========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 10:57:33 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Top ten poems Bukowski and Ginsberg still very high on list of second-hand bookshop's buyers in Auckland ( I learned last Thursday) -- shd be plenty for them to buy and re-sell eventually since both writers featured in University Bookshop stock until recently (though not specially featured in teaching I guess.) Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 11:34:08 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion (Review) Comments: To: lolpoet@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Dear loss, I presume the Poetry in Motion CD-ROM is an adaptation of material in the film of that name to the new medium. Am I right? wystan ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 18:58:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion (Review) Forwarded message: From lolpoet@acsu.Buffalo.edu Sun Oct 15 18:52:46 1995 From: Loss Glazier Message-Id: <199510152251.SAA21177@conciliator.acsu.buffalo.edu> Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion (Review) To: w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 18:51:44 -0400 (EDT) Cc: lolpoet@acsu.Buffalo.edu (Loss Glazier) In-Reply-To: <1E253DD42DD@engnov1.auckland.ac.nz> from "w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz" at Oct 16, 95 11:34:08 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Length: 471 Wystan, To be honest, I'm not familiar with the film. Although this does seem to make sense. I also heard (though I've not seen it) that there's a Poetry in Motion 2 CD-ROM which makes me suspect even more that you are correct. If you find out, it would be interesting to know. With best, Loss > Dear loss, > I presume the Poetry in Motion CD-ROM is an adaptation of > material in the film of that name to the new medium. Am I right? > wystan > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 19:02:55 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ken Edwards <100344.2546@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Top ten poems Like Ric, I made a point of avoiding the National Poetry Day nonsense - fortunately, here in Peckham, an inner-city district of London, there were few manifestations of it. However, I make no apologies for posting the top ten to this list, as food for thought. I have often wondered about the gulf between perceptions of poetry at large and the view of it shared by many of us here. I have my "poetry" friends and my other friends, and should the conversation ever turn to poetry with my "other" friends, which is but rarely, embarrassment often ensues. For example: the subject of the top ten poll came up yesterday evening in the pub, so I mentioned my amazement that Kipling's Victorian moralistic doggerel "If" had come up top. At which a friend - by no means unsophisticated in other respects - further amazed me by saying slightly shame-facedly that he used to have it tacked up on the wall at home. Then another friend went on at length to me about listening to something by James Fenton on BBC Radio 4. If you admit you're a poet in this country, you risk either an embarrassed silence or someone blathering on about James Fenton, a poet whose work I particularly detest, seeking my approval thereby. So, usually I don't. Admit I'm a poet, that is. This is an awful state of affairs, isn't it? If I were a painter, would I go round afraid to admit it in case folks get embarrassed, or that I might unwittingly provoke them to seek my opinion on bad Victorian narrative painting or chocolate-box art, or tell me what a "comfort" painting is? Hmm, probably not. For non-UK readers, I should stress that the poll was taken from listeners to BBC national radio, notoriously middle-class and middle-brow. Round this neighbourhood, you'd be hard pressed to find people who've heard of many of the poets/poems on the list (you might get the odd Irish drunk who could quote the Yeats poems verbatim, though). In its favour, the top ten at least included some good poems, though perversely I can't help feeling they're now slightly tainted by association. What an elitist I must be! Now, Ric, let's have some opening nominations for that worst ten poems list. - Ken ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 19:15:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Charles O. Hartman" Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 13 Oct 1995 to 14 Oct 1995 On Diane Ward's post: But Shelley didn't say poets were the "legislators of the world." He said poets are "the unacknowledged legislators of mankind." He left open the question of whether the efficaciousness of the legislation depended on its being unacknowledged. Charles Hartman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 16:22:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: Emily Dickinson- In-Reply-To: <951013081854_73661521@emout05.mail.aol.com> from "Maria Damon" at Oct 13, 95 08:18:54 am my thanks to all for your insights on the dashes -- since posting that question, i've noticed similar uses of the dash in browning, which i read as indexical of mulit-voicedness -- maybe something similar to what dickinson has done. --maria: thanks for the suggestion of "acting out" the dashes -- i'll let you know how it turns out -- c ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 12:39:36 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: Top ten poems Comments: To: herb@ESKIMO.COM Dear Herb, A useful comparison. This current subject comes in various guises in our discussions, and its a frequent not to say chronic one: why isn't our art more popular? more powerful? It's a complaint we can share with other arts, as you say. Although there are differences and I was disappointed the question as to why the visual arts have grown more confident which was recently raised did not get much substantial discussion. Didn't modernism demolish the middle class audience for the contemporary arts? Has anyone not an enemy of modernism done a decent postmortem on this? Our problem so often seems to be that while we persist in producing texts as opaque or offensive as modernist texts (its a measure of their criticality) we take no pleasure, feel no glee, no superiority, when they get the same reception. There seems no likelihood poetry will make a comeback. Perhaps it is the art form above all which should insist on its failure, come to terms with its invisibility, should... perhaps because that's its only choice. What do the rest of you reckon? Wystan ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 20:11:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Samuels Subject: Re: Top ten poems In-Reply-To: <1E36BCC02A1@engnov1.auckland.ac.nz> from "Wystan Curnow" at Oct 16, 95 12:39:36 pm wystan, in response to your final point: i think poetry is most powerful when it embraces, threads into itself, the inevitability of its failure. lisa s. > > Dear Herb, > A useful comparison. This current subject comes in various > guises in our discussions, and its a frequent not to say chronic one: > why isn't our art more popular? more powerful? It's a complaint we can > share with other arts, as you say. Although there are differences and I > was disappointed the question as to why the visual arts have grown more > confident which was recently raised did not get much substantial > discussion. Didn't modernism demolish the middle class audience for the > contemporary arts? Has anyone not an enemy of modernism done a decent > postmortem on this? Our problem so often seems to be that while we > persist in producing texts as opaque or offensive as modernist texts > (its a measure of their criticality) we take no pleasure, feel no glee, > no superiority, when they get the same reception. There seems no > likelihood poetry will make a comeback. Perhaps it is the art form above > all which should insist on its failure, come to terms with its > invisibility, should... perhaps because that's its only choice. What do > the rest of you reckon? > Wystan > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 13:53:22 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Top ten poems As I was saying to Wystan on the phone, I'm still not anthologized --- Wystan, you're getting to be a shade more translucent yrself these days? My belief is one does one's worst and get it out there in the space of public utterance, even if in no more than fifty copies or, reading/reciting aloud, no copies at all. (Then if it gets to be used by someone else -- as taught in a classroom, move on smartly. I've seen imitation of a reading piece I did in 1978, thanks to an extra-mural class in which it was used. It had been published in a student yearbook of which the editor was my wife. But the imitation missed much of the point which was its inordinate length. Move on!) Are poets still the speakers for the otherwise unspoken for? the ultimate resistance to the imposition on the defenceless and the oppressed by the law and therefore the language of the powerful. (Legislators, thus, and unacknowledged, looking after "the government of the words", acc. W.C.Williams as cited by Robert Creeley). That is the line taken by H.Cixous recently (Critical Inquiry, about three years back) to whom reference was made recently on this list. The measure we have been tending to has been rather publication, scale of publication, success in publication, entry throught the academy. Opacity from one point of view is translucency to another. Is it the ambition of poetry through publication and the academy to change the viewpoint of readers, so that what starts out opaque, becomes translucent? Is this a fundamental issue in the debate over the mysterious political value of poetry? Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 22:36:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Diane Marie Ward Subject: top ten In-Reply-To: On Sun, 15 Oct 1995, Charles O. Hartman wrote: > On Diane Ward's post: > > But Shelley didn't say poets were the "legislators of the world." He said > poets are "the unacknowledged legislators of mankind." > > He left open the question of whether the efficaciousness of the > legislation depended on its being unacknowledged. > > Charles Hartman > Please pardon my misquote. Interesting point Charles raises. It reminded me of the poem by Andrei Codrescu entitled: De Rerum Natura (from which I feel the need to quote because paraphrasing would do Codrescu an injustice - with book in hand - ) "I sell myths not poems. With each poem goes a little myth. This myth is not in the poem. It's in my mind. And when the editors of magazines ask me for poems I make them pay for my work by passing along these little myths which I make up. These myths appear at the end of the magazine under the heading ABOUT CONTRIBUTORS or above my poems in italics. Very soon there are as many myths as there are poems and ultimately this is good because each poem does, this way, bring another poet into the world. With this secret method of defying birth controls I populate the world with poets." - A. Codrescu. A culture's artistic productions do influence the masses and its mores etc. - thus the "myths" which surround its creator are also influential on a people. It seems trite to even try to say this today considering PBS and the NEA seem to "threaten" some Americans. But at one time poets could boast a somewhat powerful position in society. I thought the Codrescu quote also ties in nicely with Shelley's use of the symbolic Aeolian harp - wind creating music through an instrument (ie. external influences creating the impetus for artistic expression which thereby influences others). my own top ten would probably include: D H Lawrence, Charles Bukowski, Richard Kostelanetz, Charles Bernstein, Anna Akhmatova, Bill Shields, James Magorian, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Andrei Codrescu, Edward Foster, Christian Prigent & Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill (oops that is 12) Diane Ward ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 22:20:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Top ten poems >charles: abt longfellow --he never set foot in minnesota. i grew up in >newton and cambridge ma, where his house was a star tourist attraction. we >all learned about "grave alice and laughing allegra, and someone (edith?) >with golden hair," and let's not forget the midnight ride of paul revere, or >was that by someone else? and "THIS is the FORest priMEVAL, the MURmuring >PINES and the HEMlocks," which is about acadia. the guy got around, in his >verse anyway. i think the minneapolitan fixation on longfellow has as much >to do with a wannabe east coast anglo thing as with the fact that "hiawatha" >purportedly took place in MN. it's kinda of appalling --the way actual >Native Americans are treated in MN vs the New England aristocratic turn of >the century mythology that's been adopted as part of the city's identity and >self-representation. You may be right about ee cummings. i thot abt him, >but left him off.--md I think Minnesota's most comfortable with its literary heroes never setting foot here. I understand that next year they (I guess I should say we, if 2 years makes me a minnesotan) will get around to a grand celebration of F. Scott Fitzgerald's centenary year. He who lived in St. Paul and apparently disliked it, and the local burghers, rather intensely. I think I understand his social and economic theses better since living here. The west was just a different place. Perhaps the combination of centuries-old ruins and centuries-old active cultures in the area, being part of the life one actually notices on something close to a daily basis(in Arizona, that is), combined with the comparatively early settlement of the Spanish, makes the southwest seem mature to me in comparison with this Minnesota place. But it just may be some sense of my own foreignness here which makes me want to see it as lacking. all best, charles ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 20:22:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Forwarded mail.... ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 21:14:03 -0600 From: Sharon Nell To: Multiple recipients of list C18-L Please find attached an announcement for a conference on French feminism. We would appreciate it very much if you could post this to other appropriate lists. CALL FOR PAPERS The 30th Annual Texas Tech Comparative Literature Symposium "French Feminism Across the Disciplines" January 30-February 1, 1997 Plenary speakers will include: Barbara Harlow, University of Texas Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California Toril Moi, Duke University Micaela Janan, Duke University This conference seeks to explore French feminism as it is deployed in a variety of disciplines: literary, cultural and theoretical. We will problematize French feminism as a discourse which cannot be contained by any of the normative disciplinary categories of American academia. The symposium, directed by Professors Hafid Gafaiti, Paul Allen Miller and Sharon Diane Nell, welcomes papers representing the full range of positions in this on-going debate. Abstracts of 20-minute papers should be sent to Professor Nell (Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures, Texas Tech University, Box 2071, Lubbock, TX 79409-2071; internet: n7sdn@ttacs1.ttu.edu; Phone: 806/742-3237; Fax: 806/742-3306) not later than September 30, 1996. It is hoped that a volume of the best papers resulting from the symposium will be subsequently published. Inquiries may be addressed to the directors at the departmental address listed above. Please circulate this notice. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 23:34:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Emerging Generation Julius Erlich was born to Erica Hunt and Marty Erlich on October 10. Jackson Hercules Hauty was born to Diane Ward and Chris Hauty on September 9. {To avoid further confusion with Buffalo's Diane Ward, who has recently posted to Poetics, this is Diane Ward of Los Angeles, author of _Never Without One_ etc.} On the birth announcement, Diane and Chris include this quote from one of America's top 10 poets: I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 00:00:44 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Re: Emily & top ten poems > I guess "meaning" has gone out of fashion when it comes to Dickinson > and dashes--or perhaps never was in....For many of the critics who > were obsessed with meaning ignored the complexity of meaning the dashes > afforded--Judging by recent comments by Pat Phillips and Diane Ward > (are you THE diane ward, I mean the one who ROOF published, etc)-- > which DO bring up important points (don't get me wrong--as chrissy wd > sing)--it seems the gestural concerns (TAKEN ALONE) can eclipse the > possibilities of meaning---and to some extent can deny the difficulty > of the work..... chris s. to submit, Chris, meaning is conjugal and this sort of joining is exactly the sort I speak/write of here; that meaning is the social derivative of dash, the mnemonic condition of it; meaning persists, is elongated in these lines. What else do you concede our attention to it? That taken _alone_ (something I sense impossible) the gesture subverts meaning -- I don't get you, and would like to... Pat ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 23:04:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "A. Morris" Subject: Re: Texts about poetics "sound" In-Reply-To: <199510111453.KAA22823@destrier.acsu.buffalo.edu> Loss: For ways of talking about sound, some thoughts: 1) Garrett Stewart's Reading Voices (U of California P, 1990) takes up the ways in which silent reading processes a text in a zone of response somewhere between "a merely evoked aurality and an oral vocalizing." The chapter titles--"To Hear With Eyes": Shakespeare as Proof Text, "An Earsighted View": Joyce's "Modality of the Audible," Silence Speaking Words--suggest Stewart's interest in the "phonotext" inherent in phonetic writing. He develops a vocabulary and set of procedures for a practice he calls "phonemic reading." The epilogue contains a virtuoso reading of the skywriting scene in *Mrs Dalloway" 2) Duncan's *H.D. Book* contains an amazing reading of her poem "Heat," with close attention to the tone-leading of vowels in the poem 3) Kristeva on the semiotic & Barthes on the grain of the voice 4) Nate Mackey's essay "Cante Moro" in the collection edited by Anne Waldman from Naropa: this is the one on duende which came up earlier on the net. Also *Bedouin Hornbook.* 5) Cage, of course 6) Recently I've been reading *what to listen for in jazz* by Kernfeld in order to eventually get to *Thinking in Jazz* by Berliner. Kernfeld's book is packaged with a CD, which means it has aural footnotes. 7) Stephen Feld's essay "Aesthetics as Iconicity of Style, or 'Lift-Up-Over Sounding': Getting into the Kaluli Groove" in Yearbook for Traditional Music 20 (1988): 74-113. 8) Also, as was already mentioned, Kahn and Whitehead's *Wireless Imagination* and the Radiotexte issue of *Semiotexte* What else? I'm looking forward to hearing more. Dee On Wed, 11 Oct 1995, Loss Glazier wrote: > Can anyone recommend to me great texts on poetic sound? Sound as > "material," etc. as a contemporary poetic. Any thoughts would be > appreciated. > > Thanks, > Loss > lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 22:21:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: a death in the family In-Reply-To: <199510160359.UAA13661@sparta.SJSU.EDU> New Yorkers on this list got the news Friday, but it's just found it's way to L.A. and my guess is that it's skipped some points in between. Henry Roth, author of _Call It Sleep_ died Friday. His publishers promise to continue with the series of novels he had already completed. For those of you who have never read _Call It Sleep_, go get a copy and sit down with it tonight. You'll be glad you did. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 15:40:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry Worlds >You wrote: >> >> so Ron (Silliman), when are you going to publish your memoirs >and/or >> autobiography- > >The autobiography is in the words.... Ron is it the authorised autobiography??? mark ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 13:34:00 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Banton Rolins Subject: Re: Emily Dickinson- In-Reply-To: <199510152322.XAA03848@fraser.sfu.ca> Many years ago a professor (I've forgotten whom) in a course I was taking explained the dashes as meaning nothing at all. She used a quill pen to write with, he explained, the sort that dried out quickly once lifted from the page. To keep the pen from doing that, she would draw it along the paper while thinking of what to write next. So the dashes mean nothing in themselves and simply indicate, at that point in the poem, that Emily was wondering what to write next. Bart ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 23:54:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: legacies of modernism > I notice that Russell Jacoby does not refer >to poets such as Adrienne Rich, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg--or Robert >Lowell, for that matter--in his classification of "public intellectuals. >It's that sense of partition that is the real legacy of aesthetic modernism. > >md >Michael Davidson This legacy, if real, is odd (though it probably is real)--since Pound, esp., but also some of the others, thought of themselves as something like Public Intellectuals without Portfolio (though I guess Eliot had a Portfolio), and since Pound and Olson, say, share not only the didactic strain adumbrated by von Halberg but also the passion for the so-called factive. If this IS a "legacy of aesthetic modernism," though, then were poets before the moderns public intellectuals? Wordsworth and Tennyson (I guess so). Emerson, sure. But Whitman? I'm embarrassed not to have read Bob Perelman's modernism book yet--but can he or it be drawn into this thread? doan you tell no one I made you that table.... Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 23:59:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: grandma Emily? >Date: Sun, 15 Oct 1995 16:49:42 -0400 >From: Chris Stroffolino >Subject: Re: Emily & top ten poems > > Also, the trend that seems to be championing the gestural zaniness of > Dickinson's dash, as a perloffian radical artifice or something, has > to contend with the idea that for every "pomo" dash there exists a > folk art "rhyme scheme"----....cs well not really (not at all!) Map those off-rhymes, and then the ironic use of full-rhymes to suggest a pretty terrifying closure. "Sheep have no tact, at least that one can appreciate...." "What's the difference between a cloud and a spanked boy?" Tenney Nathanson ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 00:21:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: FBI files >Re : Black Flag Kills Poets Dead > >Has anyone's FBI file been used for such purposes? Has anyone on the list >seen their FBI file? Dear Bill, hi, it's Kevin Killian. I wrote away to the FBI for Jack Spicer's file and it took me 18 months from beginning to end. Results, negative. I do know that FBI had a number of poets under surveillance here in San Francisco in the late 50s and have spoken to some who were interviewed by FBI. John Wieners was a special target, as were Joe Dunn and George Stanley. Lovers of conspiracy theory might ponder fate of Dunn and Wieners (wish I could get THEM to write away for their files!) and George, of course, left California for safer shores of Vancouver BC. I had to answer the phone . . . now I'm back, and I forget, am I talking to Bill Luoma? Whoever you are, XXXX Kevin ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 00:42:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion (Review) I hear all the discussion about "Poetry in Motion" and hope that you all on the list serv also get a chance to see Ron Mann's subsequent film "TWIST"-it is a cultural history of the Twist (dance crazy of early 60's). Hank Ballard was deprived of fame with the Twist after Dick Clark heard his version of the song and assigned one of his stooges at Cameo-Parkway (Phila. record label) to do a cover version. Starring former back-up singer whoMrs Dick Clark named "Chubby Checker" because she thought it would be a cuter name than "Ernie." Also, her homage to "Fats Domino." In the wake of great success of "The Twist," lots of twist-king-wannabes changed their names with varying degrees of success, including Jumbo Chess and (my favorite) Pudgy Parcheesi. Go see "Twist," you will enjoy it, except the Canadians on this list, who will feel that Ron Mann has lost some of his essential Canadianism, the quality that makes "Poetry in Motion" such a weird viewing experience. Just a note from-Kevin ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 09:14:54 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R I Caddel Subject: Top Ten / Bottom Ten In-Reply-To: <199510160405.FAA24108@hermes.dur.ac.uk> Ken's right about the way in which media-poetry-events tends to expose sensitive souls like him and me to embarrassment (at best) and potential ridicule. The Niedecker don't-let-em-know approach isn't open to me, raising children in a small town ("Lottie's mum says she read one of your poems in the bookshop last week and couldn't understand it" etc), and like Ken, I'm used to yawning gaps in pub conversations on these occasions. The top ten was a continuation of an event, then, not an event in itself - but here, by way of a diversion, is my phantasy cricket team: 1. Geoffrey Chaucer 2. Basil Bunting - a pair of seasoned openers, to wear down any attack - 3. Thomas Wyatt 4. Jack Spicer 5. Lorine Niedecker 6. Peter Riley - mid-order with a range of strokes, and some amazing slip catching - 7. Kit Smart - how about this? a keeper who can strike out a bit - 8. Marianne Moore - "always include a spinner" - G.Arlott - 9. Elaine Randell - English seam bowling at its most accurate, with some amazing turn when the weather's overcast (which it usually is) - 10. William Carlos Williams 11. Alice Notley - the pace attack. OK, I've sacrificed on accuracy here in favour of awesome speed, length and height - [12th man - Alan Halsey - very adaptable and quick in the field...] OK - Ken, about those worst poems, I started to think about it - Amy Clampitt, John Hegley, etc - just couldn't face the selection process... xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x x x x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x x - Basil Bunting x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 16:38:39 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Banton Rolins Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds In-Reply-To: Gwyn--Thanks for the explanation. Surely MFA programs (at least most, I hope) do encourage their students to raise their awareness of the possibilities of poetry beyond what has already been done. I do wonder, though, if they and the _academic_ poetry they are often charged with fostering has something to do with the differences many list members are commenting on between public acceptance of the graphic arts and poetry. I wonder how many people who consider themselves avid readers but who don't read much if any poetry written after Frost might trace their aversion to modern or postmodern poetry as a result of academic influence. Perhaps some feel that poetry has been taken away from them by the academics. Recent articles on _academic_ poetry suggest as much, particularly one published about a year ago in _The Chronicle of Higher Education_. I haven't seen much about it since, but MFA bashing seems to have had a bit of a day. If anything I say here makes sense, I wonder why the graphic arts haven't suffered a similar fate. Have MFA programs been so much more effective at taking poetry away from the people than art departments at appropriating painting, sculpture, etc.? Bart ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 05:06:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: grandma Emily? Tenney--But the rhymes and rhythms ARE there compared to most of the poetry people on this list write (or publish)---even if ironic and "off" and, yes, terrifying (what else is new). And some people--trained in "free verse" or "blank verse" at first find her work offputting for that--and others of course find it somewhat reassuring for that--and the rhymes and rhythm does lend her work a more memorizable quality than much unrhyming work of contemporaries...I don't think the "avant- garde" Dickinson is any more real than the "mainstream" Dickinson-- I guess that's the "agenda" behind most of my postings on her.... And maybe Burt has got the best take at all--the dashes are just pauses in thought (while the ink dripped from the quill---Burt that's absolutely deliciously perverse!) And Patrick, well I guess I will meet PUDGY PARCHESI and you someday "where the meanings, are"------ COMMA vs. DASH! chris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 08:51:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds In-Reply-To: Bart, I think one reason that graphic arts MFA programs are less often bashed than their writing counterparts is that graphic-arts programs tend to be quite strictly studio-oriented, while writing programs swing through a wide range from very *studio*-oriented to very *academic.* AWP's Guide to Writing Programs includes a brief introductory section laying out loose guidelines for what constitutes "studio" and what constitutes "academic"; these guidelines are by no means "received" and are intended mainly to help aspiring applicants decide what kind of program they want to apply to. Many programs, to justify their existence and increase the future employability of their graduates, feel compelled to include a strong academic component, through lit requirements, killer comps, whatever. But some don't, and are more like graphic-arts MFAs in their design. To me, it seems like writing MFA programs with that strong academic component are thus more open to charges that they purvey a sort of "academic" poetic. And I do think that's at least partly true. Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 08:56:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan A Levin Subject: Re: Emily Dickinson- In-Reply-To: That the dashes could be pauses in thought, based on ink technology--interesting, though as a rollerball convert, I wouldn't know anything about it. But it's odd to me that this means they "mean" nothing at all--I'm not sure we could ever mean anything if we didn't pause all the time, or, more properly, some of the time. And one wants to know, why here, what's she found and what's she searching for? I wouldn't posit an absence of meaning in a pause, only to say the presence of meaning is (I guess) in the words themselves. What's appealing about this argument-from-technology is that it shows the mechanics of thought, and the mechanics of writing, as a negotiation between something like a positivist ideal of getting the meanings down in words and a negativist (?) awareness (not an ideal!) that squirming words exceed the squamous mind. Yeah, they mean "nothing" at all. Pages of illustrations. (Apologies for mixing my poets.) Jonathan Levin NYC ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 09:28:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Situation #10 Situation #10, featuring the work of Nick Piombino, Heather Fuller, Thomas Taylor, Dan Featherston, John Bennett, Sheila Murphy, Michelle Murphy, and Mark Ducharme is now avialable. A subscription to Situation is $10 for four issues; $3 for single or back issues. All I need is a couple new subscriptions every issue to keep afloat, and I'd really appreciate your help. Please write to Mark Wallace, Situation, 10402 Ewell Ave., Kensington, MD 20895. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 09:33:23 -0400 Reply-To: John_Lavagnino@Brown.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Lavagnino Subject: Re: Emily Dickinson The theory that Dickinson's dashes result from pauses for thought doesn't fit the nature of her manuscripts very well. They generally aren't working drafts; most of them are in booklets she put together with a lot of care for the inscription. She wasn't putting extra punctuation in by accident when she made these booklets. Dickinson's "eccentricity" in punctuation is also not very odd if you look at other nineteenth-century manuscripts, rather than at the tidied-up versions that publishers and printers created from such manuscripts. A lot of people used dashes in abundance at the time; if Dickinson is unusual it is in how she used them, rather than in their mere presence. John Lavagnino ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 10:53:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Emily & top ten poems not quite it: i meant much more than "lack of true punctuation." i was suggesting something that could not be reduced to grammar and was common or more so anyway until schoolrooms took over. dickinson and melville were pre-horace mann. -ed ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 10:59:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Emily & top ten poems does anybody know which grammar texts, if any, dickinson would have used at mt. holyoke? what would melville have used when he taught in pittsfield? it would be interesting to know how grammar texts then defined the use of dashes. -ed ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 11:31:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Emily Dickinson- bart: the professor's explanation sounds exactly like the sort of thing a professor might think: i.e., it means nothing at all. well, skepticism keeps students awake and makes the speaker look clever. however, dickinson was recopying the poems; furthermore (but check with susan howe on this) some of the handwriting in very brisk, quick. the words knew at that point exactly where they were going. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 13:39:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Goldsmith Subject: Albany Reading Announcement * * * * * * * READING * * * * * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hard Press Inc., publishers of lingo: A Journal Of The Arts, presents "POETRY" Jean Donnelly Michael Gizzzi Lisa Jarnot Juliana Spahr Chris Stroffolino will be reading from their work And...Music By "Free Beer And Chicken" Saturday, October 28th 3-7 pm at Cafe Lulu 288 Lark Street Albany NY $5.00 tax-deductible donation at the door Sponsored by Hard Press, Inc, publishers of lingo PO Box 184 West Stockbridge, MA 01266 http://hardpress.com jongams@hardpress.com 413-232-4690 for info ============================================================================= Kenneth Goldsmith http://wfmu.org/~kennyg kgolds@panix.com kennyg@wfmu.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 13:33:51 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds In-Reply-To: Bart: Here's where I have to defend MFA programs. Though I have recently stated my concerns with the the way the workshop (which I see as something of an institution, like the classroom, the boardroom, the halls of state, etc., and so feel free to generalize away) tend to consolidate the criteria for what has to be called judgment (in much the same way that Eng. Depts. inevitably develop canons), I take exception to the claim that MFA programs have "taken poetry from the people." When did the people have poetry, Bart? Poetry, by definition, is a highly elite activity. Always has been. Sure there have been exceptional practitioners, but c'mon, when have dockworkers, or more in my world, checkers in Wal-Mart, ever really cared about Chaucer, or Ashbery? I know that MFA programs have allowed more people of color, of class, of anything, to spend a life reading and writing poetry than ever before. If anything, MFA programs have opened up literature to "the people" as you call them, in unprecedented numbers. I know that because I was one of them. If it wasn't for the academy generally, or the workshop specifically, I would now, do not doubt, be working construction or service, as are everyone I grew up with. Yes, the workshop has produced for nearly fifty years a kind of uniform poetry, but it has nothing to do with the fact that it took poetry away from the people. In fact, it may have to do with the fact that it was trying to make poetry more accessible, more teachable, to folks who had no access to it early. I don't think it was neccessary to do that, and I find it even condescending. But there it is. I hope, now, that we can move on. Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 08:18:09 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Emerging Generation May they have a world they can live in! Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 16:26:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "CAROLYN L. FORCHE-MATTISON" Subject: Museums of France on the web This arrived via another list, and I thought you would be interested... FYI France: JOCONDE -- The museums of France are online! The database Joconde now may be reached at http://www.culture.fr , and provides general public access to the collection records -- and a small but growing number of their accompanying images -- of more than 60 museums in France. Joconde already can reach records of designs, prints, paintings, sculptures, photographs, and art objects, representing 130,000 works of art and 10,000 artists, and an increasing number of inline GIF images. The search procedure is friendly and interesting: sample screen (translated) -- Iconography (subject): Name of the artist: City or museum: School: Century: Type of work: Other indexes include style, technique, title, inscription, subject, provenance, and "onomastique" and "mille'sime". The interface provides the ability to limit searches to documents which are accompanied by an image, and provides for online browsing of lists of key terms. Numberic retrieval limits may be set for a) full records displayed, b) short records displayed, and c) titles displayed. There is online help, and the ability to ask questions. What you find is description in some detail: example -- currently, a search simply on "Nom d'artiste: gauguin" will obtain a list of 42 title entries, and the same search restricted to "Limitation aux documents avec image" yields the following two records, with very nice accompanying GIF inline images which blow up very well on an America Online viewer: 1) Gauguin, Paul [link to full list of 42 JOCONDE entries maintained for his works] , "Nature Morte aux Oranges" [link to full record -- and accompanying image -- of the holdings entry for the original work], (1882 avant); Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux - Arts; peinture a` l'huile; toile; 33H, 46L; Mille'sime: 1882 avant; Repre'sentation: nature morte (vaisselle, orange fruit, couteau, bouteille); Gene`se: avec oeuvre apparentee connue; 2) Gauguin, Paul [same link to full list of JOCONDE entries for Gauguin]; "Vase de Fleurs" [same link to full holdings record, and inline image]; (1880 vers); Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux - Arts; peinture a` l'huile; toile; 19H, 27L; Mille'sime: 1880 vers; Repre'sentation: nature morte (vase, bouquet, livre, fenetre, balustrade), maison, ciel; Gene`se: avec oeuvre apparentee connue. The full Muse'e des Beaux - Arts de Rennes holdings entry for work #1 above is: [first -- importantly, as this is the WorldWideWeb and online media after all -- a really very beautiful inline image, and then... ] Gauguin Paul "Nature Morte Aux Oranges" Pre'c. auteur: PERIODE IMPRESSIONISTE Ecole: France Pe'riode: 4e quart 19e sie`cle Mille'sime: 1882 avant Domaine: Peinture De'nomination: tableau Repre'sentation: nature morte (vaisselle, orange fruit, couteau, bouteille) Technique: peinture a` l'huile; toile Dimensions (CM): 33 H; 46 L Gene`se: avec oeuvre aparentee connue Pre'c. gene`se: coupe de fruits tres proche, par gauguin, presentee a l'exposition l'impressionnisme, a` Nancy, en 1938 Inscription: signe' Pre'c. inscription: P. Gauguin (S.B.G.) Localisation: Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux-Arts Statut juridique: Proprie'te' de l'Etat; Muse'e du Louvre Peintures Inventaire: D 55.5.1; RF 2766 Lieu en de'po^t: en de'po^t; Rennes; Muse'e des Beaux-Arts Date de de'po^t: 1955 Ancien de'po^t: Muse'e du Luxembourg Appartenances: Chaplet (1929) Exposition: 1882 Paris; 7e Exposition Impresioniste, Paris, 1882 Bibliographie: Cogniat, L'Oeuvre de P. Gauguin, 1966 Photo: Cliche' muse'e Date syste`me: 1990/05/28 Re'fe'rence: 00000074658 Copyright: (C) Copyright Direction des Muse'es de France, 1986 There is an astonishing richness here: not only of images and information and access points and indexing, but also of openness to the general public and overall effort. I am aware of a few extraordinary efforts under way in other countries to organize and mount such a service, but of none so advanced yet as this of the French. Where are the multimedia presentations, featuring text and sound and links, all the accompaniment which a good cdrom on the subject might have? One suspects that all this is not far behind. In the meantime a user has all the advantages of online over cdrom -- currency, greater availability (Joconde, the online service, may be reached from anywhere -- in airplanes now -- at any time, regardless of whether you've brought your cdrom drive along), constant updating of data and system features -- Joconde is a work - in - progress, and will grow as France's extraordinary effort in online media grows. Some of us may remember Andre' Malraux: "... And if, after so many years of oblivion, we hear the song that follows after a plainsong of a crusade or a chant of the Ramayana, it is not because the historians have restored the text to us, or because we have rediscovered the faith of the twelfth century or of the age of the Vedas; it is because we admire them in the company of the statues of Sumer and of the Indian grottoes, of the Acropolis and of the tombs of Florence -- in the company of all the statues of the earth. It is the song of metamorphosis, and no one before us has heard it -- the song in which esthetics, dreams, and even religions are no longer more than librettos to an inexhaustible music." FYIFrance e - newsletter ISSN 1071 - 5916 * | FYIFrance is a monthly electronic newsletter, | published since 1992 as a small - scale, personal, | experiment, in the creation of large - scale | "information overload", by Jack Kessler. Any material / \ written by me which appears in FYIFrance may be ----- copied and used by anyone for any good purpose, so // \\ long as, a) they give me credit and show my e - mail --------- address and, b) it isn't going to make them money: if // \\ if it is going to make them money, they must get my permission in advance, and share some of the money which they get with me. Use of material written by others requires their permission. FYIFrance archives may be reached online at http://infolib.berkeley.edu , or via gopher to infolib.berkeley.edu 72 or gopher.well.sf.ca.us or gopher.univ-rennes1.fr (BIBLIO-FR econference archive), or via telnet to a.cni.org , login brsuser (PACS / PACS-L e - conference archive). Suggestions, reactions, criticisms, praise, and poison - pen letters all will be gratefully received at kessler@well.sf.ca.us . ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 18:27:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: FBI files KKillian writes: I do know that FBI had a number of poets under surveillance here in San Francisco in the late 50s and have spoken to some who were interviewed by FBI. Anybody know anything about Kaufman and FBI files? I sent away for them many years ago, and never heard anything. But then I also sent away to Bellevue for info on his famous shock treatments and never heard anything from them either. So either these folks aren't talking or the shock treatments are just another legend. My next step is to write to the National Seamen's Union Archives to find out about that activist aspect of Kaufman's career. maybe it's all just imaginary!--md ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 18:27:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: a death in the family aldon, thanks for the news on henry roth. call it sleep was a formative book for me.--md ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 18:28:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Top ten poems charles, about minnesota authors: yes, bob dylan hated it here too. when the town of hibbing asked him to buy his childhood home and donate it to the city as an historical site, he would have no part of it. but MN's are quite naive about this, it seems, and have no sense of why someone might not think the place is eden.--md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 08:08:46 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Banton Rolins Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds In-Reply-To: Gwyn--Thanks again. More later. Bart ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 17:24:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Colonialism Hey, I recall a mention of, perhaps, a student of Edward Said's who recently came out with a study (a dissertation? a book?) detailing how the formation of the English canon was a development linked closely to the inculcation of Englishness into Indian culture. Who mentioned this? Who was this? Or was it said? Where? Any responses would be helpful. Thanks, Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 21:20:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Sherwood Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Reception : and the top Ten "Our problem so often seems to be that while we persist in producing texts as opaque or offensive as modernist texts (its a measure of their criticality) we take no pleasure, feel no glee, no superiority, when they get the same reception. " W. Curnow While tending toward the self-abusive, the possibility that poetry's 'marginal' cultural space is a design flaw seems worth thinking about. Two easy 'eithers' follow: 1) poetry could mainstream itself by changing its devices, getting the old shoes polished and the suit pressed (viz: MTV and GAP appropriations, some would argue; though here opacity and disjunction are re-framed, made familiar) or, 2) learn to value an inevitably unappreciated cultural position. Both 'either's seem to me stuck within the conception (though surely almost all would deny) that implicitly mainstream/visibility/ popularity are aims. To argue otherwise is NOT to stake down an elitest or disengaged tent party, not necessarily. Even an avowedly political or revolutionary poetry might aim to engage a 'local' (in capital logic: marginal) audience, and think this sufficient, even preferable to Global reception. In some circles Seamus Heaney's latest laurel taints him, no? Ken Sherwood ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 20:48:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Kaufmania >Anybody know anything about Kaufman and FBI files? I sent away for them many years ago, and never heard anything. But then I also sent away to Bellevue for info on his famous shock treatments and never heard anything from them either. So either these folks aren't talking or the shock treatments are just another legend. My next step is to write to the National Seamens Union Archives to find out about that activist aspect of Kaufman's career. maybe it's all just imaginary!--md > Doctor-Patient confidentiality makes it hard to get that sort of information without the request from Kaufman's family. In the 70s and early 80s, there were active anti-electroconvulsive therapy movements in California and elsewhere (the Network Against Psychiatric Assault in SF being one of the better known). They might know how to get this sort of info and some of their activists (e.g., Wade Hudson who may be in the SF phone book) could steer you in the right direction. Stephen Schwartz, the neocon writer for the SF Chronicle, was an active participant of the National Seamens Union before he discovered the joys of capital, and must certainly have known Kaufman (Schwartz was a poet for 20 years or so). He would be a logical place to start on that track. Writing from my laptop in New Orleans, Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 09:46:47 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Cayley Subject: UKania - The 'Nation's' favourite poem Four days before London's Albert Hall is filled with holes (how many?), the UK has voted Kipling's 'If' its favourite poem with Tennyson's 'Lady of Shalott' and de la Mare's 'The Listeners' the runners-up. Stevie Smith was the only modern rhymester to make the top ten. But the punch line - in a national telephone poll sponsored by the BBC and extensively 'advertised' around prime-time slots (TV & radio), and out of a 'Nation' of c. 60m people, only 7,500 actually registered their favourite. Poetics and the Media orbit far distant stars. - - - - - - John Cayley Wellsweep Press [in Chinese HZ: ~{?-U\02~} ~{=[i@3v0fIg~}] ^ fine, innovative literary translation from Chinese ^ 1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK Tel & Fax: 0171-267 3525 Email: cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk 1995 URLs: http://www.inforamp.net/~cayley [= home] + /wshome.html [= Wellsweep] + /inhome.html [= Indra's Net] - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 07:52:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Marshall H. Reese" Subject: video/book installation CristineRose Gallery Contact: Mariacristina Parravicini 395 West Broadway tel. (212) 431-1862 New York, NY 10012 Nora Ligorano/Marshall Reese For Immediate Release tel. (718) 782-9255 Dates: October 21-November 22, 1995 The Corona Palimpsest "If you burn a book, it opens unto absence in the flame. If you drown it, it unfolds with the wave. If you bury it, it quenches the thirst of the desert..." -- Edmond Jabes Ligorano/Reese are creating a new installation on view at CristineRose Gallery in Soho called The Corona Palimpsest. This installation, along with other video installations and limited edition works by Ligorano/Reese question the changing roles of the book, electronic information, and television. Their new work is about hidden vestiges and the markings that remain. A palimpsest, by definition, is a tablet or parchment that has been erased and used over, leaving traces of the old text under the new. The Corona Palimpsest at CristineRose is a room-size installation featuring two handbound volumes. In one, there are over 300 hand- painted pages composed of images from the spectacular coverage of the Gulf war to Warlpiri cave paintings. Media images, air-brushed stencils, rubbings and silhouettes of newspaper and magazine photos spill over this book's pages. The other volume is a blank, burned book, apparently empty, yet also, a complete text that stands as a testiment to degradation and destruction. Both volumes contain video monitors in their centers. These liquid crystal display (LCD) monitors show, in the painted book, a magical text. On this video screen, the reader sees an electronic poem composed of digitally manipulated fragments. Texts by Gertrude Stein, H.D., Frida Kahlo, William Burroughs, Gerrit Lansing, Ezra Pound, Robert Creeley, J.G. Ballard, and others have been used. The blank book, suspended by chains from the walls and ceiling, shows computer-enhanced faces that peer out from the video in its center. At CristineRose, this book looks over The Corona Palimpsest and its readers, projecting an eerie range of intentions -- beatification, vigilence, surveillance. The viewer is confronted not only by two different representations of the book, but also by the fact that to see them they must walk over 600 trade hardbacks. These form a carpet on the floor to make up a black and white grid. This carpet, in essence, presents a dilemma but it also suggests volume and measure. Ligorano/Reese's new installation is about the continuity of culture and language, when contemporary society seems to strive for their disruption. It commemorates the making of the book into a theoretical abstraction charted by such writers as Stephane Mallarme, Edmond Jabes, and Robert Duncan. It acknowleges that today, the book has become a concept that attracts metaphors and tropes like a divining rod. As a "power book," it symbolizes the concept of possibility with an infinite magnitude of importance. As a volume of pages, the book consolidates auratic significance and provenance. The installation at CristineRose is about this displacement. Whether one considers the book an historical object, or not, the artists embellish on the book's role, while at the same time, they negate it. In a very real way, they have displaced text and image. They have created books containing texts without words. As books, the volumes of The Corona Palimpsest are static. In a gallery, no one will manipulate their pages; only the video moves. The book as a carrier of information has been converted into an artifact, a relic. Ligorano/Reese point to a rapidly approaching future, when the role of the book will be further changed, perhaps even diminished, in our culture. Granary Books (568 Broadway, New York, NY 10012) will publish a limited edition of The Corona Palimpsest in spring 1996. If any poetics listserv subscribers are in NYC over the dates of the show, we hope you can see it... Ligorano/Reese ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 08:08:53 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: Colonialism In-Reply-To: Me maybe? The book:Viswanathan, Gauri. _Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India_. Columbia Univ. P., 1989. (I don't backchannel in case anyone else is interested -- very provacative sic?: stuff.) Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 09:30:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wendy Battin Subject: New Site for CAPA Attn.: New CAPA Site CAPA, the Contemporary American Poetry Archive, has just moved to a new site on the World Wide Web. The old gopher site is no longer current and can't be maintained. Point your browsers to http://camel.conncoll.edu/library/CAPA/capa.html to find us. Books are still being transferred, & o.p. poetry books of all styles and persuasions are welcome. For those who don't know CAPA: _______________________________________________ CAPA: the Contemporary American Poetry Archive An Internet Archive for Out-of Print Books _______________________________________________ CAPA is an electronic archive designed to make out-of-print volumes of poetry available to readers, scholars, and researchers. The books are stored as individual text-only files accessible via the World Wide Web on the Internet. Poets or their executors who hold copyright to books may place them in the archive free of charge; once a volume is archived, it may be read on-screen, searched electronically, or downloaded freely. However, the author retains copyright and must be compensated if multiple copies are made (e.g., for use in the classroom). When the author receives an offer to reprint the book, we will withdraw it from the archive and post a publication notice in its place. Books from commercial, university, and small presses are eligible for archiving; self-published and vanity press books cannot be considered. For further information and guidelines, contact Wendy Battin, Director CAPA 15 Rogers Drive, Mystic, CT 06355 (203) 572-9323 email: WJBAT@CONNCOLL.EDU Charles O. Hartman, Associate Director CAPA Box 5505, Connecticut College, New London, CT 06320 email: COHAR@CONNCOLL.EDU `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` CAPA is always under construction; check back periodically for new books on-line. `````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````` ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 09:36:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "CAROLYN L. FORCHE-MATTISON" Subject: Re: video/book installation In-Reply-To: <199510171252.IAA19630@echonyc.com> Marshall Reese wrote: The Corona Palimpsest "If you burn a book, it opens unto absence in the flame. If you drown it, it unfolds with the wave. If you bury it, it quenches the thirst of the desert..." -- Edmond Jabes Ligorano/Reese are creating a new installation on view at CristineRose Gallery in Soho called The Corona Palimpsest. This installation, along with other video installations and limited edition works by Ligorano/Reese question the changing roles of the book, electronic information, and television. Their new work is about hidden vestiges and the markings that remain. A palimpsest, by definition, is a tablet or parchment that has been erased and used over, leaving traces of the old text under the new. The Corona Palimpsest at CristineRose is a room-size installation featuring two handbound volumes. In one, there are over 300 hand- painted pages composed of images from the spectacular coverage of the Gulf war to Warlpiri cave paintings. Media images, air-brushed stencils, rubbings and silhouettes of newspaper and magazine photos spill over this book's pages. The other volume is a blank, burned book, apparently empty, yet also, a complete text that stands as a testiment to degradation and destruction. Marshall, I've re-posted this to friends in New York, and it sounds very interesting. Does this work in any way comment upon or refer to Anselm Kiefer's "The Burning of the Rural District of Buchen VII," or "Iconoclastic Controversy"?--is there influence? I've contemplated this work for some time, particularly the books, and have resisted the discomfort induced by the hyperbole surrounding his public reception, but have found certain ambiguities in the work troubling. Still, the books remain with me... --Carolyn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 08:10:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Davidson Subject: Re: legacies of modernism >> I notice that Russell Jacoby does not refer >>to poets such as Adrienne Rich, Amiri Baraka, Allen Ginsberg--or Robert >>Lowell, for that matter--in his classification of "public intellectuals. >>It's that sense of partition that is the real legacy of aesthetic modernism. >> >>md >>Michael Davidson > >This legacy, if real, is odd (though it probably is real)--since Pound, >esp., but also some of the others, thought of themselves as something like >Public Intellectuals without Portfolio (though I guess Eliot had a >Portfolio), and since Pound and Olson, say, share not only the didactic >strain adumbrated by von Halberg but also the passion for the so-called >factive. If this IS a "legacy of aesthetic modernism," though, then were >poets before the moderns public intellectuals? Wordsworth and Tennyson (I >guess so). Emerson, sure. But Whitman? > >I'm embarrassed not to have read Bob Perelman's modernism book yet--but can >he or it be drawn into this thread? > >doan you tell no one I made you that table.... > >Tenney > Tenney...I was thinking that the ideology of distanciation and autonomy helped create a critical divide between "true" intellectuals (guys at Oxbridge) and "public intellectuals" (usually thought to be journalists and/or non-academic types, although much of the Old Left would seem to apply). And that when nostalgic newer Left types like Jacoby searched around for a continuing radical tradition he had no choice but to vaunt the second choice. But you're right about the pre-modernists. Without knowing what Jacoby would say, they would qualify in the sense that they (Tennyson surely) had large, public readership and wrote on a variety of subjects social and political and cultural. michael davidson> Michael Davidson ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 18:27:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds gwyn writes: To me, it seems like writing MFA programs with that strong academic component are thus more open to charges that they purvey a sort of "academic" poetic. And I do think that's at least partly true. Gwyn i've got to say, quite the contrary, in my observation. since most literature departments are tending toward "theory" these days, and most contemporary theory attacks the tenets of what is generally called "academic poetry," those MFA programs that resist theory in favor of practice more often uphold --unconsciously, since they believe their values are "timeless" --an earlier, outmoded academicism. It's my belief, and i could be wrong, that if mfa students read more benjamin and foucault they'd be likely to write more adventurously than if they restricted their reading to, say, robert lowell and anne sexton. granted, this is based on anecdotal and personal observation, which is limited to the institutions i inhabit. apologies to those of you to whom this is unfair and whom it doesn't characterize.--md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 13:02:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gale Nelson Subject: Anagrams A-Go-Go In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 17 Oct 1995 09:30:54 -0400 from Here is a substantial post of anagrams, that runs under the title To What Job, Long Roman? (John Barton Wolgamot) by Keith Waldrop Cecile Abish I slice beach Walter Abish I blew art ash Tom Ahern Hate morn Anne-Marie Albiach Chili, a mere banana Rosa Alcala Diaz As a lizard, a coal Pierre Alferi Real ripe fire Beth Anderson Theban rose ad Ehry Anderson Her nay drones Bruce Andrews Bar unscrewed Mary Angeline Mainly a green Bob Arellano Lo, noble Arab John Ashbery Honey-bash, Jr. Mary Ashley Yes, harm lay Robert Ashley Her stray lobe Saint Augustine As I tie Aunt's gun Paul Auster A purl, a suet Bill Baird Ribald lib Lori Baker Rail broke Solvej Balle Sell Jove lab Anthony Barnett Bent at any thorn Matt Barros Art mob star Brian Barry Bar yarn rib Susan Bee Use beans Martine Bellen Belt-line ran me Brita Bergland End tribal garb Mei-mei Berssenbrugge Mere bee in bigger sums Charles Bernstein Bench rental rises Susan Bernstein Be sun, nine stars Peter Blickle Treble pickle Barbara Blossom Bar bobs as moral Ginevra Bompiani O I map given brain Marie Borel Amor, I rebel ... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 13:12:49 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ken Edwards <100344.2546@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Top Ten / Bottom Ten Ric - How on earth can you overlook Tom Raworth for your pace attack? And I would include John Ashbery as an elegant and stylish mid-order batsman... love, Ken ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 13:12:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ken Edwards <100344.2546@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Albert Hall Dateline 16.10.95; Ken Edwards reporting. At 7.30pm, the scheduled time of starting, the vast cavern of the Albert Hall is barely one-sixth full. If it holds 8,000 people capacity, then there are fewer than 1,500 here. Still, that's a lot for a poetry reading, I suppose. I encountered Lawrence Upton by chance, and we found we'd bought cut-price tickets from the same ticket tout, so we ended up sitting together way up in the balcony, to the left of the stage. Red plush seating; above the stage, a giant blue video screen which darkens to show the message "poetry has been a prohibited substance". Lawrence tells me there were rumours Paul McCartney was going to make a guest appearance with Ginsberg; if so, it doesn't seem to have caused an audience rush. He also says he's heard from Bill Sherman, who is apparently on the programme tonight. I am incredulous. A young guy next to us hears the name Bill Sherman and reveals Bill was an old friend of his father's "and is like a legend to me. That's why I'm here; I don't know anything about poetry." The lights go down, and on the video screen is projected black & white film of Ginsberg chanting in the same arena 30 years ago; it's part of Peter Whitehead's 1965 film "Wholly Communion" I guess. Then the first poet comes on. BRIAN CATLING: In dark suit, holding a mirror vertically in front of his face so that his video image, projected above him, shows him with a cyclopean single eye, no nose and tiny goldfish mouth. Apocalyptic, gothic; sample quotes (apologies for mishearings): "masked in silver and burnt sand", "throat knotted to a glass", "a swinery worn pink to the weight of gold". AARON WILLIAMSON: Dressed all in black. Aaron is profoundly deaf; on the page, a highly cerebral writer (I recommend his "A Holythroat Symposium" from Creation Books), onstage, his language dissolves into strangulated phonemes, stretched out syllables, explosive movement. His powerful, visceral sound echoes badly in the hall. He gets a good reception. At this point, compere Michael Moorcock makes his first appearance. It is a performance of staggering incompetence. He introduces "three London poets", who are using the city as some kind of Gothic stage for their work - eulogising Aidan Dun first, but calling him "Andrew Dun". Then Iain Sinclair. Finally, Denise Riley. How on earth Denise fits into this schema I don't know, since neither London nor Gothickery plays any part in her work. He reveals, however, that he has only read Denise's work this evening, and bizarrely goes on to recommend her book "Mop Mop Georgette" (published by yours truly/W Mulford): "so good it's almost collpasing in on itself". He collapses into incoherence: "Who's on first? I can't remember." AIDAN DUN: In blue scarf, playing acoustic guitar. Launches into part of his epic London poem, irritating whispery voice. Sample quote: "I found the people of the golden skin bathing." A Donovan de nos jours, methinks. DENISE RILEY: In black. She told me she'd been desperately nervous all week. However, her voice is steady and surprisingly resonant. She reads "Laibach Lyrik" from "Mop Mop" very well. IAIN SINCLAIR: The eminence grise behind this venture, I fancy. Reads three poems, homages to Henry James (with references to the Great Train Robber Charlie Richardson), Keats and Blake. OK. Then introduces a film made by Chris Petit last week of David Gascoyne, now in his 80s, reading a poem in his home on the Isle of Wight. Couldn't hear properly. Bespectacled, quite sprightly. CRIS CHEEK: First Sianed Jones walks on stage looking sexy in a black mini-dress, playing electric violin with maximum fuzz and feedback. Cris leaps up onto the stage from the audience playing clarinet, which he does rather well these days. Also in black. Has everyone been given instructions about this? Sianed moves to portable harmonium, wailing. Cris intones, holding a lampstand with Xmas tree lights blinking on and off on the end of it (I may be quite wrong about this; what was that about, Cris?). Stage darkened by now, Cris screaming. Sample soundbite: "so parsimonious, so acrimonious, so sanctimonious". He shreds paper ("I wrote a poem about it somewhere"). Heavy breathing from Sianed. Cris on his knees as the lights come up; they both do a wordless vocal duet. End. Excellent audience reception. Michael Moorcock returns, now in self-parody mode ("Here I am with another incompetent announcement"). The announcement is the winner of the poetry competition. And it turns out to be: Bill Sherman! So that's how he got on the programme. He reads the winning poem which appears to be a collaborative translation from a prominent Tahitian poet. (This morning I check the competition rules: "The poem must be ... in English and must be the unaided work of the author". Hmm.) MIKE HOROVITZ: Not in black, playing Jerusalem on the kazoo. Announces Kathy Acker couldn't make it but Anne Waldman will be appearing instead. Sonnet in sing-song voice. A poem to his mother, who died this year aged 100. "Now a protest poem on behalf of fish" (which is a homage to Joyce and Schwitters). Update of Wordsworth's Westminster Bridge sonnet, and poem to Frances Horovitz. (Later, Miles Champion tells me he enjoyed this, but I can't help invoking Donovan again; to me, Horovitz was always Donovan to Ginsberg's Dylan.) At the interval, Lawrence and I migrate down to the arena. Many people up in the gods have had the same idea, which means the arena is threequarters-full for the second half, giving a better atmosphere. It begins with another showing for part of the Peter Whitehead film. BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH: White middle-class poetry folk's favourite Rasta gets recognition applause when he comes on. A performer with the timing of a class comedian, but while his routines are entertaining I've always found his material lame. The second compere, Howard Marks, comes on, in white open-necked shirt and brown suit. Reads a long intro. Gets obvious recognition. I still don't know who he is; at the risk of sounding like a High Court judge ("who are the Beatles?") can someone help me? DOUGLAS OLIVER: At one time, I accorded Doug Oliver god-like status, and I still think his 1970s books "In the Cave of Suicession" and "The Diagram Poems" are two of the finest of that era. I'm not quite so keen on his current output, which I find rather solemn at times. He reads a poem he describes as a homage to the nomads of Somalia, which contains some stuff about female circumcision (which he disapproves of) and a rather sombre poem called "The Oracle of the Drowned". Yellow jacket, blue shirt. ALICE NOTLEY: Much more lively, I thought. In red with black trousers. Three poems: set in New York, the Mojave Desert and Paris, France, she says. The first plays on poetry and money. The second contains the line(s) "I think we already know what death's like - there are moments in life we are dead", but the effect is darkly humorous rather than sombre. By now, the audience has adopted the habit of applauding each individual poem. BRENDAN KENNELLY: Reads an absolutely hilarious long poem about James Joyce having dinner with the Holy Family in Nazareth ("Joyce's short answers were buggering the dinner up"; "'What family is wholly holy?' said Jesus"). Then "My Dark Fathers" (I think), a poem about the Famine. Spoils it all with a poem about a child asking questions, which I found a tad sentimental. SORLEY MACLEAN: A great man, now in his 80s. Reads standing at the back of the stage; first in his sonorous English, then in his even more sonorous Gaelic original. He apologises for one: "Not a happy poem either". Howard Marks announces the winning programme number; the winner gets their programme autographed by the poets. TOM PICKARD: "Last time I stood here was 1986 at the end of the miners' strike." His "manifesto of fuck" is loved by the audience. Ends with variations on the name Saatchi & Saatchi. ANNE WALDMAN: Like Alice, in red and black. Uses lectern. Witchlike delivery. Sonnet after Philip Sidney, ends "we're stuck with each other's heart now". Highly rhetorical, panting. "I magnetise the phone bill". Finally, a homage to John Cage, "Pieces of an hour", a virtuoso piece of sprechstimme. ALLEN GINSBERG: Multiple roadies set up for him: two chairs (significant), a table with a coffee-cup, ferns in pots, mikes. Comes on to great acclaim. I find his first poem incredibly moving in its wry, humorous acceptance of death and dissolution ("What a mess I am, Allen Ginsberg"; "Allen Ginsberg warns you: don't follow my path to extinction"). And then, yes, Paul McCartney comes on stage in white shirt, grey pants and sneakers, with a semi-acoustic guitar which he plugs in. Accompanies Ginsberg on a long skeleton song. Walks off, leaving Ginsberg to take the applause. Which dies down soon after he's left the stage. The audience disperses. It's past 11pm. I briefly talk in the foyer to Cris, Denise, Miles Champion, Ira Lightman, Robert Hampson, Peter Barry and Mike Hart from Compendium, who's running the bookstall. Decline the possibility of the post-gig party and find a bus home. Apologies again for all mishearings and misquotes. Ken Edwards signing off. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 19:57:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Evaluation Comments: To: Automatic digest processor In-Reply-To: <199510150405.AAA09766@panix4.panix.com> I haven't been reading the list as assiduouly as I have in the past and I periodically tune in to find out who is writing and what they are writing about. My reading today was after five days of not erasing my messages, so I got an interesting cross-section of material and a definite sampling that leads me to wonder what the drive is behind all the "evaluation" that is going on. Ron and Michael and others writing about how to evaluate the situation of the teacher/poet. How do we feel about it? What are its drawbacks? How is Michael expressing his concern in his work, while referred to is not detailed, while a lot of space is devoted to whether it's good or bad. This meta-discourse is similar to the blackout on the content of the women's conferences in China. The papers blared how to evaluate the situation by the extent of opressive behavior by Chinese soldiers which is to my mind largely irrelevant to the conferences and thier important findings. My question is how have we so distanced ourselves from the material we seek to address? How can we talk about it? What are the terms of the discussion? The other primary set of messages today are about evaluating the top ten lists that have been developing. This level of evaluation easier to understand and might shed light on the previous issue if only I could understand who it is these correspondents are evaluating. Although this is I admit again a discussion at a "respectful" distance. What do you who addressed these subjects today and previous think about your writing these messages? Pat Phillips' particles were illuminating in that context at least at the beginning of the message. I can't believe I have the time to write to the list. James ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 23:59:56 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Dash it, Emily! Comments: To: cohar@conncoll.edu >some scholars claimed that the dashes have a relatively exact _musical_ >function, indicating not only duration of "rest" (we have no notation for >"rests," as such, in language) I'm not sure whether they count as "rests" per se, but commas, semicolons, colons, full stops (periods for Americans), dashes, parentheses and ellipses all seem to notate pauses of varying lengths, in addition to/as part of their syntactic functions. I've seem them used in non-standard ways to great effect - I once read a novel in which one of the characters had a very clipped, mechanical way of speaking, which was represented by. using. a. full. stop. after. each. word. There are other typographical techniques for including a rhythmic score in a poem - line breaks of course, the use of a slash/stroke/solidus in the middle of a line, Olson's open parenthesis, etc. These all have various rhythmical effects as well as introducing subtle syntactic and semantic ambiguities. Once I played around with a simple text-to-speech converter on a PC (it's the one included with Soundblaster cards), and since there was a strict correspondence between punctuation and intonation/timing, I was able to put very precise pauses between words,,,,,, by using the,,, right,, number of commas. One could also invoke a rising intonation via question marks, but? why? would? anyone? want? to? do? that? Incidentally, it's almost a pity that the theory of ED's dashes being pauses for thought while the ink dries appears to be dubious. This would be a wonderful example of the poem being a trace of the writing process - the poet's hesitancies and contemplations leaving a physical mark on the page. There are no doubt a thousand ways in which one could write these processes in/as a poem. Tom Beard. ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 20:51:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion (from Chris Funkhouser) Forwarded message: From cf2785@csc.albany.edu Mon Oct 16 17:04:32 1995 From: FUNKHOUSER CHRISTOPH Message-Id: <199510162103.RAA02069@lilith.albany.edu> Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion (Review) To: lolpoet@acsu.Buffalo.edu (Loss Glazier) Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 17:03:41 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <199510152251.SAA21177@conciliator.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Loss Glazier" at Oct 15, 95 06:51:44 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Content-Type: text Content-Length: 1299 Loss, Poetry in Motion 2 is advertised in the Voyager catalog, but it has not been released yet far as I know. Issa, do you know what's happening with that title? I have no idea what kind of a project it is -- though there's an image of Bob Creeley used on the cover in the catalog. Does anyone on this list have have work which appears as part of that project? The Poetry in Motion cd-rom which *is* out *is* and adaptation of the film/video by Ron Mann. There are a couple of nice features to the cd-rom, the addition of biographical material & alphabetic texts of the performance pieces. In all, though, the video is more fluid, and *looks* better on the tv screen than on the computer. As I mentioned in the piece the other day, Video doesn't translate all that well to cd-rom as it is today. At best you can get a 3"x4" moving screen, & depending on how fast the computer's processor is can be rather slow-moving or grainy. Baraka don't look & move as good Wailin' on the cd-rom, etc. The technology is changing quickly, though, & before long there will be better technology, cd-roms will probably be obsolete within a half a decade or so. Nevertheless - digital multimedia is just beginning. Any faculty out there care to express their opinions on "long distance learning"? chris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 00:31:06 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Re: Top ten poems The BBC poll on top 10 poems comes at the same time as a Sunday Times survey on other arts, which was reported here in the Sunday Star/Times as the 10 GREATEST plays/novels/composers/whatever. The use of the word GREATEST is likely to invoke a response that mimics received ideas of Great Works (resulting in the top 10 novels all being from the 19th Century), whereas BEST or FAVOURITE might result in different, more personal response. In addition, the voluntary survey/ poll format will always bias the sample towards those who can at least name 10 poems, and who actually give a damn. Now, in NZ, if the General Public (the capitalisation indicating an abstraction) were asked to name 10 NZ poets, who might appear on such lists? Here's my guess: 1. Sam Hunt 2. James K. Baxter 3. Barry Crump (he tells Scotty a "poem" on the Toyota ads) 4. Laura Ranger 5. Cilla McQueen (_Dogwobble_ keeps popping up everywhere) 6. Lauris Edmond 7. Bill Manhire 8. Allen Curnow/"Whim Wham" 9. Bub Bridger (at least among Wellingtonians) 10. Kevin Ireland Also, they'd probably recognise the names Keri Hulme, Janet Frame, Gary McCormick, Peter Bland, C.K. Stead and Fiona Kidman, but not associate them with poetry. As a piece of self-indulgence, here's my first XI (but not in batting order): Edwin Morgan Dennis Lee Dinah Hawken Leigh Davis Bill Manhire Geoffrey Hill (at least _Mercian Hymns_) Michele Leggott James Brown (no, not _that_ James Brown) James Norcliffe Craig Raine Geoff Cochrane with T.S. Eliot as coach. Oops, no Americans (unless you count the Possum) - blame it on my Anglocentric upbringing. At least they could probably play cricket better than the NZ cricket team. Incidentally, that issue of the Sunday Star-Times also contained letters stating that McCahon was not an artist and that no-one wants to listen to NZ music - all that nasty avant-garde rubbish. Brrrr!!! Scary. Tom Beard ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 11:47:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: Top ten poems > >As a piece of self-indulgence, here's my first XI (but not in batting order): > > Edwin Morgan > Dennis Lee > Dinah Hawken > Leigh Davis > Bill Manhire > Geoffrey Hill (at least _Mercian Hymns_) > Michele Leggott > James Brown (no, not _that_ James Brown) > James Norcliffe > Craig Raine > Geoff Cochrane > > with T.S. Eliot as coach. > >Oops, no Americans (unless you count the Possum) - blame it on my Anglocentric >upbringing. At least they could probably play cricket better than the NZ >cricket team. > >Incidentally, that issue of the Sunday Star-Times also contained letters >stating that McCahon was not an artist and that no-one wants to listen to NZ >music - all that nasty avant-garde rubbish. Brrrr!!! Scary. > Who would be the 12th poet/person. In a cricket team of poets I would imagination that carrying the drinks would be an extremely important role. Mark ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 21:47:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Issa Clubb Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion (from Chris Funkhouser) Yup, PiM 2 is out, shipping, all that. I have the box here in front of me; the back lists these poets: (also on the first disc) Helen Adam, Amiri Baraka, Ted Berrigan, Charles Bukowski, Jim Carroll, Robert Creeley, Diana (!whoops!) di Prima, Allen Ginsberg, John Giorno, Michael Ondaatje, Gary Snyder, Anne Waldman (CD-ROM premiere! heh) Tom Clark, Spalding Gray, Bob Holman, Rose Lesniak, Cookie Mueller, Eileen Myles, Alice Notley, Joel Oppenheimer, Peter Orlovsky, Pedro Pietri, Jerome Rothenberg, & Philip Whalen "In nine additional interviews hear Charles Bukowski explain why 'fiction is an improvement upon life,' Diane di Prima talk about discovering Keats, Jim Carroll admit to following his idol Frank O'Hara through the streets of NY, and [the everpresent] more." While I think the lack of video quality is frustrating, the promise (as you mention) is in the ability to combine performance with written texts. Also, this new disc might be more interesting because (I'm pretty sure) the readings here aren't in the film. __________________ Issa Clubb issa@voyagerco.com Voyager Art Dept. (212) 343-4213 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 14:49:08 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: Top ten poems Comments: To: beard@MET.CO.NZ dear tom, interested in your team. but you should know that Leigh Davis doesn't play cricket. I'm glad you picked michele--I notice the UK teams are unisex--but why do you have her as wicket-keeper? She'd never see the ball! or, is that the idea? i mean who are your oponents, answer me that? Will they beat India? And Eliot, as coach! He doesn't play cricket either. Is that your idea of a joke? Groundsman maybe, especially if you've packed the team with spinners. best, wystan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 19:17:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: Albert Hall Ken: Thanks for the detailed run-down!! But, enough with the Donovan put-downs--I like Donovan! :-) Steve ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 21:26:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds Maria Damon wrote: > >i've got to say, quite the contrary, in my observation. since most >literature departments are tending toward "theory" these days, and most >contemporary theory attacks the tenets of what is generally called "academic >poetry," those MFA programs that resist theory in favor of practice more >often uphold --unconsciously, since they believe their values are "timeless" >--an earlier, outmoded academicism. It's my belief, and i could be wrong, >that if mfa students read more benjamin and foucault they'd be likely to >write more adventurously than if they restricted their reading to, say, >robert lowell and anne sexton. I wish that were true here, but it isn't. Theory in that sense doesn't seem to rub off on the permanent writing faculty. The folks in town here who write what for lack of a better phrase is referred to as experimental writing have no connection with the English department, with the exception of a well-known guy (not Burroughs, not that well known) who ekes out a living as a course-by-course lecturer with no benefits or security or decent salary. True story: a theory person was brought in for a job interview who'd done 1/3 of his thesis on this guy, but nobody seemed to get the point. Anyway, theory applies to anything; theorists don't have to read new writing from any or no coast. (Another true story: the theorists invited Rachel Blau du Plessis to speak, at least one of the inviters didn't know she was a poet.) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 14 Oct 1995 14:46:33 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: Top ten poems >In a separate vote, the top ten poets were: Kipling, Yeats, Wordsworth, >Tennyson, Walter de la Mare, Keats, Wilfred Owen, W H Auden, Stevie Smith. We're talking about a particular period of 'english' for a particular sensibility of (and possibly age or age identifcation of) reader. We're talking short, mostly romantic or sentimental or patriotic nostalgia, written in what is 'broadly speaking' the wellsprings of what's been called either 'the Queen's English' or 'standard English' (BBC World Service). We're witnessing idiosyncratic examples of 'pop' penetration. Kipling comes on teacloths and the office jotter, Auden is back in the frame after the success of Four Weddings and A Funeral. The top ten poets don't differ much from the authors of the top ten poems. It's just what people feel safe with - also, and perhaps crucially, that poetry (in fact all proper validated culture) is in 'the past'. Poems that fulfill a function similar to the family heirloom - you might not really want granny's slipper in the house but it is all that remains of her and so gathers respect and historical curiosity as a reminder of 'the past'. This is underlines by the absence of contemporary poets. For all their reported popularity there's no sign of John Hegley, Carol Ann Duffy, Brian Patten, Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney, Pam Ayres, Benjamin Zephaniah, Adrian Mitchell, Tony Harrison, Simon Armitage, Craig Raine, Kit Wright and so on. Sorry to pollute this list quite so incomprehensibly. Mostly we're talking about one poet known for only a half dozen poems. I wonder how many people who voted for Yeats have a fondness for his wonderful 'Crazy Jane' poems for example. And Charles, the poets you mention:- it >seems to imply that only two centuries of poetry exist. Do Brits not read >Shakespeare (or regard him only as playwright), Chaucer, Milton, Spenser, >Donne, Johnson, Smart, Gray, Wyatt, Sidney, Marvel, and many more? Or read >them only in school and think them a drudge? None of these writers are perceivable under 'the Queen's English'. Not only are they as Ric says 'difficult', but many of them aren't approached until Degree level. That's the result of an appallingly patronising education system which is replicated in attitudes that drive down lowest common denominators by insisting that one shouldn't write what the bus conductor couldn't understand - when that bus conductor has a double first in mathmatics but either doesn't want or simply can't get any other work. Well, work that's a wholly different topic. love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 19:34:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: Top ten poems >wystan, > in response to your final point: i think poetry is most >powerful when it embraces, threads into itself, the >inevitability of its failure. > >lisa s. >> Our problem so often seems to be that while we >> persist in producing texts as opaque or offensive as modernist texts >> (its a measure of their criticality) we take no pleasure, feel no glee, >> no superiority, when they get the same reception. There seems no >> likelihood poetry will make a comeback. Perhaps it is the art form above >> all which should insist on its failure, come to terms with its >> invisibility, should... perhaps because that's its only choice. What do >> the rest of you reckon? >> Wystan SC: Well, it's nice to see some fellow Romantics on this list, but I have to go along with Kenneth Sherwood and ask: "failure to do what?" Produce easily-consumable product? Huh-uh. That's not something I've chosen to try, myself. Mass audiences tend to be such more out of force of habit than anything else (I can't think of any exceptions to this off the top of my head, so somebody correct me if I'm stepping off the deep end here), and it's precisely our (Industrialized Nations') habits that are endangering global humanity. Certainly I want my own work, and poetry as such, to be "accessible", but only so much so to draw an audience or readership out of its habits of thought and into the world. Too *little* accessibility (through what would be the real elitism: either the physical withholding of the texts as "pearls before swine" or through such obscurity that the reader is driven away) and too *much* accessibility (which would seem to me to necessitate a too-diluted poetic which would become merely a consumer habit, feeding back into what I see as the problem) are the Scylla and Charybdis of my poetics. (Yikes! I can't believe I said that that way!) Steve ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 22:43:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Book/Reading Annoucement ----------------------------------- printing it out is only parts of it, sections somewhere framed and amenable to being scribbled on ... ----------------------------------- Book Annoucement A note to announce _The Parts_ by Loss Pequen~o Glazier (Buffalo: Meow Press, 1995). Orders/requests for info about _The Parts_ can be obtained from Joel Kuszai, V369T4KJ@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Reading And a reminder ... I will be reading (with Steven Shaviro) in San Francisco at New Langton Arts, 1246 Folsom Street, Saturday, Oct. 21, 8 pm ... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 03:15:54 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: a glorious failure Wystan, you wrote: >There seems no >likelihood poetry will make a comeback. Perhaps it is the art form above >all which should insist on its failure, come to terms with its >invisibility, should... perhaps because that's its only choice. What do >the rest of you reckon? I reckon that you're probably right about poetry not making a comeback. While some people point to an upturn in poetry cafes/pubs/whatever, this is largely poetry as therapy, not poetry as an investigation into the possibilities and limitations of language. To the extent that "poetry in our age _has_ to be difficult" (probably a horrible misquote of Eliot), this kind of challenging poetry in which the reader/listener has to take an active part in the composition is never likely to have mass appeal. Many of the functions of poetry (as aide memoire, as voice of the people, as song) have been superceded by new media, and I don't see poetry ever claiming back these territories. Poetry as explorer, charting the boundaries, skirting the edge of the world, is _always_ going to be a minority pursuit. In this sense it _will_ remain invisible, a failure on the great level-playing-field of mass media. Poetry certainly _can_ play up to this "failure" to interesting effect. But "should"? I'm not convinced of this. I'd like to see poetry infiltrating the main core of contemporary culture, burrowing in with bulletins from the frontline, postcards from the edge, sketches of the end of the world. I'm not sure that "Poetry in Motion" or other poems-on-buses schemes are the best way to do this. The (beware of broad and offensive classist caricature) Oprah- watching, Bud-drinking, jandal-wearing, league-playing, Stephen King-reading masses may never have an interest in challenging poetry, but what about the Seinfeld-watching, latte-drinking, Gaultier-wearing, Myst-playing, Face-reading crowd? Rather than dismissing them as shallow yuppies, maybe we should see this group as a potential audience, well educated and open to the contemporary in visual arts, music and film, but generally uninterested in poetry. Perhaps with the right "gift/hook", we could broaden the audience for contemporary poetry without totally compromising our interest in experiment and challenge. Tom Beard. ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 23:41:06 -0400 Reply-To: "Charles O. Hartman" Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Charles O. Hartman" Subject: Re: Dash it, Emily! Comments: To: beard@met.co.nz In-Reply-To: <95101723595578@met.co.nz> Tom Beard-- Your point about Dickinson's dashes as putative records (fictive, of course, like all other notations) of writing-as-process is surely right; that's how we read them, against all reason. It's important, though, to keep in the back of one's mind the history of punctuation, which is one of steady rationalization. Punctuation is by now (by the middle of the 18th century, really) almost wholly the slave of a rationalistic, prose model of language. To punctuate correctly is to demarcate the hypotactic structures of the sentence, distinguishing for instance the restrictive from the nonrestrictive modifier and even the apposition from the parenthesis. The service is to a structure of ideas, not to a structure of sounds. Those syntactical considerations do have their "prosodic" (in the linguists' sense) correspondences--prose and verse have the same mother, after all--but it remains very tricky to declare any one-to-one correspondence between conventional marks of punctuation and rhythmic characteristics of a passage of language. Which means, in turn, that how a poet _chooses_ to _use_ punctuation can be extremely interesting. I know I have poems that (as we say) demand prose-style punctuation and those that refuse it absolutely, and a lot that want some nonce compromise. Part of the compromise, of course, comes about by admitting among the signs of punctuation the line-break, which rather upsets all the other marks who thought they were in charge. Charles Hartman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 22:55:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Brannen Subject: Re: Situation #10 Mark Wallace: Mark, I've been trying to reach you via e-mail for almost a month now, but the post keeps getting bounced by your host system. Please e-mail me your current e-address. Thanks and apologies to all for posting a personal message, Jonathan Brannen >Situation #10, featuring the work of Nick Piombino, Heather Fuller, >Thomas Taylor, Dan Featherston, John Bennett, Sheila Murphy, Michelle >Murphy, and Mark Ducharme is now avialable. > >A subscription to Situation is $10 for four issues; $3 for single or back >issues. All I need is a couple new subscriptions every issue to keep >afloat, and I'd really appreciate your help. > >Please write to Mark Wallace, Situation, 10402 Ewell Ave., Kensington, MD >20895. > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 22:00:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: Colonialism Comments: To: eric pape In-Reply-To: <951017.081245.CDT.ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU> eric, thanks. yes, very provacative. what are you doing for dinner? jeffreytimmons ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 01:16:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: a glorious failure Tom Beard wrote: "but what about the Seinfeld-watching, latte-drinking, Gaultier-wearing, Myst-playing, Face-reading crowd? Rather than dismissing them as shallow yuppies, maybe we should see this group as a potential audience, well educated and open to the contemporary in visual arts, music and film, but generally uninterested in poetry. Perhaps with the right "gift/hook", we could broaden the audience for contemporary poetry without totally compromising our interest in experiment and challenge." Now, Tom, as I write this I am sitting at my parents' kitchen table in Indiana, so I may not be thinking too clearly. One shouldn't sneeze at the potentially damaging influence of watching reruns of Mash and Cagney and Lacy on a 27" color TV. But, when I read the above message, what popped into my head was Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins, singing, "Just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down." Not to change the subject, but is anyone else on this list familiar with lawn geese, these concrete statues of geese that are like three feet high that working class women have in their frontyards and dress in different costumes for different seasons and holidays? As I type this there is a lawn goose in this very yard dressed in a pumpkin costume--there are other similarly dressed lawn geese throughout the neighborhood. Though my mother doesn't have a Thanksgiving outfit for her lawn goose, she assured me that there are pilgrims outfits available--both for both male and female pilgrim lawn geese. When I was talking on the phone earlier today with Kevin (Killian) I asked him if he thought lawn geese was a national or a regional phenomenon. He told me that's the kind of thing Spicer would have known. Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 06:34:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: NEWS VIA PEN In-Reply-To: <199510180243.WAA24784@lictor.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Loss Glazier" at Oct 17, 95 10:43:41 pm This, from the PEN on line list, which should be of interest to this list: WIPC HIGHLIGHTS CAUSE OF EIGHT WRITERS SENTENCED TO DEATH WORLDWIDE 15 NOVEMBER TO BE COMMEMORATED AS DAY OF THE IMPRISONED WRITER Eight writers and journalists worldwide have been sentenced to death or charged with crimes carrying the death penalty, reported the Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) of International PEN in the September issue of its newsletter "Centre to Centre". PEN is opposed to the death penalty "which it believes to be in violation of international norms on cruelty and inhuman punishment and in violation of the right to life." Fortunately, since publication, one writer has received a reprieve from the death sentence but remains in jail. Kenyan writer and former Member of Parliament Koigi wa Wamwere was charged with robbery with violence, which carries a mandatory death penalty. Since publication of "Centre to Centre", the judge has reduced the charges to armed robbery, likely due to international pressure, and wa Wamwere was sentenced to four years in jail and six strokes of the cane. However, others have not been so lucky. United States journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal received a stay of execution after his death warrant was issued, but has been thus far denied the right to a fair trial. Although Abu-Jamal maintains his innocence and it is believed that his political beliefs were used against him, he was convicted of killing a police officer in a trial that falls short of international standards of fairness. The other writers the WiPC mentions who are living under sentence of death include Yemeni poet Mansur Rajih, who was sentenced to death in 1986 for allegedly killing a man. Again, WiPC says the trial was seriously flawed and critics believe he was framed for his role in the student movement of the 1970s and early 1980s. In China, WiPC reports that two publishers have already been executed for publishing pornography. In February, Gu Jeishu was executed after a crackdown on publishers of books said to contain "sex, violence and superstition, as well as political mistakes." WiPC reports that another publisher Wang Shuxiang was due to be executed in April, although it is not known if the execution took place. Finally, in Nigeria, writer Ken Saro-Wiwa faces the death penalty if convicted of inciting the murder of four Ogoni leaders. WiPC reported last week that Saro-Wiwa is to be charged on 31 October. WiPC also protested the unfair nature of his trial and detention, which is believed to be motivated by his political convictions. [See UPDATES, this issue of the "Communique".] The WiPC marks 15 November as the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, reports another item in the latest issue of "Centre to Centre". WiPC writes, "On this day and the weeks surrounding it, PEN centres worldwide will be publicising the plight of writers who have been killed, disappeared or imprisoned for the practice of their right to freedom of expression." Five writers will be profiled and PEN will update the cases of writers featured on this day in previous years. For more information, contact WiPC at 9/10 Charterhouse Buildings, Goswell Road, London EC1M 7AT, U.K., tel:+44 71 253 3226, fax:+44 71 253 5711, e-mail: intpen@gn.apc.org. ** ** ** ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | "Poems are sketches for existence." Dept. of English | --Paul Celan SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Revisionist plots tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | are everywhere and our pronouns haven't yet email: | drawn up plans for the first coup." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --J.H. Prynne ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 12:30:50 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R I Caddel Subject: Re: Top XI In-Reply-To: <199510180842.JAA27114@hermes.dur.ac.uk> Hard to defend my ommission of Raworth, other than to say I wuz saving him for the one-day match, where "pin-point accuracy" and economy are required... As for John Ashbery - too many people can read his wrist these days? I dunno... Ric ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 08:42:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: a glorious failure In-Reply-To: <951018011642_126697561@mail04.mail.aol.com> Dodie, I think lawn ornaments are national across the US, but the particular genres are regional. In Central Pennsylvania, for example, you see a lot of Catholic houses with little 3' tall Virgin Marys out front, standing in a sort of bathtub-urinal contraption. Here in Virginia, you get those flat cardboard cutouts that represent the butt of someone bending over to weed the garden. In both places, you see pedestals cupped to hold huge shiny Mylar spheres, Christmas-bauble red, green, or blue. Shit, I think I feel a poem coming on. Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 10:02:35 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Call for contributors Michael Taub (dept of religion, vassar college) and joel shatzky (dept of english, SUNY at Cortland 13045) are in need of contributors to complete their Encyclopedia of Jewish American Authors: Here's who needs writing about (a few juicy choices remain it seems to me): Fiction: Jonathan Baumbach, Ethan Chanin, Arthur Cohen, Irving FAust, richard ellmann, bruce jay friedman, thomas friedman, gerald green, robert kotlowitz, wallace markfield, bud schulberg, leon uris, jerome weidman. POETRY: Stanley burnshaw, allan feldman, irving feldman, charles fishman, allen grossman, edward hirsch, richard howard, vincent katz, stanley kunitz, allen mandelbaum, gail mazur, cynthia mcdonald, robert mezey, stephen mitchell, lisel mueller, lorine neidecker, george oppen, joel oppenheimer, carl rakosi, david rosenberg, frederick seidel, luis simpson, mark strand, ann waldeman, ann winters. dramatists: woody allen, paddy chayevsky, jules feiffer, herb gardner, william hoffman, wendy kesselman, tony kushner, arthur laurents, norman lessing, barbara lebow, susan miller, ronald ribman, murray schisqual, neil simon, elisabeth swados, arnold weinstein. You can e-mail Taub at MITAUB@VASSAR.EDU Please feel free to mention that I put this message out over the electronic waves, so to speak. Burt Kimmelman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 09:58:15 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gale Nelson Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 16 Oct 1995 18:27:34 -0400 from Maria, The program at Brown has gone in the direction of the studio/arts MFA -- went that many years ago, in fact. It seems to work well for most of the writers who spend two years here. The program is designed so that all students take a workshop in a particular genre each of the first three semesters in the program, and an independent study/thesis preparation course in the fourth semester. In each of those four semesters, each student selects one elective -- from anywhere within the university. We have had two poets study Sanskrit, one took two years of modern dance, many have taken video/filmmaking, papermaking, anthropology, languages, and, of course, theory and 'traditional' literature courses. Each writer decides what courses will best complement the act of writing. For some, that will be a big dose of theory or philosophy. For others, it may be Whitman and Dickinson one semester and Balinese Performance traditions the next. One tends to hope (and believe) that regardless of the course load selected, each writer is self-immersed into a wide-ranging selection of additional reading -- and thinking. Gale Nelson ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 10:46:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: geese In-Reply-To: <951018011642_126697561@mail04.mail.aol.com> Dodie The town I grew up in (in New York, down the road from Douglas Rothschild) is covered half the year with geese. Lawn geese would have been the equivalent of handing over the keys and showing the geese where we keep the silver and the cigars. I did have a goose lamp for a night light, though. Somebody told me it was a witty thing to have; I have no idea why. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 11:23:20 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark McMorris Subject: That was then Small Presses "It was, if anything, a Printing Vortex. Books were cheap to produce in France. On l'Ile Saint Louis William Bird's Three Mountain Press published Hemingway, Williams, Pound: notably in 1925 A Draft of XVI Cantos, in folio. Nancy Cunard later bought Bird's assets, and in 1930 her Hours press issued A Draft of XXX Cantos (200 copies)" (384). Spring and All: "written in New Jersey, printed in Dijon, published in Paris, distributed--------? Not distributed, really. There were 300 copies, Paris bookshops were not interested, American customs held up shipments for months, American reviewers based 12 miles from Rutherford merely sneered at expatriates when they noticed such books at all. 'Nobody ever saw it'--Williams 35 years later-- 'it had no circulation at all'" (385). "They worked in utter obscurity, as if in Paris. Williams was 'discovered' only in 1948, when Paterson I suddenly attracted reviews; Zukofsky and Oppen and Bunting not until the 1950's and 1960's, when reprints of work 30 years old began appearing, to answer tastes a long time forming and still hardly articulate. The 1930's public heard of MacLeish, and Stephen Vincent Benet, and Robert Frost (now too quickly dismissed as an Eisenhower poet); and journalism for which Hart Crane's suicide conferred importance on The Bridge found no way to get interested in Zukofsky's "A", whose author jumped off no boat" (405-406). "A mystique of the word--as in Miss Stein's case--is encouraged by the circumstance that one's words will not be read.... 