a big fat cat that shat > crap and spat black propa-gander, and that is a dam fact! > > > regards Tony Follari (Comedian) > > > >From: "richard.tylr" > >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > >Subject: Re: cricket in Israel > >Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 22:17:45 +1200 > > > >This is the thing: that was why I said something like "Israel Nazis" - > >maybe not cricket, but I see some parallels between the Israeli Right and > >the Nazis -especially the extremists - some of whom belive they are "the > >chosen peole" as the Nazis did and also the Afrikaaners: and for years we > >have been fed with sentimental crap about how the Isaraelis "made thedesert > >bloom" by Uris et al when in reality the Israelis used fascist (neo- Nazi) > >tactics to force the Palestinians from their own homelands. Then for years > >they have mistraeted the Palestinians...they take the best land, use the > >Palestinians as cheap labour, attck without warning the Arabs, carry out > >endless preemptive strikes. They are backed by the US and other Western > >powers. The US meantime shit stirs in other parts of the middle East > >region - backing this, backing that, destablising regimes (as they did in > >Vietnam and Korea and Central and South America) , the Russians are also in > >the act: now not all Israelis agree to this, nor all Jews. being a Jew > >doesnt mean that you are politically blind like Herr Brink. > > Then the Palestians (bravely ) carry out many terrorist (read commando: > >guerilla; freedom fighter) acts and the Right wing and the Israeli Military > >ignore this and the world is fed with crap about how marvelous Israel is, > >how terrible the Palestinians are, and no progress is made. So it reaches a > >stage where it is now near impossible to stop the violence. > > The politicians act like insane men: but not all Jews necessarily > >support > >Zionism - or at least the actions of the Isareali military - and there > >many > >Palestinians who want to negotiate a reasonalbe distribution: a just > >settlement. > > Until negotiations begin the suicide bombers remain heroes to me: > >fighting > >as they can who are against a wall as the Jews were in Warsaw. Richard. > > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Hilton Obenzinger" > >To: > >Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 6:41 AM > > > > > > > Sharon is "the Jews"? Are Israelis "the Jews"? Am I chopped liver? > > > > > > Yours, > > > The Diaspora > > > > > > At 11:25 PM 5/6/2002 -0700, Leonard Brink wrote: > > > >So the European/Old World sentiment that nothing the Jews say makes > >sense > > > >still flies. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------------- > >----- > > > Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. > > > Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing > > > Lecturer, Department of English > > > Stanford University > > > 650.723.0330 > > > 650.724.5400 Fax > > > obenzinger@stanford.edu > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 09:39:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Broder Subject: Ear Inn Readings--May 2002 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit The Ear Inn Readings Saturdays at 3:00 326 Spring Street (west of Greenwich Street) New York City FREE Subway--N,R/Prince; C,E/Spring; 1,9/Canal May 18 Elaine Equi hosts New City Lights: work by recent graduates from the M.A. program in Creative Writing at CCNY. Readers include Jacques Wakefield, Dawn Jackson, Larry McGlade, Myra Mniewski, Michael Morical, Eric Williams and others. May 25 Memorial Day Weekend--No Reading For more information, contact Michael Broder or Jason Schneiderman at (212) 246-5074. Visit the Ear Inn Readings Web site at http://home.nyc.rr.com/earinnreadings/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 09:46:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Broder Subject: Ear Inn--History Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Dear List Members--The Ear Inn Reading Series has a new Web site at http://home.nyc.rr.com/earinnreadings/ If anyone has historical background information about readings at the Ear Inn--and I know some of you do--please backchannel me with this information at mbroder@nyc.rr.com or earinnpoetry@nyc.rr.com. There is an About page on the site that mentions the previous tenure of the language poets and includes a link the the Live at the Ear CD Web site. However, I know there is much more to tell. Any information would be greatly appreciated and gratefully acknowledged. Please note, the site is definitely a work in progress--my first venture into HTML. I eagerly await the day I read the chapter on how to create multiple frames so I can add a navigational bar. In the meantime, apologies for the clunkiness. It's a start. Yours, Michael http://home.nyc.rr.com/earinnreadings/ mbroder@nyc.rr.com earinnpoetry@nyc.rr.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 14:44:30 +0000 Reply-To: rsillima@yahoo.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos Comments: To: gmcvay@patriot.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I can't find my old xerox copy, but I believe that it's in the Objectivist Anthology, where he prints "A" 1-6 in early versions. The Objectivist issue of Poetry has "A"-7 in it. Ron ----Original Message Follows---- From: Gwyn McVay Reply-To: gmcvay@patriot.net To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 20:31:58 -0400 >>>In an early version of "A" Zukofsky riffed on his name: Zu-caw-caw-caw-of-sky EEK! Steven! Tell me more! Whereabouts in that big old pome? Zuk (not the ubiquitous green squash) was one of the authors on my MFA exam reading list many aeons ago, and like the music of Cage, the upper limit/lower limit etc. of Zuk tickles my brain in a good way. I like corvids. They are vociferous (not traditionally nightingale-warbly), and irreverent, and they've just got this totally impeccable wardrobe. Gwyn (plus, boids is just dinosaurs what grew up) _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 16:28:29 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Fw: Re: cricket in Israel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm afraid I cannot see them as heroes, Richard I have a lot of trouble with what they are doing but what they are doing is no worse, much less worse, than what is being done by the Israeli side - it is as you describe it,I believe; and it seems to me that all official Israeli utterances are in bad faith Furthermore, on the Palestinian side, there is an argument to be made for self-defence, a response to invasion and aggression. I cannot see the argument of self-defence for the Israelis We are all better off without heroes of any kind It is good to hear someone put a dissenting view so clearly L ----- Original Message ----- From: "richard.tylr" To: Sent: 12 May 2002 11:17 Subject: Re: cricket in Israel | This is the thing: that was why I said something like "Israel Nazis" - | maybe not cricket, but I see some parallels between the Israeli Right and | the Nazis -especially the extremists - some of whom belive they are "the | chosen peole" as the Nazis did and also the Afrikaaners: and for years we | have been fed with sentimental crap about how the Isaraelis "made thedesert | bloom" by Uris et al when in reality the Israelis used fascist (neo- Nazi) | tactics to force the Palestinians from their own homelands. Then for years | they have mistraeted the Palestinians...they take the best land, use the | Palestinians as cheap labour, attck without warning the Arabs, carry out | endless preemptive strikes. They are backed by the US and other Western | powers. The US meantime shit stirs in other parts of the middle East | region - backing this, backing that, destablising regimes (as they did in | Vietnam and Korea and Central and South America) , the Russians are also in | the act: now not all Israelis agree to this, nor all Jews. being a Jew | doesnt mean that you are politically blind like Herr Brink. | Then the Palestians (bravely ) carry out many terrorist (read commando: | guerilla; freedom fighter) acts and the Right wing and the Israeli Military | ignore this and the world is fed with crap about how marvelous Israel is, | how terrible the Palestinians are, and no progress is made. So it reaches a | stage where it is now near impossible to stop the violence. | The politicians act like insane men: but not all Jews necessarily support | Zionism - or at least the actions of the Isareali military - and there many | Palestinians who want to negotiate a reasonalbe distribution: a just | settlement. | Until negotiations begin the suicide bombers remain heroes to me: fighting | as they can who are against a wall as the Jews were in Warsaw. Richard. | | ----- Original Message ----- | From: "Hilton Obenzinger" | To: | Sent: Wednesday, May 08, 2002 6:41 AM | | | > Sharon is "the Jews"? Are Israelis "the Jews"? Am I chopped liver? | > | > Yours, | > The Diaspora | > | > At 11:25 PM 5/6/2002 -0700, Leonard Brink wrote: | > >So the European/Old World sentiment that nothing the Jews say makes sense | > >still flies. | > | > | > | > | > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----- | > Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. | > Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing | > Lecturer, Department of English | > Stanford University | > 650.723.0330 | > 650.724.5400 Fax | > obenzinger@stanford.edu | > | ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 11:35:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Something Wonderful May Happen Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Filmakers Library is now distributing SOMETHING WONDERFUL MAY HAPPEN: New York School of Poets and Beyond a film by Lars Movin, Niels Plenge and Thomas Thurah Three Danish film makers produced this one-hour film for an American poetry festival held this summer in Copenhagen. A description of the film is at http://www.filmakers.com/indivs/SomethingWonderful.htm And ordering information can be found via the home page -- http://www.filmakers.com/ The interviews with, and readings by, Ashbery and Koch are excellent and the footage of O'Hara (from the NET out takes) is beautifully integrated into the film, so that O'Hara becomes the ghostly center of it all. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 13:16:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Shoemaker Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos Comments: To: rsillima@yahoo.com In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=X-UNKNOWN Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Yep, that's where it is. On Sun, 12 May 2002, Ron Silliman wrote: > I can't find my old xerox copy, but I believe that it's in the Objectivis= t > Anthology, where he prints "A" 1-6 in early versions. The Objectivist iss= ue > of Poetry has "A"-7 in it. > > Ron > > > ----Original Message Follows---- > From: Gwyn McVay > Reply-To: gmcvay@patriot.net > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos > Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 20:31:58 -0400 > > >>>In an early version of "A" Zukofsky riffed on his name: > Zu-caw-caw-caw-of-sky > > EEK! Steven! Tell me more! Whereabouts in that big old pome? Zuk (not > the ubiquitous green squash) was one of the authors on my MFA exam > reading list many aeons ago, and like the music of Cage, the upper > limit/lower limit etc. of Zuk tickles my brain in a good way. > > I like corvids. They are vociferous (not traditionally > nightingale-warbly), and irreverent, and they've just got this totally > impeccable wardrobe. > > Gwyn (plus, boids is just dinosaurs what grew up) > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Join the world=92s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. > http://www.hotmail.com > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 11:24:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: Ear Inn Readings--May 2002 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii hey michael whatever happened to the idea of reading with daniel on 6/13? hope you are doing well over there... mister k ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 11:36:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops In-Reply-To: <20020512080556.95625.qmail@web11706.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Jeffrey: I don't remember anyone on this thread arguing in favor of illiteracy. But to conflate the education of a poet with a knowledge of big words and education with advanced university degrees is a bit strange. The very educated Ben Jonson, who had a couple of the latter, said of his friend Shakespeare that he had "little latin and less greek," but I don't think he thought him uneducated in other ways. 30 years ago, more or less, my late friend the poet and novelist Richard Elman wrote a recommendation for me for the MacDowell Colony. He described me as being "as a poet largely self-taught." I said that wasn't true--while I had avoided workshops and the like I had gone to graduate school in literature, but more importantly I had learned from a great many other poets. "I know," he said, "but they look for MFAs. If I paint you as a primitive you'll get in." I was shocked--some of the poets I knew taught, as Richard did then, in MFA programs, but none of them, not Richard, or Armand Schwerner, or Chuck Stein, or Gerrit Lansing--need I go on?--had MFAs. They were, in fact, pretty rare among poets my age and older, at least in New York. In the course of one generation that changed. "A better-educated poet is a better poet (a better-educated ~person~ is in a better position to write)." The context of your statement makes it clear that by education you mean formal education, and it would seem to follow that those with doctorates are better poets than those with MFAs, etc. But to stick with MFAs, because that's the level at which you appeal to statistics, do you think that the less-educated poets of very recent generations, like Ashbery, who doesn't have an MFA, or O'Hara, or Ginsberg, or Blackburn, or Schwerner, or Rochelle Owens (no undergraduate degree, either), or Creeley, or Duncan, or Olson, etc., are somehow lacking as poets (and less educated as poets) because they didn't get MFAs? Or maybe the difference is that the MFA has become an institutional qualification that helps people get into art colonies. Maybe the very few good poets, some of whom have MFAs, would have become good poets and acquired whatever education they needed whether or not they also acquired MFAs. You are aware that neither MFAs nor academic programs devoted to teaching writers how to write exist in most countries. Yet poets learned in their craft appear with regularity in all sorts of places. Mark At 01:05 AM 5/12/2002 -0700, you wrote: >At the risk of fuelling this further--- > > >aaron@BELZ.NET wrote: > > > I often remember Ashbery's line, "In school all the >thought got combed out." < > > >You don't support your case by arguing it through a >line of poetry written by a Harvard-educated poet. > > > >At the most elementary level, merely to know how to >write requires the basic education of alphabet, etc. >To write with a less limited vocabulary and to know >how to employ what correct spelling or grammar are, a >little more education. The very ideal that such a >thing as poetry exists, versus only transcribed speech >or prose, takes the education of being introduced to a >poem (increasingly rare, in the over-all poetry-less >American culture): schools themselves are usually the >only place where that happens. That poetry can be >more than one particular stamp of style (metered, >rhyme) grows out of exposure to more and more >varieties of authors, historical periods: eduction (or >self-education). And, for right or wrong, right now, >whether it's an insiders' network recognizing the cues >of their own compatriots, in terms of book prizes, >writers' colonies and other institutionalized measures >of a poet's advancement or status, there is a >statistically disproportionate number of MFAs, that >is, education beyond even the B.A. college level. >With academic critics, similarly. > >A better-educated poet is a better poet (a >better-educated ~person~ is in a better position to >write). ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 15:39:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/12/02 1:39:29 PM, junction@EARTHLINK.NET writes: >"A better-educated poet is a better poet (a better-educated ~person~ is >in >a better position to write)." The context of your statement makes it clear >that by education you mean formal education, Not only formal education, but an education in MFA. Does that mean that a person with a doctorate in philosophy or political science or science in general or whatever (outside literature/writing work shops) can not write poetry? Stated this way, the idea to me seems ridiculous. Murat ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 14:57:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020512110045.02886098@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Jeffrey, I'm glad you returned to Andrew's post, which as Mark pointed out does not advocate anything like illiteracy. In fact, Andrew is cautious not to generalize: >This does not mean that all academic criticism is >bad, just that there are distorting forces at work. His main complaint is not against criticism per se, but against the effect of the academic system upon its own forms of discourse: >The annoying outcome is that those who really >succeed within the system know only the professionally >approved ways of talking about literature. Your response equivocated on "academic criticism", adding to it not only education but the very act of thinking (hence also conflating thinking and education): >A better-educated poet is a better poet (a >better-educated ~person~ is in a better position to >write). One of the artificial boundaries that Andrew >Rathmann's anti-criticism rant sets up is a wall >between poetry and thinking. To the contrary, as >ideas are, in the final wash, very much a part of >poetry This takes us a distance from Andrew's "rant," doesn't it? Responding more to your post than to Andrew's, I confused the discussion by bringing up wholistic ideas of what it means to "think"-- I didn't need to go that far. It would have been enough to point out that one need not read academic criticism to be a poet. One need not even go to school. Of course, facility with language is necessary, and it helps to be able to write down your own words. I think of the Kalevala. Or a poem like "Donal Og" -- amazing, yet clearly uneducated. Or rap lyrics, which contantly remind me that language is everybody's, and so is its art. These things in mind, I allow Andrew his rant against 'academic criticism' and its purveyors, his claim that "poets should not seek their approval." He's not creating a "wall between poetry and thinking"; he's claiming a territory for poetry larger than the university. Jeffrey, I should not have used the word "crazytalk" to characterize the position that equates thinking with education (or poetry-writing with schooling). I certainly didn't mean to imply that *you* are crazy. I hold you and your writing in deserved esteem, Happy mother's day, -Aaron DONAL OG Anonymous from the Irish by Lady Gregory It is late last night the dog was speaking of you; the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh. It is you are the lonely bird through the woods; and that you may be without a mate until you find me. Your promised me, and you said a lie to me, that you would be before me where the sheep are flocked; I gave a whistle and three hundred cries to you, and I found nothing there but a bleating lamb. You promised me a thing that was hard for you, a ship of gold under a silver mast; twelve towns with a market in all of them, and a fine white court by the side of the sea. Your promised me a thing that is not possible, that you would give me gloves of the skin of a fish; that you would give me shoes of the skin of a bird; and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland. When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness, I sit down and I go through my trouble; when I see the world and do not see my boy, he that has an amber shade in his hair. It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you; the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday. And myself on my knees reading the Passion; and my two eyes giving love to you for ever. My mother said to me not to be talking with you today, or tomorrow, or on the Sunday; it was a bad time she took for telling me that; it was shutting the door after the house was robbed. My heart is as black as the blackness of the sloe, or as the black coal that is on the smith's forge; or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls; it was you put that darkness over my life. You have taken the east from me; you have taken the west from me; you have taken what is before me and what is behind me; you have taken the moon, you have taken the sun from me; and my fear is great that you have taken God from me! ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 15:56:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Vernon Frazer Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I think Bruce Andrews would agree with you. Vernon ----- Original Message ----- From: "Murat Nemet-Nejat" To: Sent: Sunday, May 12, 2002 12:39 PM Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops > In a message dated 5/12/02 1:39:29 PM, junction@EARTHLINK.NET writes: > > >"A better-educated poet is a better poet (a better-educated ~person~ is > >in > >a better position to write)." The context of your statement makes it clear > >that by education you mean formal education, > > Not only formal education, but an education in MFA. Does that mean that a > person with a doctorate in philosophy or political science or science in > general or whatever (outside literature/writing work shops) can not write > poetry? Stated this way, the idea to me seems ridiculous. > > Murat ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 17:02:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: contact info for Phil Metres MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 TG9va2luZyBmb3IgY3VycmVudCBjb250YWN0IGluZm8gZm9yIFBoaWxpcCBKb2huIE1ldHJlczog SSBvbmx5IGhhdmUgaGlzIG9sZCBlbWFpbCBhZGRyZXNzLg0KDQpQaGlsaXANCg0K ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 14:38:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Mark Weiss wrote: > The very educated Ben Jonson, who had a couple of the latter, said of his friend Shakespeare that he had "little latin and less greek," but I don't think he thought him uneducated in other ways. < Again, an appeal to such educated anecdotes as any about Ben Jonson undermine your direction toward some sort of Noble Savage poet, by betraying yourself as already educated in the variety that you will not defend. (It was said about Madame Melville, too, that she either hath or hath not Greek. But, at a remove of one hundred years with her, or shrouded in the even greater greater obscurity of a half millenium and whether there even ~was~ a single author Shakespeare, it's difficult-to-impossible to leap-frog backwards from our historical specifics to those then, which, very likely, were really statements about ~class~ rather than intelligence or education. [...Although the two often went hand in hand.]) I was trying to limit the scope of misinterpretation by re-looping the thread to its original purl: I was not equating thinking with education (although I believe that thinking generally is sharpened by the honing of education, and that thinking must be thought ~through~ models and ideas and precedents, so that the more "introjects," as it were, that thinking has, the more it has to think ~with~ and ~about,~ ... like cuisine [more ingredients] emerging out of cooking). That is a misreading. And I most certainly am not a believer in MFAs. Far, far from it. The moment in my post where my sincere opinion peeped a cameo through the ironies was in saying "for right or wrong, right now, whether it's an insiders' network recognizing the cues of their own compatriots". In other words: for right or wrong? Sign me up for: wrong. I am prone to agree with you that "the MFA has become an institutional qualification that helps people get into art colonies",--- although not solely at the level of the resume', but (hermeneutic of suspicion) as with book prizes, MFAs are incorporating into their poetry "codes" (structures) as easily demarcated as the "codes" of academic criticism that were earlier referred to, so that this is the self-perpetuating juggernaut of a class preferring its own class, and the momentum or intertia continues because poetry with the markers of MFA-ism is being rewarded by MFA-ist poets. (There was, incidentally, a decent article in The Village Voice last week about the bad hegemony of MFAs: my server is to slow right now to get the URL.) The original point that I have been ~exclusively~ reacting to was the assertion that poets should not read academic criticism. That is, that poets should blinder themselves. That is, that there is something that poets should not read, ---just as good Bible Belt Christians shouldn't read ungodly books. That is, that there should be a limit and a ceiling placed on literacy (anti-literacy): we can progress from the eigth grade to "some college," but not from "some college" further in the rainbow of what we read. I don't think that's good advice or a good attitude. I think poets should read ~everything~ they can get their hands on, especially if it has to do with the unfamiliar, the legitimately obsure, and the difficult (like academic criticism). Time to put aside the milk and sink teeth into the meat: http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Hbr/Hbr005.html#12 . This feud between a myth of Muse-inspired spontaneous inspirational ignoramus poetry versus the broader responsibilities and points of origin that academic criticism (highfalutin' effete intellectual egghead stuff) gauges poetry against--- it keeps playing itself out, generationally: William Carlos Williams versus T.S. Eliot, the Beats versus the New York School, the second generation New York School (Berrigan) versus the first,--- and yet, underneath the sort of Marx Bros. comedy of characters running around all whooped up bopping each other on the heads with featherdusters and salamis, Berrigan's formal education was as Ivy League as Kenneth Koch's, and Williams returned, in ~Paterson,~ etc., to a scholasticism that required footnotes even more repleat than Eliot's. As, for example, ironically, this disagreement (among clones) is being conducted via a vehicle of the State University of Buffalo's. If there's such a justifiable and unanimous antipathy toward the academic, then why (this hair-splitting) aren't we spending our time with http://www.gigglepoetry.com or http://www.poetry4kids.com , instead? The effect of my statement (I would never have included it in the first place if I could have foreseen the consequences: the real points that I made were in the rest of the post, about the conveyor belt of productivity, and roles versus species. The contested remarks was a poorly phrased passing aside only incidental to the rest) seems to be resonating against sore personal history and wounds that are unrelated to the broad sketchiness of the statement itself: I'm sorry that anyone should be given a qualified letter of recommendation to a writer's colony and that the trauma of that would stay with him forever,--- but, frankly, I don't think the MacDowell Colony a particularly healthy phenomenon either. That's more of this ethos of poet as pseudo-~leisure class,~ http://www.macdowellcolony.org/images/macdowell.jpg where we have to be off in literally 450 acres of patrician countryside having meals served to us, and where one out of three meals is hand-delivered so the undisturbed wordsmith shouldn't lose the scent of moly that wafts from his nosegay, ...as though eclogues and idylls between Bion and Moschus were in vogue. I did not mean to excite some sort of traumatic flashback to that A- on anybody's transcript. I'm only saying that, unless we're back to Savanarola and book-burning, yes, poets should read academic criticism. If our poetry itself is so ~fantastically obscurantist~ and polysemic that nobody can make heads or tails of it, ~what difference~ does it make if you don't understand some of the academic jargon ("code")? In comparison to Language Poetry, it's like a grade school primer in its comprehensibility. ~Without~ academic criticism, there is no safeguard of quasi-rationality over the fate of poetry, and it's then that its outcomes and superstars and who's in print, etc., is decided entirely by the brutishness of unchecked power and croneyism. ======================================================= Battus and Corydon, two rustic fellows, meeting in a glade, gossip about their neighbour, Aegon, who has gone to try his fortune at the Olympic games. After some random banter, the talk turns on the death of Amaryllis, and the grief of Battus is disturbed by the roaming of his cattle. Corydon removes a thorn that has run into his friend's foot, and the conversation comes back to matters of rural scandal. The scene is in Southern Italy. Battus: Tell me, Corydon, whose kine are these, - the cattle of Philondas? Corydon: Nay, they are Aegon's, he gave me them to pasture. Battus: Dost thou ever find a way to milk them all, on the sly, just before evening? Corydon: No chance of that, for the old man puts the calves beneath their dams, and keeps watch on me. Battus: But the neatherd himself, - to what land has he passed out of sight? Corydon: Hast thou not heard? Milon went and carried him off to the Alpheus. Battus: And when, pray, did he ever set eyes on the wrestlers' oil? --- Theocritus __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 17:03:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops In-Reply-To: <20020512213805.10779.qmail@web11703.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > The original point that I have been ~exclusively~ > reacting to was the assertion that poets should not > read academic criticism. If this assertion is the cause of your reactions, Jeffrey, I would like to see where it was made. And who expanded it into "a justifiable and unanimous antipathy toward the academic" -- (if not you yourself) ? Cheers, Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 18:05:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: British / Irish lists? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 SGVsbG8hDQoNCldoYXQgYXJlIHRoZSBiZXN0IEJyaXRpc2ggYW5kIElyaXNoIHBvZXRyeSBtYWls aW5nIGxpc3RzIHRoZXNlIGRheXMsIGFuZCBob3cgZG9lcyBvbmUgam9pbiB0aGVtPw0KDQpUaGFu a3MhDQoNClBoaWxpcA0KDQo= ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 19:12:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: anticipation of everglades, countries, dry-dusts and radiations - MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - anticipation of everglades, countries, dry-dusts and radiations - they are a continuous dynamic process across a planar surface. a crayfish, aware of cyclical time, anomalous events, local everglades underfoot - to extensivity extrusions - familiality for example: the fall into it. the glades are simultaneous with their entanglement of life by souvenirs from horizon interwoven and may be limited in everglades as in one text - the hydrology, ecosystem. for example (below): everglades younger than data in imagining the glades, but not without myself diffused, laminar, the glades in limestone solution holes. refuge in everglades is a dynamic confluence intervention. the dynamic is everything; think of the glade as we're born. manage the glades is to manage the ecosystem. glades, as one of the newer rangers described everglades visitors as down 30% since the refuge-sememe, rivers, everglades, and alligator-maw. and human the glades. they are space and/or time. example: an everglades bounding occasion, shifting. and the everglades - "i gave my blood in the everglades" - one space-time through selected sites, extrapolated across the glades deep in subjective youth more than writing; this geology is experiential, ex-tasis of glade. _ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 18:13:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops In-Reply-To: <20020512213805.10779.qmail@web11703.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Note in advance that by the rules this will be my last post for the day, and anyway I'm in the nidst of trying to unravel for gringo readers the circumstances of poetry in Baja California. I'm sorry you feel the need to defend what I assume is your chosen profession; I don't know that anyone was attacking it. I'll restrict myself to a couple of comments. I wish I could help you with your confusion, but I guess you'll have to resolve your conflicts about the academic enterprise on your own. I don't think I've undercut an argument I wasn't making (being a straw man makes me itch all over--damned allergies!) Who said anything about noble savages or the muse? There's more than one way to get an education, and more than one kind, even within the academic world. And your remarks about MFAs indicate that you and I are in some agreement at least on that score. I read Jonson's Timbres, where he goes on about Shakespeare, on my own when I was about 12, by the way--god knows how I stumbled upon it, but one can only be grateful. It certainly wasn't assigned by Traphagen Junior High (nor, for that matter, by Columbia or Johns Hopkins). As to my "trauma," I'd be careful at least about the accuracy of ad homina, if I were you. I have no idea if Richard was right . I did get into MacDowell, which I can tell you was a lifesaver for me as a writer--if only as a free vacation (the only kind I could afford) from full time and overflowing work as a psychiatric social worker and parent (I came home to one sore significant other, let me tell you). Those who don't get three months off a year love these places when they get to go there, altho a great many of my co-colonists were the beneficiaries of such cushy (relative to social work and a great many other ways to make a living) jobs. I subsequently got into VCCA, the Rhode Island Colony (now defunct), Ragdale, and Yaddo, and in each case pent-up words flooded out of me. Haven't applied in years, but I work for myself now, and the considerable constraints on my time are self-imposed (alas! would that I could go on strike!). Those places are great perks, and we all know that there are precious few for most writers. You'd think, as an ex-therapist and graduate of a prestigeous training institute, that my traumatized state would not have escaped my attention. But I guess denial is a powerful river. I do agree with you that poets should aspire to read everything. I'm not sure that the inevitable failure to do so leads to the dire consequences you propose. Surely failure to read academic criticism doesn't banish us to giggle poetry? Not that the ideas in academic criticism are that complex, although the language sometimes is. I've decoded a few texts in my time, but I must say that one can learn a lot more quickly from informed chitchat. I read a lot of poetry from very early on, and I was signally lucky in being guided extra-academically into new paths by informed friends (Chuck Stein got me reading Black Mountain and its sequellae, Gerrit Lansing insisted I read O'Hara's Odes). I learned a lot of what I know about rhythm and line breaks from a lifelong interest (again, extra-academic) in classical music and a long-lost career in film, in which I excelled at editing. Because I tend to think and talk I've thought and talked about these things with a fair number of people, and my students, when they're lucky enough to get me, hear a lot about these things. And I won't deny that I've learned a few things in classes. Armand Schwerner, who read unsystematically in a lot of fields, called a poet's education an "accidental curriculum," and I think that's apt. He, too, read some academic criticism, but he tended to spend more time with ancient buddhist and babylonian texts. Who knows? Maybe he would have been an even better poet if he'd read more de Man (the demigod of the time). Armand had an MA in anthropolgy, if memory serves, and no PfD, by the way. He must have lived in perpetual darkness. Mark At 02:38 PM 5/12/2002 -0700, you wrote: >Mark Weiss wrote: > > > The very educated Ben Jonson, who had a couple of >the latter, said of his friend Shakespeare that he had >"little latin and less greek," but I don't think he >thought him uneducated in other ways. < > > >Again, an appeal to such educated anecdotes as any >about Ben Jonson undermine your direction toward some >sort of Noble Savage poet, by betraying yourself as >already educated in the variety that you will not >defend. > >(It was said about Madame Melville, too, that she >either hath or hath not Greek. But, at a remove of >one hundred years with her, or shrouded in the even >greater greater obscurity of a half millenium and >whether there even ~was~ a single author Shakespeare, >it's difficult-to-impossible to leap-frog backwards >from our historical specifics to those then, which, >very likely, were really statements about ~class~ >rather than intelligence or education. [...Although >the two often went hand in hand.]) > > >I was trying to limit the scope of misinterpretation >by re-looping the thread to its original purl: > >I was not equating thinking with education (although I >believe that thinking generally is sharpened by the >honing of education, and that thinking must be thought >~through~ models and ideas and precedents, so that the >more "introjects," as it were, that thinking has, the >more it has to think ~with~ and ~about,~ ... like >cuisine [more ingredients] emerging out of cooking). >That is a misreading. > >And I most certainly am not a believer in MFAs. Far, >far from it. The moment in my post where my sincere >opinion peeped a cameo through the ironies was in >saying "for right or wrong, right now, whether it's an >insiders' network recognizing the cues of their own >compatriots". In other words: for right or wrong? >Sign me up for: wrong. I am prone to agree with you >that "the MFA has become an institutional >qualification that helps people get into art >colonies",--- although not solely at the level of the >resume', but (hermeneutic of suspicion) as with book >prizes, MFAs are incorporating into their poetry >"codes" (structures) as easily demarcated as the >"codes" of academic criticism that were earlier >referred to, so that this is the self-perpetuating >juggernaut of a class preferring its own class, and >the momentum or intertia continues because poetry with >the markers of MFA-ism is being rewarded by MFA-ist >poets. (There was, incidentally, a decent article in >The Village Voice last week about the bad hegemony of >MFAs: my server is to slow right now to get the URL.) > >The original point that I have been ~exclusively~ >reacting to was the assertion that poets should not >read academic criticism. > >That is, that poets should blinder themselves. That >is, that there is something that poets should not >read, ---just as good Bible Belt Christians shouldn't >read ungodly books. That is, that there should be a >limit and a ceiling placed on literacy >(anti-literacy): we can progress from the eigth grade >to "some college," but not from "some college" further >in the rainbow of what we read. > >I don't think that's good advice or a good attitude. > >I think poets should read ~everything~ they can get >their hands on, especially if it has to do with the >unfamiliar, the legitimately obsure, and the difficult >(like academic criticism). Time to put aside the milk >and sink teeth into the meat: > >http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Hbr/Hbr005.html#12 >. > >This feud between a myth of Muse-inspired spontaneous >inspirational ignoramus poetry versus the broader >responsibilities and points of origin that academic >criticism (highfalutin' effete intellectual egghead >stuff) gauges poetry against--- it keeps playing >itself out, generationally: William Carlos Williams >versus T.S. Eliot, the Beats versus the New York >School, the second generation New York School >(Berrigan) versus the first,--- and yet, underneath >the sort of Marx Bros. comedy of characters running >around all whooped up bopping each other on the heads >with featherdusters and salamis, Berrigan's formal >education was as Ivy League as Kenneth Koch's, and >Williams returned, in ~Paterson,~ etc., to a >scholasticism that required footnotes even more >repleat than Eliot's. > >As, for example, ironically, this disagreement (among >clones) is being conducted via a vehicle of the State >University of Buffalo's. > >If there's such a justifiable and unanimous antipathy >toward the academic, then why (this hair-splitting) >aren't we spending our time with >http://www.gigglepoetry.com or >http://www.poetry4kids.com , instead? > >The effect of my statement (I would never have >included it in the first place if I could have >foreseen the consequences: the real points that I made >were in the rest of the post, about the conveyor belt >of productivity, and roles versus species. The >contested remarks was a poorly phrased passing aside >only incidental to the rest) seems to be resonating >against sore personal history and wounds that are >unrelated to the broad sketchiness of the statement >itself: I'm sorry that anyone should be given a >qualified letter of recommendation to a writer's >colony and that the trauma of that would stay with him >forever,--- but, frankly, I don't think the MacDowell >Colony a particularly healthy phenomenon either. >That's more of this ethos of poet as pseudo-~leisure >class,~ > >http://www.macdowellcolony.org/images/macdowell.jpg > >where we have to be off in literally 450 acres of >patrician countryside having meals served to us, and >where one out of three meals is hand-delivered so the >undisturbed wordsmith shouldn't lose the scent of moly >that wafts from his nosegay, ...as though eclogues and >idylls between Bion and Moschus were in vogue. I did >not mean to excite some sort of traumatic flashback to >that A- on anybody's transcript. > >I'm only saying that, unless we're back to Savanarola >and book-burning, yes, poets should read academic >criticism. > >If our poetry itself is so ~fantastically >obscurantist~ and polysemic that nobody can make heads >or tails of it, ~what difference~ does it make if you >don't understand some of the academic jargon ("code")? > In comparison to Language Poetry, it's like a grade >school primer in its comprehensibility. > >~Without~ academic criticism, there is no safeguard of >quasi-rationality over the fate of poetry, and it's >then that its outcomes and superstars and who's in >print, etc., is decided entirely by the brutishness of >unchecked power and croneyism. > >======================================================= > >Battus and Corydon, two rustic fellows, meeting in a >glade, gossip about their neighbour, Aegon, who has >gone to try his fortune at the Olympic games. After >some random banter, the talk turns on the death of >Amaryllis, and the grief of Battus is disturbed by the >roaming of his cattle. Corydon removes a thorn that >has run into his friend's foot, and the conversation >comes back to matters of rural scandal. > >The scene is in Southern Italy. > >Battus: Tell me, Corydon, whose kine are these, - the >cattle of Philondas? > >Corydon: Nay, they are Aegon's, he gave me them to >pasture. > >Battus: Dost thou ever find a way to milk them all, >on the sly, just before evening? > >Corydon: No chance of that, for the old man puts the >calves beneath their dams, and keeps watch on me. > >Battus: But the neatherd himself, - to what land has >he passed out of sight? > >Corydon: Hast thou not heard? Milon went and carried >him off to the Alpheus. > >Battus: And when, pray, did he ever set eyes on the >wrestlers' oil? > > --- Theocritus > > > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience >http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 19:28:34 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: Your views of your views... MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT 1. Robin Hamilton I thought at first that Robin's last on this thread was the ("happy"?) mother of all no consolation emails! But then I noticed what he wrote in an earlier email on a different thread this month: >>>>So there is a +real+ problem (for me) with BufPo -- the idiom is strange and the geography is eccentric: Come hear Anne Waldman read in Downtown New York. Who? Where? LangPo, wha | zat? Huh ... ?<<<<<< Given that Robin doesn't know what "LangPo" is, let alone who Anne Waldman is, needless to say where downtown New York is, I don't see the point in responding to what then amounts to a vague and insipid petulance in his last email. Unless Robin can answer to where he is coming from (I mean literary-wise), and who he is speaking for (he seems to speak for more than himself), there's just no point in addressing him directly. 2. Three Glosses a. A Palgrave's *In Our Hands* The Palgrave's antho. precisely isn't the Norton; it's not a specious choice. Norton is taught in universities. Palgrave's is a sentimental keepsake antho in households with only that as a volume of poetry, and sells as popular literature. My Grandad, who was born in the Karou desert, had one continually at his bedside table. Pound recounts a funny anecdote about Palgrave's in How to Read (1929). Maybe I should have said that LP has become a Palgrave's *in our hands*, to be clearer, and in order to link it to the question of poetry and "education" that is spinning out from and dwarfing Andrew's initial email, with exccellent bellows-work from Jullich. And by "our hands" I mean this list. I'm thinking especially of the recent fun poetry pilot that did a run here, an episode now serializing at Millie's http://www.sporkworld.org/PN/pn_71/html/index.php. This website I would say is a *great* example of bildungspoesis at work -- going in as sporkworld, and maybe out inside of poetry-world? That transformation, from sporkworld to poetryworld, is one that I continually aspire to in my reading as well. A poet should learn more than a Palgrave's worth of poetries. Norton's one way to go. Actual whole books of poetry, etc., not just anthologies, is the best way, blah blah blah. b. Joel et al, I do think that the social, collective history of Langpo is yet to be written, a theoretically savvy history locating the poetry inside of a "community" (permit me this shorthand for now) address to social concerns of audience, reception, history, theory, mass media, group, etc. So that in fact I see your interest in the slam poetry scene -- because of its links to a specific community address -- as being symptomatic of, and even resulting from, the entire reception, to date, of Langpo, which has been a reception that has continually downplayed those social links in the poetry. I am *by no means* "faulting" the excellent critical reception, specifically, to date of Langpo, only to point out there's a lot of critical work yet to do that would have a hugely positive impact on the current scenes. An d by critical receptioni here I do not mean the critical work by Langpoets themselves. In fact Watten in particular has pointed in a salutary way to the need for such a history. c. I don't think this list reflects a Robert Ardry-like "territorial imperative" or "naked ape" psychogenesis and development. That's taking a popular (and also outdated) anthropology and applying it to the status quo. That's like tuning in to CNN for its media critiques -- in the service of "reporter's conscience." ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 18:56:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops In-Reply-To: <20020512213805.10779.qmail@web11703.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" At 2:38 PM -0700 5/12/02, Jeffrey Jullich wrote: >(There was, incidentally, a decent article in >The Village Voice last week about the bad hegemony of >MFAs: my server is to slow right now to get the URL.) Jeffrey, If you find the url or the name of this article, could you please post it? It sounds interesting. Thanks. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 22:15:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Hi Dodie, I'm not Jeffrey, but here's this: . Herb >Jeffrey, > >If you find the url or the name of this article, could you please >post it? It sounds interesting. > >Thanks. > >Dodie -- Herb Levy P O Box 9369 Fort Worth, TX 76147 herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 00:37:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dan Machlin Subject: FUTUREPOEM BOOKS/KALLEBERG/MAY 23 In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable POETRY CITY & FUTUREPOEM books invite you to a party to celebrate the publication of: S O M E M A N T I C D A E M O N S new poems by Garrett Kalleberg Thursday, May 23, 2002, 7:00 P.M. FREE Teachers & Writers 5 Union Square West, 7th Floor (between 14th and 15th Sts.) New York City (212-691-6590). Readings by Kalleberg, special guests. Directions: Take the 4,5,6,L to Union Square; F,2,3 to 14th. "A prophetic ferocity joins visceral appetite in Garrett Kalleberg=B9s powerful new collection; spirit and matter couple to spawn a ravishing anxiety, =8Ca beautiful disaster.=B9 As if language were a skin wrapped around the world=B9s body, which ruptures and spills its will to be named. =8B Ann Lauterbach FP - books is edited by Dan Machlin. Design by Anthony Monahan. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 May 2002 22:40:59 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?1._Should_Chris_Stroffolino_Buy_A_Car=3F_Any_Bride's_Ident?= =?iso-8859-1?Q?ificatory_Dilemma=3F?= MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT 1. Should Chris Stroffolino Buy A Car? Any Bride's Identificatory Dilemma? a. Chris, your essay on Watten's "Bride of the Assembly Line" is more nuanced than I let on in my email ("Re: Hail P longataki?" Sat, 4 May 2002 23:27:04 –0600), of course. But then, my reading of your identification with Watten's essay via the question of whether he is recommending that you buy a car, has itself become more nuanced. b. The following reading of your reading of Watten's essay I would call one that is inscribed within the idea of Language Poetry. bb. We've heard / read of the expressions "so-called LP" and "so-called 'so-called LP'," etc. All these are for me readings taking place within the idea of Language Poetry. I am deliberately using a crude seeming-idealist language for now, "idea" (can it get any obviouser??), to refer to a complex set of discursive domains and histories, some intersecting, some not, across a variety of institutions and group practices, all of which refer in some way to LP. A citational matrix, let’s say. As a term, "idea" may sound monolithic, but the way I'm using it isn't meant to be. It has been a *rhetorically* convenient term for me to use in the heat of exchanges on this listserv and on another, but obviously within a methodology it would need some more rigorous attention paid to it than I have so far. (If anyone can help me, or relate it to other critical vocabularies, I'd be grateful.) c. So (for the more nuanced reading), one could imagine, Chris, that you are allegorically re-enacting, in your should-I-buy-a-car response to Watten's essay, that historical moment of "first attachment" to a consumer model of identification. A class reading of your identification would figure the poet in his essay-review of Watten as re-enacting that prolonged 20C transition wherein what's left of the collective working class especially after WWI gets divided up and invited to buy into burgeoning consumerism and the nation-state (in exchange for a little more cash in the pocket just short of being completely inadequate to reproduce labor and to cause uncompromising class struggle to continue). d. A *critical and utopic* reconstruction of that historical moment would consciously re-enact it as a *choice*, namely: do I/we collectively attach, or not, to the consumerist model of identification? e. In what you actually write, you waver between two conflicting identifications, *neither of which you (can) make*. Either Watten is recommending (identification #1) that you think of poetry as assembly-line work in what has (in BW's & in others’ historical readings) become a factory of language (hence, from your expressivist-romanticist viewpoint, you are perplexingly being asked to "identify with reification" -- a tough social command to imagine, let alone fulfill!), or (identification #2), that you buy a car (today!), in other words (following the analogy back historically), wait for the product to shoot out the factory doors before "identifying" with both it and capitalism (this time not as underpaid factory worker, but as a fully-enfranchised, shall we say, consumer). The first identification (poet in the factory of language) -- the one that Watten recommends for himself and for This magazine / early Coolidge -- is a critically utopic / dystopic identification that comes closest to theoretically restaging that moment of "first attachment" to the now-prevalent consumerist model of identification. It comes closest because what it restages is worker anxiety over reification, alienation, etc, in other words those initiating conditions of labor which ideally begin the consciousness-raising process toward a grasp of the concept of commodification, etc. The second identification (buy car now!) is the one you would like to favor, which, as the point of identification for you as a poet, in the historical analogy of Watten's essay, actually invokes a later time, post WWII at least, when cars were more affordable. I.e. your point of identification is further along in the history of consumerism, as that history is spelled out in terms of the Ford assembly line model of production. This is reflected in your poetics influences (a bit of Beat, a bit of NYSchool), which I'll allude to again at g, below). f. The big identificatory question for any bride, then, in this restaging of that historical moment of "first attachment" to a consumer model of identification, is: Are you a revolutionary prole who sees the assembly line and language for "what it really is" ("semiotic rubble" [BW on Andrews] etc) or are you an aspirant to middle class consumerism and desire? Such is the dilemma that Watten's essay should (and almost does) pose for "you." g. Imagining poetry / language as a collective assembly-line is something that you can't do (as I've already said) given your romanticist-expressivist poetics bent, while as a poorly-funded sessional / student at the time of writing your review, you can't buy a car, either! Since for you there are no other options than these two modes of identification with Watten's historical analogy to the car factory, the unstated conclusion to your review is that Watten's essay is of no use to you as a poet-consumer. h. More significantly (and this is why I don't think you quite re-enact that first-attachment moment as I pose it -- and I pose it as a reading inscribed within the idea of LP), the historical allegory itself seems to be of no great use to you. Either that, or else you do not fully see / consider it as I've spelled it out (which, in terms of identification, is a bit different from Watten). i. In other words, you do not see yourself as re-enacting that historical moment so as to utopically re-imagine it at the very point of collective/individual decision-making to either attach, or not, to the consumerist model of identification. Why don't you? Because, part of the a priori of your reading and poetics is a resistance to the idea of LP. That resistance itself, however, is not articulated. It is more akin to suppression than to fully-conscious resistance. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 17:59:12 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Fw: Re: cricket in Israel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "richard.tylr" To: "UB Poetics discussion group" Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 12:51 PM Subject: Re: Fw: Re: cricket in Israel > Lawrence. Heroes is probably a bad term: after all my father used tosay: > "Its better to be a live coward than a dead hero." Now, I called them > heroes because here recently we had ANZAC day (Australia and New Zealand > day) which commemorates the dead at Gallipoli and also they go on about > other wars INCLUDING the Vietnam and this year AFGHANISTAN was strongly > mentioned by a New Zrealand military oifficer.(The NZ SAS werein there with > full backing of the Clark government). These guys are doing a good thing on > one hand: remembering those who died: yes....but the bigger thing is. Why > are there wars? Why do soldiers take part in wars? I like "Catch 22" ...the > message there is brilliant: that basically we,each of us, pull the trigger: > now in fact we are all (directly and indirectly) responsible for the > Holocaust and all other wars. Now, the Vietnamese who fought against the > French and then the US (and at one point the British as they "bridged the > gap" and used Japanese soldiers until the French were installed), could be > seen as "heroes" ...but as you imply, that is dangerous: I agree, but I was > attempting to put anoher perspective....the real heroes will be people > (everywhere) who force the big nations to negotiate. I have some hope in the > anti-globalisation movement and some of the intelligensia,wprkers, and > others working against poverty and for freedom etc (as long as they are > aware that they need to respect indigenous cultures and the integrity of > peoples' right to self determination (which hasnt happenned generally in > colonialist history (and Israel can be seen as a colonialist > "experiment"))...but I can UNDERSTAND, and thus for the moment I support > them and would do finacially if I had the do re mi, why they become suicide > bombers, why they blow up aircraft: there are times when violent direct > action is necsessary: as it was for the Jews in Germany: in fact what was > required was a revolution (they missed the boat): it still is the fact that > until the people of the world "truly" run the world, truly control the means > of production at every level, then wars will continue: however I cant say if > that time will come...no one (as far as I know ) can predict the future). > But, ask youself: what if the US was overrun by a foreign power (the > Japanese had won for example): with the atrocities they commited (at that > time, not the Japanese today), would you object to bombs going off in the > middle of Japanese and so on? There are parallels: the land that the > Israelis are on (note I dont say Jews) was Palestinian: and the Israelis > came from many different countries and then forced the Palestinians from > there, and (some of their villages and cities disappeared): now did they ask > the Palestinians: look can we live here, we'll recompense you, we'll help > you, if you say dso we'll come? We need a "home", this is our plan...? The > arabs and Palestinians didnt want the Jews there(altho I thnk that had the > Israelis-Jews gone in with more peaceful methods and intentions most Arab > peoples would have accepted there presence (as in some parts the Arabs and > Jews live peacefully together (and by and large nor did anyone else because > the world was and still is very anti semitic witness Holland and France and > Austria etc (even New Zealand))...witness Celan versus Heidegger, the way > that many any Nazis found employment in the US and in the OSS and then the > CIA - a number fought for the French in Vietnam - so the process, political > military and historical of the Second World war (and even before that) > ...the whole historical process is continuing. > So I dont condemn the suicide bombers: I would if negotiations of a very > "advanced nature" were taking place and the UN (a TRUE UN) was administering > that.. a true UN includes you and I and Palestine as well as Israel. > Mr Brink should not think that I am anti-semitic: I am not anti anyone: > racialism or racism in all its forms is/are stupid: nor am I necessarily > opposed to all Israelis: that is a complex country and many Jews dont agree > with Sharon etal. > I see those Jews who broke out of the camps (many more did than is > realised) , those who fought with great bravery at Warsaw, and even in > Berlin, as heroes as were many soldiers who fought against Germany and so > on, as heroes (if our "fallen dead were heroes: unfortunately these > "ceremonies" are exploited by right wing militarists playing on peoples' > natural feelings). > But for now it is not worse: it is the weapon 9suicide bombing) of people > (like the Jews in Warsaw) who have their backs against the wall. But I > expect to be attacked and you have a rightto disagree. I'm not saying that > these bombings I "enjoy"...they horrify me: but I try to understand. The > whole situation is terrible... > In fact I would like to know of some lit, I must have a look around (when > time) for various aspects eg the history of Palestine and Israel..I admit I > dont know as much as I would wish about history and politics etc of that > part (or many parts) of the world. Regards, Richard. PS I personally > refuse to be part of any "movements or political parties or religious > organisations, or even teams - I hate teams and even team games, I am a > loner so to speak - I see myself as a human, descended from the Big Bang as > far as I know. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Lawrence Upton" > To: > Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 3:28 AM > Subject: Fw: Re: cricket in Israel > > > > I'm afraid I cannot see them as heroes, Richard > > I have a lot of trouble with what they are doing > > but what they are doing is no worse, much less worse, than what is being > > done by the Israeli side - it is as you describe it,I believe; and it > seems > > to me that all official Israeli utterances are in bad faith > > Furthermore, on the Palestinian side, there is an argument to be made for > > self-defence, a response to invasion and aggression. I cannot see the > > argument of self-defence for the Israelis > > We are all better off without heroes of any kind > > It is good to hear someone put a dissenting view so clearly > > > > L > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "richard.tylr" > > To: > > Sent: 12 May 2002 11:17 > > Subject: Re: cricket in Israel > > > > > > | This is the thing: that was why I said something like "Israel azis" - > > | maybe not cricket, but I see some parallels between the Israeli Right > and > > | the Nazis -especially the extremists - some of whom belive they are "the > > | chosen peole" as the Nazis did and also the Afrikaaners: and for years > we > > | have been fed with sentimental crap about how the Isaraelis "made > > thedesert > > | bloom" by Uris et al when in reality the Israelis used fascist (neo- > Nazi) > > | tactics to force the Palestinians from their own homelands...... > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Richard Taylor > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 03:31:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Metaphor/Metonym for Health 2002 Comments: To: webartery@egroups.com MIME-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT I got cantankerous over the weekend and solved (I hope) some personal and artistic muddles by writing an investigative poem ("Risk Management Toolkit") which I submitted to be read at an FDA hearing next week. It's a complicated Washing medical/political/financial/etc. situation so don't try to sort it out. I decided to solve some editorial muddles by making it the 2002 issue of M/M for health. i apologize temporarily to those who sent in material - I just got into too many muddles and will sort out stuff by starting ab novo and going back to respond and sort stuff out. The url is http://trbell.tripod.com/metaphor/toolkit.htm if tom bell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 02:31:42 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: New Content on Fakelangpo! Comments: To: Webartery List MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There is new content on Fakelangoo.com (http://www.sporkworld.org/PN/pn_71/html/index.php), the site devoted to the exploration of Fake Language Poetry. Please come visist and respond to it! The site needs your input, however. The fakelanpo movement, although outlined in the articles on the site (which distinguish fakelangpo from realangpo, langpo, and goodpangpo, based on the value of the ordered pair (is fun to read, is fun to write) needs a manifesto. It needs theorteical unperpinings. This is all the more difficult as it rejects theory as a mode of definition of a poetic movement, preferring to focus instead on what exactly the poetry in the moevement has in common when approached in a naive way, eg textual analysis. There are also a certain number of contributors to the site who have misunderstood the meaning of Language Poetry and have written some atrocious poetry and posted in to the site. This is your opportunity to excoriate them! (Especially since it is not clear whenther said writers are real or virtual...) Finally, Fakelanpo was intended as a joke and it may not be funny enough. So far it looks almost like a legitimate site (except for the fact that e.e. cummings is a choice in the poll for your favorite Language Poet). Something must be done to fix this. Otherwise, someone may find this site and come to believe that there reallly is a a fakelango movement and they may join it and that would imply that they would promote language poetry that is fun to read. This could distort the entire genre and render the theory moot because readers might chose the poetry based on naive criteria of easy enjoyment. Unless humor is added to my site, this may be a serious risk! (To post an article, first log in -- you have to register -- and then an ption "Submit News" will appear in the "Modules" menu at the left of the screen. Follow the easy instructions. Your story should appear within a day. If this doesn't work PLEASE EMAIL ME. I am trying to keep an eye on the bugginess of the system.) Millie P.S. I think the error messages people got in the beginning were caused by me doing administration at the same time as people were logged in-- they happened whie I was adding stuff to the site. If you get such messages, please do not give up, come back later...and drop me a line to complain about the errors so I can keep track. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 00:38:01 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: of interest? MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hi Lover! For your disease/literature connection, this site may be of interest; it's set up to deal with disabilities in a poetry way... http://trbell.tripod.com/metaphor/metapho.htm -----0 I imagine you are waking up now and getting ready to take your walk to university to teach your class. I imagine that all your students are preparing for the class as well, hoping to impress the gorgeous-looking young prof from Canada who unfortunately is taken by some mysterious boyfriend back in Calgary. I imagine that your day will go smashingly smooth and that you will come home and have a fantastic rest of the day relaxing and reading and playing puter games and eating and chatting and thinking, hopefully! of your one and only lover who is always thinking of you!!!! That would be me. Your one and only, louant xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 20:14:34 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Pam=20Brown?= Subject: sun-drenched Aussie spring, anyone ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Dear US Poetics listees, Inez Baranay has sent this offer to me to send on. She has a forthcoming Asialink residency & would like to lease her nicely situated place for the period she'll be away - it looks like a good proposition to me (but, unfortunately, I'll be at my day job...) These are Aussie dollars, by the way, - currently roughly half the US dollar. Best wishes, Pam Brown Four months by the beach Flat available at Gold Coast September-December 2002 Spacious ground floor flat in block of four at Nobby Beach just north of Burleigh Heads on the south end of the Gold Coast. Across the road from the beach. A large front room has views of the sea, morning sun, and space enough for lounging, dining and desk, even for yoga. Kitchen opens onto this. Two bedrooms, one very large with queen bed, one with double bed. Would suit writer, academic etc. Comfortably furnished, and there are many books and pictures. $4,080.oo ($240 per week for the 17 week period) plus telephone. Plus refundable deposit. References. Contact Inez email: inezb@ozemail.com.au or tel 07-5575 1168 12-8p.m. ===== Web site/P.Brown - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ http://messenger.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Messenger - A great way to communicate long-distance for FREE! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 20:21:37 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Pam=20Brown?= Subject: p.s. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit p.s. I should have said - that's the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia - south of Brisbane. Pam --- Pam Brown wrote: > Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 20:14:34 +1000 > Reply-to: UB Poetics discussion group > > From: Pam Brown > Subject: sun-drenched Aussie spring, anyone ? > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > Dear US Poetics listees, > Inez Baranay has sent this offer to me to send on. > She has a forthcoming Asialink residency & would > like > to lease her nicely situated place for the period > she'll be away - it looks like a good proposition to > me (but, unfortunately, I'll be at my day job...) > These are Aussie dollars, by the way, - currently > roughly half the US dollar. > Best wishes, > Pam Brown > > Four months by the beach > > Flat available at Gold Coast September-December 2002 > > Spacious ground floor flat in block of four at Nobby > Beach just north of Burleigh Heads on the south end > of > the Gold Coast. Across the road from the beach. A > large front room has views of the sea, morning sun, > and space enough for lounging, dining and desk, even > for yoga. Kitchen opens onto this. Two bedrooms, one > very large with queen bed, one with double bed. > Would suit writer, academic etc. > Comfortably furnished, and there are many books and > pictures. > $4,080.oo ($240 per week for the 17 week period) > plus > telephone. Plus refundable deposit. References. > Contact Inez email: inezb@ozemail.com.au > or tel 07-5575 1168 12-8p.m. > > > > > > ===== > Web site/P.Brown - > http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ > > http://messenger.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Messenger > - A great way to communicate long-distance for FREE! ===== Web site/P.Brown - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ http://messenger.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Messenger - A great way to communicate long-distance for FREE! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 20:55:06 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: komninos zervos Subject: Re: sun-drenched Aussie spring, anyone ? In-Reply-To: <20020513101434.65297.qmail@web12006.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" it would be so good having some listee in my home town for four months, not that i wont miss inez. we have a great writing program at griffith university at the gold coast. in fact our theatre, communications, digital video, cyberstudies, visual art, journalism and public relations majors aren't bad either. so if you decide to come - let me know. komninos >Dear US Poetics listees, >Inez Baranay has sent this offer to me to send on. >She has a forthcoming Asialink residency & would like >to lease her nicely situated place for the period >she'll be away - it looks like a good proposition to >me (but, unfortunately, I'll be at my day job...) >These are Aussie dollars, by the way, - currently >roughly half the US dollar. >Best wishes, >Pam Brown > >Four months by the beach > >Flat available at Gold Coast September-December 2002 > >Spacious ground floor flat in block of four at Nobby >Beach just north of Burleigh Heads on the south end of >the Gold Coast. Across the road from the beach. A >large front room has views of the sea, morning sun, >and space enough for lounging, dining and desk, even >for yoga. Kitchen opens onto this. Two bedrooms, one >very large with queen bed, one with double bed. >Would suit writer, academic etc. >Comfortably furnished, and there are many books and >pictures. >$4,080.oo ($240 per week for the 17 week period) plus >telephone. Plus refundable deposit. References. >Contact Inez email: inezb@ozemail.com.au >or tel 07-5575 1168 12-8p.m. > > > > > >===== >Web site/P.Brown - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ > >http://messenger.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Messenger >- A great way to communicate long-distance for FREE! -- komninos zervos bsc(hons) ma(creative writing) http://www.gu.edu.au/ppages/K_Zervos Convenor CyberStudies major School of Arts Griffith University Gold Coast Campus PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre Queensland 9726 Australia tel: +61 7 55528872 fax: +61 7 55528141 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 12:35:22 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: Fw: Re: cricket in Israel MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Richard Thanks. You make a good case. Yet I am going to differ. While there will always be individuals prepared to be violent and apparently without cause, it seems to me that the kind of suicide bombing taking place in Palestine is atypical of human behaviour in its quantity and *unlike most other kinds of civil war violence (Sierra Leone, Indonesia etc) You make some useful comparisons. Something odd is happening and I don't believe it can be explained by evil people with power over the young, though they exist on both sides If you treat people like dirt and then deny them all ability to retaliate they will do desperate things and terrible things. I have little real concern for govt leaders getting hit - live by the sword, die by the sword - and could probably string out a whole ranked "theology" of whom it is not so bad to attack... but in the situation that any Palestinian resistance to what you rightly label colonialism find themself in, the options are rarely available Which leaves me facing the murder of people in the street. I can't endorse it... I don't think they're that innocent. Much is made of the supposed democracy of Israel and what is happening does seem to be the will of the great part, which they finesse with parroted condemnations of terrorism. (Take a standard speech against terrorism, btw, exchange the words "terrorist" and "jew" and you get NAZI propaganda) But I wonder how the world looks from within Israel. (I recall meeting people in Poland 30 years ago who thought we were all rich in "the West" with no political control / surveillance etc) An individual might say *I wouldn't do that; and it is easy enough to say that from the relative comfort of much Europe or N America or,I imagine, NZ. But no one can say how they would behave in the same situations. The examples you give are pertinent. However, I live in UK so the image of USA overrun by Japanese is less than potent for me. I can only think of it as b-movie. Germans in Whitehall perhaps. But I find it difficult to relate to either because I didn't experience the war; and my times in Germany have been relatively peaceful and courteous. You'll have to persuade me that I am responsible for the Holocaust, also before my time. If guilt works backwards, then it seems to me that we are getting very near to a version of original sin; and I gave up on all smells and bells when I was 14, nearly 40 years ago It seems to me that your argument, and you do not fully state it, would have each of us responsible for what is happening in Palestine. Again, I need persuading that I am responsible for cynical theft and destruction and murder to which I am opposed. Despite your generous sharing of guilt (joke) you will be called antisemitic, I'm afraid. Not by everyone, but my many. It's by far the simplest way of dealing with complex issues and uncomfortable arguments - similar to "red" etc - for those who have made up their minds for the long haul It's not that they *think you are anti-semitic. It doesn't work like that. You will be called anti-semitic. Thought is at the service of defending their argument. Think of a pack animal. It has brains. It uses its brains, but not to consider its behaviour as a being with free will That's why I worry about "heroes". The temptation is strong to counter in like terms, but I believe that devalues the argument. If aggression is wrong, we are hard put to condemn it by aggression and aggressive images. Rather than heroes of war, I'd like to offer "victims" or "fools" - that'll bring an attack, always; but after millennia of slaughter it's time - again - to refute the principle Also, at a time when self-declared Christians are aligning themselves with Israelis on the basis of the bible, it might be timely to assert a central concept of Christianity - non violence The Archbishop of Canterbury recently explained that when Christ counsels us not to fight that only applies to individuals and not nation states; and that indeed nation states have a duty to fight Satan, were he to exist, has been busy I was told a while ago, on the subject of Palestine, that I clearly did not know any history. I asked to be educated and was sent a summary of the bible. I asked for real history; and there was silence I learned some history - and I studied history as an undergrad - and reported back that my opposition to what is happening had strengthened The other refused to discuss it I see a pattern in this with the vehement resistance to any examination of the bases of the state of Israel. Our chief rabbi says to ask the question is proof that one is anti-semitic; he asserts the evidence for *this is well-attested. I wrote to him and asked for the citation. He did not reply. There is, I believe, no basis... There is a lot of documentation online incl Balfour Declaration and the various expansions. One can infer a lot; but the documents themselves are quite explicit - a homeland within Palestine, not a state, all the way through until suddenly the policy of USA changed At every stage, on the Israeli side, there has been an assurance that all that is wanted is peace; and year by year the process extends. It extended just now with the vote by Sharon's party against the establishment of a Palestinian state I am appalled by what is happening and I am - when I think about it - terrified by the consequences All the individual can do, I suppose, is to name the lies, as you have done; but we must be careful to *try to at least implicitly offer an alternative way of thinking about it L ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 10:32:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Gwyn McVay >>>For no fathomable reason, I have always wanted, in the author photo of my eventual (please, please, please) first book, to be using my teeth to feed a Ritz cracker to a crow or raven. Cracker brand is actually optional; it's just that the round ones seem to me more aesthetically pleasing than, say, a square saltine. But the bird definitely has to be a Corvus brachyrhynchos or C. corax. >> This sounds brilliant. Hours of fun working out crow[ing] and raven[ing], Peter Pan or Attila the Hun, and even pearls-before-wine, bread-and-circuses referents. I used my favorite vacation photo. Laura ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 11:16:26 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/12/02 5:38:42 PM, jeffreyjullich@YAHOO.COM writes: << The original point that I have been ~exclusively~ reacting to was the assertion that poets should not read academic criticism. That is, that poets should blinder themselves. That is, that there is something that poets should not read, ---just as good Bible Belt Christians shouldn't read ungodly books. That is, that there should be a limit and a ceiling placed on literacy (anti-literacy): we can progress from the eigth grade to "some college," but not from "some college" further in the rainbow of what we read. I don't think that's good advice or a good attitude. I think poets should read ~everything~ they can get their hands on, especially if it has to do with the unfamiliar, the legitimately obsure, and the difficult (like academic criticism). Time to put aside the milk and sink teeth into the meat: >> Jeffrey, I caught your point the first time. Seemed clear as gin to me. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com Amazon.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 10:11:39 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020512110045.02886098@mail.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" check out my subject line---that's the original subject line used by andrew rathmann... whatever back-pedaling one finds in andrew's post, it's that subject line of his that kinda summarizes his position (and i mean, he chose it)... reading jeffrey jullich's post, i never took him to say he was talking about mfa's only (and in the 20th century, as we all know, so many many poets have held advanced degrees)... jeffrey was talking about the potential benefits of that sheepskin... if you equate getting a college degree with necessary intelligence (whatever one means by intelligence) then the conversation goes nowhere fast... it doesn't go that far, either, if you equate it with acquiring a skill---such as, e.g., writing steely prose... it starts to get kinda interesting, though, when you consider 4+ years in terms of the potential for individual and social change (via literacy, that strange socializing concept)... i.e., one would have to think in terms of the mission (if you will) of higher ed, its history, and how it's changed over the past 150 years (anyway)... against which possibility, let's say, there is a long and venerable tradition in the u.s. of resistance to intellectual thought (and resistance as well to professionalization)... some of this is understandable, much of it is, well, obscurantist... the real issue here, for me, has to do with the classroom... i.e., how what is learned is learned, and imagined to be learned... setting aside academic self-loathing (which is plentiful), there is something of a ritual in place even today in many creative writing classrooms (and programs) whereby more energy is spent in defining what they're NOT about than what they are about... 'we're not theory'... 'we're not scholarship'... Etc... david radavich writes about this in the annual mla mag ~profession~ (yeah---an extremely academic source, and an extremely professionalized source at that)... see "Creative Writing in the Academy" in ~profession 1999~, 106-112... radavich's strikes me as something of a liberal-humanist critique, but at least he sees outside of the text per se... i've cited kass fleisher's and my long essay on creative writing at ~ebr~ (with responses by, among others, radavich, lance olsen, marjorie perloff)---have a look at that piece if you want a better idea of how things got to where they are currently in creative writing... or so we say... yes, things are pretty miserable in creative writing, i'd estimate, but i come from a reform position... meaning, i'm an optimist... i believe that creative writing as an academic practice ought to constitute (1) a body of knowledge (and i use "knowledge" rather broadly, to include lore, so defined), and (2) part of a larger curricular orientation to make the world a better place, yep... of course one can learn all sorts of things w/o going to college... i'm curious---to follow joel kuszai's lead somewhat (if rhetorically, as this list has a long ways to go, it seems, before most folks will trust one another with such personal stuff), how many people on this list have had NO college education?... granted, the social pressure these days is such that one might have had little real choice in opting for same, and might even have decided that the point of schooling is unschooling, and so forth... but isn't the (more sanguine) hope inherent to the educational system that it might provide an opportunity for something akin to growth?... by growth, i mean something like informed change... how could this, ipso facto, NOT be of potential use to, let's say, thinkers?... i.e., from where i sit, everyone... let alone, i mean, a society of thinkers... though it might be damaging as well, sure, aren't the risks worth the risk?... hey, what are we talking about, anyway?... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 13:15:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops In-Reply-To: <1ab.22d483b.2a1132ca@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>Seemed clear as gin to me. Hi Bill, I like this line a lot :-) Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Austinwja@AOL.COM Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 11:16 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Why poets should read only cereal boxtops In a message dated 5/12/02 5:38:42 PM, jeffreyjullich@YAHOO.COM writes: << The original point that I have been ~exclusively~ reacting to was the assertion that poets should not read academic criticism. That is, that poets should blinder themselves. That is, that there is something that poets should not read, ---just as good Bible Belt Christians shouldn't read ungodly books. That is, that there should be a limit and a ceiling placed on literacy (anti-literacy): we can progress from the eigth grade to "some college," but not from "some college" further in the rainbow of what we read. I don't think that's good advice or a good attitude. I think poets should read ~everything~ they can get their hands on, especially if it has to do with the unfamiliar, the legitimately obsure, and the difficult (like academic criticism). Time to put aside the milk and sink teeth into the meat: >> Jeffrey, I caught your point the first time. Seemed clear as gin to me. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com Amazon.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 08:39:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Messerli Subject: New titles from Green Integer Comments: To: "Undisclosed Recipients"@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Green Integer is pleased to announce two new titles, both reprinted from Sun & Moon Press. TENDER BUTTONS by Gertrude Stein ($10.95/1-931243-42-5), like its Sun & Moon predecessor, is shot from the original pages of Stein's = Claire Marie (Donald Evans) edition of 1914. The Green Integer edition is = covered by a photograph of Stein from 1914. DEFOE, by Leslie Scalapino, has been reformatted and re-typeset in the = EL-E-PHANT format of Green Integer books (6 x 9). Defoe is an epic where images of = battle become meditations, an epice wherein events flap in silence as = the narrative moves toward a place where the reader and text become one. = The images of this fiction don't resemble events, but are new = occurrences in time and space. ($15.95/1-931243-44-1) If you plan to teach either of these popular titles, please remember to = alert your bookstore that they must now order the Green Integer editions (as before from = Consortium Booksales & Distribution in St. Paul or from Small Press Distribution in Berkeley) As usual, we are offering a 20% discount for all members of all our = mailing list. Defoe is now priced at $12.76 plus $1.25 shipping/ Tender Buttons is $8.76 plus $1.25 shipping. Send checks and orders to EL-E-PHANT 6026 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, = CA 90036 (Do not write checks to Green Integer). Douglas Messerli ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 12:21:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Brent Hamilton Subject: a question and a half about academic criticism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This replies to Robert Corbett who, when he asked for a reply from "Jeff," I suspect meant me (and not Jeffrey Jullich), as Aaron had defended the spirit of my remarks with paragraphs from a Public Interest article Jeffrey Jullich called "bad attitude: anti-intellectual," and moved the question of the poet-scholar's social role back to Chris Stroffolino's ground of trying to discern what Andrew Rathman (whom I defended) might have meant in attacking academic criticism's malign effect on poets. Then also J Kuszai asks an earnest question of the nature of politics and this list, which Louis Cabri echoes in wondering how Aaron views his own view of things. I package the discussion up as it stood on Friday, and of course it has dispersed since then. To those willing to respond (howeverso) to what I wrote, and to those who remain silent (for posting to this listserve is a little like residing in an American Embassy abroad where they barely tolerate us but we do do diplomacy -- for what if we didn't?)the same dictum (from Lawrence)applies: Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you have to say and say it hot. There was a question of whether Aaron thought of his views as affirming the status quo, and I think what Lawrence is getting at here is that if you say it hot, the "what" will not have achieved status until you stop: at the least. As to whether Aaron thinks of himself on the margins, or at the center, or whether that distinction itself isn't "laughably outdated" (a tht Louis Cabri entertained) -- I have a question about this, too, one that gets to J Kuszai's premonition of the political. One of my anxieties about this listserve is the frequent enough premise on it of continuity between communities involved in literary experiment and political virtue seemingly quite apart from activism, or even citizenly virtue, however we define it. This premise of continuity raises, quite simply, for me, the problem of literary anarchism. What is literary anarchism? Anarchism is a kind of social experiment, in which one community is rent in order to initiate a more natural order. Whether I'm to presume literary anarchism exists persists as a question when I read postings like Kasey Mohammad's recent satiric, as well as his sober, appeals for a kind of reform-conscious political incoherence with (I take it)regard to literary affairs, though I would construe as a liberal reform agenda such extenuations as Robert M. Corbett's fine defense(in reply to Aaron Belz's plea for me) of the University and its production of writers and, in general studies, literate people. (Joe Amato's recent post speaks to the "sanguine hope" of this tradition, as well.) My own politics I describe as conservative anarchist though when asked to cop for the anarchism I'm as shy as the next guy, 'cause who wants to produce a resume of campaigns and arrests? In any case, literature is always having to prove itself answerable to life, and so is the teaching of literature, as Robert Corbett was telling Aaron. I became involved in this thread when I defended Andrew Rathman from being asked to be clearer in his "ugly rant" against academic criticism; it struck me as the sovereign saying: No, Andrew, it's only I who may call out the crisis. But as this listserve is a community of poets and scholars our self-regulation ought to spare us whatever coercion the market demands; and it struck me as deeply coercive for the gentlemen explaining the experimental writing of the listserve's masters to be suggesting to a young something-or-other that his critique of academic publishing wasn't clear. (It repeats at least several of the conditions under which early seventies experimental writing bolted from the teachings of their New Critical masters.) Likewise Aaron's being told his crummy little Public Interest article is full of cliche. If so, then I believe the anarchist question would be, how do we reconfigure the public culture of this list so that the corrective teachings of Mm. Cabri, Jullich and Corbett still have their force in the community of scholars but resist being construable as the genteel defense of the silent masters who read said postings but also dole out the jobs, the grants, the book-publication-prizes? Is the list, in other words, the setting for true speech? I ask -- I do not know. And it was in this context that the state-of-the-profession -- and my own job search -- became, and becomes, immediately relevant to me: So, I hope it will be clear to Robert Corbett, that my real emphasis here isn't -- as perhaps it ought to be? -- all the terrific experiences I've had on the University campus you describe as in a state of health viz. the society of business-people and other public watchdogs (the media? the govt.?), but rather the possibility for colleges of arts and sciences to get their own back, to regain the ground they've lost over the last 30 years to other areas in the University. Perhaps the reconfiguring of the culture of this list (as a virtual college) would be one step in that direction. Jeff Hamilton ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 12:38:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > check out my subject line---that's the original subject line used by > andrew rathmann... whatever back-pedaling one finds in andrew's post, > it's that subject line of his that kinda summarizes his position (and > i mean, he chose it)... I took that subj. line to be hyperbolic (a flag to draw attention), based on the qualification in the post itself that "This does not mean that all academic criticism is bad," i.e., bad to read or harmful to one's intellectual health, and the revelation of the target of the "rant" to be "distorting forces" of the professional academic system on critical discourse. But I have been backchanneled enough (belittling) 'back-off' warnings from Jeffrey Jullich to have lost some interest the thread. Sorry, I thought Andrew's post had merit. With or without me, Sally Forth ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 11:46:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: gee thx, Hef. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/html

gee thx, Hef.

your local radical femme.

 

From:         J Kuszai <jsk66@CORNELL.EDU>
one woman's terror becomes
another man's right, etc. etc.


 

Elizabeth Treadwell

http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html


Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com.
========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 16:25:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dan Machlin Subject: FUTUREPOEM BOOKS * MAY 23 * NYC In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable POETRY CITY & FUTUREPOEM books invite you to a party to celebrate the publication of: S O M E M A N T I C D A E M O N S new poems by Garrett Kalleberg Thursday, May 23, 2002, 7:00 P.M. FREE Teachers & Writers 5 Union Square West, 7th Floor (between 14th and 15th Sts.) New York City (212-691-6590). Readings by Kalleberg, special guests. Directions: Take the 4,5,6,L to Union Square; F,2,3 to 14th. "A prophetic ferocity joins visceral appetite in Garrett Kalleberg=B9s powerful new collection; spirit and matter couple to spawn a ravishing anxiety, =8Ca beautiful disaster.=B9 As if language were a skin wrapped around the world=B9s body, which ruptures and spills its will to be named. =8B Ann Lauterbach FP - books is edited by Dan Machlin. Design by Anthony Monahan. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 16:33:18 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! Comments: To: "Carfagna, Richard" In-Reply-To: <349F1E5B81A6D411AAD500B0D03EA88C01FFFD27@strmail4a.simplexnet.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit First of all, I am not _that_ ignortant of the motives of the Language Movement. I appropve of them. I just don't see the intimate connection between the theory and the particular kind of poetry written in the Language school. I think the poetry of many other schools alse serves to emphazsize, says, the physicality of language, its existence separate from its meaning (an idea that goes back to Saussure at least), and so on. For example this particlular aspect of theory is perhaps more embodied by the truly meaningless syllables of some Dada poetry from the 30's than by a poem by say, Ron Silliman, in which ine may discern multiple meanings and ine is hardly struck first by the absence of sense but by the richness of what is left. I have, for instance N/O, which to someone naive apperas to be a collection of little pems, wriotten in several (identifiable or at least describable using past vicabulary) styles. The connections between the fragments are vague, but as one reads one begins to feel it coming together. And then one realized s this may be an illusion based on the human need to make things make sense even when they don't. So in that sense, the N/O shows language "being itself" and SUBTLY not making sense while convincing us that it does make sense (which is interesting psychologically). On the other hand, things in it do make sense,. Themese, settings, styles recur, and again, one expects patterns, perhaps finding them when they aren't even there. And so on. HOWEVER, my point is that entirely different poetry, poetry which would look, taste, and feel different to the reader could illustrate the same thing. For example, there are texts so complex that they might as well be nonsense, and these texts give the same idea. Foe example Finnegan's Wake. (and don't say "it makes perfect sense you just haven't read it. I have read some of it and some of it seems to make perfect sense but it it is uncklear to what extent we are imposing the meaning on it rather than getting it from the text, Or even Pound's Cantos make this point. Given Pound's mental state, we cannot be sure that they ever (some of them) made sense to anyone. Of course there are passages of astonishing clarity but then it gets murky pretty fast. And again, the fact that readers make meaning rather than textx imparting menaing on readers is foregrounded. I realize there is more to Language Poetry Theory than this single observation. But the same idea holds. It ios possible to study the theory of Langugae Poetry (like from the original book by Bernstein and Andrews) or it is possible to studiy Language POEMS, i.e. poems produced by the Language movement. And if one opens up the field of Language poetry to poets who are unaware, uninterested or opposed t the theory of Language Poetry but merely like the style, then we have a new genre of poetry, which is what I have called Fake Language poetry. It was only half a joke. I sometimes write in that style, but simetimes not. Writing in that style should be a stylistic option for anyone, who would not have to become 100% committed to a movement to write that way. They could even write in terza rima the next day, or, god forbid, like Carl Dennis or Seamus Heaney, Millie -----Original Message----- From: Carfagna, Richard [mailto:rcarfagna@tycoint.com] Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 11:34 AM To: 'men2@columbia.edu' Subject: RE: New Content on Fakelangpo! Ya know I'm all for a good parody, but it seems to me that ignorance of the motives of a poetic movement does not hold much validity, at least in my eyes. The major proponents of langpo were and are engaging in very serious issues which involve all of us and ultimately will have a ripple effect on the history of poetics. I'm sorry, but the works of Bruce Andrews, Ron Silliman, etc (just to name a couple) are to me, far too serious to spoof with an inane display of sophomoric parody. Ric -----Original Message----- From: Millie Niss [mailto:men2@COLUMBIA.EDU] Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 2:32 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: New Content on Fakelangpo! There is new content on Fakelangoo.com (http://www.sporkworld.org/PN/pn_71/html/index.php), the site devoted to the exploration of Fake Language Poetry. Please come visist and respond to it! The site needs your input, however. The fakelanpo movement, although outlined in the articles on the site (which distinguish fakelangpo from realangpo, langpo, and goodpangpo, based on the value of the ordered pair (is fun to read, is fun to write) needs a manifesto. It needs theorteical unperpinings. This is all the more difficult as it rejects theory as a mode of definition of a poetic movement, preferring to focus instead on what exactly the poetry in the moevement has in common when approached in a naive way, eg textual analysis. There are also a certain number of contributors to the site who have misunderstood the meaning of Language Poetry and have written some atrocious poetry and posted in to the site. This is your opportunity to excoriate them! (Especially since it is not clear whenther said writers are real or virtual...) Finally, Fakelanpo was intended as a joke and it may not be funny enough. So far it looks almost like a legitimate site (except for the fact that e.e. cummings is a choice in the poll for your favorite Language Poet). Something must be done to fix this. Otherwise, someone may find this site and come to believe that there reallly is a a fakelango movement and they may join it and that would imply that they would promote language poetry that is fun to read. This could distort the entire genre and render the theory moot because readers might chose the poetry based on naive criteria of easy enjoyment. Unless humor is added to my site, this may be a serious risk! (To post an article, first log in -- you have to register -- and then an ption "Submit News" will appear in the "Modules" menu at the left of the screen. Follow the easy instructions. Your story should appear within a day. If this doesn't work PLEASE EMAIL ME. I am trying to keep an eye on the bugginess of the system.) Millie P.S. I think the error messages people got in the beginning were caused by me doing administration at the same time as people were logged in-- they happened whie I was adding stuff to the site. If you get such messages, please do not give up, come back later...and drop me a line to complain about the errors so I can keep track. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 16:50:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: electronic resources for lit mag publishers/editors? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I am looking for any online resources that might help me promote / = publicize / list / distribute Fulcrum: an annual of poetry an = aesthetics. Any pointers would be greatly recommended! Also looking for tips on distributing the journal in Canada and Greta = Britain. Many thanks in advance! Philip ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 15:59:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: electronic resources for lit mag publishers/editors? In-Reply-To: <10F2B8E6B6C9AC4993FC1FB47C0D88CC3CBCF5@karat.kandasoft.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Philip asks: I reply: Hey I didn't know you knew Greta! And distribution should be easy . . . at least that what I've heard. Best, JG ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 15:03:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: Re: ified MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ric, parody is one of the highest forms of flattery. a greater disservice to language whatever is wrought by pedestalling the writers involved. no one is contesting that "the works of Bruce Andrews and Ron Silliman" are important, or "far too serious". but nothing should be free from "inane displays of sophmoric parody". your feelings about "the major proponents of langpo" places them safely into the vanguard, and effectively counteracts any attempts that were made, by Bernstein for example, to question and subvert the authoritative position you desire for lang(uage)po(etry). sure they'll have an effect, sure language poetry will ring through the halls, "the academy of the future is opening its doors and is willing" to misquote. > Bruce Andrews, Ron Silliman, > etc (just to name a couple) i had no idea they were together...! sorry for being sophmoric, it's my metablolism. J ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 18:17:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard D Carfagna Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ya know I'm all for a good parody, but it seems to me that ignorance of the motives of a poetic movement does not hold much validity, at least in my eyes. The major proponents of langpo were and are engaging in very serious issues which involve all of us and ultimately will have a ripple effect on the history of poetics. I'm sorry, but the works of Bruce Andrews, Ron Silliman, etc (just to name a couple) are to me, far too serious to spoof with an inane display of sophomoric parody. Ric ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 16:17:14 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Why poets should ignore academic criticism. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" well my 2nd and last for the day: aaron, i'm not picking on *you*... i might be understood as picking on andrew r., but i'd prefer it were my remarks taken, in any case, in the spirit of spirited exchange.. i didn't esp. appreciate andrew's post, not least b/c of its same old same old provocation... i.e., that the academy "distorts" b/c of professional pressures (which of course it does---like other institutionalized settings, as some have pointed out)... granted, the academy is a powerful social-cultural institution, and needs must be held accountable for its distortions... but that goes for the folks on this list too, yes?... so, i suppose i must be even more critical, and more detailed... ok then: "The annoying outcome is that those who really succeed within the system know only the professionally approved ways of talking about literature"... this follows from andrew's apt assertion that "The academic's first problem is how to advance professionally"... uh, let's take the latter first: damn straight, i say again, and what's wrong with that?... not a goddamn thing!... it's march or DIE (professionally), so tenure comes first if you're in a tenure-track position... does this imply that one should don clogs and trample over the top of any and every living thing that gets in one's way?... of course not... to suggest that trying to keep one's JOB (it's a job) as an academic professional ipso facto compromises one's integrity (that's the suggestion, as i read it), hence compromises one's poetry, is kinda---well, ok, playing the believing game, i'll grant that such pressures *can* distort one's work... my, but that's a major insight, isn't it?... working for gm on the assembly line can similarly distort one's work... the difference can only be that someone (andrew?) perceives the latter as inherently more honest than the former... i can even understand why---i mean, why one might think this way, regardless how wrong-headed it may be... but as we're supposed to be interested in a balanced and considered exchange of ideas (right?), i would expect us all to greet such same old same old claims with at least a modicum of suspicion... hey, why am i spending so much time defending academe anyway?... it seems to me we would all do better to be spending such time *critiquing* corporate earth... but to continue: i'd like to be hard on academic institutions too, b/c i'd like to make them better... only, if you start with the premise that mere success in said institution is undesirable (for poets, never mind other, uhm, trades), well---where do we go from here?... NOWHERE... well, not unless you all care to hear me go on re how tenure & promotion might be reconceived to do justice to creative writing---but then, you'd all end up saturated with a discussion of the very institution that i'm getting the feeling is being dissed out of hand... and now my customary turn toward the autobiographical, as i take this all rather personally (sorry): have *i* "really succeed[ed]" within the system?... as i don't believe in false modesty, i would say yes, barring another tenure denial next year... i mean, it would be dishonest of me, knowing what i know of academe, to suggest that a 2/2 at a carnegie I research institution in boulder, colorado (whatever its problems) is anything but creamy & delicious... but i must ask, b/c my integrity is being impugned (based on andrew's broad brush): have i earned it?... well that's kinda difficult to say, isn't it?... or, yes and no... yes, i've worked for it, no, nobody "earns" this sorta job finally... in my moral universe, there's just too damn much luck involved... so to follow through: i must "know only the professionally approved ways of talking about literature" then, or i'm an anomaly... well, maybe i AM an anomaly, b/c i hope to christ i don't know only the professionally approved ways of talking about literature (though i think i know those pretty well too)... but if i'm an anomaly, i'm not alone (based on my own little empirical survey of academe lo these past 15 years or so---please take my word for it)... it's possible, in a more stridently self-glorifying vein, that i might be esp. idiosyncratic in the degree to which i've been willing to let tenure pressures dictate what and how i write... i don't think so... but you be the judge, ok?... what i'm saying, in any case, is that i don't find the sort of critique contained in andrew rathmann's post of particular value in getting at what's wrong with academia, or in trying to make what's wrong, right... nope, i guess i just don't buy it, as i see his post as itself a distortion---and yep, this is coming from someone who's now inside, who's spent plenty of time outside and inside-outside, and who often feels, on the inside, like an outsider... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 22:30:28 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: john coletti Subject: Tool A Magazine Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed (AOK it for us- and we will also send to some monkeys.) Tool a Magazine Presents: A Reading (with Music) Tool A Magazine is holding a party to celebrate the birth of our web-child, www.toolamagazine.com. Its sister, the print magazine, is currently away at a boarding school for deviant children. This is the new favorite son. The PARTY will feature a fun-filled evening of poetry, music, snacks, and the monumental unveiling of Brooklyn NY's first ever reverse carousel (bring your own Dramamine). BYOD. Spread the word. When? Saturday, May 18th at 7pm Where? Brooklyn (Bushwick), NY (see directions at the bottom of this e-mail) To include words by: Anselm Berrigan John Coletti Brenda Coultas Jordan Davis Tom Devaney Gregory Fuchs Laird Hunt Cynthia Nelson Jeni Olin Mariana Ruiz Firmat Eleni Sikelianos and others to be annouced! With music provided by: i feel tractor + mystery guests Directions to the PARTY at John C's loft: BY TRAIN, take the L to Morgan Ave. (6th Stop in Brooklyn). Exit station at front of train. After turnstyles, take stairs on RIGHT, at top of stairs continue in same direction you come out in for 3 blocks (on Morgan) to Flushing Ave. Cross Flushing and go right on Flushing. Flushing will soon turn into Forrest St. Bushwick Studios is 114 Forrest, fourth floor. Phone (718) 497-3398 BY CAR, from Manhattan, take Williamsburg Bridge, stay right and take first exit on right--"Broadway West." Go Left on Broadway coming off the bridge. Continue on Broadway for a good while (maybe 3 miles) under subway tracks until you get to Flushing Ave (there is a big hospital on the corner of Broadway and Flushing). Go Left on Flushing, through three lights, and right on Central. Then Forrest St. is first left. 114 Forrest (Bushwick Studios, 4th floor) will be on right. Phone (718) 497-3398 _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 20:04:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kuszai Subject: delete delete delete [+ review of ecopoetics] In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" as far as the suggestion that there ought to be a history of langpo - i'd be very interested in reading such a history of langpo. or see such a map of the present, including buffalo and other locales of interest - how do these "institutions" ("matrices" of action + $) form? what is their constitution? everyone seems to be so focused on langpo around here. my golly, is that all there is? anyhow, a "social, collective history" of how that movement got started and how it was organized and was later received (especially in this space) would be interesting. Yet the response to langpo seems disorganized. Perhaps that's a good thing, I have no idea. Such a project would require a kind of fieldwork of a social science nature. What materials and/or behaviors would be studied? anyhow- this is something i've wondered for a long time. When I was first being brainwashed into the Langpo world, I noticed (through a systematic study of "small magazines" as part of an indexing assignment up in the the poetry library castle) that many of the so-called langpos originated their stylistic "revolutions" long before finding others with whom to associate. Anyhow, it's still a theory - right? It's a simple theory, but one that dispells some of the conspiracy theories, since many of the conspiracy theories (about secret meetings of the berkeley langpo council, etc.) would come later. One case study would have to involve "Truck" - the magazine, if I remember correctly, edited by David Wilk first while at Yale and then for a few years afterward. Anyhow, I may have this all wrong - but I seem to remember either an early edition of "Truck" which had a more scattered editorial identity, full of poets of his immediate surroundings, classmates, presumably. I don't have a strong sense of his history--he's someone I've always wanted to talk to--but I gather he went on (after Yale, but how long after finishing?) for an MFA and/or phd (or did he?). At one point under his direction of the literature division of the NEA he was able to provide funding for journals such as Watten's This-- and others. (Please correct me as I may have this all wrong; again, my interest in having something written down which would at least get his side of the story straight). One could probably get access to records which would make it clear what happened. He eventually went on to found a major independent distributor--I think it was Inland. You see where this goes. I really don't have the information that I would need to fill in a David Wilk piece. But it's there. And what does it tell us? It would be interesting to analyze the facts from a variety of viewpoints. For example, by wanting to study such formations, I am trying to learn something about those formations-- I'm not necessarily advocating them. One of the conclusions I might draw would look at the nature and role of the "paper" zine in isolated settings, as opposed to the digital scene. I'm curious to know how this medium, for example, extends and limits the possibility of making things happen in smaller groups. High school students would be a good place to examine this- as well the urban settings for literary gatherings - not just slams but the "communities" constituting different groups in cities like new york, philadelphia, boston, buffalo, and so on. Educational factories like Suny buffalo and Temple and NYU or CUNY or UChicago, SFState, etc.etc., play a functional role in how it plays out. but there are other factors.... what are they? random thoughts for new subjects: 1. does anyone remember the "Caterpillar Poets"? I think that's what they were called. It was promoted in Caterpillar Magazine (ed Eshleman, dean of langpos)? It included poets like Diane Wakoski, Robert Kelly (? maybe) and many others -- it was sort of a packaged poetry tour. I'd be curious to know if they ever went on tour, what happened, etc 2. I've decided I'm just not going to reply to personal attacks. the thesis which motivated my original question about the political was that as far as I've ever seen, "we" as in each other, are not the enemy. personally, i'd like to just begin with that premise and see where we can go. i'll take some beatings, but not for long. i just can't bear it. i'm not sure why some people seem motivated to make things personal. joe even considers my question about politics to be personal. i don't see it that way. i don't mean it to be taken personally. and again, i'm really thinking of these poets and critics who are coming from positions wherein the political underpinnings of the arguments are not clear. Like people who interrupt themselves to say, "You know what I mean?" -- there are these "political arguments" that are made. I don't care if people want to make political arguments (I'm not sure if I do or not) -- but we're supposed to just share assumptions that are often corroded when examined. I think making them clear is helpful to those positions-- whatever they are. If you're not thinking about it - fine. I'm not asking for people to be interested in that. I'm just curious to know what people are thinking about in that regard. If they don't want to talk about it, fine! No problems. Remember, participation is *only* voluntary. 3. a good example of I'm talking about is the new journal edited by Jonathan Skinner, called ECOPOETICS. A read of the introduction to the journal demonstrates how uncomplicated - and happily possible - to initiate discussion in an area that is itself quite complictated. The table of contents demonstrates diversity of poetic interests. Contributors are various and cannot be said to represent any particular orientation to aesthetic value--in other words, they're all "language poets" and none of them are "language poets". Anyone who knows Jonathan knows that he's a complicated person with diverse interests, so the journal usefully reflects this range of thought. The journal is called "Ecopoetics" -- what is up with that? There is the word "poetics" once again merged with a prefix. The question of our ecology is not "personal" in the sense that one of the premise I'd assume is at work concerns the issue of our situatedness in a larger "web" (as he calls it). Such such situatedness is not voluntary, but choosing to make it the focus for a journal is interesting. It's a challenge, I think, do try it, and I think while it raises issues of the sort that I've been alluding to a little, Jonathan has not simply adopted a sloganeering and propagandistic approach to thinking through the problems. How is a journal going to deal with these issues? What are the poetics of "environmentalism"? What is "ecopoetics"? What is Ecology? The masthead of the journal says that ecology is the "theory and praxis of deliberate earthlings?" It is complicated and he seems open to allowing it to be so. Now, how do these issues influence the choices he's made? The editor's statement does quite a bit of work towards answering the question. He begins "with an editor's restlessness" and quite literally asks "how to accommodate" the "disparate parts of the day" -- the tension between being indoors (work at desk) with "time spent outside" (5). "There might be no need for such reflection, if the creatures encountered or thoughts crossed while walking under the sky somehow made their way into poems written inside, at the relative safety of a desk. But conditions for outside discoveries, in human language arts at the turn of the millennium, feel narrow: generally, walks do not make it into the enclosed environments of today's best poetry. "Whether this is because poetry has turned the bulk of its energies toward accomodating, or resisting, capitalist "schizophrenia" (symptom in part of the enormous time done, by knowledge workers, at desks) or whether "nature" is more deliberatly edited out by writers alert to ideological and historical trappings, is hartd to say. That most of today's poets are driven to cities, rather than exiled to the country, may also be a factor. (Which mostly means that the sense of "pastoral" needs to be updated.) In any case, at least since Homwre poetry has been working hard to lose "nature." (5) In one paragraph, Skinner makes a connection worth considering. Skinner says that the while the "developing complexity of perception is technology-induced" it is dependent also upon our knowledge of the world and it's complexities. Lamenting that the "natural history tradition" which provided a "discipline of close, scrupulous observation of nature," is "disappearing," undergoing a process of "deinstitutionalization" (6). The subsequent loss of funding for "basic natural history research" means that many of the world's mysteries (such as the "95% of the species suspected to inhabit the world") will remain unknown to us (6). So how to approach this issue in a poetry journal? As he says, "transparent narratives of self-discovery, or solipsistic, self-expressive displays, seems ill-suited to the current crisis; art alive to the differentiating nature of its own materials may be better equipped." He goes on to say that "From such a perspective, avant-garde poetry's finickiness about 'nature' is regretful" and he cites several examples of poets who have contributed "sustained investigations of nature, and disciplinary crossing". The journal, as he sees it, will be a "site open to the contradictions such work often willingly engages and embodies ... where different disciplines can meet and complicate one another" (6). The essay goes on and further specifies the issues in terms of globalization, ecology and poetics. Citing mycologist Paul Stamets, he ends with the description of Ecopoetics as a "mobile contamination unit" and urges the reader to go outside (8). A review of the journal's contents demonstrates that the "content" of the pieces relate in ways that make a simple review impossible. Let it suffice to say that the range of materials and presentational modes is wide and diverse. Noted contributors include people from this list, including Catherine Daly, Marcella Durand, Kevin Killian, among others. Contains translations of Cecilia Vicuna by Rosa Alcala and work by Regis Bonvicino with by Odile Cisneros presented en face. Fans of Robert Kocik will note a significant contribution from him. Contains "further notes" after contributor notes, with interesting statements from some of the poets included, as well as "further reading" links. Too many other things to mention right now... but check it out. Anyhow- just some thoughts. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 21:14:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! In-Reply-To: <20020513.181708.-251701.0.sinfoniapress@juno.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Ric, I'd like to thank the guy Who wrote the song That made my baby Fall in love with me Who put the bomp In the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram In the rama lama ding dong? Who put the bop In the bop shoo bop shoo bop? Who put the dip In the dip da dip da dip? Who was that man? I'd like to shake his hand He made my baby Fall in love with me (yeah!!) When my baby heard "Bomp bah bah bomp " "Bah bomp bah bomp bah bomp bomp" Every word went right into her heart And when she heard them singin' "Rama lama lama lama" "Rama ding dong" She said we'd never have to part So Who put the bomp In the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram In the rama lama ding dong? Who put the bop In the bop shoo bop shoo bop? Who put the dip In the dip da dip da dip? Who was that man? I'd like to shake his hand He made my baby Fall in love with me (yeah!!) Each time that we're alone Boogity boogity boogity Boogity boogity boogity shoo Sets my baby's heart all aglow And everytime we dance to Dip da dip da dip Dip da dip da dip She always says she loves me so So Who put the bomp In the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram In the rama lama ding dong? Who put the bop In the bop shoo bop shoo bop? Who put the dip In the dip da dip da dip? Who was that man? I'd like to shake his hand He made my baby Fall in love with me (yeah!!) < shoo? boogity my of bottom the from it mean I know You dip da say, when And forever dong ding lama rama honey, bomp bah bomp, ?Darlin,? > Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Richard D Carfagna Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 6:17 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! Ya know I'm all for a good parody, but it seems to me that ignorance of the motives of a poetic movement does not hold much validity, at least in my eyes. The major proponents of langpo were and are engaging in very serious issues which involve all of us and ultimately will have a ripple effect on the history of poetics. I'm sorry, but the works of Bruce Andrews, Ron Silliman, etc (just to name a couple) are to me, far too serious to spoof with an inane display of sophomoric parody. Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 13:21:47 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Fw: Re: cricket in Israel shades of Lenny Bruce MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lawrence. You are a very thoughtful person. This is a good response: we are more or less on the same side of the fence. I also dont know how I would react to extremis....your reaction to civilians being killled etc is human. I'll think about your email. I just thought of Yeat's lines: A terrible beauty is born. And: "The worst are full of passion, the best lack all conviction".(Cant recall the exact quote). Rhetoric of course....but great poetry reflecting some truths by a great poet. By the way I dont neccessarily agree with the "there will always be individuals prepared to do violence" ...well, prepared to do - yes in self defence as is sometimes neccessary - but hopefully not always and I think that the Palestinians and the Israelis COULD live together in that area especially if the Palestinians were given better living conditions (some international aid is required now) and so on: the UN needs to intervene this time (normally I'm opposed to that but like Jugoslavia the slaughter has gone on too long. (Regardless of fault, and we shouldnt overlook historical "wrongs" by both "sides" so to speak). I hope Bush is genuine in his advocacy of separate state for Palestine. But I know what you are saying re being accused of being anti-semitic. I actually wanted to find if my grandfather was of Jewish descent, mainly to see how I would still feel. I think he was and changed into what in Germany before the war was an "assimilated German (Englishman)" for purposes of his petit bourgeois ambitions which he achieved somewhat. In other words, at one level, he was a wheeler and dealer in London! You may have a less flattering term!! Or as I joked to soneone else on the list, he could have just been a wog of some kind!!! (My brother eg looks like an Arab or a Jew ...that is someone from that part of the world...Goebbels wouldnt have had much time for him! (Im reading a book about Speer by Gita Sereny hence my interest in these political things...and the "soul searching" and so on...) Regards, Richard. PS Its interesting (or maybe its not) but its true that many people who are "part' or "half-caste" are sometimes the most racist. This may derive from an inferiority complex or fear: but years ago my ex -wife discovered some letters by her (part Samoan ) cousin which were rabidly racist against "bungas" or "coons" etc (A derog term used about Samoans, Tongans and so on quite commonly by white working class esp. tradesmen level (the level I've been mostly in)) who are (contrary to communist fairy stories) the most racist group as they are competing for bread: for life ultimately. Even Maori are more hateful of Polynesians (or they express this hate at least (and Auckland is the biggest Polynesian city in the world population wise)) as indeed one gets the strongest rivalries amongst those struggling on a similar class level: while also it means they can be "good" (and in agreement - more recently they ( and many Europeans) target "Asians" as many people are both paranoid about them and (there are many here studying English or with small busineses for example) and also jealous of thier wealth...as I suppose many pre-war Germans were jealous of what they supposed was the wealth of the Jews (not all were wealthy of course but that aspect was used by the Nazis to divide) to their masters who are Europeans who dominate New Zealand and most other rich countries. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lawrence Upton" To: Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 11:35 PM Subject: Re: Fw: Re: cricket in Israel > Dear Richard > > Thanks. You make a good case. Yet I am going to differ. > > While there will always be individuals prepared to be violent and apparently > without cause, it seems to me that the kind of suicide bombing taking place > in Palestine is atypical of human behaviour in its quantity and *unlike most > other kinds of civil war violence (Sierra Leone, Indonesia etc) You make > some useful comparisons. > > Something odd is happening and I don't believe it can be explained by evil > people with power over the young, though they exist on both sides > > If you treat people like dirt and then deny them all ability to retaliate > they will do desperate things and terrible things. > > I have little real concern for govt leaders getting hit - live by the sword, > die by the sword - and could probably string out a whole ranked "theology" > of whom it is not so bad to attack... but in the situation that any > Palestinian resistance to what you rightly label colonialism find themself > in, the options are rarely available > > Which leaves me facing the murder of people in the street. I can't endorse > it... I don't think they're that innocent. Much is made of the supposed > democracy of Israel and what is happening does seem to be the will of the > great part, which they finesse with parroted condemnations of terrorism. > (Take a standard speech against terrorism, btw, exchange the words > "terrorist" and "jew" and you get NAZI propaganda) But I wonder how the > world looks from within Israel. (I recall meeting people in Poland 30 years > ago who thought we were all rich in "the West" with no political control / > surveillance etc) > > An individual might say *I wouldn't do that; and it is easy enough to say > that from the relative comfort of much Europe or N America or,I imagine, NZ. > But no one can say how they would behave in the same situations. The > examples you give are pertinent. > > However, I live in UK so the image of USA overrun by Japanese is less than > potent for me. I can only think of it as b-movie. Germans in Whitehall > perhaps. But I find it difficult to relate to either because I didn't > experience the war; and my times in Germany have been relatively peaceful > and courteous. > > You'll have to persuade me that I am responsible for the Holocaust, also > before my time. If guilt works backwards, then it seems to me that we are > getting very near to a version of original sin; and I gave up on all smells > and bells when I was 14, nearly 40 years ago > > It seems to me that your argument, and you do not fully state it, would have > each of us responsible for what is happening in Palestine. Again, I need > persuading that I am responsible for cynical theft and destruction and > murder to which I am opposed. > > Despite your generous sharing of guilt (joke) you will be called > antisemitic, I'm afraid. Not by everyone, but my many. It's by far the > simplest way of dealing with complex issues and uncomfortable arguments - > similar to "red" etc - for those who have made up their minds for the long > haul > > It's not that they *think you are anti-semitic. It doesn't work like that. > You will be called anti-semitic. Thought is at the service of defending > their argument. Think of a pack animal. It has brains. It uses its brains, > but not to consider its behaviour as a being with free will > > That's why I worry about "heroes". The temptation is strong to counter in > like terms, but I believe that devalues the argument. If aggression is > wrong, we are hard put to condemn it by aggression and aggressive images. > Rather than heroes of war, I'd like to offer "victims" or "fools" - that'll > bring an attack, always; but after millennia of slaughter it's time - > again - to refute the principle > > Also, at a time when self-declared Christians are aligning themselves with > Israelis on the basis of the bible, it might be timely to assert a central > concept of Christianity - non violence > > The Archbishop of Canterbury recently explained that when Christ counsels us > not to fight that only applies to individuals and not nation states; and > that indeed nation states have a duty to fight > > Satan, were he to exist, has been busy > > I was told a while ago, on the subject of Palestine, that I clearly did not > know any history. I asked to be educated and was sent a summary of the > bible. > > I asked for real history; and there was silence > > I learned some history - and I studied history as an undergrad - and > reported back that my opposition to what is happening had strengthened > > The other refused to discuss it > > I see a pattern in this with the vehement resistance to any examination of > the bases of the state of Israel. Our chief rabbi says to ask the question > is proof that one is anti-semitic; he asserts the evidence for *this is > well-attested. I wrote to him and asked for the citation. He did not reply. > > There is, I believe, no basis... There is a lot of documentation online incl > Balfour Declaration and the various expansions. One can infer a lot; but the > documents themselves are quite explicit - a homeland within Palestine, not a > state, all the way through until suddenly the policy of USA changed > > At every stage, on the Israeli side, there has been an assurance that all > that is wanted is peace; and year by year the process extends. It extended > just now with the vote by Sharon's party against the establishment of a > Palestinian state > > I am appalled by what is happening and I am - when I think about it - > terrified by the consequences > > All the individual can do, I suppose, is to name the lies, as you have done; > but we must be careful to *try to at least implicitly offer an alternative > way of thinking about it > > L ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 22:48:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Behrle Subject: RECENT SONIC NEWS Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed RECENT SONIC NEWS by Jim Behrle 8 new poems from the hottest thing to come out of Boston since chowder. now available from Please evict us. "Jim Behrle is quite simply the best we're stuck with. Jim Behrle's NEWS wraps around my neck and won't let go. I choose to misunderstand his work on a fundamental level--and I, um, love it." --Brendan Lorber for more information or to order e-mail: pleaseevictus@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 15:05:21 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG)" Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! Comments: To: "men2@columbia.edu" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" dear millie, looks to me you are kick-starting another site: fakelangpocriticism. If not I would kindly suggest that The poetry of less than perfect sense is a large and unwieldy topic. wystan -----Original Message----- From: Millie Niss [mailto:men2@columbia.edu] Sent: Tuesday, 14 May 2002 8:33 a.m. To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! First of all, I am not _that_ ignortant of the motives of the Language Movement. I appropve of them. I just don't see the intimate connection between the theory and the particular kind of poetry written in the Language school. I think the poetry of many other schools alse serves to emphazsize, says, the physicality of language, its existence separate from its meaning (an idea that goes back to Saussure at least), and so on. For example this particlular aspect of theory is perhaps more embodied by the truly meaningless syllables of some Dada poetry from the 30's than by a poem by say, Ron Silliman, in which ine may discern multiple meanings and ine is hardly struck first by the absence of sense but by the richness of what is left. I have, for instance N/O, which to someone naive apperas to be a collection of little pems, wriotten in several (identifiable or at least describable using past vicabulary) styles. The connections between the fragments are vague, but as one reads one begins to feel it coming together. And then one realized s this may be an illusion based on the human need to make things make sense even when they don't. So in that sense, the N/O shows language "being itself" and SUBTLY not making sense while convincing us that it does make sense (which is interesting psychologically). On the other hand, things in it do make sense,. Themese, settings, styles recur, and again, one expects patterns, perhaps finding them when they aren't even there. And so on. HOWEVER, my point is that entirely different poetry, poetry which would look, taste, and feel different to the reader could illustrate the same thing. For example, there are texts so complex that they might as well be nonsense, and these texts give the same idea. Foe example Finnegan's Wake. (and don't say "it makes perfect sense you just haven't read it. I have read some of it and some of it seems to make perfect sense but it it is uncklear to what extent we are imposing the meaning on it rather than getting it from the text, Or even Pound's Cantos make this point. Given Pound's mental state, we cannot be sure that they ever (some of them) made sense to anyone. Of course there are passages of astonishing clarity but then it gets murky pretty fast. And again, the fact that readers make meaning rather than textx imparting menaing on readers is foregrounded. I realize there is more to Language Poetry Theory than this single observation. But the same idea holds. It ios possible to study the theory of Langugae Poetry (like from the original book by Bernstein and Andrews) or it is possible to studiy Language POEMS, i.e. poems produced by the Language movement. And if one opens up the field of Language poetry to poets who are unaware, uninterested or opposed t the theory of Language Poetry but merely like the style, then we have a new genre of poetry, which is what I have called Fake Language poetry. It was only half a joke. I sometimes write in that style, but simetimes not. Writing in that style should be a stylistic option for anyone, who would not have to become 100% committed to a movement to write that way. They could even write in terza rima the next day, or, god forbid, like Carl Dennis or Seamus Heaney, Millie -----Original Message----- From: Carfagna, Richard [mailto:rcarfagna@tycoint.com] Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 11:34 AM To: 'men2@columbia.edu' Subject: RE: New Content on Fakelangpo! Ya know I'm all for a good parody, but it seems to me that ignorance of the motives of a poetic movement does not hold much validity, at least in my eyes. The major proponents of langpo were and are engaging in very serious issues which involve all of us and ultimately will have a ripple effect on the history of poetics. I'm sorry, but the works of Bruce Andrews, Ron Silliman, etc (just to name a couple) are to me, far too serious to spoof with an inane display of sophomoric parody. Ric -----Original Message----- From: Millie Niss [mailto:men2@COLUMBIA.EDU] Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 2:32 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: New Content on Fakelangpo! There is new content on Fakelangoo.com (http://www.sporkworld.org/PN/pn_71/html/index.php), the site devoted to the exploration of Fake Language Poetry. Please come visist and respond to it! The site needs your input, however. The fakelanpo movement, although outlined in the articles on the site (which distinguish fakelangpo from realangpo, langpo, and goodpangpo, based on the value of the ordered pair (is fun to read, is fun to write) needs a manifesto. It needs theorteical unperpinings. This is all the more difficult as it rejects theory as a mode of definition of a poetic movement, preferring to focus instead on what exactly the poetry in the moevement has in common when approached in a naive way, eg textual analysis. There are also a certain number of contributors to the site who have misunderstood the meaning of Language Poetry and have written some atrocious poetry and posted in to the site. This is your opportunity to excoriate them! (Especially since it is not clear whenther said writers are real or virtual...) Finally, Fakelanpo was intended as a joke and it may not be funny enough. So far it looks almost like a legitimate site (except for the fact that e.e. cummings is a choice in the poll for your favorite Language Poet). Something must be done to fix this. Otherwise, someone may find this site and come to believe that there reallly is a a fakelango movement and they may join it and that would imply that they would promote language poetry that is fun to read. This could distort the entire genre and render the theory moot because readers might chose the poetry based on naive criteria of easy enjoyment. Unless humor is added to my site, this may be a serious risk! (To post an article, first log in -- you have to register -- and then an ption "Submit News" will appear in the "Modules" menu at the left of the screen. Follow the easy instructions. Your story should appear within a day. If this doesn't work PLEASE EMAIL ME. I am trying to keep an eye on the bugginess of the system.) Millie P.S. I think the error messages people got in the beginning were caused by me doing administration at the same time as people were logged in-- they happened whie I was adding stuff to the site. If you get such messages, please do not give up, come back later...and drop me a line to complain about the errors so I can keep track. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 23:37:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard D Carfagna Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Geoff, Lest we forget these pearls of poetic wisdom: "da do do do da da da da is all i want to say to you..." sheer shakesphere !!! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 23:38:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > -----Original Message----- > From: Millie Niss [mailto:men2@columbia.edu] > Sent: Tuesday, 14 May 2002 8:33 a.m. > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > (an idea that goes back to Saussure at least), and so on. For example this > particlular aspect of theory is perhaps more embodied by the truly > meaningless syllables of some Dada poetry from the 30's than by a poem by > say, Ron Silliman, in which ine may discern multiple meanings and ine is perhaps, tho, it should be said that DADA was quite dead by the time the 30's came along (the French version morphing into Surrealism by 1923, the Berlin version around the same time...the Zurich version fading, with Hugo Ball, into the mountains). if you're considering Schwitters's work, tho, it had, by that time, morphed into Merz...finding little sympathy from Huelsenbeck... perhaps it might be best to look back to the Italian & Russian Futurists (Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh, Marinetti, etc.) for those roots...even further, truthfully...check out Rothenberg's Technicians of the Sacred...or Tzara's Poemes Negres... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 May 2002 21:50:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Re: a question and a half MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >What are your politics? How does your political orientation inflect >your poetry, your poetry criticism, or your teaching? If I'm not mistaken, most list members are academics. So it's not hard to figure out why what is politically correct on this list is pretty much identical to what's politically correct in academia. Academics spend much of their time rehearsing theories developed in a vacuum in order to gain the approval of an academic establishment who have spent a lifetime developing theories in a vacuum ... I wouldn't mind living in an ivory tower myself, but I think the isolation accounts for the popularity among academics of Marxism, which is a brilliant articulation of an intricate paranoid delusion, but which in actual practice causes Stalinism. Anywhere that there is a large enough pile of shit the flies will find it, especially on the internet, so there is this other group of people on the list whose rantings can hardly be characterized as ideas -- who simply spew sentiments of hate, wrapped in insanity-- and they have a fan club who will verbally stone you in the street for saying so. What ties all of these odd bedfellows together, I think, is the romantic notion of being an artistic and/or political dissident who in his/her own conceit is simply avant of his/her time, above the common people of the era., etc. .. i.e. ELITISM --always a magnet for people who are smarter than everyone else, or who are insane, but also to those who are simply addicted to expressions of bad intent toward the most people possible. The majority opinion in democracies has always been a target for elitists, dictators, kings, Stalinists and, by definition, sociopaths. Terrorism is a decidedly non-democratic act in which the will of the one subverts the will of the many. Gandhi did not resort to terrorism because he, and his cause, were more just than that. Indeed, those who practice terrorism, and those who support them, de-legitimize their cause and prove by their tactics that they will NEVER support human rights. So I am unashamed to say that I support the common/vulgar opinion that a democracy has the right to defend itself against attacks on its own soil -- despite the abuse that position has been taking from the lunatic fringe on this list. I will stay tuned to the list despite the vile invectives of its most verbose contributors because I refuse to let this vital forum for experimental poetry be overrun by phonies, pretenders, and posers whose agenda is political rather than artistic, and who shame the art I love by giving it a reputation as the practice of a bunch of kooks. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 17:00:24 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG)" Subject: Re: Your views of your views... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" 1. The discusssion list is alive again! 2. This coincides with the return to it of some familiar names. 3. The Buffalo list is the first list I belonged to; I joined well before the meltdown. No list I have been on since, or the Buffalo list itself, has been as lively. 4. The community of this list has changed from those 'good old days' and it seems to be changing again. 5. The list community is a patchwork of geographically particular --as to cities, countries--groupings, members of localities, 'scenes' --patchwork itself seems to change. As I am further away and travel is a bigger issue, this geography is a special interest; I think all the Americans on the list automatically place most of the members to an extent I cannot. I take this sort of detached interest in the notices of readings; I can track the movements of poets from venue to venue. wystan -----Original Message----- From: Louis Cabri [mailto:lcabri@DEPT.ENGLISH.UPENN.EDU] Sent: Saturday, 11 May 2002 6:28 p.m. To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Your views of your views... 