========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 00:15:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Murphy Subject: The Impulse to Stock Things Rae's post about bookstores, noted in reference to her new book (which I really loved, by the way!) brings to mind a general complaint--perhaps a seconding of what she says ('though not, I realize, intended as a motion!). There seems, even among our fine independent bookstores in these parts (SW US) a disinclination to go after new poetry books or books on poetics, even those with Small Press Distribution. The whose issue seems to have a big vacancy sign posted before it. Certain standard, known commodities, are customarily planted onthe shelves, typically the books being taught in some class at the University. No harm in that except the exclusivity. One store here has elected to go with a section of Arizona poets (of which there are many), but the contact person informs me that it's "Tough to get the books," (mine and everybody else's) even when they are supposedly available through SPD. I have no idea as to the accuracy of the alleged difficulty. And I'm not picking on SPD. My message is that there seems no point of origin in any potential transaction. Bookstores here and other places do nott routinely seek to order what I would consider pretty vital offerings (Rae's book, say, for one). There's a sort of lethargy. More and more, it's a matter of merely ordering the sure things. In my own case, I've found it somewhat disconcerting when asked by friends who live not primarily in any literary realm, but people who have an interest in, say, just strolling in to Border's or Changing Hands and picking up a book of mine. They ask, logically enough, "Where can I get your books?" Well, I have to do this shuffle. I may say "Border's SHOULD have them...maybe Changing Hands does. I'm sure that either place will special order if they're out." Let's just say that I'd like to be sure! I've never had the intention of running a bookstore out of my office or house. Naturally, I take books along to readings. But there's nothing very easy or natural about the commerce of the everyday in this. I use myself as an example. But putting me in the place of the customer, I have to go through many hoops, as do most people on this list, I suspect, just to get hold of something that interests me. It's as though it is a treasure hunt to find some books. The treasure part is nice. The hunt is not my preference! I tend to order from someplace that distributes, or from presses directly. But it would be great to walk into a place, and equally to the point, to have people who don't already know some of this stuff, to walk into a place and have access to what we're doing. Too much explanation, too much shuffling, has to precede a simple question. A frustration, not one that can't be solved, I'm sure. I've done SOME work on it, but have had to place a higher priority on making a living and creating works. SM ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 02:30:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: april I just wanted to let everybody know that we are "zeroing in" on that time of year Frank o'Hara immortalized as "it's april. no, may. it's may" I may be kinda paraphrasing though (and page space and all that stuff really really really matters)...anyway it needs no "compensation" or phony compensation (like xmas)....Signed, Rae Armantrout ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 08:46:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: poetic consistency geezus, herb, i hope to hell i haven't been conflating form/content, esp. since i don't find the couple all that useful... look: by 'voice' i'm referring to a set of rhetorical conventions, accepted tacitly (generally) by a specific community... i'm still interested in hearing from folks regarding how/why a move away from identity politics isn't in so many ways (or is it?) reflected in a move away from 'voice' as such... now this consistency that is taken to be 'voice' can take different *forms*... but i'm interested esp. in the construct, not the specific form (and by "form" here i mean nothing like the form/content split to which you refer)... i learned just yesterday, after posting this question to the list, that this topic was precisely one of those raised at the gender studies conference in portland oregon (earlier this week)... in terms of more avant garde practices, one might have thought this had died with the new left... but not so---i yet hear (on a regular basis) evaluation of work rendered precisely in terms of this quality... so again, i ask, what gives?... all best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 10:46:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Goldsmith Subject: Bookstores and Small Depressing NonDistrubition Rae and others, Rae, you are not alone in your unavailability in NYC. I have done the covers for Bruce Andrews' last two "perfect bound" books--_Tizzy Boost_ (The Figures, 1993) and _Divesture-A_ (Drogue, 1994). Bruce and I constantly lament the fact that these books are nowhere available commercially in _our_ home town. Both are "distributed" by SPD. We often think how nice it would be for one of our friends to walk in to a NYC bookstore and just happen upon our work. Instead, they (as we all do) receive them through the mail gratis--which is nice, if you're on the right mailing list... Someone brought up the idea of compensation for our work. Rae, if you wanted better distribution, would it kill you (i.e. any of us on the list) financially to send a text file of your *latest* and make it available to all via EPC? I mean, let's face it, has anyone ever really made money on publishing their latest book of poetry? Peace, Kenneth Goldsmith ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 11:38:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ted Pelton Subject: Re: nyc bookstores Thanks a lot, Loss, for your time & effort on this. This exceeds my most hopeful expectations of what I'd get when I asked. Anything you want me to do/find for you? I'm in your debt. Ted ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 12:21:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: PC In message <2f8eec84155a002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > > > Anybody else trying this one (the social construction of whiteness) on? > > -Stephen Cope yes. i wrote something on Bob Kaufman's "Bagel Shop Jazz" that talks about the golden triangle of outsiders the poem portrays --women, Jews and Blacks --part of my paper treats, following David Roediger's arguments in The Wages of Whiteness and The Abolition of Whiteness, that ethnic immigrant groups had to become white when they arrived, in order to have access to privileges such as civil rights, state protection, etc. So that, for instance, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg are "white," but their parents or their parents' parents had had to become white. (part of roediger's thesis --he'a a labor historian --is that when immigrants arrived they were given whiteness to compensate for their extreme poverty-level jobs). there's no such given as whiteness, though white people often take their privilege for granted, not recognizing it as such. see also ruth frankenberg's White Women, Race Matters (U of Minnesota Press, 1993). best, maria damon ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 13:09:20 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: PC In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 14 Apr 1995 13:30:58 -0400 from Thanks Ted. I was wondering when someone would make your very neccessary point. That this is still a contested postion in the States is revealed by Limbaugh, who said something to the effect that there is no record of genocide in the U.S. and as proof suggested we look at census reports. Pretend this is a Where's Waldo sort of exercise: how many logical fallacies can you find in that? Another thing, it is not liberal handwringing to notice. Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 17:29:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: politics Ron: From here it didn't sound like Ed Foster was denying that all the shit and glory of our daily lives--even the political shit and glory--belongs in our poems. I thought his point had more to do with the difference between, say, _The Communist Manifesto_ and _A_. Not that I don't enjoy _The Communist Manifesto_--I like happy endings as much as the next guy, but I try not to confuse them with poetry. Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 14:43:46 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Joron Subject: reductionism Poetry may contain or be conditioned by numerous factors like politics, sexuality, nationality, etc. but what "saves" any given poem *as a poem* is not reducible to any one factor, or ensemble of factors. The argument becomes one against reductionism. Andrew Joron ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 22:53:02 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: The Impulse to Stock Things (longish) Seems as if we in England share your distribution problem. Approximately 15 years ago the number of bookshops prepared to stock little or small press books (particularly if not perfect bound) dramatically declined. The financial imperative as described re SPD dominated the market dry. The problems of product placement -- if and under what circumstances at all -- sale or return -- deteriorating or damaged goods -- sliverish profit margins -- shrinking risk -- author-subsidized publishing -- threshholds of marketability ossifying into unfortunate and ultimatetly divisive 'star' status if not outright hierarchies of self-perpetuating (sometimes at the least colluded in) hit names of given generations or 'movements' -- regressive cultural 'cold war' hegemonies freezing out the awkward -- and more, have all been discussed or somehow raised over the past few weeks. The situation impinged so drastically onto poetry publishing here that the number of active book series and small magazines collapsed. Books were being produced, often although not exclusively, in tiny xerox editions (50-100) circulated directly amongst friends and peers as social gifts. One result has been to render much of the most interesting writing done here in the past fifteen years all but invisible. The New Curious (not necessarily but often young) find it close to impossible to get hold of any of the work. Even libraries and archives must have a strange shelf reading 'vacant pending' for British poetries circa 1979-93 (these dates are by no means brittle). That situation is only recently beginning to change. By the same token how many US poets have been published much here in that time frame and vice versa compared to in the previous decade and a half. There is one shop (Compendium) in London with a very small selection of contemporary poetry of any significance. Current US writers are represented by a nominal 'hard-core' who sell. A recent overview article on English poetry by Charles Bernstein in Sulfur attests to the 'power' of the published book as being seen to signify presence and activity for a poet. An interesting enough provocative criteria. You might be reading and performing widely for example and yet not considered - unless a published artefact identifiable as being authored by you could be objectified. Now I find this very intriguing. Especially in the light of Rae's recent post about the unavailibility of her most recent book, especially when that book is a Sun & Moon / SPD distributed product. (yes I've noticed the doubts cast onto those validations too). There is a need to break out of the reductive cycles and circumstances into which we continue to buy. As several have suggested right here. Ron is right when he says that direct mail works. It does so primarily for those with the money to pursue their interest and/or for they who know what they want and pretty much know what they're going to get. Sheila's also right when she wants the possibility, at least, of someone who doesn't already know what they're looking for to just pick up her book or Rae's or anybody's on this list and others beyond in a bookstore - be excited or intrigued enough to buy it and the rest, as is said, is herstory. I don't have any answers but I do have a simple suggestion which this list can further facilitate. Books are already advertised for direct purchase on the list and the work quoted from here (yes I know it's rudimentary and unsatisfying for a lot of work for many reasons but we should stick with it and work on making the environment here as flexible and accessible as possible (I'm just as e-literate as many others here I would guess and I'd love to learn quickly or have someone else do the slog for me but - I had to learn to write and here I go again). Books are already archived in the EPC (as offered) and the relevant order information can be appended. It's my sense that a constructive inter-relationship is to be encouraged between electronic publishing and printed matter. Given all of that how about product exchange? Now I realise right away that this only makes any kind of sense when distances between presses and / or distribution 'territores' are large. On suitable negotiated bases both books and CDs, at least, could be simply SWAPPED to equivalent value. Instead of me selling 300 copies of a chap I'd sell 200 and then swap 100 for chaps by others and sell those. (amounts could be small - like anything from 3 - 25 copies). I know many will throw up their hands in horror (but then how will they catch them when they drop) seriously - Advantages: - each our books are made available / accessible to a wider audience - sometimes it's easier to push someone else's