'Toasted Susie is my ice cream,' wrote Miss Stein, and why not? To so fit and pack and lock and arrange the words that when their capsules are one day broken open--perhaps after 50 years, on an unrecognized planet--they will affirm structured realities, like a watch that should commence ticking as though made yesterday, that seemed the aim and morality of style" (385). Hugh Kenner, The Pound Era (U of Calif. P, 1971) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 08:24:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: Dash it, Emily! (fwd) i wanted this to go to poetics -- sorry if it's gone around twice -- > > in "There's a certain Slant of Light" -- which i read as a certain kind > of poetics piece -- an extraordinary event occurs re dickinson's use of > punctuation, an event which maybe illuminates to some degree those > fantastic dashes -- here's that stanza, from memory -- i can't recall the > whole poem, but here's that stanza: "Heavenly Hurt, it gives us--/ We can > find no scar,/ But internal difference, Where the Meanings, are--" > > i certainly read those dashes as gaps left by language -- as a "grasping > towards" -- as indexes of "internal difference" where Meaning _is_ -- > > the grammatical comma in that line -- "Where the Meanings, are-- -- is, > for me, an extraordinary event -- she gets _it_ right there -- she got > _it_! the doors of perception open, opening -- god! i can't put this into > words -- > > if this post can serve any useful purpose whatsoever -- by just drawing > attention to that incredible line -- that's enough > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 10:30:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: a glorious failure >Not to change the subject, but is anyone else on this list familiar with lawn >geese, these concrete statues of geese that are like three feet high that >working class women have in their frontyards and dress in different costumes >for different seasons and holidays? As I type this there is a lawn goose in >this very yard dressed in a pumpkin costume--there are other similarly >dressed lawn geese throughout the neighborhood. Though my mother doesn't >have a Thanksgiving outfit for her lawn goose, she assured me that there are >pilgrims outfits available--both for both male and female pilgrim lawn geese. > >When I was talking on the phone earlier today with Kevin (Killian) I asked >him if he thought lawn geese was a national or a regional phenomenon. He >told me that's the kind of thing Spicer would have known. > >Dodie Bellamy Lawn geese, no? But pelicans, jockeys (that one's racist), and other lawn ornaments. I think that the geese may be regional, but that lawn ornaments (and not limited to working class women) are universal. My favorite were in various barrios in Tucson where occasionally one could see refrigerators without doors in lawns, sometimes cut off so as not to be so tall, forming a kind of grotto, lit or unlit, filled with Virgin of Guadalupe, personal mementos, wishes for the ill or deceased -- small personal shrines made public. charles ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 11:46:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Willa Jarnagin Subject: Re: a glorious failure In-Reply-To: Dodie & Gwyn, Here in Somerville MA we have the bathtub Marys, and Jesuses too, all over the place. One house around the corner from me has on its front a big ceramic-tile mural of Jesus, which has the unfortunate effect of looking like an exposed shower stall. What's with this religious bathroom fixtures theme? Next we'll have Buddha sitting on a toilet and Kali wielding curling irons. I haven't seen the flat butt people though I've passed some yards with little plastic animals in the gardens. Willa On Wed, 18 Oct 1995, Gwyn McVay wrote: > Dodie, I think lawn ornaments are national across the US, but the > particular genres are regional. In Central Pennsylvania, for example, you > see a lot of Catholic houses with little 3' tall Virgin Marys out front, > standing in a sort of bathtub-urinal contraption. Here in Virginia, you > get those flat cardboard cutouts that represent the butt of someone > bending over to weed the garden. In both places, you see pedestals cupped > to hold huge shiny Mylar spheres, Christmas-bauble red, green, or blue. > Shit, I think I feel a poem coming on. > > Gwyn > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 10:41:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: Distant Lover In-Reply-To: <199510180835.BAA05491@sparta.SJSU.EDU> Loss: As Marvin Gaye knew so well, distance loving is valued, but ain't nothing like the real thing -- When I was a grad. student, I worked in continuing education arranging ITFS broadcasts of university courses, both credit & non-credit, for students in groups at their places of work. As a faculty member, I have several times taught classes that were relayed by live video to branch campus sites in other parts of the state. The teaching itself went just fine. The students in the "main" classroom were greatly frustrated by their inability to see their colleagues at the off-campus sites, but we did have live voice hook-up, and the off-campus folks felt free to join the discussions. (In fact, they often continued discussion in their own groups after the class.) Particularly important was the fact that we had live technicians in the booth working the cameras so that students didn't sit in front of a static shot for an hour & a half. But, the possibilities of Distance Learning, like those of the web itself, are at present being vastly overestimated by people who hope to profit from the technology, and by campus administrators. The fact is that faculty fears of being replaced by video are not just untenured paranoia. I've just written a speech for a humanities conference at UC Irvine in which I talk about the continued privatizing of the humanites and of the human. To use California as an example -- The state government, _and the university administration_, continue to point to recession and dwindling resources as necessitating the deep cuts to the higher education budget. Meanwhile, the prison budget swells (more money in that budget than in higher ed. this year for the first time ever), and administrative positions (which had grown by 61% in less than two decades) have not diminished significantly. Instead of carrying the political fight for higher education to the public, most university administrators are turning to increased use of private fund-raising and management solutions to lack of dollars for instruction. Thus, we are being pressured to increase yet further our reliance on part-time instruction, and anything that can teach students with fewer faculty is embraced by management. Distance learning is being ballyhooed as the answer to any number of real problems, but the danger is that it will substitute for hiring qualified new faculty. I've always believed that part-time instruction should only be used to deal with minor and unexpected fluctuations in enrollment, or to make use of _exceptional_ abilities offered by instructors who choose not to teach full-time. In the same way, distance learning should, in my opinion, be used only to reach students who could not otherwise be reached (like those in, what else, distant regions) or to bring _exceptional_ opportunities to wider audiences (like a visiting scholar who can't possibly teach as many students as wish to study with that person). Distance learning should never be employed as a means to avoid employing a qualified instructor. If there are enough students to take the course, there should be a willingness to staff it properly. There is no justifiable reason to use distance learning to teach regular courses in the catalogue to people who would otherwise study with a live instructor. Some deans and presidents have been willing to agree in writing to such principles. Others are laying people off and buying hardware. Most universities I've visited are wobbling in between these positions with no real agreement on principles. Telegenically yours, aldon (and congrats. on the book! If you tape the reading, I'd like to hear it.) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 14:22:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X From: Alan Golding Subject: Poems for the Millenium Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu Public congratulations, gratitude, etc. to Jerry Rothenberg and Pierre Joris for the first volume of Poems for the Millenium, which came in the mail today--an utterly mind-blowing achievement. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 14:18:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Distant Lover aldon, great response on the ab/uses of distance learning!... i'd love to see a copy of your speech, even a draft... any way to upload it?... alternately, be happy to send along an sase w/plenty of postage... joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 15:28:51 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: Distant Lover Aldon, Writing to you from a campus that is high-tech and is going full steam ahead in the area of distance learning, I can say that the move to dh seems inevitable. but is it good for all subjects and students? the emphatic answer is no. and people like is damn well better make the case as to why not, asap. Burt ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 15:18:25 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: a glorious failure In-Reply-To: <199510181530.KAA05258@freedom.mtn.org> I'm not sure if this is significant, but there has been a recent spate of pink flamingo thefts in Baton Rouge. Rodger Kamenetz had one filched from his front yard, in bright daylight, just before he moved to New Orleans.Is this the death of the decorative arts? Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 15:23:08 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: Colonialism In-Reply-To: Alas, Jeffrey, only studying for exams.... Maybe I'll have some soup! Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 15:26:44 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds In-Reply-To: <951016182733_46137523@emout05.mail.aol.com> Maria: I kind of agree kind of totally. I know what you describe was true, at least, in my case. Can't speak for others. For me, oddly, theory courses were a refuge fromthe kind of half-baked pseudo-hipness of the workshop mentality here in BR, ie, the cult of the funky Southern writer. After listening to other posts, however, I am beginning to seriously wonder how common my experience was. I think the best bet may be (as someone else requested: unfortunately I have moved too quickly through the posts to remember who specifically) to require poets to develop other interests, IE, theory, art history, information, dance, sculpture, whatever the hell, just not to be so narrow. Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 19:31:14 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Albert Hall Thanks to Ken for a breezy and basically accurate out front response. Here's a rambling take from the backstage viewpoint during which I'll try to talk as much about performance qualities as possible, in the hope that it's of interest. Originally planned to offer a solo version (for 3 voices - holding hand-sized self-powered speakers with two other tracks of my own voice recorded and mixed in split stereo) of some work I've been engaged with called 'fogs'. Decided about five days before the event that since so many people were going to be standing pretty still and reading then perhaps bringing a more performance attitude to the event could help the overall dynamic - pretty sure I'd been booked on that basis after finally seeing the publicity announcing 'poetry and performance'. Must admit that a key element in this decision (although there was a cop out side to it as well) was the relative imbalance of women on the bill (to say nothing of Ken's noted token black poet). Sianed and I had just done a three and one half minute piece for Anglia tv and decided simply to extend that item. So, instead of taking a briefcase I loaded the car with Harmonium, Violin, Clarinet, Pine tree and so on - not exactly the 'normal' poetry reading accoutrements - picked up Sianed from the electronic music studios on the University of East Anglia campus (where she's taking an MA) and drove to London. Arrived Albert Hall just before 4 in the afternoon, so as to spend some time sorting out our slightly more complicated sound. The 'natural' acoustic is extremely 'live'. We can fill the hall even without any P.A. Unloaded straight onto the stage where Brian Catling was trying out his 'Cyclops' mirror to the lips (what certainly resembles a talking arsehole) routine. There's an atmosphere of curious calm - almost but in the event not quite, before storm - suspension of disbelief. Mike Goldmark, the bookseller and promoter of this event, strolls over in barefeet and (for a man who's hired this hall out for =A320,000 and is about to go bankrupt, or so he says) exudes wonder at what's going on around him and how well it's all coming together. Technically the hall is almost already set, with a giant screen hanging above the stage. The sound is thankfully excellent - top quality monitors and radio mikes for all. Gradually poets begin to assemble on the stage and a possee of photographers buzz around us. I swear there must have been shutters going off every couple of seconds for much of the time - and then there are others filming from the stalls, from the stage. The last time I'd been here I'd seen Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar before I even hit my teens. Much of the next three hours is a coming and going (definitely poetry rather than rock 'n' roll) gathering with most people just sitting around on the stage and chatting, in between brief sound checks. Paul McCartney arrives and does his, simply grinning and saying hello (although I can't help feeling that Ginsberg picked the wrong Beatle, Ringo would have been much more 'challenging' as an accompanist). I came into the hall at one point to find a shocked camera crew witnessing Aaron almost riveting the Albert Hall to its foundations with his vocal tests. "It takes a long time for each sound to fade" he said. Pretty remarkable, and 'profoundly deaf' in deed (to be fair to Ken that's how many have introudced him). Now there's a de rigeur mutual signing of programmes taking effect which keeps most of the poets busy and introductory until the off. My most enjoyable exchange was with Brendan Kennally as we became almost hysterical over the book title 'Tough' (both for reader and writer) and took bets on which of the two of us would first write it. Other conversations - with Ginsberg about photography and his diet (not that either of us suggested that the two were related) and his surprise at how well (in broad comparison to his poetry) his photographic exhibitions had been received in the US press - with Zephaniah about the anonymity as distinct from the occasional celebrity status of the 'other' with particular reference to internment of Iraqi people in Britain during the Gulf War - with Sorley MacLean about his love of Norwich - with Bill Sherman (likewise my great surprise at seeing him) about the recent spur to Independent movements given by French Nuclear testing in Tahiti (he spends a lot of time there these days) - you know, it was very friendly and rangey and consequently pleasant. Michael Moorcock is sitting in a dressing room trying to read Denise Riley's 'Mop Mop Georgette' while I'm testing a light I picked up that morning which I had designed so as to react to the attack and decay on my voice (even down to the breath - I though you might have spotted that Ken) and shade it in my customary layerings of red lettuce and spinach (guess that's what looked liked xmas effect from a distance). He seems almost drunk and distant, affable but buffoonish. There's a green room full of cheeses and breads and fruits. Finally the atmosphere gets more down to business as the evening begins to show.My experience of the first half was from backstage. There was a tannoy relay of onstage sound and a black and white feed from cameras in the hall onto a monitor close by the stage door. There are two broadly identifiable poets present now backstage - the jovial and the introspective. Suddenly, or so it seems after a slightly late start, Brian Catling is on. He used to stutter frequently in readings but he's worked hard at that and lost his stutter completely in this kind of work. I'm wondering how he'll go down, I enjoy his work immensely myself, and am delighted to hear loud applause and cheering as he leaves the stage with a customary grin across his now asymetrical face (you won't understand that unless you reflect back on the mirror he's been holding up). The fact that so many in the audience are obviously determined to enjoy themselves and root for the performers is encouraging to say the least. Couldn't see his film well from backstage and I'm looking forward to seeing the video of the event in another thirty years time (the original Wholly Communion has just been released on video btw). Sianed and I relax as Aaron launches out into some of the most intricate and compelling vocalising of language one could desire. He literally explores every crevice in each word, every fault-line of each phrase. The texture of his speaking is for me exemplary. He compels the silence to shatter itself - his closely navigated breath fully acknowledges the architextural space into which it is sounded and he positively brings language directed back into his body. His is an integrated gesture. In comparison Artaud's recording of 'To Have Done With The Judgement Of God' sounds unconvincing. As he finished, what sounds backstage like a massive cheer fills the hall and harsh applause rains into the dressing rooms through tiny wall-mounted speakers as I go through a simple centering and balancing (adapted from something Steve Paxton taught me) warm-up routine. It 'sounds' like a big audience, but that's only based on applause. Moorcock's on but I can't hear him properly. Aidan Dun's guitar tinkles away and momentarily I think of Ali Farka Toure, then Donovan as his voice comes in (he was most distant of the performers for me, gets reviewed as Rimbaud like, or some such, in The Independent newspaper - what's Rimbaud like mean?) and then I can make out Denise Riley, sounding strong for all her terrifying nerves. You pick someone close to the front and just read to them intimately, as if they were the only person there, if the fear grips you too tightly. Sinclair (yes he did have a strong hand in the programming) next. I watch him standing close to the front of the stage as we wait in the bull run, ready to rush on and set up our gear in the interlude provided by film of David Gasgoigne. In the dark we set up a table for the harmonium, two mike stands, a hand-held light, a string of electronic effects. I take off into the audience, walking down the centre aisle to the back of the hall, surprised to see just how thin the audience feels closest to the stage (in the expensive seats presumably), looking around and thinking somewhere between 1-2000 people. Great, as Ken says, for a poetry gig, but less than it sounded backstage. Gasgoigne's film lasts just long enough for composure. I'm standing in the hall feeling kind of invisible. It's that moment when adrenalin is closing on the surface. It's a complex moment of narrowing focus and softening, opening awareness. Trying to gather energy and relax, to erupt and be still. The lights go up on an empty stage. The first thought I have is that something has gone wrong and Sianed is rushing around backstage having a technical nightmare, but then she appears, calmly picking up her violin and bow (I'm being deliberately over the top in this description). This is what I wanted to happen - a woman playing the violin, going through huge distortion pedals, chorusing and reverbs fills the Albert Hall (scene of Proms and romantic string gush a go-go ever since Albert had his Prince Albert job) with wildly textured noise (dodging and burning classical references in a brief homage to Hendrix). Masking Ivo Papasov having a jam with Giorgos Mangas in the minuret of an east end Mosque I call back on clarinet, moving down the centre aisle and spinning the harshest reedy sound I can tongue in circles over the heads of those immediately nearest to me and out into the dome. (I always worry about bashing someone on the head inadvertently in that first adrenal rush). Rushing themselves (this is self-critical in some ways too, it's a going out and over the top sensation, launching from trenches with oneself as an enemy) to meet the scale of the event, the audience (unexpectantly for us and somewhat disconcertingly) bursts into a spate of applause as there's an awkward break while Sianed switches to harmonium and sings a brief phrase modelled on Mongolian long song with lyrics in part-invented language embodied from her native Welsh. (a lot of people took this for Bulgarian vocal styling, in fact it's considerably different - a singing of the vast landscapes on the edge of the Gobi desert - although using the hard edged throat voice more widely familiar from recordings and concerts by Trio Bulgarka or Les Mystere des Voix Bulgares). I burble along on a large turtle ocarina being picked up by the voice clip mike. A quiet and reflective time to gather again and take stock. How many people here have had that experience of watching themselves during a performance? - of settling into a moment (almost slow motion) and pushing on. We segue into simple rhythmical phrases of breath - hand-pumped harmonium and voice. It's time to try out my new voice-activated light. Only collected it this morning and wonder how subtle I can get with it on the first time out. The light is attached to a circuit activated by a microphone that picks up the attack and decay on my voice and triggers the bulb. I've been working with hand-held lights in performance for a couple of years now but this a new development. I like the intimacy it brings to the space immediately around the body and how this relates to the space of the breath and heat and energy immediate to every body. So the language I use hovers around breath and pulse and blood and sound and light in a brief and humouress improvisation centred around energy trapped between the living and the dead. It went close to something like this and was accompanied by rising and falling harmonium with the air sometimes fading so that notes dropped out of hearing (like Bach's 'Art of Fugue' last gasps) and the light responded on and off as I spoke / well there's an element of Shakespeare gone horribly wrong declamation in this monologue at times as well: 'To who comes (brief whistled snatch of the old vaudeville song 'whistling in the dark') whistling in the dark i'm not a heaven man, delibidinous breaded wheels along arteries, lawless carriages this big wet shiny bird, stuffed - full of caves woke, in this wall of cold leavings wobbled on the diaphragm to figure spilt beer on the public bar, voiced by some manic street preacher majestic mover the river looking when the badly ties on trash drops wake up in the eyes I came to see my familly and got stuck (somewhere around here I ate into the spinach and lettuce around the buld) too bright that kind of warbler suggests, they offered me a dream bedroom muffed it, all the slack went out the copy came undone I scooped first prize, in the Mirror - horror of horrors - Breath For Li= fe look, lungs, not really like a foxglove more circular, more avid - pins into action when electric circuits wires out of sight, be careful under ladders, no letters, no known, no postmark, on holiday, be back for tea, I hope milk's not off shoes to be taken for mending, I understand how to navigate through 'things' but don't yet understand why he's so sanctimonious, so acrimonious, so parsimonious, so moaning moaning - the man is always moaning a rising one more box coming up, he cages all their dusty faces done a long stretch, plunks hot brittle oof not long go out and tidy the garden, go on, pull it all up by the root splice into orange marmalade where buzz of bee in microphone fuses with footage of wind waves across cornfield in camera, on tv a talking head announces that the assassination of a political opponent, spread disco fever through Peking you give a me plas-ma (sing, sing) in the morning and plas-ma al-l throu-gh = the night p-p-p-p-p-plAS -MAAAAAAA when you kiss me, and plas-ma when a you hold a me a tight. You give a me plas-ma (to the tune of fever out of Peggy Lee via The Cramps of course) Well what do you expect me to say? For in this shady passage throughout life - during which the future is and remain radically unknowable - death is the only certainty I wrote a poem about it somewhere (then drawing a handful of torn paper scraps from the breast pocket of my jacket and scattering them onto the floor) - shit, it's absent minded. Speech as locked in brick released as part encoded partly pre-recorded speec= h (more lettuce tongueing) After all, and after all that death is merely a permanent projection - a hot, reception' Then we segued out with a 45 second tape of scattered voices, mbira and jaws harp on the hand-held speakers I mentioned earlier whilst adding to the part singing part scat deconstructions, turning the speakers back into my body whilst Sianed was now holding the light on the pine-tree pole. =46inish, warm applause - enjoyed this moment and get off, grabbing our gear as we go. We both enjoyed it. Felt settled through it. So what was it all about Ken? I'm not convinced that's the most useful question. But perhaps that extensive discursion 'helps'. My and Sianed's interest in performance more and more focusses onto the pace and texture and trajectories of events through time and states of energy rhyming within that process. The work is always language / breath / voice / body based. I'm often keen to engage with the paradoxical and critical image of the performer as trapped by the audience and vice versa - the presentation of the problem of spectacle. 8 minutes in a shared context on such a scale with little set up in a poetry event which is overloaded with poetry? Answers to a seperate subject heading of 8 minutes please. My alternative might have been to simply breath and let the light work on me - only that. Next piece will probably become the concert for breath I've wanted to try for a while now. We left a small pool of paper fragments from within which most of the poets read during the rest of the evening. I like those fragile physical residues too. Bill Sherman followed us on and then Horowitz took us through to the interval but I missed him. Spent most of the interval signing 26 programmes and talking to Zephaniah about the GLC and Hand Wangford's Lost Cowboys (this is very in-British stuff so I'll shift straight to the second half). Several of us watched the whole of the second half from a box directly opposite the stage at the back of the hall. Perhaps I've haven't got a great deal to add to Ken's account excepting a different taste. I liked Doug Oliver's 'Oracle of the Drowned' and was curious to hear his 'african' material, although he seemed distant (even prurient) rather than engaged with it to anything other than intellectual intensity. More body please Doug. Alice's voice interested me in so much as it seemed a good example of a register which seems to me to have a period stamped on it that is not of today. Kennelly was tremendous and I even fell for the craft of his little girl poem that Ken got slimed by. Sorley didn't read his best stuff - which for me is the wind and waves whistling gaelic sea and mountain pieces. Anne Waldman was terrific, simply very much stronger each time I get the chance to hear her. I missed Kathy Acker's presence though. Ginsberg had the best rider (herbal trea and flowers) - poets might think more about riders. Catling had a great one with the British Council - when they asked him to perform in Israel for little money he demanded the opportunites to snorkel in the Red Sea and fire an Uzi, he got both. There were several serious acid casualties backstage afterwards - "hey man, ahve you read Robert Anton Wilson?". Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney both shook Sianed's hand and said how much they'd enjoyed our contribution (must have been while I was standing by the entrance handing out leaflets for an upcoming Slant gig), she forgot to ask for a free consignment of latex pies. I'll never forget the muppet-like image of Ginsberg waggling his finger at McCartney and roaring "one more time" as the latter struggled to find another variation on the I fought the Law and the Law Won style riff he was wagering. And Ginsberg's seventeen syllable poems had a strange double image. Was he that young boy lying in his room or is he really still banging on the young's drum "one more time"? This is the morning after the morning after and I come downstairs to 'Wild Thing' ('but I wanna know-oh for sure') followed by the strap line 'the scent of freedom' playing out on breakfast tv. Apparently Sianed and I went out in some form or other on breakfast tv yesterday but I didn't see it having been at Filthy McNasties (a packed Islington sawdust and salad wag's dive) for lock-in style late night candle-lit drinking bout during which I talked to Anne Waldman about the School fur Dichtung in Vienna, saw Ginsberg undo the top button of his royal blue shirt and witnessed Shane McGowan (ex Pogues epic pisshead) slumping onto a wet bar with his sideburns mopping up what the slop cloth fails to catch. Somewhere in there (I wasn't drunk myself - had to drive home 125 miles at three in the morning then go straight into college for 9.30 - in Norwich itself 45 minutes drive away - the following morning) I caught up with comedian Arthur Smith whose brilliant 40 minute deconstructed, prozac-driven 'Hamlet' I'd enjoyed in Edinburgh and together we reprised its apopleptic song : "I've seen your arse Your Dirty great arse I've seen your arse In the water". It was that kind of night. Hilarious and mostly askew. love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 20:24:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Goldsmith Subject: Virus Alert This warning came to me from someone who usually knows what he's talking about..Better safe than sorry... --kennyg >There is a computer virus that is being sent across the Internet. >If you receive an e-mail message with the subject line "Good >Times", DO NOT read the message, DELETE it immediately. Please >read the messages below. Some miscreant is sending e-mail under the >subject title "good times" nation-wide. > >If you get anything like this, DON'T DOWN LOAD THE FILE! It has a >virus that rewrites your hard drive, obliterating anything on it. >Please be careful and forward this mail to anyone you care about. ============================================================================ Kenneth Goldsmith http://wfmu.org/~kennyg kgolds@panix.com kennyg@wfmu.org ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 10:39:35 JST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Geraets Subject: top 10 poems Comments: cc: w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz tom, must say I'm with Wystan on this one. Half expect someone to come along and york (hmm) most of your team. Strange thing is, given your two teams (terminology's the confusion here), goddam I think the first one'd win. THAT worries me. When I read things, what is it makes me want to ask how good it is? Probably my DAD. He played for Auckland once--at least, I say him drive that little golf-cart thing with the drinks on it. Felt thirsty. best, John G ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 15:19:20 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: Evaluation Comments: To: jsherry@PANIX.COM James, as to who I think they're all Brit. Cricketers and there's a big indoor game coming up at the Albert Stadium in London I think. do you reckon value judgements are a subtefuge? I've heard people on this list claim that regarding poems. at least they are a handy shorthand. yesterday in a staff meeting discussing a proposal for a freshman paper in popular fiction, someone attacked it because the texts were second rate, which did seem to be an acceptable view to the proposers although they were annoyed, but when I said the texts were uncool, it was taken as a personal attack by the proponents. Colleagues were divided as to whether I had gone too far. I'm still figuring out what it was all about, any ideas? wystan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 15:50:16 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: a glorious failure Comments: To: beard@MET.CO.NZ Dear tom (and dodie) well I don't see why garden ornaments and the question of the changing history of the audience(s) for the high arts can't be a single subject of discussion. There's an outfit in Auckland which goes around at night covering lawns with lifesize plastic flamingoes. You pay them a fee,or rental; finger a loved one with a birthday, anniversary, hangover, or suicidal depression and they will deliver the nasty shock. and those people you describe, tom, they with the interests in music, film, etc who could be interested in poetry, aren't they precisely the people who packed out the Hejinian, Creeley and various groupings of local readers at Alba this year. the audience exists. much of the discussion of audience on this list seems unduly dependent upon questions of book sales, distribution points, numbers of readers, grants and so on. The equally, but for the purposes of my point, more interesting issue is what happens next. who is reading, buying, listening and what are they doing with what they get. The small sales of book X going to a certain kind of 100 readers may well be vastly more consequential as far as the circulation of meanings goes and the large sales of book Y to a certain kind of 100,000 readers. I'd say. When poetry was a lot more popular and successful book X and book Y were often the same book. And, in Browning's case, a railroad timetable to boot. Pretty famingo wystan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 22:06:36 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: Sheila, Cris & Jorge's Excellent Adventure >On Wed, 18 Oct 1995, Jordan Davis wrote: > >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >spending the bulk of closure with sentient scoops >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >that fluke picnic shot out of these worlds we spread >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >say that the center cannot hold the nose tackle much >> > >>longer >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >than a clam can sleeve out of incarceration baldly >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >go where the others fear to operate the biggest >>donors >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >& where Mars collides with the small world of "It's a >> > >>small >> > >> >> world" >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >ripe for macroscopes to pump or slice or >> > >> >> butterfly away >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> from that ardent bugged heliotrope and >>pledge >> > >> >> allegiance >> > >> >> >> >> >> through >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > ostension--we stopped short of the >>shortstop >> > >> stigmata >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> this time pencilled in as tangly wisps >>instead of >> > >> memory >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > detonations: but don't forget to dismember >>the >> > >> doloroso >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> pitchpipe with its squeal subtracted and the >> > >>dotted-line >> > >> >> >> >> >> relationships >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >and sing "I Love Time but I love Your Spatial >> > >> Simulacra Much >> > >> >> >> More" >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> for the brevity inferred and for the latchkey >>touch >> > >>more >> > >> >> >> like a >> > >> >> >> >> >> feather >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> drizzling blood of picklet beet all over the >>related >> > >> >> phenomena >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > braising from punch a drunk streak which no >>absolute >> > >> >> >> bearings flew >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> off the Handel I did not miss for Pergolesi was >>by the >> > >> >> >> pergola with >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> shadows of her former selves implanting >>pre-recorded >> > >> brick- >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > layers as insignias in the privacy of Manny's >>rheumatic >> > >> >> slumber >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> creased, cemented, spun from claustrophobia the way >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> that glitches suggested themselves as sexuation near >>the >> > >> border >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> of profundity where drudges still are visible but begin >>to >> > >> >> matter less >> > >> >> >> >> >> >> than duality or the boyishness of dusk. I, too, miscast >> > >> >> >> >> >> palpitations as preambles to the rust we might someday >>finagle >> > >>into >> > >> >> >> >> >> the market of dwarfs' shortcomings that are longgoings in >>the >> > >> thrust of >> > >>> >> >> memorized vibrati larkish and unpoised though frequently >> > >amiss in >> > >> >> >> >> the slump of confetti being so much of the knocky memento >> > >> >> >> that we cried under the dandelions where no pulse was original >>enough >> > >> >> >> for the dog to be plankton or the nurse a gate in an iron dress >> > >> >> as pressed as any moment striped with platitudes and pain >> > >> >> soldering the fatherly clavicle to the theory of colors >> > >> wounded round and playful although never sleek >> > > swimming in the northblood channel and evening being a paperweight >> > long freighted. Authenticity a crevice for the playful heart >> > there's some percentage you should never invest above the buddhist > who said to the hot dog vendor "make me one with everything" and yet proceeded to tear his tongue with her wine-grained books of the rank and file >> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 18 Oct 1995 22:06:21 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: in dreams This mortal coil forsaken hog swallows do supper Film presage in humidland. Film also Dwarfing the Rengathon at Giants Stadium Weening drawn one drum that time presents Continue now, that the angel storm has passed. Film the books were dreams and in the reams were latex books What travel we could scrounge from the newspapers of Palookaville & the dead heroes of Guadalajara empowering scores of liberated motzas in tents of Lacanian libretti, salted with mocha, much more than with roughage added to taste or tremolo, finding the shores awash with alphabet, proclaiming nothing In and flew, patching their rents completely set on the sea as so much crabbiness which is only like cancer districts and tunnel music, diverts attention from wars in three voices and the steady rain of hemlock falling on the Concerns box & a sob distant as adventure capital behind the exterior of the city was an interior compost of scar tissue recording the grain of farm house timber a rubble of history in the grass where a decapitated statue unavoidably becomes an image of a nation without a true face volte face to sell a magazine, a face to turn to the side of the calcined sheriff and each to each tongues and balls and they too were skeptical of the value of the face of souvenirs of deliriums of proctors & priests but like the strong and weak forces mostly they gossipped or exchanged their blind letter for a parapetal posture ramrod strait-laced hoping for a jolt of lightning out did they radiate bagness over the fragments of blots, or did they call home once a week, did they walk to work by dint of rod, glove and puppetry that cauterized my mobile phone or am I the sealant in the shape you take? Trickster flickers neon melodies soft by trying to feel belief in the teeth of induction or bellwether combed, cleaned, fortified toward the scene where the parrot of intention is ice cold between a pick frames becoming a slender and fragrant loop ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 10:54:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: AWOL: SCARP launch THE AUTHOR MAY BE DEAD BUT NEW ARTS AND WRITING ARE ALIVE AND KICKING SCARP 27 will be launched at 7.30pm on Wednesday 25 October at Aardvark's Cafe, 86 Kembla Street Wollongong. ************************ Australian Writing OnLine is a publicity and distribution service for Australian writers and publishers. For further information please email us at M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au, write to AWOL PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia, phone (02) 747 5667 or fax (02) 747 2802. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 13:57:50 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Banton Rolins Subject: Re: Distant Lover In-Reply-To: <009980F6.E404A236.132@admin.njit.edu> On Wed, 18 Oct 1995, Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT wrote: > Aldon, > > Writing to you from a campus that is high-tech and is going full steam > ahead in the area of distance learning, I can say that the move to > dh seems inevitable. but is it good for all subjects and students? the > emphatic answer is no. and people like is damn well better make the case > as to why not, asap. > Distance learning is most cost effective. The classroom can be as big as you want. No limits. One prof (or a video player or any one or group of other machines) can reach an unlimited number of students. So there are and will be more problems. But then there really are those who just can't get to a campus. That's why some of the leaders in DL are extension centers in places like Utah, Wyoming, Australia... The wide-flung classroom. If you want students with truly differing perspectives, there you are. And then, in our own way, we're doing DL right here. I'm in Taiwan (not Taipei) learning lots by reading the postings to this list. Of course I'm not getting degree credit. Anyway, it's the push for FTEs that worries me. DL builds them oh so quickly. Bart ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 14:40:57 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Banton Rolins Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds In-Reply-To: <951016.135635.CDT.ENPAPE@LSUVM.SNCC.LSU.EDU> On Mon, 16 Oct 1995, eric pape wrote: > I take exception to the claim that MFA > programs have "taken poetry from the people." > When did the people have poetry, Bart? Poetry, by definition, is > a highly elite activity. Always has been. Hope I haven't taken the above too much out of context, Eric. Don't mean to. Anyway, I'm not sure I can agree that "the people" have never had poetry. As yoiu suggest, inevitably, this discussion must deal with definition, but I don't think I can restrict my definition of poetry enough to agree with your point, especially the idea of poetry being and always having been "a highly elite activity." My definition would insist on including whatever poetry has been widely read in its own time. But then even if we aren't that liberal in what we admit as poetry, I believe the people have had poetry. By the way, by "people" I really just mean those who haven't more than the average formal education in whatever society, culture they're a part of. Probably, the question for me isn't so much whether poetry has been taken away from the people (not my phrase--sorry I can't remember what article I got it from) but whether parts of it have. More so, I wonder what it may be in Western culture that has rendered the poetry we tend to speak of here on this list so peripheral. (That's to ask, in a sense, how that kind of poetry came to be in the first place.) There are societies, cultures in which very serious "high" poetry is not nearly so peripheral to its society or not peripheral at all. My own experience reminds me of Yemeni poetry, still very much part of an oral tradition, composed (not written) by persons who neither write nor read but still very sophisticated. Some Yemeni poets, by the way, believe that writing down a poem kills it. To be true poetry, it must be alive, changing with each re-recitation. I'm going on too long, so let me finish by posing another question: Does our fixation with writing everything down, publishing it, studying it, writing about it, getting degrees in it, etc., etc. have anything to do with where poetry is right now in our culture? If culture is at all a form of capital, as suggested by Pierre Bourdieu in _Les Regles de l'art: Genese at structure du champ litteraire_ and earlier works, perhaps it does, especially if poetry has become a capital used to gain and hold social and economic power as he also suggests. Bart ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 00:00:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: E.D., dash it all >Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 05:06:46 -0400 >From: Chris Stroffolino >Subject: Re: grandma Emily? > > Tenney--But the rhymes and rhythms ARE there compared to most of the > poetry people on this list write (or publish)---even if ironic and "off" > and, yes, terrifying (what else is new). And some people--trained in > "free verse" or "blank verse" at first find her work offputting for > that--and others of course find it somewhat reassuring for that--and > the rhymes and rhythm does lend her work a more memorizable quality > than much unrhyming work of contemporaries...I don't think the "avant- > garde" Dickinson is any more real than the "mainstream" Dickinson-- > I guess that's the "agenda" behind most of my postings on her.... Chris-- well right it's odd to just flat out call her "avant-garde" or something. But isn't she, say, a RESOURCE for a contrmporary writer (even a writer on this list) in a way that, say, Longfellow or Tuckermann or Sandberg or let's say Merwin etc. isn't? Just as, say, the insane ballads of Auden can energize contemporary experimental writing (Ashbery's for example)? And back to the WCW strain: does he energize no exciting experimental work (and are we bored w O'Hara now too)? Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 00:00:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: I wanted the details >Date: Tue, 17 Oct 1995 19:57:23 -0400 >From: James Sherry >Subject: Evaluation > >Ron and Michael and others writing about how to evaluate the situation of >the teacher/poet. How do we feel about it? What are its drawbacks? How is >Michael expressing his concern in his work, while referred to is not >detailed, while a lot of space is devoted to whether it's good or bad.... > >Although this is I admit again a discussion at a "respectful" distance. >What do you who addressed these subjects today and previous think about >your writing these messages? > what I wanted to hear, anyway, was more from Ron about how the ambivalence shows up, specifically, in the poetry (Michael's): something about the pressure doing criticism, or yammering to others about Great Poetry for a living, puts on writing poetry; esp since, having read a bunch of Michael's poetry (though not all) it wasn't immediately apparent to me how this might play out. Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 02:16:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Announcement of reading in SF Bob Gluck asked me to post this. It happens on Thursday night in San Francisco, at "The Lab" (16th Street at Capp in the Redstone Building). At 8:00 p.m. Carla Harryman reading-she is the author of "There Never was a Rose without a Thorn." Then, Harryman sits down and Lyn Hejinian approaches her and interviews her on stage. 8:00 p.m., Thursday October 19, 1995 at the LAB. Then, Bob is having a reception for Harryman & Hejinian, come one come all to Bob Gluck and Chris Komater's house 4303 20th Street, San Francisco (at Collingwood, in the Castro). Hooray for them all! This event sponsored by THE LAB in connection with their ongoing visual art show MILLENNIUM COMING: the NEW DEGENERATE ART, curated by Chris Komater and Michelle Rollman. Catalogue available, edited by Kevin Killian. Reading series curated by Bob Gluck and Camille Roy. Don't miss this if you are in San Francisco! Gallery hours Wed-Sat, 12-5. See you all there. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 02:41:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds You wrote: > >Maria: I kind of agree kind of totally. I know what you describe was true, >at least, in my case. Can't speak for others. For me, oddly, theory >courses were a refuge fromthe kind of half-baked pseudo-hipness of >the workshop mentality here in BR, ie, the cult of the funky Southern >writer. After listening to other posts, however, I am beginning to >seriously wonder how common my experience was. > I think the best bet may be (as someone else requested: unfortunately >I have moved too quickly through the posts to remember who specifically) >to require poets to develop other interests, IE, theory, art history, >information, dance, sculpture, whatever the hell, just not to be so >narrow. > Thanks, Eric. > When I was a student, 25 years ago, theory played a valuable role in part precisely because it was so utterly Other. It spoke to the activity to my work but seemed all but completely outside the bounds of what was then permissable. At SF State, nobody at all seemed to have heard to Barthes. At Berkeley, just the grad students and junior faculty showed an interest. There was a freedom in that that was, I think, an integral part of the experience itself. Today, now that theory has been so routinized and professionalized within English departments, I suspect that it has to have a very different value and meaning for the students there. So while the level of knowledge and sophistication that one finds in, say, a Steve Evans or a Mark Wallace was not even possible circa 1970, what sets them apart today is not that they know the theory, but rather that they have figured out how to use it creatively. Andrew Ross was literally the first human being I ever met who could do that and it remains a rare experience. Just to note that these "values" are not static, but as thoroughly contextualized as anything. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 05:56:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: theory and the teaching of writing Maria Damon wrote: > >i've got to say, quite the contrary, in my observation. since most >literature departments are tending toward "theory" these days, and most >contemporary theory attacks the tenets of what is generally called "academic >poetry," those MFA programs that resist theory in favor of practice more >often uphold --unconsciously, since they believe their values are "timeless" >--an earlier, outmoded academicism. It's my belief, and i could be wrong, >that if mfa students read more benjamin and foucault they'd be likely to >write more adventurously than if they restricted their reading to, say, >robert lowell and anne sexton. Even though I'm clearly not against reading theory, from my experience in teaching prose writing workshops I have my doubts about the reading theory having much of a direct connection to students' adverturousness in writing. I've found theory ultimately helpful to me--but as a beginning writer I found blind imitation of things I found "neat" to be the most useful. I did have the priviledged position of living in the incredibly sophisticated writing world of San Francisco, and of learning about experimental writing by being thrown in the middle of a scene I didn't really grasp. It was like going to a foreign country and picking up its language in order to survive vs. studying that language in a classroom. I've had students who were very sophisticated in theory--and who didn't have a clue as to how to apply it to their writing--and who felt very frustrated as a result of this. And then you get the other end of the spectrum, where the writing become some sort of petrie dish for the theory, and the writing is dead--though "moldy" might be a more appropriate term to extend my metaphor. I think that theory has a place in the teaching of writing, but the main focus should be rolling up your shirtsleeves and mucking around in the writing itself. Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 07:30:39 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: Distant Lover bart, i'm not against distance learning; it's just that i see a role for the good ole flesh and blood pressing of the flesh school of teaching too, in some cases. it would be ludicrous for me to descry dl when in fact i am communicating to you and (and others simultaneoously) via a distance learning medium at this very moment of my writing. burt ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 06:46:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "B. Cassidy" Subject: Re: Virus Alert In-Reply-To: Ken and those on the list who don't already know -- The "Good Times"virus is a hoax. Viruses (at least at the present time) can't be sent through an e-mail. The message that Kenneth forwarded is itself the virus in that has spread like an evil strain of the flu to every corner of the internet over the last year. The disease it spreads is paranoia. ;) Clever, eh? --Brian On Wed, 18 Oct 1995, Kenneth Goldsmith wrote: > This warning came to me from someone who usually knows what he's talking > about..Better safe than sorry... > --kennyg > > > >There is a computer virus that is being sent across the Internet. > >If you receive an e-mail message with the subject line "Good > >Times", DO NOT read the message, DELETE it immediately. Please > >read the messages below. Some miscreant is sending e-mail under the > >subject title "good times" nation-wide. > > > >If you get anything like this, DON'T DOWN LOAD THE FILE! It has a > >virus that rewrites your hard drive, obliterating anything on it. > >Please be careful and forward this mail to anyone you care about. > > ============================================================================= > Kenneth Goldsmith http://wfmu.org/~kennyg > kgolds@panix.com > kennyg@wfmu.org > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 08:13:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "CAROLYN L. FORCHE-MATTISON" Subject: Re: Distant Lover In-Reply-To: <199510181918.OAA02253@charlie.acc.iit.edu> On Wed, 18 Oct 1995, Joe Amato wrote: > aldon, great response on the ab/uses of distance learning!... i'd love to > see a copy of your speech, even a draft... any way to upload it?... > alternately, be happy to send along an sase w/plenty of postage... > > joe > Aldon, I, too, would very much like to read your speech, and would also send an sase if it's possible. I have many thoughts on DL, and will post soon. -- Carolyn ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 20:56:11 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Banton Rolins Subject: Re: Distant Lover In-Reply-To: <0099817D.40D384F6.4@admin.njit.edu> Burt, Perhaps the kind of thing we're doing here could somehow be used in an enlightened approach to dl. One of my main reservations concerning dl, as I have observed it, has been the tendency among instructors to "can" lectures and more-or-less read them over the air. I suppose this comes from a sense of not really being able to communicate with those distant students. It can be quite unsettling to feel that you'll never really meet someone you're supposed to be teaching, so much so that retreating behind a text, a book or a lecture, can be too tempting. Bart ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 09:39:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: distanced learning... well let me relate a little story about distance learning, something that went down this semester here at illinois institute of technology... by way of trying to suggest how such technology is generally being conceived during these dire economic times by educational admin. types... and please note that i've always been a proponent of using technologies to help, even reform teaching wherever possible... that surely dl has a role in reaching hard-to-reach locations... but that it's entirely problematic, methinks, as currently construed/utilized... because when it comes to teaching, there's a difference twixt, say, *this* technology---email---and projected images, even with little voice-feedback boxes... that in fact one of the reasons linking classrooms through email dialogue hasn't caught on as rapidly is precisely BECAUSE one needs must alter one's pedagogical stance to accommodate same, interactively speaking... whereas the projection of instructor images through spacetime is bound to be centered on the instructor (what would happen, for example, if the camera attempted to accommodate the other twenty faces in each room?...and how could this be done, finally, in something like real time?... and what would this mean anyway, learning-wise?)