========================================================================= Date: Sun, 31 Mar 1996 23:31:38 PST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: chris daniels Subject: FW: Re: raw stein & cooked sonnets to go --- On Sun, 31 Mar 1996 20:28:58 -0800 Thomas Bell wrote: > Betwixt and between the cooked and the raw > > I feel that poetry exists on the edge between the raw and the >cooked, rather than being one or the other. It is voice in David >Appelbaum's sense ("Voice that escapes the written or spoken page >is deeply organic and fraught with the problem of human suffering."). >It is Susan Griffin's plum ("The plum has been my lover. And I have >known the plum. Letting the plum into the mind of my body, I will >always have the taste of sweetness in my memory.") before it is paled >"In texts and words which will grow more pale the further away they >are placed from life." > >\tom > tom --- thank you for that --- i feel pretty much the same way abt my own writing i have no set notion of what my writing shld be and if i felt the pressure to write a sonnet for instance i wld most certainly write a sonnet w/o a moment's hesitation --- if i felt it to be an honest poem, i wld keep it, show it to people --- otherwise i'd simply trash it, no matter how well it tasted raw, cooked or both and if i ever in my life write one line that sincerely witnesses even the smallest portion of human suffering, or shows forth my living, i will die content that i have done something humane, worthy of my aspiration later chris ------------------------------------- christopher daniels 3.31.96 11:31:38 pm q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they said anything goes?" --- charles wuorinen a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow." --- george clinton snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa voice: 510.524.5972 http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 13:35:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Northcutt Subject: books on Blackburn and Bunting??? -- [ From: William Northcutt * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- Do any of you have recommendations for pieces/books of introduction to Bunting's work and to Paul Blackburn's work? With very limited time to read this stuff for pleasure, I'm looking for the absolute most lucid bits. Many thanks en avance, William william.northcutt@uni-bayreuth.de -- -------------------------------------------- William Northcutt Englische Literaturwissenschaft GWII Universitaet Bayreuth 95440 Bayreuth, Germany 0921/553577 fax 0921/553641 email: william.northcutt@uni-bayreuth ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 06:55:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: For Nicanor Parra In-Reply-To: <9604011135.AA09924@btr0x1.hrz.uni-bayreuth.de> For Nicanor Parra I came into cyberspace in order to look at myself. I would stand aside from myself and from my fingers. I would look at language in orderly rows coming from my mouth. A woman would flow and she would create a thing. I would rush into familiar words and at times in the middle of a conversation I would run into a conversation. A general would appear carrying swords and knives and a warrior. The white screen would never beckon the dark, nor the grey, the color of death. Colors poured into a vise a carpenter would build with letters. The first building was the building with letters. I have traced you back, computer through computer, tool behind tool, entire genealogies at work until the very beginning. Here, I found hand-axes starting to strike metal. The metal was a dagger or a knife and I could hear speech in the dagger, colors glistened in the knife. Later, there would be a wheel, and later, a pulley. On a ceiling a pulley turned where belts connected steam to tools milling shanks for motors, electric relays, turned carbon for telephones and lamps. Someone spoke beneath the lamp and all was lost. Electrons rushed in vacuo; things started turning and memorized the axe into this space. Then, I would watch this space, looking for signs of me. I would look at myself and a woman. _________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 07:47:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Spicer and art In-Reply-To: <199603312252.QAA02560@freedom.mtn.org> from "Charles Alexander" at Mar 31, 96 04:52:54 pm I haven't yet been able to find the name of the book of Fran Herndon's collages, but was reminded that she produced lithographs to accompany the poems in the Auerhahn edition of _Heads of the Town Up to the Aether_. Mike ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 10:33:29 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Announcing _Broken English_ by Dodie Bellamy & Bob Harrison Hey Joel, Still eagerly waiting for my first order, but such a book fiend I'd like to take you up on your 7-for-5 offer again: Bellamy/Harrison, _Broken English_ Djuric, _Cosmopolitan Alphabet_ Surakovic, _Pas Tout_ Friedlander, _Anterior Future_ James Sherry, _4 For_ Bill Tuttle, _Epistolary Poems_ Jonathan Brannen, _Glass Man_ etc. I think this comes to $27--is that right? Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 10:41:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: new york city talks--saturday I was unable to get to the Friday night reading at St. Mark's Church, the (welcome reading) as it was called on the flier. I hope someone will report in detail. On the roster to read were: Michael Heller, Michael Basinski, Jeff Derksen, Chris Funkhouser, Joel Kuszai, and Kristin Prevallet (Lisa Robertson and Cole Swenson were also scheduled, but couldn't make it to the conference). Saturday morning's show opened pretty close to the 10 a.m. kickoff time. Because I'd boiled my head off the day before in the oval conference room (with the fluorescent ((halogen?)) lights that made a sound as they turned themselves off to cool), I sat in the other room with the windows on the park and on University Place to hear the other Poetry and Tradition panel. Louis Cabri spoke first.. forgive me Louis, but I came in late, mentally. Lisa Jarnot elaborated on the "rebuilding the wheel" complaint (which, coincidentally, has often been levelled at the generation best-represented at the conference). It may be, she said, that some poets are making not wheels, but toasters, or hockey sticks. One thing is certain, she added, if they've made a toaster, they have already how to make their wheel. Bill Luoma read the piece "Tony Door's Neighborhood", about neighborhoods and subneighborhoods in Brooklyn, published earlier this year on the poetics list. It was a bold allegorical move. Doug Rothschild opened with a number from "Fiddler on the Roof", and segued into a "Doing it for the Money" medley. Chris Stroffolino ought to summarize his piece, because who can summarize Chris and do him justice? Mark Wallace spoke next, and again, I hope Mark will reiterate his gist. There was a vigorous debate afterwards, Kim Lyons, Jennifer Moxley, Lee Ann Brown (I think) and Stephen Rodefer asking the tough questions. As it grew closer to my panel. Wow, that's a science-fiction fragment. As it grew closer to my panel, I became less focused on the discussion, but I remember Douglass Rothschild advising us that University Place was a far superior poem. There was some echo of Tim Davis's suggestion the previous day that maybe less poetry should be produced. I was unsure whether this was a kind of new shakerism or a kind of self-loathing (in which I was an exciteable participant) induced by great volume. The noon panel on poetic forms, featuring Beth Anderson, Steven Farmer, Jessica Grim, Joel Kuszai and Sean Killian, was very well attended. Someone can report, yes? Back in poetry and technology, I spoke first about why I hate computers, why I like the poetics list, how the range qabal works, and how to teach poetry writing to children using email and irc. Chris Funkhouser read from his manuscript on poetry, hypertext, and computers. Brian Kim Stefans talked about using Lotus 1-2-3 to generate sestinas while he was working at the Museum of Modern Art in the telecommunications department. Sam Truitt read a very intense piece of 'virtual language', sort of the verbal equivalent of Stereolab's "Jenny Ondioline" (although I'm sure that's not Sam's point of reference.. I just grooved into it that way). Afterwards, there were a few questions for Chris about the production of the Little Magazine CD rom, a few questions for the panel about the uses of computer failure, and an exhortation from me to the floor to create hard copy from all e-mail exchanges. The correspondence must not be lost. Then it was off to the ear. Elena Alexander read from what seemed to me a Ron Silliman-influenced piece (in method) about the human body. In a change of program, Louis Cabri read next--sample of Louis's style: "Caution: punchline". The calm, modest, un-mugging delivery was not familiar.. ten knockout lines in a row. Bill Howe came up and just started ranting and walking around, passing out file cards from his own laserprinted self-written I Ching. Then everybody around me started doing the same thing. Stephen Rodefer started shouting, "Please, some of us are trying to eat!" and "Please, some of us are pregnant!" Rod Smith repeated the line "Does anybody think that all good art is unengaging?" Howe returned to the mic and repeated the word "sheep" for a few minutes. A bravura preformance. Nancy Shaw and Catriona Strang sobered the room up with a work well loaded with tensions and suggestions, romantic, social, political and economic. Rodrigo Toscano cleaned up with work about the beach. Now, there's a lot of work out there about being at the beach, but none I think that gets Rodrigo's almost Bakhtinian sense of the beach as cultural dialogic, you know, _a scene_. Which sense he got through my suspicious head by means of strong (subtle) rhythms shifting quickly into other cadences. There was a pause of a few hours, and then we reconvened at Ichor, the Maeght of the future. If you are in the area of 127 W 26, you might stop in and look at the show. The space was filled to capacity, as usual, and I could barely hear the designated-Stacy-Doris from the deep north of Minnesota, Robert Kocik, from the doorway. It sounded good, as if the old dream of writing as intelligently as Wittgenstein _in an artistic mode_ were not only possible, but fun. As I said later to Fiona Templeton, I valorize fun. I really couldn't hear a thing until Ben Friedlander, whom I'd been waiting a couple of years to hear, came on. He opened with a list of titles of poems he did not plan to read, and then read several of the best poems I've heard in this new style that seems to be emerging, a merging of Bruce Andrews' ear and Clark Coolidge's ideas of sequence and sense. A sort of leaning into the obvious and finding strange new meanings in deliberation. There was a break. Frustrated by my location just outside the door, I went to a friend's birthday part and missed what I'm told were great readings by Melanie Neilson, Kim Rosenfield and I think Jessica Grim. Phooey, or argh. I think they're all reading at the Big Allis show in May, though. It's Bruce Andrews' birthday today. Put him in your thoughts. Back in time for the party at Segue. Kristin Prevallet and Alan Gilbert were giving away copies of Swallowing the Scroll, Apex 3 and 4, and many leave books. I picked up a copy of Kristin's "Mad Sarah" a poem printed for the conference. If you get the chance, grab a copy. It's cinematic about the bible, it's good. Joel Kuszai had the Meow books out, I got _Broken English_ and _Xing_. Bruce Andrews said the next day that he'd never seen people sitting on the floor at Segue, that he was thinking bongos and berets were next. And that was the end of Saturday. Sorry about the lacunae, it was one of those thousands of cases when greed for experience made me regret I could only do one thing at a time. Jordan Davis ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 08:18:13 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: Spicer and art Michael Boughn wrote: I have a held a book by Fran Herndon consisting of collages she worked on with Spicer. They're marvelous. I can't remember the name of the book now. Perhaps Kevin can help. If not, I'm sure it could be tracked down. As visual evocations of the spirit of Spicer's work, they're impeccable. >I haven't yet been able to find the name of the book of Fran Herndon's >collages, but was reminded that she produced lithographs to accompany >the poems in the Auerhahn edition of _Heads of the Town Up to the >Aether_. This is Kevin Killian speaking. The name of the Herndon book is "Everything as Expected," by James Herndon, who was then married to Fran Herndon, and who had gone to UC Berkeley and met Spicer there in the late forties. Spicer encouraged Fran, Jim's second wife, to send her children to day school (a rare move in the late fifties) and take up classes at the SF Art Institute, where she learned how to make lithographs. They then collaborated on the poems from "Homage to Creeley," which is the first part of Spicer's book "The Heads of the Town up to the Aether." "Homage to Creeley" was printed separately, without Herndon's lithos, and Spicer, dissatisfied, insisted that Auerhahn use her work to accompany his poems in the complete version of "Heads." A few years later she began the collages Michael is talking about. During the 1986 Spicer Conference that Maria and others have recalled, Jim Herndon gave away for free to attendees the last remaining copies of his book "Everything as Expected," which is a detailed, kind of quirky, study of the Spicer/Herndon collaborations. (Dear Aaron Vidaver, that conference was actually called something like "Jack Spicer Conference/White Rabbit Symposium," and "Spicer in Context" was only the name of one of the particular panels.) Last summer, Scott Watson curated the show "In Search of Orpheus" to accompany the Blaser Conference, and included I think all of Herndon's lithographs from "Homage to Creeley" and many of the so-called "sports collages" of the slightly later period. Fran Herndon herself was in attendance. Well, they are stunning indeed. Dodie and I bought one of the lithos ("The Death of the Poet") and one of the collages ("Ghost Riders" IMHO the most beautiful) so, come on over everyone and check it out! Herndon is very much a working artist today. If anyone is interested, back channel me for more details. She lives in San Francisco and is sometimes seen at poetry readings, vernissages, etc. She has been inestimably helpful to me and Lew Ellingham as we have been writing a biography of Jack Spicer, and helpful to many other scholars and writers too. Before her marriage, the poet Elizabeth Robinson lived with Fran, and after ER moved out, the poet George Albon moved in, and lives there today. Hope this helps. -Kevin K. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 11:30:28 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: books on Blackburn and Bunting??? here's one on pb that most folks might not think of (and I SEEM to recall something on blackburn there): The Dramaturgy of Style by Michael Stephens. Also, Tandy Sturgeon had a piece on PB and the troubadours not too too long ago in Sagetrieb. I have an interest in PB, so if anyone wishes to give me a full bib I would welcome it. burt kimmelman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 11:33:19 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: books on Blackburn and Bunting??? there is also my piece "Ezra Pound's Medievalism and the American Avant-Garde" (Arkansas Quarterly but at the moment here at this terminal i don't have the volume and issue number and date--anyway a couple of years agao ) which I think you have, no? this piece has something on PB too. burt kimmelman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 10:42:04 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert A Harrison Subject: Visual Poetry >A recent visual poetry catalogue for an exhibition in >Milwaukee (is Bob Harrison still on this list -- he can give details?) began >with a foreword by Drucker and ended with an afterword by Karl Young. Hi Charles, yeah I'm still here. The poetry catalog for the Hermetic Gallery VP show is still available. Costs 8 dollars. Anybody wants one send me an email with your street address. Has work by: Dick Higgins Irving Weiss Daniel Davidson Peter Balestrieri Steve McCaffery Spencer Selby Pete Spence Crag Hill Nico Vassilakis John Cayley Fernando Aguiar Karl Young Johanna Drucker Leroy Gorman John Byrum John M. Bennett & Susan Smith Nash Clemente Padin Steve Nelson - Raney Bob Grumman Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds Karl Kempton Thomas Taylor Avelino de Araujo Thanks. Bob Harrison Robert.A.Harrison@JCI.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 12:03:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: books on Blackburn and Bunting??? In-Reply-To: <009A0347.17B27900.185@admin.njit.edu> Off hand, re Blackburn, you may want to check the issue of my long-defunct magazine SIXPACK (issue 7/8, 1974) which was a special Paul Blackburn hommage. Besides work by PB, & mult hoimmage poems & texts for him, the issue also contains a number of critical essays, by the likes of Eric Mottram, Carl Thayer, Cid Corman, Gil Sorrentino, Armand Schwerner & others. -- Pierre ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | "Form fascinates when one no longer has the force Dept. of English | to understand force from within itself. That SUNY Albany | is, to create." -- Jacques Derrida Albany NY 12222 | tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | "Poetry is the promise of a language." email: | -- Friedrich Holderlin joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 09:14:18 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Re: Poetry Video In-Reply-To: Dear Tim Wood, I ordered perhaps 100 poetry videos from various providers including the entire Lannan series for use in teaching and was disappointed at how little of it proved useful. I had to preview everthing and excerpt the 5 or 10 minutes that had relevance to my class. Many tapes can't be screened in class at all because they're too dull. I haven't seen United States of Poetry yet but hear that it's tightly edited and a bit lively. When poetry is on video it appears that it has to follow the rules of video; must be fast-paced and in-your-face. Are you interested in poetry and film collaborations? I wrote the script for Joseph Ramirez's 90 minute film VIRIDIAN which had its premiere at The Film Center of School of the Art Institute in Chicago--a five-screening run in fall of 1994. There are four poems in the movie used as voice-over and the movie began as a seven-page prose poem that was expanded to a full-length work. Joe approached me because he wanted a poetic film. One curiosity of the collaboration is that the four poems were produced by running the final script through TRAVESTY, a software "randomizing" program. So the prose poem became a script became poetry again, this time in verse. We had packed houses in a 300 seat auditorium because we were the film "pick of the week" in the Chicago Reader. Susan Gevirtz is researching the subject of poetry and film, if you're interested. Paul Hoover On Sun, 31 Mar 1996, Tim Wood wrote: > Hello all... > > I'm doing research into poetry video. I've already contacted a number of > people in Chicago, SF and the NE, but I'm still looking for additional > material. This would include all the usual primary and secondary suspects. > Of course, even a name or an idea would be welcome... > > thanks, > Tim Wood > > in space no one can hear you scream > in Dallas no one cares... > ______________________________________________________________________________ > Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/ > the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html > poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 09:05:07 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Priscilla Wong Subject: Hello! Hi Everybody, I just wanted to let you people know that I am new to this list. From the messages that I have received, I am very interested in what this discussion list has to offer. I hope to hear from at least some of you, if not all of you. Have a great day. Priscilla ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 12:42:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: For Nicanor Parra dear alan sondheim-- thanks for the poem.... I too love PARRA ("funerales no, muerte si!") but haven't read him in awhile and am curious why you choose to dedicate your poem to him... does it "refer" to any particular Parra? just curious... chris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 13:05:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "John E. Matthias" Subject: The Western Renga In the various postings about contemporary sonnets, I'm surprised the remarkable experiment in sonnet-making by Octavio Paz, Jacques Roubaud, Eduardo Sanguineti, and Charles Tomlinson hasn't come up. During a week in 1969 the Mexican, French, Italian and English poets met in Paris to write what they took to be the first western Renga. Instead of writing successively stanzas of three and two lines (with a fixed syllable count), they chose to work in a form, the sonnet, common to the Spanish, French, Italian, and English traditions. As well as being collaborative, the experiment is also polylingual:In the first sonnet a quatrain in Spanish is followed by a quatrain in English, a tercet in French, and a tercet in Italian. Then come the permutations: Italian, Spanish, English, French; French, Italian, Spanish, English; English, French, Italian, Spanish, and so on. There are 27 sonnets, 27 sets of permutations. The original edition, dedicated to Andre Breton, was published in France by Gallimard in 1971. I have an American edition from George Braziller that includes facing page English translations by Tomlinson. There is a foreword by Claude Roy, an introduction by Paz, an essay on the Japanese Renga tradition by Roubaud, and a retrospect by Tomlinson. I think at some point the book was also a Penguin; it is probably now out of print. It struck me at the time, and it strikes me now, as one of the most important experiments of a highly experimental decade. The first poem looks (and sounds) like this: El sol marcha sobre huesos ateridos: en la camara subterranea: gestaciones: las bocas del metro son ya hormigueros. Cesa el sueno: comienzan los lenguajes: and the gestureless speech of things unfreezes as the shadow, gathering under the vertical raised lip of the columns' fluting, spreads its inkstain into the wrinkles of weathered stone: Car la pierre peut-etre est une vigne la pierre ou des fourmis jettent leur acide, une parole preparee dans cette grotte Principi, tomba e teca, sollevano salive de spettri: la mia mandibola mordeva le sue sillabe di sabbia: ero reliquia e clessidra per i vetri dell' occidente: * * * Sorry about the absence of diacritical marks; I haven't figured a way to produce them for these postings. I wonder if any of the _Renga_ will be in Vol.Two of _Poems for the Millennium_. John Matthias ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 13:30:34 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: artists' books Dear Poetics List: In a couple of recent messages concerning the book as a unit of structure (and more), I have mentioned Granary Books. So when I received this message on a book arts list, I thought I should forward it to Poetics for all those interested. charles >Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 12:22:23 -0500 >Reply-To: "The Book Arts: binding, typography, collecting" > >Sender: "The Book Arts: binding, typography, collecting" > >From: Steven Clay >Subject: artists' books >To: Multiple recipients of list BOOK_ARTS-L > >X-UIDL: 828386749.006 > >The Granary Books website is now up and beaming: > >www.granarybooks.com > >a very simulated look at fifteen or so recent publications. >(you'll see it/them most effectively using netscape navigator 2.0) > >best wishes to all, > >steve clay > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 14:58:20 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ward Tietz <100723.3166@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Re: assemblings and multi-media books Charles, Thanks for your postings on assemblings and multi-media books. There is certainly a lot to consider in terms of the structure of a work's presentation. I agree with your comments on technical seamlessness. It seems to allow works to be more presentationally transparent and legible, but this feature, in some contexts, probably restricts the development of other compositional strategies. Some of the cruder multiples/assemblies I was referring to rely quite heavily on a fortuitous sense of material. They depend quite a lot on scrounging, finding multiples of things so that the notion of an edition can be maintained. Despite the abundance of text they may contain, they tend to function more like artifacts and lose that sense of placelessness that books often support. On the other hand they are often able to celebrate and foreground a locality, a fortuitousness and liberty of combination, that is very much rooted in a particular time and place. That can be interesting too. Ward Tietz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 15:07:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: For Nicanor Parra In-Reply-To: <01I3107LSWKI8Y51WM@cnsvax.albany.edu> Refers to the Antipoems, in particular I am the Individual (forget the title - I'm at work), and the dry clipped style... Do you know if he is still alive and writing? Alan On Mon, 1 Apr 1996, Chris Stroffolino wrote: > dear alan sondheim-- > thanks for the poem.... > I too love PARRA > ("funerales no, muerte si!") > but haven't read him in awhile > and am curious why you choose to dedicate your poem to him... > does it "refer" to any particular Parra? just curious... > chris > With some new texts and image files - http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html Other images at http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 15:29:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: The Western Renga In-Reply-To: John -- unhappily none of that renga will be in MIllennium vol II, though both Jerry & I do like it. It is indeed a fascinating experiment, though I wouldn't necessarily consider it as the most original experiment of that decade. On the other hand, Paz, Roubaud & Sanguinetti are in MILLENNIUM with works of their own, if not with their collaboration. -- Pierre ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | "Form fascinates when one no longer has the force Dept. of English | to understand force from within itself. That SUNY Albany | is, to create." -- Jacques Derrida Albany NY 12222 | tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | "Poetry is the promise of a language." email: | -- Friedrich Holderlin joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| ======================================================================= On Mon, 1 Apr 1996, John E. Matthias wrote: > In the various postings about contemporary sonnets, I'm surprised the > remarkable experiment in sonnet-making by Octavio Paz, Jacques Roubaud, > Eduardo Sanguineti, and Charles Tomlinson hasn't come up. During a week in > 1969 the Mexican, French, Italian and English poets met in Paris to write > what they took to be the first western Renga. Instead of writing > successively stanzas of three and two lines (with a fixed syllable count), > they chose to work in a form, the sonnet, common to the Spanish, French, > Italian, and English traditions. As well as being collaborative, the > experiment is also polylingual:In the first sonnet a quatrain in Spanish is > followed by a quatrain in English, a tercet in French, and a tercet in > Italian. Then come the permutations: Italian, Spanish, English, French; > French, Italian, Spanish, English; English, French, Italian, Spanish, and > so on. There are 27 sonnets, 27 sets of permutations. The original > edition, dedicated to Andre Breton, was published in France by Gallimard in > 1971. I have an American edition from George Braziller that includes > facing page English translations by Tomlinson. There is a foreword by > Claude Roy, an introduction by Paz, an essay on the Japanese Renga > tradition by Roubaud, and a retrospect by Tomlinson. I think at some point > the book was also a Penguin; it is probably now out of print. It struck me > at the time, and it strikes me now, as one of the most important > experiments of a highly experimental decade. The first poem looks (and > sounds) like this: > > El sol marcha sobre huesos ateridos: > en la camara subterranea: gestaciones: > las bocas del metro son ya hormigueros. > Cesa el sueno: comienzan los lenguajes: > > and the gestureless speech of things unfreezes > as the shadow, gathering under the vertical > raised lip of the columns' fluting, spreads > its inkstain into the wrinkles of weathered stone: > > Car la pierre peut-etre est une vigne > la pierre ou des fourmis jettent leur acide, > une parole preparee dans cette grotte > > Principi, tomba e teca, sollevano salive de spettri: > la mia mandibola mordeva le sue sillabe di sabbia: > ero reliquia e clessidra per i vetri dell' occidente: > > * * * > > Sorry about the absence of diacritical marks; I haven't figured a way to > produce them for these postings. > > I wonder if any of the _Renga_ will be in Vol.Two of _Poems for the Millennium_. > > John Matthias > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 02:56:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: artists' books Comments: To: Charles Alexander In-Reply-To: <199604011930.NAA10429@freedom.mtn.org> just a note: the new book as art show at the National Museum of Women in the Arts is opening soon. more details can be provided if anyone were interested. jeffrey timmons ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 17:11:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: new york city talks--saturday thanks for the yummy fulsome reports and kudos to all. my major poetry event of the day was lying in the sun; woods hole were paradise enow. maria d ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 17:11:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Announcing _Broken English_ by Dodie Bellamy & Bob Harrison hey there joel, please send the friedlander, brannen and bellamy! bests, maria d 128 racing beach ave falmouth ma 02540 by the way, i'm only gonna be here for another 2.5 months, so i'd welcome and fawn on all visitors... maria d ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 17:57:36 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ken Edwards <100344.2546@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Barry MacSweeney Dunno if _Black Torch_ is still in print but you could try writing to Allen Fisher, who published it under his Spanner imprint. Allen is at 14 Hopton Rd, Hereford HR1 1BE, UK. He doesn't as far as I know have email. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 17:57:33 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ken Edwards <100344.2546@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: sonnet blues I'm glad Tony Green mentioned the blues in connection with sonnets. It occurs to me you could equally make the assertion "the blues always says the same thing". Musicological definitions of the blues usually go along the lines of "twelve bars divided into three groups of four, with flattened thirds and sevenths" or else they talk about tonic, subdominant and dominant chords. Then you listen to, say, John Lee Hooker and he's doing something quite irregular and amazing which is nevertheless recognisably the blues. I've been obsessed with this connection for some time. "Poems of fourteen lines of iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme of..." Hmm. Personally, I think Wyatt was the John Lee Hooker of the 16th century. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 19:45:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: new york city, a bag THINGS TO DO AFTER THE NYU POETRY TALKS a continued convergance of mysterians Ask Carla Billeteri if I can see what she's written on Laura Riding Ask Joel Kuszai, Beth Anderson, Sean Killian and others on that panel if they'd be willing to continue the discussion of maximalism vs. minimalism in a forum Mark Wallace will do his damnedest to get published Ask Kim Rosenfeld and others about gendered essentialism... Try to get a copy of the Shaw/Strang collab piece in which they say "reality threw a series of backbones" and refer to the "boxy little realisim" of "lineage" and the Louis Cabri piece in which he says "i wanna be erected" and "ego chaos machine" Condemn the privitization Buck Downs spoke in favor of (Jordan claims he seconded buck, but I remember him only half jokingly begging for a local millionaire) Reopen the question, posed by Kristen P., and evaded by her immediate interlocutors, about what "language itself" really means, and how it functions in discourse? transcendental signified anyone????? Get Rob Fitterman to expound on CONTROL and LETTING? (i mean LET him....) Write Dan Farrell about BOO magazine (and send him check in American $$$$) Question the young advocates of the lyric about whether it is a mere "reaction"? And may it repeat the gestures of previous exclusionary tendencies? Or does it allow a new eclecticism, if not per se a new synthesis? Send Stephen Rodefer poems, and try to get the copy of his broadside to Stephanie Seymour. Read "In Memory Of My Theories" and write an essay called "In Memory Of MY Queries" Write Sianne Ngai for a copy of her poem in which she wrote "I had nothing in my mind/But I changed it" and procure copy of her magazine BLACK BREAD Ask Joe Ross to tell some "success stories" about how he, as editor of Washington Review, was able to overcome specific resistances to non-linear, non-"realistic" verse, etc. Try to get X and/or M and/or R and/or A to leave her boyfriend, at least for an affair Try to get Bill Luoma to write an essay explaining what the restaurant MONTE's symbolizes in his allegory (but don't expect a straight answer) Thank Louis Cabri for switching places with me Get a tape of the panel with Ben F. and Nancy S. (etc.) that I missed... See if Jordan D. wants to continue the collab. we started during the collab. panel. Quote these lines from Ashbery for Mark Wallace: "But most of all she loved the particles that transform objects of the same category into particular ones, each distinct within and apart from its own class" Reopen the question as to whether what is needed at this time in Canada is similar, and/or how it differs, from what is needed at this time in the States, and ask what can be learned by the USA poets from the canadians present, and is it possible to go the "wrong" way down the one way street of imperialism i mean the free trade agreement.... Notice how the americans for the most part dodged any question of politics except that of "the politics of poetic form".... Resist the temptation to compare this conference unfavorably to the NEW COAST ONE (in terms of diversity, lack of coffee, two panels at once...) or favorably (in terms of the great FORM panel, the superiority of NYC to a "riot proff campus...") Hope and prey that someone publishes it as a book (good suggestion, ron) and keep reminding ROB F. to include the question and answer sessions in it too and let people revise their comments (which I have a hunch Perelman did with WRITING TALKS...) Suggest that there be commemorative t-shirts with BIG QUESTION MARKS on the back, and tell Kevin Davies he can wear it over his CLASS OF 78 shirt. Find out whether it was Fiona Templeton or Melanie N. who said that we shouldn't think of an "audience" as much as a "perceiver"... Ask Bernadette Mayer for her correspondence with LAURA RIDING, then try to get it published. Ask James Sherry if I can stay at the Hotel Sherry-ton while I look for a job in NYC.... Ask Jessica Grim if she was serious about her banishment of "touchy feely stuff....heaven forbid" from what Larry Price would call an explanatoy register... Ask Lisa J. what she meant when she said I ALMOST didn't pull off my fish poem at my reading.... Don't forget the ghoulish doorman at the ICHOR and the rose colored glasses charles bernstein (if not willie loman) had on.... and be sure to wish bruce andrews a happy april fool's day.... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 20:08:08 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: new york city, a bag Chris, If that's a typo, it's the best one I've seen on the list in some time... "Hope and prey" Ron ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 1 Apr 1996 23:04:54 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Galen Cope Subject: poetry video Tim Wood et al: We Press did a video a few years back. The budget was shoestring (if that), so it's nothing like, say, MTV would be interested in, but you might? You can currently reach WE at We Press POBox 1503 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 (408) 427-9711 or by contacting cf2785@albnyvms.bitnet Best of luck, Stephen Cope ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 07:12:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Luoma Subject: NYC walkie talkie Comments: cc: lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu, bernstei@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu Re: the NYC Poetry Talks, Ron Silliman wrote: >>(1) I hope somebody plans to collect all this material >>into a book. Rob Fitterman and I are going to edit the material presented and somehow git a book printed. Since RobF isn't on email, i'm going to act as the focal point for collecting electronic versions of the talks. Anyone who talked, please email your text to me if you would like to have your work printed. Attachments over the internet have been working. text in email bodies are fine as well. images can work. send to MAZ881@AOL.COM If you want to mail your docs to me, I'm: Bill Luoma 280 Court St #4 Brooklyn, NY 11231 The events were taped, but transcription seems like an unwieldy task. Does anyone know of a desktop (mac or windows) program that listens to tape recorders and writes that info to text files? LossG, CharlesB, would it be appropriate to create a space for this material at the EPC? Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 08:20:08 -0500 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: poetry video _Open Letter_ did a series of articles on, er, about video, spread over the winter, spring & summer 1993 issues. i only have the summer issue (because it also has an interview w/ bpNichol); while it doesn't talk much about video tapes of poetry performances, it does talk about the poetics ov video as a medium... mann's _Poetry in Motion_ is still my fave poetry video & it is a film, & i haven't seem USovP (tho the soundtrack just came in the mail)... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 08:24:43 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hen Subject: Re: author of M In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 30 Mar 1996 16:44:49 -0800 from On Sat, 30 Mar 1996 16:44:49 -0800 Peter Quartermain said: >this were later reprinted on the last pages (pages 1016-1017) of Moore's M: >ONE THOUSAND AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SONNETS (Harcourt Brace 1938). The Foreword is >titled "Merrill Moore's Sonnets: Present total, steadily mounting, 50,000." >I don't know what he said about the sonnet there, since I haven't read it. Maybe WCW's comment about all sonnets sounding the same was made shortly after he steamed through MM's 34,000th. - HG ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 12:29:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Baker Subject: Blackburn bibl. In-Reply-To: <199604020703.CAA05321@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> I've never had any response to a piece I wrote published in _Sagetrieb_: Peter Baker, "Blackburn's Gift," _Sagetrieb_ 12:1 (1993) 43-54. Would be interested to hear what folks think. In part a response to Marjorie Perloff's negative evaluation, in her review- essay: "On the Other Side of the Field: _The Collected Poems of Paul Blackburn_" in _Poetic License_ (Northwestern, 1990) 251-265. A good discussion of Blackburn's seriality appears as a chapter in Joseph Conte's _Unending Design_ (Cornell, 1991[?]). Peace, Peter ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 13:58:15 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: Blackburn bibl. Peter, Yes now I somewhat remember your piece and am in sympathy with it (especially as regards Marjorie's review). Thanks for mentioning it. Burt Kimmelman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 12:05:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jeffrey W. Timmons" Subject: Book as Art VIII: Press Release Ok, here it is. I can't wait to see it myself. Hope others do too. =20 Jeffrey Timmons Washington, D.C.-- April 1996 -- The Library and Research Center (LRC) of t= he National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) presents its eighth annual exhibition of artists' books, Book as Art VIII, opening April 15 and continuing through October 25, 1996. The exhibition, on display in the LRC= , is open to the public from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday. Artists' books are intimate, multi-faceted objects ranging from traditional illustrated volumes to more unconventional artworks which use the book form to explore ideas, color, shape and imagery. In content, artists' books cov= er the gamut from confessional diaries to political manifestoes. Visually, ma= ny works take the narrative form to unexpected extremes: for example, a chain letter in Katherine Ng's Book of Chain literally becomes a chain of paper links printed with words. On view are more than sixty unique books, book-sculptures, limited editions and related works created by forty artists from the United States, Argentin= a, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Many of the artists are from the Washington area, including Rose Folsom, Shireen Holman, Margo Klas= s, Doris Rief, Betty Sweren, Molly Van Nice (a former Washingtonian) and Ann Zahn. Krystyna Wasserman, Director of the Library and Research Center, curated the show. Poetry and music have been an inspiration for many artists in this exhibition. Julie Chen's book, Radio Silence, sends via her poem a coded message of distress to her beloved. Michele Burgess probes a poem by Nancy Willard in her book Poem Made of Water, in which Willard compares the power of water to the creative power of language: both can heal, hurt and inspire= . Rose Folsom, a Washington calligrapher, whose beautiful writing enchanted Queen Elisabeth II, transcribed May Sarton's poem, "Her Nightly Journey" = =97 a dramatic journey into the heart of darkness. The poet Mary Louise Cox published Images of a Voice in collaboration with painter Lou Hicks to celebrate her seventieth birthday. Throughout her life, Shireen Holman ha= s tried to integrate two very different cultures: that of India, where she gr= ew up, with America where she now lives. Her book, Stream of Life, in the shape of a wooden houseboat from Dal Lake in the mountains of Kashmir, includes poems by her cousin Tom Galt. Karen Kunc, the winner of the NMWA Library Fellows Award in 1995, created On This Land with poet Lenora Castillo. This book of woodcuts portrays the austere beauty of Nebraska, i= ts farmland and open sky and reflects a gradual process of acceptance and attachment to the new landscape. Sir Stephen Spender's poem "Dolphins" inspired Alice Simpson's pop-up tale of carefree swimmers playing with dolphins. Helen Frankenthaler's first artist's book, A Valentine for Mr. Wonderful, includes the poem "St. Valentine" by William Carlos Williams. "This valentine for my husband seemed to pour out of me, as if it flowed from my heart through my fingertips and onto the copper plates," says the artist. "My first book fell into place like a little rose =97 and a surpris= e to me! . . . In a way, I felt I had very little to do with it. A direct hit from the Cupid's arrow." Song of Songs, a hymn of love in its physical and spiritual incarnation, inspired Rita Galle's illustrations of this unique book of the Bible. Music is the theme of Elena Presser's bookworks. The thirty Goldberg Variations, composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1741 (to cheer up Count Kayserling during his sleepless nights), resulted in a series of Presser's unique works of fragile beauty and calm. Jan Owen's Synku (my little son) is another masterful visual response to music. Owen's inspiration was Symphony No. 3 by the contemporary Polish composer Henryk Gorecki. She cho= se William Blake's poem "Night" to accompany Gorecki's music. The poet and th= e composer lament the evil in nature and hope for the day when "the lion can lie down with the lamb." Evelyn Eller created Music Box, a book-sculpture containing scrolls of musical notation by Robert Schuman and Felix Mendelssohn.=20 Letters have been another source of inspiration for artists. Beverly Nichol= s transcribed and illustrated Three Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe. Katherine N= g transformed letters written to her by her father into an ingenious book, Fortune Ate Me, made from a box of fortune cookies. The fortunes are her father's "words of wisdom." Her replies to these paternal admonitions are notes printed on the inside surface of the cookies. Jan Gilbert used a lett= er from an American soldier in Vietnam as the subject of her moving book Memorial to Bobby: The Red Letter Day. Autobiographical books have been part of every Book as Art exhibition since the series' inauguration in 1987. This show is no exception. Philomena Robinson, the second 1995 Library Fellows award winner, created Completing the Circle, a free-standing circular book-sculpture in which she recalls small incidents and moments that have shaped her life. "This book =97 its colors, forms and poetry =97 holds my image, my joy and my pain," says Robinson. "It is a connection to all people who have been important to me, to history and . . . to the future. It is what I hope to share with other women." In Autobiography, Linda Rubinstein recalls memories of her teenage years. Doris Rief's From Death to Life was born of despair: "Pouring out words of anger and pain allowed me to get through a terrible time =97 my husband's illness that ended in his death." Mary Segal creates visual diaries, each day of her life resulting in a small square drawing. Segal= 's The Story of Me chronicles events related to motherhood, family, career an= d aging =97 the subjects which absorb her most. In The Marc Ballroom, Alice Simpson remembers "dirty dancing" and the profane, forbidden atmosphere of urban romance stirred by the languid songs and the sensuous rhythms of 1950= s New York. Allison Smith's Self-Portrait, produced during her residency in Ireland, compiles daily visual and verbal entries related to her art and personal evolution. Ann Zahn's Carousel evokes her childhood and the pleasure of riding the carousel in Glen Echo Park in Maryland. Ann Starr's Several Thoughts Concerning Clinical Depression expresses the overwhelming sorrow experienced by all those who suffer from clinical depression. Book as Art VIII includes books illustrating artists' interest in social concerns and the political process. Molly Van Nice created Notes on the Nature of Things, a critical analysis of the presidential electoral system, and Swiss Army Book, a reminder of the fragility of the book and its vulnerability to assault and possible destruction. In Portraits, Susan Rotolo tries to come to terms with the images of human devastation, diseas= e and death that she has witnessed in New York City.