book than your own - the range of books on a stall at a reading / performance series (or whatever) can feel very much like a celebration of strength and depth without competition (solidarity) and dare I say (sorry Lisa) more 'groovy' - problem of buying sight unseen via direct mail is obviated, people can see the poems - we several all have a wider stock - reactivates those attic box fulls. and others I haven't time to articulate right now. I'm naive enough to feel that a small version of such a scheme is worth trying. I'm also experienced enough to know that this way pratfalls lurch BUT - It's how the Recommended network of record labels operated for best part of 10 years in western europe. I know because I helped out. Such schemes are bound to have a life length appropriate to their usefulness. Or to translate Spencer: To accept the world is to be changed and to thereby change the world. This process is a generative discourse. Exchange at all levels and for all purposes is part of this process. any thoughts? yours - the space cadet for tonight and before everyone reaches for their hot response key / I'm aware that much of these issues skirt into some of the questions being raised re - this space and it's potential and how each reads here and so on and I'm going to try to post something on that tomorrow cris ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 21:21:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Dissemination (long) Dear Cris: Many, many thanks for your informative "history chunklette" of English distribution/poetry dissemination. Want to point out something: Sun & Moon's primary distributor isn't actually SPD, but Consortium, here in St. Paul. It's an important distinction because the failure of Consortium to get (say) Rae's new Sun & Moon book into NYC bookstores is much more eyebrow-raising than would be SPD's. SPD doesn't have any "field reps," though Steve Dickison maybe visits a few stores a year and pitches a couple of tiles. SPD isn't technically a distributor: they're a "warehouser," meaning, you go to them first, not the other way around. Consortium, however, which carries only some 2 dozen presses (those the size of Sun & Moon, Coffee House, & Serpent's Tail/High Risk), has at least 15 "field reps" scattered throughout the country. Twice a year Consortium holds a "sales meeting." Someone from Sun & Moon, Coffee House, Serpent's Tail, etc. comes out with their list for the next "season," and pitches their list to the reps, who in turn pitch the books to various bookstores, often using the publisher's original pitch. I sat in on one of the "Consortium prep" marketing meetings at Coffee House and I'm here to tell you: Ain't no way to pitch a book of poetry to Consortium unless (a) it's an anthology of some sort, especially if it has a topical "theme"; (b) the book is by one of the "currently hot" ethnic groups (books by Asian and African Americans are "currently hot"--meaning, the two ethnic groups general readers are currently buying a good number of books by-- don't mean to offend anyone; if the "currently hot" ethnic groups were Irish and German American, I'd use the same terms); (c) "sex, anyone?" (including anything involving some or several issue(s) of "gender"); or (d) "Didn't you used to president, Mr. Carter?" (famous people who decide to "give poetry a go"--double entendre definitely intended.) A Consortium rep has 30 seconds (I swear I was given precisely that figure) to pitch a book, any book, to Mr. or Ms. Bookstore Stocker, and while *no* book--in my opinion--can be pitched (or dismissed) in that amount of time, that's what most books get today. (Fun, isn't this?) Oh! Here's a Fun Anecdote for Rae: The book Coffee House was having trouble at that time coming up with a pitch for was Elaine Equi's _Decoy_, for which Rae wrote a quite- readable-in-30-seconds blurb. As nice as your blurb was, Rae, it was apparently not "pitchable" by Coffee House/Consortium standards. "Well," someone at the meeting said, "Elaine's going to be *at* this meeting, so we can't give Consortium our usual 'It's poetry; do what you can' speech." (Poets, go back over that sentence again.) "We'll have to come up with something." They didn't come up with anything while I was around, so I can't tell you what they wound up saying. If Rae's book is not in stores in NYC, I assume it's because the person pitching Rae's book for Consortium didn't have anything to say about the book (in 30 seconds or less) to suggest it would sell very well ("Rae Armantrout used to be Quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys!") Sure, *we* like Rae's work (I just finished _Extremities_, Rae--wonderful!--I know it's "old," but wonderful all the same) but, if you're like me--and I know *I* am-- you don't work for Consortium. Bookselling in this country is too depressing to think about, except that we *have* to think about it, because that's what some of us do. Not only that, but it's not just about selling books, it's about disseminating information, ideas, points-of-view, ways of experiencing (knowing) the world (or "the word"). One reason my eyebrows don't "do-the-wiggly" reading about censorship-advocates like [insert name of backwater GOP running for congress next election year] is because the truth is: The "market" has and will continue to be the Primary Censorship Agency in this country. Not the *only* one, mind you. But, sort of the "Elvis-elect" of censoring bodies, if you will. ("Elect" 'cause we "asked" for this- -consent of the governed, & all that.) Consortium exists by virtue of Bookslinger, the latter of which used to be in Minneapolis, & was every bit as big, carried as many titles & presses, as SPD. (I know, I used to frequent both.) Consortium, in fact, is in good part responsible for Bookslinger's demise in 1993. Bookslinger had a lot of problems, but some of its biggest problems were the people who started Consortium AND DID SO IN THE OFFICES OF BOOKSLINGER. The Consortium people used to WORK AT Bookslinger. Then, they thought: "Say, what if we took a dozen of them best-selling ding-dang presses, and started a NEW distributing company to FOCUS ON THEM?" They did that, using Bookslinger's office space, computer, paper, supplies--AND PAID FOR NONE OF IT. Then, when things "got rolling" they moved out into their own office and started a new policy: ALL OTHER DISTRIBUTORS WANTING BOOKS ON PRESSES WE CARRY HAVE TO GET THEM FROM *US* AND *NOT* THE PRESS ITSELF. AND THEY HAVE TO *PAY* FOR IT, TOO. In other words, gang, Consortium ultimately wound up TAKING AWAY Bookslinger's biggest accounts, AND THEN MADE THEM PAY FOR IT! Ask SPD, anyone, where they get their Sun & Moon books, their Coffee House Press books--from Sun & Moon? From Coffee House? No, no, no. You're not thinking "mafia." You're not thinking "extortion." You're thinking "consent of the governed." Think, for a moment, "Hegemony." Now, care to wage a few bucks on it? Well, you're "right on the money" if you said, "Gary, I'll wager they get them darn books from the friendly PIRATES at CONSORTIUM, and they PAY A LITTLE 'SERVICE CHARGE' FOR 'EM, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.") DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! DING! (Excuse that outburst. I read a lot of Lester Bangs as a teen.) Bookslinger had a lot of problems. They never established nonprofit status, had to rely on a "fiscal receiver" for what grants they did get, a fiscal receiver in fact that didn't-- reportedly--"like" "them" "very" "much." Consequently, they (sit down for this one people) *had* *to* *rely* *on* *book* *sales* *to* *keep* *in* *business*. (My apologies for those of you w/weak hearts.) They were also horribly, horribly disorganized. (Walking into their offices, I always assumed I was back in the Bay Area, & there had been a massive quake.) But, Consortium put the final nail into Bookslinger's coffin. Or, that's one opium-eating, lake- staring-at, frail & timid, longhaired, velvet-suit-wearing poet's opinion, anyway. So. Cris, your idea of exchanging a number of books w/a number of other publishers is not *only* a good one, it's one Marta & I've been practicing now for a while, first with Karl Roessler & his Trip Street Press (two lovely books available; I'll plug them later in a separate post) and, just recently, with Spencer Selby & his SINK Press (who, if you'll remember, just did a book by Charles Borkhuis). It's, in fact--& I'll certainly not apologize for saying this--"totally groovy." Yes, by all means: Let's do it. Anyone, broadcasting from whatever country, can contact me via e-mail about this, and I hope you'll contact all the other publishers on this list (& the even more publishers not here) as well. Yours, Gary ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 23:23:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: FUNKHOUSER CHRISTOPH Subject: jazz/poetry Coincidentally rec'd in the mail yesterday a tape from a comrade in england, it's david henderson singing, circa 1975, "Love In Outer Space" accompanied by Sun Ra arkestra. What an incredibly smooth voice! Really, one of the lovliest singing voices I've heard in a long time, 'specially from a dude. I wonder what he'd have to say about being left out of most a dem antologies... The other side of the tape is Baraka & Arkestra, performing Baraka's righteously afrocentric "A Black Mass", which is published in one of the collections of his dramatic works. The recording is from nineteen sixty eight and it is eentense. jacoub! Bob Kaufman, "the best poet," wore khakis too Stroffolino probably wore khakis. speaking of whom, Chris, Sonny Ochs, Phil's brother, is an elementary school teacher somewhere up here near Albany. She co-hosts the "Mostly Folk" radio program on WRPI late sunday afternoon/ early evening. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but Larry Ochs (who played on that splendid Camper Van Chadbourne lp, _the eddie chattebox double trio love album_, i think) has roots in the Ochs family at the New York Times. why does it fascinate me that Lyn & Rae have more than one name? Call me, chris ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Apr 1995 21:57:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: Re: Ted's PC In-Reply-To: <199504141748.KAA02290@unixg.ubc.ca> I thank you for your response and agree that things in canada and the Us are ertremmly different. My father's side of the family is based in Oregon, making in me painfully aware of the world of differencein attitudes. As well being on the west coast there isnot a large black population. Most of the friends that I have that are black are refugees from Ethiopia and they do not contian the America Black attitude that is defined as a "black thing" (meaning language, dress,, music). Mostlikely this is why they have escaped the discrimination that Afro-American often receive. However, being on the west coast brings up a another issue of discrimination from the Asian population. But being Asian typically carries the stereotype of being less "agressive" and "twice as intelligent" as say the Afro'Americans, therefore they would not face the same sort discrimination. And what I mean by not kissing ass any more refers to Canadian history, not American. I'm talking about instances such as the Japanese internment, Chinese head taxes, refusal to admit Jewish war refugees in WWII while German war criminals hide out in Toronto and Vancouver, banning of the potlatch, and so forth. All these things were in my history texts and acknowledged as crimes against humantity, so there is no need for me to feel guilty ( although it does pain to walk to Pigeon park on Welfare wednesday and see Indians shooting up on junk, and I can't help but think this in not natural, not the way things are supposed be), I can't apologize. I will wear my heart on my sleeve and put forth extra effort to clean up the mess that has been created for me and my generation, but saying sorry does not help anyone. Books for reference on "ethnic" life in Canada In Search of April Raintree, Beatrice Culleton Under the Ribs of Death, John Marlyn Disappearing Moon Cafe, Sky Lee Obasan, Joy Kagowa The Tin Flute ( Bonheur d'occassion), Gabrielle Roy (just because the french are considered more ethnic than the english) Lindz ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 13:23:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ted Pelton Subject: books Woodland Pattern is the "one good Wisconsin bookstore" I referred to in a previous post. It is also great for avant fiction and has a "creative prose" section with poetics/ essays/ theory etc. But I had no idea there weren't better places elsewhere when I asked about NYC. I feel like Dorothy, disabused of grandiose notions of Oz -- "there's no place like home." Ted Pelton ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 12:42:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mn Center For Book Arts Subject: Re: Bookstores and Small Depressing NonDistrubition In-Reply-To: <2f8fdcc71a9a002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> I have conflicting ideas on the issues of the availability of books in bookstores in NYC and elsewhere. Chax books are also distributed by SPD, and one, by Kathleen Fraser, was reviewed by NY Times Book Review, Village Voice, & elsewhere, and was still, according to reports I got, largely unavailable in NY. So, yes, it hurts. On the other hand, I hate to defend the market economy, but I do recognize that it exists, and part of me wonders why so many people even expect bookstores to be intellectual service organizations, rather than businesses. The exception Ron Silliman pointed to, Woodland Pattern, is organized as a nonprofit organization and is, in some ways, explicitly an intellectual service center, and they could not possibly exist without individual, foundation, corporate, and government contributions. That goes some way to explain why they are the most fantastic poetry bookstore on the continent. Charles Alexander ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 12:48:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mn Center For Book Arts Subject: Re: The Impulse to Stock Things (longish) In-Reply-To: <2f9042e16f65002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> I'd like to volunteer Chax Press for the swap book notion. Yes I'd devote 100 copies of any title, although I might have to work out a few things with authors. But count us in. Great idea. charles ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 10:59:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: PC In-Reply-To: <199504142143.OAA18157@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Stephen Galen Cope" at Apr 14, 95 01:56:12 pm Stephen Cope mentioned that while O'Hara is a "homosexual" poet, Creeley is just a poet. I dunno. I know people who thibnk of Creeley as an American poet. I myself always think of him as a one-eyed poet. But seriously, I do remember that about 20 years ago Ginsberg descriobed my and Victor Coleman as good heterosexual poets. As it was the first time anyone had called me that I was a little tripped, and then I liked it. But I havent, I think, been called that by a hetero-breeder poet, that I know of. Still, I have heard O'Hara called a NY poet 200 times for every time I have heard him called a gay poet. And Jack? Well, Jack is Jack. I hold his imaginary hand. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 21:40:16 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: politics X-cc: Michael Boughn The first translation of 'The Communist Manifesto' into English was by Helen Macfarlane and published in George Julian Harney's 'The Red Republican' on Saturday, November 9, 1850. [Price One Penny] Translation buffs will be amused to know that she sandbaggeded its famous opening line from the plain and direct 'A Spectre is haunting Europe' to 'A frightful hobgoblin stalks throughout Europe'. Resultant mutual suspicions between revolution and poetry have been a struggle ever since. game on cris ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 19:15:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Small Depressing Non-Distribution X-To: kgolds@panix.com In-Reply-To: <199504130900.FAA09277@panix4.panix.com> Yes, Kenny, there is no distribution. Volume constraints on distribution have increased over the past 15 years tothe point where some distributors will not handle a book that has a print run of less than 5000 copies. This institutionalization is recognized by everyone, but no one seems to be willing or able to do anything about it. I sent a long letter to several people involved with distribution, attempting to suggest alternatives to the current system and no one was able to reply with any support although all recognized that the current system of bookstores and distributors does not service the literature only volume sales. For example, The Nation magazine attempted to get Consortium to distribute 3000 copies of an anthology of articles from the Nation on race dating back to 1865, a guaranteed seller. The Nation didn't have the captial to fund more than a short run and Consortium turned them down saying they had to have 5000 copies to distribute. This is obviously an absurd example of bad business on the part of Consortium, but even SPD has a mandate as a wholesaler and not a true distributor. SPD does not have sales reps that go to stores and as a result their scope is limited. They do a good job in California and some other places, but not in NY or other places where one needs a rep to continuously barrage to stores. But the bookstores in NY are a joke as well. They have no interest in anything but what they can sell to unsuspecting college students. Even some of the "better" stores complain they can't get service from smaller distributors. In fact the entire distribution network has become so computerized and dependent on volume for success that I have decided to try to sell texts on the net. But let me ask a broacast question? HOW MANY READERS OF THIS LIST WOULD ORDER A BOOK THROUGH THE MAIL? HOW MANY WOULD ACCEPT AN ASCII FILE FOR 1/4 the price of a book? I wonder. I have mailed many mailers to the Segue mailing list. MOst of the people on this list are on the Segue list, but only 20 or tops 50 respond to a direct mail piece of a book they can't get in the stores. I think our buying habits are sadly what determine our taste and are conditioned by habit and consensus. I offered a list of the Segue catalog to all these people for free, but only four were interested enough to request it. (Oh and folks you will be getting it soon.) We can blame the bookstores or blame computerization or blame THEM, but in fact how many people will go one step out of their normal patterns to get a book? A study of book buying indicates that some huge portion of all books, 60%, purchased by a small portion, 10%, of buyers. Anyway if there ever is an NEA again or any funding or private capital for books, I hope small publishers get some relief on the market side. James ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 19:26:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: What is Digest? X-To: Lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu In-Reply-To: <199504130900.FAA09277@panix4.panix.com> Loss, I like your evocation of the midnight flurry, poet brains discharging on the WEB at midnight, foetal excitation when the mother rests. I have had to opt for the "Digest" mode, which as you rightly point out is a consolidation of data, to shorten my day at the tube. I wanted to share the change for me with the list. I think I would have kept the message by message format if I had the ability to control deletions more easily in my mailing program. So as the technology improves for me I will come back to that format. James ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 19:35:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: What is Digest? X-To: RSilliman@ix.netcom.com In-Reply-To: <199504140535.BAA20211@panix4.panix.com> Ron, I am worried and that's why I wrote. I guess I want my mail, even in response to server messages to come to me direct as well as on the "Digest", since it might not [1834...com}e][direct8921at]. James ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 19:47:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: What is Digest? X-To: cf2785@csc.albany.edu In-Reply-To: <199504140535.BAA20211@panix4.panix.com> Chris, To reply simply to your extended and interesting message, I wish to note how much a change in FORMAT of the same material created for me a significant change in MEANING. The particular thing I felt about it I see now as less important, although it has impact for me as I said to Ron, I'd like any responses regarding my mail to also come to me direct and not just to the list which I might miss on a given day. James ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 21:13:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: Last Names Rae, of course you are. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 21:22:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Mandel Subject: Re: true friendship Hank, I only caught your absolutely correct response of last thursday, response to the Blake quote with its attendant cruise. You were nearer your books than I and "In opposition is true friendship" is exact (tho, for that matter, so is "opposition is true friendship"). As you know, the cruise has already been awarded. But, I do feel that you rather than Gary Sullivan now have best claim on the 'Vette. But, I have already awarded it to him; I'm in a bind. Perhaps Gary would be willing to share this historic vehicle. I realize that I could also cut it in two lengthwise, providing one of you with the driver's experience and the other with that of a passenger. This would accomplish the further goal of enriching retrospectively the meaning of the phrase "split-window coupe." What color would you like? tom ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 13:44:34 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: Dissemination (long) In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 15 Apr 1995 21:21:47 -0500 from I don't know how you do it Gary. Informative and amazingly entertaining post. We should perhaps add the problems of distributing not only books of poetry but any marginalized cultural product. For instance, the late '80s were an absolute renaissance for indy comics such as Love and Rockets, Yummy Fur, and Jim, etc, but those of us that are interested are just now beginning to get a sense of what all was available because most were distributed to only two or three commix stores throughout the country. We can get them now only because art spiegelman stirred up enough interest with Maus that major commix pubs had to notice and in effect bought out the indies. Now, they are available as back catalog items. Unfortunately, under current economic conditions, this seems to be the only way to win the game of notice, but unfortunately it at the same time kills the quality. The freedom that obscurity bought for the indy comics guy is now gone and what is done now is hardly of the same quality. Its a game that can't be won, unless, and this is the point of my post, we develop our own distribution networks. The best of all possible worlds would be to combine Ron's and Rae's concerns. Where those who know the stuff could direct mail and those who don't can happen upon it. The only way I can see this happening is on the net. Various catalogs could be made available and one could order stuff while logged on (as you can do now on Prodigy, etc.) This network could be placed on various gopher/www lists (like jewels) and in this way practically anyone that has access to the net (admittedly a small group now but getting larger) can have access to the books. This would then complement the availability of e-books, which could in fact assist sales. A bit of wishful thinking, prob, but is anyone interested? Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 21:10:17 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: politics In-Reply-To: Message of Sun, 16 Apr 1995 21:40:16 +0000 from What is politics? I remember one poet, after one of these many wrestling matches about the issue, said in exasperation, "isn't what we are talking about as politics your moral center?" Certainly we can argue over what is moral, and why a center (snore), but I think she had something important there. Something more than just what happens when more then two people get together, although this idea aknowledges politics as taking place between the reader and the writer, as it should. The thing is that Republicans know art is political and that's why they try to kill it. Only us and the Democratic party defend art because they think it somehow above the political. Ultimately, if art is what some of us are saying: non-political, amusement, transcendence, etc, then it is hard to justify. If art is this, it deserves to be killed. I don't happen to think it is. Thanks ,Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 19:26:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: A Whiter Shade of Pale In-Reply-To: <9504160359.AA11739@isc.sjsu.edu> Curiously, at least to me, whiteness has, in America, been defined negatively on most occasions; for example, when the Supreme Court has found itself called upon to issue a definition of the white race, it has generally chosen instead to explain why the person before them at the time is non-white. Look at Eric Sundquist's discussion of Plessy v Ferguson, in which the novelist & lawyer Albion Tourgee argued that Plessy had been unlawfully deprived of property, that property being his reputation for being a white person (the courst agreed that Homer was not white). I sometimes have students who gripe that there isn't a white history month or other such celebration of whiteness (though I don't get much of this since the majority of students on my campus are legally defined as non-white) -- It's not that old complaint that interests me; it's their response when I treat the complaint seriously and ask them what the contents of this whiteness might be. Then it quickly becomes evident that they want to have their whiteness and deny it at the same time. That is, they insist, also, that they don't see things racially, that it is all the non-whites who insist on continuing diviseness by forcing the white students to view the world racially -- That they would point to any number of cultural phenomena they believe the white race to have invented (such as, the claim goes, the very idea of racial tolerance) but they at the same time insist that none of these phenomena are constructed "whitely" -- This _is_ indeed confusing, What it amounts to is that these students are angry that everyone is raced & ethnic but, supposedly, themselves; but they insist that they don't see themselves as white people; I think that _is_ the remanant of white skin privilege in the U.S. -- the right to decide when & where to become white. Maria's work in this area, by the way, is well worth reading if you don't already know it. Also, & I may mangle the title here, Allen's _The Invention of the White Race Vol. 1_. A mag. with a title I detest, _Race Traitor_, sometimes has interesting pieces on this topic, though its overall tone of "I'm more counterhegemonic than you" is hard to take. I've taught Frank O'Hara in my Ethnicity in Lit. class, and have even floated a poem by my friend Spencer (Selby) in front of my students just to trouble the waters -- Don't we all have more than two names?????? Even Sappho????? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 00:19:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: politics Re--moral center---Is that the center that can not hold? Of the "shopping center" that skirts around the city...thus conferring a sinister connotation onto Shelley's talk about "the center that becomes the circumference" during an acid trip.... Someone once said that one can not be a Machievellian without a moral center. This, of course, means that one can not have a moral center without being a macheivellian....Nonetheless, there is an "us" and a "them"----Yours, Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 23:09:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Don't cut that 'Vette, hand me the Peruvian flake In-Reply-To: <199504170123.SAA07400@mailhost.primenet.com> Dear Tom: Thanks for the offer, but I'll stick with Marta's '82 Plymouth Reliant, bought (cheap!) from the University of Minnesota. (Who says American Universities have nothing to offer?) The 'Vette would last 2 winters before rusting &, besides, the Plymouth looks like an FBI vehicle. You do the kinds of drugs necessary to "keep on top of" today's hip-now-with-it- a-go-go music scene in a 'Vette, you're just asking for a tedious (& need I mention recreational-drugless?) stay in Stillwater Prison. But, seriously, give the 'Vette to Lazer. I'd just sell the the thing for cigarettes, anyway... Yours, Gary ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 00:28:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: WHite History Month Dear Aldon--It's funny I saw a St. Patrick's day here in Albany and was kinda surprised how in 1995 there is still so much "ethnic pride" amongst whites...Like when I lived in philadelphia and shared an office space with a girl/woman (kinda transitional) who lived with her parents in South Phila. (highly ethnic italian and catholic and MUMMERS--do you know what MUMMERS are??????) and never left until she got married...and even then stayed there...Understanding such ethnic isolationism and the "tight communities" of whiteness came as a shock...especially during the year I lived in one of those ("white trash") neighborhoods and found ' it more , er, disconcerting than living in North Phila. as only white guy on block....I was called "nigger lover" and had a couple of close calls with the locals...and this is much of what we're up against.... CS ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 00:36:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marisa A Januzzi Subject: bookstores In-Reply-To: <199504140546.AA19117@mailhub.cc.columbia.edu> Hello to Ted Pelton and everyone else. That list of NYC bookstores was great but out of date by at least two years (some closings, some name-changes, etc). Anyone coming to NYC should feel free to e-mail me with particular interests (new? used? antiquarian?) and I'd be happy to elaborate on possibilities. I feel as if I've worked in them all. Anyway, here I am in NY and I'd guess I get most of my new stuff from SPD and Moe's in California via on-line lists and catalogues. They've got a web site somewhere and are reachable through e-mail and have a pretty strong poetry section. The Grolier in Cambridge is also ok for poetry but not consistent in what they'll stock. The Gotham is also great, if you can get over how rude half the staff is. I was once on hold for an hour and forty-five minutes and the person finally came back and didn't even laugh or seem surprised that I was holding... There are some great stores here, but yeah, you have to get used to the idea that for the most part books are "stock" to the people you're dealing with, in the new book trade. Bye for now--(I was serious! Feel free to e-mail for closer information) Marisa Januzzi wishing the Phoenix still existed, or the Washington Sq Bookshop ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 22:37:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: jazz/poetry In the late 1970s, I had a rare demo record of a session Lorenzo Thomas did fronting a blues/rock band while in college (Queens? Brooklyn?). The band was called The Bankers -- hard to imagine that image for Lorenzo -- and he wrote the lyrics, sang the songs. I remember one verse: "bedbug morning, silverfish afternoon." The acoustics were dreadful but the music was out there. I got the record from the bass player (Rich Jenkins, the younger brother of the playwright Len whom Douglas has published on more than one occasion). I gave my copy back to Lorenzo when I learned that he had lost the only copy he had had. My question: are there any other recordings of him w/ musicians out there? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 22:47:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Bookstores and Small Depressing NonDistrubition "On the other hand, I hate to defend the market economy, but I do recognize that it exists, and part of me wonders why so many people even expect bookstores to be intellectual service organizations, rather than businesses. The exception Ron Silliman pointed to, Woodland Pattern, is organized as a nonprofit organization and is, in some ways, explicitly an intellectual service center, and they could not possibly exist without individual, foundation, corporate, and government contributions. That goes some way to explain why they are the most fantastic poetry bookstore on the continent." > > Charles Alexander Woodland Pattern would not exist at all if Karl Gartung were not so committed to it as a project to work as a truck driver (for Emery Air Freight or some such) to make Anne's lack of income "okay," a very basic and personal form of subsidy. Similarly, Modern Times, the best political bookstore in SF, has for 15 years depended on Pam Rosenthal's labor as a computer programmer at the Federal Reserve Bank. Like SPD, these organizations are indeed service providers and miracles every one! -- Ron ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 01:26:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mn Center For Book Arts Subject: Re: Bookstores and Small Depressing NonDistrubition In-Reply-To: <2f9201240e6f002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> On Sun, 16 Apr 1995, Ron Silliman wrote: > > Woodland Pattern would not exist at all if Karl Gartung were not so > committed to it as a project to work as a truck driver (for Emery Air > Freight or some such) to make Anne's lack of income "okay," a very > basic and personal form of subsidy. Similarly, Modern Times, the best > political bookstore in SF, has for 15 years depended on Pam Rosenthal's > labor as a computer programmer at the Federal Reserve Bank. Like SPD, > these organizations are indeed service providers and miracles every > one! > > -- Ron > Just to fill in some of the story, no matter how removed and inaccurately I am from it, I do believe Woodland Pattern began with a different name and location, and that it was in part the brainchild of a group of people, including Jerome Rothenberg who at the time was teaching at Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, but also included quite prominently, Karl Young, who has been tireless in his efforts to write, publish, review and otherwise write about, and make available small press works. Karl Gartung and Ann Kingsbury are to be praised for their vision and tireless work, but there is a large degree to which Woodland Pattern began and still exists as the vision of many, and one which unites a local community with a much larger one via books and performances. If you're in Milwaukee, Woodland Pattern is currently exhibiting an exhibition, ART AND LANGUAGE: RE-READING THE BOUNDLESS BOOK, which was originated in the spring of 1994 at Minnesota Center for Book Arts and which has now been to Atlanta and Milwaukee. This exhibition must return to artists after the current Milwaukee showing, but if anyone is interested in book arts, art/language exhibitions, particularly as a potential site host, please let me know, either via e-mail, or at Minnesota Center for Book Arts, 24 North Third Street, Minneapolis, MN 55401. Phone 612-338-3634; fax 612-338-1562. And thank you, Ron, for once again bringing Woodland Pattern to people's attention. charles alexander ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Apr 1995 22:10:47 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Schultz Subject: books/movie X-To: Automatic digest processor In-Reply-To: <9504170401.AA23752@uhunix4.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> I have a question for the New Zealanders on the list: what was the reception of _Once Were Warriors_ like there? The movie has amazing resonances here in Hawaii, but also elsewhere (the identifications with African-American culture I found especially interesting). Roger Ebert got it comically wrong when he described it as a film about the evils of alcoholism, when it's more about Maori oppression and internalized (and externalized) rage. As for books, I order through the mail all the time. We're on the brink of having two Borders and a Barnes and Noble in Honolulu, but the poetry selections are, shall we say, tame. I'd be delighted to be able to order through the net, or at least to have a catalogue of available books on-line. I'm thinking of starting up a modest subscribers' only journal (like _Situation_) that would concentrate on "experimental" writing, especially that from the Pacific area, though not exclusively. I'd be delighted to get suggestions, about poets and about the mechanics of getting a small journal going, from anyone through the backchannel. Thanks in advance, Susan Schultz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 11:35:47 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: Dissemination (long) X-To: eric pape Hi. Seems as if there are several suggestions re distribution surfacing or re-surfacing. Good. Using this space operationally figures in all of them so far. James, I don't get the advantage of downloading ASCII from a middle-man. In many (although I grant not all) cases I could get that direct from the poet or have work posted to me via this space (which is increasingly happening). Whereas I do the advantage of buying a hypertext work on disc direct from say John Cayley or Kathryn Cramer or Jim Rosenberg. So, buying a disc which present work in some way authored and designed for this e-space - yes. Otherwise no. As to Direct Mail it makes sense to use this listserv AND to cross-reference several others such as Eric's suggestion of Jewels (although I don't know what that is - doesn't matter at the present, there may be many). I'm certainly more keen on an announcement accompanied by examples from the work as in Juliana's or Kali's recent promo posts than in merely a listing of available titles or a title plus a smoothe blurb from anyone (which as far as I can see only fosters the perception of a clique towards closure if we're talking about the curious browsing). But then that's exactly the kind of possibility this e-space offers. I'm also curious to hear from may others about Direct Mail preferences and experiences. Some (thanks gary and charles) have responded positively to the Timezone Exchange (i don't know how should we refer to it?) suggestion and the next step would be a bit of simple nuts and bolts on its mechanism? It seems from my own access that the EPC is in need of some updating. Many author cites are blank. But the EPC provides one exceptionally integrated resource potential. A lot is down to us poets and publishers to learn the formatting languages to facilitate the fully-dimensioned presentation of our work(s). dry, cold and windy cris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 08:09:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: A Whiter Shade of Pale In-Reply-To: <199504170231.WAA18935@jazz.epas.utoronto.ca> from "Aldon L. Nielsen" at Apr 16, 95 07:26:47 pm > Curiously, at least to me, whiteness has, in America, been defined > negatively on most occasions; for example, when the Supreme Court has > found itself called upon to issue a definition of the white race, it has > generally chosen instead to explain why the person before them at the > time is non-white. Why do you find this curious, Aldon? I find it a confirmation of the fact that race doesn't exist other than as a poltical creation (see, for instance, Michael Omi and Howard Winant, _Racial Formation in the US from 1960-1980_). (Whoa, politics!) "Blackness" has always been defined as a "lack of pure whiteness", while "whiteness", for those who care, only exists as the complete absence of "blackness". Thus, a drop of "black blood" makes you "black". Only the absence of that makes you "white". Not that there is any such absence, other than as a fiction. I had a fight about this with some dufus on the Phil-Lit list who insisted that during the entire 300 year Moorish occupation of southern Europe, community standards prevented sexual relationships between the occupiers and the occupied. Yeah, sure. We know what happened here. As Sing Bird says in Toni Morrisn's _Song of Solomon_, it's a wonder anybody knows who anybody is. Faulkner is the a master teller of the story of the fiction of race. Check out _Light in August_, _Absalom, Absalom_, and _Go Down Moses_. Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 08:20:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Re: Dissemination (long) In-Reply-To: <199504171035.GAA06696@mailhub.