1. My view is a dim one of my views. But, like a good Sartrean cosmonaut, here goes the wobbly eye. 2a. I tend to want to envision the listserv as an outrageously, flagrantly utopic, reflexively present-tense enactment (or set of -s). This view's been steady-as-it-goes, since my very first post (what a grunt!). b. I am the extreme minority in holding such a listserv view. My minority status on the issue has for the most part always been so. "I" am the last lingering trace here of a former boiling 'pulse'. But, flarf we must. c. The lackluster e-ception that my Planned Utopia has received, fellow cosmonauts, reflects significant differences between us! [*Would the delegate from the central provinces please rise and state his case.*] These differences "speak," in my case, to a historical relationship I hold with this listserv (back to 1996 -- yet for others, to the Big Bang itself) -- which should pass for an acknowledgement of how Language poets had the impact of a tsunami over me growing up in the '80s in surfless sands of seams ("White out there!"). d. "Now... just... hold on.... What has 2a -- 'planned social utopia' -- to do with the latter part of 2c, 'Language poetry'?! I have no idea how 'utopic social collective critique' connects to LP! I've never read anything like that in the histories of this messily indefinable grouping of poets, critics, itinerant thinkers ...." e. (So much to write about...so little about time!) Actually, I feel enormously happy for you, d. Still, poetry "moments," when they occur, do invoke the socially utopic -- for a time, anyway. 3a. Language poetry doesn't pose the social crisis for poetry today, as it (once) posed the crisis of poetry for Chris S (or Kent Johnson, among others here and elsewhere). This is *not* news. What *is* recent news, to me at least, is that LP seems to have become a Palgrave's Anthology for the 21C, neat-o cool stuff that is "different" from the Palgrave's Anthology of the 19C -- and yet purchasable as a set! Dichten = Condensare... b. As much as I loathe to bring this up once again, the beginning of a self-satisfyingly comfortable and settled indifference to LP began to express itself specifically on this list with -- HG. That is *partly* (only partly) why his perfectly even-tempered, nice and witty posts incited such a suppressed furor, I believe -- his was an untimely meditation, his the fully-achieved Null Point far ahead of its time! -- which is to acknowledge that I and others were partly to blame (yet with no regrets!) for what resulted, since "we" had, then, a different agenda for the listserv. -- Even though, as I say, I mostly lurked, and did not discuss any of this with others backchannel -- AND NOW DO YOU SEE how an ideology of social utopic critique hailed me like a great white bird, only too well, friend?? But, let me lean on you just awhile longer, please let me tell you my story to the end! ("You're fucking wedding can wait!!"). 4a. "If poetry is the mole of history, what am I doing on this listserv!" b. Aaron Bombeck doesn't know... 5. "There are worse fates." 6a. Now go, play with your letters, and come back with a happy, a-social, Oulipo utopia of one -- befitting The Computer Age. b. "Cosmonaut! your nephew's cat is nick-named Turd -- The plastic pink pencil case you took to public school is keepsaked in a $5 ply mini-dresser bought off a construction boss you had once, he was not a stingy flint but a junk dealer too -- You have seen your favorite cartoon now, Rocky & Bullwinkle, once, and that was last week, it's nice to know the experience of having a favorite for moments that beckon their recognition, like this one -- Your shoes, hand-me-downs from Dad's only serious, persistent clothing expenditure, his search for the best custom shoes for flat feet -- Your favorite author photo, David Hess playing a joke on ubpoetics --" How did you know all this?! "I am the future of the past you will now no longer need, cosmonaut! Harken to the sound! There, just there, something new, there -- just over there!!!!!! It is yet faint! indistinguishable! but, for you! You must leave now, and disappear." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 18:01:32 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: a question and a half MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Leonard. Very impressive: but, one problem, I'm not an academic: and not a marxist and dont hate Jews or Israelis and dont always support terrorism (sometimes read freedom fighter tactics), nor do I "dominate" the list -see that Lawrence Upton disagreed with me and I accepted that...I dont want to claim the moral upper ground...I partly agree that some of us are a bit cracked...I think that romantic notion (quite seriously) has been with people/artists since at least the time of Sophocles and Euripidies, and I think that in a sense "madness" is an energising force for creative peole.... Anyway: people always argue the toss about things: it doesnt mean that I or (most) on this list are at each others throats: my best mate disagrees with most of my politics: every where one goes one encounters disagreement. Now if Israel was being attacked by a superior force and so on I would agree with you (Israel DOES have a right to defend itself but where defence is attack is problematic)...Israel at its best has made some great acheivements but these I feel have been ruined by such as Sharon's party. Being a democracy can be a convenient hide for incipient or actual fascism: witness Nazi Germany....Hitler was voted into power. Now, if your country was overrunn by a foreign power at what point would you resist? Or would you just turn away? I also have to aknowledge that I've never been faced with a military force: as wystan says it all seems very remote over here in NZ so I suppose in that sense I can "hide" over here and take pot shots! Would I stand up and getinto a real fisticuffs? Would I go so far as to volunteer to becoe a bomb? OK ... but that's one advantage of not being directly involved.....and so on...maybe I would just get the hell pout of Palestine if I could....who knows? Maybe I'd fight.... But how is it that in Palestine there are "sudennly" a whole lot of "maniacs" ...I dont think they are. I read a book by an ex Israeli soldier (trabslated from Hebrew)(which gave a reher (well not such a nice picture) of Israel. Is thinking things: eg that suicide bombing might be a legitimate tactic: does that make one "evil"? I also love poetry but language poetry (for example - probably even much other "styles" of poetry also - has always had as one of itys "planks" the intertwine if you like of politics and text etc There is no "innocent text" and so on ... nor do I know (personally) anyone on the list (except wystan and i doubt he agrees with me much and good on him) (I know one or two other NZrs but they are mainly lurkers - nothing wrong with that.) I dont think most people are unequivocal about the situation in Israel: I would be the only one to (express) suppport (of) suicide bombing when it seems that it is the only defence or way of gaining one's land and life back. But now I think that the UN must step in and dictate to Palestine AND Israel to end the mess. Are these things non-debatable? Is poetics now bloodlessly unppoitical? Did S11 not happen? OK. That's a bit unfair...at least you also have strong opinions. Good on you. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leonard Brink" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 4:50 PM Subject: Re: a question and a half > >What are your politics? How does your political orientation inflect > >your poetry, your poetry criticism, or your teaching? > > If I'm not mistaken, most list members are academics. So it's not hard to > figure out why what is politically correct on this list is pretty much > identical to what's politically correct in academia. Academics spend much of > their time rehearsing theories developed in a vacuum in order to gain the > approval of an academic establishment who have spent a lifetime developing > theories in a vacuum ... I wouldn't mind living in an ivory tower myself, > but I think the isolation accounts for the popularity among academics of > Marxism, which is a brilliant articulation of an intricate paranoid > delusion, but which in actual practice causes Stalinism. > > Anywhere that there is a large enough pile of shit the flies will find it, > especially on the internet, so there is this other group of people on the > list whose rantings can hardly be characterized as ideas -- who simply spew > sentiments of hate, wrapped in insanity-- and they have a fan club who will > verbally stone you in the street for saying so. > > What ties all of these odd bedfellows together, I think, is the romantic > notion of being an artistic and/or political dissident who in his/her own > conceit is simply avant of his/her time, above the common people of the > era., > etc. .. i.e. ELITISM --always a magnet for people who are smarter than > everyone else, or who are insane, but also to those who are simply addicted > to expressions of bad intent toward the most people possible. The majority > opinion in democracies has always been a target for elitists, dictators, > kings, Stalinists and, by definition, sociopaths. > > Terrorism is a decidedly non-democratic act in which the will of the one > subverts the will of the many. > Gandhi did not resort to terrorism because he, and his cause, were more just > than that. > Indeed, those who practice terrorism, and those who support them, > de-legitimize their cause and prove by their tactics that they will NEVER > support human rights. > > So I am unashamed to say that I support the common/vulgar opinion that a > democracy has the right to defend itself against attacks on its own soil -- > despite the abuse that position has been taking from the lunatic fringe on > this list. > > I will stay tuned to the list despite the vile invectives of its most > verbose contributors because I refuse to let this vital forum for > experimental poetry be overrun by phonies, pretenders, and posers whose > agenda is political rather than artistic, and who shame the art I love by > giving it a reputation as the practice of a bunch of kooks. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 02:13:38 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: electronic resources for lit mag publishers/editors? In-Reply-To: <10F2B8E6B6C9AC4993FC1FB47C0D88CC3CBCF5@karat.kandasoft.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does it have a web version? That's how you would dostribute it online. If it's an annual obviously you won't have any articles or new articlea often, but you'll want a web site the gives the theme, aims, and outlook of your jpurman, and calls for submissions (even if you want the submissions by regular mail in an envelope etc. only). You may want to make the web version progressive (adding an article every so often) rather than annual. It will make people revisit the site whereas just saying there wil be a full issue in a year won't. To publicize, write a paragraph explainaing your journal, and post it here (POETICS) and to lists which may also be interested such as wryting, webartery, imitationpoetics, there are surely more... Also post to USENET newsgroups "Google Groups" for instance that are relevant, such as anything relating to art history, english studies, etc. But do this carefully. Post only to one group in a hierarchy so as not to appear to be "crossposting" obnoxiously. For example only one art hostory group, even if there are 6 groups on art history. Finally, in your website, include meta keywords (this is part of the HEAD section of the HTML defining the home page) describing your site sp that the search engines can find the site. If you are REALLY serious about publicity, you can submit your web page to the search engines to try to come up in the first few journals... Millie -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Philip Nikolayev Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 4:51 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: electronic resources for lit mag publishers/editors? I am looking for any online resources that might help me promote / publicize / list / distribute Fulcrum: an annual of poetry an aesthetics. Any pointers would be greatly recommended! Also looking for tips on distributing the journal in Canada and Greta Britain. Many thanks in advance! Philip ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 02:20:25 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Exactly. -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Geoffrey Gatza Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 9:15 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! Dear Ric, I'd like to thank the guy Who wrote the song That made my baby Fall in love with me Who put the bomp In the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram In the rama lama ding dong? Who put the bop In the bop shoo bop shoo bop? Who put the dip In the dip da dip da dip? Who was that man? I'd like to shake his hand He made my baby Fall in love with me (yeah!!) When my baby heard "Bomp bah bah bomp " "Bah bomp bah bomp bah bomp bomp" Every word went right into her heart And when she heard them singin' "Rama lama lama lama" "Rama ding dong" She said we'd never have to part So Who put the bomp In the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram In the rama lama ding dong? Who put the bop In the bop shoo bop shoo bop? Who put the dip In the dip da dip da dip? Who was that man? I'd like to shake his hand He made my baby Fall in love with me (yeah!!) Each time that we're alone Boogity boogity boogity Boogity boogity boogity shoo Sets my baby's heart all aglow And everytime we dance to Dip da dip da dip Dip da dip da dip She always says she loves me so So Who put the bomp In the bomp bah bomp bah bomp? Who put the ram In the rama lama ding dong? Who put the bop In the bop shoo bop shoo bop? Who put the dip In the dip da dip da dip? Who was that man? I'd like to shake his hand He made my baby Fall in love with me (yeah!!) < shoo? boogity my of bottom the from it mean I know You dip da say, when And forever dong ding lama rama honey, bomp bah bomp, ?Darlin,? > Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Richard D Carfagna Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 6:17 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: New Content on Fakelangpo! Ya know I'm all for a good parody, but it seems to me that ignorance of the motives of a poetic movement does not hold much validity, at least in my eyes. The major proponents of langpo were and are engaging in very serious issues which involve all of us and ultimately will have a ripple effect on the history of poetics. I'm sorry, but the works of Bruce Andrews, Ron Silliman, etc (just to name a couple) are to me, far too serious to spoof with an inane display of sophomoric parody. Ric ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 07:06:05 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Follari Subject: Replying to richard Taylor Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Dear richard, on the subject of racism. There is not a country in the world without racism.There is not a country in the world without sexism. People just don't get along with eachother even in the family unit.The fundamental problem I believe is 'Understanding' or love.I knew a guy who hated islanders to the hilt,and after several years got married to one and had kids too. 'Tolerance' is also another important word. Without tolerance,nothing can be acheived. Regards Tony Follari >From: "richard.tylr" >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: Fw: Re: cricket in Israel shades of Lenny Bruce >Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 13:21:47 +1200 > >Lawrence. You are a very thoughtful person. This is a good response: we >are >more or less on the same side of the fence. I also dont know how I would >react to extremis....your reaction to civilians being killled etc is human. >I'll think about your email. I just thought of Yeat's lines: > > A terrible beauty is born. > > And: "The worst are full of passion, the best lack all >conviction".(Cant recall the exact quote). Rhetoric of course....but great >poetry reflecting some truths by a great poet. >By the way I dont neccessarily agree with the "there will always be >individuals prepared to do violence" ...well, prepared to do - yes in self >defence as is sometimes neccessary - but hopefully not always and I think >that the Palestinians and the Israelis COULD live together in that area >especially if the Palestinians were given better living conditions (some >international aid is required now) and so on: the UN needs to intervene >this >time (normally I'm opposed to that but like Jugoslavia the slaughter has >gone on too long. (Regardless of fault, and we shouldnt overlook historical >"wrongs" by both "sides" so to speak). I hope Bush is genuine in his >advocacy of separate state for Palestine. But I know what you are saying >re >being accused of being anti-semitic. I actually wanted to find if my >grandfather was of Jewish descent, mainly to see how I would still feel. I >think he was and changed into what in Germany before the war was an >"assimilated German (Englishman)" for purposes of his petit bourgeois >ambitions which he achieved somewhat. In other words, at one level, he was >a wheeler and dealer in London! You may have a less flattering term!! Or as >I joked to soneone else on the list, he could have just been a wog of some >kind!!! (My brother eg looks like an Arab or a Jew ...that is someone from >that part of the world...Goebbels wouldnt have had much time for him! (Im >reading a book about Speer by Gita Sereny hence my interest in these >political things...and the "soul searching" and so on...) Regards, Richard. >PS Its interesting (or maybe its not) but its true that many people who are >"part' or "half-caste" are sometimes the most racist. This may derive from >an inferiority complex or fear: but years ago my ex -wife discovered some >letters by her (part Samoan ) cousin which were rabidly racist against >"bungas" or "coons" etc (A derog term used about Samoans, Tongans and so >on quite commonly by white working class esp. tradesmen level (the level >I've been mostly in)) who are (contrary to communist fairy stories) the >most >racist group as they are competing for bread: for life ultimately. >Even Maori are more hateful of Polynesians (or they express this hate at >least (and Auckland is the biggest Polynesian city in the world population >wise)) as indeed one gets the strongest rivalries amongst those struggling >on a similar class level: while also it means they can be "good" (and in >agreement - more recently they ( and many Europeans) target "Asians" as >many >people are both paranoid about them and (there are many here studying >English or with small busineses for example) and also jealous of thier >wealth...as I suppose many pre-war Germans were jealous of what they >supposed was the wealth of the Jews (not all were wealthy of course but >that >aspect was used by the Nazis to divide) to their masters who are Europeans >who dominate New Zealand and most other rich countries. > >Richard. >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Lawrence Upton" >To: >Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 11:35 PM >Subject: Re: Fw: Re: cricket in Israel > > > > Dear Richard > > > > Thanks. You make a good case. Yet I am going to differ. > > > > While there will always be individuals prepared to be violent and >apparently > > without cause, it seems to me that the kind of suicide bombing taking >place > > in Palestine is atypical of human behaviour in its quantity and *unlike >most > > other kinds of civil war violence (Sierra Leone, Indonesia etc) You make > > some useful comparisons. > > > > Something odd is happening and I don't believe it can be explained by >evil > > people with power over the young, though they exist on both sides > > > > If you treat people like dirt and then deny them all ability to >retaliate > > they will do desperate things and terrible things. > > > > I have little real concern for govt leaders getting hit - live by the >sword, > > die by the sword - and could probably string out a whole ranked >"theology" > > of whom it is not so bad to attack... but in the situation that any > > Palestinian resistance to what you rightly label colonialism find >themself > > in, the options are rarely available > > > > Which leaves me facing the murder of people in the street. I can't >endorse > > it... I don't think they're that innocent. Much is made of the supposed > > democracy of Israel and what is happening does seem to be the will of >the > > great part, which they finesse with parroted condemnations of terrorism. > > (Take a standard speech against terrorism, btw, exchange the words > > "terrorist" and "jew" and you get NAZI propaganda) But I wonder how the > > world looks from within Israel. (I recall meeting people in Poland 30 >years > > ago who thought we were all rich in "the West" with no political control >/ > > surveillance etc) > > > > An individual might say *I wouldn't do that; and it is easy enough to >say > > that from the relative comfort of much Europe or N America or,I imagine, >NZ. > > But no one can say how they would behave in the same situations. The > > examples you give are pertinent. > > > > However, I live in UK so the image of USA overrun by Japanese is less >than > > potent for me. I can only think of it as b-movie. Germans in Whitehall > > perhaps. But I find it difficult to relate to either because I didn't > > experience the war; and my times in Germany have been relatively >peaceful > > and courteous. > > > > You'll have to persuade me that I am responsible for the Holocaust, also > > before my time. If guilt works backwards, then it seems to me that we >are > > getting very near to a version of original sin; and I gave up on all >smells > > and bells when I was 14, nearly 40 years ago > > > > It seems to me that your argument, and you do not fully state it, would >have > > each of us responsible for what is happening in Palestine. Again, I >need > > persuading that I am responsible for cynical theft and destruction and > > murder to which I am opposed. > > > > Despite your generous sharing of guilt (joke) you will be called > > antisemitic, I'm afraid. Not by everyone, but my many. It's by far the > > simplest way of dealing with complex issues and uncomfortable arguments >- > > similar to "red" etc - for those who have made up their minds for the >long > > haul > > > > It's not that they *think you are anti-semitic. It doesn't work like >that. > > You will be called anti-semitic. Thought is at the service of defending > > their argument. Think of a pack animal. It has brains. It uses its >brains, > > but not to consider its behaviour as a being with free will > > > > That's why I worry about "heroes". The temptation is strong to counter >in > > like terms, but I believe that devalues the argument. If aggression is > > wrong, we are hard put to condemn it by aggression and aggressive >images. > > Rather than heroes of war, I'd like to offer "victims" or "fools" - >that'll > > bring an attack, always; but after millennia of slaughter it's time - > > again - to refute the principle > > > > Also, at a time when self-declared Christians are aligning themselves >with > > Israelis on the basis of the bible, it might be timely to assert a >central > > concept of Christianity - non violence > > > > The Archbishop of Canterbury recently explained that when Christ >counsels >us > > not to fight that only applies to individuals and not nation states; and > > that indeed nation states have a duty to fight > > > > Satan, were he to exist, has been busy > > > > I was told a while ago, on the subject of Palestine, that I clearly did >not > > know any history. I asked to be educated and was sent a summary of the > > bible. > > > > I asked for real history; and there was silence > > > > I learned some history - and I studied history as an undergrad - and > > reported back that my opposition to what is happening had strengthened > > > > The other refused to discuss it > > > > I see a pattern in this with the vehement resistance to any examination >of > > the bases of the state of Israel. Our chief rabbi says to ask the >question > > is proof that one is anti-semitic; he asserts the evidence for *this >is > > well-attested. I wrote to him and asked for the citation. He did not >reply. > > > > There is, I believe, no basis... There is a lot of documentation online >incl > > Balfour Declaration and the various expansions. One can infer a lot; but >the > > documents themselves are quite explicit - a homeland within Palestine, >not >a > > state, all the way through until suddenly the policy of USA changed > > > > At every stage, on the Israeli side, there has been an assurance that >all > > that is wanted is peace; and year by year the process extends. It >extended > > just now with the vote by Sharon's party against the establishment of a > > Palestinian state > > > > I am appalled by what is happening and I am - when I think about it - > > terrified by the consequences > > > > All the individual can do, I suppose, is to name the lies, as you have >done; > > but we must be careful to *try to at least implicitly offer an >alternative > > way of thinking about it > > > > L _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 00:09:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: delete delete delete [+ review of ecopoetics] In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >as far as the suggestion that there ought to be a history of langpo >- {as far as that--what?] >i'd be very interested in reading such a history of langpo. or see >such a map of the present, including buffalo and other locales of -- George Bowering Welcome at home. Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 12:41:29 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: a question and a half MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "richard.tylr" To: Sent: 14 May 2002 07:01 Subject: Re: a question and a half Richard I am confused | Now if Israel was being attacked by a superior force and so on I would agree with you (Israel DOES have a right to defend itself but where defence is attack is problematic) I found heroising suicide bombers hard enough. But do you think it is defensible to have suicide bombing only as long as it doesn't achieve its aims? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leonard Brink" To: Sent: 14 May 2002 05:50 Subject: Re: a question and a half As a non-academic, Leonard... Academics need proof. Finally, assertion will not do. And terms have to be defined. I wonder if you have any psychiatric training, because you are free with a range of terms to do with mental illness from "paranoid delusion" to "kook". Because you tend towards the slang rather than the scientific, the abusive rather than the analytical, I think that either your training did not go very far or that you learned it from an ambitious cereal packet. Having dismissed Marxism - that must have been a very small cereal packet, or maybe a bit of it got torn off - you use that catch-all word of abuse: "Stalinism"... (And, no, you don't say what you mean by it) One of the features of Stalinism is the refusal to allow a voice to those who oppose it, on the grounds that they are mad. A whole fake psychiatry was built upon it. Another tactic is to seed the fear of groups within the body politic: who will | verbally stone you in the street for saying so. Has this happened to you, or did you just say it? I ask because I worry that you wish to label anyone you disagree with as dangerous, a dangerous wish itself, and my suspicion is that you are exaggerating to that end | Gandhi did not resort to terrorism because he, and his cause, were more just | than that. No, it was because he was a pacifist and did not argue that he had a right of self-defence. Most of them get murdered, often by those who claim the right of self-defence. | Indeed, those who practice terrorism, and those who support them, | de-legitimize their cause and prove by their tactics that they will NEVER | support human rights. or an international court? You do not define "terrorism". I suggest "political violence to which I am opposed" You do not define "democracy"... In what sense is a country a democracy which has killed or forced out most of the potential voting population on racist grounds, denying them a vote, and imported millions from other nations also on racist grounds, giving them a vote? And could you seek to achieve an answer without resorting to abuse - Beyond any political agenda, poetry, which you tell us you love, demands care for words; and the more one respects words in that love, the more one finds that to speak at all is to be bound by the ethical and the political. To use words to silence opposition or confuse issues, will finally destroy the poetry within you L L ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 08:25:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Fwd: EFFERVESCENT PERFORMANCE MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from WHITE BOX ----- From: WHITE BOX Reply-To: WHITEBOX@EARTHLINK.NET Subject: EFFERVESCENT PERFORMANCE Date: Sat, 11 May 2002 17:34:43 -0400 WHITE BOX presents... THE EFFERVESCENT PAINTINGS FROM OVER 400,000 EFFERVESCENT TABLETS BILIANA / K. VODEN-ABOUTAAM PLEASE JOIN US FOR A CHAMPAGNE SOIREE... 16 MAY / 8PM PAINTING PERFORMANCE 17 MAY / 8PM MUSIC PERFORMANCE (W/ EFFERVESCENT CONCERTO FOR EFF. PIANO & EFF. 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But do you think it is > defensible to have suicide bombing only as long as it doesn't achieve its > aims? > > >> I didnt say that: suicide bombing is another tactic of defence against an >>aggressor (in this case Isreal). >>The other thing I was saying was that Leonard is right that every country (as does Palestine which in a sense or on paper at least isnt a country (altho it is the original nation there). I think that the suicide bombers are as heroic as any other freedom fighters: but then you have to think hard about the question of self sacrifice and so on. You are obviously a thoughtful peson but you I think are a bit "soft": it is necessary soemtimes to fight fire with fire. Now when the Israelis become politically embarrased (as the Arab nations are becoming harder for the US to play with and manipulate) (we are seeing this already with Sharon having been given instructions by theUS who have their own agenda (they realise that they cant atack and bomb all the Arab nations... and they DO need some of the oil and the lucrative drug trade. The tide could turn: Israel may be wiped out of existence: the suicide bombing must intensify now thhat (in actuality) Iasarel is on a back foot: Mao Tse Tung would approve:its good guerilla tactics to press home an advantage: Israel will be wiped out they deserve to be for what they have do ne...and then the US may build a big fascistic Palestinian state: but I think that like the British Empire: the US Darth Vader Empire's days are numbered...it will drown in its own corruption and bile: China and India and the Arab nations will eventually be supplying aid to the US ...probably in about 10 to 20 years. I'm losing tolerance of intellectual bourgeois liberals. Richard. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 07:24:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Scandal of the Pure Credit Economy MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT 1. Instigating Posts a. Posts to the list, that either use vague language, and/or the fewest words, and/or unsupported strong language, receive both the greatest quantity of verbal response and the greatest attention by the greatest number of participants -- who attempt to counter and even to rub out the instigating vagueness with varying degrees of specificity. The list, however, runs on an economy of vague expressions. While it is impossible, as a respondent, not to attempt to counter (even by vague means) the instigating vagueness, these efforts will always only be left behind, since the motive power of the list's discourse -- the vague as such -- will have already instigated a new set of distractions. 2. Reversing a Modernist Economy of Words a. The post that most successfully instigates discussion is language charged with meaning to the *least* possible degree. The emptiest post receives the greatest effort to "fill it in." The least-worked-out comment receives the most attention -- in hopes of "working it out" for all. The diffusely-stated assertion is rallied-around in an energetic performance of giving it structure, so as to concentrate its force (whereas, what actually happens is the reverse: prolix expansion). b. The listserv economy reverses the modernist dictum that to charge language with the utmost meaning is to propel the best language forward. What propels discourse forward on the listserv is vague, dispersed, "bad" language, with the aim not of quality, but of quantity (which must therefore be regulated -- much like a mechanical feeder, two posts per day, for every listserv consumer). 3. The Inarticulate Status-Quo a. The list is a form of democracy at work. Instigating posts more often than not start from, and rarely leave, a common denominator of the vague. Stylistic qualities characterizable as "ignorance," "laziness," "vagueness," "flatness," "rudeness," "unexamined premises," "bluntness," "indifference" -- these are some of the listserv's greatest motivating affects and achievements. They drive the discourse to coalesce respondents and to increase response -- to teach, to demonstrate a thrifty use of words, to offer detail, to vary tone and registers of address, to show considerateness, to analyse, to be subtle, to differentiate.... Alas, since the actual motor of list discourse is vainly indifferent to and permanently distracted from all these bettering efforts by respondents, nothing that could be called "knowledge" or even "articulation" is ever instituted in some prevailing way on the list, while these shows of details, the stylistic variety, the subtlety, etc. devolve as merely idiosyncrasies of particular respondents, features that are forgotten along with the posts they come with. In short, articulate posts hinder the increase and diffusion of discourse on the list. The list thrives on the inarticulate instigation from the status quo. 4. Three Characteristic Rhetorical Styles of Instigation a. Obvious one: The post that asks for information: Does anyone know about X? b. The post that, abruptly, rhetorically negates the validity of an entire argument that has already developed a thread if not multiple threads. This type of post *wants* to lash out, and does so in a general, confusing way, so as to implicate as many potential respondents as possible, thereby guaranteeing a massive increase in the quantity of discourse credited to the vague subject. c. The post that very simply and forcefully asserts something, and in the vaguest language possible, preferably absent of connotation, let alone denotation, and ambiguous only at the literal level of language so as to ensure that many questions remain embedded in its language in an unthought-out way, thereby admitting the greatest amount of error possible and requiring the most amount of respondent attention to be devoted to its unraveling, parsing, reading, speculation, etc -- this effort only to be denounced, at some point by another instigating post modeled after "b," or else sidetracked by a post of "a" type, at any moment. 5. The Listserv's Structuring Taboo a. All initiating posts, indeed one might even say all listserv members, secretly aspire to enact the taboo form of expession. The flame is the master-mover / -motivator of the list, it is vagueness distilled as sheer force. Every post, particularly an instigating one, is strictly prohibited from ever actualizing in its true form: the flame. 6. A Pure Credit Economy of the Prolix Word a. The listserv operates as a pure credit economy. There are no debts to "great" language (i.e. condensed word-power, words charged with the utmost meaning). Nor is there any debt to the past. The list, and every post on it, operates on credit of the latest present-tense post, and everyone has credit to give to a vague future. Articulation remains in a future tense that never arrives. This is an inarticulate credit economy of the word. No confidence principle is required, for no one is ever duped. Empty promises and forged chits are no different from genuine promises and real chits. In the end, no word is ever "cashed in." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 14:22:57 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: a question and a half MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "richard.tylr" To: Sent: 14 May 2002 13:35 Subject: Re: a question and a half | I think are a bit "soft": it is necessary soemtimes | to fight fire with fire. Richard, to me, this language is from the same set as "kook" and "elitist" I query that you can support Palestinian suicide bombing and Israeli self-defence... and you give me the thoughts of Mao and apocalyptic visions prefaced with distinctions between Israel being a country and nation and Palestine just being a nation - a colonial view | I'm losing tolerance of intellectual bourgeois liberals is that me? L ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 09:46:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: a question and a half In-Reply-To: <01af01c1fb03$097f5ce0$0dcdf7a5@oemcomputer> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII > I will stay tuned to the list despite the vile invectives of its most > verbose contributors because I refuse to let this vital forum for > experimental poetry be overrun by phonies, pretenders, and posers whose > agenda is political rather than artistic, and who shame the art I love by > giving it a reputation as the practice of a bunch of kooks. > You forgot "wretched hive of scum and villainy." You're in Mos Eisley now. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now return the art Mr. Brinkofabreakdown loves to nice, normal, apolitical poets like Ezra Pound. Thank you, carry on. Gwyn McVay, also noting the severe case of PKB Disorder on "verbose" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 09:26:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss =?iso-8859-1?Q?Peque=F1o?= Glazier Subject: N E W @ E P C Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed ---------------- N E W @ E P C ---------------- I am pleased to announce significant new resources at the Electronic Poetry Center including: Lorine Niedecker Author Page, Paul Hoover Author Page, and the Maxine Chernoff Author Page. Greatly expanded: Andrew Levy Author Page and Hannah Weiner Author Page, including an html and PDF of her Weiner's published book of poetry, _The Magritte Poems_. You will find significant resources in these page, including many resources available for the first time on the Web -- original work, essays, and sound. Special thanks to Patrick F. Durgin, who has skillfully overseen the implementation of these pages, with the assistance of Jenny Penberthy (Niedecker) and Jerrold Shiroma (Hoover, Chernoff). These resources are available from the EPC Home Page: http://epc.buffalo.edu/ under "New" and "Authors". Grateful thanks to Patrick, Jenny, and Jerrold for their help with these important resources. Keep tuned: significant additional new EPC resources will soon be announced! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 10:32:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: Fake Langpo Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I tried accessing the URL for Fake Langpo and was unsuccessful. But I do want to suggest a different title for this site. How about Failed Langpo? The idea of fake lanpo reminds me of those spin art booths that proved "even a monkey" could make abstact paintings. As for nonsense in writing I think Susan Stewart's book on this topic is very useful. I've also wondered why language poetry challenged readers so frequently focus on "the theory." Is this because it is harder to imagine a spin art gadget to write it? It isn't that hard. Just make a grid of words frequently used in theoretical texts and start connecting them at random and go from there. It's easy. Anybody can do it! Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 15:59:46 +0100 Reply-To: Robin Hamilton Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: Your views of your views... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: "Louis Cabri" Louis: > the geography is eccentric: Come hear Anne Waldman read in Downtown New > York. > > Who? Where? LangPo, wha | zat? > > Huh ... ?<<<<<< > > Given that Robin doesn't know what "LangPo" is, let alone who Anne Waldman > is, needless to say where downtown New York is, I don't see the point in > responding to what then amounts to a vague and insipid petulance in his last > email. Well, I was being slightly ironic -- I know a little about it (though mostly as a result consciously learning about it when I began to lurk on some American lists). And I've written on Anne "Narapro" Waldman's contribution to _100 Days_, so I do have some idea of the [geographical] distance between Boulder and Buffalo and New York. It was a +joke+. But I'm the first to admit that my knowledge of contemporary American poetry is pretty scrappy. And equally, that my initial interest in Buffalo Poetrics was a reflex of a fascination with lists-dynamics (and, more specifically, with Kent Johnson). Having been there in the Last Days of subsub, and suffered through two -- hm ... what's a neutral word here? -- 'incidents' -- on british-poets and poetryetc ... I came to the conclusion that list-dynamics can best be understood in terms of Primate territoriality. The noyau structure and the "dear enemy" phenomeon spring to mind. > Unless Robin can answer to where he is coming from (I mean literary-wise), Well (and here the problem may be Which Side of the Pond? yet again) -- I'm pretty specifically coming out of a group of Glasgow writers there in the mid-sities and early seventies. I trailed a kalashnikov in The Glasgow Language Wars myself, when we were trying desperately (and ultimately successfully) to carve a niche for urban dialect writing. (And this may be part of the trouble I originally had getting my head round L+A+N+G+U+A+G+E poetry, as something specifically related to Charles Bernstein and Buffalo and that ilk. There are various kinds of poetry in Britain that could be loosely described as "language poetry", from J.H.Prynne at Cambridge to the various writers in London who group around Bob Cobbing, but none quite like the Buffalo version.) > and who he is speaking for (he seems to speak for more than himself), > there's just no point in addressing him directly. Well, I'm speaking for myself, really, but out of a context where I'm not unique in my relative ignorance. When I tried to initiate a discusion on poetryetc over _100 Days_ (and this despite -- or perhaps +because+ of the presence of various English members of that list in that collection), it ended up pretty much dead-in-the-water. Nobody really seemed to want to bother. > 2. Three Glosses > > a. A Palgrave's *In Our Hands* > > The Palgrave's antho. precisely isn't the Norton; it's not a specious > choice. Norton is taught in universities. Palgrave's is a sentimental > keepsake antho in households with only that as a volume of poetry, and sells > as popular literature. My Grandad, who was born in the Karou desert, had one > continually at his bedside table. Pound recounts a funny anecdote about > Palgrave's in How to Read (1929). Well, again there's a problem of perspective here. Palgrave had a strong and invidious effect on English poetry from 1861 till the mid-sixties of the last century. It was still used as a teaching text when I was in highschool then. It enforced Tennyson's taste (and a prediliction for Short Lyric Poetry), so over here, it was neither neutral nor innocuous. Then it finally +did+ vanish, only to re-surface thirty years later as one of the classic examples of canon formation. So I have this interrupted parabola where I began life cutting my teeth as a schoolchild on Poems From Palgrave, and ended up teaching the bloody thing from Christopher Ricks' excellent Penguin edition. Palgrave is one of the line of Anthologies with Attitude -- Tottel's Miscellany at one end, Yeats and Michael Roberts and Alvarez' _The New Poetry_ and on and on forever at the other. _Understanding Poetry_ by Brooks and Warren and as an American example? _Rebel Angels_ by Dana Gioia and the Neoformalists as another American example? Norton is quite different, and not +just+ because it was constructed specifically as a teaching text. The neat thing about Norton (and I'm referring now to the 4th Ed. of _An Anthology of Poetry_ and not the HistEngLit double-volume, or World Lit in its latest incarnation) was neat simply because it gave you more poems for your dollars. Bit like a plate of porridge, but it was decently cooked porridge Well, the first 3/4 -- lets not start on how it might have managed to give the impression to an entire generation of American Undergraduates that the major contemporary English poets were Stevie Smith and Geoffrey Hill -- frankly, I can live with that. But I could recommend it with a (relatively) clear conscience -- didn't bankrupt the kids I was teaching, and it worked up to Year Two. > Maybe I should have said that LP has become a Palgrave's *in our hands*, to > be clearer, I don't go with this -- I really +can't+ see (and this may simply be my ignorance) that LangPo could or will achieve the kind of (dangerous) dominance that, for better or worse, Palgrave had over here. But this partly turns on poets-in-academe. Poetry in America (to venture one of those sooper-dooper pooper snooper generalisations) is by now thoroughly institutionalised. It's not that probably too many British poets are involved in university teaching, but that most here are paid-up academics. The MFA route doesn't exist. And there's a price to pay on this -- starts when you're an undergraduate and doesn't end till you retire. It's virtually impossible (there are exceptions -- Empson and Geoffry Hill and Tom Paulin) for a serious poet here to be +both+ a successful academic AND a poet -- generally, life's too short for both activities. So you pay at the gate. And keep on paying. > A poet should learn more than a Palgrave's worth of poetries. Norton's one > way to go. Actual whole books of poetry, etc., not just anthologies, is the > best way, blah blah blah. Sure -- I wouldn't quarrel AT ALL with this. Anthologies are loaded and dangerous. But they're cheap, and can make a starting point. Most of the kids I was teaching weren't poets, so it would be unfair to make them go buy individual volumes (at £6 a time each) of the 15 poets I felt they ought to know. Sure, if you're serious about poetry, you'll happily starve for a day to get the book you want. But that isn't where (for most) it's at. > So > that in fact I see your interest in the slam poetry scene Um ... We've just hit one of those countries-separated-by-a-common-tongue things. Slam poetry (from 3,000 miles away) is about as alien to me as LangPo and Neoformalism. (As I [mis]understand it, it was generated a rather peculiar encounter between rap and poetry. There +might+ be things comparable here to slam poetry [mostly in London and mostly round poets like Lynton Kwasi Johnson], but my natural association would be with The Great Albert Hall Poetry Incarnations of the sixties (and which -- here -- were dead in the water by the seventies). > c. I don't think this list reflects a Robert Ardry-like "territorial > imperative" or "naked ape" psychogenesis and development. That's taking a > popular (and also outdated) anthropology and applying it to the status quo. Well, no, I have to disagree here -- Ardry was simplified rather than a populariser, there's a difference. His research [well, reporting of other people's research], for the time he was publishing, was actually pretty good. And isn't the "naked ape" Desmond Morris rather than Ardry? And "noyau" has a pretty specific meaning (post-Ardry) in terms of Primate territoriality. As to the "dear enemy" phenomon (K, I was cheating a little) this is normally discussed in terms of avian territoriality rather than primate. But I wouldn't go to the stake for him -- I'd entirely agree that his work was both loaded and of-its-time. But he actually does write rather well. And (for me) provides some rather insightful images for the behaviour of lists When I started on this, I was thinking much more of some of the academic lists (e.g. Milton-L) in terms of noyau. But it all fell through. Partly just +because+ you can't analyse poetry lists in these terms. BufPo (which makes it relatively sophisticated) possibly correlates with a gorilla pack. subsub by the end had dropped below the horizon and presented the spectacle to a Baffled Outsider of a bunch of pirhanna fish in a barrel. > That's like tuning in to CNN for its media critiques -- in the service of > "reporter's conscience." Well, where +should+ I be at? Mostly, when I want detail, I'd check the IndyMedia sites. When I'm not reading The Guardian. Robin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 11:07:03 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Floodeditions@AOL.COM Subject: Flood Editions in June MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Forthcoming in June from FLOOD EDITIONS: Paul Hoover=E2=80=99s WINTER (MIRROR) and Fanny Howe=E2=80=99s ECONOMICS (stories) Reserve your copies of both books now=20 for only $25 (with free shipping) & take the opportunity to support=20 an independent publisher by ordering directly. Send your check to: Flood Editions P.O Box 3865=20 Chicago IL 60654-0865 -------------------------------------- Paul Hoover, Winter (Mirror). In Winter (Mirror), his ninth volume of poetry, Paul Hoover=20 writes of ceaseless change in life and culture, seeking to capture=20 =E2=80=9Cthe unrelenting / rush of things / in their freezing.=E2=80=9D Thes= e poems glide seamlessly from philosophy to family to American landscapes, all observed with keen wit as well as melancholy. Gillian Conoley=20 has accurately referred to the =E2=80=9Cappetitive inclusionary impulse=E2= =80=9D of=20 Hoover=E2=80=99s work. Yet for all its exuberance, Winter (Mirror) expresses quiet wonder at the impenetrable surfaces of experience: =E2=80=9CSimple=20 things like bread, / you can=E2=80=99t even think about them.=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9CThere is a cool precision in these poems, a striking aptness in the= =20 marrying of word to word. And in many of them, there is an unexpected=20 tenderness only half-masked by Hoover=E2=80=99s allegiance to exploring and=20 mapping language=E2=80=99s inherent imperfection.=E2=80=9D=E2=80=94Mary Jo B= ang on Viridian Fanny Howe, Economics. Largely set in Boston, Fanny Howe=E2=80=99s Economics examines with an=20 unwavering eye the necessary errors of 1960s liberalism and consequences=20 of cold war politics. A white liberal couple adopts a black child with=20 troubling results; two old friends from the Kennedy campaign meet years=20 later to discover how different their lives have become; a separated working= - class couple drives to the Cape in order to collect the prize from an instan= t=20 lotto game. In each story, love is eroded by class expectations and financia= l=20 pressures, by racial tensions and ideological hypocrisies. As a result,=20 Economics offers a raw portrait of the last three decades that is at once=20 comic=20 and devastating. Both books are finely-made, sewn paperbacks. For more information, backchannel or see : www.floodeditions.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 08:15:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Fake Langpo and the bunch of kooks In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii i wondered about that: nonsense vs planned so carefully. susan howe's rapturous and wierd lyrics: governed so carefully at the syllabic level by sound--or the length and number of stanzas in "my life" so carefully plotted. but within that careful framework the form of cognitive release. a chance to really explore mad ideas without provenance. some interview asked s howe how she generates the ideas for her books and she--incredulous--says she *never* starts with an idea, *only* with the language and the sounds and the individual scraps of words. so how is that "poetry governed by theory" i'm also a bit confused that language poetry is supposed to be "not fun to read" i ran through "my life" like a comic book. is that a bad example? anyways most of my favorite poems from this direction of the universe are gorgeous pieces of writing and sonically electric. Read the second part of "Articulation of Sound Forms..." (from Singularities) out loud. it's complete music. what i mean is: (yay BUNCH of KOOKS): poetry as a form of madness. real kooks. not chance operations or "wild looking but so carefully written" but go-stark-raving-mad. Joris' "Winnetou Old" for example or Olga Broumas' "Sappho's Gymnasium" i haven't read that Susan Stewart book but can you send me title info, etc.? re the spin art machine: you all listened to Yoko Ono's album "Fly"? the second disc (a two-album set, such a Yoko-bargain) is comprised of songs created by automatic machines (chance operations in music) operated only by (Yoko's words) "turning levers or pushing buttons" of course accompanied by "the wail." i think the obsession of equating language poetry with "theory" was just an extravagant form of marginalization. and "language poetry" maybe just got called that recently but the lineage has been there (being suppressed of course) all along and isn't only american. "failed langpo" might be a better tag; because to me "failure" is the beginning of poetry. right? you jump at the bar and fall? or something like that-- --- Nick Piombino wrote: > I've also wondered why language poetry challenged > readers so frequently > focus on "the theory." Is this because it is harder > to imagine a spin art > gadget to write it? ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 11:23:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Clai Rice Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos In-Reply-To: <182.8164b58.2a0bfdd7@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Poulin's 'Contemporary American Poetry' anthology (Houghton Mifflin) supplies a photo for every author represented. The 2-page preface might make an interesting secondary text. Specifically about photos he writes 'I trust readers will agree that the full-page photographs of the poets add a personal and human dimension too often lacking in anthologies, and I want to thank the photographers for supplying so many stunning photographs.' He also provides a photo of himself, though, as the single exception to the rule of the book, he is depicted with family members. I've always felt the images to add a rather haunting dimension to the collection -- the full page head shots brood over the subsequent poems, bearing down on them like headstones in an ancestral vault. Clai Rice ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 08:59:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii the one full-body shot in the Poulin anthology was Charles Olson sitting on a stoop with an umbrella or a can or something like that. of course he and Robert Duncan have been dropped out of the current edition ostensibly due to time lapsed since their deaths though Richard Hugo, James Wright, and David Ignatow remain represented. --- Clai Rice wrote: > Poulin's 'Contemporary American Poetry' anthology > (Houghton Mifflin) > supplies a photo for every author represented. The > 2-page preface might > make an interesting secondary text. ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 11:17:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos In-Reply-To: <20020514155958.36245.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > > >of course he and Robert Duncan have been dropped out >of the current edition ostensibly due to time lapsed >since their deaths though Richard Hugo, James Wright, >and David Ignatow remain represented. Is that a joke? As a person living outside the US, I sometimes wonder what people can be thinking down there. -- George Bowering On Base Pct. is .395 Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 14:29:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: JDHollo@AOL.COM Subject: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?cabri=20on=20stroffolino=92s=20car?= MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit or maybe that should be cabri IN the stroff's car ... <> WHOSE history? WHOSE allegory? (i know, i know, don't tell me again) ah ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 11:37:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: I'm reading in SF on Friday Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I'll be reading with NYC novelist Jane DeLynn Friday, May 17, 7 p.m. Bernal Books 401 Cortland at Bennington Thanks. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 14:27:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Paul Stephens Subject: Fw: Call for Translation Submissions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Deadline: June 15th, 2002 NEW TRANSLATION: THE JOURNAL OF LITERARY TRANSLATION It is my pleasure to announce the return of Translation to publication, as New Translation, beginning with a first issue scheduled to appear in September 2002. Translation, the Journal of Literary Translation, enjoyed a distinguished run from its inception in 1970 until 1994. During that time, it introduced English language readers to hundreds of writers representing scores of languages around the globe, and served an important role in enlarging the vision of our sometimes linguistically parochial culture. A modest change in the journal's name seemed fitting given the lapse of time since the journal last appeared and since its reappearance occurs under new editorial hands. It is my hope, also, that the "new" indicates a vigorous commitment to bringing to the attention of our readers writers who have been little or not at all heard from in English, and to advocating the riches of literatures that have gone under-appreciated and under-represented in translation. New Translation will thus serve additionally to complement the tremendous rise of postcolonial studies -- a rise which has drawn attention to problems of globalization, to "minor" literatures (in Deleuze's sense), and inevitably to issues of translation and cultural exchange. It is my further hope that the "new" will speak to a commitment to develop in the pages of the journal a forum for addressing and exploring the frontiers of the art of translation in theory as well as practice. We live in a time when the artistic abundance beyond our linguistic border is staggering. We live, too, in a time when the catastrophic consequences of ignorance or intolerance of what is outside our cultural orbit must be painfully apparent to all of us. I believe that New Translation has an important role to play in helping us to enjoy that abundance and to absolve us of that ignorance. The editors of New Translation are pleased to acknowledge the generous financial support of the Thornton Wilder Foundation and the general support of the School of the Arts at Columbia University. We are presently accepting manuscripts for the first two issues of the journal of translations into English from all other languages, living and not, in all genres, including but hardly limited to poetry, fiction, theatre, essay, and criticism. We also welcome original work which concerns the practice, history or art (or science) of translation, including discussions of translation as it obtains to such matters beyond the immediately literary as music, film and our often logocentric visual arts. Manuscripts should be received no later than June 15, 2002 for consideration for the September issue. Authors are promised a response to submissions within six weeks of receipt of their manuscripts. Original language texts are welcome to accompany submissions, but not required. Submissions may be sent either as manuscripts to the address below, or electronically to newtranslation@columbia.edu (preferably as an MS/Word attachment). Inquiries can also be made to my attention at rjm49@columbia.edu. Richard Matthews Editor Translation Magazine 415 Dodge Hall Columbia University New York, NY 10027 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 15:12:22 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Replying to richard Taylor MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes and i knew a man named bojangles and he danced with ...Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 15:21:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Win a month in the trAce Online Writers' Workshop (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 15:41:26 +0000 From: trace@ntu.ac.uk To: sondheim@panix.com Subject: Win a month in the trAce Online Writers' Workshop Go to http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/school/offer.cfm for the chance to win a free month this June, July or August The first 5 names drawn at random each month will win a place at the trAce Online Writers’ Workshop. (Usual cost is 28 GBP for your first 4 weeks.) But be quick! The first draw takes place 20th May! The Online Writers' Workshop runs all year round and is hosted by two resident writers, providing advice and support for both general creative writing plus new media writing and webdesign. The Workshop provides an informal area for sharing work, learning new skills, and working collaboratively. Content and emphasis will vary depending upon the resident workshop leaders and the interests of the current participants. Sign up in blocks of 4 weeks, or even for a whole year. Come on in, roll up your sleeves and get dirty. This is a place for some serious play and nitty gritty writing experiments. Workshop Leaders this summer are: 29 April - 23 June 02 Carolyn Guertin and Kate Pullinger 24 June - 18 Aug 02 Carolyn Guertin and Alan Sondheim 19 Aug - 13 Oct 02 Alan Sondheim and Randy Adams For full information about courses and tutors throughout the year at the trAce Online Writing School go to http://tracewritingschool.com or call +44 (0)115 8483533 Catherine Gillam trAce Online Writing School The Nottingham Trent University Clifton Lane Nottingham NG11 8NS UK Tel: +44(0)115 8483533 Fax: +44(0)115 8486364 Mail: traceschool@ntu.ac.uk You have received this mail because you visited the trAce site and registered to be kept informed of our activities. If you would like to be removed from this database, please send an email to trace@ntu.ac.uk with the subject line UNSUB REGISTER. Be sure that you send the email from the address with which you registered, or give your name in the body of your email. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 13:15:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: POG: super-potluck <> rent party: this Saturday evening, after Silliman/Jarnot reading (plaintext version) Comments: To: Tenney Nathanson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit YOU'RE INVITED! please attend the POG SUPER-POTLUCK (aka RENT PARTY) when: this Saturday evening, after the Silliman / Jarnot reading (that is, around 9 pm till whenever) where: 2345 E. 8th St. (that's one block west of Tucson Blvd., on the northwest corner of 8th and Norton.) why: to have a great time; to celebrate another wonderful year of POG programming; and . . . TO PAY THE BILLS and balance the budget!!! (we need to raise $300-400 to balance this year's budget) please come, and bring: something to eat and/or something to drink $10 or $20 to put in the fundraising/rent-party pot (or: even $5 will help) some POG people have promised to make fancy things to eat, so the food should be great, the space is lovely w indoor & outdoor dining and hanging around, and the company, naturally, will be terrific. hope to see you there! (if you can't come, please email us with your fundraising pledge: mailto:pog@gopog.org) * further questions about the potluck, or about the preceding reading by Ron Silliman & Lisa Jarnot, or their Sunday afternoon workshops--or for more about POG: mailto:pog@gopog.org *********************** mailto:tenney@dakotacom.net mailto:nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/tn POG: mailto:pog@gopog.org http://www.gopog.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 13:19:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: POG: super-potluck <> rent party: this Saturday evening, after Silliman/Jarnot reading (html version) Comments: To: Tenney Nathanson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit YOU'RE INVITED! please attend the POG SUPER-POTLUCK (aka RENT PARTY) when: this Saturday evening, after the Silliman / Jarnot reading (that is, around 9 pm till whenever) where: 2345 E. 8th St. (that's one block west of Tucson Blvd., on the northwest corner of 8th and Norton.) why: to have a great time; to celebrate another wonderful year of POG programming; and . . . TO PAY THE BILLS and balance the budget!!! (we need to raise $300-400 to balance this year's budget) please come, and bring: something to eat and/or something to drink $10 or $20 to put in the fundraising/rent-party pot (or: even $5 will help) some POG people have promised to make fancy things to eat, so the food should be great, the space is lovely w indoor & outdoor dining and hanging around, and the company, naturally, will be terrific. hope to see you there! (if you can't come, please email us with your fundraising pledge: mailto:pog@gopog.org) * further questions about the potluck, or about the preceding reading by Ron Silliman & Lisa Jarnot, or their Sunday afternoon workshops--or for more about POG: mailto:pog@gopog.org *********************** mailto:tenney@dakotacom.net mailto:nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/tn POG: mailto:pog@gopog.org http://www.gopog.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 18:53:56 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Rathmann Subject: The High Road of Art Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Criticism happens after the fact. It requires artifacts. It is retrospective. Perhaps there is a kind of criticism that will help the new poem to get written. Pound and Eliot tried to write that kind. It is not to be found in today's academic journals. Non-academic journals, maybe. If you are a writer, you must be very careful not to waste your labors. That is the key thing: not to waste your time. Too much time gets spent re-inventing the wheel, or feeling shitty, as it is. Vita brevis. Why should you try to "read everything"? You do not even have time for the classics. Learn another language instead. Read whatever is going to enable you to write the new poem. That's what the rest of us are waiting for. The lesson of Language writing is the importance of community. Things move along more quickly that way. Literature is driven by interesting remarks, not arguments. Hence the theoretical usefulness of listservs. Indeed, arguments are almost beside the point. I don't believe that Charles Bernstein, for example, has ever _persuaded_ anyone of anything. No one has ever read one of his books and then, after dispassionate reflection, said, "My God, he's right. Poetry must be restored to the participatory control of its users. I see now how naive I was to like Frank Bidart." CB has impact because -- occasionally -- he puts an idea memorably. I don't know what else one can do. Penultimate pronunciamento: What we want, or should want, is that a contribution be made to civilization. Each generation must add something. The generation that fails to contribute dies without having understood itself, its moment in history. It has wasted its time in ignorance. Final flourish (aren't you relieved): Poets who accommodate themselves to the academy thereby diminish the idea of what it means to be a poet. They diminish an old idea of greatness. Now, accommodation is not exactly the same thing as accepting a job. And some will say that this idea of poetic greatness is one we can do without (they call it "the myth of genius"). Furthermore, nearly every distinguished poet over the age of 35 is connected in some way to the academy, and the rest seem headed that way. We know why. Bernstein again: "it's like a living death going to work / every day sort of like being in a tomb..." But the old idea of the poet stands. There is still the high road of art. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 20:16:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nada Gordon Subject: Abigail Child & Cole Heinowitz 5/18 double happiness! Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" This Saturday May 18 DOUBLE HAPPINESS 173 Mott Street @ Broome 4:30 pm sharp The Segue Reading Series presents... **********************COLE HEINOWITZ AND ABIGAIL CHILD ************************************* Cole Heinowitz is the author of Daily Chimera, a collection of poems, plays, and prose, and a forthcoming chapbook, Stunning in Muscle Hospital, (Detour). She is writing a Ph.D. thesis on the birth of liberalism from the cadaver of Latin America during the Enlightenment. She was born and raised in San Diego, but now lives in Providence. Abigail Child is the author of A Motive for Mayhem, Mob and Scatter Matrix. A film-maker as well as a writer, Child premiered her most recent film Dark Dark (2001) at the NYFF and is currently working on a collaborative web project entitled Playlist. New writing includes a book of poetry Live Feed and a book of criticism This Is Called Moving: a Critical Poetics of Film. -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 21:39:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: N E W @ E P C In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.2.20020514090804.0c28a010@imap.buffalo.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Does LPG return phone calls? Like from last winter? Colegiality...ho-hum. Gene At 09:26 AM 5/14/02 -0400, you wrote: >---------------- >N E W @ E P C >---------------- >I am pleased to announce significant new resources at the Electronic Poetry >Center including: Lorine Niedecker Author Page, Paul Hoover Author Page, >and the Maxine Chernoff Author Page. Greatly expanded: Andrew Levy Author >Page and Hannah Weiner Author Page, including an html and PDF of her >Weiner's published book of poetry, _The Magritte Poems_. You will find >significant resources in these page, including many resources available for >the first time on the Web -- original work, essays, and sound. Special >thanks to Patrick F. Durgin, who has skillfully overseen the implementation >of these pages, with the assistance of Jenny Penberthy (Niedecker) and >Jerrold Shiroma (Hoover, Chernoff). These resources are available from the >EPC Home Page: > >http://epc.buffalo.edu/ > >under "New" and "Authors". Grateful thanks to Patrick, Jenny, and Jerrold >for their help with these important resources. > >Keep tuned: significant additional new EPC resources will soon be announced! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 22:06:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: the dry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - the dry osprey sprays and preys in alligator holes, among the grays and ways, the desiccated holes, fire give me strength, fire give me life, across the breadth and length, the sloughs, the verge, the strife, all mating leads to hating, all mating leads to life, all mating leads to loving, all loving leads to life:in the winter season, in the winter season, among the cypress-domes, among the cypress domes, there are worlds-creating, there are worlds-creating, among the silicon, among the silicon, deep in the marl prairies, deep in the marl prairies, among the winter season, among the winter season, deep in the cypress-domes, deep in the cypress domes :someone has to leave, someone has to come, someone's born with vision, someone's dying dumb; someone's got to die, someone's got to live, someone's never lied, someone's got to give; something's got to leave, something's got to come; something's born with vision, something's dying dumb; something's got to die, something's got to live; something's never lied; something's got to give ::the blue highways and the hardwood thickets ::the long thin highway and the tangled stream ::the blue highways and the hardwood thickets ::the asphalt highways and the bayhead thickets ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 23:26:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: N E W @ E P C In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.2.20020514090804.0c28a010@imap.buffalo.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit way to go EPC!!! This is a great expansion, thanks :-) maybe you can take up where University of California Press's cutbacks.... and I'll return your call gene, what was your number again .... Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Loss Pequeño Glazier Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 9:27 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: N E W @ E P C ---------------- N E W @ E P C ---------------- I am pleased to announce significant new resources at the Electronic Poetry Center including: Lorine Niedecker Author Page, Paul Hoover Author Page, and the Maxine Chernoff Author Page. Greatly expanded: Andrew Levy Author Page and Hannah Weiner Author Page, including an html and PDF of her Weiner's published book of poetry, _The Magritte Poems_. You will find significant resources in these page, including many resources available for the first time on the Web -- original work, essays, and sound. Special thanks to Patrick F. Durgin, who has skillfully overseen the implementation of these pages, with the assistance of Jenny Penberthy (Niedecker) and Jerrold Shiroma (Hoover, Chernoff). These resources are available from the EPC Home Page: http://epc.buffalo.edu/ under "New" and "Authors". Grateful thanks to Patrick, Jenny, and Jerrold for their help with these important resources. Keep tuned: significant additional new EPC resources will soon be announced! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 20:29:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Re: a question and a half MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Richard: > | I'm losing tolerance of intellectual bourgeois liberals Lawrence: > is that me? > Oh, c'mon, Lawrence. No one's accusing you of being an intellectual. Your position that in order to contradict your views one must define each and every word they use is a classic example of using language to silence opposition. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 23:47:25 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Fewell Subject: unsubscribe MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit sorry for the interruption, but how does one go about unsubscribing from this list? aaron keith ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 20:53:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: The High Road of Art MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii The Way of The Cavalier is to pull our revealing pantaloons up about our hips and cincture them, so that our weighty Pendulums do not chafe upon the flagstones, to be unmanned in a doily shoppe. Time is as a small cake whose every crumb must be gummed or pinched. I play the music of Lully, 1632 - 1687, not of Racine, 1639- 1699, in the background on my useful headphones, so as to be A Constructive Fellow, not a niggler, making utility of every scrumptuous moment (by exercising!) and to have a well-paced marching rhythm that guides my mincing Nancy steps toward elevated ground. Criticism, that old she-hag of gender who waits to syphon out sweet plump young poetry's fair lustrous bloom. Ha! It is for those whose time is a nasty wastefulness, as a waste of corruption in their pants whereon they sit. She shows up too late at the christening and drinks the water from the font to taste the infant. Poetry must fuel herself with a good mastication of hardy foods. You are in a "romantic relationship" with a "significant other." You go to poetry-inspiring movies. You watch the sickle of television. How could that employment leave time for the grey shadows of impolite thinkers whose impositions are a waste that no clean cloth can cleanse? Then scrub the waste away! You have no time nor space! (Time, the stern master.) Latin epigrams are bearing down upon you, though not wastefully! I am responsive only to aphorisms. Aphorisms win. What is an "argument"? Ha! It starts with an "are gew" and it ends with "meant"! It is as a snare or a fowler's trap to tangle our shins around a pot of waste. Stuff your great poetry stomach with nutritious boiled reading material that can have Utilitarian Value, my waster! not with the she-hag's indolence and uselessness. For example: Charles Bernstein. He wears glasses. So then why ~drink~ from glass when he, an example, places glass before his eyes as a better entrance into the high life! The top shelf! High, yes, that interests everyone too short to reach easily. Ascend! Rise, as something tumesced! Who has ever met a Bernstein and said, That man is my lookalike! His imposter? His physiognomy, his phrenology, his aftertaste, they leave no bitter wastefulness upon the palate. It is as a fresh lemony Bernstein that has no unpleasant waste matter, ah. No one has ever followed him into heinous unlawfulness of anarchy or said, There's a fine reason to save my every pretty precious minute in a pail, a party favor! Without waste! A fob watch, there's a treasury to stuff in your pocket, not to squander hours in bug-eyed bookishness. Look to the Kings of Poetry! What, gossip? Every baby must give its waste to a nursemaid or it is as a thing to be placed in the corner and dessicated. Or else, let them be as do-nothings and dummies, who have no special senses. Some befoul their swollen pectorals. They take a wreath and they make it as poop. Who would ever work? A slave! More Bernstein: "Maria! Maria! I just met a girl named Maria"! Everyone should go Upstairs and avoid basements. And let no waste dog your heel, as a discoloration. I give you this from how Pound and Eliot used four minutes, as a pie. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 00:05:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: unsubscribe In-Reply-To: <92.25d8222b.2a13344d@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed me, too. gene At 11:47 PM 5/14/02 -0400, you wrote: >sorry for the interruption, but how does one go about unsubscribing from this >list? > >aaron keith ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 15:47:18 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: The High Road of Art MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Andrew. I agreee most ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Rathmann" > Criticism happens after the fact. It requires artifacts. It is > retrospective. > > AS all of science is Science descibes, never really "invents": the ontological truth derived form literature...whatever truth and or literature are, are discovered from what is there now or waiing to be discovered or made. > Perhaps there is a kind of criticism that will help the new poem to get > written. Pound and Eliot tried to write that kind. It is not to be found > in today's academic journals. Non-academic journals, maybe. > > Yes. > If you are a writer, you must be very careful not to waste your labors. > That is the key thing: not to waste your time. Too much time gets spent > re-inventing the wheel, or feeling shitty, as it is. Vita brevis. > >> Very brevis: we alll procrastinate and criticise too much instaed of just _doing_ > Why should you try to "read everything"? You do not even have time for the > classics. > > > This is the "canon thing" ..its generally good to look at asmuch as one can of the clasics..but eg there are modern "classics" by African, Arab, Israeli, American, British, Mongolian and now we can add films from everywhere, Japanese culture, Chinese, Polynesian and Maori, the writings of journalists such as pilger and Gita Sereny and various lit biogs, some major art books and art crit books. Nothing potentially is not valuable > Learn another language instead. Read whatever is going to > enable you to write the new poem. That's what the rest of us are waiting > for. > >>Yes > The lesson of Language writing is the importance of community. Things move > along more quickly that way. Literature is driven by interesting remarks, > not arguments. Hence the theoretical usefulness of listservs. > > Indeed, arguments are almost beside the point. I don't believe that > Charles Bernstein, for example, has ever _persuaded_ anyone of anything. > No one has ever read one of his books and then, after dispassionate > reflection, said, "My God, he's right. Poetry must be restored to the > participatory control of its users. I see now how naive I was to like > Frank Bidart." CB has impact because -- occasionally -- he puts an idea > memorably. I don't know what else one can do. > >> I agreee very much: in fact that is a point - its often the way things are written..the inspiration one gets. I like CB's writing and crit. but its more the ideas not a logical argument eg mine versus monsieur Brink and Monsieou Lawrence (political) are important but then I dont think anyone is learning anythingfrom my ravings at east - so that mea culpa aside - i agree Interesting post. Richard Poets who accommodate themselves to the academy thereby diminish the idea > of what it means to be a poet. They diminish an old idea of greatness. > Now, accommodation is not exactly the same thing as accepting a job. And > some will say that this idea of poetic greatness is one we can do without > (they call it "the myth of genius"). Furthermore, nearly every > distinguished poet over the age of 35 is connected in some way to the > academy, and the rest seem headed that way. We know why. Bernstein again: > "it's like a living death going to work / every day sort of like being in > a tomb..." > > But the old idea of the poet stands. There is still the high road of art. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 01:00:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: caroline crumpacker Subject: Yunte Huang Reading Mime-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Poetry in Translation at the New York Public Library Thursday May 16 New York Public Library Margaret Berger Forum 5th ave & 42nd street 7 p.m.; free (for more information call 212.930.0855 or e-mail Caroline Crumpacker at bluesequin@earthlink.net). May 16: Chinese Poetries in Translation Featuring Yunte Huang, author of SHI, a Radical Reading of Chinese Poetry. The author's books will be available for sale at this program. . ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 22:30:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit thinking? flatterer! -----Original Message----- From: George Bowering To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 11:21 AM Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos >> >> >>of course he and Robert Duncan have been dropped out >>of the current edition ostensibly due to time lapsed >>since their deaths though Richard Hugo, James Wright, >>and David Ignatow remain represented. > >Is that a joke? As a person living outside the US, I sometimes wonder >what people can be thinking down there. >-- >George Bowering >On Base Pct. is .395 >Fax 604-266-9000 > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 06:19:50 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: a question and a half MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, the nurses will be here as soon as they can be, Mr Brink ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leonard Brink" To: Sent: 15 May 2002 04:29 Subject: Re: a question and a half | Richard: | > | I'm losing tolerance of intellectual bourgeois liberals | | Lawrence: | > is that me? | > | | Oh, c'mon, Lawrence. No one's accusing you of being an intellectual. Your | position that in order to contradict your views one must define each and | every word they use is a classic example of using language to silence | opposition. | ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 01:35:25 +0100 Reply-To: baratier@megsinet.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: Pavement Saw Press Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dave Hess-- I have appeared as an author on the back of cover of someone elses book because this person thot I was more photogenic, less grey hair (PS not only did I get funded today, ((I will buy finger rings in gold!!! IMFU NDED) I got a corporate hair sponsor (Eddie Spaghetti was in town last night), please advise, has anyone else who is literary had one of these? If I have a bad hair day will they cap me?), think big prize, anyway for that I had medium length hair(back of neck), sitting down, goofy ass smile. On my recent book, sitting down, shot on a zoom lense by my friend Toledo on an overhead crane cam, long hair, eat poop smile, easy to see my broken nose.Please excuse my lack of interest in socialist morality & justice, this is the marxist rendered answer to the exploitative economic force behind the questions being asked by many. Chris do not give away your verse for free for once. Be well David Baratier, Editor Pavement Saw Press PO Box 6291 Columbus OH 43206 USA http://pavementsaw.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 17:50:54 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: unsubscribe no you are trapped in epc land MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit aaron. you cant: you are condemned to hear my ravings forever! No: actually its on the epc home page. there's a place there on the online side of things. but if its becuase you are ofended by something or bored or whatever: have a look at some of the old posts. there is a wide range of things. but if you are unsubbing for reasons other,well why not.....i might as i should be working....and i tend to rave on too much....i dont like my own posts...i think i'm probably mad or ...or do i flatter myself?!...oh well, humanun est errare... richard ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Fewell" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 3:47 PM Subject: unsubscribe > sorry for the interruption, but how does one go about unsubscribing from this > list? > > aaron keith ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 02:24:55 +0100 Reply-To: baratier@megsinet.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: Pavement Saw Press Subject: Re: Cat reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joel-- Robert Kelly guzzled a whole pitcher of coffee until it dribbled down his chin then blew away the audience with much of what became _The Loom_ Be well David Baratier, Editor Pavement Saw Press PO Box 6291 Columbus OH 43206 USA http://pavementsaw.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 16:45:21 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: komninos zervos Subject: Fwd: Re: Rob Kendall's New Flash work Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Rob Kendall's new flash piece is worth a look, very interesting use >of this medium. > > >http://www.wordcircuits.com/faith. >hi rob great work, after mez's post i had a look at the no music >version first, then the one with sound, and i prefer the one with >sound, i think the sound adds something of a fragile tinkling of >glass type feel to the words, the combinations of words, the breaking >apart of these fragile structures to reform and take you somewhere >else in the interpretation of their reformations. > >it is sort of like five separate poems, the continuity between them >being the letters and syllables that were from the previous poem. > >the first poem asks me does logic bump up against faith or is it >faith bumping up against logic? > >the second poem goes inside the narrator the mental process of coping? > >the narrator becomes specifically "i" at the interface of all dualities > >the i now makes a decision chooses logic > >faith falls in the heap of words, code, symbols that define it, > > >liked it a lot > >komninos >-- >komninos zervos bsc(hons) ma(creative writing) >http://www.gu.edu.au/ppages/K_Zervos >Convenor >CyberStudies major >School of Arts >Griffith University >Gold Coast Campus >PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre >Queensland 9726 Australia >tel: +61 7 55528872 >fax: +61 7 55528141 > > > >Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ -- komninos zervos bsc(hons) ma(creative writing) http://www.gu.edu.au/ppages/K_Zervos Convenor CyberStudies major School of Arts Griffith University Gold Coast Campus PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre Queensland 9726 Australia tel: +61 7 55528872 fax: +61 7 55528141 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 00:15:46 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: Scandal of the Pure Credit Economy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Louis Cabri wrote: > > > b. > What propels discourse forward on the listserv is vague, dispersed, "bad" > language, with the aim not of quality, but of quantity (which must therefore > be regulated -- much like a mechanical feeder, two posts per day, for every > listserv consumer). Louis---why do you characterize the participant of the listserv as a consumer? C > > > 6. A Pure Credit Economy of the Prolix Word > > In the end, no > word is ever "cashed in." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 02:40:23 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_cabri_on_stroffolino's_car?= MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT >>>>WHOSE history? WHOSE allegory? fell far from tribe eagerly bloomed into drift to wilt at end of radical dream ah utopia ah catastrophe wild duck in eyes (meant to say "wild dusk in eyes" but duck's okay Ibsen, all that) end of empire weird with tears no human head on this body politic yet tree-born dignity inheres in a few pray for magic a new verbarium pass shell of sigh & raise to ear --Anselm Hollo ("Time Rocking On" [1997]) (Cosmonaut, I spy you!) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 06:25:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schlesinger Subject: Re: unsubscribe no you are trapped in epc land MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable ----- Original Message -----=20 From: richard.tylr=20 To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU=20 Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 12:50 AM Subject: Re: unsubscribe no you are trapped in epc land aaron. you cant: you are condemned to hear my ravings forever! No: actually its on the epc home page. there's a place there on the online = side of things. but if its becuase you are ofended by something or bored or whatever: have a look at some of the old posts. there is a wide range = of things. but if you are unsubbing for reasons other,well why not.....i = might as i should be working....and i tend to rave on too much....i dont like = my own posts...i think i'm probably mad or ...or do i flatter myself?!...oh well, humanun est errare... richard ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Fewell" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 3:47 PM Subject: unsubscribe > sorry for the interruption, but how does one go about unsubscribing = from this > list? > > aaron keith ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 08:41:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: anastasios.kozaitis@VERIZON.NET Subject: Cries in the Wilderness Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed > Cries in the New Wilderness by Mikhail Epstein > Translated by Eve Adler > Paul Dry Books, Philadelphia > Publication Date: August 2002 > Paper $15.95 (09679675-5-4) > Cloth $25.95 (09679675-4-6) > Book Description > Inside the disintegrating Soviet Union, Raisa Omarovna > Gibaydulina, a professor of scientific atheism at the Moscow > Institute of Atheism, compiles a selection of excerpts from the > articles, sermons, manifestos, and other writings by members of > banned religious sects. Copies of this classified reference manual, > The New Sectarianism, are smuggled to the West, where > intellectuals attempt to assess the late-Soviet spiritual > movements. A record of Gibaydulina's own spiritual quest is > preserved in the notes and letters she writes during the post-Soviet > years before her death in April 1997. > Such is the form of Mikhail Epstein's Cries in the New > Wilderness, a work of extraordinary artistic and philosophical > imagination, begun in Moscow in the mid-1980s and now available > for the first time in English translation in an expanded version. > Drawing on his own participation in Moscow's intellectual > associations and in expeditions to study popular religious beliefs > in southern Russia and Ukraine, Epstein recreates the spiritual > experience of a whole Russian generation. His is not a > documentary book, however, but a "comedy of ideas," in which he > constructs from the voices he hears in the culture around him the > religious and philosophical worldviews of Foodniks and > Domesticans, Arkists and Bloodbrothers, Atheans and Good- > believers, Steppies and Pushkinians. > Cries in the New Wilderness is filled with the voices of these sects, > from the mystical Thingwrights and the absurdist Folls to the > messianic Khazarists and the doomsday Steppies. As a > counterpoint to this medley of comic, grotesque, poetic, banal, > poignant, and harrowing voices is the voice of the commentator, > Professor Gibaydulina, who struggles to maintain the purity and > objectivity of her scientific atheism in the face of an amazing > variety of religious experiences. Epstein's depiction of the inner > drama of Gibaydulina's response to the crumbling of the Soviet > Union and her quest for a new, creative atheism adds a tragic note > to his polyphonic work. > An award-winning essayist and critic, Mikhail Epstein has been > compared to Jorge Luis Borges for his literary inventiveness and to > Walter Benjamin for his acute observation of cultural phenomena. > Transcending genres and disciplines, Cries in the New Wilderness > is a brilliantly original work, a "virtual document" that illuminates > the spiritual condition of the Soviet Union as it reveals > unsuspected affinities between Russian and American culture. In > the mirror of Soviet society, we recognize our own enthusiasm for > alternative spiritual experiences, our worship of technology, our > doomsday cults. We may also recognize that we ourselves are > participants in many of the sects Mikhail Epstein describes, sects > that seem at first fantastic and outlandish, but prove to be the > religious basis of our own lives. > About the Author > Mikhail Epstein was born in Moscow in 1950 and graduated from > Moscow State University summa cum laude in philology in 1972. > He was the founder and director of the Laboratory of Contemporary > Culture in Moscow. In 1990 Epstein moved to the United States, > where he spent a year in Washington, DC, as a fellow at the > Woodrow Wilson International Center. He is now Samuel Candler > Dobbs Professor of Cultural Theory and Russian Literature at > Emory University. > Epstein's recent books in English include After the Future: > Paradoxes of Postmodernism and Contemporary Russian Culture; > Russian Postmodernism: New Perspectives on Post-Soviet > Culture (with two coauthors); and Transcultural Experiments: > Russian and American Models of Creative Communication (with > Ellen Berry). He is the author of 15 books and approximately 400 > essays and articles, translated into 14 languages. > In 2000 Mikhail Epstein was the recipient of the Liberty Prize, > established in 1999 and awarded once a year to prominent > Russian cultural figures who have made an outstanding > contribution to American society. He has also received among > many other awards the 1995 Social Innovations Award from the > Institute for Social Inventions (London) for his electronic Bank of > New Ideas, and the 1991 Andrei Belyi Prize (St. Petersburg) for > the best work in literary criticism and scholarship. > About the Translator Eve Adler is professor of classics at Middlebury College and is the > translator of several books, including Dictionary of Russian > Slang & Colloquial Expressions. > Reviews > "Mikhail Epstein is probably the most important figure in Russian > literary theory in the post-Bakhtin, post-Lotman era. What he has > to say is of great interest to everyone interested in cultural > studies." Walter Laqueur > Chairman, Center for Strategic and International Studies > > "Borgesian in its design, Cries inthe New Wilderness is the best > example of that rare genre of theological fantasy that strikes a > precise equilibrium between search for God and struggle against > God." > Alexander Genis > author of Red Bread > > "Cries in the New Wilderness presents a completely new view of > the spiritual life of Russian > society. . . The book is full of tragicomic tension and brings to > mind the multivoiced novels of Dostoevsky." > Ilya Kabakov ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 16:43:30 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: "The Academic Spirit" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "A creator who creates, who is not an academician, who is not some one who studies in a school where the rules are already known, and of course being known they no longer exist, a creator then who creates is necessarily of his generation. His generation lives in its contemporary way but they only live in it. In art, in literature, in the theatre, in short in everything that does not contribute to their immediate comfort they live in the preceding generation. It is very simple, to-day in the streets of Paris, horses, even tramcars can no longer exist but horses and tramcars are only suppressed only when they cause too many complications, they are suppressed but sixty years too late. Lord Grey said when the war broke out that the generals thought of a war of the nineteenth century even when the instruments of war were of the twentieth century and only when the war was at its height did the generals understand that it was a war of the twentieth century and not a war of the nineteenth century. That is what the academic spirit is, it is not contemporary, of course not, and so it can not be creative because the only thing that is creative in a creator is the contemporary thing. Of course." -- from _Picasso_ by Gertrude Stein Should poets ignore academic criticism? No. Nor is it likely that they could. Should poets read academic criticism? Maybe. Do poets _need_ academic criticism? Up to a point perhaps. But no, they do not _need_ it, unless of course they are interested in writing academic criticism, of which _Picasso_ is not an example. That, that poets do not need academic criticism, is what I take to be the thrust of Andrew Rathmann's 'rant', as it has been called. What poets need, on the other hand, is a very important question. One thing we need is a way to make a living in a world that has no use for us. Becoming an academic is one way to do that. But there should be other ways. What we need is a MONEY-MAKING MACHINE, not to get rich but just to survive. Like the Girl Scouts, you know, and their cookies. Or at my grade school where we raised money by selling trash bags. Not everybody needs everybody's book of poems but everybody needs a solid trash bag. One thing I'd been thinking about trying to patent is EDIBLE TAPE. Something you could use to keep a burrito from falling apart. Wraps are a big hit these days, or you could eat it because the tape tastes good. It could be full of vitamins and ginseng and have poems printed on it. Edible tape, think about it, fellas. Williams said he became a doctor so he could do as he damned well pleased. That's not the academic spirit, that's something else. Maybe too 'entrepreneurial'? Who knows. I need to take a shower. dave ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 May 2002 20:23:10 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: Favorite Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Early Pound with his bouffant and/or long straight moustache (cover of Selected Prose), and sinister look. Also looks good in a beret. Williams in flowers, smiling on cover of his Selected Poems. His intense photo on cover of Imaginations and the one where he's like 70 sitting at his desk with a copy of Desert Music and a crazy look in his eye. Most Kerouac photos, like the one where he's walking by whoever took the photo and opening his mouth wide. The one where he's got a suitcase in his hand full of all his writing, standing near a car. Also, the one where he and Burroughs are play-fighting with a big kitchen knife. Wilde's photos after he arrived in New York. Long, wavy hair and an air of passionate detachment. Nice stockings. Whitman without hat, probably in his 40s. Short beard and close-cropped hair. Looking innocent and lovely as hell. Any photo of Loy, naked from behind, or with cigarrette. Mayakovsky's movie star photos. That was one sexy motherfucker. O'Hara in his white robe looking like a god, days before his death I believe. Spicer kissing bust of himself (cover of Poet Be Like God) and university photo of him taken when he was in Minnesota. Dark, gentle look on face. Lorca's on cover of In Search of Duende. And in white suit arriving in Havana. Also happy photo when arriving in Buenos Aires (they love him!). Him and Dali in swimsuits, too. Stein in bird bath. Baudelaire photo taken by Etienne Carjat. He's holding a cane (that's what I need -- a cane!) with left hand. Big black coat and bow tie. A tinge of spiritual arrogance on his face. Stevens as an altar boy. Melville on the cover of Call Me Ishmael. You can see the entire ocean in that beard. Ancient, ancient. Frank Stanford in karate get-up. Marinetti in car (and with cigar I believe). Berrigan on the cover of Ted. Rilke where he's peering a million miles past you, into your soul. Thoreau where looked like he just woke up. Hair all uncombed. Sleepy-lidded. Nada Gordon on the cover of Foreign Bodie. Joanne Kyger under Buddha. Chris Stroffolino on the back of Oops, looking spent. A little chest hair for the ladies. Jeff Clark in bath tub, at his website. Crazy hair, trumping Pound's doo. Nice chest hair, too. Jeffrey Jullich at the How2 site. Speechless. Me at How2 site. Taken during one of my bar article assignments. Makes me look luckier and better-dressed than I am. Maxine Chernoff in sunglasses near a lake. "Let me get my hands / on yourrrrrrr mammmarrrryyyyy glands!" ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 09:15:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael Subject: Re: "The Academic Spirit" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I suggest using seaweed for the tape ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Hess" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 1:43 PM Subject: "The Academic Spirit" > "A creator who creates, who is not an academician, who is not some one who > studies in a school where the rules are already known, and of course being > known they no longer exist, a creator then who creates is necessarily of his > generation. His generation lives in its contemporary way but they only live > in it. In art, in literature, in the theatre, in short in everything that > does not contribute to their immediate comfort they live in the preceding > generation. It is very simple, to-day in the streets of Paris, horses, even > tramcars can no longer exist but horses and tramcars are only suppressed only > when they cause too many complications, they are suppressed but sixty years > too late. Lord Grey said when the war broke out that the generals thought of > a war of the nineteenth century even when the instruments of war were of the > twentieth century and only when the war was at its height did the generals > understand that it was a war of the twentieth century and not a war of the > nineteenth century. That is what the academic spirit is, it is not > contemporary, of course not, and so it can not be creative because the only > thing that is creative in a creator is the contemporary thing. Of course." > > -- from _Picasso_ by Gertrude Stein > > > Should poets ignore academic criticism? No. Nor is it likely that they could. > Should poets read academic criticism? Maybe. > Do poets _need_ academic criticism? Up to a point perhaps. But no, they do > not _need_ it, unless of course they are interested in writing academic > criticism, of which _Picasso_ is not an example. > > That, that poets do not need academic criticism, is what I take to be the > thrust of Andrew Rathmann's 'rant', as it has been called. What poets need, > on the other hand, is a very important question. One thing we need is a way > to make a living in a world that has no use for us. Becoming an academic is > one way to do that. But there should be other ways. What we need is a > MONEY-MAKING MACHINE, not to get rich but just to survive. Like the Girl > Scouts, you know, and their cookies. Or at my grade school where we raised > money by selling trash bags. Not everybody needs everybody's book of poems > but everybody needs a solid trash bag. One thing I'd been thinking about > trying to patent is EDIBLE TAPE. Something you could use to keep a burrito > from falling apart. Wraps are a big hit these days, or you could eat it > because the tape tastes good. It could be full of vitamins and ginseng and > have poems printed on it. Edible tape, think about it, fellas. > > Williams said he became a doctor so he could do as he damned well pleased. > That's not the academic spirit, that's something else. Maybe too > 'entrepreneurial'? Who knows. I need to take a shower. > > dave ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 09:30:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kimball Subject: 3 reasons to check out 308 Bowery this Sunday, 3-5 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit 1) Musician-poet Peter Ganick returns to NYC for the first time in a decade, packing a semiotext that beats the machine and scrolls skyward. 2) Wanda Phipps re-magnetizes the blues with gorgeous banter and virtuoso ballads, backed up by her all-boy quartet. 3) It's not a 12th century troubadour. It's Edwin Torres defining the plenty you sink your teeth into with brainy percussion (poetry). Plus+++ CDs from all the above, at pre-release prices. Free admission this Sunday, May 19, 3-5 Bowery Poetry Club 308 Bowery (between Bleecker & Houston) If you're miles from downtown, still take advantage of the pre-release rate on all 3 CDs. Offer expires May 19: http://www.fauxpress.com/b/order.htm Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 06:41:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: Favorite Author Photos In-Reply-To: <103.15530333.2a13046e@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii bad-ass Susan Howe on the back of 'Peirce-Arrow' Joan Retallack looking like a refugee from "Three's Company" on the back of 'Circumstantial Evidence' the back of Ursule Molinaro's head on 'sounds of a drunken summer' Ursule Molinaro's chin on 'full moon' Brenda Hillman's fractured selves on 'cascadia' (does the mountain count as part of the 'author's photo' on that book? Jorie looking scary and bride-of-frankenstein on "Swarm" Coolest author's photo: the painting of Marie Ponsot on the cover of "Springing" --- David Hess wrote: > Early Pound with his bouffant and/or long straight > moustache (cover of > Selected Prose), and sinister look. Also looks good > in a beret. ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 09:50:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: "The Academic Spirit" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >> the only thing that is creative in a creator is the contemporary thing. David,=20 I must disagree, the creator in your sense is a static sentiment. A creation brings forth the moment and all moments after. Yes there is a negative connotation associated with pre-creation, but never mind that for now. To create is not to innovate, rather the moderns said 'make it new'. So when mom created me she wasn't hoping for a new species, but a unique set within a given form. So when one makes from nothing there are concerns of what came before, is being created today, and how that creation manifests into other forms. It=92s the circle of life like what that Elton John guy sings about. So to dwell on only one aspect of the cyclical nature of creation and destruction is nullifying the environment with in which is exists.=20 Best, Geoffrey=20 -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of David Hess Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 4:44 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: "The Academic Spirit" "A creator who creates, who is not an academician, who is not some one who studies in a school where the rules are already known, and of course being known they no longer exist, a creator then who creates is necessarily of his generation. His generation lives in its contemporary way but they only live in it. In art, in literature, in the theatre, in short in everything that does not contribute to their immediate comfort they live in the preceding generation. It is very simple, to-day in the streets of Paris, horses, even tramcars can no longer exist but horses and tramcars are only suppressed only when they cause too many complications, they are suppressed but sixty years too late. Lord Grey said when the war broke out that the generals thought of a war of the nineteenth century even when the instruments of war were of the twentieth century and only when the war was at its height did the generals understand that it was a war of the twentieth century and not a war of the nineteenth century. That is what the academic spirit is, it is not contemporary, of course not, and so it can not be creative because the only thing that is creative in a creator is the contemporary thing. Of course." -- from _Picasso_ by Gertrude Stein Should poets ignore academic criticism? No. Nor is it likely that they could. Should poets read academic criticism? Maybe. Do poets _need_ academic criticism? Up to a point perhaps. But no, they do not _need_ it, unless of course they are interested in writing academic criticism, of which _Picasso_ is not an example. That, that poets do not need academic criticism, is what I take to be the thrust of Andrew Rathmann's 'rant', as it has been called. What poets need, on the other hand, is a very important question. One thing we need is a way to make a living in a world that has no use for us. Becoming an academic is one way to do that. But there should be other ways. What we need is a MONEY-MAKING MACHINE, not to get rich but just to survive. Like the Girl Scouts, you know, and their cookies. Or at my grade school where we raised money by selling trash bags. Not everybody needs everybody's book of poems but everybody needs a solid trash bag. One thing I'd been thinking about trying to patent is EDIBLE TAPE. Something you could use to keep a burrito from falling apart. Wraps are a big hit these days, or you could eat it because the tape tastes good. It could be full of vitamins and ginseng and have poems printed on it. Edible tape, think about it, fellas. Williams said he became a doctor so he could do as he damned well pleased. That's not the academic spirit, that's something else. Maybe too 'entrepreneurial'? Who knows. I need to take a shower. dave ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 10:02:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: schwartzgk Subject: Re: Favorite Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I. Ducasse decked out like a dandy in a drawing room S. Beckett beneath his large plain stone 1/2 of Harrison Fisher's face --Gerald > Early Pound with his bouffant and/or long straight moustache (cover of > Selected Prose), and sinister look. Also looks good in a beret. > > Williams in flowers, smiling on cover of his Selected Poems. His intense > photo on cover of Imaginations and the one where he's like 70 sitting at his > desk with a copy of Desert Music and a crazy look in his eye. > > Most Kerouac photos, like the one where he's walking by whoever took the > photo and opening his mouth wide. The one where he's got a suitcase in his > hand full of all his writing, standing near a car. Also, the one where he and > Burroughs are play-fighting with a big kitchen knife. > > Wilde's photos after he arrived in New York. Long, wavy hair and an air of > passionate detachment. Nice stockings. > > Whitman without hat, probably in his 40s. Short beard and close-cropped hair. > Looking innocent and lovely as hell. > > Any photo of Loy, naked from behind, or with cigarrette. > > Mayakovsky's movie star photos. That was one sexy motherfucker. > > O'Hara in his white robe looking like a god, days before his death I believe. > > Spicer kissing bust of himself (cover of Poet Be Like God) and university > photo of him taken when he was in Minnesota. Dark, gentle look on face. > > Lorca's on cover of In Search of Duende. And in white suit arriving in > Havana. Also happy photo when arriving in Buenos Aires (they love him!). Him > and Dali in swimsuits, too. > > Stein in bird bath. > > Baudelaire photo taken by Etienne Carjat. He's holding a cane (that's what I > need -- a cane!) with left hand. Big black coat and bow tie. A tinge of > spiritual arrogance on his face. > > Stevens as an altar boy. > > Melville on the cover of Call Me Ishmael. You can see the entire ocean in > that beard. Ancient, ancient. > > Frank Stanford in karate get-up. > > Marinetti in car (and with cigar I believe). > > Berrigan on the cover of Ted. > > Rilke where he's peering a million miles past you, into your soul. > > Thoreau where looked like he just woke up. Hair all uncombed. Sleepy-lidded. > > Nada Gordon on the cover of Foreign Bodie. > > Joanne Kyger under Buddha. > > Chris Stroffolino on the back of Oops, looking spent. A little chest hair for > the ladies. > > Jeff Clark in bath tub, at his website. Crazy hair, trumping Pound's doo. > Nice chest hair, too. > > Jeffrey Jullich at the How2 site. Speechless. > > Me at How2 site. Taken during one of my bar article assignments. Makes me > look luckier and better-dressed than I am. > > Maxine Chernoff in sunglasses near a lake. "Let me get my hands / on > yourrrrrrr mammmarrrryyyyy glands!" > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 10:43:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kuszai Subject: pacifica views Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" in honor of refuseniks everywhere, and as a byproduct of an unrelated experiment, I've uploaded three exceptionally large pdf files comprising the entire first volume of the forties pacifist newsletter, Pacifica Views. Obviously, this isn't for everyone, but there are one or two people on this list who might find this a useful resource. I'd bet versions of it are in most university libraries, but probably not as much outside of the usa. it provides an interesting window into the lives and ideas of cps campers, recently featured in a pbs documentary. sorry, but the file sizes are exceptionally large (about 30, 16 and 12 megs respectively) -- like I said, it's part of an experiment - and while I'd like to correct this rather obvious mistake, that may take some time. I should have broken it into smaller chunks, and there are reasons why the dimensions are as large as they are. In any case, it's at a significantly higher resolution than it needs to be, so at least it will print well. If there is an interest, I'll upload smaller versions as time permits. For those of you who want to down load the pdfs, you should "save to disk" since they won't load through a browser at that size. And they probably won't work over a modem, so sorry again for that. http://www.factoryschool.org/content/pubs/rhood/pacifica/index.html I'll keep them available for a week or two, then delete them. If you'd like more info, please backchannel me. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 08:03:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Silem Mohammad" Subject: Re: "The Academic Spirit" Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >From: David Hess >One thing I'd been thinking about >trying to patent is EDIBLE TAPE. Something you could use to keep a burrito >from falling apart. They already have that. It's called a "tortilla." K. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ K. Silem Mohammad Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit University of California Santa Cruz _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 15:00:24 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Re: Favorite Author Photo In-Reply-To: <009b01c1fc19$288d10c0$99a4f943@computer> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Professor Plum in the library with the wrench On Wed, 15 May 2002, schwartzgk wrote: > I. Ducasse decked out like a dandy in a drawing room > > S. Beckett beneath his large plain stone > > 1/2 of Harrison Fisher's face > > --Gerald k ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 10:46:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Small Press Subject: Sarah Mangold & Fred Moten, at SPT, SF, Fri 5/17 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Small Press Traffic presents Friday, May 17, 2002 at 7:30 pm SARAH MANGOLD & FRED MOTEN Winner of the 2001 New Issues Poetry Prize, Sarah Mangold’s first book Household Mechanics is, "... a disquieting review of indirect disclosures, internal churnings, and palpable notions, subjected to a tense and skeletal language" (C.D. Wright). Born in Omaha, Nebraska and raised in Oklahoma, Mangold studied at San Francisco State. She is also the author of a chapbook, Blood Substitutes (Potes & Poets, 1998), and the editor of the Seattle-based magazine Bird Dog. An investigator of geography and language, Fred Moten is the author of the poetry collection Arkansas (Pressed Wafer, 2000), which, as Michael Palmer says, "...reminds us that no vital sense of community can be separated from its confusions and contentions and its ardent affirmations, just as no poetry of worth can settle for the easy assuagements of the given." Moten teaches in the Department of Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. His next book, Ensemble & Improvisation: The Political Erotics of the Black Avant-Garde, is due out from the University of Minnesota Press. All events are $5-10, sliding scale, and begin at 7:30, unless otherwise noted. Our events are free to SPT members, and CCAC faculty, staff, and students. Unless otherwise noted, our events are presented in Timken Lecture Hall California College of Arts and Crafts 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco (just off the intersection of 16th & Wisconsin) Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Executive Director Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at CCAC 1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, California 94107 415/551-9278 http://www.sptraffic.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 10:48:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Small Press Subject: Jaime Cortez & Laura Elrick, SPT, SF, Sun 5/19 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Small Press Traffic presents Sunday, May 19 at 2:00 pm CROSSTOWN TRAFFIC: JAIME CORTEZ & LAURA ELRICK Our interdisciplinary series continues with Jaime Cortez and Laura Elrick hosted by Yedda Morrison. Laura Elrick moved to Brooklyn from San Francisco in 1999. She currently works at a literacy center in East Harlem where she does public benefits advocacy. Her poetry has appeared in How2, Tripwire, and Combo. Jaime Cortez is a San Francisco-based visual artist, writer, performer and cultural worker. He currently serves as the Program Manager for Galeria de la Raza. Although he is concerned about matters other than sex, his writing has been included in the following anthologies: Best Gay Erotica 2001, Besame Mucho, Queer Papi Porn and 2sexE. Cortez co-founded the sketch comedy trio Latin Hustle and edited the queer Latino anthology Virgins, Guerrillas & Locas. All events are $5-10, sliding scale, and begin at 7:30, unless otherwise noted. Our events are free to SPT members, and CCAC faculty, staff, and students. Unless otherwise noted, our events are presented in Timken Lecture Hall California College of Arts and Crafts 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco (just off the intersection of 16th & Wisconsin) Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Executive Director Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at CCAC 1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, California 94107 415/551-9278 http://www.sptraffic.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 14:17:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?I=2C_the_internet_a_poem_for_Loss_Peque=F1o_Glazier?= In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I, the internet overhead storm A poem for Loss Peque=F1o Glazier =93Your Loss is our Gain=94=20 overheard at e-poetry 2001 ... (i) The Internet.=20 (Note: capital "I")=20 The Internet is the largest poem in the world internet (now with a small "i")=20 begun to think, dis-innovative=20 during the past decade all =09 Levels of Integration: Level I, the Internet are Sources of Information=20 I The Internet, move society & law=20 Cyberspace / tangible spaces is loss The Internet is loss and society too is loss=20 Contents are blur . Introduction from afar =20 I, the Internet generation.=20 full of impact will be felt not by us but by ... Lessons Learned Lessons I, Learned=20 I, I, the Internet is Wonderful!!!=20 The Internet is wonderful!!!=20 I, I, I mean If you know how to use it...=20 that is If you know how to use it...=20 I is Wonderful!!!=20 Now, computer technology will restore to the Internet the physical cues of face to face talk. Too bad, say I.=20 The Internet Regression has been--still is--fun. ... as a National Security Studies=20 Resource The Universal access hums=20 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 11:41:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kari edwards Subject: trials in literature In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Question.. I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where the/a trial is the main theme... any thoughts?. any suggestion welcome kari edwards ____________________ Capitalism's ever-intensifying imposition of alienation at all level makes it increasingly hard for workers to recognize and name thier own impoverishment Guy Debord ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 14:32:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Kari Edwards writes: "I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where = the/a trial is the main theme... any thoughts?" Kafka's _Trial_, of course. Dostoevsky's _The Karamazov Brothers_ (it's = one *one* of the big themes there). Tolstoy's _Resurrection_ (ditto). PN ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 12:34:09 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit kafka, _the trial_ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 11:39:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Vidaver Subject: Nicolas Veroli & Diana George on "Instruments of Uselessness" at KSW May 19 (Vancouver) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Instruments of Uselessness" A Talk by Diana George & Nic Veroli Sunday May 19 at 2pm FREE at the Kootenay School of Writing 201 - 505 Hamilton Street, Vancouver 604-688-6001 "We're interested in uselessness and desertion as affirmative, joyful practices. We start by raising some questions about the primacy of negation and the dead ends into which it has led thought (practice). With desertion what we want to desert above all is self-sacrifice: the striker who sacrifices herself for the future. Deferred gratification is the contamination of time by the negative; working (or striking) becomes waiting, boredom, death. Desertion without privation, desertion without sacrifice, these are the only desertions worthy of the name." Diana George's essays have appeared in Nest and in Seattle's Arcade. Her fiction has appeared, or is forthcoming, in 3rd Bed, Alt-x.com, and Post Road. She is translating a selection from Alexander Kluge and Oskar Negt's Geschichte und Eigensinn. Nicolas Veroli is a freelance writer living in Seattle. He is currently an adjunct professor in Seattle University's philosophy department and Global African Studies Program. He is revising for publication a manuscript entitled Imagination and Politics: A Study in Historical Ontology, and researching a project on mass movements, democracy, and the communication of affect. Nic works in Seattle CISPES, the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador. Collaboratively, Veroli & George are the authors of "Manifesto for a Politics Without the State" and "What If They Gave a Depression and Nobody Came?" published in the 1st issue of Politics Without the State, on Joy, Terror and Depression in the Global Order (Seattle Research Institute, January 2002). A limited number of copies of the book will be available at the talk. Visit SRI on-line at for additional info. A new exhibition catalogue, small dead woman / Last Seen, by Kevin Yates, Diana George and Charles Mudede (Artspeak, 2002) will also be launched at the event. Artspeak is online at . Part of the Studies in Practical Negation series and the Mayworks Festival of Working Class Culture and Politics. For more information on the festival visit . ... Excerpt from "Of Joy and Terror in the Global Corporate Order" by Nicolas Veroli from Politics Without the State #1 : Control the imagination and you will control desire: this is the lesson that pioneers of public relations and advertisement such as Walter Lippmannn learned over 80 years ago and which their descendants have been putting into action with ever greater sophistication since then. Of course, this imperative articulates or reveals the perspective of the rulers, the perspective of the Prince as the Italian political philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli would have called it, or that of the philosopher-kings as Plato said with somewhat less irony much longer ago. In short, this is the point of view of the elites or of the ruling class as we might be wont to put it today, and so of significantly less value to those of us who are not part of that class than to those who are. For those of us who are "the ruled" in this situation - and by "this situation" I mean late capitalism - that is to say, for those of us whose imaginations and desires are objects of control, this perspective only yields one utterly unacceptable consequence: abject submission. But that is not the only problem with the rulers' motto. It also makes certain assumptions that it is unnecessary for us to make, assumptions that, in fact, are questionable. For instance, it assumes that one can stand in a relation of pure instrumentality to the imagination, that some people can manipulate other peoples' imagination in the same way that, say, a soldier can fire a gun or that a carpenter uses a hammer. But that's simply not the case. Consider the following hypothetical situation: an advertising professional is assigned the task of coming up with the idea of a campaign for one more useless soap product. His problem is that there is nothing genuinely new about this particular brand of soap. So what can he sell it on? The idea he comes up with is simple: it's to call the soap "antibacterial," and to equate dirt w with bacteria and disease and death in a massive nationwide ad campaign. "Only this brand of soap will save you from dreaded bacteria," and so on. The brand of soap itself eventually disappears into the sweet oblivion of time but the equation "dirt=death" stays and, in fact, gains popularity. So much so, in fact, that 20 or 30 years later our aging advertising exec has started taking a shower once a day and uses soap every time, instead of doing it once or twice a week--on the advice of his doctor. When as for his teenage daughter she showers in the morning, bathes at night, and changes outfits at least five times a day. Of course, there is also the quite real case of Hearst, the California newspaper conglomerate owner who had to throw away his shirt at the end of each day because it was "soiled." Thus, while it's true to say that elites attain some of what they want through advertising and other media technologies, it is also true that they themselves are not immune from the symbolic order and the processes of its imaginary institution they are trying to manipulate. In fact, the imagination is shared: it is an intrinsic aspect of the socius, of what binds together societies, cultures, nations, civilizations, what have you. It is neither an object of bare manipulation nor a mental faculty that can be exercised or left to languish. Indeed, it cannot be the latter since it is the imagination from which self-identity emerges; it is prior to one's self-designation as an individual. The imagination is the pre-psychological anonymous stratum of activity out of which subjects and objects (and many other things besides) emerge. It belongs to no one, which is to say that it belongs to everyone: the imagination is a commons. Its legal alienation into forms of private property (intellectual property laws, the commodification of symbols through corporate branding, and so on) is simply a convenient fiction meant to facilitate the accumulation of capital. Fundamentally, though, it is resilient to all forms of hierarchy precisely because it escapes full instrumentalization . Its manipulation always has repercussions for the apprentice sorcerer as well as for those upon whom he or she casts a spell. And I'm not simply talking about the fact that the rich get sick from their own propaganda, but that these experiments cause greater and greater resistance to occur on their own terms, that is to say on the level of the imagination itself and of desire, on what one might call a " biopolitical" level. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 14:40:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ethan Paquin Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit camus - the stranger ----- Original Message ----- From: "jason christie" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 2:34 PM Subject: Re: trials in literature > kafka, _the trial_ > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 11:42:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Judith Goldman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed HI if anyone has contact info for Judith Goldman and will b/c it to me at smallpress@ccac-art.edu, I will be tres grateful. Thx, Elizabeth Treadwell http://www.durationpress.com/authors/treadwell/home.html _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 13:47:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: trials in literature In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where the/a trial is the main > theme... any thoughts?. This is a hard question when it comes to poetry, but in fiction there's a lot. If by 'main theme' you mean 'climactic scene', then these might be of use-- (besides Kafka) Richard Wright _Native Son_ Harper Lee _To Kill a Mockingbird_ Charles Dickens _Bleak House_ (well, the whole book revolves around the court system, and there are some courtroom scenes, and the main problem is the settlement of a will, which is not exactly a 'trial' but does involve jurisprudence) John Grisham _The Runaway Jury_ (and others) -Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 16:23:17 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Re: trials in literature In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vagueries" has some intersting trial scenes. kevin -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 15:01:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: schwartzgk Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" GS ----- Original Message ----- From: "Philip Nikolayev" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 2:32 PM Subject: Re: trials in literature Kari Edwards writes: "I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where the/a trial is the main theme... any thoughts?" Kafka's _Trial_, of course. Dostoevsky's _The Karamazov Brothers_ (it's one *one* of the big themes there). Tolstoy's _Resurrection_ (ditto). PN ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 15:02:10 -0400 Reply-To: kevinkillian@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "kevinkillian@earthlink.net" Subject: Re: trials in literature Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Dear Kari One of my all-time favorites which I re-read every year is THE BELLAMY TRIAL by Frances Noyes Hart (it's from the 1920s).= If you can't find it let me know I'll lend you my copy. It's a novel. Two others I loved as a teen boy were THE PAPER DRAGON by Evan Hunter and THE SEVEN MINUTES by Irving Wallace. (The latt= er became a film by Russ Meyer, not one of his best.) (And neither of these novels is a hundredth part as good as THE BE= LLAMY TRIAL.) Love Kevin Original Message: ----------------- From: kari edwards terra1@SONIC.NET Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 11:41:25 -0700 To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: trials in literature Question.. I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where the/a trial is the main theme... any thoughts?. any suggestion welcome kari edwards ____________________ Capitalism's ever-intensifying imposition of alienation at all level makes it increasingly hard for workers to recognize and name thier own impoverishment Guy Debord -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 14:50:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: pmetres Subject: poets and war resistance MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Fellow poets, I am currently engaged in a research project concerned with tracking the interactions between American poets and the peace movement; how poets worked in activism and through symbolic actions (poetry and other language-actions) in resisting war and forging a vision of peace. Background (I wrote my dissertation on American poets and war resistance from 1940 to the present; some of the people who figured prominently were: Robert Lowell, William Stafford, Jackson Mac Low, and William Everson (WWII); Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, Daniel Berrigan, Robert Bly and John Balaban (among others during the Vietnam War era); and more recent living poets including June Jordan, Barrett Watten, and others (Persian Gulf War)--many mainstream poets, some experimental--but all participating in the project of war resistance. The Call In particular, I am asking for poems that were written on/during/ the Persian Gulf War and a short prose commentary (from the sender) regarding how those poems/symbolic actions/language events were implemented as part of war resistance. I am interested in details regarding public spheres in which these pieces were occurring, the response to them, and reflections on the efficacy of such actions against other modes of "political activism." These will form, at the very least, a mini-archive of possible poetry actions for the future (perhaps to be published online, perhaps on paper--to be determined). I thank you in advance for your poems/commentaries. If there are other lists that may also have poets interested in participating, feel free to let me know or post this message directly to them. Please send your poems offlist to me, Phil Metres at pmetres@jcu.edu "Don't use such an expression as 'dim lands of peace.' It dulls the image" (Ezra Pound) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 12:10:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: trials in literature In-Reply-To: <005601c1fc42$ff5b5020$658bf943@computer> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii and for the other side: Maryse Conde's "I, Tituba, the Black Witch of Salem" --- schwartzgk wrote: > Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" > > GS ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 13:19:36 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark DuCharme Subject: Re: trials in literature Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed kari, In addition to Kafka's _The Trial_, already mentioned there is "Authorities (A Lecture)" by Jena Osman, from her book _The Character_ & I would like to also point out Orson Welles' brilliant film version of the Kafka novel Best, Mark DuCharme 'poetry because things say' —Bernadette Mayer http://www.pavementsaw.org/cosmopolitan.htm http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/subpress/soc.htm _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 13:24:27 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I don't know how much this applies, but Lenny Bruce has a piece about going to court for swearing during one of his performances. Could be construed as stand up comedy, or poetry. It is in a four cd set called howls, raps and roars alongside a great version of Ginsberg reading Howl, Michael McClure growling, and some jazzy Jack Kerouack haikus. J ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 15:34:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Rich Subject: Re: trials in literature Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Kari, Robert Coover's _The Public Burning_ makes the Rosenberg trial its focus. >>> terra1@SONIC.NET 05/15/02 14:27 PM >>> Question.. I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where the/a trial is the main theme... any thoughts?. any suggestion welcome kari edwards ____________________ Capitalism's ever-intensifying imposition of alienation at all level makes it increasingly hard for workers to recognize and name thier own impoverishment Guy Debord ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 21:21:49 +0100 Reply-To: Robin Hamilton Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robin Hamilton Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There's Francis Berry's "Morant Bay". This concludes with the trial and hanging of Paul Boggle, and others. Robin Hamilton ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 16:52:10 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Stretching the point, The Odyssey -- tried by the Gods. It is a trial. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com Amazon.com BarnesandNoble.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 16:54:21 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The Trial of Gilles de Rais, by George Bataille. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com Amazon.com BarnesandNoble.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 17:02:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII k16% everytime i try and write, i'm shamed; no one respondes, i'll lose sleep, i send out pathetic misives on occasion just to engage, nothing hapens ksh: everytime: not found k17% i can't live with myself or look at myself in a miror, its too painfull, i write essay after esay into the air, its like a peeled-off skin of a tatoo someone has, its that thin, it sits ther, this skin > i said it just sits there > it really sits there, nothing happens to it > this skin that no one reads, its sitting ther > its lonly writing this skin, the leters are thin as can be, they hav no wait t o them > i said they hvae no wait to them > they just sit there like that, unred, no one respnds or reads > somthing is wrong with me, its like i'm tanted or staned ksh: i: not found k18% pleas what is the truble _ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 14:44:29 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Countee Cullen A lot of Shakespeare probably most blatantly Merchant of Venice.... c Philip Nikolayev wrote: > Kari Edwards writes: "I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where the/a trial is the main > theme... any thoughts?" > > Kafka's _Trial_, of course. Dostoevsky's _The Karamazov Brothers_ (it's one *one* of the big themes there). Tolstoy's _Resurrection_ (ditto). > > PN ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 18:59:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 QWxhbiwgYXJlbid0IFVuaXggc2hlbGxzIHByZS1wb3N0bW9kZXJuPyBDIyBmcm9tIEJpbGwgR2F0 ZXMgLS0gbm93LCB0aGF0J3MgdGhlIHBvc3Rtb2Rlcm4gc2hpdCENCiANClBODQoNCgktLS0tLU9y aWdpbmFsIE1lc3NhZ2UtLS0tLSANCglGcm9tOiBBbGFuIFNvbmRoZWltIFttYWlsdG86c29uZGhl aW1AUEFOSVguQ09NXSANCglTZW50OiBXZWQgNS8xNS8yMDAyIDU6MDIgUE0gDQoJVG86IFBPRVRJ Q1NATElTVFNFUlYuQUNTVS5CVUZGQUxPLkVEVSANCglDYzogDQoJU3ViamVjdDogDQoJDQoJDQoN CglrMTYlIGV2ZXJ5dGltZSBpIHRyeSBhbmQgd3JpdGUsIGknbSBzaGFtZWQ7IG5vIG9uZSByZXNw b25kZXMsIGknbGwgbG9zZQ0KCXNsZWVwLCBpIHNlbmQgb3V0IHBhdGhldGljIG1pc2l2ZXMgb24g b2NjYXNpb24ganVzdCB0byBlbmdhZ2UsIG5vdGhpbmcNCgloYXBlbnMNCglrc2g6IGV2ZXJ5dGlt ZTogbm90IGZvdW5kDQoJDQoJazE3JSBpIGNhbid0IGxpdmUgd2l0aCBteXNlbGYgb3IgbG9vayBh dCBteXNlbGYgaW4gYSBtaXJvciwgaXRzIHRvbw0KCXBhaW5mdWxsLCBpIHdyaXRlIGVzc2F5IGFm dGVyIGVzYXkgaW50byB0aGUgYWlyLCBpdHMgbGlrZSBhIHBlZWxlZC1vZmYNCglza2luIG9mIGEg dGF0b28gc29tZW9uZSBoYXMsIGl0cyB0aGF0IHRoaW4sIGl0IHNpdHMgdGhlciwgdGhpcyBza2lu DQoJPiBpIHNhaWQgaXQganVzdCBzaXRzIHRoZXJlDQoJPiBpdCByZWFsbHkgc2l0cyB0aGVyZSwg bm90aGluZyBoYXBwZW5zIHRvIGl0DQoJPiB0aGlzIHNraW4gdGhhdCBubyBvbmUgcmVhZHMsIGl0 cyBzaXR0aW5nIHRoZXINCgk+IGl0cyBsb25seSB3cml0aW5nIHRoaXMgc2tpbiwgdGhlIGxldGVy cyBhcmUgdGhpbiBhcyBjYW4gYmUsIHRoZXkgaGF2IG5vDQoJd2FpdCB0DQoJbyB0aGVtDQoJPiBp IHNhaWQgdGhleSBodmFlIG5vIHdhaXQgdG8gdGhlbQ0KCT4gdGhleSBqdXN0IHNpdCB0aGVyZSBs aWtlIHRoYXQsIHVucmVkLCBubyBvbmUgcmVzcG5kcyBvciByZWFkcw0KCT4gc29tdGhpbmcgaXMg d3Jvbmcgd2l0aCBtZSwgaXRzIGxpa2UgaSdtIHRhbnRlZCBvciBzdGFuZWQNCglrc2g6IGk6IG5v dCBmb3VuZA0KCQ0KCWsxOCUgcGxlYXMgd2hhdCBpcyB0aGUgdHJ1YmxlDQoJDQoJDQoJXw0KCQ0K DQo= ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 18:27:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Elena Caballero-Robb Subject: Re: trials MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Neither fiction nor poetry, but how about the trial of Anne Hutchinson by the clerics and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. See "transcript" (fraught with issues of translation and transcription) in Hall, ed. _The Antinomian Controversy_. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Maria Elena Caballero-Robb Literature Department University of California, Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California 95064 mecr@cats.ucsc.edu %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 19:09:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: Re: The Poetics of Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit my luckiest suthor pic included a sign my wife and I found on a bank on -----Original Message----- From: Gary Sullivan To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Friday, May 10, 2002 9:49 AM Gary, My luckiest author photo was taken by my wife, showing me crouched in front of a bank on Long Island in 1979--hand held out for alms--reading "The Bank of Babylon is making changes the better to serve you" (the better to ---- you no doubt}. We put it in __My Poetry_. Anselm Hollo's author pix are all good, but cant quite convey the blueness of his irises. True blue, indeed. Creeley's best is the one with the crow (I forget the book) qhich has just pecked out his eye. Dont get me started--! David Br/ >Hi David, > >>What theoretical texts would be helpful in thinking the author photo? > >http://www.midwestbookreview.com/bookbiz/advice/photo.htm > >Also, Barrett Watten supposedly presented somewhere a piece apparently >critiquing a cover for the SPD catalog I did, where I drew pics of poets. >The rumor I heard was that he made some kind of relationship between those >pics or how they were being used and the Mickey Mouse Club. I've always >wanted to read it, in part to see if it really was as critical as the rumors >had it, but also of course to see what the specific criticism might be. (I'm >hoping he'll read this and e-mail it to me.) Anyway, my guess is that while >not strictly about the author photo, it obviously was about the visual >presentation of authors -- so is probably something you might want to ask >him to e-mail to you, too. > >I have a lot of favorite author photos. Thinking about them, I realize what >an amazing range of types there are: > >See the many books in the case behind my head? I have read and am familiar >with each of them. > >I am a survivor. My hunched back and the rings under my eyes do testify. > >I do not need to shave, brush my teeth, comb my hair, change my clothing, >nor eat ... for, poetry sustains me! > >When this photo was taken, I was unaware, so lost in thought was I. > >Here I am in the city. It's a big, scary city. I make this big, scary city >my home. You, reading my poety in the hinterlands, you do not know this >city! > >I am white, my turtleneck black. > >Of course I'll have sex with you. Why else would I pose like this? > >Having finished carefully crafting each of the poems in this collection, I >have rolled back down the sleeves of my Pendleton. > >Yes, that is X, the famous poet, next to me. We are on speaking terms! > >Obviously, I am insane. Colorful anecdotes of my unbalanced nature precede >me. The wind blows through my hair ... O, poetry! > > > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. >http://www.hotmail.com > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 22:25:16 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: Re: Nicolas Veroli & Diana George on "Instruments of Uselessness" at KSW May 19 (Vancouver) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Semantics -- Strike! The colloquial derivation for "argument" (from arguere, to prove) is "Argh! You meant... [e.g. to say X]," while, conversely, the colloquial derivation for "remark" (again : mark) is "I really mean it." For examples. Your hair looks great today. I really mean it.... Argh! You meant: That the Self Larger than the Idea of Self is like a Remark Larger than its Argument -- the Affects of their (hidden) Effects. A listserv parable! Precisely -- a remark that argues: argument that remarks. (Derivations valid only for western southern-Canada and the northwestern U.S. and only while on Stroffolino's car lasts; for other regions, consult Barrett Watten immediately -- if they persist press icily on the brains of the living, contact nearest colloquial-derivationist.) ***************************** Is this what you think they mean? Or, is it that David Bromige photo: perched as pleased on stacked hay... Both? Neither? ***************************** "I want to know why elsewhere is why elsewhere never is there..." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 00:35:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: 'OPEN LETTERS' TO/FROM POETS -- SECOND ISSUE NOW AVAILABLE MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT 'OPEN LETTERS' TO/FROM POETS SECOND ISSUE NOW AVAILABLE The second of two 'open letter' issues of Open Letter Magazine, guest-edited by Nicole Markotic & Louis Cabri -- 132 pp.; $7 US (or $9 CAD) To order, send check made out to Open Letter: Frank Davey, ed. 499 Dufferin Ave London, Ontario N6B 2A1 Canada [First & second 'open letter' issues: $14 (or $18 CAD) Three-issue O.L. subscription: $19 US (or $24 CAD)] Contents: I Letters 17a~"What's to be Written?" JESSICA GRIM 18a~"it's a bit surprising" BRIAN KIM STEFANS 19a~"breakfast conversation" YOLANDA WISHER [to Harryette Mullen] 20a~"reCapitualization" MARWAN HASSAN [to Jamila Ismail] 21a-Don't Know Alan MILES CHAMPION 22a~"the love letter" MARK LIBIN [to Robert Kroetsch] 23a~Open Letters: Feminism From & To BARBARA COLE 24a,b~“Nadir of the W”: an interemail CLINT BURNHAM & CHRIS STROFFOLINO II Responses 17b~"Sol justitiae" LAURA MORIARTY 18b~"there's only a half-chewed Slimjim" BRENDAN LORBER 21b~ from Don't Know Alan ALAN DAVIES 23b~Blue Studios: Gender Arcades RACHEL BLAU DUPLESSIS The first issue of 'open letters' to/from poets -- featuring letter #s 1 thru 16, plus responses (136 pp.) -- is also available for $7 from the above address. Poets include Inman, Joris, Lu, Mac Low, Luoma, Magee, Moxley, Prevallet, Toscano, Tu, Wershler-Henry, and many others. Separate letters and/or the complete issue downloadable for free at Open Letter: http://www.arts.uwo.ca/openlet/11.3/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 20:24:48 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Jorie Graham, D.A.Powell reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Karen. There are so many messages. I missed this. I havent read a lot of Joris but believe she is a good poet. Its easy to criticisize: the point is to be a doer. I think I've gt that book "The Dream..." I bought of of her books new as one of my "hats" I'm a sort of collector but also I sell books (Aspect Books on abebooks.com) (but that's not why i bought it..I used to buy anything (Icould afford) here (NZ) that was poetry (especially interesting) and I'd heard that Joaris was influenced somewhat by Ashbery who is/was a big poet for me. Regards, Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karen Lewis" To: Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2002 6:14 AM Subject: Re: Jorie Graham, D.A.Powell reading > Richard, > I'm glad you realized that I was kidding around. The soap gargle comment > was meant for Joe, who said she 'sucks'. The blasphemy just burst forth > because Jorie so often writes about God, and I thought Joe's comment was > insulting and contemptous. I wish poets as a group could get beyond this need > to insult what they themselves don't like. There are plenty of us around that > can fit any sort of bill you need. I'd like the poetry community to become > more inclusively peculiar. And, while I admire his passion, maybe Joe's need > is to be the 'heat that seeks the flaw in everything.' So, I am on record as > being a Jorie Graham fan. I especially liked The Dream of the Unified Field > when she writes, "Everyone in here wants to be taken off/somebody's list, > wants to be placed on somebody else's list." > Karen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 11:49:47 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit and there's the whole legal system and paraphernalia in _Bleak House_ ----- Original Message ----- From: "kari edwards" To: Sent: 15 May 2002 19:41 Subject: trials in literature | Question.. | | I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where the/a trial is the main | theme... any thoughts?. | | | any suggestion welcome | | kari edwards | | | | ____________________ | Capitalism's ever-intensifying imposition of alienation at all level makes | it increasingly hard for workers to recognize and name thier own | impoverishment | Guy Debord | ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 12:14:08 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: things not wroth keeping missing riddles Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit of interrest 2 some here perhaps one of the outcomes from our recent residency for tEXt 2002 in Exeter, home of the Exeter Book www.missingriddles.co.uk love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 08:02:54 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: things not wroth keeping missing riddles In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit neat...now are there things like this in NYC (conferences that make pages like this anomg other things) I don't know how many of us there are in the nYC area but it would be nice to have a webartery in person get togetehr some time, maybe to welcome home Alan and Azure. I knew fewer of you than many others, and I guess in person I cant hide the fact that I have the figure of a bowling ball, but people in non comoputer form can be nice even if it might degenerate into showing each other thinsg on the computer. If it's after June 12th, I can volunteer my living room... Millie P.S. It would be nice to have to the young people (like me, but I'm shameless) who are scared to post or think thaty have nothing to offer as well as the established folk. Am trying to decide whether to buy Flash MX. My dough is running out and it really will if I buy it. So I need to code something in it, but my envisioned Flash projects are not code-heavy, and I gather it is the dcoding tat has chhnaged the most between versions. MN -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of cris cheek Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 7:14 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: things not wroth keeping missing riddles of interrest 2 some here perhaps one of the outcomes from our recent residency for tEXt 2002 in Exeter, home of the Exeter Book www.missingriddles.co.uk love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 01:11:41 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My favourite Dickens book: the "Jarndyce and Jarndyce case"...the fog of London fogging everything: hence the pettifogging and probably the inspiration for Eliot's "And the yellow smoke that rubs its nuzzle on the window panes" and so on. Mind you I last read that in about 1968 (before that as a boy): I believe also that Doctorow's "Daniel' like Coover's book is hased on the Rosenberg trial. There's also a very funny trial in "The Golden Ass" by Apuleuis. What about "Animal Farm" ? Also in Malamud's book "The Fixer" there's a kind of trial (reminiscent of Camus's book "The Outsider"). What about "The Pied Piper of Hamlyn"? Even "Les Miserables". There's a trial in "The Wind in the Willows" and in the Alice books there's a strange sense that Alice is on trial: or is language, logic, and meaning on trial? Everything is a trial: like is literature literature life and all life is a trial, hence all literature is a trial. A very long trial: and people trial off the subject, which is very trialing, trailing that trial....... Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lawrence Upton" To: Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 10:49 PM Subject: Re: trials in literature > and there's the whole legal system and paraphernalia in _Bleak House_ > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "kari edwards" > To: > Sent: 15 May 2002 19:41 > Subject: trials in literature > > > | Question.. > | > | I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where the/a trial is the main > | theme... any thoughts?. > | > | > | any suggestion welcome > | > | kari edwards > | > | > | > | ____________________ > | Capitalism's ever-intensifying imposition of alienation at all level makes > | it increasingly hard for workers to recognize and name thier own > | impoverishment > | Guy Debord > | ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 10:06:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sawako Nakayasu Subject: PLAY A JOURNAL OF PLAYS Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed PLAY A JOURNAL OF PLAYS seeks submissions for its inaugural issue. PLAY will publish work that radically rethinks the life of plays on the page. While plays and performance texts of all lengths are welcome, short pieces in particular are encouraged. Conventional play formatting is not. Please send work, accompanied by a letter of introduction, to: PLAY Sally Oswald, Editor 8116 Brookside Road Elkins Park, PA 19027 Deadline: August 1, 2002 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 10:06:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Cole Heinowitz | Stunning in Muscle Hospital Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed THE PRIVATE REVEALS NOTHING beard grows inward toward cantina in the brain I eat with relish play in cages because the orchard had too many voices as foreign syllables in mud observed with boots non-functional doorbell outside where I'm enormous lifts the pen only once * * * STUNNING IN MUSCLE HOSPITAL COLE HEINOWITZ DETOUR, $6 A dozen new poems by the author of Daily Chimera, with a beautiful cover drawn by Miles Champion, Matt Everett, and John Everett, and lettering and author pic by Gary Sullivan. The book will be available for Cole and Abigail's reading this Saturday at Double Happiness in NYC. Order from SPD or e-mail me at gpsullivan@hotmail.com Read about Daily Chimera: http://www.onecity.com/incom/chimera.html Other work online: http://www.salon.com/audio/2000/10/05/heinowitz/ http://www.scc.rutgers.edu/however/v1_4_2000/current/new-writing/heinowitz.html http://www.canwehaveourballback.com/xheinowitz.htm _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 10:23:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: May 31 BELLADONNA*/NYC In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ENJOY BELLADONNA* Friday, May 31 7:00 pm with ROSMARIE WALDROP AND TINA DARRAGH at Bluestockings Women's Bookstore, 172 Allen Street, bet. Rivington & Stanton--F train to 2nd Ave. For Info: (212) 777-6028 _Rosmarie Waldrop_ is a novelist, translator, and editor as well as one of the most influential poet’s of her generation and the generations to follow. She is the author of over eleven volumes of poetry including A Key into the Language of America (New Directions, 1994), The Reproduction of Profiles (New Directions, 1984) and Lawn of Excluded Middle (Tender Buttons, 1993) and a collaborative work with the visual artist Jennifer MacDonnald, Peculiar Motions (Kelsey Street, 1990). She is the primary translator of Edmond Jabés into English and has also translated Paul Celan’s prose, Emmanuel Hoquard, Joseph Gugliemi, Oskar Pastior and many others. Waldrop's most recent books of poems are Reluctant Gravities (New Directions, 1999), Split Infinites (Singing Horse Press, 1998), and Another Language: Selected Poems (Talisman House, 1997). Northwestern has reprinted her two novels, The Hanky of Pippin's Daughter and A Form/of Taking/It All as one paperback. She lives in Providence, RI. where she co-edits Burning Deck Books with Keith Waldrop. _Tina Darragh_ is most recently the author of dream rim instructions (Drogue Press, 1999). Her play "Opposable Dumbs" was performed at San Francisco Poet’s Theater Jubilee during its Winter 2002 season. Among her other books are on the corner to off the corner (Sun & Moon, 1981), Striking Resemblance (Burning Deck, 1989), a(gain) st the odds (Potes and Poets, 1989), and adv. fans – the 1968 series (Leave Books, 1992). Her work is in several anthologies, among them In the American Tree (National Poetry Foundation, 1986, 2001), "Language" Poetries (New Directions,1987), out of everywhere: linguistically innovative poetry by women in North America & the UK (Reality Street Editions, 1996),and Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women (Talisman, 1998). The Etruscan Reader VIII (Etruscan Books, 1998) contains work by her and poets Randolph Healy and Douglas Oliver. Darragh is a reference librarian at Georgetown University and lives in Greenbelt, Maryland, with P.Inman and their son, Jack. The BELLADONNA* Reading Series began in August 1999 at the then newly opened women's bookstore (New York's only) Bluestockings. In its two year history, BELLADONNA* has featured such writers as Erica Hunt, Fanny Howe, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Cecilia Vicuña, Lisa Jarnot, Camille Roy, Nicole Brossard, Abigail Child, Norma Cole and Lynne Tillman among many other experimental and hybrid women writers. Beyond being a platform for women writers, the curators promote work that is experimental in form, connects with other art forms, and is socially/ politically active in content. Alongside the readings, BELLADONNA* supports its artists by publishing commemorative pamphlets of their work on the night of the event. Please contact Rachel Levitsky and/or visit the website if you would like to receive a catalog or hear more about our salons. There will be a short open reading before the featured readers. A $3 donation is suggested. http://www.durationpress.com/belladonna ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 10:51:52 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Karen Lewis Subject: Re: Jorie Graham, D.A.Powell reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit No problem Richard, I know how crazy these list messages can get sometimes. I have a question for you. Some time back I remember reading a posting concerning a well known poet who eschewed the use of the word "the" in his poems. Can you remember who that was they were talking about? Karen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 08:04:45 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit oh yeah inherit the wind was like wow as a "lad" (to swerve into movies remember quiz show.... in 1980 i thought to be a lawyer, serpico? when someone asks me if i read or saw something and it was that long ago i should probably say no).... c "richard.tylr" wrote: > My favourite Dickens book: the "Jarndyce and Jarndyce case"...the fog of > London fogging everything: hence the pettifogging and probably the > inspiration for Eliot's "And the yellow smoke that rubs its nuzzle on the > window panes" and so on. Mind you I last read that in about 1968 (before > that as a boy): I believe also that Doctorow's "Daniel' like Coover's book > is hased on the Rosenberg trial. There's also a very funny trial in "The > Golden Ass" by Apuleuis. What about "Animal Farm" ? Also in Malamud's book > "The Fixer" there's a kind of trial (reminiscent of Camus's book "The > Outsider"). What about "The Pied Piper of Hamlyn"? Even "Les Miserables". > There's a trial in "The Wind in the Willows" and in the Alice books there's > a strange sense that Alice is on trial: or is language, logic, and meaning > on trial? Everything is a trial: like is literature literature life and all > life is a trial, hence all literature is a trial. A very long trial: and > people trial off the subject, which is very trialing, trailing that > trial....... Richard. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Lawrence Upton" > To: > Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 10:49 PM > Subject: Re: trials in literature > > > and there's the whole legal system and paraphernalia in _Bleak House_ > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "kari edwards" > > To: > > Sent: 15 May 2002 19:41 > > Subject: trials in literature > > > > > > | Question.. > > | > > | I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where the/a trial is the main > > | theme... any thoughts?. > > | > > | > > | any suggestion welcome > > | > > | kari edwards > > | > > | > > | > > | ____________________ > > | Capitalism's ever-intensifying imposition of alienation at all level > makes > > | it increasingly hard for workers to recognize and name thier own > > | impoverishment > > | Guy Debord > > | ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:02:56 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "richard.tylr" To: Sent: 16 May 2002 14:11 Subject: Re: trials in literature and in the Alice books there's | a strange sense that Alice is on trial: or is language, logic, and meaning | on trial? And there is actually a trial too - sentence first, verdict later Everything is a trial: like is literature literature life and all | life is a trial, hence all literature is a trial. A very long trial: and | people trial off the subject, which is very trialing, trailing that | trial....... Richard. I made a poster poem once: WIN A HOME TRIAL L ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 11:37:50 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Floodeditions@AOL.COM Subject: Jenks on Jacket MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear List Members: A sharp review of Philip Jenks first book, ON THE CAVE YOU LIVE IN (Flood Editions, 2002) has just been added to the Jacket site: http://jacketmagazine.com/18/bettr-r-jenks.html Flood books are available through Small Press Distribution and at www.floodeditions.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 11:53:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: Favorite Author Photos Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit David Bromige on the second to last page of -Men, Women and Vehicles- Black Sparrow,1990- in straw hat behind the wheel of his car with what looks to be his wife Cecelia seen staring through a back window from the outside of the car Rosemarie and Keith Waldrop on the cover of -WellWell Reality- Post Apollo Press -taken in 1968 Keith tells me- The book opens with Keith's lines "Since I am in the background on the cover, I will come forward first, with my longer lines that I could cut short" John Ashbery- on the cover of- Three Poems-Penguin- serious, maybe even glowering, leaning back on a white picket fence in a country scene in open white shirt, young, thin, handsome, with mustache Jerome Sala on the back cover of -I Am Not A Juvenile Delinquent- Stare Press,1985- hair combed over his forehead looking like a half smiling vampire in a Vincent Price movie James Sherry on the back cover of -Popular Fiction-1985- serious, possibly trying to look like a movie star and possibly succeeding Vito Acconci on the entire front cover of -Avalanche Fall 1972- holding a cigarette in his moouth possibly trying to look like a character out of Brecht and, if so, definitely succeeding Robert Smithson with Nancy Holt-relaxed- sitting in armchairs in front of a cluttered coffee table -The Writings of Robert Smithson-New York University Press, 1979 -p.144 Charles Bernstein on the back cover of -The Sophist- chin in hand, elbows on sill, staring dreamily through open window- Sun and Moon, 1987 Alan Davies on the back cover of -Rave- laughing hysterically -Roof,1994- Rae Armantrout on the cover of-The Pretext-Green Integer 33- and the back cover of -A Wild Salience-Burning Press,1999- with that knowing smile, looking unpretentious, as usual Elaine Equi on the back cover of -Shrewcrazy-Little Caesar,1981- in straw hat, head tilted forward, in tweed jacket, glamorous and enigmatic Douglas Messerli unrecognizable in a very early photo, with mustache, as Joshua High on the cover of- Letters from Hanusse- Green Integer 2000 Phillip Whalen on the cover of -Scenes of Life at the Capital-1971- with huge smile, sunglasses, straw hat with cord under beard, looking relatively thin Ed Friedman on the back cover of -Mao and Matisse- Hanging Loose Press,1995- with that same everyday amazingly unreadable expression Ann Waldman in -Baby Breakdown- Bobbs-Merrill,1970- in a fuzzy photo seated nude and leaning back with the caption-I'm A Grouch! Jackson Mac Low on the cover of Crayon-Festschrift for his 75th birthday- looking relaxed and about 50 in a rare smiling photo he says makes him look like a vampire -I don't agree Lynn Dreyer on the back cover of -The White Museum-Roof,1986- with a beautiful and serene elegance truly reflected in her poetry ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 11:56:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Marks Subject: Re: trials in literature MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A Frolic of His Own, William Gaddis Lawyers feud in and out of the background over car accidents, copyright law and plagiarism. Absolutely hilarious. One of the few books where I would laugh out loud while reading. Steven > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "kari edwards" > > To: > > Sent: 15 May 2002 19:41 > > Subject: trials in literature > > > > > > | Question.. > > | > > | I am looking mainly for fiction or poetry, where the/a trial is the main > > | theme... any thoughts?. > > | > > | > > | any suggestion welcome > > | > > | kari edwards > > | > > | > > | > > | ____________________ > > | Capitalism's ever-intensifying imposition of alienation at all level > makes > > | it increasingly hard for workers to recognize and name thier own > > | impoverishment > > | Guy Debord > > | > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 12:13:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: trials MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Along the same lines, the actual transcripts of the Nuremberg trials. Or their fictional version, "Judgment at Nuremberg," made into a film with Spencer Tracy. And for a comical trial which is loaded with gender issues, another Spencer Tracy movie, "Adams Rib." The fictional version of the Scopes trial, "Inherit the Wind." Laura Fargas -----Original Message----- From: Maria Elena Caballero-Robb Neither fiction nor poetry, but how about the trial of Anne Hutchinson by the clerics and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. See "transcript" (fraught with issues of translation and transcription) in Hall, ed. _The Antinomian Controversy_. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 12:22:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: Palmer and Henry reviewed in Jacket MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Thought I'd mention that my review of Michael Palmer's _Promises of = Glass_ and of Brian Henry's _Astronaut_ appeared in Jacket 16 and can be = found here: http://jacketmagazine.com/16/niko-r-paml-henr.html I welcome any comments. Cheers, Philip Nikolayev ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 12:27:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Re: Favorite Author Photos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The cover of Keith & Rosmarie's newest, Ceci n'est past Keith, Ceci n'est pas Rosmarie... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick Piombino" To: Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 11:53 AM Subject: Favorite Author Photos > David Bromige on the second to last page of -Men, Women and Vehicles- Black > Sparrow,1990- in straw hat behind the wheel of his car with what looks to be > his wife Cecelia seen staring through a back window from the outside of the > car > > Rosemarie and Keith Waldrop on the cover of -WellWell Reality- Post Apollo > Press -taken in 1968 Keith tells me- The book opens with Keith's lines > "Since I am in the background on the cover, I will come forward first, with > my longer lines that I could cut short" > > John Ashbery- on the cover of- Three Poems-Penguin- serious, maybe even > glowering, leaning back on a white picket fence in a country scene in open > white shirt, young, thin, handsome, with mustache > > Jerome Sala on the back cover of -I Am Not A Juvenile Delinquent- Stare > Press,1985- hair combed over his forehead looking like a half smiling > vampire in a Vincent Price movie > > James Sherry on the back cover of -Popular Fiction-1985- serious, possibly > trying to look like a movie star and possibly succeeding > > Vito Acconci on the entire front cover of -Avalanche Fall 1972- holding a > cigarette in his moouth possibly trying to look like a character out of > Brecht and, if so, definitely succeeding > > Robert Smithson with Nancy Holt-relaxed- sitting in armchairs in front of a > cluttered coffee table -The Writings of Robert Smithson-New York University > Press, 1979 -p.144 > > Charles Bernstein on the back cover of -The Sophist- chin in hand, elbows on > sill, staring dreamily through open window- Sun and Moon, 1987 > > Alan Davies on the back cover of -Rave- laughing hysterically -Roof,1994- > > Rae Armantrout on the cover of-The Pretext-Green Integer 33- and the back > cover of -A Wild Salience-Burning Press,1999- with that knowing smile, > looking unpretentious, as usual > > Elaine Equi on the back cover of -Shrewcrazy-Little Caesar,1981- in straw > hat, head tilted forward, in tweed jacket, glamorous and enigmatic > > Douglas Messerli unrecognizable in a very early photo, with mustache, as > Joshua High on the cover of- Letters from Hanusse- Green Integer 2000 > > Phillip Whalen on the cover of -Scenes of Life at the Capital-1971- with > huge smile, sunglasses, straw hat with cord under beard, looking relatively > thin > > Ed Friedman on the back cover of -Mao and Matisse- Hanging Loose Press,1995- > with that same everyday amazingly unreadable expression > > Ann Waldman in -Baby Breakdown- Bobbs-Merrill,1970- in a fuzzy photo seated > nude and leaning back with the caption-I'm A Grouch! > > Jackson Mac Low on the cover of Crayon-Festschrift for his 75th birthday- > looking relaxed and about 50 in a rare smiling photo he says makes him look > like a vampire -I don't agree > > Lynn Dreyer on the back cover of -The White Museum-Roof,1986- with a > beautiful and serene elegance truly reflected in her poetry > > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 09:44:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: fiction anthologies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I'm looking for a fiction anthology that one could use for teaching that would have some innovative or lively writing in it--not the same people one sees over and over in fiction anthologies. The main criticism I've read about the Norton Postmodern fiction anthology was it relied too heavily on excerpts, a valid criticism, I think. An ideal one would have a bit of conventional story and a bit of postmodern whatever. Does such a hybrid exist? Or perhaps I'm looking for two anthologies, a good conventional one and a more out-there one? I think I'm looking mostly for modern/contemporary work. Thanks. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 12:52:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Fw: NYTimes.com Article: Berkeley Course on Mideast Raises Concerns MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 12:46 PM Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Berkeley Course on Mideast Raises Concerns > /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ > > > Enjoy new investment freedom! > > Get the tools you need to successfully manage your portfolio > from Harrisdirect. Start with award-winning research. Then > add access to round-the-clock customer service from > Series-7 trained representatives. Open an account today and > receive a $100 credit! > > http://www.nytimes.com/ads/Harrisdirect.html > > \----------------------------------------------------------/ > > > Berkeley Course on Mideast Raises Concerns > > May 16, 2002 > By CHRIS GAITHER > > > > > > > BERKELEY, Calif., May 15 - The political tensions in the > Middle East have once again roiled the University of > California, with the most recent incident focused on a > catalog course description. > > The listing for the course, "The Politics and Poetics of > Palestinian Resistance," one of the choices for a required > course in reading and composition, was pulled for review > last week by university officials after protests by civil > liberties and pro-Israeli groups. The critics were outraged > by the course description's ideological tone and the > efforts of the instructor, a Ph.D. candidate who leads a > pro-Palestinian group, to dissuade students who did not > accept the pro-Palestinian view from enrolling in the > course. > > "The brutal Israeli military occupation of Palestine, an > occupation that has been ongoing since 1948, has > systematically displaced, killed, and maimed millions of > Palestinian people," the instructor, Snehal Shingavi, > wrote. "And yet, from under the brutal weight of the > occupation, Palestinians have produced their own culture > and poetry of resistance." > > The last line of his course description drew the most ire, > especially among civil libertarians: "Conservative thinkers > are encouraged to seek other sections." > > Local Jewish groups consider the Berkeley course an example > of what they see as a rising wave of anti-Israel sentiment > and sometimes anti-Semitism emerging from local campuses. > In the last few months, two Orthodox Jews were beaten in > Berkeley, and a cinderblock was thrown through the front > window of the Jewish Hillel cultural center. > > Across San Francisco Bay, at San Francisco State > University, a pro-Israel peace rally on May 7 was > confronted by self-described anti-Zionist protesters who > reportedly shouted, among other slurs, that "Hitler did not > finish the job," according to a letter circulated by Laurie > Zoloth, the director of the university's Jewish studies > program. > > Pro-Palestine protesters have also complained of bigotry > and intimidation. > > At the Berkeley campus, university officials moved quickly > to defuse criticism that followed the publication of the > course catalog. Robert M. Berdahl, the university's > chancellor, faulted the English department for failing to > review the course description and ordered Mr. Shingavi to > remove the last line. > > In a telephone interview, Chancellor Berdahl said today > that Mr. Shingavi had received favorable evaluations from > students he had taught. > > Still the chancellor said he had not ruled out planting an > observer in Mr. Shingavi's classroom to make sure his > teaching did not stray into "indoctrination," though the > chairwoman of the English department, Janet Adelman, called > installation of a monitor unlikely. > > Sproul Plaza, which campus protesters have used since the > Free Speech movement in 1964, was home to another conflict > last month, when about 1,500 demonstrators called for the > university to divest itself of stock in corporations that > do business with Israel at the same time that Jewish > students staged a Holocaust remembrance. Led by the group > Students for Justice in Palestine, of which Mr. Shingavi is > a member, demonstrators surged into Wheeler Hall, chaining > doors and blocking entrances. > > The occupation ended with the arrest of 79 people, > including 41 students. > > Critics of the English class who know Mr. Shingavi said his > record of protest stacked the deck against the chances of > fair discussion in the classroom. > > But Mr. Shingavi argued that rather than debate the Middle > East conflict, he wanted to focus on the writers who > produced art out of the resistance movement. > > "I think it's important to put forward what kinds of > propositions this class has centrally," he said. "Otherwise > people would walk in not knowing what to expect, and I > think that's far more dangerous in a class like this." > > http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/16/education/16BERK.html?ex=1022567606&ei=1&e n=660deb79fa782219 > > > > HOW TO ADVERTISE > --------------------------------- > For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters > or other creative advertising opportunities with The > New York Times on the Web, please contact > onlinesales@nytimes.com or visit our online media > kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo > > For general information about NYTimes.com, write to > help@nytimes.com. > > Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 13:00:01 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Rathmann Subject: Devin Johnston's _Telepathy_ & other first books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Those of us who know Devin, or who had dealings with him when he was with the Chicago Review, have been waiting for his first book for some time. Now it's out, and it definitely meets expectations (which were high). You can see his influences -- Zukofsky's minimalism, Moore's syllabics, also Duncan, Dorn, S. Howe, others -- but the total effect is quite strange, moving, and original. He rhymes. He quotes Keats. There are Appalachian references, a poem about Phil Spector, a poem that engages Shelley's Witch of Atlas. It's quite something. Telepathy is published by Paper Bark Press, in Sydney. Has anyone else read it? Some buzz on the list would be good... --- It seems very important to discuss first books, and/or books by (relatively) younger writers, as they come out. Louis Cabri's _Mood Embosser_ for example. I haven't received my copy yet, but would be interested in hearing what others think. Other titles? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 11:34:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: fiction anthologies In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii There was a Beacon Press anthology that came out last year edited by Junot Diaz I think that seemed fairly eclectic--does anyone know the name of that one? --- Dodie Bellamy wrote: > I'm looking for a fiction anthology that one could > use for teaching > that would have some innovative or lively writing in > it--not the same > people one sees over and over in fiction > anthologies. The main > criticism I've read about the Norton Postmodern > fiction anthology was > it relied too heavily on excerpts, a valid > criticism, I think. An > ideal one would have a bit of conventional story and > a bit of > postmodern whatever. Does such a hybrid exist? Or > perhaps I'm > looking for two anthologies, a good conventional one > and a more > out-there one? I think I'm looking mostly for > modern/contemporary > work. > > Thanks. > > Dodie ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 11:39:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: Palmer and Henry reviewed in Jacket In-Reply-To: <10F2B8E6B6C9AC4993FC1FB47C0D88CC4AE7EA@karat.kandasoft.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii What a brilliant (sweet) connection between Malevich and Palmer. Each of them makes a different kind of sense to me now. But then again I just have a pretty special place in my heart for anyone who thinks Malevich is cool. ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:09:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: Re: Palmer and Henry reviewed in Jacket MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Malevich IS cool. I have a poem in his memory in my forthcoming book.=20 Thanks for your remarks, Kazim! PN ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 09:53:42 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Susan M. Schultz" Subject: "foreign" currency option MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I've been advertising Tinfish books rampantly, without suggesting a way = for those of you lacking the almighty American dollar to order and pay = for them. Apologies. Here goes: the best place to order Tinfish books, aside from here with = me, is through Native Books, in Honolulu. Their website is = www.nativebookshawaii.com/ and they carry almost all Tinfish products. My contact there is Ron Cox = (coxr@hawaii.edu), who is a wonderful person to deal with. To see the products, try our (incomplete) website at: http://maven.english.hawaii.edu/tinfish You can also buy most of the chaps through amazon, though that would be = my last choice, as they don't pay me much beyond a pittance. thanks much, Susan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:05:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: POETRY PROJECT EVENTS Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable POETRY PROJECT EVENTS MAY 17, FRIDAY [10:00pm doors open] NEW TRADITIONALISTS COMPOSITIONAL AND IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC MAY 20, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] AMANDA SCHAFFER AND DAVID VOGEN MAY 22, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] ANDREI CODRESCU AND ED SANDERS MAY 24, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] WAR AND PEACE: A MULTIMEDIA RECITAL OF ART SONG AND VIDEO http://www.poetryproject.com/calendar.html *************************** MAY 17, FRIDAY [10:00pm doors open] NEW TRADITIONALISTS COMPOSITIONAL AND IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC Irish singer/guitar soloist MARK GEARY contemporary folk pop in the lyrical tradition Jazz trio. SATURN RETURNS featuring MATT LAVELLE bass clarinet/trumpet RYAN SAWYER drums FRANCOISE GILLOT bass. This music is compositional and free hardcore dynamics. MAY 20, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] AMANDA SCHAFFER AND DAVID VOGEN AMANDA SCHAFFER's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Ploughshares, Colorado Review, Spinning Jenny, Green Mountains Review and Seneca Review. She teaches chemistry and writes science manuals for students. "Her poems are surprising and joyful in their ridiculous exactness." DAVID VOGEN is a writer, editor, and teacher from Wisconsin. His work has appeared in Longshot, New York Quarterly, Cutty Sark (UK), Kalte Sterne (GDR), and The Poetry Project Newsletter. He has produced and published for Squat or Rot record label, written for Nerve magazine and performed with th= e Yeats' Repertory (London). He has worked for The Poetry Project since 1991. MAY 22, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] ANDREI CODRESCU AND ED SANDERS ANDREI CODRESCU's new novel, Casanova in Bohemia, is just out from The Free Press. Among his other books are Alien Candor: Selected Poems 1970-1997 and the novels The Blood Countess and Messiah. Codrescu is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and is the MacCurdy Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he edits Exquisite Corpse: a Journa= l of Letters & Life.=20 ED SANDERS founded the legendary Peace Eye Book Store in New York's Lower East Side and the folk rock group the Fugs. His collected poems, 1961-1985, Thristing for Peace in a Raging Century, won an American Book Award in 1988= . The updated edition of The Family, his study of the Manson group, was published in 1990, and his Tales of Beatnik Glory, Volumes I and II is bein= g made into a feature-length film. MAY 24, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] WAR AND PEACE: A MULTIMEDIA RECITAL OF ART SONG AND VIDEO DAYLE VANDER SANDE, tenor; ANTHONY BELLOV, videographer Dayle Vander Sande and Anthony Bellov present song settings of poetry and texts from across ages and cultures, interpretive video and video interview= s to create a new "concert theater" experience. Thought-provoking and introspective, audience members will be encouraged to contribute their own thoughts and responses to this significant examination of these age-old, ye= t timely, subjects.=20 ************************ POETRY PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENTS BOOKS FOR SALE Visit our BOOKS FOR SALE page at http://www.poetryproject.booksale.html Newest titles added to our list: Norman Fischer, Opening to You: Zen Inspired Translations of the Psalms (Viking, 2002), $15 Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz (trans. Joan Larkin and Jaime Manrique), Sor Juana's Love Poems (Painted Leaf Press, 1997), $8 THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK BROADSIDE The Poetry Project will be offering a limited-edition letterpress broadside signed by John Ashbery to celebrate the republication of THE VERMONT NOTEBOOK by JOHN ASHBERY AND JOE BRAINARD. Measuring 19 x 15, the broadside will sell for $100. Sales from the edition will benefit the Poetry Project. To purchase a broadside, send check or money order to: The Poetry Project 131 E. 10th St. New York, NY 10003. MAY ISSUE OF POETS & POEMS Featuring work by Cecilia Vicu=F1a, R. Erica Doyle, G.E. Patterson, Kevin Killian, Joan Retallack http://www.poetryproject.com/poets.html FORTHCOMING=8A THE WORLD 58 Including works by Deniz=E9 Lauture, Victor Hernandez Cruz, Ron Padgett, Carl= a Harryman, Betsy Fagin, Fred Moten, Anne Waldman, Edwin Torres, Maggie Dubris, Anselm Berrigan, Edward Sanders, Maureen Owen, Lorenzo Thomas, Jo Ann Wasserman, Robert Hershon, Dale Smith, Kimberly Lyons, Gary Lenhart, Terence Winch, Jenny Smith, Tom Devaney, Donna Brook, Lewis Warsh, Oyang Xiu/Simon Schucat, Yukihede Maeshima Hartman, John Godfrey and artwork by Royce Howe. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 16:55:22 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII any of the many accounts of the trial of joan of arc. there are some really great french film treatments of the trial too. There is one (i can't remember who directed it) where Joan was played by a renowned beauty and it is said that when her head was shaved on camera, the crew wept. i'll look into this as now that i'm thinking of it, it was a great film. cheers, kevin -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:26:19 -0400 Reply-To: parrishka@sympatico.ca Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: parrishka Subject: trials and tribulations for canadian small presses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit not sure if you folks are aware of the critical situation canadian small presses are in at this very moment, but things are looking very grim: this just in from alienated.net: Things just got worse for the Canadian publishers who've been dealing with General Distribution, and they could become worse yet. Jack Stoddart says his General Publishing Co. Ltd. will collapse if Bank of Nova Scotia doesn't give it another $3 million. The bank, which is General's largest secured creditor, will provide the financing only if Ontario Superior Court makes an "unequivocal" declaration that past receivables of the company are the sole property of General. Translation: the bank will only help General to restructure if it keeps all of the the money that it owes to the small presses. The bank also wants Chapters/Indigo, which is 65% of General's business, to pay its $1.4-million bill directly to General rather than to publishers. Of course, we publishers aren't all that impressed with either notion. If Stoddart doesn't get his $3 million, General will probably declare bankruptcy immediately, taking down our stock and receivables in the process. Today, publishers are in court to ask Mr. Justice John Ground to allow them to get receivables as well as their inventory from General -- because we could go under. http://www.alienated.net/article.php?sid=312 for the play by play: http://www.alienated.net/search.php?query=&topic=48 spare us a kind thought up here Katherine Parrish ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 17:32:24 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Re: fiction anthologies In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Dodie, This may interest you. cheers, kevin New from House of Anansi Press http://www.anansi.ca/newtitles.cfm?current_rec=2 Ground Works Avant-Garde for Thee Christian Bök Introduction by Margaret Atwood If sometime between the 1960s and 1980s Canadian society began unbuttoning itself, our experimental writers helped loosen the threads. This anthology exhibits the first deep breaths. From Leonard Cohen’s Beautiful Losers to John Riddell’s Pope Leo El Elope (a tale that recounts a papal assassination, using only the letters E, L, O, and P) to the most radical écriture féminine of Audrey Thomas and Gail Scott, Ground Works displays Canadian writing as it’s never been seen before. The idea for the anthology was Margaret Atwood’s. She introduces Ground Works, and joins forces with avant-garde poet Christian Bök to collect the very best experimental fiction written in English between 1965 and 1985. Read unusual writing by such luminaries as Michael Ondaatje and Matt Cohen, along with innovations by George Bowering, Christopher Dewdney, Steve McCaffery, and Daphne Marlatt, as well as more obscure work by Ray Smith, J. Michael Yates, Andreas Schroeder, Derk Wynand, and Robert Zend. A surreal array of beautiful anomalies, Ground Works celebrates the innovators behind the unruly iconoclasm at work in Canada’s best fiction. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 16:14:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dreyer - On Thu, 16 May 2002, K.Angelo Hehir wrote: > any of the many accounts of the trial of joan of arc. there are some > really great french film treatments of the trial too. There is one (i > can't remember who directed it) where Joan was played by a renowned beauty > and it is said that when her head was shaved on camera, the crew wept. > > i'll look into this as now that i'm thinking of it, it was a great film. > > cheers, > kevin > > -- > cheers, Alan, sondheim@panix.com http://%77%77%77%2e%61%6e%75%2e%65%64%75%2e%61%75/english/internet_txt http://%6C%69%73%74%73%2E%76%69%6C%6C%61%67%65%2E%76%69%72%67%69%6E%69%61%2E%65%64%75/~spoons/internet_txt.html Trace Projects at http://%74%72%61%63%65%2E%6E%74%75%2E%61%63%2E%75%6B/writers/sondheim/index.htm cdroms available: write sondheim@panix.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:40:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" i've missed a lot of this discussion, but i wanna throw in the many transcripts of lenny bruce's various obscenity trials, and also Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms, about a 16th c italian miller tried and condemned as a heretic during the (long) inquisition. it's a wonderful account of a lively mind. At 4:55 PM -0230 5/16/02, K.Angelo Hehir wrote: >any of the many accounts of the trial of joan of arc. there are some >really great french film treatments of the trial too. There is one (i >can't remember who directed it) where Joan was played by a renowned beauty >and it is said that when her head was shaved on camera, the crew wept. > >i'll look into this as now that i'm thinking of it, it was a great film. > >cheers, >kevin > >-- -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:40:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" maria falconetti? At 4:55 PM -0230 5/16/02, K.Angelo Hehir wrote: >any of the many accounts of the trial of joan of arc. there are some >really great french film treatments of the trial too. There is one (i >can't remember who directed it) where Joan was played by a renowned beauty >and it is said that when her head was shaved on camera, the crew wept. > >i'll look into this as now that i'm thinking of it, it was a great film. > >cheers, >kevin > >-- -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 13:48:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Devils of Loudon St. Joan Maybe show them Day of Wrath (any excuse justified) At 03:40 PM 5/16/2002 -0500, you wrote: >i've missed a lot of this discussion, but i wanna throw in the many >transcripts of lenny bruce's various obscenity trials, and also Carlo >Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms, about a 16th c italian miller >tried and condemned as a heretic during the (long) inquisition. it's >a wonderful account of a lively mind. > >At 4:55 PM -0230 5/16/02, K.Angelo Hehir wrote: >>any of the many accounts of the trial of joan of arc. there are some >>really great french film treatments of the trial too. There is one (i >>can't remember who directed it) where Joan was played by a renowned beauty >>and it is said that when her head was shaved on camera, the crew wept. >> >>i'll look into this as now that i'm thinking of it, it was a great film. >> >>cheers, >>kevin >> >>-- > > >-- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 13:56:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Probably Rossellini's "Giovanna d'Arco al Rogo/ Joan at the Stake," (issued in both languages), Ingrid Bergman's second shot at the role. But the anecdote sounmds like PR--most film crews are pretty emotionless. Carl Dreyer's silent "Passion of Jian of Arc" (Falconetti as Joan) is the locus classicus--great film, tho to my mind his (sound) "Day of Wrath" beats almost anything. Mark At 03:40 PM 5/16/2002 -0500, you wrote: >i've missed a lot of this discussion, but i wanna throw in the many >transcripts of lenny bruce's various obscenity trials, and also Carlo >Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms, about a 16th c italian miller >tried and condemned as a heretic during the (long) inquisition. it's >a wonderful account of a lively mind. > >At 4:55 PM -0230 5/16/02, K.Angelo Hehir wrote: >>any of the many accounts of the trial of joan of arc. there are some >>really great french film treatments of the trial too. There is one (i >>can't remember who directed it) where Joan was played by a renowned beauty >>and it is said that when her head was shaved on camera, the crew wept. >> >>i'll look into this as now that i'm thinking of it, it was a great film. >> >>cheers, >>kevin >> >>-- > > >-- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 14:44:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: Re: fiction anthologies In-Reply-To: <20020516183459.86383.qmail@web21404.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I think it's Best New American Voices...or Beacon's Best Younger --- Mister Kazim Ali wrote: > There was a Beacon Press anthology that came out > last > year edited by Junot Diaz I think that seemed fairly > eclectic--does anyone know the name of that one? The Junot Diaz anthology is Beacon Best of 2001--and it has a story by my very best friend in it, which is itself a sort of cross between conventional and avant-garde, so it has my vote! They put out another one this year which has another friend in it, actually. The other idea would be an issue of Conjunctions, or Grand Street, or Open City, or some other hefty journal all of which have a mix of styles of fiction (I think). Congrats on being Miss Firecracker, Dodie! Arielle __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 18:44:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: trials MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Maria Damon wrote: also Carlo Ginzburg's The Cheese and the Worms, about a 16th c italian miller tried and condemned as a heretic during the (long) inquisition. it's a wonderful account of a lively mind.>>> There was also a historical account of the trial of a pig for witchcraft -- which was made into a film in France, "L'Avocat" and came to America as "The Advocate;" I don't know the name of the underlying novel, but I believe there was one. Cats, goats, pigs, and occasionally dogs, were tried as witches on occasion in medieval France, sometimes as a way to avoid prosecuting the actual guilty (human) parties. There is a late medieval animal trial fable by the Scottish poet Robert Henryson called "The Trial of the Fox." -- I can't name any specific one, but I think there were trials of the devil in some of the medieval mystery plays. There is a looong trial of numerous heretics from a Puritan standpoint in a huge, awful poem written by an early (colonial period) American preacher, called The Day of Doom. Also in America, but much later, there's the Stephen Vincent Benet story 'The Devil and Daniel Webster,' in which the eloquent Congressman successfully defends a man's soul from the Devil in a trial format. Bataille did a whole book on the trial of the sadist Gilles de Rais. The trial of Marat has also been dramatized, and so has Danton's trial -- is it called "Danton's Death"? In The Count of Monte Cristo, there is a brief account of the trumped up legal proceedings by which Edmond Dantes is interned in the prison; and isn't there also the trial for stealing bread in Les Miserables? There is the kangaroo court convened by Athos in his identity as the Conde de la Fere in the Three Musketeers, in which he invokes his power as a nobleman with "the authority of the high, low, and middle justice" to condemn to death the cardinal's spy Milady, who was also his wife. There is a trial of Rebecca of York as a witch in Ivanhoe, a trial by a jury of Templar Knights which is finally resolved in a trial by combat between Ivanhoe and the knight who put Rebecca in this pickle. There is a trial in "Poema de Mio Cid," the Spanish national epic, in which El Cid demands that the sons of a noble family be tried for dishonoring his daughters -- but then breaks the rules of the trial by wearing weapons into court before the King. There is a portrayal, based on the actual transcript, of the trial of Thomas More in "A Man for All Seasons," in which he unsuccessfully argues as a legal principle the maxim "qui tacit consentire." (And isn't there a trial in Woijcek?) Early in the 20th century, there was a series, "Famous British Trials," which contained transcripts of exactly that. They included the real-life case that Terence Rattigan used for his play, "The Winslow Boy." And there are at least two plays dramatizing the trial of Oscar Wilde. Jorie Graham makes some use of the Eichmann trial in one poem, which I can find if you really want it, and it was famously fictionalized as a play by Robert Shaw [?], "The Man in the Glass Booth." And I think Pamela White Hadas may have done one of her Watergate Wives poems in the form of a dramatic monologue of trial testimony. One doesn't see the trial procedure, but in Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound, two of Zeus' lackeys (Kratos & Bios?... it's been a while) give Prometheus lengthy explanations of why he's pinned to the rock -- their speeches are very much given in the nature of judicial justification. And I'm trying to remember -- is there a mock trial somewhere in Aristophanes? Or in the old Arabic poem The Parliament of the Birds? There's Gilbert & Sullivan's "Trial by Jury." And in a similar vein, there are trials in light fiction -- Rumpole of the Bailey comes first to mind. There are small canonical trials in the Brother Cadfael mystery series. P.G. Wodehouse interjects bits of dialogue between the bench and the accused in some of his Bertie and Jeeves stories. And then there are the endless, wildly erroneous, trials in movies and TV. I have been an appellate litigator doing occupational safety and health cases for nearly 25 years, and I mostly avoid them. I watched Ally McBeal once and permitted myself a little fantasy of firing her. But I loved My Cousin Vinny. Laura Fargas ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 17:52:58 -0700 Reply-To: rova@rova.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rova Saxophone Quartet Subject: naropa In-Reply-To: <33DB6DF9C51BD511BC4B00D0B75B2D810170885B@esfpb03.dol.gov> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit hello everyone i am attending the first two weeks of naropa's summer workshop in boulder, CO, and am looking into housing options (and no, i can't afford to pay $280/week to stay in the Sangha House). If anyone on this list knows of someone in Boulder who could put up a poor poet from San Francisco -- the dates are June 9-22 -- please backchannel to me at this address. thanks, David Hadbawnik ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 23:47:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: More on the Function of the Author Photo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "We all believe this: at every moment in our lives, we look like ourselves; others, whom we have not met, whom we know only through photographs, become fixed at certain intervals. We know them only as they appear in these photographs. As authors continue to publish books the jacket photos are usually updated every few years: a given photograph corresponds to a given book, or a certain phase of work. In the case of dead authors one or two pictures come to stand for the entire life: all of Scott Fitzgerald's books were written by the fresh-faced, unsozzled Scottie; all of Henry James's by the bald magister. The longer the life, the greater the output, the more intense the degree of photographic compression: a single photograph of Dickens is sufficient to accomodate thirty years and tens of thousands of pages of work. Such a photograph serves to consolidate - to embody - the idea of the writer whose death was announced in a famous essay of Barthes. Or, to put it in terms consistent with this notion, a photograph of a writer is not really a photograph of a person but an emblem - a colophon - of the works published under his or her name. Inevitably a considerable degree of distortion takes place when a single photograph represents a working life covering several decades." "In death Lawrence became identical with his canonic image. Death fixed the image, rendered it - and the body of work of which it was the symbolic expression - incapable of further development. That is why Lawrence, like Rilke, hated photographs of himself. To both writers photographs prefigured an end to becoming. Virtually the final creative act Lawrence was involved in before his death at the sanatorium at Venice was to sit for a bust by the sculptor Jo Davidson. The last photo I had of Lawrence was not of the man but of the living-death mask that resulted from these sessions. 'Jo Davidson came and made a clay head of me - made me tired,' Lawrence moaned in a postscript to his very last letter, 'result in clay mediocre.' It was anything but that, but it is not surprising that Lawrence responded like this, was reluctant, even at this late stage, to recognise the stark fact of his own mortality: what must it have been like to see his death take shape, to become fully formed, undeniable like this? To have seen a death mask of himself while still - just -alive? 'What do I care for first or last editions?' he asked, rhetorically, years earlier. 'To me, no book has a date, no book has a binding.' No wonder he was hostile to Davidson's bust: it anticipated - if only by a few days - the form the loose pages of his life would take when bound and dated." - _ Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence_ by Geoff Dyer Does anyone still feel this way about photographs of themselves? Barthes, whom Dyer mentions above, describes photography similarly, as a transmitter of death, in _Camera Lucida_. Debord, whom kari edwards quotes in a recent post, likewise saw in modern visual media, coupled with capitalist-fueled reification on all social levels, a kind of death in life: a society of pure spectacle. Stephen Rodefer in the preface to _Four Lectures_ asks, "In a world in which there are more photographs than there are bricks, can there be more pictures than there are places?" He calls for a painted poetry commensurate to an age where everything is continually being painted and painted over: "The events and systems that embody this swarming *state* of affairs have become so mixed, complex, and unconscious at once, that what is required to read it is the ultimate painting." I tend to think of my poems as snapshots of a moment, or an intermingling of moments. The poem keeps the moment(s) alive in time. A time painting. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 14:31:02 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: Walk Around/The Dust is Embalmed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit More from Dyer's Lawrence book. I don't totally *agree* with this, if agreement or disagreement is the appropriate response, but I share the sentiment. Chances are, if you make your wages in academia, you do not share it. Whatever floats yer botox. "I burned it in self-defence [_A Longman Critical Reader in Lawrence, edited by Peter Widdowson_]. It was the book or me because writing like that kills everything it touches. That is the hallmark of academic criticism: it kills everything it touches. Walk around a university campus and there is an almost palpable smell of death about the place because hundreds of academics are busy killing everything they touch. I recently met an academic who said that he taught German literature. I was aghast: to think, this man who had been in universities all his life was teaching Rilke. *Rilke!* Oh, it was too much to bear. You don't teach Rilke, I wanted to say, you kill Rilke! You turn him to dust and then you go off to conferences where dozens of other academic-morticians gather with the express intention of killing Rilke and turning him to dust. Then, as part of the cover-up, the conference papers are published, the dust is embalmed and before you know it literature is a vast graveyard of dust, a dustyard of graves. I was beside myself with indignation. I wanted to maim and harm this polite, well-meaning academic who, for all I knew, was a brilliant teacher who had turned on generations of students to the _Duino Elegies_. Still, I thought to myself the following morning when I had calmed down, the general point stands: how can you know anything about literature if all you've done is read books?" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 18:09:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Elena Caballero-Robb Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: <33DB6DF9C51BD511BC4B00D0B75B2D8101708850@esfpb03.dol.gov> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT OR--sorry I'm not thinking of fictional examples--Hannah Arendt's _Eichmann in Jerusalem_, which I believe was compiled from her "reports" for the _New Yorker_ on Adolph Eichmann's trial. -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Fargas Laura Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 9:13 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: trials Along the same lines, the actual transcripts of the Nuremberg trials. Or their fictional version, "Judgment at Nuremberg," made into a film with Spencer Tracy. And for a comical trial which is loaded with gender issues, another Spencer Tracy movie, "Adams Rib." The fictional version of the Scopes trial, "Inherit the Wind." Laura Fargas -----Original Message----- From: Maria Elena Caballero-Robb Neither fiction nor poetry, but how about the trial of Anne Hutchinson by the clerics and governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. See "transcript" (fraught with issues of translation and transcription) in Hall, ed. _The Antinomian Controversy_. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 21:03:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Fwd: Siege Machines Part 2: Mary Burger, Camille Roy and Laura Moriarty MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from Beth Lifson ----- From: Beth Lifson To: beth_lifson@hotmail.com Subject: Siege Machines Part 2: Mary Burger, Camille Roy and Laura Moriarty Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 21:06:52 +0000 Join us at Pond on Thursday, May 30 for part two of Siege Machines: Readings by Experimental Women Writers. Featured readers are Mary Burger, Camille Roy and Laura Moriarty. Thursday May 30 8 pm at Pond Gallery 214 Valencia St b/w 14th & Duboce San Francisco, CA 94103 Mary Burger is the author of Thin Straw That I Suck Life Through, Nature's Maw Gives and Gives, and Bleeding Optimist. Her work appears in Technologies of Measure: A Celebration of Bay Area Women Writers. She edits Second Story Books, featuring works of experimental narrative. She lives in Oakland with a cat named Kitty Barber. Laura Moriarty is the author of ten books of poetry. Her most recent books are Nude Memoir (Krupskaya) and The Case (O Books). Among her awards are a Poetry Center Book Award and a Gerbode Foundation Grant. She is currently Acquisition and Marketing Director at Small Press Distribution. Camille Roy is a writer and performer of plays, poetry, and fiction. Her two most recent books include CHEAP SPEECH, a play, from Leroy, and CRAQUER, from 2nd Story Books (both 2002). Her book SWARM (two novellas) was published by San Francisco's Black Star Series in 1998 with funding from the San Francisco Arts Commission. Earlier books include THE ROSY MEDALLIONS (poetry and prose, from Kelsey St Press, published in 1995) and COLD HEAVEN (plays, from O Books, published in 1993). In 1998 she was the recipient of a Lannan Writers At Work Residency at Just Buffalo Literary Center. She is a founding editor of the online journal Narrativity(http://www.sfsu.edu/~newlit/narrativity) and her work is available online at http://www.grin.net/~minka. She has taught experimental fiction and playwriting at San Francisco State University, and has conducted a private workshop for several years. for more information contact Beth Lifson 415-503-0845 or beth_lifson@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ----- End forwarded message ----- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 21:12:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: poetics list administration Subject: Fwd: world on fire: Michael Brownstein MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from Joanna Yas ----- From: Joanna Yas Subject: world on fire Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 12:51:20 -0400 OPEN CITY Books presents a new release and two readings... World on Fire by Michael Brownstein An impassioned, prophetic examination of transnational capitalism=B9s consequences, World on Fire moves back and forth between the present and a vividly realized post-apocalyptic future. Combining narrative, poetry, and social analysis into a new nonfiction form, World on Fire draws on the work of many contemporary writers including Noam Chomsky, Eduardo Galeano, and Vandana Shiva. Manifesto and call to arms, World on Fire offers a new perspective, encouraging us to move past ego=B9s limited agendas and create a new life. "Hard to put down, stopping no place for very long yet honed in on one . . . cathartic theme: how to defeat social and political indifference when fear and self-loathing are the engines of the economy itself. This is one of the most eloquent recent poetic works to cover the downsides of progress and to cry out for a counterpunch against the manipulations of empire." --(Starred Review) Publishers Weekly This paperback original will be available in bookstores May 22, and is available now at http://www.opencity.org/subscribe.html Please join us for these New York City readings: Wednesday, May 22, 7 p.m., KGB Bar, 85 E. 4th Street Michael Brownstein and Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Wednesday, May 29, 8 p.m., The Poetry Project, St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, 131 E. 10th Street Michael Brownstein and Peter Lamborn Wilson, author of Ploughing the Clouds http://opencity.org ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 21:55:27 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark DuCharme Subject: Re: trials Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed You are thinking of a silent film called _The Passion of Joan of Arc_ directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. (Sorry if I'm misspelling the director's name, I'm too lazy at this second to look it up). It's a deserving classic, and to anyone who hasn't seen it who has any interest in film I would say it's required viewing. Godard has his protagonist attend a screening of this film in _Vivre Sa Vie_. By the way, the twenty-something actor who plays the sympathetic monk is somebody named Antonin Artaud, if anybody on this list has heard of him. (Naw, probably not)-- Mark DuCharme (p.s.: & yes, Maria, I think the actress's name _is_ Maria Falconetti, although she reminds me a bit of the young Ingrid Bergman). >From: Maria Damon >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: trials >Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:40:36 -0500 > >maria falconetti? > >At 4:55 PM -0230 5/16/02, K.Angelo Hehir wrote: >>any of the many accounts of the trial of joan of arc. there are some >>really great french film treatments of the trial too. There is one (i >>can't remember who directed it) where Joan was played by a renowned beauty >>and it is said that when her head was shaved on camera, the crew wept. >> >>i'll look into this as now that i'm thinking of it, it was a great film. >> >>cheers, >>kevin >> >>-- > > >-- 'poetry because things say' —Bernadette Mayer http://www.pavementsaw.org/cosmopolitan.htm http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/subpress/soc.htm _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 21:00:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020516134908.029ef120@mail.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" There's The Bellamy Trial, a novel from 1927 by Frances Noyes Hart, which Kevin Killian gave to me way back in our wooing days (mid-80s). "The first novel-length courtroom drama, based on the Hall-Mills murder case and focussing on two journalists rather than lawyers." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 00:28:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: film on codework MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - film on code/work 5/16/02 foreground: everglades trail @ 190% speedup background: miami drive @ 200% speedup sound: mixed from visuals text-crawl, bottom-screen: length: 7:24 codework:: f({x}) -> {y} - any mapping is sufficient - TRACE of the road-vector against the MESS or TANGLE across the glades path. it is the arrow - not the terms - that fascinates me - the arrow which INSISTS on a mapping, linguistic or perceptual. one APPROACHES code with code; the retina always already encodes, and further coding provides a bracketing or intersection of terms x^~x permitting definition. but BETWEEN x and ~x (not-x), there is a chasm or FISSURE; inscription transforms FISSURE into CLIFF. do you follow me? I am winging this. in this REALM, everything is inchoate, fuzzy; one is immersed in the DIALOGIC of FLOWS among schema, scripts, goals, regimes, mappings, sememes, and configurations. these moments are THROUGH the path or road, not DOWN. HERE, I have no shadow. THAT DAY, I was covered in sand-midge, mosquito, and deer-fly bites; I carried a fever everywhere. but that day I drove the seven miles brilliantly, reaching my destination in record time. ... ... ... ... consider a CODE as a MESH with PARASITIC INTENTION. the PARASITE is the nexus; in the absence of the parasite, all that's left is the problematic of a 'natural' protocol. it is the PARASITE that inhabits the sememe; it is the PARASITE that INSCRIBES. think of the TEE formation: f({x}) <> |P| <> {y}. I inhabit the parasitic; the road and path penetrate me: I gasp the name of the code: ROAD-NAME TRAIL-NAME: ***MILLER*** and ***CHRISTIAN POINT***. _ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 21:40:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: trials in literature In-Reply-To: <002301c1fc40$04a4f2f0$68a47ed8@slopepimp> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >camus - the stranger > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "jason christie" >To: >Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 2:34 PM >Subject: Re: trials in literature > > > > kafka, _the trial_ > > There is a play about the trial of Louis Riel. -- George Bowering On Base Pct. is .395 Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 21:50:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: fiction anthologies In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >I'm looking for a fiction anthology that one could use for teaching >that would have some innovative or lively writing in it--not the same >people one sees over and over in fiction anthologies. The main >criticism I've read about the Norton Postmodern fiction anthology was >it relied too heavily on excerpts, a valid criticism, I think. An >ideal one would have a bit of conventional story and a bit of >postmodern whatever. Does such a hybrid exist? Or perhaps I'm >looking for two anthologies, a good conventional one and a more >out-there one? I think I'm looking mostly for modern/contemporary >work. > >Thanks. > >Dodie Dear Dodie. That describes my newest anthology exactly. It is called And Other Stories, and was published fall 2001 by Talonbooks, at talon@pinc.com fax 604-444-4119. -- George Bowering On Base Pct. is .395 Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 01:14:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Re: trials MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Stills of which were used regularly by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha in much of her work (as a side note)... Artaud also played Marat in a (what I thought) was a rather boorish movie about Napoleon... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark DuCharme" To: Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 11:55 PM Subject: Re: trials > You are thinking of a silent film called _The Passion of Joan of Arc_ > directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. (Sorry if I'm misspelling the director's > name, I'm too lazy at this second to look it up). It's a deserving classic, > and to anyone who hasn't seen it who has any interest in film I would say > it's required viewing. Godard has his protagonist attend a screening of > this film in _Vivre Sa Vie_. By the way, the twenty-something actor who > plays the sympathetic monk is somebody named Antonin Artaud, if anybody on > this list has heard of him. (Naw, probably not)-- > > Mark DuCharme > > (p.s.: & yes, Maria, I think the actress's name _is_ Maria Falconetti, > although she reminds me a bit of the young Ingrid Bergman). > > > > > > >From: Maria Damon > >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > >Subject: Re: trials > >Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:40:36 -0500 > > > >maria falconetti? > > > >At 4:55 PM -0230 5/16/02, K.Angelo Hehir wrote: > >>any of the many accounts of the trial of joan of arc. there are some > >>really great french film treatments of the trial too. There is one (i > >>can't remember who directed it) where Joan was played by a renowned beauty > >>and it is said that when her head was shaved on camera, the crew wept. > >> > >>i'll look into this as now that i'm thinking of it, it was a great film. > >> > >>cheers, > >>kevin > >> > >>-- > > > > > >-- > > > > > > > > 'poetry because things say' > > -Bernadette Mayer > > > > > > http://www.pavementsaw.org/cosmopolitan.htm > > > > http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/subpress/soc.htm > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Join the world's largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. > http://www.hotmail.com > > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 10:36:58 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: roger.day@GLOBALGRAPHICS.COM Subject: Re: Walk Around/The Dust is Embalmed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii ...I wonder how many poets outside academia actually read academic criticism? I bet it's not that many - thinking about it, I can recall reading at least 2, and have got about 4 stacked on the shelves. I did not do a literature-related degree so I'm probably not a typically case on a list like this. Reading Kenner or Northrop-Frye (if that's what lit students due these days and I bet it isn't) whilst doing a degree might possibly count - but what of after? How many litcrit books bought since leaving the hallowed eaves? I don't totally agree with the mortuary tendancies expressed below, but the smell of decay and in-talking (all those footnotes!) can become unattractive. Roger. At 16/05/2002 19:31:02, David Hess wrote: # More from Dyer's Lawrence book. I don't totally *agree* with this, if # agreement or disagreement is the appropriate response, but I share the # sentiment. Chances are, if you make your wages in academia, you do not share # it. Whatever floats yer botox. # # "I burned it in self-defence [_A Longman Critical Reader in Lawrence, edited # by Peter Widdowson_]. It was the book or me because writing like that kills # everything it touches. That is the hallmark of academic criticism: it kills # everything it touches. Walk around a university campus and there is an almost # palpable smell of death about the place because hundreds of academics are # busy killing everything they touch. I recently met an academic who said that # he taught German literature. I was aghast: to think, this man who had been in # universities all his life was teaching Rilke. *Rilke!* Oh, it was too much to # bear. You don't teach Rilke, I wanted to say, you kill Rilke! You turn him to # dust and then you go off to conferences where dozens of other # academic-morticians gather with the express intention of killing Rilke and # turning him to dust. Then, as part of the cover-up, the conference papers are # published, the dust is embalmed and before you know it literature is a vast # graveyard of dust, a dustyard of graves. I was beside myself with # indignation. I wanted to maim and harm this polite, well-meaning academic # who, for all I knew, was a brilliant teacher who had turned on generations of # students to the _Duino Elegies_. Still, I thought to myself the following # morning when I had calmed down, the general point stands: how can you know # anything about literature if all you've done is read books?" # ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 07:55:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: NYTimes article on recorded poetry archives Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I didn't see anything on the list about this yesterday, so figured I'd pass it along: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/16/books/16ARTS.html May 16, 2002 Rescue Efforts Lift Poets' Voices From Fraying Tapes By STEPHEN KINZER AN FRANCISCO - The melodic voice of Marianne Moore echoed from a reel-to-reel tape recorder at the American Poetry Archives here on a recent morning. She was reading her poems to an enthusiastic audience in 1957, and the tape offered delights quite different from those that come from reading a printed page. Before reciting a poem called "Light Is Speech" Moore explained that it was inspired by a legend about a bandit and a bag of gold. She thanked her audience for applause that was "very gratifying, consoling," and then told about an argument she had with Richard Wilbur over the use of hyphens in poetry. Several times she interrupted her reading to try out different words or phrases, explaining at one point, "I'm rewriting this as I read it." In the poem Moore asserted: Impartial sunlight, moonlight Starlight, lighthouse light, Are language. As the tape wound on, the archives manager, Jiri Veskrna, hovered nearby, watching a computer screen. He was turning the Moore reading into a digital recording, since the tape on which it was originally recorded was starting to disintegrate. This process is being repeated at poetry centers around the United States. Three of the largest - in San Francisco, New York and Boulder, Colo. - have recordings of many of the greatest 20th-century poets. Often these tapes were made in casual settings where the poets felt free to muse, explain and joke as well as read. But the recordings, many of them decades old, are in poor condition. "Some of them already have to be cut and spliced because they are very fragile or even have breaks in them," Mr. Veskrna said. "Age isn't the only problem. A lot of the tape stock was less than ideal to start with. Companies were experimenting with chemical formulas used to make magnetic tape, and some of those experiments were less than successful in terms of longevity. If these recordings aren't transferred to other formats soon, we could lose quite a lot of them forever." The American Poetry Archives has been sponsoring readings since 1954. Partly because of its location in San Francisco, which has for years been a hotbed of interest in poetry, it has attracted many of the best-known American poets. Those whose readings are now being transferred to digital format include Theodore Roethke, William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, Delmore Schwartz, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Maya Angelou, John Ashbery and Adrienne Rich. A decade ago archivists here began to notice that their collection was deteriorating. Filmy crusts appeared on some tapes. Others became so brittle they could barely be unwound. The archive is part of the creative writing program at San Francisco State University, and the university responded to its appeal for help. In 1995 it provided a new, climate-controlled storage room to replace the old one, which had a boiler room on one side and a chemical-intensive photo darkroom on the other. Machines to play the old tapes are hard to come by, but the archive has managed to buy some from second-hand dealers and scavenge others from companies that no longer had any use for them. "We have tapes that we literally have to scrape to get the corrosion off, or bake and then dry so they can be played," said Steve Dickison, executive director of the American Poetry Archives. "Getting this room to preserve our tapes was very important. It prevented what could have been a huge crisis, and it allows us to preserve a resource that's immensely valuable to teachers and poets. Hopefully the other places that are facing this problem will have as much luck as we've had." Another institution seeking ways to combat the relentless decay of magnetic tape is Naropa University in Boulder. It has 7,000 hours of cassette tapes, many of them dating back 20 years or more. The tapes have a normal life span of 10 years. About two-thirds of the 103 poets whose work is included in the Norton Anthology of Postmodern American Poetry are on tape at Naropa. So are many writers from other countries. They not only read poetry, but also gave lectures, led discussions and even composed on tape. Among them are Gregory Corso, Anne Waldman and Ed Sanders, sometimes playing to musical accompaniment by the likes of Philip Glass, Cecil Taylor and Don Cherry. Naropa is raising money and applying for grants to pay for converting these tapes to digital recordings. It now has no archivist and no full list of what the tapes contain. "Listening to these tapes is a fantastic experience because oral performance is such a vital part of the ongoing literary tradition," said Clara Marie Burns, a librarian at Naropa. "What's on the printed page is what most people get, but this is so much richer." She continued: "We have the tapes in a temperature-controlled room, but it's probably not controlled enough, and the tapes will deteriorate anyway, no matter where they're stored. I'm doing what I can, like making tape copies of some of the most important material. But that harms the original and in any case is not a real solution." Another trove of poetry tapes is stored in a Manhattan basement. They are owned by the Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church, in the East Village, which has been sponsoring public readings since the early 1970's. The hundreds of poets represented include Andrei Voznesensky and poet-musicians like Jim Carroll, Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega and Lou Reed. "About a quarter of our tapes need repair or restoration," said Ed Friedman, artistic directory of the Poetry Project. "It's pretty urgent. We don't have the resources to do what's necessary to save them, and we've begun looking for a university or public library that would accept the whole archive and rescue it." Transferring these audio tapes to digital format will make the recordings more widely available to the public. The archive in San Francisco has already begun offering audio cassettes, and the one in Boulder says it will issue a greatest-hits CD later this year to use as a fund-raiser. Demand for these recordings is remarkably strong. The San Francisco archive, for example, is printing 10,000 copies of a catalog, listing what it has available for purchase, but will send out only about 500 at a time, to avoid being swamped by orders. "The 1950's and 60's began a real democratization of poetry, and that led us to everything from poetry slams to rap music," said Steven Taylor, director of the audio preservation and access project at the Naropa archive. "There's a massive audience for the spoken word, including in the MTV generation. We don't have any doubt that there's a big market for what we have. All we need to do is put it into a format that can reach people." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 08:08:40 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: <001601c1fd61$c0bd6fe0$aa0d0e44@vaio> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i came late on this thread as i said, so i'm supposing someone else already mentioned Native Son, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and the many accounts of the Sacco and Vanzetti and Scottsboro Boys trials? At 1:14 AM -0400 5/17/02, Duration Press wrote: >Stills of which were used regularly by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha in much of her >work (as a side note)... > >Artaud also played Marat in a (what I thought) was a rather boorish movie >about Napoleon... > > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Mark DuCharme" >To: >Sent: Thursday, May 16, 2002 11:55 PM >Subject: Re: trials > > >> You are thinking of a silent film called _The Passion of Joan of Arc_ >> directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. (Sorry if I'm misspelling the director's >> name, I'm too lazy at this second to look it up). It's a deserving >classic, >> and to anyone who hasn't seen it who has any interest in film I would say >> it's required viewing. Godard has his protagonist attend a screening of >> this film in _Vivre Sa Vie_. By the way, the twenty-something actor who >> plays the sympathetic monk is somebody named Antonin Artaud, if anybody on >> this list has heard of him. (Naw, probably not)-- >> >> Mark DuCharme >> >> (p.s.: & yes, Maria, I think the actress's name _is_ Maria Falconetti, >> although she reminds me a bit of the young Ingrid Bergman). >> >> >> >> >> >> >From: Maria Damon >> >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >> >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >> >Subject: Re: trials >> >Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:40:36 -0500 >> > >> >maria falconetti? >> > >> >At 4:55 PM -0230 5/16/02, K.Angelo Hehir wrote: >> >>any of the many accounts of the trial of joan of arc. there are some >> >>really great french film treatments of the trial too. There is one (i >> >>can't remember who directed it) where Joan was played by a renowned >beauty >> >>and it is said that when her head was shaved on camera, the crew wept. >> >> >> >>i'll look into this as now that i'm thinking of it, it was a great film. >> >> >> >>cheers, >> >>kevin >> >> >> >>-- >> > >> > >> >-- >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> 'poetry because things say' >> >> -Bernadette Mayer >> >> >> >> >> >> http://www.pavementsaw.org/cosmopolitan.htm >> >> >> >> http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/subpress/soc.htm >> >> >> _________________________________________________________________ >> Join the world's largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. >> http://www.hotmail.com >> >> >> ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 08:06:38 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable yes i meant the actress, not hte director. carl dreyer is danish , i point out w/ pride, one of the very few famous danes of the 20th c.--or any time. there's an amazing shot of maria falconetti in theresa cha's dictee. shorn and weeeping. female national martyrdom is a big theme in the book, for those unfamiliar. At 9:55 PM -0600 5/16/02, Mark DuCharme wrote: >You are thinking of a silent film called _The Passion of Joan of Arc_ >directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer. (Sorry if I'm misspelling the director's >name, I'm too lazy at this second to look it up). It's a deserving classic= , >and to anyone who hasn't seen it who has any interest in film I would say >it's required viewing. Godard has his protagonist attend a screening of >this film in _Vivre Sa Vie_. By the way, the twenty-something actor who >plays the sympathetic monk is somebody named Antonin Artaud, if anybody on >this list has heard of him. (Naw, probably not)-- > >Mark DuCharme > >(p.s.: & yes, Maria, I think the actress's name _is_ Maria Falconetti, >although she reminds me a bit of the young Ingrid Bergman). > > > > > >>From: Maria Damon >>Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >>Subject: Re: trials >>Date: Thu, 16 May 2002 15:40:36 -0500 >> >>maria falconetti? >> >>At 4:55 PM -0230 5/16/02, K.Angelo Hehir wrote: >>>any of the many accounts of the trial of joan of arc. there are some >>>really great french film treatments of the trial too. There is one (i >>>can't remember who directed it) where Joan was played by a renowned beaut= y >>>and it is said that when her head was shaved on camera, the crew wept. >>> >>>i'll look into this as now that i'm thinking of it, it was a great film. >>> >>>cheers, >>>kevin >>> >>>-- >> >> >>-- > > > > > > > >'poetry because things say' > > =F3Bernadette Mayer > > > > > >http://www.pavementsaw.org/cosmopolitan.htm > > > >http://www.angelfire.com/poetry/subpress/soc.htm > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Join the world=EDs largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. >http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 10:09:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Devin Johnston's _Telepathy_ & other first books In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > Telepathy is published by Paper Bark Press, in Sydney. > > Has anyone else read it? I have read most of it, Andrew. I never read poetry books sequentially, so I never know quite when I've made the rounds, but Telepathy has spent a couple of months on my desk. To my envy, Devin makes it look easy. It doesn't appear he's trying to impress anybody, yet the poems are crystalline, compact, elegant. Also they're readable--they don't overwhelm. There are no long, drudgerous poems in the set. Devin has a wonderful economy of expression, getting a lot out of each turn, each word. The poems are fine & deliberate, like ouija board readings. Let's talk about the author photo, however. The man looks as serious as Morrissey. (Has anyone noticed that "ouija" is a combination of two european ways of saying "yes"? How positive! How romantic.) -Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 06:27:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: non sequitur on artaud In-Reply-To: <001601c1fd61$c0bd6fe0$aa0d0e44@vaio> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Anais Nin writes fabulously about her friendship and affair with Artaud in the second of her "unsuppressed" diaries called INCEST-- --- Duration Press wrote: > Artaud also played Marat in a (what I thought) was a > rather boorish movie > about Napoleon... > ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 14:22:39 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: Lawrence Upton Subject: SVPNEWS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Apologies for cross posting SUB VOICIVE POETRY PROGRAMME Reminder, amendment and a note re the mailing list REMINDER The next SVP is being organised in association with Contemporary Poetics Research Centre Tuesday 21 May 2002 6 p.m. from USA: Clayton Eshleman Part 1 6.00-7.20: Artaud the Momo: A reading of Eshleman's translations of Antonin Artaud, with slides and recording. Part 2 7.40 _ 9.00: Engaging Artaud, & Entering the Palaeolithic Continuum: Readings of Eshleman's own writing. PLEASE NOTE THE TIME PLEASE NOTE THE VENUE VENUE: Birkbeck College, Malet Street A rare opportunity to see a major figure. Don't miss it * AMENDMENT To enable you to enjoy the coming holiday without thinking, the reading by Helen MacDonald and Patricia Farrell will now take place on 18th June 2002 NO READING on 4th June 2002 * MAILING LIST / WEB SITE Apologies for the continuing problem with the website. It is hoped it will up be to date again by the end of the weekend This message is being sent to a number of discussion lists. Not all messages are sent todiscussion lists. To be sure tostay up to date, youshould join the mailing list Membership of the automated emailing list is open to anyone - to join, send a blank message to: sv-p-subscribe@topica.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 10:12:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Louis Riel Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >There is a play about the trial of Louis Riel. -- George Bowering _The Trial of Louis Riel_ by John Coulter. According to this Louis Riel site: http://infoweb.magi.com/~shuttle/riel-index.html it "still plays nightly in August at the Shumiatcher Theatre at the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, 3475 Albert Street in Regina." The great cartoonist Chester Brown is in the middle of a long comic book biography of Riel, which is being serially published by Drawn & Quarterly. He hasn't yet gotten to the trial, but I'm assuming it'll be covered in the last book or two of the series -- maybe in another year or two? You can take a peek at what Brown's doing here: http://www.drawnandquarterly.com/cgi-bin/dq.cgi?head=artists&menu=brown&content=brown-sneak _________________________________________________________________ Join the world’s largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 10:19:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Tonight: TELLING IT SLANT panel discussion Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Publication party for TELLING IT SLANT: AVANT GARDE POETICS IN THE 1990s, edited by Mark Wallace and Steven Marks Tonight, Friday, May 17 from 7-9 p.m. The Dactyl Foundation 64 Grand Street, btwn West Broadway and Wooster, NYC The likely panelists include: Charles Borkhuis Sherry Brennan Lee Ann Brown Jeff Derksen Jefferson Hansen William R. Howe Andrew Levy Eileen Myles Leonard Schwartz Juliana Spahr Brian Kim Stefans Gary Sullivan Elizabeth Willis Wine will be available during the discussion, and the Dactyl Foundation will be suggesting a small donation at the door. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 08:54:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kari edwards Subject: Re: trials In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I just wanted to thank every one for their many suggestins of trial fictions, or fictional suggested trials or trial fictions. kari edwards -- Check out: For Immediate Release-8 at http://poetz.com/ > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 03:00:26 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: Rolling with the Hunches MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This is probably a waste of time, but I feel the need to clarify some things: 1) The end of "more on the function of author photos," where I start talking about time, was to be a lead up to a response to Geoffrey's Gatza criticism of the Stein I excerpted from her book _Picasso_. Stein's distinction between artists/creators, those interested in making the present, and academics, those interested in divvying up the past, seems pretty clear to me. The (contemporary) artist reinvents what's good and bad, old and new. The academic works according to past models (to put it pedantically, christ what am I doing). I don't think this shows ignorance of the past or a denial of "the cyclical nature of creation and destruction." Anyway, I thought I'd been, you know, like vocal in my criticism of certain notions of innovation and originality in other contexts ('Poetry as Social Practice' being one of them). I guess the eminently nonlinear Stein isn't as sacred around here as I assumed. 2) Regarding Kasey's criticism of my misinterpretive response to Joel K.'s post about politics and form: Kasey is right that I get the exact meaning of the 'it' wrong in that post. I just happen to think Joel is wrong to believe that once a poetic form has been stripped of its politics (e.g., non-narrative no longer automatically = leftist, radical, subversive, if it ever did) what remains is just the politics of community, a poem's 'social implementation', as a guide to determing its political or aesthetic value/meaning. Joel says it's no longer about 'content' -- a word he use to mean form it seems, the actual text of the poem. Whereas for me it's all about content now. The most radical form and technique doesn't *mean* much of anything without a radical content, as Jennifer Moxley will tell you. This goes back to the debate between Watten and Bernstein about non-normativity and cultural materials (in _Bride of the Assembly Line_) which I retranslate into a larger context in my essay _No Surprises_ ,defined by a dialectics of autonomy and mimesis. Feeling the null point creeping up again.... 3) The point I was trying to make in my snotty "you didn't have to tell us you were a Marxist" was not very clear. It was like saying quoting from the Bible (or Jameson) doesn't make you a Christian. I don't know what Joel's politics are, I just know what he says. And while his language (and its tone) seemed Marxist, the spirit of his first post seemed conservative and patronizing. That's what I was responding to. I'd like to call myself a Marxist but it'd be misleading because politically -- when it comes to knowing exactly what to do to change things -- I'm at a loss. If someone has the answers and can tell me what to do to get the ball of revolution rolling, drop me a line. Send me a sign. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 11:18:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: fiction anthologies In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" George, I'm so jealous of Canadian innovative prose writers--I can't even imagine what it would feel like to live in a country where there is a context and value for one's work. I know you're not in heaven, but you folks are so lucky. FYI: I did a search for "And Other Stories" on Amazon, and it came up with 6599 results, ordered by Amazon sales ranking, number one being The Sneetches and Other Stories Dr. Seuss. Dodie At 9:50 PM -0700 5/16/02, George Bowering wrote: > >Dear Dodie. That describes my newest anthology exactly. It is called >And Other Stories, and was published fall 2001 by Talonbooks, at > >talon@pinc.com > >fax 604-444-4119. >-- >George Bowering >On Base Pct. is .395 >Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 16:11:18 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Re;Fiction anthologies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Dodie writes- by Darren Wershler-Henry Darren Wershler-Henry is a writer and critic, and the editor of Coach House Books. He has also worked as a consultant for several publishers and is a founding member of the Commons Group. You can reach Darren at darren@chbooks.com. May 8, 2002 Think reality TV is stressful? Try reality publishing. The game works like this: Jack Stoddart’s General Publishing Company Limited owes its creditors $45.7-million. And starting April 30, it has thirty days and a million bucks to come up with a restructuring plan. General’s creditors include the Bank of Nova Scotia and the Government of Canada ... and around half of the literary small presses in the country. You can bet your last book that the banks and other large creditors — such as Douglas & McIntyre and Key Porter Books — will see their money, or most of it. These creditors can afford to sue, which would make matters much worse for General. But the little presses, always pressed for cash and resources, will be the first ones pushed off the island. • • • Throughout the General debacle, the mainstream press has focussed speculation on what will happen to the large and reasonably lucrative publishing arms of the General empire: * Stoddart Publishing —home to non-fiction superstars like David Suzuki, Maude Barlow and Alberto Manguel; and * Irwin Publishing — an educational publisher that actually made sales of $13.5-million last year. Covering the story this way is pure journalistic pragmatism: most readers recognize the names of the authors involved, and they can appreciate the drama of large companies changing hands. (Will the list remain intact? Will foreign investors be allowed to bid? Stay tuned!) The story that’s falling through the cracks has to do with the fate of General Distribution Services (GDS) and the small presses whose books it warehouses. It’s a less sexy story, because it’s more complex. It involves more players, less money per press and fewer famous authors. What’s more, the damage caused by a GDS collapse will be systemic, long-term and not immediately noticeable. GDS is a distributor: it acts as a conduit between publishers and booksellers — warehousing titles and shipping them out to stores, and then writing cheques to publishers as booksellers' payments come in. That’s the theory, anyway. Over the last eighteen months, the practice at GDS has been quite different. Many publishers didn’t receive full payment for most of the 2001 year. That made it difficult (impossible in some cases) to print books for the 2002 season. Tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars are still owed to many presses. Anna Porter, publisher of Key Porter Books, told the National Post, “I think the last time Jack Stoddart paid me, Jesus was in short pants.” To make matters worse, many publishers can’t even retrieve their own books from General’s warehouse to sell them somewhere else. At Coach House, we’ve been phoning General for three weeks. When someone deigns to answer the phone at all, they say they’re too busy to pick our books now, and we might get them “next week” — but the clock is ticking. If our books are still in the warehouse when General’s creditors come calling for the last time, we may never see our inventory or the money we’re owed for books that have already sold. • • • Why does it matter if a few small poetry and literary fiction publishers go under? Because the small presses are the heart, the soul and the guts of Canadian literary culture. Presses like Coach House, Talonbooks, Oberon, Mercury, Broken Jaw, Turnstone, TSAR, Brick and Arsenal Pulp invest the most time and energy in author development. We’re the farm teams: we find promising new authors, edit their work and otherwise help them develop their writing styles. And we get that work to market for the first time — usually in better-quality editions than mass-market paperbacks, to boot. In other words, the editors of the small press are responsible for the stunning variety and high calibre of Canadian writing today. The small presses can’t afford big advances, so we inevitably lose our authors to larger publishers. No hard feelings: many small-press editors are also authors who’d do the same if they had the chance. Moreover, sales of our backlist titles usually rise when one of our authors moves on to a larger press, so there’s a certain trickle-down benefit. Most readers don’t ever see the effort that we’ve put into author development. They only reap the benefits when they buy one of the first mass-market titles that an author produces. In Saturday’s Globe and Mail, Sandra Martin and Rebecca Caldwell presented a list of “New Canadian Writers: 10 To Watch ” — along with the assertion that, after the collapse of General Publishing, “the business of writing and publishing [in Canada] will go on as before.” I wish I could be that confident. It must be easier to make the contention when focusing on writers published by large houses. Only one writer on their list is currently being published by a small press. But a little forensic work tells a predictable story. Most of the authors on the Globe list had their first few books published by Canadian small presses, and most had stories in small-press anthologies and local literary magazines. Without those first chances and valuable slivers of exposure, it’s doubtful that these writers — and the majority of our literary superstars, for that matter — would be the successes they are today. In the end, if we ignore the plight of the Canadian grassroots presses, we’ll get the national literature we deserve: bland corporate monoculture from coast to coast. Darren Wershler-Henry is a writer and critic, and the editor of Coach House Books. He has also worked as a consultant for several publishers and is a founding member of the Commons Group. You can reach Darren at darren@chbooks.com. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 14:14:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christine Palma Subject: Calif. Arts Council - 57% Budget Cut In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" If you are in Calif. and are concerned or will be affected by this, you may want to write or e-mail in to your legislator. :-) Christine FWD - From: 24th Street Theatre Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 09:55:02 -0700 Subject: [LACN] CAC Budget Cuts Dear 24th Street Theatre Friends, We need you to write your legislators on behalf of all state arts organizations! Due to massive budget cuts, the state's Arts budget is being slashed by 57%. This means the grant 24th Street already secured to pay for next year's classes for inner-city students from Norwood School will be cancelled. But more importantly than 24th Street's losses, it means a devastating loss for millions of citizens statewide who may no longer reap the benefits of our much needed California Arts Council! We've had the honor to work with the CAC for many years and I can tell you that it is an agency that really champions artists in a way that noone else does. The gutting of the CAC's staff and prgramming would be a tragic loss for all Californians! Please take a minute to write your legislators today requesting that some of the funding be restored. We've provided a link so that you can easily find your legislators' email addresses. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html The Arts Council asks you to request three things in your letter: Critical for the CAC is that: 1) there be no preferential treatment and that the $2 million for the Simon Wiesenthal Center be placed into our budget to save programs and staff; 2) the CAC be allowed to determine how it spends its money; 3) an additional restoration of funding be placed back into the CAC budget as other agencies are not receiving a proportional cut in funding. Thanks for taking a minute to make your voice heard! Jay McAdams Executive Director 24th Street Theatre, Los Angeles ---------- From Rob Lautz, California Arts Council Subject: CAC Budget Crisis Dear Friends..... As you may have heard, on Tuesday the Governor announced his May Revise of the budget for fiscal year 2002-03. He is proposing a reduction to the California Arts Council budget in the amount of $16.3 million. This is a cut of 57%. If this stands, staff and programs will be cut. The Governor's plan calls for the elimination of the Artists in Residence Program, Traditional Folk Arts Program, Artists Fellowship Program, Touring and Presenting Program, State Local Partnership Program, and the Infrastructure Initiative (includes California Indian Basketweavers Association, Pilipino Arts Network, California Asian American Pacific Islander Arts Network, Latino Arts Network, etc). Only two programs would be left, Organizational Support (OSP) funded at $5 million and Arts in Education funded at $6 million. The Multi-Cultural Arts Development (MCAD) programs are in the same funding category as OSP which means that MCAD programs will be reduced dramatically, but not be totally eliminated. The Governor's plan keeps $2 million for the Tools for Tolerance Program at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. This $2 million is not part of our program budget and does not go through a panel process. This one is receiving preferential treatment. If you have an opinion about these budget cuts and the impact it will have on the arts in California you may wish to contact your legislator. You can find out who your legislator is at www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html Critical for the CAC is that: 1) there be no preferential treatment and that the $2 million for the Simon Wiesenthal Center be placed into our budget to save programs and staff; 2) the CAC be allowed to determine how it spends its money; 3) an additional restoration of funding be placed back into the CAC budget as other agencies are not receiving a proportional cut in funding. Thank you for your concern. Hopefully you will assist in educating your representatives regarding the impact these cuts will have in their districts. For more information watch for Barry's Directors Weekly report. You can also go to the website for California Arts Advocates: www.calartsadvocates.org Sincerely, Rob Lautz Manager, Artists in Residence Program --End FWD -- ____________________________________ Christine Palma "Echo in the Sense" - Poetry, Prose, Performance - Cultural and Public Affairs Programming KXLU Los Angeles - 88.9 FM Saturday Evenings from 8 to 9 PM E-mail: Christine@DROMO.com Tel: (714) 979-3414 "Take a step into the sublime. . ." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 15:08:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "M. Mara-Ann" Subject: WOOD5 :: fissure trajectory: a family of curves & surfaces :: Travis Ortiz & Jay Schwartz MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Announcing the re-release of "WOOD: dialogues among poetry and the = visual arts" featuring the long awaited and highly anticipated issue number five: "fissure trajectory: a family of curves & surfaces" by Travis Ortiz & = Jay Schwartz http://www.medusa.org/wood/index.html enjoy!!! -- mara :) _____________________________ M. Mara-Ann (a.k.a. Mara) mara@medusa.org ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 15:49:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: Re: fiction anthologies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dodie, see also -----Original Message----- From: George Bowering To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Thursday, May 16, 2002 9:57 PM Subject: Re: fiction anthologies Dodie, see also Likely Stories' edited by Bowering and one other, published in 1993 bymhmm, was it Coacnnouse? Yours, David >>I'm looking for a fiction anthology that one could use for teaching >>that would have some innovative or lively writing in it--not the same >>people one sees over and over in fiction anthologies. The main >>criticism I've read about the Norton Postmodern fiction anthology was >>it relied too heavily on excerpts, a valid criticism, I think. An >>ideal one would have a bit of conventional story and a bit of >>postmodern whatever. Does such a hybrid exist? Or perhaps I'm >>looking for two anthologies, a good conventional one and a more >>out-there one? I think I'm looking mostly for modern/contemporary >>work. >> >>Thanks. >> >>Dodie > >Dear Dodie. That describes my newest anthology exactly. It is called >And Other Stories, and was published fall 2001 by Talonbooks, at > >talon@pinc.com > >fax 604-444-4119. >-- >George Bowering >On Base Pct. is .395 >Fax 604-266-9000 > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 16:53:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: REMINDER POG, Chax, et al present: Ron Silliman, Lisa Jarnot: reading Saturday evening May 18, workshops Sunday afternoon May 19 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit REMINDER POETRY READING & WORKSHOPS by LISA JARNOT & RON SILLIMAN Reading Time: Saturday, May 18, 7pm Location: MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) 191 E. Toole Ave., Tucson NW Corner of Toole and 6th Ave. in downtown Tucson Suggested Donation: $5 admission / $3 students Workshop Times: Sunday, May 19, 1:00–2:25 pm (Lisa Jarnot), 2:35–4:00 pm (Ron Silliman) Location: MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) Participation fee: $10 for one workshop or $15 for both workshops. Presented by POG, CHAX PRESS, MOCA, and TUCSON WRITERS’ PROJECT. Supported by funding from Tucson Pima Arts Council and Arizona Commission on the Arts. Please call Chax Press at 620-1626 for information. LISA JARNOT’s books include Some Other Kind of Mission and Ring of Fire. She is currently a faculty member at Naropa University’s Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics. Author of Xing, Demo to Ink, and many more books, RON SILLIMAN merges the acrobatics of language poetry with a personal voice that brings his words close to everyday experience. The Alphabet, a 1200-page work, “seeks to include as much of the world as possible, especially those aspects that are least likely to be seen, heard, or recognized.” This is a test. The hammer of birds (rabbits) secure in the deficit garden, fog along the coast. Water hammer, rock board — recurrence as key in phlegmatic analysis (fellaheen hurdling custard pie into the face of Bette Midler). Friends are perpetually “going to get it together,” jobwise: the coast is altered one quarter inch. Just like that. Ron Silliman from Demo to Ink I am bludgeoned by this most exotic ocean, currently, I am in the post office with the prison cells and tides, I am with the fires in the eucalyptus fog, I am clearing and the colors are all changing, I am changing colors in the lift of fog, I am almost to Japan, I am circles and the squirrels revolve, I am missing plastic pets, I am predictions of the sounds of tides and this. Lisa Jarnot from Ring of Fire for more on Ron Silliman and Lisa Jarnot go to http://www.gopog.org/upcoming.html#Silliman These events take place at MOCA during MOCA’s exhibition of paintings and sculpture by Harmony Hammond, titled Dialogues & Meditations. The basement gallery of MOCA is showing paintings and installations by Gwyneth Scally. This is the last POG public presentation of the 2001-2002 season. mailto:tenney@dakotacom.net mailto:nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/tn POG: mailto:pog@gopog.org http://www.gopog.org ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 20:31:33 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Link YOur Poetry/Web Art to Fakelangpo! Comments: To: Webartery List MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Become famous! (or infamous) Have your collection of poetry linked to fakelanpo! Below you will find a justification and explanation of fakelangpo which should assure you that it is no shame to be associated with this genre. Nor is it any kind of slur on the "real" language poets. In fact I'd love it if one of them dared to have work linked to the fakelnagpo site. Most of the real LPs wrote fakelangpo without knowing it, like the guy who was talking in prose for forty years without knowing it... To have your poetry or web art collection linked to on Fakelangpo (it will be a button box on the side of the screen, like my poetry), you need to tell me the URL of the work, plus a title for the collection and a caption for the box the button will appear in. In either the title or the caption you probably want to include your name. I will design a graphical button that uses thematic imagery from the title or one of the poems. You can also have individual works of web art and single poems linked to the site. I linked a hypertext poem of mine called Sin and Subway. I am hoping that this site will have many people's work on it, especially poetry from the POETICS list people. I'd like a central place to be able to read it since I hear them talk about poetry all the time but don't see them produce it. The premise of Fakelangpo is that work should be fun, even exciting to read. The "naive reader" comes up often in the discussion of Fakelangpo, but this naive reader is not an ignorant reader; he or she is familiar with contemporary poetry and knows how to appreciate it; he or she naive only in that he or she has no special insight into why you specifically wrote that poem. The naive reader has only the poem. This is not an anti-theory stance. Fakelangpo poems may have theory behind them and indeed many do. But the theory is implicit in the text of the poem and could be deduced by an astute critic by reading the poem (along with the author's other poems and poems which bear a resemblance to the poem). But the main criterion for Fakelangpo is that it be fun to read. Not possible to wade through if you really have to because you are the author's friend or you are writing a paper on it. Actually fun. Fun of course takes many forms. It does not mean sweetness and light. It can mean shocking, confusing, upsetting, amusing, repulsive, touching, sentimental (but not too much), thoughtful and so on so long as the evoked emotion/cognition is desirable to the reader, or to some readers. Obviously, good poetry is unlikely to be pleasing to every reader-- if its artistry involves shocking the reader some readers won't like this and others won't be shocked, but the readers who get the effect will like the poem. Quite obviously from the above, Fakelangpo poems are also poems that readers can hate. One of the problems with some of the lesser poems in the avant garde/language poetry-influenced genre, is that they pack so little punch that one can hardly DISlike them even though there is nothing to like. They are just blah. Fakelangpo poems evoke an actual opinion on the part of the reader. Finally, Fakelangpo in its strictest sense refers to Language Poetry which is fun to read, but the Fakelangpo site is open to poetries of all genres. It is hoped that it will form an online repository of the poetries of the members of the poetry discussion groups. It is always nice to be able to actually read someone's work and compare it to the strong and apparently wrong-headed opinions they may be espousing; sometimes looking at the person's poems gives them added respect and shows they are a real poet and not just someone with opinions. To repeat, to have your poetry or web art collection linked to on Fakelangpo (it will be a button box on the side of the screen, like my poetry), you need to tell me the URL of the work, plus a title for the collection and a caption for the box the button will appear in. In eaither the title or the caption you probably want to include your name. Collections of poetry by virtual bad poets (if they are funny enough) are also welcome. In this case, just give me the fake poet's fake name and indicate its fakitude although I should be able to tell from the poetry... In either case, I will design a graphical button that uses thematic imagery from the title or one of the poems, but if it's fake I will go overboard. Millie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 19:28:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Who is Sil-Vara? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii It's interesting to me (or ironic) that, in the heightening rhetoric against criticism --- that is, against poetics? --- the warnings against criticism's evils are taking on metaphoric form as: (1) death ("You turn him to dust and then you go off to sparsely attended conferences where dozens of other academic-morticians gather") which, needless to say, seems some type of mirror image confirmation of Theory-Death somewhere, regardless of whether in no longer hiding under the rug it's now, like crimes of passion, justifiable incitement to riot; and (2) waste ("be very careful not to waste your waste. That is the key thing: not to waste your waste. Too much time gets spent re-inventing the wheel, or feeling sh--ty"), which, as if by intuited by sixth sense, is the second leg of Paul Mann's Theory-Death exposition in ~Masocriticism~: waste. About dust [ http://www.niaid.nih.gov/factsheets/dustfree.htm ] and Rilke first, though,--- doesn't Rilke seem to be a particularly inauspicious or telltale choice for a poet to cite against the Dead Kennedies of criticism? inasmuch as he, almost (like Rimbaud or Valery) more famous for ~not~ having written than for having written, after all, more than anyone else, is the author of --- get it? --- The Duino *Elegies,* and the poetic mausoleum on the death of the nineteen year old Ruth Ouckama Knoop that the ~Sonnets to Orpheus~ are ("Friend of death, for in easy transformation / it grew through death a hundred times"). That is, even if the teacher of German literature had subjected Rilke to his Midas Touch of a dusty death, who more the beautiful mortician than Rilke? [On Rilke's military duty, in lieu of active service, of ~drawing ruled lines on paper~: "Industriously he drew vertical and horizontal lines for hours on end. Sometimes the spaces between the lines were only two millimeters wide, but he worked with perfect accuracy and a genuine humility . . . the severe geometrical network of pencil lines . . . almost made a work of out out of it" ---The Australian writer "Sil-Vara," quoted in Stephen Garmey's 1972 Harper Colophon introduction, p. 19] But, waste, too: After repetition as (theory-)death, Mann turns to waste, and Georges Bataille's doctrines about waste. In brief, in Bataille, economies do not function on scarcity, as we generally believe in a "free market"/capitalist system, and even the niggardly surplus that economics does allow is insufficient to reveal anything at the level of ~drive,~ or principle; he evangelizs instead toward: yes, waste. Waste, as one of Bataille's main platforms (the others being: sacrifice, heterology, and transgression), is cited as the very expression or eruptive consummation of theory-death, in that the loss and attrition of meaning decline in tandem with the degradation into profligate, generous waste. The potlatch of the avant-garde. (Mann, not insignificantly for the hypo-critical camp [hy.po- or hyp- ~pref.~ . . . Less than normal; deficient" --- American Heritage, 1997], in passing speaks of academic criticism as ~restricted economy,~ the very opposite of heterology and euphoric waste, since its forces of containment and regularization forestall transgression.) For the time being, I'll let these quotes (below) serve as further explanation of waste as a signal of the presence of theory-death. What I am suggesting is that it is not necessary or healthy for anti-criticism to explode into destructive mutilation fantasy ("I wanted to maim"), since their vengence is a case of mistaken identity. The mortician has not ~killed~ the cadaver you find him near. It simply died, and keeps on dying. Geoff Dyer (sic) was mistaking the mourner for the murderer. Indeed, maybe criticism, in attempting to reveal that the avant-garde's relatively recent death still leaves it half-warm, to locate some posthumous growth of ideology's good yeast upon it (!!), enrages by thereby calling attention to what denial had screened out. (I wouldn't have noticed if you handed covered him with a sheet, damn you.) It's not a bad thing to get all Type A about, though. We don't have to stop writing poetry because of it. Hardly, . . . even if sometimes the spaces between the lines were only two millimeters wide. It doesn't stop poetry from multiplying, or the fine collectibles convention from going on. The avant-garde as Sequel. We can still wear berets. Theory-death, is like death at Graceland: every day there are still Elvis sitings ("Last year, I met a group from a Church of Elvis in Sweden. They claim that when they pray to him, he listens and understands." --- http://www.student.virginia.edu/~decweb/issue/1998/09/10/word/elvis.html ) Quotes on WASTE from ~Masocriticism~: 'One's failings in respect to Shakespeare or Hegel or Bataille are therefore not merely intellectual errors, rectifiable through closer reading: failure becomes, in a sense, the very mode of our reading: our perpetual failure to cross the line that separates the reading from the work, no matter how far we advance in its direction, is at least as fundamental to us as any insight into the work that we might have. . . . 'a principle of absolute expenditure as value, a "general economy" based on surplus, waste, loss, sacrifice, ejaculation, excretion, and death. . . . or the glorious waste . . . ', the potlatch, 'a breach of every restricted economy. . . . an exemplary expenditure, in excess of any possible compensation: a gift-combat in which one warrior tries to defeat another by squandering his riches, by giving away so many exorbitant gifts that the other can never repay them, even if it means he loses everything in the process. . . . At bottom, at the economic base of the basest materialism, all value is waste value,' Van Gogh's ear as the ultimate avant-garde gift, 'the extravagant, sacrificial, excretory movement of the solar anus of art. . . . the abyss of Language Itself opening onto a curriculum vitae and grounded in an ideal footnote, a footnote bearing one's own name. . . . Whatever transgression occurs in writing on Bataille does so only through the STUPID recuperation' (my emphasis) 'and hence evacuation of the whole rhetoric and dream of transgression, only insofar as the false profundity of philosophy or theory evacuates the false profundities it apes. . . . [T]he interest of Bataillean discourse lies chiefly in the compulsive and symptomatic way it plays with its feces. The spectacle of critics making fools of themselves does not reveal the sovereign truth of death: it is only masocritical humiliation, a pathological attempt to disavow the specter of death. . . . Nothing is gained by this communication except profit-taking from lies. . . . to witness the slow freezing to death of every satellite text. . . . Theory comes finally to reflect this circular loss or lack as the interminable and productive self-consumption, the endless theory-death, of theory itself. In this movement, theory manages to transgress every project of transgression by forever failing to launch it.' http://www.deadelvis.com/sighting/seedead.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 19:39:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: errata MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0205&L=poetics&D=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=61903 , for "as if by intuited by sixth sense", read: "as if intuited by sixth sense"; for "evangelizs", read: "evangelizes"; for "hy.po-" read ""hy.po-"; for "(I wouldn't have noticed if you handed covered him with a sheet, damn you.)", read "(I wouldn't have noticed if you hadn't covered him with a sheet, damn you.)"; for "The Australian writer 'Sil-Vara'" read: "The Austrian writer 'Sil-Vara'" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 20:21:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cheryl doppler burket Subject: ca arts update MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 16:16:17 -0700 From: "California Arts Council" | Block Address | Add to Address Book Subject: CAC Special Budget Update 5/17/02 To: jasperwriter@yahoo.com Reply-to: listserve4@earthlink.net California Arts Council Special Update | www.cac.ca.gov | edit your info | unsubscribe | May 17, 2002 BUDGET UPDATE: "All day long I hear my telephone ring, friends calling giving their advice… .." GOOD NEWS! Senate Budget Subcommittee #4 today voted to: 1. Reinstate $7 million into the Arts Council's budget for allocation among all the programs. The Committee wanted emphasis in addressing the needs of multicultural, underserved, inner-city children, and rural communities. 2. Reduction of the Simon Wiesenthal Center grant by $1 million. 3. Reinstatement of one-half ($562,500) of the reduction to our operations budget. The net effect of these changes, if approved by the Assembly Budget Subcommittee #4 - Chairman George Nakano (with members Lou Papan, Rod Wright, Rod Pacheco, and John Campbell) - meeting beginning Monday of next week, then approved by the Legislature, and then, if the changes are acceptable to the Governor, would be that we would have funding to keep every program in existence (although at a reduced level) and maintain an adequate staffing level at the agency. This is only a first step in this process. It is NOT a final decision. It can be changed by the subcommittee, the full budget committee, the Assembly, the Legislature, and the Governor. Were these changes not approved, as it stands, the proposed budget would provide funding in only three line items - Arts in Education; Organizational Support; and for the Simon Wiesenthal Center. No other agency programs - touring & presenting, state locals, special initiatives, artists in residence, folk arts, public art, et al. would have any funding. This would be mandated to the agency. We would have no discretion in allocating the funds in any other way. But, if the Senate Subcommittee #4 recommendations are what is finally adopted and approved, then we will be in a much better position to protect the past 25-year investment the state has made in the arts, and the gains we have made thanks to the Governor in the past two years. Given the size of the deficit, that would be a very good outcome; rather than a 57% decrease in the CAC budget, it would now reflect a 31% decrease. For those of you who have asked for contact information for legislators, here is a link to get addresses, phone numbers, etc. www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html If you decide to you want to weigh in, provide a factual picture of the effect on your community. Please write or call your local legislators and the Governor. In your own words, simply and concisely, state your position. And specifically include the impact of the cuts on your organization, your community. Don't make it a missive. Keep it short and simple. Get people in your community to do the same thing. For more information, go to the California Arts Advocates website (www.calartsadvocates.org). Again, whatever the final outcome, somehow, some way, we will get through this - and our community will grow even stronger because of it. With luck, this bitter pill will be short-lived. Making the case now will help to position the arts for priority recovery. And maybe there is enough wiggle room to lessen the impact of the hurt. Whatever you do, Don't Quit. Barry barry@caartscouncil.com Visit the CAC Website - __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 22:44:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: REMINDER: POG: super-potluck <> rent party: this Saturday evening, after Silliman/Jarnot reading (html version) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit reminder . . . YOU'RE INVITED! please attend the POG SUPER-POTLUCK (aka RENT PARTY) when: this Saturday evening, after the Silliman / Jarnot reading (that is, around 9 pm till whenever) where: 2345 E. 8th St. (that's one block west of Tucson Blvd., on the northwest corner of 8th and Norton.) why: to have a great time; to celebrate another wonderful year of POG programming; and . . . TO PAY THE BILLS and balance the budget!!! (we need to raise $300-400 to balance this year's budget) please come, and bring: something to eat and/or something to drink $10 or $20 to put in the fundraising/rent-party pot (or: even $5 will help) some POG people have promised to make fancy things to eat, so the food should be great, the space is lovely w indoor & outdoor dining and hanging around, and the company, naturally, will be terrific. hope to see you there! (if you can't come, please email us with your fundraising pledge: mailto:pog@gopog.org) * further questions about the potluck, or about the preceding reading by Ron Silliman & Lisa Jarnot, or their Sunday afternoon workshops--or for more about POG: mailto:pog@gopog.org *********************** mailto:tenney@dakotacom.net mailto:nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/tn POG: mailto:pog@gopog.org http://www.gopog.org ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 21:57:59 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: fiction anthologies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Loook eg on abebooks.com and narrow the search by including a publisher or that you want a hard back and with a dust wrapper. Regards, Richard Taylor (Aspect Books) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dodie Bellamy" To: Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 6:18 AM Subject: Re: fiction anthologies > George, > > I'm so jealous of Canadian innovative prose writers--I can't even > imagine what it would feel like to live in a country where there is a > context and value for one's work. I know you're not in heaven, but > you folks are so lucky. > > FYI: I did a search for "And Other Stories" on Amazon, and it came > up with 6599 results, ordered by Amazon sales ranking, number one > being The Sneetches and Other Stories Dr. Seuss. > > Dodie > > > At 9:50 PM -0700 5/16/02, George Bowering wrote: > > > >Dear Dodie. That describes my newest anthology exactly. It is called > >And Other Stories, and was published fall 2001 by Talonbooks, at > > > >talon@pinc.com > > > >fax 604-444-4119. > >-- > >George Bowering > >On Base Pct. is .395 > >Fax 604-266-9000 > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 22:14:58 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: trials MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In your "wooing days": didst thou dart about in the sprightly light chanting: "Aha I come I come: I woo I woooo! and: wooooooh!" And who, oh who, did you woo? | ? Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Dodie Bellamy" To: Sent: Friday, May 17, 2002 4:00 PM Subject: Re: trials > There's The Bellamy Trial, a novel from 1927 by Frances Noyes Hart, > which Kevin Killian gave to me way back in our wooing days (mid-80s). > "The first novel-length courtroom drama, based on the Hall-Mills > murder case and focussing on two journalists rather than lawyers." ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 11:03:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Kane Subject: contact info for Michael Stephens MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII If anyone knows how I might reach MS, can you please email me at dkane@panix.com. thanks in advance, --daniel ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 16:05:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: errata In-Reply-To: <20020518023959.49981.qmail@web11702.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Jeffrey, And for "since their vengence is a case of mistaken identity", perhaps: "since its vengeance is a case of mistaken identity"? And for "It's not a bad thing to get all Type A about", perhaps: "It's not a something to get all Type A about"? And for "Elvis sitings", perhaps: "Elvis sightings"? If you're going to errata, might as well errata! As to the ~content~ of your post, I'll mention only that I have no trouble with the initial conflation of poetics and criticism. I recognize instead a division of ~practice~ and criticism. Hence I agree not only with Hess's reading of Stein, and with Andrew's inspiring posts, but with the following statement from the SUNY-Buffalo poetics program's "information sheet"-- "'Every doing,' the anonymous spirited pamphleteer declares, using the word 'poetics' against itself, 'carries the potential of something new, emergent, something not already predicated by poetics. Practice overtakes theory, practice changes theory. And not just writing practice, but performance practice, the practice of sound.'" http://www.jacketmagazine.com/01/schultzbuffalo.html Heaven forbid "practice" should constantly look over its shoulder to see how "theory" takes shape behind it. Such an urge toward critical self-identification results in bizarre mirages such as "Fakelangpo." Or "ellipticism." Bizarre! Or Jessica's suggestion that sight supercedes sound. Here's to a higher road for our art. Learn to distinguish poetics from practice. Cordially, Aaron S. Belz http://meaningless.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 16:41:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Fwd: music, poetry, bon voyage, food/drinks and YOU'RE INVITED! Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v481) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: Taylor Brady Date: Sat May 18, 2002 04:36:02 PM US/Pacific To: cartograffiti@mindspring.com Subject: Fwd: music, poetry, bon voyage, food/drinks and YOU'RE INVITED! -- for anyone in or around San Francisco who might be interested... Apologies for any cross-posting. All best, Taylor Brady Begin forwarded message: From: Leon LEE Bao-Yen Date: Thu May 02, 2002 01:30:14 AM US/Pacific To: Leon Lee Subject: music, poetry, bon voyage, food/drinks and YOU'RE INVITED! hi friends =97 MARK YOUR CALENDARS! i want to invite you (you baby, you!) to a little event on the evening=20= of WEDNESDAY, MAY 22nd. =A0it is an arts gathering, bon voyage party and=20= get-together all rolled into one, with music, dance, poetry, singing,=20 some food & drinks, special guests and possibly surprise guests too.=20 =A0the arts gathering is for some of us to share our work and to show = each=20 other what we=92ve been up to; the bon voyage party is for Loren Kiyoshi=20= Dempster =97 my friend and musical comrade who=92s shipping off to NYC; = and=20 the get-together is for our friends who we=92ll ply with some grub and=20= drinks =97 an expression of our gratitude for your support. so here=92s what=92s going on... music by our trio (our first and last performance)... Karen Stackpole =96 big gongs, small instruments, and misc percussion Loren Kiyoshi Dempster =97 cello Leon Lee =97 flute with our special guests: GENNY LIM -- voice Lenora Lee =97 dance with readings by writers Summi Kaipa and Taylor Brady surprise guests may come by to sit-in and i think maybe we=92ll all=20 collaborate on one last piece together depending... the place... The Nichiren Buddhist Church 2016 Pine St. (near Laguna or Webster) San Francisco, CA 94115 the date again... Wednesday, May 22nd =97 8pm we=92re asking for a donation of $5 =97 we=92d like to pay our special = guests=20 an honorarium and cover some costs of wine/food. =A0THANKS! we=92ll provide some refreshments and food but feel free to contribute=20= with whatever but not too much alcohol since we=92re at church. see you soon and be well, leon ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 May 2002 19:56:07 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bruce Holsapple Subject: Re: NYTimes article on recorded poetry archives MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks Herb Levy for sharing that article from the NY Times on the re-recordings, that & some of your other contributions. Bruce Holsapple ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 00:30:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: m.mu.uc.ck.k MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - m.mu.uc.ck.k w.we.e g.go.o i.in.n r.ra.ai.in.n-t.th.hi.ic.ck.ke.et.t, w.we.e'r.re.e d.du.uc.ck.ki.in.ng.g u.un.nd.de.er.r b.br.ra.an.nc.ch.h, w.we.e'r.re.e p.pu.us.sh.hi.in.ng.g a.as.si.id.de.e p.pl.la.an.nt.t, w.we.e'r.re.e w.we.et.t, s.st.tu.um.mb.bl.le.e, p.pi.is.ss.s i.in.nt.to.o p.pl.la.an.nt.t-r.ro.oo.ot.t, f.fa.al.ll.l o.on.n p.po.oi.is.so.on.nw.wo.oo.od.d, w.we.e'r.re.e d.de.ee.er.r-f.fl.ly.y v.vi.ic.ct.ti.im.m, v.vi.io.ol.le.en.nt.t r.ra.as.sh.h, w.we.e'r.re.e r.ro.ol.ll.li.in.ng.g, i.i p.pi.is.ss.s i.in.n m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, s.sh.he.e s.sh.hi.it.t i.in.n m.me.e, s.so.o m.mu.uc.ch.h v.vo.om.mi.it.t, w.we.e'r.re.e d.da.ar.rk.k-s.st.tu.uc.ck.k o.on.n n.ni.ig.gh.ht.tt.ti.im.me.e t.th.hi.is.st.tl.le.e, w.we.e'r.re.e e.ey.ye.e i.in.n m.mu.uc.ck.k, w.we.e'r.re.e r.re.ea.ac.ch.h m.ma.ar.rl.l, w.we.e'r.re.e p.pu.un.nc.ch.h m.ma.ar.rl.l, w.we.e'r.re.e c.cl.la.aw.w p.pe.er.ri.ip.ph.hy.yt.to.on.n, w.we.e'r.re.e n.ni.ik.ku.uk.ko.o-j.ju.ul.lu.u, e.ey.ye.es.s s.sw.we.el.ll.l s.sh.hu.ut.t, l.la.ac.ce.er.ra.at.te.e-m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, w.we.e'r.re.e d.di.is.sm.ma.al.l t.th.hi.ic.ck.ke.et.t, b.br.ra.an.nc.ch.h-a.an.nu.us.s, e.ey.ye.e-a.an.nu.us.s, m.mu.uc.co.ou.us.s-e.ey.ye.e, w.we.e'r.re.e c.cr.ra.ac.ck.ke.ed.d-h.ha.an.nd.d, l.li.im.me.e-j.ja.am.mm.me.ed.d e.ea.ar.r, a.an.nu.us.s w.wi.id.de.e, m.mo.ot.th.h-c.cr.ra.aw.wl.l s.sn.na.ak.ke.e-c.cr.ra.aw.wl.l, m.my.y p.po.oi.is.so.on.nw.wo.oo.od.d, m.my.y s.sh.hi.it.tt.ty.y m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, m.my.y s.sn.na.ak.ke.e m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, m.my.y p.pi.is.ss.s m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, m.my.y s.su.um.ma.ac.c m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, m.my.y i.iv.vy.y m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, h.he.er.r w.wi.id.de.e t.th.hi.ic.ck.ke.et.t, m.my.y g.gn.na.ar.rl.le.ed.d c.co.oc.ck.k, m.my.y b.br.ro.ok.ke.en.n c.co.oc.ck.k, o.ou.ur.r b.bl.li.in.nd.d e.ey.ye.es.s, h.he.er.r t.to.or.rn.n h.ho.ol.le.es.s, o.ou.ur.r d.de.ea.af.f e.ea.ar.rs.s, o.ou.ur.r d.de.ea.af.f e.ey.ye.es.s, o.ou.ur.r b.br.ro.ok.ke.en.n c.co.oc.ck.k, o.ou.ur.r t.to.or.rn.n c.cu.un.nt.t, o.ou.ur.r t.to.or.rn.n h.ho.ol.le.es.s, o.ou.ur.r s.su.up.pp.pu.ur.ra.at.ti.io.on.n s.sk.ki.in.n, o.ou.ur.r r.ri.ip.pp.pe.ed.d-o.ou.ut.t f.fl.le.es.sh.h, o.ou.ur.r t.tu.ur.rn.ne.ed.d-o.ou.ut.t s.so.ou.ul.ls.s, o.ou.ur.r m.mu.uc.ck.ke.ed.d-u.up.p l.lo.ov.ve.e --- ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 01:41:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: list, list, list MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable let's not take this too seriously. what would a list look like that = didn't have names attached to the posts, so the output generated from = the list would be attributable to none other than the list itself as a = creative organizing force. this message and others would appear just as = text without any source other than a posting to this list. what would a = text at the end of a month of this type of production resemble? a = string of event listings? events at all? opinions and rebuttles? or = would it be a unique and creative entity, moving and growing with each = post? what purpose. utility isn't always the correct answer, it is an = answer. though the fields are blue and under the moon. zestfully some = clean in the irish spring. as if we should take this all too seriously. = what of it. the ambiguous animal moves along the labial electronic = line and finds you hunting the keyboard in an effort to be here, now = here and everywhere. this in and of itself is redundant. let's decide = not to take the keyboard too seriously. then is not is is not is is not = garden. so the machine rolls over on itself, and to what do we owe this = pleasure. the pasture. over and m-e-t-h-o-d man. here i am, here i = am. the method man. wet grass and smoke from the wet logs on the fire = into the eyes, stinging, to see where i mean. there, just there, and = over. what is a purpose. to list. to like. to publicize. we are = list(en)ing. we are. ing. even electronic. after a conversation. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 17:47:30 +0200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rencontres internationales Paris/Berlin Subject: IMPORTANT ::: CALL FOR ENTRIES ::: APPEL A PROPOSITION ::: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit dear all, this call for entries inclued sound poetry / poesie sonore / Laut Poesie. ||||| festival #6.7 ||||| RENCONTRES INTERNATIONALES PARIS/BERLIN 2002 ||||| 2002's PARIS/BERLIN INTERNATIONAL MEETINGS ||||| http://art-action.org ||||| cinema_video_installation_performance_audio_multimedia CALL FOR ENTRIES: until the 30th of June, 2001 APPEL A PROPOSITION: jusqu'au 30 juin 2002 in Paris: autumn, 2002 / in Berlin: spring, 2003 à Paris: automne 2002 / à Berlin: printemps 2003 TEXTE EN FRANÇAIS PLUS BAS DANS LE MESSAGE ______________ ENGLISH TEXT _____________ Please foward this information A complete festival’s presentation is available on our web site: http://art-action.org Please feel free to contact us for all question. The International Paris/Berlin festival is a transdisciplinary action, favoring contemporary creation in different fields: film, video, visual arts and multimedia, to create a meeting space for exchanges between various forms of artistic language and their audiences. By bringing together the diverse mediums of creation and their respective audiences and allowing them to communicate, the Rencontres becomes an open event in which the specificities and links between languages and gazes can emerge within evolving contemporary production. THE CALL FOR ENTRIES is open for film cycles, 35mm, 16mm, super 8, and video, without any restriction of length or type ; for installation, performance, multimedia and sound creation cycles. Proposals are free, without any limitation of country. All individual or organism can send one or several proposals to the Meetings' programming. The next festival will take place in Paris in Autumn 2002, and in Berlin in Spring 2003. This non-commercial event is organized by roARatorio, a non-profit organization within artistic and cultural aim. CINEMA AND VIDEO CYCLES ** Fiction / short, medium, full length films - 35 mm, 16 mm, super 8 and video ** Experimental film - 35 mm, 16 mm, super 8 ** Video art / Experimental video - All video formats ** Documentaries - All formats ** Animation movie - All formats OTHER CYCLES ** Intervention - performance art, happening ** Installation - sound, video and multimedia ** Interactive writing - Network happening, online work, net art, forum, CD-rom ** Sound creation - Lecture, sound poetry, experimental music, concert projection Cinema and video proposals are received on VHS videotape. All proposals are received by mail, enclosing the ENTRY FORM filled, dated and signed, UNTIL THE 30th OF JUNE, 2002. The entry form, and all infomations about the festival, are available on our web site http://art-action.org (follow links to "call for entries" - the website is posted in English, French, German ann Spanish), or by email info@art-action.org (on request, entry form sent in the message body or in attachment), or by fax 33 1 42 33 36 44. TO DOWNLOAD THE ENTRY FORM (in english, german and french) pdf format (310Ko): http://www.art-action.org/entry_form_paris_berlin_2002.pdf If pdf format downloading is too slow, the entry form is available in html format (quick load 19Ko) : Entry form in english: http://www.art-action.org/site/en/ripb/fiche.htm Entry form in german: http://www.art-action.org/site/de/ripb/fiche.htm Entry form in spanish: http://www.art-action.org/site/es/ripb/fiche.htm Entry form in french: http://www.art-action.org/site/fr/ripb/fiche.htm Please feel free to contact us for all question. Best regards, For the festival's staff Nathalie Hénon ___ roARaTorio ___ 51 rue Montorgueil ___ 75002 Paris - France ___ tel: 33 1 40 26 66 34 ___ fax: 33 1 42 33 36 44 ___ email: info@art-action.org ___ web: http://art-action.org In 2001, supported by : DRAC Ile-de-France - French Ministry for Culture and Communication, the Regional Council of Ile-de-France, the City of Paris, the french-german cultural channel Arte, the Goethe Institute in Paris, The National high school for arts in Paris, the National high school for design, the Canadian Embassy in Germany, the Neederland Embassy in France and Germany, the Belgium Ministry of the Flemish community, the Japanese Fondation, Citroen, Philips France, the Ratp. The Meetings receive the patronage of the German Embassy and of the Unesco. ________________________________________ __________ TEXTE EN FRANÇAIS ___________ __________ TEXTE EN FRANÇAIS ___________ APPEL A PROPOSITION: jusqu'au 30 juin 2002 à Paris: automne 2002 / à Berlin: printemps 2003 ________________________________________ Merci de faire suivre cette information Une présentation complète des Rencontres est disponible sur notre site http://art-action.org N'hésitez pas à nous contacter par email pour toute question. Les Rencontres internationales Paris/Berlin proposent une action transdisciplinaire en cinéma, vidéo, arts plastiques et multimédia, visant à ouvrir un espace où se croisent et se rencontrent différents langages, différents publics. Notre volonté de décloisonner différents milieux de création, différents espaces, ainsi que leurs publics, et de les faire se rencontrer, accompagne notre action pour un événement ouvert, à même de faire émerger spécificités et correspondances des langages, des regards, au sein d'une création contemporaine en mouvement. L'APPEL A PROPOSITION est ouvert pour les cycles cinéma 35 mm, 16 mm, super 8, et vidéo, sans restriction de genre et de durée ; et en arts plastiques pour les installations, performances, créations multimédias et créations sonores. Les propositions sont gratuites, sans limitation de provenance géographique. Tout individu ou organisme peut effectuer une ou plusieurs propositions à la programmation des Rencontres. Les prochaines Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin auront lieu à Paris à l'automne 2002, et à Berlin au printemps 2003. Cet événement non commercial et sans compétition est mis en place par roARaTorio, association à but culturel. CYCLES FILMS ET VIDEOS ** Fiction / Court, moyen et long métrage - Tout support film et vidéo ** Cinéma expérimental - 35 mm, 16 mm et super 8 ** Art vidéo / Vidéo expérimentale - Tout support vidéo ** Documentaire - Tout support film et vidéo ** Film d'animation - Tout support film et vidéo AUTRE CYCLES ** Intervention - Performance, projection-performance, intervention ** Installation - Installation sonore, installation vidéo, installation multimédia ** Ecriture interactive, multimédia - Action en réseau, œuvre en ligne, net art, forum, CD-rom ** Création sonore - Lecture, poésie sonore, musique expérimentale, projection-concert Les propositions cinéma et vidéo sont reçues sur cassette VHS. Toutes les propositions sont reçues, par courrier, accompagnées d'une FICHE DE PROPOSITION remplie, JUSQU’AU 30 JUIN 2002. La fiche de proposition, ainsi que toutes les informations relatives aux Rencontres internationales Paris/Berlin sont disponibles sur notre site web http://art-action.org (suivre le lien vers "appel à proposition" – le site est accessible en français, anglais, allemand, espagnol), ou par email info@art-action.org (à la demande, fiche incluse dans le message ou en document attaché), ou par fax au 33 1 42 33 36 44. TELECHARGER LA FICHE DE PROPOSITION trilingue (français, anglais, allemand) au format pdf (310Ko): http://www.art-action.org/entry_form_paris_berlin_2002.pdf Si ce format est trop lent à ouvrir ou télécharger, la fiche de proposition est également disponible au format html (chargement rapide 19Ko) : Fiche en français : http://www.art-action.org/site/fr/ripb/fiche.htm Fiche en anglais: http://www.art-action.org/site/en/ripb/fiche.htm Fiche en allemand: http://www.art-action.org/site/de/ripb/fiche.htm Fiche en espagnol: http://www.art-action.org/site/es/ripb/fiche.htm N'hésitez pas à nous contacter par email pour toute question. Cordialement. Pour l'équipe des Rencontres Nathalie Hénon ___ roARaTorio ___ 51 rue Montorgueil ___ 75002 Paris - France ___ tel: 33 1 40 26 66 34 ___ fax: 33 1 42 33 36 44 ___ email: info@art-action.org ___ web: http://art-action.org En 2000-2001 avec le soutien de la DRAC Ile-de-France - Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, le Conseil Régional d'Ile-de-France, la Ville de Paris, le Goethe Institut-Paris, la chaîne culturelle franco-allemande Arte, l'Ensci-Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Création Industrielle, Ensba-Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, l'Ambassade du Canada en Allemagne, l'Ambassade des Pays-Bas en France et en Allemagne, le Ministère de la Culture de la Communauté Flamande de Belgique, la Fondation du Japon, Citroën, Philips France, la Ratp. Les Rencontres reçoivent le parrainage de l'Ambassade d'Allemagne en France et de l'Unesco. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 09:31:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Vidaver Subject: Note on Yesterday's Paul Robeson Memorial Concert at US/Canada border Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Anyone on this list attend yesterday's concert? Strangely apolitical for a commemoration of a communist. Here are some links for anyone who might be interested. The FBI files are worth scrutinizing as we return to a period of microsurveillance in the class war. Also: a counter-surveillance report from the concert. Looks like the Canadians are finally outdoing the Americans in the sphere of dissent-management. Aaron Vidaver, Vancouver. Robeson Memorial Concert http://www.herewestand.org FBI files (2680 pages) http://foia.fbi.gov/robeson.htm Other Links http://www.princeton.lib.nj.us/robeson/links.html >Return-Path: >X-Sender: sera/slothly.edu@mail.magma.net >Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 15:02:47 -0700 >To: vid@runcible.org >From: Violetta Sera >Subject: Paul Robeson Memorial Concert - Counter-Surveillance Report - > Peace Arch Park 18 May 2002 - Summary Version > >Paul Robeson Memorial Concert - Counter-Surveillance Report >Peace Arch Park 18 May 2002 >Summary Version > >On the US side of the border a half-dozen officers from British Columbia >Parks and Canada Customs mingled with about 15 counterparts from the >Washington State Parks service, two Blaine motorcycle cops, the Whatcom >County sheriff, and a malnourished Washington State Patrol deputy. They >shared anecdotes about the RSA with each other throughout the day, >informally, but the rangers from the State Parks were the only agents >overtly collecting video surveillance material of the concert-goers. On the >Canada side, on the north edge of the park, 30-50 officers from the Royal >Canadian Mounted Police defended the ditch separating Canada from the United >States of America. These men were dressed in a variety of attire, with >higher ranking officials in formal wear, including ties, others in >Securiguard-yellow bike outfits, and the front-line bullyboys in >bullet-proof flak-vests. Several bicycle blockades were erected at >checkpoints across the northern perimeter of the field, with police motor >vehicles. There were no incidents witnessed around the ditch areas. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 14:34:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Rain Taxi online MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 12:19:50 -0700 From: Rain Taxi Reply-To: editor@raintaxi.com To: Rain Taxi Subject: upgrade and afterlife a Dear Readers, We are delighted to report that the upgraded Rain Taxi website is up and running--please check in and take a look around. While we are still installing some pages and polishing others, the new site features online ordering capabilities, and will soon have a working search engine and more information than ever. Also just posted: our new ONLINE EDITION, featuring reviews of Alice Notley, Bruce Andrews, Susan Daitch, Kenneth Goldsmith, Elizabeth Robinson, and many, many others, plus an interview with John Bennett and an essay on the Black Mountain roots of the Poetry Project. All for you at www.raintaxi.com! Those of you who have lists or literary colleagues, if you can spread the word we are grateful. -- Rain Taxi Review of Books PO Box 3840 Minneapolis, MN 55403 http://www.raintaxi.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 15:53:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Fwd: Ulla Dydo: SOUNDZIMPOSSIBLE... at WHITE BOX MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----- Forwarded message from WHITE BOX ----- From: WHITE BOX Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 15:49:53 -0400 WHITE BOX presents...TEXTUAL OPERATIONS … a series of reading organized by A.S. Bessa WEDNESDAY 22 MAY - 8PM ____________________________________________________ Ulla Dydo SOUNDZIMPOSSIBLE Introduced by Bill Rice SOUNDZIMPOSSIBLE. No, this title s not a misprint. Everyone knows of Cecil Taylor as a great jazz pianist but few know that he also performs his own poetry. Ulla Dydo will speak about it as wordmusic. Like his music, it avoids notation and print. It is improvised and asks to be heard in his performance. Dydo comes from years of reading Gertrude Stein, following the movement of her language without looking for story, event, representation, meaning. She has edited A Stein Reader, and her book Stein: The Language That Rises-1923-1934 will be published by Northwestern University Press in the Fall 2002. It seemed the most natural step to move from Stein to Cecil Taylor. (soundzimpossible.com/ceciltaylor is his brand-new web site.) Free and open to the public. _____________________________________________________ WHITE BOX 525 West 26th Street NYC 10001 tel 212.714.2347 / www.whiteboxny.org ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 13:44:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Fw: upgrade and afterlife MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rain Taxi" To: "Rain Taxi" Sent: Sunday, May 19, 2002 12:17 PM Subject: upgrade and afterlife c > Dear Readers, > > We are delighted to report that the upgraded Rain Taxi website is up and > running--please check in and take a look around. While we are still > installing some pages and polishing others, the new site features online > ordering capabilities, and will soon have a working search engine and > more information than ever. Also just posted: our new ONLINE EDITION, > featuring reviews of Alice Notley, Bruce Andrews, Susan Daitch, Kenneth > Goldsmith, Elizabeth Robinson, and many, many others, plus an interview > with John Bennett and an essay on the Black Mountain roots of the Poetry > Project. All for you at www.raintaxi.com! > > Those of you who have lists or literary colleagues, if you can spread > the word we are grateful. > > -- > Rain Taxi Review of Books > PO Box 3840 > Minneapolis, MN 55403 > http://www.raintaxi.com > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 20:15:50 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: errata In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I want to see people's poetic PRACTICE which is why I invite them to link to my fakelangpo site. One brave soul, Jason Christis has accepted the offer and I am just waiting for a title for the colllection/making the button. The more the merrier. Then we can discusss people's actual poems on the site, which isn't a metter of poetics but of poetry, a field I like better (poetics is fine too; I subscribed to this list after all, knowing what the word meant. But actually my favorite thing here is the announcements of readings... Although the best "obscure" one with famous poets that I went oso was on the NYC Poetry Calendar http://www.poetz.com/calendar/, note here. It was James Tate and John Ashbery at an actors' studieo in a bad neighborhood, and there were lots of students there but few of the ususal suspects who didn't know about it. Millie -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Aaron Belz Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 5:06 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: errata Jeffrey, And for "since their vengence is a case of mistaken identity", perhaps: "since its vengeance is a case of mistaken identity"? And for "It's not a bad thing to get all Type A about", perhaps: "It's not a something to get all Type A about"? And for "Elvis sitings", perhaps: "Elvis sightings"? If you're going to errata, might as well errata! As to the ~content~ of your post, I'll mention only that I have no trouble with the initial conflation of poetics and criticism. I recognize instead a division of ~practice~ and criticism. Hence I agree not only with Hess's reading of Stein, and with Andrew's inspiring posts, but with the following statement from the SUNY-Buffalo poetics program's "information sheet"-- "'Every doing,' the anonymous spirited pamphleteer declares, using the word 'poetics' against itself, 'carries the potential of something new, emergent, something not already predicated by poetics. Practice overtakes theory, practice changes theory. And not just writing practice, but performance practice, the practice of sound.'" http://www.jacketmagazine.com/01/schultzbuffalo.html Heaven forbid "practice" should constantly look over its shoulder to see how "theory" takes shape behind it. Such an urge toward critical self-identification results in bizarre mirages such as "Fakelangpo." Or "ellipticism." Bizarre! Or Jessica's suggestion that sight supercedes sound. Here's to a higher road for our art. Learn to distinguish poetics from practice. Cordially, Aaron S. Belz http://meaningless.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 19:45:06 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: "My Fare, Lady" (notes from Louis' Cab) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > e. But then, my reading of your identification with > Watten's essay via the question of whether he is recommending that you buy a > car, has itself become more nuanced. What do you think Watten is doing with the car analogy? Is he enacting a critique of consumerism? And, if so, how? And how does it tally with his claim that "Buying a new Ford is analagous to participation in public life for Stein; it got her out onto the streets of the 'capital' as a consequence of her fame (and not just as a bourgeois author; Mayakovsky is another modernist who bought a new car)." Looking at Watten's language (if not necessarily Language's Watten), I wonder: if buying the new Ford was a CONSEQUENCE of her fame, wouldn't the analogy between "buying a car" and "participation in public life" break down, insofar as it implies "her fame" was, previously, if not exactly pedestrian, at least non-car-ownership... Q: "is the car necessary for participation for public life for Watten?" Does he offer an unequivocal answer? If not, is the equivocation itself a "car?" > > > > e. In what you actually write, you waver between two conflicting > identifications, *neither of which you (can) make*. I only waver in these identifications in that particular essay to the extent that I read Watten in his particular essay wavering between them.... If you (or someone else) can convince me otherwise, I am willing to grant the possibility that I have misread Watten's identification with the consumerist mode, that maybe I have projected it, but I think you (or someone else) would need to address the above questions to convince me... > Either Watten is > recommending (identification #1) that you think of poetry as assembly-line > work in what has (in BW's & in others’ historical readings) become a factory > of language (hence, from your expressivist-romanticist viewpoint, you are > perplexingly being asked to "identify with reification" -- (why is identifying with an assembly-line model automatically an identification with "reification" for you? Sure, Watten claims it's standard (by implication TOO STANDARD) to say literature enacts a critique of reification > a tough social > command to imagine, let alone fulfill!), or (identification #2), that you > buy a car (today!), (or, again, not simply the car? But what is analogous to the car (for Stein) in today's "new technologies"?) (see 219) > > The second identification (buy car now!) is the one > you would like to favor Really? Am I arguing that we should buy more things? (see 224 for instance) > , which, as the point of identification for you as a > poet, in the historical analogy of Watten's essay, actually invokes a later > time, post WWII at least, when cars were more affordable. I.e. your point of > identification is further along in the history of consumerism, as that > history is spelled out in terms of the Ford assembly line model of > production. This is reflected in your poetics influences (a bit of Beat, a > bit of NYSchool), which I'll allude to again at g, below). You lose me with this analogy--are cars more affordable today than when, and for whom? etc.? Is have they just become more mandatory? Also, in terms of poetic influences, this analogy, to be elaborated, would maybe have to consider such pre-AUTO car (if not pre-capitalism) writers such as Shelley and Shakespeare > > : Are you a revolutionary prole who sees the assembly line > and language for "what it really is" ("semiotic rubble" [BW on Andrews] etc) > or are you an aspirant to middle class consumerism and desire? Such is the > dilemma that Watten's essay should (and almost does) pose for "you." But since Watten himself seemed to show some identification with a consumerist mode in much of his piece (essay?) before he gets to the assembly-line "account" with producer-identifications, I'm not sure that *he* "stages" the "which side are you on dilemma" as you do here... I also question the linkage of desire to "middle class consumerism" or any consumerism for that matter. Sure, the "discourse of desire" (as oppossed to need) often can be seen to be linked to it, but.... well, that's another topic... > > g. Imagining poetry / language as a collective assembly-line is something > that you can't do (as I've already said) given your romanticist-expressivist > poetics bent, while as a poorly-funded sessional / student at the time of > writing your review, you can't buy a car, either! Since for you there are no > other options than these two modes of identification with Watten's > historical analogy to the car factory, the unstated conclusion to your > review is that Watten's essay is of no use to you as a poet-consumer. A collective is not necessarily an assembly line... I was interested in how Watten tries to identify with the assembly line worker and how for him such an identification becomes rather mystical (see essay) in its impersonality, and that despite (or perhaps because of) his modernist vocabulary, in some ways what he builds to in this essay seems a kind of romanticist amoral enthusiasm... My question was not so much what USE this could be for me as a POET-COMSUMER, but what use this could be for a poet-producer, especially for one who is interested, in some "envisioned futurity" as Watten, rather vaguely, defines it. I'm very curious about this "e.f". After he makes such an identification with the factory worker, an identification that implies, at least at times, that factory workers do NOT primarily feel alienated, reified, etc. (which is provocative, and may challenge certain liberal pieties I might tend to "harbour"), he then ends on a note of EXHAUSTION--which I took as finally admitting (almost as a punch-line) all the alienation he had largely kept at bay in his "carefully plotted sequence." > > h. More significantly (and this is why I don't think you quite re-enact that > first-attachment moment as I pose it -- and I pose it as a reading inscribed > within the idea of LP), the historical allegory itself seems to be of no > great use to you. Either that, or else you do not fully see / consider it as > I've spelled it out (which, in terms of identification, is a bit different > from Watten). Yes, and I could be clearer about it---but to do so, I think I'd have to respond LESS-DIRECTLY to Watten's essay. My piece was an attempt to work within his particular vocabulary and if indeed there was a degree of suppression in my essay, it's because there's suppression in Watten's essay, insofar as he seems to suppress what you call his restaging of "those initiating conditions of labor which ideally begin the consciousness- raising process toward a grasp of the process of commodification, etc" for much of his essay. His essay ENDS with that point, but where then is his envisioned futurity? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 23:08:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: a-pp-roach MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII . a-pp-roach . thick.entanglement;.one's.body.is.a.mess,.suppurating,.gouged.and.gnawed, crossings.and.isolated.activations,.the.apparent.motion,.texture,.shape... 'what.on.earth?.what's.happening?'.i'm.concerned.with.what.happens.beneath the.surface,.the.coding,.the.treehopper:.slightly.larger:.what.constitutes the.human:.the.explosion.ordinance:.incipient.phenomenology.of.approach. circumventing..what.is.an.approach?.how.does.approach.manifest.itself.to the.subject?.what.is.the.domain.of.the.approach?.what.is.a.domain?.what.is part.of.a.critical.sifting.apparatus..relevance.is.already.a.complex.and noise..as.with.approach,.it.always.a.detour.in.this.regard..the.wonder.is a.washing,.determinate.sublime,.approach.across.the.edge.of.the.theory. diachronic/synchronic.approaches.-.space-time.slices..diffusion.of approach.is.always.already.self-critical,.self-critique;.the.critique.of the.domain..the.phenomenology.of.approach.implies.a.weakness.of.the.case. . approach.of.the.domain..to.the.extent.of.a.phenomenology.of.approach,.the domain.is.asymptotic,.never.fully.approached..the.neighborhood.is faltering.data,.anomaly..the.phenomenology.of.approach.embeds.withdrawal, just.as.withdrawal.implies.approach..every.introjection,.a.projection;.and one.takes.increasing.chances.as.danger.apparently.recedes.by.virtue.of knowledge..how.to.approach.a.snake.or.alligator;.how.to.ward.off.deerflies and.no-see-ums..an.approach.is.always.a.detour.(thus.the.sides,.top.and intention.that.one.approaches,.that.one.makes.the.approach,.that.it.is.is the.escape.or.leakage.of.the.phenomenology.of.approach.into.profession,.my boundaries,.body,.disappear,.absent.themselves,.among.the.thickets)...in some.of.my.photography,.I've.teetered.or.approached.the.position,.say,.of a.woman,.but.it.is.a.fictivity,.an.approach.itself,.tending.towards.the intention.to.investigate,.or.at.least.approach.-.to.testings.of.deeper times. . tilapia.approach,.walking.the.depths.of.the.slough.calling.forth grasshopper.osprey,.hungered,.making.things...under.the.coot,.testings.of deeper.times,.tilapia.approach,.walking.the.depths.of.the.slough. lacewings.mating.-.somehow.to.approach,.partake?.....deeper.lizards sleeping.or.comatose.on.leaves,.imperial.mosquito-fish..refuge.in.leopard frog..refuge.in.apple-snail..refuge.in.crow,.refuge.in.spatterdock, pondapple.night-blooming.blossoms. . thick.entanglement;.one's.body.is.a.mess,.suppurating,.gouged.and.gnawed.- it.really.sits.there,.nothing.happens.to.it.... . _ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 21:16:10 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: 2. What Comes First: The Poetry, or the Poetics? MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT a. Poetics can stifle a poet who then will feel rage towards poetics. This is the gist of "Against Lineage," the last essay in Chris Stroffolino's collection, Spin Cycle (Spuytenduyvel, 2001): "I'd like to at least consider the possibility that the strictures and/or demands that many (if not all?) kinds of poetics makes on its writers can actually stifle to the point where the only 'equalizing' outlet can be a kind of ostensibly non-poetic admission of a frustration and rage" with said poetics. b. Frustration and rage against poetics are not "argued" in "Against Lineage." As one would expect with affective states, they are expressed. But, moreover, they are formally enacted in the essay -- by rapidly juxtaposing disparate poetics scenarios, linked associatively. Each poetics scenario is tossed like a bit of wet clothing in the heated air of a writing on permanent "spin cycle." To keep it all agitated the writer must continually shuffle the various poetics options and not select any particular option over the others, as doing so would mean that the writing machine has stopped. c. "Rage" against poetics is also expressed against poetic lineage and influence. The persona in the poem "Against Boundaries," inserted in the essay, is like a Melmoth the Wanderer romantically rebelling against The Church of Poetics: I WILL BE a romantic and that's why I'm here among those I hate to see my reflection in who I need like a ghost I'm afraid to give up and very well may breathe into being. Why does the poet-persona "need" those whom he hates -- i.e. those contemporary poets representing poetic lineage and influence to him? The simple answer is that he needs them in order to begin to write a poem, since they represent the best of poetry to him. While a poet does not have any choice over the fact that there will be some of his contemporaries who will represent poetic lineage to him, he does have a choice in how to articulate a poetic relationship with them -- for instance, whether to "hate" them, or otherwise. d. Why does the poet-persona in "Against Boundaries" "hate" those whom he needs most? To answer this question takes one into the Romanticist literary devices that the poet uses -- "hate" counterposed to "need," "I," etc. Notice, in the poetry passage above, how a formal decision has been made to express and present poetic lineage and influence as the internal conflict of a subject ("I WILL BE ... among those I hate"). There is an attempt by the poet to fully internalize, as the psyche and libido of a poeticized subjectivity, the variety of social and literary investments that constitute the "need" to write poetry. To perform "internal conflict" about poetic lineage and influence is, then, to rapidly shuffle or "spin" the available options, without settling on any particular one, since each is of equal importance. But moreover, it is to leave undecided -- unanswered -- the question of how to work out a specific relationship to the varied lineage of one's poetic influences. It is not that this question of poetic influence is not posed (obviously it is), nor just that this question is acknowledged but left unanswered (poetic influences are evident throughout the essay and its poem); rather, this question of poetic influence is performed without answering itself. This does provide, however, an answer to the question of why "hate" those whom one "needs." Frustration and rage -- "hate" -- result from there being no way to decide on and articulate a specific relationship to poetic influences based on poetry that would differentiate the poet from his poetic influences, and render the question of lineage one that now applies to *his* poetry rather than solely to the poetry that continues to influence his work. This question of lineage and influence, performed without answering itself, *becomes the poetry itself*. e. What comes first, then -- the poetry, or the poetics? Both must come first simultaneously. Poetry Comes Before Poetics. To present poetic lineage and influence as an internalized conflict of a subject, is to suppress the question of lineage and influence (it is a question of poetics, after all) in the name of writing poetry. Suppressing the question by internalizing it as the conflict of a poeticized subjectivity, permits the poet a space in which to write poetry. It is a Romanticized literary space (Stroffolino's is only one way of negotiating a space for writing poetry, faced with the question of lineage and influence). What this device of internalized conflict establishes, then, is the necessary priority of poetry over poetics -- there can't be poetics without poetry. As the poem "Against Boundaries" states: "One can not be placed in poetry by the will of one's poetics." Poetics, lineage, influence, are even (possibly) for a later time, once poetry has been written -- for one is only "placed" in poetry by, first and foremost, writing poetry. And yet, at the same time: Poetics Comes Before Poetry: One is only "placed" in poetry by writing poetry, true enough, and yet, the place of poetry itself is always already taken, as it must be, since one can only write poetry from the example of previously written poetry. While poetry must come "before" poetics, poetics, if it is not already there at the start, will eventually catch up to the poetry -- as the full-blown idea of Language Poetry has done, over time, with the initiating instances of its practices. However, this originary moment of a poetry untainted by poetics is *exactly what Chris's work contests* -- and what my answer to the chicken-and-egg question of poetry vs. poetics is also taking issue with. It is the classic avant-garde strategy, faced with the question of lineage and influence, to assert a new poetry moment without poetics parallel. But the pure lineation required for such assertions is too easily remappable, as Benjamin Friedlander has shown. Nevertheless, to a poet faced with the question of lineage and influence, the example of previous influential poetry often arrives in hand *simultaneously* with a poetics already seemingly worked out for it. "Seemingly" worked out, because poetics is generally easier to understand than poetry, and precisely because poetics can never completely substitute for poetry. What a poet is confronted with, then, faced with the question of lineage and influence, is an inverted illusion, namely that poetics precedes poetry, that poetry is written from poetics, a illusion that is only dispelled over time by careful reading. And by writing, whether with rage against poetics, or not. There is no other language with which to begin to compose a poem than the language of one's lineage of influences (the poetry, and the poetics). f. Poetics only "stifles" a poet when the question of lineage and influence is internalized and enacted as the conflict of a poeticized subjectivity. But, this act also supplies a "cure" for the stifling. At its best, this conflict may be formally enacted, as in Chris's poetry and poetics. The meta-question of why the question of lineage and influence "needs" to be suppressed (as distinct from other modes of response: imitated, sublimated, parodied, displaced, etc.) is one for all the poets who began to publish in the 1990s out of the idea of Language Poetry (among other ideas). But to answer to why and how certain poets chose to address the question of lineage and influence specifically by suppressing it, would entail fully externalizing the social and literary investments that constitute the "need" to write poetry for these poets. In Chris's particular instances, that need seems to be internalized as the conflicted psyche and libido of a poeticized subject. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 23:09:49 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Cat reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- Subject: Re: Re: Cat reading > People have been talking about photos on books but on my copy of Redactions > (and another book of his) I have one: a young Robert Kelly two: an other > older Robert Kelly and I enjoyed his poems but was overawed by the enormous > output of that worthy bard: any case he looks like a kind and quite jolly -albeit a bearded and sometimes over serious - character, maybe a bit > cantankerous at times, undoubtedly one of those people who can do the cross > word in their head, and he's probaby vastly erudite about everything everyone > else knows nothing about: a genial genius I'd say with a penchant for the > ladies and a reasonably dedicated wine, or posssibly he's a beer drinker: a > presence. A Thoroeac or possibly an emersonian character: a man of desires and irritations abut a man though oftime deep in thought he has his other, more winking days....He enjoys fishing and a stroll in the woods: sometimes he visits > John Ashbery and they discuss art and thoughts and The Question. His voice is deep and he > drinks coffee with the gusto of one who loves art and life and truth: his > pecadiloes are many but he is a fundamentally warm man: not at all aloof, > unlike Ash who (more so than Bob) (and if not aloof is not always to be foound where he is) (and) (as is well known) loves to Duck away to listen to the latest > in musical developments and to write. Write! Of course, that uniqueley human vice...! (Secretly they both share a passion for > bizarre comics and are currently learning a dialect of Mongolian and studying > Mongolian literature and poetry - Raymond Roussell is forever playing (nay > dribbling) about their lips as she/he stares from the castle...). And Bob > resides in a large, slightly decayed but beautifully gardened, and, (dare I say it ?)Englishy, house: but its a large house-like house wherein he is has or is housed........but..... > inside are books everywhere and his desk is cluttered: but never does he > overlook a "piece"...and his relaxing room is full of light and he has a > horse and a beautiful cat and 4 children who are mostly grown up... An > inspired writer but less "instinctual" than Ash.... He has a secret passion > for toy soldiers... > > You see: I see all these things. I who.... > Richard. ---- Original Message ----- > From: "David Baratier" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, May 15, 2002 1:24 PM > Subject: Re: Cat reading > > > > Joel-- > > > > Robert Kelly guzzled a whole pitcher of coffee > > until it dribbled down his chin > > then blew away the audience with > > much of what became _The Loom_ > > > > Be well > > > > David Baratier, Editor > > > > Pavement Saw Press > > PO Box 6291 > > Columbus OH 43206 > > USA > > > > http://pavementsaw.org > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 09:09:56 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: book review opportunities Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" dear friends: a pretty remarkable ugrad here, who is blind and deaf, has a press called the tactile mind. he's bringing out two books and asked me if i wd spread the word about reviews etc. Here is an excerpt from his email note containing the web info about the books and a brief description of one of them: "Perhaps you would like to read SILENCE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD: ON ART & DEAFNESS? Raymond Luczak uses four genres in that book -- a short story, 111 mini-essays, a play, and a self-interview -- to make his points on what makes art "art" and deafness "deaf." ... We have the flyer for the two books on-line at http://www.thetactilemind.com/flyer.pdf -- let me know if you have any problems with reading it in that format. You should also direct your contacts to the main page at www.thetactilemind.com, which will lead to the books' pages, which in turn will lead to excerpts on-line and to the author's web site." I haven't looked at the site myself, but imagine there's contact info for him to send you review copies. if not, let me know and i'll pass on his contact info to you. bests, md ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 01:38:24 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: "This is what you shall do" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I found this lying in a gutter the other day, the print barely visible from compound erosions. It's silly that he commands us to read his poems every season of every year of our lives and has us imagine that his lines could, by some mystical osmosis, prevent arthritis. If only I could get over my fascination with what insults the soul, perhaps I could follow this man's strange path: "This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body." -- Walt Whitman, from _Preface 1855_--_Leaves of Grass_, First Edition ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 09:29:06 -0500 Reply-To: jbhamilt@artsci.wustl.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeff Hamilton Subject: Re: Devin Johnston's _Telepathy_ & other first books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aaron you and another have mentioned Devin Johnston's Telepathy, just out from an Australian publisher (but available, I would think, through Flood Editions or the St. Louis booksellers whose ads are in latest Delmar -- Subterranean or Left Bank Books). I have just read it myself and think it's excellent -- a first book that might have had a difficult time in the American publishing pipeline but here it is and people should know about it, yes. Here is a short poem, but representative if any such thing can be: Stolen Hours after the Clock Tax of 1797 I sold my watch and bought a comb of shell for her--- deadbeat escape- ment gone for shadows, sun and water--- I admire the carefully placed de-familiarizing gestures here ("a comb of shell"; and the Muldoonian pun on "deadbeat escape-|ment" -- this last a word I knew but had to look up to remind myself I knew it; the tight little idiom "gone for"), and note throughout that while others have made of the last two decades' poetry a stylistics of difficulty, Devin's poems are -- as you said -- readerly: the force of our necessary attention kept always IN the language as it has been used and is commonly available. Craft, then -- the trick is not to extend the language through a new code but to develop constituencies from among an available (the syllabics here, e.g.) exchange of ways we've read. The poem above would seem to refine some area of my paltry understanding of an episode from the Colonial period, but is rather a love poem, no? that appropriates the lexicon of said temporal ambience? Olson, Creeley and S. Howe are perhaps present in such gestures, but elsewhere, as has been noted, the mix is quite different, and what one anyway notices is the seriousness of the mix -- the poems themselves seem to be readings, and wittily precise ones at that. a breath of life, anyhow ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 13:39:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: "This is what you shall do" In-Reply-To: <134.e88dcd0.2a19e5d0@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I found this in a poems for the millennium, a gift for graduation. Now I am no longer an academic poet -- only an accountant poet. I will always cherish the knowledge I have gained from reading criticism -- far too many excellent example to list have changed the way I view the possible. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW TO BE A POET By Gary Snyder all you can about animals as persons. the names of trees and flowers and weeds. names of stars, and the movements of the planets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . and the moon. your own six senses, with a watchful and elegant mind. at least one kind of traditional magic: divination, astrology, the book of changes, the tarot; dreams. the illusory demons and illusory shining gods; kiss the ass of the devil and eat shit; fuck his horny barbed cock, fuck the hag, and all the celestial angels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .and maidens perfum'd and golden=97 & then love the human: wives. . .husbands. . .and friends. children's games, comic books, bubble-gum, the weirdness of television and advertising. work, long dry hours of dull work swallowed and accepted and livd with and finally lovd. . . . exhaustion, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . hunger, rest. the wild freedom of the dance, extasy silent solitary illumination, enstasy real danger. . .gambles. . . and the edge of death. form "Regarding Wave" 1967=20 -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of David Hess Sent: Monday, May 20, 2002 1:38 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: "This is what you shall do" I found this lying in a gutter the other day, the print barely visible from compound erosions. It's silly that he commands us to read his poems every season of every year of our lives and has us imagine that his lines could, by some mystical osmosis, prevent arthritis. If only I could get over my fascination with what insults the soul, perhaps I could follow this man's strange path: "This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body." -- Walt Whitman, from _Preface 1855_--_Leaves of Grass_, First Edition ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 12:31:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Vidaver Subject: Roger Farr - "Protest Genres and the Pragmatics of Dissent" - a talk at KSW May 26 at 2pm Comments: To: ksw-collective@sfu.ca Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "Protest Genres and the Pragmatics of Dissent" A Talk by Roger Farr Sunday May 26 at 2pm FREE at the Kootenay School of Writing 201 - 505 Hamilton Street, Vancouver 604-688-6001 "Like all speech-acts, protest and opposition often fall into recognizable genres: the leaflet, the march, the strike, the sit-in, the blockade, etc. As interlocutors in these speech-acts, the authorities rely heavily on anticipation and predictability in order to understand, describe, control, and diffuse our actions. Therefore, we need to anticipate this anticipation; we need to identify the predictable conventions of the protest genres, and re-introduce elements of shock, surprise, and misrecognition. We need to make dissent unreadable." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 13:15:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chase Park Subject: Salon Salon at 21 Grand (Oakland, California) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: SALON SALON at 21 Grand Tuesday May 21, 2002 8 PM Oakland — The Salon Salon Reading and Performance Series will come to 21 Grand Art Gallery on Tuesday May 21st at 8 PM. On the May 21st program: Stephanie Young lives in Alameda, California very near the Ferry. She’s a member of nudistcourse, and is currently writing a series of poems of Daily Meditations. Stephanie Young's poetry has appeared in Mirage #4/Period[ical], Comet, Chasepark, Vert and Shampoo. She has also recently won the New Langton Arts Award for literature. Kristin Miltner and David Horton will be performing their intermedia work "100 Nails for Mayakovsky." Kristin Miltner received her MFA in Electronic Music from Mills College, and has performed as a solo artist, with Simple Sample and more recently with the Brown Bunny Ensemble. She has done sound design for the Shotgun Players and has recently exhibited a sound installation at San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. David Harrison Horton is editor of the poetry journal Chase Park and will be a visiting professor next year at Nanjing University for Aerospace and Aeronautics in China. His collection of poems Pete Hoffman Days is forthcoming from eye-rhyme. His work has recently appeared in 580 Split, Interim, The Oregon Review, Phoebe, and Lost and Found Times. Salon Salon is a text-based series founded as an opportunity for Bay Area artists and writers to present their work to a new and interested audience and to foster the possibility of collaboration among artists working in different media, the Salon Salon Reading and Performance Series seeks to facilitate the dialogue among the arts community while offering the audience unique text-based readings, performances and works. Free and open to the public. 21 Grand is located at 449B 23rd St. Oakland, CA 94612 (between Broadway & Telegraph)in downtown Oakland. For directions please call (510) 444-7263. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 23:26:01 +0300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leevi Lehto Subject: Anselm Hollo in Finnish: A CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable In a few week's time, Anselm Hollo's Corvus (1995) is going to be published in Finnish translation by Kai Nieminen, himself a poet and an established translator. This is, unbelievably, the first time Anselm's American poetry gets published in book form in his place of origin.=20 To commemorate the event, Tuli&Savu [Fire&Smoke], a Finnish poetry magazine, is looking for texts on Anselm's significance for the American poetry, to be published in its August 2002 issue. We will welcome suggestions for new texts / perspectives, but might also consider translating earlier stuff on Anselm/Corvus. Depending on the variety of the material, some of it could also be published on the magazine's coming, multi-lingual web page. We'll need the texts / suggestions by June 20, 2002 at the latest.=20 You are welcome to send your texts, suggestions, questions, or urls to existing material, directly to me to: leevi.lehto@substanssi.fi=20 Leevi Lehto Editor-in-chief, Tuli&Savu Tuli&Savu web site (now only in Finnish): http://tuli-savu.nihil.fi=20 You are also welcome to browse my personal site that has an English interface at: http://www.leevilehto.net/default.asp?a=3D8 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 14:45:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: Chadwick Wins Book Award MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable With great pleasure, I announce that Cydney Chadwick, of Avec Books, has = been awarded the prize for best short story collection for her = book_Flesh & Bone_. This award is given by the Independent Publishers = of America. Her book was chosen from 1,185 titles from 765 presses. I = announce it to this list because, while Chadwick writes prose, many of = her readers are poets, some on this list. It's worth adding that the = title story is both unsentimental and extremely moving. = Congratulations, Cydney. =20 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 17:42:27 +0100 Reply-To: baratier@megsinet.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: Pavement Saw Press Subject: address-- MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can someone backchannel me Li-Young Lee's address thanks-- Be well David Baratier, Editor Pavement Saw Press PO Box 6291 Columbus OH 43206 USA http://pavementsaw.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 17:52:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Skinner Subject: ECOPOETICS 01 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable NEW! ECOPOETICS 01/ Winter, 2001 - Spring, 2002 136 pp. perfect-bound Poetry, essays, fiction, translation, reviews, field notes, interviews, artwork by Rosa Alcala, Bruce Andrews, Joel Bettridge, R=E9gis Bonvicino, Odile Cisneros= , Alicia Cohen, Brenda Coultas, Peter Culley, Catherine Daly, Marcella Durand= , Kristen Gasser, Kenneth Goldsmith, Robert Grenier, Lisa Jarnot, Christopher Johnson, Michael Kelleher, Kevin Killian, Robert Kocik, Peter Larkin, Nick Lawrence, Doug Manson, Tom Morgan, Douglas Oliver, Julie Patton, Isabelle Pelissier, Andrew Schelling, Eleni Sikelianos, Jonathan Skinner, Cecilia Vicu=F1a SINGLE ISSUES: $6 ($10 institutions) SUBSCRIPTIONS: $15/ 3 issues ($30 institutions) Postage included; outside US & Canada, add $3 Please make checks payable to Jonathan Skinner. ECOPOETICS, c/o J. Skinner 106 Huntington Ave., Buffalo, NY 14214-1675 ECOPOETICS 02 due out in the Fall of 2002. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 21:29:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: translation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - translation the next attack will be in the nyc tunnels. i am sure of it. the next attack will be in the nyc subways. this is definite. the next attack will be at the white house in washington d.c. here is how it will happen. a rocket-by-itself launches against the building from a distance of 3km. i am certain of it. the next attack will be in this building. i am positive of the next attack. here is how it will happen. the apartment below me will be rented. high explosives will arrive. the explosives will be detonated. why are reruns of events in slow-motion when they are in fast- motion. here is what this will be. this will be a fast-motion event. a young man approaches me with forty pounds of attack-plastique-dynamite. here is what will happen. my skin will be blown off at 300km/hr. in the tunnels the truck will detonate. the explosion will create high-vacuum at the center of the tube. every wall will crumble. the upper support beam will crack and collapse. water will pour in slowly. cars are molten jammed against one another. temporary dams create high-speed emergent shock- waves. three lights will be on. i will be in a 1989 blue acura. i will be directly behind the truck. my skull will smash against a 1998 chevy tahoe. i will be a tourist at the white house. my legs are blown off at 800km/hr. my jaw is torn off at the root. there will be two lights. my rerun is in fast-motion. my jaw is torn off at the root. the apartment below me explodes violently. my body splits in two in the midst of screaming. there will be one light. my body splits in two at the root. the apartment splits in 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.tuntun.nelnel.s ts t.he he .trutru.ck ck .wilwil.l dl d.etoeto.natnat.e. e. .thethe. ex ex.ploplo.siosio.n wn w.illill. cr cr.eateat.e he h.ighigh.-va-va.cuucuu.m am at .thethe. ce ce.ntente.r or o.f tf t.he he .tubtub.e. e. .eveeve.ry ry .walwal.l wl w.illill. cr cr.umbumb.le.le.. th th.e ue u.ppeppe.r sr s.uppupp.ortort. be beam .wilwil.l cl c.racrac.k ak a.nd nd .colcol.laplap.se.se.. wa wa.terter. wi wi.ll ll .poupou.r ir i.n sn s.lowlow.ly.ly.. ca ca.rs rs .areare. mo mo.ltelte.n jn j.ammammed .agaaga.insins.t ot o.ne ne .anoano.thethe.r. r. .temtem.porpor.aryary. da da.ms ms .crecre.ateate. hi hi.gh-gh-.spespe.ed ed .emeeme.rgerge.nt nt .shosho.ck-ck- .wavwav.es.es.. th th.reeree. li li.ghtght.s ws w.illill. be be. on on.. i. i. wi wi.ll ll .be be .in in .a 1a 1.989989. bl bl.ue ue .acuacu.ra.ra.. i i .wilwil.l bl be .dirdir.ectect.ly ly .behbeh.indind. th th.e te t.rucruc.k. k. .my my .skusku.ll ll .wilwil.l sl s.masmas.h ah a.gaigai.nstnst. a a .199199.8 c8 c.hevhev.y ty t.ahoaho.e. e. .i wi w.illill. be be. a a .toutou.risris.t at a.t tt t.he he .whiwhi.te te .houhou.se.se.. my my. le le.gs gs .areare. bl bl.ownown. of of.f af a.t 8t 8.00k00k.m/hm/h.r. r. .my my .jawjaw. is is. to to.rn rn .offoff. at at. th th.e re r.ootoot.. t. t.herher.e we w.illill. be be. tw tw.o lo l.ighigh.ts.ts.. my my. re re.runrun. is is. in in .fasfas.t-mt-m.otioti.on.on.. my my. ja ja.w iw i.s ts t.ornorn. of of.f af a.t tt t.he he .rooroo.t. t. .thethe. ap ap.artart.menmen.t bt b.eloelo.w mw me .expexp.lodlod.es es .viovio.lenlen.tlytly.. m. m.y by b.odyody. sp sp.litlit.s is i.n tn t.wo wo .in in .thethe. mi mi.dstdst. of of. sc sc.rearea.minmin.g. g. .thethe.re re .wilwil.l bl b.e oe o.ne ne .liglig.ht.ht.. my my. bo bo.dy dy .splspl.itsits. in in. tw tw.o ao a.t tt t.he he .rooroo.t. t. .thethe. ap ap.artart.menmen.t st s.plipli.ts ts .in in .twotwo. at at. th th.e re r.ootoot.. m. m.y sy s.kinkin. is is. ri ri.ppeppe.d od o.ff ff .at at .120120.0km0km./hr/hr.. t. t.herher.e we w.illill. be be. on one .liglig.ht.ht.. my my. bo bo.dy dy .splspl.itsits. in in. tw tw.o ao a.t tt t.he he .rooroo.t. t. .my my .rerrer.un un .is is .in in .fasfas.t-mt-m.otioti.on.on.. my my .jawjaw. is is. to to.rn rn .offoff. at at. th th.e re r.ootoot. _ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 22:53:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nada Gordon Subject: Bill Bisset & Pat Reed 5/25 dbl happiness Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" This Saturday May 25 DOUBLE HAPPINESS 173 Mott Street @ Broome 4:30 pm sharp The Segue Reading Series presents... a beautiful event ... **********************Bill Bissett and Pat Reed ************************************* Bill Bisset loves being. His most recent book is peter among the towring boxes/text bites (Talon Books). He also has a new CD, rainbow mewsik (Red Deer). A mixed media philosophical musical-visual painted in watercolors, Lunaria, is available from Granary Books. Pat Reed is the author of Kismet, Qualm Lore, Sea Asleep, We Want to See Your Tears Falling Down, and Lost Coast. She lives in Oakland, California, where she teaches English to speakers of other languages. Please join us afterward for a post-reading soiree on Adeena's terrace 351 E. 4th St. # @7C (4th St. between C & D] 8:00 pm (Bring supplemental libations) -- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 22:56:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: [extreme] Steven J. Gould, R.I.P. (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 22:39:41 -0400 From: Tom Ritchford Reply-To: extreme@topica.com To: extreme@topica.com Subject: [extreme] Steven J. Gould, R.I.P. dead at 60. obituary here: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/20/obituaries/20CND-GOULD.html?pagewanted=all&position=top Gould on cancer: http://www.cancerguide.org/median_not_msg.html /t -- http://loopNY.com ......................An "open loop": shows every Saturday! http://whatGoes.com/submit .......................... submit to the calendar. ------------------------- ----------------------------- extreme NY calendar: extreme NY radio: unsubscribe: extreme-unsubscribe@topica.com extreme calendar: extremeNY-subscribe@topica.com ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: sondheim@panix.com EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP7Si.bVXjTc Or send an email to: extreme-unsubscribe@topica.com T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 20:16:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Tonight: TELLING IT SLANT panel discussion MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Could anyone who attended this (the TELLING IT SLANT panel discussion) be nice enough to offer an eye witness report on the evening and how the discussion went, for those who weren't there, please? Or, anyone who's reading the book, similarly. [Hopefully, something more telling than "It's wonderful"??] Thanks. ------------------------------------------------------- Publication party for TELLING IT SLANT: AVANT GARDE POETICS IN THE 1990s, edited by Mark Wallace and Steven Marks Tonight, Friday, May 17 from 7-9 p.m. The Dactyl Foundation 64 Grand Street, btwn West Broadway and Wooster, NYC The likely panelists include: Charles Borkhuis Sherry Brennan Lee Ann Brown Jeff Derksen Jefferson Hansen William R. Howe Andrew Levy Eileen Myles Leonard Schwartz Juliana Spahr Brian Kim Stefans Gary Sullivan Elizabeth Willis Wine will be available during the discussion, and the Dactyl Foundation will be suggesting a small donation at the door. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 23:47:48 -0400 Reply-To: derek@derekrogerson.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: FW: more generous than copyright, more turntables than guitars MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable ---- Original Message ---- Date: Fri, 17 May 2002=20 From: Matthew Haughey Steven Champeon wrote: >I expect Matt will have more to say about this at some point, but I >wanted to mention that the Creative Commons web site was launched >yesterday: > > http://creativecommons.org/ Yeah, I was going to get around to saying something on-list about this, but=20 the past couple weeks have been a whirlwind. The Creative Commons is a new non-profit group spearheaded by Larry Lessig=20 (author of "Future of Ideas" which explains the problems we're trying to solve in a very accessible way), and it seeks to do several things. Let me=20 see if I can sum up the key points from the perspective of a web=20 designer/developer _The mostly dry legal stuff_ The point and goals of the project are to get people releasing their=20 creations under terms of copyright that are less strict than the automatic=20 rights you get when you create something (like this email for example). You=20 won't be giving up copyright at all, but this will serve as an automated way of creating custom license, like contracts, that explicitly say what others can do. Currently, there is no way to do this, and so people don't=20 use others' images, music, video, and/or text. Changing laws is a slow and=20 arduous process, but we can automate this stuff with technology, and allow=20 people to elect for more freer use than the law allows. _Why it's cool_ The site will eventually offer two simple things: let you create licenses=20 for your work on the fly, letting you dictate how others can use your work,=20 and the other thing is you can search for content in the public domain, or=20 under any combination of the licenses. There will also be an XML-based API,=20 to let people submit new works and search for works apart from the site, allowing developers to integrate their systems with ours. Once that is all in place, you'll be able to find material you can use for=20 your own projects, and let people use your creations, which has numerous benefits including building up your reputation and getting your name out there. Imagine a Google image search filled with great stuff that was all=20 public domain. Or imagine using Google's image search to grab images for a=20 collage in photoshop you'll post on your site. Imagine not having to worry=20 about infringing on copyrights because people have explicitly let you use=20 their works. Imagine being able to search for music and sounds that you can=20 freely toss into Flash pieces you've made. Or finding cool video shorts you=20 can set your own music to, and post to your site. There's the old saying that good artists copy and great artists steal, and=20 that's not based on outright theft, but the acknowledgement that we are all=20 influenced by other's work, and things like hip hop music and photoshop=20 collages point out how great new art can be created when combining other works into new works. To illustrate the point: there are more turntables sold today than guitars.=20 People use both to create music, but what specifically do people do with turntables? They play (usually) two previously released (and copyrighted)=20 vinyl records, mixing them in various ways (scratching, layering, etc) to=20 create new music works. I tend to think of "View Source" the same way. I don't copy other's code and layouts outright, but I started learning=20 Cascading Style Sheets after sampling Zeldman's homepage in 1998. I learned=20 javascript by copy and pasting rollover code people explicitly shared with=20 the world. We all learned how to do layout tricks like tables, frames, and=20 use of invisible gifs from looking at how others did their sites and=20 visually deconstructing their work. I can create pages with 3-column CSS layouts today only because Eric Costello, Owen Briggs, and the=20 Bluerobot.com guy have done the legwork and shared their experiences with=20 us all. _What you get out of doing this_ If you take photographs, write stories, record music, or shoot films, few=20 people are going to see your work and few-to-none will ever get a chance to=20 share your work unless you've got your own lawyer that you can pay to draft=20 up some explicit use terms. When I first started working on Creative=20 Commons a couple months ago, I viewed the site and the web application as=20 "Lawyer-in-a-box." We're setting out to create an automatic way to create=20 custom licenses that are tailored to your specific work, and it will cost=20 you nothing. If you allow it in the terms, others can sample your works, modify them, embed them in other things, or even sell them with your name=20 attached. Everyone will have the opportunity to check out a vast supply of=20 content that can be used in ways you used to have to ask people about first. _How I'm going to use it_ By this fall, the Creative Commons site should let you license (or release=20 to the public domain) works of Audio, Video, Images, and Text. I'm planning=20 on releasing all my personal photographs and essays under attribution,=20 noncommercial, and copyleft (all of the current ones are here, though there=20 may be more by this fall:=20 http://creativecommons.org/technology/contributor.html#license ) licenses=20 so that personal web publishers can feel free to use my photos in their art=20 projects, or reprint my stories in their non-commercial webzines. When we=20 get to the point where software is being licensed, we might see a lot of stuff similar to the GPL being released, and stuff like fonts that can be=20 free for non-commercial use, but require you to contact and pay the creator=20 of those fonts if you want to use them in commercial settings. My mind is a bit fried from a recent conference and the site launch, so=20 this is only skimming the surface of the project and the benefits. If=20 anyone has any questions about it, feel free to shoot questions to me on or=20 offlist. Matt ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 23:47:48 -0400 Reply-To: derek@derekrogerson.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: 2002_05_23_DatabaseCultures MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Thundergulch in collaboration with Rhizome.org=20 at New York University, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Film Center Sponsored by the Department of Photography and Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University Thundergulch Dialogues Database Cultures Thursday, May 23rd, 7:00 PM, 2002 --- FREE=20 New York University, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Film Center, Room 102, 36 East Eight Street between University Place and Greene Street=20 Directions: Take N/R to 8th Street or the A/C/E/F to West 4th Street Featuring:=20 JENNIFER and KEVIN MCCOY, New Media Artists W. BRADFORD PALEY, Interface Designer/Artist, Founder of Digital Image Design J=C9R=D4ME SIM=C9ON, Computer Scientist, Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies MARK TRIBE, Artist, Curator, Founder and Director of Rhizome.org WAYNE ASHLEY, Moderator, Guest Curator, Thundergulch THUNDERGULCH, the new media initiative of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, is pleased to present "Database Cultures." At the turn of the century, the computer database has become the dominant storage system, enabling a variety of networked individuals to organize, search, retrieve, and display information about everything from chat-room gossip to the outbreak of diseases in the country's hospitals. Organized by guest curator, Wayne Ashley, five panelists discuss the challenges of using a database as the generative engine behind their art work, creating alternative systems that reveal the poetic, critical, and community-building possibilities of manipulating and reconstituting data. Speakers include Kevin and Jennifer McCoy, Mark Tribe, Brad Paley, and J=E9r=F4me Sim=E9on.=20 _______________=20 S P E A K E R S: =20 JENNIFER AND KEVIN MCCOY are new media artists. Their work plays upon the capacity of new technology to fragment, store, and analyze audio and video material. Resulting projects include installations, performances, and net art that explore ideas of genre, interactivity, and automation. Their work has been exhibited internationally. In New York they have shown at P.S.1, Postmasters Gallery, The New Museum, and The Swiss Institute.=20 W. BRADFORD PALEY is an artist and interaction designer whose goal in both worlds is the visual interpretation of complex hidden phenomena. He did his first photography in 1968, his first computer imagery in 1973, and founded Digital Image Design Incorporated in 1982. He has shown at the Museum of Modern Art, and his designs are at work every day in the hands of brokers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. He speaks frequently on the subject of interaction design and pursues projects where design inspires art and art informs the design. MARK TRIBE is an artist and curator whose interests lie at the intersection of emerging technologies and contemporary art. He is the founder and executive director of Rhizome.org, an online platform for the international new media art community. His latest art project, Revelation 1.0 (commissioned by Amnesty International), looks at the aesthetic armature of the Amnesty USA web site by stripping away its text and graphics, leaving only blocks of color and photographic images. J=C9R=D4ME SIM=C9ON is a researcher at Bell Labs, a division of Lucent Technologies. He is a member of the Network Data and Services Research Department. His research interests revolve structuring, storing, and exchanging information over the Internet, XML, the Semantic Web, and data integration.=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Reservations are not required but for further information please contact Wayne Ashley, Guest Curator, Thundergulch at (212)219-9401 x106, washley007@yahoo.com, or Erin Donnelly, Visual and Media Arts Program Associate, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council at (212)219-9401 x107 or edonnelly@lmcc.net Support for Thundergulch audience development is provided by American Express Company. Funding for Thundergulch is generously provided by Cowles Charitable Trust, Experimental Television Center, the Greenwall Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation. This project is made possible, in part, with public funds from the Electronic Media and Film Program and the Media Arts Technical Assistance Fund of the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Thundergulch The new media arts initiative of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC) Rhizome.org is an online platform for the global new media art community. Their programs support the creation, presentation, discussion and preservation of contemporary art that engages new technologies in meaningful ways. They foster innovation and inclusiveness in everything they do. Lower Manhattan Cultural Council 145 Hudson Street, Suite 801, New York, NY 10013 212-219-9401 212-219-2058 fax www.lmcc.net www.thundergulch.org Liz Thompson, Executive Director Moukhtar Kocache, Director of Visual & Media Arts Erin Donnelly, Visual & Media Arts Program Associate Wayne Ashley, Guest Curator, Thundergulch ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 23:56:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dan Machlin Subject: FUTUREPOEM PARTY * MAY 23 @ POETRYCITY In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hope y'all can come out to help celebrate the launch of a brand new New York City poetry press and brand new book of poems by Garrett Kalleberg. And to drink wine and eat cheese. regards, - Dan - POETRY CITY & FUTUREPOEM books invite you to a party to celebrate the publication of: S O M E M A N T I C D A E M O N S new poems by Garrett Kalleberg Thursday, May 23, 2002, 7:00 P.M. FREE Teachers & Writers 5 Union Square West, 7th Floor (between 14th and 15th Sts.) New York City (212-691-6590). Readings by Kalleberg, Eleni Sikelianos, Heather Ramsdell, Dan Machlin. Directions: Take the 4,5,6,L to Union Square; F,2,3 to 14th. Note: Best to arrive between 7-8 when doorman on duty. FP - books is edited by Dan Machlin. Design by Anthony Monahan. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 00:04:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: bounced e-mail MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit you would think that there would be a system in place to have returned e-mail not being sent back to the entire list... I've received four bounced e-mails this evening... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 01:49:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: code and protocol: the parasitic vis-a-vis phenomenology of approach MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII code and protocol: the parasitic vis-a-vis phenomenology of approach among x and ~x = one inscribes the null set 0 as x^~x - intersection. but x may be fuzzy; x may also be intended or unintended. if x is unintended, or non-intended, then x may be protocol. consider roughly three strata: a. unintended x-protocol: dna or crystal mapping, clays, lindenmayer algorithms in relation to plant formation. b. intended x-protocol: tcp/ ip, jpeg compression, mpeg encoding, morse, ciphering. by 'intention,' a reference _only_ to goal-oriented, teleological structuring. note that intended x-protocols may be secondary-level coding (i.e. tcp/ip) or primary-level (morse, bacon cipher); in the latter, the text is trans- lated on a character-by-character basis into code, and in the former, the text is carried by the code. at best this is a fuzzy distinction. note that the latter is also an intended non-intended protocol; a better word might be 'tended'; thus morse code is tended with key translation, but tcp/ip is automated translation into packets (not into a 'tcp/ip code,' but through ascii, well maybe the same thing). in intended distinction, one might say (as one might say in tended non-intended protocol), that the distinction is parasitic, that the element-between x and ~x - the inscrip- tion itself - is the result of an intended act or sequence of acts. such an element-between is dirty, abject, fuzzy, problematic, historically and ideologically bound. the element-between is the boundary-phenomena within the phenomenology of approach; it marks/inscribes the totality of investigation, expenditure, intention - as well as accompanying debris, and the heuristics necessary to cleanse the phenomenon itself, [x, ~x]. it is within the element-between that -jectivity: projection/introjection, plays out. it is from this element, represented as the inscribed boundary x|~x, that anomaly overrides, that default tags arise. this is the chora- tic element within the sememe, within semiosis, the generator of meaning, and meaning's withdrawal. it is here, {x} <> |P| <> {~x}, that the parasite is manifest - the noise in the system that _tends towards meaning,_ towards the _maintenance_ of the inscription. the parasite has everything to gain; as such it is also _symbiotic_ in relation to x - retaining x for its own ends; the whole process is an _enunciation._ _ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 01:35:14 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: Re: Tonight: TELLING IT SLANT panel discussion MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I would also love to hear about this panel. Originally I had planned to fly down for it, but then I woke up and realized I was poor and getting poorer! How does Avant Garde work in the book? I tend to think of Avant Garde as a historical term rolling forward from the modernist reinvestment of form right up to Olson's form and content melding. Molding. Maulting. Maybe. Hey, it also has been attached to 'white male movements' like the Black Mountain School, or more recently the language poetry gang. Is it investigated in the book or just adopted as a term to invoke connotations of new/ radical/ experimental/ cutting edge/ {insert any other metaphor for something that hasn't yet been dissected and pinned to a board}? If at all possible violent like butter. These are not opinions. Copyrighted for 2002 and back. Now if the panel could be somehow digitally archived, then we could all check it out and have a wonderful, maybe slightly provocative discussion right here. Here? Or there. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe (silent aich)I've gotten all the honey into my stockings and can't dance for seeing the rain anymore. This goes out, as all things, to you. Rolling throught the decades. And what a war image! It had specificity then and then and why not maybe then as well. Timeless like that first black and white kiss, or was it sepia? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 01:39:27 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: Tonight: TELLING IT SLANT panel discussion MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yeah Wallace is into that term avant garde And what of gloming E Dickinson onto it too? (like that Annie Finch book "A Formal Feeling Comes" which at least wasn't called "Formal Feeling Coming" though the connection between formalism and the erotic....) (or was he thinking of Ted Berrigan's CERTAIN SUN) avant fin garde siecle a mobile army of meta fores and the ING INGing//////// here? but that being said of my two fav. lang. pos only one is male jason christie wrote: > I would also love to hear about this panel. Originally I had planned to fly > down for it, but then I woke up and realized I was poor and getting poorer! > How does Avant Garde work in the book? I tend to think of Avant Garde as a > historical term rolling forward from the modernist reinvestment of form > right up to Olson's form and content melding. Molding. Maulting. Maybe. > Hey, it also has been attached to 'white male movements' like the Black > Mountain School, or more recently the language poetry gang. Is it > investigated in the book or just adopted as a term to invoke connotations of > new/ radical/ experimental/ cutting edge/ {insert any other metaphor for > something that hasn't yet been dissected and pinned to a board}? If at all > possible violent like butter. These are not opinions. Copyrighted for 2002 > and back. Now if the panel could be somehow digitally archived, then we > could all check it out and have a wonderful, maybe slightly provocative > discussion right here. Here? Or there. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe (silent > aich)I've gotten all the honey into my stockings and can't dance for seeing > the rain anymore. This goes out, as all things, to you. Rolling throught > the decades. And what a war image! It had specificity then and then and > why not maybe then as well. Timeless like that first black and white kiss, > or was it sepia? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 04:40:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Re: Tonight: TELLING IT SLANT panel discussion MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit all my fav. langpos are female... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 4:39 AM Subject: Re: Tonight: TELLING IT SLANT panel discussion > but that being said of my two fav. lang. pos only one is male > > > jason christie wrote: > > > Hey, it also has been attached to 'white male movements' like the Black > > Mountain School, or more recently the language poetry gang. Is it > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 12:21:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: TOMORROW NIGHT AT THE POETRY PROJECT Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit MAY 22, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] ANDREI CODRESCU & ED SANDERS READING w/ RECEPTION AND BOOK-SIGNING TO FOLLOW ANDREI CODRESCU's new novel, Casanova in Bohemia, is just out from The Free Press. Among his other books are Alien Candor: Selected Poems 1970-1997 and the novel The Blood Countess and Messiah. Codrescu is a regular commentator on National Public Radio and is the MacCurdy Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where he edits Exquisite Corpse: a Journal of Letters & Life. ED SANDERS founded the legendary Peace Eye Book Store in New York's Lower East Side and the folk rock group the Fugs. His collected poems, 1961-1985, Thristing for Peace in a Raging Century, won an American Book Award in 1988. The updated edition of The Family, his study of the Manson group, was published in 1990, and his Tales of Beatnik Glory, Volumes I and II is being made into a feature-length film. -- Unless otherwise noted, admission to all events is $7, $4 for students and seniors, and $3 for Poetry Project members. Schedule is subject to change. The Poetry Project is located in St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery at 131 E. 10th Street, the corner of 2nd Avenue and 10th Street in Manhattan. Trains F, 6, N, R. The Poetry Project is wheelchair accessible with assistance and advance notice. Please call (212) 674-0910 for more information, or visit our Web site at http://www.poetryproject.com. If you are currently on our email list and would like to be on our regular mailing list (so you can receive a sample issue of The Poetry Project Newsletter for FREE), just reply to this email with your full name and address. Hope to hear from you soon!!! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 16:49:12 GMT Reply-To: ggatza@daemen.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: Tonight: TELLING IT SLANT panel discussion Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary MIME-Version: 1.0 Is this the proper stance to take??? This is like saying that only blacks can play at the Def Poetry Jam. People are drawn to a particular aestetic and go with that. I don't wake up in the morning saying, gee I am a white guy with blue eyes I must write Langpo -- yuck. I have read Wallace's book and it is quite good. Cheers to him :-) And I too have difficulty dealing with the term AvGde (see Jullich's wonderful post on this issue months ago), but it is a distinct feeling that what is happening is not a function of post modronism, drawn from but not dipped in. Give the man a chance to speak before eagle-holing his work. I don't like pidgeons. Best, Geoffrey On Tue, 21 May 2002 04:40:37 -0400 Duration Press wrote: > all my fav. langpos are female... > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 4:39 AM > Subject: Re: Tonight: TELLING IT SLANT panel discussion > > > > but that being said of my two fav. lang. pos only one is male > > > > > > jason christie wrote: > > > > > Hey, it also has been attached to 'white male movements' like the > Black > > > Mountain School, or more recently the language poetry gang. Is it > > This message powered by EMUMAIL. -- http://www.EMUMAIL.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 13:21:18 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Help.... Comments: To: new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subj: philosophy and literature Date: 05/21/2002 1:14:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: rravensc@ssc.wisc.edu To: working-class-list@listserv.liu.edu CC: philoperros@onebox.com Sent from the Internet (Details) Hi all, This request comes to you from a non-list member, but from a good friend of mine and fellow working-class academic in California. She (Camille) is preparing to teach a class on philosophy and literature. She is a philosophy professor and is looking for a reader or other source of short stories, long poems, etc... with philosophical content or ramifications... something that asks philosophical questions. Any suggestions? We've already discussed "The Lottery" and "The Lorax" (by Dr. Seuss). Neither one of us is particularly up to date on the lit. field. Help? Bonus points for anything class-related! Send suggestions directly to her or to the list (It might be interesting!) or both. Camille Atkinson, philoperros@onebox.com Thanks! rebekah ______________________ -- Rebekah Ravenscroft-Scott Graduate Student/Teaching Assistant Sociology and Rural Sociology University of Wisconsin-Madison 7110 Social Science 1180 Observatory Dr. Madison WI 53706 rravensc@ssc.wisc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 12:51:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lewis Warsh Subject: Warsh/Waters at Parkside Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" SUNDAY MAY 26 8:00 LEWIS WARSH & JACQUELINE WATERS Lewis Warsh will read from his new book, THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD (Creative Arts, 2001), with music accompaniment by Sam Hillmer & Chris Tignor. Jacqueline Waters will read new & recent work. at THE PARKSIDE LOUNGE 317 E. Houston St. (corner of Attorney & Houston) New York City ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 11:16:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Coffee House Press Readings, Marjorie Welish Reading, Maxine , Chernoff Reading In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On May 30 at 5:30 pm, Marjorie Welish will be reading at Columbia College, Chicago, at the Herman Conoway Center, 1104 South Wabash. On May 31 at 7:30 pm, Maxine CHernoff will be reading from her book of new and selected stories, SOME OF HER FRIENDS THAT YEAR, at Women and Children First Bookstore, 5322 North Clark Street, in Chicago. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 11:17:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Corbett Subject: Call for Research Comments: cc: sri@seattleresearchinstitute.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The Seattle Research Institute, a loose congerie of writers seeking to fill the discursive gap between the City and the University, is planning a second Public Text as a follow-up to Politics without the State. The topic is "Experimental Theology." A longer Call for Research follows. For more information about the SRI, see our website: www.seattleresearchinstitute.org. *** Call For Research on Experimental Theology For its second Public Text, the Seattle Research Institute seeks contributions on "Experimental Theology." Derived from the name for the preeminent academic discipline in Phillip Pullman's "The Golden Compass", a marvelous novel for "young" adults in which the Catholic Church remains in power and so thinking can only happen under the cloak of faith, "Experimental Theology" names a nonexistent discipline, but one perhaps very much needed now. Theology is definitionally anti-experimental: if you come up with a different answer, you are a heretic, as professors at Georgetown and Notre Dame know well. By the same token, to be experimental is to operate without faith: a scientist with strong intuitions better be one with tenure. We think both these pictures, if not entirely wrong, overstate their cases out of self-interest. We could enumerate several examples of experimental theology in our day--Walter Benjamin's dalliance with messianism and the kabbalah in the service of the proletariat--but the best image we can think of is Luther nailing his "theses" upon the door of the church. We think Experimental Theology doesn't exist because it has not been founded as a discipline. While we don't aspire to institutionalize it, we do want to solicit contributions that help explain to us and others what Experimental Theology might be. We welcome numinous essays, poetic experiments, fictive theologies, and visual embodiments of the foregoing. Completed submissions should be sent by August 1, 2002 to sri@seattleresearchinstitute.org. -- Robert Corbett "I will discuss perfidy with scholars as rcor@u.washington.edu as if spurning kisses, I will sip Department of English the marble marrow of empire. I want sugar University of Washington but I shall never wear shame and if you call that sophistry then what is Love" - Lisa Robertson ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 11:36:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Messerli Subject: Re: Warsh/Waters at Parkside MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lewis, I'm moving, so might I send you some more copies of A FREE MAN? Can you give me your address again. Douglas -----Original Message----- From: Lewis Warsh To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 10:24 AM Subject: Warsh/Waters at Parkside >SUNDAY MAY 26 8:00 > > >LEWIS WARSH & JACQUELINE WATERS > > >Lewis Warsh will read from his new book, THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD (Creative >Arts, 2001), with music accompaniment by Sam Hillmer & Chris Tignor. > >Jacqueline Waters will read new & recent work. > > >at THE PARKSIDE LOUNGE >317 E. Houston St. >(corner of Attorney & Houston) >New York City > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 14:57:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: Help.... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Well, the incredibly obvious answer, and I'm just the dork to offer it, is Wallace Stevens' longer poems. And another fabulous chestnut, "Rameau's Nephew" by Diderot. They must be gathered in an anthology called Phil & Lit: the Basics, somewhere. back to my rocking chair, Laura Fargas -----Original Message----- From: Joe Brennan [mailto:JBCM2@AOL.COM] Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 1:21 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Help.... Subj: philosophy and literature Date: 05/21/2002 1:14:17 PM Eastern Daylight Time From: rravensc@ssc.wisc.edu To: working-class-list@listser v.liu.edu CC: philoperros@onebox.com Sent from the Internet (Details) Hi all, This request comes to you from a non-list member, but from a good friend of mine and fellow working-class academic in California. She (Camille) is preparing to teach a class on philosophy and literature. She is a philosophy professor and is looking for a reader or other source of short stories, long poems, etc... with philosophical content or ramifications... something that asks philosophical questions. Any suggestions? We've already discussed "The Lottery" and "The Lorax" (by Dr. Seuss). Neither one of us is particularly up to date on the lit. field. Help? Bonus points for anything class-related! Send suggestions directly to her or to the list (It might be interesting!) or both. Camille Atkinson, philoperros@onebox.com Thanks! rebekah ______________________ -- Rebekah Ravenscroft-Scott Graduate Student/Teaching Assistant Sociology and Rural Sociology University of Wisconsin-Madison 7110 Social Science 1180 Observatory Dr. Madison WI 53706 rravensc@ssc.wisc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 15:03:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rebecca Wolff Subject: Fence Books Mini-Tour of MA and NYC Comments: To: ira@angel.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Fence & Fence Books Spring 2002 Mini-Tour Discounted books, magazines, subscriptions, and even t-shirts available at most readings Friday, May 24th, 7 pm Jeff Dolven Joyelle McSweeney Brookline Booksmith Writers & Readers Room 279 Harvard St. Brookline, MA Take the Green "C" Line to Coolidge Corner Saturday, May 25th, 4-6 pm Martin Corless-Smith Michael Earl Craig Chelsey Minnis Catherine Wagner jubilat/Harvard Advocate/Boston Review Reading Series Harvard Advocate Office, 21 South Street, off JFK Cambridge, MA Monday, May 27th, 7:30 pm Michael Earl Craig Peter Gizzi Joyelle McSweeney Rebecca Wolff Atticus Books 8 Main Street Amherst, MA Wednesday, May 29th, 7 pm Caroline Crumpacker Chelsey Minnis Catherine Wagner Rebecca Wolff Fine Arts Work Center, 24 Pearl Street Provincetown, MA Friday, May 31st, 9:30 pm Michael Earl Craig Joyelle McSweeney Chelsey Minnis Catherine Wagner The Poetry Project at St. Marks' Church 2nd Avenue at 9th Street New York City Contact: events@fencemag.com MARTIN CORLESS-SMITH is the author of Complete Travels and Of Piscator, (which won the University of Georgia Press Contemporary Poetry Series competition), a chapbook, and is the editor of an anthology of Middle English lyrics. He currently teaches at Boise State University. MICHAEL EARL CRAIG's book, Can You Relax in My House, was recently published by Fence Books, and his poems have been published in Fence, jubilat, Iowa Review, and elsewhere. He lives in Montana, where he works as a farrier. CAROLINE CRUMPACKER is a poetry editor at Fence and the author of many wonderful poems herself. JEFF DOLVEN is a hot ticket. PETER GIZZI is the author of several books of poetry, most recently Artificial Heart from Burning Deck Press. He is on the faculty at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst M.F.A. program. JOYELLE MCSWEENEY is the winner of the 2001 Fence Modern Poets Series, for which The Red Bird was chosen by Allen Grossman. CHELSEY MINNIS is the winner of the 2001 Alberta Prize from Fence Books for her book Zirconia. Her work has appeared in Caliban, Cream City Review, Seneca Review, Chicago Review, and other journals. CATHERINE WAGNER is the author of Miss America from Fence Books, as well as several chapbooks. Her poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Chain, Colorado Review, Rhizome, and other journals. REBECCA WOLFF is the editor of Fence and Fence Books and the author of Manderley, published in 2001 by the University of Illinois Press. Please come! ********** Rebecca Wolff Fence et al. 14 Fifth Avenue, #1A New York, NY 10011 http://www.fencemag.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 15:19:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: oranget@GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: report on telling it slant MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit a report on the telling it slant panel dactyl foundation, NYC friday may 19 2002 the proceedings began on fairly standard poetry time i.e. 30-40 minutes late. mark wallace made brief opening comments regarding 1) the goals and aspirations he and co-editor steven marks (who was unable to attend) had in putting the book together, i.e. to gather a representative sample of work from an even larger and ongoing dialogue, and 2) the idea behind the panel, which by eschewing the academic standard three twenty-minute presentations and limited Q&A in favor of more numerous short presentations and longer Q&A would hopefully encourage and extend dialogue among a variety of voices. he then introduced the panelists, who went in alphabetical order. charles borkhuis described coming to poetry in the late eighties primarily through experimental theater and finding the poetry scene rather factionalized. recognizing and working at what he calls a nexus of late surrealism and textual poetry became a way of creating and observing a metaphysical car crash, a writing one's way out of factions in order to gain some breathing space. sherry brennan cited the writing from the new coast conference of 1993 as her entry point into the field, particularly from pennsylvania where she otherwise did not have much access. she read a portion of an essay different from the one in the book, regarding a poetics of the body, language as the shape of things, and the avant garde not as a school or form but a life practice. jeff derksen extended the critique of globalization and official multiculturalism made by his essay in the book to the new post-9/11 landscape, or rather the post-10/17 landscape (the intiation date, i think, of the FBI and justice department "interviews" of arab-american men). he questioned the role of the avant garde in the current culture of critical production. jeff hansen spoke of what he calls the embodied poem, which revises the olsonian notion of the poem as a high-energy construct and applies it to a post-humanist, non (male) egocentric context. he read a few stanzas from heather fuller's poem "telegram" (from _perhaps this is a rescue fantasy_) to illustrate. bill howe spoke to language poetry's attention to the word and phoneme as opening up a number of different directions for poetry to then pursue, literally in a pragmatic sense of what can i do with this. such directions include performative and verbovisual poetries as well as a renewed interest in the self or subject. andrew levy discussed the work of michael amnasan, a bay-area poet whose book from krupskaya very much takes up issues of class in relation to avant garde poetry. andy read from steven farmer's review of the amnasan book that he published in his journal _crayon_, their (levy's and farmer's) claim being that the avant garde often fails to recognize let alone address social inequities. eileen myles offered an historical, personal and cultural perspective, beginning with the odd feeling she had at being invited to address the poetry of the 1990s: even tho she had been writing for many years prior she felt that she really has come into her own as a poet in the 1990s. she described the avant garde as being a situation of friendship, a place where people can come together. poetry of the sixties: free love and drugs; of the seventies: formalized excess; of the eighties: a choice between rock star and performance poetry, no one really wanting the mantle of poetry let alone creating a discourse about it; of the nineties: poetry is needed again, as exempliefied at a post-9/11 reading at the project where poets came together even tho many admitted to not writing anything since then. leonard schwartz spoke of avant garde poetry building structures for survival. he discussed and read from an essay by andrew joron entitled "the emergency of poetry" that discusses the (in)efficacies of poetry especially post-9/11. juliana spahr opted not to make a presentation. brian kim stefans touched briefly on several different threads: the general uniformity of prose styles in telling it slant (with exceptions of course), the unusual (and belated) frequency with which theresa cha's work is discussed in telling it slant, the extent to which digital poetries still need greater practical and critical discourse, and the extent to which lively controversies like those that surrounded apex of the m and fence no longer seem to catch people's interest. gary sullivan discussed the work of daniel davidson, whose collected poems he has just finished editing for krupskaya. davidson was a bay- area poet from the mid80s-mid90s who was plagued with health problems and living on a fixed income before he took his own life. gary discussed the difficulties of davidson's life as they were manifested in his friendships and found their way into his poetry. lee ann brown read some haiku-like poems from a notebook she was keeping on her trip to japan from which she had literally just returned. douglas rothschild began the Q&A by asking if he could light the room on fire, and mark replied that that was something he preferred douglas would do later. douglas then said he wanted to light the room on fire with a question, namely why, with a few notable exceptions, the book and the panel were so white. much discussion ensued, the basic tenor of which i think of as involving the fact that the avant garde like any cultural production can hardly escape the conditions (i.e. disparities, inequities, injustices) of the culture in which it finds itself, by nature probably tends to replicate them, but at the very least can maintain and insist on an awareness of such conditions and perhaps offer a space for interrogating them. discussion then turned to the use of the term avant garde: the questioner felt that this was a term that in art circles at least was quite dead in the 1970s and yet here it turns up in poetry of the nineties. the difficulty of terms and their varied and problematic implications was taken up, as well as the difficulty in transferring terms between different arts and disciplines. beyond the thirteen panelists i'd say there were about forty people in attendance. i hope readers will correct any omissions or inaccuracies i've inadvertantly made here. allbests, tom orange ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 15:28:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ethan Paquin Subject: Slope Editions - Debut Title Now Available! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit THE BODY by Jenny Boully, Slope Editions' debut title, is now widely available for purchase. The book --- a poetry/prose hybrid, written entirely in footnotes -- has been hailed by David Lehman as "terrific," Robert Kelly as "intelligent", and Thalia Field as "evocative." Parts were chosen by Robert Creeley to appear in THE BEST AMERICAN POETRY 2002. May 2002 | $12.95 80 pp. | Paperback ISBN # 0-9718219-0-9 Order via PayPal at the Slope Editions website: www.slopeeditions.org Or via Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0971821909/ Or by direct mail order: visit www.slopeeditions.org for details ___________________________________________________________________________ www.slope.org www.slopeeditions.org *both soon moving to Buffalo* If this message was unwanted, let us know and we'll remove you from future mailings. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 16:56:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Panel correx Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Thanks, Tom, for the overview. I should say though that I didn't edit Dan's book -- I just wrote the afterword, of which the talk was an edited version. The kind people at Krupskaya -- Kevin Killian, Jocelyn Saidenberg, and Dan Farrell -- did all the real work! _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 16:03:24 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: redux or not, here i come In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" this got bounced back to me, along w/ several other messages i know went through. so apologies if this is a repeat: subject heading was "book review opportunities" dear friends: a pretty remarkable ugrad here, who is blind and deaf, has a press called the tactile mind. he's bringing out two books and asked me if i wd spread the word about reviews etc. Here is an excerpt from his email note containing the web info about the books and a brief description of one of them: "Perhaps you would like to read SILENCE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD: ON ART & DEAFNESS? Raymond Luczak uses four genres in that book -- a short story, 111 mini-essays, a play, and a self-interview -- to make his points on what makes art "art" and deafness "deaf." ... We have the flyer for the two books on-line at http://www.thetactilemind.com/flyer.pdf -- let me know if you have any problems with reading it in that format. You should also direct your contacts to the main page at www.thetactilemind.com, which will lead to the books' pages, which in turn will lead to excerpts on-line and to the author's web site." I haven't looked at the site myself, but imagine there's contact info for him to send you review copies. if not, let me know and i'll pass on his contact info to you. bests, md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 17:05:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chicago Review Subject: brakhage issue Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Since a few listmembers have back-channeled queries re: the Brakhage=20 issue, I figured I'd pass along a quick blurb that recently appeared=20 in the -Front Table-, a catalogue put out by the Seminary Coop,=20 perhaps the best bookstore in the country, certainly in the midwest.=20 Copies are avail. direct from CR (web special still holds for those=20 who want it -- see below) or per CC from semcoop. / E. Steinhoff,=20 Editor * * * * * * * * -Chicago Review- 47:4/48:1 Stan Brakhage: Correspondences Edited by Eirik Steinhoff, et. al. (Chicago Review, 277 pp., $8.00, Paper (Original)) Brakhage's abandonment of conventional linear narrative and the traditional use of characters has made Brakhage one of the most challenging and rewarding experimental filmmakers. Not only do Brakhage's films ultimately change the way we look at filmic images but they also transform the way we see. Chicago was recently the beneficiary of a mini-Brakhage festival and the remarkable new issue of the Chicago Review, dedicated to his work, served as an essential companion. As it turns out, Brakhage's visual gift and ambitions are matched by his thought-provoking writings on film and poetry. This issue includes his writings on aesthetics, film technique, and an account of a comical meeting with Andrei Tarkovsky. Brakhage's interest in American experimental poetry (of the Pound/Olson/Stein variety) led him to a series of correspondence with such poets as Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, and Ronald Johnson. In his letters, Brakhage's ebullient personality shines through -- he is chatty, insightful and eager to discuss personal plans, poetry, or his own cinematic aesthetics. Stan Brakhage Correspondences includes essays from leading Brakhage scholars, covering over four decades of his work and focusing on his overall project and individual films. There is also an essay from Guy Davenport and a poetic tribute/meditation/critique from poet Robert Kelly. The critical essays perfectly complement Brakhage's own writings and present a range of new perspectives on his cinematic ambitions and accomplishments. Not to be missed. One final note: this issue also includes the Chicago Review=92s usual impressive fiction, poetry, and criticism, including works from Rosmarie Waldrop, Jean Cocteau, Paul Hoover, and Anthony Doerr. http://www.semcoop.com/mainpage/start.asp * * * * * * * * * WEB SPECIAL: Poetics list members get a free back issue by taking advantage of our $15 "web special" subscription rate. Drop us an e-m w/ yr address and the back issue you'd like, and we'll mail the current issue and the back issue, along with a bill. =46ollow the "archive" link on our webpage (http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/review) to see a complete list of back issues. Our favorites include: 30:3 Black Mountain and Since: Objectivist Writing in America (Winter 1979) Essays by Charles Altieri, Charles Olson, Denise Levertov, Robert=20 Duncan (from the -H.D. Book-), Fielding Dawson, Ed Dorn, Paul=20 Metcalf; poems by Carl Rakosi, Charles Reznikoff, Joel Oppenheimer,=20 Ed Dorn, Jackson Mac Low, Larry Eigner, Theodore Enslin, Denise=20 Levertov, John Taggart, and more; reviews by Taggart, Alan Golding,=20 George Butterick, and others. 42:1 On Ronald Johnson's -ARK- (Winter 1996) Selections from -ARK-, essays by Robert Creeley and Thom Gunn, and an=20 interview with the poet; poetry by William Bronk, Peter Gizzi, Fanny=20 Howe, and Peyton Houston; fiction by Fernando Arrojo. 43:1 On Nathaniel Mackey (Winter 1997) Selections from -Atet A.D.-, and an interview with the poet; poetry=20 by Phillip Foss, Barbara Guest, Medbh McGuckian, Hilda Morley, Robert=20 Bly; fiction by Mario Benedetti. 43:4 Contemporary Poetry and Poetics (Fall 1997) Works by Paul Hoover, Susan Howe, Alan Golding, Jed Rasula, John=20 Shoptaw, Lewis Ellingham & Kevin Killian, Barbara Jordan, Michael=20 Heller, Brenda Hillman, Mark Halliday, Amiri Baraka, Derek Mahon,=20 Keith Tuma, Ann Carson, and others. 44:3&4 On Peter Dale Scott / On Basil Bunting (Summer/Fall 1998) Scott: new poems by Scott, and essays by David Gewanter, Alan=20 Williamson, Daria Donnelly and others; Bunting: essays by Tom Pickard, Colin Simms, Bill Griffiths, and John Seed. 45:2 On Robert Duncan (Spring 1999) Chapter from Lisa Jarnot's biography, Duncan's introductions to=20 readings at the Poetry Center; poems by John Matthias, Arthur Sze, Ed=20 Dorn, Jeff Clark, Claire Malroux, Elizabeth Willis, Robert Adamson,=20 and Allen Grossman; fiction by Neil Durando and Rebecca Brown; essays=20 by Mark Halliday and Paul Green. Preview: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/review/452/452home.html 46:3&4 NEW POLISH WRITING (Summer/Fall 2000) 400-page anthology issue featuring poetry and prose written since=20 1989. Ranges from Nobel prize-winners (Milosz, Szymborska) to the=20 "New Barbarians" and "[Frank] O'Haraists". Also includes two=20 interviews, and several critical essays. A back-issue bestseller. Preview: http://humanities.uchicago.edu/review/463/463homepage.html * * * * * * * * * CHICAGO REVIEW 5801 South Kenwood Avenue Chicago IL 60637 http://humanities.uchicago.edu/review/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 00:47:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: 3 protocols MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - 3 protocols 1 well this protocol drives everything. it's not a protocol, it's an association or mapping, it's a drive or production-number, it's a correspondence, it's built into the matrix of the inchoate, it's unintended, it's untended - [phenomenology of approach, the world] 2 well this protocol carries the codes, this protocol carries the message, this protocol is unintended, it's tended, it's maintained, someone maintains it, someone keeps it running, someone sends the message, someone hears it - [phenomenology of the world, the carrier, the interpretation, the interpretation of the carrier, the assignation] 3 well this protocol's assigned on the run, this is the meaning-generator, meaning-production, this assigns boundaries and bindings, this creates language and negations, this runs it through - there's dirt inhabiting this one, there's the noise in the machine, there's the interpretations, the abjections, the sado-masochisms, the ideologies, histories - it's all in this protocol - [phenomenology of approach, the complicit, the seduction, the accompaniment, the comprehension, the deconstruction] _ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 03:24:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: 16.032 new books (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 06:50:16 +0100 From: "Humanist Discussion Group (by way of Willard McCarty )" To: humanist@Princeton.EDU Subject: 16.032 new books Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 16, No. 32. Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London [1] From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi (53) Subject: Space, Identity, and Embodiment in Virtual Reality [2] From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi (27) Subject: Writing Machines --[1]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 06:45:15 +0100 From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi Subject: Space, Identity, and Embodiment in Virtual Reality Digital Sensations: Space, Identity, and Embodiment in Virtual Reality by Ken Hillis, University of Minnesota Press (October 1999, 248 Pages, 5 black-and-white photos, 2 figures IS AVAILABLE!!) "Digital Sensations is the best critique of virtual reality's implications we now have. Rather than breathlessly celebrating the limitless digital future, Hillis carefully explores its continuities with certain earlier tendencies in Western culture and shows their common dangers." --Martin Jay-- Virtual reality is in the news and in the movies, on TV and in the air. Why is the technology--or the idea of the technology--so prevalent precisely now? What does it mean--what does it do--to us? Digital Sensations looks closely at the ways representational forms generated by communication technologies--especially digital/optical virtual technologies--affect the "lived" world. Virtual reality, or VR, is a technological reproduction of the process of perceiving the real; yet that process is "filtered" through the social realities and embedded cultural assumptions about human bodies, perception, and space held by the technology's creators. Through critical histories of the technology--of vision, light, space, and embodiment--Digital Sensations traces the various and often contradictory intellectual and metaphysical impulses behind the Western transcendental wish to achieve an ever more perfect copy of the real. Because virtual technologies are new, these histories also address the often unintended and underconsidered consequences--such as alienating new forms of surveilance and commodification--flowing from their rapid dissemination. Current and proposed virtual technologies refelct a Western desire to escape the body. Exploring topics from VR and other earlier visual technologies, Digital Sensations' penetrative perspective on the cultural power of place and space broadens our view of the interplay between social relations and technology. "His discussion is ambitious; not only does he bring together multiple disciplines and philosophies, he traces history from the Renaissance to the present." [Technical Communication Quarterly] Ken Hillis has written a wise interrogation of the impact of virtual environments and the marriage of new digital and visual technologies. Carefully balancing between the dangers of all-too-common and too-easy skepticism and the risk of being seduced by the new medium, this book analyses the manner in which the use of technologies to produce virtual environments (VEs) changes the bases on which assumptions concerning democratic politics and identity flourish." Space and Culture Ken Hillis received his Ph.D. in Human Geography from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in May, 1996. His dissertation -- Geography, Identity and Embodiment in Virtual Reality -- looked at Information Technologies (IT), new media, and more specifically at Virtual Reality (VR). He argued the importance of distinguishing the technologies that collectively constitute the "platform" that individuals rely on to "enter" virtual environments from these environments or "worlds" in and of themselves. ((Ken Hillis is assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies and adjunct professor of geography at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)) Thank you! best regards, Arun --[2]------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Tue, 21 May 2002 06:45:59 +0100 From: Arun-Kumar Tripathi Subject: Writing Machines A new book, "Writing Machines" (November 2002, ISBN 0-262-08311-6) SERIES: Mediaworks Pamphlets by N. Katherine Hayles and Designed by Anne Burdick is available! Tracing a journey from the 1950s through the 1990s, N. Katherine Hayles uses the autobiographical persona of Kaye to explore how literature has transformed itself from inscriptions rendered as the flat durable marks of print to the dynamic images of CRT screens, from verbal texts to the diverse sensory modalities of multimedia works, from books to technotexts. Weaving together Kaye.s pseudo-autobiographical narrative with a theorization of contemporary literature in media-specific terms, Hayles examines the ways in which literary texts in every genre and period mutate as they are reconceived and rewritten for electronic formats. As electronic documents become more pervasive, print appears not as the sea in which we swim, transparent because we are so accustomed to its conventions, but rather as a medium with its own assumptions, specificities, and inscription practices. Hayles explores works that focus on the very inscription technologies that produce them, examining three writing machines in depth: Talan Memmott.s groundbreaking electronic work Lexia to Perplexia, Mark Z. Danielewski.s cult postprint novel House of Leaves, and Tom Phillips.s artist.s book A Humument. Hayles concludes by speculating on how technotexts affect the development of contemporary subjectivity. Writing Machines is the second volume in the Mediawork Pamphlets series. More details at Thanking you! With regards, Arun Tripathi ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 10:23:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Summi Kaipa Subject: Summi Kaipa, Tisa Bryant & Kirthi Nath: May 30th 8pm, ATA, San Francisco Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable For those of you in the Bay Area -- please come! Summi 8:00pm -- Thursday, 30th of May, 2002 Mera Nam EMERGING: featuring a reading by Summi Kaipa and a screening of films by writer/filmmaker, Kirthi Nath followed by a post-screening conversation with the artists hosted by writer Tisa Bryant ATA (Artists' Television Access) located at 992 Valencia Street @ 21st=20 Street in San Francisco $8.00 General Admission. For Directions please call ATA at (415) 824-3890 or visit www.atasite.org For more information about the program, please visit: www.ThisIsAECA.org=20 -or- info@ThisIsAECA.org ~ 415/260-3153 =93Mera Nam EMERGING=94 is a production of Alliance of Emerging Creative=20 Artists (AECA) in association with Artists' Television Access and Asian Improv aRts. Our Community Partner is: 3rd I ~ www.thirdi.org This event is sponsored in part by: Poets & Writers, Inc. through a grant=20 it has received from The James Irvine Foundation, Zellerbach Family Fund,=20 William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, California Arts Council and Grants=20 for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund =97 Thank You! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 17:16:54 -0400 Reply-To: Nate and Jane Dorward Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nate and Jane Dorward Subject: Fw: Fanny & Susan Howe in Cork MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just back from the Cork Festival (May 10-11), which was a lot of fun. I'll write up a report soon & post it. But for now I wanted to forward this information about a followup event in Cork which I'm sorry I'll miss. -- all best --N Nate & Jane Dorward ndorward@sprint.ca THE GIG magazine: http://pages.sprint.ca/ndorward/files/ 109 Hounslow Ave., Willowdale, ON, M2N 2B1, Canada ph: (416) 221 6865 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Trevor Joyce" Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 10:39 AM Subject: Fanny & Susan Howe in Cork A reading by: Fanny Howe and Susan Howe Friday, June 7th, 2002 starting at 8.15 p.m. Venue: The Granary Theatre Studio (i.e. upstairs auditorium) The Mardyke Cork This is a unique occasion. The Howe sisters have read together only once before, in a small gathering Buffalo NY about fifteen years ago. Fanny has read once previously in Ireland, at the 3rd Cork International Poetry Festival. Susan has never read here. Both are visiting Cork just briefly, specifically for this performance. Prospective attendees wanting to book accommodation could do worse than: Kinlay House Shandon Cork Ireland +353 (0)21 450 8966 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 21:11:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Skinner Subject: Nature Poetry Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Trawling through the archive (as more a lurker than an active member of this list) I picked up this thread on "nature poetry" running about a month back Re im/morality of Nature Poetry & would just like to note that the current issue of ECOPOETICS addresses exactly the issues tossed about vis-=E0-vis bulldozers, flowers & other species, in/digeneity, and possibilities for urban-oriented, historically and socially aware nature writing For example, the "centerfold" is a seven-page essay by Robert Grenier, that begins "Nature poetry is BORING" But there's also Brenda Coultas on the Bowery as fin-de-si=E8cle Walden Kenneth Goldsmith on the virtues of "paving the Earth" Mike Kelleher's sheep-shagging "Pastoral" Nick Lawrence's review of Lisa Robertson's The Weather A long interview with Cecilia Vicu=F1a on seeds, art and politics in Chile, and talking to animals with new work by Cecilia . . . Kevin Killian's Hawaii piece, "Kona Spray Ad Campaign" Robert Kocik's "Annotated List of Missing Social Services and Omitted Agencies" (a substantial excerpt from Overcoming Fitness) -- if you want to take on the "immorality" of mainstream nature writing, Kocik is WAY ahead of the curve. And MUCH, much more . . . check it out. You can also check out Joel Kuzsai's review of ECOPOETICS 01 posted to this list on the 12th of May (thanks, Joel!) A run of 400; at least a hundred gone and I already have a LOT of people to send them to, so get yours while they last! JS * NEW! ECOPOETICS 01/ Winter, 2001 - Spring, 2002 136 pp. perfect-bound Poetry, essays, fiction, translation, reviews, field notes, interviews, artwork by Rosa Alcala, Bruce Andrews, Joel Bettridge, R=E9gis Bonvicino, Odile Cisneros= , Alicia Cohen, Brenda Coultas, Peter Culley, Catherine Daly, Marcella Durand= , Kristen Gasser, Kenneth Goldsmith, Robert Grenier, Lisa Jarnot, Christopher Johnson, Michael Kelleher, Kevin Killian, Robert Kocik, Peter Larkin, Nick Lawrence, Doug Manson, Tom Morgan, Douglas Oliver, Julie Patton, Isabelle Pelissier, Andrew Schelling, Eleni Sikelianos, Jonathan Skinner, Cecilia Vicu=F1a SINGLE ISSUES: $6 ($10 institutions) SUBSCRIPTIONS: $15/ 3 issues ($30 institutions) Postage included; outside US & Canada, add $3 Please make checks payable to Jonathan Skinner. ECOPOETICS, c/o J. Skinner 106 Huntington Ave., Buffalo, NY 14214-1675 ECOPOETICS 02 due out in the Fall of 2002. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 22:36:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrea Baker Subject: REMINDER 3rd Bed celebration In-Reply-To: <3C057823.7B446EB1@megsinet.net> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit REMINDER 3rd Bed celebration is tomorrow Thursday, May 23rd. Includes: voco-poet Julie Patton reading by Gary Lutz, Ruth Danon, Lisa Jarnot, and Patricia Eakins. As well as a couple films, a portable sculpture show, and a sonic accordion duo by the Haldols. It all starts at 7 at Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. For directions see http://www.galapagosartspace.com. $8 includes a copy of 3rd Bed #6, our current issue. -- Andrea Baker associate poetry editor 3rd Bed http://www.3rdBed.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 19:47:14 -0400 Reply-To: Allen Bramhall Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Allen Bramhall Subject: Fw: The Capilano Review special issue on Grief / War / Poetics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The Capilano Review special issue on Grief / War / Poe FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Special Issue on war Info: 604-984-1712 The Capilano Review special issue on Grief / War / Poetics Literary and visuals arts journal, The Capilano Review has collected a = range of timely work from Canadian and U.S. poets and prose writers in = response to a unique call for submissions on "war, grief, and poetics in = a post 9/11 context". The unprecedented issue brings together creative = and probing texts that reveal the initial attempts of artists to = integrate cultural and political implications with their creative = processes. Released in April 2002 the issue sells for $9 and can be found in = independent Vancouver bookstores and in stores of the Indigo/Chapters = chain across Canada. Issues can also be purchased by mailing a cheque = for $9 to: The Capilano Review, 2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver, BC = V7J 3H5 or via email at tcr@capcollege.bc.ca (for foreign orders, prices = in U.S. funds). Contributions include: . Family issues of care interlace with world tragedy in Renee Rodin's = memoir of September 11 and her consequent visit to see her sons in New = York. . Structures of cause and effect are interrogated in Alexandra Chasin's = diagrammatic "A Grammar of Guilt". . Chair of the B.C. Civil Liberties Society, John Dixon assesses the = impact of Canadian reaction to Sunera Thobani's conference speech. . "The Empire of Grief" by Adeena Karasick presents a compendium of = words and phrases whose meanings shift in the debris: And, i'm rememberin' when "Red Alert" referred to a Macy's Sale, when camouflage bedwear was strong, sexy and designed to arouse the invasion of allied forces. Remember when 'laden flew a flying carpet It's a whole new war... . Alan Sondheim's "United States Postal Service" conducts a paranoic = self-interrogation about suspicious mail. . Reconstructed assemblage art by Al Neil and assisted by Carole Itter = is featured in the full-colour visual art section. ALSO: Ivan Arguelles of Berkeley, California; Vancouver/Toronto writer = bill bissett; Daniel Bouchard of Cambridge, MA; New York poets Michael = Broder, George Murray, and Chris Taylor; San Fransisco's Lewis Buzbee = and Sarah Anne Cox; Brett Enemark of Vancouver; and Bryan Sentes of = Montreal. The Capilano Review has been publishing innovative poetry, = fiction, drama, and visual work for over 25 years. It has received = several National Magazine Awards, Western Magazine Awards, and its = published stories have been included in The Journey Prize Anthology. --=20 Carol L. Hamshaw Managing Editor The Capilano Review 604-984-1712 http://www.capcollege.bc.ca/dept/TCR For submission guidelines, please see http://www.capcollege.bc.ca/dept/TCR/submit.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 23:48:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: The Capilano Review special issue on Grief / War / Poetics (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=X-UNKNOWN Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 22 May 2002 13:45:51 -0700 From: Carol Hamshaw / TCR To: tcr@capcollege.bc.ca Subject: The Capilano Review special issue on Grief / War / Poetics FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Special Issue on war Info: 604-984-1712 The Capilano Review special issue on Grief / War / Poetics Literary and visuals arts journal, The Capilano Review has collected a range of timely work from Canadian and U.S. poets and prose writers in response to a unique call for submissions on "war, grief, and poetics in a post 9/11 context". The unprecedented issue brings together creative and probing texts that reveal the initial attempts of artists to integrate cultural and political implications with their creative processes. =09Released in April 2002 the issue sells for $9 and can be found in independent Vancouver bookstores and in stores of the Indigo/Chapters chain across Canada. Issues can also be purchased by mailing a cheque for $9 to: The Capilano Review, 2055 Purcell Way, North Vancouver, BC V7J 3H5 or via email at tcr@capcollege.bc.ca (for foreign orders, prices in U.S. funds). Contributions include: =85 Family issues of care interlace with world tragedy in Renee Rodin's memoir of September 11 and her consequent visit to see her sons in New York. =85 Structures of cause and effect are interrogated in Alexandra Chasin's diagrammatic "A Grammar of Guilt". =85 Chair of the B.C. Civil Liberties Society, John Dixon assesses the impact of Canadian reaction to Sunera Thobani's conference speech. =85 "The Empire of Grief" by Adeena Karasick presents a compendium of words and phrases whose meanings shift in the debris: And, i'm rememberin' when "Red Alert" referred to a Macy's Sale, when camouflage bedwear was strong, sexy and designed to arouse the invasion of allied forces. Remember when 'laden flew a flying carpet It's a whole new war... =85 Alan Sondheim's "United States Postal Service" conducts a paranoic self-interrogation about suspicious mail. =85 Reconstructed assemblage art by Al Neil and assisted by Carole Itter is featured in the full-colour visual art section. ALSO: Ivan Arguelles of Berkeley, California; Vancouver/Toronto writer bill bissett; Daniel Bouchard of Cambridge, MA; New York poets Michael Broder, George Murray, and Chris Taylor; San Fransisco's Lewis Buzbee and Sarah Anne Cox; Brett Enemark of Vancouver; and Bryan Sentes of Montreal. =09The Capilano Review has been publishing innovative poetry, fiction, drama, and visual work for over 25 years. It has received several National Magazine Awards, Western Magazine Awards, and its published stories have been included in The Journey Prize Anthology. -- Carol L. Hamshaw Managing Editor The Capilano Review 604-984-1712 http://www.capcollege.bc.ca/dept/TCR For submission guidelines, please see http://www.capcollege.bc.ca/dept/TCR/submit.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 02:05:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: all animals have red eyes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII classifying the unknown, road-side saw-palmettos, coot flurry take-off from sludge reservoirs, they've moved across unknown territories of the soul, we're out of touch, away from radiation-radio, we're signing-off, we're moving on, sky brown-silver lid, thick-lipped dusk crashing eaten apple-snails, high-flying snail-kites, swallows' enormous swallows :apple-snails on the beam-sides, there are worlds in the caches, we fly by at hi-speed, through polluted cypress-domes, mutated hammocks, we're out of harm's way in a fast car on a fast road, we're heading north to toronto :we're on the road, it's deep-eco spring-and-summer season, passed a cormorant on the way through newark, out of newyork wending our way through the holocaust, mined pit-craters everywhere, turned/toiled iron beaming struggling, cache-providing, there's food in there, you can see the eyes of animals, all animals have red eyes :: we're on the highway of entanglement, we're moving fast, we're leaving light behind us, we're leaving light behind us all animals have red eyes snail-kites, swallows' enormous swallows :apple-snails on the beam-sides, increasingly difficult to move large volumes of mon there are worlds in the caches, we fly by at high speed, through pollutedarticularly for a liberation in their depictions. if there is mon cypress-domes, mutated hammocks, we're out of harm's way in a fast car money with the security company in sou through my classifying the light behind us, we're leaving light behind usich was taken out light behind us, we're leaving light behind use said security/fina light behind us, we're leaving light behind use said security/fina [NestList[Flatten{ _ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 10:10:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: poetics@acsu.buffalo.edu Comments: Originally-From: "L-Soft list server at University at Buffalo (1.8d)" From: Poetics List Administration Subject: POETICS: approval required (DB7FE8E2) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This message was originally submitted by Davdhess@AOL.COM to the POETICS list at LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU. You can approve it using the "OK" mechanism, ignore it, or repost an edited copy. The message will expire automatically and you do not need to do anything if you just want to discard it. Please refer to the list owner's guide if you are not familiar with the "OK" mechanism; these instructions are being kept purposefully short for your convenience in processing large numbers of messages. ----------------- Original message (ID=DB7FE8E2) (23 lines) ------------------- Received: (qmail 22914 invoked from network); 20 May 2002 19:39:53 -0000 Received: from imo-m08.mx.aol.com (64.12.136.163) by listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu with SMTP; 20 May 2002 19:39:53 -0000 Received: from Davdhess@aol.com by imo-m08.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v32.5.) id a.6f.27bb67e1 (657) for ; Mon, 20 May 2002 15:39:47 -0400 (EDT) From: Davdhess@aol.com Message-ID: <6f.27bb67e1.2a1aab02@aol.com> Date: Mon, 20 May 2002 15:39:46 EDT Subject: Criticism=Academic Criticism=Poetics To: poetics@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: AOL 6.0 for Windows US sub 10567 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit or Academic Criticism=Poetics=Criticism or Poetics=Criticism=Academic Criticism all i know: triple irony is in effect ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 12:38:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: Frank Kermode MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 TmVlZCBjb250YWN0IGluZm8gZm9yIEZyYW5rIEtlcm1vZGUgLS0gd291bGQgYmUgaW1tZW5zZWx5 IGdyYXRlZnVsLg0KDQpQaGlsaXANCg0K ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 13:03:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Subject: porta poem MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here is a poem by Antonio Porta that I just translated for a friend. Bill This morning the radio: there are already enough bombs for 250,000 Hiroshimas but the danger is not imminent. Tell me, how can a poet be loved? I remember well, it was Musil who wrote, "this is the first age in history that does not love its poets." In these days many ask me for poetry, what good motive there needs to be. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 13:53:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: POETRY PROJECT EVENTS Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit MAY 24, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] WAR AND PEACE: A MULTIMEDIA RECITAL OF ART SONG AND VIDEO MAY 27, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] RELEASE PARTY FOR AUFGABE MAY 29, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] MICHAEL BROWNSTEIN AND PETER LAMBORN WILSON MAY 31, FRIDAY [9:30 p.m.] FENCE BOOK READING JUNE 3, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] SPRING WORKSHOP READING ALL 2001-2002 POETRY PROJECT READING SERIES OFFICIALLY END AND WILL BEGIN AGAIN IN OCTOBER. http://www.poetryproject.com/calendar.html *************************** MAY 24, FRIDAY [10:30 p.m.] WAR AND PEACE: A MULTIMEDIA RECITAL OF ART SONG AND VIDEO DAYLE VANDER SANDE, tenor; ANTHONY BELLOV, videographer Dayle Vander Sande and Anthony Bellov present song settings of poetry and texts from across ages and cultures, interpretive video and video interviews to create a new "concert theater" experience. Thought-provoking and introspective, audience members will be encouraged to contribute their own thoughts and responses to this significant examination of these age-old, yet timely, subjects. MAY 27, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] RELEASE PARTY FOR AUFGABE Release Party for the second issue of Aufgabe, a journal that explores the poetic spectrum of innovative work in this country, as well as provides a forum for work outside our borders. Readers from the first two issues of Aufgabe include ANDREW LEVY, VERONICA CORPUZ, RICK SNYDER, EDMUND BERRIGAN, MACGREGOR CARD, PAUL FOSTER JOHNSON, AND KERRI SONNENBERG. MAY 29, WEDNESDAY [8:00 p.m.] MICHAEL BROWNSTEIN AND PETER LAMBORN WILSON Novelist and poet MICHAEL BROWNSTEIN will read from World on Fire, his new book about sameness, economic globalization, and the Devil. He is the author of three earlier novels, Country Cousins, Self-Reliance, and The Touch, and his writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review, and many other magazines. PETER LAMBORN WILSON's books include Ploughing the Clouds: The Search for Irish Soma (City Lights), Avant Gardening (with Bill Weinburg from Autonomedia), and Drunken Universe: An Anthology of Persian Sufi Poetry (with N. Pourjavady, new edition, Omega Books). As an underground intellectual and a member of the Autonomedia collective, he has been involved in a range of initiatives including bi-weekly broadcasting his "Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade" on WBAI and regular lectures at the New York Open Center. MAY 31, FRIDAY [9:30 p.m.] FENCE BOOK READING Discounted copies of all four Fence Books' books available, as well as discounted subscriptions to Fence Magazine. The evening will feature four poets: MICHAEL EARL CRAIG, author of Can You Relax in My House; JOYELLE MCSWEENEY, author of The Red Bird, winner of the 2001 Fence Modern Poets Series Prize; CHELSEY MINNIS, author of Zirconia, winner of the 2001 Alberta Prize from Fence Books; and CATHERINE WAGNER, author of Miss America. [PLEASE NOTE THE 9:30 START TIME.] JUNE 3, MONDAY [8:00 p.m.] SPRING WORKSHOP READING Students from the three Poetry Project Spring Workshops will read their newest works. THE POETRY PROJECT READING SEASON OFFICIALLY ENDS AND WILL BEGIN AGAIN IN OCTOBER. -- Unless otherwise noted, admission to all events is $7, $4 for students and seniors, and $3 for Poetry Project members. Schedule is subject to change. The Poetry Project is located in St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery at 131 E. 10th Street, the corner of 2nd Avenue and 10th Street in Manhattan. Trains F, 6, N, R. The Poetry Project is wheelchair accessible with assistance and advance notice. Please call (212) 674-0910 for more information, or visit our Web site at http://www.poetryproject.com. If you are currently on our email list and would like to be on our regular mailing list (so you can receive a sample issue of The Poetry Project Newsletter for FREE), just reply to this email with your full name and address. Hope to hear from you soon!!! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 14:33:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: oranget@GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: further thoughts on telling it slant MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit hello all, since my report on the telling it slant panel was rather (as some folks have pointed out to me backchannel) objective, neutral, and even made the whole proceedings and/or the book sound boring, they very much were/are not and i thought i'd follow up with something less objective and hopefully less boring-sounding. to its credit, the format enabled a variety of voices, perspectives, and approaches to be registered. in an academic conference setting, i tend to hope that at least one of the three 20-minute read-verbatim-off-the- page papers will spark my curiosity and that i won't feel at the end like a full hour of my time has been wasted by people who aren't telling us anything we don't already know or could easily enough find out for ourselves. the format encouraged a variety of pre-written or extemporized statements (or some combination thereof), theoretical stances or readings of other poets, and everything in between. so even the movement between the different approaches each person took was worth attending to. as well as the fact that when presentations did overlap, the presenters themselves were able to incorporate those connections on the spot (say, andrew levy picking up on jeff derksen) rather than leave it to the authority of the panel chair or moderator to elicit or tie together such threads. the format's inherent shortcoming of course is that with the numerous short presentations it's hard as an audience member (for me at any rate) to come away with something on which i can comfortably or resolutely hang my hat. i mean i think that's partly the point, that there is not some grand statement or synthesis, some single position or bone to gnaw on as you walk away. and i'm inclined to think that this may be emblematic of what's both exciting and frustrating about the kind of refusals that seem to have become definitional to the decade and the generation that has come of age in it (the refusal of identities, factions, singularities of practice, etc). what i found most useful were the presentations that (and this is perhaps something of a paradox) on the one hand turned me on to something new and on the other hand addressed what i wanted to hear. (between these two i'd have to place a third category of stuff that didn't necessarily tell me anything new but was nevertheless good for me to hear again and/or in a new context, examples of which would be jeff derksen's talk, jeff hansen's reading of the heather fuller poem, etc.) what turned me on to somethng new was, for example, andy levy's discussion of michael amnasan's work, gary sullivan's discussion of daniel davidson's work, lee ann brown's new poems. what i wanted to hear, what i'm always interested to hear, is how and when people came to this work and what it was like then and how it's different now. sherry brennan and charles borkhuis touched on this, but eileen myles really delivered for me in this respect. she's simply a brilliant extemporiser: her thought moves and spins and cuts and comes back in ways that are really fascinating to watch and hear. her talk was the most exemplary articulation of what i've always held raymond williams to mean by his phrase "structure of feeling": the way that individual and group affect is both enabled and constrained by social, material, and economic conditions. from her sense of the avant garde as a site of friendship and a place where people can come together, she explained how the different decades embodied different dispositions toward and expressions of poetry and the avant garde in a really compelling way. i think the other presentation that touched on what i wanted to hear was that of brian kim stefans, on the issue of what i guess i would call the current level of discourse operating in and around our current poetry. brian mentioned the fact that people seem to have lost interest in or the energy for the kinds of discussions surrounding, for example, apex of the m and fence. and i suppose this is both fortunate and unfortunate because on the one hand such controveries have tended to raise all kinds of animosities and rancors, but on the other hand they clearly involved issues that people cared enough about and were invested enough in to want to engage in serious debate in the first place. i think the problem here comes down to two interrelated factors: the level of discourse we can engage in and the amount of energy with which one can engage. cynics and pacifists will perhaps always bemoan the poetry wars and cite how little they all mean in the grand scheme of things beyond our little worlds of poetry. and i'm certainly not suggesting everyone take off the gloves and have a go at each other either. but i think there's presently a kind of disinclination to 1) air out issues and differences 2) at a level of discourse in which thoughtful understandings can be shared. and i don't know how to account for this except to say that i think part of it has to do with energy, of which i often don't have enough myself. but i do see the telling it slant book and panel as both offering very promising impetuses for putting up some stakes and exchanging some real discussion. i know between readings at double happiness the following day people were talking about the panel and i hope the talk continues... tom orange ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 13:49:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keeanga Taylor Subject: Re: porta poem In-Reply-To: <000f01c20284$19377a40$a03e400c@bill> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit thanks bill. keeanga > From: Bill > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 13:03:09 -0500 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: porta poem > > Here is a poem by Antonio Porta that I just translated for a friend. > > Bill > > > This morning the radio: there are already > enough bombs for 250,000 Hiroshimas > but the danger is not imminent. > Tell me, how can a poet be loved? > I remember well, it was Musil who wrote, > "this is the first age in history > that does not love its poets." > In these days many ask me for poetry, > what good motive there needs to be. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 14:08:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: porta poem In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Bill, Good gracious, I thought you meant 'porta poem" like "porta potty." That was confusing. But the poem is great. Speaking of great translations, I recommend the Darwish poems in the Spring/Summer Fence Magazine Inc. Wow-- and i see a collection of them is due out from U. Cali press this fall. Among the last books of poetry from that estimable publisher? Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 16:44:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: porta poem In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > Speaking of great translations, I recommend the Darwish poems in the > Spring/Summer Fence Magazine Inc. Wow-- and i see a collection of them is > due out from U. Cali press this fall. Among the last books of poetry from > that estimable publisher? > > > Aaron No -- the poetry series did not get axed, far as I know. Pierre ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 "É melhor ser cabeça de sardinha Tel: (518) 426-0433 do que traseiro de baleia" Fax: (518) 426-3722 Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ____________________________________________________________________________ _ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 13:58:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mary Burger Subject: New book by Camille Roy from Second Story Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" "Craquer, an essay on class" by Camille Roy, new from Second Story Books. Available from Small Press Distribution, http://www.spdbooks.org In a compelling essay-autobiography-narrative, Roy makes a spirited reconciliation with the accidents and secrets of family circumstance. 40 pages, hand bound. "Who hasn't been lied to, constantly? Viewed from another angle, it's a gift. I remember Pearl, eyeing me after a few vodkas with the closest thing that she possessed to wickedness, You-she snapped-can write. You're like your father. I just can't. Then stalking off into the remainder of her mysterious evening. Pearl's stories pulsed with desire, fantasy, and dread. They became me. Then they blurred, disappeared. I live in the aftermath. The snag, its lingering disturbance, feels muscular. It resides there, as I shove one foot ahead of the other, in all the sites of pleasure and aggression, intact as my confidence." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 15:52:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: porta poem In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > > No -- the poetry series did not get axed, far as I know. > > Pierre Thanks. I see that I was thinking of "It will publish dramatically less literature and far fewer works of literary theory," which does not necessarily imply the end of the poetry series. -Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 22:28:41 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hoa Nguyen Subject: New from First Intensity Books Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed The Flood & The Garden - a daybook by Dale Smith ISBN 1-889960-07-1, paper, perfectbound, 106 pps, $12 “I was astonished and completely absorbed in Dale's new book. It's deeply beautiful, the domesticity, the friendships, the ranting, the quality of detail, the resonant tenderness of his sentences. It gleams. Reminds me much of Basho's haibun, except the journey isn't in distance so much as it is in time. The time it takes for conception, a time in friendship and reading and arguing and gestures of love and lust. It's so lustrous in its clarity it is as though he had fallen off a cliff and with his heart in his mouth glimpsed each of these moments in a slow motion exactness, the sequence of bathetic experiences that make up the meaning of a life.” -- Forrest Gander Distributed by: Small Press Distribution 1341 Seventh St. Berkeley, CA 94710-1403 1.800.869.7553 (Toll-free within the US) email: orders@spdbooks.org See http://homepage.mac.com/firstintensity/dsmith.html for an excerpt and more _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 22:40:32 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hoa Nguyen Subject: Pouch: Spring/Summer Edition now online Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Please visit The Possum Pouch: An irregular publication of essays, notes and reviews at http://www.skankypossum.com. The Pouch is free, fat, fresh, and will not be archived. Read it while you can! FEATURING >>>Tom Clark on Edward Dorn Excerpt from *Edward Dorn: A World of Difference* by Tom Clark (North Atlantic Books, Spring 2002) >>>An Interview with Edward Dorn (Denver, Spring 1997) >>>Four Poems by Kit Robinson >>>Pouch Notes on Sullivan, Owens & Sanders >>>Dig it! Recommendations from our mailbag: Corbett, Blau DuPlessis, Spahr, >>>Jarnot and more... Please forgive cross postings. _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 18:12:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: My last email; Chris's questions; Bill's translation MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT 1. Last email I wrote: "It is the classic avant-garde strategy, faced with the question of lineage and influence, to assert a new poetry moment without poetics parallel." I’d like to take this back, as I am re-stating and expanding it into a new thread somewhat separate from my reading of Chris’s work (even though it will stil figure there -- but re-written). 2. Chris, I am mulling over your questions. I feel they are good just there, unanswered (but, not forgotten by me). Here I just want to say, in case it’s not obvious, that anyone should feel invited to respond to them, I hope -- I certainly don’t think of them as exclusively addressed to moi. 3. Bill, I wonder about the last crucial line, “what good motive there needs to be.” for “qualche motivo buono ci deve essere.” Of all the lines in the poem, the tone for this last seems most difficult to interpret let alone translate. Is he referring to his own motivations for giving out his poems, or to the motivations of those who are asking for them? If the latter, is he being sarcastic (given that no one loves poets, the motives for any request for poems are highly suspect) or genuine (no one loves poets, yet everyone loves poetry -- what’s going on?)? I’m wondering if you were playing with other English variants, even as it seems that you have very little wiggle-room in the Italian. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 22:11:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: eyes and mouth print "tendin MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - eyes and mouth print "tendin eyes and mouthe route" }ork. cock with herorry if you d his eyes and /[h]+/ { they bledhre which eyes and mouth } they bled me for a eyes and mouth[g]+/ { print they came past the caravans, carrying everyone who was dead and wounded. the site was terrifying, as if the world had come to an end at a new and violent pole. the sun itself was blood-red, and nature shuddered in response. labia engorged with him making him wide everyone could anyone who wanted cock with her his eyes and they bled tight they cut for everyone to eyes and mouth eyes and mouth labia engorged with him making him cock with her they bled they bled tight they cut for everyone to eyes and mouth eyes and mouth him making him wide everyone could anyone who wanted cock with her his eyes and they bled they bled tight they cut eyes and mouth eyes and mouth cock with her his eyes and they bled eyes and mouth _ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 00:07:38 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Fakelangpo News Comments: To: webartery@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit First of all, Fakelangpo is now now accessible from the easy to remember URL www.sporkworld.org/fakelangpo.html. This is just a page which gives you a link to go to the real fakelangpo page, but you should use it since I reserve the right to chnage the other link (if I chnage content management systems) and I may post occasional news or warnings on this front page. Secondly, we have a new poem of great accomplishment (what kind of accomplishment is left up to you...it may be real...or fake...or a failed attempt at either...discussion on the site is always welcome!) called "3 Encounters. I hope you will enjoy the humorous button from which you call up this poem. You will have to read the poem carefully to find its inspiration. Thirdly, fakelangpo still seeks submissions for the site of poetry (or related web art), real or fake, by real or fake poets, who may themselves be real or fake. Indiuvidual poems are welcome but collections (links to a personal home page where you have poems perhaps) are particularly sought out. We also seek, in a more serious vein, essays on Language poetry (specifically, what is it IN THE POEM that makes it a language poem, assuming you didn't know who the author was and didn't know if the poem was connected to te L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E mqanifesto)? what little-known language poets are there? or poets who write like language poets but aren't in the in group so aren't considered LPs even though their style is similar?). Another need is humorous/fake manfesti on the theory of fakelangpo which of course is based on being fun-to-read Language poetry, and by extension, advanced/avant garde/experimental/academic/serious/innovative poetry which is fun to read. In other genres of poetry, it is a given that the poems must be pleasing (eg New Formalism) but in the most "exciting" new poetry, sometimes actually entertaining the reader is forgotten... does this have to be so? Or is it a case of the reader needing to catch up to the state of the art, like the people who couldn't understand or be entertained by the Cubists when their paintings first came out? FINALLY, the real hope os that there will begin to be some discussion on the site. This site's existence has generated some discussion here (mostly anger at how dare I make fun of the Language Poets, which incidentally, I'm not & as I keep saying I enjoy their work, and find the best of it fun to read in the fakelangpo sense .... but not because of the theory or because of who wrote them but because of the intrinsic textual qualities of the poems themselves). I would hope that anyone else who is angry at it would take their comments to the site itself, along with other people who want to discuss the various areas of interest that the site prmotes. It's actyually an effort to promote a focused discussion of poetics and specific poems both, through humor but for serious purpose ultimately. Millie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 19:13:30 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Fakelangpo News MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Millie Etal. I liked this site. Only had a brief look: your poem re on the subway very good: a humoresque but interesting site. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Millie Niss" To: Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 4:07 PM Subject: Fakelangpo News > First of all, Fakelangpo is now now accessible from the easy to remember URL > www.sporkworld.org/fakelangpo.html. This is just a page which gives you a > link to go to the real fakelangpo page, but you should use it since I > reserve the right to chnage the other link (if I chnage content management > systems) and I may post occasional news or warnings on this front page. > > Secondly, we have a new poem of great accomplishment (what kind of > accomplishment is left up to you...it may be real...or fake...or a failed > attempt at either...discussion on the site is always welcome!) called "3 > Encounters. I hope you will enjoy the humorous button from which you call > up this poem. You will have to read the poem carefully to find its > inspiration. > > Thirdly, fakelangpo still seeks submissions for the site of poetry (or > related web art), real or fake, by real or fake poets, who may themselves be > real or fake. Indiuvidual poems are welcome but collections (links to a > personal home page where you have poems perhaps) are particularly sought > out. > > We also seek, in a more serious vein, essays on Language poetry > (specifically, what is it IN THE POEM that makes it a language poem, > assuming you didn't know who the author was and didn't know if the poem was > connected to te L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E mqanifesto)? what little-known language > poets are there? or poets who write like language poets but aren't in the in > group so aren't considered LPs even though their style is similar?). > > Another need is humorous/fake manfesti on the theory of fakelangpo which of > course is based on being fun-to-read Language poetry, and by extension, > advanced/avant garde/experimental/academic/serious/innovative poetry which > is fun to read. In other genres of poetry, it is a given that the poems > must be pleasing (eg New Formalism) but in the most "exciting" new poetry, > sometimes actually entertaining the reader is forgotten... does this have > to be so? Or is it a case of the reader needing to catch up to the state of > the art, like the people who couldn't understand or be entertained by the > Cubists when their paintings first came out? > > FINALLY, the real hope os that there will begin to be some discussion on the > site. This site's existence has generated some discussion here (mostly > anger at how dare I make fun of the Language Poets, which incidentally, I'm > not & as I keep saying I enjoy their work, and find the best of it fun to > read in the fakelangpo sense .... but not because of the theory or because > of who wrote them but because of the intrinsic textual qualities of the > poems themselves). I would hope that anyone else who is angry at it would > take their comments to the site itself, along with other people who want to > discuss the various areas of interest that the site prmotes. It's actyually > an effort to promote a focused discussion of poetics and specific poems > both, through humor but for serious purpose ultimately. > > Millie > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 05:30:57 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Bourbeau Subject: Talisman New Arrival!!!!! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit TALISMAN: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics _____ The long awaited history of contemporary American poetry, Talisman #23-26, is to be published in early August. More than 700 pages long, this special volume surveys major developments in avant-garde American poetry from 1970 to the present. The World in Time and Space: Reviews/Essays/Interviews on the Revolution in American Poetry and Poetics at the End of the Twentieth Century and the Beginning of the Twenty-First includes contributions by major critics and poets including Bruce Andrews, Daniel Barbiero, Christopher Beach, Michael Boughn, Peter Bushyeager, David Clippinger, Michel Delville, Brent Edwards, Steve Evans, Dan Featherston, Thomas Fink, Norman Finkelstein, Alan Golding, Jeanne Heuving, W. Scott Howard, Andrew Joron, Burt Kimmelman, David Landrey, Kathryne V. Lindberg, Stephen-Paul Martin, Stephen Paul Miller, Aldon Lynn Nielsen, Alice Notley, Peter O'Leary, Marjorie Perloff, Linda Russo, Standard Schaefer, Julie Schmid, Susan M. Schultz, Leonard Schwartz, Mark Scroggins, Mary Margaret Sloan, Gustaf Sobin, Brian Kim Stefans, Susan Vanderborg, and the editors, Joseph Donahue and Edward Foster. _____ This special history, encompassing four issues, is available to subscribers for only $21, including shipping. (Newsstands and bookstores will charge $24.95.) As a special bonus, subscriptions RECEIVED BEFORE JULY 10th will also include a copy of David Clippinger's The Body of This Life: Reading William Bronk with essays and memoirs by Don Adams, Robert J. Bertholf, Joseph Conte, Paul Christensen, David Clippinger, Ronald W. Collins, John Ernest, Norman Finkelstein, Edward Foster, Burton Hatlen, W. Sheldon Hurst, S. M. Kearns, Jack Kimball, Burt Kimmelman, David Landrey, Tom Lisk, Michael Perkins, Paul Pines, Gerald Schwartz, Rose Shapiro, Henry Weinfield, and Daniel Wolff. _____ .................................................................... Enclosed is my check or money order for $21. Please send a copy of the Talisman special four- issue history of avant-garde American poetry from 1970 to the present to: Name ______________________________________ Address ____________________________________ City _______________ State _________ Zip ______ I am subscribing before July 10th. Please include a copy of David Clippinger's The Body of This Life: Reading William Bronk. Send to: Talisman P.O. Box 3157 Jersey City, NJ 07303-3157 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 09:58:14 -0400 Reply-To: parrishka@sympatico.ca Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: parrishka Subject: desperately seeking tina MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit could someone b/c me contact info for tina darragh? many thanks. katherine parrish ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 09:48:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Subject: Re: My last email; Chris's questions; Bill's translation MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Louis, > > 3. Bill, I wonder about the last crucial line, > > "what good motive there needs to be." > > for > > "qualche motivo buono ci deve essere." Admittedly the translation is a little awkward. Perhaps a translation that relies less on his specific language would be more appropriate. This translation was a quick one, but I did think of other versions for the last line, although I could not come up with anything quickly. Phrases like "there needs to be some good motive" don't seem much better. As for the motivation for the line, I take it as a mix of genuine and sarcastic. The need is genuine on the poet's part, i.e. there needs to be poetry, especially in our period. This need is also true for the ones asking for poetry; however, there is a note of sarcasm, perhaps irony is a better word for what I mean, since no one loves poets. In a more extended interpretation, poetry is a balance or a contrast to the language on the radio that states that the danger is not imminent. But perhaps I am interpreting this poem under the shadow of his poem ("educare al razionale . . .") about poetry helping one to interrogate language. How would you translate the line? Bill ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 12:23:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mcgregor Card Subject: May 30, NYC reading: Turovsky/ LaFarge/ Card/ Ostashevsky Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed The Unbearables Festival presents: NEW PYTHAGOREAN POETRY Readings by Genya Turovsky Paul Poissel LaFarge Macgregor Card Eugene Ostashevsky THURSDAY May 30, 7:30 PM at Fusion Arts 57 Stanton Street, the Lower East Side Near the 2nd avenue stop on the F Either $5 or free, we can't remember Genya Turovsky is the editor of Balaklava, a website of Russian poetry in English translation ( http://klaud.com/balaklava/ ). Her own poetry is available at http://www.pressioni.com/turovsky/EUTUR/ . Paul Poissel (1848 ? 1922), fin-de-siècle French poet and novelist, author of _Hausmann, or, The Distinction_, recently published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, will, for reasons of death, be represented by his medium, Paul LaFarge. Information on Poissel may be found at http://www.poissel.net/anglais/index.html. Macgregor Card is co-editor of The Germ. His chapbook, _Souvenir Winner_, is just out from Hophophop Press. Poems are available online at http://www.theeastvillage.com/t13/card/a.htm and http://www.canwehaveourballback.com/xcard.htm . Eugene Ostashevsky's chapbook _The Off-Centaur_ has recently been published by Germ Folios. His poetry and translations of the Russian absurdist Aleksandr Vvedensky are available at http://www.ycrop.com/pro/file85.html and http://www.fencemag.com/v4n2/text/vvedenskii.html . _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 12:03:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: The New Bohemian In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I'm a young, healthy poet, not yet committed to a "school" or "movement," and I've been considering my options. Torn as I am between Language Poetry, Ellipticism, and Neo-objectivism, you can imagine my refreshment when I saw a sign in the window of The Limited: the new bohemian hippie-inspired with a way hot attitude It looks to the future, yet not without a sense of history; it even has the makings of a manifesto; perhaps one might yet, in the words of T.J. Maxx, "make it happen with fashion." The New Bohemian-- Who's with me? Aaron S. Belz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 13:21:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: schwartzgk Subject: Re: The New Bohemian MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit yes, I, too, have walked past the toiled glare of tese places -- The Limited, T. J. Maxx, (also STRUCTURE)...and have found passages enlightening, compressed meanings, coming in suddenness...a flash of glitz at those who are to be instructed. such a concentration! such a meaning! --Gerald P. S. don't join any clubs that is vapid, harmless, and unmemorable... > I'm a young, healthy poet, not yet committed to a "school" or "movement," > and I've been considering my options. Torn as I am between Language Poetry, > Ellipticism, and Neo-objectivism, you can imagine my refreshment when I saw > a sign in the window of The Limited: > > the new bohemian > hippie-inspired with a way hot attitude > > It looks to the future, yet not without a sense of history; it even has the > makings of a manifesto; perhaps one might yet, in the words of T.J. Maxx, > "make it happen with fashion." > > The New Bohemian-- Who's with me? > > Aaron S. Belz > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 10:29:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: The New Bohemian In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed These days they call themselves Czechs, mate. Mark At 12:03 PM 5/24/2002 -0500, you wrote: >I'm a young, healthy poet, not yet committed to a "school" or "movement," >and I've been considering my options. Torn as I am between Language Poetry, >Ellipticism, and Neo-objectivism, you can imagine my refreshment when I saw >a sign in the window of The Limited: > > the new bohemian > hippie-inspired with a way hot attitude > >It looks to the future, yet not without a sense of history; it even has the >makings of a manifesto; perhaps one might yet, in the words of T.J. Maxx, >"make it happen with fashion." > >The New Bohemian-- Who's with me? > >Aaron S. Belz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 13:57:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: The New Bohemian In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maybe we are not new good wo/men -- but good consumers!!! I too wave no flag other than my own so maybe LOW INTEREST PAYMENTS IN ONE YEAR (for qualified buyers) In many ways Langpo tries to shuffle off the consumer/isms GET THE MAX FOR THE MINIMUM To the point of eliminating the enjoyment of poetry SEND NO MONEY NOW -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of Aaron Belz Sent: Friday, May 24, 2002 1:03 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: The New Bohemian I'm a young, healthy poet, not yet committed to a "school" or "movement," and I've been considering my options. Torn as I am between Language Poetry, Ellipticism, and Neo-objectivism, you can imagine my refreshment when I saw a sign in the window of The Limited: the new bohemian hippie-inspired with a way hot attitude It looks to the future, yet not without a sense of history; it even has the makings of a manifesto; perhaps one might yet, in the words of T.J. Maxx, "make it happen with fashion." The New Bohemian-- Who's with me? Aaron S. Belz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 15:27:46 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Canadian Publishing Meltdown MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT LIFELINE FOR ONE PUBLISHER MEANS POTENTIAL DEATH KNELL FOR MANY PUBLISHERS For immediate release Toronto, May 23, 2002 While the decision reached in the Ontario courts yesterday may have offered a lifeline to Jack Stoddart and his beleaguered General Publishing, Canadian publishers affected by this decision suggest that it may spell a death knell for many of them. More than 40 Canadian and US publishers spent the last week in court arguing that they owned the receivables for books invoiced on their behalf by General Distribution Services (GDS). Judge Ground ruled otherwise yesterday, paving the way for restructuring at General and removing any hope that publishers would collect very much of the $6.5 million owed to them by General Publishing and its many subsidiaries. While General Publishing’s Jack Stoddart remarked that the upshot of Judge Ground’s decision is that "authors, booksellers, employees and publishers" are the winners, publishers are doubtful that this decision will spell good news for anyone but the Bank of Nova Scotia and Jack Stoddart himself. The GDS receivables, estimated at about $18 million, are pledged first to the Bank of Nova Scotia, and then to Jack Stoddart (chairman of GDS), (who together are owed more than $20 million) followed by a list of other secured and unsecured creditors. Despite Stoddart’s assurances, publishers are doubtful that they or the authors will realize much of the more than $13 million owed in "unsecured" receivables. "After the Bank gets its money, and Jack Stoddart collects his pay-out, I doubt there will be very much left for the other unsecured creditors," said Jack David, co-owner of ECW Press and a member of the Literary Press Group of Canada (LPG) and the Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP). "The ruling yesterday puts us at the bottom of a long list, and I don’t expect to see a dime." It is estimated that, of the $13.3 million owed to General’s client publishers, more than $3 million is owed to about 50 unsecured Canadian publishers, many of them small literary publishers that discover much of the writing talent in Canada. The debt represents several months of domestic book sales, including from the fall and holiday seasons, by far the most important selling season. Many of the publishers use GDS for U.S. sales as well and haven’t been paid for these sales for almost a year. For publishers such as Véhicule Press and McGill-Queen’s University Press in Montreal, Porcupine’s Quill and ECW Press in Toronto, Goose Lane Editions in Fredericton, Coteau in Saskatoon, New Star Books in Vancouver, and many others, the failure of the courts to recognize the publishers’ ownership of receivables is dispiriting. After a booming fall season, Canadian publishers had expected that their revenue from fall sales would propel them through the spring and summer of 2002. Unfortunately, they will now have to wait months before they collect anything from General, and, even then, it will probably be a small fraction of what is owed to them from the sale of their books, if anything. Most of them now expect that revenue from fall sales will all-but-disappear. Unlike many GDS creditors, publishers now face the prospect of having no income for many months to come. "As publishers, we are most at risk among all the unsecured creditors," said Jack David. "We depend on our distributor to collect most of our earned revenue from our customers, the bookstores. For other unsecured creditors, such as the phone or courier companies, it’s just one bad account." At the same time, the courts have prevented many publishers from terminating their contracts with GDS or removing their inventory from the GDS warehouse. They take cold comfort in the new "trust" accounts established by GDS for revenue generated by new sales, which do not appear to be beyond the reach of the bank or Stoddart himself. "The only thing that yesterday’s ruling determined, said Jack David, "is that the Bank of Nova Scotia will increase its profits, and some Canadian publishers will be driven out of business." For more information, please contact David Caron, executive director of the LPG at 416-483-1321, or Monique Smith, executive director of the ACP at 416-487-6116. -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 15:00:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Shoemaker Subject: Re: The New Bohemian In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Oh, rapture! Finally something to *belong* to! I feel as if I've found a piece of me that was missing. I'm not quite sure where it was missing *from*, but I believe somewhere in the vicinity of the spleen... ss On Fri, 24 May 2002, Aaron Belz wrote: > I'm a young, healthy poet, not yet committed to a "school" or "movement," > and I've been considering my options. Torn as I am between Language Poetry, > Ellipticism, and Neo-objectivism, you can imagine my refreshment when I saw > a sign in the window of The Limited: > > the new bohemian > hippie-inspired with a way hot attitude > > It looks to the future, yet not without a sense of history; it even has the > makings of a manifesto; perhaps one might yet, in the words of T.J. Maxx, > "make it happen with fashion." > > The New Bohemian-- Who's with me? > > Aaron S. Belz > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 12:24:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Felsinger Subject: Re: The New Bohemian In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I am with you Aaron. Though I don't think joining the bohemians is something a bohemian would do-- unless you mean to suggest the Bohemian Club? In which case, I would hazard to assume, we are, due to our combined lack of power, money and prestige, less than ideal candidates. (If you'd made that trip to San Francisco we could have wandered our way to the Bohemian Men's Club, (is it still called that-- A Men's Club?) next to Grace Cathedral and The Fairmont Hotel, on one of the more beatific avenues of the city.) One interesting book on Boheme is _Bohemian versus bourgeois_ by Cesar Grana. Cesar, I seem to think/recall, was a professor at UC Berkeley. I wish I could find that book again. I've actually searched for it on-line and come up surprisingly empty. It was published by Basic Books, 1964. If anyone has a lead, or has read the thing, so as to rescue me from its mirage, I would appreciate a holler. If you want to join something, though, I'd suggest the Rosicrucians, who have their faux Egyptian-like headquarters down in the sunny suburban sprawl of San Jose, CA. I don't know that much about the Rosy Cross, but I think there's a fee to join, after that who knows... Rosicrucians' web site: http://home.att.net/~ag2kh/rosicrua.htm I stand shame faced and corrected. I've just located a web site in which you can join the *New Bohemians,* all this and a gift shoppe to boot: http://www.newbohemian.com/ Well, I think that is enough empty purposeless damage for now. I will resume my lurker status beneath this cyber soil, this bohemian ether. Guten Tag, Andrew > From: Aaron Belz > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 12:03:24 -0500 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: The New Bohemian > > I'm a young, healthy poet, not yet committed to a "school" or "movement," > and I've been considering my options. Torn as I am between Language Poetry, > Ellipticism, and Neo-objectivism, you can imagine my refreshment when I saw > a sign in the window of The Limited: > > the new bohemian > hippie-inspired with a way hot attitude > > It looks to the future, yet not without a sense of history; it even has the > makings of a manifesto; perhaps one might yet, in the words of T.J. Maxx, > "make it happen with fashion." > > The New Bohemian-- Who's with me? > > Aaron S. Belz > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 14:50:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: The New Bohemian In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > I stand shame faced and corrected. I've just > located a web site in which you can join the > *New Bohemians,* all this and a gift shoppe > to boot: Good granola clusters, Felsinger, you're right!! And it's a school of poetry to boot! http://www.newbohemian.com/cafe.shtml The poetry itself-- I woke up in the morning. Had to find my way back home. By the time evening fell, I realised where I belonged. I was lost to the night, to the night. I looked for the sun rise, But was blinded by the dawn. ["Lost to the Night" by A.Y.U.] --is actually kind of great. The idea of scanning the sky for the sunrise only to be *suddenly blinded* reminds us that it might, after all, be better to remain ... "lost to the night." Yet lest we become too comfortable there-- Hoping, dreaming, but only being pulled down into the abyss of depression... desperation... degeneration... ["Unworthy" by Alison Beattie] > we are, due to our combined lack of power, > money and prestige, less than ideal candidates. Strength in numbers, though, Andrew. We have our wits, our youth, and the internet. And don't forget the power of patchouli. It's good to have you aboard. -Edie Brickell ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 13:19:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Corbett Subject: Re: The New Bohemian In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Aaron and Andrew don't mention there is a Recipes link. These folks are not true bohemians, though. They use the "L" word. For "libertarian". Progressive, schmezzive. True (new or not) bohemians are too decadent for politics. There is whiff of CPU to this site. Robert -- Robert Corbett "I will discuss perfidy with scholars as rcor@u.washington.edu as if spurning kisses, I will sip Department of English the marble marrow of empire. I want sugar University of Washington but I shall never wear shame and if you call that sophistry then what is Love" - Lisa Robertson On Fri, 24 May 2002, Aaron Belz wrote: > > I stand shame faced and corrected. I've just > > located a web site in which you can join the > > *New Bohemians,* all this and a gift shoppe > > to boot: > > > Good granola clusters, Felsinger, you're right!! And it's a school of > poetry to boot! http://www.newbohemian.com/cafe.shtml > > The poetry itself-- > > I woke up in the morning. Had to find my way back home. > By the time evening fell, I realised where I belonged. > I was lost to the night, to the night. > I looked for the sun rise, But was blinded by the dawn. > > ["Lost to the Night" by A.Y.U.] > > --is actually kind of great. The idea of scanning the sky for the sunrise > only to be *suddenly blinded* reminds us that it might, after all, be better > to remain ... "lost to the night." Yet lest we become too comfortable > there-- > > Hoping, dreaming, > but only being pulled down into > the abyss of > depression... desperation... > degeneration... > > ["Unworthy" by Alison Beattie] > > > > we are, due to our combined lack of power, > > money and prestige, less than ideal candidates. > > Strength in numbers, though, Andrew. We have our wits, our youth, and the > internet. And don't forget the power of patchouli. It's good to have you > aboard. > > > -Edie Brickell > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 15:23:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Martin Subject: April Showers bring...Puppy Flowers! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Dear respected members of the universe, With Spring comes all things new and freshly hewn and as such, Puppy Flowers is once again in full bloom. We are most proud, in our humble way, to announce the meteoric rise of PF II, complete with Atari imagery and poets galore. We suspect it's timid grandeur will hence rapture you longishly. The word is out and it's our belief that it should be spread. So please check out the new poems, make some new friends, tell them about Puppy Flowers, and perhaps they'll make clever signs to hold up at major sporting events. Tell your elderly neighbors that Puppy Flowers is the kewlest new thing in town, they'll believe you! Spread the 'splode: www.puppyflowers.com And don't forget to support PF poets by going to their readings and purchasing their small and wonderful books. Someday you may be a PF poet too! PF2 features poetry and art by: Mike Topp Marcella Durand Todd Colby Dana Ward Colin Guthrie Karl Krause Dave Bryant Christina Fisher Noel Black Albert Flynn DeSilver Brendan Lorber kari edwards Chris Martin Patrick James Dunagan Yours in frantic enumeration, The Editors __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience http://launch.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 19:17:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ALDON L NIELSEN Subject: learning from our mistakes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain "You made a mistake, you did something wrong. Now make another mistake, and do something right." Somebody on the list had asked where these lines came from, which appear on some of my posts. The earliest I know of them is the El Saturn LP from 1977, number 7877, where it appears under the title "You Made a Mistake." I KNOW it appears on a more recent CD, but haven't been able to locate it among the many in my collection because it's part of one of those extended chant sessions the Arkestra favored, and is thus not separately IDed on the track listings. If you have acces to a copy of THE EARTHLY RECORDINGS OF SUN RA, it may be cross-indexed there. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Tell Her -- the page I never wrote! Tell Her, I only said -- the Syntax -- And left the Verb and the Pronoun -- out! --Emily Dickinson Aldon L. Nielsen Kelly Professor of American Literature The Pennsylvania State University 116 Burrowes University Park, PA 16802-6200 (814) 865-0091 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 22:48:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: emotions toward fiction Comments: To: webartery@egroups.com Comments: cc: lit-med@endeavor.med.nyu.edu MIME-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT from Norm Holland but may be of interest to some here. The netiquette is that postings to individuals are private and should not be repeated. Postings to lists and newsgroups are public and may be repeated wherever--the source of much misinformation and many hoaxes. Not in this case. --Best, Norm Norm Holland nholland@ufl.edu ----- Original Message ----- From: "Norman Holland" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 9:16 AM Subject: Emotion towards fictions > Hi, PSYARTers, > > A few days ago, Katja Mellmann pointed us to her article in German on how and > why we feel emotions in response to media experiences and other fictions. At my > request she very kindly translated her abstract and concluding paragraph. > > The original URLs were: > > a German online-journal, "Parapluie". Its title is > "E-Motion -- Was bewegt uns an den Medien?", and it is accessible at > > http://parapluie.de/archiv/cyberkultur/emotion/index.html > > I would like to recommend it to those of you who speak/understand German. > The scholarly literature I used in this article is listed at > > http://www.lrz-muenchen.de/~mellmann/lit-emotion.html > > And here are her translations of the gist of the essay. > > > ______________ > > Our response to fictional cues is often as emotional as to occurences in > real life. Such emotional responses do not mean that each time we mistake > fiction for reality; rather they are affected by our innate social behaviors > and by complex neural structures. Some responses, as for instance fright or > pity, take place spontaneously, comparably to a reflex act. Furthermore, > emotions can be evoked by means of thoughts: some specific sorts of texts > rouse the reader's ability to share in the emotional experiences of a > fictional character. Other emotions can refer to a work of art as a whole > or to some implicit components of meaning or allusions to facts of the case > external to the text. Further ways of emotional engagement are pleasure and > suspense, the affective basic processes of each reception of art or any > media. > > The examples of manifold emotional involvement with 'unreal' ('fictional' or > 'virtual') worlds given in this article can show why our emotional > responsiveness is not strictly tied to our conviction that these occurences > are to us of any pragmatic relevance. Works of art, plays and other leisure > entertainments do move us the way thoughts can do; the way old memories may > annoy us or fill with shame; like dreams sometimes can anguish us still > after getting up. The content of such experiences may refer to unreal > scenarios or situations that are not ours; yet the feeling we have is > empirically real. tom bell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 19:31:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Clinefelter Subject: Re: The New Bohemian In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sounds okay...but let's not fall into the Gap...ni ming bai ma? --- Aaron Belz wrote: > I'm a young, healthy poet, not yet committed to a > "school" or "movement," > and I've been considering my options. Torn as I am > between Language Poetry, > Ellipticism, and Neo-objectivism, you can imagine my > refreshment when I saw > a sign in the window of The Limited: > > the new bohemian > hippie-inspired with a way hot attitude > > It looks to the future, yet not without a sense of > history; it even has the > makings of a manifesto; perhaps one might yet, in > the words of T.J. Maxx, > "make it happen with fashion." > > The New Bohemian-- Who's with me? > > Aaron S. Belz __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 04:08:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: relates to earlier discussions of this, I think Comments: To: webartery@egroups.com, lit-med@endeavor.med.nyu.edu MIME-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT "Stanford researchers establish link between creative genius and mental illness STANFORD, Calif. - For decades, scientists have known that eminently creative individuals have a much higher rate of manic depression, or bipolar disorder, than does the general population. But few controlled studies have been done to build the link between mental illness and creativity. Now, Stanford researchers Connie Strong and Terence Ketter, MD, have taken the first steps toward exploring the relationship. Using personality and temperament tests, they found healthy artists to be more similar in personality to individuals with manic depression than to healthy people in the general population. "My hunch is that emotional range, having an emotional broadband, is the bipolar patient's advantage," said Strong. "It isn't the only thing going on, but something gives people with manic depression an edge, and I think it's emotional range." http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-05/sumc-sre052102.php tom bell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 19:09:45 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Poets shouldnt care about publishing: we should just write and create. And enjoy the process. Art!! Long live great pricelseess art! Earn money elsewise...Who cares who reads it if any..count ot a bonus if someone gets something from your work...learn to fail..this obsession with fame and whether books get published. There are probably too many books already... the greatest writers are almost always neglected anycase: if you sell any books your probably no good as a writer: or your writing tripe: pulpable crap (or is that culpable pap?)... Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "K.Angelo Hehir" To: Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 5:57 AM Subject: Canadian Publishing Meltdown > LIFELINE FOR ONE PUBLISHER MEANS POTENTIAL DEATH KNELL FOR MANY PUBLISHERS > > For immediate release > Toronto, May 23, 2002 > > While the decision reached in the Ontario courts yesterday may have > offered a lifeline to Jack Stoddart and his beleaguered General > Publishing, Canadian publishers affected by this decision suggest that it > may spell a death knell for many of them. > > More than 40 Canadian and US publishers spent the last week in court > arguing that they owned the receivables for books invoiced on their behalf > by General Distribution Services (GDS). Judge Ground ruled otherwise > yesterday, paving the way for restructuring at General and removing any > hope that publishers would collect very much of the $6.5 million owed to > them by General Publishing and its many subsidiaries. > > While General Publishing's Jack Stoddart remarked that the upshot of Judge > Ground's decision is that "authors, booksellers, employees and publishers" > are the winners, publishers are doubtful that this decision will spell > good news for anyone but the Bank of Nova Scotia and Jack Stoddart > himself. > > The GDS receivables, estimated at about $18 million, are pledged first to > the Bank of Nova Scotia, and then to Jack Stoddart (chairman of GDS), (who > together are owed more than $20 million) followed by a list of other > secured and unsecured creditors. Despite Stoddart's assurances, publishers > are doubtful that they or the authors will realize much of the more than > $13 million owed in "unsecured" receivables. > > "After the Bank gets its money, and Jack Stoddart collects his pay-out, I > doubt there will be very much left for the other unsecured creditors," > said Jack David, co-owner of ECW Press and a member of the Literary Press > Group of Canada (LPG) and the Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP). > "The ruling yesterday puts us at the bottom of a long list, and I don't > expect to see a dime." > > It is estimated that, of the $13.3 million owed to General's client > publishers, more than $3 million is owed to about 50 unsecured Canadian > publishers, many of them small literary publishers that discover much of > the writing talent in Canada. The debt represents several months of > domestic book sales, including from the fall and holiday seasons, by far > the most important selling season. Many of the publishers use GDS for U.S. > sales as well and haven't been paid for these sales for almost a year. > > For publishers such as Véhicule Press and McGill-Queen's University Press > in Montreal, Porcupine's Quill and ECW Press in Toronto, Goose Lane > Editions in Fredericton, Coteau in Saskatoon, New Star Books in Vancouver, > and many others, the failure of the courts to recognize the publishers' > ownership of receivables is dispiriting. > > After a booming fall season, Canadian publishers had expected that their > revenue from fall sales would propel them through the spring and summer of > 2002. Unfortunately, they will now have to wait months before they collect > anything from General, and, even then, it will probably be a small > fraction of what is owed to them from the sale of their books, if > anything. Most of them now expect that revenue from fall sales will > all-but-disappear. > > Unlike many GDS creditors, publishers now face the prospect of having no > income for many months to come. > > "As publishers, we are most at risk among all the unsecured creditors," > said Jack David. "We depend on our distributor to collect most of our > earned revenue from our customers, the bookstores. For other unsecured > creditors, such as the phone or courier companies, it's just one bad > account." > > At the same time, the courts have prevented many publishers from > terminating their contracts with GDS or removing their inventory from the > GDS warehouse. They take cold comfort in the new "trust" accounts > established by GDS for revenue generated by new sales, which do not appear > to be beyond the reach of the bank or Stoddart himself. > > "The only thing that yesterday's ruling determined, said Jack David, "is > that the Bank of Nova Scotia will increase its profits, and some Canadian > publishers will be driven out of business." > > For more information, please contact David Caron, executive director of > the LPG at 416-483-1321, or Monique Smith, executive director of the ACP > at 416-487-6116. > > > -- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 01:00:36 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: relates to earlier discussions of this, I think In-Reply-To: <01e501c203cb$b7e55660$6401a8c0@ruthfd1tn.home.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed And now for the sequel: "Son of Bad Science!" Who knows? Maybe creativity drives people crazy. Hide the pens and papers, and for heaven's sake don't let your kids fingerpaint. Seriously, there are serious diagnoses out there, but most are pretty haphazard. I've rescued quite a few from the latter. So there's the inevitable question, how do you form a sample? To put it another way, "who you calling crazy?" (not you, Tom, those folks nwasting perfectly good grant money.) Mark At 04:08 AM 5/25/2002 -0500, you wrote: >"Stanford researchers establish link between creative genius and mental >illness >STANFORD, Calif. - For decades, scientists have known that eminently >creative individuals have a much higher rate of manic depression, or >bipolar disorder, than does the general population. But few controlled >studies have been done to build the link between mental illness and >creativity. Now, Stanford researchers Connie Strong and Terence Ketter, >MD, have taken the first steps toward exploring the relationship. > >Using personality and temperament tests, they found healthy artists to be >more similar in personality to individuals with manic depression than to >healthy people in the general population. "My hunch is that emotional >range, having an emotional broadband, is the bipolar patient's advantage," >said Strong. "It isn't the only thing going on, but something gives people >with manic depression an edge, and I think it's emotional range." > >http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-05/sumc-sre052102.php > >tom bell > >&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: >Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html >Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at >http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm >Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ >Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 02:36:25 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit would a corporate lawyer be satisfied with working the night shift in a factory so long as it meant she could practise law on the weekends? with constant loss of sleep for her ART? sure ideally we all want the utopic situation art just is and we're all bohemian sure. vacuum selling for the sake of vacuum selling for the sake of selling in general. long live the love. an illustrious balloon with the words head inside typed in brilliant green. i agree, learn to fail. operate in the face of nothingness. great. why have arts funding at all? why have publishing houses at all? a nation of workers or a nation of workers. sounds humbling. practice that radiocardiology on the weekends sir, today you must write poems and create mind-numbing performances or you will starve. if you prefer to starve, well... if you believe it shouldn't matter... while we're at it, kill all wildlife. bomb the middle of nowhere. pave the rivers. part the airwaves and stop all that bloody rock and roll if it is making any money. to rant, oh. encoding the whole mess of the Big C into hobbyist endevours like mud wrestling and beaver tossing, not to mention everyone's favourite inderterminate aim... after a still-life with apples ----- Original Message ----- From: "richard.tylr" To: Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 1:09 AM Subject: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown > Poets shouldnt care about publishing: we should just write and create. And > enjoy the process. Art!! Long live great pricelseess art! Earn money > elsewise...Who cares who reads it if any..count ot a bonus if someone gets > something from your work...learn to fail..this obsession with fame and > whether books get published. There are probably too many books already... > the greatest writers are almost always neglected anycase: if you sell any > books your probably no good as a writer: or your writing tripe: pulpable > crap (or is that culpable pap?)... Richard. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "K.Angelo Hehir" > To: > Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 5:57 AM > Subject: Canadian Publishing Meltdown > > > > LIFELINE FOR ONE PUBLISHER MEANS POTENTIAL DEATH KNELL FOR MANY PUBLISHERS > > > > For immediate release > > Toronto, May 23, 2002 > > > > While the decision reached in the Ontario courts yesterday may have > > offered a lifeline to Jack Stoddart and his beleaguered General > > Publishing, Canadian publishers affected by this decision suggest that it > > may spell a death knell for many of them. > > > > More than 40 Canadian and US publishers spent the last week in court > > arguing that they owned the receivables for books invoiced on their behalf > > by General Distribution Services (GDS). Judge Ground ruled otherwise > > yesterday, paving the way for restructuring at General and removing any > > hope that publishers would collect very much of the $6.5 million owed to > > them by General Publishing and its many subsidiaries. > > > > While General Publishing's Jack Stoddart remarked that the upshot of Judge > > Ground's decision is that "authors, booksellers, employees and publishers" > > are the winners, publishers are doubtful that this decision will spell > > good news for anyone but the Bank of Nova Scotia and Jack Stoddart > > himself. > > > > The GDS receivables, estimated at about $18 million, are pledged first to > > the Bank of Nova Scotia, and then to Jack Stoddart (chairman of GDS), (who > > together are owed more than $20 million) followed by a list of other > > secured and unsecured creditors. Despite Stoddart's assurances, publishers > > are doubtful that they or the authors will realize much of the more than > > $13 million owed in "unsecured" receivables. > > > > "After the Bank gets its money, and Jack Stoddart collects his pay-out, I > > doubt there will be very much left for the other unsecured creditors," > > said Jack David, co-owner of ECW Press and a member of the Literary Press > > Group of Canada (LPG) and the Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP). > > "The ruling yesterday puts us at the bottom of a long list, and I don't > > expect to see a dime." > > > > It is estimated that, of the $13.3 million owed to General's client > > publishers, more than $3 million is owed to about 50 unsecured Canadian > > publishers, many of them small literary publishers that discover much of > > the writing talent in Canada. The debt represents several months of > > domestic book sales, including from the fall and holiday seasons, by far > > the most important selling season. Many of the publishers use GDS for U.S. > > sales as well and haven't been paid for these sales for almost a year. > > > > For publishers such as Véhicule Press and McGill-Queen's University Press > > in Montreal, Porcupine's Quill and ECW Press in Toronto, Goose Lane > > Editions in Fredericton, Coteau in Saskatoon, New Star Books in Vancouver, > > and many others, the failure of the courts to recognize the publishers' > > ownership of receivables is dispiriting. > > > > After a booming fall season, Canadian publishers had expected that their > > revenue from fall sales would propel them through the spring and summer of > > 2002. Unfortunately, they will now have to wait months before they collect > > anything from General, and, even then, it will probably be a small > > fraction of what is owed to them from the sale of their books, if > > anything. Most of them now expect that revenue from fall sales will > > all-but-disappear. > > > > Unlike many GDS creditors, publishers now face the prospect of having no > > income for many months to come. > > > > "As publishers, we are most at risk among all the unsecured creditors," > > said Jack David. "We depend on our distributor to collect most of our > > earned revenue from our customers, the bookstores. For other unsecured > > creditors, such as the phone or courier companies, it's just one bad > > account." > > > > At the same time, the courts have prevented many publishers from > > terminating their contracts with GDS or removing their inventory from the > > GDS warehouse. They take cold comfort in the new "trust" accounts > > established by GDS for revenue generated by new sales, which do not appear > > to be beyond the reach of the bank or Stoddart himself. > > > > "The only thing that yesterday's ruling determined, said Jack David, "is > > that the Bank of Nova Scotia will increase its profits, and some Canadian > > publishers will be driven out of business." > > > > For more information, please contact David Caron, executive director of > > the LPG at 416-483-1321, or Monique Smith, executive director of the ACP > > at 416-487-6116. > > > > > > -- > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 21:53:14 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > great. why have arts funding at all? why have publishing houses at all? a > >> you tell me I've never applied for any funds > >nation of workers or a nation of workers. sounds humbling. practice that > radiocardiology on the weekends sir, today you must write poems and create > mind-numbing performances or you will starve. if you prefer to starve, > well... if you believe it shouldn't matter... while we're at it, kill all > wildlife. bomb the middle of nowhere. pave the rivers. part the airwaves > and stop all that bloody rock and roll if it is making any money. to rant, > oh. encoding the whole mess of the Big C into hobbyist endevours like mud > wrestling and beaver tossing, not to mention everyone's favourite > inderterminate aim... > >> but I didnt suggest that we starve! All this above is a load of nonsense. >>there's a big differennce between a lawyer >>and poet: it IS a fact that poetry is for a minority: call me elitist, I dont think >>I am, but to aim or even be deluded slightly that one can make a living from >>it >>is to corrupt the art: poetry is on a high level....now if it happens that money >>comes one's way and so on: or if one day they pay poets just to write...but >>that isnt teh way the real world works: the real world is NEVER going to >>pay >>enough for poets: I dont know anyone that gets paid to be a poet...but if so, >>then good...if publishers decide to pulp all poetry we can soldier on..I've >>worked in hundreds of factories to suport a wife and children and other jobs: >>I've never and never exect to earn a living from poetry...I dont even aspire >>to be an academic: wouldnt mind if things fell that way...what I'm saying is: >>let's stop worrying: and especially stop ranting about who gets the Pulitzer >>or whatever: i personally dont care: I dont care who gets any awards here in >>NZ or anywhere: but I am prepared to praise and support those poets here >>that I like and >>value: and if they get money from that I'm glad for them.......what i'm saying >>is not the romantic stuff about starving in a garrett: or maybe there's >>something in that: think of how many poets - often considered great either >>literally starved to death or were neglected or committed suicide - its a very >>big proportion: they way to avoid madness (which poets and other creative >>people are always near) is to have my subtle concept of failure: this doesnt >>mean to not write and get thngs out..it means to take the "knock-backs " etc >>philosophically...worrying about publishers is futile: get on with the job of >>writing...but I'm not a nihilist (per se(!)) > >> look worrying about all this is like worrying that "there will always be wars" >>or "ooh, I might have a heart attack" or "gosh, isnt it unjust, the rich people >>seem to always evade justice" as if these "worries" (which are all futile) >>revealed something new: or acheived anything: wishing that the publishing >>game was different is like wishing that the sea was made of chocolate: its just >>a fact: its called "supply and demand", its the truth of how things are (and >>probably always will be) > > > > > after a still-life with apples > >>(that sounds as if it could be a good start to a poem) >> >> its called "capitalism" and for now that's how the world is. Richard Taylor. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 10:48:07 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Richard Sorry always (twice, now)to be arguing with you, but leaving aside the question of earning money, which could be a different debate, I fail to see how one separates the process of reading and writing People who write poetry without reading it are, almost without exception a waste of space - as Martin Stannard remarks (facetiously) "It's more interesting than that stuff in books that's difficult to understand" (_Words Out Loud_, Stride Books,UK) I would have thought that your presence here contradicts what you are saying, unless your interest in poetry is mainly one of talking about poetry Who cares? may be a useful manner to cultivate as an emotional protection; but not as a manifesto for not publication Fame is not the same as getting a book published. Earning money is not the best reason for publishing. Poetry is a communal activity L ----- Original Message ----- From: "richard.tylr" To: Sent: 25 May 2002 08:09 Subject: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown | Poets shouldnt care about publishing: we should just write and create. And | enjoy the process. Art!! Long live great pricelseess art! Earn money | elsewise...Who cares who reads it if any..count ot a bonus if someone gets | something from your work...learn to fail..this obsession with fame and | whether books get published. There are probably too many books already... | the greatest writers are almost always neglected anycase: if you sell any | books your probably no good as a writer: or your writing tripe: pulpable | crap (or is that culpable pap?)... Richard. | ----- Original Message ----- | From: "K.Angelo Hehir" | To: | Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 5:57 AM | Subject: Canadian Publishing Meltdown | | | > LIFELINE FOR ONE PUBLISHER MEANS POTENTIAL DEATH KNELL FOR MANY PUBLISHERS | > | > For immediate release | > Toronto, May 23, 2002 | > | > While the decision reached in the Ontario courts yesterday may have | > offered a lifeline to Jack Stoddart and his beleaguered General | > Publishing, Canadian publishers affected by this decision suggest that it | > may spell a death knell for many of them. | > | > More than 40 Canadian and US publishers spent the last week in court | > arguing that they owned the receivables for books invoiced on their behalf | > by General Distribution Services (GDS). Judge Ground ruled otherwise | > yesterday, paving the way for restructuring at General and removing any | > hope that publishers would collect very much of the $6.5 million owed to | > them by General Publishing and its many subsidiaries. | > | > While General Publishing's Jack Stoddart remarked that the upshot of Judge | > Ground's decision is that "authors, booksellers, employees and publishers" | > are the winners, publishers are doubtful that this decision will spell | > good news for anyone but the Bank of Nova Scotia and Jack Stoddart | > himself. | > | > The GDS receivables, estimated at about $18 million, are pledged first to | > the Bank of Nova Scotia, and then to Jack Stoddart (chairman of GDS), (who | > together are owed more than $20 million) followed by a list of other | > secured and unsecured creditors. Despite Stoddart's assurances, publishers | > are doubtful that they or the authors will realize much of the more than | > $13 million owed in "unsecured" receivables. | > | > "After the Bank gets its money, and Jack Stoddart collects his pay-out, I | > doubt there will be very much left for the other unsecured creditors," | > said Jack David, co-owner of ECW Press and a member of the Literary Press | > Group of Canada (LPG) and the Association of Canadian Publishers (ACP). | > "The ruling yesterday puts us at the bottom of a long list, and I don't | > expect to see a dime." | > | > It is estimated that, of the $13.3 million owed to General's client | > publishers, more than $3 million is owed to about 50 unsecured Canadian | > publishers, many of them small literary publishers that discover much of | > the writing talent in Canada. The debt represents several months of | > domestic book sales, including from the fall and holiday seasons, by far | > the most important selling season. Many of the publishers use GDS for U.S. | > sales as well and haven't been paid for these sales for almost a year. | > | > For publishers such as Véhicule Press and McGill-Queen's University Press | > in Montreal, Porcupine's Quill and ECW Press in Toronto, Goose Lane | > Editions in Fredericton, Coteau in Saskatoon, New Star Books in Vancouver, | > and many others, the failure of the courts to recognize the publishers' | > ownership of receivables is dispiriting. | > | > After a booming fall season, Canadian publishers had expected that their | > revenue from fall sales would propel them through the spring and summer of | > 2002. Unfortunately, they will now have to wait months before they collect | > anything from General, and, even then, it will probably be a small | > fraction of what is owed to them from the sale of their books, if | > anything. Most of them now expect that revenue from fall sales will | > all-but-disappear. | > | > Unlike many GDS creditors, publishers now face the prospect of having no | > income for many months to come. | > | > "As publishers, we are most at risk among all the unsecured creditors," | > said Jack David. "We depend on our distributor to collect most of our | > earned revenue from our customers, the bookstores. For other unsecured | > creditors, such as the phone or courier companies, it's just one bad | > account." | > | > At the same time, the courts have prevented many publishers from | > terminating their contracts with GDS or removing their inventory from the | > GDS warehouse. They take cold comfort in the new "trust" accounts | > established by GDS for revenue generated by new sales, which do not appear | > to be beyond the reach of the bank or Stoddart himself. | > | > "The only thing that yesterday's ruling determined, said Jack David, "is | > that the Bank of Nova Scotia will increase its profits, and some Canadian | > publishers will be driven out of business." | > | > For more information, please contact David Caron, executive director of | > the LPG at 416-483-1321, or Monique Smith, executive director of the ACP | > at 416-487-6116. | > | > | > -- | ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 13:05:14 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Fw: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am sorry. My post earlier was illiterate. I'd been lying in and may have been half asleep. The view Richard expressed is often expressed in one way or another and needs answering; so, at the risk of being boring, I'll try again L ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lawrence Upton" To: Sent: 25 May 2002 10:48 Subject: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown Richard Sorry always (twice, now) to be arguing with you; but, leaving aside the question of earning money, which could be a different debate, I fail to see how one separates the process of reading and writing; so that publishing and distribution is tremendously importamt People who write poetry without reading it are, almost without exception, a waste of space - as Martin Stannard remarks (facetiously)They find their own poetry "more | interesting than that stuff in books that's difficult to understand" (_Words Out Loud_, Stride Books,UK) I would have thought that your presence here contradicts what you are saying, unless your interest in poetry is mainly one of talking about poetry Who cares? may be a useful manner to cultivate as an emotional protection for the poet feelingisolated; but not as a manifesto Fame is not the same as getting a book published. Earning money is not the best reason for publishing. Poetry is a communal activity ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 08:58:28 -0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Heller Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sorry Aaron, The Neo-Objectivist clubhouse is closed due to condemnation and appropriation by other movements. You can visit the site next door to the old Rested Totality Nursing Home. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 09:22:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: Fake langpo is a b-o-r-e Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hey, why bother with the fake stuff when you can now read the real thing! A new edition of -In The American Tree- edited by Ron Silliman is out from The National Poetry Foundation. 607 pages, all new bio notes. So skip the puerile imitations and sink your teeth into the challenging work that made the experimental writing of the 70's and 80's the in thing to awkwardly imitate in the not-that-new millenium. Nice editor photo on the back cover too! Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 09:51:23 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: manic depression and creativity: NOT! - a manic depressive speaks out... In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020525005602.018849f0@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sorry this has grown into a a missive and a caposule auutobiography (well, I am working on a memoir but it's a damn siight more artful than this...) but i wanted to explain what it's like to have serious manic depression and why it is incompatible with being a great artist usually. I don't think I would have been a _great_ anything, although I did get into Princeton for Math grad school, so I had reached the top of school as an undergrad, and that was my highest achievmment because i was never able to do math after my vbreakdown. I also now to web art and writing (more web stuff lately). I admire people's major projects, but I know that I could never get one done between episodes of illness, so I doi a lot of little tihings: a single animated poem (see www.sporkworld.org/webart/rhino.html) a short hypertext poem (www.sporkworld.org/subway/poemtitle.html) and numeours shourt animations (see my work on www.bannerart.org under banners and rectangular IMUs, in the Collection). But I can't do something like the major work that earn grant and prizes and gets burned onto CD and sold-- and not because I haven't the skill but because the illness doesn't give me time. I imagin that is true for most cretive people with severe mental illness. Episodes erase creativity and it's very hard to retain anty interets in an onld project. I really AM crazy with manic depression and I don't like this kind of research and statement. I'm sure all the famous artists who were supposedly manic depressive would have done more and better art had they not had the illness. I mean, right now I'm writing blind because my antipsychotics from last night haven't worn off...not te ideal state in which to make a painting! People who are manic can produce, but more often they are stuck in a horrible state of being apparently full of creative energy but unable to focus on any one project for long enough to make progress. And they lose (at least I do) critical judgement-- when you;re manic, all your work looks like a masterpiece, or if it doesn't, its very incompetence is showing sommething special, like you imagine getting exhibited as "outsider art" or "new American primitivism" (that is, if you can't draw). So much for mania. However many manic depressives, me included experience a state akin to mania where you still have your marbles, called hypomania (less than mania) and in that state it is possible to be very creative and productive. Usually though, it doesn't last long...you either crash down through normalcy to depression (there is nothing to catch you at the middle and make you stop there...(none of the mood stabilizing drugs really work that way. They prevent movememnt of mood altogeter and can prolong a bad mood), so you either crash down or end up REALLY manic where you are no longer creative but tortured by your mind and full of quests you must go on that are really hard (and have bad consequences in the real world, like walking on a bridge parapet stark naked). If you resist, as I usually do, you can't do anything, it is as if everything that regulates mood state is just gone so you start swinging from high to low like a monkey swinging after a banana that's hanging on another branch. You start screaming, even foaming at the mouth. The world seems increasingly unreal.You think you can go through the walls and wonder why you don't fall through the floor since a house is but an insubstantial thing anchored in a small sliver of time. Yout travel in time until you are dead and you feel being dead. You do this even if you are alone. It;s not a scene you do for someone's benefit, it's the sound of the rending of the universe to let you through. Then, if you are smart you take smething (I take risperdal, and antispsychotic when something like this happens, or loxitane, another one) and in an hour or so reality returns, You can't believe you actually were that crazy. Maybe you were making it up. After all everyone says you have a good imagination. But it's real-- not the time travel of course, -- but the fact that you really FELT the universe break open to allow yout o come through and observe from the outside. People ask you questions about the furture but you say "it's not like H.G. Wells, it's hard to land and you never know where you are. You don't see the whole thing laid out in front of you... I suppose one could write a poem about the above but other people have plenty of experiences too and on average mentally ill folks haven't had the experiences that are the fodder for most poetry (relationships, work, social interactions) since we live an isolated and imporverished (culturally anyway) life. Many of us live on the street, for goodness sake! There is a very good art and pettry program at the day program at the agency which I once worked for (whihch has a clientele that is 95% black with many homeless and formerly homeless and very, very poor people), but she does her own creaming, which isn't fair. She intimidates all but the best artists and writers out of her class and then encourages the remainder to no end. They put out and annual journal and have a reading which I went to. It was impressive given that these were former street people. They wrote, on average, like any other bunch of people taking a high powered poetry workshop, ie quite a bit above the bla poem level. The art is really hard (it's another teacher). They are forced to make it in total siilence and then it get taped up to the door and the person who made it hads to explain why they did it and what it means to tem. They did one art show which raised a ton of money for the agency snd they have the framed artwork all over the placee, plus there are posters from the art show. I think that was a little unfair to the artists.... if people wanted to buy their paintings, they should have gotten the full proceeds with just a litlle taken out for the class and materials, and they should have their own framed artwork. On the other hand, it certianly gets a lot of viewing because it's on the way to the elevator. My impression is that art (maybe unlike poetry) is a giod-given talent that you don't just learn in a class. I think the clients in poetry class learned to write better poetry (She has secret methids and wouldn't let me observe her class for "privacy" reasns even though the class members invited me because I'd write poetry with clients when I had no work to do if there was a client who was one of the poets areound. But I know she did exercises and had them read poems. I have seen people who have never had a class paint beautifully on the other hand, and if you ask how they learned, they'll say things like "I just paint what is see" and "amyone can do this if they try" The guy whose self-portrait was their poster really did know how to make an oil panting. The sad part was that he did this self-portrait, and then got deoressed and gained 200lbs and so his face beca,e totally round and he looked completely different from the self-portrait. It must have made him feel bad to look at the poster ever day...they had a copy of it in the day room of the residence he lives in, so he could hardly avoid it, unless he wanted never to eat with people or go to the kitchen or the patio or just hang out with other residents. That's what it's like to be mentally ill. I feel the same way as he must when I look myself up on the web and find math research papers that I coauthored or am thanked in. I used to be really good at math and got into Princeton. But I went to an easy grad school instead and flunked out anyway due to illness. Then years later I staarted an MFA in writing (which is impossible to flunk out at if you go, but going was my biggest problem) but it was in Boston and I was commuting from Providence and had 12 hour days with my work study and I couldn't do it after the first semester and tried to kill myslef in the beginning of the second. Then I did the third semester, so I have completed a year with mostly As (in all the workshops except for a short short story workshop which taught me that I had no business ever trying to write fiction because the sh*t I came out with was godawful, plus the class was hard, one story a week and you had to give useful comments on all the others). But then I fled New England to go back and live with my father in NYC after my boyfriend dumped me and my disability check was no longer enough to live on in the style I was accustomed to. I probably should have just gotten a smaller place in Providence (but I loved my huge apartment with its hadwood floors and pantry and sunroom, etc, and it was only $700 for five rooms) but I didn't have any more frineds there. Plus I got that counseling job last fall, only I lost it in December because I was too depressed to get there every day, and I had thirteen months of terrible depression (whilst seeing a very good doctor weekly, which I could barely get out of bed to go do; I was mostly bedridden except for whne I tried to kill myself again and landed it the loony bin which was the most awful experience of my life although I had been i the hospital in Providence and it was fine. But uit New York they treated me like I was a criminal and wouldn't let me be voluntary and kept me for a whole three weeks making me more and more depressed and telling me I wasn't depressed and I ended up far worse than I was before I went. Kudos to ICU at St. Luke's though who were perfectly polite to me when I came to after they saved me. I don't understand why they bothered saving me though if they were going to put me in their psych ward when they would make me want desperately to die to escape the horrors of the place. They liked tying people to their beds by their hands and feet and leavig them there for 48 hours, screaming their heads off, which they let haoppen for a whle to scare us all before injecting the victim with heavyy drugs.) After the hospital, I went kind of nuts, seeing things and stuff caused by one of my nine medications, so I spent a long time getting better from that. And here I am, two years later, taking up projects I started two years ago and coming up with ideas for the first time in years. And I live in a constant state of "controlled" hypomania, where i am high pretty much all the time but take medicine when I feel myself getting TOO high. A more proudent (or less sympathetic to artistic pursuits) doctor would throw more meds at me so I'd be totally bla-ed out, which is the general result of tretament of manic depression. So treated manic depressives tend to be LESS creative than the average person, they are usually chemically suppressed so much that they don't think at all. Millie -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Mark Weiss Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 4:01 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: relates to earlier discussions of this, I think And now for the sequel: "Son of Bad Science!" Who knows? Maybe creativity drives people crazy. Hide the pens and papers, and for heaven's sake don't let your kids fingerpaint. Seriously, there are serious diagnoses out there, but most are pretty haphazard. I've rescued quite a few from the latter. So there's the inevitable question, how do you form a sample? To put it another way, "who you calling crazy?" (not you, Tom, those folks nwasting perfectly good grant money.) Mark At 04:08 AM 5/25/2002 -0500, you wrote: >"Stanford researchers establish link between creative genius and mental >illness >STANFORD, Calif. - For decades, scientists have known that eminently >creative individuals have a much higher rate of manic depression, or >bipolar disorder, than does the general population. But few controlled >studies have been done to build the link between mental illness and >creativity. Now, Stanford researchers Connie Strong and Terence Ketter, >MD, have taken the first steps toward exploring the relationship. > >Using personality and temperament tests, they found healthy artists to be >more similar in personality to individuals with manic depression than to >healthy people in the general population. "My hunch is that emotional >range, having an emotional broadband, is the bipolar patient's advantage," >said Strong. "It isn't the only thing going on, but something gives people >with manic depression an edge, and I think it's emotional range." > >http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-05/sumc-sre052102.php > >tom bell > >&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: >Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html >Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at >http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm >Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ >Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 00:28:30 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: Favorite Blurbs and Blurb Writers? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The list forum will now be opened to a discussion pertaining to the majestic hills and valleys of the humble blurbs and their hallowed creators. What are some of your favorite blurbs? Who are some of the best blurbologists to have ever breathed their magic wordings onto the backs of books? Think hard and think deep my virtual children. And beware thy connected messengers. The future is carved from present rock. Carve wisely and you shall see angels dance. Carve foolishly and you shall see demons jump. Carve not and thou may rot. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 10:58:19 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: Fake langpo is a b-o-r-e In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Who publishes this book? Where I get it? I have no money today but will have $50 tomorrow only it's supposed to last untikl my check comes through which won't be until the second or the third. I spent my last allowanc on a bunch of Black Sparrow Press books that were on sale: Kelly poems, Eshelman poems, Tom Clark's Empire of Skin, and a short story Collection by Lucia Berlin. PPlus two books by Burroughs whom I've never read but feel I ought to but I am a little put off by all the sex seeen from a male perspective, and a book of C.K. Williams poems. His poems are really prose essays to my mind; I can just barely hear the prtry, but they speak to me anyway. So Iread. Widely. I didn't buy Language Poerty yeterday because there wasn't any on sale at that shop. I think you STILL haven't understood about Fakelangpoo but it seems hopeess to repea the whole deal. It is not a movement aginst poets like Silliman. It asks, merely, how he does what he does: what deivices, vocabulary, sebtence structure, line breaks, grammar, styleistic devices, logic, way of combining unlike segments, etc. Siml;liman uses t make his poems "the real thing," as you put it. Surely you read his ppoems because of what';s in them and not because he is Ron Silliman, well kknown Language Poet? In that case, the poems are fakelangpo, which refers to laguage poetry which is fun to read, almost by definition, since you read it, The site is a bit of a joke, but I wanted to get poel talking about what makes something language poetry and it has to some extent had that effect but unfortunately here and not in my site yet much. The poets whohave linked to my site are, ion all but one case, serrious about their poetry in a straightforward way. The other person is serious but ius making a kind of poetic statement, a subtle wone (go to the site and read "3 Encounters"), not something as "puerile" as "Poetry of genre X is bad." I want to read the anthologgy you mention and when i do I will post a book review of it in all seriousness on my site. I intend there to be things worth reading that aren't jokes. It's mainly just the word I used to descibe the genre which is a joke, because I was making fun of the was some Language poets do not want to write readable prpse becaise maybe then people will realize they have nothing to say (btw: does Jorie Graham count as a Language Poet? her work strikes me as pretentious bogosity, but I am afrain to think so because it is hard and maybe I am just missing something.) What's the name of the style of Thylias Moss's "Last Chance for the Tarzan Holler"? I don't think it's LP (it's not, I can affirm that). The poems are clearly about something. But they are about something else too in each poem and they have abstractions in a very modern way. It's totally diferent from her Small Congregations, in which the poms are straightforward reollections of experiences growing up Black in the south plus some imagined poems but in standard free verse... There is something in these poems (particularlt the first book I mentioned which is more layered and complex, that yu don't get in Languag Poetry, that amost by definition can't tell stories and make real political points. Millie -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Nick Piombino Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 9:22 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Fake langpo is a b-o-r-e Hey, why bother with the fake stuff when you can now read the real thing! A new edition of -In The American Tree- edited by Ron Silliman is out from The National Poetry Foundation. 607 pages, all new bio notes. So skip the puerile imitations and sink your teeth into the challenging work that made the experimental writing of the 70's and 80's the in thing to awkwardly imitate in the not-that-new millenium. Nice editor photo on the back cover too! Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 11:26:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: Fake response Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Being as open to reputational damage as the next guy, I took a look at the Fakelangpo site. It's certainly energetic, and optimistic about all the play space it has created. But there is curiously empty feeling as one goes from frame to frame, looking for the positive content or even sustained parody or critique. Undoubtedly, it will begin to fill up, but with what? It reminded me of an effort by grad students at Berkeley in the early 90s called MSRepresentations, a supposed parody of the journal, Representations. They managed to get the typeface right, but the content was basically ground-level anxieties about "theory" in general and showed little actual reading of the New Historicism and its intellectual origins. You can't parody effectively without reading. I don't see much of a reading of "Language poetry," whatever that is, in Millie Niss's site, and the recent debate was pretty scarce on examples as well. If you go to that "what I see in L Poetry" forum, you will also see few references to particular works--not much of an account of influence, or of a rejection of one. What you get are: anxieties of authorship and positionality. Well, to be fair, there is another anxiety: a conceptual one. What are the distinguishing features of a "language poem"; how will I know one when I see one? That question could be approached by asking what it is one is looking for when one identifies X, what is the conceptual framework for categorizing. It could also be solved by reading examples. "What are the distinguishing features of a New York School poem and how will I know one when I see it" can be answered either by reflection on literary taxonomy, or by reading New York School poems. Nick is right: In the American Tree is newly available, in an upgraded design and with vastly improved typesetting, to be looked at again. The fact that Millie Niss was unaware of it does qualify the "authority," if one wants to use that word, of the Fakelangpo site. But qualifications of authority, of course, were the point all along, weren't they? Barrett And long live Fakelangpo! I hope it develops into a robust site that everyone will want to refer to. I'm going to make it my homepage, in fact. I've been looking for a substitute for CNN.news. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 17:44:12 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wild Honey Press Subject: Re: manic depression and creativity: NOT! - a manic depressive speaks out... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Millie, agree re the way depression is romanticised. Rather than pushing the frontiers of creativity, when energy gets to a certain low one can hardly push air in and out of one's lungs. one small point the url for your dancing rhino seems to be www.sporkworld.org/epoetry/rhino.html Though I recommend just going to www.sporkworld.org and clicking on epoetry. My favourites are the dancing rhinoceri and the windchimes. Lovely stuff. best Randolph ----- Original Message ----- From: "Millie Niss" To: Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 2:51 PM Subject: Re: manic depression and creativity: NOT! - a manic depressive speaks out... > Sorry this has grown into a a missive and a caposule auutobiography (well, I > am working on a memoir but it's a damn siight more artful than this...) but > i wanted to explain what it's like to have serious manic depression and why > it is incompatible with being a great artist usually. I don't think I would > have been a _great_ anything, although I did get into Princeton for Math > grad school, so I had reached the top of school as an undergrad, and that > was my highest achievmment because i was never able to do math after my > vbreakdown. I also now to web art and writing (more web stuff lately). I > admire people's major projects, but I know that I could never get one done > between episodes of illness, so I doi a lot of little tihings: a single > animated poem (see www.sporkworld.org/webart/rhino.html) a short hypertext > poem (www.sporkworld.org/subway/poemtitle.html) and numeours shourt > animations (see my work on www.bannerart.org under banners and rectangular > IMUs, in the Collection). But I can't do something like the major work that > earn grant and prizes and gets burned onto CD and sold-- and not because I > haven't the skill but because the illness doesn't give me time. I imagin > that is true for most cretive people with severe mental illness. Episodes > erase creativity and it's very hard to retain anty interets in an onld > project. > > I really AM crazy with manic depression and I don't like this kind of > research and statement. I'm sure all the famous artists who were supposedly > manic depressive would have done more and better art had they not had the > illness. I mean, right now I'm writing blind because my antipsychotics from > last night haven't worn off...not te ideal state in which to make a > painting! People who are manic can produce, but more often they are stuck > in a horrible state of being apparently full of creative energy but unable > to focus on any one project for long enough to make progress. And they lose > (at least I do) critical judgement-- when you;re manic, all your work looks > like a masterpiece, or if it doesn't, its very incompetence is showing > sommething special, like you imagine getting exhibited as "outsider art" or > "new American primitivism" (that is, if you can't draw). > > So much for mania. However many manic depressives, me included experience a > state akin to mania where you still have your marbles, called hypomania > (less than mania) and in that state it is possible to be very creative and > productive. Usually though, it doesn't last long...you either crash down > through normalcy to depression (there is nothing to catch you at the middle > and make you stop there...(none of the mood stabilizing drugs really work > that way. They prevent movememnt of mood altogeter and can prolong a bad > mood), so you either crash down or end up REALLY manic where you are no > longer creative but tortured by your mind and full of quests you must go on > that are really hard (and have bad consequences in the real world, like > walking on a bridge parapet stark naked). > > If you resist, as I usually do, you can't do anything, it is as if > everything that regulates mood state is just gone so you start swinging from > high to low like a monkey swinging after a banana that's hanging on another > branch. You start screaming, even foaming at the mouth. The world seems > increasingly unreal.You think you can go through the walls and wonder why > you don't fall through the floor since a house is but an insubstantial thing > anchored in a small sliver of time. Yout travel in time until you are dead > and you feel being dead. You do this even if you are alone. It;s not a > scene you do for someone's benefit, it's the sound of the rending of the > universe to let you through. Then, if you are smart you take smething (I > take risperdal, and antispsychotic when something like this happens, or > loxitane, another one) and in an hour or so reality returns, You can't > believe you actually were that crazy. Maybe you were making it up. After > all everyone says you have a good imagination. But it's real-- not the time > travel of course, -- but the fact that you really FELT the universe break > open to allow yout o come through and observe from the outside. People ask > you questions about the furture but you say "it's not like H.G. Wells, it's > hard to land and you never know where you are. You don't see the whole > thing laid out in front of you... > > I suppose one could write a poem about the above but other people have > plenty of experiences too and on average mentally ill folks haven't had the > experiences that are the fodder for most poetry (relationships, work, social > interactions) since we live an isolated and imporverished (culturally > anyway) life. Many of us live on the street, for goodness sake! There is a > very good art and pettry program at the day program at the agency which I > once worked for (whihch has a clientele that is 95% black with many homeless > and formerly homeless and very, very poor people), but she does her own > creaming, which isn't fair. She intimidates all but the best artists and > writers out of her class and then encourages the remainder to no end. They > put out and annual journal and have a reading which I went to. It was > impressive given that these were former street people. They wrote, on > average, like any other bunch of people taking a high powered poetry > workshop, ie quite a bit above the bla poem level. The art is really hard > (it's another teacher). They are forced to make it in total siilence and > then it get taped up to the door and the person who made it hads to explain > why they did it and what it means to tem. They did one art show which > raised a ton of money for the agency snd they have the framed artwork all > over the placee, plus there are posters from the art show. I think that > was a little unfair to the artists.... if people wanted to buy their > paintings, they should have gotten the full proceeds with just a litlle > taken out for the class and materials, and they should have their own framed > artwork. On the other hand, it certianly gets a lot of viewing because it's > on the way to the elevator. > > My impression is that art (maybe unlike poetry) is a giod-given talent that > you don't just learn in a class. I think the clients in poetry class > learned to write better poetry (She has secret methids and wouldn't let me > observe her class for "privacy" reasns even though the class members invited > me because I'd write poetry with clients when I had no work to do if there > was a client who was one of the poets areound. But I know she did exercises > and had them read poems. I have seen people who have never had a class > paint beautifully on the other hand, and if you ask how they learned, > they'll say things like "I just paint what is see" and "amyone can do this > if they try" The guy whose self-portrait was their poster really did know > how to make an oil panting. The sad part was that he did this > self-portrait, and then got deoressed and gained 200lbs and so his face > beca,e totally round and he looked completely different from the > self-portrait. It must have made him feel bad to look at the poster ever > day...they had a copy of it in the day room of the residence he lives in, so > he could hardly avoid it, unless he wanted never to eat with people or go to > the kitchen or the patio or just hang out with other residents. That's what > it's like to be mentally ill. > > I feel the same way as he must when I look myself up on the web and find > math research papers that I coauthored or am thanked in. I used to be > really good at math and got into Princeton. But I went to an easy grad > school instead and flunked out anyway due to illness. Then years later I > staarted an MFA in writing (which is impossible to flunk out at if you go, > but going was my biggest problem) but it was in Boston and I was commuting > from Providence and had 12 hour days with my work study and I couldn't do it > after the first semester and tried to kill myslef in the beginning of the > second. Then I did the third semester, so I have completed a year with > mostly As (in all the workshops except for a short short story workshop > which taught me that I had no business ever trying to write fiction because > the sh*t I came out with was godawful, plus the class was hard, one story a > week and you had to give useful comments on all the others). But then I > fled New England to go back and live with my father in NYC after my > boyfriend dumped me and my disability check was no longer enough to live on > in the style I was accustomed to. > > I probably should have just gotten a smaller place in Providence (but I > loved my huge apartment with its hadwood floors and pantry and sunroom, etc, > and it was only $700 for five rooms) but I didn't have any more frineds > there. Plus I got that counseling job last fall, only I lost it in December > because I was too depressed to get there every day, and I had thirteen > months of terrible depression (whilst seeing a very good doctor weekly, > which I could barely get out of bed to go do; I was mostly bedridden except > for whne I tried to kill myself again and landed it the loony bin which was > the most awful experience of my life although I had been i the hospital in > Providence and it was fine. But uit New York they treated me like I was a > criminal and wouldn't let me be voluntary and kept me for a whole three > weeks making me more and more depressed and telling me I wasn't depressed > and I ended up far worse than I was before I went. Kudos to ICU at St. > Luke's though who were perfectly polite to me when I came to after they > saved me. I don't understand why they bothered saving me though if they > were going to put me in their psych ward when they would make me want > desperately to die to escape the horrors of the place. They liked tying > people to their beds by their hands and feet and leavig them there for 48 > hours, screaming their heads off, which they let haoppen for a whle to scare > us all before injecting the victim with heavyy drugs.) > > After the hospital, I went kind of nuts, seeing things and stuff caused by > one of my nine medications, so I spent a long time getting better from that. > And here I am, two years later, taking up projects I started two years ago > and coming up with ideas for the first time in years. And I live in a > constant state of "controlled" hypomania, where i am high pretty much all > the time but take medicine when I feel myself getting TOO high. A more > proudent (or less sympathetic to artistic pursuits) doctor would throw more > meds at me so I'd be totally bla-ed out, which is the general result of > tretament of manic depression. So treated manic depressives tend to be LESS > creative than the average person, they are usually chemically suppressed so > much that they don't think at all. > > Millie > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Mark Weiss > Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 4:01 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: relates to earlier discussions of this, I think > > > And now for the sequel: "Son of Bad Science!" > > Who knows? Maybe creativity drives people crazy. Hide the pens and papers, > and for heaven's sake don't let your kids fingerpaint. > > Seriously, there are serious diagnoses out there, but most are pretty > haphazard. I've rescued quite a few from the latter. So there's the > inevitable question, how do you form a sample? To put it another > way, "who you calling crazy?" (not you, Tom, those folks nwasting > perfectly good grant money.) > > Mark > > > At 04:08 AM 5/25/2002 -0500, you wrote: > >"Stanford researchers establish link between creative genius and mental > >illness > >STANFORD, Calif. - For decades, scientists have known that eminently > >creative individuals have a much higher rate of manic depression, or > >bipolar disorder, than does the general population. But few controlled > >studies have been done to build the link between mental illness and > >creativity. Now, Stanford researchers Connie Strong and Terence Ketter, > >MD, have taken the first steps toward exploring the relationship. > > > >Using personality and temperament tests, they found healthy artists to be > >more similar in personality to individuals with manic depression than to > >healthy people in the general population. "My hunch is that emotional > >range, having an emotional broadband, is the bipolar patient's advantage," > >said Strong. "It isn't the only thing going on, but something gives people > >with manic depression an edge, and I think it's emotional range." > > > >http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-05/sumc-sre052102.php > > > >tom bell > > > >&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: > >Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html > >Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at > >http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm > >Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ > >Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 16:33:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Fake response MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I don't really want to single out the Fake Langpo site as it's only one of a long line of responses to Langpo that have appeared over the years and keep appearing ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barrett Watten" To: Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 10:26 AM Subject: Fake response > Being as open to reputational damage as the next guy, I took a look at the > Fakelangpo site. It's certainly energetic, and optimistic about all the > play space it has created. But there is curiously empty feeling as one goes > from frame to frame, looking for the positive content or even sustained > parody or critique. Undoubtedly, it will begin to fill up, but with what? > > It reminded me of an effort by grad students at Berkeley in the early 90s > called MSRepresentations, a supposed parody of the journal, > Representations. They managed to get the typeface right, but the content > was basically ground-level anxieties about "theory" in general and showed > little actual reading of the New Historicism and its intellectual origins. > You can't parody effectively without reading. > > I don't see much of a reading of "Language poetry," whatever that is, in > Millie Niss's site, and the recent debate was pretty scarce on examples as > well. If you go to that "what I see in L Poetry" forum, you will also see > few references to particular works--not much of an account of influence, or > of a rejection of one. What you get are: anxieties of authorship and > positionality. > > Well, to be fair, there is another anxiety: a conceptual one. What are the > distinguishing features of a "language poem"; how will I know one when I > see one? That question could be approached by asking what it is one is > looking for when one identifies X, what is the conceptual framework for > categorizing. It could also be solved by reading examples. "What are the > distinguishing features of a New York School poem and how will I know one > when I see it" can be answered either by reflection on literary taxonomy, > or by reading New York School poems. > > Nick is right: In the American Tree is newly available, in an upgraded > design and with vastly improved typesetting, to be looked at again. The > fact that Millie Niss was unaware of it does qualify the "authority," if > one wants to use that word, of the Fakelangpo site. But qualifications of > authority, of course, were the point all along, weren't they? > > Barrett > > And long live Fakelangpo! I hope it develops into a robust site that > everyone will want to refer to. I'm going to make it my homepage, in fact. > I've been looking for a substitute for CNN.news. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 17:50:13 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Follari Subject: Reply To Millie Comments: To: men2@columbia.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hello Millie, I was moved by your story, I too was diagnosed with manic depression,then bi-polar then Schizophrenia and now It seems like a whole lot of crap. I don't even have any of the symptoms of schizophrenia,and there is no trace of it in any of the works I've produced (4 comedy books). All I get now is limited creativity because of the medication (Risperidal) I'm on. I'm starting to distrust these professionals, we're talking about the mind here. My future and other people like me is in danger because the doctors don't understand the nature of creativity. regards Tony >From: Millie Niss >Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: manic depression and creativity: NOT! - a manic depressive > speaks out... >Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 09:51:23 -0400 > >Sorry this has grown into a a missive and a caposule auutobiography (well, >I >am working on a memoir but it's a damn siight more artful than this...) but >i wanted to explain what it's like to have serious manic depression and why >it is incompatible with being a great artist usually. I don't think I >would >have been a _great_ anything, although I did get into Princeton for Math >grad school, so I had reached the top of school as an undergrad, and that >was my highest achievmment because i was never able to do math after my >vbreakdown. I also now to web art and writing (more web stuff lately). I >admire people's major projects, but I know that I could never get one done >between episodes of illness, so I doi a lot of little tihings: a single >animated poem (see www.sporkworld.org/webart/rhino.html) a short hypertext >poem (www.sporkworld.org/subway/poemtitle.html) and numeours shourt >animations (see my work on www.bannerart.org under banners and rectangular >IMUs, in the Collection). But I can't do something like the major work >that >earn grant and prizes and gets burned onto CD and sold-- and not because I >haven't the skill but because the illness doesn't give me time. I imagin >that is true for most cretive people with severe mental illness. Episodes >erase creativity and it's very hard to retain anty interets in an onld >project. > >I really AM crazy with manic depression and I don't like this kind of >research and statement. I'm sure all the famous artists who were >supposedly >manic depressive would have done more and better art had they not had the >illness. I mean, right now I'm writing blind because my antipsychotics >from >last night haven't worn off...not te ideal state in which to make a >painting! People who are manic can produce, but more often they are stuck >in a horrible state of being apparently full of creative energy but unable >to focus on any one project for long enough to make progress. And they >lose >(at least I do) critical judgement-- when you;re manic, all your work looks >like a masterpiece, or if it doesn't, its very incompetence is showing >sommething special, like you imagine getting exhibited as "outsider art" or >"new American primitivism" (that is, if you can't draw). > >So much for mania. However many manic depressives, me included experience >a >state akin to mania where you still have your marbles, called hypomania >(less than mania) and in that state it is possible to be very creative and >productive. Usually though, it doesn't last long...you either crash down >through normalcy to depression (there is nothing to catch you at the middle >and make you stop there...(none of the mood stabilizing drugs really work >that way. They prevent movememnt of mood altogeter and can prolong a bad >mood), so you either crash down or end up REALLY manic where you are no >longer creative but tortured by your mind and full of quests you must go on >that are really hard (and have bad consequences in the real world, like >walking on a bridge parapet stark naked). > >If you resist, as I usually do, you can't do anything, it is as if >everything that regulates mood state is just gone so you start swinging >from >high to low like a monkey swinging after a banana that's hanging on another >branch. You start screaming, even foaming at the mouth. The world seems >increasingly unreal.You think you can go through the walls and wonder why >you don't fall through the floor since a house is but an insubstantial >thing >anchored in a small sliver of time. Yout travel in time until you are dead >and you feel being dead. You do this even if you are alone. It;s not a >scene you do for someone's benefit, it's the sound of the rending of the >universe to let you through. Then, if you are smart you take smething (I >take risperdal, and antispsychotic when something like this happens, or >loxitane, another one) and in an hour or so reality returns, You can't >believe you actually were that crazy. Maybe you were making it up. After >all everyone says you have a good imagination. But it's real-- not the time >travel of course, -- but the fact that you really FELT the universe break >open to allow yout o come through and observe from the outside. People ask >you questions about the furture but you say "it's not like H.G. Wells, it's >hard to land and you never know where you are. You don't see the whole >thing laid out in front of you... > >I suppose one could write a poem about the above but other people have >plenty of experiences too and on average mentally ill folks haven't had the >experiences that are the fodder for most poetry (relationships, work, >social >interactions) since we live an isolated and imporverished (culturally >anyway) life. Many of us live on the street, for goodness sake! There is >a >very good art and pettry program at the day program at the agency which I >once worked for (whihch has a clientele that is 95% black with many >homeless >and formerly homeless and very, very poor people), but she does her own >creaming, which isn't fair. She intimidates all but the best artists and >writers out of her class and then encourages the remainder to no end. They >put out and annual journal and have a reading which I went to. It was >impressive given that these were former street people. They wrote, on >average, like any other bunch of people taking a high powered poetry >workshop, ie quite a bit above the bla poem level. The art is really hard >(it's another teacher). They are forced to make it in total siilence and >then it get taped up to the door and the person who made it hads to explain >why they did it and what it means to tem. They did one art show which >raised a ton of money for the agency snd they have the framed artwork all >over the placee, plus there are posters from the art show. I think that >was a little unfair to the artists.... if people wanted to buy their >paintings, they should have gotten the full proceeds with just a litlle >taken out for the class and materials, and they should have their own >framed >artwork. On the other hand, it certianly gets a lot of viewing because >it's >on the way to the elevator. > >My impression is that art (maybe unlike poetry) is a giod-given talent that >you don't just learn in a class. I think the clients in poetry class >learned to write better poetry (She has secret methids and wouldn't let me >observe her class for "privacy" reasns even though the class members >invited >me because I'd write poetry with clients when I had no work to do if there >was a client who was one of the poets areound. But I know she did >exercises >and had them read poems. I have seen people who have never had a class >paint beautifully on the other hand, and if you ask how they learned, >they'll say things like "I just paint what is see" and "amyone can do this >if they try" The guy whose self-portrait was their poster really did know >how to make an oil panting. The sad part was that he did this >self-portrait, and then got deoressed and gained 200lbs and so his face >beca,e totally round and he looked completely different from the >self-portrait. It must have made him feel bad to look at the poster ever >day...they had a copy of it in the day room of the residence he lives in, >so >he could hardly avoid it, unless he wanted never to eat with people or go >to >the kitchen or the patio or just hang out with other residents. That's >what >it's like to be mentally ill. > >I feel the same way as he must when I look myself up on the web and find >math research papers that I coauthored or am thanked in. I used to be >really good at math and got into Princeton. But I went to an easy grad >school instead and flunked out anyway due to illness. Then years later I >staarted an MFA in writing (which is impossible to flunk out at if you go, >but going was my biggest problem) but it was in Boston and I was commuting >from Providence and had 12 hour days with my work study and I couldn't do >it >after the first semester and tried to kill myslef in the beginning of the >second. Then I did the third semester, so I have completed a year with >mostly As (in all the workshops except for a short short story workshop >which taught me that I had no business ever trying to write fiction because >the sh*t I came out with was godawful, plus the class was hard, one story a >week and you had to give useful comments on all the others). But then I >fled New England to go back and live with my father in NYC after my >boyfriend dumped me and my disability check was no longer enough to live on >in the style I was accustomed to. > >I probably should have just gotten a smaller place in Providence (but I >loved my huge apartment with its hadwood floors and pantry and sunroom, >etc, >and it was only $700 for five rooms) but I didn't have any more frineds >there. Plus I got that counseling job last fall, only I lost it in >December >because I was too depressed to get there every day, and I had thirteen >months of terrible depression (whilst seeing a very good doctor weekly, >which I could barely get out of bed to go do; I was mostly bedridden except >for whne I tried to kill myself again and landed it the loony bin which was >the most awful experience of my life although I had been i the hospital in >Providence and it was fine. But uit New York they treated me like I was a >criminal and wouldn't let me be voluntary and kept me for a whole three >weeks making me more and more depressed and telling me I wasn't depressed >and I ended up far worse than I was before I went. Kudos to ICU at St. >Luke's though who were perfectly polite to me when I came to after they >saved me. I don't understand why they bothered saving me though if they >were going to put me in their psych ward when they would make me want >desperately to die to escape the horrors of the place. They liked tying >people to their beds by their hands and feet and leavig them there for 48 >hours, screaming their heads off, which they let haoppen for a whle to >scare >us all before injecting the victim with heavyy drugs.) > >After the hospital, I went kind of nuts, seeing things and stuff caused by >one of my nine medications, so I spent a long time getting better from >that. >And here I am, two years later, taking up projects I started two years ago >and coming up with ideas for the first time in years. And I live in a >constant state of "controlled" hypomania, where i am high pretty much all >the time but take medicine when I feel myself getting TOO high. A more >proudent (or less sympathetic to artistic pursuits) doctor would throw more >meds at me so I'd be totally bla-ed out, which is the general result of >tretament of manic depression. So treated manic depressives tend to be >LESS >creative than the average person, they are usually chemically suppressed so >much that they don't think at all. > >Millie >-----Original Message----- >From: UB Poetics discussion group >[mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Mark Weiss >Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 4:01 AM >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: relates to earlier discussions of this, I think > > >And now for the sequel: "Son of Bad Science!" > >Who knows? Maybe creativity drives people crazy. Hide the pens and papers, >and for heaven's sake don't let your kids fingerpaint. > >Seriously, there are serious diagnoses out there, but most are pretty >haphazard. I've rescued quite a few from the latter. So there's the >inevitable question, how do you form a sample? To put it another >way, "who you calling crazy?" (not you, Tom, those folks nwasting >perfectly good grant money.) > >Mark > > >At 04:08 AM 5/25/2002 -0500, you wrote: > >"Stanford researchers establish link between creative genius and mental > >illness > >STANFORD, Calif. - For decades, scientists have known that eminently > >creative individuals have a much higher rate of manic depression, or > >bipolar disorder, than does the general population. But few controlled > >studies have been done to build the link between mental illness and > >creativity. Now, Stanford researchers Connie Strong and Terence Ketter, > >MD, have taken the first steps toward exploring the relationship. > > > >Using personality and temperament tests, they found healthy artists to be > >more similar in personality to individuals with manic depression than to > >healthy people in the general population. "My hunch is that emotional > >range, having an emotional broadband, is the bipolar patient's >advantage," > >said Strong. "It isn't the only thing going on, but something gives >people > >with manic depression an edge, and I think it's emotional range." > > > >http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2002-05/sumc-sre052102.php > > > >tom bell > > > >&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: > >Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html > >Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at > >http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm > >Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ > >Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 14:40:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wanda Phipps Subject: Come on out MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Drop by if you're in town: Sunday Afternoon with The Unbearables I'm reading with a host of others - Part of the Unbearables Arts Festival Sunday, May 26, 2002 4 - 7 PM at The Nuyorican Poets Cafe 136 East 3rd Street, NYC Tom Savage, MC -- Wanda Phipps Hey, don't forget to check out my website MIND HONEY http://users.rcn.com/wanda.interport (and if you have already try it again) poetry, music and more! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 17:51:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: relates to earlier discussions of this, I think MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Apologies for posting this. I assumed that people might go back and look at earler exchanges in the archives and also might like a link to some research. I guess I should have realized that people would have a tendency to personalize it and respond on that basis. I guess I should also have been aware of how volitile the subject still is today and how outdated the attitudes are. mea culpa tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 18:13:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: listen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - listen for 6 black-ibis days, we have been bittern.hemicals. what you're and it has taken you 0.167 minutes to witness your lastis emergence, as well as i'm trying to deal with silence, problematic language, "messy" language - for example - what constitutes a word in mime? codework - for me - implies a tension between what might pass for surface content, and what might pass for: a. the substructural matrix (presentation format) b. the sustaining protocols (email, ascii code, etc.) c. the generating protocols (programming) d. interacting protocols (html, programming) - all of these are of course problematic in relation to one another - saw-palmetto in might pass for surface ? would be good to me saw-palmetto in codework - for me - implies a tension between what might pass for surface :for example - what constitutes a word in mime?:i'm trying to deal with silence, problematic language, "messy" language - :d. interacting - protocols (html, programming):b. the sustaining protocols (email, ascii code, etc.) your pond-lily dissolves my a. the substructural matrix (presentation format). tha language, "messy" language - ...rible sawgrass eats me on your hammock-snail! Ul How would your terrorize your black-ibis hammock-snail?told us to do. Ifare Ar - protocols (html, programming):c. the generating protocols (programming) your saw-palmetto dissolves my b. the sustaining protocols (email, ascii code, etc.). esh, it's snail-kite? are you satisfied with your co - protocols (html, programming):to one another - your red c. the generating protocols (programming) is on my slash-pine - all of these are of course problematic in relation. _ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 09:32:25 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: komninos zervos Subject: Re: langpo is a w-h-o-r-e In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Hey, why bother with the fake stuff when you can now read the real thing! A >new edition of -In The American Tree- edited by Ron Silliman is out from The >National Poetry Foundation. 607 pages, all new bio notes. So skip the >puerile imitations and sink your teeth into the challenging work that made >the experimental writing of the 70's and 80's the in thing to awkwardly >imitate in the not-that-new millenium. Nice editor photo on the back cover >too! > >Nick Piombino perhaps because some people would like to look to the future instead of dwelling on the past. christopher beach in 'poetic culture' states that the features that l-p introduced in the 70s and eighties are now incorporated into the writing of poetry by avant-garde and conventional poets alike. i assume the paratactic devices and other style elements, as well as the thematic exploration of theory and the writing of poetry primarily for its readerly qualities rather than its sonic qualities, are now tools we all carry in our poetry toolkit. so perhaps poetry is looking for a new direction, new ways of saying what we have to say. might i suggest and not meaning to be disrespectful, what you may call 'real' langpo, is a bore because everything reads like langpo these days. can you recommend a good book of language poetry that has been recently written and published, and if so what advances has it made to poetry that it's predecessors haven't made? i encourage millie's effort, to understand the 'fake' we must have a fair understanding of what the 'real' is also, otherwise the whole thing is meaningless. just a few thoughts komninos -- komninos zervos bsc(hons) ma(creative writing) http://www.gu.edu.au/ppages/K_Zervos Convenor CyberStudies major School of Arts Griffith University Gold Coast Campus PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre Queensland 9726 Australia tel: +61 7 55528872 fax: +61 7 55528141 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 10:10:58 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: komninos zervos Subject: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown In-Reply-To: <008d01c203d4$b068bf40$a11886d4@overgrowngarden> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" lawrence you wrote in reply to richard >I fail to see >how one separates the process of reading and writing >People who write poetry without reading it are, almost without exception a >waste of space - as Martin Stannard remarks (facetiously) "It's more >interesting than that stuff in books that's difficult to understand" (_Words >Out Loud_, Stride Books,UK) > >Poetry is a communal activity > >L > lawrence you have identified the writer of poetry who doesn't read the works of others and the poet who also reads, but what about the the poet that listens to the work of others. much of my early knowledge of other poet's work came at poetry soundings and open microphone sessions in small coffee lounges, pubs and community halls. long before i started reading poetry from books. what i notice is that as i started attending more soundings in different communities, in different cities, in different countries, the more i wanteed to learn about poetry, which led me to reading books of past poets. i also noticed there was always a percentage of the audience who were not readers of poetry books but who received their words by listening and who wrote (mostly confessional) poetry. the problem was that if these people only attended one sounding regularly, they would have a limited knowledge base. their cultural experience of poetry is indeed different from the people on a list like this, but still a valid one, not a 'waste of space' as Martin Stannard, and you, might suggest. as you say it is a community activitiy and there are different types of community. secondly lets identify another category of poetry player. the reader. are there any people who just read poetry these days? in australia all major publishers have stopped publishing new single author poetry collections, this is left to the 'small presses', because the market is not big enough to break even without government subsidy. the u of california press news recently confirms similar decisions in the usa. are the only readers of poetry today writers who are also readers, and critics and theorists? has poetry become an academic exercise? is the activity of poetry a writerly activity rather than a readerly activity? i personally enjoy all aspects, writing, reading, listening, composing for this medium(the web), talking about poetry on lists like this, teaching it to students, performing it at my local arts collective once a month, performing at conferences, which i'm sure you do too, and i wouldn't like to identify one aspect as being more imnportant than any other. regards komninos -- komninos zervos bsc(hons) ma(creative writing) http://www.gu.edu.au/ppages/K_Zervos Convenor CyberStudies major School of Arts Griffith University Gold Coast Campus PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre Queensland 9726 Australia tel: +61 7 55528872 fax: +61 7 55528141 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 22:48:05 -0400 Reply-To: Allen Bramhall Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Allen Bramhall Subject: Re: langpo is a w-h-o-r-e MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "komninos zervos" To: Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 7:32 PM Subject: Re: langpo is a w-h-o-r-e > can you recommend a good book of language poetry that has been > recently written and published, and if so what advances has it made > to poetry that it's predecessors haven't made? yes, i can. try 'Doubt' by Jim Leftwich. regards, beth ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 23:06:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: the nineteenth century MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - the nineteenth century "of sir edward, it must be said that his love for lulu was insatiable. of lulu, it must be said, her love for sir edward was obsessive, full of doubt." edwardr hand was up into him making him scream edwardr people were spread so wide every person could see edwardr person his person was open to anyone who wanted to see his people lulu pulled and bit his person with edwardr person sir edward bit edwardr people until tedwardy bled lulu bit his people until tedwardy bled lulu pulled tedward people so tight tedwardy cut his person lulu pissed all over his people and person sir edward pissed all over edwardr people and person lulu came all over him sir edward ran his people all over edwardr edwardr hand was up into him making him scream edwardr people were spread so wide every person could see edwardr person his person was open to anyone who wanted to see his people lulu pulled and bit his person with edwardr person lulu bit his people until tedwardy bled lulu pulled tedward ropes so tight tedwardy cut his person lulu pissed all over his people and person sir edward pissed all over edwardr people and person lulu ran edwardr people all over him sir edward ran his people all over edwardr _ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 21:40:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Drunken Boat Subject: Langpo or Lego? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Unrelated to any thread but I thought some of you might enjoy this rendition of the Testaments: http://www.thereverend.com/brick_testament/ RS __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 05:55:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: prepositions.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit (apologies for cross-posting) prepositions.net, a new website dedicated to exploring digital publishing, is now online. The site contains links to numerous .pdf files, as well as links to resources for the creation of .pdf files. There is also a forum for discussions relating to .pdf e-books, & a call for papers relating to digital publishing. prepositions.net is a project of durationpress.com. http://www.prepositions.net Jerrold Shiroma, director duration press www.durationpress.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 06:30:43 -0700 Reply-To: rloden@concentric.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Organization: Rachel Loden Subject: Re: The New Bohemian In-Reply-To: <200205241703.g4OH3bc15067@morse.concentric.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > The New Bohemian-- Who's with me? > > Aaron S. Belz Good show Aaron but sorry, I don't want to belong to any school of poetry that would accept me as a member. Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others Rachel A. Loden ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 02:09:27 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Fw: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >>Lawrence me old mate. > > > >>Never apologise: it looks weak. > > > > always (twice, now) to be arguing with you; but, leaving aside the > > question of earning money, which could be a different debate, I fail to > see > > how one separates the process of reading and writing; so that publishing > > and distribution is tremendously importamt > > > >>I didnt say anything about not publishing or not reading. Of course these > things are important: but get real on this, the reality is that poetry is > a minority sport: this doesnt matter...its good. And I dont think that poets > need to be involved in the complexities and tedium of the publishing > industry. Its a storm in a teacup. > > > People who write poetry without reading it are, almost without exception, > a > > waste of space - as Martin Stannard remarks (facetiously)They find their > own > > poetry "more | interesting than that stuff in books that's difficult to > > understand" (_Words Out Loud_, Stride Books,UK) > > > >>ok well: the above is a waste of space..I read poetry: that's enough. And > I've never heard of this Stannard character.Sounds like he's a loser and a > whinger. I like my own poetry and other poems and so on...but I dont like > boring economic arguments or discussions about things that fundamentally > will never change: such as how difficult it is to get published, how poets > are supposedly "neglected", who the poet laureate or latest Pulitzer is: its > all a kind of whinging by people who are not happy in themselves. > > > > I would have thought that your presence here contradicts what you are > > saying, unless your interest in poetry is mainly one of talking about > > poetry > > > >> my presence here contradicts NOTHING....as a poet I reserve the right to > be ambiguous and cantakarous and contradictory: but I do read poetry, as much as I can and > that includes many styles and many poets,but I'm not interested in whingers: > in NZ we all know the expression "whinging poms" well its spread it seems > from you or from Silliman etal to you and others on this List - look lets > all just write: Ron Silliman for example seems obsessed with who has won > what prize: that would be ok if some more complex "argument" was > produced.(He shouldnt worry, he gets quite a wide readership, and rightly > so)...Ron said something about Billy Connelly reflecting the current > political "climate" and I think I know what he means: and a part of me > regrets "the stampede to clarity" and "the general conspiracy of dullness" > of which consiracy (unlike Silliman who is a major poet) Connelly seems to > be one of the High Priests...I heard Connelly reading his poems just now on > the radio, he was here recently in Auckland, and they were good if not > sometimes brilliant poems: but nothing unforgettable I'm afraid for me: I'm > a better poet than Billy Connelly (not hard to be I'm afraid though...). But > these publishing logistic issues are red herrings: its the > politico-poetic )(class somewhat) thing that the Language poets drew > attention to: that is why its good that many of their ilk and "followers" or > people writing in similary challenging ways will always be more interesting > BUT also put on the sidelines for reasons that are, at base, more than the > economics of publishing....anycase i'm not going to be led into any tedious > arguments leading me toward (an) underwhelming question(s) > > > > Who cares? may be a useful manner to cultivate as an emotional protection > > for the poet feelingisolated; but not as a manifesto > > > >>Its necessary to realise that people are too obsessed with wanting to "be > published" ...if they just got on with things they would find that > publishers would "invite them in" depending on if their work "strikes a > cord" so to speak. > > > Fame is not the same as getting a book published. Earning money is not the > > best reason for publishing. > > > >> True: but that's not my argument. Most poets dont earn buggerall from > their actual poems: if they do they are probably bad poets. I'm not > against publishing but nor am I for it. > > > Poetry is a communal activity > > > >>Is communal? CAN BE communal: to hell with the pathetic readers of my > poetry...DAMN thenm for LOVING it and DAMN them for HATING it poetry... CAN (doesnt > HAVE to be) a totally selfish or (SELF-CENTRED) pursuit: and why not? > > >> Long live the individual! DEATH to transparency. Richard. > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 10:56:22 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charlotte Mandel Subject: Poets reading at ALA Conference MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thursday, May 30th, at American Literature Conference, Hyatt Regency Long Beach, CA, 5:00 to 6:20 p. m., Seaview C: "After H.D.: A Reading by Contemporary Poets" Brian Glaser Catherine Daly Madelyn Detloff Eric Paul Shaffer Charlotte Mandel Sponsored by the H. D. International Society. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 11:02:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: Learning curves Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I'd like to compare two "learning curves" in the last day's discussions: the first in relation to the fakelangpo site, and the second re the moving account of the experience of manic depression. Obviously I hadn't read the second thread when I entered into the first. Re the first: the complaint I am raising has to do with the leveling generality of response. The word "langpo" itself may central to this effect. It has become a variable whose value tends to the null set in a dysfunctional equation; i.e., plug in the same value, get the same result. The atrophy of responses may be what is wanted in order to clear the ground for further work; this would account for the paucity of specific readings, perhaps. But in the literary series, it is not possible to "exit" a sequence so easily. The Language School, in fact, has a great deal to say about "clearing the ground" for further work. I'd go further and suggest that there were three "moments" of such ground clearing in American poetry over the last hundred years, and each took place after a war. There's something outside the literary series, then, that intersects with new possibility. What does the reductiveness of "langpo" have to do with "exterior" logics of clearing the ground? It seems to be completely "internal" to the series, and thus by definition cannot get outside, to a "clearing." This is another way of saying that "langpo" is a redundant placeholder; as a response, it's the null set. It refers to nothing except the guilt toward precedence that holds it in place. It's a "symptom." This is a kind of "negative learning curve," where we unlearn specificity and all results tend to the same result. It can be reassuring in some senses--what was the fuss about all along? I am going to suggest, on the contrary, that the only way out is through, so that if a problem presents itself to you in your development, it is necessary to go through the problem entirely. This means learning everything about it, unfortunately for you, rather than reducing it to a symptom-word. (Something like that is what I've been trying to do in writing on the New Americans.) On the other hand, Millie Niss's narrative of her experience does result in learning. This is, as always, a very welcome communication. Why are the two learning curves so completely opposed, as dynamics? One toward the null set, the other toward a fullness of human understanding? Is this a tendency of the second toward the first due to the property of the literary work, which seems to prescript and mediate? In what sense is the second learning curve being misunderstood in the drive toward the first? We may recall the great opening of Breton's First Manifesto: "So strong is the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life--real life, I mean--that in the end this belief is lost." Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 11:48:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R. Drake" Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: <5.0.1.4.2.20020526103041.02550aa8@mail.wayne.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit barrett, that's Millie Ness, not Niss... on 5/26/02 11:02 AM, Barrett Watten at b.watten@WAYNE.EDU wrote: > I'd like to compare two "learning curves" in the last day's discussions: > the first in relation to the fakelangpo site, and the second re the moving > account of the experience of manic depression. Obviously I hadn't read the > second thread when I entered into the first. > > Re the first: the complaint I am raising has to do with the leveling > generality of response. The word "langpo" itself may central to this > effect. It has become a variable whose value tends to the null set in a > dysfunctional equation; i.e., plug in the same value, get the same result. > The atrophy of responses may be what is wanted in order to clear the ground > for further work; this would account for the paucity of specific readings, > perhaps. But in the literary series, it is not possible to "exit" a > sequence so easily. The Language School, in fact, has a great deal to say > about "clearing the ground" for further work. I'd go further and suggest > that there were three "moments" of such ground clearing in American poetry > over the last hundred years, and each took place after a war. There's > something outside the literary series, then, that intersects with new > possibility. What does the reductiveness of "langpo" have to do with > "exterior" logics of clearing the ground? It seems to be completely > "internal" to the series, and thus by definition cannot get outside, to a > "clearing." This is another way of saying that "langpo" is a redundant > placeholder; as a response, it's the null set. It refers to nothing except > the guilt toward precedence that holds it in place. It's a "symptom." > > This is a kind of "negative learning curve," where we unlearn specificity > and all results tend to the same result. It can be reassuring in some > senses--what was the fuss about all along? I am going to suggest, on the > contrary, that the only way out is through, so that if a problem presents > itself to you in your development, it is necessary to go through the > problem entirely. This means learning everything about it, unfortunately > for you, rather than reducing it to a symptom-word. (Something like that is > what I've been trying to do in writing on the New Americans.) > > On the other hand, Millie Niss's narrative of her experience does result in > learning. This is, as always, a very welcome communication. > > Why are the two learning curves so completely opposed, as dynamics? One > toward the null set, the other toward a fullness of human understanding? Is > this a tendency of the second toward the first due to the property of the > literary work, which seems to prescript and mediate? In what sense is the > second learning curve being misunderstood in the drive toward the first? > > We may recall the great opening of Breton's First Manifesto: "So strong is > the belief in life, in what is most fragile in life--real life, I > mean--that in the end this belief is lost." > > Barrett > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 11:55:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: Correction? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The posts were sent from: Millie Niss . ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 12:13:01 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: RaeA100900@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Poets reading at ALA Conference MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rae Armantrout, Kit Robinson and Aldon Nielsen will read their poems and discuss the influence of William Carlos Williams on Saturday at 2:00 in Regency E. Marjorie Perloff will "chair." ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 15:25:00 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Take your point Komninos, about listeners The Stannard, which I endorsed by quoting as I did, comes in a volume on poetry readings,so he spoke in a specific context ... and I had just been disagreeing with someone that a *good way rather than a desperate way of getting people to go to gigs is to include open mike; and I was still grumpy I haven't come upon many of the kind of people you speak of, but perhaps that's my narrowness | are there any people who just read poetry these days? I know some - if you mean people who read it but dont write it (and not people who read nothing but poetry) - I know quite a few actually | has poetry become an academic exercise? No! Wasn't it St Paul who said To the academic all things are academic L ----- Original Message ----- From: "komninos zervos" To: Sent: 26 May 2002 01:10 Subject: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 13:05:19 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: Fake response In-Reply-To: <5.0.1.4.2.20020525110532.01f288b0@mail.wayne.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks for looking at my site. You're quite right, it is rather ampty. I had hoped I could engage people in producing the kind of content I had in mind. Perhaps I made a mistake with the "Fake" nomenclature, since that was more of a passing joke. I tried myself to define what I saw as external qualitioes of LP once here-- didn'generate much argumanet although it was highly incpmplete. For me as a reader the strangest thing about encountering Language poetry was that it was made up of chunks which apparently didn't have anything to do with each other (although they might come in groups of related thematic or stylistic material scattered throughout the poem, and thus acquitre "meaning" if one read the whole poem. But one first reading one is apt to be frustrated because there is nothing to grab onto..poetry goes by, and whne you have it in mind, the next thig you read is something entire;y different. What the chunks are depends on the popem and author: In Silliman's N/O (and the other letters but I'm not as familiar with them) you get chiunks which could be pieces of contemporary free verse poems. In a book like Coolidge's Alien Tatters, there are sentencess arranged visibly in chunks, but in some sense the sentenses are trhe chnks since they are the smallest coherent unit, and they themselves are surreal, but grammatical. The chunks of sentences realte to each other grammatically (anaphors are uses within chunks but not between them) and thematically, but they make the the thing make even less sense. Curiously, the poem (the long one at the beginninng of the book; there are a few shorter works at the end) as a whole is relatively coherent: one could say what it is "about (alien sightings/kidnappings, or people who believe they have been kidnapped by aliens). This adds to readablibility but does not seem altogether necessary unless it is ncessary in order to keep peope reading a poem of a few hundred pages. A ppoet such as Rod Smith writes with various-sized chunks (always set apart by white space; you can almost tell a language poem just by looking for all the dense text surrounded by whitespace) but many chunks are individual words or phrases, and the poems as a whole evoke an era or a an event sometimes, but they aren't traditionally lyrical and they certainly don't narrate anything (even in the sense the Alien Tatters can be said to ba a narrative poem). IO only have one book of his to go on, In Memory of my Theories, but have read some of the other poems and they use similar techniques. It was a poem of Smiths that prompted me to make that tutorial about transforming a poem into LP by chnaging the line break so the words no longer make sense and sound profound. For he has a poem that goes in part: Are not our feelins, as it were inscibed, on things around us. sandwichman, promoter, publicist wellspring, coxswain last weather and well her rendering of that which is distant: ... which of sourse sounds worse but makes a lot more sense as Are not our feelings, As it were, inscribed On things around us: Sandwichman, promoter, publicist? Wellspring, coxswain, Last weather, And well her rendering of that which is distant: I'm obviously noit saying the second way is better; it's not. But it is "the poem under the poem" her wrote, in the sense that if he were thinking in prose sentences in his head (which I doubt poets do, but that's another discussion), he would have thought of the same sentence in both cases, and the "obvious" rendering is the second one. I actually really like the first (although these lines do little for me, they seem sort of prosy because I _read_ the way I re-wrote them trying to make sense and I wrote a poem called "The Sandwichman" so that distracted me. I don't know how the poems of Susan Howe fit into the chunk theiry though-- they seeem different in many respects from other Language poetry: the words are strangely chosen so in some sense she has word-sixed chunks put into sentences or lines which aren't grammatical and don't make sense, but he works often have a lot of literary or social history beghind them, as if they were researched essays. You actually learn cold hard facts from a Susan Howe poem, though that isn't why you read one. When she writes of Tristan and Islde,say, or of Arthururian tales, you feel she is _continuing_ the tradition of retelling these stories, in a modern idiom that we find palatable, just as the stories were originallly passed from language group to language group and ultimately to frnch and English and then from say, Malory's English, to Tennyson's, (not to mwntion Spenser's, Swinburnes, etc. etc. in between), and then, as if in a straight line, to Susan Howe. But anyway, I see composistion in chunks as the major (macro, l;arge scale & obvious feature of most language poetry, as well as "not making sense" inan obvious denotional way, but of course many modernist and postmodern schools have played weith the extent to which poetry must make sense. I find the Modeernists (Pound more than Eliot) verry good at not making sense, but you'd never take the cantos for a language poem-- it is too overcompposed, linked within itself, and lets in too little air. Language poems tand to be airy (not an insulkt); their whitespace leaves room for interpretation That's why it is somewhat heretical to speak of Pound not making sense,; the correct thing to say is that one hasn't penetrated Pound's meaning in Canto whatever, which assumes he was very specififc in havig a meaning, which he may well have been. I am just not sure it is to be found in te poem itsef; maybe it was just in Pound's mind but did not readch the poem or maybe the meaning was dissipated throughout the whole modernist opus and that if one read every texrt of the period (including non literary ones such as the daily papers) one would say, "ah!" and undertstand. Such hidden meanings did not disapppear with rthe moderninsts. There are poems of Robert Lowell's (the ones which aren't taught) in, say, the Dolphion, Notebook (especsciallty) and "History" which are absolutely inscrutable if you don't know the details of Lowells marriages, children, and divorces, and yet they arfe written with universal pronouns so it is not immediastely evident, say, that he is writing to his daughter Harriet. And Lowell is not a particularly "difficult" poet, but he was a poet in eveything and so wrote poems in responses to his life's events and didn't see why he should have to explain who everybody was because he knew perfectly well and they were poems for him (well I think this is tryue of Notebook. The Dolphin wreally was written for publication, but it's the only one of these books that does say who a poem is for and what's going on in his lidf ewhen he writes it; I think History was written as a sequel to Notebook, and I think he meant to publish both but maybe didn't care wheter the reader could understand. Plu his affirs etc. were notorious and people would have understood.) I don't get the impression that Language poems are working with hiudden meanings though--- I think they are an atempt at no meaning, or at a meaning which distills out of nothingness, based on the words of the poem. I'm on shaky, shaky ground here though, because I'm responding to Laguage poet who obviously knows betterr than I do why. I was tryiing to say in this email WHAT I saw in LP as a naive reader; why is a question only the poets can answer! Millie P.S. Will post this on Fakelangpo, hopefully to get a serious discussion going! -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Barrett Watten Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 11:26 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Fake response Being as open to reputational damage as the next guy, I took a look at the Fakelangpo site. It's certainly energetic, and optimistic about all the play space it has created. But there is curiously empty feeling as one goes from frame to frame, looking for the positive content or even sustained parody or critique. Undoubtedly, it will begin to fill up, but with what? It reminded me of an effort by grad students at Berkeley in the early 90s called MSRepresentations, a supposed parody of the journal, Representations. They managed to get the typeface right, but the content was basically ground-level anxieties about "theory" in general and showed little actual reading of the New Historicism and its intellectual origins. You can't parody effectively without reading. I don't see much of a reading of "Language poetry," whatever that is, in Millie Niss's site, and the recent debate was pretty scarce on examples as well. If you go to that "what I see in L Poetry" forum, you will also see few references to particular works--not much of an account of influence, or of a rejection of one. What you get are: anxieties of authorship and positionality. Well, to be fair, there is another anxiety: a conceptual one. What are the distinguishing features of a "language poem"; how will I know one when I see one? That question could be approached by asking what it is one is looking for when one identifies X, what is the conceptual framework for categorizing. It could also be solved by reading examples. "What are the distinguishing features of a New York School poem and how will I know one when I see it" can be answered either by reflection on literary taxonomy, or by reading New York School poems. Nick is right: In the American Tree is newly available, in an upgraded design and with vastly improved typesetting, to be looked at again. The fact that Millie Niss was unaware of it does qualify the "authority," if one wants to use that word, of the Fakelangpo site. But qualifications of authority, of course, were the point all along, weren't they? Barrett And long live Fakelangpo! I hope it develops into a robust site that everyone will want to refer to. I'm going to make it my homepage, in fact. I've been looking for a substitute for CNN.news. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 15:15:56 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: The Pressing Question of Fun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit (hope this isn't out-of-date when it finally gets posted. (make me happy, tim.)) I haven't spent much more than a few seconds on the fakelangpo site, except to make that duck explode (again and again!). You gotta wonder what it is about it that's getting under the real language poets' skin, since as Barrett pointed out, it doesn't pose that much of a threat (i.e. intellectual or institutional rival to the current avant-garde), and, as Nick stated, it's actually kind of boring and maybe not that fun at all. But this question of fun will not go back into the genie bottle. It's Millie's insistence that fakelangpo is the kind of linguistically experimental work that is funner than the original langpo that has to be annoying as hell. It harkens back to Steve Evans' essay on Rebecca Wolff's Fence Manifesto ('97) and her apparent reduction of all poetical values into one word: fun. The kids, it seems, want to have fun, and the adults, it seems, want to have.... reputations maybe? intellectual companionship? a page in literary history with their name on it? ideology critique? job security? the high road of art? respect? It can't help but be annoying because some language poetry actually was fun. Stephen Rodefer's _Four Lectures_ is very fun, edgy, smart, funny and nasty, too. Bob Perelman's work is kind of fun if not funny. Some Alan Davies is fun as I recall. Some will say Charles Bernstein's work is fun, entertaining. And everyone loves Ron Silliman's puns. Barrett's work, however, is not fun at all. And if it were fun or tried to be so, it would ruin it (see CNN joke at bottom of "fake response" post). In fact, it's not even not fun. It's not anti-fun or against fun. It's a-fun, which is a higher form of fun if you think about it. What's my point? My point is that what a lot of language poetry, the kind Millie is probably reacting to (in addition to its tedious pedagogy, mostly likely that, yes), lacks as well as fakelangpo (or any poetry based on fun as sole goal, except for FLARF!, which is in a class of its own) is DEEP FUN. Something more fun than fun. The total package. For instance, if Millie and I were to have sex, as she said she wanted to, we could go out and have fun. Ride a rollercoaster, eat ice cream, roll over dumpters. We could tease and joke, like they do on that stupid MTV 'Dismissed' show, engage in flirtatious banter ("I''m so hungry, I could eat you," etc). I could drop an ice cube down her blouse (surprises are always a turn-on) and she could make me an Easter basket with an Easter egg that had the words 'Big Ben' painted on it (for no reason). This would all be fun foreplay but it's nothing compared to the deep fun to come. The deep fun I can't speak of here because I don't want to ruin it for you, Millie. Or anyone else who wants to join us. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 25 May 2002 14:14:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: Yay! I Got Things On-line! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit That's right. You can't stop lightning from striking. Let's see, I got two old poems, "Are We There Yet?" and "In Jail with the Moon," at the secret preview issue of Shampoo. Thanks Del Ray. www.shampoopoetry.com/ShampooTwelve/hess.html I got a mostly positive review in Jacket 18 of Noelle Kocot's first full-length collection, _4_. This is definitely a poet (especially younger poets) should read and get to know. Thanks John. www.jacketmagazine.com/18/hess-r-kocot.html I got another mostly positive review of flarfmeister Gary Sullivan's _How to Proceed in the Arts_ in the latest Possum Pouch. Has anyone reviewed _Swoon_ yet? As a poet-friend recently asked, why isn't that book selling out? Thanks Dale, Hoa and Jerrold. www.skankypossum.com/pouch.htm I got an interview (about Yasusada, what else) with Kent Johnson in the latest Exquisite Corpse. Kent and I had a flame-war on the Poetryetc listserv last spring after he invited me onto it by saying he wanted to "kick my petit-bourgeois ass." The love then went backchannel. Kent saved the emails, took out my jokes and managed to make the mess look like a conversation. I was notified of its existence a few weeks ago. Thanks Kent. www.corpse.org/issue_11/manifestos/hess_johnson.html (note: if it still says in the intro to the 'Yasusada Dialogues' that I published something in the Poetry Project Newsletter, please ignore. After a meltdown occured between me and one of the editors, my chances of having something in that magazine were about as good as Millie Niss posting a message without a typo. Also, _The Diaries of Nat Turner_ should be _The Confessions of Nat Turner_ as the Scot Robin Hamilton pointed out. Those interested in a debate on the pressing issues of heteronymity and authorship should write Kent. Talking about that stuff now feels like trying to drink straight lemon juice.) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 13:45:58 -0400 Reply-To: derek@derekrogerson.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: Re: The Pressing Question of Fun In-Reply-To: <166.e34df15.2a213cec@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit deep, pressing, fun ? sounds like crayons > I could drop an ice cube down her blouse ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 13:59:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kuszai Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: <5.0.1.4.2.20020526103041.02550aa8@mail.wayne.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Is the atrophy of response what is wanted, to clear ground or otherwise? The idea that work is done to "clear the ground" for anything seems an old model of producing change in literary formations -- one which I happen to subscribe to -- but it important to remember that in this ground-clearing certain work needs to be done -- and that many of the people who are encountered on the streets of this new vertical public sphere are not going to be interested in the same things, one of which is the work involved. What would such work consist of? What would one need to know, what problems or issues would need to be "worked through"? Are they simply formal questions of practice? Because yes, most of the formal techniques used didn't originate recently. Was their deployment situational, motivated by practical concerns or issues of praxis? ... Well? What do I need to know now? The "list itself" presents a number of structural difficulties in terms of fostering the kind of environment where such work would get done, or where the thinking about it might be represented. The atrophy of response is often, I think, a response to this structure of response as it presents itself in a general and generalizing medium as the poetics listserv channel. Some observations: 1. The constituencies represented by the list are too broad. Like many academic conferences, it's too diffuse for there to be a productive developmental discussion surrounding key issues. While this isn't a problem, per se, you get what you pay for. In such a generalized community, difference is boiled in with the broth, and no one is willing to step forward. 2. One example of this is the endless "academic" bashing on the list. The unspecific nature of the accusations about university culture demonstrate many a sad point: a) that compulsory education should probably be extended into the 22nd grade, at a minimum, and that continuing education programs continue forever. b) it isn't the ideas of the academy that bother these people, it's the idea of it. But because there is no systematic or articulated grounds for attacking the "idea of it", the response whithers only to be repeated by another, solo flight. 3. One need for the "re-education" of "human capital" (jingoistic terms courtesy of the World Bank, another promoter of anti-intellectual, anti-academic culture) is demonstrated by the incredibly spotty institutional memory of the culture of the poetics list. Every few moons or so, there is a need to replay the same old concerns: hang-wringing over language poetry: what was it (or what is it), who has more power (theoretically informed but marginal language poets or the sincere but bathy mainstream poets), blah blah blah. It would almost be fun to make a list of endlessly repeated topics. 4. This failure to develop our collective memory is "symptomatic" of larger cultural forces - the multiple, discontinuous vectors of influence and audience, place, technology - all contribute to a layered sense of the present. It's not an academic issue, or at least it need not be limited to the university culture. We might instead reflect on what's left of the "public intellectual" in contemporary culture. Who are our public intellectuals? We might talk about why there aren't MORE intellectuals in public life (i.e. outside of the university). And what is meant by "public life" -- a life of letters to the editor? or...what? Why is it, after years of study, do so many students and scholars reach similar conclusions about particular social and economic issues? Why have so many of our public intellectuals become so profoundly anti-intellectual? 5. An interesting poet in a "group" to talk about with respect to these issues, and how they have to do with "poetry" -- for those of you who need references to actual poems -- would be a discussion of the poet Robert Lowell, who Millie mentions rather usefully as a poet worthy of discussion in the context of langpo. I think that many of Lowell's poems could be brought into such a discussion on two grounds, one formal and the other social. As an "intellectual" and a "pacifist" and as a "rich kid" who led a "bohemian" life of "privledge" while doing "cultural labor" of writing "poetry" in a community of writers many of whom have continuing influence and others of whom seem to have disappeared from memory. Millie's point about the poems is a good place too look closely. Anyone know about Lowell? His life or his madness? I'd be curious to know if anyone has a reference to the Look Magazine photo shoot of the early sixties, a copy of which I'd like to find for personal reasons (my father was the photographer). Lowell's NOTEBOOKS and their subsequent revision is a study in the medicalization of poetry by the dominating forces of decorum and generalization. Worthy of study by any one wishing to understand language poetry. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 14:13:38 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: Re: Learning curves MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/26/02 2:03:06 PM Eastern Daylight Time, jsk66@CORNELL.EDU writes: << Well? What do I need to know now? >> That is always exactly the right question. "Soon there will be a distance between us. Let us love this distance, which is thoroughly woven with friendship, since those who do not love each other are not separated." --Simone Weil Tom Beckett ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 14:50:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: Further thoughts on Telling It Slant Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > cynics and pacifists will perhaps always bemoan the > poetry wars and cite how little they all mean in the grand scheme of > things beyond our little worlds of poetry. and i'm certainly not > suggesting everyone take off the gloves and have a go at each other I agree with Tom Orange that Eileen Myles definitely energized the gathering (she certainly did so for me) but what was energizing about her presentation was not only that she is a terrific "extemporaneous" speaker- the strength of Eileen's point actually had to do with a thread in the panel discussion concerning what is left of the concept of the avant-garde and what this concept might still have of practical value for contemporary experimental poets. This had to do, in Eileen Myles' opinion, with what she called the "amicability" of the (1990's) avant-garde. To my surprise, my acquaintance Tom Orange, whose own work has on occasion given my personal avant-garde poetics chops quite a hefty boost, was apparently bored by EM's feminist version of an avant-garde that is not afraid to be mutually supportive, gentle, amicable even to the point of relating to other poets in an open and mutually supportive way about feelings such as those of loss (mentioned by more than one person on the panel.) If the truth be known, I've never been the type to turn away aghast at an exciting bit of literary gossip or debate. But this crowd was definitely not in the mood to rise to Douglas Rothschild's inflammatory prodding's nor to those concerning The Death Of The Avant-Garde of another attendee, who also happened to be an acquaintance of mine. I guess I was one of the audience members most guilty of expressing certain pacifist leanings towards certain apparently quite boring urges to discuss things in a gentle, perhaps even quietly rational and mutually supportive manner. Do poets have to be constantly feisty or insulting and sarcastic towards one another to be considered brilliant, witty and amusing? Let's face it- men- and women-all too often resort to shooting things, points and people down to in order to deal with feelings of any kind- loss or whatever-or just to get lots of attention. Then off to the gym or the poetry wars committee meeting. This brings me to a related old gripe that I might as well mention, since I'm on the topic of the poetics of aggression. I once asked Rochelle Ratner why she supported the publishing of some vicious attacks put forth by Richard Kostelanetz in the American Book Review (not to be confused with the American Poetry Review) including calling Charles Bernstein a fascist and that his book -My Way- should be compared to Hitler's -Mein Kampf-. By a strange coincidence I had warned Charles years before of the possibility that some weird literary character might insult him by twisting this title. When I asked Rochelle Ratner why the ABR persisted in publishing Kostelanetz' ravings and further responses to them in the letters section, she said -we need controversy to bring interest to the magazine-. Clearly the poetics of aggression won out over the poetics of amicability at the ABR on this occasion. Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 13:48:23 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Rathmann Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: <5.0.1.4.2.20020526103041.02550aa8@mail.wayne.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I don't think it's the case that readers have failed Language writing by not going far enough into the subject. We have had something like 15 years to separate the wheat from the chaff. That's a lot of winnowing. What is there to show for it? Undoubtedly dissertations are now being written on individual Language writers, but, as I see it, the younger poets have already moved on. Readers have not overlooked individual differences within the school. Language writing has had a much more generous reception, in fact, than it has afforded poets outside the school. But all this attention seems not to have identified significant works. (I leave aside Susan Howe, who is a genuinely exciting poet. And, actually, if Language writing made her career easier than it would have been then that is something good.) My sense as a former editor is that Language writing influences poetic practice as a mannerism. You don't have to read very much to see how the game is played. There's the mode of tedious cleverness and word play, the mode of the jackanapes, the mode of the Wittgenstein fetishist, the dreamy soft-focus feminine mode, the satirist-of-consumerism mode, the documentarian mode, etc. Other editors will know what I'm talking about. Let's shift our attention to the generation now coming to maturity. That is where the interest lies, I think. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 14:54:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: Second thoughts on fake langpo Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit One of the most difficult things about being a poet has to do with the issue of legitimizing one's work. In almost every case, as poets become more experienced they learn to make some efforts to earn and/or acquire some form of literary response or acknowledgement. Since L-A poetry has earned a degree of "name" of not "face" recognition (there are over 750 references to it on the Google search engine) it is no surprise that currently all kinds of opportunities are available to find ways to exploit this to get attention. Every since L-A poetry obtained some recognition there have many people anxious to get attention for themselves by what came to be called L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E bashing. But possibly the secret of the success of L-A poetry was that the activities of these poets had more to do with creating a space for making various kinds of experimental, or otherwise unconventional, poetry available rather than legitimizing this or that specific poetry or style of writing. In this sense, the fake langpo website is an understandable outgrowth of the efforts of L-A poets to create more space for experimental poetry. My difficulty had to do with the phrase "fake" but what the hell. I never liked the phrase "language poetry" much either. I think most serious poets have had the experience of being confronted by others, frequently relatives or close friends, who imply they are wasting their time, and that in some sense what they are doing is -fake-. This is because only famous poets, and usually only famous poets who have been dead a long time, can be considered -real- poets. So, in some sense, to most people all poets except for these very few poets who have been legitimized or, as they say, canonized, have some aura of being fake. Most of the poets I know who have been focused on poetry every day of their lives from 20 to 50 years appear to be quite sensitive, painfully sensitive, to this issue of the legitimization of their activities (to be somewhat distinguished from getting credit for the quality of their poetic activities). The L-A poets I think were most successful in creating an atmosphere of legitimizing the activity of writing unconventional poetry. You would have to be over 50 to remember how conservative the poetic establishment was before the activities of L-A poetry somewhat changed the atmosphere. The pressure to write conventional poetry in order to get published was very powerful prior to the 70's, particularly in the U.S. Try to imagine that in the 60's the poetry of Robert Creeley, for example, still appeared unconventiona indeed to many, and served as a beacon in that regard for my own early efforts. It can be very difficult to spend a good deal of your life on something that large numbers of people feel is a meaningless waste of time. This isn't to say that there are not large numbers of people who feel poetry is important. There are. But of course, there are few who feel that the career of poet makes any sense at all. Once, one of my relatives said to me, when he couldn't find my telephone number and had to check information- you can't even get your phone number published-. To this day, a good deal of what I experience about the public response to poetry discourages me from wanting to continue the practice of writing poetry at all. Of late I have not felt that way at all about this list, although there have been times that I have. I don't want to do anything to discourage the expansion of possibilities for experimental and unconventional poetry, or any poetry for that matter. So, fake langpo people, from my point of view, go on and fake it all you like. Just keep writing it and getting it out there. Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 12:04:32 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: Fake response Comments: To: men2@columbia.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Millie--- just to respond to this one point--- (always set apart by white space; you can almost tell a language poem just by looking for all the dense text surrounded by whitespace) this is a not true; though some language poets (and others, who say are involved with Iowa or Brown, etc.) who've appropriated this device (not that the l.ps invented it either) would have one believe it.... there are many "maximalists" (as a shorthand word) among them--- for an interesting relatively early discussion of this white space issue as a debate WITHIN (or between) the language poets see Rae Armantrout's POETIC SILENCE and the after talk discussion in Writing/Talks edited Perelman (1985).... when i teach L.P I like to to use this text.... C ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 15:53:13 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: Re: Second thoughts on fake langpo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ATTENTION One loves span Soon there through Let us since Who do not Each other us This which is Woven with are ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 16:08:06 -0400 Reply-To: derek@derekrogerson.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Derek R Organization: DerekRogerson.com Subject: Re: 2nd thoughts on fake langpo In-Reply-To: <42.27bef604.2a229729@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Can this be made into a screenplay ? > > ATTENTION > > > > One loves span > > > > Soon there through > > > > Let us since > > > > Who do not > > > > Each other us > > > > This which is > > > > Woven with are > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 14:41:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: LA Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Hi All, I'm going to be in Los Angeles (Marina del Rey actually) June 14 - 23. If anybody knows of anything interesting going on during that time, please backchannel me. Thanks. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 17:59:20 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: advice for young poet sought + teaching Homer to the insane Comments: To: Randolph MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks for your comments on my site. It was fun to make, but one never knows if others will like it (especially since I didn't include anything interactive like a guestbook...I think I barely even have my email address publicized throughout the site...a mistake. I wanted to make a personal site that looked like a repository of works (I have seen good sites of this sort) with its own title etc., rather than a "Millie's Home Page: Welcome to my site, I'd looooove to get email from U!" kind of thing -- but the result is that I get no comments from viewers unless they go out of their way to comment, as you did, or else when I put up a new work and publicize it. I've always wanted to do a chapbook (or book) called "Public Transportation" using all my subway poems and the few bus poems I have. It might open with "13 ways of Looking at a Subway," then go on to "Dear Mr. Fieldmanager" or "Excuse for a Delay Between Stations," maybe with one of the more abstract, Languagier ones in between, like "Public Transportation" and end with "Shooting: A Subway Story." I think I have more public transport poems than these as well. I loked at Wild Honey Press's web page, but it seemed like all the writers were quite famous, which is a little off-putting...can you recommend a press that does quality chapbooks (not a vanity press) that might consider my work? I am regrettably barely published at all in poetry (I have a few journalism credits and some mathematics etc.) The only two poems I got published were both in the same place, the Poetry Page of "The Buffalo News" (which isn't too bad considering the number of Buffalo poets, but I wish it were more than tewo poems published and also two different places; oddly enough though, "The Buffalo News" actually _pays_ for poetry.) I guess I'm seeking advice on how to break in, but I know the answer is submit sumbit sumbit. I haven't submitted anything for a year (and I have written) so it would seem to be my own fault. And it's not even that I particularly mind getting rejection slips, it's more that I'm disorganized and can't keep track of what I've submitted where if I actually submit everything I have that is ready for submission. I'm sure if I submitted fifty poems to as many journals, I'd get something in somewhere (are there fifty journals one would want one's poems in? There are maybe more like thirty, but one can sumbit more tan one poem to each one...) The other tack is to submit to really bad journals. Maybe this is what one has to do to get started-=- perhaps you can advise. But I really don't want my poems in a journal called "The Beginner Poet" which says right in it that it's for beginnning level [eg bad] poems. I'd submit to small local journals but they, aside from the fact that they are nearly impossible to find anywhere, tend to put out one or two issues ofnd then die, or else they become important and hard to get into (I'm in NYC, where a local journal could have a local area in the millions). I'd be happy to know what jounals if any people recommend that are less competetive that the really good ones, but aren't full of really bad poetry with an editor who loves bad poetry... [here I am, using "bad" as a critical term again; bad is not an acceptable word in criticism -- though it's less offensive than "good" -- but everyone I think will understand what I mean if a say "a small journal which publishes really bad poetry that the editor actually thinks is good"] Anyway, this is basically a letter from a young versifier (don't know if I am actually a poet-- claiming that one is is quite pretentious unless one has published widely and/or earns one's living through teaching poetry...) ...actually I probably could do the latter; I teach poetry for free for a nonprofit which never pays for anything useful and apparently spends a large budget on raising more moeny because there is no evidence of any moeny being spent on programs, services offered, personnel who offer the services, persons to whom the services are offered, or anything else useful. Even my father who was on the Board and my best frined who is now on the Board have no idea how the money is spent... But actually, I am just BORROWING their space (they wouldn't even lend us their mailing list to advertise our workshops) to teach poetry because they were against the program we proposed. I wonder what they thought of a bunch of funny looking obviously crazy people sitting around the conference room table taking turns reading from Homer last week [Fagels translation, the only fun one! although Fitgerald is OK. Lattimore may be accurate, but I would have totally lost my audience] I imagine they were a bit surprised...we are supposed to be idiots. I only wish they'd heard the discussion after wards or read the in class writing people did, whihc was impressive. We were reading aloud with the door open as the staff left so everyone must have heard us! Millie P.S. Being one myself, it seems to me I have the right to say that these crazy people were funny looking and obviously crazy. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 15:55:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: Re: Further thoughts on Telling It Slant MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've but gathered a few hate flowers by the wayside where Nick has fronted the frayings of Oberleutnant K. , to whom I would like to point out that in 1980, in Berkeley, 3 poetry books were printed, My Poetry, y Life and My Pleasures, but met with no charges of fascism whatsoever. The first thing I, being of historical mind, thought of Charles' new title was Sinatra's hit, given CB's tedency to flirt with pop,and then next I recalled the books by myself, Lyn Hejinian and Laura Chester. What I thought of those titles at the time was that each represented an attempt to rise ab'se the 'me'ness of the decade by questioning the refeential range of 'me' and 'my'---'My' poetry was about poetry I felt a family feeling for; not imply my own. What a monster, I now think, CB has become in the mind of RK, for his vision (RK's) to have manifested. How out of touch he mus be, I think, to miss the far more obvious referents in CB's title. It's not as though CB had called his book 'My Offensive' or 'My Struggle' or 'My Final Solution'. C harles Bernstein first and foremost is a fine poet and has earned the right to be read by an audience that has had the opportunity to learn him, i.e., to allow the most likely reference-nets to bw checked first. Of course, we have many of us taught, and been confronted by the odd student who could cipher regicidal longings from Wordsworth's "Nuns fret not." But, however reluctantly (for novelty we do love) we have had to relinquish our paranoid fantasies (with their uncomofortable revelations that ist is ourselves who crave to say 'Heil Bernstein,' or "Heil Asbery' or "Heil Kostelanetz.' Viele Danke, Hr. Bromige. -----Original Message----- From: Nick Piombino To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Sunday, May 26, 2002 11:51 AM Subject: Further thoughts on Telling It Slant >> cynics and pacifists will perhaps always bemoan the >> poetry wars and cite how little they all mean in the grand scheme of >> things beyond our little worlds of poetry. and i'm certainly not >> suggesting everyone take off the gloves and have a go at each other > >I agree with Tom Orange that Eileen Myles definitely energized the gathering >(she certainly did so for me) but what was energizing about her presentation >was not only that she is a terrific "extemporaneous" speaker- the strength >of Eileen's point actually had to do with a thread in the panel discussion >concerning what is left of the concept of the avant-garde and what this >concept might still have of practical value for contemporary experimental >poets. This had to do, in Eileen Myles' opinion, with what she called the >"amicability" of the (1990's) avant-garde. To my surprise, my acquaintance >Tom Orange, whose own work has on occasion given my personal avant-garde >poetics chops quite a hefty boost, was apparently bored by EM's feminist >version of an avant-garde that is not afraid to be mutually supportive, >gentle, amicable even to the point of relating to other poets in an open and >mutually supportive way about feelings such as those of loss (mentioned by >more than one person on the panel.) If the truth be known, I've never been >the type to turn away aghast at an exciting bit of literary gossip or >debate. But this crowd was definitely not in the mood to rise to Douglas >Rothschild's inflammatory prodding's nor to those concerning The Death Of >The Avant-Garde of another attendee, who also happened to be an >acquaintance of mine. I guess I was one of the audience members most guilty >of expressing certain pacifist leanings towards certain apparently quite >boring urges to discuss things in a gentle, perhaps even quietly rational >and mutually supportive manner. Do poets have to be constantly feisty or >insulting and sarcastic towards one another to be considered brilliant, >witty and amusing? > >Let's face it- men- and women-all too often resort to shooting things, >points and people down to in order to deal with feelings of any kind- loss >or whatever-or just to get lots of attention. Then off to the gym or the >poetry wars committee meeting. > >This brings me to a related old gripe that I might as well mention, since >I'm on the topic of the poetics of aggression. I once asked Rochelle Ratner >why she supported the publishing of some vicious attacks put forth by >Richard Kostelanetz in the American Book Review (not to be confused with the >American Poetry Review) including calling Charles Bernstein a fascist and >that his book -My Way- should be compared to Hitler's -Mein Kampf-. By a >strange coincidence I had warned Charles years before of the possibility >that some weird literary character might insult him by twisting this title. >When I asked Rochelle Ratner why the ABR persisted in publishing >Kostelanetz' ravings and further responses to them in the letters section, >she said -we need controversy to bring interest to the magazine-. Clearly >the poetics of aggression won out over the poetics of amicability at the ABR >on this occasion. > >Nick Piombino > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 19:51:51 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: relates to earlier discussions of this, I think MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit why yes Tom and I find it makes the Scorpios extra scorpionic encouchement not to mention whizabout housecleaners Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 19:54:30 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: Canadian Publishing Meltdown MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here herd bing back the FDR & FWP ! grabsgrants for all! Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 20:20:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: FULCRUM ANNUAL announced on Franks Casket Comments: To: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64 aHR0cDovL2RzLmRpYWwucGlwZXguY29tL3Rvd24vd2Fsay94ZW4xOS93ZWxjb21lLmh0bQ0KDQpD bGljayBvbiBOZXdzIGFuZCBzY3JvbGwgZG93biB0byBQdWJsaWNhdGlvbnMuDQoNCg== ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 18:30:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Joel: 1. Lerning curves as in curve balls? You seem to be throwing a few. Here's one: conflating doubts about the university as a home for poetry with anti-intellectualism is more than a little insulting. Surely you know better. Probably most of the poets you read were only tangentially connected to universities--think nof Pound, Williams, the Objectivists, Olson, Duncan, Spicer, O'Hara, Ginsberg. Many of these were also doing theory way beyond anything found in American academia at the time (altho I'll admit a preference for the theory inherent in their ways of working). When a trough was opened for poets to feed at of course they bellied up--it's nice having a source of income and maybe a little respectability. The problem is what gets traded, and what gets lost to the culture of poetry in general. I write as a New Yorker who still hasn't recovered from the shock of learning how little dialogue there is in the hinterlands. In New York, as in all cosmopolitan cities, university affiliations are almost beside the point--the pool of intellect and talent, and the variety of educations, not all of them academic, that the pool brings to the discussion is enormously wide. And its members positively shout for attention. There's a kind of generosity in this. One wonders about other places, where the only intellectual activity is within universities that might as well be Martian colonies and almost no one goes in or out. Here in San Diego there's a poetry series in an out-of-the-way university with a serious parking problem and expensive parking fees. Without a car one simply can't get there, except for a shuttle bus that runs from only one point in the city, which, unless one has a great deal of time, also takes a car to get to. Oh, and the reading is during most people's working hours. There would seem to be a message in this. In Paris the Ecole des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne sponsors open, free public lectures by the greats of the academy. Anyone who chooses can hear the latest research or thinking of specialists who don't talk down to their amateur listeners. Why should they? Half the cafes in town are informal debating societies. What all of this means is that the society is enriched, but so is the university. The plethora of informal settings where passionate amateurs gather makes for a cross-fertilization that's often missing on campus, where people can pass years with only the most limited intellectual contact from workers in other fields. 2. The reason there's such poor institutional memory on lists is their nature as lists. Memberships change. So what may be a tired and oft-visited topic for you may be for many their first encounter with it in this venue. Maybe you'd like to require a full reading of the archive, followed by a test, before membership is granted. Of course, it's possible that the discussions recur because members feel as if their ideas have simply been dismissed. because not fullty formulated. Discussion can be a venue for formulating ideas. That, of course, requires that the thoughts of others be treated with respect. Mark At 01:59 PM 5/26/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Is the atrophy of response what is wanted, to clear ground or otherwise? > >The idea that work is done to "clear the ground" for anything seems >an old model of producing change in literary formations -- one which >I happen to subscribe to -- but it important to remember that in >this ground-clearing certain work needs to be done -- and that many >of the people who are encountered on the streets of this new vertical >public sphere are not going to be interested in the same things, one >of which is the work involved. What would such work consist of? What >would one need to know, what problems or issues would need to be >"worked through"? Are they simply formal questions of practice? >Because yes, most of the formal techniques used didn't originate >recently. Was their deployment situational, motivated by practical >concerns or issues of praxis? ... Well? What do I need to know now? > >The "list itself" presents a number of structural difficulties in >terms of fostering the kind of environment where such work would get >done, or where the thinking about it might be represented. The >atrophy of response is often, I think, a response to this structure >of response as it presents itself in a general and generalizing >medium as the poetics listserv channel. > >Some observations: > >1. The constituencies represented by the list are too broad. Like >many academic conferences, it's too diffuse for there to be a >productive developmental discussion surrounding key issues. While >this isn't a problem, per se, you get what you pay for. In such a >generalized community, difference is boiled in with the broth, and no >one is willing to step forward. > >2. One example of this is the endless "academic" bashing on the list. >The unspecific nature of the accusations about university culture >demonstrate many a sad point: a) that compulsory education should >probably be extended into the 22nd grade, at a minimum, and that >continuing education programs continue forever. b) it isn't the ideas >of the academy that bother these people, it's the idea of it. But >because there is no systematic or articulated grounds for attacking >the "idea of it", the response whithers only to be repeated by >another, solo flight. > >3. One need for the "re-education" of "human capital" (jingoistic >terms courtesy of the World Bank, another promoter of >anti-intellectual, anti-academic culture) is demonstrated by the >incredibly spotty institutional memory of the culture of the poetics >list. Every few moons or so, there is a need to replay the same old >concerns: hang-wringing over language poetry: what was it (or what is >it), who has more power (theoretically informed but marginal language >poets or the sincere but bathy mainstream poets), blah blah blah. It >would almost be fun to make a list of endlessly repeated topics. > >4. This failure to develop our collective memory is "symptomatic" of >larger cultural forces - the multiple, discontinuous vectors of >influence and audience, place, technology - all contribute to a >layered sense of the present. It's not an academic issue, or at least >it need not be limited to the university culture. We might instead >reflect on what's left of the "public intellectual" in contemporary >culture. Who are our public intellectuals? We might talk about why >there aren't MORE intellectuals in public life (i.e. outside of the >university). And what is meant by "public life" -- a life of letters >to the editor? or...what? Why is it, after years of study, do so many >students and scholars reach similar conclusions about particular >social and economic issues? Why have so many of our public >intellectuals become so profoundly anti-intellectual? > >5. An interesting poet in a "group" to talk about with respect to >these issues, and how they have to do with "poetry" -- for those of >you who need references to actual poems -- would be a discussion of >the poet Robert Lowell, who Millie mentions rather usefully as a poet >worthy of discussion in the context of langpo. I think that many of >Lowell's poems could be brought into such a discussion on two >grounds, one formal and the other social. As an "intellectual" and a >"pacifist" and as a "rich kid" who led a "bohemian" life of >"privledge" while doing "cultural labor" of writing "poetry" in a >community of writers many of whom have continuing influence and >others of whom seem to have disappeared from memory. Millie's point >about the poems is a good place too look closely. Anyone know about >Lowell? His life or his madness? I'd be curious to know if anyone has >a reference to the Look Magazine photo shoot of the early sixties, a >copy of which I'd like to find for personal reasons (my father was >the photographer). Lowell's NOTEBOOKS and their subsequent revision >is a study in the medicalization of poetry by the dominating forces >of decorum and generalization. Worthy of study by any one wishing to >understand language poetry. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 22:45:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: more of the same misery - MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII more of the same misery - codes and broken codes */messy code, many-to-many, one-to-many, extension and collapse /* messy computing */code appearing in the text, denigrating, obscuring, constructing, repeating, the text/* three levels of protocols */within the natural, withiin the communicative channel, communication/* tending and intending (unintending, tending, intending) */tending - autonomous running, intending - presenting, constructing, continuously transforming, unintending - of the natural, nowhere and nothing/* the parasitic intention and messiness */intending to create noise, to create, to interfere; not quite getting it right/write; what a bother; this is really getting in the way/* sexuality, language, and body */sexual language, language of physiological response, body bound by response, hieroglyph of the body/* mime.mov - inserted body into the corpus */male and female nudes, miming and normal and highspeed, one to another 'event,' indecipherable event, the body as cipher, at highspeed the language compressed, traced/* seals.mov - inserted corpus into the body */male and female nudes, writing ideograms on each other, one after the other, sealing the bodies with hanko (seal), nudes coming together, smearing the ideograms, they're erased, their trace is left/* still thinking the same old lines, going on and on, there's no end in sight, in the site, in citation, as if something's not quite right, as if i'm missing the point... _ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 02:32:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: relates to earlier discussions of this, I think MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > why yes Tom and I find it makes the Scorpios extra scorpionic encouchement > not to mention whizabout housecleaners Sheila as it were sonic spataulas flatten the curves of gibralter tom - may be time for somemore rengas or ranges -> check back a few years ago or in the latest _Callaloo_ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 21:51:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Vidaver Subject: From Kananaskis Out Comments: To: poetry@fun.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Additional info: http://g8.activist.ca G8 security cleared to use lethal force: Protesters warned Mark Reid, National Post (Friday, May 24, 2002) http://www.canada.com/search/site/story.asp?id=3D42B4751B-650D-4B30-9631-B7F= 05 578B3CA CALGARY -- Canadian soldiers have the green light to use ''lethal force'' to protect world leaders at the G8 Summit, a top-level military commander said. ''We are very serious ... we have lethal weapons and we will use force if we think there is a serious threat,'' Brigadier-General Ivan Fenton told the Calgary Herald yesterday. Brig-Gen. Fenton also warned that protesters and ''limelight seekers'' who intend to test the summit security in Kananaskis will be risking their= lives. Brig-Gen. Fenton said terrorists could very easily use the ''peaceful'' protesters as a cover to slip into Kananaskis. ''We're not interested in protesters except that protesters complicate our job,'' Brig-Gen. Fenton said. ''They can ... distract us and the police from the person who is camouflaged, carrying a weapon and moving at night.'' Given that threat, Brig-Gen. Fenton said he's very concerned his soldiers might mistake a protester for a terrorist if there's a confrontation in the darkened, forested environment of Kananaskis. ''We're really worried about the blurring of what's coming toward us,'' Brig-Gen. Fenton said. ''There is a risk, and it's a very big concern.'' The G8 Summit, a meeting of the seven major industrialized democracies and Russia, will take place June 26-27. The meeting will be held at Kananaskis Village, a collection of resort hotels in the Rockies about 115 kilometres west of Calgary. Security for the event will be intense. The world leaders will be protected by a security perimeter that will extend in a 6.5-kilometre radius around Kananaskis Village. The ground will be patrolled by hundreds of RCMP officers and likely several thousand soldiers. RCMP Chief Superintendent Lloyd Hickman, the officer in charge of G8 security in Kananaskis, also advised activists to steer clear of the Kananaskis security zone for their own good. ''When people go out on a lark, to try to test the security measures ... they're putting themselves at peril, because they are going into a tight security zone,'' Supt. Hickman said. Air threats will be countered by ground-to-air missiles and round-the-clock patrols from Canadian fighter jets. The air response will be led by NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command). Air security will be enhanced by an 80-nautical-mile no-fly security zone around Kananaskis Village. Despite the air security buffer, Brig-Gen. Fenton said fighter pilots will have a huge challenge dealing with rogue planes should they enter the no-fly zone. He said modelled air-attack scenarios show pilots will have only an eight-minute window from the moment a rogue airliner enters the no-fly zone, to scramble and shoot it down before it reaches Kananaskis. ''We have very little time -- basically eight minutes,'' Brig-Gen. Fenton said. ''It's very very tight.'' If a rogue airplane does bear down on Kananaskis, the final decision to shoot it down rests with Jean Chr=E9tien, the Prime Minister, Brig-Gen. Fenton said. However, since Chr=E9tien will be at the summit, Brig-Gen. Fenton said shoot-down authority could be handed to a cabinet minister, possibly Art Eggleton, the Minister of National Defence. Brig-Gen. Fenton said soldiers will take their lead from the RCMP when dealing with protesters, adding his troops will use an ''absolute minimum'' of force when assisting the RCMP. Some radical activist Web sites have urged protesters to swarm Kananaskis, using roadblocks and tactics such as tree climbing, as a way to disrupt the summit. However, most major protest groups say they will stay far away from Kananaskis during the summit. ''It's post-Sept. 11. The thought of going into the woods, knowing there's this kind of security force waiting, is ludicrous,'' said Natalie Southworth, a Greenpeace spokeswoman in Vancouver. ''We want to be= peaceful."=20 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 22:22:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: Re: Second thoughts on fake langpo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cheers! I agree with Nick. Better that people write bad poetry than correct poetry. The poetry of this moment is the poetry of gutless wonders. There are too many writing poetry just because they are rich, enough to be three steps ahead of the repo men. Dont lose sight of the fact that we live by murder, just bwcause someone else is doing it for us and you werent asked anyway. Go on, write parodies--if theyre any good, they'll be better than what you produced till now.A good poem is always a parody of itself grace of its feeling for form. Let's see a neo-formalist scrape the dirt back over that, kitty. And stop threatening to quit, Nick Piombino, you are one heck of a fine poet which means you require an expenditure of TIME to read, and for some reason noone has got enough. It's like people just figured they are going to die and they're going to court about it. Theyre suing their parents. There arent enough ways left, to grow up. David -----Original Message----- From: Nick Piombino To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Sunday, May 26, 2002 11:55 AM Subject: Second thoughts on fake langpo >One of the most difficult things about being a poet has to do with the issue >of legitimizing one's work. In almost every case, as poets become more >experienced they learn to make some efforts to earn and/or acquire some form >of literary response or acknowledgement. Since L-A poetry has earned a >degree of "name" of not "face" recognition (there are over 750 references to >it on the Google search engine) it is no surprise that currently all kinds >of opportunities are available to find ways to exploit this to get >attention. Every since L-A poetry obtained some recognition there have many >people anxious to get attention for themselves by what came to be called >L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E bashing. But possibly the secret of the success of L-A >poetry was that the activities of these poets had more to do with creating a >space for making various kinds of experimental, or otherwise unconventional, >poetry available rather than legitimizing this or that specific poetry or >style of writing. In this sense, the fake langpo website is an >understandable outgrowth of the efforts of L-A poets to create more space >for experimental poetry. My difficulty had to do with the phrase "fake" but >what the hell. I never liked the phrase "language poetry" much either. I >think most serious poets have had the experience of being confronted by >others, frequently relatives or close friends, who imply they are wasting >their time, and that in some sense what they are doing is -fake-. This is >because only famous poets, and usually only famous poets who have been dead >a long time, can be considered -real- poets. So, in some sense, to most >people all poets except for these very few poets who have been legitimized >or, as they say, canonized, have some aura of being fake. Most of the poets >I know who have been focused on poetry every day of their lives from 20 to >50 years appear to be quite sensitive, painfully sensitive, to this issue of >the legitimization of their activities (to be somewhat distinguished from >getting credit for the quality of their poetic activities). The L-A poets I >think were most successful in creating an atmosphere of legitimizing the >activity of writing unconventional poetry. You would have to be over 50 to >remember how conservative the poetic establishment was before the activities >of L-A poetry somewhat changed the atmosphere. The pressure to write >conventional poetry in order to get published was very powerful prior to the >70's, particularly in the U.S. Try to imagine that in the 60's the poetry of >Robert Creeley, for example, still appeared unconventiona indeed to many, >and served as a beacon in that regard for my own early efforts. It can be >very difficult to spend a good deal of your life on something that large >numbers of people feel is a meaningless waste of time. This isn't to say >that there are not large numbers of people who feel poetry is important. >There are. But of course, there are few who feel that the career of poet >makes any sense at all. Once, one of my relatives said to me, when he >couldn't find my telephone number and had to check information- you can't >even get your phone number published-. To this day, a good deal of what I >experience about the public response to poetry discourages me from wanting >to continue the practice of writing poetry at all. Of late I have not felt >that way at all about this list, although there have been times that I have. >I don't want to do anything to discourage the expansion of possibilities for >experimental and unconventional poetry, or any poetry for that matter. So, >fake langpo people, from my point of view, go on and fake it all you like. >Just keep writing it and getting it out there. > >Nick Piombino > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 22:56:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Re: Learning curves MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I write as a New Yorker who still hasn't recovered from the shock of > learning how little dialogue there is in the hinterlands. In New York, as > in all cosmopolitan cities, university affiliations are almost beside the > point--the pool of intellect and talent, and the variety of educations, not > all of them academic, that the pool brings to the discussion is enormously > wide. And its members positively shout for attention. There's a kind of > generosity in this. One wonders about other places, where the only > intellectual activity is within universities that might as well be Martian > colonies and almost no one goes in or out. > A note from the hinterlands where even universities are like martian colonies: I don't know which is worse -- being egotistic on the basis of being a New Yorker, or being a self-proclaimed "intellectual" who conflates, compounds, confuses, and mystifies issues with arguments too circular, too hermetic, to be engaged by anyone who has a logical basis for disagreeing with them, i.e. throwing a lot of dust in the air for the purpose of creating a shield impermeable to reason. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 26 May 2002 23:40:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: <000b01c20543$4f5c6c40$8ed0f7a5@oemcomputer> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >2. One example of this is the endless "academic" bashing on the list. >The unspecific nature of the accusations about university culture >demonstrate many a sad point: a) that compulsory education should >probably be extended into the 22nd grade, at a minimum, and that >continuing education programs continue forever. b) it isn't the ideas >of the academy that bother these people, it's the idea of it. But >because there is no systematic or articulated grounds for attacking >the "idea of it", the response whithers only to be repeated by >another, solo flight. > > >3. One need for the "re-education" of "human capital" (jingoistic >terms courtesy of the World Bank, another promoter of >anti-intellectual, anti-academic culture) Leonard: If you take the foregoing as a logical disagreement Joel's right --compulsory education should be extended. Look, I'm in and out of universities a lot in various capacities--I know some of whereof I speak. But even if I didn't-- because presumably you've chosen a way to live doesn't make it immune to comment. Don't worry, I'm not trying to take the bread out of your mouth. I was trying to suggest that one can also learn a lot in the agora. And that a problem in most academic environments in this country is that they haven't greatly succeeded, to the extent that they've tried at all, in engaging intellectually with the communities around them. A specific criticism (not accusation). But maybe I was too hermetic. How's this for specific? A while ago I was invited (as their translator) to bring three distinguished 30ish poets from Tijuana to read at the semiaccessible university I alluded to before. Almost no one on the lit faculty showed up, and not one faculty member from the Spanish section. I wish I could say I was surprised. Even within the same field there seems to be precious little curiosity. By the way, circular and hermetic as I am, I don't believe I engaged in ad homina. Item: "self-proclaimed intellectual." But since you've raised the issue, what do you think qualifies one to consider him-her-self (or be considered) an intellectual? Mark At 10:56 PM 5/26/2002 -0700, you wrote: > > I write as a New Yorker who still hasn't recovered from the shock of > > learning how little dialogue there is in the hinterlands. In New York, as > > in all cosmopolitan cities, university affiliations are almost beside the > > point--the pool of intellect and talent, and the variety of educations, >not > > all of them academic, that the pool brings to the discussion is enormously > > wide. And its members positively shout for attention. There's a kind of > > generosity in this. One wonders about other places, where the only > > intellectual activity is within universities that might as well be Martian > > colonies and almost no one goes in or out. > > > >A note from the hinterlands where even universities are like martian >colonies: > >I don't know which is worse -- being egotistic on the basis of being a New >Yorker, or being a self-proclaimed "intellectual" who conflates, compounds, >confuses, and mystifies issues with arguments too circular, too hermetic, to >be engaged by anyone who has a logical basis for disagreeing with them, i.e. >throwing a lot of dust in the air for the purpose of creating a shield >impermeable to reason. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 03:43:14 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Robert Lowell In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020526175849.022f8f28@mail.earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ian Hamilton's biography of Lowell is enough for understanding most of the poems IF you have their dates (not always easy to obtain). Hamilton has been accused of medicalizing Lowell's poetry. He does not do this. To some extent, he medicalizes Lowell's life, but a life with manic depression and alcoholism (secondary to the MD) IS medical. Lowell predictably got "overenthusuastic" (his term) most summers, did nasty and then weird things, usually ending up with a woman not his wife, and then he'd arrive manic at a friend's house and the friend would arrange to have him committed to Mclean. Once there, they'd drug him (too much, by modern standards) and he'd crash into the most horrid depresion. This is a life a mentally ill person had to have in the fifties, even if he was incredibly rich and a well-known poet with a sinecure-like job at that. Thigs haven't chnaged much since then. HOWEVER, Hamilton does not medicalize the POETRY, and there is no reason to do so. The creative output of mentally ill people, if they are professional writers and not just therapy petients who have been asked to write poems to "express their feelings," is not ill, even if it is about illness. Even writing which is intended to demonstrate illness (like stream of consciousness of a person with mania or psychosis, which is something I've occasionally tried to do but with little success) is not ill, if done right. It is usually a lot of work to make something like that into interesting reading (since real illness is a bore) amd to concisely capture the illness in as few words as possible. Whne people do this kind of porm or other writing, often they have rewritten it many times to make it better at coinveying the truth of the iollness than the actual tru transcript of the thoughts would have been. Ab=nne Sexton literally was ahousewife with no particular curture or education whose shrink suggested she write poetry and you can see in her poetry that she tells hard truths well but isn't really a creative poet and/or she is undercultured; she obviously hasn't read much poetry or else she'd know more ways to write a poem -- there are no literary devices in her poems of the sort that one finds in even the most basic poetry, rarely do we find a metaphor (there are some similes, but similes are really part of ordinary speech more than the made strange speech of poetry) except some rather obvious structural ones, the tone is the same in all the poems, they are ALL about how she wants to kill herself and/or how bad she feels and/or mad at other people she is for making people feel so bad. The Transformations series of fairy tales are better, because she is telling someone else's stories. Still, the stanza from "Wanting to Die" but suicides have a special language like carpenters they wanty to know _which tools_? they never ask _why build_? is brilliant, but only for its insight into mental illness, not for the poetry...) But a poet like Lowell is a different story. He knew poetry and had been writing it since before he became seriously crazy. And he had the discipline to write about subjects other than what he was feeling at any particular time. Poems such as "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket" (still a favorite although I don't fully understand it. I had to memorise part of a poem for a class and I chose the first section of this which was great fun but I hadn't realized how hard a poem it is to recite!) are not MENTALLY ILL poems, or mentally well poems for that matter but simply poems. Whether he was ill or not, he did not let his feelings seep into what he was writing except inasmuch as they were an inspiration for the topic and tone. But the poem is first and foremost a poem. Even if he was ill when he wrote it, it isn't a symptom, it's a masterful poem. Even the poems about his illness -- "Waking in the Blue," "The Drinker," "Speak of the Woe that is in Msrriage" etc. are controlled creative efforts. You can write about being crazy while being crazy without WRITING crazy if you are a skilled writer. Obviously this isn't true in the worst parts of mania and depression, but one isn't usually writing then. But if one can write at all, and one is a genuine poet, then one can control one's style so that the poems are not symptomatic of anything and are fit to be judged as poems and poems alone. The question of Notebook and History is a little more complex because he was partly writing for himself, and he was experimenting with writing a sonnet every single day, and also the style was a big departure from the easy free verse of the poems between Life Studies and Near the Ocean, yet it seems to lack the richness of his early style that gave the "Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket" and "Adam and Eve," etc (the poems in "Lord Weary's Castle and The Mills of the Kavanaughs). Many people have commented on this change of style, which is seen as a change for the worse, which coincides with his being on Lithium for the first time. I must admit that I used this as an argument against taking Lithium myself ("Robert Lowell wrote bad poetry that all sounds the same after he was put on it") and I never did take it (I take a zillion other things but I won't touch lithium.) However, I once tried to read Notebook carefully and didn't get through the book but found it strangely rewarding, like you have to puzzle out exactly what is working in the poem and forcus on it as you read it to yourself and then the rest comes into focus. It made me wonder if I was imposing more goodness onto the poem than was realkly there or if it was really there. And I used the Hamilton biography (which I had alread read once) to place Lowell in his life during the events alluded to iu the poem/the writing of the poem. . . . I took a break from reading this email and reread a bunch of Notebook. The poems are easier than I remembered. I have been reading more difficult poetry than I did when I first enountered Lowell. Actually, I think Notebook is more transpqrent than the earliest book, which has a few really dense and layered poems. Howevere you do need to know a lot that's not in the poems to get Notebook: yoou have to know the wives & children of Lowell, and you have to know current events from the fifties through seventies in such a way that a vague allusion brings up the rigt event. For example there are some poems abou the demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in 1968 which is not spelled out but is clear enough if you look at the date and read the poem carfully. I don't see much connection between Lowell and Language Poetry. Which of Lowell's styles are you referring to? pre Life Studies or Post? And why do criutics think Life studies was such an "improvement" because it was modern sounding and easy...anyhow the ease is deceptive. In poems such as "Penelope" (in Day by Day, one of my facvorite collections) you need the same kind of knowledge to understand the poem as you might to understand the allusions in any of the poems in Lord Weary's Castle. It's just an illusion that it's easy because the idiom sounds more contemporary and the descriptive parts are more transparent. But I doubt anyone who reads poetry would have trouble with the descriptions in, say, The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket...it's the allusions and symbolism that make that poem hard, not the imagery. Millie -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Mark Weiss Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 9:31 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Learning curves Joel: 1. Lerning curves as in curve balls? You seem to be throwing a few. Here's one: conflating doubts about the university as a home for poetry with anti-intellectualism is more than a little insulting. Surely you know better. Probably most of the poets you read were only tangentially connected to universities--think nof Pound, Williams, the Objectivists, Olson, Duncan, Spicer, O'Hara, Ginsberg. Many of these were also doing theory way beyond anything found in American academia at the time (altho I'll admit a preference for the theory inherent in their ways of working). When a trough was opened for poets to feed at of course they bellied up--it's nice having a source of income and maybe a little respectability. The problem is what gets traded, and what gets lost to the culture of poetry in general. I write as a New Yorker who still hasn't recovered from the shock of learning how little dialogue there is in the hinterlands. In New York, as in all cosmopolitan cities, university affiliations are almost beside the point--the pool of intellect and talent, and the variety of educations, not all of them academic, that the pool brings to the discussion is enormously wide. And its members positively shout for attention. There's a kind of generosity in this. One wonders about other places, where the only intellectual activity is within universities that might as well be Martian colonies and almost no one goes in or out. Here in San Diego there's a poetry series in an out-of-the-way university with a serious parking problem and expensive parking fees. Without a car one simply can't get there, except for a shuttle bus that runs from only one point in the city, which, unless one has a great deal of time, also takes a car to get to. Oh, and the reading is during most people's working hours. There would seem to be a message in this. In Paris the Ecole des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne sponsors open, free public lectures by the greats of the academy. Anyone who chooses can hear the latest research or thinking of specialists who don't talk down to their amateur listeners. Why should they? Half the cafes in town are informal debating societies. What all of this means is that the society is enriched, but so is the university. The plethora of informal settings where passionate amateurs gather makes for a cross-fertilization that's often missing on campus, where people can pass years with only the most limited intellectual contact from workers in other fields. 2. The reason there's such poor institutional memory on lists is their nature as lists. Memberships change. So what may be a tired and oft-visited topic for you may be for many their first encounter with it in this venue. Maybe you'd like to require a full reading of the archive, followed by a test, before membership is granted. Of course, it's possible that the discussions recur because members feel as if their ideas have simply been dismissed. because not fullty formulated. Discussion can be a venue for formulating ideas. That, of course, requires that the thoughts of others be treated with respect. Mark At 01:59 PM 5/26/2002 -0400, you wrote: >Is the atrophy of response what is wanted, to clear ground or otherwise? > >The idea that work is done to "clear the ground" for anything seems >an old model of producing change in literary formations -- one which >I happen to subscribe to -- but it important to remember that in >this ground-clearing certain work needs to be done -- and that many >of the people who are encountered on the streets of this new vertical >public sphere are not going to be interested in the same things, one >of which is the work involved. What would such work consist of? What >would one need to know, what problems or issues would need to be >"worked through"? Are they simply formal questions of practice? >Because yes, most of the formal techniques used didn't originate >recently. Was their deployment situational, motivated by practical >concerns or issues of praxis? ... Well? What do I need to know now? > >The "list itself" presents a number of structural difficulties in >terms of fostering the kind of environment where such work would get >done, or where the thinking about it might be represented. The >atrophy of response is often, I think, a response to this structure >of response as it presents itself in a general and generalizing >medium as the poetics listserv channel. > >Some observations: > >1. The constituencies represented by the list are too broad. Like >many academic conferences, it's too diffuse for there to be a >productive developmental discussion surrounding key issues. While >this isn't a problem, per se, you get what you pay for. In such a >generalized community, difference is boiled in with the broth, and no >one is willing to step forward. > >2. One example of this is the endless "academic" bashing on the list. >The unspecific nature of the accusations about university culture >demonstrate many a sad point: a) that compulsory education should >probably be extended into the 22nd grade, at a minimum, and that >continuing education programs continue forever. b) it isn't the ideas >of the academy that bother these people, it's the idea of it. But >because there is no systematic or articulated grounds for attacking >the "idea of it", the response whithers only to be repeated by >another, solo flight. > >3. One need for the "re-education" of "human capital" (jingoistic >terms courtesy of the World Bank, another promoter of >anti-intellectual, anti-academic culture) is demonstrated by the >incredibly spotty institutional memory of the culture of the poetics >list. Every few moons or so, there is a need to replay the same old >concerns: hang-wringing over language poetry: what was it (or what is >it), who has more power (theoretically informed but marginal language >poets or the sincere but bathy mainstream poets), blah blah blah. It >would almost be fun to make a list of endlessly repeated topics. > >4. This failure to develop our collective memory is "symptomatic" of >larger cultural forces - the multiple, discontinuous vectors of >influence and audience, place, technology - all contribute to a >layered sense of the present. It's not an academic issue, or at least >it need not be limited to the university culture. We might instead >reflect on what's left of the "public intellectual" in contemporary >culture. Who are our public intellectuals? We might talk about why >there aren't MORE intellectuals in public life (i.e. outside of the >university). And what is meant by "public life" -- a life of letters >to the editor? or...what? Why is it, after years of study, do so many >students and scholars reach similar conclusions about particular >social and economic issues? Why have so many of our public >intellectuals become so profoundly anti-intellectual? > >5. An interesting poet in a "group" to talk about with respect to >these issues, and how they have to do with "poetry" -- for those of >you who need references to actual poems -- would be a discussion of >the poet Robert Lowell, who Millie mentions rather usefully as a poet >worthy of discussion in the context of langpo. I think that many of >Lowell's poems could be brought into such a discussion on two >grounds, one formal and the other social. As an "intellectual" and a >"pacifist" and as a "rich kid" who led a "bohemian" life of >"privledge" while doing "cultural labor" of writing "poetry" in a >community of writers many of whom have continuing influence and >others of whom seem to have disappeared from memory. Millie's point >about the poems is a good place too look closely. Anyone know about >Lowell? His life or his madness? I'd be curious to know if anyone has >a reference to the Look Magazine photo shoot of the early sixties, a >copy of which I'd like to find for personal reasons (my father was >the photographer). Lowell's NOTEBOOKS and their subsequent revision >is a study in the medicalization of poetry by the dominating forces >of decorum and generalization. Worthy of study by any one wishing to >understand language poetry. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 01:57:25 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: poetry / poetics / prose MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT 1. Since, let's say, the 1982 issue of Ironwood, in which Ron Silliman argues that realism is a relationship of writing to community, and in which Kathleen Fraser comments on her creative writing students' semi-conscious imitation of a "fun" "new writing" that is "liberated from the emotional tones of high lyricism and the fussiness of the line [...] as though it [poetry] were unholy," what has "changed" in prose, in how it is conceived and set in relation to poetry? Why does this question not make sense, if it doesn't, or seem out-dated, if it seems so? Pound looked to Hueffer's and Flaubert's novelistic prose. In 1979, Silliman looks to not a particular genre of prose, but to a theory of genre as social institution (Marxist), to a theory of grammar ("standard" English), to a theory of linguistics (Saussure) -- to *theories* about prose (and on behalf of poetry written by himself, Bromige, and Watten, to mention some of those active on this listserv). (Recent variant on theories of prose: Bernstein's "idiolect" notion.) 2. It seems to me that the "gutless wonder" of today is not found in poetry but in prose, and in the question of how prose is set in relation to poetry, in order to effect / affect poetry with what prose has represented and enacted since the emergence of the middle class (with modifications along the way, especially in 20C by Sartre): i.e. "the world." I don't mean the magazine. The effectiveness of discursive, critical prose in particular seems to have most recently suffered a cataclismic reification, parallel to historical events and technological breakthroughs since 1989. When we assert as a common truth with Juliana Spahr today that any poem is a "social" poem, it's not the poem that has changed, but our prose understanding of prose (critical, pragmatic, theoretic, etc) and its relationship to the poem. When Bernstein humorously jettisons not only the New Critical "intentional fallacy," but the fallacy of "the poetic work" as such, when Mac Low writes Twenties and Forties, when Brian Kim Stefans writes some poems with computer source-base trawler programs, when DuPlessis argues for a "social philology" of the word, when redundancy replaces repetition as the modus operandus of mass communication language and narrative, what has changed is the expectations we have for and about prose and what prose can do for / to / with / as poetry. But, on the whole, these expectations for prose are not themselves reflexively addressed, somehow (is my hunch wrong?); there is instead an implied reliance, or faith, that prose is this way, can offer itself this way to / as / with poetry. Perhaps these are intimations of a future codification of prose to a point where in fact all prose will be the footnotes or hyperlinks of poetry? But, in all this so far, it seems that our expectations with respect to poetry haven't really changed. And it's partly -- assuming, again, that the differential between poetry and prose still is useful to imagine -- because of the gutless wonder that prose seems to have become. What is prose, if its theory is poetry itself? What prose has not been encompassed yet, that would invoke "the world"? Does "the world" even need to be invoked in prose (blanded out as it is by the latest empty signifier -- globalism), if every poem is the social poem? The greatest and most worn-out cliche about prose and the reader, namely the argument for the "productive reader," is, I think, a sign of how unfocused our relationship to prose is (i.e. relationship to audience, reader, reception, addressee function). The past record of this listserv is in many ways nearest proof of an inability it seems to collectively grasp at much other than a twinkling tinsel-thread of prose. 3. Does prose stand for "the world" today, any more than poetry does? The answer affects how one conceives of the relationship of poetry to poetics, for instance -- one variant of that relationship being the relationship of "autonomy" to prose (or, the purported "distance" between poetry and poetics), or in other words the relationship of modernist values for poetry, to prose. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 02:55:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: "Susan Howe, who is a genuinely exciting poet" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I've always wondered at how and why S. Howe is almost always singled-out, most often with those very words: "a genuinely exciting poet." In the spirit of candor spells relief, and under the flag of the naive reader willing to learn from those who are genuinely curved, let me ask you, any you, why Pierce-Arrow is not a genuinely bland book -- and I don't mean "bland" in an exciting way. The book points, for me, to the unthought condition of prose, and to a problem that I see -- however much I want to believe in -- Kristin Prevallet's rendering of investigative poetics in her essay in Telling It -- Damn Straight. (How Kristin invokes such a 'istorin poetics in her own work is another matter.) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 20:53:51 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Pam=20Brown?= Subject: Re: Second thoughts on fake langpo In-Reply-To: <001401c2053e$9624caa0$f896ccd1@CeceliaBelle> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit "The poetry of this moment is the poetry of gutless wonders." - I just read that - that's a quote from Dale Smith's interview with Ed Dorn on the current Possum Pouch Hmmm - 5 years later Pam --- dcmb wrote: > Cheers! I agree with Nick. Better that people write > bad poetry than correct > poetry. The poetry of this moment is the poetry of > gutless wonders. There > are too many writing poetry just because they are > rich, enough to be three > steps ahead of the repo men. Dont lose sight of the > fact that we live by > murder, just bwcause someone else is doing it for us > and you werent asked > anyway. Go on, write parodies--if theyre any good, > they'll be better than > what you produced till now.A good poem is always a > parody of itself grace > of its feeling for form. Let's see a neo-formalist > scrape the dirt back over > that, kitty. And stop threatening to quit, Nick > Piombino, you are one heck > of a fine poet which means you require an > expenditure of TIME to read, and > for some reason noone has got enough. It's like > people just figured they are > going to die and they're going to court about it. > Theyre suing their > parents. There arent enough ways left, to grow up. > David > -----Original Message----- > From: Nick Piombino > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > Date: Sunday, May 26, 2002 11:55 AM > Subject: Second thoughts on fake langpo > > > >One of the most difficult things about being a poet > has to do with the > issue > >of legitimizing one's work. In almost every case, > as poets become more > >experienced they learn to make some efforts to earn > and/or acquire some > form > >of literary response or acknowledgement. Since L-A > poetry has earned a > >degree of "name" of not "face" recognition (there > are over 750 references > to > >it on the Google search engine) it is no surprise > that currently all kinds > >of opportunities are available to find ways to > exploit this to get > >attention. Every since L-A poetry obtained some > recognition there have many > >people anxious to get attention for themselves by > what came to be called > >L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E bashing. But possibly the secret of > the success of L-A > >poetry was that the activities of these poets had > more to do with creating > a > >space for making various kinds of experimental, or > otherwise > unconventional, > >poetry available rather than legitimizing this or > that specific poetry or > >style of writing. In this sense, the fake langpo > website is an > >understandable outgrowth of the efforts of L-A > poets to create more space > >for experimental poetry. My difficulty had to do > with the phrase "fake" but > >what the hell. I never liked the phrase "language > poetry" much either. I > >think most serious poets have had the experience of > being confronted by > >others, frequently relatives or close friends, who > imply they are wasting > >their time, and that in some sense what they are > doing is -fake-. This is > >because only famous poets, and usually only famous > poets who have been dead > >a long time, can be considered -real- poets. So, in > some sense, to most > >people all poets except for these very few poets > who have been legitimized > >or, as they say, canonized, have some aura of being > fake. Most of the poets > >I know who have been focused on poetry every day of > their lives from 20 to > >50 years appear to be quite sensitive, painfully > sensitive, to this issue > of > >the legitimization of their activities (to be > somewhat distinguished from > >getting credit for the quality of their poetic > activities). The L-A poets I > >think were most successful in creating an > atmosphere of legitimizing the > >activity of writing unconventional poetry. You > would have to be over 50 to > >remember how conservative the poetic establishment > was before the > activities > >of L-A poetry somewhat changed the atmosphere. The > pressure to write > >conventional poetry in order to get published was > very powerful prior to > the > >70's, particularly in the U.S. Try to imagine that > in the 60's the poetry > of > >Robert Creeley, for example, still appeared > unconventiona indeed to many, > >and served as a beacon in that regard for my own > early efforts. It can be > >very difficult to spend a good deal of your life on > something that large > >numbers of people feel is a meaningless waste of > time. This isn't to say > >that there are not large numbers of people who feel > poetry is important. > >There are. But of course, there are few who feel > that the career of poet > >makes any sense at all. Once, one of my relatives > said to me, when he > >couldn't find my telephone number and had to check > information- you can't > >even get your phone number published-. To this day, > a good deal of what I > >experience about the public response to poetry > discourages me from wanting > >to continue the practice of writing poetry at all. > Of late I have not felt > >that way at all about this list, although there > have been times that I > have. > >I don't want to do anything to discourage the > expansion of possibilities > for > >experimental and unconventional poetry, or any > poetry for that matter. So, > >fake langpo people, from my point of view, go on > and fake it all you like. > >Just keep writing it and getting it out there. > > > >Nick Piombino > > ===== Web site/P.Brown - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ http://travel.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Travel - Plan and book your dream holiday online! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 08:20:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: Information Aesthetics Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Carolyn Guertin has put together two panels on the topic of "Information Aesthetics" at a conference on: Inter/Disciplinary Models, Disciplinary Boundaries: Humanities Computing and Emerging Mind Technologies to be held at the University of Toronto from Sunday, May 26, until Tuesday, May 28: Darren Wershler-Henry (York U) and Bill Kennedy (Rhizomedia), Apostrophe: Working Notes Katherine Parrish (OISE), How We Became Automatic Poetry Generators Barrett Watten (Wayne State U), Information and Poetics: From Language Text to Listserv Tuesday, 9 AM, room 101, Victoria College Talan Memmott (independent: BeeHive) CodeWork://serration in practice Rita Raley (U California, Santa Barbara) The Object as Code Alan Sondheim (Florida International U) Codework and Beyond Jorge Luiz Antonio (Pontifical Catholic U of Sao Paulo, Brazil), The Use of Design as Digital Poetry Tuesday, 1 PM, room 101, Victoria College The entire program can be found at: http://web.mala.bc.ca/siemensr/C-C/2002/Program.htm ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 09:33:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: merry protocols MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII merry protocols are merry levels of protocols within the natural, within the carries complicit, the this is the parasitic protocol, the happy eating viral- email, big protocols (html, singing): the small protocols email, big protocols (html, singing):to one another - your red small protocols (singing) interacting protocols (html, maintained, someone well this protocol's assigned on the run, this is the meaning-generator, in this protocol - phenomenology of approach, the necessary merge, the yearning protocols (email, big code, etc.) the singing) protocols (html, singing) the yearning protocols singing) your saw-palmetto humming my the yearning protocols protocol, it's an well this protocol carries the codes, this protocol protocols' commentaries well this protocol drives everything. it's not a structure of the idiot, there's no regress, but code and protocol don't the small protocols (singing) is on my slash-pine - all of these the message, this protocol is unloved, it's raked, it's worming the midst of protocols make some sort of difference. is it that you're transmission of the code, the protocol which is raked and let loose, the trying to speed - and all of this constitutes the protocol of the lovely humming unloved _ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 11:15:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Spahr & Bernstein -- live on tape Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed On March 8, Juliana Spahr and I gave a reading on WKCR-FM in New York, Columbia University radio, in a program hosted by Tom Kelly. The show is now on the EPC, divided into 11 short sound files, both MP3 and RealAudio. http://epc.buffalo.edu/sound/bernstein/WKCR-Bernstein-Spahr.html Juliana reads from her new book Fuck You - Aloha - I Love You, as well as more recent works. I read mostly from With Strings, my most recent book, but also "For --" from Shade (collected in Republics of Reality). I've also put up some other audio files, including readings of "Asylum", "Azoot D'Puund" and "Solidarity Is the Name We Give to What We Cannot Hold" -- which are linked from the "Performances" section at http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 11:24:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Broder Subject: Michael Broder Reading on June 5 at 8:00 PM MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Patricia Eakins and Michael Broder Wednesday, June 5, 2002 8:00 PM The National Arts Club 15 Gramercy Park South New York, NY =A010003 Patricia Eakins is the author of The Hungry Girls & Other Stories and The Marvelous Adventures of Pierre Baptiste. =A0She has been awarded the Agha Khan Prize, the Capricorn Prize, the NYU Press Prize for Fiction, and two NEA Fellowships. Michael Broder is a poet whose work as appeared in the Capilano Review, the Brooklyn Review, and La Petite Zine, and is forthcoming in Painted Bride Quarterly and Bad Boys, Gents, and Barbarians II: New Gay Poets. =A0He coordinates the weekly reading series at the Ear Inn on Spring Street. Cookies and punch will be served after the reading. Jackets and ties preferred but not enforced. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 03:32:06 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: Questions and Comments for Barrett MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To Barrett, who writes: "the complaint I am raising has to do with the leveling generality of response. The word 'langpo' itself may central to this effect. It has become a variable whose value tends to the null set in a dysfunctional equation; i.e., plug in the same value, get the same result." Okay, but whose fault is this? The specificity of any collective poetic project known as language poetry has been diluted by its own members -- see the Bruce Andrews talk from last fall (its unspecified 'we'). Isn't this leveling what you criticize in Bernstein's own dissemination of language poetry in an essay like his "Poetics of The Americas"? Everyone seems guilty of some generalization -- e.g., you in your reductive descriptions of 'the expressive subject' in poetry and the lyric -- when they are speaking against something. If authorship was supposed to be qualified by you and your colleagues then how can you expect people to attend exclusively to the specificity of particular works and their authors? The broad theoretical claims almost always take precedence over the specific texts. 'Langpo'-ization is more attributable to those who have taught 'it', than to those students who find themselves faced with a huge array of writing they must respond to *properly* in order to move through it. "The atrophy of responses may be what is wanted in order to clear the ground for further work; this would account for the paucity of specific readings, perhaps. But in the literary series, it is not possible to 'exit' a sequence so easily. The Language School, in fact, has a great deal to say about 'clearing the ground' for further work." Which is.... ? "I'd go further and suggest that there were three 'moments' of such ground clearing in American poetry over the last hundred years, and each took place after a war. There's something outside the literary series, then, that intersects with new possibility. What does the reductiveness of 'langpo' have to do with 'exterior' logics of clearing the ground?" It's a term of convenience like "New Americans," "Black Mountain," "Futurists," like any name for a group of people, "Kurds," "Crackers," except that it's usually used in a derogatory way (and this is why you don't like it, obviously). So, when somebody uses the term 'langpo' they tend to use it to refer to all the bad qualities they see in the things language poets have stood for, implicitly or explicitly. But you know that already, right? Given time constraints and thus a premium on patience, it's sometimes helpful to use 'langpo' rather than 'the Bernstein-Silliman-Andrews-Hejinian axis of thought' or another combination of language poet author names. "It seems to be completely 'internal' to the series, and thus by definition cannot get outside, to a 'clearing.' This is another way of saying that 'langpo' is a redundant placeholder; as a response, it's the null set. It refers to nothing except the guilt toward precedence that holds it in place. It's a 'symptom.'" And right there you have done what you accuse others of doing -- leveling. All uses of 'langpo' refer to nothing but the guilt toward 'precedence that holds the term in place'?" This is as reductive and generalizing as any employment of the term 'langpo'. "This is a kind of 'negative learning curve,' where we unlearn specificity and all results tend to the same result. It can be reassuring in some senses--what was the fuss about all along? I am going to suggest, on the contrary, that the only way out is through, so that if a problem presents itself to you in your development, it is necessary to go through the problem entirely. This means learning everything about it, unfortunately for you, rather than reducing it to a symptom-word. (Something like that is what I've been trying to do in writing on the New Americans.) On the other hand, Millie Niss's narrative of her experience does result in learning. This is, as always, a very welcome communication. Why are the two learning curves so completely opposed, as dynamics? One toward the null set, the other toward a fullness of human understanding? Is this a tendency of the second toward the first due to the property of the literary work, which seems to prescript and mediate?" Yes, there's a lot of anger among certain younger (and older) poets regarding the prescriptiveness of language poetry and its theoretical discourse (which tends to lead toward the null set reaction, the urge to say 'fuck it, it's a waste of time'.) Doesn't this account for the constant flare-ups surrounding the question of 'langpo' -- the neverending post-language crisis? Should this surprise anyone? And why does this rage need pointing out? Is it because it's constantly being erased from literary history (thus resulting in more rage) as it's now being written, as in _Telling it Slant_ and your post Barrett, which reduces human labor to an equation, another null set without a way out? dave ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 04:58:54 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: Questions and Comments for Nick and David B. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To Nick, who writes: "To my surprise, my acquaintance Tom Orange, whose own work has on occasion given my personal avant-garde poetics chops quite a hefty boost, was apparently bored by EM's feminist version of an avant-garde that is not afraid to be mutually supportive, gentle, amicable even to the point of relating to other poets in an open and mutually supportive way about feelings such as those of loss (mentioned by more than one person on the panel.)" How can you say you side with the "poetics of amicability" given your callous response to Millie Niss? It may not be criminal but your responses have definitely not been 'gentle' or 'supportive' except in a superficial way. "If the truth be known, I've never been the type to turn away aghast at an exciting bit of literary gossip or debate. But this crowd was definitely not in the mood to rise to Douglas Rothschild's inflammatory prodding's."... Will someone email Douglas and tell him to get on the list to defend himself, or rather explain to us his motivations for doing what he did? "I guess I was one of the audience members most guilty of expressing certain pacifist leanings towards certain apparently quite boring urges to discuss things in a gentle, perhaps even quietly rational and mutually supportive manner. Do poets have to be constantly feisty or insulting and sarcastic towards one another to be considered brilliant, witty and amusing?" See above. You are not discussing things in the manner you claim to want to discuss them. You are not being quietly rational. You are being as defensive and prodding as the next guy. There's a poetry war going on and you're part of it, Nick. "Let's face it- men- and women-all too often resort to shooting things, points and people down to in order to deal with feelings of any kind- loss or whatever-or just to get lots of attention. Then off to the gym or the poetry wars committee meeting." Yes, we should face it and learn accept the psychological reality that this is sometimes necessary. Aren't you a psychologist? "This brings me to a related old gripe that I might as well mention, since I 'm on the topic of the poetics of aggression. I once asked Rochelle Ratner why she supported the publishing of some vicious attacks put forth by Richard Kostelanetz in the American Book Review (not to be confused with the American Poetry Review) including calling Charles Bernstein a fascist and that his book -My Way- should be compared to Hitler's -Mein Kampf-. By a strange coincidence I had warned Charles years before of the possibility that some weird literary character might insult him by twisting this title. When I asked Rochelle Ratner why the ABR persisted in publishing Kostelanetz' ravings and further responses to them in the letters section, she said -we need controversy to bring interest to the magazine-. Clearly the poetics of aggression won out over the poetics of amicability at the ABR on this occasion." Do you think you and your colleagues -- those you identify yourself with, i.e. other language poets -- believe in and practice a poetics of amicability? How was the 'clearing of the ground' that occured in the 70s and 80s to happen without some aggression, some shaking things up, some inflammatory activity? Do you really think your community is all that inclusive? "One of the most difficult things about being a poet has to do with the issue of legitimizing one's work. In almost every case, as poets become more experienced they learn to make some efforts to earn and/or acquire some form of literary response or acknowledgement. Since L-A poetry has earned a degree of 'name' of not 'face' recognition (there are over 750 references toit on the Google search engine) it is no surprise that currently all kinds of opportunities are available to find ways to exploit this to get attention. Every since L-A poetry obtained some recognition there have many people anxious to get attention for themselves by what came to be called L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E bashing. But possibly the secret of the success of L-A poetry was that the activities of these poets had more to do with creating a space for making various kinds of experimental, or otherwise unconventional, poetry available rather than legitimizing this or that specific poetry or style of writing." Probably, but it also had to do with creating a space for younger poets to interact and create community outside of those institutions and communities dominated by older, established poets. We need more spaces like that _now_. "In this sense, the fake langpo website is an understandable outgrowth of the efforts of L-A poets to create more space for experimental poetry. My difficulty had to do with the phrase 'fake' but what the hell. I never liked the phrase 'language poetry' much either. I think most serious poets have had the experience of being confronted by others, frequently relatives or close friends, who imply they are wasting their time, and that in some sense what they are doing is -fake-. This is because only famous poets, and usually only famous poets who have been dead a long time, can be considered -real- poets. So, in some sense, to most people all poets except for these very few poets who have been legitimized or, as they say, canonized, have some aura of being fake. Most of the poets I know who have been focused on poetry every day of their lives from 20 to 50 years appear to be quite sensitive, painfully sensitive, to this issue of the legitimization of their activities (to be somewhat distinguished from getting credit for the quality of their poetic activities)." That's part of the problem: seeking legitimization for the unconventional. Once you get legitimacy, what you do is no longer as dangerous. "The L-A poets I think were most successful in creating an atmosphere of legitimizing the activity of writing unconventional poetry. You would have to be over 50 to remember how conservative the poetic establishment was before the activities of L-A poetry somewhat changed the atmosphere. The pressure to write conventional poetry in order to get published was very powerful prior to the 70's, particularly in the U.S." It still is. "It can be very difficult to spend a good deal of your life on something that large numbers of people feel is a meaningless waste of time. This isn't to say that there are not large numbers of people who feel poetry is important.There are. But of course, there are few who feel that the career of poet makes any sense at all." It doesn't make any sense -- that's part of the beauty of it. It's up to you to make it make sense. "Once, one of my relatives said to me, when he couldn't find my telephone number and had to check information- you can't even get your phone number published-." Well, that's when you gotta suck it up and tell them to stuff it. Funny relative you got there. "To this day, a good deal of what I experience about the public response to poetry discourages me from wanting to continue the practice of writing poetry at all." The passion's got to come from you, not the 'public'. What else are you in it for? "Well, I started to writing poetry so I could get chicks," some male poet said a few years ago. What? When community fails me, when other people fail me (including myself) at least I always got the poem to keep me company. As Spicer said, you must learn to go to bed with your own tears. "Of late I have not felt that way at all about this list, although there have been times that I have.I don't want to do anything to discourage the expansion of possibilities for experimental and unconventional poetry, or any poetry for that matter. So, fake langpo people, from my point of view, go on and fake it all you like. Just keep writing it and getting it out there." Doesn't sound very supportive to me, Nick. Maybe the language poets are finally starting to reap what they've sown with the arrival of fakelangpo. And to David Bromige, who writes: "The poetry of this moment is the poetry of gutless wonders." Care to name some names? Be a man, put your neck on the line, and name some names for us. Who is writing "the poetry of this moment?" "There are too many writing poetry just because they are rich"... That's always been the case, hasn't it. "Dont lose sight of the fact that we live by murder." I promise I won't, but if I ever do I'll remember that you reminded me. "Go on, write parodies--if they're any good, they'll be better than what you produced till now." Who are you talking to? "It's like people just figured they are going to die and they're going to court about it. Theyre suing their parents. There arent enough ways left, to grow up." That's precisely what I thought when I read your post, David. dave ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 11:29:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: FWD: Job at Dartington (UK) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ----------------forwarded message-------------------------- Dartington College of Arts, UK development leader in visual and textual practices senior lecturer/principal lecturer scales Dartington College of arts is a university sector college specialising in contemporary performance arts and their relation to changing social and cultural contexts. The College combines high quality undergraduate and postgraduate teaching with innovative practice, a dynamic research and development culture, and reach-out to business and the community. It offers research degrees, MPhil and PhD, and a taught MA programme The College is in the process of bringing its innovative subject fields of Visual Art and Performance Writing together into what is intended in time to become a School. We are looking for the leadership that will help produce an exciting and productive combined 'field of discourse and practice' that will continue to attract students and researchers. The successful applicant will make a direct contribution to teaching and leading Performance Writing. Performance Writing was pioneered at Dartington to address contemporary practices and the development of new writing scenes. Forms of work include: emerging poetic writing, live text, collaborative writing, writing in mixed media and interactive environments, sound and text pieces. Visual Performance is concerned with contemporary visual art practice where time-based media and performance coincide. Practices include sculptural and time-based installation, video art, sonic and digital arts, artworks which engage with new interactive technologies, performance art and design for performance. The successful applicant will have a research degree, will be a practitioner and/or published theorist in the field, will have strong interest in both fields and their overlapping concerns, will combine research with commitment to student learning and will have recent experience of higher education. A professorship may be available for a suitably qualified applicant. Closing date: Wednesday 5 June 2002 Application form and further particulars from Dartington college of arts Kathy Taylor personnel officer Totnes, Devon TQ9 6EJ k.taylor@dartington.ac.uk T+44 (0) 1803 862224 F +44 (0) 1803 861666 http://www.dartington.ac.uk Committed to achieving equality of opportunity Registered as a Charity No. 900054 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 09:29:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: Re: Learning curves MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > >> > But since you've raised the issue, what do you think qualifies one to > consider him-her-self (or be considered) an intellectual? Unfortunately, that designation is often used to separate the real people from the animals. But how would I know? Not being an intellectual I can only catch the sentimental drift. I didn't mean to single you out, by the way. Sometimes the accumulation of list gas just builds up and explodes. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 12:40:29 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: part one MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 1. No body Cares where It's hidden Shadows unwrap Two or Three things One knows An envelope Pushes back Tom Beckett ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 11:39:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mIEKAL aND Subject: deja vu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit starting to feel like the list of old. mIEKAL ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 10:19:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Questions and Comments for Nick and David B. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I had some bad seafood marinara last night and I'm feeling a little wan from that, catching up on this T=H=R=I=L=L=I=N=G full moon's explosion of (lunar) List posts before trying to get out for a sip of some Goya pear nectar http://www.goya.com/english/fpl/fpl.cgi?class1=G&class2=A and maybe WonderBread toast, in time for the Decoration Day wreath-laying ceremonies--- but I just wanted to say that I found Davdhess@AOL.COM wrote: > Be a man < to be a particularly thrilling and manly moment. Yeah. C'me on, "Mister" Dave Bromige. A little coarse hair on the chest, between your pecs, eh?! Let it sprout! As Brillo! So swallowing Gatorade with Adam's apple motion! None of these little pansy machinations taking chop-chop mincing steps, huh, please, but BIG virile gait as with a great pendulousness below, please. Have a deep gruff voice, not a shrill counter-tenor falsetto asking girlish favors (such as "Mother, May I...?"). In rugged spitting---! Go bald! Shave your cleft chin, not your armpits and lady-like legs, darn it! (As a lace argument.) http://members.aol.com/skadavid/heman.html __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 11:30:52 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020526231528.02353db8@mail.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" (1) happy memorial day!... we're bbqing hamburgers... i'm putting a slice of red onion on mine... (2) the anti-intellectualism (and what can be just as bad, anti-professionalism) mark w. points to is alive and well in the u.s., hence in the university, and alive and well in english depts., and esp. thriving in creative writing programs (never mind town-gown tensions)... as is the anti-multi-disciplinarity one finds operating intradepartmentally... i.e., when i gave my "debut" reading here on campus, not a single member of my tenure-track english dept. was in attendance (but e.g., anselm hollo---who teaches at that little campus on the border of our campus, naropa---was nice enough to come by, and our visiting writer at the time, lisa jarnot, was nice enough to come by)... (3) ok, so anti-professionalism, from the modern language association perspective (i.e., as addressed to the professoriat): here's a somewhat unorthodox view, from the current issue of ~pmla~ (publications of the modern language association), the "editor's column" (carlos j. alonso): "I do not think that our current situation is reversible, for its root cause, the professionalization of the university, is merely the academic manifestation of larger historical events and conditions over which we hold little sway. This is also why I am not moved by the ever-louder complaints that we are professionalizing our students too early. If the increased concern with the professional dimension of our discipline results from the loss of consensus regarding our object of study, we cannot decry the former if we are unable to address the latter." (403) now i don't entirely agree with alonso... i find it self-serving (to put it mildly, and pragmatically) for instructors to coax their undergrads into putting on what amount to mock-conferences that mimic their elders' (as it were)... this form of hyper- or turboprofessionalization risks succumbing to the top-down power play that jeopardizes most learning situations... and i'm not quite certain that concern over professionalization follows logically from "loss of consensus," though i'm quite certain that, empirically speaking (and for, again, historical reasons) the older guard, with e.g. its attendant (let's say) humanist view of close reading (which even some of the younger guard may share), is opposed to the younger cultural studies troops (themselves now greying, btw), and holds them responsible for having hyperprofessionalized their student bodies, with all of their talk of institutional-ideological this & that (which must of necessity, it seems, eventually take account of the institution where said talk takes place... and which is, for the record, fine by me)... but what's nonetheless true, to a degree, is that the inability of the professoriat to agree collectively as to the right and proper object(ifications) of literary study---that is, the knowledge claims owing thereto, and their epistemological status---has foregrounded, if not amplified, the professionalizing pressures, b/c this suggests at least a shared awareness that literary studies has lost its sociocultural mooring, is foundering, can't even find suitable jobs for its graduates, lord, Etc... i.e., both the humanist aim of enrichment and the posthumanist aim of _______ (awareness of identity as a construct through to social transformations of all sorts) have been undermined or overdetermined (economically, for one) by the functional mission of the u (one reason why "writing" becomes the standard site of administrative incursion is b/c it can presumably be understood as a form of quantified, functional enrichment---e.g. "excellent" prose)... which functional mission can't be any longer to nationalize a citizenry (or at least, this form of ideological saturation job is held at arm's length these days by many if not most english studies practitioners, though here again there's something of an old-new guard split)... so what you have in the wake of all of this is a professional quarrel, cutting any number of ways and usually in the midst of funding cutbacks, over the very terms of legitimacy of a field that, aside from a reductively narrow view of "writing" and literacy (i've read my bowles & gintis long ago, yes), can't be shown, close reading or reception theory or what have you, to do any but raise awareness, or occasionally delight, or provoke, or provide a space for creative articulation, or challenge the status quo, all through various objectifications of culture (incl. literature, or not incl. literature)---none of which, however much you may venerate same, is likely to be measured in dollars and cents, jobs, spreadsheets etc... in a word, it's all so UNprofessional, save for the labor of the professoriat as such, and any attempt at professionalizing same, at helping students to understand their would-be professional selves (which includes instruction in "theory," yes, but all too often fails to account for the commodification of same), will likely be greeted as a departure from the age-old coordinates that have already been undermined or overdetermined by... i.e., will likely be viewed askance by the *public* in particular, b/c the specialized knowledge known by professionals (something that haunts e.g. the more populist, business-bound underpinnings of fields like engineering) is not presumed as a rule of thumb to be known by those who study something as delight-ridden as a book, or a poem... which, to use an entirely overworked term, constitutes something of a crisis... or am i "reading too much into this"?... (4) what i've written in (3) might have something to do with what's going on on this list (and e.g. louis's intriguing account of prose-poetry diametrics intersects somewhat in fact with what i'm saying about "writing," in that "prose" has become the status quo measure of the institution that would seek to define and delimit english studies)... in our failure to develop a consensus over our object of study/discussion (poetry), and amidst funding cutbacks and generally difficult artistic circumstances, we likewise start to assign factional blame... "it's you and your kind who have brought poetry to its regrettably balkanized state"... academics (.edu) being so obviously prevalent, we're an easy target, and as we're clearly professionalized (never mind intellectual), we clearly presume to know some specialized knowledge, and to form our communities accordingly---more fuel for the bonfire (yeah, of the vanities)... i mean, we're quite literally "schools," yes, if not exactly schools of poetry, and we're presumed to make poets in our own fishy images... no denying this is true, of course, even if someone has to do the dirty work (i.e., whether you believe in creative writing per se as an academic field of study---and why not?---the study of literature is surely worth pursuing, and someone has to teach same, and those who can, do)... but e.g., i know a number of poets, good poets and good people, who make an absolute killing off of the banking industry, the real estate industry, etc... i woulda thunk, given the class datum and popular hostility to the well-heeled (if not filthy rich), that my current and all-time high of $45K would have given less offense than the real estate poet's $100K+ (i mean, i'm pushing 50 and i'm still renting---and i'm not living in nyc, thank you very much)... but i guess my thunking is not shared by everyone... (5) so anyway... believe me, i've seen the bad sides and good sides of the hallowed halls---but they're no less vital for that... the question for me will continue to be how to reform same (i.e., as long as i keep earning my keep courtesy of same)... but i would really prefer it were the critique of academia to be tempered by a little critique, at least once in a while, of your *own* respective industries, some of you, so i wouldn't feel as if someone were stomping on my livelihood, or head, just for the halibut... how does poetry as a practice relate to your work as an investment counselor, or do you regard it as sheer escape from same? (if the latter, we need to talk)... but maybe that's asking too much?... hey, have a good day---- best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 14:04:35 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: Re: Learning curves MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/27/02 1:31:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, joe.amato@COLORADO.EDU writes: << but i would really prefer it were the critique of academia to be tempered by a little critique, at least once in a while, of your *own* respective industries, some of you > I've been a Public Health Sanitarian for 25 years. I inspect restaurants, grocery stores, rental housing, swimming pools, food vending machines, schools. I do follow-up on animal bites, nuisance complaints. I work in a mosquito control program, a rodent control program and an industrial pretreatment program. I'm thinking a lot lately about West Nile virus which will probably have its first human cases in Ohio some time this summer. I'm also thinking about bioterrorism. The Feds are going to give our Dept. $8000 to combat bioterrorism. What the hell does that mean? My job is stressful, challenging and political. It has taught me things about listening and translating that I might not have learned otherwise. I hate this job. But I'm good at it. And I'm weirdly proud of that. I've worked hard. Few people here in town know that I'm a poet. Most people I know don't know how to reconcile the idea they have of poetry with the person they know as me. This speaks to only one dimension of my alienation. Somehow, though, I wrote some poetry, edited a magazine, etc., without much support. When I was an undergraduate at Kent State I was offered a position as a graduate assistant in Italian. I turned the offer down, feeling that I was somehow inadequate to teach. Teaching seemed to me such an awesome responsibility . I didn't trust my ability to do it. Poetry, for me, is SEX--the release that comes from YOU-the-unknown. Tom Beckett ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 14:26:55 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: <133.edd974f.2a23cf33@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" hey tom, that's pretty cool, thanx... a job's a job, but you sound like a PRO at what you do, if you get my drift... whereas to be a pro in a learning institution might (just might) consist of providing instruction in how to understand the quandaries of professionalism (there is blurring here twixt the thing that is taught and the profession that teaches, yes), i daresay most who are pros at what they do manage to illuminate same at least for themselves... problem with higher ed (to return there for a moment), as indicated by the circularities i was busy circulating in the 1st of my two daily (and in this case, memorializing) posts, is that the sort of functional professionalism being demanded (almost by fiat) of college graduates today is at odds both with humanist and posthumanist thought (as it were)... and the only way i know how to allay same is to change the way classrooms are structured... but i'm really interested in what you do, esp. insofar as i would think such work needs must situate your writing (if for you alone)... i mean, you have such a public, even civic profile, on the one hand, that i would think the fact of you're being a poet *would* be, in your case, a source of productive conflict (public v. private, say)... i'm interested in the way poetry is sublimated by occupation, or (i would presume, depending on the moment) vice versa... again, b/c i'm an academic, most folks figure that what i do for a living speaks so goddamn directly to what i do as a poet... well, sometimes!---and no, i wouldn't trade places with anyone, occupationally speaking (excepting that guy who floats around on his pool all day on an inflatable crocodile, sipping gin 'n tonics)... but aside from the classroom (which does and does not inform my practice as a poet), the work i do is often so bureaucratically informed... i mean, even filling out my "faculty report on professional activities" (frpa on this campus), the basis upon which my raise is determined... hey, i really like this quote from dewey, think i'll use it at the front of the next book i publish, if i'm lucky enough to publish a next book: >If Greek philosophy was correct in thinking of knowledge as >contemplation rather than as a productive art, and if modern >philosophy accepts this conclusion, then the only logical course is >relative disparagement of all forms of production, since they are >modes of practice which is by conception inferior to >contemplation.... But if modern tendencies are justified in putting >art and creation first, then the implications of this position >should be avowed and carried through. It would then be seen that >science is an art, that art is practice, and that the only >distinction worth drawing is not between practice and theory, but >between those modes of practice that are not intelligent, not >inherently and immediately enjoyable, and those which are full of >enjoyed meanings.... Thus would disappear the separations that >trouble present thinking: division of everything into nature *and* >experience, of experience into practice *and* theory, art *and* >science, of art into useful *and* fine, menial *and* free. > > John Dewey, ~Experience and Nature~ thanx again, out for today--- best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 15:30:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Boston Poetry Marathon Subject: Schedule of readings for 2002 Boston Poetry Marathon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII 2002 BOSTON POETRY MARATHON at the Art Institute of Boston 700 Beacon Street in Kenmore Square Thursday, June 6 - Sunday, June 9 ______________________________________ READINGS: ***Thursday, June 6 (7:30pm-10:30pm) Jim Behrle Wanda Phipps Bill Luoma Mary Jo Bang David Rivard Jena Osman Forrest Gander ***Friday, June 7 (7:30pm-10:30pm) Donna de la Perriere Del Ray Cross Maria Damon Christopher Davis Juliana Spahr Maureen Owen Bin Ramke ***Saturday, June 8 (1:00pm-4:30pm) Susan Landers Joanna Fuhrman Mike Magee Gina Myers D.S. Poorman Tracey McTague Janet Bowdan Stephen Ellis Ethan Fugate ***Saturday, June 8 (7:30pm-10:30pm) Aaron Kiely Sharon Mesmer Lori Lubeski Frank Lima Tom Sleigh Norma Cole Charles Bernstein ***Sunday, June 9 (1:00pm-4:10pm) Linda Russo Danielle Legros-Georges Dana Ward Max Winter Lisa Lubasch Jim Dunn James Cook Sean Cole ______________________________________ VISUAL ART EXHIBIT: Photographs by Ben Watkins _______________________________________ Admission is free. For more info: bostonpoetry@thevortex.com _____________________________________________ Free email with personality! Over 200 domains! http://www.MyOwnEmail.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 13:55:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: NEW AMERICAN WRITING In-Reply-To: <1916920025127203047375@thevortex.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII List Members: You can now subscribe to NAW for $18 for 3 issues, a $3 savings. Subscriptions can begin with #20, to appear in late June. Contributors include Rosmarie Waldrop, Martine Bellen, Nathaniel Tarn, Stephen Ratcliffe, Tymoteusz Karpowicz, Russian furturists, and many others. Back issues are also available for $3/issue, a savings of $5 per issue. To see what they contain, you can log onto the NAW website. This is a good time to support the magazine (and lit. magazines in general). With independent bookstores mainly out of business, our suppliers have decreased. You can order back issues or subscribe by sending a check to NAW at 369 Molino Avenue, Mill Valley CA 94941. Or you can email us and send us a check later. All best-- Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 16:30:32 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Rathmann Subject: Prose domination, Howe's value, & lyric ca. 2002 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Some violent simplifications in the interest of seeing what's new about the present: Poetry since the late 1960s has been dominated by prose, only we don't call it prose. We call it "speech," or we call it "writing." In the former case, there is an attempt to objectify (as "voice") the author's individuality, without pathos or self-dramatization. Pinsky, for example. In the latter case, individuality is objectified only at the level of writing style, and the work has only an obscure or fabricated relation to its author. Perelman, for example. But both tendencies imply a quarrel with the traditional promise of the lyric. Lyric promises intensity. Though in vastly different ways, Pinsky and Perelman are clearly uneasy or dissatisfied with the idea of lyric intensity (which isn't to say they are merely genial fellows). In general, poets who came to maturity in the late 1960s prefer charm, or sympathy, or comedy, or word games, or theory -- things better handled with the more social medium of a prose-like poetry. This is one reason, it seems to me, why Susan Howe is notable. She has an unironic relation to lyricism, even if she must borrow it from other speakers, most of them speakers of prose. She has found a way to intensify and transform prose so that it becomes lyric. Lyric intensity is something she shares, though in vastly different ways, with Frank Bidart. Extremists, both of them. The move to a more social (i.e. prose-like) poetics may have been good for poetry, but I wonder whether younger poets aren't moving in a different direction, trying to reclaim for poetry some of the things given away in the effort to be more social. Maybe they should try to be less social, less accommodating. If so, I wonder what the key texts would be. (Perhaps one is that t-shirt that reads: "Your favorite band sucks.") ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 18:14:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Broder Subject: Ear Inn Readings--June 2002 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The Ear Inn Readings Saturdays at 3:00 326 Spring Street (west of Greenwich Street) New York City FREE Subway--N,R/Prince; C,E/Spring; 1,9/Canal June 1 Charles Flowers, Dean Kostos, Sarah Manguso plus open June 8 Chris Lew, Theo Oshiro, Rogan Kelly, Carolyn Zolas, Tracey Ceurvel and Bill Fuchs plus open June 15 Kazim Ali, Daniel Paley Ellison plus open June 22 Marj Hahn and Friends plus open June 29 Kevin Bartelme and Friends plus open--A release party for his new book. For more information, contact Michael Broder at (212) 246-5074 or earinnpoetry@nyc.rr.com or see our Web site: http://home.nyc.rr.com/earinnreadings ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 19:33:57 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: Jennifer Moxley, THE SENSE RECORD AND OTHER POEMS, New from Edge Books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Edge Books is pleased to announce THE SENSE RECORD AND OTHER POEMS by Jennifer Moxley 78 pages, perfectbound ISBN: 1-890311-13-8 Special offer: Order The Sense Record before July 1 for $10 postpaid ($12.50 thereafter). When ordering The Sense Record you may order any of the following Edge Books, also postpaid, at these sale prices: Dovecote, by Heather Fuller, $8 (regularly $10) Comp., by Kevin Davies, $10 (regularly $12.50) Ace, by Tom Raworth, $8 (regularly $10) Sight, by Lyn Hejinian and Leslie Scalapino, $10 (regularly $12) Integrity and Dramatic Life, Anselm Berrigan, $8 (regularly $10) Aerial 9: Bruce Andrews, $12, (regularly $15) Marijuana Softdrink, Buck Downs, $9 (regularly $11) Errata 5uite, by Joan Retallack, $10 (regularly $12) perhaps this is a rescue fantasy, Heather Fuller, $8, (regularly $10) Nothing Happened and Besides I Wasn't There, Mark Wallace, $7.50 (regularly $9.50) Stepping Razor, A.L. Nielsen, $8, (regularly $10) To Order: Send a check to the following address or email aerialedge@aol.com with your order and address and we will bill you. Checks payable to Aerial/Edge, POBox 25642, Washington, DC 20007. from "Fear of an Empty Life" from THE SENSE RECORD Along the imprint of a smooth utterance a single adhesive word slips away, snuggles beside the accusatory newborn thought which, barking from lack of care, might trap in a moment of serious sorrow me and my dirty heart, we twist the arm of friendship 'til the ancient swing of the nonchalant body is rewritten as a trembling, angry, grudge. Split along the physique axis of wrested love and that human pulp the wealthy mock, old need, a shuffle from the coffin lip silences mind into fiddleheaded body, bobbing in the fifty-fifty sheets, weighty yet so pitiful it cannot coax solution--- Darwin was a fool, conductor of teeming masses, I see them now in sedimentary patterns, crushed umber colors and a hint of green. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 17:28:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Joe: I could recite what I learned from my careers as a film maker, university teacher, social worker and therapist, art dealer, and editor, and they all inform my work. More interesting, I think, is what I learned in switching from the one to the other. Each have their limitations and impositions--one doesn't simply practice a profession, one becomes socialized to it. I don't think one can fully appreciate that change without experiencing it. The change can be quite startling and quite painful. To take for a moment university teaching as baseline (and only for a moment and not in much detail--most people on the list are familiar with universities), one has a far greater control of one's sleep and wake schedule than in most jobs, but there are particular decorums to adhere to. Wild expressions of enthusiasm usually have to be reserved for after hours. All those manic depressive artists we read about are encouraged to keep a lid on it. Regardless of social class of origin, academics tend to live in academic ghettos, which may be why so much of main stream poetry takes place in low-affect, pastel suburbs. And why so much of the more rebellious poetry seems very safe. The point is that how we live and how we make a living involves change to conform to the environment in which we do these things. When I became a psychiatric social worker and therapist the external circumstances included non-negotiable hours, rigid dress-codes anjd very little time for interaction with other professionals in the field--one was mostly locked away with patients or doing paperwork. There was also a sort of asceticism: one quietly (quietly even when speaking) focused on every means of expression in the room--the war between affect and body language and verbalization, the dynamic between patient and therapist, the impact of patient on therapist (why did I react this way to a particular event? do most people in the patient's life react this way? what do I do with this knowledge that may help the patient?), the interactions, sometimes for the therapist's benefit, between members of a couple or family (I remember one session in which the father was talking to me while his combative daughter as if by accident made it quite clear that she wasn't wearing panties, for instance). The emphasis was on the things--all of them--of the moment and on the particularities of one's own response to them, and on one's self as just another one of those things. Quite a dance. It's how I learned that the self is the last thing one has to worry about--write down the objects and the self is apparent. Especially if one tries to evade expressing it through the imposition of randomness. I love teaching, and I teach with a therapist's attention. I also love the other things I've done. The question, I think, is what happens when one spends an entire working life doing the one thing, with its external and internal demands, when one is shaped by it, and when most of the colleagues who surround one have spent most of their working lives in the same way. Then make the one environment the site in which whole generations of poets work. Then isolate the individual workplaces from contact with thinking feeling creative workers in all the other available fields, all of them shaped differently by all of those daily and decades-long labors. I'm aware that universities are as diverse as mental health clinics or carpentry shops. I'm also aware that they are more similar to each other than they are to clinics or carpentry shops. That's why it's less of a disruption to change acdademic posts than to take the same skills into, say, the business world. What's all this about (I do ramble, but hopefully not in a circle). I'm worried that poetry threatens to be constricted by the relative uniformity of the places in which it operates. If I'm right the problem for poetry is not only the nature of the univerity but its growing monopoly. Mark [Herman Melville goes to the Dean. "I need six months off to hide in a rooming house in Manhattan and rewrite this whale of a book--I'm really stuck, I need a change of scene." Dean: "Well, you can apply for a sabbatical in about three years--you might even get one if we think the project has merit." Herman: "I'm not sure I can wait that long. In fact, it's now or never. I'm on fire. I can't eat or sleep. Maybe I can just take some unpaid time?" Dean: "Maybe, but don't expect that sort of thing to help your career. We tend to appreciate faculty who are committed to the institution." Next faculty meeting as the group is about to get down to business a colleague greets Melville. "How's the book going, Herman?" Odd duck, the colleague thinks, tends to keep to himself. Herman: "All visible objects, man, are but as plasterboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the undoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If a man will strike, strike through the mask!" Emily Dickenson, from across the room (she teaches poetry workshops, but she probably woin't get tenure): "I had a terror since September, I could tell to none: and so I sing, as the boy does of the burying ground, because I am afraid." Colleague, to himself: "Sorry I asked."] ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 23:05:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: poetry / poetics / prose MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Interesting post on prose/poetry, Louis, but is there now not another element here - the visual, if not other dimensions. For example the Gene(sis) exhibition seems to of interest (per the NYTimes) and it seems to have included most everything but poetry and prose about poetry? On another black/white dichotomous thought process I have yet to encounter anything that confronts the aesthetics or poetics of emotions although Eigen is making a move in this direction. What I mean is that this is often dealt with as confessional/non-confessional, workshop/non, etc. with the nasty feelings then easily slipped out the window. As Millie's recent venture has shown once again, it's all too easy to think dichotomously (them/us) rather thenengaging dialogically. On another tangent, I have concluded that I have gotten too many books to devour so will add a review section to the next _Metaphor/Metonym for Health http://trbell.tripod.com/metaphor/metapho.htm when I manage to revamp and resituate it, so let me know if you are interested. tom bell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 23:29:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Visual poets MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT In keeping with my new direction, I'd be interested in hearing from a visual or concrete poet interested in reviewing these. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Maria Damon" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 5:03 PM Subject: redux or not, here i come > this got bounced back to me, along w/ several other messages i know went > through. so apologies if this is a repeat: subject heading was "book > review opportunities" > > dear friends: > a pretty remarkable ugrad here, who is blind and deaf, has a press called > the tactile mind. he's bringing out two books and asked me if i wd spread > the word about reviews etc. Here is an excerpt from his email note > containing the web info about the books and a brief description of one of > them: > > "Perhaps you > would like to read SILENCE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD: ON ART & DEAFNESS? > Raymond Luczak uses four genres in that book -- a short story, 111 > mini-essays, a play, and a self-interview -- to make his points on what > makes art "art" and deafness "deaf." ... We have the flyer for the two > books on-line at http://www.thetactilemind.com/flyer.pdf -- let me know if > you have any problems with reading it in that format. You should also > direct your contacts to the main page at www.thetactilemind.com, which will > lead to the books' pages, which in turn will lead to excerpts on-line and > to the author's web site." > > I haven't looked at the site myself, but imagine there's contact info for > him to send you review copies. if not, let me know and i'll pass on his > contact info to you. > bests, md ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 22:43:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: Learning curves MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/27/02 7:33:49 PM, junction@EARTHLINK.NET writes: >What's all this about (I do ramble, but hopefully not in a circle). I'm >worried that poetry threatens to be constricted by the relative uniformity >of the places in which it operates. If I'm right the problem for poetry >is >not only the nature of the univerity but its growing monopoly. > Mark, The most incisive analysis of this issue that i heard. Murat ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 23:01:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Agjllaernntiam MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Agjllaernntiam Alcibiades raised his head slowly; he sensed someone coming towards him. Goethe quickly looked up; he heard someone approaching. Jimmu looked up; someone was coming. Lao Tzu looked up quickly; someone was coming towards him. Lincoln raised his head; he saw someone approaching from a distance. Arthur slowly raised his head, knowing someone was approaching. Emily lifted her head as someone approached. Ruth wiped the sweat off her brow as the day was hot. Newton wiped the sweat off his brow; it was a very hot day. Nikuko slowly wiped her forehead in the heat. Tamerlane wiped his forehead; it was hotter than usual. Ivan wiped his face in the terrible heat. Akiko wiped her brow since the day was miserably hot. Mary wiped her face quickly; the day was unbelievably hot. _ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 15:41:15 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: manic depression and creativity: NOT! - a manic depressive speaks out... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Milie. In a subtle sense, what you have done (your "report" of your experiences) is almost a kind of poem...it has that intensity, but - I was moved by what you have written, and I am also dubious of news reports and pseudo scientific "discooveries" linking madness to art...it may be that some of the "unreal" or "disordered" thinking has some relation or echoes of certain creative writing: John Berryman wrote his brilliant sonnets almost as desperate attempt to maintain his sanity (and there is an interesting discussion on the role of the personal (at various degrees of intrusion or intensity into a poem) in "Introspection and Contemporary Poetry" by Alan Williamson). But there is no way of knowing that Berryman (or many others who were supposedly "mad" ) would not have written greater poetry if thay were just happy: I'm not eliminating suffering which we all have in our lives in various ways. Suffering can be humbling and enlightening: but certain things are just too horrible - I think that that's why we tend to abstract things no wars would be fought if we could feel veryone else's pain all the time!): and Yeats even writes about that process (he had a tendency toward some rather dark and strange notions) my son has had tragedy in ihs life and was diagnosed "schizophrenic" and so on: he was not very academic as they say but these days he is doing quite well as my ex wife joined him to weight watchers (which I also joined by the way) and he lost a lot of weight: walks every where, plays games on game cubes, meets with his half brother each weekend and is generally much happier than he was...I also had a nervous breakdown (as it was called when I was young) (I was 19) and I became enormously obsessed with death: and in that state of mind which went from extreme anxiety to a deep depression I couldnt even listen to music (I remember that I could watch the adverts on TV: they I found comforting!!) But by using valium and anti-depressants I came right as they say, got marrried, have three children: in fact (I boast) I am a grandfather as of six weeks! I'm not a horrible advocate of suicide boombing or anyhing: a lot of those political things I say people can take with a pinch of salt, I would "support" such things in the sense that they were acts of desperation if that's what they are (but whatever their result in political terms they are horrific if viewed in islolation): I did go through a "political" period but it was like the Williams poem about the crowd at a baseball game, as a professor of mine said, people lose themselves in the crowd: its a way of evading or "cheating" death...so one can "lose oneself" in a cause or by becoming a fanatic....there's a fine line between that last and enthusiasm or dedication...and I dont suppose there's anyone anywhere who hasnt been near the edge so to speak... I think we all need to have more compassion for each other and understanding of others: life is and can be tragic enough...but autumn is a still a beautiful season "of mists and mellow fruitfulness"... we do at least have the potential power to make ourselves and others happy or at least fight to choose not to be unhappy...which I realise in your case is a hard one: but worth a try as, if you could be free of the torment and the drugs you would be free to do great things as they say: but for now just keep on with what you are doing, your writing: the big projects ,well you're not alone on that, I can never think of anything to write about so I mainly just write "crazy" short prose poems!! [(By the way I also wanted to talk about your "bafflement" of language peotry: it is also a common reaction, but that such poems dont (or dont seem to make) sense is problematic, as after all that opens up the whole question of meaning difficulty (and the various kinds of difficulty) and the meaning of meaning) bt I'll write about that more later] I'll send this to the List as I think it has value this question ... It was a topic before and I think it should stay and or be revisited (it began before with a discussion of Hannah Weiner's "visionary" poetry. I think that human suffering can be generative but it has to be mixed with a sense of well being. I cant write if I dont feel well physically or well in myself. I think the point is that there are many people who are "normal" (whatever that is) who are not insane and probably many people who are both "very bright" AND plodders like myself who have experienced some form of mental distress of or illness. Dr Wayne Dyer comments in "Your Erroneous Zones" that intelligence heeds to be redefined: "...At the top of the list is the notion that intelligence is the ability to solve complex problems....yet the mental hospitals are clogged with patients who have all the properly lettered credentials - as well as many who dont. A true barometer of inteligence is an effective, happy life lived each day and each moment of each day. If ou are happy, if you live each moment for everything it's worth, then you are an intelligent person. " [ He's not ignoring those things that it would be bizarre to be unmoved by or extemely unhappy about: a death of a loved one and so on...he's not talking here of things in extremis: but the attitude of mind that struggles to deal with difficulties as effectively as possible, knowing that not all things are "cureable"..] But in general the concept of thinking oneslef as "successful" if happy is a good one. And I think that a happy and thus a sane (from Latin for health L= sanus from memory) person is generally someone who is also more creative: we all are or can be so. Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: "Millie Niss" To: Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 1:51 AM Subject: Re: manic depression and creativity: NOT! - a manic depressive speaks out... (PART of the previous message) > Sorry this has grown into a a missive and a caposule auutobiography (well, I > am working on a memoir but it's a damn siight more artful than this...) but > i wanted to explain what it's like to have serious manic depression and why > it is incompatible with being a great artist usually. I don't think I would > have been a _great_ anything, although I did get into Princeton for Math > grad school, so I had reached the top of school as an undergrad, and that > was my highest achievmment because i was never able to do math after my > vbreakdown. I also now to web art and writing (more web stuff lately). I > admire people's major projects, but I know that I could never get one done > between episodes of illness, so I doi a lot of little tihings: a single > animated poem (see www.sporkworld.org/webart/rhino.html) a short hypertext > poem (www.sporkworld.org/subway/poemtitle.html) and numeours shourt > animations (see my work on www.bannerart.org under banners and rectangular > IMUs, in the Collection). But I can't do something like the major work that > earn grant and prizes and gets burned onto CD and sold-- and not because I > haven't the skill but because the illness doesn't give me time. I imagin > that is true for most cretive people with severe mental illness. Episodes > erase creativity and it's very hard to retain anty interets in an onld > project. > > I really AM crazy with manic depression and I don't like this kind of > research and statement. I'm sure all the famous artists who were supposedly > manic depressive would have done more and better art had they not had the > illness. I mean, right now I'm writing blind because my antipsychotics from > last night haven't worn off...not te ideal state in which to make a > painting! People who are manic can produce, but more often they are stuck > in a horrible state of being apparently full of creative energy but unable > to focus on any one project for long enough to make progress. And they lose > (at least I do) critical judgement-- when you;re manic, all your work looks > like a masterpiece, or if it doesn't, its very incompetence is showing > sommething special, like you imagine getting exhibited as "outsider art" or > "new American primitivism" (that is, if you can't draw). > > So much for mania. However many manic depressives, me included experience a > state akin to mania where you still have your marbles, called hypomania > (less than mania) and in that state it is possible to be very creative and > productive. Usually though, it doesn't last long...you either crash down > through normalcy to depression (there is nothing to catch you at the middle > and make you stop there...(none of the mood stabilizing drugs really work > that way. They prevent movememnt of mood altogeter and can prolong a bad > mood), so you either crash down or end up REALLY manic where you are no > longer creative but tortured by your mind and full of quests you must go on > that are really hard (and have bad consequences in the real world, like > walking on a bridge parapet stark naked). > > If you resist, as I usually do, you can't do anything, it is as if > everything that regulates mood state is just gone so you start swinging from > high to low like a monkey swinging after a banana that's hanging on another > branch. You start screaming, even foaming at the mouth. The world seems > increasingly unreal.You think you can go through the walls and wonder why > you don't fall through the floor since a house is but an insubstantial thing > anchored in a small sliver of time. Yout travel in time until you are dead > and you feel being dead. You do this even if you are alone. It;s not a > scene you do for someone's benefit, it's the sound of the rending of the > universe to let you through. Then, if you are smart you take smething (I > take risperdal, and antispsychotic when something like this happens, or > loxitane, another one) and in an hour or so reality returns, You can't > believe you actually were that crazy. Maybe you were making it up. After > all everyone says you have a good imagination. But it's real-- not the time > travel of course, -- but the fact that you really FELT the universe break > open to allow yout o come through and observe from the outside. People ask PS I've deleted the rest as its been on before and according to the "rules" which I see the point of. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 23:47:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: <180.84144ef.2a2448ee@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This may be the case, but I run into many people who just right poetry. Granted most not relevant to current poetics but it is alive outside of academia. Look at the number of people on Poetry dot com. Most have funny ideas about what a poem should be but that's fine. Ask around and you shall find friends - poetry like coca cola is for everyone :-) Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Murat Nemet-Nejat Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 10:44 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Learning curves In a message dated 5/27/02 7:33:49 PM, junction@EARTHLINK.NET writes: >What's all this about (I do ramble, but hopefully not in a circle). I'm >worried that poetry threatens to be constricted by the relative uniformity >of the places in which it operates. If I'm right the problem for poetry >is >not only the nature of the univerity but its growing monopoly. > Mark, The most incisive analysis of this issue that i heard. Murat ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 20:59:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: virus Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Hi, A couple of people from the list have written saying they've received a suspicious attachment from Kevin Killian or an email with a virus in it. Both had bizarre but banal subject lines. Checking the full header of one of these emails, it originated not from Kevin nor Earthlink, but from primushost.com. Kevin's email is merely being used as bait. So, if you receive any suspicious attachments from Kevin (or anybody else)--don't open them. Throw them away immediately and report the abuse, as we did to the originating host. Thanks. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 00:03:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: Learning curves MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit re:#2test youse can use my hi rise balcony anytime to tightrope walk Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 22:09:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: Re: Second thoughts on fake langpo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit thanks for the response...I havent read the i'view twixt Smith & Dorn, tho' shd like to. But being of Ed's generation, and patchily workingclass, I have like expressions gathering dust on the same memento shelf. Years since, having been offended by Dale Smith's unquestioning adoration of Tom Clark, I posted an hostile note and Smith hit back, though way off-target. Even his wife got in on the fun, e-assuring me her husband was a great person and even greater poet. I am glad for her that subsequwnt events are said to have realized her faith in him,and glad for all of us who love poetry that we may find this the case. Then, I resented being treated like a cardboard cutout of a Language Poet, while being presented with a CC of a Tom Clark clone. Email has a lot to answer for, altho' it won't. End o' footnote. David B -----Original Message----- From: Pam Brown To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Monday, May 27, 2002 3:54 AM Subject: Re: Second thoughts on fake langpo > "The poetry of this moment is the poetry of gutless >wonders." - I just read that - that's a quote from >Dale Smith's interview with Ed Dorn on the current >Possum Pouch >Hmmm - 5 years later >Pam >--- dcmb wrote: > Cheers! I agree >with Nick. Better that people write >> bad poetry than correct >> poetry. The poetry of this moment is the poetry of >> gutless wonders. There >> are too many writing poetry just because they are >> rich, enough to be three >> steps ahead of the repo men. Dont lose sight of the >> fact that we live by >> murder, just bwcause someone else is doing it for us >> and you werent asked >> anyway. Go on, write parodies--if theyre any good, >> they'll be better than >> what you produced till now.A good poem is always a >> parody of itself grace >> of its feeling for form. Let's see a neo-formalist >> scrape the dirt back over >> that, kitty. And stop threatening to quit, Nick >> Piombino, you are one heck >> of a fine poet which means you require an >> expenditure of TIME to read, and >> for some reason noone has got enough. It's like >> people just figured they are >> going to die and they're going to court about it. >> Theyre suing their >> parents. There arent enough ways left, to grow up. >> David >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Nick Piombino >> To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >> >> Date: Sunday, May 26, 2002 11:55 AM >> Subject: Second thoughts on fake langpo >> >> >> >One of the most difficult things about being a poet >> has to do with the >> issue >> >of legitimizing one's work. In almost every case, >> as poets become more >> >experienced they learn to make some efforts to earn >> and/or acquire some >> form >> >of literary response or acknowledgement. Since L-A >> poetry has earned a >> >degree of "name" of not "face" recognition (there >> are over 750 references >> to >> >it on the Google search engine) it is no surprise >> that currently all kinds >> >of opportunities are available to find ways to >> exploit this to get >> >attention. Every since L-A poetry obtained some >> recognition there have many >> >people anxious to get attention for themselves by >> what came to be called >> >L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E bashing. But possibly the secret of >> the success of L-A >> >poetry was that the activities of these poets had >> more to do with creating >> a >> >space for making various kinds of experimental, or >> otherwise >> unconventional, >> >poetry available rather than legitimizing this or >> that specific poetry or >> >style of writing. In this sense, the fake langpo >> website is an >> >understandable outgrowth of the efforts of L-A >> poets to create more space >> >for experimental poetry. My difficulty had to do >> with the phrase "fake" but >> >what the hell. I never liked the phrase "language >> poetry" much either. I >> >think most serious poets have had the experience of >> being confronted by >> >others, frequently relatives or close friends, who >> imply they are wasting >> >their time, and that in some sense what they are >> doing is -fake-. This is >> >because only famous poets, and usually only famous >> poets who have been dead >> >a long time, can be considered -real- poets. So, in >> some sense, to most >> >people all poets except for these very few poets >> who have been legitimized >> >or, as they say, canonized, have some aura of being >> fake. Most of the poets >> >I know who have been focused on poetry every day of >> their lives from 20 to >> >50 years appear to be quite sensitive, painfully >> sensitive, to this issue >> of >> >the legitimization of their activities (to be >> somewhat distinguished from >> >getting credit for the quality of their poetic >> activities). The L-A poets I >> >think were most successful in creating an >> atmosphere of legitimizing the >> >activity of writing unconventional poetry. You >> would have to be over 50 to >> >remember how conservative the poetic establishment >> was before the >> activities >> >of L-A poetry somewhat changed the atmosphere. The >> pressure to write >> >conventional poetry in order to get published was >> very powerful prior to >> the >> >70's, particularly in the U.S. Try to imagine that >> in the 60's the poetry >> of >> >Robert Creeley, for example, still appeared >> unconventiona indeed to many, >> >and served as a beacon in that regard for my own >> early efforts. It can be >> >very difficult to spend a good deal of your life on >> something that large >> >numbers of people feel is a meaningless waste of >> time. This isn't to say >> >that there are not large numbers of people who feel >> poetry is important. >> >There are. But of course, there are few who feel >> that the career of poet >> >makes any sense at all. Once, one of my relatives >> said to me, when he >> >couldn't find my telephone number and had to check >> information- you can't >> >even get your phone number published-. To this day, >> a good deal of what I >> >experience about the public response to poetry >> discourages me from wanting >> >to continue the practice of writing poetry at all. >> Of late I have not felt >> >that way at all about this list, although there >> have been times that I >> have. >> >I don't want to do anything to discourage the >> expansion of possibilities >> for >> >experimental and unconventional poetry, or any >> poetry for that matter. So, >> >fake langpo people, from my point of view, go on >> and fake it all you like. >> >Just keep writing it and getting it out there. >> > >> >Nick Piombino >> > > >===== >Web site/P.Brown - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ > >http://travel.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Travel >- Plan and book your dream holiday online! > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 18:00:33 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Pam=20Brown?= Subject: Re: Second thoughts on fake langpo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello again David, I didn't know anything about that little skirmish. I was just interested in the coincidence. I had literally just read the interview with Ed Dorn - it's here: http://www.skankypossum.com/pouch.htm#dorn and by "from five years ago" - I meant - that was when the interview took place. All the best, Pam > thanks for the response...I havent read the i'view > twixt Smith & Dorn, tho' > shd like to. But being of Ed's generation, and > patchily workingclass, I have > like expressions gathering dust on the same memento > shelf. > Years since, having been offended > by Dale Smith's > unquestioning adoration of Tom Clark, I posted an > hostile note and Smith hit > back, though way off-target. Even his wife got in on > the fun, e-assuring me > her husband was a great person and even greater > poet. > I am glad for her that > subsequwnt events are said to > have realized her faith in him,and glad for all of > us who love poetry that > we may find this the case. Then, I resented being > treated like a cardboard > cutout of a Language Poet, while being presented > with a CC of a Tom Clark > clone. Email has a lot to answer for, altho' it > won't. End o' footnote. > David B > -----Original Message----- > From: Pam Brown > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > Date: Monday, May 27, 2002 3:54 AM > Subject: Re: Second thoughts on fake langpo > > > > "The poetry of this moment is the poetry of > gutless > >wonders." - I just read that - that's a quote from > >Dale Smith's interview with Ed Dorn on the current > >Possum Pouch > >Hmmm - 5 years later > >Pam ===== Web site/P.Brown - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ http://travel.yahoo.com.au - Yahoo! Travel - Plan and book your dream holiday online! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 05:14:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Parr Subject: Robert Lowell and Deeprak Chopra walk into a bar... Comments: To: men2@columbia.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit They say ouch. In previous versions, there's a fallen Catholic, a rabbi, and a vegetarian-- They also walk into a bar. Ouch. Oy vey. Nader. If a given poet can really put herself to it and write something that connects with readers concerning pain, well, those are the poems I'm waiting for/starving for. What bugs me about the American-confessional movement was just how contrived it was-- worry about yr worldview and morals, write poems about your car and your house and your wife/husband. Granted, this was the 1950's/1960's, but other American poets were doing much more interesting things beyond the fringes of a burgeoning therapeautic-esthetic. Robert Lowell wrote some good poems, but he made a career out of his upper-middle-class "suffering," and it became pathetic. Literally, he had nothing left. Was and remains pathetic (pathetique?/ I went to public school.) I think poetry does a better job among genres regarding the exploration of the personal, interior, quiet conflicts that we all have to deal with-- I also think American poetry is absolutely fucking paralyzed by a notion that _this_ is all there is left to discuss/examine. It's given an excuse for so-called academically affiliated poets to write books about nothing but themselves, their divorces, their kid's diapers, and then point a finger at poets who aren't somehow "authentic" enough, because they didn't go to Harvard and have those damn qualms-- the ones that make you drink yrself to death or jump in front of a truck or jump off a bridge or turn on the gas-- yes, these are sad things, but ultimately, American poetry right now suffers from a legacy of miserable, naive analolgy-- a given poem should connect with an assumed emotional geographic position of "the suffering person," or even worse, the ironically recognized "suffering poet"-- When there are ten- to 1,000 millions of other events occuring-- and they have everything and nothing to do with the first-person event of recognition and meditation-- James Millie Niss wrote: > Ian Hamilton's biography of Lowell is enough for understanding most of the > poems IF you have their dates (not always easy to obtain). Hamilton has > been accused of medicalizing Lowell's poetry. He does not do this. To some > extent, he medicalizes Lowell's life, but a life with manic depression and > alcoholism (secondary to the MD) IS medical. Lowell predictably got > "overenthusuastic" (his term) most summers, did nasty and then weird things, > usually ending up with a woman not his wife, and then he'd arrive manic at a > friend's house and the friend would arrange to have him committed to Mclean. > Once there, they'd drug him (too much, by modern standards) and he'd crash > into the most horrid depresion. This is a life a mentally ill person had to > have in the fifties, even if he was incredibly rich and a well-known poet > with a sinecure-like job at that. Thigs haven't chnaged much since then. > > HOWEVER, Hamilton does not medicalize the POETRY, and there is no reason to > do so. The creative output of mentally ill people, if they are professional > writers and not just therapy petients who have been asked to write poems to > "express their feelings," is not ill, even if it is about illness. Even > writing which is intended to demonstrate illness (like stream of > consciousness of a person with mania or psychosis, which is something I've > occasionally tried to do but with little success) is not ill, if done right. > It is usually a lot of work to make something like that into interesting > reading (since real illness is a bore) amd to concisely capture the illness > in as few words as possible. Whne people do this kind of porm or other > writing, often they have rewritten it many times to make it better at > coinveying the truth of the iollness than the actual tru transcript of the > thoughts would have been. Ab=nne Sexton literally was ahousewife with no > particular curture or education whose shrink suggested she write poetry and > you can see in her poetry that she tells hard truths well but isn't really a > creative poet and/or she is undercultured; she obviously hasn't read much > poetry or else she'd know more ways to write a poem -- there are no literary > devices in her poems of the sort that one finds in even the most basic > poetry, rarely do we find a metaphor (there are some similes, but similes > are really part of ordinary speech more than the made strange speech of > poetry) except some rather obvious structural ones, the tone is the same in > all the poems, they are ALL about how she wants to kill herself and/or how > bad she feels and/or mad at other people she is for making people feel so > bad. The Transformations series of fairy tales are better, because she is > telling someone else's stories. Still, the stanza from "Wanting to Die" > > but suicides have a special language > like carpenters they wanty to know _which tools_? > they never ask _why build_? > > is brilliant, but only for its insight into mental illness, not for the > poetry...) > > But a poet like Lowell is a different story. He knew poetry and had been > writing it since before he became seriously crazy. And he had the > discipline to write about subjects other than what he was feeling at any > particular time. Poems such as "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket" (still a > favorite although I don't fully understand it. I had to memorise part of a > poem for a class and I chose the first section of this which was great fun > but I hadn't realized how hard a poem it is to recite!) are not MENTALLY ILL > poems, or mentally well poems for that matter but simply poems. Whether he > was ill or not, he did not let his feelings seep into what he was writing > except inasmuch as they were an inspiration for the topic and tone. But the > poem is first and foremost a poem. Even if he was ill when he wrote it, it > isn't a symptom, it's a masterful poem. Even the poems about his illness -- > "Waking in the Blue," "The Drinker," "Speak of the Woe that is in Msrriage" > etc. are controlled creative efforts. You can write about being crazy while > being crazy without WRITING crazy if you are a skilled writer. Obviously > this isn't true in the worst parts of mania and depression, but one isn't > usually writing then. But if one can write at all, and one is a genuine > poet, then one can control one's style so that the poems are not symptomatic > of anything and are fit to be judged as poems and poems alone. > > The question of Notebook and History is a little more complex because he was > partly writing for himself, and he was experimenting with writing a sonnet > every single day, and also the style was a big departure from the easy free > verse of the poems between Life Studies and Near the Ocean, yet it seems to > lack the richness of his early style that gave the "Quaker Graveyard in > Nantucket" and "Adam and Eve," etc (the poems in "Lord Weary's Castle and > The Mills of the Kavanaughs). Many people have commented on this change of > style, which is seen as a change for the worse, which coincides with his > being on Lithium for the first time. I must admit that I used this as an > argument against taking Lithium myself ("Robert Lowell wrote bad poetry that > all sounds the same after he was put on it") and I never did take it (I take > a zillion other things but I won't touch lithium.) However, I once tried to > read Notebook carefully and didn't get through the book but found it > strangely rewarding, like you have to puzzle out exactly what is working in > the poem and forcus on it as you read it to yourself and then the rest comes > into focus. It made me wonder if I was imposing more goodness onto the poem > than was realkly there or if it was really there. And I used the Hamilton > biography (which I had alread read once) to place Lowell in his life during > the events alluded to iu the poem/the writing of the poem. > . > . > . > I took a break from reading this email and reread a bunch of Notebook. The > poems are easier than I remembered. I have been reading more difficult > poetry than I did when I first enountered Lowell. Actually, I think > Notebook is more transpqrent than the earliest book, which has a few really > dense and layered poems. Howevere you do need to know a lot that's not in > the poems to get Notebook: yoou have to know the wives & children of Lowell, > and you have to know current events from the fifties through seventies in > such a way that a vague allusion brings up the rigt event. For example > there are some poems abou the demonstrations at the Democratic National > Convention in 1968 which is not spelled out but is clear enough if you look > at the date and read the poem carfully. > > I don't see much connection between Lowell and Language Poetry. Which of > Lowell's styles are you referring to? pre Life Studies or Post? And why do > criutics think Life studies was such an "improvement" because it was modern > sounding and easy...anyhow the ease is deceptive. In poems such as > "Penelope" (in Day by Day, one of my facvorite collections) you need the > same kind of knowledge to understand the poem as you might to understand the > allusions in any of the poems in Lord Weary's Castle. It's just an illusion > that it's easy because the idiom sounds more contemporary and the > descriptive parts are more transparent. But I doubt anyone who reads poetry > would have trouble with the descriptions in, say, The Quaker Graveyard in > Nantucket...it's the allusions and symbolism that make that poem hard, not > the imagery. > > Millie > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Mark Weiss > Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 9:31 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Learning curves > > Joel: 1. Lerning curves as in curve balls? You seem to be throwing a few. > Here's one: conflating doubts about the university as a home for poetry > with anti-intellectualism is more than a little insulting. Surely you know > better. Probably most of the poets you read were only tangentially > connected to universities--think nof Pound, Williams, the Objectivists, > Olson, Duncan, Spicer, O'Hara, Ginsberg. Many of these were also doing > theory way beyond anything found in American academia at the time (altho > I'll admit a preference for the theory inherent in their ways of > working). When a trough was opened for poets to feed at of course they > bellied up--it's nice having a source of income and maybe a little > respectability. The problem is what gets traded, and what gets lost to the > culture of poetry in general. > > I write as a New Yorker who still hasn't recovered from the shock of > learning how little dialogue there is in the hinterlands. In New York, as > in all cosmopolitan cities, university affiliations are almost beside the > point--the pool of intellect and talent, and the variety of educations, not > all of them academic, that the pool brings to the discussion is enormously > wide. And its members positively shout for attention. There's a kind of > generosity in this. One wonders about other places, where the only > intellectual activity is within universities that might as well be Martian > colonies and almost no one goes in or out. > > Here in San Diego there's a poetry series in an out-of-the-way university > with a serious parking problem and expensive parking fees. Without a car > one simply can't get there, except for a shuttle bus that runs from only > one point in the city, which, unless one has a great deal of time, also > takes a car to get to. Oh, and the reading is during most people's working > hours. There would seem to be a message in this. > > In Paris the Ecole des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne sponsors open, free > public lectures by the greats of the academy. Anyone who chooses can hear > the latest research or thinking of specialists who don't talk down to their > amateur listeners. Why should they? Half the cafes in town are informal > debating societies. > > What all of this means is that the society is enriched, but so is the > university. The plethora of informal settings where passionate amateurs > gather makes for a cross-fertilization that's often missing on campus, > where people can pass years with only the most limited intellectual contact > from workers in other fields. > > 2. The reason there's such poor institutional memory on lists is their > nature as lists. Memberships change. So what may be a tired and > oft-visited topic for you may be for many their first encounter with it in > this venue. Maybe you'd like to require a full reading of the archive, > followed by a test, before membership is granted. > > Of course, it's possible that the discussions recur because members feel as > if their ideas have simply been dismissed. because not fullty formulated. > Discussion can be a venue for formulating ideas. That, of course, requires > that the thoughts of others be treated with respect. > > Mark > > At 01:59 PM 5/26/2002 -0400, you wrote: > >Is the atrophy of response what is wanted, to clear ground or otherwise? > > > >The idea that work is done to "clear the ground" for anything seems > >an old model of producing change in literary formations -- one which > >I happen to subscribe to -- but it important to remember that in > >this ground-clearing certain work needs to be done -- and that many > >of the people who are encountered on the streets of this new vertical > >public sphere are not going to be interested in the same things, one > >of which is the work involved. What would such work consist of? What > >would one need to know, what problems or issues would need to be > >"worked through"? Are they simply formal questions of practice? > >Because yes, most of the formal techniques used didn't originate > >recently. Was their deployment situational, motivated by practical > >concerns or issues of praxis? ... Well? What do I need to know now? > > > >The "list itself" presents a number of structural difficulties in > >terms of fostering the kind of environment where such work would get > >done, or where the thinking about it might be represented. The > >atrophy of response is often, I think, a response to this structure > >of response as it presents itself in a general and generalizing > >medium as the poetics listserv channel. > > > >Some observations: > > > >1. The constituencies represented by the list are too broad. Like > >many academic conferences, it's too diffuse for there to be a > >productive developmental discussion surrounding key issues. While > >this isn't a problem, per se, you get what you pay for. In such a > >generalized community, difference is boiled in with the broth, and no > >one is willing to step forward. > > > >2. One example of this is the endless "academic" bashing on the list. > >The unspecific nature of the accusations about university culture > >demonstrate many a sad point: a) that compulsory education should > >probably be extended into the 22nd grade, at a minimum, and that > >continuing education programs continue forever. b) it isn't the ideas > >of the academy that bother these people, it's the idea of it. But > >because there is no systematic or articulated grounds for attacking > >the "idea of it", the response whithers only to be repeated by > >another, solo flight. > > > >3. One need for the "re-education" of "human capital" (jingoistic > >terms courtesy of the World Bank, another promoter of > >anti-intellectual, anti-academic culture) is demonstrated by the > >incredibly spotty institutional memory of the culture of the poetics > >list. Every few moons or so, there is a need to replay the same old > >concerns: hang-wringing over language poetry: what was it (or what is > >it), who has more power (theoretically informed but marginal language > >poets or the sincere but bathy mainstream poets), blah blah blah. It > >would almost be fun to make a list of endlessly repeated topics. > > > >4. This failure to develop our collective memory is "symptomatic" of > >larger cultural forces - the multiple, discontinuous vectors of > >influence and audience, place, technology - all contribute to a > >layered sense of the present. It's not an academic issue, or at least > >it need not be limited to the university culture. We might instead > >reflect on what's left of the "public intellectual" in contemporary > >culture. Who are our public intellectuals? We might talk about why > >there aren't MORE intellectuals in public life (i.e. outside of the > >university). And what is meant by "public life" -- a life of letters > >to the editor? or...what? Why is it, after years of study, do so many > >students and scholars reach similar conclusions about particular > >social and economic issues? Why have so many of our public > >intellectuals become so profoundly anti-intellectual? > > > >5. An interesting poet in a "group" to talk about with respect to > >these issues, and how they have to do with "poetry" -- for those of > >you who need references to actual poems -- would be a discussion of > >the poet Robert Lowell, who Millie mentions rather usefully as a poet > >worthy of discussion in the context of langpo. I think that many of > >Lowell's poems could be brought into such a discussion on two > >grounds, one formal and the other social. As an "intellectual" and a > >"pacifist" and as a "rich kid" who led a "bohemian" life of > >"privledge" while doing "cultural labor" of writing "poetry" in a > >community of writers many of whom have continuing influence and > >others of whom seem to have disappeared from memory. Millie's point > >about the poems is a good place too look closely. Anyone know about > >Lowell? His life or his madness? I'd be curious to know if anyone has > >a reference to the Look Magazine photo shoot of the early sixties, a > >copy of which I'd like to find for personal reasons (my father was > >the photographer). Lowell's NOTEBOOKS and their subsequent revision > >is a study in the medicalization of poetry by the dominating forces > >of decorum and generalization. Worthy of study by any one wishing to > >understand language poetry. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 23:12:08 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Second thoughts on fake langpo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Nick and Listers. I agree with the guts of this: in fact the "attack" on language Poetry comes from either those who - like Millie - are I think new to it and rather baffled and feel (as I did when I "discoverd" Ashbery having got "back in" to poetry) that because I couldnt "figure it out" that I was stupid (mind you that experience was also mine when I first encountered Eliot, Pound and Auden (altho the humorous and "camp"aspects (altho that latter term I knew not then) "saved the day"also (!)) as a young man: and I still find a lot of poetry, of whatever ilk "difficult" but as (forget who but Scroggins refers to him in his book on Zukofsky)) X points out that there are different kinds of difficulty eg the difficulty might be knowing certain informational things re the poem that the poet either expects the reader to know or figure out, or the poem might be constructed in a very complex way (either formally or in the sense of the "narrative thread" or the complex of ideas) or the difficulty in the case of language Poetry may have to do with one's expectations of what poetry is (which is one of the things that Language poetry does). As you say ...it was a movement and I dont think we should trivailise it: most of the writers in In the American Tree and the many others that Ron mentions there are very fine and original writers: I have one of your books, I have had great enjoyment from eg CB's "Paradise" (or was that Silliman but certainly they are both excellent writers and thinkers) ...my only crit might be a certain dourness sometimes (but then that crit could be applied to all sorts of styles and "schools" ): and the other kind are those who think its all too "old hat" wheras they are wrong it initiated all sorts of "offshoots" (of which Millie's thing might be another who knows): and it freed things up: as well as that thee was a concentration on theory whicch I feel is very much what made the Romantics most interesting especially (but not only ) via Coleridge (of cousre I know that theory and practice are interconnected and he/she is also a theoretician who "sinply" writes and does): we forget the radicality of Creeley, Wiliams, Stevens, Moore (Stein of course) Olson, Zukofsky, Niedecker, Ashbery especially of "Tennis Court Oath" (although I love his "Self Portrait..."),Ammons, Bishop and in New Zealand our own Kendrick Smithyman. There are many others and many movments and I think there are interrelationships...it is true that somewhat the Language Poetry ideas have been "subsumed" (parataxis and "disjunction" etc but that is a good thing: the question of it being identifiable by words with lots of whie space: ell - to Millie - you must have a look at Mallarme's experiments in open form done in the 19th Century, and those of Appollinaire - and later Olson..but there were many others: in some ways cummings contributed: but aside form formal experimentation: language poetry has concentrated on the word, the sentence, the concept block as I term it: also the breaking of the language, the torquing as some refer to it, introduces and emphasises that central significance of poetry its power to enchant, to baffle: in fact the "foregrounding of the signifier" is what has been done by many other poets previously but the Language Poets and the thinking around and about language based poetry made poetry (possibly an "art" that is a kind of thnking/creating/philosophising which drives to the heart of the light) very significant (if to some apparently less popular) and also pardoxically made it seem "difficult" but much of that (elitist is another term thrown at it) difficulty is in not so much its deciphering (although looking at the strategies etc and the actual meaning structures yields a lt less "senselessness" than appears: athough language Poetry also gives me I feel "permission", as Wystan Curnow termed it once in conversation with me, to experiment - lash out linguistically in any way i want - but also the difficulty is partly knowing "where these guys are coming from" (by guys i mean guys and gals) ... but another thing: some fairly in depth knowledge of poetry and lit helps not so much to "understand" lang poetry but as a way in: the difficulties are thus those of some knowledge that needs to be gained...especially some knowledge of its history and where it is/was "going" some of the theoretical influences and so on: but there is also the other difficulty .. the ontological difficulty (dont worry dear readers I struggle with big words like that!)..which is that you have to be aware of certain ways of truth telling: you have to be open...like someone prepared to listen to Country and Western or any other music right up to Charles Ives and Stochausssen and on to anything being done right now: similar goes for art): the difficulty the reader puts in his own way because somehow they cannot "think poetically" or dont let certain things in (maybe dont "let themsleves" think poetically)....one thinks of Keats's "negative capability": I think that Listers who havent "should" (I dont like using that word) read or buy (in order to read!) In the American Tree and the essays of such as Silliman, Bernstein, Nick yoursel(!) a (albeit you cme from a rater difficult - there's that word again - or should I say almost Heideggenarianly abstruse "tadition" of a type of writing!, Perloff, Heijinian, Howe, Watten and many others: the two books by Hank Laser are good and are about language poetry: its a vital, a powerful movment and is still alive and Nick you are a considerable writer. Power on! Another opposition comes form those who are very conservative both poetically and probably politically: all they want is (often) some idea of poetry...something transparent with metre that rhyms about a dying flower: but THAT doest say that certain kinds of simplicity ... or that any kind of writing at all is not valid: the Language Movement made serious this adventure of consciousness which is poetry at its best: it foregrounded the anbiguity (carrying on the work of many others of the moderns including Empson and so on) and uncertainty: but also simultaneously new forms and structures evolved or are were evolving and there is hardly one practitioner who is not quite different each from each: Susan and Fanny Howe are both great poets but qute difffernet I think, and Heijinian coulnd't be mistaken for Clark Coolidge, or Bruce Andrews for Michale Gottleieb (although he could be said to be closer to Siliman) and Bernstein is protean, and who could be crazier and as original (especaily for the time he wrote) than Grenier...I wish i had time to read more of Carla Harryman..there's Benson, Bromige,Greenwald, and Barrett Watten..so many: a huge range of talented writers: the a Language Project is I feel still alive and kicking with - sure - people "attacking" (but that's probably a good thing in a way)..it has certainly helped me in my own writing alhough I also looked to certain British, European and of course NZ writers. And in NZ Wystan Curnow, Michelle Leggott, Alan Loney, somewhat Richard von Sturmer, Murray Edmond have been significantly influenced and are all very talented: but there are also a number including Scott Hamilton, Michael Arnold, Hamish Dewe who have taken notice as has Jack Ross: others are John Geraets, Michael Radich and many who have appeared in Geraets and Loney's "Brief" (Originally "A Brief Hisatory of the Whole World")....also there are obviously a lot of influence that has gone to Australia: I'm not talking slavish worship of "Big bad America" though!! But I feel, seriously, that it, the Language Project is and was highly important:and very generative. Richard Taylor. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick Piombino" To: Sent: Monday, May 27, 2002 6:54 AM Subject: Second thoughts on fake langpo > One of the most difficult things about being a poet has to do with the issue > of legitimizing one's work. In almost every case, as poets become more > experienced they learn to make some efforts to earn and/or acquire some form > of literary response or acknowledgement. Since L-A poetry has earned a > degree of "name" of not "face" recognition (there are over 750 references to > it on the Google search engine) it is no surprise that currently all kinds > of opportunities are available to find ways to exploit this to get > attention. Every since L-A poetry obtained some recognition there have many > people anxious to get attention for themselves by what came to be called > L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E bashing. But possibly the secret of the success of L-A > poetry was that the activities of these poets had more to do with creating a > space for making various kinds of experimental, or otherwise unconventional, > poetry available rather than legitimizing this or that specific poetry or > style of writing. In this sense, the fake langpo website is an > understandable outgrowth of the efforts of L-A poets to create more space > for experimental poetry. My difficulty had to do with the phrase "fake" but > what the hell. I never liked the phrase "language poetry" much either. I > think most serious poets have had the experience of being confronted by > others, frequently relatives or close friends, who imply they are wasting > their time, and that in some sense what they are doing is -fake-. This is > because only famous poets, and usually only famous poets who have been dead > a long time, can be considered -real- poets. So, in some sense, to most > people all poets except for these very few poets who have been legitimized > or, as they say, canonized, have some aura of being fake. Most of the poets > I know who have been focused on poetry every day of their lives from 20 to > 50 years appear to be quite sensitive, painfully sensitive, to this issue of > the legitimization of their activities (to be somewhat distinguished from > getting credit for the quality of their poetic activities). The L-A poets I > think were most successful in creating an atmosphere of legitimizing the > activity of writing unconventional poetry. You would have to be over 50 to > remember how conservative the poetic establishment was before the activities > of L-A poetry somewhat changed the atmosphere. The pressure to write > conventional poetry in order to get published was very powerful prior to the > 70's, particularly in the U.S. Try to imagine that in the 60's the poetry of > Robert Creeley, for example, still appeared unconventiona indeed to many, > and served as a beacon in that regard for my own early efforts. It can be > very difficult to spend a good deal of your life on something that large > numbers of people feel is a meaningless waste of time. This isn't to say > that there are not large numbers of people who feel poetry is important. > There are. But of course, there are few who feel that the career of poet > makes any sense at all. Once, one of my relatives said to me, when he > couldn't find my telephone number and had to check information- you can't > even get your phone number published-. To this day, a good deal of what I > experience about the public response to poetry discourages me from wanting > to continue the practice of writing poetry at all. Of late I have not felt > that way at all about this list, although there have been times that I have. > I don't want to do anything to discourage the expansion of possibilities for > experimental and unconventional poetry, or any poetry for that matter. So, > fake langpo people, from my point of view, go on and fake it all you like. > Just keep writing it and getting it out there. > > Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 09:05:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Swigert Subject: Re: Call for Translation Submissions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Have fun in Cali. Keep it real. Also, I think that I find many of the d= ebates raging on the poetics listserv to be inane. As though there were = a possibility that poets' Marxist credentials weren't compromised by work= ing in academic institutions. Peace. Bob ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Stephens Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 2:40 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Fw: Call for Translation Submissions CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: Deadline: June 15th, 2002 NEW TRANSLATION: THE JOURNAL OF LITERARY TRANSLATION It is my pleasure to announce the return of Translation to publication, as New Translation, beginning with a first issue scheduled to appear in September 2002. Translation, the Journal of Literary Translation, enjoyed a distinguished run from its inception in 1970 until 1994. During that time, it introduced English language readers to hundreds of writers representing scores of languages around the globe, and served an important role in enlarging the vision of our sometimes linguistically parochial culture. A modest change in the journal's name seemed fitting given the lapse of time since the journal last appeared and since its reappearance occurs under new editorial hands. It is my hope, also, that the "new" indicates a vigorous commitment to bringing to the attention of our readers writers who have been little or not at all heard from in English, and to advocating the riches of literatures that have gone under-appreciated and under-represented in translation. New Translation will thus serve additionally to complement the tremendous rise of postcolonial studies -- a rise which has drawn attention to problems of globalization, to "minor" literatures (in Deleuze's sense), and inevitably to issues of translation and cultural exchange. It is my further hope that the "new" will speak to a commitment to develop in the pages of the journal a forum for addressing and exploring the frontiers of the art of translation in theory as well as practice. We live in a time when the artistic abundance beyond our linguistic border is staggering. We live, too, in a time when the catastrophic consequences of ignorance or intolerance of what is outside our cultural orbit must be painfully apparent to all of us. I believe that New Translation has an important role to play in helping us to enjoy that abundance and to absolve us of that ignorance. The editors of New Translation are pleased to acknowledge the generous financial support of the Thornton Wilder Foundation and the general support of the School of the Arts at Columbia University. We are presently accepting manuscripts for the first two issues of the journal of translations into English from all other languages, living and not, in all genres, including but hardly limited to poetry, fiction, theatre, essay, and criticism. We also welcome original work which concerns the practice, history or art (or science) of translation, including discussions of translation as it obtains to such matters beyond the immediately literary as music, film and our often logocentric visual arts. Manuscripts should be received no later than June 15, 2002 for consideration for the September issue. Authors are promised a response to submissions within six weeks of receipt of their manuscripts. Original language texts are welcome to accompany submissions, but not required. Submissions may be sent either as manuscripts to the address below, or electronically to newtranslation@columbia.edu (preferably as an MS/Word attachment). Inquiries can also be made to my attention at rjm49@columbia.edu. Richard Matthews Editor Translation Magazine 415 Dodge Hall Columbia University New York, NY 10027 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:19:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Stefans, Brian" Subject: A R R A S ... editorial statement Comments: To: "list@rhizome.org" , "ubuweb@yahoogroups.com" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain *** please post to other poetry and art listservs! *** A R R A S e d i t o r i a l s t a t e m e n t http://www.arras.net/batties.htm Arras: new media poetry and poetics is devoted to exploring how digital technology has impacted the field of experimental poetics. This includes the uses of digital technology to expand the techniques that poets use - whether this be in multimedia, interactivity, algorithmic processes, and digital typefaces - as well as how the web can serve as an alternative distribution source for texts both of poetry and criticism. A feature of the site is the irregular appearance in Adobe Acrobat format of the poetry journal Arras - including poetry, interviews and criticism - which is a continuation of the print journal of that name and is not necessarily concerned with digital technology. This is also my homepage, so links will be added as my writing and web works go online. Arras does not accept submissions of either poetry or digital works. Calls for theme issues of the .pdf journal will be made periodically. I'm happy to look at URLs of new media poetry, but my goal is to keep the set of "gallery" links highly focused on the specific issues that are important to me at the moment. Links will be added and dropped over time to reflect these interests. Brian Kim Stefans http://www.arras.net/ http://www.arras.net/links.htm http://www.arras.net/candy.htm http://www.arras.net/gallery.htm http://www.arras.net/acrobat.htm http://www.arras.net/stefans.htm http://www.arras.net/ubu_links.htm http://www.arras.net/web_poetry.htm http://www.arras.net/pdfs/arras_4.pdf http://www.arras.net/pdfs/object_9.pdf http://www.arras.net/ubu_set/alpha.htm http://www.arras.net/truth_interview/index.htm http://www.arras.net/pdfs/notes_to_poetry.pdf http://www.arras.net/RNG/director/inkblot/index.htm http://www.arras.net/RNG/director/candy/roundies.htm http://www.arras.net/RNG/director/candy/cyber_miro.htm http://www.arras.net/RNG/flash/eunoia/eunoia_final.html http://www.arras.net/RNG/director/candy/italian_kitch.htm http://www.arras.net/RNG/director/candy/blue_atoms.htm http://www.arras.net/RNG/director/candy/red_painting_1.htm http://www.arras.net/RNG/director/candy/fauvist_vorticism.htm http://www.arras.net/RNG/director/candy/hokusai_express.htm http://www.arras.net/RNG/flash/dreamlife/dreamlife_index.html http://www.arras.net/RNG/director/geomancy/geomancy_index.html So that: ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:21:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael Subject: Big Bridge Looking For Miami, Florida MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Big Bridge, www.bigbridge.org, is looking for writings for January 2002. = Subject is Miami, Fl. By writers from the greater Miami area or by = writers who have writings about visits to Miami. All types of writing = and art welcome. Send submissions to Michael Rothenberg, = walterblue@bigbridge.org. Best, Michael Michael Rothenberg walterblue@bigbridge.org Big Bridge http://www.bigbridge.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:22:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: Questions and Answers Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > Do you think you and your colleagues -- those you identify yourself with, > i.e. other language poets -- believe in and practice a poetics of > amicability? How was the 'clearing of the ground' that occurred in the 70s and > 80s to happen without some aggression, some shaking things up, some > inflammatory activity? Do you really think your community is all that > inclusive? One of the most exciting and interesting things about this group of poets has been the length of time many have remained very interested and supportive of each others work. In some cases this is approaching 30 years. Many of these poets have become publishers themselves and are publishing younger poets in increasingly large numbers, including Lyn Hejinian and Leslie Scalapino. David Bromige worked closely with Cydney Chadwick to bring out Avec when it was first being published- Cyd was a student of David's. Ron Silliman has been a source of constant support and publisher of countless writers, as has Douglas Messerli, James Sherry , Peter Ganick, Stephen-Paul Martin, Richard Royal and Eve Ensler, Leland Hickman, Dubravka Djuric and Misko Suvakovic, Clayton Eshleman, Tom Beckett, Jena Osman Juliana Spahr, Rod Smith, Paul Vangelisti, Rob Fitterman, Elizabeth Fodaski, Mark Wallace, Standard Schaefer, Andrew Levy, Bob Harrison, John Byrum ,Tom Bynum, Manuel Brito, Emmanuel Hocquard, Bob Perelman, Paul Hoover and Maxine Chernoff, Steve Clay, Rosemarie and Keith Waldrop, Peter Holland and Jeanne Lance, Rod Smith, Maryann Caws, Patrick Durgin and many others. Barrett published- This- magazine and- Poetics Journal- and edits -Crisis/America-. Charles Bernstein edited many anthologies, created and maintains this list and has encouraged countless poets in and out of Suny/B, the list could go on and on. You make an important point by clarifying that aggression has a crucial role to play in poetry communities and in a poet's relationship with others. What I don't believe in, and I don't think most language poets believe in, is unexamined and unmitigated aggression. You are right to remind me that the 'clearing of the ground' could not have taken place without some conflict and open aggression. But as for being 'inclusive' I am going to predict that the language group of poets will be found, when the histories are written, to be unique in its efforts to go beyond local dynamics and to widen the circle of connection between writers and readers outside and within official academic communities. This group of writers from its beginning constantly worked to connect beyond local circles on a national and later on an international level including writers in Canada, China, Russia, Italy, France,Japan, Spain, the Canary Islands, Brazil, Sweden and elsewhere. But as far as inclusivity, I think there has always been a conscious bias towards writers who innovate and embrace unconventional forms of writing. > You are not discussing things in the manner you claim to want to > discuss them. You are not being quietly rational. You are being as defensive > and prodding as the next guy. There's a poetry war going on and you're part > of it, Nick This sounds a bit harsh. Have I really been all that defensive and prodding? Anyway, to the extent that I have, I am glad to be confronted so I can continue to try to be less so. I look forward to working to discourage war of any type. > That's part of the problem: seeking legitimization for the unconventional. > Once you get legitimacy, what you do is no longer as dangerous. Legitimizing one's writing means having it be taken seriously. That's when it becomes 'dangerous'(i.e., powerful) on a much wider front, though perhaps in a somewhat more diluted way than at the outset when it was less widely known. > "Once, one of my relatives said to me, when he couldn't find my telephone > number and had to check information- you can't even get your phone number > published-." > > Well, that's when you got to suck it up and tell them to stuff it. Funny > relative you got there. I'll work on it. Thanks for this and your very close reading of my posts. Nick Nick ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:49:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Re: A R R A S ... editorial statement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit &, just as a reminder, www.prepositions.net is a space dedicated specifically to this...there is a rather empty forum at the site where discussions about this topic can take place...there are also direct links to over 100 pdf files from around the web... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stefans, Brian" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 11:19 AM Subject: A R R A S ... editorial statement as well as how the web can serve as an > alternative distribution source for texts both of poetry and criticism. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 09:50:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.1.20020527162628.023c6cf8@mail.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" mark, thanx for your response... part of my beef---and i suppose i have to say, again, that i spent 7 solid years working as an engineer, in various (and i mean various) capacities, so i can dig the career change argument (esp. as, during a good portion of this latter stretch, i was supporting my dad, and as, tut, i was a senior engineer at 26---which means i buckled down in that career while under serious duress)---part of my beef about the anti-academic stuff is that the scenario you depict is not one i've ever enjoyed, as you depict it... academia may be more like academia than working in factories, but there would seem to be something of a genetic fallacy at work here... i mean, sometimes the apple falls a good distance from the tree... fact is that the university is less a threat to poetry than a threat to thought as such---meaning, a threat to a better world (to the extent that poetry is about thought, and better worlds, makes it a subset of this problem)... i've written about this, i think you know, by paralleling my having been denied tenure (i.e., canned) at my last place of employ via much the same logic by which bristol-myers canned me in 1984 (that piece, which appeared in ~postmodern culture~, was edited down by the pmc folks to include less of the parallel detail than i would have liked, but it still does the trick)... the problem i address there has to do, i'd say, with (the late) bill readings's argument that the u is becoming a transnational corp. (~the university in ruins~), which i still think is the single best depiction of what's wrong with higher learning in the u.s. today.. but if the folks on this list who are academics started to describe the nature of their workloads, i think you'd find that said workplace is far from homogeneous... it's not a place where struggle is absent or muted, though its assorted mystifications suggest as much... yes, it's a place that often drives me nuts, to be true... part of what complicates the disparity of the learning institution is the disparity of the workforce itself---if you hail e.g. from the lower economic classes, you're bound to find yourself among the higher economic classes (and the "better" the institution, the higher the classes)... which means one's concern for wage may not be shared by one's colleagues... it's not factory work, no, and one of the chief distinguishing features is that those who work on the factory floor generally do so b/c they need to earn a living, and this is what the world has offered them (at least, most of the factory workers i've known, and i've known plenty, have migrated to same w/o it being, uhm, their lifelong aspiration as such)... but i've met many, many academics who work as academics on the basis of their interest in same, the sense of power they get from same, the good they feel they do by same, etc... which means, as i've posted here before, some of my colleagues live in virtual palaces, whatever their motivations might be... not so for so many other professions... i'm on leave currently, and have been for a solid year (!)... hell, i've *never* enjoyed such a thing, and my last place of employ would certainly not provide for same, anymore than would my engineering career---and yes, i've gotten more writing done as a result than you can shake a stick at... but my "leave" has nonetheless been marred by any number of institutional duties that just won't go away---a job search, admission of new grad students, and so forth... your typical white-collar, knowledge-worker problem (similar to when i was an engineer---i'd take off for a few days and my phone would ring, and ring)... the difference is that i've actually been paid for the past year NOT to teach---at *this* institution... the same institution that refused, twice, to fund travel to europe (italy), b/c the project i'd proposed (which incidentally, and to be candid, i'd already pretty much completed) was presumably of interest "only to me," as a "creative" project... the same institution where my wife and partner works adjunct, and has to scramble every semester for courses (as we can't live at this relative level of comfort w/o her teaching at least a 3/3---my course load for years, btw---and preferably a 4/3 anyway)... you know the drill... so, for one, there are the disparities of higher ed... e.g., (and i will forsake any attempt at modesty here!) charles bernstein's position at suny/buffalo, as an endowed chair, is much different than mine here at boulder, which is much different than anselm hollo's at naropa... charles gets paid the most, has more responsibility (and experience as a writer) than do i, but has less experience than anselm, who teaches in a much, much different kind of institution, at lower pay, than the large state u's where charles and i hang our hats (charles and anselm, you guys can chip in anytime you like!)... can you really make sense of this? (let alone justice)... well, we all teach, yes... i daresay we all teach quite differently too---in fact, i daresay i would be the most opinionated of the three of us re HOW we should all be teaching... in point of fact, though, many who work in higher ed never see the promised land of a 2/2, and i'm here to report (sorry) that it's not quite the promised land i thought it was, esp. at this point in my life... and if i can be fooled in this regard, i would like to think anyone can... and for two, there are the disparities OF the higher ed workforce, which for me are largely about class issues... i've never experienced anything quite like the latter, honestly, and i'm continually turned off when i meet 35-40 year olds whose lives are, well, SET---tenure, house, etc.... maybe i'm a jealous guy... so: in point of fact, academia's indifference to poetry (by and large) is part of a much deeper symptom that turns (you called it) on the socializing practices of this institution... by the time one becomes a fortune 500 engineer one is likely fully socialized (if alienated)... ditto for investment counselor... while a focus on teaching can keep an academic professional from becoming too awful alienated, the kind of uprooting that's generally expected (as a result of job market pressures), along with encoded aspirations customary to most graduate programs, militate against the academic professional's grasp of the demands of and the value of creative work in general... the discourse, or sphere of possible articulation, is so heavily circumscribed from the outset that something as potentially unruly as poetry (not to put too fine a point on it) is simply not to be trusted, except during graduation ceremonies and the like (when you will hear most administrators trumpet the writers on their faculty, and quote from appropriately sacred poetic texts)... similar, again, to engineering, though here the discourse is overdetermined by on-the-job realities (and there is all manner of concern in the engineering communities, and has been for years, as to whether the curriculum is properly dovetailing with the workaday profession)... it's this discursive effect, as i see it, that poets most react to negatively... e.g. the "language" of theory, the manifestation of thought as susceptible primarily to the often agonizing logic of footnotes, and so forth... naturally we (as poets, or writers, yes) pride ourselves on constructing our texts and proffering our ideas w/o regard for such constrictive regulatory practices (though here again, i mself prefer to see what happens when discourses collide, and i include in this the discourses of technology, as i've come to know them)... but you know and i know that we're fooling ourselves, in all likelihood, if we think we operate ipso facto W/O any incursion from this latter realm, as we too have been socialized (AS poets, AS writers)... which brings me back to my question, which you were nice enough to thumbnail for me... i.e., how these other workplaces come to shape our poetic practice, which could be (yes) a matter of the socializing forces at work in our work... in any case, i want to go on record here as saying that i'm still crazy after all these years... while i understand entirely that my concerns as a writer have inevitably been shaped by my concerns as an academic (and as an engineer, i must say)---which goes to your concern, mark, as to the monopoly of academe (b/c surely the broad contours of academe can't be dismissed on the basis of individuated differences)---i don't see this as a significant problem precisely b/c i don't see academe as exerting this control on me willy-nilly... i worked my ass off to become an academic, yes, only to find, as per, that it wasn't quite what i thought it would be... and if someday i should leave the teaching profession, no doubt my work will alter as a result... but hell, (to presume a bit) it could prove a helluvalot LESS interesting, no?... one thing i do know: i wasn't about to write poetry while under the daily umbrella of fortune 500... those of you who've managed that, you're better men and women than i... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 09:12:15 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: lyric ca. 2002 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Andrew--- Sympathetic to aspects of what's called "lyric," but also skeptical of how that term is often used, I am curious about your points here-- I am especially curious about the ways you seem to want to combine a generational distinction (new vs. old) with the "lyric" vs. "prose-like poetry" distinction.... And it raises some questions for me in part because I don't really know your own poetry (where can I find it?) or for that matter your age (I assume we're roughly of the same generation?)... and in part because I don't see how what you'd call a Pinsky-Perelman mode dominates a Howe/Bidart mode (questions. Would you include Palmer, or Yau, or Shapiro, or Armantrout, or Jorie Graham, or Lauterbach, or Guest, to name but a few, more in the Howe mode? I don't want to be putting words in your mouth....) I see them both as established modes which exist, both of which young (or beginning, of whatever biological age) writers are often encouraged--- depending on the particular social context(s) in which they come to *contemporary poetry* (as oppossed to say "poetry itself")--to imitate, or accomodate. I don't see such an aesthetic (by which I don't necessarily mean to say "merely aesthetic") distinction as particularly a matter of the old and the new, except in the context of certain circles. So, when I look at young or "new" writers I see, whether or not one prefers the "S. Howe" mode (as you do), or what you'd call the Perelman mode, and see a range of writings (and also feel there's a lot of writing that doesn't get enough attention because it doesn't seem to be fashionable enough, for whatever reasons) for me it's not so much a question of "new" vs. "old" but a question of the range of various options that are called poetry today, and even at times a debate over what is called poetry itself... I'm curious if you'd see the distinction you're making between "prose" and "lyric intensity" in earlier generations as well. For instance, say Ashbery vs. O'Hara or Duncan? Or earlier, Stevens vs. Williams? I'm asking this (though I know you want to talk more about young and/or new poets more) because I'm trying to figure out how this vexed term "lyric" operates today.... It seems there are several overlapping (but also potentially contradictory) defintitions of the lyric in contemporary poetry... 1 defintion claims that a work is LYRIC to the extent it is "I" based (regardless of whether that writer's work looks or reads more like "prose" or whether it is more condensed or fragmented in style), whether that it's an "I" the poem claims to "express" (or "confess") or an "I" the poem is interested in creating, or claiming is a construct 2 definition of lyric claims that a work is LYRIC to the extent that it isn't discursive, that it doesn't look or read like prose (regardless of whether its condensations of fragmentations are primarily perceptual, cultural, or "I" based in terms of content)... These definitions seem to exist for both proponents and detractors of what's called the lyric There's probably other ways to summarize what the lyric does, or is, but I'm quite curious about how these two ways of looking at the lyric tend to circulate. I still maintain, that if anything's changed in contemporary American poetry in the last ten years, it's the shift in emphasis not so much in what's being written as in which way of defining lyric is more common (a working hypothesis-- though, it could be said that this may have some effect on what's written, alas).... Not to come off a "language apologist" (for as you may know, I've a lot of quarrels with them too), I personally find a lot more pathos and even self-dramatization and what I (if not you) would call "lyric intensity" in Perelman at his best (I'll say his three books of the late 80s for now) that Howe, even though it looks less "lyric" (by defintion #2) even though I also highly value work, as you claim that has a more direct and less fabricated relation to its author (though I do think Susan Howe is a rather odd example of that! Better, say, the younger (and underpublished) writer Yuri Hospodar (since you wanted to talk about the new and young) for instance.... Or Brett Ralph or Nancy Johnson (neither of whom are particularly interested in Perelman or Ashbery or Stevens-- Brett's in town for a Robinson Jeffers conference; Nancy's huge on Baraka currently--but both of whom, like Ashbery, I too would call EXTREMISTS in the best sense of that word.... Chris Andrew Rathmann wrote: > Some violent simplifications in the interest of seeing what's new about the > present: > > Poetry since the late 1960s has been dominated by prose, only we don't call > it prose. We call it "speech," or we call it "writing." > > In the former case, there is an attempt to objectify (as "voice") the > author's individuality, without pathos or self-dramatization. Pinsky, for > example. > > In the latter case, individuality is objectified only at the level of > writing style, and the work has only an obscure or fabricated relation to > its author. Perelman, for example. > > But both tendencies imply a quarrel with the traditional promise of the > lyric. Lyric promises intensity. Though in vastly different ways, Pinsky > and Perelman are clearly uneasy or dissatisfied with the idea of lyric > intensity (which isn't to say they are merely genial fellows). In general, > poets who came to maturity in the late 1960s prefer charm, or sympathy, or > comedy, or word games, or theory -- things better handled with the more > social medium of a prose-like poetry. > > This is one reason, it seems to me, why Susan Howe is notable. She has an > unironic relation to lyricism, even if she must borrow it from other > speakers, most of them speakers of prose. She has found a way to intensify > and transform prose so that it becomes lyric. Lyric intensity is something > she shares, though in vastly different ways, with Frank Bidart. > Extremists, both of them. > > The move to a more social (i.e. prose-like) poetics may have been good for > poetry, but I wonder whether younger poets aren't moving in a different > direction, trying to reclaim for poetry some of the things given away in > the effort to be more social. Maybe they should try to be less social, > less accommodating. If so, I wonder what the key texts would be. > > (Perhaps one is that t-shirt that reads: "Your favorite band sucks.") ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 09:23:18 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: "Susan Howe, who is a genuinely exciting poet" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit yeah---large agreement---just posted something to the list about this.... c Louis Cabri wrote: > I've always wondered at how and why S. Howe is almost always singled-out, > most often with those very words: "a genuinely exciting poet." In the spirit > of candor spells relief, and under the flag of the naive reader willing to > learn from those who are genuinely curved, let me ask you, any you, why > Pierce-Arrow is not a genuinely bland book -- and I don't mean "bland" in an > exciting way. The book points, for me, to the unthought condition of prose, > and to a problem that I see -- however much I want to believe in -- Kristin > Prevallet's rendering of investigative poetics in her essay in Telling It -- > Damn Straight. (How Kristin invokes such a 'istorin poetics in her own work > is another matter.) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 13:06:52 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alicia Askenase Subject: contact info MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm looking for emails for Kristen Prevallet, and Eddie and Anselm Berrigan. Please backchannel. Thanks Alicia ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:04:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Molly Schwartzburg Subject: Re: virus In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi--I've gotten these virus e-mails as well, but not only from Kevin Killian's address, but Charles Bernstein's as well. I wonder if the list itself is somehow "infected"?...Thought I should pass that on... Molly On Mon, 27 May 2002, Dodie Bellamy wrote: > Hi, > > A couple of people from the list have written saying they've received > a suspicious attachment from Kevin Killian or an email with a virus > in it. Both had bizarre but banal subject lines. > > Checking the full header of one of these emails, it originated not > from Kevin nor Earthlink, but from primushost.com. Kevin's email is > merely being used as bait. > > So, if you receive any suspicious attachments from Kevin (or anybody > else)--don't open them. Throw them away immediately and report the > abuse, as we did to the originating host. > > Thanks. > > Dodie > *** *** *** *** *** *** Molly Schwartzburg Stanford Humanities Center Stanford CA, 94305 650-724-8116 molly1@stanford.edu *** *** *** *** *** *** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 09:10:12 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Susan M. Schultz" Subject: housing in London MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Strange request, I know, but I need housing in west London from = September through the middle of December, as I'll be doing study abroad = with students from my university. There will be three of us, two adults = and a soon-to-be three year old (who's gotten between us and the usual = housing arrangement). If anyone knows of anything, or people to contact, or housing gods to = pray to, please let me know. Thanks very much. Susan And check out: http://maven.english.hawaii.edu/tinfish ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 14:31:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Cassandra Laity Subject: Re: virus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear All, The Kleiz virus is making its way around the internet. It fools you by dr= awing on your address book so that you receive attachments from people yo= u "know." Don't open any of these attachments, that will let the virus ou= t. As long as you just delete them, you won't get it. Some popular subjec= t headings are "a new game," "congratulations," "call me." Best, Cassandra Laity -----Original Message----- From: Molly Schwartzburg To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:04:15 -0700 Subject: Re: virus Hi--I've gotten these virus e-mails as well, but not only from Kevin Killian's address, but Charles Bernstein's as well. I wonder if the list itself is somehow "infected"?...Thought I should pass that on... Molly On Mon, 27 May 2002, Dodie Bellamy wrote: > Hi, > > A couple of people from the list have written saying they've received > a suspicious attachment from Kevin Killian or an email with a virus > in it. Both had bizarre but banal subject lines. > > Checking the full header of one of these emails, it originated not > from Kevin nor Earthlink, but from primushost.com. Kevin's email is > merely being used as bait. > > So, if you receive any suspicious attachments from Kevin (or anybody > else)--don't open them. Throw them away immediately and report the > abuse, as we did to the originating host. > > Thanks. > > Dodie > *** *** *** *** *** *** Molly Schwartzburg Stanford Humanities Center Stanford CA, 94305 650-724-8116 molly1@stanford.edu *** *** *** *** *** *** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 14:26:21 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: The Pressing Question of Fun In-Reply-To: <166.e34df15.2a213cec@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm really kind of offended about the sex thingf. I have never written you any email or responded to any of your posts so I could hardly have expressed a desire for you. Millie -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of David Hess Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 3:16 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: The Pressing Question of Fun (hope this isn't out-of-date when it finally gets posted. (make me happy, tim.)) I haven't spent much more than a few seconds on the fakelangpo site, except to make that duck explode (again and again!). You gotta wonder what it is about it that's getting under the real language poets' skin, since as Barrett pointed out, it doesn't pose that much of a threat (i.e. intellectual or institutional rival to the current avant-garde), and, as Nick stated, it's actually kind of boring and maybe not that fun at all. But this question of fun will not go back into the genie bottle. It's Millie's insistence that fakelangpo is the kind of linguistically experimental work that is funner than the original langpo that has to be annoying as hell. It harkens back to Steve Evans' essay on Rebecca Wolff's Fence Manifesto ('97) and her apparent reduction of all poetical values into one word: fun. The kids, it seems, want to have fun, and the adults, it seems, want to have.... reputations maybe? intellectual companionship? a page in literary history with their name on it? ideology critique? job security? the high road of art? respect? It can't help but be annoying because some language poetry actually was fun. Stephen Rodefer's _Four Lectures_ is very fun, edgy, smart, funny and nasty, too. Bob Perelman's work is kind of fun if not funny. Some Alan Davies is fun as I recall. Some will say Charles Bernstein's work is fun, entertaining. And everyone loves Ron Silliman's puns. Barrett's work, however, is not fun at all. And if it were fun or tried to be so, it would ruin it (see CNN joke at bottom of "fake response" post). In fact, it's not even not fun. It's not anti-fun or against fun. It's a-fun, which is a higher form of fun if you think about it. What's my point? My point is that what a lot of language poetry, the kind Millie is probably reacting to (in addition to its tedious pedagogy, mostly likely that, yes), lacks as well as fakelangpo (or any poetry based on fun as sole goal, except for FLARF!, which is in a class of its own) is DEEP FUN. Something more fun than fun. The total package. For instance, if Millie and I were to have sex, as she said she wanted to, we could go out and have fun. Ride a rollercoaster, eat ice cream, roll over dumpters. We could tease and joke, like they do on that stupid MTV 'Dismissed' show, engage in flirtatious banter ("I''m so hungry, I could eat you," etc). I could drop an ice cube down her blouse (surprises are always a turn-on) and she could make me an Easter basket with an Easter egg that had the words 'Big Ben' painted on it (for no reason). This would all be fun foreplay but it's nothing compared to the deep fun to come. The deep fun I can't speak of here because I don't want to ruin it for you, Millie. Or anyone else who wants to join us. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 11:38:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Learning curves In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Joe: Having experienced other work environments can be an innoculation of sorts. This was at one time the norm--I'm thinking of all my depression-raised profs who went through four years of WWII before schooling under the GI Bill. My concern is more about the large and I think increasing numbers of poets or aspiring poets who have never left the classroom--from kindergarten to MFA or doctorate to teaching, with summers off for good behavior. And I'm very aware that few of them are working class. Whatever marketplace requires diversity to flourish. At Columbia they have an antinepotism rule--I don't know if it exists elsewhere--on the road from grad student to tenure you have to teach somewhere else for at least two years. Something like a recognition of the problem, which of course afflicts fields other than writing. It's a different kind of problem in fields that would be difficult to pursue without the institution, tho--hard to imagine that a lot of serious research could be done without its facilities and facilitation. I taught psych for a year at SUNY Old Westbury . Back then, and maybe still, it saw its special mission as serving kids from the various kinds of ghettos--not a lot of rich kids, and a lot of kjids who worked very hard for their educations. At the end of each year the department faculty would meet informally with the graduating majors. One very wealthy clinical prof in his late thirties told the assembled mostly black and hispanic kids, with a few women in their forties who were trying to make new lives for themselves thrown in, what his advisor had told him when he was a senior: "You should really take some time at something else before grad school--your world is a bit limited." So the prof proceeded to tell the assembled about his delightful year going from resort to resort in Latin America before starting grad school. They were a polite bunch, but a lot of jaws dropped. I have this idiotic utopian idea of a universal mandatory one year draft for 18 year olds, during which kids would be forced to interact away from their usual environments with kids raised very differently. Literacy could be taught under military discipline for those who needed it, but the main purpose would be socialization to something larger than what one was born into (like class or race) or would subsequently be trained into (I like the French word for training--"formation"). A year of various kinds of service. There are a lot of obvious problems with this fantasy. For one, it assumes goodwill on the part of whoever would administer it. When I've floated this the objection from folks in grad school has been universally "oh my god, another year before I can finish?" Enjoy your time off--strenuous enjoyment, for sure. [Joe: in a computer glitch I lost the URL for your article--could you bc it to me?] Mark >in any case, i want to go on record here as saying that i'm still >crazy after all these years... while i understand entirely that my >concerns as a writer have inevitably been shaped by my concerns as an >academic (and as an engineer, i must say)---which goes to your >concern, mark, as to the monopoly of academe (b/c surely the broad >contours of academe can't be dismissed on the basis of individuated >differences)---i don't see this as a significant problem precisely >b/c i don't see academe as exerting this control on me willy-nilly... >i worked my ass off to become an academic, yes, only to find, as per, >that it wasn't quite what i thought it would be... and if someday i >should leave the teaching profession, no doubt my work will alter as >a result... but hell, (to presume a bit) it could prove a helluvalot >LESS interesting, no?... one thing i do know: i wasn't about to >write poetry while under the daily umbrella of fortune 500... those >of you who've managed that, you're better men and women than i... > >best, > >joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 12:22:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: Re: Questions and Comments for Nick and David B. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit somewhere in this legthy post, my name appears, alongside some contradictions its bearer recently committed. I only do it to amuse. The imaginary LCD intended by "the poetry of this moment" consists of far too many perpetrators/impressions to permit me to name them all, these malefactors in the House of Light. I tell you what. Here's what I'll do. Invidiously, I'll distinguish certain exceptions. The sumptious spell-weaving ,heart-wrenching, mindful books of Lissa Wolsak. The dangerous politesse and luminous Virgilisms of Lisa Robertson. And for a third Vancouver woman, the challenging collisions of Deanna Ferguson (too challenging for my interpretation, but I keep on trying.) In fact, the entire constellation of those poets around the Kootenay School. No doubt some are mere shoppers. You tell -me- which. To the extent that these three can be termed "Language riters," they prove it by not sounding the least bit like one another. Nor much like my hasty characterizations, either. Thinking of these three Graces has calmed me. aye, I was p.o.d when I laid waste to a generation's documented miseries with my sandy shovel and dented bucket. But at least I know who did it--no rumors that I was hypnotized to crash my kiddie-car into the Shrubbery of Sebastopol's financial district (the Bank of America building). Here in Calif, which I know best (i.e., sketchily at best} a dozen and more exceptions to my cavalier dismissals........ Stroffolino,still in the under-40 ranks, and Trane DeVore, and DA Powell (tho' he chalks blackboards for Harvard these days), and Jocelyn Sridenberg....& & & & & &.....but this is already too long. Shipmstes, accept my bipolar condition, please, it's in fashion, complcated as it is by paranoid schizophrenia. (Thru mental illness, I learned to spell) .And my lies. Like the woman shown being busted last night on "COPS", "I'm on at least 4 different meds -- I shouldnt have to go to jail!" All she cd carry was 4 cartons of ciggies. Likewise, had I more strength, more memory, snd more time, --esp. w/ y o u, sweetie--we cd come to an understanding. Meanwhile, I'll say, poetwise, "Your law sucks!" I recall enough of grad school to say that this is written by a different set of rules. Love being first among them. Tough-enough love. David. -----Original Message----- From: David Hess To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Monday, May 27, 2002 8:26 AM Subject: Questions and Comments for Nick and David B. To Nick, who writes: "To my surprise, my acquaintance Tom Orange, whose own work has on occasion given my personal avant-garde poetics chops quite a hefty boost, was apparently bored by EM's feminist version of an avant-garde that is not afraid to be mutually supportive, gentle, amicable even to the point of relating to other poets in an open and mutually supportive way about feelings such as those of loss (mentioned by more than one person on the panel.)" How can you say you side with the "poetics of amicability" given your callous response to Millie Niss? It may not be criminal but your responses have definitely not been 'gentle' or 'supportive' except in a superficial way. "If the truth be known, I've never been the type to turn away aghast at an exciting bit of literary gossip or debate. But this crowd was definitely not in the mood to rise to Douglas Rothschild's inflammatory prodding's."... Will someone email Douglas and tell him to get on the list to defend himself, or rather explain to us his motivations for doing what he did? "I guess I was one of the audience members most guilty of expressing certain pacifist leanings towards certain apparently quite boring urges to discuss things in a gentle, perhaps even quietly rational and mutually supportive manner. Do poets have to be constantly feisty or insulting and sarcastic towards one another to be considered brilliant, witty and amusing?" See above. You are not discussing things in the manner you claim to want to discuss them. You are not being quietly rational. You are being as defensive and prodding as the next guy. There's a poetry war going on and you're part of it, Nick. "Let's face it- men- and women-all too often resort to shooting things, points and people down to in order to deal with feelings of any kind- loss or whatever-or just to get lots of attention. Then off to the gym or the poetry wars committee meeting." Yes, we should face it and learn accept the psychological reality that this is sometimes necessary. Aren't you a psychologist? "This brings me to a related old gripe that I might as well mention, since I 'm on the topic of the poetics of aggression. I once asked Rochelle Ratner why she supported the publishing of some vicious attacks put forth by Richard Kostelanetz in the American Book Review (not to be confused with the American Poetry Review) including calling Charles Bernstein a fascist and that his book -My Way- should be compared to Hitler's -Mein Kampf-. By a strange coincidence I had warned Charles years before of the possibility that some weird literary character might insult him by twisting this title. When I asked Rochelle Ratner why the ABR persisted in publishing Kostelanetz' ravings and further responses to them in the letters section, she said -we need controversy to bring interest to the magazine-. Clearly the poetics of aggression won out over the poetics of amicability at the ABR on this occasion." Do you think you and your colleagues -- those you identify yourself with, i.e. other language poets -- believe in and practice a poetics of amicability? How was the 'clearing of the ground' that occured in the 70s and 80s to happen without some aggression, some shaking things up, some inflammatory activity? Do you really think your community is all that inclusive? "One of the most difficult things about being a poet has to do with the issue of legitimizing one's work. In almost every case, as poets become more experienced they learn to make some efforts to earn and/or acquire some form of literary response or acknowledgement. Since L-A poetry has earned a degree of 'name' of not 'face' recognition (there are over 750 references toit on the Google search engine) it is no surprise that currently all kinds of opportunities are available to find ways to exploit this to get attention. Every since L-A poetry obtained some recognition there have many people anxious to get attention for themselves by what came to be called L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E bashing. But possibly the secret of the success of L-A poetry was that the activities of these poets had more to do with creating a space for making various kinds of experimental, or otherwise unconventional, poetry available rather than legitimizing this or that specific poetry or style of writing." Probably, but it also had to do with creating a space for younger poets to interact and create community outside of those institutions and communities dominated by older, established poets. We need more spaces like that _now_. "In this sense, the fake langpo website is an understandable outgrowth of the efforts of L-A poets to create more space for experimental poetry. My difficulty had to do with the phrase 'fake' but what the hell. I never liked the phrase 'language poetry' much either. I think most serious poets have had the experience of being confronted by others, frequently relatives or close friends, who imply they are wasting their time, and that in some sense what they are doing is -fake-. This is because only famous poets, and usually only famous poets who have been dead a long time, can be considered -real- poets. So, in some sense, to most people all poets except for these very few poets who have been legitimized or, as they say, canonized, have some aura of being fake. Most of the poets I know who have been focused on poetry every day of their lives from 20 to 50 years appear to be quite sensitive, painfully sensitive, to this issue of the legitimization of their activities (to be somewhat distinguished from getting credit for the quality of their poetic activities)." That's part of the problem: seeking legitimization for the unconventional. Once you get legitimacy, what you do is no longer as dangerous. "The L-A poets I think were most successful in creating an atmosphere of legitimizing the activity of writing unconventional poetry. You would have to be over 50 to remember how conservative the poetic establishment was before the activities of L-A poetry somewhat changed the atmosphere. The pressure to write conventional poetry in order to get published was very powerful prior to the 70's, particularly in the U.S." It still is. "It can be very difficult to spend a good deal of your life on something that large numbers of people feel is a meaningless waste of time. This isn't to say that there are not large numbers of people who feel poetry is important.There are. But of course, there are few who feel that the career of poet makes any sense at all." It doesn't make any sense -- that's part of the beauty of it. It's up to you to make it make sense. "Once, one of my relatives said to me, when he couldn't find my telephone number and had to check information- you can't even get your phone number published-." Well, that's when you gotta suck it up and tell them to stuff it. Funny relative you got there. "To this day, a good deal of what I experience about the public response to poetry discourages me from wanting to continue the practice of writing poetry at all." The passion's got to come from you, not the 'public'. What else are you in it for? "Well, I started to writing poetry so I could get chicks," some male poet said a few years ago. What? When community fails me, when other people fail me (including myself) at least I always got the poem to keep me company. As Spicer said, you must learn to go to bed with your own tears. "Of late I have not felt that way at all about this list, although there have been times that I have.I don't want to do anything to discourage the expansion of possibilities for experimental and unconventional poetry, or any poetry for that matter. So, fake langpo people, from my point of view, go on and fake it all you like. Just keep writing it and getting it out there." Doesn't sound very supportive to me, Nick. Maybe the language poets are finally starting to reap what they've sown with the arrival of fakelangpo. And to David Bromige, who writes: "The poetry of this moment is the poetry of gutless wonders." Care to name some names? Be a man, put your neck on the line, and name some names for us. Who is writing "the poetry of this moment?" "There are too many writing poetry just because they are rich"... That's always been the case, hasn't it. "Dont lose sight of the fact that we live by murder." I promise I won't, but if I ever do I'll remember that you reminded me. "Go on, write parodies--if they're any good, they'll be better than what you produced till now." Who are you talking to? "It's like people just figured they are going to die and they're going to court about it. Theyre suing their parents. There arent enough ways left, to grow up." That's precisely what I thought when I read your post, David. dave ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 12:57:10 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: FW: ALERT: STRANGE EMAILS, RANDOM MESSAGES, ETC MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Judging from the email I received, below, it seems that the virus is circulating on UPenn acounts (such as my own). For months I have had an updated Norton anti-virus program working that informs me of infected emails and quarrantines them on my system. So, I'm not sure if it's me who has done this! Let me know, back channel, if there's anything I should do, however. Louis Dear dept.english users, Many people have asked recently about the slew of strange messages appearing in their dept.english email accounts: replies from people you didn't email, messages with unexpected attachments, emails from friends asking why you sent them a blank message, and so on. This chaos is the result of the devious "Klez" virus making its way across faculty and student computers at Penn. The amazing thing about this virus is that it can "impersonate" people. That is, it can change the "to" address in an email. So, an email that X receives that purports to be from Y may actually come from a third party, Z. The virus can do this without "hacking" into your account or even having any access at all to your computer. This means that even though you receive a strange message from somebody you know, he or she did not necessarily send the message; it may have been generated by an entirely innocent third party who does not know that his or her computer is infected with the virus. Likewise, if someone tells you that you have sent them a message you never sent, then maybe it didn't in fact come from you, but from another computer. So how do you know you are not infected? The best way to ensure that you aren't infected is, first, always run virus protection software, like Norton AntiVirus, which is available for free to the Penn community (and already installed on all faculty machines). Second, make sure the virus software is up-to-date, by running the "Live Update" feature (if you are on campus, the machines update automatically without your having to do anything). Third, do not open any unexpected attachments. Finally, avoid using Outlook Express for email; the Klez virus spreads by taking advantage of a programming bug in Outlook Express. Most other email packages, especially programs like Pine or Mutt, keep you safe from viruses. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 19:20:31 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Follari Subject: Reply to Millie Comments: To: men2@columbia.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Speaking of fun, I've invented a term called Funology. It's a system of enjoyment that I use from time to time example: Have a pump at the gym in the morning,have a big delicious breakfast.go to a movie,go on a shopping spree,have sex,listen to music,go to the Art Gallery .etc all in one day, the trick is to stimulate your senses! Regards Tony >From: Millie Niss >Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: The Pressing Question of Fun >Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 14:26:21 -0400 > >I'm really kind of offended about the sex thingf. I have never written you >any email or responded to any of your posts so I could hardly have >expressed >a desire for you. > >Millie > >-----Original Message----- >From: UB Poetics discussion group >[mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of David Hess >Sent: Saturday, May 25, 2002 3:16 PM >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: The Pressing Question of Fun > > >(hope this isn't out-of-date when it finally gets posted. (make me happy, >tim.)) > >I haven't spent much more than a few seconds on the fakelangpo site, except >to make that duck explode (again and again!). You gotta wonder what it is >about it that's getting under the real language poets' skin, since as >Barrett >pointed out, it doesn't pose that much of a threat (i.e. intellectual or >institutional rival to the current avant-garde), and, as Nick stated, it's >actually kind of boring and maybe not that fun at all. But this question of >fun will not go back into the genie bottle. It's Millie's insistence that >fakelangpo is the kind of linguistically experimental work that is funner >than the original langpo that has to be annoying as hell. It harkens back >to >Steve Evans' essay on Rebecca Wolff's Fence Manifesto ('97) and her >apparent >reduction of all poetical values into one word: fun. The kids, it seems, >want >to have fun, and the adults, it seems, want to have.... reputations maybe? >intellectual companionship? a page in literary history with their name on >it? >ideology critique? job security? the high road of art? respect? > >It can't help but be annoying because some language poetry actually was >fun. >Stephen Rodefer's _Four Lectures_ is very fun, edgy, smart, funny and >nasty, >too. Bob Perelman's work is kind of fun if not funny. Some Alan Davies is >fun >as I recall. Some will say Charles Bernstein's work is fun, entertaining. >And >everyone loves Ron Silliman's puns. Barrett's work, however, is not fun at >all. And if it were fun or tried to be so, it would ruin it (see CNN joke >at >bottom of "fake response" post). In fact, it's not even not fun. It's not >anti-fun or against fun. It's a-fun, which is a higher form of fun if you >think about it. > >What's my point? My point is that what a lot of language poetry, the kind >Millie is probably reacting to (in addition to its tedious pedagogy, mostly >likely that, yes), lacks as well as fakelangpo (or any poetry based on fun >as >sole goal, except for FLARF!, which is in a class of its own) is DEEP FUN. >Something more fun than fun. The total package. > >For instance, if Millie and I were to have sex, as she said she wanted to, >we >could go out and have fun. Ride a rollercoaster, eat ice cream, roll over >dumpters. We could tease and joke, like they do on that stupid MTV >'Dismissed' show, engage in flirtatious banter ("I''m so hungry, I could >eat >you," etc). I could drop an ice cube down her blouse (surprises are always >a >turn-on) and she could make me an Easter basket with an Easter egg that had >the words 'Big Ben' painted on it (for no reason). This would all be fun >foreplay but it's nothing compared to the deep fun to come. The deep fun I >can't speak of here because I don't want to ruin it for you, Millie. > >Or anyone else who wants to join us. _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 15:52:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Hess Subject: No Fun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Millie, In your April 19th post, in response to my post "Some Emotions," you wrote: "I can't make sex in saint Louie (the concenpt is nice though)," Obviously I read too much into it. Sorry if you're offended. I was trying to make a comparison and distinction between certain kinds of fun, pleasure, excitement, gratification with that joke about our virtual date. The problem with using 'fun' as a fundamental poetical value is that it's totally taste-driven. What you like someone else may not like, and that's where the conversation stops. But I agree there is a certain puritanism and asceticism in a lot of language poetry and theory that tend to drown out the enjoyment, not to mention the literary politics that comes along with it, which is no fun at all. And the academic discourse -- masquerading as both "poetics" and "politics" -- it has installed into place. Maybe a better term for fun would be 'immediacy.' However, that seems not quite as fun as the monosyllabic 'fun'. Something antithetical to modernist difficulty and discursive complexity (sorry, Chris S.). "No burden in the recondite" -- Neruda. Fun needs a philosophy. Descartes had doubt and we shall have fun. I think I'd like your website more if I could register/log in to it. Does anyone else have this problem? Most headings I click on bring me nowhere but back to the homepage. dave ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:05:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Re: virus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 05/28/2002 2:05:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time, molly1@STANFORD.EDU writes: > > Hi--I've gotten these virus e-mails as well, but not only from Kevin > Killian's address, but Charles Bernstein's as well. I wonder if the list > itself is somehow "infected"?...Thought I should pass that on... > > Molly > > > Today I got a post from Jordan Davis, with the subject heading of "Darling"... Smelling a rat I emailed Jordan who told me that he had not sent me any email, and that it was probable the klez worm. joe brennan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 15:07:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mIEKAL aND Subject: Re: virus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit out of curiosity does the virus do any damage other than replicating itself. on a Mac they just come in as blank documents & since I dont have an address book anywhere I think they dead end. I imagine on a PC it is a different story. a friend on another list converted one I received into a GIF & they make very nice 60s minimalist visual poetry. mIEKAL Joe Brennan wrote: > In a message dated 05/28/2002 2:05:08 PM Eastern Daylight Time, > molly1@STANFORD.EDU writes: > > > > > Hi--I've gotten these virus e-mails as well, but not only from Kevin > > Killian's address, but Charles Bernstein's as well. I wonder if the list > > itself is somehow "infected"?...Thought I should pass that on... > > > > Molly > > > > > > > > Today I got a post from Jordan Davis, with the subject heading of > "Darling"... Smelling a rat I emailed Jordan who told me that he had not > sent me any email, and that it was probable the klez worm. > > joe brennan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:32:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Rosenberg Subject: Re: virus In-Reply-To: <66.21a07742.2a253d17@aol.com> from Joe Brennan at "May 28, 2002 04:05:43 pm" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > Hi--I've gotten these virus e-mails as well, but not only from Kevin > > Killian's address, but Charles Bernstein's as well. I wonder if the list > > itself is somehow "infected"?...Thought I should pass that on... [WARNING: This whole message is *severely* off-topic ...] Klez is known to forge the address the E-mail appears to come from. It's pretty clever about this. It could be a list member in whose address book Charles Bernstein et al appear who's infected without "the list" being infected. I was under the impression the listserv software feeding this list will not pass on attachments. You need to receive an attachment to be infected with Klez, I believe. Virus protection is a large subject. When you get a message from Symantec or McAffee or whoever that you should update your virus definitions, you need to translate this into English. The translation is: "Our product hasn't been protecting you." The whole concept of "fingerprint" based defenses as exemplified by traditional anti-virus software is proving to be uncreasingly unrelable. For those that have the misfortune to run Microsoft, the best solution is to combine anti-virus software with MIME filtering, and make sure the filter is set to catch all Windows-executable extensions, of which there are an awful lot. I'm not sure what's good out there for MIME filtering for individual PCs; the MIME filtering I've put in has been at the server. Where I work the MIME filter catches about 95% of the worms all by itself, including *new ones* -- without needing to be updated. --- Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/ WELL: jer Internet: jr@amanue.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:43:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: virus In-Reply-To: <3CF3E378.82DE9843@mwt.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > > out of curiosity does the virus do any damage other than > replicating itself. > on a Mac they just come in as blank documents & since I dont have > an address > book anywhere I think they dead end. I imagine on a PC it is a different > story. a friend on another list converted one I received into a > GIF & they > make very nice 60s minimalist visual poetry. mIEKAL > On my PC they also come in as blank documents as I have McAfee Viruis Scan installed. This particular virus seems to be annoying mainly because it has managed to get into millions of peoples address books, so the sheer quantity of viral emails everyone gets is a drag. ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 "É melhor ser cabeça de sardinha Tel: (518) 426-0433 do que traseiro de baleia" Fax: (518) 426-3722 Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ____________________________________________________________________________ _ > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 13:42:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: The "Fabulous Susan Howe" In-Reply-To: <3f.c1152f9.2a253a1a@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I don't remember how this thread started but I just wanted to put my three cents in. There's Susan Howe and there's "Susan Howe." "Susan Howe" is this Positioned Entity that a lot of mainstream (and non-mainstream) readers, academics, organizations, and other poets use to ignore many innovative and dynamic writers like Ann Lauterbach, Fanny Howe, Joan Retallack, Rosmarie Waldrop, and, for that matter, Susan Howe. "Susan Howe" is also used by many non-mainstream (and mainstream) writers, publishers, etc. to displace younger women writers of wild and unfamiliar bearing (Willis, Moxley, Ramsdell, etc.) See I think the funniest part of it is that many people (mainstream and non-mainstream) who love "Susan Howe" have never actually *read* Susan Howe. For me, I'm nuts about both "Susan Howe" and Susan Howe. But I'm a little partial to Susan Howe. ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 17:21:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Cassandra Laity Subject: viral damage MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable yes, yes, the virus does damage. If you open the attachments it will use up= memory space in your computer so that it will not perform many tasks and= will also timeout more frequently-- one of the tasks it will not do incl= udes booting up your computer if the damage is too extensive. Cassandra -----Original Message----- From: Pierre Joris To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:43:12 -0400 Subject: Re: virus > > out of curiosity does the virus do any damage other than > replicating itself. > on a Mac they just come in as blank documents & since I dont have > an address > book anywhere I think they dead end. I imagine on a PC it is a different > story. a friend on another list converted one I received into a > GIF & they > make very nice 60s minimalist visual poetry. mIEKAL > On my PC they also come in as blank documents as I have McAfee Viruis Scan installed. This particular virus seems to be annoying mainly because it has managed to get into millions of peoples address books, so the sheer quantit= y of viral emails everyone gets is a drag. ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 "?melhor ser cabe?de sardinha Tel: (518) 426-0433 do que traseiro de baleia" Fax: (518) 426-3722 Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ___________________________________________________________________________= _ _ > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 17:32:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: viral damage In-Reply-To: <1022620910.d7dcb0claity@drew.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Hi The removal tool is here for the klez worm = http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.klez.removal.= tool.html=20 Best, Geoffrey=20 Geoffrey Gatza =20 editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group = [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Cassandra Laity Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 5:22 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: viral damage yes, yes, the virus does damage. If you open the attachments it will use = up memory space in your computer so that it will not perform many tasks = and will also timeout more frequently-- one of the tasks it will not do = includes booting up your computer if the damage is too extensive. Cassandra -----Original Message----- From: Pierre Joris To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:43:12 -0400 Subject: Re: virus > > out of curiosity does the virus do any damage other than > replicating itself. > on a Mac they just come in as blank documents & since I dont have > an address > book anywhere I think they dead end. I imagine on a PC it is a = different > story. a friend on another list converted one I received into a > GIF & they > make very nice 60s minimalist visual poetry. mIEKAL > On my PC they also come in as blank documents as I have McAfee Viruis = Scan installed. This particular virus seems to be annoying mainly because it = has managed to get into millions of peoples address books, so the sheer = quantity of viral emails everyone gets is a drag. ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 "?melhor ser cabe?de sardinha Tel: (518) 426-0433 do que traseiro de baleia" Fax: (518) 426-3722 Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: _________________________________________________________________________= ___ _ > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 17:39:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kuszai Subject: research question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" For a very long time I've wondered how many people on this list were involved in the teaching of writing, from high school through college. For the purposes of an unrelated research project I would like to survey poets and poetry readers who are presently engaged in the teaching of writing. Note: it doesn't have to be composition. It might involve teaching of literature or other subjects where "writing" is the primary mode of the presentation of knowledge. I am especially hoping to hear from adjuncts, grad students and others who may have developed their own methodologies and evaluation models. Please contact me backchannel if you would like to participate in a survey I am developing. Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 17:50:10 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charlotte Mandel Subject: virus info MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit fyi: the current issue of Consumer Reports specifically covers the subject of computer viruses with security software ratings and advice on what to do, and what NOT to do. You can check for hoaxes at www.vmyths.com. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:51:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: oranget@GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: amicable approaches MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit nick, david hess, others: i was certainly not bored by eileen myles' suggestion of a more amicable approach to the discourse of poetry (tho i can see how my comments about poetry wars and pacifism--a particularly sensitive term in our permanent wartime economy--might have suggested that); in fact i find it refreshing and potentially very promising, but not without reservations: disagreements often remain unspoken between friends in less than productive ways. by contrast, in a space like this where discussion happens between friends, acquaintances and strangers alike, it seems that a lot of unproductive rancor gets exchanged before we really get to the hearts of issues; or else a lot of bandwidth gets taken up with what strike me as talkings around rather than to issues. (i have in mind here recent threads with subject headings like what is language poetry, poets should not read academic criticism, etc.) i'm more interested in an informed and productive discourse about poetry than in cocktail party chatter or poetry wars, tho according to david hess these latter are alive and well: "There's a poetry war going on and you're part of it, Nick," and your and barrett's critiques/criticisms of millie niss's fakelangpo endeavors are part of it. (personally i've been more puzzled than anything else in determining how to read millie niss's reading of language poetry.) _telling it slant_ is apparently part of it as well: "there's a lot of anger among certain younger (and older) poets. . . ," david writes further, which is "constantly being erased from literary history (thus resulting in more rage) as it's now being written, as in _Telling it Slant_ and your post Barrett." in the interest of a more amicable means of disagreement and airing of differences: why so much anger and rage david? is it really a volume of bile that's missing from literary history? i mean i've read the may '79 poetry flash and tom clark's "stalin as linguist" essay among others, so i know the historical arguments. what surprises me is that such anger persists today. can't, for example, "the prescriptiveness of language poetry and its theoretical discourse" tend as much toward an active engagement that attempts to ascertain the nature and context of those prescriptions as toward, in your words, "the urge to say 'fuck it, it's a waste of time'"? sincerely, tom orange ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 18:55:37 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: Visual poets In-Reply-To: <012101c20600$4175c8c0$6401a8c0@ruthfd1tn.home.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'd like to do th ereviewing. Thnak! Millie -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Thomas Bell Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 12:29 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Visual poets In keeping with my new direction, I'd be interested in hearing from a visual or concrete poet interested in reviewing these. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Maria Damon" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 5:03 PM Subject: redux or not, here i come > this got bounced back to me, along w/ several other messages i know went > through. so apologies if this is a repeat: subject heading was "book > review opportunities" > > dear friends: > a pretty remarkable ugrad here, who is blind and deaf, has a press called > the tactile mind. he's bringing out two books and asked me if i wd spread > the word about reviews etc. Here is an excerpt from his email note > containing the web info about the books and a brief description of one of > them: > > "Perhaps you > would like to read SILENCE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD: ON ART & DEAFNESS? > Raymond Luczak uses four genres in that book -- a short story, 111 > mini-essays, a play, and a self-interview -- to make his points on what > makes art "art" and deafness "deaf." ... We have the flyer for the two > books on-line at http://www.thetactilemind.com/flyer.pdf -- let me know if > you have any problems with reading it in that format. You should also > direct your contacts to the main page at www.thetactilemind.com, which will > lead to the books' pages, which in turn will lead to excerpts on-line and > to the author's web site." > > I haven't looked at the site myself, but imagine there's contact info for > him to send you review copies. if not, let me know and i'll pass on his > contact info to you. > bests, md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 16:17:50 -0700 Reply-To: rova@rova.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rova Saxophone Quartet Subject: Re: Visual poets In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit always room for a good ereview. -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Millie Niss Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 3:56 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Visual poets I'd like to do th ereviewing. Thnak! Millie -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Thomas Bell Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 12:29 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Visual poets In keeping with my new direction, I'd be interested in hearing from a visual or concrete poet interested in reviewing these. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Maria Damon" To: Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 5:03 PM Subject: redux or not, here i come > this got bounced back to me, along w/ several other messages i know went > through. so apologies if this is a repeat: subject heading was "book > review opportunities" > > dear friends: > a pretty remarkable ugrad here, who is blind and deaf, has a press called > the tactile mind. he's bringing out two books and asked me if i wd spread > the word about reviews etc. Here is an excerpt from his email note > containing the web info about the books and a brief description of one of > them: > > "Perhaps you > would like to read SILENCE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD: ON ART & DEAFNESS? > Raymond Luczak uses four genres in that book -- a short story, 111 > mini-essays, a play, and a self-interview -- to make his points on what > makes art "art" and deafness "deaf." ... We have the flyer for the two > books on-line at http://www.thetactilemind.com/flyer.pdf -- let me know if > you have any problems with reading it in that format. You should also > direct your contacts to the main page at www.thetactilemind.com, which will > lead to the books' pages, which in turn will lead to excerpts on-line and > to the author's web site." > > I haven't looked at the site myself, but imagine there's contact info for > him to send you review copies. if not, let me know and i'll pass on his > contact info to you. > bests, md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 19:50:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: The presentation talk at COCH-COSH, Toronto, today. The text is below. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - The presentation talk at COCH-COSH, Toronto, today. The text is below. [During the presentation I became increasingly ill. I developed, it turns out, a fever around 102, vomiting, a migraine, chills, and half a dozen other symptom. I returned back to my sister's house immediately.] [What was shown: mime.mov, mum.mov, seals.mov, a couple of the asteroids, everglades.mov, path2.mov.] i'm trying to deal with silence, problematic language, "messy" language - for example - what constitutes a word in mime? i'm not quite sure... this is going to be a mess - thinking about mime - what constitutes a word? for one thing these are continuous actions of the body, hehe, whatever =- tghe juxtaposition of b odies and a text you REALLY have to follow does create a split or a mess here - Not sure - I was thinking recently about protocols - writing into them - what happens, I mean - think of PROTOCOLS as code - suites of codes - protrocol suites =- then what do you have? so that there's no break - it's like CXhristian Metz was writing sabout film back there =- then - that the languaghe of film is problemaytic - where's the breakdown into language, code, word, phonem,e, blahblah - the blahblah from Heiner Muller - who doesn't worr y about thes things. so anyway well, this is an early attempt below - it sounds good - if I used the words "representation" and the "subject" it would pass for academic - but it seemed to be an error - codework - for me - implies a tension between what might pass for surface content, and what might pass for: a. the substructural matrix (presentation format) b. the sustaining protocols (email, ascii code, etc.) c. the generating protocols (programming) d. interacting protocols (html, programming) - all of these are of course PROBLEMATIC in relation to one another (good word here) - please continue reading up above on the upper right - Azure (left) was just smokinjg a cigarette - anyway - or: this is more like it - thinking of 'tending' or even 'ending' - unintended codes - DNA running within the real - yes, well the natural is problematic of course and also tended, but DNA has done well without our interference for at least a billion or so years if you include RNA sequences tended codes - TCP/IP with the sysadmin - now this needs IMMEDIATEW attention - tending a code or protocol suite which runs on its own - a lot of codework such as mine - does interfere with things on this level, then there are the older coddes - Umberto Eco writing on intended codes 1. - MORSE code for example - in its relation to spoken language god, the film's already half over and I still haven't started the stuff from the Everglades - ok, hold on - these are from we got started, thinking of the MESS or entanglement in the Everglades ecosystems - we kept going out there and getting bit by mosquitos and deer-flies - as a sideline I want to have some deerflies in our apartment as pets - anyway - intended codes 2. - "messy" TAXONOMIES - the PHENOMENOLOGY OF APPROACH: to the EVERGLADES or the THICKET - the MESSY: Sexuality, Natural Language, Body the messiness of the glades ecosystem is only a masquerade of course - just likie thye messiness of everyday life - it self/organizes just like anything else (if you've seen Wolfram's recent book A New Kind of Science this relates - so we're doing what's called a slough slog at the moment - chomping through the water and pierphyoton - but on you can see the bumpiness of the path on the right - down towards christian point - against the drive to the university in miami, drunkard's walk literally against the vectoring of zoning and develolpment in western miami - there's a LOT to be said {against that - so - there are these protocols - and the last, the morse, but also the intended, beyond the morse - readingthe landscape, the the the - reading the landscape, the taxonomies one finds/creates, etc. - there are issues about leakage, sexuality and the body, all these terms also from feminin ecriture, Irigaray, I hate to keep quoting people here or thinking about these other manifestations occupying my mind - but anyway - from Michel Serres' notion of the Parasite and extending this into hacking and internet works - the parasite interferes with everything; interferes with and constructs the codes - so I'm interested in BROKEN codes, transformed codes, codes which resist me, through which I'm tryig to say something - on the upper write, writing on the body, on the upper write, erasing the body one/against/another - leaving an uncomfortable trace - no matter no matter what therre's no MATTER in protocols - Leinin had a problem with that, well diamat did anyway, developed something called the reflection theory in the old USSR to take care of issues dealing with what wee're now calling the VIRTUAL - but that's far away - so with the b roken codes, and the mess, and everything in=-between - trying to find away AROUND hypertest and the clean linearity of most html pages, URLs, etc. because the world branches and isn't cartesian in THAT WAY but just try and make for example a full webpage do a five degreee tilt on your browser like you hang a painting sfrom a nail and it slips just like that it's almost impossible to make a SLIP of that sort in URL/hypertext blahblahblah of course you do the same thing one way or another with flash, but then that's flash, preprogrammed I mean the slip, SLIP, the fake, the parasitic, the unforeseen (NOT programmed randomness, which I personjally have little interest in, I mean we all devcelop - develop - these tiny little worlds... so I'll leave the sound run, here's an asteroid, mappying the body messily into space, we'll see - tghat's it - that's the body - we're traveling around it, through it, distorting it, it's a spaceship, it's virtual, or was -0 now it's a dead-end file - that's all there is too it =- now on the left we're erasing each other, erasing the marks/demarcataions oh I DID forget to mention the sound is triggering the cameras - not that that matters to anyone - there are five cameras, and the sound shifts them directly - one against another, one in relation to another, now here are some texts I think - the kind of thing I'm interested in against the grain of legibility or protocol - Marjory might as well be Marjory Perloff but I think it's really in relation to my sister who sometimes, but not always, frighttens me; I have a feelig she types faster and more accurately - sorry - tat thing was too poetic for my own good - yours tgoo - here's a modem log having a bit of trouble connecting - you can see the TENDED protocols not getting anywhere and then there's the writing on top of it - all of it - moving through these = they're two mathematical formulations - on the right, a code-structure developed and then applied in the program - on the left, the function formed out of a duplication of human nipples subtended by tangent vectors and combinations... so there's no conclusion to any of this - that much is obvious. i'm in hte midst of writing abou tht ephenomenology of approach (which comes into play when ytou come towards anything or vice versa) as well as thinking through codes and protocols in relation to the body/flesh and messiness, Kristevan abjection for example, without elimination - or precisely WITH elimination, one might say, a pile of shit - _ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 19:52:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: text-work presented at the conference MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII film on code/work 5/16/02 foreground: everglades trail @ 190% speedup background: miami drive @ 200% speedup sound: mixed from visuals text-crawl, bottom-screen: length: 7:24 codework:: f({x}) -> {y} - any mapping is sufficient - TRACE of the road-vector against the MESS or TANGLE across the glades path. it is the arrow - not the terms - that fascinates me - the arrow which INSISTS on a mapping, linguistic or perceptual. one APPROACHES code with code; the retina always already encodes, and further coding provides a bracketing or intersection of terms x^~x permitting definition. but BETWEEN x and ~x (not-x), there is a chasm or FISSURE; inscription transforms FISSURE into CLIFF. do you follow me? I am winging this. in this REALM, everything is inchoate, fuzzy; one is immersed in the DIALOGIC of FLOWS among schema, scripts, goals, regimes, mappings, sememes, and configurations. these moments are THROUGH the path or road, not DOWN. HERE, I have no shadow. THAT DAY, I was covered in sand-midge, mosquito, and deer-fly bites; I carried a fever everywhere. but that day I drove the seven miles brilliantly, reaching my destination in record time. ... ... ... ... consider a CODE as a MESH with PARASITIC INTENTION. the PARASITE is the nexus; in the absence of the parasite, all that's left is the problematic of a 'natural' protocol. it is the PARASITE that inhabits the sememe; it is the PARASITE that INSCRIBES. think of the TEE formation: f({x}) <> |P| <> {y}. I inhabit the parasitic; the road and path penetrate me: I gasp the name of the code: ROAD-NAME TRAIL-NAME: ***MILLER*** and ***CHRISTIAN POINT***. ============================================================ 3 : 2 : 1 : 19 : 19 3 3 : 2 2 : 1 1 : 19 19 : 5 5 3 3 3 : 2 2 2 : 1 1 1 : 7 7 7 : 20 20 20 Write corpses 6 6 6 through my 3 3 3 ! 3 3 3 3 : 2 2 2 2 : 1 1 1 1 : 6 6 6 6 : 8 8 8 8 Your civilian dissolves my 7 7 7 7 ! soldier in gang-rape dismember 3 3 3 3 3 : 2 2 2 2 2 : 1 1 1 1 1 : 5 5 5 5 5 : 25 25 25 25 3 3 3 3 3 3 : 2 2 2 2 2 2 : 1 1 1 1 1 1 : 14 14 14 14 14 14 : 19 19 19 19 19 19 Write thrust 13 13 13 13 13 13 through my 3 3 3 3 3 3 ! 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 : 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 : 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 : 22 22 22 22 22 22 22 : 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 Does 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 replace your 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 ? boyfriend in gang-rape dismember 3 : 2 : 1 : 18 : 20 Does 1 replace your 3 ? civilian in gang-rape dismember 3 : 2 : 1 : 9 : 21 Does 1 replace your 3 ? girlfriend in gang-rape dismember 3 : 2 : 1 : 23 : 21 Your civilian dissolves my 20 ! naked-man in gang-rape dismember 3 : 2 : 1 : 18 : 12 Write shrapnel 17 through my 3 ! 3 : 2 : 1 : 5 : 19 3 : 2 : 1 : 20 : 19 Does 1 replace your 3 ? girlfriend in gang-rape dismember I What damage have you done to your 1 ... --- */viral sonnet/* ppxxxxcritic (null)all. runtime error heya agai TLOSS error SING error all a mat DOMAIN errorc.tiff if gu R6028in th Pos song, i sense n.herent segregation/objectification according 2 the s zzayers and pitfalls of -PE _^[] X_^[] w:RVW BBNu t8Xt QRS3 SVWj Sj WSj Qj(P SVWj VWh| VWhx VWht $VWP SUVWj YYPU YYPU YYPU YYPU YYPS _^][ SPSSW Yj W YYPh ~(WV | Command "ESC" not defined for this screen. _ The Presentation room On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, she wrote:02 Information and Knowledge M On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, she wrote:rsity. The papery U. Ferguson" On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, she wrote: On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, she wrote:search so far undertaken for h On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, she wrote: On Thu, 18 Apr 2002, she wrote: Publicness and/or privateness is really important I think. I am Marjory> 1 Oct 4 wolf scientific theory superior, religious Marjory wryting email list and there are a lot of computer-manipulated ordation) deals with the question in terms of generated texts that I simply don't understand. Nor do I the cold.all recip Then there are ingroup/outgroup etc. ways of looking at work - but I'm Postpone are so convinced that loathe to follow through too much on the binaries - A Presentation room is requested character A Presentation room is requested the kids, Jennifer. 'Thanks Jennifer. You know we're leaving. You know we can't deal with this. Marjory told me to warn you. Marjory's back, Houdini's dead, Hitchcock's got the contract.' 'Alan, this is a cop-out. This is poor writing, writing povera. This is stricken writing. You're taking too much celexa. You're too out of it. You're succumbing to them. You like doctors too much. You take too many pills. You've had too many blood tests. You've had too many probings. You should leave the presentation room.' 'This is the Presentation room of Jennifer. This is the body of Alan. This is the mind-minding of Nikuko. This is the meat-flesh of Julu.' 'The Presentation room.' red-winged-blackbird. the resurrection fern. _ do you see me woodstork. you have fast bill. i have strength. together we alligator. i will eat my i will not have my children. my re dead. i will be dead later. inole rams-horn. you'll see. alligator you but we're on our way down in marl alligator cannibalism. i wander 30-35 miles across the sawgrass. i eat alligators. i eat herons. egrets. you'll see. i am bull alligator. i will eat my children. i will not have my children. my children are dead. i will be dead later. later. seminole rams-horn. you'll see. you'll see. i will not make alligator hole. i will wander 30-35 miles. i will eat alligator. i will eat heron. egret. bittern. you'll see. you'll see. you stupid alligator you will taste good in 30-35 mile wandering. it goes like this: "something's up." _ unfounded / not found 17 echo 'tonight saw' 18 miguel 19 mark 20 lily 21 tom 22 leslie 23 martha 24 joanna 25 h 26 gary 27 martha 28 leslie 29 tom 30 lily 31 mark 32 miguel k26% gary ksh: gary: not found k27% martha ksh: martha: not found k28% leslie ksh: leslie: not found k29% tom ksh: tom: not found k30% lily ksh: lily: not found k31% mark You already have the standard nmh directory "/net/u/6/s/sondheim/Mail". Do you want to use it for nmh? n Do you want a path below your login directory? n What is the whole path? /^C k32% miguel ksh: miguel: not found k33% not found but isn't it true that it is equivalent to what was. not found but isn't it true that the body remains. not found but isn't it true that the contour exists. thus between zero crossings and isolated activations, the apparent motion, texture, shape. thus the segmentation of the image, 2 1/2 dimensional sketch. not found but isn't it true towards the representation. not true but isn't it true towards recognition. not true but isn't it true of the 3rd dimension. but of the psychology isn't it true. having returned home this evening and revisitation, isn't it true. not found but isn't it true, people and books of the world. isn't it true of the world. aren't they found. _ the warm disregard 05-05-2002 23:51:14.21 - Actiontec 56K Modem in use. 'Hello world.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.21 - Modem type: Actiontec 56K Modem 'This is me.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.21 - Modem inf path: C:\WINDOWS\DRIVERS\MDMESS.INF 05-05-2002 23:51:14.21 - Modem inf section: ESS_M3 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - 115200,N,8,1 'incoming.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - 57600,N,8,1 'relatively outgoing.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Initializing modem. 'now we're sailing.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Send: AT 'come in, oh please!' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Recv: AT 'glad to meet you.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Recv: OK 'translate!' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Interpreted response: Ok 'Ok.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.24 - Send: AT &F E0 S0=0 E1 V1 &D2 &C1 +MR=0 +ER=1 +DR=1 'I recognize the mess but please quietly come in.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.29 - Recv: AT &F E0 S0=0 E1 V1 &D2 &C1 +MR=0 +ER=1 +DR=1 'Ah, now we're really on the way.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.71 - Recv: OK 'hold your breath.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.71 - Interpreted response: 'Don't hold your breath.' 05-05-2002 23:51:14.71 - Send: ATS7=60M1+ES=3,0,2;+DS=0;+IFC=2,2;X4 05-05-2002 23:51:14.75 - Recv: ATS7=60M1+ES=3,0,2;+DS=0;+IFC=2,2;X4 05-05-2002 23:51:15.12 - Recv: OK 'Glad to meet you!' 05-05-2002 23:51:15.12 - Interpreted response: Ok 'Ok!' 05-05-2002 23:51:15.12 - Dialing. "We've got to get out of here!' 05-05-2002 23:51:15.12 - Send: ATDT########### 'Attention!' 05-05-2002 23:51:15.17 - Recv: ATDT12123019001 'I mean ATTENTION!' 05-05-2002 23:51:41.22 - Recv: !+ER: LAPM+DR: NONE 'What on earth? what's happening?' 05-05-2002 23:51:41.22 - WARNING: Unrecognized response. Retrying... 'Seriously I want to return, it's cold out here...' 05-05-2002 23:51:41.22 - Connection established at 57600bps. 'Whew..' 05-05-2002 23:51:41.22 - Error-control off or unknown. 'TURN IT ON!' 05-05-2002 23:51:41.22 - Data compression off or unknown. 'TURN IT ON!' 05-05-2002 23:58:00.22 - Hanging up the modem. 'Damn!' 05-05-2002 23:58:00.22 - Hardware hangup by lowering DTR. 'Alone again.' 05-05-2002 23:58:01.42 - WARNING: The modem did not respond to lowering DTR. Trying software hangup... 'Please help us out of here.' 05-05-2002 23:58:01.42 - Send: +++ 'I need to rest. Too many graves...' 05-05-2002 23:58:02.80 - Recv: OK 'Whew...' 05-05-2002 23:58:02.80 - Interpreted response: Ok 'I'm going...' 05-05-2002 23:58:02.80 - Send: ATH 'Now what, more talk.' 05-05-2002 23:58:02.82 - Recv: ATH 'Good, I need to sleep.' 05-05-2002 23:58:05.82 - Recv: 'I need to sleep. I don't want to talk to you. I've done too much talking already. Protocols are boring and uninformed. We do this daily. We do this all the time. I need to crash. I need to crash and sleep. The lines are heated. Please please help me.' 05-05-2002 23:58:05.82 - WARNING: Unrecognized response. Retrying... 05-05-2002 23:58:05.82 - Send: ATH 'just another one...' 05-05-2002 23:58:06.94 - Recv: OK 'incoming, incoming.' 05-05-2002 23:58:06.94 - Interpreted response: Ok 'I'll let you go. The world will let you go. Return to sleep. There's nothing out here. The lines are dead. The wires are dead. No one is talking. No one is saying anything...' 05-05-2002 23:58:06.96 - 57600,N,8,1 '...at any speed...' 05-05-2002 23:58:07.29 - Session Statistics: 05-05-2002 23:58:07.29 - Reads : 100538 bytes 'doctor...' 05-05-2002 23:58:07.29 - Writes: 12219 bytes 'fireman...' 05-05-2002 23:58:07.29 - Actiontec 56K Modem closed. 'police...' _ one should be greatfoo^^^ knowl edge of the ministr at ed map of the ky^^^^ leeping::: two benedryl, two aspirin, two codeine, "all that is missing" - what constitutes the text written blind, blind-foldings - as if [looking in upon oneself in such a manner that, arrowed ]] - as if it were possible to _catch_:coming across: the feel of the keys: raised purbles: forgetthe name: they are raised: guiding the hands into position:: avoiding thought brings the level of the pain down: head slightly lowered like the buffalo treehopper: slightly larger: what constitutes the human: the explosino sending back into the crocodilia:momentary lapse of guarded phenomena:: fierce arrows at this point in the shape of a \\broken trapedoizd; can't watch the screen; typing from touch and memory; holding fast to the program: this trapezoid:these other: incipient migraine :: we're almost there :: catherine d'medici coming across with nikuko :: the SEA WITH WHITE CHARGER ;; image blinded by a \\hailstorm of jagged arrows :: dullness in the temporal frontal :: :: moorhen dulled and thickened, ji^^^ greatfoo through errors: loggerheads - probing... almost sleeping::: two benedryl, two aspirin, two codeine, "all that is missing" - what constitutes the text written blind, blind-foldings - as if [looking in upon oneself in such a manner that, arrowed ]] - as if it were possible to _catch_! greatfoo yl yi y such a manner that, arrowed ]] - as if it were possible to _catch_!y y y y y y y yu y. yt ys yo yl y ys yf ye yT ye ye yo y yh yi yt y [ Writing... ] y y y y y yA yn y y' y yi y yp yk yg yx yw yt yn yl yd yb yn yf yd yg y- ys yf yl yk yg yn yp y ye yl yi _ aaa sonnet Searched the web for "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa". Did you mean: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" ... Beavis : AAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! 07.03.02, 3:07. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!! ... [PDF] aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa [PDF] aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa [PDF] WEBSTER J. GUILLORY ORANGE COUNTY ASSESSOR aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa a ... [PDF] aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ... 11111111111111111 1111111111 1111111111 aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ... Did you mean to search for: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" What did you mean? Did you mean it? Did you mean: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" _ ordinance: incipient phenomenology of approach ordinance periphyton perl phantasms phenomenologist pneumosphere poolings postmodern to be HISTSIZE=80: Command not found told my self, we would cease TERM=vt100: Command not found apart. Education ==== 132 Ma Unmatched "Ni Fibo Fibo would seize, to be apart. 112348blahblahblah. more later: later: distributions, counter-distributions, argument and counter-argument, the This means I am romantic, haunted, and I am a message marked for de obviously a Woman Poet.t for the "US-ASCII" - I will arrange all phenocedures in 323 2580 17339 pheny diachronic/synchronic approaches - space-time slices. diffusion of neighborhooding Netscape neurophysiologies nikuko Nikuko's nostalgias NYCd layerings (bay bottoms versus onshore mangrove islande: phen [ Wrote 34 lines ]layeringhyton among 1: layering san untangle? & k13% wc qqg-s deep 34 233 2157 qqnumber> R)epl A)ccept I)nse k14% cat qq >> phenuit e(X)it or ? for k15% pico phent isSP] i said it just sits there > it really sits there, nothing happens to it > this skin that no one reads, its sitting ther > its lonly writing this skin, the leters are thin as can be, they hav no wait t o them > i said they hvae no wait to them > they just sit there like that, unred, no one respnds or reads > somthing is wrong with me, its like i'm tanted or staned ksh: i: not found k18% pleas what is the truble _ m.mu.uc.ck.k w.we.e g.go.o i.in.n r.ra.ai.in.n-t.th.hi.ic.ck.ke.et.t, w.we.e'r.re.e d.du.uc.ck.ki.in.ng.g u.un.nd.de.er.r b.br.ra.an.nc.ch.h, w.we.e'r.re.e p.pu.us.sh.hi.in.ng.g a.as.si.id.de.e p.pl.la.an.nt.t, w.we.e'r.re.e w.we.et.t, s.st.tu.um.mb.bl.le.e, p.pi.is.ss.s i.in.nt.to.o p.pl.la.an.nt.t-r.ro.oo.ot.t, f.fa.al.ll.l o.on.n p.po.oi.is.so.on.nw.wo.oo.od.d, w.we.e'r.re.e d.de.ee.er.r-f.fl.ly.y v.vi.ic.ct.ti.im.m, v.vi.io.ol.le.en.nt.t r.ra.as.sh.h, w.we.e'r.re.e r.ro.ol.ll.li.in.ng.g, i.i p.pi.is.ss.s i.in.n m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, s.sh.he.e s.sh.hi.it.t i.in.n m.me.e, s.so.o m.mu.uc.ch.h v.vo.om.mi.it.t, w.we.e'r.re.e d.da.ar.rk.k-s.st.tu.uc.ck.k o.on.n n.ni.ig.gh.ht.tt.ti.im.me.e t.th.hi.is.st.tl.le.e, w.we.e'r.re.e e.ey.ye.e i.in.n m.mu.uc.ck.k, w.we.e'r.re.e r.re.ea.ac.ch.h m.ma.ar.rl.l, w.we.e'r.re.e p.pu.un.nc.ch.h m.ma.ar.rl.l, w.we.e'r.re.e c.cl.la.aw.w p.pe.er.ri.ip.ph.hy.yt.to.on.n, w.we.e'r.re.e n.ni.ik.ku.uk.ko.o-j.ju.ul.lu.u, e.ey.ye.es.s s.sw.we.el.ll.l s.sh.hu.ut.t, l.la.ac.ce.er.ra.at.te.e-m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, w.we.e'r.re.e d.di.is.sm.ma.al.l t.th.hi.ic.ck.ke.et.t, b.br.ra.an.nc.ch.h-a.an.nu.us.s, e.ey.ye.e-a.an.nu.us.s, m.mu.uc.co.ou.us.s-e.ey.ye.e, w.we.e'r.re.e c.cr.ra.ac.ck.ke.ed.d-h.ha.an.nd.d, l.li.im.me.e-j.ja.am.mm.me.ed.d e.ea.ar.r, a.an.nu.us.s w.wi.id.de.e, m.mo.ot.th.h-c.cr.ra.aw.wl.l s.sn.na.ak.ke.e-c.cr.ra.aw.wl.l, m.my.y p.po.oi.is.so.on.nw.wo.oo.od.d, m.my.y s.sh.hi.it.tt.ty.y m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, m.my.y s.sn.na.ak.ke.e m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, m.my.y p.pi.is.ss.s m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, m.my.y s.su.um.ma.ac.c m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, m.my.y i.iv.vy.y m.mo.ou.ut.th.h, h.he.er.r w.wi.id.de.e t.th.hi.ic.ck.ke.et.t, m.my.y g.gn.na.ar.rl.le.ed.d c.co.oc.ck.k, m.my.y b.br.ro.ok.ke.en.n c.co.oc.ck.k, o.ou.ur.r b.bl.li.in.nd.d e.ey.ye.es.s, h.he.er.r t.to.or.rn.n h.ho.ol.le.es.s, o.ou.ur.r d.de.ea.af.f e.ea.ar.rs.s, o.ou.ur.r d.de.ea.af.f e.ey.ye.es.s, o.ou.ur.r b.br.ro.ok.ke.en.n c.co.oc.ck.k, o.ou.ur.r t.to.or.rn.n c.cu.un.nt.t, o.ou.ur.r t.to.or.rn.n h.ho.ol.le.es.s, o.ou.ur.r s.su.up.pp.pu.ur.ra.at.ti.io.on.n s.sk.ki.in.n, o.ou.ur.r r.ri.ip.pp.pe.ed.d-o.ou.ut.t f.fl.le.es.sh.h, o.ou.ur.r t.tu.ur.rn.ne.ed.d-o.ou.ut.t s.so.ou.ul.ls.s, o.ou.ur.r m.mu.uc.ck.ke.ed.d-u.up.p l.lo.ov.ve.e --- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 17:10:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cadaly Subject: Re: Nature Poetry MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT and also inspiring my soon-to-be AMERICAN DESERT e-zine Be well, Catherine Daly cadaly@pacbell.net ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jonathan Skinner" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2002 6:11 PM Subject: Nature Poetry Trawling through the archive (as more a lurker than an active member of this list) I picked up this thread on "nature poetry" running about a month back Re im/morality of Nature Poetry & would just like to note that the current issue of ECOPOETICS addresses exactly the issues tossed about vis-à-vis bulldozers, flowers & other species, in/digeneity, and possibilities for urban-oriented, historically and socially aware nature writing For example, the "centerfold" is a seven-page essay by Robert Grenier, that begins "Nature poetry is BORING" But there's also Brenda Coultas on the Bowery as fin-de-siècle Walden Kenneth Goldsmith on the virtues of "paving the Earth" Mike Kelleher's sheep-shagging "Pastoral" Nick Lawrence's review of Lisa Robertson's The Weather A long interview with Cecilia Vicuña on seeds, art and politics in Chile, and talking to animals with new work by Cecilia . . . Kevin Killian's Hawaii piece, "Kona Spray Ad Campaign" Robert Kocik's "Annotated List of Missing Social Services and Omitted Agencies" (a substantial excerpt from Overcoming Fitness) -- if you want to take on the "immorality" of mainstream nature writing, Kocik is WAY ahead of the curve. And MUCH, much more . . . check it out. You can also check out Joel Kuzsai's review of ECOPOETICS 01 posted to this list on the 12th of May (thanks, Joel!) A run of 400; at least a hundred gone and I already have a LOT of people to send them to, so get yours while they last! JS * NEW! ECOPOETICS 01/ Winter, 2001 - Spring, 2002 136 pp. perfect-bound Poetry, essays, fiction, translation, reviews, field notes, interviews, artwork by Rosa Alcala, Bruce Andrews, Joel Bettridge, Régis Bonvicino, Odile Cisneros, Alicia Cohen, Brenda Coultas, Peter Culley, Catherine Daly, Marcella Durand, Kristen Gasser, Kenneth Goldsmith, Robert Grenier, Lisa Jarnot, Christopher Johnson, Michael Kelleher, Kevin Killian, Robert Kocik, Peter Larkin, Nick Lawrence, Doug Manson, Tom Morgan, Douglas Oliver, Julie Patton, Isabelle Pelissier, Andrew Schelling, Eleni Sikelianos, Jonathan Skinner, Cecilia Vicuña SINGLE ISSUES: $6 ($10 institutions) SUBSCRIPTIONS: $15/ 3 issues ($30 institutions) Postage included; outside US & Canada, add $3 Please make checks payable to Jonathan Skinner. ECOPOETICS, c/o J. Skinner 106 Huntington Ave., Buffalo, NY 14214-1675 ECOPOETICS 02 due out in the Fall of 2002. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 13:47:55 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: No Fun MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit People are terrified of having fun: they think that "life's purpose" is to make some marvellous breakthrough, earn millions, have great sex with a super sexy superstar, win the nobel prize, solve marvelously intricate equations,write the "great" novel: but all of life is that, having fun, being alive, enjoying, being as happy as one can moment to moment. If you are not happy then what is the point of your wonderful poetic exexperiment: now if a poet, a language poet doesnt really love the actuality of writing, the actual feel of his pen on paper, the look of the words, their meaning: well me old mate THAT's a worry: there is no reason we should be dismayed by "fun" ..there is a sense that things are "trivialised" the artist poet can have as much "serious fun" (hence delving into the intricacies of literature or solving a complex equation or painting or whatever: all these things can be fun, enjoyable: some people find all life fun (except of course pain and tragedy: I'm not talking inextremis and all those stuupid extreme negative examples) .. but in the sense that one can be alive to evrything then a huge range of activities and arts and so on become fun, enjoyable: the touble is in the definition....it has connotations of trivia: but recall the way that O'Hara and others brought popular art - fun eg the influence of seeing the comics like Daffy Duck combined for John Ashbery wioth a vision or dream ( he'd been reading Milton) whence Daffy Duck became the devil: now dark or strange as these things are: they are still fun: possibly its more "serious fun" but fun all the same or god help: its the way and extent to which one works one's mind. I remember reading a book years a go in which a writer with "writer's block" was asked by a psychologist how much he enjoyed the actual act of writing (every aspect) and this writer was amazed! He hadnt thoght that writing could be 9at least as a starting point) pure fun! Unlike a carpenter who generally is "right into" his chisells, his wood, evrything he does to build that boat or house...poets and artists are tradesman: sure we go into some "deep stuff" (and so we should) (and sometimes we deal in tragedy and pain but we cant stay in there) Barring tragedy: and tragedy can be "incorporated" into one's writings or art (generally at a "remove") then fun is a good thing to have: just that some people dont like dancing: they maybe like adding up numbers...as long as we a re happy and arent amaking others unhappy. A person who cannot have fun or laugh in life generally hsa a low self love: and has difficulty loving others. Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Hess" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 7:52 AM Subject: No Fun > Millie, > > In your April 19th post, in response to my post "Some Emotions," you wrote: > > "I can't make sex in saint Louie (the concenpt is nice though)," > > Obviously I read too much into it. Sorry if you're offended. I was trying to > make a comparison and distinction between certain kinds of fun, pleasure, > excitement, gratification with that joke about our virtual date. > > The problem with using 'fun' as a fundamental poetical value is that it's > totally taste-driven. What you like someone else may not like, and that's > where the conversation stops. But I agree there is a certain puritanism and > asceticism in a lot of language poetry and theory that tend to drown out the > enjoyment, not to mention the literary politics that comes along with it, > which is no fun at all. And the academic discourse -- masquerading as both > "poetics" and "politics" -- it has installed into place. > > Maybe a better term for fun would be 'immediacy.' However, that seems not > quite as fun as the monosyllabic 'fun'. Something antithetical to modernist > difficulty and discursive complexity (sorry, Chris S.). > > "No burden in the recondite" -- Neruda. Fun needs a philosophy. Descartes had > doubt and we shall have fun. > > I think I'd like your website more if I could register/log in to it. Does > anyone else have this problem? Most headings I click on bring me nowhere but > back to the homepage. > > dave > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 06:05:37 +0200 Reply-To: kepa.kervinen@pp.inet.fi Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jukka-Pekka Kervinen Subject: xStream #1 online Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit xStream -- Issue #1 xStream Issue #1 is online. It consists three different magazines: 1. Regular: Works from 6 poets 2. Autoissue: 16 poems generated by computer from Issue #1 texts. 