... i teach in the dept. of humanities here... and we have a satellite campus out in the burbs, a solid thirty mile/forty-five minute hike through traffic due west... and we use part-time adjunct faculty at this latter to teach various humanities courses... this semester, last minute, one of our adjuncts cancelled for personal reasons... and the first suggestion---the very first---was to use the celebrated iitv system to 'cover' that course... and yours truly was asked to do so... no thought given to how i teach---i happen to be a proponent of student-centered pedagogies, for example, i happen to believe in many of the tenets of so-called liberatory theories of teaching... in fact, i was informed by the colleague who approached me with this 'solution' that "it's my understanding that we can do everything in an iitv room that we can do in a regular classroom"... just like that, not even the remotest [wink] sign of anxiety regarding such an assertion... no thought given to WHO i was teaching---on the main campus it's mostly undergrads., out in the burbs it's mostly older, returning, part-time students, and this represents a dichotomy of intention, if you will, right from the start... in short, no thought given... hence i mself refused even to think when i responded to this veiled "command," to wit, NO---I WON'T DO IT, I DON'T TEACH THAT WAY... didn't go over too well with some folks, needless to say... and i ended up being "tasked," as bureaucrazies like to say, with phoning each of the eight students in the burbs to try to cajole them into coming to the main campus... which not one would... it's a long drive, you understand, and they don't like chicago's south side, ETC.---and yes, there are ALL sorts of issues entailed in this, including suburban fear of urban realities (a racially based fear in so many ways, regardless how seemingly justifiable)... anyway, i needn't go on here, methinks... the point is that on my campus, a technical campus in the midst of complete restructuring and downsizing---a situation where the first thing to go out the window is a discussion of *learning*---the solution to educators' woes is DISTANCED LEARNING... i passed by a rather large iitv room just the other day, in fact, with the cameras on and TWO STUDENTS watching the solitary instructor go through his little canned routine on (i think it was) statics and dynamics, drawing his little free body diagrams on the board and carefully positioning his body vis-a-vis the camera as he did so, smiling and inflecting with the utmost precision, addressing himself to the two students present as well as to his anonymous viewing classroom 'community,' a fitting image as the lights go out on late 20th. century 'liberal education,' all for the sake of what our iit admins. call "the bottom line"... or was it just a dream?... anyway, you get two two two mints in one... joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 09:49:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: Virus Alert The Good Times warning is apparently a scam. I first heard about this a year ago through another e-mail group, followed a few weeks later by a long message on the genesis of this particular virtual world myth. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 11:13:11 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: Distant Lover yeah aldon, could i get a copy of it too? i'll send sase if you wish. burt ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 08:19:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Another important SF writing event San Francisco List Servers! Don't forget about this Saturday night! Small Press Traffic's "Small Press Partners Series" presents Net Work: Experimental Writing on the World Wide Web Readings and Talks by Loss Peque=F1o Glazier poet and director of the Electronic Poetry Center http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc and Steven Shaviro author of Doom Patrols http://dhalgren.english.washington.edu/~steve/doom.html at New Langton Arts 1246 Folsom Street, San Francisco (between 8th and 9th Streets) Saturday, October 21 at 8 p.m. $5 admission >Loss Peque=F1o Glazier, a Tejano native, is Director of the Electronic >Poetry Center (EPC) and co-edits RIF/T, an online poetry and poetics >journal. He is the author of the online hypertextual poem, "E: Poem for >HTML" and the CD-ROM publication "5 Pieces for Sound File." Glazier has >published several collections of poetry, including the online chapbook, >Electronic Projection Poetries (RIF/T, 1995.) He lives and writes just >north of Buffalo, at the edge of Western New York's eroding treeline. >Steven Shaviro's Doom Patrols, a theoretical fiction about postmodernism >and popular culture, is one of the first books to be published in its >entirety on the World Wide Web. Shaviro lives in Seattle, where he is a >professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of >Washington. He spends much of his online time exploring text-based >object-oriented virtual worlds known as MOOs, particularly LambdaMOO. >Shaviro is also the author of Passion and Excess: Blanchot, Bataille, and >Literary Theory (1990) and The Cinematic Body (1993). This will be an interesting event beyond a doubt! Come one, come all! This event made possible in part by generous support of the SF Art Commission, the James Irvine Foundation, Grants for the Arts Hotel Tax =46und, the California Arts Council, the Zellerbach Family Fund and Industrial Indemnity. Good for them, and good for Small Press Traffic (and New Langton Arts for letting us host this event in their space). -Dodie Bellamy -Director, Chatelaine, Lawn Goose Connoisseur ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 08:11:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: workshop geese In-Reply-To: <199510190359.UAA21068@sparta.SJSU.EDU> Dodie -- Do you know of the garden trolls of Britain? I don't know how far back the custom goes, but I've seen some English gardens that have little room left for vegetation among all the trolls etc. & Others -- Our English department recently dropped all course requirements (except for the intro. on how to look stuff up & document it), BUT added a requirement that all students, including creative writing students, take the same MA exam. But this is because we don't have an MFA (there's a statewide moratorium on new programs) -- Because our MA students all get the same degree, they can go out and apply for the same jobs in the community colleges, high schools, and so forth. That being the case, we thought it a good idea to make sure they knew something about the subject, beyond their own writing, before loosing them on students elsewhere. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 11:20:09 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: Distant Lover yes bart, the "canning" of lectures for distance learning--but this may be a temporary state of affairs, MAYBE, caused by all the difficulties attendent on using new technologies. i'm told that, for example, teaching in a "virtual classroom" (real time) medium is so fraught with deadly detailing and coordination that instructors may have only their canned lecture as a stable element in the mix. as for video taping etc.--as you have said, there are plenty of folks who benefit from dl because of their locations and time frames; popping a tape into the vcr to see/hear the lecture when it's convenient, being able to stop and rewind it to check something closely, and so on, can be a great advantage. as for communities, there are all kinds, some electronic (carbon based, as bill gates might say) [correction (i can't edit lines above this): (silicon based, as bill gates might say), and other communities that are carbon based (as opposed to silicon based). just some haphazard and random thoughts . . . burt ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 13:40:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Niedecker and Zukowski Since I'm spending six weeks in Milwaukee, last Friday I went to Black Hawk Island with Wisconin's Number One Lorine Niedecker Fan. I saw Lorine's humble cottage where she wrote. When I looked in the window of this shrine, the first thing I saw was an exercise bicycle. I guess the people who bought the land are using it as a storage shed. But there still is a historical landmark sign next to it. And the river is incredible. I also visited Lorine's grave--lovely pink fake roses beside it. And I visited her archives at the local library. When I signed the guest register it was nice to see Jeff Hansen and Elizabeth Burns' names from years ago. Lorine's Number One fan told me lots of stories about her. He'd even had a drink with the man who dug her grave. He told me that the reason Zukowski didn't marry her was because she wasn't Jewish. So, I was surprised to see her name on the listserve notice of Jewish writers to be written about. Could the Wisconsin's Number One Niedecker Fan be wrong? I asked someone else on the list about this issue and he wrote to me: "Now, I don't know about Niedecker. I thought the reason Z rejected LN is that he had found another, wealthier woman called Celia. It was kind of like A Place in the Sun-he rejected the poor, pregnant LN because Celia had money. (At least he didn't take LN to the middle of a lake and drown her like Montgomery Clift does to Shelley Winters in the movie.) But maybe her fan is right, and this American Jewish Writers guy is wrong." Does anybody have any info on the Niedecker/Zukowski thing? Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 00:34:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jms Subject: review of Brakhage films at MOMA Stan Brakhage's _Trilogy_ (_We Hold These_; _I Take These Truths_; and _I..._) at the Museum of Modern Art Friday October 13: In a packed auditorium, people watched splotches of color on a screen. There was no plot to the color. The depth of space in the films was fantastic. Whole worlds of layer on top of layer were created. During the break, the film maker explained that the color was produced by magic marker. The films were between 12 minutes and 35 minutes long yet with each film the sense of time disappeared. It was hard to tell how long or short a particular film was. In fact they all seemed to be about the same length upon reflection after the event (although the program, of course, confirmed otherwise). I can't figure out if reflection is sped up or slowed down or recognized to just be the speed of film in these works. Is pleasure here in the color's fast movement and hypnotic potential or in something else altogether different? During the films the audience was very quiet except for several coughing and fidgeting children. I kept thinking of corruption and wondering who would bring their children to such pornography of image and setting. Later it was obvious that the children were the film maker's and were used to such imagery. While the children ran around on the stage in front of the crowd, the film maker spoke of his films as children's art, as self-evident. This bothered me a little because I think the child argument is sometimes used to trivialize things that look un-polished. A declaration of independence, an American tradition of self-reliance also filled the film maker's rhetoric. Also an idea of community seemed to be behind the films; of "we hold." Is it hubris or just right to name a film I... and have only colors and shapes? As I watched the abstract splotches of color pass, I kept seeing feet in the images. I knew the feet were not really there (as in drawn by the film maker). This kept annoying me at first and I felt like my mind was purposely domesticating the splotches of color so as to save itself the work of negotiating abstraction. Do I have to put the self into everything, I kept asking myself. Later I just let the feet come. The films were a reminder of how much I appreciated the language of abstraction over the language of narrative-demand. They also suddenly made clear to me the reason that I have had so much trouble appreciated abstract art over other forms of abstraction: it doesn't move and thus has trouble illustrating process to me. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 14:43:55 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gale Nelson Subject: Re: Distant Lover In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 19 Oct 1995 11:13:11 EST from It seems as though a ground-swell has begun to build, suggesting a collective desire for a "look-see" at the materials related to distance learning. If the materials are in a structure by which it would not be an inconvenience to place them into an electronic envelope, perhaps A.L. would consider sending one such electronic envelope to the list server that supports our Poetics discussion group. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 18:31:12 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: a spoonful of sugar >>Perhaps with >>the right "gift/hook", we could broaden the audience for contemporary poetry >>without totally compromising our interest in experiment and challenge. > >But, when I read the above message, what popped into my >head was Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins, singing, "Just a spoonful of sugar >makes the medicine go down." Dodie, This is a valid criticism, and the notion of "gift" or "hook" that prompted some discussion a while ago is a problematic one. What I'm really aiming at is some kind of invitation, some quality that, after a first reading, invites a reader back into the work. When you read through a little magazine, what is it about certain pieces that make you want to come back to them? This will be different for every reader, of course, and radically different for someone who writes experimental poetry compared to someone who rarely reads poetry. Part of my reason for bringing up this subject is personal: I enjoy poetry, and wish that more of my friends did so too. Occasionally there is a connection - I had a couple of flatmates, a physicist and an accountant, who really flipped when I introduced them to Edwin Morgan's "The First Men on Mercury" and "The Computer's First Christmas Card" - but these moments are all too rare. I'm beginning to wonder how much I really _enjoy_ reading poetry myself - most of what's published in _Sport_ (NZ's leading literary journal) these days is too bland to grab my attention, and although I'm intrigued by the theory of language poetry, I find most of it uninviting. As for "a spoonful of sugar" ... well, I _like_ sugar :-). But not to the point of blandness. I want something complex and succulent, heady and intense, like a good botrytised Riesling after 10 years in the bottle, rather than something austere and tannic, like a young Cabernet from a cold year. Maybe this _is_ Mary-Poppins-ish, but my interest in linguistically innovative writing doesn't override my response to some vague X-factor (the lyrical? the evocative (of what? for whom?) the magical?) that sends a frisson down my back and leaves me dangling on the poet's hook. Tom Beard ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 19:52:32 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: the audience > and those people you describe, tom, they with the interests in >music, film, etc who could be interested in poetry, aren't they >precisely the people who packed out the Hejinian, Creeley and various >groupings of local readers at Alba this year. the audience exists. Wystan, Yes, I was initially encouraged by the turnout at the Creeley reading. But when I talked to some of the people there, they said, "Oh, I've never read any of his poems before, but my lecturer said we should come along". It's great to see that these sorts of readings are introducing people to contemporary poetry, but they still don't seem to be reaching far beyond the academy. I missed Lyn Hejinian's reading because I didn't hear about it - it didn't seem to have been advertised anywhere apart from in the cafe window, and again, perhaps, within the university. Similarly, it was wonderful to see _Pavement_ (a local fashion/music/arts/ lifestyle mag) do an interview with Robert Creeley, but disappointing to see them playing up the "friend of the Beats" angle. The interviewer showed little signs of actually having _read_ any of Creeley's poetry, and most of the questions were along the lines of "So, tell me about Allen Ginsberg". >The small >sales of book X going to a certain kind of 100 readers may well be >vastly more consequential as far as the circulation of meanings goes and >the large sales of book Y to a certain kind of 100,000 readers. Very true - it could be said that one attentive, active reader is worth 10 (or even 1000?) passive reader. As I said in my previous post, my main concern is not so much for the _writers_ missing out on a potential audience, but for the _readers_ missing out on the chance to read challenging but rewarding poetry. I don't see any chance of having 100,000 attentive readers of poetry in a country of 3.5 million, but maybe a couple of thousand is possible, and an improvement on 100. As I've said before (I think), I like the idea of readers taking an active part in the making of a poem. One way to do this is to cut down your readership until there's no-one but other poets and critics left. A more challenging, and, I think, rewarding option is to "entice" readers into your work and have them participate in finding meanings. This way, you have helped a group of people _who would not otherwise do so_ to explore with you the possibilities, ambiguities and limits of language. Tom Beard ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 17:05:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: distant lesson Don't ever send a message with the first word : "List", Anybody have any experience in high-speed distance teaching? Either by videoconferencing or mud/moo/other internet? Text-based stuff might be fun, huh? Since it's all writing anyway, and since this kind of writing is _different_ from other kinds of writing--isn't it?--it might be an interesting thing to teach _as a different discipline_. I'd rather not be paranoid/postmanite/luddite about dl. I'd rather see it as a new niche. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 10:07:09 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Top ten poems The great anti-modernist anti-McCahon sentence from letter to Sunday Star Times, NZ: "As a colourist he was a nobody". (as for his "anatomy", "use of light" " draughtsmanaship " etc ...) Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 21:26:54 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Geese and 'trolls' Well Aldon there aren't many outright trolls that I'm aware of in the gardens here, but there are strange gnarled little figures out of (whisper it carefully unless you wake thy neighbours) Walt Disney - called garden gnomes. For those without knowledge of such riveting political minutiae it is a fact, celebrated by the self-same, that John Major's father manufactured garden gnomes (after his circus career stalled). In fact Major uses this as an example of his honest hard-working roots. There are gnomes for almost all human pastime equivalents. Many of them wheel little barrows or dig the clod (a little like the god Pan talking that goes on at Findhorn here and at other 'new age' eco centres stateside I should guess). Many gnomes hold fishing rods and sit by ornamental ponds. A curious realisation of the romantic tendency - a locus(t) where Ian Hamilton Finlay and the garden ornament tradition meet anthropomorphical 'fairies at the Bottom of our Garden' extropian Arthur Conan rabbit brio. love and gnomes cris ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 10:42:25 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Distant Lover Aldon's phrase "study with" is the one that rings true, for the situation of teaching and is just where the issue with "distance learning" is joined. The implication I value is that students and teachers approach texts (and/or images) together, to see what they can make of them. "Study under" in contrast implies subjection to authority of a kind that "distance learning" usually relies on. Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 18:30:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: distant lesson In-Reply-To: Yes, I've taught on-line at the New School, on an asynchronous applica- tion; I'm also working on synchronous appications with a grad student. It's very difficult. It wouldn't be for teaching poetry, but it is for a number of subjects. I teach the philosophy/psychology of the Net/ "Information Highway" stuff - the advantage is that the course deals directly with current Net conditions/applications/politics/development and the disadvantage is the long hours it takes to write up lectures that would take only minutes to deliver - as well as a certain disconcerting anonymity always present... Alan On Thu, 19 Oct 1995, Jordan Davis wrote: > Don't ever send a message with the first word : "List", > > Anybody have any experience in high-speed distance teaching? Either > by videoconferencing or mud/moo/other internet? Text-based stuff might > be fun, huh? Since it's all writing anyway, and since this kind of > writing is _different_ from other kinds of writing--isn't it?--it might be > an interesting thing to teach _as a different discipline_. I'd rather not > be paranoid/postmanite/luddite about dl. I'd rather see it as a new niche. > > Jordan > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 18:33:46 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion (Review) lost track of who originally asked about poetry on CD-ROM, but stumbled across a reference (on her homepage) to Carolyn Forche's _Country Between Us_ in multimedia cdrom format, from 110 press, (LA, 1994)... praps, carolyn, you conuld tell us something about it, or the process of making it? luigi ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 18:37:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ULMER SPRING Subject: Re: distant lesson jordan, liked your post on distant lesson: 'since it's all writing anyway, and since this kind of writing is _different_...it might be an interesting thing to teach _as a different discipline_. I'd rather not be paranoid/postmanite/luddite about dl. I'd rather see it as a new niche.' -jordan writes... i very much agree, seeing as how for the last two years i have learnt more on line, than i have in a classroom. intense personal correspondance with both a writer and an artist has opened my writing and engaged me in a way of learning that is both call and response. i am enrolled at cooper union, and dl is not there, but one professor agreed to oversee my hypertext/collaborative writing/art work with Katie Yates and Regan King. If someone had not been open minded enough to support my need to write online as a practice, I don't think I would be in school. -spring ulmer ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 18:52:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: (none) Anagram fans: http://infobahn.com:80/pages/anagram.html Have fun Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 18:44:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukowski I like the conflation of Zuk and Buk! Thanks, dodie. I mean "thanks dodie" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 22:02:41 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: punctuation & prosody Charles Hartman wrote: >Those syntactical considerations do have their "prosodic" (in the >linguists' sense) correspondences--prose and verse have the same mother, >after all--but it remains very tricky to declare any one-to-one >correspondence between conventional marks of punctuation and rhythmic >characteristics of a passage of language. I agree that a 1-1 correspondence between punctuation & rhythm is probably impossible, but there is a loose correspondence, one that can be useful to poets when "scoring" the words to be spoken. And in today's post-grammatical education system (I was taught at school to "use a comma where you'd take a breath" - no mention of clauses etc) the correspondence might be tightening up. >It's important, though, to keep in the back of one's mind the history of >punctuation, which is one of steady rationalization. Punctuation is by now >(by the middle of the 18th century, really) almost wholly the slave of a >rationalistic, prose model of language. To punctuate correctly is to >demarcate the hypotactic structures of the sentence, distinguishing for >instance the restrictive from the nonrestrictive modifier and even the >apposition from the parenthesis. The service is to a structure of ideas, >not to a structure of sounds. I think that rhythm & rhetoric are very tightly interconnected - not surprising given the origins of rhetoric in oratory. As well as the structure of logical argument influencing written punctuation, which we make audible via rhythm & intonation, is it not possible that the rhythms of oratory influenced the structure of rational discourse? Perhaps someone with a better knowledge of linguistic history can clarify this. >Which means, in turn, that how a poet _chooses_ to _use_ punctuation can >be extremely interesting. I know I have poems that (as we say) demand >prose-style punctuation and those that refuse it absolutely, and a lot >that want some nonce compromise. Part of the compromise, of course, comes >about by admitting among the signs of punctuation the line-break, which >rather upsets all the other marks who thought they were in charge. Perhaps we could take the line-break as a (the?) defining characteristic of a poem (at least a "poetry" poem as opposed to a "prose" poem). I know that when I write prose after writing too much (!) poetry, the margins seem an awfully long way apart. That white space around a poem may be as important as the words. Tom Beard ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 19:18:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Scheil Subject: Re: a glorious failure In-Reply-To: Another example of the eclectic lawn-ornament regionalism movement: in Northern Michigan, we take special pride in our chain-sawed log mushroom sculptures (of morels, mainly--a local delicacy & object of numerous mycological folktales). CS ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 22:51:25 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Re: distant lesson >Anybody have any experience in high-speed distance teaching? Either >by videoconferencing or mud/moo/other internet? Text-based stuff might >be fun, huh? Since it's all writing anyway, and since this kind of >writing is _different_ from other kinds of writing--isn't it?--it might be >an interesting thing to teach _as a different discipline_. I'd rather not >be paranoid/postmanite/luddite about dl. I'd rather see it as a new niche. I've been involved in distance learning, but in a field totally unrelated to poetry. The learners for whom I'm responsible cannot take time off work to attend workshops or lectures, so I've had to rely on computer-based learning that they can use in the workplace. One hypertext module that I developed (I used HTML primarily because it's cheap) for local use is apparently used regularly by Environment Canada for their training, since I linked the module to my web pages. I think the emphasis here is on _learning_ rather than _teaching_. Hypertext and hypermedia work best when you have highly motivated learners _exploring_ a field of interconnected knowledge, rather than reluctant learners who have to be led through a course one step at a time. They are also sometimes the only choice, when the learners are too far away or too busy to attend traditional f2f lectures. I've found this list and the EPC extremely valuable for learning about current American poetry, and the Internet may be an ideal tool for this kind of distance learning. I have the beginnings of an archive on NZ poetry on my web pages - I wish I had the time and knowledge to make it more comprehensive. If every time that one heard mention of a poet's name one could go and read some of his or her poems on the web, together with hypertext links to essays and bibliographies ... oh, how that would break down the "tyranny of distance" that comes from living in a country where none of the bookshops have even heard of Zukofsky or Olson! Anyway, as far as online writing courses goes, I know that Rob Kendall has run online courses on writing hypertext fiction, and I'm sure there are a lot more. I can see great potential in using small listserv groups for semi-formal tutorials - the tutor/facilitator sends out a group of poems to the participants, who then discuss them on the list. Or, with better technology, a linking of web pages with real-time Internet Relay Chat links - although one would run into problems with time zones there. Tom Beard ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 19:41:39 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ken Edwards <100344.2546@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Albert Hall Thanks, Cris, for your view from the other side of the performer/audience divide. Remember I was a mile away in the gods in the first half so couldn't always see too well, and tho the sound was basically good the famed Albert Hall reverb got in the way of the semantics sometimes. I enjoyed your/Sianed's performance, and indeed most of the evening. Sorry about the xmas tree misconception... good one. love, Ken ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 20:46:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Scroggins Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukowski In-Reply-To: <951019134042_75587430@emout06.mail.aol.com> Yeah, Chris, I get that Zuk/Buk thing all the time--having dinner with a prominent harvard Engdept person, he says to me, "you're working on zukofsky? I just got back from Germany, and he's the most popular American poet there..." Of course he meant Chas., not Louis. Dodie: the lowdown on the Zukofsky/Niedecker affair, such as is known of it, is outlined in Glenna Breslin, "Lorine Niedecker: Composing a Life," in _Revealing Lives: Gender in Autobiography and Biography_, ed. Bell and Yalom (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990). hard to assess what's true and false. The major sources of information on this are in large part people who have bones to pick with Zukofsky, it seems to me. Far more interesting are the Niedecker letters edited by Jenny Penberthy (Cambridge UP, 1993), which include almost nothing from the years when the two were (one supposes) lovers. What's clear is that Celia Zukofsky (born Thaew) was probably no richer than Zukofsky himself. According to Penberthy, Z and LN had reached a "platonic resolution" to their affair--ie they were just "good friends"--by 1936. Zukofsky married in 1938, and Niedecker was a close friend to the family thru the end of her life. Mark Scroggins ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 11:20:13 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Cayley Subject: Albert Hall I was there too (something I'm not sure I'll be mentioning -- in a casual/proud undertone -- to my grandchildren) and have enjoyed both Ken and Cris's reports. I thought I should dash off some sort of response quickly before I just let it go. I don't think the explicit aspect of sixties throwback was sufficiently highlighted (despite references to Donavan and Dylan). Two film clips were shown (Ginsburg most prominent) of a famous event in '65 (I'm too 'young' and wasn't in the UK until '69 anyway) at the same venue. Horovitz spoke of 'building on the "energies"' of the more current event for an Festival of International Poetry next July. Whaaat? And many in the audience were, I think, revenants experiencing flashbacks. (I still can't quite construe the rubric: 'the return of the reforgotten'.) Who were the others? I met few people I recognized from the 'subvoicive' poetry circuits. Average age: thirty something? maybe younger. Certain regions of the audience seemed to consist of older overdressed arts admin, a little uncomfortable in the would-be art-rock-concert atmosphere. I also detected strong contingents of the supposedly burgeoning 'poetry slam', 'open mike' groups -- vocal and cohesive, verging on (middle class white) gang culture. The audience was *white*. But the 60s film clips gave the lie. There was nothing anarchic, ambiguous, evolving or challenging (I mean in respect of the audience/performer relationship) about this event. The audience was audience. Nobody even drank any absinthe (and this is the 90s). There *was* a lot of applause. I clapped almost everything (sometimes hating myself for doing so). My biggest disappointment was Douglas Oliver. I too had accorded him the god-like status of difficult memory, but in this context he seemed flat and I don't think this was simply because he was 'just reading'. Denise Riley's set gave the lie to this interpretation. I think my greatest, *unexpected* delight was Kennelly Joyce/Holy Family dinner party piece, already much remarked upon. Cris and Sianed's performance I did much enjoy, and noticed the light responding to vocal dynamics, effectively I thought. There was a lot of applause, but there were also strong, mixed reactions. As Aaron Williamson gave his truly *phonemenal* (sic) performance, a number of people behind me (I was towards the back of the arena) laughed repeatedly and loudly. I put it down to a 'very-English' unwillingness to engage seriously with the extreme, the radical. I guess that, generally, the organizers intended to re-radicalize our notion of poetry/language arts. I believe that the event may have altered or undermined relatively fixed notions of poetry in the minds of a small portion of the (unconverted) audience, but just as many of them will have gone away 'put-off' by the more extreme alternatives. I have one good neighbour, a serious, open-minded, sometime reader of poetry (a reader! a reader! one who don't write!) -- though not so much of 'innovative poetics' -- who just found the whole thing negative-extraordinary. Couldn't understand my unwillingness to take it apart -- I want/wanted to love it so much. (Why? Partly because it was not, and pointedly not, Heaney, NewGen, Nobel and Co., blessed be their spade-like pens and dynamite diction.) And the audience did, generally, like the two performers, Dunn and Macartney, who I thought really sucked the big one, so I guess I'll have to go on reading Kipling's 'If' and try to stay cool. I gathered from Howard Marks introductory remarks that he was a big *soft* drug-dealer ('the good weed' as he put it), recently released from jail. Counter-culter in deed. His introductions were measured and excellent (strong contrast with Moorcock). He spoke to the question of poetry's influence in stimulating creative engagement and, if he was sincere, this was a great tribute to the eclectic group he introduced. But 'build on these energies' -- I fear it would be like trying to build on a tangled heap of disparate threads. - - - - - - John Cayley Wellsweep Press [in Chinese HZ: ~{?-U\02~} ~{=[i@3v0fIg~}] ^ fine, innovative literary translation from Chinese ^ 1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK Tel & Fax: 0171-267 3525 Email: cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk 1995 URLs: http://www.inforamp.net/~cayley [= home] + /wshome.html [= Wellsweep] + /inhome.html [= Indra's Net] - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 18:29:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Cabri? In-Reply-To: <0099819D.50753C86.54@admin.njit.edu> from "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" at Oct 19, 95 11:20:09 am If Louis Cabri is still out there/here, could you forward me Mark Nakada's email address? Roy Miki told me you should have it. Or anyone who knows Mark out here/there. Thanks, Ryan Knighton knighton@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 00:05:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: a spoonful of sugar Tom, Your points are well taken. I think my original spoonful of sugar comment was too flippant, and I apologize for that. It's just that I'm feeling a bit jaded and discouraged in terms of reaching a broader audience. I have laced my work with so much "sugar" (sex, pop culture, horror, humor, narrative even) that it could throw a weak reader into diabetic shock. Yet, when I've sent my work to presses whose books are geared to reach a wider audience--some of which have published Kathy Acker and some of the poets on this list--my work has been received as basically unmarketable gibberish. (Dalkey Archives is a notable exception.) Friends of mine have taught my work to undergraduates, who had no trouble understanding it--so what does this say about people who control the publishing of prose? If you can find a wider audience for your work, more power to you. Personally, I like austere white wines, which makes me feel like a traitor to my home state of California. Those big fruity Chardonnays--yuck. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 00:05:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukowski Mark, Thank you for your thoughtful response concerning N&Z. The person who took me to visit her home last Friday did tell me that Niedecker stayed friends with Zukowski, taking a special interest in his son. My guide was really into telling one heart-wrenching story about her after another, and I totally sucumbed to his mini-series version of her life. Things like how all her decisions were based on her writing, how when her eyesight was going bad she quit her job proof-reading and washed floors for a living--in order to save her eyes for writing. Is this story true? I haven't the foggiest idea. I stood there beside that sad little shack, facing that shallow but dramatic river that threatened to eat up all the land, looked at the poorness of the lives that the people there lead. Then my guide would talk about the glamor of New York that Zukowski offered her. And I wanted with all my heart for her to have had that glamor. But could those poems of hers have been written in an urban world? Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 00:05:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: Geese and 'trolls' All these "silly" lawn ornaments bearing the weight of all these other cultural phenomena, remind me of Steven Shaviro's discussion of Night of the Living Dead in his book The Cinematic Body. Unfortunately, I don't have the book here in Indiana, but I do have a passage from it I twisted and collaged into the Letters of Mina Harker. I used it to talk about Vampire's Secret Ice Pops. But, I'll substitute "lawn geese" for "ice pops"so you can see what I'm talking about. "These lawn geese are wildly discontinuous, flamboyantly antinaturalistic, and nonsensically grotesque. Yet the more ridiculously excessive and self-consciously artificial they are, the more literal is their visceral impact. They can't be kept at a distance, for they can't be referred to anything beyond themselves. Their simulations are radically immediate: they no longer pretend to stand in for, or to represent, a previously existing real." I like the way symbolic tropes have been ripped from their context and stuck on a goose, or a gnome. Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 00:40:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Zuk, Buk, and Cuke Chris Stroffolino wrote: >I like the conflation of Zuk and Buk! Thanks, dodie. >I mean "thanks dodie" Chris, I stand corrected and shamed, with a big red Z emblazoned across my chest. Yes, I'm horrible at typing and spelling. Often "w"s are pronounced as "v"s--so I gave it my old college try. Actually, I never read Zuk in college--though I did on my own in high school. But I've never ever read Buk. You've unearthed my biggest weakness in posing as an intellectual--I know a zillion times more about female writers than I do about male ones. And I'm sure that that's a mere spoonful compared to the other great minds on this list. You're such a clever young man. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 17:58:45 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: the audience Comments: To: beard@MET.CO.NZ dear tom, re. your listener who hadn't read C, but had been told to come by a lecturer, and the Pavement reviewer who actually does know the poetry well but gave you the impression he did not...these were i think my other subject. I wasn't concerned to make a distinction between active and passive readers but to point to members of the audience most broadly conceived who have not read, heard, the work (yet, ever) at all. i.e. there is a 'readership' of those who have received the work at one or more removes. Once it is with them it is most fully in circulation. When information, poems included, enters the bloodstream it get broken down, it combines with other information willynilly and comes out holus bolus, gets written into new messages, echoed in shifting vocabularies and accents of whole populations, gets confused with expressions of love, the develop,ment of new product lines and the continued viability of political platforms. None of this can be discerned by counting heads at readings or understanding why salesmen snarl at those who demand books by Louis Zukovsky. wystan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 22:38:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: jesse taylor-york I was very sad to recently learn of the death of one of the poetry community's most promising voices, Jesse Taylor-York, of a heart attack, in her apartment in San Francisco. She was in her early thirties. I urge everyone to check out the excerpt from her novel _The Cult of Her_ (I'm not sure if it was finished) that appeared in, I believe it was the Summer '93 issue of _Zzyzyva_. having turned my words to the dead on accident I conjure a haunted feeling lost within a dimness heavied with ghosts empty of senses not seeing me if I want anything in this strange country I must fashion fingertips dipped in blood bring the dead a haunted feeling of another place before this place drunk on memories and overcome with reunion they practically tell me exactly what I want to hear --Jesse Taylor-York ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 22:43:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: dissin dat In-Reply-To: <199510200401.VAA17888@sparta.SJSU.EDU> I don't know a gnome from a troll, perhaps because there were neither gardens nor bridges (and precious few brothers to feed to such) in the neighborhood where I was hatched. Did, though, once make use of an audio bridge. I once sent a French envelope via e-mail, but that's not really the kind of share-ware we want to encourage. I think of Lorine every time I heqr that old blues song about sleeping with your head in the kitchen and your "feets out in the hall." Gotta dash -- best to Emily and all. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 16:41:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: AWOL: Ulitarra Magazine Ulitarra magazine In 1991, Laura Danckwerts and Donald Westlake, then living on the mid-north coast of New South Wales, entered into a partnership with MichaelSharkey and Tony Bennett of Kardoorair Press in Armidale, to produce the first issue of Ulitarra, which has been published twice a year since 1992. As it has turned out, the format for that first issue - a mix of ideas from disparate personalities - has now become the recognisable format for the magazine: Les Murray suggested the name*, Michael Wilding the publication of translations, Laura Danckwerts the committment to publishing some Aboriginal writing in every issue, and Donald Westlake the poetry and short story competitions. Robert Adamson became poetry editor with issue No 3, in 1993, and from the next issue, No 8, will been joined by J S Harry. Four years later, the original partnership having dissolved, and Laura Danckwerts and Donald Westlake having moved back to Sydney,the magazine has a steadily growing list of subscibers and receives assistance from the NSW Ministry for the Arts and the Literature Board of the Australia Council. Ulitarra is now self-sufficient in the sense that it no longer requires private funding. Since we started Ulitarra it has grown from 64 to 146 pages per issue, and now that we have gained confidence, we've put fiction where it rightfully belongs, that is in the hands of new writers. In our first issue, 50% of fiction was from high profile writers and 50% from new writers, but in our latest issue, No 7, all the fiction is from writers ranging from those being published for the first time, to those who are just about to be taken on by the big publishers. We still publish well-known writers when we get the chance, of course, but don't actively seek them in the way we did at the beginning. We don't have a preference for genre. We'll publish anything from a vignette, a traditional dramatic-form story, or a piece of realist fiction, to the most outrageously unclassifiable post-modern experiment, providing it has impact. We're always on the lookout for the ideosyncratic, distinctive voice, the unusual narrative position. Essays are more difficult. Whereas most of our fiction is unsolicited, we have yet to receive an acceptable essay that way. Our essays so far have been commissioned, with subject matter ranging through music and architecture to the lives and works of the foreign writers we publish in translation. Poetry editor, Robert Adamson, says: all the poetry we publish is of very high quality. I try to select as many poems as possible from those that are sent to us unsolicited, and always include one or more poets who have never been published before in each issue. Once we publish a poet we offer continued support and publication as their careers develop. With each issue I consciously choose poems from the various factions that exists in Australia, without favouring any one, and I encourage experimental writing. I don't fill issues ahead of time, but make my final decisions just prior to publication. There's a great deal of hard work and certainly no money in editing Ulitarra We seem to be driven by a simple love of literature and a drive towards what we perceive as excellence. Sometimes we despair of the workload, but in every case, the published issue makes it worthwhile. Writers and readers and editors and publishers are all in this thing together, they're symbiotic. But the writer's art is represented by asingle piece of prose or poetry, whereas ours is in the planning of each issue, the juxtaposition of pieces, and finally the palpable volume itself, to be felt, flipped through, read and enjoyed. Each issue is like a newborn child. In every instance, we always feel as we've really achieved something. Ulitarra runs a poetry competition and a short story competition annually. Winners are published in the magazine and receive a cash prize. The December issue is launched as part of the Sydney Writers' Festival each year, at Gleebooks in Glebe, together with the presentation of the short story prize to the winner. *Ulitarra (or Yuludarra) was the first hero ancestor of the Koori tribes of the mid-north coast of New South Wales. He came from the land where the sun rises, shaped the landforms, and fathered and named the tribes. He taught them their languages and particularty the art of storytelling. He now lives somewhere in the sky. Submissions to Ulitarra are always welcome and should be sent to PO Box 392, French's Forest, NSW, 2086. Single issues cost $8, and a year's subscription $15. ************************ Australian Writing OnLine is a publicity and distribution service for Australian writers and publishers. For further information please email us at M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au, write to AWOL PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia, phone (02) 747 5667 or fax (02) 747 2802. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 10:05:46 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R I Caddel Subject: Niedecker/Zukofsky In-Reply-To: <199510200406.FAA09085@hermes.dur.ac.uk> Dodie, picking up on possible name-varients, is Lorine Niedecker's name still mis-spelled on her grave, or have the local enthusiasts fixed it? When I visited (about this time of year ten years ago) it was NEIDECKER and yes, I too met the gravedigger, soused in his own beer at the little bar down at the point. The gremlins do get to that name from time to time - when we published "Harpsichord & Salt Fish", we proofread like blazes - and still ended up with NEIDECKER on the bloody title page... Sometimes keyboards, pens and chisels are all too light. The No.1Fan - that would be Karl Gartung? I too was taken by, etc etc. The river was in flood, a flock of grackles wheeled around us, and a local guide said, "Lorine n Al used to call that garage "University of Texas", never could figure why..." And reminisced about Al falling in the river and soaking his paycheck etc... So much for the oral tradition. But it's good to see the place - I like to horrify both Romantics and Objectivists by pointing out how similar the enviroment of Rock River / Lake Koshkonong is to the Peterborough fens in Clare's day. As to the LN/LZ affair, I follow Mark's reading of it (and direction to Penberthy's ed. of the letters) - would only add that, as I see it, it was never on to expect LN to shift to New York, or LZ to shift (other than visit) to Lake Koshkonong, or either to shift to another place etc etc. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x x x x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x x - Basil Bunting x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 07:34:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Scroggins Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukofsky In-Reply-To: <951020000525_75795858@mail06.mail.aol.com> Dodie: My knowledge of the particulars of Niedecker's life is embarassingly shaky, but it _is_ hard to imagine her writing those poems in New York (just as one can only wonder what Zukofsky would have written if he, like Leslie Fiedler, were exiled to Missoula). In case there are some date-fascists out there, yes, I got the year of LZ's marriage wrong--1939, not 1938. Mark ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 09:11:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ULMER SPRING Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukowski Dodie. thanks for describing Niedecker's homeplace. i once visited rupert brook's grave on the island of skyros, greece. there is a naked statue and a sign: To Rupert Brook. My father is a fan of rb since rb wrote he was forty times more sensitive than the average man. hmmm. eagerly await any news on the Niedecker/Zukowski thing. -spring ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 09:29:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: odo/zoon hypoleptikon "Under conditions of acceleration, methodical out-of-dateness may in fact be, for human beings, the most promising strategy for always being maximally up to date." ("Universal History and Multiversal History",from _In Defense of the Accidental_, Odo Marquard, Oxford,1991) Love that "for human beings", Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 09:26:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ULMER SPRING Subject: Re: Distant Lover Study With. Yes. I think a very demanding field for a 'teacher,' esp. one on one. 