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "cris cheek" at Apr 17, 95 11:35:47 am > It seems from my own access that the EPC is in need of some updating. Many > author cites are blank. But the EPC provides one exceptionally integrated > resource potential. A lot is down to us poets and publishers to learn the > formatting languages to facilitate the fully-dimensioned presentation of > our work(s). Cris, Are you using Web access or gopher? A commercial system? I don't think there are any actual blank author locations. However, writing links for the EPC tends to be highly labor intensive. The situation has been that it all has to be done *twice* to support both gopher (Aol, etc.) and web access. I mean we are talking _many_ hours of work. Given the greater power and flexibility of the Web (and its near certain movement towards being an Internet standard), I have tended to keep those links active. This creates a problem. Let those who can't access the web use gopher and see an out-of-date version of the EPC (what, maybe 60% of it is there via gopher) or eliminate that version (unfortunately then not allowing some to contact?) Anyway, I may have misinterpreted this part of your post. But that's the only way I can figure you are finding empty author menus, since the author area shouldn't have this. All best, Loss ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 08:22:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: A Whiter Shade of Pale great post, aldon. who's "allen"?--maria In message <2f91d30905a8002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes: .. Allen's _The > Invention of the White Race Vol. 1_. > > A mag. with a title I detest, _Race Traitor_, sometimes has interesting > pieces on this topic, though its overall tone of "I'm more > counterhegemonic than you" is hard to take. > > I've taught Frank O'Hara in my Ethnicity in Lit. class, and have even > floated a poem by my friend Spencer (Selby) in front of my students just > to trouble the waters -- > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 10:07:31 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Dissemination (long) > The best of all possible worlds would be to combine Ron's and Rae's >concerns. Where those who know the stuff could direct mail and those who >don't can happen upon it. The only way I can see this happening is on the >net. Various catalogs could be made available and one could order stuff >while logged on (as you can do now on Prodigy, etc.) This network could be >placed on various gopher/www lists (like jewels) and in this way practically >anyone that has access to the net (admittedly a small group now but getting >larger) can have access to the books. This would then complement the >availability of e-books, which could in fact assist sales. > A bit of wishful thinking, prob, but is anyone interested? Thanks, Eric. having no modesty, i want to point to TapRoot at the EPC, which has a WWW version underconstruction (150 short reviews indexed so far, about 10% of the backlog), and which might be a start. the ordering information/ addresses point direct to the publisher--i always like to order direct, puts more $$ back into the press. and the intention is to add links from the reviews to sample of work from the publications, tho copyright permission details etc. have yet to be worked out. and as ever, i'm actively soliciting contributions of reviews... luigi ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 10:20:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: digest many texts but few poems ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 09:42:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert A Harrison Subject: Woodland Pattern In response to the recent posts concerning Woodland Pattern: Before it was incorporated in 1979, it was known as "Books Books," which began in the early seventies sometime ('72, '73?). Much better for small press books than anything I've seen in NYC or Chicago. It was started in the early 70s by Karl Gartung, Anne Kingsbury, Karl Young, Tom Montag, and Mark Haupert (Jerome Rothenberg was not directly involved, though he may have been teaching at UWM while "Books Books" began). They do 40 or so public events per year including readings, art openings, workshops, and music events. Their ethnic literature sections are some of the more extensive I've seen (very large Native American section), and their poetry selection has been growing at a more than healthy pace since its beginning, so they have stuff that even SPD doesn't have anymore. They have catalogs available for their ethnic literature collections (not for their poetry selection, it would be too big). AND, they have large collections of fine print books and chapbooks. They're tremendously dedicated to the Milwaukee community as well as keeping up a world class literary center. Their address: Woodland Pattern 720 E. Locust Milwaukee, WI 53212 (414) 263-5001 FAX (414) 372-7636 Internet: woodland@tmn.com bob harrison ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 10:27:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Standing oh, ron, stop preaching from the barricades. take spicer, for instances, of course homophobia has a lot to do with what you find in spicer, but i spent yesterday who was saying similar things. a great person, good talk, but not spicer, not poetry. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 10:33:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Standing oh, ron, the smokin' business: can't help you there, BUT there's a pretty good beer, to my taste, called red dog, which i recommend, though actually i like my home brew better. in any case, i do recommend beer, tho it reveal my relative class stance. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 10:40:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Knowledge & empowerment / electronic loss, i do agree with you. try, for instance, finding all the little mags with chapters from the h.d.book. the problem's dual: (a) only reason i can do/afford e-mail is that this place gives us computers, etc, (b) attitude that words here don't last. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 12:10:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: politics no, eric, it's not the art that is political; it's the way it's used and what it's presumed to say by the big boys in elephant skins. i suggest a safari. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 11:43:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: braman sandra Subject: net dissemination Speaking of dissemination -- a couple of guys are about to start up a book distribution service for fiction. You pay a nominal fee to put in your manuscript. Readers can read a few pages before making a decision to order it, at which paying for the book with a computerized transaction delivers the entire manuscript. Authors get a royalty of a few dollars apiece. Sounds great, frankly. Why only fiction? Needs a server, some software, someone to put in a little time running it. Sandra Braman PS -- If anyone's interested in putting a manuscript up for the fiction server, please let me know backchannel (s-braman@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu), and I'll pass your names along. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 12:37:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: poeticslist serve and desire / the 39 steps with angels and whatever comes to hand we seek and find the answer in the sand; dry, cool and buried deep below the sun, our ecstacy as blood within the darker roots will run. so rivers merge, are one. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 12:00:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: politics yes, mike, that's it: a is not marx. all language, it may be, is political (tho somewhat less so, i think, than some say), but it isn't that that makes the poem. spicer's joy in billy is a good deal more and other than relative class stance. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 12:46:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: politics In message <2f92963800f9002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > no, eric, it's not the art that is political; it's the way it's used and what > it > 's presumed to say by the big boys in elephant skins. i suggest a safari. i don't get it --what is the significance of elephant skins?--maria damon ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 14:43:02 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: politics In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 17 Apr 1995 00:19:56 -0400 from Yes, Chris. Ultimately I agree that the term moral center is a problem. What I meant is something more like baseline ethics, or something similar. Marx's analysis of capitalism is only a criticism if we find exploitation inethical. Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 22 Mar 1995 12:30:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: RSILLIMA Organization: Vanstar Corporation Subject: Hallmark The late Darrell Gray, right after he got out of Iowa City, worked for Hallmark in Kansas City for awhile before heading out to California. It wouldn't surprise me to discover that other MFAers have done likewise. I was in KC about 2 years ago, at the hotel that's attached to the mall/office suite Hallmark runs (and rode past the very corporate block architecture of its actual HQ building), and noted how the signage referred to "the leading producer of greeting cards and social expression products." That latter phrase stuck in my mind. Beyond a verse genre that one could characterize in its sincere mode as "lumpen new formalism" what I think causes the allergic reaction to greeting cards is (1) how greeting card verse instrumentalizes emotion into a lowest (commodity) denominator. Whatever poetry does (and people do disagree on that one, don't they?), almost every variation I've heard of tends to discount instrumentalization (with the possible, and only just, exception of certain identarian forms ("the people united...")). (2) a reaction to how all poets must deal with the stereotypes of poetry that non-readers (relatives, say, your great aunt or drunken uncle) throw over one the minute they learn that you -- in whom everybody had once had such hopes -- have decided, gasp, to devote a life to poems??!! You feel misunderstood, ridiculed, violated in some fashion to hear your folks make that sort of comparison and tend to blame the genre. No? Ron ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 17:55:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: politics elephant skins: things republicans wear. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 00:27:02 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: poeticslist serve and desire / the 39 steps X-cc: Edward Foster Angelo - "spoon me down some of that 'honey'. I'm all merged out." Blood and Moon pressing the heating beck into this ox - when a woodcutter's riverrun steps by parading his latest smoothe treen "Fresh and Green!!" "Dream on - Arkangelo". ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 18:36:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: politics In message <2f92ee981ea6002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > elephant skins: things republicans wear. ah, i see- i thought we were entering some slippery territory of "criticism in the jungle." --maria d ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 18:10:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: I feel pink I have to agree with what Chris was saying about white ethnic communties such as the Irish and the Italian having tight knit celebrations of being " white". In Canada it is even more aparrent that being part of the white majority also means you are english. Being on the west coast my contact with Quebecois culture had been minimal until I started working at a French bakery to support myself through my BA. A whole new white culture opened up to me. Yet it did not change my BC attitude towards the Parti Quebecois. I'm still fond of bumper stickers that exclaim "Quebec seperates make them take Ontario!" Someone else was talking about how attitudes of color are constructions of society and I think that is an excellent point. My "whiteness" is the result of my upbringing and experience and my perception of other races depends on how they are presented within my realm. Ted's rather aburpt response to my previous post made judgements on my life without any concept of how I live. Although I value his incite and his bold statments, I think his reactionary approach to my refusal to apologized missed my intended meaning. It all comes down to the futility of formal apologies, it's not a matter of feeling threatened. Let's say you are left handed,and we the righteous majority of right handers decide that all left handers are mutants and should have their left hands cut off so you will no longer offend us. We the majority then force you to conform to our right handed ways. Then forty years later we see that we were wrong, science has proven that lefties aren't gimps. Obviously we can't give back all those left hands, but we can do huge tv campaigns and say "oops sorry, leftis are cool", "Hire a lefty", " lefties do it better". NOw does that make you feel any better, or wouldn't you, the one handed, previously lefthanded person prefer that we, the right hands actually did something useful with all that publicity money and found a way to replace that hand or atleast compensate you for the emense inconvience and humiliation you've suffered for the last forty years. Lindz Ps, There is a great scene in Cry Freedom, where Stephen Biko is on the stand and the prosecutor says " Why do you call yourselves Black, you look more brown to me." And Biko replies," Why do you call yourselves white, you look more pink to me." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 20:44:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Hallmark The close readers out there will note that the message with this title that you just read was "logged" by my network at work on March 22 -- it took 26 days to get out over the internet! Don't let anyone kid you about the "instantaneous" nature of this electronic stuff. If some systems engineer forgets to reboot the gateway server, you're toast! Ron ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 20:48:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: politics I always knew those Foster's cans were too big. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 22:51:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: Book exchanges In-Reply-To: <199504171038.DAA02406@mailhost.primenet.com> Dear Cris: A few thoughts on your book exchange idea... * It doesn't matter to me whether or not books exchanged are of equal (retail or production) value. I would happily exchange 5-10 copies of a perfectbound for an equal number of either chapbooks or "mimeos." This is because: * I probably wouldn't try to sell the books I'd exchanged for. It wouldn't matter to me if -- let's take you as an example -- if you exchanged 5 copies of your most recent for mine, and then tried to sell mine. However you got them out would be fine w/me. What I would do with yours would be to give them to friends who I think would appreciate them, and/or include them as "bonus freebies" w/things of our own that we sent out. (I could take them to readings, too, though we don't have a lot of readings here in the Twin Cities.) * As far as "nuts & bolts," that seems to be something each publisher would have to work out with other publishers on a publisher-by-publisher basis. Unless ... * You mean maybe a "place" online that would be a list of publishers (including their e- and/or snail-addresses) who have expressed interest in participating in this exchange. (I like this idea, actually.) How does the above strike you? Anyone? Yours, Gary ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 20:56:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: politics 1st SF Home Rainout Since. Bounce Tabby-Cat Giants. Newspapers Left in my house. My house is Aquarius. I don't believe The water-bearer Has equal weight on his shoulders. The lines never do. We give equal Space to everything in our lives. Eich- Mann proved that false in killing like you raise wildflowers. Witlessly I Can- not accord sympathy to those who do not recognize The human crisis. From "Thing Language," 1964 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 23:11:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Re: politics In-Reply-To: <199504180358.UAA25484@mailhost.primenet.com> PEOPLE IN THEIR ABSENCE for Ed & Ron Starvation is a chemical. Poor men praise whatever worse outweighs hope's burn. They write in rags of light over unevents. Each time a little colder in the head, eating, like say, some more words. & in my world that's what people are supposed to do. So, who are you to tell me I'm entitled to my opinion? Such food as outstretched hands an offering make & make of itself a circle w/out end. My favorite evenings are factory ones but I could do the other. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 01:41:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: I feel pink Or PINKO---Lind(Z)'s comments on LEFT-HANDEDNESS do strike home as allegorical. "I've been Ayn Randed nearly branded a communist coz I'm left handed that's the hand to use well never mine" Simon (in response to McNamara's belated apology to KALI TAL's viet gen) And one's LEFTIST tendency (as a southpaw) were put severely into question during the 1992 Presidential debates--for CLINTON, BUSH and PEROT were all revealed to be lefties---oops, there goes the neighborhood--and not only that my two favorite Beatles were the right handed ones, and Ringo and Paul were the lefties....CS ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 01:46:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Hallmark Well Ron don't worry I think your HALLMARK message is surely "News That Stays News" (stays as in "stay of execution"?--ah, the perils of "close reading") and makes me wanna propose an open question to this forum---Frank O'Hara writes somewhere "that those of us who thought poetry was crap were throttled by Auden or Rimbaud"---well, what I'm curious about is WHAT THROTTLED you "folks"??? What made you, uh, "get religion" as it were....or did any of you actually enjoy the FORCE FED FROST that signified "poetry" when you were younger so much younger than today? CS ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Apr 1995 19:47:57 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Schultz Subject: whiteness In-Reply-To: <9504180401.AA05192@uhunix4.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> Chris--you should see Honolulu's New Caledonian society! Skirts, bagpipes, Robbie Burns readings. It's a kind of ethnic envy, I think. In a place where whiteness is next to ungodliness it's also an interesting self-assertion. When I taught at a small college in Williamsburg, Virginia and included three works by African-American writers in an American lit class, students responded by suggesting I should have included more Italian-American literature (for example); or by saying they'd been made to feel guilty enough already. But what was most disturbing was the way in which they (not all, of course) considered it a course in American literature, with some African-American stuff thrown in on the side. I was finally reduced to telling them that Toni Morrison's a better writer than F. Scott Fitzgerald, which was to give in to a series of assumptions that were better left alone. A fine book on the canon is John Guillory's _Cultural Capital: The Problem of Literary Canon Formation_ (Johns Hopkins), which leaves no one's canonical myth unturned. Among his points: there is no such thing as a canon; there are only syllabi. There's also Michael Berube's book on the public debate over the canon, where he rips William Bennett, et al, to shreds. Susan Schultz ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 03:43:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mn Center For Book Arts Subject: Re: Book exchanges In-Reply-To: <2f9337d21ed7002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> I'm with Gary on the exchange idea, including agreeing to exchange perfectbound or smyth sewn books for chapbooks of various kinds. The only worry is that, if I am only publishing two or three books per year (and only getting back to that in 1995 after transition years after mid-1993 move) I may not be doing the quantity of work which many chapbook publishers are doing. But these issues of quantity and value seem not the point so much as getting the work around. In an edition of under 1000 I would probably limit the quantity of books available for exchange, rather than sale or author's copies or review copies, to 100 or less. I particularly like the idea of exchanges with authors as well as publishers, and I would not limit it to new books, either, although I would like to exchange for books I don't already have and haven't already read. charles alexander ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 03:52:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mn Center For Book Arts Subject: Re: whiteness In-Reply-To: <2f9352ec64a1002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> Susan, it is problematic to agree that Toni Morrison is a better writer than F. Scott Fitzgerald, in several ways. Beyond the whiteness issue, you have to define what "a better writer" means. I was watching a late night locally produced arts television program last year here in Minneapolis which featured Patrice Koelsch, in conversation with artists and arts activists. Somehow the subject of Satchell Page's autobiography, as literature, came up, and Patrice got rather angry that such work was considered as literature, felt it was somehow an insult to REAL writers like Toni Morrison and Alice Walker. I thought her position was rather ludicrous, but realized I have might have been more in agreement if the writers she cited were Amiri Baraka, Clarence Major, Bob Kaufmann, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Brooks, Nathaniel Mackey, Wanda Coleman,or Langston Hughes. But then we're all back in the finding the "better writer" game. all best, charles alexander ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 13:44:34 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: Book exchanges I'm with Gary and charles. Committed to making something happen. e-mail page yes - where? EPC facility? Out of town for a couple of days so will come back more fully on this then. But YES cris ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 08:52:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: White Mystery Month In-Reply-To: <9504180359.AA15847@isc.sjsu.edu> Several replies in random order: The full citation is -- Allen, Theodore W. _The Invention of the White Race: Racial Oppression and Social Control Vol.1_ (Vol. 2 nowhere in sight yet). New York: Verso, 1994. Yeah, I know all about Omi and Whynot -- good stuff there -- but a point is getting missed (_and_ the "one drop" rule is a peculiar institution of the U.S. -- things look quite different in the other colonies) -- Of course race is a social construction -- what I find curious is the shifting attitudes among self-declared white people about their whiteness -- (this also parallels their shifting beliefs about just what characterizes blackness, none of which has much to do with skin color at all). That is, to link back to Chris's observations, most celebrations of white ethnic traditions such as St. Patrick's parades and so forth are quite apart from any celebration of whiteness (except when the neoAryan types reppropriate them, as has happened with some Celtic and Scottish celebrations in the NorthWest in recent years) -- and, interestingly enough, many of these are among communities, like the Irish and the Italians, who earlier in the century were not considered white people in most of the U.S. -- It is sometimes an easy matter to shift such a celebration immediately and forcefully into a "white" thing -- this often happened in the bad old days when a black person wandered into the proceedings -- My curiosity has been about the lack of content of the concept of whiteness for most young people who think of themselves as white, coupled with their, to me, odd attitudes about that very identification -- that is, to repeat myself from last time, the students with whom I have this conversation insist that they do not see the world racially at all, and yet when they describe what they take to be the "norms" of US existence, it is very clearly a description in which all non-whites are viewed as deviating from what is posited as a norm -- I'll try to say this more coherently another time -- bottom line, most of my white students would insist vehemently that they have _never_ benefitted in any way from being white -- indeed, they tend to believe that "reverse discrimination" is _the_ social problem of our era (though the overwhlemingly white senior faculty at even this school would seem to indicate this isn't much of a factor in real academic employment) -- They often react as if even to discuss the history of slavery is to accuse them, as individuals, of something, and that to discuss history is to be anti-white -- since most of them have little or no knowledge of that history, I doubt that this is the result of their having been brow-beaten with it in K-12 school. On the other hand, there are some really exciting young students showing up who actually read books and care about the textual past -- some of them are rereading the works of the 19th century abolitionists (_and_ the proslavery books) and producing analyses that are breathtaking in their originality and usefulness -- Anybody out there read Thomas Wentworth Higginson's memoirs lately? He was entirely wrong about both Dickinson and Whitman (quite a record there!) but his autobiographical works are tremendous; almost on a par with Melville. Was Edward Taylor a white poet? Longfellow? W.S. Barithwaite? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 11:03:23 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: I feel pink In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 17 Apr 1995 18:10:06 -0700 from Lindz: I think you are right up to a point, but you don't go far enough. All the interesting analyses of "whiteness" so far, except for Aldon's fail to follow the chain of signfication adequately. Yes, whiteness signifies lack but lack of what: ethnicity. Ethnicity, I would argue, is the second term of the opposition European/ethnic, of simply white/ethnic. Ethnic, whether Jew, Italian, Ethopian, etc, signifies difference from a normative whiteness, thus it is possible even to place white trash as the supplement if the normative whiteness is, for instance, white yuppie. White also (take a look at Goethe's optics) signifies purity, cleanliness, while ethnic signifies impurity, curruption, which is why this construction is so hard to displace because the supplement, with all of its political implications is a constuction of language and culture. Lindz, you also seem to view genocide ahistorically, that is, to see the genocide of Native Americans totally distinct from the genocide of Jews that culminated in Auschwitz. Genocide is a historical process, perhaps the apotheosis of our historical situation. Which is why we cannot forget, or simply say, well, whoopdedoo, that all happened a long time ago and has no relation to me at all. The fact is that language and history has not changed, and the conditions are ripe for another genocide and another and another, and if we keep saying that none of us are implicated because we had nothing to do with it, it will never stop. Lindz, you are absolutely correct when you say apologizing isn't enough, but forgetting just allows it to keep happening. Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 19:18:16 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: politics In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 17 Apr 1995 12:10:56 -0500 from elephant guns anyone (but who distributes the ivory?)? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 19:02:57 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: politics In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 17 Apr 1995 12:10:56 -0500 from Ed: As usual I appreciate your wit and insight. But I think that even saying art is not political is a profoundly political stament that has a specific politica history, going back in the English tradition to attempts to inculcate East Indian subjects into Western values. Indians were very resistant to Biblical studies, but English educators decided that in order to keep Indians "good subjects of English rule," they had to give them Christian values. They noticed that good Christians rarely attempt revolution in the temporal world (although there are some attempts now to do so). The English decided that Western literature was so steeped in Christian values (not sure that this is correct either) that you could teach that and make them Christian without making them Christians. In order to do that they had to claim that lit. was not at all political, and was in fact higher than that, beyond that, above that, or else another form of resistence, they thought, was likely to develop. This little story is surely flattened out, the processes made simpler than they were, but I think it demonstrates the political ease with which the claim to non-politics can be political. Having said all this, I now admit that I do in some sense agree with an earlier post that said that a poem, or other work of art can have a political content as well as a content of "spirit." For me, though, even spirit would be a political term as it would capture the ineffable sense of a society in which nobody would starve, which seems as close to transcendence as we are likely to get. Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 21:02:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: poeticslist serve and desire / the 39 steps angelica's a carrot in my book, but angelo is honey in my thigh. the angelus is golden and the repeitition wears a groove along the page. sir norman wears illusion on his sleeve. the island's set aside for thieves. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 21:11:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Watts Subject: Panels, Panelists, Readings at the Recovery of the Public World Conference, June 1-4, 1995 X-cc: zaslove@sfu.ca THE RECOVERY OF THE PUBLIC WORLD: A CONFERENCE AND POETRY FESTIVAL IN HONOUR OF ROBIN BLASER, HIS POETRY AND POETICS. JUNE 1-4, 1995, AT EMILY CARR INSTITUTE OF ART AND DESIGN, GRANVILLE ISLAND, VANCOUVER, B.C. SCHEDULE OF EVENTS (AS OF TODAY, APRIL 18, 1995). The following is the schedule of events at the Recovery of the Public World Conference and Poetry Festival in honour of Robin Blaser, to be held at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, Vancouver, B.C., June 1st through fourth, 1995, together with the names of people who will be taking part: Thursday, June 1st, 8:30 a.m. - 9:25 a.m. Conference registration; pick-up of registration packets and other conference materials, in the foyer of the theatre at Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. Note: all panels & lunchtime readings will be held in the theatre at Emily Carr. Thursday, June 1st, 9:30 a.m. - 12 noon. Panel: COMPANIONS: SELF, OTHER, COMMUNITY. Chaired by Jenny Penberthy and Charles Watts. Panelists: Michael Boughn, Daniel Burgoyne, Clayton Eshleman, Peter Gizzi, Michael McClure, Kristin Prevallet, Nathaniel Tarn. Thursday, June 1st, 12 noon - 1:15 p.m. Lunch break. Thursday, June 1st, 1:15 p.m. - 1:55 p.m. Reading in the theatre, Emily Carr. Readers: Deanna Ferguson, Aaron Shurin, Dorothy Trujillo Lusk. Thursday, June 1st, 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Panel: COMPOSITION & PERFORMANCE. Chaired by Daphne Marlatt & Phyllis Webb. Panelists: David Bromige, Peter Middleton, Jed Rasula, David Sullivan, Phyllis Webb. Thursday, June 1st, 5:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m. Opening of the gallery exhibit, IN SEARCH OF ORPHEUS: SOME BAY AREA POETS & PAINTERS, 1945-1965. In the Charles H. Scott Gallery, Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design. (Thursday, June 1st, 5:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Dinner break.) Thursday, June 1st, 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. Festival opening, the theatre, Emily Carr. Opening address by Charles Bernstein. Readings by Charles Bernstein, Norma Cole, Daphne Marlatt, Michael Palmer. Performance by Catriona Strang and Francois Houle. Michael Ondaatje introduces Robin Blaser, who will give a talk. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Friday, June 2nd, 8:30 a.m. - 9:25 a.m. Conference registration, continued. Friday, June 2nd, 9:30 a.m. - 12 noon. Panel: 'NO LONGER OR NOT YET': TRANSLATION & THE RECOVERY OF THE PUBLIC WORLD. Chaired by Norma Cole and Michael Palmer. Panelists: Colin Browne, Hilary Clark, Pierre Joris, Susan Vanderborg, Pasquale Verdicchio. Friday, June 2nd, 12 noon - 1:15 p.m. Lunch break. Friday, June 2nd, 1:15 p.m. - 1:55 p.m. Reading in the theatre, Emily Carr. Readers: Bruce Boone, Andrew Schelling, Pasquale Verdicchio. Friday, June 2nd, 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Panel: HETEROLOGIES. Chaired by Susan Howe and Nathaniel Mackey. Panelists: Steve Dickison, Michele Leggott, D.S. Marriott, Leslie Scalapino, Andrew Schelling. Friday, June 2nd, 7:30 p.m. - midnight: The Banquet, A FEAST OF COMPANIONS, honouring Robin and invited guests. At Heritage Hall, 3102 Main Street, Vancouver. A salmon barbecue catered by Brian DeBeck. Hosted by Kevin Killian and Ellen Tallman. Stories, music, greetings, poems. Hilarity for all at Heritage Hall! Saturday, June 3rd, 9:30 a.m. - 12 noon. Panel: ETHICS & AESTHETICS. Chaired by Lisa Robertson and Jery Zaslove. Panelists: Michael Davidson, Robert Hullot-Kentor, Paul Kelley, Andrew Klobucar, David Levi Strauss, Anne Waldman. Saturday, June 3rd, 12 noon - 1:15 p.m. Lunch break. Saturday, June 3rd, 1:15 p.m. - 1:55 p.m. Reading in the theatre, Emily Carr. Readers: David Bromige, Norman Finkelstein, Jed Rasula. Saturday, June 3rd, 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Panel: POETICS: THEORY & PRACTICE. Chaired by Charles Bernstein and Miriam Nichols. Panelists: Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Alan Golding, Steve McCaffery, Tom Marshall, Miriam Nichols. Saturday, June 3rd, 5:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Dinner break. Saturday, June 3rd, 8:00 p.m. - midnight: Reading at Freddy Wood Theatre, University of British Columbia. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Readers: Peter Culley, Michael Davidson, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Clayton Eshleman, Robert Hogg, Susan Howe, Pierre Joris, Kevin Killian, Joanne Kyger, Steve McCaffery, Michael McClure, Karen Mac Cormack, Nathaniel Mackey, D.S. Marriott, Peter Middleton, Jerome Rothenberg, George Stanley, David Levi Strauss, Nathaniel Tarn, Anne Waldman. Sunday, June 4th, 9:30 a.m. - 12 noon. Panel: EROS & POIESIS. Chaired by Bruce Boone and Sharon Thesen. Panelists: Kevin Killian, Daphne Marlatt, Peter Quartermain, George Stanley, Alan Vardy. Sunday, June 4th, 12 noon - 1:15 p.m. Lunch break. Sunday, June 4th, 1:15 p.m. - 1:55 p.m. Reading in the theatre, Emily Carr. Readers: Susan Clark, Peter Gizzi, Michele Leggott. Sunday, June 4th, 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. Panel: POETICS: FORM & STRUCTURE. Chaired by Pauline Butling and Wystan Curnow. Panelists: Charles Altieri, Pauline Butling, Don Byrd, Joseph Conte, Norman Finkelstein. Sunday, June 4th, 5:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Dinner break. Sunday, June 4th, 8:00 p.m. - 11:00 p.m. Festival and conference finale, at Freddy Wood Theatre, University of British Columbia. Readers: E.D. Blodgett, George Bowering, Michael Ondaatje, Lisa Robertson, Leslie Scalapino, Sharon Thesen, Fred Wah, Robin Blaser. Please note that program times may vary slightly; the list of persons reading is also subject to some change. Please note also that some pre-conference events have been planned, including a reading and talk by Michael McClure in the new Special Collections and Rare Books rooms at the W.A.C. Bennett Library, Simon Fraser University, Wednesday, May 31st, time to be announced. There will also be a reading by Karen Mac Cormack at the Kootenay School of Writing, 112 West Hastings, Vancouver, at 8:00 p.m., Wednesday, May 31st. Changes in this program will be announced as they are confirmed. Registration fees for the conference are as follows: Entire Package, including panels, readings and banquet: $100; students and fixed incomes: $60. Panels and readings only: $80; students and fixed incomes: $40. Banquet only: $25. Please pay in Canadian funds. If this proves difficult, however, international money orders in U.S. funds for the equivalent amount at current exchange rates will be accepted. Please note that seating for this conference is limited. If you plan to register for the conference and/or the banquet, it is advisable to do so by the beginning of May. Additional tickets to the Saturday and Sunday night readings will be available at some Vancouver bookstores and at the door on the evening of the reading; admission: $10, $5 for students and fixed incomes. ACCOMMODATION: Some Recommended Hotels. The Sylvia Hotel: 1154 Gilford St, Vancouver, BC V6G 2P6, tel: (604) 681-9321. Regular rates: $55-$95 plus 17% tax. The Buchan Hotel: 1906 Haro St, Vancouver, BC V6G 1H7, tel: (604) 685-5354; Fax (604) 685-5367. Rates: $75-$85 plus 17% tax. The Granville Island Hotel: 1253 Johnston St, Vancouver, BC V6H 3R9, tel: (604) 683-7373; fax (604) 683-3061. Rates: $150-$195 plus 17% tax. N.B. Hotel rates are in Canadian funds. More inexpensive accommodation: Simon Fraser University Campus Accommodations: 212 McTaggart-Cowan Hall, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, tel (604) 291-4503; fax: (604) 291-5598. Dorm single: $19-$29. Dorm twin: $48.30. Townhouse unit: $105.80. On the SFU campus, Burnaby Mountain, about 30-40 minutes' drive to the conference site. University of British Columbia: 5961 Student Union Boulevard, Vancouver, BC V6T 2C9, tel: (604) 822-1010; fax: (604) 822-1001. Suite for 3: $95; for 2: $74; for one: $56. Single: $24-$32. Twin: $48. On the UBC campus, about twenty-thirty minutes' drive to the conference. Other inexpensive accommodation listings available on request. To register or for further information, write to The Recovery of the Public World, c/o The Institute for the Humanities, East Academic Annex, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6; tel (voice mail): (604) 291-5854; fax: (604) 291-3023. Or you can reach me by e-mail at the following address: cwatts@sfu.ca Charles Watts for the organizers, The Recovery of the Public World ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 16:18:05 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Cecil Taylor, poet Over Easter, I remembered that Bob Callahan published a Taylor poem in New World Journal, Spring, 1979. pp.7-15 from the Mysteries.... ".....lamb's robe oxen tail of such memories down'd in mud Youth postulates presence unkempt before weighted Deities whorish to cave, back to knees, on all fours, Genuflecting to the curvature of forgotten caves painted bodies you, them in age. pretend was never a part, you in youth's arrogance not knowing. Hendrix, whatever he meant, was out of Black church commercialized rodent to Mafia spiel made palatable. Those closest loved not waht he was (Much less the ambivalences time would resolve) but drawn, they were to figure encapsulated in mythical invulnerability modern capitalistic gold...." Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz post: Dept of Art History, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand Fax: 64 9-373 7014 Telephone: 64 9 373 7599 ext. 8981 or 7276 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 13:54:27 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: re-politics again The relation between something called poetry and something called politics is deeply obscure. To say that poetry is always political collapses one into the other. Poetry (and Art) likewise, and just as plausibly or impluasibly, is always philosophy, always religion, always sociolgy. In other words there is no poetry, no poetics, no "poetics"list as an in any way identifiable issue or set of issues. All its issues can be covered by political discourses, religious discourses, theoretical discourses, sociological and anthropological discourses? Poetology becomnes a sub-branch of some other - ology too glibly. (What was that you were saying a month or so ago Spencer Selby apropos theory when I tried to intervene in the debate over theory?) Denying that poetry is political is necessary in the face of the threat to submit poetry to the terms and judgments of political doctrine or religious doctrine or the proposals of some moral code. Insisting that poetry is political, religious and moral is just as necessary when poetry claims complete autonomy from social process The argument goes on, as if it can ever be resolved on one side or the other. Well, can it? Isn't it required for poetics to exist as something to write and talk about that it be something other than politics etc, while yet always adjacent to politics etc. I hate to spoil a fun argument, but it's one of those arguments that can only end up with a recognition of a measure of one and a measure of the other. When Spencer Selby wants to deny theory, I defend theory as being a condition of any poem whatsoever. When Ron and Tom want to insist on politics I want to side with Ed Foster and defend poetry's distinctiveness (and autonomy). Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz post: Dept of Art History, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand Fax: 64 9-373 7014 Telephone: 64 9 373 7599 ext. 8981 or 7276 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Apr 1995 22:43:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: Not supposed to be here You're not supposed to be here Not supposed to looking for me This is the poor side of silence This is the with noise of abandoned appliance This is captivity You need details You need the name of a street You're not supposed to be here in the the name of G-d You're waiting for me again Waiting at the mouth of the tunnel of love But where is the cold little river Where is the painted boat If only the hummingbird would sip at your desire If only the green leaves could use your longing If only a woman were looking over your shoulder a at map of the eternal city It seems that nothing can take you away from this odd memorial Nothing that's been made or born seperate you from the fiction of my absence All the messiahs are with me in this You're not supposed to be here All the messiahs agree You're not supposed to be looking for me. Leonard Cohen- Death of a Lady's Man Warning To love a man wholly Love him feet first head down eyes cold closed in depression It is too easy to love a surfer white eyes Godliness & bronze In the bright sun Alice Walker- Her Blue Body ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 04:47:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Blair Seagram Subject: Re: Left handed and loving it In-Reply-To: <199504190549.BAA01653@panix4.panix.com> Eric to Lindz: Lindz, you are absolutely correct when you say apologizing isn't enough, but forgetting just allows it to keep happening. Thanks, Eric. I haven't been following the last few days closely. And I would say to Lindz, hang in there. And I would say to Eric, not apologizing, does not mean forgetting. What it means for me is letting go of something that cannot help me move forward. Things must change. They inevitably do change. The question is how they will change. I think if one can try to open and grow personally, it goes a long way, or perhaps it's the idea that the longest journey is begun with the first step or whatever that line is. The thing that annoys me about politics and sides, is that it's so facile. People not to mention circumstances are complex. It is good to look at as many sides or perspectives as possible. When one speaks of governments (not revolutions) one speaks of change at a snail's pace if one speaks of change at all, in any real sense of the word. I think Foucault said something in an essay on power, to the effect that what we need today is to break away from the institutions that continue to mold us in ways we no longer wish to be molded. I am not so politically minded. I may stand here on one issue and there on another. I don't buy into one agenda. For me it's a personal trip. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 04:55:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Blair Seagram Subject: Re: Definition: Language Poetry In-Reply-To: <199504190549.BAA01653@panix4.panix.com> I have seen the problems that arose with definitions of post modern and deconstruction. I sometimes wonder if it has to do with their use in several disciplines or is it that we are still too close to it. I am wondering if someone can give me a definition or several of language poetry. Blair ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 11:45:31 WET Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: Re: Hello & more new music/new writing Hallo all, I just wanted to respond, in one post, to lots of different lines that have developed since I logged on six days ago. This, no doubt, means that if anyone is like me they will not read the comments not attached to the strain they're following, or, read comments if they like the person, often because that person has made a real connection (leading to a backchannel) among all the hubbub of the list proper. I feel like I'm made some great personal connections, but as a sort of parasite on the list, yet many seem to feel like that too. POETICS is the city of us sub-urbs. Anyway, I really liked Aldon's detailed remarks, and all of the alerting to racism issues, but I think some of what Lindz is saying about the *interpersonal* dynamics is interesting; this expression "kissing ass" is interesting. One can be very engaged with the struggle to end racism, and still be manoeuvred into playing the feed for an acting-out against those who look like oneself (white, male, bisexual, in my case) who have acted in a bigoted way towards one's interlocutor in the past. Sorry, that's badly put. I mean, I can, in an interpersonal connection with somebody who has been attacked by other white male bisexuals in the past say "yes, that's really bigoted of them, I won't treat you like that, I hate that behaviour", and what happens next, and over some weeks in some of my experiences, is that the person (attacked woman, attacked gay person who's been mistreated by a bisexual, attacked mixed race person etc) takes out his/her revenge on me as if I were the the other white male bisexual who attacked them. I know that the use of psychology has often been to excuse racism eg Susan Schultz's point about Ebert reading Once There Were Warriors as about alcoholism not pakeha racism against maori. But there can be such a thing as a good psychology by someone not racist. By which I mean, I have myself often stored up very angry feelings of vengefulness against someone who mistreated me and shut their ears to hearing my anger at their mistreatment of me; I dream what I'd say to them, I see them in the street and imagine having a showdown there and then. If I do this, I suspect others do too. And I see the situations I'm describing as the attacked person saying "ah ha, a stage to deliver the lines I've been writing in my head". This is human, and I'm not painting myself as a victim of it; I often do now withstand this stored-up outburst and then quietly comment that I agree, and I'm not like that myself. But I wonder if this is in any way adjacent to what Lindz was saying... I also wanted to welcome Herb, as another fan of New Music, and an enthusiast for the human voice. I share Herb's frustration at the rhetorical use of the term "voice" in poetic criticism. Voice-work, in music and sound compositions, is very exciting, and poets who *are* proud of having a "voice" often display none of the abilities to introduce warmth, space etc into syllables and phonemes that singers have (indeed, what i *love* about a lot of language poetry is precisely that it *does* use this kind of singer's attention to syllables and phonemes). The singing voice doesn't have to be singular anymore than the poetic voice; I think of the way that someone like Bob Dylan loves the way his voice changes, and uses the new feel of it as *material*, just as some poets use new font or new life circumstances as *material*. What I like about Herb's emphasis is it stops us attacking the voice per se, and reminds us that it is over-simplification, trying too hard for consistency, that is at fault *in all arts*. I'd better also, though it's a dead strain by now, respond a little to Miles's response to my report on the now infamous London reading. He's right that I read, though as part of an open floor not as an invited reader, for five minutes at the very end of the reading, and he's right that I'm male too, actually I do include myself in the sweeping attacks on over-representation of males, but then I counter that a little by the odd fact of not really being fully represented, since I am never invited, or put on the bill, as Miles often is. I certainly don't condemn anyone for living in London, as I think Miles knows that two of my very favourite poets, Denise Riley and Caroline Bergvall, live in London. I think the point I made in both my reports from England and New Zealand is that the scene is so stupidly small that no-one can take honest criticism but has to think of the critic as someone anti-male or anti-London and so the criticisms are discountable. Ira ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 08:00:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: The whiteness of the whale "Social construction" is the "phlogiston" of 90's discourse. Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 08:36:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: I feel pink In message <2f9313722748002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > > Obviously we can't give back all those left hands, but we can do huge tv > campaigns and say "oops sorry, leftis are cool", "Hire a lefty", " lefties > do it better". NOw does that make you feel any better, or wouldn't you, > the one handed, previously lefthanded person prefer that we, the right > hands actually did something useful with all that publicity money and > found a way to replace that hand or atleast compensate you for the emense > inconvience and humiliation you've suffered for the last forty years. > > Lindz it seems that if someone has been wronged, and feels a formal apology has symbolic significance tht would restore his/her dignity and mark an acknowledgment on the part of the wrongdoer, it is not the wrongdoer's task to point out the practical futility of apologies and "refuse to apologize" on the grounds that it is not in the interest of the wronged. that phenomenon, of the power-majority deciding what is in the best interest of the subordinated, perpetuates an unjust hierarchy where those in power don't think they have to listen.--maria damon > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 11:23:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ted Pelton Subject: Re: pink LindZ, Yes, it was abrupt of me, and for that I "apologize." But you said you valued my "incite" -- a clever pun if that's what you meant. Nonetheless, the first time we talk and I begin by shouting. It's just I have heard the argument "what are we supposed to do, keep kissing ass?" argument more times than I care to, which where I live usually means, "Can we go back to the way we used to do things," and usually doesn't even ask but simply glorifies a past which never existed, in terms of, e.g., Norman Rockwell, Ronald Reagan, whoever else you care to include. Ted ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 11:57:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: politics no, eric, for me that's not the context, but rather a sense that poetry is rooted (bad word, but for now . . .) in something other than the theological, merely discursive, propositional (hey!), which is to say, political. wow! rather: mallarme, egypt usw. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 12:01:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: re-politics again tony, yes/no, problem is not to have a god calling it/her/him "social process." maybe. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 10:58:42 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: pink In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 19 Apr 1995 11:23:40 -0400 from Lindz: I think Ted is right on this point. I don't know where he is speaking from, but in Louisiana, incidentally an extremely interesting and complex place or I wouldn't be here, any discussion at all about "oppression," "genocide," the rights of women, are likely to draw the most antagonistic stares. One of my students is the daughter of a state senator (Woody Jenkins who also owns the only local TV station). THis senator recently said "at one time, only people who owned property voted. We're a long way from that, unfortunately." I just happened to catch this, and what amazes me is that there has been no protest, no outcry, except from me and I am a, quote, California yankee." I should say that Louisiana folks are the most friendly I've ever encountered, but keep the doors locked at night. If I sound defensive on these posts, it's because I am. Forgive me if I sound too doctrinairre, but I do it mostly to remind myself that there are other points of view than the LA. Also, I urge you to remember that we haven't even come to close to winning the elephant wars, and they've got all the ammunition so far. Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 14:55:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marisa A Januzzi Subject: throttled by angels In-Reply-To: <199504180549.AA25856@mailhub.cc.columbia.edu> Hi Chris-- I would be very curious to hear about what poets you first read, and everyone else, what got you into this. Partly I ask as a teacher who is always looking for the best poetential seduction material. For me it happened like this: I got excited by the existential challenge of "My Shadow," by Robert Louis Stevenson, which I had to memorize when I was six. (Isolation, overactive mind, imaginary friends etc etc.) Then I only wrote the stuff until sixth grade, when I began to rummage in the desk I used during my (very boring) class on the history of the Americas. I don't know whose desk it was, but they were male and older, and he was harboring a copy of Ferlinghetti's *Coney Island of the Mind.* Maybe-- and this is interesting to me-- maybe I responded out of curiosity about the Italian name. The book was color, color, color all the way home, in a surrealistic sense. You? Marisa Januzzi ================================================================