=20 The National Museum of Women in the Arts is a private, non-profit museum dedicated to increasing public awareness of the outstanding achievements of women in the visual and performing arts. The museum's permanent collection consists of over 1,500 works dating from the Renaissance to the present, created by nearly 500 women artists from 28 countries. The museum's hours are 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and noon to 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. The Library and Research Center is open to the public for research from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday by appointme= nt only. For more information, contact Holly Crider at (202) 783-5000.=20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 12:06:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jeffrey W. Timmons" Subject: Book as Art VIII: Checklist This is mainly for Charles Alexander, but others might be interested too. Jeffrey Timmons BOOK AS ART VIII CHECKLIST ETEL ADNAN (Sausalito, California and Paris, France) One Linden Tree, Then Another Linden Tree, 1985 Ink, watercolor, crayon and pomegranate peel dye on paper 11=BE x 8=BC inches (closed) Unique bookwork The NMWA Library and Research Center Collection Gift of Etel Adnan and Salwa Mikdadi Nashashibi MARION A. BAKER (Los Angeles, California) Commedia dell' Arte: A Celebration, 1993 Poems by Ann B. Saltzman Letterpress, photo engravings and linocuts on paper 12=BD x 10 inches Edition 66/75 Printmakers Press, Los Angeles, California On loan from the artist MICHELE BURGESS (San Diego, California) Poem Made of Water, 1992 Poem by Nancy Willard Chine coll=E9 drypoint engravings, letterpress and ink on paper 6=BD x 9=BC inches Edition of 25 Brighton Press, San Diego, California The NMWA Library and Research Center Collection Gift of the artist MARYLEE BYTHERIVER (Oakland, California) Venus on the Half Shell, 1994 Linoleum block prints on paper 10=BE x 7=BD inches (closed) Edition 6/50 Lunation Press, Oakland, California On loan from the artist JULIE CHEN (Berkeley, California) Radio Silence, 1955 Aeronautical charts, letterpress on Wyndstone Mica and Tuxedo bronze paper, embossed paper, plexiglass and silk 5 x 3=BC x 3 inches (closed); box: 2=BC x 10=BE x 3=BD inches Edition 12/75 Flying Fish Press, Berkeley, California On loan from the artist ROSEMARIE CHIARLONE (Miami Beach, Florida) Palm Book, 1995 Text by Henry David Thoreau Palm leaves, Egyptian papyrus, oil paint stick, shellac 12 x 12 x 3=BD inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist CAROL CUNNINGHAM (Mill Valley, California) Muses, 1989-1994 Drawings by Gene Holtan Letterpress on paper 10 x 7 inches Edition 22/60 Sunflower Press, Mill Valley, California On loan from the artist EVELYN ELLER (Forest Hills, New York) Music Box, 1990 Mixed media collage 5=BE x 5 x 2 inches Unique bookwork The NMWA Library and Research Center Collection=20 Gift of Paul and Rose Rosenbaum ROSE FOLSOM (Silver Spring, Maryland) Her Nightly Journeys, 1995 Poem by May Sarton Gouache, vinyl paint and wheat paste on paper 12=BD x 9=BD inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist HELEN FRANKENTHALER (New York, New York) Valentine for Mr. Wonderful, 1995 Poem by William Carlos Williams Etching, aquatint, engraving, lithography and embossing on handmade paper 11=BE x 8=BC inches Artist's proof 6/10 Tyler Graphics, Ltd., Mount Kisco, New York On loan from Tyler Graphics, Ltd RITA GALLE (Milano, Italy) Song of Songs, 1990 Aquatint etching on paper 15 x 11=BC inches Edition 20/100 Pardes Rimonim Press, Woodmere, New York On loan from Raphael Fodde Editions JAN GILBERT (New Orleans, Louisiana) Memorial to Bobby: The Red Letter Day, 1988 Mixed media 4=BD x 5=BD inches and 6 x 9=BC inches; box 3=BD x 9 x 6=BC inches On loan from the Collection of Jim and Marcia Croyle ADRIANE HERMAN (Madison, Wisconsin) The Book I Made About the House That Jack Built, 1994 Collage, tempera, pencil on found book 6 x 5=BD inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist Burnt Toast, 1993 Lithography on paper, toast, hinges 3=BC x 3=BC inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist A Brief Festival, 1988 Letterpress and woodcuts on paper 12=BD x 10=BC inches Edition 4/35 The Beggar's Bowl Press, Northampton, Massachusetts On loan from the artist CAROL PALLESEN HICKS (Reno, Nevada) A Trilogy: My Life (Birth to Marriage; Marriage to Divorce; Divorce to...),1995 Tempera and gouache on paper, hand-colored photocopies of photographs 5 x 4 x 1 inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist LOU HICKS (Greenwich, Connecticut) Images of a Voice, 1994 Poems by Mary Louise Cox Letterpress and lithographs on paper 14 x 7 inches Edition 48/50 On loan from Darrel Cox Jodrey SHIREEN HOLMAN (Gaithersburg, Maryland) Stream of Life, 1992 Poems by Tom Galt Colored pencil on paper 12=BE x 16 inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist Stream of Life, 1994 Poems by Tom Galt Handmade paper with pulp painting, woodcuts, photo-engravings and letterpre= ss 14 x 15 inches Edition 5/20 On loan from the artist MARGO KLASS (Bethesda, Maryland) "No Callous Shell", 1992 Poem by Walt Whitman Found objects,19th-century ledger paper, ink, waxed linen and handmade pape= r 12 x 13 inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist Altarpiece: Resurrection, 1995 Handmade paper, waxed linen and found objects 10 x 11=BD x 7=BC inches (closed) Unique bookwork On loan from the artist NINA KOVACHEVA (Paris, France and Sofia, Bulgaria) Alice Dreams, 1993 Pencil, ink and watercolor on paper and handmade paper 8 x 7=BD inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist KAREN KUNC (Avoca, Nebraska) On This Land, 1996 Poem by Lenora Castillo Woodcuts on paper and red flax paper stained with walnut 7=BD x 5=BC inches (closed); 7=BD x 102 inches (open) Edition 125/125 The Library Fellows of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington= , D.C. SUSANNE LEVY (Arlesheim, Switzerland) Sounds of Silence, 1987 Embossing and letterpress print on handmade paper 14 x 10 inches Edition 19/40 The NMWA Library and Research Center Collection Gift of the artist JENNI LUKA (Richmond, Virginia) The Daily Examination of the Conscience, 1994 Altered book and found objects 8=BC x 11=BC (open) Unique bookwork The NMWA Library and Research Center Collection Gift of Jenni Luka and Catherine Saignier MIRTA MELTZER (Buenos Aires, Argentina) Mio Secreto (My Secret), 1994 Text by Antoine de Saint-Exup=E9ry Ink on handmade paper 7 x 5=BC inches (closed) Unique bookwork On loan from the artist KATHERINE NG (Los Angeles, California) The Book of Chain, 1992 Computer print on Tyvek 3=BE x 3=BE x 1 inches Edition of 20 On loan from the artist Fortune Ate Me, 1992 Letterpress handset type on paper and linocut 5 x 7 x 1=BD inches Edition of 100 Pressious Jade, Los Angeles, California On loan from the artist BEVERLY NICHOLS (Lenexa, Kansas) Three Letters of Georgia O'Keeffe, 1995 Text by Georgia O'Keeffe Watercolor and ink on paper, linen and foam 10=BC x 11=BD inches (closed); 10=BC x 70 inches (open) Unique bookwork On loan from the artist JAN OWEN (Bangor, Maine) The Sun, 1995 Poem by William Blake Gouache on paste decorated paper with woven paper 22=BD x 8=BD inches (closed); 22=BD x 30 inches (open) Unique bookwork On loan from the artist Language is to the Mind, 1995 Gouache on paste decorated paper with woven paper 25 x 11=BD inches (closed); 25 x 40 inches (open) Unique bookwork On loan from the artist ELENA PRESSER (Miami, Florida) Goldberg Variation #14, 1983 Paper, pastel, pencil, silk thread and silver wire 13=BE x 10=BE x 1=BE inches On loan from the artist Goldberg Variation #15, 1983 Paper, pastel, pencil, silk thread and silver wire 13=BE x 10=BE x 2 inches On loan from the artist Goldberg Variation #16, 1984 Paper, pastel, pencil, silk thread and silver wire 13=BE x 10=BE x 2 inches On loan from the artist Goldberg Variation #21, 1984 Paper, pastel, pencil, silk thread, silk ribbon and silver wire 13=BE x 10=BE x 21=BD inches On loan from the artist Goldberg Variation #25, 1984 Paper, pastel, pencil, silk thread, silk ribbon and silver wire 13=BE x 10=BE x 3 inches On loan from the artist Goldberg Variation #26, 1984 Paper, pastel, pencil, silk thread and silver wire=20 13=BE x 10=BE x 1=BD On loan from the artist Goldberg Variation #27, 1984 Paper, pastel, pencil, silk thread and silver wire 13=BE x 10=BE x 1=BE inches On loan from the artist Goldberg Variation #30, 1984 Paper, pastel, pencil, silk thread and silver wire 13=BE x 10=BE x 3 inches On loan from the artist Unfinished Symphony, 1982 Paper, pastel, pencil, silk thread, silk ribbon, wire 29 x 36 x 1 inches On loan from the artist DORIS RIEF (Baltimore, Maryland) From=20Death to Life, 1988-1994 Mixed media 9=BD x 11 inches Unique bookwork The NMWA Library and Research Center Collection Gift of the artist Painted Pages, 1987 Pastel on paper, oil stick, marker 22 x 30=BD inches On loan from the artist Painted Pages, 1985 Paper mounted on canvas, spray paint, oil paint=20 40=BE x 40=BE inches On loan from the artist PHILOMENA ROBINSON (Chicago, Illinois) Completing The Circle, 1996 Handmade paper, silver gelatin prints, watercolor, embossed copper and pape= r cutouts 7=BD x 12 inches Edition 1/125 The Library Fellows of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington= , D.C. SUSAN ROTOLO (New York, New York) Portraits: An Album of Damage and Death, 1994 Mixed media collage 4=BE x 6=BC inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist LINDA RUBINSTEIN (Putney, Vermont) Work, 1988 Collage on paper and color pencil 6=BD x 7=BC inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist Autobiography, 1990 Collage, watercolor, pen and ink on paper 10=BC x 12 inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist MARY SEGAL (Roseland, Florida) The Continuing Story of Me, 1992-1993 Monotype and mylar transfer on paper 10 x 15 inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist Journal Drawing #3, 1992 Colored pencil and color photocopy on paper 22 x 30 inches On loan from the artist Journal Drawing #4, 1992 Colored pencil and color photocopy on paper 22 x 30 inches On loan from the artist SUSAN JOY SHARE (Brooklyn, New York) A Bite of Air, 1990 Acrylic on bristol, color photocopy on paper, wood, lead weights, thread 10 x 7=BD x 1 inches (closed); 42 x 21 inches (open) Unique bookwork On loan from the artist Midnight Puzzle, 1989 Paper, cloth, board, photograph, acrylic, string, cork 4 x 4 x 2=BD inches (closed); 10 x 31 x 19 inches (open) Unique bookwork On loan from the artist ALICE SIMPSON (New York, New York) Dirty Dancing, 1995 Gouache on paper 10 x 10=BD (closed) Edition 1/2 On loan from the artist Dolphins, 1994 Poem by Stephen Spender Watercolor on paper, tissue 20 x 6 inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist The Marc Ballroom, 1994 Watercolor on paper, beads, ribbons, wooden feet, cameo portraits 13 x 11 inches (closed) Unique bookwork On loan from the artist ALLISON SMITH (Memphis, Tennessee) Irish Journal, 1994 Handmade paper, beeswax, horsehair 7=BD x 6 inches (closed); 68 x 6 inches (open) Unique bookwork On loan from the artist Handbound, 1987 Library binding with leather glove 8 x 6 x 2 inches Unique book On loan from the artist ANN STARR (Wellesley, Massachusetts) Several Thoughts Concerning Clinical Depression, 1993 India ink and wash on paper, string 4 x 12=BD inches Unique book On loan from the artist BETTY R. SWEREN (Owings Mills, Maryland) The Snake, 1995 Pulp painting with color pigments and mica on handmade paper 10 x 9=BD inches Edition 1/30 On loan from the artist ALICE C. VAN BUREN (Paris, France) The Siren of the Opera, 1994 Black and white photocopy on paper and watercolor 6=BE x 4=BD inches Edition 9/25 On loan from the artist Le Fil d'Ariane, (Ariadne's Thread),1993 Etching on paper and string 5=BD x 7 inches Edition 1/25 On loan from the artist =20 The Public Virgin, 1994 Metallic paint on board, black and white photocopy on paper and feather 6 x 5=BD inches Edition 10/25 On loan from the artist MOLLY VAN NICE (Sommerville, Massachusetts) Notes on the Nature of Some Things (in five volumes of which this is the third), 1988 Paper, india ink, silkscreen, thread 15 x 11 inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist Swiss Army Book, 1990 Ink on paper, linen, wood, pen nib and ribbon 11=BD x 20=BC x 8=BE inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist ANNA MARIA VANCHERI (Rome, Italy) Incantalibro (Bewitched Book), 1994 Mixed media 10 x 6 x 4 inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist KARLA WOISNITZA (Berlin, Germany) Day Book: Meditations in Ink, 1995-1996 Ink on paper 7=BD x 6=BD inches Unique bookwork On loan from the artist ANN ZAHN (Bethesda, Maryland) Carousel, 1992 Woodcut on paper 13 x 5=BD inches Edition of 20, artist's proof On loan from the artist Dentzel Carousel I, Glen Echo, Maryland, 1995 Woodcut on paper 12 x 15=BE inches Edition 4/15 On loan from the artist Dentzel Carousel XIII, Glen Echo, Maryland, 1995 Woodcut on paper 12 x 16 inches Edition 4/15 On loan from the artist (Some works cited in the checklist will be rotated and may not be on view during portions of the exhibition) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 08:16:55 GMT+1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: new york city talks--saturday Reports of events -- far off -- are The Best. Thanks to Jordan Davis and Chris Stroffolino. Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 16:00:35 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: poetry video... re poetry videos in general, the united states of poetry in particular, which i just yesterday had a chance to view in toto: some poetry videos seem to work better---much better---than others, *as videos*... the son et lumiere effect represents a different art form, just as music videos represent a different art form than the music alone... when these latter first came out (in the contemporary mtv scene, i mean) there were many musical 'purists' who objected to same... the difficulty is that most music videos represent a translation from one pop cultural venue to another, whereas to transfigure poetry as video, as in the united states of poetry, tends to move poetry into a pop cultural format---with which it's not always associated, depending on the community... there's also the oral/aural motioning of our culture in general, and how this 'plays into' the video format in ways that sheer sound alone may not... in terms of poetry, sound alone may offer more resistance than video to commodity pressures... but this depends, and yeah, there are risks here, fer sure... i found wanda coleman's video successful precisely b/c it challenged the rec'd qvc-tv format... that is, it subverted the consumer venue AS venue... sure, there are some works about which it might be argued that they are inherently more performative... but interestingly, the least performance-oriented video---"performance" here taken to mean something like 'entertainment'---was larry eigner's... and for me, this was far and away the most fascinating display of poiesis, hence from another pov the finest performance (and i don't mean at all to suggest that the eigner video required less active work for the film crew editor etc)... mebbe the most valuable aspect of the united states of poetry, for me, was its celebratory sense of a diverse culture with diverse voices---a diverse practice... this format works best for me in small doses, in part b/c so much of what i find crucial to poetic practice simply can't be 'visualized,' IS about the silences & solitudes attendant to writer-speaker/reader-listener interaction (even during the noisiest, community-based readings) as opposed to the singular Self espousing to the mass (anonymous) audience... but like all formats, video is surely a format that poets can learn from and work with, no?... joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 17:55:09 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: " . . . " In-Reply-To: <199604020703.CAA05321@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> for quick take on Bunting, if you haven;t already taken it, try _Basil Bunting: Man and Poet_ in the National Poetry Foundation series -- available at libraries, and still available indeed from Burt Hatlen at Orono -- Para Parra? Par Ra? Por que no? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 20:18:07 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: poetry video... It seems to me that U.S. of Poetry is as much about poetry (at least insofar as it makes a compilation which attempts to make a statement about the culture of poetry) as it is a poetry video, and that may be a critical distinction. Also it seems odd to me that in making a criticism of poetry videos we are talking about those that are on national television in various ways. That seems about the equivalent to making a criticism of poetry by talking about poems in Reader's Digest. Also, that video is necessarily a pop culture format would seem rather odd to the many video artists who are doing things with video which will never get onto national public television or national network television; and a lot of which will never even get onto local cable access programs. Some of these, I imagine, are doing work with poetry. I would think we would be better served to find our own peers in localities all over who are working in video. I know a group called Video Art Network, which is a collective including Nancy Solomon and other video artists in Tucson, Arizona, have done some work with poetry. They did one video which was in part a video response to or realization of a poem I wrote titled White Gorge. The difficulty, though, with talking about such work for any of us here is that it's so difficult to see such works. Just as it's quite difficult to find a lot of poetry out there if you're not part of some network of writers. Saying that, I will say that I did find some good in U.S. of Poetry, but that a lot of it left me wanting something else. charles ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 21:57:52 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Quartermain Subject: Re: Bunting for quick take on Bunting there is also the special Bunting issue of Durham University Journal Spring 1995 _Sharp_Study_and_Long Toil_ edited by Ruchard Caddel and available from the Bunting Poetry Archive aty Durham UK for ten pounds. And there's two shortish essays on Bunting in my own _Disjunctive_Poetics: _From_Stein_and_Zukofsky_to_Susan_Howe_ (Cambridge UP 1993), as well as the full length Peter Makin book _The_Shaping_of_Butning'S_Verse_ (Oxford) -- I don't think that's quite the right title, but it's pretty close. Peter >for quick take on Bunting, if you haven;t already taken it, try _Basil >Bunting: Man and Poet_ in the National Poetry Foundation series -- >available at libraries, and still available indeed from Burt Hatlen at >Orono -- > > >Para Parra? >Par Ra? >Por que no? > > + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Peter Quartermain 128 East 23rd Avenue Vancouver B.C. Canada V5V 1X2 Voice and fax: 604 876 8061 + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 11:57:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Northcutt Subject: Benjamin -- [ From: William Northcutt * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- Just re-discovered a great bit from Walter Benjamin in "One-Way Street": "What, in the end, makes advertisements so superior to criticism" Not what the moving red neon sign says--but the fiery pool reflecting it in the asphalt." (Reflections 86) Exchange "poetry" for "criticism." William -- -------------------------------------------- William Northcutt Englische Literaturwissenschaft GWII Universitaet Bayreuth 95440 Bayreuth, Germany 0921/553577 fax 0921/553641 email: william.northcutt@uni-bayreuth ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 11:36:03 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Subject: contra simic That is so true, what would us "poets" (label as yours) do without the deconstructivist lens as a method of inquiry to dissassemble poetry? How greatful all of us should be that a critic has taken their *free* copy, once it arrives parcel post, to review using the particular sect of criticism that best unseats the rider. The assumption of the author as less intelligent than the language they use (and, of course, less than the critic) prevails, their inability to "protect" themselves with the correct jargon continues. the words were the motor or the driving force -Taggart David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 11:34:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Electronic Poetry Review I saw the update on how to send mail to the Electronic Poetry Review, but it's still being returned to me. The address I'm sending to is: EPR@www.poetry.org.edu Can someone backchannel me and help me figure out what I'm missing? Thanks. Mark Wallace ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 09:30:57 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: "Video ergo sum" (thanks, Joan) In-Reply-To: <199604030708.CAA03242@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> Like Charles, I found recent discussion of poetry video odd, though not at all surprised by the focus on USP, it having just recently aired -- like the "enactments?" in _Voices & Visions_, entirely TOO literal-minded for my tastes -- but wanted to mention new anthology on video art,, nothing in it abt poetry (and it could use such an essay!) -- but much that will interest those thinking about poetry and video art: _Resolutions: Contemporary Video Practices_ ed. Michael Renov & Erika Sunderburg U of Minnesota Press ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 12:33:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Luoma Subject: Monte's Venetian Room Comments: cc: drothschild@penguin.com Hi chris Stroff, who said @ NYC talker said "Form is never more than an extension of Creely," is giving me grief for being allegorical. But thanks for asking for a read on Monte's. you are what you eat. my take is limited but i would read Monte's as a large symbol of the Pound/Stein/radmod fascist commie contradiction. also it's the western hem. Monte's Venetian Room is nearly on the Gowanus Canal and i imagine that venice imitation as usa, canada, mex, south am as a euro-trash heap built on top of native americans. see below for who gowanus was and another allegory chris. but also monte's functions as a small space where no one goes except kevin and douglass and lisa, who go over the tradition bridge the wrong way which makes for some great poems while the cops try to match up vehicle identification numbers. a community. these ones are willing to do the star trek tag line. Nomo Clonal. I mean Nogo is an edgy community not yet sanctioned by the Landmarks Preservation Foundation. it's not soho or berkeley or the upper west side (nyet). the canadians have been to Nogo. Ask Dan Farrell what happened to his $200. Bill Luoma Students Can Help Re-Design The Gowanus Canal Area The Brooklyn Chapter of The American Institute of Architects (AIA), in conjunction with the Gowanus Canal Development Corporation and the Pratt Institute Center for Community Development, are sponsoring a design competition for the Gowanus Canal area. The competition is open to fourth year students in the five architectural schools in New York City. Although the competition will study one site which straddles the Canal, the intent of the competition is to examine mixed use, as a development strategy for the entire canal area. "The project has the size to as a discrete component, but also play a part in future development," according to Don Weston, FAIA, coordinator of the competition for the Brooklyn Chapter, "The chosen site raises a particular question of how to establish a role and a hierarchy of public space, relative to the public asset of the canal." It is the hope of the sponsors that entrants maintain the balance between design ideas and the realities of the difficult Brooklyn site. The Gowanus Canal study area comprises 27 city blocks of predominantly industrial uses, and a residential population of 20,000 people for the eight census tracts surrounding the Canal. There are over 700 businesses of various types and scale that employ approximately 5,500 people in the industrial zones. "But, there is the more important question of how to make places where working and living occur together," said Weston. As a 19th Century barge canal, the Gowanus continues to serve as medium for the transportation of oil, but the competition sponsors hope to tap its 21st Century potential as a unique urban place. "The introduction of recreational, residential, and other land uses will eventually lead to a significant reassessment of the area as a sustainable environment," Weston continued. The Gowanus Canal was a creek named for Gouwane, a Canarsee chief and Native-American. It was forever altered from a fishing and hunting ground to a barge canal for commercial navigation by the late 1800's. The surrounding marsh land was drained and the canal quickly became environmentally dysfunctional. In response, a 12-foot diameter tunnel 60 feet below grade was designed in 1909 and completed in 1991 to force water through the canal in concert with the tidal action in Buttermilk Channel to the west and Gowanus Bay to the south. The canal was dredged to depths of 7 to 12 feet at mean low water. The tunnel's pumping mechanism failed in 1961, marking the beginning of a 35-year concentration of pollutants into an essentially dead body of water. Today, the long awaited clean up of the Gowanus Canal is close to being achieved and the competition site is in its final remediation stage from its former use as a coal gasification plant. The canal is a barrier between two established residential neighborhoods, Carroll Gardens to the west and Gowanus to the east. The site on the Carroll Gardens side is essentially residential and the south side is predominantly manufacturing, retail, or service industry uses. The competition sponsors recognize mixed use markets and refer to such precedents as Soho and Hunter's Point. "We seek solutions which respect the canal's historical perspective, while encouraging design concepts that will enrich Brooklyn's economic development." Entrants are asked to consider how technology has changed the home and workplace and how this gives mixed use added impetus. The project seeks to address the needs for housing as well as studios and production workshops, performance and exhibition spaces, and other amenities. Public access to the waterfront is one of the requirements of each design. The jury consists of Giorgio Cavaglieri, FAIA; Rex Curry, associate director, Center for Community Environmental Development; John Loomis, AIA, Audrey Matlock, AIA; Laura Osorio, AIA; Jan Pokorny, FAIA; Stephen Raphael, Esq., commissioner, Landmarks Preservation Foundation; Buddy Scotto, Gowanus Canal Community Development Corp.; Ron Schiffman, commissioner City Planning Commission; and Don Weston, FAIA. It is planned that after the awards are announced, an exhibition and conference to further discuss the selected schemes will be held. The five schools who will be participating in the competition are Pratt Institute, The Cooper Union, City College, New York Technical College, and Parsons School of Design. The deadline for submissions is May 1, with judging to be done by May 20. The entrants will be competing for scholarship prizes totaling $3,000 provided by the Pat Raspante Scholarship Fund. Raspante was a long time member of AIA/Brooklyn and a well respected architectural educator. For more information, call the AIA of Brooklyn, at 627-1918. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 12:16:14 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: poetry video... charles, yes---my remarks aimed at the attempt to popularize poetry by usop... i'm looking to try to establish the benefit of same, i'm trying (as peter elbow once put it) to play the 'believing game,' but with brain intact... and i was struck by my class's response the other night to john s. hall's (as i recall) melted-candle-wax-on-nipples comedy routine (comedy to me, that is)... a number of students preferred this latter to most of the other videos (we didn't have time to watch 'em all)... and w/o any interference---i assume b/c some saw themselves, their own abilities in hall's routine---were eager to argue for the *value* of such effort as equivalent to, for example, much of what i took to be more complex, more sophisticated, more *poetic* work, writing-wise... i can find no way to account for same w/o trying to understand the video format of usop in terms of entertainment-performance, in terms of its popular predecessors (which for me, again, are the mtv-vh1-style videos, not the independent film-video scene)... and while, again, i have no axe to grind with the popular per se, what i found and find most distressing is the inability of my (undergrad., non-english major) students---who have spent some time with much of the contemporary poetry discussed hereabouts---to distinguish between writings of, imho, such wildly divergent value *as writing*... these kids are motivated, and smart, but mebbe sold-short some b/c of their cultural backdrop (and i hope not by me in saying so)... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 13:59:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "John E. Matthias" Subject: Re: Bunting Please, let's not forget Victoria Forde's _The Poetry of Basil Bunting_ (Bloodaxe, 1991). This was the first book on Bunting, and the one on which he actively collaborated. As a dissertation--and the changes in the published version are not radical--it was finished in 1973. It lacks the sophistication of later work on Bunting, but has a charm (and, not to take anything away from it, also an authority) all its own. Bunting's correspondence with Victoria Forde is quite beautiful and ought to be published, as of course should all the rest of his correspondence. Is anyone working on this? John Matthias ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 21:18:56 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Macsweeney / Cambridge Poetry Conference Those wanting to hear Macsweeney have a chance at this year's - Sixth Cambridge Conference of Contemporary Poetry at King's College, 26-28 April 1996 - Readings Discussion Performance Friday - John James, Barry MacSweeney Saturday - 11am Mas Abe, Adrian Harding, Simon Perrill 2pm editing discussion with Andrew Duncan, John Kinsella, John Wilkinson 8pm Les A Murray, Ian Patterson, Lisa Robertson Sunday 2pm Caroline Bergvall, Brian Catling, cris cheek 4pm Harry Gilonis, Rob MacKenzie 7pm Kelvin Corcoran, Alan Halsey, Pascalle Monnier all inquiries: 0223 327455/321658 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 10:30:38 GMT+1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Bunting or Butning etc. LOST in the move to my current office copy of AGENDA-- a special on Bnuting some years back --- good value as I recall. Btuning, that is. Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 10:34:55 GMT+1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Benjamin makes me curious to know what the German says "fiery pool"? Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 20:13:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: poetry video... joe a--interesting about john hall on USOP, at my gathering, someone remarked, "how'd this one get in here?" w/ distaste. i myself enjoyed the kookiness of it, w/ the cello duo in background and martini glass. md ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 09:01:08 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: poetry video... maria, that's just it: i'm feeling at once tightass and justified in observing that the hall video---while a 'relief' in some ways from the adjacent work---is playing to a distinctively different crowd... in fact surfacing a key element at work in usop, which has to do (much) less with poetry than with (a peculiar kind of) spectacle... which doesn't necessarily contribute to a better poetic environs... interesting that another student in the class remarked, in general, that with a product to sell, some of the usop spots would make terrific commercials... and another observed that she stopped listening to the words after a while (thus an argument against video enhancing the audio)... just so's i don't give the impression that the folks in my class aren't thinking... but i think, at the very least, that usop is playing to a different audience than the one hereabouts, on poetics... in general, i mean, and i wonder if the difference between mself and the members of my class has less to do with my poetic background per se than with some generational differences in our response to image technologies... as much as i like to think of mself as hip, i mean, we're separated by approx. 20 years... but mebbe i'm being *too* generous!... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 10:22:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: poetry video... md-- i didn't get the USOP yet... does HALL do "i am a sensitive artist" or "steal things from work" on that? cs ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 10:04:46 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: poetry video... In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 4 Apr 1996 09:01:08 -0600 from On Thu, 4 Apr 1996 09:01:08 -0600 Joe Amato said: >surfacing a key element at work in usop, which has to do (much) less with >poetry than with (a peculiar kind of) spectacle... which doesn't >necessarily contribute to a better poetic environs... > >but i think, at the very least, that usop is playing to a different >audience than the one hereabouts, on poetics... Seems like poets should be able to turn technology to their own purposes - especially when they consider performance aspects of what they're doing. I've been looking at the book Maria Damon mentioned - Gregory Nagy, _Poetry as Performance: Homer & beyond_. He focuses on the idea of refraction - or modulation, variation - the way a song "changes around" both internally (modulation) and with repeated performances or interpretations (variations, variants). Quotes some beautiful lines from Homer about how when spring comes the nightingale in the woods begins to modulate, "change the song around"; the idea is that a strong song or poem has continuity - moving from performer to performer and so on. An "oral" as opposed to scriptural sense of song or text. What if we considered some elements of form - modulated rhythm & repetitions - not as aids to "scriptural memory" but as aids to repeat performance? What does this have to do with poetry videos... well I think some consideration of performance values would help put poets in an active versus passive relation to media tech & its cliches. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 11:01:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: poetry video... yes, i like that henry, that sense of active vs. passive encounter with media techne... i recall speaking some (musta been) ten years ago with john mason about the possibilities of poetry and video (where the hell IS john, anyway?)... again, as charles and others indicate, usop is only (one of) the most public of video-poetry efforts... actually, though i agree with aldon in general about *voices & visions*, i found particular moments in this latter series quite moving... if i'm not mis-recollecting, those b & w shots of pound blankly walking around in his room, with his voiceover on canto lxxxi... very powerful... unless this latter is a dream inspired by that segment... but i'm really at somewhat of a loss here, b/c while on the one hand i know very little, actually, about video technology (i mean from a hands-on viewpoint), i *do* feel justified in observing that the aural-cum-written is overpowered by the visual... i still 'see' film as primarily a visual technology, and i say this with due regard for the combined cinematic effect of sound, music, foley work, etc... but given the relative info. saturation of the network or cable image (whether 57 channels with nothin on or no), the benefit of poetry as either spoken or writ (or both) seems to me to be in its (however) performatively drawing the listener/reader in on a---what adjective to use here once i hazard this sort of distinction?--- [careful]? (hall is certainly careful) [well-wrought]? (hall's is well-wrought in the context of his own aesthetic) [aware]? (both hall and the video production team are aware of what they're doing) [complex]? (well---complex in terms of writing, perhaps not... BUT hall's may be a complex artifact when measured against that which he mocks, regardless my anecdotal evidence re reception of same) [ ] making... i suppose then, that there *is* a way to read/watch/experience the hall video (poor hall!) in terms of its specifically video craft---and the various traditions it's busy playing off against... but this is exactly what the marketplace of video would seem to me to militate against, with the result being (surprise surprise) that more intense or complex language work per se is, in the popular sphere, potentially to be regarded as elitist or exclusionary... of course there are good (historical) reasons for being suspicious of 'literate' practices, of 'literacy' in general... but then, at the same time, this is no excuse for a reduction of this latter simply to gatekeeping hegemonies, either in fact or in perception of same... again the question would seem to turn on how one establishes the value of poetry in particular, writing in general, in this vast semiotic sea... given so many possible value schemes, i'm not sure i'm justified in my relative disappointment wrt usop... esp. b/c it has its share of intriguing moments... joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 11:29:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Foley Subject: Re: poetry video... >(which for me, again, are the mtv-vh1-style videos, >not the independent film-video scene) Joe, I don't think you need to say "mtv-vh1", just "mtv" will do b/c (well at least I think) they own "vh1" among several others. I hear this fall they're launching a spoken-word channel too, maybe PoTV. Pat (List-members: don't ask me where I heard that... It's a joke.) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 11:07:55 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Marie Schmid Subject: Re: Performance poetry/Nagy's book In-Reply-To: In Henry Gould's posting, he mentioned a book by Gregory Nagy *Poetry as Performance.* It appears that it may have already been discussed here, but could you post some more bibliographic information regarding this text? I'm working on a dissertation on performed poetries and this book sounds like it might be really useful. Likewise, if anyone else out there has suggestions for me--I'm looking specifically for texts that discuss the event or the performance or the voicing of the poem, and I have found "performance theory" (whatever that means) to be pretty useless here--please feel free to either post them or send them to me directly. Thanks so much. Julie Schmid jschmid@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 12:52:38 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Performance poetry/Nagy's book In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 4 Apr 1996 11:07:55 -0600 from On Thu, 4 Apr 1996 11:07:55 -0600 Julie Marie Schmid said: >In Henry Gould's posting, he mentioned a book by Gregory Nagy *Poetry as >Performance.* It appears that it may have already been discussed here, >but could you post some more bibliographic information regarding this >text? Nagy, Gregory / Poetry as performance: Homer and beyond Cambridge UP, 1996 isbn 0521551358 HG ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 09:58:42 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: { brad brace } Subject: won the workers MERCHANT NO.919 when he read that a man's life in a railroad accident was saved by the strength of his shirt, he hunted up the man in the hospital, then bought a lot a shirts of the same make, dressed a window with the torn shirt and the new ones and held a successful sale. -- The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project ftp.netcom.com/pub/bb/bbrace continuous hypermodern ftp.teleport.com/users/bbrace photo-art pacifier.com/pub/users/bbrace -- Usenet-news: alt.binaries.pictures.12hr/ a.b.p.fine-art.misc Mailing-list: listserv@netcom.com / subscribe 12hr-isbn-jpeg Reverse Solidus: http://www.teleport.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html __ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 13:39:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Raworth reading at Bridge Street Tom Raworth will be reading at Bridge Street Books, 2814 Pennsylvania Ave NW (across from the Biograph near 28th & Penn in Georgetown) at 8 PM on Tuesday April 9th. You should come hear him he's very good. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 14:06:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Poetry City #6 POETRY CITY, hey! POETRY POETRY CITY, hey! Reading #6 tonight Marcella Durand and Kim Lyons! Women of Brooklyn read their work, We'll have a really good time! 6:30 p.m. at Teachers & Writers. CITY OF POETRY, hey! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 17:46:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: poetry video... hall does a piece on having his lover drip hot candle wax on his nipples. he says, "i find it particularly enjoyable."--md ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 17:46:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: poetry video... so i really am a yahoo, just like my colleagues think. so sue me: i like just about everything except the fetishization of everything. i might even like robot frost if people didn't drool all over him as if he weren't a cranky old woman hating imperialist poet of the land-owning classes. as i sd before i like bishop and merrill, so okay, i didn't really go for the cowboy poetry on USOP, esp Sue Wallis (i get a kick out of imitating her saying, "we head on back down the drawwww..."), and sure, lou reed at 50 still trying to be underworldish w/ that weak last line (something flickered, then vanished and was gone," or someting like tht), but come on. this is all part of poetry too, not just debating over a fine point in some manuscript of spicer's or shakespeare's. i guess it's my function on this list to say stuff like this. by the way, i got the new Kaufman selected, Cranial Guitar. I already told y'all about my essay being dropped w/out notice frm the volume . well guess whose prose --not full sentences, but certainly whole phrases --about his being a cult figure, about his blending high culture and popular culture --is all over the back cover, uncredited? my phrasing, my insights etc., all anonymously rendered, thanks to the essay i delivered to coffee house press, that dropped into a bermuda triangle of publishing. it's not as if there's a large enough critical corpus on kaufman for this stuff to simply be part of "common knowledge" about his work. also, my work not listed in the bibliography in the back of the book --effectively erased from kaufman critical history. i've heard about stuff like this happening to people but this is the first time it's happened to me. i mean, it happens in different ways institutionally, in my dept, but it's a first in my publishing career. so. beware girls and boys. in a few days i may not think it's such a big deal, but right now, it hurts. bests, maria d ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 17:47:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Performance poetry/Nagy's book nagy's book s a bit pedantic, but i like the genral poiiint hie's maiming (sorry the typing)... coulda sed it in much less time/space...poetry is a process, it exists in its improvisation, its variation, its aesthetic reception, the form it takes in the performed moment... read also, perhaps, clark coolidge's essay in talking poetics: naropa writing seminars (shambhala press) cant' remember vol. 1 or 2, he talks about improv and language as the "thinnest material we know" etc..., probably baraka has stuff on iiiimprove as well, aldon might no...no? sorry incoherent, repetitive strain injury etc awkwayrd position typiing and also too much going oin... maria dementa ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 18:33:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Foley Subject: Re: poetry video... From an Interview with Robert Creeley available somewhere on the web, I forget where I got it: Steve Luttrell: There also seems to be kind of a shift, if you will, of emphasis, maybe, upon performance poetry by way of these things they call poetry slams away from the active publication--from the eye to the ear. It seems that the ear is presently sort of running away. Robert Creeley: Whatever that comes to, you can hardly knock it because presumably poetry begins with a pitch or a recital or a performance or a presentation. And then, thanks to literacy, there is the ability to write it all down. So it all begins to move through books and all that. But the poetry that's preoccupied me has always been primarily sounded. For example, you couldn't really, finally, get Basil Bunting's poems unless you read them or heard them. Otherwise, it becomes like reading musical scores without physical sound. Even so I have a hard time ever saying that "this is right and that's wrong." You know there was a time not so long ago when everybody was down on concrete poetry because it really didn't make any sound at all. If a way of doing it has a kind of delight, and makes something apparent or makes something evident that wasn't, then that's terrific. I don't think one has to make a kind of box in which all has to go. We're going to have the same argument, expectedly, as to what do we do with electronically generated poetry--what are we going to do with what is written on computers--does that make it "no good"? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 16:30:18 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: my script for a poetry video... (for a teacher i know) HEE-YAW minds steel'd through such immersion in the highest of theories hearts impassion'd with pedagogical fervor the likes of which you've never seen bodies fuel'd with the rich nutty flavor of generic cheerios (that's cheery-ohhhhz & pack(ag)ing only their portables they march off to wage their war of words against the advertising clan engaging first the sheer resistance of fully-functional signage deployed strategically around the perimeter to ward off inquiring minds & hearts & bodies fuel'd with the rich nutty flavor of generic (repetez vous) cheery-ohhhhz next, the quizzical expressions of those who like ourselves in this poem think themselves unsuitable as institutional quarry but taken captive nonetheless, just to be sure bound & gagged (we've worked ours loose a bit, they're treating us ok) & its teachers vs. teachers, folks with a few dozens of arch-conservative pooh-bahs & several hundreds of administrators & several thousands of students onlooking chuckling talk about combat spoils vic morrow woulda been shoulda been proud, that is in punk persona & above the din or as rumor will have it much later beneath they are inspired by a voice some think is frankie lane a singin SOUND OFF onetwo SOUND ON threefour HEE-YAW marlon perkins rises from the grave to lend a helpin hand we tell you we say again we repeat in italics (for emphasis *marlon perkins rises from the grave to lend a helpin hand* frankie lane a singin SOUND OFF onetwo SOUND ON threefour HEE-YAW HEE-YAW HEE-YAW ; wild, wish you could see em roundin up those stray ideodogies & bringin em on home enemy casualties a mountin sense restored to its nonsenses--- meanwhile, back at the math harvard berkeley montana ranch professing no doubt wrongly to blow up people or people up etc. etc. & cogito, ergo the schools like the prisons like all orthogonal structures, in fact are FULL FULL of how to tank (which comes from the portuguese word meaning "to stanch" which means roughly to stop the flow of thought which is as its etymology would suggest to etymologists really not at all about thinking at all as this poem more exhortation on thinking about it than poetry though not for no tastes, no & yes, less about math or teaching or montana pace zappa but about as he too knew that eastern western northern southern intermountain midatlantic midwestern northeastern southeastern southwestern northwestern DESIRE with as might be expected the CAPABILITY aka WHEREWITHAL more subtly, UNADORN'D PRIVILEGE RUN AMOK here in the wonderless usa in our chevrolets & toyotas banking on & having been taught to distribute the wealth in one's own(ed) backyard --FUCK YOU-- that is before that junkheap bustedown raggedyass bastard wreck death or dying or [insert reasonable cinematic equivalent of same] comes comin around comin around the comes comin around the comin around the bend round the bend round the bend to up: --FUCK YOU yep ---marchingmarchingmarching dumbfounded only a little by the confounding logic of that taunting refrain mouthed, or more or less improperly, mumbled by the opposition, encamped [wink] foot-in-one-another's-mouth, to wit: "we simply must instruct the feet in the lessons of lather- rinse- repeat" in countrapuntal arrangement to which may be heard according to those who listen carefully for such things a catchy little jingle composed by our redoubtable staff to accompany our tribe of choice albeit our erstwhile oppressors (as above) & bring solace & comfort to same in the midst of internecine feud, to wit & at wit's end: "we simply must inform the nose of the rich nutty bouquet of cheery- ohhhz." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 17:44:52 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tosh berman Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... I am sorry but I still hate poetry videos. Again the best poetry on film is Powell, Bunuel, Cocteau, & Keaton. Is there any video poetry that is better than the poetry I mentioned. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 19:30:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marisa Januzzi Subject: Re: Monte's Venetian Room In-Reply-To: <960403123345_504717049@mail04> Well Properly speaking, Monte's (where i've spent several dozen new years eves and had my hand kissed and seen the marble slabs go down upstairs...) is the extension of Villa Mosconi, where the veal circulates a little more freely with the business. I like the line about entering the tradition the wrong way around and i haven't slept in two days for class prep and I'm not HOME I'm in Utah but thank god someone's theorizing Monte's It gets better because Giovanni's daughter Angela worked for TASS the soviet press agency, came back to work on a staten island paper and ended up making her big break getting into the confidence of some mafioso in prison. Little girls don't do that. Giovanni's got a picture of himself with I think Michelle Marsh on the wall and he's real proud. Also the last time Kenneth Koch went in there Giovanni asked if he could help Angela's journalism career along, since he's such an important writer. Fresh Airily, --Marisa (thanks) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 19:13:14 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: { brad brace } Subject: workingmen like this MERCHANT NO.920 has rooms where men may change to evening clothes and back again, keeping either suit there, without charge. He also has rooms where men may try on collars and neckties. -- The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project ftp.netcom.com/pub/bb/bbrace continuous hypermodern ftp.teleport.com/users/bbrace photo-art pacifier.com/pub/users/bbrace -- Usenet-news: alt.binaries.pictures.12hr/ a.b.p.fine-art.misc Mailing-list: listserv@netcom.com / subscribe 12hr-isbn-jpeg Reverse Solidus: http://www.teleport.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html __ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 19:54:08 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: { brad brace } Subject: beauty shop ideas MERCHANT NO.921 held a beauty contest, offering prizes from 50 down to 15 dollars. Movie pictures were taken of the entrants, which were shown daily for a week in a theatre, where the spectators decided the winner by ballots. -- The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project ftp.netcom.com/pub/bb/bbrace continuous hypermodern ftp.teleport.com/users/bbrace photo-art pacifier.com/pub/users/bbrace -- Usenet-news: alt.binaries.pictures.12hr/ a.b.p.fine-art.misc Mailing-list: listserv@netcom.com / subscribe 12hr-isbn-jpeg Reverse Solidus: http://www.teleport.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html __ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 20:19:59 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: { brad brace } Subject: no patent on this idea MERCHANT NO.912 sold toy scooters at half price to women buying aluminum ware on a certain Friday and Saturday. -- The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project ftp.netcom.com/pub/bb/bbrace continuous hypermodern ftp.teleport.com/users/bbrace photo-art pacifier.com/pub/users/bbrace -- Usenet-news: alt.binaries.pictures.12hr/ a.b.p.fine-art.misc Mailing-list: listserv@netcom.com / subscribe 12hr-isbn-jpeg Reverse Solidus: http://www.teleport.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html __ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 21:32:10 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: contrasimilac In-Reply-To: <199604040522.AAA10970@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> geez, david, touchy! In reponse to the question posed here whether or not anybody "ever" got to reading a poet by way of reading a critic, which seemed to me a fairly bizarre question to begin with, I offered myself as at least one example of at least one person who had read at least one poet after reading about said poet in the writings of at least one critic -- Is there really anybody on this list who would deny ever having done likewise? (maybe so, we'll hear soon enough) -- What does any of that have to do with any "greatfulness" dead or alive or anybody's sense of any form of writing being any less intelligent than any other? I don't know of any poet who does not in fact act as a critic in the act of reading and in the act of speaking of that reading with others -- This desire to oppose oneself to "the critic" as "poet" is rank -- I suspect at least one reader came to Whitman through reading of Whitman in the criticism Whitman wrote of his own verse under a pseudonym -- In which case I suppose Walt was greatful to himself -- he's always been great to me -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 4 Apr 1996 23:16:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: The Attic Which Is Desire >Date: Wed, 3 Apr 1996 11:57:01 -0500 >From: William Northcutt >Subject: Benjamin > >-- [ From: William Northcutt * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- > >Just re-discovered a great bit from Walter Benjamin in "One-Way Street": > >"What, in the end, makes advertisements so superior to criticism" Not what >the moving red neon sign says--but the fiery pool reflecting it in the >asphalt." (Reflections 86) > >Exchange "poetry" for "criticism." > >William ***** I believe Biscuit Tortoni, 25c per portion *** * * * * S * * O * * D * * A * * * * *** and then there's the Buck-Morss book on the Arcades Project (I know no Greek) cheers, Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 05:10:36 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ward Tietz <100723.3166@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: Re: Poetry Video I agree with a lot of the recent comments on poetry video. The distribution of contemporary work in video is so bad that it is almost impossible to have an intelligent conversation about what is formally possible, but I'll venture some comments nevertheless. Poetry video, to me implies a quasi-documentary form, where the text is understood and maintained as the primary compositional medium. Video documents or embellishes the performative and presentational potential inherent to the text. Video poetry implies a different practice. It implies that video itself is the primary compositional medium. Language can be performed and presented without necessarily originating from a base text. I've found that the ability to recognize poetry in video, or other media outside of print, becomes practically impossible as text is given up as the compositional format. Some early Gary Hill work is very textually based and maintains a strong literary character. Other work, even when it contains language, has difficulty maintaining a literary character, without this textual base. William Wegman and Bill Viola have made some very poetic videos, but it would be difficult to think of them as poetry. Sound poetry suffers from this same problem. Some pieces appear literary and others more musical or vocal. Considering all this I've come to believe that the basic criterion for poetry is perhaps not language, but text. This is more than obvious for traditional practice, but for work that investigates medial boundaries such criteria aren't always apparent. Ward Tietz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 07:49:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Not More Pound! In-Reply-To: <2.2.16.19960404231558.0a077bc4@mail.azstarnet.com> from "Tenney Nathanson" at Apr 4, 96 11:16:04 pm I realize this is rather on the personal side, but I thought I'd just mention that Amelia Morgan Boughn entered this plane of existence on April 3 at 5:38 PM. She has yet to say either Da or Ma to my face, but as I drifted off in the hospital room after her rather dramatic entrance, I could swear I heard someone in her direction mumbling "and then went down to the ships, set keel to breakers, forth on the godly seas." Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 07:56:21 -0500 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Performance poetry/Nagy's book another source fr poetry/performance might be _The Poetry Reading: compendium on language & performance_, Stephen Vincent & Ellen Zweig eds, Momo Press 1981... many points ov view, some dated-- the three essays on poetry video, frinstance, we're written pre-MTV, which means to me that they're written about a different media than what we mean now when we say "video"... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 08:44:05 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... hey tosh berman, there's no denying that what you describe is poetic film. perhaps i'm being too literal minded by talking about videos OF poetry that is self-consciously intended as such, whether or not "we" think it "merits" the name "poetry." i thot that was the subject of discussion. personally i only saw buster keaton films a few times when i was a kid, and found them unbearably painful. i felt too much for the guy hanging off the skyscraper or whatever, had no "critical distance" from which to admire it as a performance. i just thot i was being forced to watch someone suffer while people around me were laughing. maybe i'd laugh today. probly, since i've been monty pythoned into a different sense of humor. i haven't ben trying to convince you. i appreciate your high-art perspective. just yakking.--md ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 07:50:02 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... >I am sorry but I still hate poetry videos. Again the best poetry on film >is Powell, Bunuel, Cocteau, & Keaton. Is there any video poetry that is >better than the poetry I mentioned. Three cheers! and though I might add a name or two, these will do the job nicely. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 09:26:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Not More Pound! congratulations, mike boughn. may you relearn/unlearn wild language thru your new little person friend. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 10:01:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Heller Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 3 Apr 1996 to 4 Apr 1996 Comments: To: Automatic digest processor In-Reply-To: <199604050631.BAA01083@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> FOR DC AREA PEOPLE CARL RAKOSI WILL BE READING AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS ON 11 APRIL 6:30 PM THE MUMFORD ROOM OF THE LIBRARY'S MADISON BUILDING ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 10:08:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Heller Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 3 Apr 1996 to 4 Apr 1996 In-Reply-To: <199604050631.BAA01083@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> FOR DC AREA RESIDENTS CARL RAKOSI IS READING AT THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS APRIL 11TH AT 6:30PM THE MUMFORD ROOM OF THE LIBRARY'S MADISON BUILDING ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 11:27:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Foley Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... Reply to Maria Damon: >personally i >only saw buster keaton films a few times when i was a kid, and found them >unbearably painful. i felt too much for the guy hanging off the skyscraper >or whatever That's Harold Lloyd. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 11:35:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... Well, my favorite poetry video is "THE ADDICT WHICH IS DESIRE" starring the UNABOMBER as Ezra-Pound.... but, seriously quertzblatz guyzies, CHAX could've at least mentioned JLG- especially the foreign film subtitle effect which I always thought would be great in american films by poets..... cheers to amelia boughn.... (but hurry, give her a dose of something other than pound quick!) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 11:44:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Foley Subject: Re: Ward Tietz on Poetry Video >William Wegman and Bill Viola have made some very poetic videos, but it >would be difficult to think of them as poetry. > >Ward Tietz Yes. I've been kicking around for a few years the idea that there is some similarity between film and poetry, just as there is between poetry and music, because these are sequential arts, in time, unlike painting & sculpture & architecture & ... And film has something analogous to the linebreak, namely the CUT. Montage can give film a sort of poetic structure, even though its materials are visual (primarily) rather than linguistic. That's my $0.02. Pat ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 09:01:26 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tosh berman Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... > Well, my favorite poetry video is > "THE ADDICT WHICH IS DESIRE" > starring the UNABOMBER as Ezra-Pound.... > > but, seriously quertzblatz guyzies, > CHAX could've at least mentioned JLG- > especially the foreign film subtitle effect > which I always thought would be great in > american films by poets..... > > cheers to amelia boughn.... > (but hurry, give her a dose of something other than pound > quick!) Very good point - Jean Luc Godard's use of text in his films are amazing! And speaking of poetry videos - why don't they just make them with a black background with white lettering and having a bouncing ball so you can read along....follow the bouncing ball and see where it leads you! tosh ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 12:13:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Emily Lloyd Subject: Re: poetry video... A stunning example of poetry & video working well together is Marlon Riggs' "Tongues Untied"--short film about black gay culture featuring Essex Hemphill. Someone, during the course of this thread, mentioned the tendency of the visual to overpower the oral/language---how some students had said "after a while, I stopped paying attention to the words." Oh, see this film! The images are used in such a way as to get the viewer to focus on the language...at one point, a phrase is repeated over & over, but rather than "vanishing" into gibberish, it becomes more powerful, you start to take the phrase apart, you start to hear each word separately...'least I did. As for "stopping paying attention to the words," I often find it hard to hear the words--or pay attention to them--at plain old poetry readings, when the only visual barrier is the poet. I tend to think of poetry-performed-well as separate from poetry-that-works-on-the-page, with all the room in the world for overlap...performing & writing being, somehow, such different activities...& find that often poets whose work I like on the page are intolerably bad "performers"/readers....while some whose books I wouldn't particularly want on my shelf dazzle live... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Emily Lloyd emilyl@erols.com "It takes time to make queer people"--g stein ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 09:12:28 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tosh berman Subject: Re: Poetry Video + sound Interesting comments from Ward. I personally find all types of pop music poetic, especially lyrics by Cole Porter, and early rock stuff from the sixties -- "Psycotic Reaction," "Have I the Right to Hold You," and other of that type. Mostly I think it depends where you are listening to those songs, and what mential state you are in. I think how Dennis Potter (Pennies from Heaven) use of popular songs has a strong "poetic" commentary on the action that is taking place on the screen. So in other words I don't really seperate the sound poetry of Kurt Schwitters from the so-called blandness of Johnny Ray. Both of them deliver the punch to me. Also the use of sound, text, and images from Godard is an amazing example of writing poetry on the silver screen. tosh ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 09:16:11 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tosh berman Subject: Re: Ward Tietz on Poetry Video ... > >And film has something analogous to the linebreak, namely the CUT. > >Montage can give film a sort of poetic structure, even though its materials >are visual (primarily) rather than linguistic. > >That's my $0.02. > >Pat > > > Yes, I totally agree with Pat, and let me add anothe $0.02. Reading Sergei Eisenstein's "The Film Sense" should not only be a text book on film making but also on poetry making! tosh ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 12:54:10 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: poetry video... In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 5 Apr 1996 12:13:32 -0500 from On Fri, 5 Apr 1996 12:13:32 -0500 Emily Lloyd said: >such different activities...& find that often poets whose work I like on the >page are intolerably bad "performers"/readers....while some whose books I >wouldn't particularly want on my shelf dazzle live... So true, so true. I wonder if and how this relates to Nagy's theme of variation and variant composition. When I read Nagy I thought of Mandelstam's denigration of poetry "scribblers" & his own claim to "compose on the lips", by ear, and repeated trying things out loud. Mandelstam also left many variant versions especially of his later poems (though I guess that was due just as much to his struggle on the edge of survival in Russia at that time). But I think the oral/written raw/cooked biz can fall into simple oppositions. Intense writing = rawness = conviction. Sea-tang in the air; fish not tasted; a poem cooked until it's raw. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 12:36:54 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... > Well, my favorite poetry video is > "THE ADDICT WHICH IS DESIRE" > starring the UNABOMBER as Ezra-Pound.... > > but, seriously quertzblatz guyzies, > CHAX could've at least mentioned JLG- > especially the foreign film subtitle effect > which I always thought would be great in > american films by poets..... well, sure, and I like eric rohmer for making films of just yakking but as poetry, I have to get in a plug for stan brakhage, who has taught me a thing or two or three about light, and that's worth a lot more than the price of admission ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 12:35:04 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeff Hansen Organization: The Blake School Subject: Poetic Briefs Poetic Briefs number 20 will be out in the next week. It features a piece by Peter Ganick, Text Why Text, and an essay on Clark Coolidge by our very own Anthony Green, and responses to Mark Wallace's essay "Emerging Avant-Garde Writers and the Post-Language Crisis." E-mail me with your address if you'd like to get a copy. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 12:35:11 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeff Hansen Organization: The Blake School Subject: Alice Notely Poetic Briefs 21 will contain a forum on "vision in poetry" in honor of Viking press's publication of Alice Notely's "The Descent of Alette." We welcome submissions of one thousand words or fewer that discuss either vision or any aspect of Notely's work. E-mail me by June 5 with your briefs. Thanks, Jeff Hansen ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 14:00:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: poetry video... i think i may be a day or so late on this, but oh well... i gotta respect an editor for putting john s. hall in the USOP video, that's going *way* out on a limb i think, without, possibly, much support for that thin branch. i take hall's solo stuff more as comedy than poetry as well, and much of it to be more comedic than musical, even though King Missle does have several pieces that i recognize more as songs than anything else. the disntinction between comedy/poetry in the case of hall seems to me to be roughly equivilant to making the distinction between poetry/prose. why draw such a line? i can certainly understand the reaction at maria's party 'who let that guy in?' but it seems that when we ask such a question, we're really looking for a union card. like: "who told you that you could be a poet? you gotta wear the white hard-hat for and be a Type-writer Operator for at least two years, then *if* one of the yellow-hats moves up you get to be Poet. And then later on, say after maybe ten years, one of the foremen move up you get to wear the blue hat and be Editor." anyway, i do see value in hall's work and work like it. the value i see isn't that i'd really think of him as a Good Poet (whatever i mean by that), but that his function may be to help keep the Serious Poets (whatever i mean by that) in check, keep them from becoming stagnatingly Serious. in high school a friend and i used to wander across our campus, i'd play the chords to "detachable penis" on my guitar and he'd recite the lyrics. fresno at that time had a large mormon population, a large fundamentalist-nondenomenational christian population, and a growing jehovah's witness population. needless to say we weren't well recieved, but no one *actually* hurt us. eryque ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 15:07:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: metronomic underground / NYC part three The phrase you can still overhear wherever two or three poets are gathered in the name of poetry: "essay production." You bet I heard it at the SALT talks. I even said it a few times. _____ Day Three of the NYC Poetry Talks. Biblios Cafe, Sunday the 31st at 3. Started a little late. Twenty seven poets, ran until about eight. A mini-marathon. Standing in the back. A lot of lacunae for me near the capuccino machine. Heard a little of Beth Anderson (cool new poems in Arshile), heard slightly more of John Byrum (good reading), heard very little of Sianne Ngai. Joe Ross I could hear. Joe read from the 'Fuzzy Logic' series. Chris Stroffolino read his 'phish' piece, thought it went fine, Chris, don't know what Lisa meant. She's, you know, opinionated. So are you. Mark Wallace read, he'd handed over his 'Lawless Man' chapbook pub'd by A L Nielsen of the funny headers. Couldn't hear him. Sorry, Mark. Made sure I sat down for the 4 pm readers (poetry time, about 4:40). Lee Ann Brown said she was nervous. Aw she was fine. She read her fortune-cookie piece, it got people. Tim Davis read some work with mucho 'brucismo' (Ben Friedlander's phrase). He's swell, he's reading at segue on the 12th. He'd read the week before at Biblios with Stephen Rodefer who was in the house. Michael Friedman came on. Very subtle disjunct prose poems (from _Cameo_, The Figures): "The sign on the trunk said 'free'." Lisa Jarnot read a poem shoot I can't find the title. It was as Mr Rodefer said 'grand'. Bill Luoma read his terrifying/funny sex/relationship poem. Dug Rothschild came on with hockey gloves and signs. License plate poems. Then said 'This is for the Canadians' and threw his hands down, the gloves onto the floor. Rod Smith followed said tough act gracefully, we all as someone said during the reading 'leaning by the john door'. When he stopped reading we all stopped breathing. Cool. Five p.m. hour I was stuck back in the back again. Heard some of Martine Bellen's murasakiwerk (I think). Garrett Kalleberg (hey Garrett!) read a poem of friendly affect, Sean Killian read a poem (about a cantor) of intense, Beckett- or Bernhardesque affect, Andrew Levy read a poem of cool affect, Dan Machlin read some poems of perverse affect (hey Dan! feel free to contradict me), Heather Ramsdell read two poems including her poem ending 'Do you like my hat' that I like so much. Unclear affect because using rich language and total disruption--interesting effect. Sam Truitt read a poem of intense, Schuyler- or Ashberyan affect--a distillate. Then the last excellent okay hour. I forget what happened. I read, I think about a minute over my limit. The excellent Joe Elliott of ye Biblios read from his 'poems to be centered on much larger sheets of paper'. The excellent Liz Fodaski read some poems, have you seen her poems? For that matter, have you seen Deirdre Kovac's poems (hey! Deirdre)? They have this clarity of line that's startling. The excellent Robert V. Hale (okay, my publisher, he's excellent anyway) read a poem for Joe Elliott's newborn son, Leo. The excellent Kim Lyons read some poems--more Kim in this week's Poetry City report. The excellent Brian Kim Stefans read some poems written using Lotus 1-2-3, including the one about his mother being a dim bulb. Okay not his mom, Robert Duncan's mom. Okay, not Duncan's mom, but his line about the falconress. And then... Fiona Templeton read a section from her new work, to be performed this fall at the Kitchen. Everybody in the room, everything in the room, people on the street, everything focused in on her while she read. Whispers, altered nursery rhymes, different voices. If you've been thinking about the site specific/ zenobia/venice project, you ought to get in touch with the organizers soon--Fiona is the featured artist of the program. ___ Then we went to Nam Phuong (http://phuong.com) or (http://www.phuong.com). ___ happy holidays, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 15:30:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: poetry video... eryque --re comedy/poetry; i take lenny bruce very seriously as a poet, but when i offered to write an entry for him for the encylcopedia of jewish poets and playwrights, they said naaahh; more puzzling ws they also sed naaah to gertrude stein and david antin. i'd written on bruce and antin in Cultural Studies back in 1990 or 1991, so i guess ive internalized that continuum.--md ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 15:30:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: poetry video... yes emily thanks for mentioning marlon riggs. and as for "stopping listening to the words," what's wrong w/ that? that seems like just another mode of listening. like john cage sd, if u think something is boring after 10 minutes, try it for another 10 minutes and it'll become interesting. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 15:30:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: poetry video... ps emily, doesn't gertrude say, it takes time to make A queer people? that's how i remember it, but now that i look it up in my bk, it's as you quoted it. the next sentence is about the generation that knows not joseph. i'm sure u cn c where i'm going w/ this...i lovd your dream abt. gertrude, but i tend to think thta you do know what yr talking about a lot of the time...bests, maria d ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 15:30:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... Reply to Maria Damon: >personally i >only saw buster keaton films a few times when i was a kid, and found them >unbearably painful. i felt too much for the guy hanging off the skyscraper >or whatever That's Harold Lloyd. --- oh well, my yahoo-ism doubly underscored...didn't buster do anything about hanging on the arm of a large clock? i mean hand? md ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 16:05:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... Dear Charles-- good plug for brackhage.... very subtle filmaker....forces me to SLOW DOWN, very DEMANDING the undergrad teacher, Gary Adelstein, who turned me on to both poetry and independent film (i used to make super 8's back in the pre video-craze days and when i could glom parasitically onto an institutional structure that provided me free access to equipment) tells me that he's now working on landscape films (a la Brackhage) but based on James Schuyler poems..... It'd be great to see it.... Le Ann Brown at the NYU poetry talks, by the way, suggested that poets and filmakers may collaborate far more among "my" generation than in the past and maybe some young marjorie perloff could eventually write a book POET AMONG FILMAKERS.... but I'm jumping ahead of the game.... what is needed is more film shows in NYC... like in the heydey of the L scene and Henry Hill's great "MONEY" movie...... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 14:16:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: main Subject: Re: Ward Tietz on Poetry Video Comments: To: tosh berman In-Reply-To: On Fri, 5 Apr 1996, tosh berman wrote: > ... > > > >And film has something analogous to the linebreak, namely the CUT. > > > >Montage can give film a sort of poetic structure, even though its materials > >are visual (primarily) rather than linguistic. > > > >That's my $0.02. > > > >Pat > > > > > > > > > Yes, I totally agree with Pat, and let me add anothe $0.02. Reading Sergei > Eisenstein's "The Film Sense" should not only be a text book on film making > but also on poetry making! > > > tosh > eisenstein's _film form- makes cents, too: particularly "cinematographic principle and the ideogram" & "dialectic approach to film form" up the ante on pound/fenollosa "ideogram. dan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 10:49:50 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Subject: monte's venetian Bill Luoma Thanks for the the extra information on the Nogo area, in a number of ways I found that piece more interesting than talking about "poetics," perhaps cause community and dialect fit as a direct source, or purer source of defining a piece. I take it chris was wondering if the area existed, and if so for more information. There is a reading in Brooklyn we're involved in the end of May, I was wondering if you knew any thing about the place before either chris or I accept. Could you send me your e-mail address to: dave.baratier@mosby.com One thing seems funny, not many people wrote about NY. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 21:26:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Holman Subject: Poetry video I ve been off-line here --what a rush to come back to roaring controversy re: poetry video. Thanks, Maria for your report on the United States of Poetry party at Woods Hole (I lived there in early 70s, co-founded the Woods Hole Theater Co., whose Wizard of Oz rainbow still adorns the Fishmongers) -- to me, that s what it s all about, and I ve partied hardy w/ the show across the country, turning people onto the possibilities of poetry. It s too obvious, the new audience for poetry -- it s the _same_ audience for poetry, it s just that the audience didn t know it, couldn t find its way to the po, had written po off to people who defend its purity by proclaiming Bunuel/Fuller/Keaton are the true poets of film. Really, Tosh, I thought we all knew Tati is film s poet laureate! It always gets me how it s great for everything else to be poetic, except poetry. To respond to someone who writes in asking for info about poetry videos by declaring you hate them but here s a list of my favorite cinema auteurs is to say, yup, I define it, and if you re interested in what I _think_ you are, go away (more Oz?)! I can t think of a better example of turning off someone who might be interested in poetry. The impulse behind USOP is the opposite. It s for getting poetry to people, for utilizing TV as a means to do that. It s for letting poets define what a poem is, and saying that those who write poems are poets. It s for letting the poem as spoken be a poem, and it s for making it new with no prejudice against whatever technological media we ve got to transmit the poem. And of course it s for declaring that there s not a single culture that makes up these so-called united States, and that there are poets in all of them. And it s for a direct connect to the poem, no interviewer-expert-footnote, no contextualization but the thing itself. So the arguments go something like this: are the poems in USOP poems? does the visual "overpower" the word? do the translations illustrate rather than illuminate -- which where how why? What production values must be maintained to get a show broadcast? Was it Johnny Depp wot got the poems into TV Guide? How about the use of the visible narrator in the Ruth Forman piece? Is the doggy at the tail of Rev Pedro Pietri s poem a nod to _Entr acte_? Who is Besmilr Brigham? I would not have been motivated to do vidpo s, USOP, or even get involved in le Monde du Slam, if it weren t that I love the poem, am poem-addict, and don t understand why there aren t more of us, if I didn t meet all kinds of people who make gagging gestures at the mention of poetry s name and disbelief that a living being could be a poet (anybody see Rothstein s On Trying to Name Famous Living Poets in last Sunday s NYTimes?). Poetry woke me up to other cultures, let me hear truth, see beauty. Am I yahooing po to say all this? Can these words stand up to images, be translated to this other medium, find a new book? Do we need them? No, not, _not_ you you -- you you ya yoyo! Not surprising that Joe liked the Eigner piece the best: I ll bet it s his fave poem as text, too. So I ll take it as a compliment, and I ll pass it along to the director, Mark Pellington, who was the other major collaborator with the poets and me. Even though the piece was a documentary-style, more MTV-ish. When I think of the wrong steps we almost took....suffice it to say it was a battle to keep Larry s voice in, and that along the way Grenier, Foley and Watten all helped in the process. Because to make that poem took a whole different pencil/typewriter/computer. I ll reply more later, esp. Amato s _hilarious_ poetry video filmscript (more camera angles, pulease!) and the John S Hall controversy shortly. I d appreciate your letting me know if you hear any of the USOP soundtrack (Mouth Almighty/Mercury Records). Happy National Poetry Month. Bob Holman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 19:41:44 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mikl-em Subject: Re: who's cooking and who's in the fire yunno, I still haven't seen the USOP vid, but Joe's probs with the Hall piece brought me out of my lurk, I think you nailed it right off Joe with the opinion that Hall is a comedy routine, as Maria is right on that Lenny Bruce can be reckoned with in the terms of poetry but let me stick with comedy for a second to make my point and then I'll try to transpose it: I've heard Hall's stuff for a long time, Chris S mentiond a couple ofhis old pieces, these fall more into the "charming naive" field that Chris D brought to light a while back, but there is this tendency --I believe becuz the Bulk of people in this country wrongly think that there is no poetry for them-- to say "um, poetry is still-born, but long-live SPOKEN WORD!" and that is bunk becuz besides turning away from written poetries and other creative a-fictions, there are a lot of legitimate oral-poets that are outside of Literary circles, more in the realm of music, folks like Gil-Scott Heron, Mutabaruka, Jim Carrol's work who are now on this silly secondstage-palooza event of Spoken Word with Rollins, Hall, Jello Biafra and others--Howard Stern will probably have a spoken album out soon, and I wouldn't blame him but the people who buy it. as i meant to say, I compare Hall's comedy with Dave Barry's writing or Mark Leyner, all of them can generate some Great material--so can Rollins--but at that point, what happens? (joe, "hall's is well-wrought in the context of his own aesthetic") well if not the wroughting, let's blame the aesthetic. any creator is ultimately responsible for the work he puts out--to me that means that all the critical opines upon it are welcome, it is like water-testing a new boat or something, that is to say that if you left a sharp edge then either you left it for a reason or you knew it was there somehow, that's what an artist does and why it is important and why it is not easy. and I don't see that kindof responsibility taken by the artists I just mentioned, and it is one thing if it is improvised and another if it is a studio recorded or frequently read piece, particularly it disappoints me in leyner becuz his work is really funny, but doesn't leave me with the satisfaction of say Tom Robbins best work which is Wrought well [done well cooked to the finest of degree]. it is that suggestion that this is something cooked, and you bite into it and of course you feel a bit queasy --I kno that I've altered the idea of raw-cookt that we'd discussed earlier, but I trust it makes my point-- and I think that that can be applied to poetry as well, and maybe take me back to the original idea of the raw-cook chotomy, either you chase down all the connotations and srestle the dogs, tie their ankles in aknot, or you create a field which somehow activates the varying threads perhaps playing on the obvious bias or courting contradicitions, so that what is left out or not addressed is a par t of the aesthetic as much as what is in. and the c-naive folks work alot of the time on Instinct for what is better unaddressed to be more successfully dealt with, it needn't be entirely conscious. did someone say Patchen again? and unfortuantely video and recording spoken performances don't generally take themselves as seriously probably becuz they locate themselves more within the context of tv than literature. But I believe that things will get better, they will also get worse. well, that's about 18 bucks and change, so I'll go back to lurk. mikl. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 07:31:50 +0200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "William M. Northcutt" Subject: Re: Not more Pound! Hey, Mike, congratulations! I had a similar experience, except that my son muttered something about building a hut out of clay and wattles, and my daughter sang, "Scuse me while I kiss the sky." And still the dialectic continues.... William ----------------------------------- William Northcutt Anglistik I Universitaet Bayreuth 95440 Bayreuth Tel: 44 921 980612 Fax: 44 921 553641 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 23:44:19 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michelle Roberts Subject: Re: contrasimilac In-Reply-To: Please, y'all, consider this a modest offering. Ever since I started work on a creative master's thesis, in which I had to play both poet and critic, I've wondered waht eht tension is between "writers" and "critics". I tend to think it's the result of there being some really flat critics out there, really uninspiring critics. I've always thought that a critics job is, among other things, to make the reader of a peice of critique WANT to read the piece of literature. To be a creature who allows themselves to be in a state of wonder and to offer that to the rreader, simply to offer them an "in". Please don't accuse me of being naive and utopic, I know I am. I think that a critic needs to have both a rigorous insight and a great care for the works they work on. Most don't, and some don't have either one. My own is not the only work I've written about critically -- can't get through grad school that way -- and since I wonder how I would even mannage to find anything to say about a work that I didn't feel care and respect for, I wonder how those flat critics do it. And, while I'm on the subject, how do y'all feel about the idea that critique is just as creative an act, albeit in another direction, as writing poetry or fiction or philosophy is? Also, I s'pose I'm writing this becasue I don't what hte tension between author and critic accomplishes. Do critics get their feathers ruffled over this? Curious, M. Meaghan Roberts | ... in our interpreted world... Ph.D. Candidate - Ethics and Literature | The University of Texas at Dallas | Meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU | ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 22:53:17 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: Essex Hemphill In-Reply-To: <199604060521.AAA04061@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> I have to admit that I am not as big a fan of the films & videos of Marlon Riggs as everybody else seems to be, but _Tongues Untied_. mentioned here by Emily, has also, now, for me, the quality of a memorial. Not only is the maker of the film now deceased, but the poet in the film, Essex Hemphill, has since died. Essex was a powerhouse for poetry during the days when we both attended what was then called Federal City College. We first met as admirers of one another's poems in one of the college mags. Shortly thereafter he began his magazine, _Nethula_, which was a wonder of eclectic and electric editing while it lasted. Near the end of his life, Essex's poems & prose were finally published in a readily available edition, still on the shelves in many stores -- But that slender book gives no sense of the full energies and the generosity of this tireless propagandist for the imagination. Essex was a courageous friend and poet all his life -- and _Tongues Untied_ will at least give a glimpse of what it was like to know him -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 23:07:03 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: Kaufmania In-Reply-To: <199604060521.AAA04061@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> _Cranial Guitar_ just showed up on this coast today, so haven't had time to roam through it yet -- but, thought Kaufmanophiles would be innerested to know an odd little book pub'd in '93 by Graywolf press has one of the oddest takes on BK I've ever seen (the author, for example, believes the story about Kaufman running arms for the Likud, but does not believe Kaufman's silence was deliberate) Book is titled _Episodes_ and is by Pierre Delattre, who will be well known to old San Francisco folk from his days at the Bread & Wine Mission -- also has funny tale of his involvement in the disastrous movie of Kerouac's _Sunbterraneans_ Maria -- does the secret essay whisper? can I get a copy? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 00:31:14 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tosh berman Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... >--- >oh well, my yahoo-ism doubly underscored...didn't buster do anything about >hanging on the arm of a large clock? i mean hand? >md No, Buster was not that scary. His ability to move with time, space, objects, and god knows what else was amazing. He just accepted all the elements, objects, and most important - space. I think space is important in poetry, and Keaton's sense of space in his films were remarkable. Not studied, but more that he had an expression of knowing the right place at the right time. Now, is that not poetry? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 04:11:02 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: poetry, video, film, etc Chris & Charles, > >> Well, my favorite poetry video is >> "THE ADDICT WHICH IS DESIRE" >> starring the UNABOMBER as Ezra-Pound.... >> >> but, seriously quertzblatz guyzies, >> CHAX could've at least mentioned JLG- >> especially the foreign film subtitle effect >> which I always thought would be great in >> american films by poets..... > > >well, sure, and I like eric rohmer for making films of just yakking > >but as poetry, I have to get in a plug for stan brakhage, who has taught me >a thing or two or three about light, and that's worth a lot more than the >price of admission > I'd add anything by Dziga Vertov or Michael Snow. Also, there was a film in the early 70s or thereabouts called "Frank Film" by Frank Mouris (I think that's how he spelled his surname). It piled up images in a way that made it quite apparent could be done for language -- with the use of multiple soundtracks that were completely intelligible. Among our contemporaries, Abigail Child and Henry Hills have each made several luminous and wonderful films. Abby's films, or at least some of them, are available on video -- I remember that we used some of them once at a fundraiser for Socialist Review. (Wish I recalled where/how one could rent or buy those.) I'm a total sucker for the Godard of the late 60s and for the Fassbinder of the 70s. But I think that's another story... ------------ Charles, The Bounty has arrived and it's another beautiful book from Chax. Congratulations! Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 08:41:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... tosh writes: Now, is that not poetry? (keaton) well sure. thanks for setting me straight. i'll try to rent some keaton films and groove to the move. i've got a vcr for a week cuz a lady's staying w/ me who got kicked out of her other place. watched black orpheus, had never seen it, found it embarrassingly primitivistic after all the hype. but the leads were very cute and the dancing was nice. i don't really know what's at stake on this list in determining what "is" and "isn't" "poetry" --in the context of this haute-haute list, i'd argue for a wider definition of poetry than seems admissible in POETRICKS discourse --perelman once remarked when i described my classes to him, that it seemed i was aiming to have students cultivate their "sociolinguistic awareness of their environment" or some more elegant and descriptive phrase. what beyond that, he asked. i sd, if i cd do just that, esp in minnesota, where words are considered the devil's work, i'd be happy. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 08:41:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Essex Hemphill aldon; what's your critique of marlon riggs's films? i've never heard from anyone who wasn't a total fan. waiting w/ bated breath...maria d ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 08:41:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: contrasimilac meaghan roberts: as a "critic," i feel somewhat defensive about critic-bashing, and academic-bashing, in the "creative" writing world. as a poetry person, i feel defensive and somewhat disgusted by academic critics' dismissal of writers as naive, scary, anarchic. it's worst among grad students, who are learning the ropes and thus exaggerate the prejudices of their more advanced colleagues --the anxiety that comes over them when asked to do something that dosn't track neatly into the categories they're busy trhing to learn. but that's understandable. i feel more exasperation with my more advanced colleagues who don't "get" that the study and practice of literature can involve joy and spontaneity. it's a kind of fearfulness that may plague every institution, but i see it writ large at mine. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 09:58:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Walter K. Lew" Subject: Re: poetry video... [Message deleted] ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 09:46:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Marie Schmid Subject: Re: literary multiculturalism In-Reply-To: <960406095854_507108369@emout10.mail.aol.com> Dear Walter Lew-- I read your posting to Maria here and wanted to respond to your call for "literary multiculutralists." I recently joined the discussion group and have been skulking around the postings for about two months now. Like you, I would like to see the discussions opened up to reflect what's actually going on in the poetic community (whatever that means) a little more accurately. In other words, where is any sort of acknowledgement or discussion or rap, slams, dub poetry, performance poetry, the Last Poets, Nuyoricans or their countparts in Chicago, Black Arts, etc.? I'm particularly surprised that none of this has come up in the discussion of the USOP video--which, for all its faults, so clearly tried to celebrate the many poetries of the US. My own hunch is that much of this poetry is still read more as some sort of social or historical documentation a la cultural studies rather than as art or poetry. (I am writing this with the full realization that these are all loaded terms and that someone is going to jump down my throat for this.) I was struck by Maria D's comment a couple weeks ago about her inclusion of the young poets from Boston in *The Dark End of the Street* as being read as a "political" move rather than as her appreciation for the poetry. It's interesting that this sort of blatant classism is still foregrounded in our evaluation of poetry. This really hits a nerve for me, as you can tell, because much of my own work has been on urban (often bilingual) poets and poetry that people keep insisting that I read as artifacts of post-colonialism, racism, etc., but not as beautiful and moving poetry--as if these poets aren't consciously and consistently crafting language--really hearing what happens between languages, and also as if there is a tangible difference between political and aesthetic categories. Anyhow, Walter( and whoever else out there is reading this), the point of this diatribe is to let you know that I would be more than willing to discuss a multicultural poetics with you or anyone else, either here or via my email address. Cheers, Julie Schmid jschimd@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 12:32:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Foley Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... >i'll try to rent some keaton >films and groove to the move. Start with _The General_ Maria. Cheers, Pat ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 10:57:01 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tosh berman Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... >tosh writes: Now, is that not poetry? (keaton) > >well sure. thanks for setting me straight. i'll try to rent some keaton >films and groove to the move. i've got a vcr for a week cuz a lady's staying >w/ me who got kicked out of her other place. watched black orpheus, had >never seen it, found it embarrassingly primitivistic after all the hype. but >the leads were very cute and the dancing was nice. I have always had/have/ a strong interest in the relationship between poetry and film. Many of the early french filmmakers were poets, or at least writers. The early experimental french Filmmakers were influenced by poetry i.e. Cocteau, Man Ray, Duchamp (his one film is text base as well as visual - of course), Durac, Bunuel,etc. Also many poets are huge fans of the cinema - including Wieners, Cendrars, all of the Surrealists, etc. It will be interesting to collect a series of poems that deals directly with cinema for an anthology. I know there has been collections under that theme - but not in my opinion a serious anthology that deals with the direct influence of cinema on poetry...or poems that have strong cinematic images, or direct comments on particular films. ...and yes, in my mind, Buster Keaton wrote poetry on a projecting light! tosh ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 13:58:40 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tim Wood Subject: Re: poetry video... Joe, I still haven't seen all of USoP, unfortunately. It won't screen here in its entirety until later this month, so wait. Several segments were aired at the Dallas Video Festival in January, including the one with Eigner. Agreed. One of the reasons it does work is the silence and spaces. Another intriguing thought your email raised was the question, in video, of what consititutes silence. There was no true silence in the Eigner piece, with the constant rain. But, it created significant spaces and for the average American, those spaces were so quiet, they might as well have been silence. Wanda coleman doesn't ring a bell, but hopefully I'll see her work when the whole thing screens here. Tim >re poetry videos in general, the united states of poetry in particular, >which i just yesterday had a chance to view in toto: some poetry videos >seem to work better---much better---than others, *as videos*... the son et >lumiere effect represents a different art form, just as music videos >represent a different art form than the music alone... when these latter >first came out (in the contemporary mtv scene, i mean) there were many >musical 'purists' who objected to same... > >the difficulty is that most music videos represent a translation from one >pop cultural venue to another, whereas to transfigure poetry as video, as >in the united states of poetry, tends to move poetry into a pop cultural >format---with which it's not always associated, depending on the >community... there's also the oral/aural motioning of our culture in >general, and how this 'plays into' the video format in ways that sheer >sound alone may not... in terms of poetry, sound alone may offer more >resistance than video to commodity pressures... > >but this depends, and yeah, there are risks here, fer sure... i found wanda >coleman's video successful precisely b/c it challenged the rec'd qvc-tv >format... that is, it subverted the consumer venue AS venue... sure, there >are some works about which it might be argued that they are inherently more >performative... but interestingly, the least performance-oriented >video---"performance" here taken to mean something like >'entertainment'---was larry eigner's... and for me, this was far and away >the most fascinating display of poiesis, hence from another pov the finest >performance (and i don't mean at all to suggest that the eigner video >required less active work for the film crew editor etc)... > >mebbe the most valuable aspect of the united states of poetry, for me, was >its celebratory sense of a diverse culture with diverse voices---a diverse >practice... this format works best for me in small doses, in part b/c so >much of what i find crucial to poetic practice simply can't be >'visualized,' IS about the silences & solitudes attendant to >writer-speaker/reader-listener interaction (even during the noisiest, >community-based readings) as opposed to the singular Self espousing to the >mass (anonymous) audience... but like all formats, video is surely a format >that poets can learn from and work with, no?... > >joe in space no one can hear you scream in Dallas no one cares... ______________________________________________________________________________ Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/ the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 13:58:45 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tim Wood Subject: Re: poetry video... I want to thank everyone for the flood of responses. Just a few thoughts to clarify what I'm up to.. I'm not interested in poetry documentary. Documentary is nice. And I think it would help a lot of the so-called performance poets out there to videotape themselves as a form of self critique/directing. But, I'm more interested in work in which the visual is used artistically, as well as the words. In the case of USoP, much of the visuals are of the poets performing, but there's some very intense post-production applied to shove the work out of the documentary realm. United States of Poetry was not what kicked this research off. I've actually been working on the research as time permits for about a year now. I found out about USoP because someone mentioned Bob Holman's name and gave me a phone number. Anway, not to take anything away from Bob's work, but I'm not jumping into this research because poetry video has all of a sudden become hip. USoP is definately not the be-all-end-all of poetry video. It's definately the most accessible, commercial interpretation of the media. But, there's a lot more to be seen out there. Now if I could just get at more of it... all things come to those who wait? Again, thanks for the responses & (I hope) the ones to come. Illuminating, insightful, occasionally argumentative, but worth the ride, as always... Tim in space no one can hear you scream in Dallas no one cares... ______________________________________________________________________________ Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/ the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 13:59:02 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tim Wood Subject: Re: poetry video... Joe, I'll jump in on this one. I think we're running into a combination of factors here. For once, admitting I'm (just) under 30 may have an advantage. There is something to be said for the generational difference, primarily in terms of what might variously be called cultural literacy or environment. Extreme immersion in the visual seems to be a hallmark of the generation I'm at the older end of and has created a markedly different perspective. At the same time, we're also running into the current hippness of slam and "performance" poetry. It's a sad statement that too much of that category of work is about shock, sex, violence and entertainment to win the night's prize. That observation has little to do with generational gaps. I've seen a fair share of people of the "baby-boomer" generation down at the weekly slam throwing about their fair share of image shock. At the same time, there are a fair number of younger poets lurking around that are very interested in craft. One of the notes on poetry video dismissed the whole media. It's an interesting thought, because I find myself in a very ambigious (I could be academicly appropriate and say mix of subversive and...) position with regards to video. It's a fact of life. It's powerful and still a very young vibrant media. But, it is ripe for a major marxist critique, vis a vis Marcuse's thoughts about one dimensional man, video as the modern opiate of the masses, etc. So, shall we say that the media intrigues me. I feel myself caught in a similar trap as many postmodern artists in general: being inescapably caught in something in dire need of critique. It's a sad sort of statement that Derrida (pardon the loose paraphrase) was right about not being able to escape the framework we're part of... Tim >maria, that's just it: i'm feeling at once tightass and justified in >observing that the hall video---while a 'relief' in some ways from the >adjacent work---is playing to a distinctively different crowd... in fact >surfacing a key element at work in usop, which has to do (much) less with >poetry than with (a peculiar kind of) spectacle... which doesn't >necessarily contribute to a better poetic environs... > >interesting that another student in the class remarked, in general, that >with a product to sell, some of the usop spots would make terrific >commercials... and another observed that she stopped listening to the words >after a while (thus an argument against video enhancing the audio)... just >so's i don't give the impression that the folks in my class aren't >thinking... > >but i think, at the very least, that usop is playing to a different >audience than the one hereabouts, on poetics... in general, i mean, and i >wonder if the difference between mself and the members of my class has less >to do with my poetic background per se than with some generational >differences in our response to image technologies... as much as i like to >think of mself as hip, i mean, we're separated by approx. 20 years... > >but mebbe i'm being *too* generous!... > >best, > >joe in space no one can hear you scream in Dallas no one cares... ______________________________________________________________________________ Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/ the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 15:47:12 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Not More Pound! mike, sorry this is latecoming, my mail system is acting up... anyway, congratulations on your new arrival!... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 15:59:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Sheila E. Murphy" Subject: new address for Sheila Murphy Please be advised that I have a new e-mail address: Sheila E. Murphy semurphy@azlink.com I'll be co-subscribed for a few weeks to ensure that all mail is properly received. Just wanted to alert anyone who plans to contact me backchannel. Thank you. SEM ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 15:27:09 PST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: chris daniels Subject: FW: Sampling frenzy --- On Sat, 6 Apr 1996 03:43:07 -0800 Mark Terwilliger wrote: >Chris > >from a techno-legal site: > >>For those worried about the death of copyright, or at least its reported >>ill-health, a copyright infringement case last week held that the use by >>recording artist Hammer of the repeated phrase "uh- oh" in his song >>"Here Comes the Hammer" could constitute copyright infringement. The court >>in Santrayll v. Burrell concluded that a one-measure "hook," consisting of >>the word "uh-oh" repeated four times to a distinctive rhythm, contained >>sufficient originality to be protectible by the copyright laws. > > >How now, cash cow? > >cheers >mark > ------------------------------------- christopher daniels 4.6.96 3:27:10 pm q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they said anything goes?" --- charles wuorinen a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow." --- george clinton snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa voice: 510.524.5972 http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 18:47:27 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Subject: contrasimilacrum Been off line for a bit, so ... As far as reading a poem or poet due to a book of criticism That's nice. Albiet rare. It's been my experience that recent criticism includes such a sparsity of quotes, such a poverty of experience to rely upon, only the barest minimum necessary to validate the particular critical lens. That has become the net value of poetry for most critics. Take McGann's Black Rider for example please. See what perspective one arrives at of Laura Riding Jackson's work by reading the pieces quoted. Then keep in mind the fact that at the time of Black Rider's release, Persea hadn't re-released the collected poems , Chelsea had sold out of their LRJ issue, essentially nothing was availiable (Unless you count searching through the individual pages of the out of print collected from the seventies, the *unbinding* one). I find a few mentions of a text hardly enough to pick it up, rather it's comparisons, mentions of the subject material, and the passion of another reader that lend my eye to any book's pages. Unfortunately the binary dicotomy of much of the criticism hinges on one strand: You either create the work or insult it. David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 18:43:19 MST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Louis Cabri Subject: for p. quartermain In-Reply-To: ; from "Jordan Davis" at Apr 5, 96 3:07 pm I'm interested in what history there may be to the term "disjunctive." Is there anyone who can help me in my Raymond Williamsesque quest? Is Peter Quartermain the first to use it in the sense of (his book title) Disjunctive Poetics: From Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukofsky to Susan Howe? It seems evident that he uses the term in order to describe a diachronic axis of formally innovative change, and in order to distinguish what he is doing from someone else wanting to constitute a tradition, and he does this as one who is interested in how social (especially linguistic) histories saturate said formal innovation in specific, discontinuous ways. I'm searching for other literary critics and poets, rather than, say, philosophers (e.g. Foucault, Deleuze). (And Barthes's "writerly" seems very different.) The broader question for me is in how some terms, for instance "the disjunctive," come to unreflexively patrol the limits of critical discourse (its rationality), reproducing, besides the carrot of new understanding -- for instance, of literary & social diachrony when not tied to tradition -- something less spectacular and more specular: a normative reader reproduceable in/for the academy. (Of course I'm definitely not saying this happens in Peter Quartermain's book, which, for those who don't know it, is fabulously inspiring.) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 23:22:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jena Osman Subject: Re: poetry video... In-Reply-To: from "Tim Wood" at Apr 6, 96 01:58:45 pm Tim Wood wrote: > > I'm not interested in poetry documentary. Documentary is nice. And I > think it would help a lot of the so-called performance poets out there to > videotape themselves as a form of self critique/directing. But, I'm more > interested in work in which the visual is used artistically, as well as the > words. In the case of USoP, much of the visuals are of the poets > performing, but there's some very intense post-production applied to shove > the work out of the documentary realm. Coincidentally, there was a conference on poetry and video at SUNY-Buffalo this past Friday, organized by Mac Hammond and Tony Conrad (with a lot of help from Kristin Prevallet, I believe). The conference did a good job of presenting "poetry documentary," as well as the more "artistic" efforts asked for above. Viewings included: --Chris Funkhouser demonstrating the poetry CD Rom he constructed which, from the little I saw, is a really amazing project (although somewhat inaccessible--you need an IBM CDRom machine) You can point and click on the names of a number of poets; for example, click on the name Ben Friedlander and you will see a handwritten manuscript of one of his poems. The next screen is a typed copy of the same poem with edits--meanwhile the sound behind this image is of Ben typing the poem on his manual typewriter (complete with carriage returns and cursing under the breath at mistakes). Each screen that follows leads to the next draft, until finally you hear Ben's voice reading the poem out loud. This format seems to allow for the idea of poetry as organic process (continually changing, never finished) in a way that video really can't. --a compilation of local poetry videos by Mike Basinski, Alicia Cohen, Mac Hammond, Jody Lafond, Kristin Prevallet, and others. --excerpts from USOP (which I found quite enjoyable, but I thought it was strange to have music constantly behind the images and words--the sections I saw gave little room for silence). --Fanny Howe's _What Nobody Saw_: this video was definitely the highlight for me. I think it comes closest to what Tim Wood may be looking for. The images worked with the words in a truly evocative way so that they were in fact the _language_ of the poem (as opposed to an illustration of it). --excerpts from the 19th and 20th San Francisco Poetry Film Festival (including work by Robin Marlowe, Levni, Patricia Smith, and John Knect) --videos from the New England Poetry Video Festival (Nina Hasin, Kurt Heintz and Patricia Smith) --clips from the _Word Up_ Collection by Jill Battson--more in the "poetry documentary" vein for Canada's equivalent of MTV. Jena Osman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 22:32:17 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: poetry video... In-Reply-To: <199604070422.XAA04654@orichalc.acsu.buffalo.edu> Being currently obsessed with word order mangling I'm led to ask if poetry video differs from video poetry or vidic poems or poetic videos or 24 straight hours of CBS with it's hypnotic rhythms - stop! this was a serious enquiry. I have a memory from my days of learning to be a spy many years ago, too many, of seeing a clip of Yevtushenko reading to thousands of Bratskii workers to tumultuous acclaim. Might this still exist? Would it qualify as MTV? Or TNN (The Nashville Network), a goldmine - or spanglemine - of poetry videos? tom ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 6 Apr 1996 22:36:07 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: contemporary Russian avant-garde In-Reply-To: <199604070422.XAA04654@orichalc.acsu.buffalo.edu> i would appreciate leads on contemporary Russian avant-garde (I am aware of the pitfalls noted here of this name) poetry and poets - here or there, here or backchannel. tom ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 04:29:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Walter K. Lew" Subject: Re: Poetic Briefs I would like a copy of Poetic Briefs 20. Thanks. Walter K. Lew 8 Old Colony Rd. Old Saybrook, CT 06475 (860) 388-4601 (phone & fax) ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 08:32:53 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Albert Cook Subject: Re: for p. quartermain In-Reply-To: Message of Sat, 6 Apr 1996 18:43:19 MST from On disjunction, see William Sylvester, "The Existence of a Disjunctive Principl e in Poetry: A Preliminary Essay," COLLEGE ENGLISH, January, 1967, 265-272. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 06:15:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: contemporary Russian avant-garde A good place to begin would be THIRD WAVE: The New Russian Poetry, edited by Kent Johnson and Stephen Ashby with an afterword by Mikhail Epstein (paperback from U. Michigan Press). It's eclectic and pretty accurate to the scene (i.e., it doesn't have all the axes to grind that equivalent US anthologies always seem to have -- maybe because Johnson & Ashby are outsiders to the scene). Thanks to Lyn Hejinian, John High and others, a fair amount of current generation Russian work is making its way slowly into English. Five Fingers Review in SF has published a lot in several issues. Books also abound. The major names are: Alexei Parshchikov (a book is out from Avec)--he was a very successful journalist as well as a poet under the old regime, but hasn't made the transition to the new one well. After a stint at Stanford, he returned to Russia and was (last I heard) pretty much living on the streets of Moscow Ilya Kutik (Kit Robinson's luminescent translation of his long ode just came out from Alef(?) press) -- he is living in Evanston, IL these days. Kutik was the young phenom of the scene at one point, now in his mid 30s Arkadii Dragomoshchenko (Sun & Moon has published one book, trans. by Lyn Hejinian, and I believe another is due)--the major St. Petersburg poet (most of the others in this list come out of Moscow as a literary "scene") Nina Iskrenko (she just died this past year -- I think John High must be working on a book of her work since they close and even published together -- one of those odd 2-in-one books where each poet has half of the book which flips upside down in the middle, pretty common in Russia) Dmitri Prigov (a performance poet as much as anything else, sort of a Rasputin mixed with Bob Holman, out of Moscow) Nadezhda Kondakova (somewhat older than these other writers -- she was instrumental in many of them getting into print once glasnost started to take place)--she's been a major figure in Russia for 25 years, the first one on this list to have been accepted by the Writers Union Ivan Zhdanov (terrific oral poet from Siberia, but with a lifestyle that is the Russian equivalent of Gregory Corso, just shy of being a street person -- lives in Moscow -- wasn't Clark Coolidge doing some translations?? I never saw them.) Yuri Arabov (a film-maker as much as a poet) Viktor Krivulin (another poet from St. Pete -- he started the first samizdat journal in the 1970s devoted to poetic theory). I think Kit Robinson is lurking on the list these days (Hi, Kit -- I'll be in SF at the end of the month) and could add lots more detail to this. Is Jean Day on the list? If so, she could do likewise. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 11:24:06 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: contemporary Russian avant-garde > i would appreciate leads on contemporary Russian avant-garde >(I am aware of the pitfalls noted here of this name) poetry and >poets - here or there, here or backchannel. pulling scatterd frm the shelf: collections: Johnson & Ashby eds.: _Third Wave: The New Russian Poetry_ U. Mich. _Five Fingers Review_ #8/9 1990 Gerald Smith ed: _Contemporary Russian Poetry_ Indiana U. 1993 individual poets: Arkadii Dragomoschenko: _Xenia_ (1994) & _Description_ (1990), Sun & Moon Alexi Parshcheikov: _Blue Vitrol_, Avec Rea Nikonova & Serge Segay: _Flacid_ Luna Bisonte 1990; _Made in Zaumland_ & _Of Tonesharl'_ xexoixial endarchy; and an interview in _TapRoot Reviews_ #5... related: Charles Doria ed _Russian Samizdat Art_, Willis Lockler & Owens several books by Gerald Janecek (fr historical perspective, particularly on visual lit & zaum) --lbd ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 11:34:33 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: contemporary Russian avant-garde &*&*&!!! have a postcard here frm ed foster, announcing: "PROSPECT: 2nd festival of russian & american poetry & poets"... may 23-26, stevens institute of tech, hoboken nj, cheap. postcard lists participants: Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Vadim Mesyats, Maya Nikulina, Lev Rubinshtein, Elena Shvarts, Ivan Zhdanov, Bruce Andrews, John High, Eileen Myles, Leslie Scalapino, Aaron Shurin & John Yau... telephone 201-216-5397; email efoster@vaxc.stevens-tech.edu. was this already announce here & i missed it? hope somebody sends a report... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 13:41:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark W Scroggins Subject: Re: contrasimilacrum In-Reply-To: <9603068288.AA828841180@smtp-gw.mosby.com> David: are you sure about Persea's Collected Riding? The cover on the paperback I see in stores now is identical to the one they've been selling for years and years--has it even ever gone out of print? (I bought a friend a copy about a year before Black Riders came out, and the same edition's still available) Mark Scroggins ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 13:32:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Poetry video thanx to bob holman for his generous, generous remarks re controversy over usop... and to mikl and maria and tim and others for subsequent ruminations... again i find mself asking questions upon questions, w/o any hard-and-fast answers... but with as usual a few surmises... i wasn't certain i followed bob about the eigner video, which seemed to me the least mtv-based... but in any case, yes---i really do have high regard for eigner's poetry, but i also loved "i'm stuck in a poem," baraka's "if the flag catches fire," the "it's about you, girl" spot---have to watch it all again to know who in hell is even doing some of this work, some of which is not and some of which is quite fabulous in my view... i still have my concerns about degrees of commodification and such, but here i'll take a different tack... the remarks about poetics as a white patriarchal entity are accurate enough, sadly, though i sense no conspiracy around here... rather, those of us who are white/male (mself included) as usual feeling freer to speak out (aka post) due no doubt to the cultural realities shaping these our more public spaces... so mea culpa, and forgive me if i haven't said it more clearly till now: i for one welcome any and all talk of multicultural poetics, slams, etc... in fact i'd hoped that my comments about usop would help instigate what i see as necessary discussion of these other poetry communities and practices and people---*whatever* my thinking is regarding same... for example, mself being a kind of observer at all slams i've been to here in chicago, the guy who's biting his potentially sarcastic tongue at times, though hardly tongue-tied... but trying (believe me!) to get into the spirit of things... again, i'll make no excuses for entering into said fora or exchanges with critical apparatus intact, which in my view (for me) means with poetic apparatus intact (just to gloss quickly the poet-critic couple, which has been a problem for me for some years now given that i have a book of *criticism*---or is it?---written in lines coming out on suny press some year soon)... there's another element here needs to be addressed upfront methinks, and not with my customary antiacademic academic sentiment, but it has to do with academe... and maria hits at it when she discusses her "exasperation with ... more advanced colleagues who don't 'get' that the study and practice of literature can involve joy and spontaneity"... i hear this loud and clear, and correlative to this is the general suspicion in academic-leftist quarters (this includes most of my academic colleagues on poetics, i think, and includes me too) regarding the presumed complicity of cultural production with (unsavory) marketplace motives... yeah, talking about the more materialist-marxist takes on things poetic, and the extent to which these complicate the "joy and spontaneity" to which maria refers... i wouldn't be *here*---and i wouldn't write poetry or essays or anything over *there*---if i weren't indulging mself in the 'joy and spontaneity' of such doings, if i weren't willing to (as i see it) hazard some sentiment that risked its own commodification, not to say objectification... it really does get to me, the extent to which i seem at times to be caught twixt a scylla and charybdis of critical skepticism and poetic engagement... or mebbe it's poetic skepticism and critical engagement?... no matter, really... if i'm complaining at all about usop, methinks my complaint is likely to be heard outside of academe as somehow elitist and restrictive... mea culpa... but if i'm advocating that usop has something valuable to say to things and practices poetic inside academe (as i am, or i wouldn't have used segments of same in my class---and oh god there i went violating the fbi warning etc), why then this is likely to be heard inside same (by my colleagues, not my students) as somehow anti-intellectual... mea culpa... on this list, on the other hand---a variable constituency that's large enough, thankfully, to be difficult to get *entirely* a hold of demographically---there's enough outside-of-academe presence so that my usop-remarks enjoy that sort of you're-being-an-elitist scrutiny... which i'm thankful for, in fact, given that, as an academic who scribbles poetry, it's all too easy for me to get you're-being-an-anti-intellectual scrutiny... also, since there are, thankfully, a number of folks around these parts who're neither academic nor likely to think me an elitist (due perhaps to our mutual stake in specific writing traditions) there's an additional presence present... and a number of folks who're not academic who probably *would* see as a bit of a prig... and there is of course this matter of the whitemaleness of this list (or of most of the conversants?), and of how to find ways to exchange ascii with one another that are conducive to other ways of exchanging ascii with one another... and btw, it's not lost on me that my resistance to slams or usop or ? may in fact be, in ways i haven't unpacked for mself, a function of my whitemaleness... ergo what i'm trying, convolutedly, to say is that i can't but believe it's in the best interests of poetry and criticism and all things in between and beside that perhaps THE widest distribution poetry event of recent years---the most popular, in sheer numbers of people reached---is discussed around here and not simply dismissed... b/c like it or no, this media environs of ours is not going to dissipate... and holding onto a conception of poetry that's inextricably linked to print-writing practices alone is sure to spell a local sort of d-e-m-i-s-e... best to all// joe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 15:11:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: contrasimilacrum Dear Mark S-- I think Dave's right about PERSEA's collected riding. It was out for a couple of years (like the collected O'Hara) and came back in original form (well, in the 1980 version).... An interesting oddity that I've found is that almost everyone I know who has the 1980 COLLECTED says it falls apart after the first reading... (the binding, not the poems--unless in a "positive" sense)... Allegedly the new version doesn't do this. Now if only a store in Albany, well, that's another.... Dear Dave B-- Well, yes, I do think the article/chapter you mentioned on Riding is not very helpful. Unless one really thinks the LANGUAGE POETS are the TANK we must hop onto to ride into the academy or something.... But, at the same time, I know at least one person who got turned into (onto I mean) her work through that article....And I do believe that POPULARIZERS are very important. It's very easy for many to deride, for instance, Perloff's Book on O'HAra---but it IS the first, and when I was 20 and just getting into poetry it was VERY profound..... And, there's just hardly ANYTHING that really engages Riding's poetry very much out there. At least McGann deals with poems that are more Riding and less Stein... in contradistinction to the Joris/Rothenberg anthology who seemed to try to make Riding into another Stein rather than recognize her own terms as as radical as Stein (see RObert Hale's review in ST. MArk's Newlsletter for an elaboration of some of these points.....) ----chris s. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 15:31:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew D Epstein Subject: Reading at Columbia In-Reply-To: <01I39IX8P3DU94DUCX@cnsvax.albany.edu> I wanted to announce another poetry reading at Columbia: The F. W. Dupee Reading Series Presents: DAVID LEHMAN AND CHARLES NORTH Introduced by Kenneth Koch Wednesday, April 10 8 PM Maison Francaise Columbia University -- 116th and Broadway New York Admission is free Wine and Cheese reception following the reading David Lehman is the author of several books of poetry, most recently _Valentine Place_ (1996), and several books of criticism, most recently _The Big Question_ (1995). He is the series editor for the annual series _The Best American Poetry_, and is currently teaching a graduate seminar at Columbia University. Charles North is the author of numerous books of poetry, including _Leap Year: Poems 1968-1978_ (1978) and _The Year of the Olive Oil_ (1989). With James Schuyler, hed edited _Broadway: A Poets and Painters Anthology (1979) and its sequel, _Broadway 2_ (1989). Hope to see you there! Andrew Epstein ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 18:44:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... tosh --the idea for a poetry of cinema and cinema of poetry anthology is great. jump on it --and we've read abt it here so when someone else beats you to it we'll know it was your idea...(too) --maria d ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 19:35:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Poetry video always good to hear your long musings joe...md ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 20:18:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tosh berman Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... >tosh --the idea for a poetry of cinema and cinema of poetry anthology is >great. jump on it --and we've read abt it here so when someone else beats >you to it we'll know it was your idea...(too) --maria d Dear Maria: Your much too kind! Maybe this can be a Jerry and Pierre type of project? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 22:26:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: poetry video... maria, i spose i can understand some balking at bruce, maybe some indecision about antin, but stein? what is she if she doesn't fit into the categories of poet or playwrite? gentile? (gasp) science fiction? eryque At 3:30 PM 4/5/96 -0500, Maria Damon wrote: >eryque --re comedy/poetry; i take lenny bruce very seriously as a poet, but >when i offered to write an entry for him for the encylcopedia of jewish poets >and playwrights, they said naaahh; more puzzling ws they also sed naaah to >gertrude stein and david antin. i'd written on bruce and antin in Cultural >Studies back in 1990 or 1991, so i guess ive internalized that continuum.--md ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 7 Apr 1996 22:26:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: happy national poetry month y'know, it took a phone call to my father (one of SEVERAL people that said i was stupid for deciding to change from a tech field of study to english) before i knew it was poetry month. for women's history month and black history month the libraries and bookstores put posterboard cutouts of important women and black people (respective/fully), can we get them to put up cardboard cutouts of important poems? happy easter! eryque ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 00:24:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Holman Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 4 Apr 1996 to 5 Apr 1996 Joe, your comment re: some poems work better for videos gives pause. It raises the what is a poem : which I believe is totally an issue of intent. I think some poems in USOP work better than others, some parts of some videod poems work while others don t, etc. - film/videotape being a new medium, lots of places to make wrong steps especially when the goal is first of all to make it to broadcast --- simultaneous with utopian to make poem collaboratively w/poet and film crew and refusal to accept current standards as standard. On the basest level, we were able to get some of the seven deadly words on TV, we were able to have gay love on TV, etc.-- and, we kept the poetry in our title and at worst referred consistently to this beloved literary form. I d be interested in which poems you think _did_ work, and why. Hopefully, we are developing a way to read a poem on TV, which is not what MTV has in mind. USOP is not an ad for the poem, but the poems themselves, which can, as you noted, utilize language of advertising while adding, or subverting, same..... Charles, your point on the indy as aesthetic is well taken; please put me in touch with Video Art Network/Nancy Solomon. I spent six ears producing/directing Poetry Spots for WNYC-TV, the City-owned public TV station here in NY, and loved it. Walter Lew showed his video (made with director Lewis Klahr) at his Poetry City reading last week -- still one of my favorites My all-time fave is The Great American Roller Coaster Poem, made with Cathy Bowman and a gang of deaf poets from Lexington High and their hearing peers from across the City -- Teachers and Writers put it together. Of course, the low-budge approach gives more control, fewer tech possibilities, and no chance whatsoever of airing on national TV. The excuse PBS generally uses is the production values aren t up to their standards, and this rationale has been used to keep most of the ITVS (Independent Television Service) shows off the air. We were very conscious of that as we tried to get the risky content/language on air in USOP. Unlike the Moyers show (which I liked, although I think it works better aural only -- the audience reaction shots sapped energy), PBS refused to schedule USOP on a national feed, making it very difficult to build a national presence for the series. We plan to make more -- let me know what something you re left wanting. All ideas, poems welcome. But I don t think a national TV broadcast is a priori the Readers-Digesting of po. In USOP poets were engaged as possible in the creation of their pieces; the whole project was poet-driven. John S Hall, in Percy Dovetonsils drag, with a celli backup, with an intermission and return with a martini all in a 50 second piece, I love it that this one-off is seen as a piece about poetry. Hall is probably a hero to many of your students, Joe, an should be known to all, having seven albums out with his former band, King Missile and the first #1 College Radio Hit Ever of a spoken word piece, his Detachable Penis. Like the Sex Pistols for us, he s tweaking every nose (and nipple) he can find in My Lover. His Scorsese is a tour de force off the wall deconstruct of Taxi Driver /hero worship/poetry itself. He bumbles across the stage like Dylan Thomas on ecstasy and ludes. He bashes literature, deadpans, and leaves audiences rolling. I don t know if this piece makes it as poem/poetry video, but his appearance in USOP gives a rolling howl to whatever GenX stage we re in now. Hall s talking it. Which is pleasure many take -- Sue Wallis s mom wanted me to know she loved the purty poem of Sue and Rod, but did it _have_ to follow Allen Ginsberg in his underwear? Even when she fast forwards you can see. This is exposing different poetries to different audiences. As you come upon Hall, as students come upon Eigner, Creeley. As rap is situated in this context and square-dance calling. Who draws the lines? Drawing this kind of interest, eliciting this kind of discussion, how does USOP not contribute to the poetic environs ? As for inability to read the image technologies, or whether you re perhaps too generous about, hey -- why not check text with vidpo and see what s up. Like all poetry, the poems on USOP want to be read more than once. The amount of time and effort spent on each frame -- syllables, and phonemes! it was five years in the making. Next? Bob Holman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 01:18:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: happy national poetry month At 10:26 PM 4/7/96, Eryque Gleason wrote: >y'know, it took a phone call to my father (one of SEVERAL people that said >i was stupid for deciding to change from a tech field of study to english) >before i knew it was poetry month. Dear Eryque, hi, this is Kevin Killian. Here in San Francisco every month is National Poetry Month. Dodie got an invitation in this deluxe 60 pound engraved stationery, like a wedding invitation, from "Robert Hss, United States Poet Laureate" to go to this reception honoring San Francisco's most important poets . . . Francisco X. Alarcon, Marilyn Chin, Thom Gunn, Brenda Hillman (Mrs. Robert Hass), June Jordan, Czeslaw Milosz, Michael Palmer, Adrienne Rich and Gary Snyder! And I'm going too! Because the invitation said, bring three other guests. It's tonight! Eryque, doesn't your father live around here? Maybe he's going too! But don't ask Tom Clark. Asked about Robert Hass, he just growls, "Poet Laureate Robert Hass-author of two slim volumes of poetry?" Anyhow, I can't wait until *I'm* poet laureate of the United States and can ask people to come to meet other people at the Hayes Street Grill-a great restaurant here in San Francisco. More later on National Poetry Month here in the cool gray city of love. K. Killian 1996 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 02:40:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Patchen and Cage This was posted yesterday on the "silence" listserv: Those interested in Patchen and/or the link between Patchen and Cage may like to see the Kenneth Patchen home page at : http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/marcus_williamson/patchbib.htm ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 03:09:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: National Poultry Month Kevin, et al, " Anyhow, I can't wait until *I'm* poet laureate of the United States and can ask people to come to meet other people at the Hayes Street Grill-a great restaurant here in San Francisco. More later on National Poetry Month here in the cool gray city of love." My sense of Bob Hass' stint as Laureate is that he has been actively using the occasion to get himself in front of unlikely audiences (e.g., business groups) to talk about the need for arts funding, has used the Library of Congress to link in with some other events/causes (e.g., the broad series of readings for the environment that went on awhile back) and has invited the likes of Lyn Hejinian and Carl Rakosi to read at the Library of Congress. All in all, a pretty fair usage of what is ultimately a silly title. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 07:03:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: my script for a poetry video... In-Reply-To: On Sun, 7 Apr 1996, tosh berman wrote: > >tosh --the idea for a poetry of cinema and cinema of poetry anthology is > >great. jump on it --and we've read abt it here so when someone else beats > >you to it we'll know it was your idea...(too) --maria d > > > Dear Maria: > > Your much too kind! Maybe this can be a Jerry and Pierre type of project? > Dear Tosh: You too are much too kind! I think Jerry & I are going to take a serious holiday from anthologyzing -- maybe you shld take Maria's advice & do that book! -- Pierre ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 18:46:00 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Subject: Re: National Poultry Month In-Reply-To: <199604081009.DAA21822@dfw-ix12.ix.netcom.com> Ron (and others), while what you say about Robert Hass (Haas?) stint as Laureate sounds very reasonable and accurate, we've been having these Laureates, and before that Consultants in Poetry at the LOC, and all of them (even William Jay Smith, and he took the job after he failed to be reelected to Congress) could probably have their tenure described in similar terms. But can you think of any of the incumbents of either of these positions that had any lasting impact? on anything? I mean, other than Williams being denied the position (for what, the last line of CHORALE: THE PINK CHURCH?), by virtue of their holding the position? I grew up in DC and believe me, Mike Lally had more impact than any of the Consultants during the ten or so years he was in DC -- and I strongly suspect he got more ink in the Washington Post over those years than they did. He brought more poetry to the DC area, encouraged more poets, drew together more disparate scenes (though I think he, too, was not very successful in bridging the racial divides of DC) than any of them. Maybe when Bob Holman is Laureate... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 08:38:30 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: russian avant-garde poets Elena Shvarts is a terrific St. Petersburg poet, though maybe not avant-gardie enough for this list. Bloodaxe Bks has a bk of hers in english called "Paradise". She's been published around in journals, the forthcoming _alea_ has some good poems of hers coming soon. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 09:17:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: conspicuous repetition and the multiplicity of forms (fwd) Annie Finch asked that I forward this message to the list. mark wallace ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 04 Apr 1996 09:37:33 -0500 (EST) From:FINCHAR@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu To: mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu Subject: conspicuous repetition and the multiplicity of forms Dear Mark Wallace. My colleague Keith Tuma forwarded me your message to the poetics list, which I found of graet interest, patticularly since it seems to be part of a discussion I would have been enjoying had I not foresworn all lists for the time being in favor of my parenting responsibilities. At any rate, I wanted to respond toyour comment and also to solicit some of your perspectives on form. I was rather embarrassed that you (naturally) took seriously my intentional simplification of my initial position on formalism, which I had aimed at the AWP audience in an effort not to alienate them from nontransparent langauge at the outset. But of course I shoulod have expected that; that is how I positioned the article. I was more intrigued by your comment about the overlooked forms. In fact, when I was editing AFFC, I searched for" avant garde" and experimental poems that were formal by my definition (structured byt he conspicuous repetition of any language element). Iw as teaching at New College in SF at the time, and I spoke with Lyn Hejinian and some others about it. All I could some up with was the poems by Leslie Simon, some of my favorites in the book. The others would fall through the cracks because of the "conspicuous" part of the definition; as I mentioned int he AWP piece but didn't discuss thoroughly enough, as I nsee now, Jackson Maclow type forms aren't conspicuous enough to work in the conte3xt of formalism as I define it. I'd like you to direct me to any work you know that is formal by my definition, and that I am overlooking. THis is particularly important to me now since I am now coediting another book based on the same defiinition of form, which would give me a chance to remedy the oversights of the previous anthology. Thanks in advance for any information you can pass on. Sincerely, Annie Finch ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 09:39:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: Re: conspicuous repetition and the multiplicity of forms (fwd) ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 09:38:43 -0400 (EDT) From: Mark Wallace To: FINCHAR@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu Subject: Re: conspicuous repetition and the multiplicity of forms Dear Annie Finch: Thanks for your query. Of course, I suppose the whole crux of the matter has to do with how one sees the issue of "conspicuous repetition" of forms--your own definition is still not quite clear to me. Are we talking about repetition of forms only regarding certain kinds of end words or rhyme schemes or meters, or are we speaking, more broadly, about any type of repeated language element or self-generated repeating form? Please excuse me that I don't have all the titles of the books I'm about to mention--I don't have e-mail access at home, and so must use it in a large computer room without books in front of me. For instance, does Bernadette Mayer's The Sonnets meet the requirements you're looking for--complete repetition of 14-line structures without ordinary sonnet rhyme schemes? What about the visual "dictionary" poems produced by Tina Darragh (which have appeared in several publications), which all contain bits of a dictionary framed by odd geometrical patterns? What about the repetition of line patterns in the work of Susan Howe in a book like Articulations of Sound Forms in Time, or the Letters to Mina Harker of Dodie Bellamy (with others), an ongoing epistolary series? Or Juliana Spahr's poem in the most recent Avec, in which the phrase "this is true" repeated over and over becomes a satirical mantra on the notion of what our society understands as a true story? It's interesting to me that Jackson Mac Low becomes an example for you of someone who does not conspicuously use formal repetition, since he seems to me one of the most blatant formalists of the second half of the twentieth century. See for instance Henry Taylor's essay on Mac Low--Taylor is himself an intensely traditional formalist, yet he finds Mac Low's work interesting precisely because of the rigor of Mac Low's own thinking, in a very different tradition, about the use of formal, repetitive elements. I do apologize if I missed the point of the context in which you were speaking--as a teacher, I certainly understand that difficult material often has to be presented, at least at first, in a way that people are prepared to understand. Of course, this does not really change my criticism of AWP as a mechanicism supposedly designed for the promotion of poetry inside an academic, creative writing program context. The idea that twenty years after the first emergence of LANGUAGE poetry, it still has to be presented in a professional journal as something that people have never heard of seems to me pretty distressing. Since you've asked that I forward your own query to me to the list, I hope you won't mind that I forward my response here to the list also. I hope that we can continue this conversation. Sincerely, Mark Wallace On Thu, 4 Apr 1996 FINCHAR@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu wrote: > > Dear Mark Wallace. > > My colleague Keith Tuma forwarded me your message to the poetics list, which I > found of graet interest, patticularly since it seems to be part of a discussion > I would have been enjoying had I not foresworn all lists for the time being in > favor of my parenting responsibilities. > > At any rate, I wanted to respond toyour comment and also to solicit some of > your perspectives on form. > > I was rather embarrassed that you (naturally) took seriously my intentional > simplification of my initial position on formalism, which I had aimed at the > AWP audience in an effort not to alienate them from nontransparent langauge at > the outset. But of course I shoulod have expected that; that is how I > positioned the article. > > I was more intrigued by your comment about the overlooked forms. In fact, when > I was editing AFFC, I searched for" avant garde" and experimental poems that were > formal by my definition (structured byt he conspicuous repetition of any > language element). Iw as teaching at New College in SF at the time, and I > spoke with Lyn Hejinian and some others about it. All I could some up with was > the poems by Leslie Simon, some of my favorites in the book. The others would > fall through the cracks because of the "conspicuous" part of the definition; as > I mentioned int he AWP piece but didn't discuss thoroughly enough, as I nsee > now, Jackson Maclow type forms aren't conspicuous enough to work in the > conte3xt of formalism as I define it. > > I'd like you to direct me to any work you know that is formal by my definition, > and that I am overlooking. THis is particularly important to me now since I am > now coediting another book based on the same defiinition of form, which would > give me a chance to remedy the oversights of the previous anthology. > > Thanks in advance for any information you can pass on. > Sincerely, > Annie Finch > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 09:56:23 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: poetry video... this just came in over a different list; my slip server is down so i can't vouch for the content, but may be ov use to someone... >...Other new additions include: The Zuzu's Petals Literary Resource >Video Guide--Films inspired by The Arts at http://www.hway.net/ >zuzu/artfilm.htm ... asever lbd ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 09:26:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: poetry video... bob, far as i'm concerned, the genres are all blurred, *anything* can be a poem (we owe this much to duchamp)... once i'm told this is how something is being offered to me, though, i kick into "ok let's see what this *is* as a poem" mode... that is, there *are* categories, if blurred, and how we use our categories is keyed into so many realities/histories... anyway, i'd be lying if i didn't acknowledge my tendency to evaluate, to judge what i see/experience, esp. art, and for that matter to try to understand the basis for my judgment/taste... if not right away, then eventually---and i expect as much from those who presume themselves poets, artists, engineers, etc... as much as i'm for the celebratory, i see as well the need to do more---not necessarily to entertain, say, but to upset mebbe... and i don't mean this latter in aesthetic terms only... so for me, it's not and never has been only about language... at the same time, i'm looking for art to do a lot, quite a lot... and i think it's necessary to ask for this, mebbe even to demand it in a general, non-pushy sorta way, b/c there's so much crap 'out there' that we're busy being bombarded with... it's almost in fact impossible to talk about "quality" these days (look what the corporate folks have done to that poor word since pirsig, and look what it was before pirsig, and look at what pirsig did with it!)... ergo trying to find a way to discuss what works for me as poetry is difficult, and what works for me as poetry is not necessarily what works for me as comedy, and as somebody pointed out, the performance of poetry in general complicates the poem... but i expect all poetry, really, to exhibit a careful attention to language issues and tissues... and even to say this is of course only a beginning... there are so many differing aesthetics and values, but at the same time methinks it's important to recognize that there are powerful normative institutional forces at work in this culture, that these exert a tremendous pressure on folks like you to construct a video in accordance with xyz demands (as you indicate, the absence of profanity being one such demand, one that you managed to overcome), and on anybody who's invested (ugh) in making and offering in a public sense... which i take to be anybody who makes and offers... but in more subtle terms, these forces work ultimately to construct audiences... the same forces, in fact, which have relegated poetry in so many ways to the sort of construction many (even academic) folks think it is, hence don't really know how to approach same in a contemporary sense having been taught that it *is* this one thing... i can't suggest any peculiar how's here, though there are aesthetics i'd argue for over and against others depending on one's motives... but i can say that there probably is some value in general in challenging orthodox beliefs... and raising this question of an orthodoxy is to the point here... fact is, many of my students these days, if not most, view the reagan era as a benign golden age (this is partly a function of mine being a tech. campus)... now given that i'm not particularly motivated mself by majority beliefs, and that i hear at least once a semester that this selfsame majority 'doesn't agree with me' (which is true in more ways than one), and (not to be didactic, but---) given that the reagan years constitute in my view the greatest political debacle of the past half-century---given all of this, when i find my students initially taking to a guy like hall (and believe me, i'm not out of touch with the pop music or tv or film scenes etc) and i find mself saying 'this is too easy,' well then perhaps there *is* a lack of critical reception taking place, perhaps hall has played into the same old same old comedy-entertainment grid that i see all the damned time on hbo or or or... i know this is a bit hard, again, on hall, but what i'm trying to say here is that you really can't talk about the formal qualities of this or that w/o eventually considering context... esp. not where relative values are concerned, where you're looking to understand whether understanding has taken place, or whatever it is one is after artistically... and i hope to hell i'm not suggesting a sort of artistic sanctity here, which couldn't be further from my aim... ok ok, i go on... so, as maria sez, sue me... seems to me this is tough stuff to discuss, and again, critical to the moment... and i appreciate again your openness, bob, to discussing this ex post facto stuff, esp. in the wake of alla that work you put into usop, as if that weren't enough... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 11:55:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: happy national poetry month In-Reply-To: from "Kevin Killian" at Apr 8, 96 01:18:21 am > Anyhow, I > can't wait until *I'm* poet laureate of the United States and can ask > people to come to meet other people at the Hayes Street Grill-a great > restaurant here in San Francisco. More later on National Poetry Month here > in the cool gray city of love. > > K. Killian 1996 Me neither. Can I come? Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 13:06:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: happy national poetry month In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 8 Apr 1996 11:55:56 -0400 from On Mon, 8 Apr 1996 11:55:56 -0400 Michael Boughn said: >> can't wait until *I'm* poet laureate of the United States and can ask >> people to come to meet other people at the Hayes Street Grill-a great >> restaurant here in San Francisco. More later on National Poetry Month here Well, as I understand it, Ted Berrigan is poet laureate for the time being. He died on the 4th of July and is meeting people at the Gem Spa in Mannahatt. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 11:26:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Messerli Subject: Re: contemporary Russian avant-garde I presume you know of Sun & Moon Press's publications of Arkadii Dragomoschenko's DESCRIPTION and XENIA. Avec Press also has published Alexei Parshchikov's BLUE VITRIOL. And the University of Iowa has published John Glad's and Daniel Weissbort's TWENTIETH-CENTURY RUSSIAN POETRY, which has some new Russian Poetry. Ed Foster of Talisman has been very involved in contem- porary Russian poetry. I think going to a library would help. There has been a great deal about contemporary Russian poetry in the last few years. Douglas Messerli At 10:36 PM 4/6/96 -0800, you wrote: > i would appreciate leads on contemporary Russian avant-garde >(I am aware of the pitfalls noted here of this name) poetry and >poets - here or there, here or backchannel. >tom > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 11:56:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tosh berman Subject: Re: Beyond Baroque Free event TONIGHT: April 8 8:00 P.M., Monday FROM A TO Z (ASHBERY TO ZUKOFSKY): A 19TH AND 20 TH c. Poetry Reading Circle For anyone who enjoys reading poetry! Each participant should bring 15 copies of one or two poems written by a 19th or 20th c. poet who has published at least one volume of poetry. Biographical information on the selected poet would be useful (and may be presented orally) but is not required. The poems will be read out loud and discussed by the group, which will meet in Beyond Baroque on second Monday of every month at 8:00 p.m. This event is hosted by Shelley A. Berger. Beyond Baroque is located at: 681 Venice Blvd. phone no: 310-822-3006. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 15:19:56 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: special offer -- Poetics List: Based on earlier discussions, especially on Taggart's essays on Zukofsky, Oppen, and others, I asked the UA Press if they might offer a sale to the Poetics group. What follows is a response that makes these books more affordable. Hank Lazer SPECIAL OFFER!!! The University of Alabama Press is pleased to offer the following books to members of the Poetics Listserv at a special discount. Please see ordering information at the end of the list. 1. Apocalypse and After: Modern Strategy and Postmodern Tactics in Pound, Williams, and Zukofsky Bruce Comens Comens examines the development of Modernism into Postmodernism as it occurs in the works of three major poets and attends closely to the social and political dimensions of that development as embodied in these writers' distinctive poetics. Modernism's struggle to develop a new global strategy was to a great extent a response to the catastrophe of World War I, while the Postmodern resort to fragmentary tactics stems from the failure of Modernist strategy both the avert World War II and to come to terms with the horror of the atomic bomb. "A significant contribution to the critical literature in Pound, Williams and Zukofsky, as well as to the theory of Modernism and Postmodernism in American poetry."--Charles Bernstein, State University of New York-Buffalo. Bruce Comens is Assistant Professor of English at Temple University. 224pp. 1995 $23.95 paper, special 40% discount price $14.37 2. Scars: American Poetry in the Face of Violence Edited by Cynthia Dubin Edelberg "A dazzling array of perspectives on domestic, racial, and military violence."--Charles Altieri, University of California-Berkeley POEMS BY: Diane Abu-Jaber, Jimmy Santiago Baca, John Balaban, Michael Blumenthal, Hayden Carruth, Samuel Charters, Amy Clampitt, Robert Creeley, Carlos Cumpian, Toi Derricotte, Rita Dove, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, W.D. Ehrhart, Martin Espada, George Evans, Allen Ginsberg, Nikki Giovanni, Albert Goldbarth, Corrinne Hales, Joy Harjo, Samuel Hazo, William Heyen, Garrett Hongo, David Ignatow, Lawson Fusao Inada, Henry Johnson, Lawrence Joseph, Pamala Karol [La Loca], Etheridge Knight, Yusef Komunyakaa, Maxine Kumin, William Logan, Adrian C. Louis, Haki Madhubuti, Clarence Major, Michael McClure, Elizabeth McKim, Janice Mirikitani, Jose Montoya, Joyce Carol Oates, Dwight Okita, Sharon Olds, Peter Oresick, Alicia Ostriker, Pedro Pietri, Luis J. Rodriguez, Mark Rudman, Harvey Shapiro, Leslie Marmon Silko, Dave Smith, William Stafford, Gerald Stern, Diane Wakoski, Rosmarie Waldrop, Michael Warr, Bruce Weigl, James Welch, Charles Wright, and Robert Wrigley. Cynthia Dubin Edelberg is Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in English at Cleveland State University. 224pp. 1995 $24.95, paper, special 40% discount price $14.97 3. A Reader's Guide to the Poetry of Richard Wilbur Rodney Stenning Edgecombe United States poet laureate Richard Wilbur (b. 1921) has been an important figure in American literature since World War II. Yet in spite of this formal recognition, commentary on Wilbur's poetic achievement has been comparatively sparse. Edgecombe helps to redress this relative neglect by providing a unique and comprehensive critical guide to the poetry of Richard Wilbur. He considers the entire range of Wilbur's poetry from his first collection to his most recent verse. "This excellent reader's guide offers a learned and lucid view of Wilbur's poetry, of its thematic unity and its formal diversity. Those intending to consult the book piecemeal are likely to find themselves reading further, admiring Edgecombe's sympathetic mastery of his subject."--Robert B. Shaw, Mount Holyoke College Rodney Stenning Edgecombe is Professor of English at the University of Cape Town. 192pp. 1995 $29.95 paper, special 40% discount price $17.97 4. The Metaphysics of Sound in Wallace Stevens Anca Rosu Wallace Stevens dedicated his poetry to challenging traditional notions about reality, truth, knowledge, and the role of language as a means of representation. Rosu demonstrates that Stevens's experimentation with sound is not only essential to his poetics but also profoundly linked to the pragmatist ideas that informed his way of thinking about language. Her readings of Stevens's poems focus on revealing the dynamic through which meaning emerges in language patterns--a dynamic she calls images of sound. "While critics have always known that sound was important to Stevens, no one before has explored so thoroughly how crucial sound is to Stevens's poetics, even metaphysics. Rosu makes a much needed contribution to the study of one of our major poets and to poetics as well."--Jacqueline Vaught Brogan, University of Notre Dame "Rosu's challenging book . . . is worth close reading."--CHOICE "Rosu provides a scintillating flamboyant reading of Stevens which in many ways breaks new ground. . . . Highly recommended. We believe this title will be recognized for its outstanding critical acumen."--The Reader's Review Anca Rosu teaches in the English Department at Rutgers University. 200pp. 1995 $39.95 cloth, special 40% discount price $23.97 5. The Tribe of John: Ashbery and Contemporary Poetry Edited by Susan M. Schultz This groundbreaking collection of essays focuses on the new generation of postmodern poets who are clearly indebted to John Ashbery's work. By concentrating on Ashbery's influence on contemporary American poetry, the contributors provide new methods for interpreting and understanding his poetic schievement. CONTRIBUTORS INCLUDE: Charles Altieri, Charles Bernstein, George Bradley, Bonnie Costello, John Ernest, John Gery, John Koethe, James McCorkle, Stephen Paul Miller, Fred Moramarco, Jonathan Morse, Donald Revell, Andrew Ross, and John Shoptaw "An impressive book that makes an important contribution to the understanding both of John Ashbery's work and of the cultural contexts at work in the making of contemporary American poetry."--Hank Lazer, The University of Alabama Susan M. Schultz is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa. 288pp. 1995 $28.95 paper, special 40% discount price $17.37 6. Songs of Degrees: Essays on Contemporary Poetry and Poetics John Taggart With an Introduction by Marjorie Perloff A collection of 19 related essays on contemporary American poetry and poetics, published as journal articles between 1975 and 1989, by poet and theorist John Taggart. By focusing on the work of several major and less well-known American experimental poets from the 1930s to the present, Taggart not only traces the origins and evolution of this experimental tendency in recent poetry, but also develops new theoretical tools for reading and appreciating these innovative and complex works. "The most perceptive readings available of two major American poets, George Oppen and Louis Zukofsky."--Hank Lazer, The University of Alabama John Taggart is Professor of English and Director of the Interdisciplinary Arts Program, Shippensburg University. Marjorie Perloff is Sadie Dernham Patek Professor of Humanities at Stanford University. 272pp. 1994 $29.95 paper, special 40% discount price $17.97 SPECIAL POETICS LISTSERV ORDERFORM EXPIRES 31 MAY 1996 You MUST use this orderform to get the 40% discount e-mail jknight@uapress.ua.edu FAX (205)348-9201 or The University of Alabama Press, Box 870380, Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 Quantity------Book titles-------------------------------------Price---------Total ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Residents of Alabama add 4% sales tax____________________________ $4.00 postage for first book, and .50 each additional_________________ --------------------------- Total_________ (Make checks payable to The University of Alabama Press) Bill me through VISA______MasterCard_______Discover___________ Account Number_________________________________Exp_________ Day phone________________e-mail_____________________________ Name______________________________________________________ Address____________________________________________________ City, State, Zip______________________________________________ Ship to: (if different) Name______________________________________________________ Address____________________________________________________ City, State, Zip______________________________________________ If you would like to be sent a catalog of publications check here__________ If you would like your name and e-mail placed on the distribution list for direct electronic announcements of future publications please provide the following information: Name___________________________e-mail________________________ Subjects of interest______________________________________________ __________________________________________________ Nicole Mitchell, Director University of Alabama Press Box 870380 Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0380 E-mail: mitchell@uapress.ua.edu (205) 348-1560/ Fax (205) 348-9201 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 16:19:48 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Subject: Happy poetry month Kevin, The coolest thing Bob Haas talked about was his mission to change various newspaper"s opinion of poetry through using "bully" tactics to get papers to comit X amount of space for poetry each day. month ecetera. Bob would call the paper and announce that a pulitzer prize winner in literature, a [NAME PRESTIGEOUS PRIZE] in journalism, a noble prize winner in science and so on would like to talk with the paper about the importance of literature, specifically poetry, for the masses. He showed with these folks at the NY Times to get them to commit to one full page worth of space a month. Also his daily poetry commentary has been syndicated for over 30 papers, which I haven't seen yet but would be interested in. I think he said he was working on getting 5 papers in major cities a year to commit as his goal. As for here in Philly, with the Inquirer no such luck so far. He has three books out, I prefer Praise, although the second section of Human Wishes tells great stories in prose lyric. Be Well. David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 22:20:02 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: Poetry video & Performance Hi all, and thanks to Joe and Bob and Maria and Jean and Julie and Tim and Tosh for keeping this thread bobbling over the past couple of days. I'm in somewhat of a rush - too much to go into provocative depth - (sighs of relief all round). But wanted to lead into a Brit perspective on this discussion. It's certainly not only in the US poetry worlds and poetry communities that there are awkward crags, yeah sometimes chasms, between 'performance' poets and the paging poets. Yes I know it's a broad simplication - let's say between the written and the oral emphases. Some of those scaleable impediments and bridgeable gaps are created by simple non-contact and, arguably, too few mututally respectful attempts to make that contact. Parts of the mutual disinterest comes from (again unjustifiably broadly stereotyped): - a suspicion about pop against art or even culture versus art (I remember Bruce Andrews telling me 'what we need (or "i want" - i can't quote him verbatim and the difference is poignant) is more art and less culture') - a suspicion on the part of some poets here (I'm not going to name names, that's stupid) - for example - for the politics of Rastafarianism and thereby a residual dislike (some put it more strongly) of Reggae music and thereby the impossibility of catching onto Bob Marley or Lee Perry. This carried over into problems with Michael Smith and Linton Kwesi Johnson and Jean 'Binta' Breeze - because of their rhythms if not for their affiliations. Now there's a whole huge can of worms and the poetry is tarnished right along. It's somehow symptomatic. As someone who's always been hot and rangey to musics and will listen to Gil Scott Heron, Tribe Called Quest, Dropping Science, AMM, Fanta Damba, Bjork, Tricky, Scelsi, Goldie, The Hafler Trio, Tom Waits, Last Exit, Asian Dub Foundation, Pierre Schaeffer, Zoviet France, Steve Lacy, Captain Beefheart, Chalkdust, Tom Ze, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, post-Bitches Brew Miles Davis, Mahler, Oumou Sangare and others who have forsworn 'names' - in a stereotypical evening when friends are round or not - the rhythms (the 'feel') of the musics and how it's driven and contructed and it's use of voice are syntaxes that correspond to processes and practices of writing from syllable to syllable or word to word for poetry (whether oral or written). The voice and its context and its shaping within the human breath or metal machine breaths are where movement-based (body) choreography and sound and language meet in an excitation of shared air. Now my own work both in performance and on the page is in the 'difficult' room. It's just that way. Yet my own take is very much along the 'I'll respect your shit if you respect my shit' lines. It seems to be much too small a community of practicing poets (worldwide), in whatever forms of practice, whose practice is oppositionally civic as Joe desires it (and so do i), to start carving up little lines of the defensive drug (one of the most pernicious of poetry, no of art, habits). I liked very much what Charles Bernstein said about Ideolect some time back and it seems pertinent to this discussion. Because, again speaking personally, I want to exchange with the rap and dub and slam poets in a positive forum. Of course, I want to turn them onto what I'm into and up to. (Barrett Watten, Carla Harryman, Steve Benson, Allen Fisher, Caroline Bergvall, Brian Catling, Aaron Williamson and others) But I've got a lot to learn too and feel that (here's where you all shout - "space cadet!" and plunge for delete) there are spaces of mutual respect and solidarity that can be reached through listening to the hearing and looking at the seeing of the differences between these broadly never the twain shall meet forms of prioritisation. Those spaces or bases offer a potential for strong rather than divided oppositional poetics. I'm unlikely to get to see USOP in Britain. As far as the British literary capitalist publishing cadre it's Dana Goia and CK WIlliams and Derek Walcott and so on that they display any interest in from the broad linguistic diaspora. Ashberry and Ginsberg represent two token fringe figures who deal with the residual responsibilities of being seen to present a range. But then the numbers of people (ok Bjork and Tricky aside at the present) who listen to many of the musicians I mentioned above, compared to the numbers for Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston, are also small. I don't know Bob, but I'm glad he's listening and working on generating some of these discussions. Would that the range of discourse was broader here sometimes. The whole of this coming week Jean Breeze, Aaron Williamson and Tertia Longmire, Fiona Templeton, Caroline Bergvall, Mary Lemley and myself will get to work alongside each other at Dartington's 'Performance Writing' Symposium - at the weekend we'll be joined by Heiner Goebbels, John Cayley, Cherry Smyth, Tim Etchells, Alaric Sumner, Ronnie Monro, SuAndi, Rod Mengham, Drew Milne and many others. It's just a start. love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 17:29:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: happy national poetry month Dear Kevin, it's good to hear from you again. >Here in San Francisco every month is National Poetry Month. i don't mean to pick nits, but how can it be national every month only in san francisco? yep, my father lives in the san francisco suburbs. somehow i don't think that he's gonna be at the reception though. i'm still trying to convince him that most poets look more or less like "normal" people. kevin, (and michael too) when you're poet laureate will you invite me to the reception? eryque (comin at'cha live from a grey city.) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 18:00:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: symmetry Just received in the mail the latest AVEC book by Laura Moriarty. Definitely one of the best books I've read in the last year... Only about halfway through it. It is demanding, tropologically subtle work, lyric, somewhat minimalistic (yet with more "meat" than much minimalism--meat as meaning, as murder?). Also, a kind of feminism is very central to it. Perhaps it may be linked to Susan Howe's "archive" trip, but I actually prefer it to much Howe because it is also "love poetry" (albiet love poetry that is ALSO a critique of love poetry...but then that, for me, has always been true of the best love poetry). There is much more to say about it, it'd be interesting if anybody else has anything to say.... I wrote a lot in the margins, which I will not here post.... I just wanted to mention it. Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 18:05:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: new york city, a bag I just wanted to announce that Jordan Davis and myself will be reading this saturday at the EAR INN (a reading hosted by Lisa Jarnot) this saturday (oops, repetition)...... 2:30. For more infor, feel free to backchannel.... Chris Stroffolino ---------------------- "I had to say something that would strike him pretty weird So I shouted 'I like [the unabomber] and his beard'" zimmy.... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 10:06:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: AWOL: Aust. Multi Media at NSWWC (forwarded) >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 19:59:06 +1000 >To: awol@ozemail.com.au >From: awol@ozemail.com.au (awol) >Subject: AWOL: Aust. Multi Media at NSWWC > >The following information has been posted by AWOL on behalf of the >NSW Writers' Centre. Please address all enquiries to the NSWWC > > >******************************************* > >Martin Cooper, CEO of Australian Multimedia Enterprise Limited, to talk at >the NSW Writers' Centre on the AME's role and functions, how writers may >have some input to multimedia, on future directions in electronic >publishing and how it may affect traditional publishing. > >Date: Thursday 11 April 1996 Time: 6pm > >A barrister and solicitor, Martin Cooper has conducted a specialist media >and entertainment law practice representing broadcasting licencees, film, >music and television industry personnel and production companies. He was >the first solicitor employed by an Australian commercial television network >and was a Director of Channel Ten in Sydney. He has been responsible for >the production of many films, including "Gallipoli", and has published >books, articles and papers on media and entertainment law issues. > >Chair: George Masterman QC (NSW Writers' Centre Management Committee) > >Panel: Rosie Cross (geekgirl), Lynne Spender (Australian Society of >Authors), Julie Robb (Senior Legal Officer with the Arts Law Centre), Kate >Riedl (General Manager, Australian National Playwrights' Centre) Lois >Randall (Executive Officer, Australian Screen Directors' Association) > >Free admission RSVP ESSENTIAL PHONE (02) 555 9757 (Inquiries to Irina Dunn) > >The NSW Writers' Centre is in the grounds of Rozelle Hospital. To get >there, enter the Hospital from Balmain Road opposite Cecily Street and >follow the signs to the Centre. > > > > > >AWOL >Australian Writing On Line >awol@ozemail.com.au >http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/ >PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia >Phone 61 2 7475667 >Fax 61 2 7472802 > __________________________________ Mark Roberts Student Systems Project Officer Information Systems University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au PH:(02)351 5066 FAX:(02)351 5081 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 10:07:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: AWOL: CALLS Literary dinner (forwarded) >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Date: Fri, 5 Apr 1996 20:02:47 +1000 >To: awol@ozemail.com.au >From: awol@ozemail.com.au (awol) >Subject: AWOL: CALLS Literary dinner > >The following information has been posted by AWOL on behalf of CALLS. > >*************************************** > > >LITERARY DINNER >Marion Halligan > >The Centre for Australian Language and Literature Studies is holding a >Literary Dinner with Marion Halligan to deliver the address and launch >_Louisa Lawson: Collected Poems with Selected Critical Commentaries_ >edited by Leonie Rutherford and Megan Roughley with Nigel Spence. The >dinner is on April 18th in the Treloar Room at Wright College at the >University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales commencing with drinks >at 6.30 for 7 p.m. The cost of the dinner,including wine, is $20 for >members of CALLS and $25 for non-members. To book your places at the >dinner email Cath Ellis on: cellis@metz.une.edu.au > >To order a copy of _Louisa Lawson: Collected Poems with Selected Critical >Commentaries_ edited by Leonie Rutherford and Megan Roughley with Nigel >Spence at $30 each (including postage and packing) send a cheque or money >order made out to CALLS to: >The Centre for Australian Language and Literature Studies >Department of English and Communication Studies >University of New England >New South Wales 2351 >and include your name, address and a contact phone number. > > >AWOL >Australian Writing On Line >awol@ozemail.com.au >http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/ >PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia >Phone 61 2 7475667 >Fax 61 2 7472802 > __________________________________ Mark Roberts Student Systems Project Officer Information Systems University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au PH:(02)351 5066 FAX:(02)351 5081 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 12:01:25 GMT+1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 4 Apr 1996 to 5 Apr 1996 Comments: To: Nuyopoman@AOL.COM Dear Bob, Was it you at Michael Andre's Canal St. apt. and Arakawa and Creeley I met many years past? Before a Creeley read at St.Marks I think? What I wanted to ask about USOP on behalf of those of us beyond broadcast range, are there plans to make a video of it? I'm a King Missile fan/ Larry Eigner fan. Regards, Wystan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 10:22:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: AWOL: Melbourne readings April 9 (forwarded) >Mime-Version: 1.0 >Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 16:06:37 +1000 >To: awol@ozemail.com.au >From: awol@ozemail.com.au (awol) >Subject: AWOL: Melbourne reading April 9 > >The following message has been posted by AWOL on behalf of Alphabet City >Cafe Readings, Zound Poetry and Smith Street Readings. > >************************ > >Alphabet City Cafe Readings Melbourne > >April 9 Grant Caldwell (fresh from his NSW tour), Robert Drummond, Kerry >Scuffins, Lyn Boughton and musicians. Alphabet City Cafe - 98 High Street >Northcott (opposite Valhalla cinema). Readings are organised by Shelton Lea >and are held on the 2nd Tuesday of the month. For further details contact >the cafe. > > >************************ > >Zound Poetry at La Mama > >April 9 8pm Presented by the Axle group. Features Unamunos Quorum, Carolyn >Connors, Kelli Dipple, Peter Murphy, Javant Biarujia Biarujia and Peter >Gleeson. Details ph pete spence (03) 9593 9033 > > >*********************** > >Smith Street Readings > >Smith Street Hotel 14-18 Smith Street Collingwood (opposite 3CR). >April 9 7.30pm Catherine Magee, Patrick Alexander, Coral Hull, John Anderson. >April 23 Lyn Boughton, Daniel Keen, Alison Croggon and Craig Sherbourne. >Details ph Adrian Rawlins (03) 9417 2869. > > > > > > > >AWOL >Australian Writing On Line >awol@ozemail.com.au >http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/ >PO Box 333 Concord NSW 2137 Australia >Phone 61 2 7475667 >Fax 61 2 7472802 > __________________________________ Mark Roberts Student Systems Project Officer Information Systems University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au PH:(02)351 5066 FAX:(02)351 5081 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 20:33:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Poetry video & Performance thanks cris cheek fr yr tuppence. i teach some of the dub poets and jean binta breeze knocks'em dead in the classroom everytime. it works. and michael smith. i had one wonderful student who became a performance poet after hearing my tape of michael smith saying "lawwwwwwwwwd...," francine conley. she performs in madison wi and i think went to SF for some competition. i've never seen brit performance stuff other than reading your descriptions of your performing ranges (ex-rengas). md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 14:40:32 GMT+1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Performance poetry/Nagy's book going back a bit to 1981 THE POETRY READING A contemporary Compendium on Language & Performance ed. stephen Vincent & Ellen Zweig Momo's Press, 1981, San Francisco COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS ART PERFORMANCES IN THE 70'S Performing Arts Journal Publications New York 1980 Henry M.Sayre THE OBJECT OF PERFORMANCE University of Chicago Press 1989 are on my shelves and might or might not be useful. With investigations like the one you mention, you have to make the theory up. Best way. More fun. Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 23:27:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Poetry video & Performance maria d. lawwwwwwwwwd do you mean that chicago guy or the lead singer of the FALL--who is a great performance poet that everyone should listen to (though I haven't in a while)-- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 8 Apr 1996 23:43:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Poetry video & Performance Thanks Chris Cheek for that great wonderful note about loving all kinds of music lyrics. We need not call them "performance poetry" to legitimize them. I like to read "poetry atrophies when it gets too far from music" not so much in terms of "melopeia" (that's really unavoidable) nor in terms of the "hybrid" kind of "performance poetry" that's "too musical for most poets but not musical enough for most poets"--- One of the things that bummed me out about reading on the LOLLAPALOOZA TOUR (sic?) was that I was hoping we'd get to hang with the musicians more--but it was pretty separate..... I play piano and write three chord type songs. I have made no effort to "get them out" yet (due in part to time and $$$$). I know alot of other poets (even those who like me and Mr. Cheek resemble Harryman and Ashbery more in our writing) who also have an interest in Reggae, Punk, Dylan, Gil Scott-Heron etc... and feel no need to say "well, they're NOT POETS!" which I always thought was a defensive move made by those (no names, that would be stupid) envious of their fame, and hopefully not any fear of rastafarian politics....got to build our love on one foundation... tell me who are the criminals..... just babbling here....chris ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 01:52:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Re: Happy poetry month Mr. Haas published two prose poems by Laynie Browne in the Washington Post about a month ago. It said "she lives in NYC" -- several months after she'd moved to Seattle so I'm not sure she knew it was going to happen. Great to see tho. >The coolest thing Bob Haas talked about was his mission to change >various newspaper"s opinion of poetry ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 16:57:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: AWOL's Virtual small press bookshop Just to let people know that AWOL has begun to upload its Virtual Bookshop onto its www site. If you are interested AWOL's address is http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol Take a look and see what you think. Better still order a book!! All prices are in Aust dollars but can be converted to US$ or UK pounds or whatever. Send any comments/suggestions to awol@ozemail.com.au __________________________________ Mark Roberts Student Systems Project Officer Information Systems University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au PH:(02)351 5066 FAX:(02)351 5081 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 00:24:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tosh berman Subject: Re: Poetry video & Performance One should look into "throwaway lyrics." Frank Black is really good at this type of writing,and so are any artist that has an active b-side career. They get loose, strange, and of course very odd. Down with Masterpieces and up with the odd b-side recording! tosh ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 02:28:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mikl-em Subject: why is art and how did she get in my backstroke. the soup? Chris S.