'Students' like me are more vocal with a keyboard, and there can be much more of a relation between teacher/student. I am all for different ways of learning, and question the authoritarian model... But I know from experience that distance learning has allowed me a *space* to voice my needs as a student - and I have realized that learning to communicate is essential to allowing oneself to be taught. I have learned more from communicating personally with both professors and my peers online, than from academic subjects I can teach myself. spring ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 09:33:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ULMER SPRING Subject: Re: Geese and 'trolls' i guess you didn't grow up with cut-outs of Black men lighting the way. that's what is on lawns in upstate vermont. i don't like the way that has been "ripped out of context and stuck on" a lawn. spring ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 08:51:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukofsky In-Reply-To: On Fri, 20 Oct 1995, Mark Scroggins wrote: > In case there are some date-fascists out there, yes, I got the year of > LZ's marriage wrong--1939, not 1938. Date-fascists? Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg No ideas but in things. University Writing Program --W.C. Williams Duke University Durham, NC 27708 No ideas in things, either. kellogg@acpub.duke.edu --John Ashbery ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 09:39:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ULMER SPRING Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukofsky i thought niedecker either took care of her mother for most of her life at the same time as working "menial" jobs... or? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 11:26:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: (none) Greetings. http://infobahn.com:80/pages/anagram.html Enjoy, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 11:25:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "CAROLYN L. FORCHE-MATTISON" Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion (Review) Comments: To: Robert Drake In-Reply-To: <199510192233.SAA07184@kanga.INS.CWRU.Edu> This CD-ROM is still under construction, or rather construction has been suspended. 110 Press is Bruce Kijewski and friends, some refugees from Voyager, who would like to produce poets/writers in this format and have the same difficulties as start-up small presses, except that the equipment costs are prohibitive without financial backing. They taped a reading of the whole work in L.A. several years ago, were dissatisfied with the sound, didn't release the disk, and would like to do it again. Several of us remain skeptical of this format, which seems confined to text + talking head in a little box. I just bought PiM2, with its surprizingly interesting list of poets, and will see what they've been able to do as soon as I can find the disk holder. An interesting note: I was able to "obtain" the electronic rights to my published work from (Rupert Murdoch's) HarperCollins simply by asking for them. I now have a letter assignment me those rights, which I thought was very strange, until one considers that these houses are not yet very sophisticated about these matters (witness the quality of their own elecontronic productions) and, of course, there is no need for them to protect their ownership of poetry which is worth (as has been observed on this list) less than blank paper. I'm much more intrigued by hyper-text than by CD-ROM. The latter doesn't seem to do more with poetry than can be done with print and video. I'd be interested to hear what others think... --Carolyn On Thu, 19 Oct 1995, Robert Drake wrote: > lost track of who originally asked about poetry on CD-ROM, > but stumbled across a reference (on her homepage) to Carolyn > Forche's _Country Between Us_ in multimedia cdrom format, > from 110 press, (LA, 1994)... praps, carolyn, you conuld > tell us something about it, or the process of making it? > > luigi > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 12:00:52 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Zukowski Subject: Re: Zuk, Buk, and Cuke In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 20 Oct 1995 00:40:04 -0400 from Dodie, For a while there, I was under the impression that I actually am related to the late, great Zukofsky--I've told so many poets, "Nope, no relation." Anyway, I'm still inspired. Thanks for bringing up the subject and the clarification. Peter Zukowski zukowski@uic.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 12:15:47 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds In-Reply-To: Bart: You're right when you say we're having a problems with definitions. Before you have poetry, you have to have a Poet, with all its attendent ideologies of individuality and genius. You mention B. (sorry, I generally spell his name about 33 different ways and none of them are correct) and symbolic capital. I suggest that it is not poetry unless it is the means for symbolic capital. All people may have poetry, just as all people have music, or soul, or whatever, but not all people have Brahms. This is not a value. Brahms means darkened halls, tuxedoes, gowns and sophisticated chatter. We need to contextualize what we mean by "west," because in one sense there is no such thing and in another sense there is nothing else for us and us only. Writing it down is all we know at this point. To pretend otherwise is to forget monopoly capitalism, the interiorization of literacy, the deployment of sexuality, etc. etc. To forget administration. Poetry is a specific kind of overdetermined historical writing. There are other things. There are Hallmark cards and song lyrics and spells. But none of them are taught and none of them are sanctioned. Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 16:48:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Zuk, Buk, and Cuke Well Dodie I am only a "clever young man" to the extent you write "unmarketable gibberish" or to the extent that Zukofski lived a "glamourous" life away from India as I sit here lising to Oti and Carla singing "TRAMP"!-----chris s. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 19:22:13 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kathryne lindberg Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 20 Oct 1995 12:15:47 CDT from I don't quite understand the construction, "before you have poetry you have to have a poet." It seems that,whether one wants to think on Marx or on Neitzsche or on neither, the subject or the historical individual is, at least in some senses both epistemologically and ontologically and certainly etho-aesthetically an effect rather than the cause of something as complex as language as poetry or the act of making something called poetry. Besides POET, as opposed to poetaster or more recent flames from taste wars, is an overwrought or highly crafted epithet. No? just a random question or so. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 20:25:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Smith Subject: Re: Poetry in Motion (Review) Carolyn writes: "They taped a reading of the whole work in L.A. several years ago, were dissatisfied with the sound, didn't release the disk, and would like to do it again. Several of us remain skeptical of this format, which seems confined to text + talking head in a little box. I just bought PiM2, with its surprizingly interesting list of poets, and will see what they've been able to do as soon as I can find the disk holder." The sound on the first disk wasn't so great either, at least not on the copy I heard/saw. The friend who bought it wound up sending it back for just that reason. Picture quality (was it Loss who mentioned this?) was also not so good. Anyone know if they used the film or video for the CD? The CD was fun to play w/ for one evening, but lacked the fluidity & rhythmic punch of the film as I recall it. I think Carolyn's right that the technological form is basically limited. SF MOMA has similar CD's available, where one can view pictures & hear interviews, which is even more limited. It gives you nothing mmore than a book can, & the reproductions' quality is worse. At least w/ poetry, you hear the reader's voice & pacing & performance style. Wish I could check out the Little Mag, but I don't know anyone w/ an IBM CD-ROM. all best, Charles ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 20:25:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Smith Subject: Re: LN & LZ Just read today Dodie's description of Lorine's home w/ much appreciation. I'm one of those bi-coastal types who's never been to the mid-west. Dodie asks: " But could those poems of hers have been written in an urban world?" Perhaps not w/ the place-specific content of her work she's so often remembered by. The importance of Jenny Penberthy's scholarship has been to demonstrate LN's commitment to avant-garde writing practices beginning at an early (pre-Zukofsky) period of her life & continuing thruout. As important as I believe Niedecker's work is to an innovative poetics of place (& of the noun), Jenny has shown that Niedecker contributed to a whole range of innovative practices which she equally deserves to be recognized for. Witness how well the selection in Messerli's anthology stands up to current practice. Much of Niedecker's material came out of her reading & letters which don't depend on living in rural WI. LN definitly had a cosmopolitan sense of herself. I believe at this point there's no debate as to an affair between Niedecker & Zukofsky, & that she terminated a pregnancy (twins I heard). I've heard from Cid Corman & Carl Rakosi that Zukofsky "passed her off" to his friend Jerry Reisman, & that yes, the fact she wasn't Jewish was a factor in the non-continuance of their relationship. Are either of these "true"?-I don't know. Celia was by no means rich, but apparently did have a small amount of $ to bring to the marriage-an amount that was significant at that time. as to: "Niedecker stayed friends with Zukowski, taking a special interest in his son." & "Niedecker was a close friend to the family thru the end of her life." There's an obvious psychological reading of her interest in the young Paul Zukofsky, & it was an interest Celia apparently didn't always appreciate. Though Niedecker remained devoted to him, Zukofsky did turn from her, as he did from most of his friends during the 60's. Penberthy notes his refusal to write an introduction for her collected, _T & G_, and his lack of contribution to the festschrift Jonathan Williams put together, _Epitaphs For Lorine_. Not to demonize LZ-his late-life bitterness is all too poignant, but he seems to have been so poisoned by it as to be incapable of maintaining relationships outside the family. There's a sense that her correspondence with Corman in the 60s compensated for the fading relationship w/ LZ. Anyway, the good news for LN readers is that a batch of papers escaped the great conflagration (Al Millen's posthumous burning of her papers at her request) which contain notes used in the Lake Superior sequence. Jenny Penberthy is currently working on them. Something to look forward to! There's also some fascinating research material LN compiled on the Grand Canyon. Unclear as to whether it was dropped from the sequence (perhaps an early conception of 'the mineral'?), or intended for an other poem altogether. charles ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 19:37:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: Albert Hall chris cheek wrote: > Moorcock's on but I can't hear him properly. Aidan Dun's guitar >tinkles away and momentarily I think of Ali Farka Toure, then Donovan as >his voice comes in (he was most distant of the performers for me, gets >reviewed as Rimbaud like, or some such, in The Independent newspaper - >what's Rimbaud like mean?) I don't know, but thanks for the rundown. AND the less pejorative use of the term "Donovan." Steve ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 23:15:03 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Albert Hall John brings up the dark underbelly of this event, quite rightly. These were all too present in every aspect at every stage - before, during and after 'the show'. Were all those who took part co-opted, by association or implication, onto the naive committees of the 1965 platform? (doesn't this ring bells for the Apex of Briefs?) A fundamental ambivalence towards culture as a capital of identity was being re-negotiated within a capital of Culture. (although I would argue that the challenge was to set up sufficiently thorny complexities of resistance so as to generate nervous laughter - as that which John witnessed - a refusal to engage with the radical signalling a preparation) Here was one of the last travelling circuses from the fifties and sixties (Time Out apparently previewed it as a safe haven for beards and berets) and here were some of its last 'maverick' fading constellations. I.E. here witness the passing (the packagaing or 'pasting') of a bygone time, bygone agenda and bygone aspirations with which we all became complicit. There, one more backwater navigated and mapped. The Children of the E-Volition (The Return of the Reforgotten). A strange collection of curios from beyond the pale. An exercise in museology. Difference was supressed in favour of active celebration of diversity - big political mirror balls - but hybridity was introduced through some of the work and that residue provides the most positive and resonant strategy from this event. Now I feel that's the energy that could be built on. But was anyone paying much attention? The audience (yes John you're absolutely right on its insistence to be an audience) found it hard to resist the impulse to live out nostalgia for the fantasy most had already missed out on - when McCartney was introduced the Albert Hall itself almost screamed a teenage scream. The political illusion of spectatorial Time travel is indeed become more possible - and its allure scares the pith from me, peace, love and puppet cris ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 02:03:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: anagram Jordan Davis wrote: http://infobahn.com:80/pages/anagram.html I got an anagram program for my Mac by doing a search for "anagram" on Anarchie and downloading it. I was able to sucessfully e-mail a copy to Bob Harrison, who works on a Mac at his office. Kevin and I put in the names of our cats, "BLANCHE AND STANLEY," and the first anagram that came up was "CHANNELED BY SATAN." We turned off the computer. I also gave a copy to a friend in San Francisco, who is using it for divination. Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 02:03:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: Zuk, Buk, and Cuke Now that I'm back in Milwaukee I have access to all the Zukofsky (I'll never forget how to spell that name) any girl could want. This past year I wrote an article for a free weekly on a religious cult. One of the techniques members of the cult use is called The Golden-Tongued Wisdom. The basis of this is that spirit speaks to us in strange ways. So, to use The Golden-Tongued Wisdom, what you do is that you form a question in your mind on which you'd like some guidance--and then the answer will come to you by something you will hear in a passing conversation on the street, or in the lyrics of a song on the radio, in a street sign, etc. You can also open a book with your question in mind, and the first thing you come upon in the book will be spirit's reply. So, thinking about all this discussion of Zuk, Buk, and Niedecker, I asked for some sort of summary as I opened Zukofsky's _Complete Short Poetry_. This is what I saw: Sculptures in the shadow of round wall-- Primitive monumental nameless as the carver Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 02:03:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: Niedecker/Zukofsky Richard, Yes, LN's name is still spelled Neidecker on the tombstone, which she shares with her mother and father. Did you go to the truckstop nearby that has the giant pastries? They have cream puffs there as big as your head. Well, almost. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 04:38:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukofsky >My knowledge of the particulars of Niedecker's life is embarassingly >shaky, but it _is_ hard to imagine her writing those poems in New York >(just as one can only wonder what Zukofsky would have written if he, like Leslie Fiedler, were exiled to Missoula). Missoula is a lovely town, not unlike Boulder. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 04:48:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Respelling LZ "Zukofski".... Well, people have been complaining about the spelling of Niedecker, but there have been 4 separate spellings of Zukofsky on this list in the past 3 days, and two versions of Ginsberg. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 09:42:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: LN & LZ Charles Smith comments, beginning with a quote from Dodie's post: " But could those poems of hers have been written in an urban world?" Perhaps not w/ the place-specific content of her work she's so often remembered by. The importance of Jenny Penberthy's scholarship has been to demonstrate LN's commitment to avant-garde writing practices beginning at an early (pre-Zukofsky) period of her life & continuing thruout. As important as I believe Niedecker's work is to an innovative poetics of place (& of the noun), Jenny has shown that Niedecker contributed to a whole range of innovative practices which she equally deserves to be recognized for. Witness how well the selection in Messerli's anthology stands up to current practice. Much of Niedecker's material came out of her reading & letters which don't depend on living in rural WI. LN definitly had a cosmopolitan sense of herself. I'd be interested in other's take on this notion of cosmopolitan/midwestern (Smith earlier confesses to his own bi-coastal never-been-to-the-midwest nature. My own take on Niedecker, while acknowledging her reading and correspondence, would not be to say her sense of herself, and her subsequent poetics, depended on a cosmopolitan nature, rather that perhaps literary innovation, current practice, avant-garde poetics, etc. -- have far less to do, of necessity, with the urban, than is often presumed by many. I have long contended that one could be as avant-garde in central Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Wisconsin -- as anywhere. Particularly in today's connected electronic world, but also in Niedecker's day. charles ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 10:45:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Scroggins Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukofsky In-Reply-To: <199510211138.EAA14347@ix10.ix.netcom.com> > Missoula is a lovely town, not unlike Boulder. > Oh yes indeed, don't get me wrong, love those picturesque western cities--but LZ in Missoula? or Boulder? I read him more & more as inextricably entwined with NY. Mark ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 09:57:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukofsky >>My knowledge of the particulars of Niedecker's life is embarassingly >>shaky, but it _is_ hard to imagine her writing those poems in New York >>(just as one can only wonder what Zukofsky would have written if he, >like Leslie Fiedler, were exiled to Missoula). > >Missoula is a lovely town, not unlike Boulder. Since most writers I know in NY or SF are not natives there, shall I assume they have been exiled there? and that such exile is pleasant or unpleasant? And thanks, Ron, Missoula is lovely. as is southern Wisconsin, where Lorine lived. charles ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 12:38:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Smith Subject: Re: LN & LZ By using the word "cosmopolitan," I wasn't really referring to an urban/rural or mid-west/coastal split, but simply that Niedecker had a firm grasp on current international literary trends (long before she met LZ). Penberthy's quite convincing that her early interest in surrealism is sustained throughout her career, despite Zukofsky's desire to wean her from it. Charles Alexander is quite correct that writers can be cutting-edge no matter where they live. The geographical spread of this list provides ample testimony. Even Kansas: there's Ron Johnson & Ken Irby. Cultural centers, be they NY, Paris, or SF, always seem to think they're more important than is actually the case. all best, Charles Smith ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 14:37:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Respelling LZ Ginsberg, Gunsberg-- I still say LOUIE rather than LOUIS too, so there! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 14:40:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Niedecker and Zukofsky dear mark scroggins---do you really see PLACE as that big in Zuk's work? It seems more bookish---now NYC is the book capital allegedly (i mean publishing--even if the bookstores increasingly suck--), but... (it always seemed to me that he could have written them in INDIANA and followed LN....). cs ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 14:55:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: outpost entropy, etc. Well, I don't know if this is "the next KEVIN DAVIES" or anything, but I received the first issue today of a magazine from an old dear friend in a small town in PA. and she is definitely looking for submissions from people other than the "local yokels" and so this list seemed a highly fitting place to start i thought--- Anyway, the magazine is called "OUTPOST ENTROPY" and though I don't wish to speak for the editor's taste, I will quote in part from the letter she sent me today: :By the way I watched Louis Farrakhan speak to the million man march today---very interesting to say the least--insightful, highly, in certain ways, lots of strawmen and specious reasoning though. He gave a speech/sermon specifically tailored to appear to be for black men, yet it was generalizing enough to appeal to ANYONE margin- alized in this society and subsequently malcontent...." Okay---Not that she's JUST a politico---She likes Ashbery too... Anyway---in the wake of the near death i hear of THE IMPERCIPIENT-- you should all send to: OUTPOST ENTROPY c/o C.Kaucher 226 W. Main St. Kutztwon, Pa. 19530. Also, I wanted to make a correction addition to the note posted by Bill CLinton's house saxophonist, Kenny G., about the poetry reading to benefit LINGO mag that will be held here in Albany, NY--- "the weakness of an albany" as Olson would say-- exactly a week from today 10-28-- Aside from myself, Jean Donnelley, Juliana s. lisa j., michael g., linda s. and the local blues band fb&c there will also be featured ROD SMITH---yes ROD "Aerial/edge" SMITH---or RODOMY as they say in PRI. For any info--feel free to call me at 518-He-Binge..... chris stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 15:24:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: my place is better than your place Charles Alexander wrote: > Since most writers I know in NY or SF are not natives there, shall I assume > they have been exiled there? and that such exile is pleasant or unpleasant? Born and raised in NY. Live here now. All place is exile. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 21 Oct 1995 18:45:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "B. Cassidy" Subject: Voice synth. In-Reply-To: <30895716.2BA7@panix.com> Sorry to burden the whole list with this request....But... A week or so ago, someone mentioned a text to computerized voice convertor...I'm afriad I can't remeber who that was...Anyway, I used to have one of those (years ago) for my Apple, but had forgotten about it until it was recently brought up again. I would like to get my hands on one (ftp/gopher searches have been unfruitful). Could whoever it was who mentioned it please backchannel me w/info on what they're using/where I could get my hands on it? Thanks... --Brian ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 03:39:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Metroplex Charles Smith argues, reasonably, that > "Charles Alexander is quite correct that writers can be cutting-edge no matter where they live. The geographical spread of this list provides ample testimony. Even Kansas: there's Ron Johnson & Ken Irby. Cultural centers, be they NY, Paris, or SF, always seem to think they're more important than is actually the case." Given how much the NY School depended on Tulsa, OK, the case is proven. But, historically, metro centers have proven vital primarily because they brought people into contact. Ken Irby was the first poet I ever saw, a regular at the Med coffee house on Telegraph Ave in Berkeley circa '64, writing into a notebook. Johnson was introduced to large portions of the literary universe by Jonathon Williams (a cultural center all by himself wherever he happens to be), then lived for 20 years in SF. Last time I talked with Kenneth, a little over a year ago, he had seen Johnson exactly once since he'd moved back to Kansas. Older writers have (again, historically) needed that sort of contact far less than younger ones. The constant contact of a scene helps younger ones to define themselves as poets, to push themselves further than they might have gone under other circumstances. Certainly there are poets in In the American Tree who might never have published, let alone widely, had they lived all their lives in Missoula. And the relative obscurity, say, of Paul Piper (a fine experimental poet long active in Missoula) to some degree proves the point. The internet and the communications revolution that it offers (this here list is a model T compared to what will be coming in 5 to 10 years) may well change this. And if it means that poets need not be isolated due to geographic remoteness, well then it's a good thing. Ron ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 10:28:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Beth Russell Subject: cats Dodie Bellamy, I've often felt that my cat, Mojo, was "channeled by satan"....speaking of computer divination, have you seen/used the _I Ching_ (or Book of Changes) program? Also, there is Tarot on the Web...the mystics are becoming cyber-ized....which may not be a _bad_ thing altogether... Beth ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 10:48:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Beth Russell Subject: "creative"/theoretical Specifically to Maria Damon....although I have little experience (or none) teaching at the level of the university, I must say that I've heard and felt much angst from fellow students abt. the creative/theoretical split w/in workshops, etc. Some feel that theory-people get _out of hand_ or tend to dominate discussion w/solely theoretical constructs...and the folks who would rathr focus on the _writing_ aspect feel the workshop turns into a seminar or colloquia...seems to me (and I do agree w/you about bringing in say, foucault, marx, etc) there _should_ be an exploration into _all_ methods of discourse, for this certainly enriches the praxis of creating, writing/sound/visual mediums. I think of the San Fransisco _movement_, Spicer, Duncan, Blaser, et al and how their pedagogical ideas/methds were worked into the process of thinking/writing/creating.. I mean, what are the limits? I do feel, however, a need for a _balance_ w/in the _conventional_ classroom, just speaking from my experiences w/in the state university of new york system...a balance within the types of discourse or _theory_ used and the discussion of the student's writing... hoping to make sense, Beth ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 14:43:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Sherwood Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Zukofsky's Urban NY Placing Zukofsky Partly a walk through the city, A13 is a primary site of the urban in Zukosfky: from A13 --Yes, he was thrown in a heap Out of Carnegie Hall for yelling ... Twenty years since I've walked From 12 Street home all the way Across Brooklyn Bridge. ... The old Fire House museum on Duane Street. ... We saw the rat lofts on Greene Street ... The Triangle fire how many corpses Hasn't burnt them--fire traps, rat lofts Iron-doored, boarded--at last--coming down. In the infants and ladies whitegoods, shoddy remnant textile district The risen arcades of Richardson's spacious windows Persist stacking relrected formations of clouds over Lower Broadway ... Linen against an elegance when the Mews were still real stables Behind the *American Classical* of Wasthington Square. ... That bridges to span it piers and boats, ... Waterfront Of the fantastic island To the North That but for a little green Is entirely buidlings And pavement ... Watched over By the Empire State There are plenty of other explicitly (ie referentially) urban moments in Zukofksy, which is not even addressing (as Ahearn argues) the issues of Yiddish theatre and poetry influence [cf. Yehoash] or growing up in neighborhood of 300,000 persons/sq.mile with respect to voices, immigration, native languages etc. [e.g."We had a Speech, our children have evolved a jargon." A4] Also in the shorter poems: "The Heights", "N.Y.", "Imitation", "During the Passaic Strike of 1926"(which begins: "There are two vaults left in St. Mark's-on-the-Bouwerie"), "Ferry", "Cocktails", "The Old Poet Moves to a New Apartment 14 Times" etc. A1 Smoke sooting skyscraper chimneys, ... Remembering love in a taxi ... A5 A cigarette, Leaf-edge, burning obliquely urban, ... He-er vent Hel-ee-na squat from our sidewalks. ... Speech bewailing a Wall, Night of economic extinctions [wailing wall/wall speech/wall st.] ... A6 And the--the--the very old stuttereres, mumbletypeg in duplex Park Av. apartements ... A8 No. 151 Waters St., New York ... A12 The Barouqe bulding That curces with Broadway Across fromthe Customs House Still standing, All the streets From the Battery to 14th Filled as they were All those from 14th To 23rd the same And Metropolitan Life's tower ... On the third floor Of our Brooklyn brownstone ... A boy of four, Manhattan 40 years ago, Felicia, a young mother Among other poor characters When metal sinks had pubmps, Three flights of stairs down to A sort of barracks of johns. ... Refuse pipes tower above roofs, Queensboro Bridge lighted above a row of Low blacked out riverfront houses ... My mother say away from the stoop, the new bridge going up, To catch her breath in the hottest summer Some old landwmarks down The bridge is aging... ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 19:34:01 CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: eric pape Subject: Re: The Art and Poetry worlds In-Reply-To: Uh, yeah. Okay. I think (but I am not sure) that I agree with you and you agree with me. Poet is an affect (effect). All I meant was that the idea of a poet only comes about when the idea of individual creation comes about. IE, for the most part, the "creators" of Illiad, Beowulf, etc. would not consider themselves creators as such. It seems as if in fact they used formulas, linguistic, narrative, etc. to complete their work which apparently changed from performance to performance. This is all part of my continuing obsession with stating the obvious. When the idea of poets come into being, they have already joined the court. Since then, it is amazing how many poets have pined over reactionary, imaginary fantasies of the past, childhood, nature, fairies. There are always exceptions, but those, I think, represent an emerging class, such as Milton, or maybe even Blake. Having said so, and lets not forget where this discussion started, I do think that poetry, in its connection to both language and sexuality, because I think the most inclusive definition of poetry is simply something like tropic play (although I don't think we can pretend that everyone thought so) that poetry rehearses a possibility of profound criticism. In other words, something like, poetry offers a way to imagine something else.... Thanks, Eric. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 21:51:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Metroplex Dear Ron (and others): Even before the "communications revolution" there seems to have been a decided shift away from metroplex centers for poets. Certainly in my generation, there has been much less incentive to live in NYC, SF and Chicago for instance (in part because of $$$ and in part because there's hardly viable academic institutions there) than other places--and this is even amongst more urban-oriented sensib- ilities it seems to me. Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 00:16:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: FUNKHOUSER CHRISTOPH Subject: cd-ro(a)m wanted to try a response to Carolyn's posting from a couple of days ago, & wishing her message were here to quote - it was an update & description of a cd-rom project for _The Country Between Us_ -- she mentions she is more interested in hypertext than cd-rom, among other things. . . to agree there are a lot of foibles and difficulties with digital multimedia technology as is. & that the "talking head" motif definitely stales quickly. to couple thoughts about the translation of writing into the new media, because I think there are plusses & possibilities in "cd-rom" & whatever it becomes. Of course, "hypertext" & html bring numerous agreeably exciting paths to follow. hopefully someone's reading along them, and there is depth to it. perhaps complicating matters (a bit) along the way, some computers allow texts to engage image, sound, and symbol on the computer screen - reading words attached to sounds attached to images, and so on. to say i was thinking of carolyn's project & quick ideas as to what could be done with it instead of just having CF on the screen looking like she's lip-synching her poems (this is what most of _Poetry In Motion_ amounts to -- & even if the poetry/words are stellar, it's almost comical to watch the writers so prosthetic!). A few things come to mind. To widen the scope of the text you could link the poems to corresponding journal entries, letters, or images of the people/places you're writing about, to give further depth of process. your voicings of the poems could be continuous or discrete, & you'd have the words as they appear in the book, you could put in drafts of the poems (illustrating processual dimensions for scholars & others curious). you could put in there other textual interconnections, like research done on El Salvador (evidence), interviews done with writers & people of central america, and so on. there could be another section of the text which places the poems in context of other poems which have been written out of similar circumstances or are otherwise stylistically connected (I like how the annotated _HOWL_ has this). where what might be unfamiliar words, phrases, or languages, or where the words are associated with a particular history, a reader could access reference/background information via direct link (instant index). this seems like simple stuff so far. it'd be great to have a lot of cultural - historical contextualization in there - the stuff about which people feel so impassioned - the materials which attracted you this culture. do you see as much pedagogical value in this as i do? A lot of information can be stored on these plastic discs, so what we're conceiving is an expanded book -- and more than a book (or video)-on-tape with bibliography. Yes, the technical difficulties are preventative. However, we're years from realizing a finalized formula for producing writing in this media. There are limits to what the technology will do, but really the biggest limitation, as far as I can tell, so far, is the lack of applied thought in engineering literature for hypermedia. This will change. However, so far, most of the people creating literary publications using digital multimedia haven't really begun to challenge themselves to produce poetry in more than a perfunctory manner.* In other words, most titles commercially produced thus far are severely lacking with regards to imaginatively using the media (again, at least as far as literature goes ((& maybe "literature" isn't well suited for multimedia translation?)). not that i'd suggest that the recently produced Little Magazine cd-rom uses the form with admirable vision either, but we did make a steady effort to project the "writing" presented with a variety of approaches & allowed interpretive rather than (or, in addition to) literal renderings of poems on the screen throughout the magazine. There probably hasn't been much significant exploration/discovery with experiments in "poetry" and "cyberspace", though the EPC might be proven an exception to this statement. R. Bertholf & co. at the Poetry Archive are working on what could be an amazing hypertext of _Ulysses_ , with visual & hypertext aspects. perhaps there are other important projects happening? Recently I heard that the poet R. Tillingast, at U of Michigan, is getting 5 million dollars from Time- Warner to make a cd-rom of poets writing verse which emanates from the art in the museum at Ann Arbor. It'll be interesting to see what ways people find to present/publish work implementing new forms in the decades ahead. *For instance, with some friends watched _Poetry in Motion II_ yesterday & it is indeed slick & a full plate of little quirky videos of the poets in performance and interview scenarios. (Bob Holman looking younger, wilder and all in all more like a furry rodent than he does now). All of the pieces share the same basic design -- there's a uniform template upon which all the words and video sections appear: video segments on the left of the screen, words to the right. there are two versions of each alphabetic text for a reader to choose from, the "printed" version (ie how it appears in the author's book), and the "performed" version (which is usually quite similar to the "printed" version) - so nothing remotely groundbreaking here. Every "video" shows the author performing her/his writing in documentary type performance segments. There are bibliographies and minimal biographical information, and a brief introduction by Robert Creeley, none of these features make use of sophisticated multimedia devicing. Chris Funkhouser, Albany NY cf2785@cnsunix.albany.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 23:39:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: cd-ro(a)m It's fascinating to read the various threads of the discussion of poetry on cd-rom, hypertext, online, etc., particularly Christopher Funkhouser's most recent post, with its notion that the possibilities are untapped as of yet. Because it seems to me that we are also far from completely fulfilling (particularly in poetry publications) the possibilities of the technology of the book as well. I don't know what this may suggest for creative use of electronic media in years to come, that the book settled, perhaps rather early in its history, for a rather limited use of its possibilities. Will electronic media do so as well? Will books wake up and continue to expand? charles ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 23:14:55 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: Geese and 'trolls' Aldon and Dodie, just so that we can discuss this like brew bloods let's define our terms. Gnomes are dwellers in the earth. Little people, mostly presumed benevolent - EC passports. Trolls are supernatural, generally more gnarled than gnomes, more unstable in their ambivalent facets and Scandinavian. (You'll doubtless remeber their spectacular intervention in Ibsen's 'Peer Gynt'. Neither gnomes nor Trolls appear in much poetry that I know of, whereas Fairies are the digitally imaged spirits of syntax. zurich and codicil cris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 00:58:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: cd-ro(a)m Charles A. wrote "Will books wake up and continue to expand?" Oh no, sounds like the beginning of the RENGA!-----cs. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 16:54:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: AWOL: CROSSING PRESS Crossing Press present THE TURNING WAVE: VERSE AND SONG OF IRISH AUSTRALIA Crossing Press are seeking people to support the publication of the first anthology of Irish Australian poetry and ballads. 'The first anthology of Irish Australian poetry and ballads reflects the influence of Ireland and the Irish on Australia and Australians. The collection contains material from the earliest convict settlers, through the nineteenth century, as well as the work of contemporary writers who express a consciousness of Irish background. Henry Lawson is represented alongside 'Frank the Poet' Frank MacNamara, because both illuminate the influence of the Irish in Australia. The book will contain over 170 items from more than 100 poets and will be edited by the Sydney based poet, biographer and creative writing teacher Colleen Burke and the Irish based writer, dramatist poet and broadcaster Vincent Woods. Gold subscribers (Aust $100) will receive 1 hard copy and 2 soft cover versions of THE TURNING WAVE Silver subscribers (Aust $50) will receive 1 hard copy version of THE TURNING WAVE. For further information contact: Crossing Press PO Box 1137 Darlinghurst NSW 2010, Phone/fax 61 2 699 3395. (02 699 3395). ************************ Australian Writing OnLine is a publicity and distribution service for Australian writers and publishers. For further information please email us at M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au, write to AWOL PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia, phone (02) 747 5667 or fax (02) 747 2802. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 22 Oct 1995 21:38:17 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gabrielle Welford Subject: Re: cd-ro(a)m In-Reply-To: <01HWREQYB9TE8YAOFW@cnsvax.albany.edu> On Sun, 22 Oct 1995, Chris Stroffolino wrote: > Charles A. wrote "Will books wake up and continue to expand?" > Oh no, sounds like the beginning of the RENGA!-----cs. > lewis offered meek lettuce ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 02:45:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Metroplex You wrote: > > Dear Ron (and others): Even before the "communications revolution" > there seems to have been a decided shift away from metroplex centers > for poets. Certainly in my generation, there has been much less incentive > to live in NYC, SF and Chicago for instance (in part because of $$$ and > in part because there's hardly viable academic institutions there) > than other places--and this is even amongst more urban-oriented sensib- > ilities it seems to me. Chris Stroffolino > Certainly as late as the 60s and 70s, there was a decided tension between versions of an avant-garde tradition and those "viable academic institutions" of the world. Neither the NY School nor the SF Renaissance depended very much on teaching for a living (Koch being the notable exception), at least at that point. The Black Mountain poets did, and it accounted to some degree for their greater geographic dispersal. For poets who thought of teaching, then, the problem was one of not just getting the degree and then a job, but also recognizing how the academic process would tend to send one outward, to the suburbs and hinterlands. For several, that seemed too high a price to pay. One reason many poets have ended up, say, in the computer industry is that one has much greater control over where to live (not to mention better working conditions and better pay). As programs emerged that were not actively hostile to progressive interpretations of literature (UC San Diego, Naropa, New College, then Buffalo, Brown, Bard, etc.), it dramatically altered the world for younger poets, who no longer needed to wade through an actively hostile environment for benefit of a degree. San Francisco State has had many terrific poets among its students not because it's creative writing program is any good (it's dismal and has been dismal for 30 years) or because the poets emerging from it get jobs (very few do), but because young poets were able to convince themselves and/or their parents that it was the viable means for getting to San Francisco. Wouldn't shock me to learn the same of the program at Columbia. Ron ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 09:46:56 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R I Caddel Subject: Niedecker/Zukofsky In-Reply-To: <199510210708.IAA06030@hermes.dur.ac.uk> Misspellings come and go (and let's add Rupert Brooke to our list of recent Poetics list casualties) and don't really hurt - why, Aneirin's circulation is way up on anything he had in his lifetime, and a quick count suggests four published versions of his name... But the generalisations about LN's homeworld, and the disparaging tone of phrases like "sad little shack" and "the poorness of the lives" are more important: (a) they show a real failing to read LN, her enduring commitment to and concern for that place and its lifeforms, as it's asserted over and over in the poems (and for those who still won't trust poems, it's in her letters too) (b) they suggest a failure to read the lives of the people who live there at other than the most superficial level (in the manner of those papers of central government which outline the case for the "resettlement of the rural poor") (c) they contribute, albeit unwittingly, to the continuing patronisation (sic) and writing-down of Niedecker's achievement as "poor little home-body" or "mute inglorious milton" - in a way which I find unsupportable. A sympathetic, unblinkered reading of the place would be a valuable asset in reading Niedecker. I worry that such a reading becomes less likely between the local heritage brigade and the blank incomprehension of tourists. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x x x x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x x - Basil Bunting x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 09:46:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: BAAAAAAD villanelle! I'd love some response to the following dilemma, since I'm not totally sure what I make of it: Here's the scene: a small, friendly discussion among several poets after a reading in Washington, D.C. I put forward the notion that experimental innovation is actually possible with forms regularly considered "traditional", that is, that one can actually use things like villanelles and sonnets in potentially intriguing ways. I am told kindly, but firmly, that I am incorrect--these forms are dead, over and done with, BAAAAAAD, just plain too closed to merit further discussion. (I won't say who told me I was incorrect, but since some of them are on this list, I'd love for them to jump in--it was without doubt a friendly discussion, so the difference here is not at all a personal one). I protest, giving some examples (Ashbery's double sestina in FLOW CHART), not giving some more effective examples that I might have used--from those terrible neo-formalists Bernadette Mayer and Ted Berrigan (who published sonnets) or the unregenerate conservatism of a poet like Charles Bernstein who's actually WRITTEN, may God forgive him, a villanelle--"Thrush"--. My examples are not persuasive to the gathered group (I even mentioned Henry James, saying it wasn't clear to me that James "realism" had as its only fuction the maintaining of the "dominant representational culture", but hey, I think Shakespeare's pretty radical too), and at this point I am told that I'm actually in danger of siding with people like Mark Strand if I don't watch out. So, what does anyone think? Is the mere use of some forms destined to sully one as an anti-innovative neo-formalist? Is my raising such a question evidence of my "drifting over to the other camp (this is a war here boy, and don't you forget it!)." Can villanelles or sonnets be used experimentally, or not? Is a form itself BAAAAAAD, or is there some truth to my perception that it's not the form itself, but the people who promote certain forms in certain ways that are really the problem? It used to be true that traditional formalists were the only people who could tell others what forms they cant use. Now, in some cases anyway, avant garde poets can also tell people what they can't do. Is this progress? Some day I want to ask a poet the question "what can I do with poetry?" and have the answer be something other than "The only thing you can do is what I'm doing already." I hope the people who were part of this discussion will understand that i'm saying this here in a friendly spirit, albeit perhaps a mischevious one. On a related subject, I think Ron Silliman has an excellent point when he says that we need to historicize the role that "theory" has played in experimental poetries. The freedom that literary theory allowed poets like Ron was crucial, and to some extent, literary theory still allows that freedom. But now that "theory" is such a definite part of any sophisticated graduate school experience, it's hard to see it simply as "freeing." Some people may argue that literary theory is not responsible for its codification inside American academies, but on the other hand, it's hard not to think that the obvious "authority" of tone in writers like Derrida, Foucault, Lacan, D and G, Lyotard, etc, is to some extent complicitious with the authority-making process of intellectual reputations and academic power, although the insight such writers allow are unquestionably crucial. But I think of William Burroughs response to someone who said "The Christian God is not responsible for what has been done in His name," which was "A God is ALWAYS responsible for his followers." To what extent is a text responsible for what can be done with it? Ah well. Perhaps one generation's freedom is always the next generation's burden. mark wallace ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 09:53:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: D.C. poets Will those poets on the poetics list who live in or around Washington, D.C. please send me their e-mail addresses? I'm compiling a list of such addresses so we can all be better informed about various D.C. poetry and other events. mark wallace ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 10:22:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: BAAAAAAD ass song Mark, One could be old-fashioned and insist that you have to follow the path of most resistance--pick up your copy of the Handbook of Poetic Forms by e-mailing to yours truly at Teachers & Writers Collaborative--and then one could opt for an even more out-of-date path... e.g. do what you want to when you want to if you can hear how to... discussions among poets about what is and isn't possible... are nonsense Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 10:26:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: BAAAAAAD ass song Mark Omitted my last sentence: "Of course, nonsense can be productive." Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 10:25:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gale Nelson Subject: Re: BAAAAAAD villanelle! In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 23 Oct 1995 09:46:23 -0400 from Mark, I would add to your list of innovative formal undertakings: * Queneau's Sonnets -- 10 to the 14th power [probability suggests that many of his sonnets have never actually been read] * Robinson's Six Sonnets & Eight Etudes -- the etudes are less form driven than the sonnets, but are mentioned here nonetheless... * Perec's La Disparation -- a lippogrammatic novel (may be suspect among those who don't approve of prose) * Waldrop's Anagrams * Mathews' Eye- Rhyme Sonnets -- the "rhyme words" appear to the eye only as rhymes Gale Nelson ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 11:39:53 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: desire / and the 39 steps Comments: To: EFOSTER@vaxa.stevens-tech.edu scorn, culling her unguent sheets - what a sickening, cloyish expression - she pastes these letters with her bloody fingers dabbed from flour and sugar onto fog-bloomed film. fireworks bring fibre to earth, usher materials boiled from glossy taxonomies into theme. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 08:47:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Cage Fest @ Mills, Olson? at Huddersfield Two disparate events announcements (one with a question) that folks here may be interested in. From November 15-19 at Mills College in Oakland, there's what looks to be a very good conference/festival devoted to the work of John Cage with papers, performances, films, etc, with much reference to his verbal works as well as his musical ones. There's a vast amount of information on the event at: http://newalbion.com/artists/cagej/herecomes.html Also, I just received a mailing from the British Society for the Promotion of New Music that includes an advert for the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (over the same weekend) including the 2nd performance anywhere of a 1966 work by Terry Riley called Olson III for chorus. I've seen scant references to this work before, & the other new music folks I've asked can't answer this, so does anyone on poetics know if the piece uses a text by Charles Olson & if so which text? Thanks Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 08:47:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Oracles on the Internet Beth, & Dodie - Don't forget the most ancient & revered oracle who inhabits the internet itself. The Usenet Oracle will answer any question you have in return for doing it a kindness (usually this entails answering a question). Much lore about this tradition is to be found at the following URL: http://www.pcnet.com/~stenor/oracle/ > Dodie Bellamy, I've often felt that my cat, Mojo, was "channeled > by satan"....speaking of computer divination, have you seen/used > the _I Ching_ (or Book of Changes) program? Also, there is Tarot on > the Web...the mystics are becoming cyber-ized....which may not be a _bad_ > thing altogether... > > > Beth Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 11:57:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dodie Bellamy Subject: Re: Niedecker/Zukofsky Richard Cadel wrote: "But the generalisations about LN's homeworld, and the disparaging tone of phrases like "sad little shack" and "the poorness of the lives" are more important: (a) they show a real failing to read LN, her enduring commitment to and concern for that place and its lifeforms, as it's asserted over and over in the poems (and for those who still won't trust poems, it's in her letters too) (b) they suggest a failure to read the lives of the people who live there at other than the most superficial level (in the manner of those papers of central government which outline the case for the "resettlement of the rural poor") (c) they contribute, albeit unwittingly, to the continuing patronisation (sic) and writing-down of Niedecker's achievement as "poor little home-body" or "mute inglorious milton" - in a way which I find unsupportable. A sympathetic, unblinkered reading of the place would be a valuable asset in reading Niedecker. I worry that such a reading becomes less likely between the local heritage brigade and the blank incomprehension of tourists." Obviously this is addressed to my post, but rather than making a personal address, Richard decided to use to use a larger more patronizing (sic) tone in responding. I don't think I said anything disparaging about Niedecker or the people who live there. I don't know the people who live there, but it's clear that compared to the middle class lives of most of the poets I know, their lives are quite humble, and Niedecker's cottage is not some Romantic little fairy tale hut, especially now that it hasn't been kept up for years--it looks like my father's tool shed. In my post I was determinately giving a slightly-parodied version of my experience as a tourist confronting the romance of her myth. It was in a way a revisioning her, of turning her from the "old lady who writes nature poems" into a kind of lusty Barbara Stanwick figure. I never heard of Niedecker until the early 80s, when we studied her in Kathleen Fraser's (or is it Frazier's? tee hee) Feminist Poetics class. Each woman in the class of thirty or so had to prepare a class presentation on a woman poet. Kathleen handed out a list of women poets that was passed from one student to another. You were to pick the woman poet you wanted to report on and place your name next to hers. The list started with the woman next to me and went around the room in the opposite direction, so that I was the last to sign my name. The only poet left on the list was LN. "Shit" I thought as I jotted my name besides hers. Back then I was still pretty wild and relatively young--I couldn't think of anything more boring than reading LN. But, Kathleen was gently encouraging and very helpful, pointing me to sources, lending me books. Niedecker's surface was hard to penetrate, but gradually her work opened to me, and the more I read her, the more I appreciated her. I still don't exactly adore her, but I do read her with great fondess and respect. Richard must know who the people are who doesn't take Niedecker seriously, since everybody I know (who's heard of her) takes her quite seriously. I think that Niedecker's not being taken seriously as a writer, by whomever, is not a historical anomaly. Isn't the traditional position of women--as that of little figures in the midst of big movements? Dodie Bellamy p.s. Someone pointed out to me that when I wrote in a previous post "cream puffs as big as your head" it sounded like I meant a specific person's head. In fact, I meant "cream puffs as big as one's head." I apologize if I ruffled any feathers with my sloppy language. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 12:03:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Luoma Subject: vertical Blanking interval INTEL ANNOUNCES PC-TV MARRIAGE 10/23/95 By JOHN MARKOFF New York Times In a step toward blending the personal computer and the Internet with broadcast television, Intel Corp. and many of the nation's largest personal computer makers and television broadcasters today announced a new technology to allow broadcasters to deliver computer data along with their television programs. Intercast, which was developed by Intel researchers over the past two years, will allow broadcasters to transmit data in a portion of the television signal known as the vertical blanking interval -- at speeds almost four times as fast as the fastest available modems now used to send personal computer data to the home. The data would be transmitted in the blank lines visible to television viewers only when their sets are on the fritz. This bank of 10 or so lines is isolated at one end of the television image, and out of the frame of a television set that is operating normally. Each of these lines can be used to transmit data at a speed of 9,600 bits a second. Although the system is based on a one-way broadcast model and the television signals would be pulled in by a standard television tuner, the data will be delivered in the form of World Wide Web pages, permitting interactivity through conventional Internet access. Twelve concerns are endorsing the new standard: Packard Bell and Gateway 2000, which both plan on including the hardware necessary to receive the Intercast signals in computers they will sell next year; the broadcasters NBC, CNN, QVC and WGBH, the Boston PBS station; the cable operators Viacom and Comcast, the on-line service provider America Online and the software developers Asymetrix, En Technology and Netscape Communications. Intel has made the standard as open as possible -- meaning that other manufacturers can adopt the system without needing licensing agreements -- and would not derive any revenue directly from the technology. The company would make money as customers bought more personal computers and thus more Intel microprocessors. The technology, which now requires about $50 to $60 worth of parts, consists of a chip that converts the analog television signal into digital images that can be displayed on a computer, and a television receiver that picks up the signals of broadcast or cable outlets. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 12:32:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Re: BAAAAAAD villanelle! The discussion Mark is mentioning was a bit more complex than he's rhetorically reconstructed it for list consumption. One of the questions being "do certain forms reinscribe dominant cultural norms" & the other side of that "can new forms play a role in altering those forms." I tend to believe that new forms can & do play a role in changing individual perceptions of the world, & therefore if experienced by enough people (experienced through participation, rather than observation)-- *might* conceivably play some role in changing the social interaction of individuals. Perhaps the point to be made with regard to teaching is that intentions are primary-- if new forms are treated as old forms have been-- as unquestioned models to be copied-- we're not really moving in a desirable direction. Perhaps the "jazz" workshop described on this list in which poets wrote poems in response to each others work, rather than relying on discursive critique-- is an example of open form for the classroom, as projective verse is an example of open form for the page. So no form can be seen as inherently superior-- it's meaning is it's use. As unfortunately, our meaning (in many but not all ways) is our use by the workplace. In our current context it seems to me certain forms can lead us toward perceptions of life as process rather than predetermined value, & (O utopian fool!) toward seeing that people matter more than money. --Rod ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 13:18:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Recent DC readings To mention some recent DC readings-- Joan Retallack & Carolyn Forche read yesterday to much appreciation. Joan reading from _A F T E R R I M A G E S_, the highlight for me being "ICARUS FFFFFalling"-- which wound about in pig-latinate first-rate well-paced portent. Carolyn read from _The Angel of History_ & a few "outtakes" which seemed in the air at least-- as though they cld have been inclusions. The highlight for me being the final section, "Book Codes" -- I've always been impressed by the complex populism of her work, and her ability to sustain that while moving into an interest in fragmention(s) is satisfying & promising. Week ago Jordan Davis & Bill Luoma gave us an NYC instance-- both funny, very. & laid back & lyric in that remapped gramatic & lastingly undidactic kinda sorta way. Same weekend Barrett Watten regaled us with a new piece called "Ambivalent About Poetry" -- short in duration, visual, & replete. Also read new & old "Bad History"(s)-- a favorite of mine being on the Bay Area area code "415/510" schism. Bits of _Leningrad_, & the _Aerial_ frontispiece (which I was glad to hear as I hadn't been sure of my decoding of some of his handwriting.) BW's insistent critique of "the pointilist economy" continues. I had my first slam appearance last night, read some collaborations & my prayer for the "On Your Knees, Citizen" project for the _New Censorship_ (yes, that is going to happen, thanks to those that sent "prayers"). & then did a multi-voice bit with help from Mark Wallace, Heather Fuller, & Buck Downs. A few of the lines flying about the room included: "Coca Cola Classic Tastes Just Like Chicken," "I hereby declare bankruptcy on my emotional debts," "411 is a joke," & the inimitable David Ayre's deeply felt "I'm tired of grumpy virgins." Comin' up: Michael Basinski and a cast of thousands at Ruthless Grip (near 15th & U), November 11th at 7:30. Rosmarie Waldrop at Bridge Street Books (near 28th & Pennsylvania) November 14th at 8 PM. Ya'll come. --Rod ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 15:02:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Beth Russell Subject: Re: metroplex Chris Stroffolino-- I'm not sure I understand your definition of "metroplex", because, for me the metroplex remains synonymous with the "mall" or downtown movie theaters that used to have one huge screen and now have 8 miniature screens. However i do sense that you mean "mega-urban" area when you say "metroplex". And, maybe you could clarify your reason for stating that _poets_ have shifted away from these areas. Also, why do you state "there's hardly viable academic institutions there" (meaning urban areas)? Of course, your points interest me and i'd just like to uncover the specifics of "why". beth ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 15:08:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Scroggins Subject: Re: Niedecker/Zukofsky In-Reply-To: <951023115701_130639337@emout05.mail.aol.com> Dodie: of course, Ric Caddel, when referring to those who didn't take LN seriously, meant mostly Donald Davie. Chris: Ken Sherwood cited most of the stuff I would have used to argue for LZ as a New York poet; maybe the poetics themselves could have come out of _any_ environment (tho I bet that can be argued too--imagine Wordsworth's "fittings" coming out of 18th century London, if you can), but the poems are surely urban. Mark ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 09:52:09 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Geese and 'trolls' there was ann international garden gnome festival recently in New Zealand (where better, you might think) a live one did TV interviews he looked the part lawn flamingos, yes also indoor stuffed fabric flamingos a pair of these used to hang out in a house you could see into from the beach on Milford's golden (real estate) mile Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 18:01:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Romana Christina Huk Subject: thanks, question, report Thanks to everyone for the info on CD-ROM poetry (I'm the one who originally asked for it). In addition to getting our library to purchase them, I'm now thinking of making a new one that would record the readings to take place at an international conference/festival I'm hosting at UNH next August. (More info on that event to follow in about a week or so. Ken Edwards posted a message for me about it last month when I was moving back to the States; plans are right now shifting and changing a bit because of the axe on NEH and other kinds of funding I'd applied for.) If anyone has ideas about what I might try to do (that's new) with such a recording, let me know. I also need Steve McCaffery's new address if anyone has it (probably best to e-mail it directly to me at the address above). Thanks. Romana ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 06:05:33 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Subject: Re: Niedecker/Zukofsky In-Reply-To: <951023115701_130639337@emout05.mail.aol.com> reading the various posts on LN's hometown & writing situation as condescending seems to me a natural response from a British perspective, but not an accurate reading from the American. differences between the class system/values in each culture. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 18:55:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Metroplex Beth R: Metroplex wasn't my term--Ron used it before me and I think maybe someone before him---so I can't help you DEFINE.... Ron S: Point well taken--Yes, there wasn't much academic affiliation back in the good old days--and perhaps the reason so many of my generation have gone "back to school" (if belatedly) may reflect a larger social/economic question that i wanted to raise as well as "a genuine urge to learn"... But the OTHER point I raised I think should be considered too-- There has been a noticeable decentralization it seems and aside from the lack of good bookstores in major cities (or just about anywhere) the idea of vital poetry communities as in say roughly 1953-1977 (I say roughly) in major cities has also been a source of frustration for many and I think is related to the skyrocketing rents that perhaps were systematically designed to divide the potentially "countercultural" forces from each other, etc. etc-- Since I am contemplating moving back to a large city (perhaps Philadelphia again, but wherever...) I certainly would like to see this change. But it seems more possible in places where the rents are a little cheaper and people are not so pressured by having to work 60 hours a week to pay for a phone-booth shaped (and sized) apartment--with little time for writing much less a "scene" that includes musicians and painters etc etc as much as poets.....chris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 16:48:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: D.C. poets In-Reply-To: Hey, Mark, could I receive this list when it's done? I spend a great amount of time in dc and would like to see some of these folks when I am there. Jeffrey Timmons On Mon, 23 Oct 1995, Mark Wallace wrote: > Will those poets on the poetics list who live in or around Washington, > D.C. please send me their e-mail addresses? I'm compiling a list of such > addresses so we can all be better informed about various D.C. poetry and > other events. > > mark wallace > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 18:26:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Who you callin' cream-puff head? >Dodie Bellamy: > >p.s. Someone pointed out to me that when I wrote in a previous post "cream >puffs as big as your head" it sounded like I meant a specific person's head. > In fact, I meant "cream puffs as big as one's head." I apologize if I >ruffled any feathers with my sloppy language. Apology accepted. Steve ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 23:28:24 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Postmodern culture call fr Hypertext (forward) forwarded message, from PMC: --------------------------------------------------------------- PLEASE RE-POST Postmodern Culture -- Call for Work in Hypermedia With the recent surge of interest in the World Wide Web and other distributed information systems, hypermedia projects are becoming both more numerous and more sophisticated. Postmodern Culture will continue to publish important offerings in hypertext and hypermedia, presenting works that extend and redefine electronic expression. At this point we would especially like to see conceptually challenging projects: texts that are genuinely multiple and whose multiplicity of discourse constitutes more than an auxiliary for traditional language and forms. We welcome both aesthetic and discursive approaches. This call goes out to philosophers, historians, ethnographers as well as artists of word and image. Projects in HTML and other Web environments are preferable but we will consider other media as appropriate. Submissions must not have been featured in other electronic publications and should have had minimal exposure to date. Copyright if any must be held by the author(s). To offer your work for consideration, please send a letter or e-mail containing a brief description of your project. Please include a URL if your text is accessible through the World Wide Web. For further information please contact Stuart Moulthrop, samoulthrop@ubmail.ubalt.edu. --------------------------------------------------------------- luigi ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 00:11:21 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Re: BAAAAAAD villanelle! I would like to propose a sense of appropriation, no, taking back, that can be found in Lisa Robertson's X'eclogue. That is, that it is not the baaaaaad referent (form o form) thing - which to me speaks of a haven of rhetoric - but it is language taken back from the proto-historical edifice - proved surgent, insurgent in the capacity of the pastoral to re-mean, to be a new language, a new history -- that means to de-edify. I still don't see, though I've seen the Bernstein, Berrigan, Bernadette de-formation and re-inrichment of trope/idiom, how language emerges new in the face of a villanelle. And granted, the eclogue is the echo there in the X, and the Virgilian edifice of state is ripe there. But Robertson, it seems to me (and please Lisa correct me if I flail) deftly sidesteps on purpose the trap of the rhetorical in order to flood the past historical male situation of the pastoral with the clear-eyed availability of language to the feminist/vocal present. This appears a clear attempt to re-invigorate, to take language, to speak. Conversely, it appears conversations on the viability of the villanelle center on how we can re-form. The rhetorical Issue (as in birth) of the villanelle is ripe, but compared to taking back language heretofore unavailable, it is still. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 00:24:07 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Re: vertical Blanking interval here, here! vertical blanking intervals... |||||||||| (a picture of the Cleveland Indian) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 21:53:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: informalism In-Reply-To: <199510240433.VAA08873@sparta.SJSU.EDU> Mark -- Wish I could be there for all those readings -- a year in L.A. doesn't turn up as much of interest as that listing -- Sounds from your post and Mr. Smith's that you just had the same discussion I had over a beer fifteen years ago after another D.C. reading -- What's of interest, to me, is a poem that takes the ideological history of its own form as part of its formal workings -- a formal working like the semantic grinding Williams did on the word "rose" -- stripping off its old connotations so that it can be used to mean that (like "love") again -- never boring, no matter what you might hear -- Poems in "new" forms that do not take into consideration their own placement in the language and/of politics are, again to me, just as boring and reactionary as last week's workshop sestina -- But, it's hard to do -- Take the form of the drunken poets' post-reading contention -- hard to make it do something new, but it can be done -- A group of us solved the form/content problem once and for all back in 1989, but since we were drinking too much (at the Hawk & Dove, of all places), none of us could ever remember the solution afterward -- on the other hand, they may have just discovered a planet outside our solar system -- Any form can instigate new modes of thought and of being in the world -- most forms most of the time do not -- Say hello to Rosmarie Waldrop for me when she gets there -- We had a little party for her years ago when she read at WPA, but I haven't had a chance to see her since -- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 21:59:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: the responsibility of the text In-Reply-To: <199510240433.VAA08873@sparta.SJSU.EDU> Mark too -- take a look at Derrida's _The Ear of the Other_, where he takes up exactly that question, using the example of Nietzche -- It's not sufficient, he says, to say simply that the Nazis misread Nietzche, or that Nietzche is implicitly a Nazi (this should remind you of some recent arguments about the supposed totalitarian nature of modernist form) -- we must produce readings that account for the means by which those interpretations were produced -- It's important to read the American academic appropriations of poststructuralist thought fully, not just to dismiss them -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 15:42:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: AWOL: SCARP magazine SCARP 27 is now available. It features poems by Coral Hull, John Kinsella, Andy Kissane, Shane McCauley, Deb Westbury and many more; plus short stories by John Millett, Lola Stewart, and Sue Saliba. As well, we feature an extract from John A Scott's next novel. There is also graphics and a review of recent poetry by Mark Roberts. Now available from Gleebooks or the Faculty of Creative Arts, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue Wollongong 2522. ************************ Australian Writing OnLine is a publicity and distribution service for Australian writers and publishers. For further information please email us at M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au, write to AWOL PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia, phone (02) 747 5667 or fax (02) 747 2802. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 02:41:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: BAAAAAAD villanelle! Thanks for mentioning Lisa Robertson's work, Pat... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 00:14:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: re >ate: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 09:46:23 -0400 >From: Mark Wallace >Subject: BAAAAAAD villanelle! an all around terrific post. more later I hope, but meanwhile appreciation for the remarks on form and/as/or (its) politics, ditto the effect(s) of theory. I've gone backchannel w Chris S re Dickinson and rhyme, but I can't see how Ashbery's, or Auden's for that matter, weird sestinas and ballads and so on CAN'T be "for use" (cits) & etc. Ditto, to revive an old though brief thread, the Audenesque ballads of Merrill in /Braving the Elements/. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 00:14:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: examples (complete w illustrations?) >Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 10:22:09 -0500 >From: Jordan Davis >Subject: Re: BAAAAAAD ass song > >Mark, > >One could be old-fashioned and insist that you have to follow the path >of most resistance--pick up your copy of the Handbook of Poetic Forms by >e-mailing to yours truly at Teachers & Writers Collaborative--and then >one could opt for an even more out-of-date path... e.g. do what you want >to when you want to if you can hear how to... discussions among poets >about what is and isn't possible... are nonsense > >Jordan right. I remember some non-poet friends telling me the thing to do was to figure out what couldn't be done, spozedly, in poetry today, and then set about doing it. I settled on comissioned occasional poems (though Ashbery actually wrote a couple), thinking of Upon Appleton House etc., but have not yet (this was a decade or more ago) actually taken up the challenge. But I still like the idea. And the idea I guess would be to be not TOO obviously/grotesquely parodic (though shodding a head in a canoe wd be ok....) Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 00:14:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: and future....?.... >Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 10:26:59 -0500 >From: Jordan Davis >Subject: Re: BAAAAAAD ass song > >Mark > >Omitted my last sentence: "Of course, nonsense can be productive." > >Jordan ghosts of Davids past.... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 00:14:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: more ghosts of more past Christmases >Date: Mon, 23 Oct 1995 11:39:53 +0000 >From: cris cheek >Subject: Re: desire / and the 39 steps > >scorn, culling her unguent sheets - what a sickening, cloyish expression >- she pastes these letters with her bloody fingers dabbed from flour and >sugar onto fog-bloomed film. fireworks bring fibre to earth, usher >materials boiled from glossy taxonomies into theme. > having just taught Williams today (you can teach him but you can't teach him much) this reminds me weirdly of the prose sections of /Spring & All/. Schoenberg (was it?) on Grosse Fugue etc (eternally modern that is) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 00:39:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: Niedecker/Zukofsky To: Richard Caddel . . .What does "unblinkered" mean, in one's reading of the "place" where LN lived? Please explain. Also, "unsupportable," "failing," "failure," "unwittingly." It's like we are all bozoes except for you and your proposed sympathetic, unblinking reading of the place. Think of us instead as little children, who aren't old enough to understand everything in the adult world, who indeed find pity in everything, but who have generous and loving hearts nevertheless and who are easily hurt and shocked by the cold adult eye. Think of us reading LN and finding plenty of evidence that indeed she felt cramped, stifled, overworked, and marginalised by her position in society and in fact on the map of the US, evidence that supports a blinkered reading. Please don't feel that American readers of LN are clowns who only prefer our own bourgeois lives to the life she led because we are selfish tourist type people. You know, Richard Caddel, that we are all tourists whirling around from place to place, even if we never leave our own little villages. The world still comes in through every crevice in our playrooms and leaves an inevitable residue of hurt and pain. When I read LN I find that the suffering and abjection so marvelously proposed, crystallized, redacted in her work is what holds me closest to it, not her solidarity with fellow citizens of whatever the town is where she was and how she was concerned about them. We do not think of her as "mute", on the contrary, she is still speaking in a way. Still her status as a poet not widely known in her own lifetime, in fact not so well read today, is kind of like a creepy experience of feeling the other, a shadow self, the uncanny. Think of us as willing her into our own lives in whatever shape we can, and yet knowing that she of course has no knowledge of us, she in that regard is the blind blank uncomprehending blinkerered sphinx we try to read. Thanks for listening! Yours-Kevin Killian >The generalisations about LN's homeworld, and the disparaging tone of >phrases like "sad little shack" and "the poorness of the lives" are more >important: (a) they show a real failing to read LN, her enduring >commitment to and concern for that place and its lifeforms, as it's >asserted over and over in the poems (and for those who still won't trust >poems, it's in her letters too) (b) they suggest a failure to read the >lives of the people who live there at other than the most superficial >level (in the manner of those papers of central government which outline >the case for the "resettlement of the rural poor") (c) they contribute, >albeit unwittingly, to the continuing patronisation (sic) and writing-down >of Niedecker's achievement as "poor little home-body" or "mute inglorious >milton" - in a way which I find unsupportable. > >A sympathetic, unblinkered reading of the place would be a valuable asset >in reading Niedecker. I worry that such a reading becomes less likely >between the local heritage brigade and the blank incomprehension of >tourists. > >xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >x x >x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x >x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x >x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x >x x >x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x >x - Basil Bunting x >x x >xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 02:57:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Metroplex I forget whether it is Houston or Dallas that refers to its larger metropolitan area as the Metroplex, but I was basically punning off of that and the idea of complex (as in "he has a complex"). Rents and the other difficulties of major urban areas are indeed an issue. As late as 1978, I had one seventh of a seven bedroom "mansion" on California Street (baja Pacific Heights) in SF for a vast sum of $50 per month. I pay 20 times that amount now. There are also issues, such as, the distractions of certain areas (the way poets in LA get sucked into the film industry or the way they used to get sucked into the art gallery/critique world in NYC when there was still some capital there). In SF, poetry was "always" (from 1955 forward anyway) one of the "major" art forms of the area and didn't have to compete with the fine arts scene etc for print space. In other cities, one of the major questions is how to have a serious discussion about the poetry one loves when there are only a handful of other folks in the city who will know what the heck you are talking about. Occasionally, enough people come together to make something real congeal, as has happened at times in the DC area, and in San Diego and I presume must be happening now in Detroit. The decentralization of the avant-garde is a profoundly important (and good) thing. There will be much greater variation in the long run, tendencies will cohere and create new things, with a broader range to view and choose from, than if it retains the old two or three major urban area focus. In Russia, of course, there's the same competitive feel between Moscow and St. Petersburg as there ever was betwixt SF & NYC (as in "Oh, Arkadii's a Moscow poet stuck in St Pete"), with the ancillary assumption that nothing much is happening in Vladivostok (I actually heard a writer from there give a great talk on Borges once). All best, Ron ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 06:31:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Metroplex Dear Ron--this should almost be a backchannel question. But I will ask it anyway (in the spirit of the discussion on Minneapolis a few months back): Why do you think Philadelphia has not been able to produce a kind of self-reproducing scene that has sustained itself as much as say Washington DC? It's a much bigger city and has some resources that could definitely be tapped. I know you are new there--but when i was there I was able to bring certain poets who suprisingly would not have come otherwise to a downtown art gallery for VERY LITTLE MONEY. I felt bad about the sums I paid out, and even worse in some ways that I had to almost pull teeth to draw audiences for Carla Harryman, David Shapiro, Leslie Scalapino, Alice Notley, Alan Davies for instance as well as Bob Perelman (who at that time had just moved to Phila.)--(to name some of just the most famous--I'd have to list too many other names however to stave off potential charges of being a "starfucker"). Anyway, TEMPLE does do better in terms of bringing poets in than many institutions of similar size (say, SUNY ALBANY) and there has been The Painted Bride there as well at least enough magazines for someone to "get started" (Phila. was definitely MY springboard in that sense). And now perhaps Perelman will have more power at penn---when I was there he didn't have much--taught no grad classes, etc. Now I hear they are letting him bring poets in. to read in the series. Yet though there are magazines and series, there are not book publishers or even chapbooks. Nor is there much of a salient community---It's like every time something gets started, someone moves to japan or albany, etc. Again, the nomadism that careerism entails etc that many married friends of mine have had to negotiate in thorny ways (though it effects us all, and to add insult to industry their ideological justifiers speak of "family" and "hometown" values--- oops, sorry, digression)--Anyway, I am definitely PLUGGING Philadelphia despite the seeming negativity. It is afterall by far the cheapest big east coast city (Albany and even providence has rents about as hi and albany, at least, unlike Phila. is not a WALKING CITY). Perhaps the proximity of NYC effects it. Effects it negatively. But it COULD affect PHILA. positively (aside from the poets I had read that wanted to VISIT BOB or GIL OTT anyway, I probably could not have gotten as many to read there for the price I paid had it not been for NYC proximity)... Anyway it seems that a more livable and viable scene could exist there than exists in NYC (the problems at St. Marx; the recent inbreeding at the EAR--the lack of communication among "factions" etc)--- So what the hell I'm the pied piper....chris ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 08:39:24 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" Organization: University of NC at Greensboro Subject: Villanelle I have heard of poetry-writing workshops in which students were required to write a villanelle, as if to do so were some sort of necessary basic training. The Army used to require recruits to "duck-walk" great distances; then it turned out that this ruins people's knees. All those complex forms originated in Romance languages at the time (1300-1550) when poetry was separating itself from music. The two art forms became too complex to work together, as they had previously in Church music and in troubadour songs. Because there are many more rhyme possibilities in these languages than in English, they were not all that hard to use, but nevertheless were highly artificial (in both good and bad senses). Then the French revived them in the nineteenth century, as a form of Romantic medievalizing, somewhat as English poets revived ballads and folk songs. Then English poets (Dobson, Wilde, Swinburne) imitated what the French were doing. The oddest thing is that in America certain formalist poet/critics have latched onto these Romantic-revival forms as if they were traditional and "classical." Actually the best villanelles have been written by romantics like Dylan Thomas and Roethke. My own feeling is that there are probably enough villanelles in the world to satisfy pent-up villanelle demand. The experimental formalism of May Swenson is much more exciting. But because you really have to work to see what she is up to--even when the poems are easy to read for other reasons--she attracts little attention. She's not even in the Norton Anthology of Modern Poetry. But that's OK. Just look at some of the anthologies published around 1910; along with a few reconizable names are scores of "important" figures long since consigned to oblivion. Tom Kirby-Smith English Department UNC-Greensboro Greensboro NC 27412 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 08:23:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joshua Mckinney Subject: BAAAAAD villanelle (fwd) Good people: Mark Wallace has suggested that I forward the following post to the members of the poetics group. Perhaps it will further the ongoing discussion. Perhaps not. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 08:19:32 -0400 (EDT) From: Joshua Mckinney To: mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu Cc: jmckinne@grits.valdosta.peachnet.edu Subject: BAAAAAD villanelle Mark, I agree with you on the issue of prescribed form and its usefulness. As for the villanelle, David Shapiro offers some interesting renovations. I have been interested in villanelles for some time now, and so I offer the following poem (from the previous summer) as a token of our shared interest: No Oasis Where God is absent, creation can begin. Now, before the silence of what's next, the author disappears and starts again. At any point upon the track, a thin light leaks through cracks left in a text. Where God is absent, creation can begin to blend and clash. The spirit is to win as _air_ defeats _the air_. Without context the author disappears and starts again to build a world, a golden weheel to spin it on--and all its method circumspect. Where God is absent, creation can begin; it leaps into a distance without end where land moves always as the wind directs the author disappears and starts again to ask a question of the shadow in each word which echoes in the clamor of a next where God is absent. Creation can begin to disappear. The author starts again. Jabesian influence, of course. Speaking of Jabes, I am reminded that in _The Book of Questions_ he writes, "Who am I," I asked. "Who am I," I replied. Repetition is an achievement in its difference. It seems to me that this passage speaks to the possible discoveries offered by prescribed forms, especially in the area of duration. I'm also thinking of Ashbery and the use of "fixed" forms as generative device. Have a student here to see me. Best, Josh ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 08:52:56 -40962758 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Rosenberg Subject: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities It's a bit difficult to respond to the postings on possibilities of hypertext for poetry without sounding blatantly self-promotional, since that's what I've been doing for about the last 8 years or so. All of my work runs only on the Mac at present, alas -- I'm hoping one of the promised tools for getting Hypercard stacks to run under Windows will materialize before I spend the work to port my stacks by hand into something like ToolBook. I have some snippets on my Web site, but they don't really convey what the actual work feels like. The thing that has excited me is the possibilities hypertext methods allow for word *structure*. Since my undergraduate days one of the things I've wanted to do with words is put them (literally) on top of one another. Painters juxtapose, composers put sounds on top of one another, there's no reason poets shouldn't do the same. But there's a problem: when you put words literally on top of one another, they tend to *interfere* to the point of unintelligibility -- regardless of whether you do it orally using simultaneous voices, or visually on the page. Interactive software methods allow you to put words on top of one another and *sacrifice nothing* in the way of intelligibility: using the mouse one can navigate the layers and read all the words, yet those words reside in the same place. Of course, to state the obvious: hypertext allows words to be brought together with *inherently* non-linear structure; what interests me about hypertext is not so much using hypertext to assemble linear documents but rather a poetry written directly in a non-linear structure. The possibilities truly are endless. The word processor has arguably done a lot of damage to the cause of poetry; by making it so easy to enter words into the computer, the word processor disguises the fact that it is just as constraining as the typewriter. Graphics programs let the words be placed anywhere in the graphical space, and in that regard are much better, but best of all is completely interactive software like ToolBook or Hypercard. I don't want to start a religious war but I have a lot of mixed feelings about HTML. The Web is *wonderful* as a community medium, but at the moment HTML provides virtually *nothing* in the way of artistic control over interface behavior. Java has a lot of promise as an interactive medium, but with (at the moment) a very steep learning curve. [Java is a programming language for Web applications created by Sun Microsystems, and Netscape is supporting it in their Web browsers.] What we really need is a cross- platform Hypercard-like front end to create Java applications. (Stay tuned, this will surely emerge.) There is a whole Net community of hypertext writers and literary types, and we badly need more good writers. Here's hoping members of this list *do* take up hypertext! -- Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/ CIS: 71515,124 WELL: jer Internet: jr@amanue.pgh.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 09:04:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Villanelle Tom Kirby-Smith, could you share with the list more about May Swenson-- (not to be confused with may "the fur person" sarton). She isn't much talked about, and I'm curious how you would talk about her--or which poems you would direct one to, etc. Thanks, cs. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 09:37:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: Metroplex In-Reply-To: <01HWT40KC9828YBEQ2@cnsvax.albany.edu> Chris > Anyway it seems that a more livable and viable scene could exist there > than exists in NYC (the problems at St. Marx; the recent inbreeding at > the EAR--the lack of communication among "factions" etc)--- > So what the hell I'm the pied piper....chris > Thanks for bringing this up. The problems in NY have made it just about unliveable (for the last hundred years) and the problems in the community are as severe as they can get. However, all these good poets have moved to NY lately. Much more _hope_ for an intelligent and friendly scene than there was five years ago, and the frequently-commented on EAR trouble is just a growing pang of the coalescing group, if you ask. St Marks, well, it's a nice gig... anybody see Ed Friedman's _Mao & Matisse_? And as for the "factions" well nobody says you have to like everybody's poetry.. and what factions anyway? EAR/post St.marks/nuyo? perf/visual/lang? David Cameron/Douglas Rothschild/India Hixon? There's a little _horror vacui_ people get looking at NY from the periphery. And then there's the total hostility everyone embodies as soon as they arrive. NY would be richer for your presence Chris (probably). Which usually means hey we're gonna bleed you dry... The welcome wagon, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 09:05:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities well permit me to be a bit promotional FOR jim (rosenberg): if part of what poets do is to explore and construct new forms, why then why not do so?... at the risk of preaching to the choir (and why i feel i must is a thing worth considering), we should all, to the extent we have access to same, at least be willing to look with an informed eye at what's going down in the electronic world---cd rom, hypertext, html, what have you... there are poets who still rage against the benefits of *this* medium, and perhaps it wasn't that long ago that some of us might have been a part of that resistance... jim's own work, *intergrams* (eastgate quarterly review of hypertext volume 1, number 1) is most definitely worth checking out, as are (what i like to call) his liner notes, "openings: the connection direct, personal notes on poetics"... i found his re/dematerializing of text on the screen just fascinating... though i prefer the term multilinear to non-linear, in any case the work, as jim indicates, opens new structural possibilities... i'd like mself to see more active interrogation of such work by folks on this list... and of course i include mself in all we's & us's employed herein... joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 11:10:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: informalism >-- What's of interest, to me, is a poem that takes the ideological >history of its own form as part of its formal workings -- a formal >working like the semantic grinding Williams did on the word "rose" -- >stripping off its old connotations so that it can be used to mean that >(like "love") again -- never boring, no matter what you might hear -- I might argue that it's impossible NOT to take form in this way, but that it is just as valuable, and perhaps more, if the consideration of the ideological history, or other formal imperatives, are implicit rather than explicit. >Poems in "new" forms that do not take into consideration their own >placement in the language and/of politics are, again to me, just as >boring and reactionary as last week's workshop sestina -- Perhaps you do mean that one has to acknowledge such placement, rather than simply use it, which I would contest. all best, charles ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 11:26:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities Terrific post by Jim Rosenberg, as are all of his comments on multimedia possibilities for language presentation. >The thing that has excited me is the possibilities hypertext methods allow >for word *structure*. Since my undergraduate days one of the things I've >wanted to do with words is put them (literally) on top of one another. >Painters juxtapose, composers put sounds on top of one another, there's no >reason poets shouldn't do the same. But there's a problem: when you put >words literally on top of one another, they tend to *interfere* to the point >of unintelligibility -- regardless of whether you do it orally using >simultaneous voices, or visually on the page. Interactive software methods >allow you to put words on top of one another and *sacrifice nothing* in the >way of intelligibility: using the mouse one can navigate the layers and read >all the words, yet those words reside in the same place. This seems to me best done in print by layering of papers, including transparent or translucent ones. While it can probably be done with less expense with interactive software methods, there is something else with words on paper, which is the physical fact of language as tangible substance. I remain attracted to that, although not to the extent of being a luddite about other possibilities. Still, I think when one presents what hypertext and computer renditions can do with the visual/structural presentation of language, I think one needs to understand that all such possibilities at this time are innovative and highly experimental. Therefore, it may make more sense to contrast them not with standard printing/binding/book practices, but with innovative and experimental possibilities in such media. charles ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 11:33:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities Let me second Joe Amato -- Jim Rosenberg's stuff is terrific. You stroll through it, take your time, come back later, move across or up or down, or just burrow deeper into a particular spot on the page (whoops screen)... and screens connect to other screens.. Who else is doing this kind of stuff? I don't just mean using hyptertext, I mean *really* using it. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 20:11:49 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R I Caddel Subject: Re: Niedecker/Zukofsky In-Reply-To: <199510240438.EAA27446@hermes.dur.ac.uk> Dear Dodie, I know you're only kidding when you spell my name "Cadel". The write-down Niedecker movement has been big in its time, and has always included US and UK men and women who should've known better (and her supporters and publishers were also on occasions aghast at the circumstances of her life). Davie, I guess, was in the praise-with-faint-damns end of things, along with those who called her work "delicate" or "slight" or even "wispy" - but he wasn't alone. Hopefully that school's on the decline and more accurate readings are on the increase - and perhaps when there's a good edition of her work available, the Niedecker Vigilantes can stand down. But because there IS still a current of "My God! How could anyone actually LIVE there?" - and because your slightly-parodied-revisioning was so complete, I'm afraid I linked your "sad little shack" and "poorness of the lives" (which are pretty disparaging phrases - this side of the Atlantic) to the more general malaise: hence the generalisation of my address. Sorry - but pleased to know the linkage was misplaced. I've just got no idea how sad your dad's tool shed is. My dad's shed needs painting, but seems quite emotionally stable. Our own shed collapsed last week - couldn't take the strain... xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x x x x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x x - Basil Bunting x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 15:14:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities charles, i agree with you about contrasting hypermedia etc. with innovative print practices---insofar as more formal considerations go... but part of what's at stake here is a matter of the publishing/distribution networks both of print work, innovative and otherwise, as well as electronic form... by which i mean simply to say that there are publishing/distribution networks out there that define themselves in terms of practices that are stubbornly resistant to the formal innovations you or i may have in mind... and that the emergence of electronic form augurs (potentially now) a sea change simply because these selfsame print 'communities,' albeit resistant to print innovation per se, are now finding themselves incapable of resisting electronic 'intrusion' of one sort or another... pardon my momentary evangelicalism, and not to 'bypass' any particular genre or form or press... but methinks there is much that can and should happen in more staid academic circles re innovation, and that the work coming out of same profits from "comparison" both with more innovative print work as well as emerging electronic form... all best//// joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 16:58:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities Tom Beard posted about his stuff a while ago, particularly "27" and I'll jsut add that i thought it was great. as i recall his page had some links to various other cumminglings of on-line hypertext stuff, probably a VERY useful place to start... "27" is at http://metcon.met.co.nz/nwfc/beard/www/notes27.html#readings his library is at http://metcon.met.co.nz/nwfc/beard/www/library.html there's probably links to at least two dozen on-line journals and other publications, many of which are good *hypertext* as opposed to good html. (i make the distinction between hypertext and html, many people don't. when i type hypertext, i'm talking about the content, html is the code implementing that content) at any rate, Jim Rosenberg's stuff, along with Tom Beard's stuff make for a good primer of sorts.... _____________________________________!