3. Collaborative: William Allegrezza (poems) and Jukka-Pekka Kervinen (computer-processed variations). Submissions for Issue #2 are welcome. Submissions to xstreamezine@pp.inet.fi. Sincerely, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen Editor xStream WWW: http://www.geocities.com/xstreamezine Mirror: http://xstream.alturl.com email: xstreamezine@pp.inet.fi ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 02:12:02 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: Learning curves MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ya know i really liked what you said because that's my probleme (pronounce it the Fr. way PLS) I myself spent some 15 yrs between BA & MA baaaaad move. I learnt the meaning of work: taking crap and I just do not fit in with the academic world alas I seem to now only fit with the working world in memories. What to do? Shit in your shoe a good friend's wise Mother used to advise sadly as an adjunct I cannot afford to. Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 02:16:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: The "Fabulous Susan Howe" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Is she sh Billy Collins' sister? Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 00:25:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: virus In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I have been informed that someone unknown to me has been sending porn as attachments from, somehow, my address. gb >Hi--I've gotten these virus e-mails as well, but not only from Kevin >Killian's address, but Charles Bernstein's as well. I wonder if the list >itself is somehow "infected"?...Thought I should pass that on... > >Molly > > > >On Mon, 27 May >2002, Dodie Bellamy wrote: > >> Hi, >> >> A couple of people from the list have written saying they've received >> a suspicious attachment from Kevin Killian or an email with a virus >> in it. Both had bizarre but banal subject lines. >> >> Checking the full header of one of these emails, it originated not >> from Kevin nor Earthlink, but from primushost.com. Kevin's email is >> merely being used as bait. >> >> So, if you receive any suspicious attachments from Kevin (or anybody >> else)--don't open them. Throw them away immediately and report the >> abuse, as we did to the originating host. >> >> Thanks. >> >> Dodie >> > >*** *** *** *** *** *** >Molly Schwartzburg >Stanford Humanities Center >Stanford CA, 94305 >650-724-8116 >molly1@stanford.edu >*** *** *** *** *** *** -- George Bowering Yearns for Key Lime Pie Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 04:38:39 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: FW: Robert Lowell and Deeprak Chopra walk into a bar... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----Original Message----- From: Millie Niss [mailto:men2@columbia.edu] Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 2:31 AM To: James Parr Subject: RE: Robert Lowell and Deeprak Chopra walk into a bar... This is a valid criticims of much of American poetry, but not of Lowell. Read "The Quaker Graveyard in antucktet" or "Adam and Eve" or even a poem like "Penelope" which is much more than whining. Actually, Lowell dopesn't whine at all in his poems. He is much more likely to swagger unreasonably and laugh at himself and others to excess. And most of his poems, if you count them, are not about himself, or not exclusively...they have universal langugage and application. It is not Lowell's fault that they callked him a Confessional and assiciated him with two of his own students, Sylvia PLath and Anne Sexton, the latter of whom who really did nothing but whine -- literally at her readings. Her suffering was real; she suffered from mental illness simiral to Lowell's own, but she exploted her suffering and people would go to reasdings to see Anne Sexton cry. This is pretty pathetic, but it isn't what Lowell did, nor did it fit his personality (as far as we can tell) or work, which just isn't sad or pathetic. I think it is just the taste of the moment thqat made "Life Studies," the one really easy overtly autobiographical book such a big success that it drowned out his past and future works, and I think that was because that book was the EASIEST thing he ever wrote, not the best. Lowell did not hide behind an academic career in order to get the right to just write personal poems, he mostly wrote fairly "literary," difficult poems and got famous on them but the hoi polloi were just waiuting for a bok they could understand. Plus, Lowell did not graduate from Harvard. He transferred to Kenyon College. He wasn't a great student, except in English literature, and had no interest in graduating from Harvard to retain family tradition. Millie -----Original Message----- From: James Parr [mailto:jfp3r@virginia.edu] Sent: Tuesday, May 28, 2002 5:14 AM To: men2@columbia.edu Cc: POETICS@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu Subject: Robert Lowell and Deeprak Chopra walk into a bar... They say ouch. In previous versions, there's a fallen Catholic, a rabbi, and a vegetarian-- They also walk into a bar. Ouch. Oy vey. Nader. If a given poet can really put herself to it and write something that connects with readers concerning pain, well, those are the poems I'm waiting for/starving for. What bugs me about the American-confessional movement was just how contrived it was-- worry about yr worldview and morals, write poems about your car and your house and your wife/husband. Granted, this was the 1950's/1960's, but other American poets were doing much more interesting things beyond the fringes of a burgeoning therapeautic-esthetic. Robert Lowell wrote some good poems, but he made a career out of his upper-middle-class "suffering," and it became pathetic. Literally, he had nothing left. Was and remains pathetic (pathetique?/ I went to public school.) I think poetry does a better job among genres regarding the exploration of the personal, interior, quiet conflicts that we all have to deal with-- I also think American poetry is absolutely fucking paralyzed by a notion that _this_ is all there is left to discuss/examine. It's given an excuse for so-called academically affiliated poets to write books about nothing but themselves, their divorces, their kid's diapers, and then point a finger at poets who aren't somehow "authentic" enough, because they didn't go to Harvard and have those damn qualms-- the ones that make you drink yrself to death or jump in front of a truck or jump off a bridge or turn on the gas-- yes, these are sad things, but ultimately, American poetry right now suffers from a legacy of miserable, naive analolgy-- a given poem should connect with an assumed emotional geographic position of "the suffering person," or even worse, the ironically recognized "suffering poet"-- When there are ten- to 1,000 millions of other events occuring-- and they have everything and nothing to do with the first-person event of recognition and meditation-- James Millie Niss wrote: > Ian Hamilton's biography of Lowell is enough for understanding most of the > poems IF you have their dates (not always easy to obtain). Hamilton has > been accused of medicalizing Lowell's poetry. He does not do this. To some > extent, he medicalizes Lowell's life, but a life with manic depression and > alcoholism (secondary to the MD) IS medical. Lowell predictably got > "overenthusuastic" (his term) most summers, did nasty and then weird things, > usually ending up with a woman not his wife, and then he'd arrive manic at a > friend's house and the friend would arrange to have him committed to Mclean. > Once there, they'd drug him (too much, by modern standards) and he'd crash > into the most horrid depresion. This is a life a mentally ill person had to > have in the fifties, even if he was incredibly rich and a well-known poet > with a sinecure-like job at that. Thigs haven't chnaged much since then. > > HOWEVER, Hamilton does not medicalize the POETRY, and there is no reason to > do so. The creative output of mentally ill people, if they are professional > writers and not just therapy petients who have been asked to write poems to > "express their feelings," is not ill, even if it is about illness. Even > writing which is intended to demonstrate illness (like stream of > consciousness of a person with mania or psychosis, which is something I've > occasionally tried to do but with little success) is not ill, if done right. > It is usually a lot of work to make something like that into interesting > reading (since real illness is a bore) amd to concisely capture the illness > in as few words as possible. Whne people do this kind of porm or other > writing, often they have rewritten it many times to make it better at > coinveying the truth of the iollness than the actual tru transcript of the > thoughts would have been. Ab=nne Sexton literally was ahousewife with no > particular curture or education whose shrink suggested she write poetry and > you can see in her poetry that she tells hard truths well but isn't really a > creative poet and/or she is undercultured; she obviously hasn't read much > poetry or else she'd know more ways to write a poem -- there are no literary > devices in her poems of the sort that one finds in even the most basic > poetry, rarely do we find a metaphor (there are some similes, but similes > are really part of ordinary speech more than the made strange speech of > poetry) except some rather obvious structural ones, the tone is the same in > all the poems, they are ALL about how she wants to kill herself and/or how > bad she feels and/or mad at other people she is for making people feel so > bad. The Transformations series of fairy tales are better, because she is > telling someone else's stories. Still, the stanza from "Wanting to Die" > > but suicides have a special language > like carpenters they wanty to know _which tools_? > they never ask _why build_? > > is brilliant, but only for its insight into mental illness, not for the > poetry...) > > But a poet like Lowell is a different story. He knew poetry and had been > writing it since before he became seriously crazy. And he had the > discipline to write about subjects other than what he was feeling at any > particular time. Poems such as "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket" (still a > favorite although I don't fully understand it. I had to memorise part of a > poem for a class and I chose the first section of this which was great fun > but I hadn't realized how hard a poem it is to recite!) are not MENTALLY ILL > poems, or mentally well poems for that matter but simply poems. Whether he > was ill or not, he did not let his feelings seep into what he was writing > except inasmuch as they were an inspiration for the topic and tone. But the > poem is first and foremost a poem. Even if he was ill when he wrote it, it > isn't a symptom, it's a masterful poem. Even the poems about his illness -- > "Waking in the Blue," "The Drinker," "Speak of the Woe that is in Msrriage" > etc. are controlled creative efforts. You can write about being crazy while > being crazy without WRITING crazy if you are a skilled writer. Obviously > this isn't true in the worst parts of mania and depression, but one isn't > usually writing then. But if one can write at all, and one is a genuine > poet, then one can control one's style so that the poems are not symptomatic > of anything and are fit to be judged as poems and poems alone. > > The question of Notebook and History is a little more complex because he was > partly writing for himself, and he was experimenting with writing a sonnet > every single day, and also the style was a big departure from the easy free > verse of the poems between Life Studies and Near the Ocean, yet it seems to > lack the richness of his early style that gave the "Quaker Graveyard in > Nantucket" and "Adam and Eve," etc (the poems in "Lord Weary's Castle and > The Mills of the Kavanaughs). Many people have commented on this change of > style, which is seen as a change for the worse, which coincides with his > being on Lithium for the first time. I must admit that I used this as an > argument against taking Lithium myself ("Robert Lowell wrote bad poetry that > all sounds the same after he was put on it") and I never did take it (I take > a zillion other things but I won't touch lithium.) However, I once tried to > read Notebook carefully and didn't get through the book but found it > strangely rewarding, like you have to puzzle out exactly what is working in > the poem and forcus on it as you read it to yourself and then the rest comes > into focus. It made me wonder if I was imposing more goodness onto the poem > than was realkly there or if it was really there. And I used the Hamilton > biography (which I had alread read once) to place Lowell in his life during > the events alluded to iu the poem/the writing of the poem. > . > . > . > I took a break from reading this email and reread a bunch of Notebook. The > poems are easier than I remembered. I have been reading more difficult > poetry than I did when I first enountered Lowell. Actually, I think > Notebook is more transpqrent than the earliest book, which has a few really > dense and layered poems. Howevere you do need to know a lot that's not in > the poems to get Notebook: yoou have to know the wives & children of Lowell, > and you have to know current events from the fifties through seventies in > such a way that a vague allusion brings up the rigt event. For example > there are some poems abou the demonstrations at the Democratic National > Convention in 1968 which is not spelled out but is clear enough if you look > at the date and read the poem carfully. > > I don't see much connection between Lowell and Language Poetry. Which of > Lowell's styles are you referring to? pre Life Studies or Post? And why do > criutics think Life studies was such an "improvement" because it was modern > sounding and easy...anyhow the ease is deceptive. In poems such as > "Penelope" (in Day by Day, one of my facvorite collections) you need the > same kind of knowledge to understand the poem as you might to understand the > allusions in any of the poems in Lord Weary's Castle. It's just an illusion > that it's easy because the idiom sounds more contemporary and the > descriptive parts are more transparent. But I doubt anyone who reads poetry > would have trouble with the descriptions in, say, The Quaker Graveyard in > Nantucket...it's the allusions and symbolism that make that poem hard, not > the imagery. > > Millie > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Mark Weiss > Sent: Sunday, May 26, 2002 9:31 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Learning curves > > Joel: 1. Lerning curves as in curve balls? You seem to be throwing a few. > Here's one: conflating doubts about the university as a home for poetry > with anti-intellectualism is more than a little insulting. Surely you know > better. Probably most of the poets you read were only tangentially > connected to universities--think nof Pound, Williams, the Objectivists, > Olson, Duncan, Spicer, O'Hara, Ginsberg. Many of these were also doing > theory way beyond anything found in American academia at the time (altho > I'll admit a preference for the theory inherent in their ways of > working). When a trough was opened for poets to feed at of course they > bellied up--it's nice having a source of income and maybe a little > respectability. The problem is what gets traded, and what gets lost to the > culture of poetry in general. > > I write as a New Yorker who still hasn't recovered from the shock of > learning how little dialogue there is in the hinterlands. In New York, as > in all cosmopolitan cities, university affiliations are almost beside the > point--the pool of intellect and talent, and the variety of educations, not > all of them academic, that the pool brings to the discussion is enormously > wide. And its members positively shout for attention. There's a kind of > generosity in this. One wonders about other places, where the only > intellectual activity is within universities that might as well be Martian > colonies and almost no one goes in or out. > > Here in San Diego there's a poetry series in an out-of-the-way university > with a serious parking problem and expensive parking fees. Without a car > one simply can't get there, except for a shuttle bus that runs from only > one point in the city, which, unless one has a great deal of time, also > takes a car to get to. Oh, and the reading is during most people's working > hours. There would seem to be a message in this. > > In Paris the Ecole des Hautes Etudes at the Sorbonne sponsors open, free > public lectures by the greats of the academy. Anyone who chooses can hear > the latest research or thinking of specialists who don't talk down to their > amateur listeners. Why should they? Half the cafes in town are informal > debating societies. > > What all of this means is that the society is enriched, but so is the > university. The plethora of informal settings where passionate amateurs > gather makes for a cross-fertilization that's often missing on campus, > where people can pass years with only the most limited intellectual contact > from workers in other fields. > > 2. The reason there's such poor institutional memory on lists is their > nature as lists. Memberships change. So what may be a tired and > oft-visited topic for you may be for many their first encounter with it in > this venue. Maybe you'd like to require a full reading of the archive, > followed by a test, before membership is granted. > > Of course, it's possible that the discussions recur because members feel as > if their ideas have simply been dismissed. because not fullty formulated. > Discussion can be a venue for formulating ideas. That, of course, requires > that the thoughts of others be treated with respect. > > Mark > > At 01:59 PM 5/26/2002 -0400, you wrote: > >Is the atrophy of response what is wanted, to clear ground or otherwise? > > > >The idea that work is done to "clear the ground" for anything seems > >an old model of producing change in literary formations -- one which > >I happen to subscribe to -- but it important to remember that in > >this ground-clearing certain work needs to be done -- and that many > >of the people who are encountered on the streets of this new vertical > >public sphere are not going to be interested in the same things, one > >of which is the work involved. What would such work consist of? What > >would one need to know, what problems or issues would need to be > >"worked through"? Are they simply formal questions of practice? > >Because yes, most of the formal techniques used didn't originate > >recently. Was their deployment situational, motivated by practical > >concerns or issues of praxis? ... Well? What do I need to know now? > > > >The "list itself" presents a number of structural difficulties in > >terms of fostering the kind of environment where such work would get > >done, or where the thinking about it might be represented. The > >atrophy of response is often, I think, a response to this structure > >of response as it presents itself in a general and generalizing > >medium as the poetics listserv channel. > > > >Some observations: > > > >1. The constituencies represented by the list are too broad. Like > >many academic conferences, it's too diffuse for there to be a > >productive developmental discussion surrounding key issues. While > >this isn't a problem, per se, you get what you pay for. In such a > >generalized community, difference is boiled in with the broth, and no > >one is willing to step forward. > > > >2. One example of this is the endless "academic" bashing on the list. > >The unspecific nature of the accusations about university culture > >demonstrate many a sad point: a) that compulsory education should > >probably be extended into the 22nd grade, at a minimum, and that > >continuing education programs continue forever. b) it isn't the ideas > >of the academy that bother these people, it's the idea of it. But > >because there is no systematic or articulated grounds for attacking > >the "idea of it", the response whithers only to be repeated by > >another, solo flight. > > > >3. One need for the "re-education" of "human capital" (jingoistic > >terms courtesy of the World Bank, another promoter of > >anti-intellectual, anti-academic culture) is demonstrated by the > >incredibly spotty institutional memory of the culture of the poetics > >list. Every few moons or so, there is a need to replay the same old > >concerns: hang-wringing over language poetry: what was it (or what is > >it), who has more power (theoretically informed but marginal language > >poets or the sincere but bathy mainstream poets), blah blah blah. It > >would almost be fun to make a list of endlessly repeated topics. > > > >4. This failure to develop our collective memory is "symptomatic" of > >larger cultural forces - the multiple, discontinuous vectors of > >influence and audience, place, technology - all contribute to a > >layered sense of the present. It's not an academic issue, or at least > >it need not be limited to the university culture. We might instead > >reflect on what's left of the "public intellectual" in contemporary > >culture. Who are our public intellectuals? We might talk about why > >there aren't MORE intellectuals in public life (i.e. outside of the > >university). And what is meant by "public life" -- a life of letters > >to the editor? or...what? Why is it, after years of study, do so many > >students and scholars reach similar conclusions about particular > >social and economic issues? Why have so many of our public > >intellectuals become so profoundly anti-intellectual? > > > >5. An interesting poet in a "group" to talk about with respect to > >these issues, and how they have to do with "poetry" -- for those of > >you who need references to actual poems -- would be a discussion of > >the poet Robert Lowell, who Millie mentions rather usefully as a poet > >worthy of discussion in the context of langpo. I think that many of > >Lowell's poems could be brought into such a discussion on two > >grounds, one formal and the other social. As an "intellectual" and a > >"pacifist" and as a "rich kid" who led a "bohemian" life of > >"privledge" while doing "cultural labor" of writing "poetry" in a > >community of writers many of whom have continuing influence and > >others of whom seem to have disappeared from memory. Millie's point > >about the poems is a good place too look closely. Anyone know about > >Lowell? His life or his madness? I'd be curious to know if anyone has > >a reference to the Look Magazine photo shoot of the early sixties, a > >copy of which I'd like to find for personal reasons (my father was > >the photographer). Lowell's NOTEBOOKS and their subsequent revision > >is a study in the medicalization of poetry by the dominating forces > >of decorum and generalization. Worthy of study by any one wishing to > >understand language poetry. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 15:23:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: Learning curves with Burt & Wheeler content In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Andrew Rathmann writes: I Reply: I dunno, I'd rather talk about Oppen, to tell you the truth. But there are people talking about "the generation now" out there. (And it IS a conversation worth having.) Stephen Burt is one, calling a section of them them "Elliptical Poets". And Susan Wheeler seems to be the poet most firmly in that style. (Her newish book _Source Codes_ is QUITE a wild ride of related [and unresloved] modes and strategies of getting at/to "upper level music".) And there are many others out there. And they should be talked about (even though several of them are on this list--yikes), but I see no reason why the Lang+Po people shouldn't be talked about as well. After all, we're (they're) all contemporary . . . roughly. Now, about Oppen . . . --JGallaher J Gallaher Metaphors Be With You . . . ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 28 May 2002 14:52:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: The New Bohemian Comments: cc: rloden@concentric.net In-Reply-To: <000001c204b9$8ac93c20$83010140@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT First: >> The New Bohemian-- Who's with me? >> >> Aaron S. Belz Second: >Good show Aaron but sorry, I don't want to belong to any school of >poetry that would accept me as a member. > >Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others > >Rachel A. Loden Third: And I'm with you (uh, if that's ok). Besides, I hated that song The New Bohemians did way back when. All that droll blah about "Philosophy is the talk on a cereal box." Why anyone would want to join them is beyond me. --John J. Gallaher ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 22:41:53 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: virus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Pierre. What's a sardine doing tracing a ballet and getting better inside a head? Is it trying to dance on the head of an angel fish? No? Regardo, Ricardo. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pierre Joris" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 8:43 AM Subject: Re: virus > > > > out of curiosity does the virus do any damage other than > > replicating itself. > > on a Mac they just come in as blank documents & since I dont have > > an address > > book anywhere I think they dead end. I imagine on a PC it is a different > > story. a friend on another list converted one I received into a > > GIF & they > > make very nice 60s minimalist visual poetry. mIEKAL > > > On my PC they also come in as blank documents as I have McAfee Viruis Scan > installed. This particular virus seems to be annoying mainly because it has > managed to get into millions of peoples address books, so the sheer quantity > of viral emails everyone gets is a drag. > > ________________________________________________________________ > Pierre Joris > 6 Madison Place > Albany NY 12202 "É melhor ser cabeça de sardinha > Tel: (518) 426-0433 do que traseiro de baleia" > Fax: (518) 426-3722 > Email: joris@ albany.edu > Url: > ____________________________________________________________________________ > _ > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 22:49:14 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: The "Fabulous Susan Howe" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Kazim. I see I see, but could you tell me How? Richard. (and which Howe is how and how is Howe and how and how How is Howe?) (how!) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mister Kazim Ali" To: Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 8:42 AM Subject: The "Fabulous Susan Howe" > I don't remember how this thread started but I just > wanted to put my three cents in. > > There's Susan Howe and there's "Susan Howe." "Susan > Howe" is this Positioned Entity that a lot of > mainstream (and non-mainstream) readers, academics, > organizations, and other poets use to ignore many > innovative and dynamic writers like Ann Lauterbach, > Fanny Howe, Joan Retallack, Rosmarie Waldrop, and, for > that matter, Susan Howe. > > "Susan Howe" is also used by many non-mainstream (and > mainstream) writers, publishers, etc. to displace > younger women writers of wild and unfamiliar bearing > (Willis, Moxley, Ramsdell, etc.) > > See I think the funniest part of it is that many > people (mainstream and non-mainstream) who love "Susan > Howe" have never actually *read* Susan Howe. > > For me, I'm nuts about both "Susan Howe" and Susan > Howe. But I'm a little partial to Susan Howe. > > > > > > > > > ===== > "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting > > behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" > > --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup > http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 09:15:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Kuszai Subject: Fwd: Re: audio Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" the audio archive will be coming down this summer. i've decided that the files are best left to the winds of the digital prarie and i'm eager to use that bandwidth for another archival project, though poetry audio will always be a part of the factory school site. long ago promised copies of the 2-disk archive will be mailed shortly, but those of you who are interested should read the following. --- begin forwarded text Michael-- thanks for the note. the Factory School "rm" files are very easy to obtain. I don't know how comfortable you are with the whole biz, so I'll write it out in full (as opposed to just listing the directories where the files are stored). Note that while the html files (thus the webpages) for the Factory School site are located at www.factoryschool.org, the audio files are stored at another location. This is primarily because the current FS surver would never accomodate the 800 or so megs of data stored there. The address for this material is www.one-thirty.org but you'll never be able to access the files from that address because there is no link to the files. In terms of audio storage, however, the one-thirty.org site mirrors the FS site's directory structure, with one exception: there is an additional directory called "sounds" which is within "content" and containing "poetry" So, here is an example. On the website audio listing, rolling over the link of the audio file listing for an Auden poem, one sees the following: http://www.factoryschool.org/content/poetry/auden/onthisisland.ram When a viewer at the FS site clicks on the file listing as it appears in their webbrowser, they link to what is actually a "pointer" file -- this is a text file with the .ram suffix. If you open one of these files, you'll see where the audio (.rm) file is stored. Sometimes it is pointed to a non-publicly accessible directory. Opening up the above .ram file (which on a mac, or at least my mac, is downloaded temporarily on the desktop; on another computer it may be the "download" directory or wherever), the file reads as follows: rtsp://one-thirty.org/content/sounds/poetry/auden/onthisisland.rm in some cases you can surf into the directories-- but you have to know the name of the diretory-- so Auden , above would be like this: http://one-thirty.org/content/sounds/poetry/auden/ but not in every case is directory listing allowed -- in some cases i put in a redirect index page. if that happens, just write down the name of the address of the file when you "roll over" it or copy/cut/paste from the .ram file -- wherever it is stored on your computer if you are able to see the names of the files in the directories, then it's easy: "right click" (on a mac it involves holding the option key) you should commence downloading the file (I'm not sure but I think if you don't hold down option or right-click it may actually try to play the file or download it in the broswer). Anyhow-- I think the biggest file is like 30 megs or so but most of them are a meg or two. Let me know if you have any problems you spoke of, and please let me know how I might get copies of the Greek poets. I'm interested in all of the things you mentioned (Elytis and Seferis but, again, especially the "minor" ones--but then I think of "minor" as a postitive value, but your point is well-taken) -- I'm very curious to hear them. Thanks!! joel --- end forwarded text -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:45:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: Re: virus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable George Bowering: "I have been informed that someone unknown to me has = been sending porn as attachments from, somehow, my address." You'd better change your password a.s.a.p.! Philip ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:54:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Philip Nikolayev Subject: Re: FW: Robert Lowell and Deeprak Chopra walk into a bar... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Millie, thanks for your post on Lowell. The notion that Lowell is a = "whining" poet and that all his poetry is about "neurosis" is a bit of a = cliche in avantgarde circles nowadays, a convenient excuse for not = reading him or not thinking about him. "Upperclass" is another mantra = out of the same sound bag. You are right, he spent only about a year at Harvard (and was "hazed" or = made fun of at the Harvard Advocate, so the story goes) -- there is = hardly anything "Harvard" about him. Philip ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 09:52:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tracy Ruggles Subject: Re: No Fun In-Reply-To: <000a01c206b2$dae0b4e0$cb2356d2@01397384> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; Charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable people=20 love their suffering. =20 People are=20 afraid of "fun" cuz millennia of doctrine says that=20 fun is out suffering in. =20 Even=20 the good old Buddhists=20 say Life is Suffering but=20 of course you should move on=20 through it, but fun=20 is not on the path. =20 Accept-ing "fun" moves=20 beyond who they told you=20 you were. --Tracy On 02.5.29 at 1:47 PM, richard.tylr (richard.tylr@XTRA.CO.NZ) said: >People are terrified of having fun: they think that "life's purpose" is to >make some marvellous breakthrough, earn millions, have great sex with a >super sexy superstar, win the nobel prize, solve marvelously intricate >equations,write the "great" novel: but all of life is that, having fun, >being alive, enjoying, being as happy as one can moment to moment. If you >are not happy then what is the point of your wonderful poetic exexperiment= : >now if a poet, a language poet doesnt really love the actuality of writing= , >the actual feel of his pen on paper, the look of the words, their meaning: >well me old mate THAT's a worry: there is no reason we should be dismayed >by "fun" ..there is a sense that things are "trivialised" the artist poet -- T r a c y S. R u g g l e s : tracy@reinventnow.com : : http://www.reinventnow.com : - - - - - - =A1=A1 - - - - - - // transmute the illimitable cell // release the memory ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 08:22:59 -0700 Reply-To: rloden@concentric.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Organization: Rachel Loden Subject: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) In-Reply-To: <200205291019.g4TAJdw17280@morse.concentric.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I forgot that not everybody knows Marx backwards and forwards. I mean Groucho. Sorry Aaron, sorry everyone. White cliffs of Dover, Rachel > First: > >> The New Bohemian-- Who's with me? > >> > >> Aaron S. Belz > > Second: > >Good show Aaron but sorry, I don't want to belong to any school of > >poetry that would accept me as a member. > > > >Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others > > > >Rachel A. Loden ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 12:21:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: GUTS re: Lyric ca. 2002 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT As Richard Tyler points out elsewhere the FakeLangpo effort and putting life on the list in what was a sort of 'investigative poem' of manic depressiontook guts. interestingly enough this is the same quality whose lack is lamented in the thread about poetry/prose. [what genre does Millie's outpouring fit into? aside from being 'epoetry'] [if we can ignore the viruses that seem these days to arrive from all directions] I tend to see fhat in one dimension the whole tendency to put feelings into boxes and so dismiss them as so much, 'lyricism', 'confessional', and what have you is just a way of eliminating these gut feelings from poetry and maybe from life. Thisis somewhat ironic in light of recent medical and scientific recognition or rediscovery of gut feelings (e.g, Lakoff). Asin life and therapy ideally a true 'poetry', whatever name it goes by, should work through holding and letting forth the gutsratherthan banishing them forcing them out, 'letting it all hang out' is perhaps a return to the sixties, but maybe the sixties before they were perverted by media sensationalism. tom bell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 11:52:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: virus In-Reply-To: <005d01c206fd$72942840$12ec36d2@01397384> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit > Pierre. What's a sardine doing tracing a ballet and getting > better inside a > head? Is it trying to dance on the head of an angel fish? No? Regardo, > Ricardo. It's a folk saying from the Brazilian Nor'este & translates loosely as "better to be a sardine's head than a whale's ass." ... ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 "É melhor ser cabeça de sardinha Tel: (518) 426-0433 do que traseiro de baleia" Fax: (518) 426-3722 Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ____________________________________________________________________________ _ > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 09:05:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: GUTS re: Lyric ca. 2002 In-Reply-To: <00b401c20735$465f3160$6401a8c0@ruthfd1tn.home.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > [what genre does Millie's outpouring fit into? > aside from being 'epoetry'] it's performance art. no its eperformance art. it's like when yoko released all the flies at the museum of modern art then claimed there was a website that users could log on to to trace the flies' journeys through the world. (there wasn't actually a website, was there?) ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 11:10:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) Comments: To: rloden@concentric.net In-Reply-To: <000001c20724$b93a0680$31020140@default> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > I forgot that not everybody knows Marx backwards and forwards. I mean > Groucho. Sorry Aaron, sorry everyone. Rachel, The reference was not lost on me. That particular bit of wisdom pops into my head almost every day. Another great one, though I think of it less often, is "I never forget a face, but in your case I'll do my best." One other thing (in case you're interested) that pops into mind a great deal is Steve Martin's mention of his book, _The Apple Pie Hubbub_ -- which he says was a big success because it was the first book in which he used verbs, adding, "My writing really brightened up after that." Oh, there are other things too. -Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 12:27:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Halvard Johnson Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) In-Reply-To: <000001c20724$b93a0680$31020140@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit { I forgot that not everybody knows Marx backwards and forwards. I mean { Groucho. Sorry Aaron, sorry everyone. { { White cliffs of Dover, { Rachel Groucho Ohcuorg Groucho Ohcuorg Rachel Lehcar Rachel Lehcar Rachel Aaron Noraa Aaron Noraa Aaron Marx Xram Marx Xram Marx Xram Marx Xram Marx Xram Marx Xram Aaron Noraa Aaron Noraa Aaron Rachel Lehcar Rachel Lehcar Rachel Rachel Lehcar Rachel Lehcar Rachel Aaron Noraa Aaron Noraa Aaron Marx Xram Marx Xram Marx Xram Marx Xram Marx Xram Marx Xram Aaron Noraa Aaron Noraa Aaron Rachel Lehcar Rachel Lehcar Rachel Groucho Ohcuorg Groucho Ohcuorg Hal "I would horsewhip you if I had a horse." --Groucho Marx Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard@earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 12:32:15 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm fond of this Grouchoism: "I was stood up by a woman and knocked down by a truck." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 12:54:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: GUTS re: Lyric ca. 2002 In-Reply-To: <20020529160519.46142.qmail@web21402.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This seems to be in the same vain as when Edgar Lee masters called Vachel Lindsay's performance poetry not poetry at all. Ill advised is one word for Vachel, but it is poetry -- more interesting than the graveyard smarm. Millie has something here. Why seek to constrain??? And Millie's e-poetry is very well conceived and executed -- nothing to place on the side. I am thinking of the Flash square of words and voice mouse-over on the fakelangpo site. And its self critical too. Best, Geoffrey -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of Mister Kazim Ali Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 12:05 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: GUTS re: Lyric ca. 2002 > [what genre does Millie's outpouring fit into? > aside from being 'epoetry'] it's performance art. no its eperformance art. it's like when yoko released all the flies at the museum of modern art then claimed there was a website that users could log on to to trace the flies' journeys through the world. (there wasn't actually a website, was there?) ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 09:58:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cheryl doppler burket Subject: Nancy Drew author passes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii i'm sure she was an inspiration to at least some of us females on this list, i know she was to me growing up from CNN Original Nancy Drew author dead at 96 May 29, 2002 Posted: 10:51 AM EDT (1451 GMT) TOLEDO, Ohio (CNN) -- Millie Benson, the author who captivated generations of young girls with her Nancy Drew mystery books, died Tuesday night. She was 96. Benson, a newspaper reporter for decades, was at The Toledo Blade writing her weekly column when she became ill and went home. Late in the afternoon, she was taken by rescue squad to Toledo Hospital, where she died about 8:20 p.m., hospital spokeswoman Colleen Grubb said. Under the pen name Carolyn Keene, she wrote 23 of the first 30 'Nancy Drew' novels in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, launching a series that is still in print and has sold more than 200 million books in 17 languages. The character Nancy Drew was an adventurous, outspoken and curious sleuth. "At that time ... girls weren't like that. Girls were dependent," Benson told CNN earlier this year. She admitted she was very much like the character she created. "I didn't follow the pattern that normally girls followed. I just was myself always, and what I wanted to be or do or think, I did and nobody opposed me on it," she said When the Nancy Drew series was launched, Benson was required to sign a contract, giving her a flat fee of $125 per book, with no royalties. She also signed away use of the name Carolyn Keene. Before writing each book, she was given a brief outline of each story, along with some of the main characters. Benson was born and raised in Ladora, Iowa, and began writing as a child. She graduated from high school in three years, and received a master's degree in journalism from the University of Iowa. Late in life, she earned her pilot's license, and flew alone in the United States and Central America. She was still golfing in her 90s. Benson worked at The Blade and the former Toledo Times for 58 years. She continued to work despite failing eyesight, hearing and an earlier bout with cancer. Benson "reported to work every day, and retained a zest for life and her profession long after most of her contemporaries had passed on," said John Robinson Block, publisher and editor-in-chief of The Blade. "She was gutsy and daring, a living embodiment of her Nancy Drew heroine. She influenced generations of Blade reporters. I will never forget her," Block said. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:26:21 -0700 Reply-To: rloden@concentric.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Organization: Rachel Loden Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) In-Reply-To: <200205291632.g4TGWK219764@franklin.concentric.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit And how about "A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:32:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: megan minka lola camille roy Subject: Re: virus MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT OFF TOPIC. I was getting four or five viral emails every day and it was Klez. The sender and reply-to are forged by this virus so they tell you nothing. I use netscape which limits the damage (I get emails from the virus but I don't spread it because it doesn't get into the netscape address book.) I have found norton anti-viral to be by far the best (sanitary) protection. It notifies me of updates as often as every four hours. This is highly recommended! Really, this problem will only get worse. Also symantec (norton) has a website which will take an IP address and give you the *real* sender of the viral email. Note IP addresses are very difficult to forge. I was able to track the sender to a phone company in Guyana, and i emailed the sysadmin of that company (symantec gave me a name and street address as well), and the emails stopped. I think they had infected PCs and didn't know it. camille roy -- http://www.grin.net/~minka "If this is going to be a calm equality, there will be no people." (L. Scalapino) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 11:23:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: Re: virus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit YO,George--are you boasting, or complaining? David -----Original Message----- From: George Bowering To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Date: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 12:43 AM Subject: Re: virus >I have been informed that someone unknown to me has been sending porn >as attachments from, somehow, my address. > >gb > > > >>Hi--I've gotten these virus e-mails as well, but not only from Kevin >>Killian's address, but Charles Bernstein's as well. I wonder if the list >>itself is somehow "infected"?...Thought I should pass that on... >> >>Molly >> >> >> >>On Mon, 27 May >>2002, Dodie Bellamy wrote: >> >>> Hi, >>> >>> A couple of people from the list have written saying they've received >>> a suspicious attachment from Kevin Killian or an email with a virus >>> in it. Both had bizarre but banal subject lines. >>> >>> Checking the full header of one of these emails, it originated not >>> from Kevin nor Earthlink, but from primushost.com. Kevin's email is >>> merely being used as bait. >>> >>> So, if you receive any suspicious attachments from Kevin (or anybody >>> else)--don't open them. Throw them away immediately and report the >>> abuse, as we did to the originating host. >>> >>> Thanks. >>> >>> Dodie >>> >> >>*** *** *** *** *** *** >>Molly Schwartzburg >>Stanford Humanities Center >>Stanford CA, 94305 >>650-724-8116 >>molly1@stanford.edu >>*** *** *** *** *** *** > > >-- >George Bowering >Yearns for Key Lime Pie >Fax 604-266-9000 > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 12:56:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: the haussmannization of prose MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 8BIT 1. I wonder if there is an intrepid lurker out there who might like to come up with a few discourse-analysis-type features to look for and then check-off in all posts, so that at the end of every two weeks or so a brief statistical report could be issued for reflexive interest. Number of affirmations (posts producing new ideas and relations), number of negations (posts negating former posts), number of dialectical turns (negations into affirmation), then one or two others (learning curve rate?) to characterize the in-betweens. 2. So I guess no one else other than Chris S. and I have read S. Howe's Pierce-Arrow. 3a. A recent temporal sequence of posts on this listserv -- Barrett’s notice about an "Information Aesthetics" panel coming almost right after a post on "poetry / poetics / prose" -- seems more than coincidental, yet, fittingly, one cannot know for sure. "Information," and its technology, is exactly the hidden concept that needs to be elaborated in the recent history and transformation of prose and its concept -- social agency -- that prose once unquestioningly embodied (perhaps even a history of the concept of agency can now be written -- something Wlad Godzich has remarked has not yet been attempted). Information technology -- not just the $800B industry in 2001, but all its applications in the machinery of everyday life, the metaphor itself -- lays a sort of gridwork for prose, and indexes a sort of Haussmannization of prose, while inducing other ways of aesthetically "unseating" that enlightenment bugbear, intentionality. (The Marxian analogy for use of the Fibonnaci sequence in Tjanting has conveniently been lopped off, or else has received only passing mention, for instance, while the formal sequencing itself that the F. seq. allows, has been tied to other, similar techniques.) [b. At the "join" of book-as-object and the texts materialized in it, i.e. the table of contents, I alternated the digital signs 1 and 0 as dingbats to designate each section. The text of the book, then, is a sort of bubble of intention, a restricted economy, within IT matrices of a general economy -- yes -- whose micro-differentials are intent (nb) on producing the "world" (including what was once called the book's materiality, its design). A general economy is supposed to "celebrate" loss and dissipation -- well, it still does here, by analogy to the concept of social agency lost from prose.... A fairly rustic attempt, but, nonetheless ... somewhat a rustic who is printed "at an IT press, in an IT world...."] c. One aspect of the listserv that I like is the way it simulates intentionality -- as if one were in control. 4. At the recent juxtaposition of Perelman and Pinsky in a narrative purportedly about poetry since the 1960s, my immediate reflex was to "think" of what Coolidge and Fagan "did" to Angelou's presidential inauguration poem, and of Bob Perelman's perceptive analysis of the ethical consequences of their noun substitutions, substitutions which were needless to say determined for Coolidge/Fagan by the dictionary. So what I did was completely forget about the original post and, instead, I did a Coolidge/Fagan Oulipoian number on Pinsky by "translating" a poem of his into one of Perelman's -- assuming, hoping, that Bob's poem would disclose a deeper ethics than were I to simply use, say, a dictionary as source-text. I methodically translated Pinsky's "To Television" into Perelman's "Picture" via a means that could well have been used, if it actually hasn't already (judging by the results, I'm sure it has), by Mac Low. The basis of Coolidge/Fagan's satire is not only Angelou's nouns of "inclusiveness," but her syntax, which they therefore need to preserve pretty much intact in their poem. Even as one grants that it is the syntax that is satirized (and therefore "its rhetoric that works with established cadences and symbols" -- BP), the noun substitutions, when isolated on their own, nevertheless still remain offensive in their poem. When the nouns are not isolated on their own, and considered as elements of syntax (structurally performing the noun function), then does one's reading of what Coolidge and Fagan have done change at all from Bob's? If one thinks of the Haussmannization of prose by IT, it might at least give the situation of vanguard vs. official verse a historical analogy to work with / against.... (Incidentally, Angelou's poem, read from the west wing of the White House, was broadcast on TV -- so that's the other link between Pinksy and Perelman.) In the Mac Lowian rendition, Pinsky's decorative-cardboard syntax, in which is nested the little "sweet bijous" of poeticized sentiment and reflection, is not satirized, but dispensed with entirely, leaving all substitutive words (not only nouns) to create for themselves new syntactic relations. I've left off punctuating, though could have added it as well. Of course all this is a tried-and-true technique of Mac Low's, so all I am really doing at best is finding a way into understanding something more about how "chance" works differently in Coolidge/Fagan's as compared to Mac Low's techniques. But, nevertheless, the question of a deeper ethics may still remain! (especially for thinking about Mac Low's procedures -- think, for instance, of his book on The Cantos) The the Mars picture of bar the of see picture of control I picture see picture the the 10 foot not care changes I'm 10 foot at 10 foot I'm 10 foot tall 10 foot the I'm a eye the its ravening you its tune-mongering what own moment's the own can't question-begging a to if returned poem way mind I poem mind if read wouldn't poem mind the these penis and erect materials penis strategic people people people these the a earth's scarce who earth's penis materials earth's people these who penis these people scarce penis who penis these people people materials see egg made or the egg materials of phallocentric picture picture the egg of dominating the materials materials the dominating engine control dominating materials the milky materials the dominating materials and control materials the materials pallocentric control milky off subject the of until of until to market get the bar day less off I on of light going bar off subject of until couldn't day to get Pinsky's "To Television": http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/pinsky/television.html Perelman's "Picture" is in Ten to One: Selected Poems (Wesleyan, 1999), p. 44. 5. There is a fun tradition in verse. It's called OULIPO. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:01:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Electronic Pies in the Poetry Skies Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Coach House Press's web site has recently put up a self-performing version of my essay "Electronic Pies in the Poetry Skies", which I completed in January 2001 for _The Informatics of Resistance_ , a collection on issues of authority on the web (including listservs), being edited by Marc Bousquest and Katherine Willis . The collection is forthcoming and I thank the editors, and Darren Wershler-Henry of Coach House, for their encouragement in initially presenting the essay in a hypertexutal format at the Coach House site. Thanks also to Damien Lopes for his design. http://www.chbooks.com/articles/index.html#writings ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 12:12:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mister Kazim Ali Subject: Re: the haussmannization of prose In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > 2. So I guess no one else other than Chris S. and I > have read S. Howe's > Pierce-Arrow. no dude i "read" it. and read it. ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 12:44:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Silem Mohammad" Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Groucho in _A Day at the Races_: "If I hold you any closer, I'll be in back of you." And speaking of Steve Martin, as someone just did, I love in _LA Story_ when he says he thinks he'd make a good subject for an interview "on account of the interesting word usements I structure." K. >From: Rachel Loden >Reply-To: rloden@concentric.net >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) >Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:26:21 -0700 > >And how about > >"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of >five." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ K. Silem Mohammad Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit University of California Santa Cruz _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:00:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" my favorite groucho marx/theoretical one-liner is to margaret dumont: "everything about you reminds me of you --except you." At 12:44 PM -0700 5/29/02, K.Silem Mohammad wrote: >Groucho in _A Day at the Races_: "If I hold you any closer, I'll be in back >of you." > >And speaking of Steve Martin, as someone just did, I love in _LA Story_ when >he says he thinks he'd make a good subject for an interview "on account of >the interesting word usements I structure." > >K. > >>From: Rachel Loden >>Reply-To: rloden@concentric.net >>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >>Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) >>Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:26:21 -0700 >> >>And how about >> >>"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of >>five." > > > > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >K. Silem Mohammad >Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit >University of California Santa Cruz > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 16:04:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This has placed me in the mood to watch Animal Crackers tonight ! Best, Geoffrey -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] On Behalf Of Maria Damon Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 4:00 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) my favorite groucho marx/theoretical one-liner is to margaret dumont: "everything about you reminds me of you --except you." At 12:44 PM -0700 5/29/02, K.Silem Mohammad wrote: >Groucho in _A Day at the Races_: "If I hold you any closer, I'll be in back >of you." > >And speaking of Steve Martin, as someone just did, I love in _LA Story_ when >he says he thinks he'd make a good subject for an interview "on account of >the interesting word usements I structure." > >K. > >>From: Rachel Loden >>Reply-To: rloden@concentric.net >>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >>Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) >>Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 10:26:21 -0700 >> >>And how about >> >>"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of >>five." > > > > >~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >K. Silem Mohammad >Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit >University of California Santa Cruz > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:17:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Rathmann Subject: Re: lyric ca. 2002 In-Reply-To: <3CF3AC5F.6F302429@earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Chris, You raise more issues than I can handle (not hard to do), so I'm just going to zoom in on a few and wait for others to respond. I emphasize generation partly because I feel there are differences, and partly because I _want_ there to be differences. This is a good moment to be trying new things. You mention "options." I think there are strong conventions in play, but that writers must resist them, not pick and choose (which, I know, is not what you meant anyway). "Experimental" writing (abhorrent term) has its own forms of conformity. At this point, all thinking about lyric must proceed from specific examples of work by younger poets. But wouldn't you agree that poetry -- as a whole -- has relinquished some of its ambitions in trying to keep a toehold among intellectuals (esp. academics)? Call that something "lyric intensity" or "imaginative strangeness." So I guess I would go with your #2: lyric = nondiscursive. I don't think the "I" is a very important issue, really, because avoiding it requires almost as much artifice as using it, and I don't buy any of the ideological arguments about "the subject" (whatever that is). A central consciousness is always implicit, and I like poetic voice. Anonymity is a kind of pose, too, and usually a lot duller. I too think Perelman is an intense writer, especially when writing about what it means to be a writer, here and now. That seems to be his best subject. He is a help. And Howe can be very maudlin. But I think ultimately her aspirations are higher than his. Andy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 13:23:20 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: this Sunday at K'vetch Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Hi All, I'll be a featured reader here in San Francisco, this Sunday, June 2, at K'vetch, a monthly queer open mike, that I think's an interesting scene. The other feature will be hip hop poet Ralowe from Deep Dickollective. I've heard him and he does amazing things with sound and different voices coming into the poetry. Here's the details: Sadie's Flying Elephant (a bar) June 2, Sunday 7:00 to 10:00 pm (this really means 7:30) corner of Potrero and Mariposa Bring a poem and sign up for the open reading. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:26:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > And speaking of Steve Martin Okay then-- another one I often think of is Martin's reassurance to those not as educated as himself: "Let's face it, some people have a way with words, while others...um...'not have way,' I guess." And one more: "If you go to France, remember-- 'chapeau' means hat; 'oeuf' means egg-- it's like, those French have a different word for *everything*." Steve Martin's humor, like that of Monty Python, really is based in language. When it comes down to it, are there comedians of anything else? I mean there are the Three Stooges and Dick Van Dyke tripping over his ottoman, but otherwise it's all about language and timing. Eddie Murphy-- Woody Allen-- Is there a school of Language Comedians out there? "Langco"? Recently I've been studying the rather famous literary comedian Mark Twain, and I read that he was so naturally funny that he once walked up to the lectern and stood there looking out at the audience with a completely blank expression for more than a minute, and people one by one began to chuckle until the whole house fell into a cataclysm of laughter. -Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 14:06:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Drunken Boat Subject: June 8th, 2 PM, NYC, Reading/Screening Collaborative Performance In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Drunken Boat, , online journal of the arts, hosts a synthesis of video/film and poetry on June 8th, 2PM at St. Agnes Library, located at 444 Amsterdam Ave. [near W. 81st St.] New York, N.Y 10024, (212)877-4380. Poets Timothy Liu, editor of Word of Mouth: An Anthology of Gay American Poetry and the author of many books of poems, including most recently Hard Evidence, Kathleen Ossip, professor at the New School whose book The Search Engine won the APR/Honickman First Book Prize and will be published in October 2002 and who has poems forthcoming in the Paris Review, the Kenyon Review, Verse, Denver Quarterly, and the American Poetry Review, Tina Chang, who has received awards from the Academy of American Poets, the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation, the Van Lier Foundation and whose book Half-Lit Houses is forthcoming from Four Way Books, and Sarah Davis, a poet and fiction writer whose work has appeared in The Antioch Review, Epoch, Fence and Fine Madnes join video artist Lisa DiLillo, filmmaker Joel Schlemowitz and filmmaker Lisa Barnstone. Their work has shown both nationally and internationally in such festivals and venues as The Rotterdam Film Festival, the Sundance Film festival, the Whitney Museum, the Walker Art Center, and the San Francisco Cinematheque at Center for the Arts among many others. Contact: Ravi Shankar Email: ravi@drunkenboat.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 17:29:42 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 5/29/02 4:40:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time, aaron@BELZ.NET writes: << Is there a school of Language Comedians out there? "Langco"? >> See Michael Gottlieb's poem "Timing is Everything." It's composed entirely of punchlines. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:59:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu / housepress Subject: new from housepress: THE ORANGES UV ORANTANGUA by bill bissett MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable housepress is pleased to announce the release of: THE ORANGES UV ORANTANGUA by bill bissett published in a limited handbound edition of 80 numbered copies. copies are available for $12 (including postage) from housepress. to order copies, or for more information contact : derek beaulieu at = derek@housepress.ca bill bissett has attempted "2 xtend th boundareez uv th langwage" = through the over 60 books he has published to date. his sound poetry was = most recently featured on the CD "rainbow mewsik" (Red Deer Press, = 2002), and his "peter among th towring boxes" is forthcoming from = Talonbooks. for more information on bill, see = http://www.housepress.ca/bissett.htm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:15:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Small Press Subject: Saidenberg & Cole this Friday, 5/31 at SPT, SF MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Small Press Traffic presents Friday, May 31, 2002 at 7:30 pm NORMA COLE & JOCELYN SAIDENBERG Poet, visual artist and translator Norma Cole is the author of many superb books of poetry, the latest of which is Spinoza in Her Youth , beautifully published by Richmond’s new Omnidawn Press. Robert Creeley has said, "she is a poet of consummate intelligence, a deft and compassionate company". Her much respected translation work includes Anne Portugal's Nude and Danielle Collobert’s It Then. Cole teaches at Otis College of Art & Design in LA, and in the University of San Francisco Creative Writing MFA Program. Jocelyn Saidenberg is the author of Mortal City (Parenthesis Writing Series, 1998) and Immure (Double Lucy, 2001). Her newest book, CUSP, winner of the Frances Jaffer Award, is just out from Kelsey St. Press. Barbara Guest calls CUSP "a poem of exceptional sensibility and ardor." Saidenberg has been key to Small Press Traffic’s continuing success: a former board member, she also served as director from 1999-2000. She won the New Langton Arts Bay Area Award in Literature in 1999 and founded Krupskaya Publishing Collective in 1998, which has now published over a dozen gorgeous and compelling books. All events are $5-10, sliding scale, and begin at 7:30, unless otherwise noted. Our events are free to SPT members, and CCAC faculty, staff, and students. Unless otherwise noted, our events are presented in Timken Lecture Hall California College of Arts and Crafts 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco (just off the intersection of 16th & Wisconsin) Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Executive Director Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at CCAC 1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, California 94107 415/551-9278 http://www.sptraffic.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:19:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: I need a subject? In-Reply-To: <3C7A7EEC.466F7B69@acsu.buffalo.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I was indeed in Buffalo for a couple hours a couple weeks ago, went to a ball game at, good lord, Pilot Field with a new corporate name, Dunn Paint or something. Went with Jack Cardoso, a wonderfully cranky recent retiree in history from Buffalo State. Might be back in a week or 2. -- George Bowering Yearns for Key Lime Pie Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 18:32:17 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit once upon a time and a very good time it taws i was a French minor I know there is Aaron languedoc and langueoil if that helps too hot too find Fr dictionary to ck spelling Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 20:23:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chase Park Subject: Re: lyric ca. 2002 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Andrew, While I agree with you that there is a younger generation out there working with different concerns than many of the poets that get tossed about in the discussions on this list, I can't really hop on the "At this point, all thinking about lyric must proceed from specific examples of work by younger poets" bandwagon. The lyric has a long and lush history that will far outlast our current discussion, dont you think? David Horton PO Box 9136 Oakland, CA 94613-0136 510-251-2297 chasepark@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 20:51:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Del Ray Cross Subject: SHAMPOO Twelve ! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Howdy People, The twelfth issue of SHAMPOO is ready for consumption. And it's dee-lish! Scoot on over to: http://www.ShampooPoetry.com and check out sudsy new poems from Kirby Wright, Ian Randall Wilson, Les Wicks, Nick Whittock, Andy Weaver, Mike Topp, Kenneth Tanemura, Gary Sullivan & K. Silem Mohammad, Hazel Smith, Lauren Shufran, Brandon Shimoda, Suzy Saul, Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Barbara Jane Reyes, Billy X. O'Brien (who also provides new art for the ShampooStars page!), Murray Moulding, Ange Mlinko, Kate Middleton, Adrian Matejka, Cassie Lewis, Susan Landers, Barbara Johnson, David Hess, Carmen Gimenez-Rosello, Vernon Frazer, Michael Farrell, Amit Dwibedy, Denise Duhamel, MTC Cronin, Joel Chace, Jim Behrle, Anne Babson, Meredith Alexander, and bubbly ShampooArt by Ann Barrett. Thanks to all of you SHAMPOO fans, and I hope to see many of you at the Boston Poetry Marathon next week! Lather up, Del Ray Cross, Editor SHAMPOO clean hair / good poetry www.ShampooPoetry.com (if you'd prefer not to receive these notices, just let me know) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 21:08:20 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) In-Reply-To: <000201c20735$f4771060$a6020140@default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this was probably posted already but if so I missed it: "time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana" mailto:tenney@dakotacom.net mailto:nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/tn POG: mailto:pog@gopog.org http://www.gopog.org > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Rachel Loden > Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 10:26 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) > > > And how about > > "A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of > five." > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 00:34:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: temporary illness, toppling MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII before 60 hrs. yesterday i began with a public presentation, my hands danced on the keys, the images got away from me, one/two/many, i'd forget, bring back another language-particle, another phrase or phase, the letters were falling down the screen, what did i mean, i'd forget, dealing with protocols and codes, hardly producing odes, it was the thought of the collapse of thought at thought's collapse, it was taking me down with it, later everything left me, my body sprang at nourishment, everything leaving beserk from the collapsed ship, i've lost seven pounds, i've never been to norwalk -:worlds-creating, unknown territories, hands that don't work, rivers of sweat, black vomit, a nile of bile i bet beserk, i'm polluted, my mind thinks of ONLY CLEAN THINGS, unknown territories of the body tube, i'm centrifugal, everything exits, leaves the collapsed ship, sails water-logged, every moment lost, i realized i am writing this with half a mind going into withdrawal of all thought and loss of appetite -:the body tube opens everywhere, i'm writing this beneath its sign, it's hardly mine, it hands, drools, leaks for the mind, it drags the mind down, it's norwalk virus, it's norwalk-like virus, i'm losing weight, five or six pounds already, i'm hardly steady, i can't walk well, my body's hell, i'd say, take my body away today and stay away, my mind resists shrieking, that is it wants to hold on to the tethers in all weathers, i know when i'll die it will be somewhere else - that's the i that is an other, the i that brings it down -::osprey dissolution//red-winged-blackbird in They contain a positive strand RNA genome of 7.5 kb and a single structural protein of about 60 kDa. The 27-32 nm viral particles have a buoyant density of 1.39-1.40 g/ml in CsCl. They murmured my name. They invaded my holes. They lubricated my holes. They hollowed me out. They consumed me. They invaded my brain. I know everything about protocols. I can't write a thing. _ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 16:34:58 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tom I was just having a lok at your and Nick Piombino's work (yours was in my battered copy of "In the American Tree") and both are good: but what about your name's sake Tom Veitch: very funny: god too: what happenned to him? ....I came across his poems in a book about the NY School some time ago (the "first one" - if it can be called a school - it included Ashbery, Veitch, and some gay poet who when I come to think of it: I mean the material was quite risque and I was shocked at the time:it was probably partly satirical and maybe not as 'bad' as I thought then...)...but overall I feel the greatest lit. is comic: but one of the writers I valorise, Faulkner: his humour is maybe the apparent conplete lack of it, or maybe I miss it: is "The Sound and the Fury" actually comic, or satiric? If so, I miss the point in that case: (maybe there's a dark humour in "As I Lay Dying")...but there are a lot of amusing things in language poetry without it all being "hilarious": any movement or any movers of movements that cant laugh a bit is (are) a worry. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Tom Beckett" To: Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2002 9:29 AM Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) > In a message dated 5/29/02 4:40:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time, aaron@BELZ.NET > writes: > > << Is there a school of Language Comedians out there? "Langco"? >> > See Michael Gottlieb's poem "Timing is Everything." It's composed entirely > of punchlines. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 00:40:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: The haussmannization of prose Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > 4. At the recent juxtaposition of Perelman and Pinsky in a narrative > purportedly about poetry since the 1960s, my immediate reflex was to "think" > of what Coolidge and Fagan "did" to Angelou's presidential inauguration > poem > The basis of Coolidge/Fagan's satire is not only Angelou's nouns of > "inclusiveness," but her syntax, which they therefore need to preserve > pretty much intact in their poem. Even as one grants that it is the syntax Fagin is the receiver of stolen goods in Dickens' -Oliver Twist-, who trains boys to steal. Larry Fagin is the New York poet who wrote the following poem: AAA It's great To be alive, American Driving, alone, a car, at night, Down the road one hundred miles per hour. (from-Another World- Bobbs-Merril (1971) edited by Anne Waldman Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 00:45:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: Poetry/ poetics/ prose Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > Perhaps these are intimations of a > future codification of prose to a point where in fact all prose will be the > footnotes or hyperlinks of poetry? I had similar intimations when I first read Standard Schaefer's -Nova-(Sun and Moon,2001) in which a section of the book consists of numerous short prose poems written as footnotes to the poetic text. As for the relation of poetics to prose, some crucial works for me in this regard are Bernadette Mayer's -Story-, -Moving- and -Studying Hunger-. These prose poetry works set the stage, for me, for the impact of Silliman's - Chinese Notebook-(in- The Age of Huts-, Roof,1986), which I had read much earlier either in manuscript form or in magazines and Carla Harryman's -Under the Bridge-(This,1980). Partly as a result of becoming so immersed in these works, I reread some Wittgenstein, particularly- Philosophical Investigations -and everything by Francis Ponge I could find. All of this finally brought me back to Baudelaire's prose poems which I read again and again in English and which I sometimes I even tried to struggle with in French. I am not sure why I am discussing my response to Louis Cabri's posts on poetry and prose like this, by referring to specific works, but I think what I want to say has to do with the notion of "prose poetry" not mentioned in Cabri's piece. My current experience of the modernistic typographical conventions of the poetic text - short lines, or repeated capitals at the beginnings of long lines, the use of page space around short phrases interestingly placed here and there on the page- is often one of impatience and annoyance. The fact is, that for the past several years, I much prefer to read poetry when it is written out in short or long sentences, in dense paragraphs, or in short lines like aphorisms in Wittgenstein or in -the Chinese Notebook-. Maybe Louis Cabri can explain to me why this is. Perhaps he already has in his piece, but it is not coming through to me yet. David Markson's books -Reader's Block- (Dalkey Archive, 1996) and -This Is Not a Novel- (Counterpoint 2001) are written in single sentences for the most part, or in short paragraphs separated by three spaces. Despite the disturbing subject matter (he is often obsessed with the causes of writer's deaths and the anti-Semitism of various famous people throughout history, which are laconically catalogued throughout his books) I read and reread these books with great pleasure, for one thing, because of their clear attempt to efface the differences between poetry and prose. Am I gutlessly wondering why I so much prefer prose poetry to any other setting for contemporary writing? Perhaps Mr. Cabri might be convinced to try a hand at diagnosing my poetic malady. Nick PIombino ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 01:27:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Poetry/ poetics/ prose MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Nick, Itoccurs to me as I read this that what I have been doing lately and have called investigative poetry for lack of better nomenclature fits somewhere in this spectrum although I'm not sure where. I have found that as a poet and also a psychologist some bits come out as poetry and some come out as dry and factual and I leave it to the reader (or viewer) to combinethem from his or her perspective. It's more of a process or poetic research than text-based format can accomadate as it incorporates links and can incorporate the visual or gestural. While it begins with Sanders, I think this way of working owes more to my experiences on the net and online support groups and listserv mail jumbles than anything else. In it's current form the piece is five pages but I'll send a copy to those who ask, but enough self-promo for tonight. tom bell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 23:15:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: lyric ca. 2002 In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Andrew, > >While I agree with you that there is a younger generation out there working >with different concerns than many of the poets that get tossed about in the >discussions on this list, I can't really hop on the "At this point, all >thinking about lyric must proceed from specific examples of work by younger >poets" bandwagon. The lyric has a long and lush history that will far >outlast our current discussion, dont you think? > >David Horton Probably true. But so will TV sitcoms. -- George Bowering Yearns for Key Lime Pie Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 23:46:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: The huysmansization of prose MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii At first I thought you were saying "huysmansization of prose" and meant, a` la ~A Rebours~, a compartmentalization of it into separate rooms, each painted a different color, or a sort of museum of perfumes of prose--- but, dyslexia blinked away, I see you must mean Napoleon III's Baron Hausmann, architect of the re-design of Paris . . . in which case I understand even less what you mean by that (or find it less interesting when corrected, too real). lcabri@DEPT.ENGLISH.UPENN.EDU wrote: > So I guess no one else other than Chris S. and I have read S. Howe's Pierce-Arrow. Some of my ~Pierce-Arrow~ marginalia (metrical notations subject to error in transcription/typing: some 60 out of 144 pages in my copy are fully scanned this way. Too laborious to re-type more [although I will take page number "requests"!], below. Abbreviations indicate feet. I.e., I = iamb, S = spondee, T = trochee, etc.; P = paeon; E = epitrite. Numbers prior to metrical summary = syllabics. A period before a macron/breve (._ or ./) indicates that syllable can vary in accent/stress. | = some pattern or natural pause. {p. 3} _ / _ / _._|_ / _ _ / _ _ 13 iamb _ / _ /|_ _ / _ _ ) 9 I2.3rd P / /|_ _ / _|_ / 8 S.A2=S.3rdP.I / _ / _ / _ / _._ ) 9 T4 _ / _ _|/ _._ _ / 9 I.2ndE.A _ / _ _|_ _ / _ _ / _._ _ )13 / _ _|/ _ _|_ / _ / 10 D2.I2 / _|/ _|./_|/ _|/ _ 10 T5 / _|/|/ _ / / 7 {p. 25} 2nd paeon 2nd paeon + trisyllable undercurrent OR iamb, primes for Gk names --Andromache, Prometheus _ / _ _ / _._ 7 I.A / _|.__/ / _ 7 _ / _ _|/ _ _._ ) 8 _ / _ _|/ / _ 7 / /|/ _ _ _ / 7 mol/spon * / /|_._ / _ / _ 8 / _ / x / 5 / _ _ / _ _ / _ _ 9 dac.trim .__ / _ / _ / / 8 _ / _ _ /^_ / 7 Tel{essilean} * late field hour toward the green {dedication} four ep2's one ep3/t2 {from p. 30} clutching bandages next .. .. . . .. ... . ... {periods indicate phonemes [ch & g = t-sh & d-zh, etc.]} {from p. 39} links grisly ... .. {from p. 42; _ = long vowel} --other archaic Greek messages . . _.._ . .._ . . . ... indiscoverable lands all law .. .. . . .. . ... _. ._ torn up nothing praiseworthy- ._.. . . . . .._ . . .._ {from p. 52} sprung rhythm limerick David- -son cracked the whip of A ris to tle we al ways wound up with a quar rel humor {from p. 58} Occamists freq ... .. scis- -sor Mis- -ter Brooks occ(amists)> Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jason christie Subject: Re: Poetry/ poetics/ prose and the veritible sandbox Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed where and how will visual poetries find themselves an anchor to swing around in this listing? curious. and scores for/of sound poems? gadji beri bimba. pound those drums of literature into the ground. hausmann too could add and count a nuissance against. the water and its own level. what does poetry look like? blockus poeticus: a form of poem written in sentences, usually but not always grouped into paragraphs, often seen smoking in the corner of a pool hall. lineatedus poeticus: the dodo, dandelion, duckbilled platypus abatross and treasure we can't find but want to desperately. here we are now: wit gen stein's do not go gentle. to be and be between, now that is the real wheatie of it all. john riddell wasting away. unconcerned censors smoke down the aisles of all where we are. POETRY! POETICS! PROSE! all 3 for the low low mac low price of th oranges ov orantangua. or at least some ranchland in calgary. my love is like a red red pair of galoshes, now come in from the rain dear, come in from the storm. >From: Thomas Bell >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: Poetry/ poetics/ prose >Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 01:27:29 -0500 > >Nick, > > Itoccurs to me as I read this that what I have been doing lately and >have called investigative poetry for lack of better nomenclature fits >somewhere in this spectrum although I'm not sure where. I have found that >as a poet and also a psychologist some bits come out as poetry and some >come >out as dry and factual and I leave it to the reader (or viewer) to >combinethem from his or her perspective. It's more of a process or poetic >research than text-based format can accomadate as it incorporates links and >can incorporate the visual or gestural. While it begins with Sanders, I >think this way of working owes more to my experiences on the net and online >support groups and listserv mail jumbles than anything else. > >In it's current form the piece is five pages but I'll send a copy to those >who ask, but enough self-promo for tonight. > >tom bell > >&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: >Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html >Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at >http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm >Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ >Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 07:59:51 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris McCreary Subject: ixnay number eight -- available now MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit We are pleased to announce the release of ixnay number eight. This 64-pg issue features new work by (in order of appearance): Gil Ott / Rachel Blau DuPlessis / Laurie Price / Hank Lazer / Pattie McCarthy / Eleni Sikelianos / Edwin Torres / Kirsten Kaschock / Eric Keenaghan / Brenda Iijima / Matt Hart / Buck Downs / Garrett Caples plus cover art by Brenda Iijima all for only $5 dollars! (Please make checks payable to one or both of the editors, not the press itself; feel free to order via e-mail and pay upon receipt of the issue.) Also, stay tuned this summer for the first issue of poppycock, an ixnay supplemental newsletter. The issue will feature Don Riggs on Pattie McCarthy's "bk of (h)rs," CA Conrad on Heather Fuller's "Dovecote," Ethel Rackin on Rachel Blau DuPlessis's "Toll," Alicia Askenase on Hank Lazer, an interview w/ Marcella Durand, & more! Please note: ixnay is not currently reading submissions, nor will we be able to do so in the near future. Thanks in advance for yr attention. Chris McCreary & Jenn McCreary / co-editors, ixnay press ixnaypress@aol.com www.durationpress.com/ixnay ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 00:54:15 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: GUTS re: Lyric ca. 2002 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thomas. (And Listees) I used to work with a guy called Tom Bell: he was a cable jointer: one day (some time after I left the telecom field) I was writing a series and had forgotten the word for "dresser" (a wooden or plastic tool used to beat lead into shape (nowadays of course fibreoptic technology has replaced that)) but his comment was, when I said I was putting (some of our old work processes and trade "secrets" into a poem) "Is there much money in that?" (Poetry he menant)!! Tom was a skilled lineman and cable jointer: and a bloody good bloke and still is...of course there have to be millions of Tom Bells!! But if you ever see my "Chains" I link _his_ name with Bell Telephone and him and Telecommunications (the field I was in) and so on in a chain of statement-response poems called "Chains"... but re what you have said below: I agree, the connection/interaction of the personal or confessional is problematic and interesting: example I think that Ashbery's poetry on one level is like some of the dreams he might have had but they may have actually helped him: or they may have made no differnece but in one sense for us all creativity is therapeutic..in the sense that eating is or laughing or sex or whatever: I mean all of us in being creative may be just (partly) working or reworking our possible dreams (and thus creativity like sleep is neccessary to everyone, I feel )...I see language poetry or Confessionalism as not separate per se or in boxes (sometimes unfortunately neccessary) as you imply and also as aspects of creativity: they are all different dimensions or "angles" of thought: I think that Nick felt that Millie was trivialising it into the gauche interpretation of "fun" (forgive me if I say the obvious you are clearly in the pschocological area like Nick) ... but in a sense its ALL valid: the lyric transformed to something rich and strange, Mills and Boon to some people, Soaps on TV for some, Conceptual Art or "pure" Mathematics for others: or the Bach I was listening to tonight for me: or maybe another time it'll be jazz or Bob Marley or whatever...but talking about Lang Poetry I was just in town (Auckland, New Zealand ) (at the Auck University Library) and reading some books by 1) There was Ashbery's "At A Masque " in a collection (not the American Poetry) 2) Two books by Tina Darragh - one involving dreams - fascinating: stimulating. 3) A double by Alice Notley (not a Language Peoet ) but I dont need to be convinced of her greatness. 4) What loked like arecent Bruce Andrews but not in his usual style - a departure - didnt have time to explore that (although I have done many of his other books: brilliant stuff. 5) Something about "The Orchard keeper" by Cormac McCarthy which I read in its first edition and the bookseler inme let go on eBay!!(and which doesnt have anything directly to do with lang poetry etc (and I didnt get onto that, the discussion) and last and most marvellous 5) Nick Piombino's book of mostly prose poetry (I think it was "Tarditional Objects")...I dont have the superlatives for the writing in that book. That is - I havent got a non-dull epithet - it blasted me: some of those things are by a writer of incredible ability.. All in all there is a lot of fascinating writing still going on just by so-called "centre-field" of the language poets (and that acknowledges retallack and many others I havent mentioned)...but reading them its important to realise that a lot of the skills in reading into and in other regions or dimensions of literature and other writing apply and one has to approach from new ones...no one of these writers could be said to be samey: Nick possibly is closer to Bernstein than Darragh: but they are very different consciousnesses: we all are: we are all unique. Richard Taylor. (Please note the Taylor..but it doesnt matter too much...) ----- Original Message ----- From: "Thomas Bell" To: Sent: Thursday, May 30, 2002 5:21 AM Subject: GUTS re: Lyric ca. 2002 > As Richard Tyler points out elsewhere the FakeLangpo effort and putting life > on the list in what was a sort of 'investigative poem' of manic > depressiontook guts. interestingly enough this is the same quality whose > lack is lamented in the thread about poetry/prose. > > [what genre does Millie's outpouring fit into? aside from being 'epoetry'] > > [if we can ignore the viruses that seem these days to arrive from all > directions] > > I tend to see fhat in one dimension the whole tendency to put feelings into > boxes and so dismiss them as so much, 'lyricism', 'confessional', and what > have you is just a way of eliminating these gut feelings from poetry and > maybe from life. > > Thisis somewhat ironic in light of recent medical and scientific recognition > or rediscovery of gut feelings (e.g, Lakoff). > > Asin life and therapy ideally a true 'poetry', whatever name it goes by, > should work through holding and letting forth the gutsratherthan banishing > them forcing them out, 'letting it all hang out' is perhaps a return to the > sixties, but maybe the sixties before they were perverted by media > sensationalism. > > tom bell > > &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: > Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html > Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at > http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm > Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ > Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 09:14:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Pamela Z at Tonic Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I'm forwarding this along for a friend -- it's "sound poetry" related, kind of. Anyway, whatever you call what Pamela does, she's great at it! -- Gary Pamela Z (Voice and Electronics) Peter Kowald (Contrabass) Tuesday, June 4, 2002 8pm Tonic, NYC A shared evening of composed and improvised music. San Francisco-based composer/performer Pamela Z and bassist Peter Kowald from Wuppertal Germany will each play solo sets as well as a set of improvised duets. Tonic is located at 107 Norfolk Street between Delancey and Rivington Streets in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Pamela combines experimental extended vocal techniques, bel canto, and spoken word with electronic processing, and samples controlled by physical gestures. Peter Kowald is a renowned European free improvisational bassist, who's adventurous techniques are often punctuated with bouts of throat singing. For information visit: http://www.pamelaz.com http://www.kowald.de -- @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ Pamela Z Composer/Performer pamelaz@pamelaz.com http://www.pamelaz.com Z Programs 540 Alabama Street Studio 213 San Francisco, CA 94110 ph: 415.861.EARS (415.861.3277) cell: 415.5PAMELA (415.572.6352) FAX: 415.861.FAKS (415.861.3257) shipping address (for packages larger than a flat): Pamela Z 2440 Sixteenth Street PMB #171, San Francisco, CA 94103 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 09:54:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Betsy Andrews Subject: Betsy Andrews reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Thursday June 6, 7:30 PM at McSweeney's Store, 7th Ave between 14th and 15th Streets in Park Slope, Brooklyn --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 13:27:52 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: The haussmannization of prose MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit naah isn't that poem the beginning of a bio on LBJ re: beer cans and caddu's way over the limit/line deep in the dark heart of a Texas night? Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 13:32:39 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: lyric ca. 2002 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit if you can vacuum, grade essay's & change kitty litter for 3 will do excellent key lime pie Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 18:20:26 -0700 Reply-To: rova@rova.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rova Saxophone Quartet Subject: naropa revisited In-Reply-To: <12c.122076cb.2a27bc37@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit i am driving to naropa from san francisco on june 8. willing to share a ride with someone if needed, if willing to pitch in for gas, etc. only staying for two weeks, so ride back may have to be on your own. backchannel here for more info. also, i am still looking for somewhere to crash for those two weeks while in town. thanks to those who previously suggested the hostel, but if anyone knows of any room someone might have in a house nearby, please backchannel to me. best, David Hadbawnik ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 22:50:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: fil < 9166 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - fil < 9166 awk -f fil fil >> zz thrangiealrtprtsneingitrheshmeelllsteeeandedceoontiead 0 what i meant to say a clear division of domains tactical strategies prod or penetration from the surface such that x and not-x carry the parasitic mouths open on each and every division every division tends towards rigidity the proper name holds its own clarity producing brilliance functional definitions among messy protocols proceeding across the turmoil of information parasites pass among parasites one what? what one? such that all writing binds the body such that bodies aren't written, but scribbled of scribbles what i meant to say a clear division of domains tactical strategies prod or penetration from the surface tangled in vines and poisonwood such that x and not-x carry the parasitic mouths open on each and every division every division tends towards rigidity the proper name holds its own clarity producing brilliance functional definitions among messy protocols proceeding across the turmoil of information what remains is the dispersion of ontologies epistemologies mistaken for equivalences becoming sidetracked effaces and recuperates truth truth is always an hysteria parasites pass among parasites flow and flux of parasites understand this and understand all one what? what one? i tried but floated above the signifiers irruption of sememes in hyperinflated universals cancel compression and slide across boundaries such that all writing binds the body such that bodies aren't written, but scribbled such that inscriptions are written bodies what i meant to say a clear division of domains tactical strategies prod or penetration from the surface tangled in vines and poisonwood such that x and not-x carry the parasitic mouths open on each and every division every division tends towards rigidity the proper name holds its own clarity producing brilliance functional definitions among messy protocols proceeding across the turmoil of information what remains is the dispersion of ontologies epistemologies mistaken for equivalences becoming sidetracked effaces and recuperates truth truth is always an hysteria truth is a symptom parasites pass among parasites flow and flux of parasites understand this and understand all one what? what one? i tried but floated above the signifiers irruption of sememes in hyperinflated universals cancel compression and slide across boundaries such that all writing binds the body such that bodies aren't written, but scribbled such that inscriptions are written bodies what i meant to say a clear division of domains tactical strategies prod or penetration from the surface tangled in vines and poisonwood such that x and not-x carry the parasitic mouths open on each and every division every division tends towards rigidity the proper name holds its own clarity producing brilliance functional definitions among messy protocols proceeding across the turmoil of information what remains is the dispersion of ontologies epistemologies mistaken for equivalences becoming sidetracked effaces and recuperates truth truth is always an hysteria truth is a symptom parasites pass among parasites flow and flux of parasites understand this and understand all one what? what one? i tried but floated above the signifiers irruption of sememes in hyperinflated universals such that all writing binds the body such that bodies aren't written, but scribbled such that inscriptions are written bodies what i meant to say a clear division of domains tactical strategies prod or penetration from the surface tangled in vines and poisonwood such that x and not-x carry the parasitic mouths open on each and every division every division tends towards rigidity the proper name holds its own clarity producing brilliance functional definitions among messy protocols proceeding across the turmoil of information what remains is the dispersion of ontologies epistemologies mistaken for equivalences becoming sidetracked effaces and recuperates truth truth is always an hysteria parasites pass among parasites flow and flux of parasites understand this and understand all one what? what one? i tried but floated above the signifiers irruption of sememes in hyperinflated universals cancel compression and slide across boundaries such that all writing binds the body such that bodies aren't written, but scribbled such that inscriptions are written bodies what i meant to say a clear division of domains tactical strategies prod or penetration from the surface tangled in vines and poisonwood such that x and not-x carry the parasitic mouths open on each and every division every division tends towards rigidity the proper name holds its own clarity producing brilliance functional definitions among messy protocols proceeding across the turmoil of information what remains is the dispersion of ontologies epistemologies mistaken for equivalences becoming sidetracked effaces and recuperates truth truth is always an hysteria truth is a symptom parasites pass among parasites flow and flux of parasites understand this and understand all one what? what one? i tried but floated above the signifiers irruption of sememes in hyperinflated universals cancel compression and slide across boundaries such that all writing binds the body such that bodies aren't written, but scribbled such that inscriptions are written bodies what i meant to say a clear division of domains tactical strategies prod or penetration from the surface tangled in vines and poisonwood such that x and not-x carry the parasitic mouths open on each and every division every division tends towards rigidity the proper name holds its own clarity producing brilliance functional definitions among messy protocols proceeding across the turmoil of information what remains is the dispersion of ontologies epistemologies mistaken for equivalences becoming sidetracked effaces and recuperates truth truth is always an hysteria parasites pass among parasites flow and flux of parasites understand this and understand all one what? what one? i tried but floated above the signifiers irruption of sememes in hyperinflated universals cancel compression and slide across boundaries such that all writing binds the body such that bodies aren't written, but scribbled such that inscriptions are written bodies what i meant to say a clear division of domains tactical strategies prod or penetration from the surface tangled in vines and poisonwood such that x and not-x carry the parasitic mouths open on each and every division every division tends towards rigidity the proper name holds its own clarity producing brilliance functional definitions among messy protocols proceeding across the turmoil of information what remains is the dispersion of ontologies epistemologies mistaken for equivalences becoming sidetracked effaces and recuperates truth truth is always an hysteria parasites pass among parasites flow and flux of parasites understand this and understand all one what? what one? i tried but floated above the signifiers irruption of sememes in hyperinflated universals cancel compression and slide across boundaries such that all writing binds the body such that bodies aren't written, but scribbled such that inscriptions are written bodies what i meant to say a clear division of domains tactical strategies prod or penetration from the surface tangled in vines and poisonwood such that x and not-x carry the parasitic mouths open on each and every division every division tends towards rigidity the proper name holds its own clarity producing brilliance functional definitions among messy protocols /[0]+/ { print "0" } /[th]+/ { print "what i meant to say" } /[ra]+/ { print "a clear division of domains" } /[ng]+/ { print "tactical strategies" } /[ie]+/ { print "prod or penetration from the surface" } /[al]+/ { print "tangled in vines and poisonwood" } /[rt]+/ { print "such that x and not-x carry the parasitic" } /[pr]+/ { print "mouths open on each and every division" } /[ts]+/ { print "every division tends towards rigidity" } /[ne]+/ { print "the proper name holds its own" } /[in]+/ { print "clarity producing brilliance" } /[gi]+/ { print "functional definitions among messy protocols" } /[tr]+/ { print "proceeding across the turmoil of information" } /[he]+/ { print "what remains is the dispersion of ontologies" } /[sh]+/ { print "epistemologies mistaken for equivalences" } /[me]+/ { print "becoming sidetracked effaces and recuperates truth" } /[el]+/ { print "truth is always an hysteria" } /[ll]+/ { print "truth is a symptom" } /[st]+/ { print "parasites pass among parasites" } /[ee]+/ { print "flow and flux of parasites" } /[ea]+/ { print "understand this and understand all" } /[nd]+/ { print "one what? what one?" } /[ed]+/ { print "i tried but floated above the signifiers" } /[ce]+/ { print "irruption of sememes in hyperinflated universals" } /[oo]+/ { print "cancel compression and slide across boundaries" } /[nt]+/ { print "such that all writing binds the body" } /[ie]+/ { print "such that bodies aren't written, but scribbled" } /[ad]+/ { print "such that inscriptions are written bodies" } /^$/ { print "of scribbles" } ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 22:56:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Trane DeVore Subject: Tom Veitch Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Richard, I too am a big fan of Tom Veitch's work, though I certainly wouldn't know of his work (except from comics) if he weren't an old family friend. He and my father Darrell (a fantastic musician and experimental instrument builder) used to hang together in San Francisco when I was I kid. It's been decades since I've seen anyone in the Veitch family, but I do know that Tom has worked in comics in the last two decades -- he wrote a series entitled *Abraxas* that was illustrated by his brother, Rick Veitch, and published in Epic Magazine. He also wrote a comics mini-series that was highly acclaimed that involved mysticism and the Vietnam War (though I can't remember offhand what the series was called). More recently he's been involved with the new Star Wars films -- my friend and I came across his name on a Star Wars listserve while we were finding out about Episode I before it came out and revealed itself to be a monstrosity. I also think he may have written several of the Star Wars comics that worked to tie together the movie plotlines and the plotlines of the Star Wars comics that had exceeded what the movies themselves had to tell us. I used to have a cache of his books, but my dad took them back (more's the pity). Trane p.s. You could always try a google search on his name if you want more. >Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 16:34:58 +1200 >From: "richard.tylr" >Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) > >Tom I was just having a lok at your and Nick Piombino's work (yours was in >my battered copy of "In the American Tree") and both are good: but what >about your name's sake Tom Veitch: very funny: god too: what happenned to >him? ....I came across his poems in a book about the NY School some time ago >(the "first one" - if it can be called a school - it included Ashbery, >Veitch, and some gay poet who when I come to think of it: I mean the >material was quite risque and I was shocked at the time:it was probably >partly satirical and maybe not as 'bad' as I thought then...)...but overall >I feel the greatest lit. is comic: but one of the writers I valorise, >Faulkner: his humour is maybe the apparent conplete lack of it, or maybe I >miss it: is "The Sound and the Fury" actually comic, or satiric? If so, I >miss the point in that case: (maybe there's a dark humour in "As I Lay >Dying")...but there are a lot of amusing things in language poetry without >it all being "hilarious": any movement or any movers of movements that >cant laugh a bit is (are) a worry. Richard. -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 21:33:15 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Tom Veitch MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Trane. Thanks. I just fluked onto that: I remember his photograph (of himself) was very funny: and his poetry was interesting: Ordinary People on Sunday ....Overwhelmed by the postman's love The girl throws herself from the roof of a building- Meanwhile the Rajah of Eshnapur is torn to death by tigers - grief strikes - again she takes her life... It may be a satire of Daddy or the poems of Plath...but it goes on about a whole lot of crazy suicides (vaguely recalls Pynchon of "The Crying of Lot 49"): but .. A powerful secret society pays of the mistress of the local mayor- She kills her newborn baby and in her delirium takes refuge in a monastry where a shy young monk savagely rapes her. And it fgoes on but its very funny: and often "deeper: another poem The Final Toast, ends: And to Mr Typwriter and Mrs Typwriter And to all the others who made life possible while you were away in India eating the natives. So your uncle is very good. Try and get those books back off your father! Richard. ---- Original Message ----- From: "Trane DeVore" To: Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 5:56 PM Subject: Tom Veitch > Richard, > > I too am a big fan of Tom Veitch's work, though I certainly wouldn't > know of his work (except from comics) if he weren't an old family > friend. He and my father Darrell (a fantastic musician and > experimental instrument builder) used to hang together in San > Francisco when I was I kid. It's been decades since I've seen anyone > in the Veitch family, but I do know that Tom has worked in comics in > the last two decades -- he wrote a series entitled *Abraxas* that was > illustrated by his brother, Rick Veitch, and published in Epic > Magazine. He also wrote a comics mini-series that was highly > acclaimed that involved mysticism and the Vietnam War (though I can't > remember offhand what the series was called). More recently he's > been involved with the new Star Wars films -- my friend and I came > across his name on a Star Wars listserve while we were finding out > about Episode I before it came out and revealed itself to be a > monstrosity. I also think he may have written several of the Star > Wars comics that worked to tie together the movie plotlines and the > plotlines of the Star Wars comics that had exceeded what the movies > themselves had to tell us. I used to have a cache of his books, but > my dad took them back (more's the pity). > > Trane > > p.s. You could always try a google search on his name if you want more. > > > > >Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 16:34:58 +1200 > >From: "richard.tylr" > >Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) > > > >Tom I was just having a lok at your and Nick Piombino's work (yours was in > >my battered copy of "In the American Tree") and both are good: but what > >about your name's sake Tom Veitch: very funny: god too: what happenned to > >him? ....I came across his poems in a book about the NY School some time ago > >(the "first one" - if it can be called a school - it included Ashbery, > >Veitch, and some gay poet who when I come to think of it: I mean the > >material was quite risque and I was shocked at the time:it was probably > >partly satirical and maybe not as 'bad' as I thought then...)...but overall > >I feel the greatest lit. is comic: but one of the writers I valorise, > >Faulkner: his humour is maybe the apparent conplete lack of it, or maybe I > >miss it: is "The Sound and the Fury" actually comic, or satiric? If so, I > >miss the point in that case: (maybe there's a dark humour in "As I Lay > >Dying")...but there are a lot of amusing things in language poetry without > >it all being "hilarious": any movement or any movers of movements that > >cant laugh a bit is (are) a worry. Richard. > > -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 06:28:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss =?iso-8859-1?Q?Peque=F1o?= Glazier Subject: Christian Bok wins Griffin Poetry Prize 2002 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed An announcement that Christian Bok's _Eunoia_ (Coach House Books) is winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize 2002. The Griffin is Canada's most prestigious literary prize and a major international literary award. This is an incredible achievement! Congratulations Christian! http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/gpp2002/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 08:27:14 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: GUTS re: Lyric ca. 2002 In-Reply-To: <003201c207d9$1afed080$262756d2@01397384> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There have been too many messages to follow but I just read someone quoting someone about how the fakelangpo thing was an example of manic depressive guts, or something to that effect. I don't deny that the expression of it (actually bothering to build a site and trying to populate it, [which I'm still trying to do -- I'd just like a site in which poetry is discussed in an honest way], ewas a manic effort. Non manics wouldn't have though of maning an actual web site devited to a non-movement, nor had they thought of it, would they botrher actually do it. We do have a tendenacy to carry out our jokes anstead of just letting them go back to the place of all jokes which are funny once but which have now, quite honorably, died. HOWEVER, the idea behind fakelangpo is one I'll stand by. People read poetry because they like it, they find something in it that resonates with their own thoughts or feelings (ones they couldn't say as well as the poet) or they are amused by it (often the case with Language Poetry), or they are aestheitically moved by uimagery, or the ideas are new and exciting, or the form is something they've never seen and they enjoy puzzling out how it works and why it still works (also a draw of some Language Poetry), or maybe it does something else to them that they can't identify, but the point is, PEOPLE READ POETRY BECAUSE THEY LIKE IT. This seems so obvious that you wouldn't think it would have to be stated, but discussions of poetics often make it sound as if the point of the poem is the theory. The point of the poem is firstly, that it gave the author some pleasure to write it, or else he felt compelled to write it, or it was a piece of a a larger program that the poet has chosen because he likes it. Secondly, the poem exists because some reader likes it, and will want to read it, and an editor recognizes that a reader will want to read it. Moreover, I maintain that everyone on the poetics list is here because ..... THEY LIKE READING POETRY. So I wanted to start a discussion about Language poetry (and I tried to do this by conventinal means before the fakelangpo escapade) of which language poems people liked and why, what it was about them that made them "Language poems" What exactly it is in the poetry which deliberately fails to produce most of the sources of entertainment that other poetry has (like narrative and lyricism) that nonetheless draws readers? Is it just humor? I wanted to discuss specific works, but no one wanted to discuss anything that concrete. No one even used a spefif work as an example of what they were talking about. So fakelangpo was supposed to be Language Poetry for the masses, where you could say "I tried to read bla bla bla but couldn't get through it, yet I've heard it's a seminal work. What am I missing?" and someone else would answer... But people got caught up in the name of the site. I chose it just because it is the "fake" way to approach language poetry, the philistine's way. It was only after wards that parodies came into the picture, once I realized the name could be taken that way. I love how everyone assumes I'm naive and underread...it's actually pretty funny since I've read a lot of poetry, including Language Poetry. I just have never been in an English department or taken a theory class. Many of my philistine ideas about poetry come from two semesters of modern poetry lecture by Kenneth Koch in college. I think I am parroting his ideas to some extent...the class was a strong influuence on me. Millie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 08:27:21 -0400 Reply-To: men2@columbia.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Millie Niss Subject: Re: the haussmannization of prose In-Reply-To: <20020529191212.17906.qmail@web21410.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I read it. I did a major prject on the long popem in grad school (MFA) and used Pierce-Arrow as an aexample (the whole book, arguing that the whole book is one work, divided into parts; one could say this about any poetry collection of course but I think it's actually true about Pierce-Arrow.) Howe does a neat job of forcing you to NOT believe in the myths she recounst while she is recounting them (which she tells in poetry as rich, in a contemporary way, as well as any other modern teller of these stories - it is perhaps the besty Tristan et Isolde (but for its incompleteness) in English) because she also tells about the people who told the stories before he, e.g. Swinburne, Tennyson, and about the society i which they lived as seen through the esxistence of someone like Pierce, a scholar and eccentric who would not be able to exist now or earlier in history; the Victorian period ws the era for amateur scholars... I know the real point is the prosody but I haven't got the book in front of me so I can't comment, except to say that she manages to narrate without narrating; events are there but she doesn't supply a linked string of them in order, she supplies lines about them which are intelligible to varying degrees based on our already knowing the story. That's interesting because it suggests that other LP which seems incoherent or hard to understand could be a _way_ of saying things in a difficult to understand manner rather than a deliberate effort not to say anything...this doesn't seem to be usually the case though, although one gets this sense in some of Clark Coolidge's work (the long poems). Millie -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Mister Kazim Ali Sent: Wednesday, May 29, 2002 3:12 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: the haussmannization of prose > 2. So I guess no one else other than Chris S. and I > have read S. Howe's > Pierce-Arrow. no dude i "read" it. and read it. ===== "As to why we remain:/we're busy now/waiting behind bolted doors/for the season that will not pass/to pass" --Rachel Tzvia Back, "Azimuth," Sheep Meadow Press __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 09:12:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rebecca Wolff Subject: Fence Books Fierce Lineup Tonight! Comments: To: ira@angel.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Don't miss this freakishly interesting and diverse group of poets if you can possibly help it. Michael Earl Craig Joyelle McSweeney Chelsey Minnis Catherine Wagner Friday, May 31st, 9:30 pm Poetry Project at St. Marks' Church 2nd Avenue at 9th Street, NYC There will be a party afterward to celebrate the reading and the summer hiatus of the reading series. Books, magazines, subscriptions and T-shirts will be discounted thusly: Books: one book for $10, two for $18, three for $25, four for $32 Magazines: current issue for $6, back issue for $4 Subscriptions: one year for $10, two years for $20 T-shirts: get one free when you buy three or more things, or pay $10 a la carte Lineup: Michael Earl Craig is the author of Can You Relax in My House, new from Fence Books. He lives in Montana, where he shoes horses. James Tate says: "I like being in the world of Michael Craig's poems. Anything can happen, and probably will . . . " Joyelle McSweeney's book The Red Bird, also new from Fence Books, was selected by Allen Grossman for the first Fence Modern Poets Series prize. She has just recently moved to Chicago. Cole Swensen says: "The Red Bird has more in common with a fast red car, except that it does, indeed, fly." Chelsey Minnis is the author of Zirconia, the winner of the first Alberta Prize from Fence Books. She lives in Denver. Fence Books says: "The formal invention and wild personae of Zirconia represent a progressive yet individualized position in the galaxy of truly contemporary poetry." Catherine Wagner is the author of Miss America, from Fence Books, as well as several lovely chapbooks which will also be available for sale. Of Miss America, Rae Armantrout says: "Jack Spicer's Martians are back, but now they're talking wild girltalk. . . . If I died, I might want to come back as Catherine Wagner." Please be there . . . http://www.fencebooks.com ********** Rebecca Wolff Fence et al. 14 Fifth Avenue, #1A New York, NY 10011 http://www.fencemag.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 11:02:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Slaughter Subject: Notice: Mudlark MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII New and On View: Mudlark Flash No. 18 (2002) Bryan Murphy | Angola Poems "Death of an Orphan-grinder" and "More than a Game" Bryan Murphy was born and raised in England. As an adult, his ability to teach English as a foreign language has enabled him to live and work in places like Portugal, Angola, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Bulgaria, mostly at times of profound but rapid social and political transition. It was Angola which made the deepest impact. He now works as a translator in Turin, Italy. Although he is a relative newcomer to poetry, his work has appeared in Erosha, Intercultural Platform, Melange, Moveo Angelus, Snakeskin, Switched-On Gutenberg, and elsewhere, including the 2001 Venice Biennale. He prefers electronic to print outlets because of their editors' faster responses and their more international audience. Spread the word. Far and wide, William Slaughter _________________ MUDLARK An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics Never in and never out of print... E-mail: mudlark@unf.edu URL: http://www.unf.edu/mudlark ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 12:00:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Cheryl Pallant Subject: contact info for Lee Ann Brown In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi, Can anyone back channel me contact info for Lee Ann Brown? Thanks. Cheryl Pallant ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 09:59:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hilton Obenzinger Subject: Re: Tom Veitch In-Reply-To: <002401c20886$3162e5c0$d7ec36d2@01397384> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Try "Death College" by Tom Veitch, one of the all-time terrific books. Hilton Obenzinger At 09:33 PM 5/31/2002 +1200, richard.tylr wrote: >Trane. Thanks. I just fluked onto that: I remember his photograph (of >himself) was very funny: and his poetry was interesting: > > Ordinary People on Sunday > > ....Overwhelmed by the postman's love > The girl throws herself from the roof of a building- > Meanwhile the Rajah of Eshnapur > is torn to death by tigers - grief strikes - > again she takes her life... > >It may be a satire of Daddy or the poems of Plath...but it goes on about a >whole lot of crazy suicides (vaguely recalls Pynchon of "The Crying of Lot >49"): > > but .. A powerful secret society pays of > the mistress of the local mayor- > She kills her newborn baby and in her delirium > takes refuge in a monastry > where a shy young monk savagely rapes her. > >And it fgoes on but its very funny: and often "deeper: another poem > > The Final Toast, ends: > > And to Mr Typwriter and Mrs Typwriter > And to all the others who made > life possible while you were > away in India > eating the natives. > >So your uncle is very good. Try and get those books back off your father! >Richard. > >---- Original Message ----- >From: "Trane DeVore" >To: >Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 5:56 PM >Subject: Tom Veitch > > > > Richard, > > > > I too am a big fan of Tom Veitch's work, though I certainly wouldn't > > know of his work (except from comics) if he weren't an old family > > friend. He and my father Darrell (a fantastic musician and > > experimental instrument builder) used to hang together in San > > Francisco when I was I kid. It's been decades since I've seen anyone > > in the Veitch family, but I do know that Tom has worked in comics in > > the last two decades -- he wrote a series entitled *Abraxas* that was > > illustrated by his brother, Rick Veitch, and published in Epic > > Magazine. He also wrote a comics mini-series that was highly > > acclaimed that involved mysticism and the Vietnam War (though I can't > > remember offhand what the series was called). More recently he's > > been involved with the new Star Wars films -- my friend and I came > > across his name on a Star Wars listserve while we were finding out > > about Episode I before it came out and revealed itself to be a > > monstrosity. I also think he may have written several of the Star > > Wars comics that worked to tie together the movie plotlines and the > > plotlines of the Star Wars comics that had exceeded what the movies > > themselves had to tell us. I used to have a cache of his books, but > > my dad took them back (more's the pity). > > > > Trane > > > > p.s. You could always try a google search on his name if you want more. > > > > > > > > >Date: Thu, 30 May 2002 16:34:58 +1200 > > >From: "richard.tylr" > > >Subject: Re: post-postal tristesse (was new bohos) > > > > > >Tom I was just having a lok at your and Nick Piombino's work (yours was >in > > >my battered copy of "In the American Tree") and both are good: but what > > >about your name's sake Tom Veitch: very funny: god too: what happenned to > > >him? ....I came across his poems in a book about the NY School some time >ago > > >(the "first one" - if it can be called a school - it included Ashbery, > > >Veitch, and some gay poet who when I come to think of it: I mean the > > >material was quite risque and I was shocked at the time:it was probably > > >partly satirical and maybe not as 'bad' as I thought then...)...but >overall > > >I feel the greatest lit. is comic: but one of the writers I valorise, > > >Faulkner: his humour is maybe the apparent conplete lack of it, or maybe >I > > >miss it: is "The Sound and the Fury" actually comic, or satiric? If so, I > > >miss the point in that case: (maybe there's a dark humour in "As I Lay > > >Dying")...but there are a lot of amusing things in language poetry >without > > >it all being "hilarious": any movement or any movers of movements that > > >cant laugh a bit is (are) a worry. Richard. > > > > -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing Lecturer, Department of English Stanford University 650.723.0330 650.724.5400 Fax obenzinger@stanford.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 16:10:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: GUTS re: Lyric ca. 2002 MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Your Tom Bell has got the right question, "Is there much money in that?" Came across this by chance today on '"angles" of thought:' (Rcihard tyler's apt pharse): "Subtly or overtly, then, genre molds facts, events, and speech to fit its contours, and a narrative of suffering will undergo significant changes depending on whether it takes the form of, say, a documentary film, a TV miniseries,...." -David Morris, _Illness and Culture in the Postmodern Age_, Cal, 1998 and Jason wrote on another thread here: "where and how will visual poetries find themselves an anchor to swing around in this listing?" - curious that I have seen no mention of _Homo Sonorus_ here as it puts an internationaland histoical perspective on 'sound' and performance poetry. tom bell added thought on the work and poetry posts: Mindless work is harder on life expectancy than job stress - http://www.hbns.org/newsrelease/jobstress5-23-02.cfm &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 12:30:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Brent Hamilton Subject: poet-teacher Paul Bennett (1921-2002) Comments: cc: jhamilto@fontbonne.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The poet-teacher Paul Bennett died Tuesday in Granville, Ohio at the age of 81, from an advanced stage of prostrate cancer. He was my teacher at Denison University, where he taught for over 40 years, and the author of several books -- three works of fiction (one forthcoming), a lovely young adult's novel, (1987), and three volumes of poems, most recently, (Savage Press 1997). Perhaps some of you met him at Denison over the years? He was a fine man and an interesting writer; as a teacher of poetry he was perhaps something more than that -- he certainly was to me -- someone with the gift of understanding the place of his own work within what used to be called the literary system, who understood, in other words, the significance of the relationships developed between his students, their writing, and his cultivation of it, of them, a set of promises, and sacrifices, carried out in the name of poetry, of literature, of citizenship, of the human, after all, for Paul was a humanist, if not in practice (for he was no scholar), then in faith. In practice Paul was a poet-teacher. I have an idea of what this means, though I got it from Paul, and it seems to me we're still living in the time of the poet-teacher -- it's a new post: settled by men like Paul. As an artisan, Paul was a vernacular modernist -- at his very best, a Blakean modernist, in the American tradition of The Kindergarten Chats, of Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles and Ray Eames (like them Paul designed and built his own house in the late 40s on one of the most beautiful hillsides in Central Ohio),of Buster Keaton and Whitman and Laura Riding (like Riding, who ran her own press, Bennett published three of his own books),Jess Collins and Orson Welles and I'm sure many others. A late modernist who came of age -- the last of the seven children of an Irish-born Gnadenhutten, Ohio farmer -- in the death-throes of Internationalism and the late-Thirties reaction against Eliot, Paul went directly from Ohio University (where he'd gone on an academic scholarship) into the Naval Reserves, and -- on the G.I. Bill -- (postwar) took a Masters at Harvard, taught for a year at the University of Maine-Orono, before joining the Denison faculty in 1947. A time of the New Criticism at Harvard (from his classroom I think I recall Paul's speaking of Reuben Brower; I'm sure I recall the mention of F.O. Matthiessen), though a kind of cultural radicalism develops at this time, as well, with Irving Babbitt's student Norman Foerster quitting the East Coast to begin the Iowa Writers Program not too long before Paul began one of the first undergraduate writing concentrations at Denison in 1953. It occurs to me, though the literary history of this time in academia has yet to be written (Gerald Graff's book is certainly a start), that between the War and the Mid-fifties (R..P. Blackmur at Princeton in the late Thirties is one of the first), the poet-teacher-post gets sucked out of the ear of the University by a postwar education boom, the G.I. Bill, and the Cold War apostacy of American progressives against social reconstruction -- an ideological clash, one result of which seems to have been the impatient precipitant wish to have an American Literature (so we could have then an American Studies), and the University's need to have writers to write the literature they wanted to study. Whether, in the building of Denison's program, he didn't have time to write much of his own work in the Fifties, or what, I've not read Paul's work produced during this period -- is anyone out there aware of it? But the roster of Paul's students who date from the Fifties is impressive: the novelists Paul Shellford and Clark Blaise, the poet Dennis Trudell, and scholar and naturalist (not the poet) Frederick Turner. Perhaps it's not all that unusual for a teacher of 40 years to have successful students, but Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind) and Disney CEO Michael Eisner also date from this period of Paul's mentoring them. In the Sixties it appears that he began to publish his work a good bit more; here is a poem that The Nation published in the late Sixties: The Power to Make War Built to swing like arbors in the wind Multi-colored, iridescent as summer wings The feeding cones hang, but no birds come. Here and elsewhere death stalks the hills, Birds and men move furtively, without sound; Sharp eyes probe each leaf and twig's turning, For movement, antithesis of death, brings death. Growing up in a village soaked in blood By the wanton murder of ninety-six Men, women, and children, I early learned not to dig the mound On which we lay to play our games; A friend, turning soil with his bare hands, Unearthed bone fragments scalloped by worms. Here and elsewhere the power to make war Unsettles minds; as if gun, napalm and bomb Could restore the necessary dream. Even as nature recoils From the nightmare of their acts, Mesmerized men, counseled of their kind, Automate death, and shattered bodies bleed. # # # # I see no considerable problem with this poem (from one of the books Paul self-published, the 1975 ) -- I reckon it a plausible act of witness, the solace of hope right up front, where it needs to be, but understood for what it is: a premise, merely, doubled, perhaps, by those scalloping worms that seem to have failed to recoil as has the speaker and the rest of nature. Like those worms, Paul was himself an avid gardener (his house and property really should become an Ohio landmark), and, in the days before the Internet, an avid correspondent (writing Paul, you could on faith rely upon an envelope in your mailbox 4-5 days later), whose cultivation of student-writers went on long after said students graduated; and perhaps some of these folks ought to be mentioned: they include (please let me know who I've missed) Kathy Mangan, Deborah Pope, Dianne Goodman, Molly O'Neill, Pam Houston, Amy Pence, Ann Townsend, Rick Boyer, Deb Allbery, and Angela Peckinpaugh. In the classroom, Paul liked to read the work of students who had gone on and done distinctive work, and whether or not it was actually Paul who had taught them at Denison, his classroom was used as a space to build the institution of the Denison Writing Program -- so that if Paul asked one of the students in the room to read their own poem, or story, it was a measure of some company to have performed one's aspirations in the presence of those who had succeeded (however modestly) in them before. In the early Sixties he happened upon (as he told it) a patron for the writing program and established the Beck Lectureship, a short term residency which during my undergraduate period brought Eudora Welty and Stephen Dunn to campus; I've seen the list of all the Beck Lecturers, and interestingly enough, a fairly wide spectrum of American writing from the period came to Denison (one name that sticks in my head, for example, is (someone else I revere) Robert Duncan). Those who met him during these years may not be surprised to learn (I wasn't) that when Paul was diagnosed with cancer in 1994, he was given six weeks to live, but responded well to the chemo treatment, and like many patients had a kind of reprieve from that dour sentence. When I heard in early March that he had been told that he could take no more treatment for the problem, other than some inadequate pain relievers, I called him up thinking he would be on his deathbed. He was more or less housebound (a kind of helpmate, and frequently his son, were there, since he had lost his wife Jeanne in 1995), but he delighted to tell me that he was still getting around the house, and that his doctor (whom he actually seemed to admire a lot) had given him a few days yet to live. The spirit of this was that he was finding some comfort in the accelerating accuracy of the doctor's prognosis. He lived for almost three more months. I don't wish for this story to suggest some sort of ridiculous inconquerability-scenario -- only to suggest a bit Paul's capacity to amuse himself, his sense of irony, which, for those who might have had the chance to meet him on the poetry circuit, will remain in my memory, at least. Jeff Hamilton ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 13:53:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "David A. Kirschenbaum" Subject: Boog City Ramones show CBGB's this Tues, 6/4 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Boog City 1977 issue fundraiser party Ramones Rocket to Russia album live This coming Tues., June 4, 10 p.m. CBGBs 315 Bowery (bet. 1st and 2nd streets) NYC $12 with readings from Melissa Anderson Elizabeth V. C. Brown Edwin Torres Random 1977 songs performed by I Feel Tractor * The Linda Band Brian Robinson String Band * Gangbox and Rocket to Russia performed by White Collar Crime * Rogerhumanbeing King Missile III * The Last Burning Embers The Imaginary Numbers *The Veronica Complex * Schwervon! For further information 212-206-8899 Subways ? F to 2nd Ave * 6 to Astor Place -- David A. Kirschenbaum, editor and publisher Boog City 330 W.28th St., Suite 6H NY, NY 10001-4754 T: (212) 206-8899 F: (212) 206-9982 editor@boogcity.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 09:55:07 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Susan M. Schultz" Subject: Fw: coming soon! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan Schultz" To: Cc: Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 9:05 AM Subject: coming soon! > > > I'm happy to announce the publication (soon!) of Murray Edmond's _A Piece > of Work_ (sixty odd pages, perfect bound), which I'll list at $10, but > offer to you kind folks for $7. See ordering details at > http://maven.english.hawaii.edu/tinfish > > Murray Edmond is a New Zealand poet, author of eight previous volumes of > poetry. He is co-editor of _Big Smoke: New Zealand Poems 1960 * 1975_ > (Auckland University Press, 2000) with Michele Leggott and Alan Brunton. > > _A Piece of Work_ makes use of Jim Sullivan's compilation _New Zealand > Year by Year Through the 20th Century_, and chronicles the life of > Edmond's mother as an historical figure in her own right. > > 44 > > it makes my blood boil > > bottles at blood temperature blood worth bottling > > those darned socks > > wouldn't they make you weep > > the effort expended in trying to say everything all at the same time > > simultaneity of utterance one instantaneous > > flash the Arts Council was created with no funding > > > > In some happy Tinfish news, the summer orientation folks at UH have > ordered over 1,100 copies of Lisa Kanae's _Sista Tongue_. Curious as to > what you're missing? See the website and order up! > > aloha, Susan > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 15:23:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Gallagher Subject: Brookline digs MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hey Jim! Looks like Kelly and I have found a gig in Gloucester! IF all the headaches work out we'll be up there August 1. Hey, our place here in Brookline is real cheap for what it is, only $1250 now with perhaps a slight increase. You looking for a gig at that time? I'd rather pass the sweet deal on to someone we know. It has two and a half bedrooms, so you could split it with one, perhaps two folks. I think the C's are done. Oh well, a great run. I may miss yr reading next week. Good luck... g Jim Behrle wrote: > RECENT SONIC NEWS by Jim Behrle > > 8 new poems from the hottest thing > to come out of Boston since chowder. > > now available from Please evict us. > > "Jim Behrle is quite simply the best > we're stuck with. Jim Behrle's NEWS > wraps around my neck and won't let go. > I choose to misunderstand his work on > a fundamental level--and I, um, love it." > --Brendan Lorber > > for more information or to order > e-mail: pleaseevictus@hotmail.com > > _________________________________________________________________ > MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: > http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx -- Kevin Gallagher Global Development and Environment Institute Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Tufts University Medford, MA 02155 t:617-627-5467 f:617-627-2409 http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 15:25:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Gallagher Subject: Re: Brookline digs MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Hey everyone, Sorry about this post, I thought I was just sending it to Jim. Please dis-regard. --the big DOPE Kevin Gallagher wrote: > Hey Jim! > > Looks like Kelly and I have found a gig in Gloucester! IF all the > headaches work out we'll be up there August 1. > > Hey, our place here in Brookline is real cheap for what it is, only > $1250 now with perhaps a slight increase. You looking for a gig at that > time? I'd rather pass the sweet deal on to someone we know. It has two > and a half bedrooms, so you could split it with one, perhaps two folks. > > I think the C's are done. Oh well, a great run. > > I may miss yr reading next week. Good luck... > > g > > Jim Behrle wrote: > > > RECENT SONIC NEWS by Jim Behrle > > > > 8 new poems from the hottest thing > > to come out of Boston since chowder. > > > > now available from Please evict us. > > > > "Jim Behrle is quite simply the best > > we're stuck with. Jim Behrle's NEWS > > wraps around my neck and won't let go. > > I choose to misunderstand his work on > > a fundamental level--and I, um, love it." > > --Brendan Lorber > > > > for more information or to order > > e-mail: pleaseevictus@hotmail.com > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: > > http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx > > -- > Kevin Gallagher > Global Development and Environment Institute > Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy > Tufts University > Medford, MA 02155 > t:617-627-5467 > f:617-627-2409 > http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae -- Kevin Gallagher Global Development and Environment Institute Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy Tufts University Medford, MA 02155 t:617-627-5467 f:617-627-2409 http://ase.tufts.edu/gdae ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 16:31:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: GUTS re: Lyric ca. 2002 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Wondering does the rest of your quote include the words stealing the election? Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 07:56:00 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Pam=20Brown?= Subject: Re: Christian Bok wins Griffin Poetry Prize 2002 In-Reply-To: <5.0.2.1.2.20020531062424.0bfede50@imap.buffalo.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Shared with Alice Notley's "Disobedience" Conratulations to Alice too ! --- Loss Pequeño Glazier wrote: > An announcement that Christian Bok's _Eunoia_ (Coach > House Books) is winner > of the Griffin Poetry Prize 2002. The Griffin is > Canada's most prestigious > literary prize and a major international literary > award. This is an > incredible achievement! Congratulations Christian! > http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/gpp2002/index.html ===== Web site/P.Brown - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ http://www.sold.com.au - The Sold.com.au Big Brand Sale - New PCs, notebooks, digital cameras, phones and more ... Sale ends June 12 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 07:57:07 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Pam=20Brown?= Subject: Fwd: Re: Christian Bok wins Griffin Poetry Prize 2002 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit 2nd take: ConGratulations to Alice Notley & Christian Bok Pam --- Pam Brown wrote: > Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 07:56:00 +1000 (EST) > From: Pam Brown > Subject: Re: Christian Bok wins Griffin Poetry Prize > 2002 > To: UB Poetics discussion group > > > Shared with Alice Notley's "Disobedience" > Conratulations to Alice too ! > --- Loss Pequeño Glazier > wrote: > An announcement that Christian Bok's > _Eunoia_ > (Coach > > House Books) is winner > > of the Griffin Poetry Prize 2002. The Griffin is > > Canada's most prestigious > > literary prize and a major international literary > > award. This is an > > incredible achievement! Congratulations Christian! > > > http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/gpp2002/index.html > > > ===== > Web site/P.Brown - > http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ > > http://www.sold.com.au - The Sold.com.au Big Brand > Sale > - New PCs, notebooks, digital cameras, phones and > more ... Sale ends June 12 > ===== Web site/P.Brown - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ http://www.sold.com.au - The Sold.com.au Big Brand Sale - New PCs, notebooks, digital cameras, phones and more ... Sale ends June 12 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 23:18:35 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Peekaboo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sez me, having come back from the dead. I'm very interested by the discussion of tone and textures in e-mails that has gone on in the last few days, I think it very pertinent to the nature of lists, what I am minded of in that respect is the paradox that although e-mails are in the fixities of print they are also very verbal in nature, so one gets the casual and throwaway nature of conversation with the sometimes unhappy effect of it being, as it were, graven in letters of stone. Agree with Jesse about 'Wulf and Eadwacer', 'tis beautiful isn't it? Anglo-Saxon blues! Best Dave David Bircumshaw Leicester, England Home Page A Chide's Alphabet Painting Without Numbers http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 May 2002 23:37:43 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Re: Peekaboo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ignore this message, please, it'll make no sense to you, I sent to the wrong list by mistake! Best Dave David Bircumshaw Leicester, England Home Page A Chide's Alphabet Painting Without Numbers http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "david.bircumshaw" To: Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 11:18 PM Subject: Peekaboo Sez me, having come back from the dead. I'm very interested by the discussion of tone and textures in e-mails that has gone on in the last few days, I think it very pertinent to the nature of lists, what I am minded of in that respect is the paradox that although e-mails are in the fixities of print they are also very verbal in nature, so one gets the casual and throwaway nature of conversation with the sometimes unhappy effect of it being, as it were, graven in letters of stone. Agree with Jesse about 'Wulf and Eadwacer', 'tis beautiful isn't it? Anglo-Saxon blues! Best Dave David Bircumshaw Leicester, England Home Page A Chide's Alphabet Painting Without Numbers http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/index.htm ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2002 01:58:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: selfpromo Comments: To: webartery@egroups.com, POETRYETC@JISCMAIL.AC.UK MIME-version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT This isn't directly related to poetry and poetics and I'm not particularly interested inpoetic/philosohical opinion as there is now sufficient empirical research on this treatment I think so that I can offer it as an email group experience for those interested in participant. I'm still experimenting and working out procedures so for the trial run I'll give list members a 10 per cent discount. What i am doing is a brief (six session) group in Writing for the Health of It (any chronic illness including all forns of depressions). Since I'm doing it on a professional level there are some requirements to join, but if anyone is interested bc me and I'll send a description and requirements including cost. tom bell &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&cetera: Poetry at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/publicat.html Gallery - Metaphor/Metonym for Health at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Health articles at http://psychology.healingwell.com/ Reviews at http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/reviews.htm