--the Criminals are a band from Berkeley, there is an interview w/ 'em in the next Maximum Rock and Roll. I nod also kudoishly to chris cheek for his litaneous post of fine lyrical types. And also Chris the Fall tip is a ver strong one, there is much going on in Mark E Smith's lyrics , skewness and set in live and undeniable performance, that is occurrence. And that is one important difference to me between the writ and spoke word: there are implicit assumptions about language, and by their insistence, by occurrence, speech and writing violate differently these "rules"--this is my particular fascination-- can the author "lie" to us by forinstance changing a word [or a letter] in a piece of quoted material, or david antin's violation of logical syntax in "stanzas"--the author does, in the same way that it is undeniable that something which is used in a collage has existed somehow in the real world; of course now, with photoshop and other computer resources the eyes cannot even be trusted--again someone is CHEATING, tampering with the empiracles!these are things that are so bold-faced they leave folk huffin and puffn frustrate in their wake--and that may be oldhatnews to the fine folks on the Poetics list, but hav you heard the Pavement tunes where the lead [could be led] singer alternates almost identical phrases at no set interval, violating the expectation for order ["career" and "Korea" or "I'll try" and "I'm trying") I get a buzz from such in either song or er-verse, But in a live or recorded performance different evidences are e-skewed. I am more than willing to take a lyricist seriously--becuz what is serious? wel serious to me turns out to mean determined. There sure are a lot of serious poets around. but Important is the term for me that means, a) this is work that resonates with me, and b) I sense a cohesion and "success" of hitting the artist's own unaffected expression. --or purposed affectation, as in a deliberate filter through which the poem is passed of course also violation of the above at right angles , break the rules about breaking the rules....... which is why the Mac Low/Cage ideas sometimes feel too clean to me, nice all the same and very worthy, but definitely yes Formal exercises and I prefer other occassions anyway, I think that Hall lets himself down and the Fall's Smith seems uneven but is truer ultimately to hisself and so does me more good. One last-lost point, I developed a great deal as a poet and performer in the midst of a punk-rock music scene in Richmond VA, it gave a context in which the expression of a twenny-sumthiner was valid; in the misshapen shadow of a down-sizing art school bands painters and poets intermingled making art-things thata t least seemed to be appreciated by those who viewed them.. And at the same time the MFA students didn't want to attend let alone read in the open or scheduled readings as if it would taint there rep to read in public--and the faculty...well, here's a quote "You know I usually get PAID for doing this...." I have been happily swimming/drowning through Bruce Andrews "Give 'em Enough Rope," recently. And I was so taken with the fact that it shared a title with a Clash album that I had totally forgotten the fact that it originated from the phrase with the punchline "and they'll hang themselves." which makes the title much even more much fittinger, apt perfect, important. To me its wonderful that the pop usage of a phrase can eclipse the root of its existence; I don't know if my experience is exactly what Andrews had in mind, but I do believe that he would be pleased with that effect. Cheers to All makers, I'll see you on the bus. mikl. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 02:42:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: National Poultry Month Simon, two things: I can't recall any other laureate (or its more utilitiarian predecessor, the consultant to the Library of Congress) who would have brought either Lyn or Carl to the L.O.C. That represents a significant change. Others, like Strand, have done little or none of the "ambassadorial" type functions. So, yes, different people do approach that spot differently. Rita Dove got an enormous amount of press for African American writing in general in her term. Still, I would never want to deny the value a Michael Lally (his workshop alumni take up a good portion of In the American Tree), the indefatigable organizer operating on a local level. The Tysh family and Kofi Natambu in Detroit (who together had, at least ten years ago, done a great job bridging the old American racial chasm), DF Brown in Houston, Paul Piper in Missoula, Ann Kingsbury and Karl Gartung in Milwaukee, Gil Ott right here in Philadelphia -- this country (and I suspect others) is full of people without whom poetry itself literally could not survive. We need to cherish them all. But it's not an either/or situation, is it? Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 07:59:40 GMT Reply-To: Samuel_R._Truitt@tunanet.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Samuel R. Truitt" Organization: tunanet Subject: Ichor Reading Will be reading: Rod Smith, Mark McMorris, & Virginia Hooper Friday, April 19 @ 8:30pm Ichor Gallery 127 West 26 Street, 9th Floor There's a 3 dollar donation, most of which will be tipped to Smith and McMorris to offset travel. Samuel Truitt ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 09:15:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Poetry video & Performance chris s, are you asking about michael smith or about my former student francine conley? francine is a she (whatever that means) and is a solo performance poet in madison WI.. Smith was a dub poet in Jamaica who was killed by stoning (yes, incredible) by members of a political party at whose rally he'd been verbally challenging ("heckling") the night or week before. see his posthumous book out from New Directions, IT A COME, and better yet, listen to his tapes, and also see Kamau Brathwaite 's poem for him in Middle Passages.--md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 09:15:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Happy national poetry month are we only allowed to read happy, nationalist type poetry this month? time to break out von hallberg's american poetry and culture again to find out if there is such a thing...--md ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 09:31:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Poetry video & Performance thanx, chris c., for that fine modulation... always been fond of song lyrix mself, and in fact (no need to blush here i hope) have been as inspired by same as by poems... one quick note along the lines of poets who use lyrix actively in their work (could this be another thread?): toby olson's "standards" series, whereby he riffs on... standards!... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 09:36:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Marie Schmid Subject: Re: Poetry video & Performance In-Reply-To: <828998192.9780.0@slang.demon.co.uk> Amen, Cris!! I was struck by what you say about reading slam, dub, rap along with Watten, Hejinian, Derek Walcott. The idea isn't (or shouldn't be) to ghettoize, but to read all these voice in concert. I got into contemporary poetry through the language poets and find much of what they're doing and writing about (both poetry and essay) as helpful in thinking about more performance-based poetries. Thanks for your post. It's given me something to chew on! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 10:02:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Julie Marie Schmid Subject: Re: Happy poetry month In-Reply-To: <960409015234_187450447@emout06.mail.aol.com> To get on the Robert Haas bandwagon: I saw him speak this winter at the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. He gave a talk entitled "Democratic Vistas" and then the obligatory colon and something about the poet and the economy. It was supposed to be a dialogue with Thulani Davis, but due to the blizzard on the East Coast she couldn't make it--alas! Mr. Haas spoke for awhile about the poet as implicated in a gift economy--she has to return the gift, etc. He did a stunning job of tying this into the realities of literacy and education in this country and really got the audience thinking about the connection between reading poetry and democracy--Whitman's "nation of poets." After talking for about an hour, he opened the discussion up to the audience and had people telling about specific activities in their communities, both poetic and political (if you care to separate the two). Likewise, people started asking Haas and other audience members for suggestions about things that could be done at the grass roots level. The discussion went on for about two more hours. What really amazed me about this evening was Haas's complete commitment to the community and the way that he really imparted that feeling to other people present. As it was a free, public reading at the library, it was attended by quite a few non-academic, non-poet types. I attended the discussion with non-poet folk (2 ad. execs. and 1 CPA--ages: 2 twenty-somethings, 1 baby boomer). The four of us left there impassioned and went home and talked about the reading for hours. In fact, it still comes up in conversation. I don't know how much it changed people's lives, but I do know that since that evening my three friends have been attending readings and slams regularly with me and have caught the bug. All this is a really long-winded way of saying that although I, too, have reservations about the whole poet laureate schtick, I think Haas is completely committed to the idea of a community poetics and that he is striking some chord in people through his work as p.l. P.S. My only regret is that Thulani Davis didn't make it. What an evening that would've been! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 12:45:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Happy poetry month hear hear on poetry activists! thanks julie schmid for your heartwarming tale engagement and community. -bests, maria d ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 10:04:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: West Coast Brodey Reading Small Press Traffic and the Poetics Department of New College present a celebration of Hard Press' publication of Jim Brodey's Heart of the Breath (ed. Clark Coolidge) Readings and remembrances by Bill Berkson, Tom Clark, Robert Grenier, Larry Kearney, and Joanne Kyger Friday, April 12 at the New College Theater 777 Valencia Street, 7:30 p.m Jim Brodey, born in Brooklyn, 30 November 1942, died (of AIDS) San Francisco 16 July 1993. Empty wine bottle cold as Hoboken in November Or Mission Street in ancient San Francisco Where the lawns grow heather-like and men Caught in the whirlwind of heaven worldweary Men leaning into holes in space on lawns green Pills coming on the earth revolving into sleep -from Jim Brodey's "Jack Kerouac" His zigzag is unearthly, sometimes. Not just word/nerve/combinations, but flowing structures to amaze the gloom of lower Manhattan. The discipline inherent in Kerouac's locomotive meditations (which look so easy when read), is fed-back to him, but in mad overdubbing stanzas. Brodey's book is a flying horse of wild crab language served up by a poet already well-versed in how a poem walks. -Ted Berrigan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 13:09:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Smith Subject: Re: Fanny Howe video... Jena-- do you know how one might get a copy of this? "--Fanny Howe's _What Nobody Saw_: this video was definitely the highlight for me. I think it comes closest to what Tim Wood may be looking for. The images worked with the words in a truly evocative way so that they were in fact the _language_ of the poem (as opposed to an illustration of it)." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 13:21:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Russian/American Poetry Conference PROSPECT: The Second Sensational Festival of Russian and American Poetry and Poets Bruce Andrews, Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, John High, Jackson Mac Low, Vadim Mesyats, Eileen Myles, Maya Nikulina, Simon Pettet, Lev Rubinshtein, Leslie Scalapino, Aaron Shurin, Elena Shvarts, Nathaniel Tarn, John Yau, Ivan Zhdanov, and a most stellar assembly of other great poets, critics, academics, and terrific people in general. Call for papers: those wishing to participate in academic sessions and panel discussions, please submit proposals as soon as possible but not later than May 1st. POETS WHO WISH TO READ THEIR WORK AT THE FESTIVAL: please contact us AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. May 23-26, 1996 Stevens Institute of Technology Hoboken, New Jersey (directly across the river from Manhattan; one subway stop from the West Village) Registration fee: a mere $35 (which we'll waive if that's outside your budget)! Amazing (reasonably priced) dinners! Limited (inexpensive!) housing! For information: Ed Foster or Vadim Mesyats, Dept. of Humanities, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030; tel. (201) 216-5397, fax (201) 216-8245; e-mail efoster@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 14:29:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: why is art and how did she get in my backstroke. the soup? Dear Mikl---Yes on PAVEMENT ambiguity (career-korea, like early REM etc) Dear Maria D.-- Yes on Michael Smith....certainly no happy nationalist... ----------------- another question---much of this talk of poetry slams and open readings and performance poetry seems to involve assumptions about "democracy" that I question. That the "avant-garde sophisticates" need to be in touch with the more "populist" slams, etc...... But, it seems to me there is at least as much HEIRARCHY and SNOBISM and even a "star-system" in the slam scene as in the "avant-garde sophisticate" scene. Maggie Estep is seen as a kind of metonymy for " a NYC slam poet" by many (just as BERNSTEIN is seen as a metonymy for Paul Naylor, etc). I am not trying to be judgmental here, but trying to come to a clearer understanding of the difficulties involved in forging alliances between these scenes. In PHILA, in the late 80 's I was originally far more embraced by a largely black "open mic" scene (we didn't call them slams--perhaps because the illusion of co-operation hadn't yet been REAGANED out) UNTIL I stopped reading a certain kind of poem. Wouldn't it be nice if more events combined these two groups without snobbery on either side? ---- Of course, then there's the other question-- We (was it Amato?) may say "WE RESPECT EVERYTHING" and that can be our public political stance, but at the same time there's always these DECISIONS to make, and these preferences..... so, should we just cop out and say it's arbitrary... or that so and so has a bigger name or that so and so is less of a threat or that so and so has done me alot of favors so therefore or that so and so is REALLY good in bed or sat up with me in my hour of DREAD... ---- why do so many people, when they talk of poetics, sound like politicians (me no excluded here)? "let me make this perfectly clear," etc---- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 13:35:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Happy national poetry month >are we only allowed to read happy, nationalist type poetry this month? time >to break out von hallberg's american poetry and culture again to find out if >there is such a thing...--md Here in Minneapolis the Big Poetry events for National Poetry Month are sponsored by LitLink, which includes Graywolf Press, Coffee House Press, Milkweed Editions, New Rivers Press, and The Loft Writers' Center, are being held at the Mall of America (largest shopping mall in the country, I think), and they are all rather geared around a "reach for poetry and feel good about life" atmosphere, or at least it seems so from the ways in which the events are being promoted. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 14:58:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: why is art and how did she get in my backstroke. the soup? In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 9 Apr 1996 14:29:34 -0400 from On Tue, 9 Apr 1996 14:29:34 -0400 Chris Stroffolino said: > Of course, then there's the other question-- > We (was it Amato?) may say "WE RESPECT EVERYTHING" and that can > be our public political stance, but at the same time there's always > these DECISIONS to make, and these preferences..... > so, should we just cop out and say it's arbitrary... > or that so and so has a bigger name > or that so and so is less of a threat > or that so and so has done me alot of favors so therefore > or that so and so is REALLY good in bed > or sat up with me in my hour of DREAD... > ---- > why do so many people, when they talk of poetics, sound > like politicians (me no excluded here)? > "let me make this perfectly clear," etc---- Maybe if the relationship between poetry and dreams was understood more clearly. I mean the dreams of the human race. I'm thinking of the Wallace Stevens aphorism about "The whole race is a poet..." Say we're dreaming of lost paradise and how to find it again. Taste rules criticism, and intuitive affinities, and social experience (i.e. your angle of vision) -- but it's only arrogance to imagine you've already achieved the pinnacle(s) of truth & beauty. So humility & compassion in responding to a poem is a kind of reciprocal openness. Onward... (& lookout for that other sub...) (& the other lovey-dovey condors...) - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:19:05 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Happy national poetry month In-Reply-To: Message of Tue, 9 Apr 1996 13:35:15 -0500 from On Tue, 9 Apr 1996 13:35:15 -0500 Charles Alexander said: >Here in Minneapolis the Big Poetry events for National Poetry Month are[...] >held at the Mall of America (largest shopping mall in the country, I think), >and they are all rather geared around a "reach for poetry and feel good >about life" atmosphere, or at least it seems so from the ways in which the >events are being promoted. Sounds like my old home town! "Hyello. Say now, you just have a really really nice day!!" -- Estelle du Nordstrom, Vice-President, M-DABL (Minnesotans Dream A Better Life) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:31:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Martin Spinelli Subject: coming LINEbreak promos Folks, I have been encouraged to post the weekly LINEbreak promotional copy to POETICS. These are the messages that go out over the NPR computer network to be read on air as advertisements for upcoming programs. (Bear this in mind as you read them.) If LINEbreak is not on in your area contact your local public or college radio station and encourage them to carry it. (If you think only one or two programs would be of interest in your area) stations can broadcast individual programs if they wish. Martin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:33:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Martin Spinelli Subject: Cecilia Vicun~a on LINEbreak TO: All Stations/Program Directors FR: Martin Spinelli, LINEbreak Producer DT: 1 April 1996 RE: "LINEbreak" - Promo for 4/4/96 program __________________________________________________________ Title: "LINEbreak" Program ID: 96-B64-00001 Feed Time: 4 April 1:00 a.m. Eastern Time The following is promo copy for the April 4th LINEbreak. ********************************************************** A new program called Linebreak is on the way. Every week it brings you interviews and performances with the best and most interesting writers at work today. On the first edition of Linebreak, we feature Chilean poet Cecilia Vicuna [si-SEEL-ya vi-COON-ya]. She'll perform songs from the shaman tradition. Join us for Linebreak at [time/day] on [station]. ********************************************************** Contact: Martin Spinelli, Producer/Director 302 Clemens Hall SUNY at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260-4610 Phone: 716/881-1682 Fax: 716/645-5980 E-mail: linebrk@acsu.buffalo.edu www: http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/linebrea ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:34:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Martin Spinelli Subject: Dennis Tedlock on LINEbreak TO: All Stations/Program Directors FR: Martin Spinelli, LINEbreak Producer DT: 10 April 1996 RE: "LINEbreak" - Feed Schedule + Promo for 4/11 __________________________________________________________ Title: "LINEbreak" Program ID: 96-B64-00002 Feed Time: Thursday April 10th 1:00 A.M. Eastern Time Channel: A73.1 M The next LINEbreak feeds at: 1:00 A.M. Thursday Eastern Time (that's) 12:00 Midnight Wednesday Central Time 11:00 P.M. Wednesday Mountain Time 10:00 P.M. Wednesday Pacific Time The following is promo copy for the 4/11 LINEbreak. ********************************************************** On the next edition of Linebreak, host Charles Bernstein speaks with ethnographer Dennis Tedlock. Dennis Tedlock is the editor of the flagship journal The American Anthropologist. He'll perform a translation of a Zuni folktale. Join us for the next Linebreak on {time/day} on {station}. ********************************************************** Contact: Martin Spinelli, Producer/Director 302 Clemens Hall SUNY at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260-4610 Phone: 716/881-1682 Fax: 716/645-5980 E-mail: linebrk@acsu.buffalo.edu www: http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/linebreak ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:36:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Martin Spinelli Subject: Ray Federman on LINEbreak TO: All Stations/Program Directors FR: Martin Spinelli, LINEbreak Producer DT: 17 April 1996 RE: "LINEbreak" - Feed Schedule + Promo for 4/18 __________________________________________________________ Title: "LINEbreak" Program ID: 96-B64-00003 Feed Time: Thursday April 18th 1:00 A.M. Eastern Time Channel: A73.1 M The next LINEbreak feeds at: 1:00 A.M. Thursday Eastern Time (that's) 12:00 Midnight Wednesday Central Time 11:00 P.M. Wednesday Mountain Time 10:00 P.M. Wednesday Pacific Time The following is promo copy for the 4/18 LINEbreak. ********************************************************** On the next edition of Linebreak, experimental novelist and holocaust survivor Ray Federman [FED-der-man]. As a child, his mother hid him in a closet to escape the Nazi round-ups in his neighborhood. This event marked his writing in some very UN-sentimental ways. Join us for the next Linebreak on {time/day} on {station}. ********************************************************** Contact: Martin Spinelli, Producer/Director 302 Clemens Hall SUNY at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260-4610 Phone: 716/881-1682 Fax: 716/645-5980 E-mail: linebrk@acsu.buffalo.edu www: http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/linebreak ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:38:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Martin Spinelli Subject: Lance and Andi Olsen on LINEbreak TO: All Stations/Program Directors FR: Martin Spinelli, LINEbreak Producer DT: 24 April 1996 RE: "LINEbreak" - Feed Schedule + Promo for 4/25 __________________________________________________________ Title: "LINEbreak" Program ID: 96-B64-00004 Feed Time: Thrusday April 25th 1:00 A.M. Eastern Time Channel: A73.1 M The next LINEbreak feeds at: 1:00 A.M. Thursday Eastern Time (that's) 12:00 Midnight Wednesday Central Time 11:00 P.M. Wednesday Mountain Time 10:00 P.M. Wednesday Pacific Time The following is promo copy for the 4/25 LINEbreak. ********************************************************** On the next edition of Linebreak, cyberpunks Lance and Andi Olsen talk with host Charles Bernstein about postmodern fiction and how TV has infected and invigorated writing. Lance reads from his new novel Burn, and Andi puts video tape through some artistic paces on the next Linebreak--right here on {station} at {time/day}. ********************************************************** Contact: Martin Spinelli, Producer/Director 302 Clemens Hall SUNY at Buffalo Buffalo, NY 14260-4610 Phone: 716/881-1682 Fax: 716/645-5980 E-mail: linebrk@acsu.buffalo.edu www: http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/linebreak ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:55:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rae Armantrout Subject: Re: Poetic Briefs I tried to respond backchannel to an offer to send Poetic Briefs to whomever was interested. (I believe the posting was from Jeff Hanson).But my backchannel went awry and my message was returned. So I'll just tell the whole list. Yes, I'm interested in receiving an issue of Poetic Briefs. Rae Armantrout 4774 E. Mtn. View Dr. San Diego, Ca. 92116 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 15:12:56 CST6CDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hank Lazer Organization: The University of Alabama Subject: Re: Poetic Briefs I had the same problem as Rae. Please send me Poetics Briefs: Hank Lazer 2945 N Hampton Dr Tuscaloosa, AL 35406-2701 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 13:53:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: Poetic Briefs In-Reply-To: <16443983997@as.ua.edu> from "Hank Lazer" at Apr 9, 96 03:12:56 pm > > I had the same problem as Rae. Please send me Poetics Briefs: > > Hank Lazer > 2945 N Hampton Dr > Tuscaloosa, AL 35406-2701 ditto. -- i'd very much appreciate this, too: c. peters dept. of english simon fraser univ. burnaby, BC canada V5A 1S6 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 18:27:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: this week in poetry (new york) white guys! white guys! white guys! but Walter, how are we reproducing science? : ) or should I ask. ______ To recap: Wednesday, Charles North (villified not long ago by Edgar Allen ((sic sic sic transit spelling)) Poe, but he's a 'pretty' strong subtle poet, looking forward to the selected from S&M) and David Lehman are reading up at Maison Francaise at Columbia. Thursday, here at Poetry City, Ron Silliman (author of like a hundred books) and Lewis Warsh (author of like a hundred books.. just finished _A Free Man_ and I don't find my way through too many contemporary novels.. I strongly recommend _Free_ and _Agnes & Sally_ as just about as real and bedraggled as prose can stand), 6:30, free, lots of books for sale, it's National Poetry Month--_buy books_. Friday, over at Segue, the profoundly charming Tim Davis will read poems from photographs. That's Segue Performance Space, 303 E. 8th (betw. B & C), 7:30 PM, and if you haven't seen Tim read, or you haven't seen Tim read for a year, you're due for a checkup from the Doctor! Saturday, over at the nicest cave in town, the EAR, at 2:30 p.m. Chris "Lollapalooza" Stroffolino and I will be reading our poems. I understand Chris will be bingeing on patent leather; I'm going maximum chiffon. ____ Hurry! But don't forget to eat! A copy of _Tjanting_ will be awarded after the Poetry City reading to the person who can best answer the question, "What are those black things under seals' eyes?" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 17:43:00 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: stop breathin', breathin' for me now At 02:29 PM 4/9/96 -0400, Chris S. wrote: > Dear Mikl---Yes on PAVEMENT ambiguity (career-korea, like early REM etc) Yay ambiguity! > But, it seems to me there is at least as much HEIRARCHY and SNOBISM > and even a "star-system" in the slam scene as in the "avant-garde > sophisticate" scene. I think any scene eventually (de?)generates this kind of hierarchy; it seems to be a facet of institutionalization. "Star-system" strikes me as particularly apt for the slam structure, or maybe any "populist" performance scene, which might explain why of all the poetries this one has been embraced by MTV. Which is not to say that being conscious of oneself as a "sophisticate" isn't another way of playing "star", only that MTV's not as interested in that particular mode at the moment. > We (was it Amato?) may say "WE RESPECT EVERYTHING" and that can > be our public political stance, but at the same time there's always > these DECISIONS to make, and these preferences..... > so, should we just cop out and say it's arbitrary... > or that so and so has a bigger name > or that so and so is less of a threat > or that so and so has done me alot of favors so therefore > or that so and so is REALLY good in bed > or sat up with me in my hour of DREAD... How about "so and so creates stuff that really fucks with MY personal head in a most righteous way"? That shouldn't mean any disrespect for someone whose work simply doesn't, should it? (But since you brought it up, who IS really good in bed? Never mind, knowing can only torment me :-) > why do so many people, when they talk of poetics, sound > like politicians (me no excluded here)? > "let me make this perfectly clear," etc---- Well Chris, your question reminds me of something my daddy once said to me, he said "Son..." Steve ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 21:35:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Poetic Briefs sure, i'll take one two. (PB 20) maria damon 128 racing beach ave falmouth ma 02540 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 20:33:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Poetic Briefs In-Reply-To: <199604092053.UAA14757@beaufort.sfu.ca> Sane problem Thomas Bell 2546 Hibbitts Rd. Nashville, TN 37214 On Tue, 9 Apr 1996, Carl Lynden Peters wrote: > > > > I had the same problem as Rae. Please send me Poetics Briefs: > > > > Hank Lazer > > 2945 N Hampton Dr > > Tuscaloosa, AL 35406-2701 > > ditto. -- i'd very much appreciate this, too: > > c. peters > dept. of english > simon fraser univ. > burnaby, BC canada > V5A 1S6 > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 00:28:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mary Rising Higgins Subject: Re: Happy national poetry month So, like if I break out Von Hallberg's american poetry & culture will I find an answer to the question: What does which poetry have to do with whose idea of culture anymore...?? mary ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 01:24:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Holman Subject: Poetry video Point being, I guess, that we evaluate what we come into contact with and too few come into contact with poetry. Just a point of view here, that po lightens and brightens and changes the world when language gets real in a way like love. Also we can rock em. To me, big difference in being a poet is that indeed we are those who presume, as Joe says, to be so, as opposed to, say, those who might presume to be a medical doctor. Good carpenters generally make a living at it. Do poets? Good poets? What the Slam is all about, I think, is giving the naming-of-poets power to people in a Wonderland way. Which is, I maintain, better than no way at all, and can be rough fun. Also, can be boring and predictable. Hand me that Fat Side of the Post Century Millennial, maybe I can find the 100% correct spelling there. When Ismail Azim-El says the CIA was formerly known as the SS in his It s so hot today poem in USOP (show #2), does it upset because of politics or aesthetics or is it written off for the same (or other) reasons? Who says that performance complicates poetry ? That s great! My impression is the opposite: performance simplify to a single chord or visual or whatever. I didn t get Creeley till I heard him read -- then I saw the space around the lines as part of poem, heard his words as containers of emotion. For me, the poem is what is transmitted as the poem however it s transmitted. Poetry for me provides voice for the unheard. That is a language issue. Now back to this Hall character. I was hoping the Dovetonsils reference would pitch us into a TV tour of Literature -- far I know, Percy was the first ever on TV and the first time I saw a living poet, and it was hilarious and made me angry because he was too easy. Hall s pose, too, is to make fun of your saying he s too easy within a performance you ll think too easy, like Dumb Art. Btw, what did you think of Lord Buckley s appearance in show 1? To Wystan, yup, that was me at MAndre s loft, frontchannel greets. To Cris Creek, backchannel me info on who to get with re: USOP on Brit Tv, and thanks for some great reading/listening leads. And dear Simon, when I am PoLariat You ll be my Queen! except I think I go for Tom Clark (& party!) to lead the way -- he s more experienced at these PoWars than I. Bob Holman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 01:25:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Holman Subject: National Poetry Month Thanks, David Bartier, for the Hass scoops. I have taught from his River of Words curriculum, and enjoyed esp. his essay re: Duncan and spawning salmon. I had a pleasant enough chat with him 3-4 weeks ago and set up an inteview for iGuide (http://ww.iGuide.com/music/poetry) which he blew off, just up and disappeared. I finally roused his assistant yesterday (three weeks later), when Ileft a message I'd composed questions _and_ answers myself ala Berrigan-Cage and wondered if Bob would like to see the thing before I publish it.... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 01:26:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Holman Subject: Michael Smith "Michael Smith was on the threshold of consolidating a rapidly rising international reputation as a poet when he was murdered by supporters of the Jamaican Labor Party on 17th August, 1983" writes Linton Kwesi Johnson on the back cover of "It A Come: Poems by Michael Smith" (Race Today Publications:London, 1986). Smith's first LP, "Mi Cyaan Believe It," had just been released by Island Records. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 01:46:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: stop breathin', breathin' for me now (write it on a postcard) Dear Steve C. Do you think the question of heirarchies relates to what Henry Gould called taste? The ambivalence here, for me much of the time, relates to the "division" between "public" and "private" in many ways. If the so-called private is really public, which I believe it is, then the "subjective" can be considered as legitimate as the so-called "objective" (which is really subjective). Thus, the link of private with subjective and public with objective can be blown apart or simply ignored and seen as false as if we aren't "always already" corrupted by the linguistic grids we're (i mean I) trained in from elementary school or wherever. Thus, I disagree with Gould on the point of trying to find a "lost paradise" or some primordial Wordsworthian childing dancing on the shore--but I am interested in "dwelling in possibility" (as well as in prose) and so I can not claim FULLY AND ACCURATELY what, indeed, my taste is. And I suspect others who claim they can as boxing themselves in (like Perelman's great pun on the spectators who "MUST FIND WHAT IDENTITIES THEY CAN"). Yet, at the same time, I feel to some extent OBLIGATED to question others when they claim to be "democratic." Perhaps, it's because I've been raised in a country in which this word is pretty much a meaningless buzzword. Now, what is TRUE DEMOCRACY (aside from a Steal Pulse album with that great song "ravers" on it---whoops, ron silliman, unintentional typo)? is it perhaps a democracy that admits of heirarchy, admits of the arbitrariness of taste, admits of individuals, and to be honest I feel a lack of such a world. I guess I'm afraid to offend people by saying "this doesn't work for me" or afraid that I will end up eating my words because suddenly tomorrow it a poem I derided today as drivel may become the ONLY THING THAT GETS ME THROUGH that day.... And then when it moves from "poems" to "poets" to "scenes" to whatever, there arise all these questions of "package deals". And I know I should not let these things worry me, but do I now? But in lieu of simply shutting up about it--"I won't tread on you if you won't tread on me"--I also have been absolutely SHAKEN (in a way I call positive) by the "fools who rush in where angels fear to tread" and who dare say things like "OF course, Pound is stupid" or something. It quickens the reactive mind, and Pam Rehm somewhere has that great think about "locate CREATION in REACTION" and thus perhaps maybe it would be a more TRULY DEMOCRATIC world if we did away with the "trickle down" theory of Democracy and actually delineated exactly what has MOVED US up to this point and what has NOT...even if such a delineation will seem heirarchical and subjective. This doesn't mean that one becomes immune from questioning, but that such questions will not be merely asked by one's self, but by others. I am curious as to what "liking everyone equally as poets" (as I understand Maria Damon's position) really means. It seems alien to me. Yet does that make me a snob? I hope not. I don't think poetry's necessarily an exalted activity. In fact, it may be a crutch alot, a neurotic activity, a compensation. Yet I'll DEFEND it against others who I see as just as deluded (Westerberg---"I suppose your guess is more or less as bad as mind" as a VERY empowering statement).This depends on "mood" and "need" as much as taste. For instance, I look at Shakespeare and I say "he must have really needed to write that way" and perhaps that makes me democratic, joined to others by NEED..... but is it a manufactured need, ah, that's another question.... and I am drawn to poets who deal with THAT question too.... chris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 16:36:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: AWOL new magazines at the Virtual Bookshop The following magazines are now available (along with lots more) at the AWOL Virtual Bookshop. Point your browser to http://www.ozemail.com.au/~awol/bookshop1.html and order away!! (All prices are Aust dollars but can be converted. Price covers sea mail. Air mail prices on application). Going Down Swinging 15 One of Australia's leading independant literary magazines, Going Down Swinging, is now available at the AWOL Virtual Bookshop. The latest issue, GDS 15, is dedicated to Barrett Reid. Highlights include an interview with Yevgeny Yevtushenko by Melbourne journalist John Doggett-Williams; a fascinating essay/story by Stephen J Williams on the conection between the 'eye' and the 'I'; and the photo art of Heather Winter, accompanid by her essay on the subject. There is also work by new and exciting writers such as Emma Lew, Anthony Macris, Bernadette Creechan and Alan Wayman (to name a few) together with new work from better knwon writers such as Kerry Scuffins, pi0, kevin Brophy, Eric Beach and Lauren Williams. "The fifteenth issue of Going Down Swinging is, then a celebration....it is a glimpse of a healthy literay culture that continues to flourish." from the editorial. Aust$10.00 OVERLAND 142 Australian Writing On Line is pleased to announce that it is now distributing Overland magazine. Overland has been one of Australia's leading literary and cultural magazine's for decades. Issue 142 contains fiction by Merv Lilley, and CC Mitchell; poetry by Bruce Dawe, Diana Fahey, Stella Turner, Susan Hawthorne, Stephen J Williams, Peter Murphy, Sandy Jeffs and Emma Lew; graphics by Vane Lindsay, Chester Eagle, Jiri Tibor, Wes Placek, John Copeland, Zofia Nowicka, Donald Greenfield, Bev Aisbett and Lofo; The features section features a tribute to Barrett Reid which includes pieces by John Philip, Rick Amour, Shelton Lea, Rona Arndt, Vida Horn (with Thea Astley), Eric Beach, Stephen J Williams together with three poems by Barrett. Aust$8.00 TINFISH 2 The second issue of this US (Hawai'i) based magazine is now available through AWOL. Tinfish concentrates on publishing invovative writing from around the Pacific. Contributors to the second issue include: Joe Balaz, Charles Bernstein, Mary Burger, Steven Bradbury, Jonathan Branned, Don Brunn, Eric Cook, Leslie Davis, Murray Edmond, RM Ernest, Alison Georgeson, Richard Hamasaki, Hank lazer, Carolyn Lei-Lanilau, Sean Macbeth, Sheila E Murphy. Tony Quagiano, Stephen Radcliffe, Red Flea, Joan Retallack, Laura Ruby, Chris Stroffolino, Carolyn Steinhoff Smith, Terese Svoboda, Mark Wallace, Rob Wilson and Zhou Yaping. (distributed by AWOL in Australia and New Zealand readers from the US should contact Susan Schultz at sschultz@hawaii.edu ). Aust $5.00 Posted on behalf of AWOL (awol@ozemail.com.au) __________________________________ Mark Roberts Student Systems Project Officer Information Systems University of Sydney NSW 2006 Australia M.Roberts@isu.usyd.edu.au PH:(02)351 5066 FAX:(02)351 5081 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 04:19:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Deadly Virus !!! Poetics gang, The following is an internal IBM communique about a virus (thus I would presume this to be real and not a variation of the Good Times hoax). Forewarned is forearmed. Ron *** Forwarding note from RADFORD --RHQVM14 04/09/96 13:42 *** To: TSS Service Planning - Raleigh From: B. L. Radford Information Center Analyst 8-571-5026 / (919) 461-5026 SUBJECT: Deadly Virus !!! FYI - be sure to read !!! From: R. L. Bond, Consultant Liaison SystemView Information Bureau Dept/H15 Bldg/503 Loc/B324 Subject: FYI - DO NOT DOWNLOAD PKZIP300 fyi DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300 REGARDLESS OF THE EXTENSION!!! WARNING!!!!! Read the following and take note for those of you who access the web and ftp sites. . . BE WARE!!! Notify your friends and family and total strangers too!!! We don't want to deal with anything like this what-so-ever!!! >>> >>>Hi all, We work closely with the military and received this message from a very reliable source in DC this morning. A NEW Trojan Horse Virus has emerged on the internet with the name PKZIP300.ZIP, so named as to give the impression that this file is a new version of the PKZIP software used to "ZIP" (compress) files. DO NOT DOWNLOAD this file under any circumstances!!! If you install or expand this file, the virus WILL wipe your hard disk clean and affect modems at 14.4 and higher. This is an extremely destructive virus and there is NOT yet a way of cleaning up this one. REPEAT: DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300 REGARDLESS OF THE EXTENSION!!! Thanks, John Scheible scheible@vnet.ibm.com Regards, Bill ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 08:30:50 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: stop breathin', breathin' for me now In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 10 Apr 1996 01:46:12 -0400 from On Wed, 10 Apr 1996 01:46:12 -0400 Chris Stroffolino said: Thus, I disagree > with Gould on the point of trying to find a "lost paradise" or > some primordial Wordsworthian childing dancing on the shore--but > I am interested in "dwelling in possibility" (as well as in prose) Well, I been accused of bein a meister-reductivizer too, so I guess I can take it. Everybody's got their own vocabulary for it, whether it's Platonic (humankind naturally seeks "the good") or Dante (direct your will toward the true good) or Poe (mankind naturally seeks the perverse just to be perverse) (all these mally-blanche authorities again, sorry), or real democracy & the Amurrican way - but I say we ALL looking for it. But what I was really interested in was the connection between dream & poetry - that poetry in english, for one example, starts in "dream-vision" - & that sleep dreams have a linguistic texture - and that dreams are riddles or wishes - & that poetry "fabricates" vision in a related way. Prose fiction tends to "solidify" the dream in a realistic manner (I know I'm being reductive now) - whereas I see poetry playing back and forth in a more concentrated way between dream and act, script and performance. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 09:01:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Emily Lloyd Subject: darkly wise I remembered, in a weird flashbacky way, a line from the first poem that ever really got me...I was 5 or 6 and it was in some anthology of, I assume, dead white boys, and there was a line in it that went: "And if you be wise, be you darkly wise, darkly wise as a" ...or something like that. At the time, I was so affected I tore it out of the library book, got in deep kimshi, etc...now I don't remember who wrote it. Does anyone recognize those lines? I've never come across them since. em ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Emily Lloyd emilyl@erols.com "It takes time to make queer people"--gertrude stein ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 08:12:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Poetic Briefs yeah, please sign me up for a pair of poetics briefs... i'm a 32... joe amato 5040 s. woodlawn ave. #3N chicago, il 60615 thanx!... joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 09:25:30 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard Subject: Re: darkly wise Emily: You wrote the poem. Don't you remember? ______ And if you be wise be you darkly wise Darkly wise as a dead white boy. I assume there was a line in it Something something, or something like that. Affected so was I at the time It tore out of the library in deep kimshi, etc. I've never come across them since I've never come across em since. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It really got me too. daniel_bouchard@hmco.com "Has anybody seen my girl?" -- Bob Dylan To: POETICS @ UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (Multiple recipients of list POETICS) @ SMTPIN cc: (bcc: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco) From: emilyl @ EROLS.COM (Emily Lloyd) @ SMTPIN Date: 04/10/96 09:01:19 AM Subject: darkly wise I remembered, in a weird flashbacky way, a line from the first poem that ever really got me...I was 5 or 6 and it was in some anthology of, I assume, dead white boys, and there was a line in it that went: "And if you be wise, be you darkly wise, darkly wise as a" ...or something like that. At the time, I was so affected I tore it out of the library book, got in deep kimshi, etc...now I don't remember who wrote it. Does anyone recognize those lines? I've never come across them since. em ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Emily Lloyd emilyl@erols.com "It takes time to make queer people"--gertrude stein ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 09:45:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Golumbia Subject: Re: stop breathin', breathin' for me now In-Reply-To: <2.2.16.19960409174411.25df3444@pop.slip.net> from "Steve Carll" at Apr 9, 96 05:43:00 pm Steve Carll wrote: > > At 02:29 PM 4/9/96 -0400, Chris S. wrote: > > or that so and so is REALLY good in bed > whose work simply doesn't, should it? (But since you brought it up, who IS > really good in bed? Never mind, knowing can only torment me :-) As in, so good that the QUALITY itself of the bed they give, not the degree of one's attraction to them, makes them worthy of poetic favors? I'm itchin to know. "But a good mind does not a good fuck make." (A recent poetics noted). -- dgolumbi@sas.upenn.edu David Golumbia ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 09:53:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: seven tapes of ambiguity what screws up ambiguity (for instance the song Steve's quoting in his subject line sounds really great until you figure out it's about tennis..) is how quickly it slides into ordinary meaning or you don't go back and reread where's waldo --Jordn ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 09:13:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: Re: Poetic Briefs In-Reply-To: <960409213546_267982683@mail02.mail.aol.com> same same. please send poetic briefs to the address below. Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 684-6277 There is some excitement in one corner, but most of the ghosts are merely shaking their heads. -- Thomas Kinsella ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 09:40:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Happy national poetry month >So, like if I break out Von Hallberg's american poetry & culture will I find >an answer to the question: What does which poetry have to do with whose idea >of culture anymore...?? Here's somebody's minnesota-ish idea of culture, verbatim from flyer: _________________________________________________________________ POETRY ALIVE at Mall of America A Celebration of National Poetry Month Friday, April 12th, 2:00 - 8:00 p.m. Sears Court at Mall of America Highlights Include *A diverse collection of poets and performers will give staged poetry performances, including a Cacophony Chorus of area high school students called "Gen X-10," and jazz poet Debra Marquart with her band The Bone People. *A giant-sized, movable version of the wildly popular "Original Magnetic Poetry Kit"TM will be on hand for Mall visitors of all ages to create enormous and ever-changing poems. *Poetry Karaoke will feature local celebrities and Mall visitors reading from a diverse selection of poems. *Computer hook-ups will allow participants to contribute to a community poem that will grow throughout the day, and to interact with poetry fans nationwide through the Internet. Performance Schedule for Poetry Alive!: 2:00 Mick Veck of the St. Paul Saints baseball team and poet Carol Connolly 2:30 Poetry Karaoke with local celebrities and mall visitors 4:00 Christopher Edwards interprets the work of Beat poet Bob Kaufman 4:30 Poet Diane Glancy 5:00 Poet Mary Moore Easter 5:30 Poets Jim Moore and Deborah Keenan 6:00 Gen X-10: A Cacophony Chorus of Twin Cities High School Students 7:00 Debra Marquart and the Bone People: Jazz Poetry Poetry Alive! at Mall of America grew out of meetings sponsored by LitLink Minnesota, a unique collective of literary organizations that works together to create major educational and public awareness initiatives POETRY ALIVE! Sponsors Coffee House Press, Graywolf Press, The Loft, Milkweed Editions, Minnesota Center for Book Arts, New Rivers Press, Original Magnetic Poetry Kit, S.A.S.E.: The Write Place, Shout! Magazine, Writer's Voice Project of the Metropolitan Minneapolis YMCA _________________________________________________________________ No comment. Culture with a capital Q. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:05:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Emily Lloyd Subject: Re: darkly wise At 09:25 AM 4/10/96 EDT, Daniel Bouchard wrote: >I've never come across em since. like AT&T...You Will Thanks Daniel. That was darkly . ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Emily Lloyd emilyl@erols.com "It takes time to make queer people"--gertrude stein ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:21:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Luoma Subject: Tim Davis Reading in NYC Subj: Re: pardner Date: Tue, Apr 9, 1996 5:13 PM EDT From: nd@panix.com X-From: nd@panix.com (New Directions) To: Maz881@aol.com TD RIDES...AHEM...READS AGAIN!! THIS BLOODY FRIDAY, THE 12th Segue Performance Space 303 E. 8th (betw. B & C) 7:30 PM plus thirsty love, timothymichael"phanerocodonic"davis billiam, can you post this on the thinggy everyone reads and obeys? love t ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:25:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: - Kim Tedrow Subject: Culture with a "Q" Charles Alexander writes: >>>>>Here's somebody's minnesota-ish idea of culture, verbatim from flyer: ----snip----- No comment. Culture with a capital Q.<<<< Please explain "minnesota-ish" and "Q". I read it as non-complimentary. First, Deborah Keenan, Jim Moore, Carol Connolly, and Diane Glancy are well respected poets. The list of sponsors, including the Minnesota Center for the Book Arts and Graywolf Press, is impressive. Second, although I left Minnesota before the "Mall of America" was completed, and have never been there, I can well bet that hundreds of people that would *not* be inclined to seek out a poetry reading at a coffee house, University, or night club are going to get a good dose of it at the "Mall of America" that day. If the audience for poetry is broadened, _who_ loses? Third and last, Poetry Karaoke sounds like *fun*, and a helluva lot more palatable than the floor-shaking-beer-soaked-karaoke renditions of Beatles songs sung in Vietnamese by my neighbors all weekend. (I think I'll head to Radio Shack for my karaoke system this weekend!) Minnesota-ish (whatever that means) still, altho in D.C., Kim roseread@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:34:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: DIU release I hope some of you have seen the hilarious satire on the intentions of the recent NYC Poetry Talks conference that was just released on Chris Funkhouser's Description of Imaginary Universe's listserve. It's an incredibly subtle move--now, the avant garde is free to endlessly satirize its own intentions, while the rest of the world goes about its business, completely oblivious to our existence. And rightly so, since we're an amazing bunch of pompous windbags who have no business getting involved in serious matters. Thank goodness someone finally is speaking up about the incredible pointlessness of taking avant garde poetry seriously. And thank god we realize now that there are so few of us, since it saves us the trouble of thinking we might have some sort of positive effect on anybody's life. Even better, we can now all go to permanently closed parties where we can each endless make fun of each other without having to worry that other people will show up. That way, we don't have to worry about social context at all, but can simply speak to those of us already in the know about our own foolishness. After all, it's incredibly frustrating to have to talk to people who haven't been wasting their time reading Charles Olson. Maybe we can even have sexual affairs with each other, and talk about them behind our own backs! What I want is to be locked forever in a room (like in the original Star Trek episode) with the writer of the DIU satire. The two of us could undermine our own pretensions for all eternity, without fear of intervention, or any stupid stuff about how to balance the need to survive with the desire to behave ethically. Here's an idea--let's go to Newt Gingrich's office and do a sit-in protest where we'll prove to him the irrelevance of all literature and humanistic activity, especially that of the avant garde. We could even wear funny hats while we mock ourselves! And maybe, while we're at it, we could get a few Republicans to mock us too. Wouldn't that be really radical and satirical? Wouldn't that really screw things up? We'll make plenty sure that no one ever takes us seriously again, you can bet! I feel so free. Mark Wallace ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 08:40:05 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: chris daniels Subject: Caesura at copan Caesura at copan eighteen-rabbit put the voynich- worm in your brain from too much kissing trepha dogs comforted by pariahs weeping you woke trephinated in dark stone arms curling round yggsdrasil's foliaten hands to guide sternufrage phaistoscion its warp through to your radical head 2 werewarp hound's distended muzzle strangely and the throated lungs flap singed by shards of black fire red pillar rising from your spasmodic crown 3 o harrier of swifts! 4 you who built mountains with brontother jetsam in the mezhirist forest smoke rears from ichor-bowls in the peak's gullet where you dance your swidden point-a-flechette pierced for tlalocuedjet spewing venom godbones' truth speaking nothing for jake berry at the witz monster's mouth *********************** komments, anyone? must run to "woik" th sun has jes pipped troo th kokoninan "winda" "pottin" is such switt "sorra" later ------------------------------------- christopher daniels 4.10.96 8:34:20 am q: "how can you be revolutionary when 20 years ago they said anything goes?" --- charles wuorinen a: "free yr mind and yr ass will follow." --- george clinton snail: 1474b 7th st berkeley ca 94710 usa voice: 510.524.5972 http://users.lanminds.com/~kunos/ (constructing) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 10:47:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Poetry video bob's and chris s.'s posts tweaked me into considering that there's a language issue (and more than this, again) buried in this discussion of poetry vs. performance that's mebbe worth pulling out some... and it has to do with why, for example, whenever i try to 'explain' poetry to folks who're used to using language in a more scholarly way (like, say, most philosophers), i end up talking about the 'performative' aspects of poetic language... i mean, for many people, poetry as a language art is *already* a performance... it's already, that is (and here i'm avoiding various complications of varying aesthetics, or for that matter austin's remarks re 'performatory' utterances) *coming to you* as a poem, i.e., embodying a subject-presence that's quite a bit different than, say, that of research reports, or for that matter of most novels... and i don't mean at all to privilege poetry here---just to try to get a hold of its---is it telos of presence only? (no)---which tends methinks to complicate the subject(ivity) inherent to such writing, as an 'act'... which is complicated further by variations in language practice (dia or idiolectical) which presume more or less upon various such presences, be they aural or what have you... when poetry comes at us in-the-flesh, or in the representation (or as the case may be, non-representation) of flesh (as in video), the performative is incarnated a step further... and this is kind of interesting again from the pov of what the invention of writing, as havelock put it, tended to do---separate the "knower from the known," over and against oral culture, say... which suggests perhaps that those of us keyed to the written word---which itself glosses distinctions twixt pixel and print---value performance in terms of---is it the control? or lack of same?---that authorial 'absence' (death?) implies... in fact i would argue that pixel reintroduces, as a result of literal and figurative connectivity with other on(the)line bodies (that's you folks) a virtual presence... it's the collective ghost in our machines (whatever the platform) that appears whenever we boot up, b/c our word processors work side-by-side with our network connections (not to mention the formal differences twixt pixel and, say, ink, depending on your sensitivities)... and the resultant screen blur blurs in fact even our literacies, b/c we can use, e.g., the 'talkier' aspects of ascii to communicate such, uhm, sophisticated thoughts (see footnote 2a, above)... just thinkin aloud, is all... joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:46:21 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard Subject: Re: DIU release Mark Wallace wrote: I hope some of you have seen the hilarious satire on the intentions of the recent NYC Poetry Talks conference that was just released on Chris Funkhouser's Description of Imaginary Universe's listserve. we're an amazing bunch of pompous windbags Thank goodness And thank god ______________________ Mark, Is this for real? Where does one find it? daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:19:13 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Subject: oops Availiable now from Pavement Saw Press Oops by Chris Stroffolino Features poems which have appeared in Sulfur, Talisman, Lingo, TO, Caliban, New American Writing, American Letters & Commentary and others. 64 pages, perfect bound in attractive purple cover with smiling picture of the author on the back. The book is $6.95 including postage and handling. Checks made out to Pavement Saw Press / 7 James Street / Scotia, NY 12302 Thanks dave.baratier@mosby.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 12:19:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: seven tapes of ambiguity but jordan, i thought you played tennis with ron padgett ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 09:32:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Douglas Messerli Subject: Re: New Sun & Moon Press titles Dear Gwyn McVay, You may order directly from our website: www.sunmoon.com or through E-Mail. We don't yet accept credit cards, so if you order the Mathews, I'll send the book and bill you. Douglas Messerli At 09:01 AM 3/25/96 +0000, you wrote: >Dear Douglas, > >I'd love to order the Mathews--do you prefer to deal with e-people via >credit card or check? > >Regards, > >Gwyn McVay, a big Sun &Moon fan > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:18:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: DIU release well it seems to me, anyway, that satire works best when it's accomplished with reform (at least) in mind... it's not that we (i mean all 130 of us, or 400 of us, or whatever) don't have our shelleys, our gadflies... to say so, as i see it, is to miss the point entirely... the problem right now is the tendency to regard *any* agenda as inherently self-serving... and this just ain't so... not unless you're ayn rand... which is not to say that everybody doesn't *have* an agenda, but that there are those who would like to make a positive contribution to something outside of themselves.. so my problem with the diu piece---and with the edgar allen poe pieces in fact, and with some of the news blurbs that came out a year or two back on this list---is not that they ask for a sense of humor (i hope to hell mine has remained intact), but that they ask for a sense of cynicism.. which in fact, right now, is all too ubiquitous... and i say this w/o any rancor, and certainly not to demean in any way chris funkhouser or anybody else... but it's the reason i stopped reading that piece in particular after about the third para... and in all fairness to diu, the general drift of that ezine would seem at times to be to indicate the relative futility of various poetic agenda in the face of more global desperations... and yet in doing so, it seems to me that diu occasionally merely adds to despair... esp. wrt the political climate we're, many of us, experiencing... so i have to observe with mark w., though mebbe i'm observing it a little differently, that such pieces in fact ask me to consider only my own hopelessness... as hacker culture would have it, a 'fuck me harder' sentiment (sorry if i'm offending here, but it's an appropriate reference)... and i see this not only as in part a response to academic job woes, but a reflection of public helplessness... and i guess i'd rather be working in a more constructively critical or creative mode, in my own little semicircles (which overlap with this poetics list), to make a different sort of contribution---which i trust is and is not a utopian sentiment... but which is less a critique of the diu piece, perhaps, than simply to say that i'm looking for other ways to provide for meaningful critique... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 12:51:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Poetry video In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 10 Apr 1996 10:47:59 -0500 from On Wed, 10 Apr 1996 10:47:59 -0500 Joe Amato said: >do with why, for example, whenever i try to 'explain' poetry to folks >who're used to using language in a more scholarly way (like, say, most >philosophers), i end up talking about the 'performative' aspects of poetic >language... >i mean, for many people, poetry as a language art is *already* a >performance... it's already, that is (and here i'm avoiding various Barbara H. Smith's definition is still relevant: "poetry is the imitation of a speech act" - H. Gould ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 13:03:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michelle Roberts Subject: Re: contrasimilacrum In-Reply-To: <9603068288.AA828841180@smtp-gw.mosby.com> On Sat, 6 Apr 1996, David Baratier wrote: > Been off line for a bit, so ... > > As far as reading a poem or poet due to a book of criticism > That's nice. Albiet rare. It's been my experience > that recent criticism includes such a sparsity of quotes, > such a poverty of experience to rely upon, only the barest minimum > necessary to validate the particular critical lens. > That has become the net value of poetry for most critics. > > I find a few mentions of a text hardly enough to pick it up, rather > it's comparisons, mentions of the subject material, and the passion of > another reader that lend my eye to any book's pages. > Unfortunately the binary dicotomy of much of the criticism hinges on > one strand: > > You either create the work or insult it. > David, I really think it's too bad that criticism takes that turn, the turn where it's getting too far away from the work considered, becomes too self-referential or self-conscious of it's frame/lens/whatever. Now, I realize that my phrase "too far away" is disgustingly vague, but I think that criticism, like poetry or fiction or visual arts, goes through periods or phases. I think that our current phase is one in which criticism is looking more to philosophy than to poetry. I think that's one source of the tension. The other, as Hank Lazer pointed out to me, is academic -- in lots of schools CW and English are seperate departments and they have to compete for funds, thus they bash each other. But this gets bigger, I think that the culture of academe is one that operates through contention, competition and general nastiness because as a collective "we" don't seem to want imagine another "form of life" for ourselves. And unfortunately, if you really think that one "either creates work or insults it" then I suspect that there's too much poorly rendered and poorly thought-out criticism. But there's a whole lot of really bad poetry too. As far as I'm concerned, and I used to argue hard with my grad-student-would-be-critic-non-poet friends, poetry and criticism and philosophy and art and the "world" are all interdependent at some level and feed each other over time. It may just be a matter of personal temperament -- I tend to think that all tensions that share this sort of "academic structure" and that therefore handicap productive, fresh, interesting thought and practice are really very "MLA" in the sense of being showy, distracting, and superficial. I'm indicting persons here, so please don't read me that way, I'm indiciting the practice of empty animosity. Should I stop repeating myself? Meaghan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 13:10:08 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeff Hansen Organization: The Blake School Subject: Poetic briefs I posted an ambiguous message a few days ago. I'm sorry. Poetic briefs is a snail mail publication in the midst of a promotion. We are sending a copy to anyone who would like to see what it's like. If you like it, you can subscribe. We've been around since 1992, and we have published poetic theory, manifestoes, and reviews. I've been told that some have tried to reach my e-mail and been rebuffed. Either keep trying or send to Mark Wallace, mdw@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu, and he'll forward to me. Also, we are looking for articles of 1,000 words or fewer on the issue of "vision" or on Alice Notely for issue 21. The deadline is June 5. Send article by e-mail. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 13:24:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" >Charles Alexander writes: > >>>>>>Here's somebody's minnesota-ish idea of culture, verbatim from flyer: > >----snip----- > >No comment. Culture with a capital Q.<<<< > >Please explain "minnesota-ish" and "Q". I read it as non-complimentary. Q just because I take it to be curious, as the letter is, although I love the letter. Minnesota-ish because it seems in keeping with the populist bent in the state in a couple of ways, first that it's at the Mall of America, which is about as populist as it gets. Also that the activities themselves are certainly designed to reach/please as wide an audience as possible. After living in Minnesota for almost three years, I am struck that to many involved with arts organizations and philanthropy, the most important thing about the arts seems to be the number of people they reach. And clearly that is extremely important, although I wish it were mixed with an equal amount of talk about the content of the art in a variety of ways. While I can go along with making poetry into a mass cultural event (actually that sounds like a very good idea), I do sometimes worry about the ways in which this might happen. But I'm aware that such is my point of view, and I don't mean to insult anyone else's. And yes, the poets themselves are fine. I am particularly interested in Diane Glancy's work. It's more the gigantic poetry kit & the karaoke which I find somewhat overboard in terms of making poetry into a pop culture item (and I like quite a lot of pop culture). I would probably prefer the karaoke Beatles which you found unpalatable. But you're right, Kim. If the audience for poetry is broadened, no one loses. charles ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 14:44:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Re: Deadly Virus !!! This was sent to me by a friend I forwarded the warning to: ********************************************* From the Data Fellows (http://www.datafellows.com) virus database (Data Fellows is the company that distributes F-Prot Professional) Computer Virus Information Pages NAME: PKZ300 ALIAS: PKZIP300 This is not a virus but a trojan. Warnings about this trojan have been exceptionally widespread and have been circulated since early 1995. This is a trojan, so it does not spread: it can not be considered a realistic threat. PKZ300 trojan is not widespread but the warning is. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 11:51:03 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher L. Filkins" Subject: Deadly Virus!!! Ron et all gang It should be noted that pkzip has not been released above 200. Hence any pkzip above that version is to be suspect. christopher > >>Poetics gang, >> >>The following is an internal IBM communique about a virus (thus I would >>presume this to be real and not a variation of the Good Times hoax). >> >>Forewarned is forearmed. >> >>Ron >> >>*** Forwarding note from RADFORD --RHQVM14 04/09/96 13:42 *** >>To: TSS Service Planning - Raleigh >> >>From: B. L. Radford >> Information Center Analyst >> 8-571-5026 / (919) 461-5026 >>SUBJECT: Deadly Virus !!! >> >>FYI - be sure to read !!! >> >>From: R. L. Bond, Consultant Liaison >> SystemView Information Bureau >> Dept/H15 Bldg/503 Loc/B324 >>Subject: FYI - DO NOT DOWNLOAD PKZIP300 >>fyi >> >> >> DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300 REGARDLESS OF THE >> EXTENSION!!! >> >> >>WARNING!!!!! Read the following and take note for those of you who >>access >>the web and ftp sites. . . BE WARE!!! Notify your friends and family >>and >>total strangers too!!! We don't want to deal with anything like this >>what-so-ever!!! >>>>> >> >>>>>Hi all, >>We work closely with the military and received this message from a very >>reliable source in DC this morning. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> A NEW Trojan Horse Virus has emerged on the internet with the >>name >> PKZIP300.ZIP, so named as to give the impression that this >>file is >> a new version of the PKZIP software used to "ZIP" (compress) >>files. >> >> DO NOT DOWNLOAD this file under any circumstances!!! If you >>install >> or expand this file, the virus WILL wipe your hard disk clean >>and >> affect modems at 14.4 and higher. This is an extremely >>destructive >> virus and there is NOT yet a way of cleaning up this one. >> >> REPEAT: DO NOT DOWNLOAD ANY FILE NAMED PKZIP300 REGARDLESS OF >>THE >> EXTENSION!!! >> >>Thanks, >>John Scheible >>scheible@vnet.ibm.com >>Regards, >>Bill > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 12:24:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Sheila E. Murphy" Subject: Re: Happy national poetry month At 12:28 AM 4/10/96 -0400, you wrote: >So, like if I break out Von Hallberg's american poetry & culture will I find >an answer to the question: What does which poetry have to do with whose idea >of culture anymore...?? What a question!!!!! We were just thinking/talking about you! Received a most welcome mystery sort of call from Changing Hands Bookstore, letting us know that something is arriving in the mail from you for "me birthday." Bless you, bless you, dear one! You need not be doing these extra things. Your presence itself is a gift. Yours truly's off to take care of relevant and pressing errands relating to work this afternoon. Been a busy morning, too. Getting wildly busy. Presented for two straight days (well, two days, anyhow!) for the University, to a group of state agency managers. This is an ongoing effort/relationship I have with the University. A lovely and rewarding one. There are segments of "Letters to Unfinished J" to be entered into the computer, too. THings done by hand. How do you like this delicious modem stuff???? Love, me ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 16:18:19 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Dan Machlin, Segue" Subject: Segue Space Reading This Friday Just a reminder that the SEGUE PERFORMANCE SPACE,which has survived the out-of- control party celebrating the New York City Poetry TAlks the other Saturday, wi ll be featuring a wonderful poetic happening this Friday, 4/12/96 @ 7:30 p.m. s harp. Poet TIM DAVIS will be reading (a noted photographer himself) in conjun ction with JEFF PRANT, New York Postcard Magnate, who will be showing a series of his new slide photographs and discoursing on them in that amazing radio joc keyesque voice of his. SEGUE is once again located at 303 EAST 8th STREET (bet w B&C) and refreshments will be provided. Admission Free!! Hope you can join us. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 16:46:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Harper Conference Call ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Announcing... > > -------------------------------------- > | Celebrating Harper: | > | | > | A Conference and Festival | > | in honor of | > | | > | Michael S. Harper | > | | > | October 24-27, 1996 | > | Bowdoin College, | > | Brunswick, Maine | > | | > -------------------------------------- > > Soul and Race > are private dominions, > memories and modal > songs, a tenor blossoming > > from "Here Where Coltrane Is" > >-------------------------------------------------------------- > > > Featured Presenters > > > Seamus Heaney > > Russell Banks > > John Callahan > > John Wright > > a special musical performance by > Don Byron > > and > > a concurrent exhibition > at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art: > > THE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM: > Twenty-Five Years of African-American Art > > >-------------------------------------------------------------- > > Call for Papers > > We invite abstracts, panel proposals, or > completed papers on any aspect > of his life and work by June 30, 1996 > > >-------------------------------------------------------------- > > Registration information > > Elizabeth Muther > Anthony Walton > Department of English > Bowdoin College > Brunswick, ME 04011 > phone: (207) 725-3909 > fax: (207) 725-3387 > email: harpercf@polar.bowdoin.edu > URL: http://www.bowdoin.edu/~harpercf/ > >---------------------------------------------------------------------- > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 17:02:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" i must say, kim, with all due respect to your minnesota-ishness, i share chax's dismay at what passes for culture in MN. it was a wrenching transition for me, coming from boston, then san francisco, to the supposed cultural mecca of the midwest to find that people from his own home state didn't know bob dylan was jewish, and who thought everything from new york was "pushy, loud, rude, acquisitive" (oops, they'd never use a polysyllabic word like "acquisitive," they'd say "grabby,") --not too hard to see through that set of adjectives as "too Jewish" "too ethnic," etc. --i'd get critiques on student evaluation forms like: "she has opinions," in a context that made it clear that that was a terrible thing to have. you yourself had to go through the delightful u of mn bureaucracy where getting an education was an uphill battle --meanwhile, minnesota imagines itself to care deeply about education. etc., etc. point made. nuf sed.--xo, maria ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 17:29:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Curt Anderson Subject: Re: Poetry video & Performance At 12:24 AM 4/9/96 -0700, tosh berman wrote: >One should look into "throwaway lyrics." Frank Black is really good at >this type of writing,and so are any artist that has an active b-side >career. They get loose, strange, and of course very odd. Down with >Masterpieces and up with the odd b-side recording! > >tosh > Tosh, If you want to hear great b-side "throwaway lyrics" try Guided by Voices. I'm totally hooked on these guys. They're from Dayton, Ohio and apparently record with cheap slightly out of tune instruments on a four track in someone's basement. A CD typically boasts 20 to 24 songs, almost all impossible to extract from your mind once you've heard them, and lyrics like: "the ancient ideas are on fire, my love". How can you not like a band with a song titles like "The Lord of Overstock" and "Man Called Aerodynamics"? I may have to start a fan club. Curt Anderson Cander@mtn.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 17:49:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" and to me, the Mall of America is so much about buying/selling/marketing/advertising, in ways that are, to me, pretty dehumanizing. working to create that mass market. and that poetry needs to attach itself to this to reach that wide audience, I find sad. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 19:00:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: - Kim Tedrow Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" Hmmmm, Maria, point well taken. However, I knew Bob Dylan was Jewish (I partied at his old frat-SAM- in the late seventies), the uphill battle at the U of MN for a single mother to get an education is probably an uphill battle in every state in the nation, and many of my fellow students, single mothers, poets and writers at Minnesota hold, share, and vociferate strong opinions such as yours, and I noticed I'm no more well received on the East Coast in the mainstream with my strong opinions than you were in the U of M English Department. Perhaps we'll have to share war stories some time, (I esp. with regard to the male self-proclaimed feminists), but I'll bet that experience can be re-created in any number of English Departments across the country--the point I'm trying to make is that maybe there isn't such a thing as Minnesota-ishness. I just didn't see the point of being snide about what a group of dedicated, respectable people are trying to do to *celebrate* (gasp--have fun) poetry in an otherwise hyper-commercial arena. NPR is reading poetry every night on it's "All Things Considered" this month. There are readings galore in DC all through April. So, someone decided to plop poetry into the MegaMall in Minnesota--if I were there I might break my solemn vow never to set foot in that mall to attend it. Who can possibly *lose*? (By the way, they're trying to raise one of those damn malls in Silver Spring near where I live and I am voting NO NO NO). xo back -Kim >>>>>i must say, kim, with all due respect to your minnesota-ishness, i share chax's dismay at what passes for culture in MN. it was a wrenching transition for me, coming from boston, then san francisco, to the supposed cultural mecca of the midwest to find that people from his own home state didn't know bob dylan was jewish, and who thought everything from new york was "pushy, loud, rude, acquisitive" (oops, they'd never use a polysyllabic word like "acquisitive," they'd say "grabby,") --not too hard to see through that set of adjectives as "too Jewish" "too ethnic," etc. --i'd get critiques on student evaluation forms like: "she has opinions," in a context that made it clear that that was a terrible thing to have. you yourself had to go through the delightful u of mn bureaucracy where getting an education was an uphill battle --meanwhile, minnesota imagines itself to care deeply about education. etc., etc. point made. nuf sed.--xo, maria<<<< ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 19:13:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" In-Reply-To: <960410170201_510463515@emout10.mail.aol.com> from "Maria Damon" at Apr 10, 96 05:02:02 pm > > i must say, kim, with all due respect to your minnesota-ishness, i share > chax's dismay at what passes for culture in MN. it was a wrenching > transition for me, coming from boston, then san francisco, to the supposed > cultural mecca of the midwest to find that people from his own home state > didn't know bob dylan was jewish, and who thought everything from new york > was "pushy, loud, rude, acquisitive" (oops, they'd never use a polysyllabic > word like "acquisitive," they'd say "grabby,") --not too hard to see through > that set of adjectives as "too Jewish" "too ethnic," etc. --i'd get critiques > on student evaluation forms like: "she has opinions," in a context that made > it clear that that was a terrible thing to have. you yourself had to go > through the delightful u of mn bureaucracy where getting an education was an > uphill battle --meanwhile, minnesota imagines itself to care deeply about > education. etc., etc. point made. nuf sed.--xo, maria > Hey, Maria, have you seen _Fargo_ yet? Ho ho, Mike ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 19:17:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Poem In-Reply-To: Fictitious Clara Clara fictitious, fictitious Clara, you are not my friend! You do not exist, you have not written anything to be read with song! HELP THE BURNED and wounded child, The infant drowned or injured mother, The open wide-eyed girl defiled, The sister murdered by her brother, The scalded boy, the father's hate, The mother's knife and tortured skin, The sex of death, the young girl's fate, The battered boy, his life of sin, The blinded babe, the woman's rage, The body bruised with leather strap, The mother old beyond her age, The daughter's jeers, the father's slap. You live in your big cars, fast cars. You live in your white lanes, fast lanes. Fictitious Clara, you are no longer part of me. Fictitious Clara, I cast you out before you turn your eye on me. Fictitious Clara, you have one eye, one leg, one arm, one eye. Fictitious Clara, you have one eye. Girls are wary when they walk down the alley and think of Rilke. Wary girls carry volumes of Rilke's poems. Riot girls have nothing to say to me. I have nothing to say to riot girls. Clara, you have betrayed me by your transparent skin. You have betrayed yourself by wires running from the thin skull-threads. What does it mean to have broken your connections? What does it mean, to have broken your grammar? Clara, fictitious Clara, you are not my friend! You do not know me, and you have never known me! You have not known the six seasons nor red moon doubled for my pleasure! You have not come naked to my door, you have no body and no voice! Clara, fictitious Clara, I am so alone! Clara, fictitious Clara, you have no voice! _________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 16:49:23 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher L. Filkins" Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" Actually, (i just sent this same sentiment to Charles so please excuse the redundancy) the post concerning MN struck me as being applicable to anywhere USA. When reading his post I was inserting all the various malls and various middle amerika places i've ever been, lived in, read at, shat at, etc. and actually it was quite pleasing. It's all malls - whether you're refering to New York or New Mexico. Minnesota doesn't have a lock on Minnesotaish behavior, I experience the same thing here in LA where the Barnes & Nobles has Pound and a selection of dead german and french symbolists as its come hithers for national poetry month (not an actual live poet to be found - i hear they hide in the bush during the daylight hours jules - well we'll just wait till dark when they come out and then we'll shoot em). Since Charles lives in MN and access to that great architectural wonder of wonders it's appropriate that he speak to the events there. I think I would be disapointed if in the name of being kind to a problematic stance - the marketing of poetry to a pop audience - Charles had to post the event in MN without any sort of nod to the difficulties inherent in any popularization. I only wish that those of us who live in the hinterlands had such wonderful events to look forward to. But I digress, i'll just go back to playing with my magnetic words on the refrigerator. christopher >Hmmmm, Maria, point well taken. > >However, I knew Bob Dylan was Jewish (I partied at his old frat-SAM- in the >late seventies), the uphill battle at the U of MN for a single mother to get >an education is probably an uphill battle in every state in the nation, and >many of my fellow students, single mothers, poets and writers at Minnesota >hold, share, and vociferate strong opinions such as yours, and I noticed I'm >no more well received on the East Coast in the mainstream with my strong >opinions than you were in the U of M English Department. Perhaps we'll have >to share war stories some time, (I esp. with regard to the male >self-proclaimed feminists), but I'll bet that experience can be re-created in >any number of English Departments across the country--the point I'm trying to >make is that maybe there isn't such a thing as Minnesota-ishness. I just >didn't see the point of being snide about what a group of dedicated, >respectable people are trying to do to *celebrate* (gasp--have fun) poetry in >an otherwise hyper-commercial arena. NPR is reading poetry every night on >it's "All Things Considered" this month. There are readings galore in DC all >through April. So, someone decided to plop poetry into the MegaMall in >Minnesota--if I were there I might break my solemn vow never to set foot in >that mall to attend it. Who can possibly *lose*? (By the way, they're >trying to raise one of those damn malls in Silver Spring near where I live >and I am voting NO NO NO). >xo back -Kim > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 21:56:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: Poetic Briefs >Sane problem i don't have a problem with my sanity, or lack thereof, but i'd like a copy too. Eryque Gleason 325 Western Ave. Box 64 Albany, NY 12203 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 18:52:46 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Quartermain Subject: Re: Poetic Briefs I had the same problem as Rae, Hank, Carl, and who all else. Please send me Poetic Briefs too. Peter Quartermain 128 East 23rd Avenue Vancouver BC Canada V5V 1X2 Thanks. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 14:49:55 GMT+1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: Poetry video Comments: To: amato@CHARLIE.ACC.IIT.EDU Hey Joe, Is what you mean that plain folks have poetics, too? That's all for now. Wystan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 20:26:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" In-Reply-To: What percentage of poets became interested in poetry by seeing mediocre or even atrocious poetry in the hinterlands in the equivalent of the Minnesota mall? What percentage began by hearing or reading poetry in the latest in venue in the poetry capital of Amerika? I, for one, am old enough to admit seeing a Sandburg in the hinterlands. i now am back spending most of my time in the hinterer lands so I may be unique but I don't really think so. tom ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 02:44:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: Poetic briefs Jeff Hansen wrote: >I posted an ambiguous message a few days ago. I'm sorry. don't apologize for ambiguity, i just love ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 02:23:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Sherwood Subject: politicing like a poet Chris: Politician, you don't sound that bad. In case you want to sometime though, "Make no mistake about it" is a more stentorian phrasing. From the Bush years, right around the time he'd synched up the cadence with the hand gesture. How's that for a poetry slam; say who's the ventriloquized poetry champ in Philly? Ks ____________________________________________________________________________ Kenneth Sherwood | Dept English v001pxfu@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu | 618 Clemens Hall sherwood@acsu.buffalo.edu | SUNY @ Buffalo |_______Buffalo, NY 14214___________ RIF/T mail: e-poetry@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Electronic Poetry Center (Web address): http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc _____________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 23:28:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: can't help but how about >Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 09:01:19 -0400 >From: Emily Lloyd >Subject: darkly wise > >I remembered, in a weird flashbacky way, a line from the first poem that >ever really got me...I was 5 or 6 and it was in some anthology of, I assume, >dead white boys, and there was a line in it that went: "And if you be wise, >be you darkly wise, darkly wise as a" ...or something >like that. At the time, I was so affected I tore it out of the library >book, got in deep kimshi, etc...now I don't remember who wrote it. Does >anyone recognize those lines? I've never come across them since. em Can't help with this one. But it reminds me: I have vivid recollection, from about age 7 or 8 or 9, of being at Eddie Dingilian's house (which you can see from the #1 as it approaches Dykman St) and reading a really scary Classic Comic: /The Man with the Thayed Hand/. Thayed? classic? any clues? Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 02:55:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Sherwood Subject: satire and cynical Joe et al: Haven't happened yet on most recent DIU, but am struck by the sense (in relation to POE and Anti-Heg) of critique sliding into 'cynicism'. Which is to say, I don't read these works as cynical at all. But I'm hearing alarm bells to the tune of "don't be so negative" which, if there's a anything any "we" needs lately its MORE of that. What strikes me about poetry/literature's presence in culture-wide is that only its pretty side gets shown. cf Bill Moyer's: "how did you feeling when you wrote that poem, were you remembering your dead mother?" etc. Looking forward to seeing USOP and hearing Linebreak etc. These are valuable attempts to get poetry out of its crease. BUT given that it's not in the limelight (Bob Hass excepted)--one valuable aspect of this putatative outsideness is possiblity of critique. Perhaps the work of Ginsberg, Baraka, Brathwaite et al has a more obviously engage' poetic but c'mon. Were Rabelais, Cervantes, Loy, Swift, cynics? Ks ____________________________________________________________________________ Kenneth Sherwood | Dept English v001pxfu@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu | 618 Clemens Hall sherwood@acsu.buffalo.edu | SUNY @ Buffalo |_______Buffalo, NY 14214___________ RIF/T mail: e-poetry@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Electronic Poetry Center (Web address): http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc _____________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 01:20:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tosh berman Subject: Re: Poetry video & Performance >> >Tosh, > >If you want to hear great b-side "throwaway lyrics" try Guided by Voices. >I'm totally hooked on these guys. They're from Dayton, Ohio and apparently >record with cheap slightly out of tune instruments on a four track in >someone's basement. A CD typically boasts 20 to 24 songs, almost all >impossible to extract from your mind once you've heard them, and lyrics >like: "the ancient ideas are on fire, my love". How can you not like a band >with a song titles like "The Lord of Overstock" and "Man Called >Aerodynamics"? I may have to start a fan club. >Curt Anderson >Cander@mtn.org Go for it Curt! I will for sure give them a listen! Thank you, tosh ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 02:21:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mikl-em Subject: Re: contrasimilacrum Michelle, > realize that my phrase "too far away" is disgustingly vague, but I think sometimes 'too vague' or AWK-wordz is exactly-exactly and more of accurate than the polysyllabidinal and over cool-inical, that is it Municates : couldn't criticism try to approach poetry in a poetry approach ? as poetry's a-prose philosophy I think it is sobriety in prose in criticism witch trials me. (vials me?) I can find mice elf in them idst off poems, if i could find a criticism which casts an imperfect net over an imperfect net that is a poem then I could find even more about the grounds they would mutual lie [also truth] on then, ruther than this random bursts vs. pronouncements which is too often the relation [and often with a negated or conversely flaunted lust of the prosaic for the verse], um, that is that I don't know that poets Know any more or know any More than Critics and those in either camp who suggest such I tend to suspect the spikes which hold their flap-tents down [by Jobe]. > Should I stop repeating myself? neh. [this language is like any other, arbitrary and dying.] alrite, this is it. ----------------- michael "Raw Onions/Hot and/or Sweet Cherry mcelligott Peppers/White American or Provolone Cheese" mike@taylor.org --the Cheese Steak Shop takeout menu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 02:29:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Fwd: Re: Poetic Briefs ---- Begin Forwarded Message Return-Path: Received: from listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu by ix7.ix.netcom.com (8.6.13/SMI-4.1/Netcom) id UAA25699; Tue, 9 Apr 1996 20:39:34 -0700 Received: from listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu (listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu [128.205.7.35]) by listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu (8.7.5/8.7.1) with SMTP id XAA23443; Tue, 9 Apr 1996 23:35:04 -0400 (EDT) Received: from UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU by UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (LISTSERV release 1.8b) with NJE id 8223 for POETICS@UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU; Tue, 9 Apr 1996 23:32:54 -0400 Received: from UBVM (NJE origin SMTP@UBVM) by UBVM.CC.BUFFALO.