________________________________________ Eryque "Just call me Eric" Gleason If I weren't a monkey, there'd 71 E. 32nd St. Box 949 be problems. Chicago, IL 60616 (312) 808-6858 gleaeri@charlie.acc.iit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Oct 1995 18:07:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ken Edwards <100344.2546@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Terry Riley/Olson Like Herb Levy, I was intrigued by the forthcoming performance at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival of Terry Riley's Olson III - not least because I'm supposed to be performing in it! In one of my other lifetimes I work with a group called Contemporary Music Making for Amateurs, which will be performing the piece on 18 November. So far I the only information I have is that it is a piece for chorus (not necessarily trained voices) and was written as a companion to In C, but has only been performed once before (presumably in the 1960s, when it was written). I hope to find out more in the next few days - including whether there is a connection with Charles Olson - and will report back. - Ken ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 01:20:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Sherwood Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Open Letter to Mark Wallace -=------------- Open letter to Mark Wallace Of course you already know the answer to your question, that of course no FORMS in themselves are BAD. What you really want to know is why self-defined 'experimentalists' react so badly towards the notion of writing within 'traditional forms.' Here are two possible reasons: (1) In these Post-Projective-Verse times (and, really Mark, this is the only 'post' I'm going to admit) the interest in open field leads to a prejudice towards open form. As in: Free Love Free Mandela Free Verse! We know that the same 'presentational' possibility (poem as act of instant rather than twice removed thought about) can be achieved in sonnet, but we imagine many of those sonneteers are making themselves after a different image (hold a mirror up to nature). Reason (2) is frank annoyance on part of self-proclaimed experimentalists at the ease with which sonneteers and their peers proceed in poetizing their prose with the filigree markers of 'traditional poetry.' Neither position defensible, exactly--the latter particularly, recalls Wystan's point that, on some level, the self-marginalizing expermentalists really just want to be loved as much as Amy Clampitt or Donald Hall. Hugs, Ken (p.s. I feel more victimized by the Possum's Sonnets than by High Theory) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 01:27:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Spencer Selby Subject: mag list update Charles has asked me to post an update of my mag list to POETICS, and I am happy to comply. Please send info about possible additions, address changes or mags which have folded. U.S. MAGAZINES ### ABACUS, Peter Ganick, 181 Edgemont Ave, Elmwood CT 06110 ### AERIAL, Rod Smith, Box 25642, Wash D.C. 20007 ### ALEA, Tom Epstein, 296 Cole Ave, Providence RI 02906 ### AMERICAN LETTERS AND COMMENTARY, 850 Park Avenue Suite 5B, NY NY 10021 ### ANT,ANT,ANT,ANT,ANT, Box 16177, Oakland CA 94610 ### ANTENYM, Steve Carll, 106 Fair Oaks #3, San Francisco CA 94110 ### APEX OF THE M, Box 247, Buffalo NY 14213 ### ARRAS, Brian Kim Stefans, 141 West Newell Ave, Ritherford NJ 07070 ### ARSHILE, Mark Salerno, Box 3749, L.A. CA 90078 ### ATELIER, Sarah Jensen, Box 580, Boston MA 02117 ### AVEC, Cydney Chadwick, Box 1059, Penngrove CA 94951 ### B CITY, Connie Deanovich, 517 North Fourth St, Dekalb IL 60115 ### BALLPEEN, Box 55892, Fondren Station, Jackson MS 39296 ### BASURA, Kent Gowran, Box 3232 Aurora IL 60504 ### BIG ALLIS, 136 Morgan St., Oberlin OH 44070 ### BLADES, 182 Orchard Rd, Newark DE 19711 ### BLUE RYDER, Ken Wagner, Box 587, Olean NY 14760 ### THE BOMB, Ben Baxter, 1671 Cowlitz Ave, St Helens OR 97051 ### BOMBAY GIN, Naropa Institute, 2130 Arapahoe Ave, Boulder CO 80302 ### BULLHEAD, Joe Napora, 2205 Moore St, Ashland KY 41101 ### CALIBAN, Lawrence Smith, Box 561, Laguna Beach CA 92652 ### CAMELLIA, Tomer Inbar, Box 417 Village Station, N.Y. NY 10014 ### CATHAY, 11 Slater Ave, Providence RI 02906 ### CENTRAL PARK, Stephen Paul Martin, Eve Ensler, Box 1446 NY NY 10023 ### CHAIN, Juliana Spahr, Jena Osman, 107 14th St, Buffalo NY 14213 ### CLWN WR, Box 2165, Church St Station, NY NY 10008 ### COMPOUND EYE, Ange Mlinko, 52 Park St #3, Somerville MA 02143 ### CONJUNCTIONS, Bradford Morrow, 33 W. 9th St., NY NY 10011 ### COTTON GIN, Chris Stafford 3408 Burlington Rd., Greensboro NC 27405 ### CROTON BUG, Bob Harrison, Box 11166, Milwaukee WI 53211 ### CYANOSIS, Darin De Stefano, 309 Judah #310, San Francisco CA 94122 ### DENVER QUARTERLY, Bin Ramke, Dept of English, U. of Denver, Denver CO 80208 ### DIE YOUNG, Skip Fox, English Dept, Univ. of Southwestern Louisiana, Lafayette LA 70504 ### DREAMTIME TALKING MAIL, Rt 1 Box 131, Lafarge WI 54639 ### 90025 ### DROP FORGE, Sean Winchester, PO Box 7237, Reno NV 98510 ### EL-E-PHANT, Sun & Moon Press, 6026 Wilshire Blvd, L.A. CA 90036 ### EXILE, 149 Virginia St #7, St Paul MN 55102 ### EXPERIODICIST, Jake Berry, Box 3112, Florence AL 35630 ### THE CORPSE, Box 25051, Baton Rouge LA 70894 ### FIRST INTENSITY, Lee Chapman, Box 140713, Staten Island NY 10314 ### FISH WRAP, 921 1/2 24th Ave, Seattle WA 98122 ### FIVE FINGERS REVIEW, Box 15426, San Francisco CA 94115 ### FOUND STREET, Larry Tomoyasu, 2260 S. Ferdinand Ave., Monterey Park CA 91754 ### GENERATOR, John Byrum, 3203 W. 14th St, Apt 13, Cleveland OH 44109 ### GLOBAL MAIL, Ashley Parher Owens, Box 597996, Chicago Il 60659 ### GRIST ON-LINE, Box 20805, Columbus Circle Station, New York NY 10023 ### HAMBONE, Nathaniel Mackey, 134 Hunolt St. Santa Cruz CA 95060 ### HEAVEN BONE, Steven Hirsch, Box 486, Chester NY 10918 ### HOUSE ORGAN, Kenneth Warren, 1250 Belle Avenue, Lakewood OH 44107 ### I AM A CHILD, William Howell, 418 Richmond Ave. #2, Buffalo NY 14222 ### IDIOM, 1143 Hearst St, Berkeley CA 94702 ### THE IMPERCIPIENT, Jennifer Moxley, 61 E. Manning, Providence RI 02906 ### THE IMPLODING TIE-DIED TOUPEE / MISSIONARY STEW Keith Higgenbotham & Tracy Combs, 100 Courtland Drive, Columbia SC 29223 ### INDEFINITE SPACE, Marcia Arrieta, Box 40101, Pasadena CA 91114 ### INTERRUPTIONS, Tom Beckett, 131 N. Pearl St., Kent OH 44240 ### JUXTA, Jim Leftwich, 977 Seminole Trail, Charlottesville VA 22901 ### KASPAHRASTER, Box 8831, Portland OR 97207 ### KIOSK, 306 Clemens Hall, S.U.N.Y, Buffalo NY 14260 ### LETTERBOX, Scott Bentley, 3791 Latimer Pl., Oakland CA 94609 ### LILLIPUT REVIEW, Don Wentworth, 207 S. Millvale Ave #3, Pittsburgh PA 15224 ### LINGO, Jonathan Gams, 56 Clifford St, Lenox MA 01240 ### THE LITTLE MAGAZINE, English Dept, SUNY at Albany, Albany NY 12222 ### LOGODAEDALUS, LOGO.CRIT, Paul Weidenhoff & W.B. Keckler, Box 14193, Harrisburg PA 17104 ### LONG BEACH GUTS-ETTE, Box 2730, Long Beach CA 90801 ### LONG NEWS, Barbara Henning, Box 150-455, Brooklyn NY 11215 ### LOST AND FOUND TIMES, John M. Bennett, 137 Leland Ave, Columbus OH 43214 ### LOWER LIMIT SPEECH, A.L. Nielsen, 1743 Butler Ave #2, L.A. CA 90025 ### LYRIC&, Avery Burns, Box 640531, San Francisco CA 94164 ### MA!, David Kirschenbaum, Box 221, Oceanside NY 11572 ### MALCONTENT, Laura Poll, Box 703, Naversink NJ 07752 ### MEANING, 215 W 92nd #5F, NY NY 10025, ### MEAT EPOCH, Gregory Vincent St Thomasino, 3055 Decatur Ave Apt 2-D, Bronx NY 10467 ### MEMBRANE, 4213 12th St N.E., Wash D.C. 20017 ### MIRAGE #4/PERIOD(ICAL), Kevin Killian & Dodie Bellamy, 1020 Minna St, San Francisco CA 94103 ### N D, Box 4144, Austin TX 78765 ### NEW AMERICAN WRITING, Maxine Chernoff & Paul Hoover, 369 Milino, Mill Valley CA 94941 ### NORTH AMERICAN IDEOPHONICS, Mark Nowak, 908 Franklin Terrace 3rd Floor, Minneapolis MN 55406 ### OBJECT, Robert Fitterman & Kim Rosenfeld, 229 Hudson St #4, NY NY 10013 ### OPEN 24 HOURS, Buck Downs, Box 50376, Washington D.C. 20091 ### OUTPOST ENTROPY, C Kaucher, 226 W. Main St, Kutztwon PA 19530 ### O!!ZONE, Harry Burrus, 1266 Fountain View Dr. Houston TX 77057 ### PAPER SALAD, Box 520061, Salt Lake City UT 84152 ### PARADOX, Dan Bodah, Box 643, Saranac Lake NY 12983 ### PAVEMENT SAW, David Baratier, 716 Pine St, Philadelphia PA 19106 ### POETIC BRIEFS, Jefferson Hansen & Elizabeth Burns, 2510 Highway 100 South #333, St Louis Park MN 55416 ### POETRY NEW YORK, Box 3184, Church St Station, New York NY 10008 ### PRIMARY WRITING, 2009 Belmont Rd. N.W., Apt 203, Wash D.C. 20009 ### PRIVATE ARTS, Box 10936, Chicago IL 60610 ### PROLIFERATION, Mary Burger, Jay Schwartz, Chris Vitiello, Box 15954, Durham NC 27704 ### PROSODIA, New College of California, 766 Valencia San Francisco CA 94110 ### REFERENCE: PRESS, 154 Doyle Ave, Providence RI 02906 ### RIBOT, Paul Vangelisti, Box 65798, Los Angeles CA 90065 ### RIF/T, Loss Glazier, Ken Sherwood, 179 York St, Buffalo NY 14213 ### ROOMS, 652 Woodland Ave., San Leandro CA 94577 ### SCORE, Crag Hill, 1015 NW Clifford St, Pullman WA 99163 ### SEMIAUTOMATIC, 231 Elizabeth St, Atens GA 30601 ### SHATTERED WIG REVIEW, Rupert Wondolowski, 2407 N. 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Hungary ### International Research & Poetics, Apartat 20033, 08080 Barcelona, Spain ### JALOUSE PRATIQUE, Herve Bauer & Jean-Marc Scanreigh, 80 rue Henon, 69004 Lyon, France ### LE CAHIER DU REFUGE, Center International de Poesie Marseille, Couvent du Refuge, 1 rue des Honneurs, 13002 Marseille, France ### LEOPOLD BLOOM, Vaci M. u. 52. II. 9., Szombathely, 9700 Hungary ### MAGYAR MUHELY, Tibor Papp, 40 Rue Pascal, 75013 Paris France ### MANDORLA, Roberto Tejada, Apartado postal 5-366, Mexico D.F., Mexico 06500, ### MANI ART, Pascal Lenoir, 11 Ruelle De Champagne, 60680 Grandfresnoy, France ### MINIATURE OBSCURE, Gerhild Ebel, Cornelia Ahnert, Landrain 143, 06118 Halle/Saale, Germany ### MITO, via G. Bruno 37, 80035 Nola, Italy ### MOHS, 8 rue Chaptal, 44100 Nantes France ### LA NUEVA POESIA ELECTRICA & VENENO, J Seafree, Elfo 27, 28027 Madrid, Spain ### NIOQUES, Jean-Marie Gleize, 4 rue de Cromer, 26400 Crest, France ### NON (+) ULTRA, Matthias Schamp, Grosse-Weischede-Strasse 1, 44803 Bochum, Germany ### OFFERTA SPECIALE, Carla Bertola, Corso De Nicola 20, 10128 Torino, Italy ### OLHO LATINO, Paulo Cheida Sans, Rua Padre Bernardo da Silva 856, 13030 Campinas, SP, Brazil ### PELE MELE, Guy Bleus, Box 43, 3830 Wellen, Belgium ### PINTALO DE VERDE, Antonio Gomez, APDO 186, 06800 Merida, Badajoz, Spain ### PIPS DADA CORPORATION, Claudio Puetz, Prinz-Albert Str. 31, 53115 Bonn, Germany ### PLURAL, Paseo de la Reforma 18.1 piso, Deleg. Cuauhtemoc, DF 06600, Mexico ### P.O.BOX (Merz Mail), Pere Sousa, apdo 9326, 08080 Barcelona Spain ### POESIE, Micel Deguy, 8 rue Ferou, 75278 Paris Cedex 06, France ### POEZINE, Rua Serido 486, apt 1106, CEP 59020 Natal RN, Brazil ### PRAKALPANA LITERATURE, KOBISENA, P-40 Nandana Park, Calcutta 700034, West Bengal, India ### RALENTIR TRAVAUX, 20 rue Saint Sauveur, Paris 75002, France ### REVUE PRETEXTE, 11 rue Villedo, 75001 Paris, France ### SCARP, Ron Pretty, Univ of Wollongong, Box 1144, Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia ### SHISHI, Shoji Yoshizawa, 166 Suginami-ku koenjikita, 3-31-5 Tokyo, Japan ### SIVULLINEN, Jouni Vaarakangas, Kaarelantie 86 B 28, 00420 Helsinki, Finland ### SOL CULTURAL, Passatge del Sol, 1, 43003 Tarragona, Spain ### SOUTERRAINS & LOLA FISH, Bruno Pommey, 10 Residence Jean Mace, 28300 Mainvilliers, France ### SPINNE, Dirk Frohlich, Priessnitzstrasse 19, 01099 Dresden, Germany ### SPORT, Box 11-806, Wellington, New Zealand ### TABOO JADOO, Javant Biaruja, GPO Box 994/H, Melbourne, Victoria 3001 Australia ### TERAZ MOWIE, Hartmut Andryczuk, postlagernd, 12154 Berlin, Germany ### TRANSFUSION, Alessandro Ceccotto, via Scarpari 1/L, 45011 Adria (RO) Italy ### VICEVERSA, Carlos Vitale, Apdo 5532, 08080 Barcelona, Spain ### VISUAL POETRY S.O.S., Alfredo Slang, via Ferro De Cavallo, 10, 31100 Treviso, Italy ### YE, FALTBLATT, Theo Breuer, Neustrasse 2, 53925 Sistig/Eifel, Germany ### XUL, Jorge Perednik, Junin 558, piso 9, (1026) Buenos Aires, Argentina ### ZOOM-ZOUM, Josee Lapeyrere, 4 rue des Carmes, 75005 Paris, France ### The preceding list is based on the research and judgments of Spencer Selby. The term "experimental" is not meant as a characterization of anyone's specific editorial focus or perspective. Please circulate, and mail possible additions, deletions, address changes or other comments to Spencer Selby, P.O. Box 590095, San Francisco CA 94159, U.S.A. email: selby@slip.net fax: 415-752-5139 This is list #25, dated 10/95 ### ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 02:39:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Metroplexities Philadelphia, hmmm? After 5 months, I have been to exactly two readings, one of which I was part of. I'm aware of a third (in Camden actually) that I would have liked to have gotten to. But it does seem to be a pretty quiet scene. Although there are some very fine poets here whose work should be more broadly known--Julia Blumenreich, Phyllis Wat, Eli Goldblatt, Heather Thomas, Alicia Askenase, Gil Ott, for example--I think that the "pull" of NYC on a younger poet must be pretty strong. One has to look at who lives here and why. Bob Perelman, Toby Olson, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, and Goldblatt, for example, all have teaching jobs that have brought or kept them here. Ott was a local who returned from San Francisco (Bolinas, really) after health problems required him to spend some time back at his parents, got involved in the Painted Bride (which just laid him off after 15 years of service in a downsizing effort that seems spectacularly dunder-headed) and developed that entire scene. I first met Blumenreich when she was a student, another local person. She stayed and married Gil, but seems to be the sort of person who under other circumstances would have seriously thought of moving somewhere that provided better access to a larger scene. I've met exactly one "student poet," Joshua Schuster. In all, what I have at this point are impressions. I must say that the reading Rae Armantrout gave at Penn was well attended, although almost exclusively by students and faculty at that school. When I read at Temple in early '94, I similarly got a great audience, which was doubly amazing since it was on short notice, my first attempt having been thwarted when the school (and city) shut down due to an ice storm. They don't deal with winter as easily as the folks in Buffalo, I must say. I must say, though, that Philly is a very pleasant, interesting, varied city, and the countryside to the west (where I am) is spectacularly beautiful. I miss people and some bookstores from the Bay Area (notably SPD) but otherwise, I'm happy as a clam. Other cities on the East Coast surprise me more than Philadelphia. For example, Boston has been by far the least hospitable city for the post-New American poetries of any large scene imaginable. Last time I checked, Charles Bernstein and I had each given exactly one reading there (mine was in Bill Corbett's house), compared to the three I've given in Philadelphia, the two in DC, etc. Baltimore is another city that has several writers, but seems very quiet. Rod Smith and Mark Wallace seem determined to make DC interesting (and appear to be doing a very good job thereof). But Wilmington? Why have I never met a poet who lived in Wilmington? Ron ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 10:47:21 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R I Caddel Subject: The Nasty Niedecker Man Again In-Reply-To: <199510250401.EAA27862@hermes.dur.ac.uk> Dear Kevin - and anyone else who I've unwittingly offended - I'm a bit worried about the "think of us" routine, since it suggests that I've tried to put down all American LN readers/readings in one bag. I haven't. I'm also concerned that a note of UK/US divisiveness creeps in at this point, which again, isn't supported by anything I've written. I don't think it's so simple as to say, UK sees it thus; US sees it thus, nor have I ever tried to imply that. Nor, I'm afraid, did I ever get round to proposing "my" reading of the place: what I did comment on, in fact, was how difficult a good take on the place would be. "Unblinkered" to me would mean a reading which didn't just propose one take on the place (as in: the poverty! the saddness! let's move to NY) but tried to see what more there is to it than that (blinkers, you know, are what people put on horses to make them look in one direction). Nothing's ever comprehensive, of course, but when we've totted up the pain & suffering in LN's work, we recognise that there's more to it than that: an affirmation, even a celebration. That needs to be said. So, a reading of the place which doesn't say that risks being considered "unsupportable", "failing" etc. "Unwitting" acknowledges that perhaps that's not deliberate, as in the heading of this posting. Yes, we're all tourists, zipping around and taking snapshots. But those snapshots can be misleading (a) about the snappee, and (b) about the snapper. John Barrell made this point, writing about Clare, who so singularly wrote out of one place, even after it had gone forever, and who was constantly faced with incomprehension over his concerns to celebrate social and physical environment, at whatever price. Hence my Clare/ Niedecker comparison. Snapshots don't carry enough depth for complex subjects. I'm going to be off-list for a few days, and would like not to leave bad feeling behind me - so - Sorry to Dodie and Kevin and anyone else, whereever they may be, if anything I've said offended. I hope I've cleared it up. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x x x x "right down among em x x the folk from whom all poetry flows x x and dreadfully much else." x x - Lorine Niedecker x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 08:53:39 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" Organization: University of NC at Greensboro Subject: May Swenson Well, just to start with, one that I think of as an Old Favorite, "Cat and the Weather." When you first read this you think you have a latter-day imagist poem, and in fact it has a lot in common with peoms by Amy Lowell and especially H. D. That is, you see that cat on that windowsill with that snow coming down on that particular day in that particular place, and the lines of the poem seem broken so as to intensify the focus. And visual focus is extremely important in her poems. I "saw" the Piazza San Marco more vividly in one of her poems than I can see it while standing there, overhwelmed with pigeons and architectural detail. But then if you _listen_ to her poems you usually hear the complex audible structure. It varies from poem to poem but it IS structure--not just the random jotting that it looks like at first. The three poems in The Harper Anthology of Poetry make a good beginning. Maybe when I have time I can key in some poems. _Half Sun Half Sleep_ is a fine volume. _To Merge With Time_ included a broad sweep of her work. She did at one point get a little too caught up in concrete or shaped poems, but even there it's usually more than just typing out the words so they look like a swan--as Hollander did. I mean, if you study the shape you see there's more to it than it seems at first. In "How Eeverything Happens: A Study of the Wave" at first you think, well, OK, it's like a wave. Then you see that implied in the poem are everything from quantum theory to emotional cycles. But you have to take time to get to know the poems. It's not performance poetry or experiential onrush. There's movement but there is also a lot of stasis. I can imagine getting some pleasure out of riding past a long series of Pollock paintings on a motorbike, but I can't imagine doing a Monet show that way. To some extent her strategies were a way of achieving this focus or stasis--they slowed her down. But I never feel that the poems are over-articulated or too gimmicky, because in the end the focus is outside herself even when it's inside herself (I mean, as when she writes about the effect of novocaine after a dentist visit). (This posting is in response to an inquiry from Chris Stroffolino). Tom Kirby-Smith English Department UNC-Greensboro Greensboro NC 27412 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 09:13:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Larry Price Subject: Villon's Snow (still falling) The difficulty I'm having with the discussion of theory and form is the apparent assumption that they are isolable. In this model (as with the recent poetry and politics discussion - "politics is only one possible hobby amongst many") it seems as though theory is being treated as a kind of fetishized content to sprinkle over and enliven otherwise mundane and static forms. But - following up on Charles Alexander's post - I can't now finish a poem that doesn't take up "the ideological history of its own form as part of its formal workings." And ideological future for that matter, although I wouldn't insist that it be "implicit rather than explicit," since, as with Zizek, there is no dirty little secret, no missing X of reality that the ideological veils. In this concern, at least, ideology IS the real. The state IS because it is a form of life (in Wittgenstein's term). And if the tent poles change, so does the tent. That fact doesn't make me forget the other fact of their contradictory status (as alienated forms). As Ron implied some time ago (or should have), it is precisely their material contradictions that make poems important. To paraphrase: "It is because they are contradictory that they must be written." But the other side of this, which Rod Smith pointed out in his post, is the critical and participatory moment, the feedback through method or ascesis. For example, in the last few days, I followed this chain: Ed Foster (concerning Dickinson's dashes) remarked upon the fallen status of the dash (as now designating the merely parenthetical, a paradigmatic parallel or restatement). It occurs to me then that Dickinson's dashes aren't noemic at all, but distributional (as opposed to integrative, in Culler's terms). This sent me back to my notes from Culler where I found my own early mis-reading of Bruce Andrews as "about" paradigm, whereas now, in light of the Kula gift ring shard posted by cris cheek, I might read Bruce as distributional, the accrual of significations (to the artifact and not the artificer) in the "progress" from island to island in Bruce's projected oceanic paradise of language, which accrual, because of the feedback, forces lexical change both in the artifact and reading. The idea that signification ACCRUES through circulation has implications for form. Form may initiate circulation, but circulation ensures a surplus, an eventual excess meaning. And as that pressure builds, the lexical shift must occur. Among other changes, it can be a shift in the way signification is distributed among the iconic counters, which again, I assume, can cause shifts in the directions and kinds of their literal mobility, their use. So, yes, a text can be VERY responsible for what can be done with it. An author may not be. For as Sweet William also said, "Uh-oh, somebody's been fuckin' with my mummy again." Larry Price ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 09:02:49 -40962758 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Rosenberg Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities Thanks one and all for the many kind words. While we're handing out recommendations, I'd like to speak for John Cayley's work, which I find simply stunning. John does a very different kind of work than I do, using algorithms to generate text on-the-fly from things in the poem that have already happened. He's also doing some really provocative things with time, with having words appear in different places on the screen at the same time. Charles Alexander: > This seems to me best done in print by layering of papers, including > transparent or translucent ones. While it can probably be done with less > expense with interactive software methods, there is something else with > words on paper, which is the physical fact of language as tangible > substance. Interesting you should mention this -- I support the idea of using physical media 100%. One thing I think I would do if I were teaching a course in hypertext writing is to give one assignment to make a hypertext without using the computer at all. As attractive as the computer is in many respects, it is also easy to get sidetracked by whatever off-the-shelf abstractions the particular software package you're using has built in, rather than focusing on exactly what you want to accomplish aesthetically. Physical media let you execute ideas more directly. Struggling with physical media is a good way to become clear on what you want to do when you do sit down with software. I was fascinated to learn from Cathy Marshall, who is one of the leading hypertext researchers (and whose ideas parallel mine in a lot of truly uncanny ways) that she got started in hypertext using physical models -- pasting words onto the kind of chemical models used to display the structure of molecules. Word installations is another area where there is a whole infinitude of possibilities to be explored. The page can be literally any possible space. I have a lot of nostalgia for the two installations I did back in the 70s. One thing the computer does bring to the table is that it makes it very easy to reproduce the work once you're done. Using (say) transparent plastic sheets is a lot easier to do in an original one-off work than in an edition. The computer also brings some difficult *problems* to the table. Given the rapid pace of change in the computer industry, how easy will it be to find a computer 50 years from now that can run today's computer poetry? Whose burden is it to be sure there's a way to display the work? A lot of questions to be answered. -- Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/ CIS: 71515,124 WELL: jer Internet: jr@amanue.pgh.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 10:28:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: mag list update spencer: for your mag list update, please note talisman's address is now: P.O. Box 3157 Jersey City, NJ 07303-3157 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 10:40:42 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gale Nelson Subject: Re: Metroplexities In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 25 Oct 1995 02:39:57 -0700 from Ron, It's always nice to see Providence become invisible once again. We have only the likes of Keith & Rosmarie Waldrop, C.D. Wright & Forrest Gander, Ray Ragosta, Craig Watson (when he's not in China, Australia, South Africa or Malaysia), Tom Ahern, Mark McMorris, Jennifer Moxley, Patrick Phillips, Ray Jordan, A.W. Gregoire, Michael Harper, Edwin Honig, Randy & Mutlu Blasing, Nancy Donegan, Jan Cal, Xue Di, Meng Lang, Catherine Imbriglio [with recent leavings including Lee Ann Brown, Peter Gizzi, LeAnn Jacobs & Elizabeth Willis] among the non-student poetry community; with fiction writers Robert Coover, Carole Maso, Robert Arellano, Lori Baker, Gita Brown, Alison Bundy, Donald Judson, Meredith Steinbach, Shay Youngblood comprising a corner of the prose writers in town (not to mention playwrights Eliza Anderson, Debbie Baley, Aishah Rahman, Paula Vogel, Adam Bock, etc.) -- and an ever-changing group of dynamic graduate _and_ undergraduate poets, fiction writers, etc (one recent graduate, Aaron Kunin, is now at Duke pursuing a PhD -- his honors thesis was a tremendous, intelligent piece of writing). Excuse the plug for the home ground, Ron. It may not be Paradise, but it _is_ where _Paradise_ was lovingly published. Cheers, Gale Nelson ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 13:09:09 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Cayley Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities Yes, Jim's fine, pioneering work, including his notes and essays on non/multi-linear poetics, are a necessary reference here. I've also been working, on and off, in this area since the personal computer first became available, and my web-site (see below) has some explanatory material. To self-promote, I now have now several self-published Macintosh disks which make non-trivial use of the medium of a computer-based cybertext systems to present poetic work. There is a *lot* that can be done. But poets/writers will have to come to grips with software, to 'press the reveal code key' as I would have it [quoting something that has been written to, hopefully, appear elsewhere]: 'Each term of the writer/reader/programmer triangle is a shifter. Just as writer may be reader and reader, writer in current (post-modern) critical perspectives, so either of these absent agents may be programmers: systematic manipulators of text and intertext, making use of software which has become intimate with poetics. Poets and readers must become intimate with software. They must press the "Reveal Code" key.' For (an obvious) example: 'Scoring' a (silent) reading so that words, phrases etc. appear on the screen in positions composed/specified by an author, and at speeds and with pauses which are as she hears them with her inner ear -- this is something that is fairly easy to set up on modern computer systems. I made a software harness for HyperCard on the Mac which allows you take a text, arrange the words on the screen(s), set speeds at which they appear (rightwards-scrollingly), set pauses between words / phrases/ lines / screens; set multiple orders in which the words appear, and are erased, etc. etc. This system is a usable but unfinished piece of software (unfinished -- as a software publication *tool*, tho' separate pieces using it exist, especially _wine flying_ (1988) -- because I quickly became more interested in quasi-aleatory text generation). But if it was ever finished, it could be used to 'publish' anyone's work; anyone who wanted to score a series of silent readings of appropriate pieces in this way. [If some institution give me a grant to finish the software, ho ho, and someone was willing to help edit an anthology of scored pieces by innovative poets -- well, there aren't too many projects I'd rather undertake.] Charles B. said we should announce new 'books', so apologies for continuing with this shameless self-promotion. My latest is: _The Speaking Clock_ ... with acknowledgements to Emmett Williams's 'Poetry Clock' and, more specifically, to John Christie's mechanical 'Word Clocks' ... however this (silent) speaking clock in software both composes from a given text according to quasi-aleatory procedures and actually tells the 'real time': "What if it was impossible to apply a single name from a finite set to a moment which seems to recur in an acknowledged cycle of time? What if it was impossible to apply the word 'dawn' to more than one single instant at the beginning of some one particular day?" -- from the given text. 1 x 1.4 Mb disk, for Apple Macintosh with HyperCard or HyperCard Player 2.x GBP 5.95 (us$11.95) -- can be supplied as shareware over the net (as an email attachment) ISBN 0 948454 26 1 Finally, a forthcoming issue of _Visible Language_ edited by Eduardo Kac, will be devoted to "New Poetry, New Media -- Experimental Poetics and Technological Innovation", and will included a piece by Jim Rosenberg. - - - - - - John Cayley Wellsweep Press [in Chinese HZ: ~{?-U\02~} ~{=[i@3v0fIg~}] ^ fine, innovative literary translation from Chinese ^ 1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK Tel & Fax: 0171-267 3525 Email: cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk 1995 URLs: http://www.inforamp.net/~cayley [= home] + /wshome.html [= Wellsweep] + /inhome.html [= Indra's Net] - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 13:51:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Willa Jarnagin Subject: Re: Metroplexities In-Reply-To: <199510250939.CAA11908@ix4.ix.netcom.com> On Wed, 25 Oct 1995, Ron Silliman wrote: > Other cities on the East Coast surprise me more than Philadelphia. For > example, Boston has been by far the least hospitable city for the > post-New American poetries of any large scene imaginable. Last time I > checked, Charles Bernstein and I had each given exactly one reading > there (mine was in Bill Corbett's house).... Well, I suppose this the perfect opportunity to plug the reading series I and Eric Malone are starting in Boston. "CellarDoor" will give poets a place to read outside the university scene that's stuffed into every corner of this city (please pay no attention to my Harvard email address; I only work here like many other Somervillites). Our first reader is Bill Corbett (speaking of Bill...) on OCTOBER 29, 2:00, at the Bookcellar Cafe, 1971 Mass. Ave, Cambridge. Ron, have you heard of Word of Mouth, the Boston series run by Michael Franco for the past 8 years, in which Robin Blaser, Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Anne Waldman, Ed Foster and many others read? Word of Mouth has ended (at least for a while) so Eric and I started CellarDoor to fill the void. Poets on this list, if you ever come to Boston, please let me know so we can arrange to give you a reading!! Email me or write me at 51 Laurel St. #3, Somerville MA 02143. Willa Jarnagin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 15:27:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Beth Russell Subject: wagering poetics Poetics list, I was wondering if there were any poets/writers/creators/ thinkers/ or _pockets_ of poets who are currently working in the medium of _chance_ (operations, etc.)--aside from those relatively established already. S pecifically, i'm interested in researching these things as it relates to current technolgies- the _place_ or position of poetries/art w/in the technically emergent world/locus. Even more to the point, is there anyone out there who is currently _performing_ aleatory-poetics, etc., aside from figures such as MacLow , Burroughs (Cage), etc. and moreso, are they using technological mediums and how are they relating it to performance, chance, etc.? thanks, beth ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 14:50:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Timothy Liu Subject: Re: Metroplexities Ron & Co.: If it's Wilmington, NC, the poet Michael White teaches out there at UNCC. Doesn't seem like there's a lot of experimental writing or readings going on out there, although Black Mountain and Jonathan Williams are nearby . . . I'm new to POETICS, so I suppose I'm losing my virginity with this post! Two things on my mind. As poets, do we only apply for jobs in places we'd like to live or do we take what we can get, relying on cyberspace to compensate for the outposts that we eventually find ourselves stationed at? I've been living out here in Mt. Vernon (IA) since '94, and were it not for Eastern Iowa's cultural mecca of Iowa City, I'd be goin nuts. Trips to Chicago do help, but now, as I scan the latest job listings, it seems that only the jobs that provide an upgrade in location have any appeal. And access to the internet seems vital! Secondly, and this is for Chris S., did Tate's workshop or the program at UMass Amherst provide a space for you to write in or was it finally unacceptable? Did a fellowship lure you there? As a graduate student, I was willing to study at whatever program would give me enough money to get by and write. I wonder if post-graduates aren't forced to do the same kind of dance. Timothy Liu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 15:27:44 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: Complex city/ scene- ery I would be interested in hearing from older poets with more experience about what their visions for an ideal "poetry scene" in any city might be. I've lived in Philadelphia recently and considered "the scene" as the people comprising the audience who showed up for Ron's reading on Walnut Street one night; or, away from university sponsored events, the crowd who attended Yusef Komunyaka's reading at the Painted Bride just a month and a mile or so apart. More recently, I got to know many of the people Gale Nelson lists as residing in Providence when I was living in the Ocean State last year. The events I was able to get to were sponsored by Brown, but that didn't make them any less pleasant. (Of course both cities have their share of presses and magazines, but they are more like props in the scene). Staying as vague as possible: I thought both cities were wonderful. What should be the basic function of a poetry scene? Formal and informal interaction among poets? What else? Is an academic environment more ideal or less ideal than, say, an arts center? What about the larger environment- a "city of the corporations?" which neither Philly nor Providence are, or a city where the poets are mainly found on a campus? I've been in Boston for six months and have met precious few (read: 2) poets. Can anybody offer any encouraging insight into this place? daniel_bouchard @ hmco.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 16:33:16 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Situation #10 mark-- actually, this sis re: the forms thread... i'll send you a couple of things i've put out, one is a collaboratin sonnett & the other a chap hat has some sonnetts in it. not sure if either would count thmselves avantgard & so not sure if it fits yr line of questioning, but would be interested to hear what ch y think... got a not from WITZ (chris renner? i think, couldnt read the handwriting & havnt checked my records), saying he'd be interested in running a review of mark ducharmes book; you'd mentioned praps being up for such? if so , let me know, if you kneed the address, and would be greatly appreciated... writ frm work, where the textedit nor delete key works... but i do. allbest luigi ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 17:03:48 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X From: Alan Golding Subject: Maria (D.) Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu Sorry to use public space for a private note, but . . . Maria (Damon): Are you out there? I wrote you backchannel a while (week?) ago and am not sure it went through, wonder if I have your address right, etc. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 17:14:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Brannen Subject: Re: Wallace and fiscal poetry >> >>>(money is also a kind of poetry) >>> >>> >>Tenney, >> >>Since when? To whom? I can relate to neither this concept of money nor >>this concept of poetry. >> >> >>Best of all possible worlds, >>Jonathan Brannen >> > >says Wallace Stevens, and as I think Ed Foster remarked sardonically >(through a typo though?) if anyone's should know, it wd be Wallace (of the >far-flung surprise Christmas box). Thinking, say, of all those lush fruits >in "St Agnes Eve" etc. Imagination etc. There are also a couple of funny >moments in Emerson where he says he hates the drudgery of the worker (and >cf. American Scholar the truncated hand etc) but loves the bold imagination >of the inventive capitalist & so on: pretty much equates capital w >Imagination or Reason, drudge work w Understanding. I can't remember why it >seemed apposite to quote Stevens, w some bemusement as I vaguely recall, but >it did. > >Tenney > Tenney, My questions were rhetorical. Saying that money is poetry is the same kind of chicanery as calling a missle with a nuclear war-head a Peace-Keeper. Ed is probably right, Wally, no doubt, had a better understanding of the machinations of money than Waldo did of the drudgery of workers (at that time in Emerson's vacinity, they would most likely have been textile workers, an industry which then relied almost exclusively on child labor, mostly females who typically began their "careers" at age seven or eight and rarely lived beyond their teens because of lung disease and other work place hazards). If "money is a kind of poetry" then perhaps those dashes that Emily Dickinson used are actually be coded messages from an alien civilization. Best regards, Jonathan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 19:03:00 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: poetry with a tech slant: anthology Some of you may recall that last summer I solicited your help in throwing a course together I am to teach this spring: 20th century technology and esthetics. I'm now closer to a syllabus but I need your help again (and forgive the redundancy quotient here if any): is there an anthology that contains the following poets: WCW, Hart Crane, LZ, Oppen, Bronk, MacLow, Cage, Ronald Johnson. You will note the absence of women on this list. I will not go forward without some women poets. But who? Someone mentioned Kathy Acker. How about Susan Howe (not really)? Joan Retelllack maybe? But anyway, I would very much like to order an anthology (rather than make up my own) if I can find one that's serviceable. I plan to use Perloff's The Futurist Moment and Steinman's Made in America as companion pieces (as well as other books though the others are not concerned with poetry necessarily). Thank you for your help (again), Burt Kimmelman Humanities NJIT Newark, NJ 07102 kimmelman@admin.njit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 20:56:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Pound Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: McCaffery & MacCormack Buffalo Reading Comments: cc: v103q5ll@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu, v085l5d8@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu, v111q5nn@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu, vp24wxew@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu, v119rb9r@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu ******************* READING ******************* CHARLES BERNSTEIN STEVE McCAFFERY KAREN MacCORMACK will read from their work on Thurs., November 16, 1995 (8 PM) at BIG ORBIT GALLERY, 30 Essex Street Buffalo, NY ************************************************************************ Steve McCaffery will read at the Center for the Arts SUNY-BUFFALO on Wednesday, November 15 at 4pm ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 22:52:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Metroplexities >As poets, do we only apply for jobs in >places we'd like to live or do we take what we can get, relying >on cyberspace to compensate for the outposts that we eventually find >ourselves stationed at? > >Timothy Liu My feeling is that as a poet I try and create my job. I haven't heard of any job I can apply for to be a poet (believing that being a poet is not by any means the same thing as teaching poetry). So, whether it's getting involved in teaching, or nonprofit organizations, or freelance writing, or design, or business of various sorts, it seems to me if one wants to be somewhere in particular, she or he can do that. Taking "what we can get" seems an odd concept. charles ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 21:39:45 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david ayre Subject: fleet'n greet'ns Hey info friends ! for those of you with WWW access, i've been working on a canadian WWW poetics network linking writers and their work with publishers/journals-mags/bookstores- libraries.. It's still under constructions but currently there is information on the following journals: West Coast Line Open Letter Raddle Moon + others and the following presses: Talon Books, Tsunami Editions/New Star Press, Oolichan books Arsenal Pulp ECW Caitlin The Eternal Network +others + info on British Columbian small bookstores... Still under construction is a forum section where users can create their own forum topics to which users can enter their discussions + info and works by Canadian writers... gotta flee ! avid deary ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 24 Jan 1995 21:41:35 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: david ayre Subject: oops after all that, i forgot the address... http://www.wimsey.com/~ksw/pnet/pnet.htm note: there is no letter "l" after ".htm" exit stage left ------------>} } <----------------------------} ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 25 Oct 1995 18:17:54 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gabrielle Welford Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities In-Reply-To: On Tue, 24 Oct 1995, Jim Rosenberg wrote: > The thing that has excited me is the possibilities hypertext methods allow > for word *structure*. Since my undergraduate days one of the things I've > wanted to do with words is put them (literally) on top of one another. > Painters juxtapose, composers put sounds on top of one another, there's no > reason poets shouldn't do the same. But there's a problem: when you put > words literally on top of one another, they tend to *interfere* to the point > of unintelligibility -- regardless of whether you do it orally using > simultaneous voices, or visually on the page. Interactive software methods > allow you to put words on top of one another and *sacrifice nothing* in the > way of intelligibility: using the mouse one can navigate the layers and read > all the words, yet those words reside in the same place. > Great! This is something I've been wanting to do for some time and was trying to figure out ways to physically look through words into other words underneath by doing something like a pop-up books, but I've never had time. The thing that bothers me about hypertext (which I've never used, so I may be talking up a grass snoot) is the time element. You wouldn't actually be looking simultaneously through one word at another. There'd be a time lapse wouldn't there? Gabrielle ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 02:47:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities Jim Rosenberg is absolutely right: >The computer also brings some difficult *problems* to the table. Given the rapid pace of change in the computer industry, how easy will it be to find a computer 50 years from now that can run today's computer poetry? Whose burden is it to be sure there's a way to display the work? A lot of questions to be answered. My sense is that any work in hypertext that is good would be good writing in an absolutely hide-bound traditional print format. Consider how great Blake can seem evn when removed from the illumined manuscript. Also, the word on the street is that the archivists are avoiding collecting disks of manuscripts like the plague, even though in many programs you could tell, for example, how many levels of revision (and length of composition) were involved. If you get one of the those greeting cards that plays a tune when opened, it's using a chip that has more computing capacity than the US military had for all of WW2. In 2025, the average laptop (if that form is still popular) will almost certainly have more power than is contained in all of silicon valley. These tools at hand are still very primitive, if we just envision what they will look like in 100 years. (The typewriter was an invention of the Civil War, a means of bringing reports home from the front, which is why/how Remington, a rifle manufacturer, got involved. The internet was conceived as a means of decentralizing the national computing architecture so that it would survive WW3. Then it took off on its own.) Ron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 02:48:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Upper Limit Atlanta Nobody here has commented on how much Cleveland's great second baseman Carlos Baerga looks like Aldon Nielson, so I will be the first. (This at least with my trifocals off.) Last chance to watch Carlos tonight on the telly. Ron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 03:03:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: fleet'n greet'ns David, re your post: >Hey info friends ! > >for those of you with WWW access, i've been working >on a canadian WWW poetics network linking writers and >their work with publishers/journals-mags/bookstores- >libraries.. > >It's still under constructions What is the URL??? Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 08:58:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities i think ron, via jim, is absolutely correct in pointing to the tinkertoy technologies represented by computer-authoring programs when looked through the lens of just a decade or two hence... within even ten years, chip technology (rated, say, in equiv. numbers of transistors per) will be many orders of magnitude beyond what it is today... i would simply like to add that this does NOT mean (nor do i take ron or jim as suggesting anything of the sort) that folks shouldn't wander off and play in said tinkertoy directions... i learned a lot, methinks, from TINKERTOYS---and building blocks... and as much as working with print material offers advantages to any budding ht builder (as jim suggests) so does (in some cases) *struggling* with a piece of software, testing one's moods and cognitions against its warp & woof... speaking of which, anybody hereabouts had the opportunity to check out seneca's (i think it is) new html authoring tool? (forget the name)... joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 06:59:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: KSW=Kootenay's Site on the Web Cool site, Dave. A lot of webpages are in a constant state of flux, but this is the first time I've ever seen one that's "under construsion." It figures that Bowering's off in Europe somewhere (working of course) just when I need a translation from the Canadian. >after all that, i forgot the address... > > >http://www.wimsey.com/~ksw/pnet/pnet.htm > >note: there is no letter "l" after ".htm" > >exit stage left ------------>} > } ><----------------------------} Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 11:42:32 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: oops another link fr edgy canadian lit: http://www.io.org/~dalopes/ lbd ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 11:46:20 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Upper Limit Atlanta >Last chance to watch Carlos tonight on the telly. oh ye ov little faith... it aint over til its over lbd ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 13:14:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Metroplexities Jordan: Yes, I share hope for "an intelligent and friendly scene" in NYC and it is certainly achievable in non (or para) institutional contexts, the interstices, late night chance encounters, etc--but it would be helpful I think to see more of a mutually challenging community there. One thing I keep coming back to is the Perelman WRITING/TALKS series and the "frutiful collision" that seemed to allow. in the then-developing and wide ranging group of poets brought into dialogue with each other. If the inbreeding at the ear is as you say but "the growing pangs of a coalescing group" let's hope that coalescing doesn't mean reifying (or more dreadfully reified). As for your talk on FACTIONS---well, another thing i keep coming back to from my experience in Phila. was that it seemed that the knowledge that there were less poets there enabled an openess to cross-pollinization or at least dialogue of the NYC equivalent of the Jewish Y scene and the nuyorican and the ear inn tyes (I mean the phila equivalent) than I have seen in NYC from my admitted "peripheral" perspective. Nonetheless, much morew can be done on these points in BOTH cities (and should be). RON: You claim that GIL OTT "developed that entire scene"---Let me offer a correction (without attempting to "put Gil down"--who i very much respect---but i think Gil would agree with me here. That scene was also in part the work of Lamont Steptoe (who is now based in the Walt Whitman center in Camden--and like Gil suffered from PBAC politics)-- who paired many lesser-known younger poets with more established ones (myself, for instance, with Gerald Stern and then Berstein and Ott) and also broke down certain racial divisions (and their often aesthetic counterparts between the slam scene and the more sophisticated scenes-- (put sophisticated in quotes) whether "mainstream" or "avant-garde") AND WHO IS JOSHUA SCHUSTER??????? Could you tell me? I'm curious. Maybe you could put us in touch. Also, do you know Dave Baratier--Pavement Saw press. Temple M.A. student (but also with a JOB in business world, so THERE!)-- He is involved in a very interesting salon that includes some young poets (mostly women i think) involved with APR, Boulevard and the Painted bride Quarterly (ethel rackin for instance).... Definitely a young, vital, intelligent and friendly scene (whose taste is wider than one MIGHT imagine). DB told me he went to one of your readings and that he's been trying to get work from you and Perelman for his mag. TIM: Good to hear from you (after all these years). The U-MASS experience basically SUCKED for me--which is why I'm in a Ph.D> program now and not a MFA. Though I respect Tate in much the way i respect Koch for freeing my writing from my (perhaps reductive?) reading of the LANGPO aesthetic and "recentering" me, as am teacher he was dreadful and irresponsible and simply "not there" (even though he DID once defend one of my poems from a challenge YOU made!) Yet, it's quite easy for him to say "I have faith in the process"--meaning the MFA creative writing process of weeding out the "wheat" from the "chaff"--(where I mean were you there when he said that?--i think he did more than once) considering the fact that he never had to work outside of the academy since he was 23! Anyway, I actually found myself defending Bernstein to him (and it fell on deaf ears). Now, I don't mean to simply attack that process wholecloth, but I found as much closemind- edness there as I do among certain avantgardists too. I don't know if this answers your question. Chris S. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 13:15:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tunguska Subject: Villon's Snow (always) Your comments, Larry Price, about form and theory, got me thinking about Paul Ricour's Rule of Metaphor. and yes, there is an attempt to take these things, poetry, speech, lexis etc, and treat them in isolated fashion (are we trying to get outside a so-called poetry-mind and look back in to see its all?)The arguments around the, as you say, circulation of, accretion of signification, etc, could continue, in their own perspective, outside any other prerogative, as empiricism, as science does do. What is interesting about Ricour's study of these things, and in particular, poetic form, the language of poetry, is, he determines, in the end, to listen to the language of everyday, the philosophy of everyday language I believe he says, and from that, draw a sort of categorial perspective of language, away from, as it were, the dictates of other so called possibilities and imaginations, real situations in their own intellectual right....but doesn't this all come down to the apprehension of the difference in "economic" man, and "spiritual" man, as, among others, MacDiarmid would have said...this pragmatics, this existentialism's but a poem?.....etc etc tod thilleman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 14:14:42 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: KSW=Kootenay's Site on the Web i read "under construsion" as = construction+extrusion, a neologism i'd keep... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 13:17:51 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: Villon's Snow (still falling) Comments: To: Lppl@AOL.COM Larry Price wrote: ...I might read Bruce (Andrews) as distributional, the accrual of significations (to the artifact and not the artificer) in the"progress"from island to island in Bruce's projected oceanic paradise of language, which accrual, because of the feedback, forces lexical change both in the artifact and reading. The idea that signification ACCRUES through circulation has implications for form. Form may initiate circulation, but circulation ensures a surplus, an eventual excess meaning.And as that pressure builds, the lexical shift must occur. Among other changes, it can be a shift in the way signification is distributed among the iconic counters, which again, I assume, can cause shifts in the directions and kinds of their literal mobility, their use. So, yes,a text can be VERY responsible for what can be done with it. An author maynot be. For as Sweet William also said, "Uh-oh, somebody's been fuckin' with my mummy again." Larry, appreciated the whole post and nothing but, but the last bit above especially. I know what you are saying about Bruce's work,but would want to apply what you say to any poetry. When I moaned some days back about the model that seemed chronically implied in discussions of audience 'communciation', poetry's prestige in the culture, etc. the corrective I had in mind involved the processes you suggest. Wystan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 20:22:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Beth Russell Subject: Re: burt kimmeleman's course Burt, you may want to check out the _Poems for the Millenuim_, ed. by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris. Also, in regards to literary crit. and technology, you may want to check into George Landow's _Hypertext_: the convergence of...(Johns Hopkins 1992). This Landow piece is now available on disk w/expanded notes on the original _Hypertext_ work, w/comments by students, notes, etc. beth russell ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 00:55:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Sherwood Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Computers and Writing There is an interview with Roland Barthes in which he talks at length about his writing pens, an array of them apparently, the barbarity of ball-points and such. Which I take as a reminder of how hard it is to make poems without tools-chisel, Parker, or Mac. So I've been following the recent thread (what are we weaving) which seems to be dealing with creation, presentation, and representation of writing through computers. Chris Funkhouser's observation of the literal-mindedness of some options is to the point. The Comptons Encyclopedia CD-ROM doesn't offer much inspiration, formal or otherwise. But there is no obvious reason why the tech need perform such a limiting rendering of the poem. Simple gestures, like adding two slightly variant vocal tracks to a poem, suddenly open up meaning and possibility. Joe's tinkertoy analogy is partly apt--we can wrest much from tech as it now stands, including (Charles) that time-tested Codice TM. Working to lay words on the page or screen, working with the intonation or pace of a poem. Perhaps it is the Barthes' interview again--his pen fetish seemed to carefully relegate 'typewriter' technology to the status of reproduction, duplication; no one could write there, except, one supposes, his secretary (who was not queried)--but there seems an almost violence in the gesture to decline (suppress) the relation of computers to writing when, for most here reading this at least, it is (for better or worse) quite central. Ken Sherwood ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 08:39:57 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities glad to see that th hypertext thread here is expansive enuf to include various print-based media, as well as on-screen... the various lists devoted to HT normally & vehemently aren't so generous. an excellent source of info & inspiration for creative presentation of work-in-print would be book-artist Keith Smith (keith smith books, 22 cayuga st., rochester ny 14620), particularly his _Text in the Book Format_. the thread also reminds me of cage's multilayered constructions of text on plexiglass... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 10:12:49 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gale Nelson Subject: Re: wagering poetics In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 25 Oct 1995 15:27:19 -0400 from Beth, Judith Goldman, a recent graduate of Brown, who is now living in New York, has done some fascinating poetic projects; among them, a series of Rubik cubes, repasted with language. Each "twist" of the cube leads not toward solid colors on each of the cube's sides; but rather, to a new poem. She also has designs for some fantastic poetry organs, that would inflate different word patterns based on chance fillings of various word balloons. She also works in collage and "inspiration" (meaning she sits down and writes) methods. While it is not a chance operation, _The Pumice of Morons_ was an interesting S + 7 project (Clark Coolidge and Larry Fagan?), produced shortly after the Clinton innauguration by The Figures Press. Gale Nelson ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 10:01:56 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gale Nelson Subject: Re: poetry with a tech slant: anthology In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 25 Oct 1995 19:03:00 EST from An anthology that includes none of the persons on your list for technology and poetry, I would still suggest turning your attention to the Blue Mustache (Elizabeth Press, I believe) -- an anthology of Italian Futurist Poetry in translation. MM's poetry will sometimes move in the mechanized way of early 20th century machinery; she would turn up in many of the modernist anthologies which would/ should include WCW and LZ. J. Drucker's work would seem appropriate in this context -- both in its (largely old-technology) production and (her prose work) in content. R. Waldrop's _Camp Printing_ shows to interesting effect old (letterpress) and new (offset) printing techniques working together to make fascinating visual literature. Cheers, Gale Nelson ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 11:57:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Wallace and fiscal poetry jonathan: back to the money/poetry/stevens matrix. wd this be interesting to pursue further--siena, the medicis, alchemy, plato, poetry, all those astonishing links such that a + b equals more than c. it won'y make friends but can make interest. stevens was not taking about money as machinery but as magic. -ed ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 15:23:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Luoma Subject: Pitch of the Sun The warp of the sun woofs @ 1 cycle every five minutes can not here here ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 15:58:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: You - the City NY Screening There will be a NEW YORK screening of Fiona Templeton's YOU -- THE CITY at Millenium, 66 East 4th Street 7:15pm Thursday, November 2 for information about the film and video versions of _You -- the City_ contact Fiona Templeton at 100 St. Mark's Place New York NY 10009 212-533-9159. _You -- the City_ the book is available from Roof Books. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 15:13:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: wagering poetics Gale, your mention of Judith Goldman's work sounds very interesting! where can one fid some of it to have and to hold or at least oggle for a while? the cube and the organ sound very interesting. eryque ___________________________________________________________________________ Eryque "Just call me Eric" Gleason If I weren't a monkey, there'd be 71 E. 32nd St. Box 949 problems... Chicago, IL 60616 (312) 808-6858 gleaeri@charlie.acc.iit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 07:58:16 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Cayley Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities >One thing the computer does bring to the table is that it makes it very easy >to reproduce the work once you're done. Using (say) transparent plastic >sheets is a lot easier to do in an original one-off work than in an edition. There is also what the computer allows you to output to paper and related media -- the ability to achieve typographic effects (shading and distortion of text, etc.) which would have been impossible or prohibitively expensive before desktop typesetting. Mulit-linearity in a piece, for example, can be representing by different colours or shades (as well as using transparent sheets as Charles suggested). >The computer also brings some difficult *problems* to the table. Given the >rapid pace of change in the computer industry, how easy will it be to find >a computer 50 years from now that can run today's computer poetry? Whose >burden is it to be sure there's a way to display the work? A lot of questions >to be answered. The ability to archive and reproduce digital work really is a big problem. Although one of the good things about HTML is that is (or at least 'was') a part of SGML, a standard designed, partly, to allow the preservation and reproduction of the structure as well as the content of complex documents. I guess that it will get easier and easier to translate such structure from on system to another and that much of the work now being done will be able to be reproduced. [Thanks also for the kind words, Jim ...] John - - - - - - John Cayley Wellsweep Press [in Chinese HZ: ~{?-U\02~} ~{=[i@3v0fIg~}] ^ fine, innovative literary translation from Chinese ^ 1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK Tel & Fax: 0171-267 3525 Email: cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk 1995 URLs: http://www.inforamp.net/~cayley [= home] + /wshome.html [= Wellsweep] + /inhome.html [= Indra's Net] - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 16:04:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Timothy Liu Subject: Yet Another Vilanelle As a poet who wants to keep my Non-Conformist's Manual and Haw Lantern too, I offer up this vilanelle: Who shall we turn to now when all is said and done-- Seamus Heaney or Susan Howe? All ye poets who kowtow to the avant-garde as one: who shall we turn to now if Academia should vow to neither shelter nor shun Seamus Heaney or Susan Howe? (Buffalo and Harvard foul as any other Institution.) Who shall we turn to now to mend the broken bough of Sweet Poesy? C'mon 'hon! Seamus Heaney or Susan Howe? (Can't we be friends?) Holy Cow! Another Nobel already won, who shall we turn to now-- Seamus Heaney or Susan Howe? --Timothy Liu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 17:08:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: readings desiderata In-Reply-To: <951027152332_56136243@emout05.mail.aol.com> Dear gang, would people with years of experience hosting readings (and giving readings) provide a few comments on what would make readings more a) pleasant b) productive c) astonishing experiences for reader, host, and audience? Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 11:55:51 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Cayley Subject: Inscription in complex media - was: Hypertext & Poetry... [longish post warning] Ron Silliman wrote: >My sense is that any work in hypertext that is good would be good >writing in an absolutely hide-bound traditional print format... > >Also, the word on the street is that the archivists are avoiding >collecting disks of manuscripts like the plague, even though in many >programs you could tell, for example, how many levels of revision (and >length of composition) were involved. ... >These tools at hand are still very primitive, if we just envision what >they will look like in 100 years... Joe Amato responded (in part): >i would simply like to add that this does NOT mean (nor do i take ron or >jim as suggesting anything of the sort) that folks shouldn't wander off and >play in said tinkertoy directions... i learned a lot, methinks, from >TINKERTOYS---and building blocks... Yes, much of the good writing that has been inscribed as hypertext would be good in other media. But this is not an argument which implies that it *should* appear in another form. That is a decision within the gift of the writer. Some writing, however, either could not exist in more 'traditional' media, or would not be so elegantly presented as it would in cyber/hypertext (there is a useful distinction here, btw). In particular, I mean texts where 'chance operations' and/or algorithmic transformations are applied to given texts and the writer insists that the 'real time' results of these procedural operations *are* her inscription on the surface of a complex medium. (Where did I get that formulation from? Was it from someone on Poetics?) I would also argue, as I have elsewhere, that the cybertual author has the potential to compose procedures themselves and this should become a recognized part of the process of inscription/writing. As for elegance of presentation: it would be possible to transpose Jim's _Intergrams_ to paper-like media in, perhaps, a huge book-art installation. But one of the beauties of this work is its elegance -- the deep complexity produced by the layering which his HyperCard form allows; the ability not simply to move through layers of word clusters, but also to move up and down a syntactically structured hierarchy of such clusters, to obtain multiple views of the 'same' content. All this is done with minimal, and as I say, elegant programming. That said, it is the content-as-form which is the tenor of the (all) work, leading to its ultimate significance. So what if the cybertext systems of the new millenium will be tiny implants with the power of a Cray? Today's text processing system is *not* the civil war typewriter of tomorrow, because it is realized on shape-shifting silicon and I guess that the computers of tomorrow will not be qualitatively different from the computers of today (i.e. they will still be faceless,invisible machines programmed to perform as any all as-yet-undreamt-of appliances). The computer underlies the systems we're using but it is not to be identified with them. It transforms itself into typewriter, typesetter, cybertext system, etc, etc through software. Primitive software needn't be written off, it can be rewritten or 'upgraded'. Computer-based hardware/software configurations became potential media for literary art in, I would say, the late 80s when reasonably designed screen fonts, wysiwyg, and software such as HyperCard first appeared. Now that the WWW is with us, there is *no* reason not to make substantive use of the various potential media available [-- and transpose the 'good stuff' back into print if you insist]. There's a more serious problem with the idea of writing underlying Ron's post, as if there is something called 'writing' which exists independently of its actually inscription in a particular medium, and which, *if* it is 'good', has the additional quality of being capable of transposition into media with which we are more familiar. Does this hold up? The archivists Ron cites are wrong, wrong, wrong. It is not for the archivist to determine what is a proper record of the writers' processes of composition. If a writer happens to make a draft on a disk using the first version of Wordstar usign a Sirius PC, or on the inside of a matchbox, and then later destroys or encrypt all early drafts of an unpublished work that circulated on the bulletin board of a private network -- I just can't see that the archival or text critical problems this might cause are made *qualitatively* different because of the media used, or that this indicates that we should all make sure to *get it down on paper* in order to keep the librarians happy. Finally, although I completely accord with the tenor of Joe's light-hearted response to Ron's post, I can't help baulking at the image of the tinkertoy (which I also learned from during a Canadian childhood), the implication that *despite* the likelihood that these systems will appear to be *toys* to the right-thinking, we can nonetheless use and learn from them in our spare time. Computer-based systems are emphatically *not* tinkertoys, not even in the world of letters. They are what we make of them. There is bound to be a ludic element in the wide spectrum of current cybertextual work, but then, hasn't there been a ludic element in much experimental work generally? And isn't the ludic OK anyway? John - - - - - - John Cayley Wellsweep Press [in Chinese HZ: ~{?-U\02~} ~{=[i@3v0fIg~}] ^ fine, innovative literary translation from Chinese ^ 1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK Tel & Fax: 0171-267 3525 Email: cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk 1995 URLs: http://www.inforamp.net/~cayley [= home] + /wshome.html [= Wellsweep] + /inhome.html [= Indra's Net] - - - - - - ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 20:12:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Inscription in complex media - was: Hypertext & Poetry... john, nice discussion, from my pov anyway... yes, you're right---there was an implicit condescension in my choice of tinkertoy as proto/tool/col---and it suggests a developmental-evolutionary model of composition/construction, in any case, a movement from toys (today) to serious tools (tomorrow)... the progress-ive displacement of doing something significantly different, in formal terms, b/c of a latent bias toward unmediated content (read "preference for a specific formal content")... which i would like to avoid, in fact, however 'powerful' or 'sophisticated' our future media/tools may be... the inverse of my (faulty) logic leading, of course, to the infantilization of all that has come (long) before us as "primitive," "child-like"... still, there are times i would wish to reclaim the ludic in child-like terms, without any residual connotation of childish drivel... my (childish?) utopian urges prevailing here, methinks... anyway, yes, the formal qualities of the medium cannot be neglected or transcended, finally, without a corresponding reduction in potential value, if you will... from my pov, there's always the specificity of mediation to consider... this is what the emergence of electronic form, for one, has raised to the fore... all best//// joe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 21:48:23 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: burt kimmeleman's course Beth, Charles, Gale et alia, Thank you for your very good help. I was going in circles for a while there but now I feel like I have a direction and am well on my way. Burt ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 00:03:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities >There is also what the computer allows you to output to paper and related >media -- the ability to achieve typographic effects (shading and distortion >of text, etc.) which would have been impossible or prohibitively expensive >before desktop typesetting. Mulit-linearity in a piece, for example, can be >representing by different colours or shades (as well as using transparent >sheets as Charles suggested). Actually, I think this assumes that you would be paying someone to accomplish such typographic effects for you, rather than doing them yourself on a letterpress or with offset printing methods. And, I know, many more people have computers than have such presses -- but, in fact, my Vandercook letterpress I bought in 1979, and another I bought a couple of months ago, even taking the cost together, set me back far less than the computer I bought in 1989. There are people who pay others to achieve such typographic effects using the computer, rather than doing such things themselves; that is also prohibitively expensive for most of us. So I'm probably just carping here, but it's interesting the way the computer tools have created a bunch of do-it-yourselfers, far more than were created by the inexpensive proliferation of letterpress equipment which occurred when letterpress became commercially outmoded a couple to four decades ago. And I'm a convert, too, although only amazingly envious of the skills developed by such as Jim Rosenberg & John Cayley. all best, charles ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 00:18:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Inscription in complex media - was: Hypertext & Poetry... >There's a more serious problem with the idea of writing underlying Ron's >post, as if there is something called 'writing' which exists independently >of its actually inscription in a particular medium, and which, *if* it is >'good', has the additional quality of being capable of transposition into >media with which we are more familiar. Does this hold up? I admire Ron immensely, but I hope this doesn't hold up. Much of the work I have done in books has intended to create meaningful reading experiences, so the books (particularly the handmade books in various exploratory formats) are intended as wholes. They are not the only possible realization of the written works by any means, but I would like to thinkthey are more significant than eventual footnotes as "deluxe editions" of works which in some distant future will only be seen in the rather banal presentation of an author's collected poems or collected writings (including my own). It is the variations in reading contexts, as much as "the words themselves" (I once wrote, somewhere I don't quite remember -- "there never is such a thing as the words themselves"), which need to be preserved. Emily's dashes, Blake's illuminations, and meaningful (to the reader, writer, other makers) editions of works, in paper or hypertext or other media to be developed, which may not be entirely under the direction of the author (but which hopefully have her approval). >Computer-based systems are emphatically *not* tinkertoys, not even in the >world of letters. They are what we make of them. There is bound to be a >ludic element in the wide spectrum of current cybertextual work, but then, >hasn't there been a ludic element in much experimental work generally? And >isn't the ludic OK anyway? Yes, they are what we make of them. But don't we, at times, do it with a sense of imaginative play. Tinker toys and Lincoln logs may have been my toy of youth; duplos and legos to more recent children (and they are still with us); but one of my daughters' (now ages 2 & 6) tools to learn about making/building will be the computer. I know the 6-year-old already thinks of computer time as play time. Is that wrong? I hope not. charles Charles Alexander Chax Press P.O. Box 19178 Minneapolis, MN 55419-0178 612-721-6063 (phone & fax) chax@mtn.org ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 00:35:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: readings desiderata >Dear gang, would people with years of experience hosting readings (and >giving readings) provide a few comments on what would make readings more >a) pleasant b) productive c) astonishing experiences for reader, host, >and audience? > >Jordan Jordan, so many things, like -- big enough space, but absolutely not too big; enough light to read by and see reader, but, again, not at all "bright." also, there needs to be quiet in the space (having suffered recently from having readings & talks in a small area of a large space with fluorescents which constantly buzzed, driving me crazy); give options to reader as to whether to sit or stand -- if sitting, table in front or at side of reader is nice; if standing, i like a table or stand to the side for papers, but do not like standing behind podiums, and do not like music stands unless they are extremely sturdy ones. I think readings are best in settings which do not need amplification of reader via microphone, mixer, & speakers -- but if there's any question at all, by all means have these things, and have decent ones, well tested beforehand. If possible, allow for semi-circular seating, giving everyone in audience a direct view of reader/readers. Yet I think all of this can be done and remain in a relatively informal setting, not requiring an auditorium (small or large) setting, which sets up more of a distance between reader and audience. I think I'm talking mostly here about readings for audiences of 10 to 80 people. For more than that, unless the space is very carefully arranged, a small auditorium may work best. And I've both been to and given readings in mid-sized (200 - 600) auditoriums which worked very well. Still, I prefer the more intimate settings. All this said (and much more which probably should be said), the key ingredients are still reader and audience. As a reader, great audiences (such as at Small Press Traffic, or Canessa Park, or Ear Inn; or, in quite a different sense, at U-Alabama) have made for great experiences. And certainly audiences recognize when a reader is really connecting both with the work and with the audience. It's a complex interaction which, strangely enough, often works quite well (and often doesn't). You also ask about what makes it work for the host. Having been one for small readings and large festival readings, it seems to me that if it works for reader and audience, it will work for host. Also, the host has to relax. There's no way that everything will be ideal, yet the best readings transcend their physical circumstances, anyway. And it can always help to have Kevin Killian do the introductions. Seriously, introductions are important, and ought to give some insight into what is to come, but should never go so far as to condition what one is to hear. I heard the worst on a recent videotape, in which the introducer told the audience what the author was up to and what was important about her or him, then came on again after the reading and commented on what was just heard. That's just unforgivable. Are you asking these questions because you're about to launch a reading series? all best, charles Charles Alexander Chax Press P.O. Box 19178 Minneapolis, MN 55419-0178 612-721-6063 (phone & fax) chax@mtn.org ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 23:08:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: & Ralph Waldo >Date: Fri, 27 Oct 1995 11:57:48 -0500 >From: Edward Foster >Subject: Re: Wallace and fiscal poetry > >jonathan: back to the money/poetry/stevens matrix. wd this be interesting to >pursue further--siena, the medicis, alchemy, plato, poetry, all those >astonishing links such that a + b equals more than c. it won'y make >friends but can make interest. stevens was not taking about money as >machinery but as magic. -ed > >------------------------------ I seem to be the tone-deaf piper in this thread, so I'm probably missing some dark & twisty twist here--but, yeah. That was the point more or less of my since-maligned (by Jonathan) note on Emerson and capital. What Wallace made happen w $ (the Java box for example) was a lot like what he made happen w poetry, or in it. (Whereas) even in his relatively anti-capitalist phases, or moments, the power of imagination Emerson extols is frequently described in terms that bear a striking affinity to what capital can be understood as doing. One needn't find this altogether beneficent to find it interesting. (& then of course there's the whole cash-nexus trope in /Pragmatism/, that Emersonian inheritance [ahem] passed on in turn to Stevens.) Speaking of Pound, the essay by I think it is Andrew Parker, in the Arac collection /Postmodernism and Politics/, does some very smart mapping of Pound's anti-semitism onto both his Douglasite economics and his vision of language, in ways conversant w Kristeva's treatment of anti-semitism in Celine. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 03:33:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Sherwood Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: tinkertoys The too would take issue with an "idea of writing ... which exists independently of its actually inscription in a particular medium" though I'm not sure Silliman wouldn't also reject such a notion of the immaterial. Paying attention to the various technologies of presentation available to writing, now, at this point, does make me want to second (or did I already 2nd it) Joe's assignation of "tinkertoys". Calling various forms of computer-writing tinkertoy technology is absolutely right, since these forms WILL become outmoded because of the role this tech plays apart from poetry. The "BOOK", itself a technology which has changed (hand scripted to letterpress to desktop lazerjet) does not tend to outmode itself. The product, eg my 1899 Small, Maynard and Company _Leaves of Grass_ works still, and quite as easily, as _Poems for the Millenium_ 1995. Reading the media surrounding the computer industry should make nothing more clear than that (1) it is a technology of designed obsolence and (2) it is almost implicity obsessed with its own devolopmental design curve. (viz my version of Mosaic software which sports pull-down menus which result in the message 'feature not impletmented yet'.) This (economic) condition needs to be dealt with, and then we still go on writing in that space, working with our tinkertoys (which are such only because the designers are at work relegating them to that status) and profiting from their seeming possibilities and limits. Ken ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 03:31:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Inscription in complex media - was: Hypertext & Poetry... John Cayley writes, of academic librarians who are shying away from collecting materials in disk form as part of literary archives, >The archivists Ron cites are wrong, wrong, wrong. I agree completely. Moreover, I've been surprised at their stance. One would think, given, say, the status of re-creation in painting (for example), that some program somewhere would take it upon itself to preserve early operating systems and applications, in and for themselves, and to create the methodology for "restoration" of lost materials. There's probably a lot of literature already "lost" on C/PM and other pre-DOS desktop systems and untangling the flavors of UNIX could become a career in itself. By the way, John, I'm not suggesting that works of writing should or should not be on paper or on interactive systems, or other modes (I've mucked around with "slide" presentation programs like PowerPoint and Freelance and even Harvard Graphics and could imagine using Macromind Director as a staging tool). But rather, in work that resonates over time, there is a relation between the words that will carry the text forward, regardless of the presentation. Otherwise it would have been a "mistake" ever to have written Homer down. Ron ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 03:35:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: TinkerToy I too am pro-Tinkertoy. Poetry needs that sense of limitless freedom and possibility. Similarly, it needs humor and a whole slew of other "less than serious" (or at least less than pompous) devices. Reading Anselm Hollo and Ted Berrigan last night to my 3-year-old twins, realizing just how important it is that poetry can have that dimension, and how vastly undervalued it is (and people like Anselm, or Jack Collum or Jonathon Williams, for example). Ron ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 03:52:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: readings desiderata You wrote: > >Dear gang, would people with years of experience hosting readings (and >giving readings) provide a few comments on what would make readings more a) pleasant b) productive c) astonishing experiences for reader, host, and audience? > >Jordan > Having done three series over the years (Grand Piano, Tassajara Bakery, The Farm), my sense is that the very best readings took place when there was a slight aesthetic tension between the readers, enough for each to set the other's work off in a new light, and to bring in an audience that would be "exposed" to the work of the other in some way for the first time. Best single reading I ever coordinated was probably George Stanley and Ted Berrigan at the Grand Piano. We had maybe 60 people for each reader (and the place really only held about 80, so it was crammed probably past the fire department's limits) and very few seemed even to have heard of the other poet. Unfortunately, the poets held separate parties for their own entourages afterwards. I recall, at the Berrigan party, some local NY school wannabe putting George's poetry down (not even aware of, say, the connections to Spicer et al or of the Vancouver scene) and Ted cutting this geek down instantly, explaining concisely and explicitly what was terrific about Stanley's work. But there is always a huge risk in such a combination. Too often we held readings that simply convinced the other's audience that the reading was for The Other community, so both stayed away. (Tom, did we really combine Simon Ortiz and Judy Grahn? Or have the brain cells simply melted back there?) I always think the best reading series have a visible sense of shape, of argument. As such. The demographic/aesthetic scatter that characterizes the typical college series (trying to please each constituency) tends to drain that away. Imagine each season as though it were a book, Ron ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 10:04:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: & Ralph Waldo I've been reading the Emerson-Stevens Money thread with some "interest"-- I wonder what kind of "toll" it has taken on me (for surely once the microcosm-macrocosm metaphor is entertained it becomes difficult to wish or wisk away without a shot of Lethe that Universal Health Care would surely make available to all)--- "Seriously" however-- I have often distrusted and been skeptical of (which isn't to say I myself do not "employ" I mean "deploy" perhaps far too much) the linkage it seems Nathanson for instance is making (though I too may be tone deaf)--not so much between "politics" and "poetic form" (via a bi-directional OF),but between....Maybe this is better stated by way of an "oversimplistic" Spielbergian (alias Manichean) binary a fellow- teacher of mine told me she used to generate class discussion: She wrote STEVENS=InSURANCE SALESMAN and WILLIAMS=DOCTOR on the board and basically meant the former as "evil" and the latter as 'good"-- Such a GRID seems to lie at the "root" of much recent work (again the work on Yeats' Fascist Metrics coming out, for instance) and I am curious WHY people seem to be so interested in such arguments? I may be seem to be conflating two things here, two kinds of "form" that seem to "inform" the "content" of the poem. Insofar as the form is the content, to what extent is the POET the POEM? And though these are important questions, the whole notion that the reader and the writer are collaborators in the making of the work, if taken seriously, would seem to render questionable predetermined notions of exactly what STEVENS' or WCW's (for instance) stance truly is--insofar as their work lives more in the (un?)consciousnesses of those who read them than it does in the books. But, when the question of poetry as a kind of money comes up (as in THE MERCHANT OF VENUS), I don't mean to beg it. But, it's always possible that such "large-scale cultural thinking" may not be that different from the kind of so-called "solipsism" that is purely aesthetic (also in quotes) like "the chance meeting of a sewing machine and an umbrella...". In other words, money as poetry and poetry as money (either way), in Stevens and in Perelman, and in others, are tropes, metaphors with two vehicles vying for the status of tenor. And theory here can be "endlessly productive" no doubt but FOR WHAT? cs ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 10:05:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: & Ralph Waldo (continued from last note--which ended with FOR WHAT?) or FOR WHOM? cs ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 12:41:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Positions open at Wayne State University (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 11:05:33 -0400 (EDT) From: Barrett Watten WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY ENGLISH DEPARTMENT Two positions available: 1) American Literature and Culture. Asst./Assoc. Prof. 2) African-American Literature/Cultural Studies. Rank open. Ph.D. in English or related field. Evidence of strong research interest and capability in the field of specialization. Minority candidates especially encouraged to apply. Send letter, c.v., and writing sample to Interim Chair, English Department, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202. Wayne State University is an equal opportunity employer and actively seeks minority candidates. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 12:19:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities this seems as good a time as any to insert into this discussion an excerpt from jed rasula's _the american poetry wax museum: reality effects, 1940-1990_ (ncte)... i'm not through reading jed's book, but nary a page i turn when i don't find mself forced to stop and consider what he's saying, and the precise provocations and passions with which he sez it... if it wouldn't bother folks to say so, i might say jed's book is a must-read... anyway, here's the excerpt, from chapter 1, p. 33: "While the 'carceral archipelago' and the 'exhibitionary complex' developed contemporaneously, the latter requires institutions 'not of confinement but of exhibition' (Bennett 124, 123). The exhibitionary complex is instrumental in organizing consent, effecting voluntaristic unanimity by remote promptings. The exhibit, reified into the enshrined venue of the museum, is a prototype version of hypertext, training populations in the art of reassembling fragmentary evidence into coherent narratives. The museum is a transitional education in the negotiation of hyperspace, the solipsistic euphoria of simulated connectedness. It need not be carceral because its inmates are self-regulating. The museum begins with the goal of character building and ends up in the zone of interactive technologies, the task now being that of 'building a person' in the cyborg world. When Friedrich Kittler characterizes the book of poetry as 'the first medium in the modern sense,' I think not only of 'McLuhan's law, according to which the content of a medium is always another medium' (115), but of the spiritualists' *medium*, also known as the 'control.' My concern, in elaborating this thesis of a poetry wax museum, is to suggest that the seemingly autonomous 'voices and visions' of poets themselves have been underwritten by custodial sponsors who have surreptitiously turned down the volume on certain voices, and simulated a voice-over for certain others. Nothing defines the situation more succinctly than the police phrase *protective custody*." (** = author's emphasis) it would be interesting to extrapolate jed's logic to the hypercard stack, *celtic museum*... four-five years back, the latter was one of the more elegant applications around of hypertext technologies... now: i understand that this excerpt is likely to be interpreted by some, extracted as it is, as yet another in a long line of critiques of hypermedia... i would only ask folks to understand that this is an excerpt, finally, taken from a dense, thorough, challenging book of over 600 pages, some 100 or so alone are devoted to appendices... and that the viewpoint jed ultimately affords readers (those who stick it out) is one with which all poets, in my humblest of opines, would do well to contend... all best/// joe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 14:32:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: Computers and Writing In-Reply-To: <199510280407.AAA193441@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> from "Automatic digest processor" at Oct 28, 95 00:03:00 am I'm jumping in blindly after being away from the list for a little while, but K. Sherwood's post about Barthes' computerphobia reminded me of a little "color" piece in the paper awhile back on the current state of the writing scene in Paris cafes--full of Parisian writer-types decrying the use of laptops in the cafes... So mebbe it's a French thang... (but then, there had to be enough laptops for them to start decrying... Meanwhile, the cool java hut here in town (Higher Grounds) is about to open a new cafe and they're promising lots of electrical outlets so you can jack in while you're rushin' on your run... steve ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 14:38:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: computers and writing In-Reply-To: <199510280407.AAA193441@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> from "Automatic digest processor" at Oct 28, 95 00:03:00 am well, i guess it was typewriterphobia Barthes had, not computerphobia-- didn't mean to jump over a whole stage of technology... that reminds me of Hugh Kenner speaking at the Orono poetry conference a couple years ago--talking about how the first famous poem composed on a typewriter may have been Pound's...."The Return." Kenner didn't seem to get the joke, but all the poets laughed... steve ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 14:57:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: Re: poetry w/ a tech slant: anthology In-Reply-To: <199510260459.AAA146529@fermi.clas.Virginia.EDU> from "Automatic digest processor" at Oct 26, 95 00:02:59 am all of the original Objectivists belong in the course--or at least that's what a good chunk of my diss. argues... and why not make your own anthology for teaching purposes, using a photocopy service? i do it all the time (and it's all legal too, now, 'cause ever since Kinko's got sued these services pay royalties and include that cost in the price of the packet... steve ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 18:45:43 -40962758 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Rosenberg Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities luigi-bob drake: > glad to see that th hypertext thread here is expansive enuf to > include various print-based media, as well as on-screen... the > various lists devoted to HT normally & vehemently aren't so > generous. There's one thing that has to be said here and SAID LOUDLY: I hope no one comes away from this discussion thinking that those of us doing experiments with various computer media are trying to hype these media as in any way "superior" to the traditional ones. We've seen this movie before in the poetry world, and it has a bad ending. There were some among the Concrete Poets who took a very polemical stance about "straight" poetry [*their* term] being "obsolete" compared to Concrete Poetry. It's simply impossible to calculate the damage to poetics that this caused. The mind simply boggles at the thought of what might have come out of a real dialogue between the concrete poets and the Black Mountain poets -- but it never happened. You can call this a prejudice if you want to [I'm gonna get myself in trouble for this] but I and most of the poets I know blame the concrete poets for this: they weren't interested in dialogue. That catastrophe set back the cause of poetics by 20 years at the least. (Even today, right here on this list, how often do we talk about visual poetry, and what visual issues mean for poetics???) It would be a very deep tragedy indeed if those of us who do hypertext repeated this same mistake. There *are* those in the hypertext community who are a bit loose with unguided missile phrases like "death of the book", "late age of print", and so on; I'm record as saying I don't think we do ourselves any good with that kind of talk. There is one house of poetry, it includes us all regardless of media. When Judy Roitman sent me her poems she said she thought I'd find them "ordinary". This was painful to hear. Sure, if I look at the poems with my glasses off maybe nothing will jump out and strike me as unusual, but reading the poems there was nothing ordinary about them at all: the effect was very complex and subtle even though you couldn't ascribe that to "media". Since this is World Series time, please allow me to cite that celebrated literary theorist, Hank Aaron. A sportswriter (whose name escapes me) was interviewing Hank Aaron, and being just insufferable trying to show off his baseball knowledge. He set out a truly arcane scenario and was trying to get Hank Aaron to say what kind of pitch he'd expect in that situation -- such and such was the score, such and such was the count, such and such runners on base -- on and on. He finally finished, turned to Hank Aaron and said, "And what would you look for in that situation?" Hank Aaron looked him in the eye and said, "I look for the baseball." I do love to get into these issues of media, but really, that pretty much says it all: When you get right down to it, it doesn't matter if you're using the latest unavailable research software, or writing out a poem longhand, or just sitting on a tree stump composing words in your head. Ultimately, all of us, day in and day out, have to just go out there and look for the baseball. -- Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/ CIS: 71515,124 WELL: jer Internet: jr@amanue.pgh.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 18:42:48 -40962758 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Rosenberg Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities [This message overlaps some of the things John Cayley already posted, but I'm going to post this anyway.] Ron Silliman: > My sense is that any work in hypertext that is good would be good > writing in an absolutely hide-bound traditional print format. Part of me can agree with this, but another part wants to rise up and say, "Them's fightin' words!" I agree that hypertext writers have the same burden as every other kind of writer to write well; ultimately it is indeed the words themselves that matter; if you extract words from a hypertext and look at them on the page then they should bear the same level of artistic weight that out-of-context extractions from a traditional poem should bear. The key phrase here is: "out of context" -- and one has to be clear it is exactly *extractions* that are being dealt with. Ron, if what you're saying is that the words of a hypertext should work just fine on the page as a linear "hide-bound traditional print" poem, I've got a problem. That is tantamount to saying that the non-linear structure just plain doesn't matter. I would venture to say (even though any such statement as this is risky) that *every person on this list* has encountered people who are uncomfortable with poetry, who when dealing with a poem frankly wish that the author had written something other than a poem. Never mind, we write it as a poem because we feel that is *the only way* it will work. So too with hypertext: ultimately one writes a hypertext from a belief that no other medium will do; the non-linear structure is not some kind of "illustration", it is integral to the content. Does Ketjak "work on the page" if I print it one word per page? Maybe, but it isn't the same animal. Suppose you take a poem by, say, Robert Duncan -- one of the Passages series for instance -- and print it as a prose block. Maybe it "works" this way, maybe someone who knew Duncan's work well enough could reconstruct the line breaks anyway, but we can all just imagine what Duncan's outrage would have been at this sort of thing. To stand this issue completely on its head: my own interest goes in the exact opposite direction, namely using hypertext to carry the infrastructure of language itself: hypertext inside the fine structure of language, *inside the sentence*. The piece I am working on now (which is taking *forever* to execute, alas) uses simultaneities nested many many layers deep, in some cases going inside the sentence. In this case I'm not even sure what "would be good writing in an absolutely hide-bound traditional print format" *means*. The idea that a hypertext can be rendered on the page in some fashion is based on a "lexia-centric" view of hypertext; ('lexia' is a term borrowed by George Landow from the writings of Barthes to mean the unit of text at either end of a hypertext link) but dematerialization of the lexia has been an active topic of discussion in the hypertext community, to which I and Stuart Moulthrop among others have contributed. To recast Ron's statement in the current lingo of hypertext rhetoric: Ron asserts that the lexia themselves should work on the page as writing. Surely lexia should be good writing -- if there *are* lexia. But one interesting direction in hypertext is to employ interactive structure operations to the point that the concept of lexia itself ceases to have much meaning. -- Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/ CIS: 71515,124 WELL: jer Internet: jr@amanue.pgh.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 18:41:50 -40962758 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Rosenberg Subject: Re: Hypertext & Poetry Possibilities Gabrielle Welford: > The thing that bothers me about hypertext (which I've never > used, so I may be talking up a grass snoot) is the time element. You > wouldn't actually be looking simultaneously through one word at another. > There'd be a time lapse wouldn't there? That would depend on how it's actually implemented. You *could* implement this by "exploding" a word cluster so that all the elements are visible on the screen at the same time. I've been reluctant to do this for a couple of reasons. First of all, if the cluster is heavily nested there simply may not be enough screen real estate to accomplish this. Second, graphic print conventions would impose an order on the elements to some degree. This is a hard problem to deal with, but I like a form of interactivity where by using the mouse the user can choose which element to go to. So you are right, that done the way I do it there is a time lapse. The whole issue of how time should work in hypertext -- poetic time particularly -- is the biggest single area in hypertext where I feel things are not well understood. I hope to achieve a sense in which time is somehow "disengaged" -- running free, so to speak. Of course this is an illusion: in an obvious sense one's *experience* of a hypertext is linear by virtue of time. But it is the reader's time, not the writer's time. I have an intuitive sense of units of time that are somehow "interchangeable" -- but whether this really comes off in the poem I'm not sure. Time in a hypertext has to be local units spatially anchored, it seems to me. How should sound work in a hypertext? This is a very similar issue. To be perfectly candid about it, I'm still grappling with this. Of course sound brings the time issue to a head: sound brings with it its own sense of time. How does one reconcile a "disengaged" sense of time under the control of the reader with an inflexible concept of time brought by sound? Again, time is constrained via "local units of sound", but unconstrained in the large. How does one *program* time? There are some very difficult questions here. (I hope John will jump in on this, since he's done the most interesting work I've seen with programming time in computer poetry.) One thing I like to say to myself all the time is that: Syllable Time is not equal to Real Time In syllable time our impression of time -- in English at any rate -- is heavily dominated by retroactive impressions based on what's happening with *stresses* more than an absolute musical sense of time that a composer would have. Let me give an example of what I'm talking about. Back in the early 70s I did a number of pieces on magnetic tape using simultaneous overlays of my own voice. Somewhere in this process I hit on the idea of using tape loops to get very precise control over the way that the individual tracks were offset. I would make a tape loop out of the overlaid segment I already had, make a tape loop out of the new voice I was adding, and by delaying one or the other loop slightly I could shift the overlay until I got exactly what I wanted. (It does some interesting things to one's head to play tape loops for hours on end ...) I had a composition schema that told me an overlay structure I was trying to achieve, and I remember very clearly one case where I wanted all the attacks (in the musical sense of the onset of sound) to line up. As one particular overlay went around I knew I had nailed it exactly. I cut the loop and spliced it in, and indeed the attacks lined up perfectly. Then for some reason I started playing it back slowed down. What I heard shocked me. At full speed it sounded like the attacks were dead simultaneous, but at slow speed it became obvious that the attacks -- in the musical sense of the word -- were not simultaneous *at all*. So why did it sound that way at full speed? Because the *stresses* were dead simultaneous! I was "hearing" the attacks as being right at the same time "retroactively" because the stresses hit at the same time. So again the question: How does one *program* syllable time? I frankly don't know the answer to that. At a naive go, a programmer's time is likely to be absolute musical time. John? -- Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/ CIS: 71515,124 WELL: jer Internet: jr@amanue.pgh.net ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 29 Oct 1995 10:07:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Where's the Hypertext in this Thread? The recent hypertext/writing discussion on the list has been one with misdirected salvos. It began as a conversation on computer-generated texts but ended up being about whether hypertext was a "new form" of writing. Then computers became tinkertoys along the way. (Though John Cayley did argue against this, that "they are what we make from them.") Also striking, Ken Sherwood's "calling various forms of cmputer-writing tinkertoy technologies is absolutely right" based on the fact that these technologies will become outmoded. The parallel by Charles Alexander of the book presentation of finely made books as against Ron's 'if it's good in hypertext would it be good on paper' also stand out. I think, first, that "tinkertoys" is a very bad word. There is absolutely no parallel with a "toy" because what we are "playing with" not only has its origins in the bomb, but is redefining commodity in our commodity culture. It's a social fact. It's not a toy because, in the way that when the book was invented the first thing to be published were laws and doctrines, the commodities of those days, the book, hypertext, and computer-generation of text technologies are NOT being invented for literature. When they say "the late age of print" they are correct. Maybe it's not a factor in poetry production as much but in terms of Boeing manuals, (increasingly) government publications, bibliographic databases, etc., it IS a late age of print (and thankfully so: those trees weren't very well used for these other purposes). As to whether computers or computer-generation programs are tinkertoys because they will become outmoded, I can only think of automobiles. Many years ago I gave up a short-lived but valiant effort to maintain my own vehicle. The main thought I ended up with was why there were so many different parts for so many brands of cars and that they were all different and all went in different places in the car. It just didn't make sense. So likewise we will go through Windows 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, and