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 3495; Tue, 9 Apr 1996 23:32:33 -0400 Received: from mh1.well.com by UBVM.cc.buffalo.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R3) with TCP; Tue, 09 Apr 96 23:32:32 EDT All our problems should be sane, Tom. It would be a great world. I too got a "bounce back" message, but my server (like the little engine that could) promised to keep trying. I think maybe that Jeff's server has been down over the weekend. Anyway, be sure to add me to that list: Ron Silliman 262 Orchard Paoli, PA 19301-1116 --------------------------------------------------------- Sane problem Thomas Bell 2546 Hibbitts Rd. Nashville, TN 37214 On Tue, 9 Apr 1996, Carl Lynden Peters wrote: > > > > I had the same problem as Rae. Please send me Poetics Briefs: > > > > Hank Lazer > > 2945 N Hampton Dr > > Tuscaloosa, AL 35406-2701 > > ditto. -- i'd very much appreciate this, too: > > c. peters > dept. of english > simon fraser univ. > burnaby, BC canada > V5A 1S6 > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 04:44:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Poetry City, April 11 Tonight at Poetry City Thursday, April 11 Teachers & Writers Collaborative 5 Union Square West, 7th Floor NYC 6:30 PM Lewis Warsh & Yours truly (we promise Culture with a Q) Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 07:54:38 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 10 Apr 1996 17:02:02 -0400 from On Wed, 10 Apr 1996 17:02:02 -0400 Maria Damon said: >i must say, kim, with all due respect to your minnesota-ishness, i share >chax's dismay at what passes for culture in MN. it was a wrenching >transition for me, coming from boston, then san francisco, to the supposed >cultural mecca of the midwest to find that people from his own home state >didn't know bob dylan was jewish, and who thought everything from new york >was "pushy, loud, rude, acquisitive" (oops, they'd never use a polysyllabic This kind of stuff is nothing new to us transplanted midwesterners. We hear cracks about the wasteland of the midwest at least once a week, if not every day. I'm sorry, but this is cheap snobbery. From a Loyal Son of Brainerd (& the other godforsaken benighted villes of the loon state) - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 08:48:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: contrasimilacrum meaghan roberts and david baratier: on t he sujbect of "criticism"/"creativity" --tho theoretically i strongly believe that one can be primarily a "critic" and yet be one "creatively," as is my (i hope) practice, i also had an interesting experience recently in trying to switch from one mode to the other and back. i've been participating in the range quabal (formerly renga cabal), writing extemporaneous collaborative poems thru the e-mail. i was totally into it, and then had to focus on writing a "critical" piece on Stein for modern fiction studies. i found it a tormenting experience to have to construct a coherent argument, etc., and plunged into deepest despair that is probably more familiar to us than we like to let on ("my best work is behind me, i've forgotten how to think, i'm a fraud, thank god i have tenure cuz i can't produce anymore, uh-oh i'm living proof that the tenure system subsidizes the braindead, nothing to live for, it's all over," etc). i forced a series of paragraphs out. my favorite parts were the playful close readings of stein, which i downgraded in my mind cuz everone knows close readiang is passe and untheoretical, etc.. so. article finished, mailed in, appreciated by editor (esp the close reading parts), and guess what, when i turn to the ranges, they look again to me like a foreign element. "what did i ever see in these? who did i think i was, contributing to these? i can't do this creaetaive kinda stuff." granted, this self-talk is part of the process, my own internalized split which i'm trying to dismantle or dissolve. but phenomenologically it was interesting to find out how diff. these discourses seem to be, despite my position to the contrary. bests, maria ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 08:48:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" mike boughn on fargo: haven't seen it yet, but listened w/ great glee to an NPR interview w/ Coen brothers in which the first shot of the movie was described as a "pure, flat whiteness." uh-huh, i thought, and promptly put that detail into a paper i was revising. also, the coen bros. grew up in st. louis park, a suburb of mpls known locally as "st. jewish park," and i couldn't help but hear their remarks about mn being a place where "everything's polite on the surface, but underneath there's a seething something or other" as reflecting the experience of anyone who's the least bit "different" --a favorite mn word used, with halting, pejorative puzzlement to describe anything that has an iota of vitality or distinguishability from the great white flatness. i don't even mean eccentric. i mean dark-haired, or short, etc. i'm looking forward to seeing the movie. don't mind me, folks. i really enjoy criticizing minnesota. jack spicer was right: there is no magic in minnesota.--md ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 08:48:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: DIU hey chrissie, how come i didn't get a posting from DIU, which i always mis-see as DUI as in driving under? md ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 08:48:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Jewish Encyclopedia hey everyone, i need to clarify a misunderstanding. i thought that the encyc. of J-American poets and playwrights had decided not to cover stein and antin, as i reported here a few weeks ago. well, i misunderstood their message to me that they had "decided against stein and antin." they meant that they had decided against assigning stein and antin to me, since richard kostelanetz was already "doing" them. i thot it meant that they were not to be included. wanted to clarify, since i don't want to be spreading false info or misrepresenting others' efforts. i'm hypersensitive to these issues these days after my experience w/ coffee house press. so, i'm "doing" ginsberg. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 08:49:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Poem gee allan sondheim, i don't know what it means but i luv it.--md ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 09:59:55 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 11 Apr 1996 08:48:18 -0400 from On Thu, 11 Apr 1996 08:48:18 -0400 Maria Damon said: >remarks about mn being a place where "everything's polite on the surface, but >underneath there's a seething something or other" as reflecting the >experience of anyone who's the least bit "different" --a favorite mn word Yeah, why be polite. Let's just be up front and further the balkanization of the universe. Have you ever read Rebecca West's travel book about the Balkans (Black Lamb & Grey Falcon)? She critiques every city and town in an extremely opinionated judgement moral/historical/ sociological/almost biological (unnerving, since it was the end of the thirties) way - but she's consistent, incisive, deep, and she critiques everybody (though she's especially tough on the Germans she meets). And she is also in love with the place. Why bring this up? Well, instead of giving the old Minnesota jive why don't you tour the whole country? Evry place has its dominant vices & pathetic problems. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 11:03:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: this week in poetry ny addendum John Yau / Mitch Highfill Sunday April 14 5 p.m, Biblios ____ Maria--you put the detail of nothing but flat whiteness onto a paper? a piece of paper? ____ Chris--(nothing in that drawer). I don't play tennis, though David Dinkins used to. I think Ron's sparring partners include Galway Kinnell, Geoff Young, Chris Edgar, Curt Lamkin, Daniel Shapiro et alia. ____ Curt--somebody to talk to about a GbV fan club is Albert Mobilio, who may or may not be lurking now. (Albert, if you're out there, I'd love to see this Gary Burghoff piece everyone keeps telling me about. PS Congratulations on your review in the Newsletter.) ____ Steve--who died and made the music of 1994 king? And for the other Steve, does _The Hum Is Coming from Her_ really exist? No store in NY has heard of it. ____ Jd ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 11:34:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Poetry video wystan, yeah, i would say that ordinary folks have poetics... but i'm not certain which of the four-gazillion of these posts you're responding to!... in any case, what i'm saying is, ordinary or no, fact is that the first set of language practices to get side-stepped in more pop culture venues tend to be those that have to do with writing per se... whereas in the humanities side of the academy, writing tends to rule... and i'd hate to advocate a more peculiarly academic reality... so when you make poetry a more public or publicity-laden act, folks tend to come to those aspects of it that appeal to the aural or the visual (which is fine in itself) while not necessarily knowing, or caring to know, about many of the various writing traditions of this past, say, century (which is not fine by itself)... there are other less visible practices that get forgotten too, some having to do with performance art in general, but it seems to me that writing can take a real beating when it 'competes with' aural/visual form... i've seen this happen time and again... so i'm trying to think through ways to retain an orientation toward such writing traditions while holding onto the value of video etc... b/c its in this coupling that i see the possibility for alternative practices, structures, institutions... still, some would see this perhaps as a desperate attempt to cling to alphabetic technologies... joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 11:34:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: satire and cynical ken, dunno about rabelais, cervantes, loy and swift, though yes, i'm certain there was at times a current of cynicism running through their heads when they penned some of their stuff... but in general, for me, there's a difference twixt satire---which in my view has a moral basis---and cynicism... and i mean to indicate by 'cynicism' not the original greek version, and i understand that there's at times a need for some cynicism too... that is, places and times for cheering & sneering... but criticism does not methinks reduce to cynicism... in any case, if one hopes to make a positive change of any sort, in any scene, then in my view one needs at least to be thinking in ethico-moral-political terms... i hope this doesn't come off as sounding itself quaylish---which such sentiments generally do... my comments about diu, as much as i enjoy aspects of this latter, have primarily to do with an implicit sense i get at times that someone is being one-upped... ironically, i guess i wish that this were in fact more explicit... and whereas you can one-up me till the cows come home (in minnesota or in upstate new york) i yet question the value same has in communities that are only too good at ripping each other (forgive me this male-ism, puh-leez) new assholes... which critique in general needs to be fully absorbed by those of us on who see ourselves on the left side of things political... i mean, while we need to be able to conduct (even harsh) self-critique (at ALL costs), this doesn't necessarily translate to (i won't say ad hominem) a cynicism of practice... what was it charles b. once quoted me by way of gramsci?---"pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will"... and pessimism, again, is not cynicism... all best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 12:28:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: satire and cynical oh and i s'pose i should add that this criteek of mine re diu i'd be more than willing to apply to mine own efforts three years back with nous refuse... i mean, simply to say that the innovation was the medium, and the voices pulled together... and methinks this was a good thing, all said and done, in the same way as diu (or poetics) is a good thing b/c it pulls together (certainly not w/o criteek) different voices in this medium and provides some glue w/solvent for wide(r) consideration... so no (w)holier-than-thou stuff going down here, and i mean my remarks to contribute, in fact (optimist that i hope to be), to an even better glue/solvent... but as with nous, my sense is that we need to continue to ask what we're doing with these our voice/voices (to paraphrase patricia hill collins)... joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 12:03:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jeffrey W. Timmons" Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" Comments: To: Maria Damon In-Reply-To: <960411084817_511031515@emout08.mail.aol.com> Maria, What states _do_ have magic? I nominate Nebraska, strangely enough. And I have a predisposition to Oregon. Living in Phoenix I can't speak for Arizona, but I know that there is a spirituality _somewhere_ to be found here. DC has some magic tucked away here in there in little pockets--which I might disclose if prompted--but that may be my own creation. Thinking of other states, and where there magic is. . . . Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 14:55:04 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeff Hansen Organization: The Blake School Subject: Minnesota This is to reply to my good friend Charles Alexander and to Maria Damon who point out the cultural vapidity of Minnesota's Twin Cities, discussing, among other things, an absurd poetry reading at the Mall of America. I sympathize with their need to vent, but great things are happening here. A couple months ago Mark Nowak-who is in the process of getting a new mag, "Cross-Cultural Poetics," off the ground--organized a conference for micro presses. The Twin Cities' major small presses --Milkweed, Coffee House, New Rivers-- did not show up. But about thirty of us did. There is a wonderful new magazine called Disilluisioned Guillotine -- don't know address-- another by the name of Tinfish and a few that escape me. The journal Rag Mag continues to publish beat style writing after twenty years strong years. A few miles up north in Morris is Jonathan Brannen (jbrannen@infolink.morris.mn.us) who runs a fantastic chapbook series entitled Standing Stones. I was informally associated with LEAVE books of Buffalo in its infancy, and Brannen's project is every bit as good. The books are well produced and carefully chosen. In addition, Gary Sullivan's fine Detour Press just came out with a stupendous book of experimental stories entitled Star Fiction by Minneapolis writer Eric Berglund (sp?), who is also starting an audio press that is soon to release Steve McCaffery's Panopticon on audio cassette. Plus Poetic Briefs, Charles' very own Chax, Maria Damon's fine book of criticism on "outsider" poetries etc. Yes, the Mall of America scene is a joke from our perspective. (Although I do agree with those who say, "What's the harm?") But we have so much good coming out of here. Could an innovative poetry scene be waiting to happen in the midst of Bly territory? I think so. All we need are a consistent reading series (which Nowak is starting to supply) and some organized energy. Happy in the so-called hinterlands, Jeff Hansen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 10:28:55 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Schultz Subject: Re: Minnesota In-Reply-To: <657882.ensmtp@blake.pvt.k12.mn.us> Dear Jeff--Thanks for including TINFISH among new Minnesota journals! I was in Minnesota once on a canoe trip, which I quite enjoyed--except for the mosquitos and foot rot. But the journal comes out of Honolulu (#2 just launched from the EPC, by the way). The graphic designer, Suzanne Kosanke, is very much a Minnesotan, however, so the mistake is apt. Susan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 15:35:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Minnesota as to jeff hansen's words about what's very good in minnesota I have to say, it's true what he said and jeff's energy here is most welcome ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 16:38:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Minnesota Dear jeff hansen--- Well, sounds that more is happening there than here in your old stomping ground (certainly in terms of presses). Is there really a magazine called TINFISH there? Do they know about Susan "The Tribe Of John" Schultz's magazine of the same name??????? And what ever happened to Gary Sullivan? When he signed off the list, there was rumours he was going to leave MN. Also, question for Maria D., are you returning to MN? I had the impression that you had a tenure track position there, and were just a visiting prof. or something on the cape this year.... just curious. Love to all, cs ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 16:46:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: symmetry This is for Laura Moriarty-- I received a note from your address about my comments on your book, and I tried to respond but ended up accidentally deleting your message. Could you please backchannel me your address (though you don't have to repeat the message---even though I'm really upset about having lost it)... Thank you, Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 16:04:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" henry gould --look, i'm not a cheap snob. i went to mpls expecting to love it, populism, culture, etc.; these are not pre-judices in the sense of my having formed an opinion a priori. it never would have occurred to me to poke fun at the midwest until i went thru hell there. i've met a lot ofcool people FROM the midwest, but they're not there anymore. i haven't met that many cool people IN the midwest. or rather, that's not true, there are some interesting people, but ther isn't the kind of atmosphere i'm used to --there's not a critical mass of "my" kind of people sufficient to affect the culture at large. i'm not interested in being ghetto-ized. there are plenty of alternative cultures in mn, but they are put on the defensive and develop a counter-productive us/them thing, which often devolves into pointless extremism just to combat the everyday lethargy. i understand it to some degree --life is hard there, it's not an affluent state, it's austere as hell, and people want to expend the minimum energy on "superfluities" like enjoyment, expressiveness, shallow things like "lifestyle," etc. but after having worked very hard in california to increase my tolerance for pleasure, self-expression, belief in my capabilities, etc., I experienced mn as cruel. md ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 17:18:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Minnesota jeff hansen --i agree that exciting things are starting to happen. ask gary sulllivan how he feels about mn. ask chax. ask mark nowak. they're all transplants, and they have worked hard for several years, getting discouraged, etc. Now it looks like something real might start to happen, cuz there's a critical mass of "us." i personally have no problem w/ some of the populist lit scene in MN. sase is okay, and the loft, tho' it fairly drips w/ righteous whitebread piety, has potential (tho they've always given me the cold shoulder when i've tried to network.) i'm not crazy 'bout the Mall, but have no trouble, in principle, w/ the idea of a populist, multicultural (which in fact in mn is often an oxymoron) lit scene, as must be obvious from my posts and my tastes. but for me, in an iron-clad, tradition-bound university english department, i never knew about the alternative lit scene here until charles bernstein put me on the poetix list. i met nowak cuz he reviewed my book for "skyway news", a business community rag, and called me up. part of the problem is that, being affiliated w/ the U, i've been shunned, until recently, by the locals who perceive the U as "elitist" (would that it were more so); at the same time, i definitely don't fit in to the university's --and esp. my dept's --intellectual conservatism. and most important, even when and if a strong alternative lit scene devleops, i just don't fit in to the midwest. sorry. i guess it;s me. i LIKE to hear different languages when i walk down the street. I LIKE seeing people confront each other over parking spaces --not violently, but with colorful invective. I LIKE being able to say "acquisitive" instead of "grabby" when I feel like it, and not have eyebrows raised and a subtle ostracism take people away from me. i'm not exclusively a "high culture" type person, so it's not that there aren't chamber orchestras --there are plenty of those. i think you get the picture. but i must say, i'm heartened by developments in my absense, both in the local scene and in my dept. Now as long as the Univ doesn't abolish tenure, as it would like to...and as long as we import an ocean, and about half a million more new yorkers and californians, i'll be ahppy as a clam. actually, i adore my apartment. maria d ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 17:19:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: this week in poetry ny addendum jordan, no , not onto a piece of paper, but that too, into a paper. ie i further defiled its flat whiteness by writing about flat whiteness.--md ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 17:33:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: flat night Okay then! (I was afraid you were going French, or Elizabeth Bishop or something) --Jd ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 16:20:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: regional differences... well you can argue where's best to be till (again) the cows come home (again, whether in upstate ny, minnesota, or---) i'm from syracuse (ny) originally, or more precisely, the liverpool suburb (though my dad was born & raised in the city)... and after 29 years in a row in that city, whatever fondness i have for it will not, methinks, induce me to return... that fucking climate'll drive you NUTS... i'm sure in fact it affects one's mind (ergo, moi)... but in any case, i hail from there and feel somewhat entitled to pass judgment so (and after all, many of my buds stayed)... and yknow, i *know* what the best aspects of the place tend to be... and feel quite safe in characterizing the surrounding rural region as tres redneck (and tres repub)... and the area itself, up till about a decade back, as revealing a very much blue-collar working class base (which my folks were)... though there are signs of wanting (and having) to change these days... but of course there's nice folks out in the sticks, too (having worked for over four years in fulton ny, to the north mebbe 25 miles), and in fact my suburban upbringing was a quasi-rural upbringing, at least by *chicago* suburb standards... so there's a rural/urban/suburban thang goin on here... i detest the racial segregration and economic disparities here in chicago... and i generally attribute a midwestern, even southern complacency to the---well, what strikes me as the complacency re same... albeit chicago has no special status when it comes to poverty or racism... still, for me, the midwest is quiet when i'm noisy, and noisy when i want it to be quiet... quietly macho, sorta... so neither chicago nor champaign-urbana cuts it for me... though at least i could see the stars in the evening sky in central illinois... but the lack of hills--- what i'm struggling for here is a sense that regional differences are so complex, and so bound up with what we, each of us, know (by which i don't mean knowledge per se)... idaho, where my wife kass fleisher taught for two years, is absolutely goddamn beautiful... but the mormon presence there is a problem---for us... which is not to say there're no nice mormons... only that the degree of saturation of same, in conjunction with what kass likes to call 'the unbearable whiteness of being,' will drive you NUTS (i'm presuming on y'all, i know---so those of you in the intermountain west, please feel free to rush to its defense... but none a you 'salt city' folks---that's *syracuse's* nickname---oughtta try arguing with me bout *that* place, or----) i'm sure there're healthy things goin on in the state of minnesota, as there are in the state of idaho... and that white supremacist groups are making more headway, according to npr (according to ?), in pennsylvania than anywhere else in the states oughtta teach us "easterners" a thing or two about pointing (if not goin) west... personally, i prefer a smaller urban environs, nice country, HILLS fer chrissakes etc... where was it i read that most americans would like their front yards to open to a busy city street, and their backyards to open to an alpine meadow?... or some such... but already this is a class-based, property-owing assertion... here's to the best of all worlds, g'luck in finding same/// joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 14:39:00 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: contrasimilacrum "Philosophy finds itself, *rediscovers* itself, in the vicinity of the poetic, indeed of literature. It finds itself there, for the indecision of the limit is perhaps what most provokes it to thought. It finds itself there, it does not necessarily lose itself there as those who believe, in their tranquil credulity, who believe that they know where this limit is situated and timorously keep within it, ingenuously, although without innocence, stripped of what one must call the *philosophical experience*: a certain questioning crossing of limits, unsureness as to the border of the philosophical field--and above all the *experience of language*, an experience always as poetic, or literary, as it is philosophical." --Jacques Derrida, *Shibboleth For Paul Celan* When a poem traces a thought that arises and finds its source in the work of another poet, no one seems to have a problem when the creative process causes a move away from the source material off on a tangent that has to do with what we might call the poet's "poetic lens". Why then is there such offense taken when a work of criticism does the same thing due to the writer's "critical lens", assuming of course (and perhaps hastily on my part) that one agrees with Derrida that the experience of language is equally poetic and philosophical? Steve At 01:03 PM 4/10/96 -0500, Meaghan wrote: >On Sat, 6 Apr 1996, David Baratier wrote: > >> Been off line for a bit, so ... >> >> As far as reading a poem or poet due to a book of criticism >> That's nice. Albiet rare. It's been my experience >> that recent criticism includes such a sparsity of quotes, >> such a poverty of experience to rely upon, only the barest minimum >> necessary to validate the particular critical lens. >> That has become the net value of poetry for most critics. >> >> I find a few mentions of a text hardly enough to pick it up, rather >> it's comparisons, mentions of the subject material, and the passion of >> another reader that lend my eye to any book's pages. >> Unfortunately the binary dicotomy of much of the criticism hinges on >> one strand: >> >> You either create the work or insult it. >> >David, > >I really think it's too bad that criticism takes that turn, the turn >where it's getting too far away from the work considered, becomes too >self-referential or self-conscious of it's frame/lens/whatever. Now, I >realize that my phrase "too far away" is disgustingly vague, but I think >that criticism, like poetry or fiction or visual arts, goes through >periods or phases. I think that our current phase is one in which >criticism is looking more to philosophy than to poetry. I think that's >one source of the tension. The other, as Hank Lazer pointed out to me, >is academic -- in lots of schools CW and English are seperate departments >and they have to compete for funds, thus they bash each other. But this >gets bigger, I think that the culture of academe is one that operates >through contention, competition and general nastiness because as a >collective "we" don't seem to want imagine another "form of life" for >ourselves. And unfortunately, if you really think that one "either >creates work or insults it" then I suspect that there's too much poorly >rendered and poorly thought-out criticism. But there's a whole lot of >really bad poetry too. As far as I'm concerned, and I used to argue hard >with my grad-student-would-be-critic-non-poet friends, poetry and >criticism and philosophy and art and the "world" are all interdependent >at some level and feed each other over time. It may just be a matter of >personal temperament -- I tend to think that all tensions that share this >sort of "academic structure" and that therefore handicap productive, >fresh, interesting thought and practice are really very "MLA" in the >sense of being showy, distracting, and superficial. I'm indicting >persons here, so please don't read me that way, I'm indiciting the >practice of empty animosity. > >Should I stop repeating myself? > >Meaghan > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 17:42:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Minnesota chris s, i will be returning to the pure flat whiteness, can i get a witness. in early july. i've been there 7 years, so these are not superficial impressions of a tourist. bests, maria d ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 14:39:00 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Tennis With/out A Net, Anyone? Chris: The question of hierarchies can of course be linked to questions of taste. The more firmly we hold onto taste and prevent it from changing, the more closely related to hierarchy it is. Acknowledging that our taste changes--that, to the extent all of us have to "dwell in possibility", different phenomena "out in the world" resonate differently with our ever-changing moods (to paraphrase a great Style Council song) at different times (a process which is NOT ARBITRARY)--is I think an important step in, maybe not forever dismantling an aesthetic hierarchy (maybe that would be too optimistic), but maybe creating a kind of hierarchy which is itself more organic, in which any given phenomenon really does have a chance to command our attention and be allowed to resonate for a time and leave whatever residue we allow to accumulate. I fully agree with you about democracy really being about what has moved "us"--but how big that "us" is is the historical failure of democracy (it hasn't ever really gotten big enough, right now in USA it's growing smaller every hour). What moves "us" straight white American males may be kind of interesting anthropologically, but that means that what's really crucial is what moves "us" human beings, of which straight white males are only a local subset to be invoked for descriptive purposes only. Steve ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 14:39:00 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: seven tapes of ambiguity At 09:53 AM 4/10/96 -0500, you wrote: >what screws up ambiguity >(for instance the song Steve's quoting in his subject line >sounds really great until you figure out it's about tennis..) >is how quickly it slides into ordinary meaning >or you don't go back and reread where's waldo >--Jordn I still think that song sounds great. But this is something to think about. But lots of kids reread Where's Waldo, don't they? And isn't it because they forget where Waldo was? Which makes me realize that there's some ambiguities that slide into EXTRAordinary meaning. Like the line in REM's "Harborcoat": "They shifted the statues for harboring ghosts", or Celan's: THE TRUMPET PART deep in the glowing lacuna at lamp height in the time hole: listen your way in with your mouth. Steve ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 18:26:05 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Keith Tuma Subject: Re: regional differences... In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 11 Apr 1996 16:20:59 -0500 from Well Joe says "Well you can argue where's best to be till (again) the cows come home. . ." which reminded me that an Irish friend told me recently that these days the Irish are making a killing selling THEIR beef. . . . renga assignment, advanced poetry workshop: begin "Irish beef is better beef" and on another note, Amiri Baraka once looked sideways at me and said--don't know if it was his--"Cynicism's the playground of the middle class." setting sail for lurkerdom, kt ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 19:03:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Re: DIU release For those who are interested, these items are at the EPC: the DIU issue is located at: http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/ezines/diu/diu34 Mark Wallace's essay is at: http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/wallace --Loss Note: Maria, DIU is now mailed via a listserv and you can subscribe. (Though it's always instantly (or nearly instantly) available on the EPC) Info is at: http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/ezines/diu/diulist.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 17:02:00 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" Charles Alexander writes: > It's more the gigantic poetry kit & the karaoke which I >find somewhat overboard in terms of making poetry into a pop culture item >(and I like quite a lot of pop culture). I would probably prefer the karaoke >Beatles which you found unpalatable. Oh, I don't know...they had one at the Seattle Art Museum when I visited recently to see the *In The American Grain* exhibit (featuring Georgia O'Keefe, Alfred Steiglitz, Marsden Hartley, and other members of their circle whose names escape me but whose art was just as, if not occasionally more, fascinating), and John Olson and I had a great time rearranging the words, although we were frustrated by the dearth of "weird" words (lozenge, aporia, cranny, you get the idea) and were tempted to go create our own and sneak them back in someday. Steve ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 21:01:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: FUNKHOUSER CHRISTOPH Subject: DIU piece Mark, Really, there is little subtlety in the recent imaginary universe (broadcast). Definitely Nothing_personal_against you, though. To suspend (as opposed to enacting) self-reflexive scrutiny of ourselves and our texts is proper, or something? What sort of decorum does this "avant garde" require anyway? Is it possible your "woof" might need (or at least make use of) "our" warp (in cookieland)? But, what I really want to know is, What makes you think you aren't already locked in a room forever with the author of the diu piece? 2ndly, Joe: diu, the ahp, Edgar Allen Poe--I'm not sure this stuff emanates from cynicism. Poe isn't writing satire, but literary criticism (read it as exaggeration if that makes y'all feel better, but it ain't). & he's not cynical, but gothic. "He"'s afraid of being buried alive, & wants to make sure the coffin is in the ground while he himself stands in the sunlight! All for now. Out here learning & listening so "fire away" (aye! Pat Benatar finally makes it to POETICS), Chris ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 20:06:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Curt Anderson Subject: Re: Minnesota As a fellow transplant to Minnesota, I think I should probably put my two cents in. I agree with the accessment that, although Minnesota is a pretty pale light in the cultural sense, it really isn't much different than anywhere else. As a native San Franciscan, I moved away partly to get away from the incessent provincialism, the "aren't we the greatest" attitude. There's lots of room for improvement, no doubt, everywhere. Maybe the difference is that in a city like New York or San Francisco you can find enough like-minded people to buffer you from the bozos. As for inquiries about Gary Sullivan, he's off-line and apparently readjusted to reality. There is talk of moving back to SF in the fall. I think some of you (Charles and Jeffrey) do his partner Marta Deike a disservice by neglecting to note that both she and Gary do Detour Press, which I have been loosely associated with as the editor of a little newsletter called Exile. Finally, as someone who came out here expecting to find an experimental writing or quartblatz community and instead found a roaring silence, I think the really interesting discovery is that community may not have as much to do with geography as technology -- this thing here. Sadly in St. Paul, Curt Anderson (that's John Smith in Swedish) Curt Anderson Cander@mtn.org ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 20:11:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Minnesota > >...and as long >as we import an ocean, and about half a million more new yorkers and >californians, i'll be ahppy as a clam. actually, i adore my apartment. >maria d and may I request some mountains and some desert. sorry, i know i ask for the moon but some things one just needs . . . ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 00:24:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: Jewish Encyclopedia >so, i'm "doing" ginsberg. but maria, i heard he prefers men! eryque ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 20:25:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: Nappy Hational Poetry Month In-Reply-To: <199604110424.AAA11622@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> Does anybody on this list live in or near Boulder, Colordo? Will be spending some considerable time there late Summer thru Fall, & need some advice -- Haven't been there since 1963! & that Steel Pulse album, by the way, is a killer -- Listen to TRUE DEMOCRACY -- one of their best ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 23:32:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Minnesota Maria---I was not accusing you of superficial impressions of a tourist... In fact, the way you describe Minnesota sounds quite a bit like Albany. I wish the big city colleges weren't so damn uptight, but, alas.... cs ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 11 Apr 1996 23:52:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Tennis With/out A Net, Anyone? Dear Steve--- So, white straight male #1 is more like white straight male #2 than either of them are to black bi female #1..... the implication that black can not MOVE (or COMMAND the attention) of white...is that what you're saying? Chris ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 01:21:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William R Howe Subject: Re: Minnesota jeff the question in some respects is not nec weather there is a possibility for an avant whatsit in oh vader a tive poetics to congeal underneath the bly blindness but rather within the context convexness of middle amtrak hinter lands it is possible to perform any transfiguration of culture whatsoever i recently was asked to read in my home town of lubbock tx (which in itself was rather wierd) and was amazed by the interest i was shown in my oddness but i am not at all convinced that poetry for the mass micky-d mall kulturni allows us (as eno elevators) any kind of voice what hinterlanders see are the blynders and not the <> if only because of their true faith in the market and what the mall represents (arrival) do you look behind the toilet in a rfast food feeding traugh to see if it is clean ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 00:09:18 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gabrielle Welford Subject: (Fwd) Mumia alert (fwd) >I just got a call from Dr. Mark McClain Taylor, founding member of Academics for Mumia Abu-Jamal. He is in Harrisburg with hundreds of supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal, including foreign dignitaries from France and other countries. They are attempting to deliver a petition with 60,000 signatures, collected from France to Governor Ridge. >THE GOVERNOR'S OFFICE REFUSES TO ACCEPT THE PETITIONS ... Only sending out security personnel. Meanwhile, the foreign dignitaries and other Mumia supporters are holding their ground and refuse to leave. >The situation is very tense and an international incident is in the making. Please forward this message as far and wide as possible. Please forward it to news sources and to as many distribution lists as possible. Please also, call/fax Governor Ridge's office and demand that the petition be accepted. >Voice: 717-787-2500 Fax 727-772-8284 >This is a public service announcement, courtesy of Bob Witanek, moderator of nj-speakout@igc.apc.org , pol-abuse@igc.apc.org and one of the coordinators of 1000 VOICES AGAINST THE NJ DEATH PENALTY April 20 march and rally at NJ State Prison for the NJ Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. > >Bob Witanek ------end---------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- In protest of the censorship of the Internet by the United States Government I am including the words "fuck you" in my .sig file and will include the words "fuck you" in all my letters and articles on the Internet. For more information see the Electronic Frontier Foundation's web page at http:\\www.eff.org\. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 07:51:56 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 11 Apr 1996 16:04:14 -0400 from On Thu, 11 Apr 1996 16:04:14 -0400 Maria Damon said: >hell, and people want to expend the minimum energy on "superfluities" like >enjoyment, expressiveness, shallow things like "lifestyle," etc. but after >having worked very hard in california to increase my tolerance for pleasure, >self-expression, belief in my capabilities, etc., I experienced mn as cruel. I'm sorry I was cruel in my response. I guess I was having a bad day & it brought out the snarl. Some of the things you said sounded like things I'd heard (a lot) before, and what seemed your cliches collided with my nostalgia. It's amazing how diverse perceptions can be. I live in RI, whose economy is much more scrawny & austere than MN, despite the beaches & all. When I go back to MN, it seems like a place where people understand "the good life" - and the problem is not austerity & cruelty but complacency & caution. It's not that they don't like pleasure & expression - it's that they're idea of these things is maybe different from yours? Pleasure & expression are all "up at the lake." I hope you'll accept my apologies for the shrill loon honk. - H. Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 08:12:58 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: DIU piece In-Reply-To: Message of Thu, 11 Apr 1996 21:01:21 -0400 from On Thu, 11 Apr 1996 21:01:21 -0400 FUNKHOUSER CHRISTOPH said: > 2ndly, Joe: diu, the ahp, Edgar Allen Poe--I'm not sure this stuff > emanates from cynicism. Poe isn't writing satire, but literary criticism > (read it as exaggeration if that makes y'all feel better, but it ain't). One motive for the Poe disguise might be to protect Poe's freedom to be as impartial and objective as possible in a very small poetry village. In a way it's kind of a power play, but s/he plays a good act! (though sometimes a bit picayune(did I spell that right?) & petty. But the whole idea of Poe's ghost setting sepulchral standards for "verse" in 1996 is great. - H. Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 07:54:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: DIU piece chris, it's not quite fair for me simply to slam diu w/o giving some indication that i like it, of what i like... i *do* like the odd blend of extracts from hither & thither, the music pics, the idea that it's being distributed for free to so many folks... it's a provocative zine, in part b/c it doesn't appear to be taking one side... but what i find mself resisting is perhaps most evident in the poe pieces... they're not quite 'gothic,' not least b/c that term can't simply be appropriated from some past presumed moment and set down in mid-90s american electronic culture w/o some interesting if not altogether successful deformations... which is evident in all modern and contemporary attempts at 'gothic' work (southern, american, etc)... i mean, what sort of 'gothic' do we have *here*?... for one, the poe pieces seem to be distinctively male, or at least male-identified... yeah, poe's a male, but this isn't quite what i mean... what i mean is that by conducting critical scrutiny through an---well, let's say an 1850 stylistic lens, one of the first things to go out the window is the sense that there's been a transformation in women's roles... however clever or self-modulated, poe passes judgment with an incredibly omniscient 'voice,' with little concern for other-ness... such wit, for example, generally doesn't compensate for race considerations, at least not as we are accustomed to seeing same displayed... which is where the remarks poe makes as to physical (un)attractiveness leave me feeling uncomfortable... which seems, at least, to seep over (in tone?---not quite sure) into the various "taste"-driven evaluations of a given poet's work... in other words, i get this feeling that poe is a device/persona that effects, in addition to some perceptive critique, a reintroduction of some of the less savory aspects of 19th discourse into the current scene, w/o always taking responsibility for the resulting complications... "but this is poe, he's gothic" etc. strike me as a---well, to borrow from past parlance, chris, as a bit of a cop-out... and i know you well enuf to know this isn't what you intend... this is too too harsh, chris... i know it takes a lot of effort to put together and distribute diu... wish i could find a nicer way of putting things---my apologies, and i hope again i'm not sounding like a stuffy bastard in posting this... after all, i'm not being very precise here mself, only giving you my residual impressions of a number of diu's---at a distance, as it were... so let's say, as i said before, and if you'll permit me the conceit, that this is meant to help make diu a better zine... one more thought: if you and i had to dance through any additional personae to understand each other here---you playing 'poe' and me my erstwhile 'tomato'---we'd probably find it that much more difficult to reach any sort of understanding... and this latter is necessary methinks when dealing with public remarks that can *hurt*, regardless one's sense of humor... thanx for listening... all best// joe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 09:50:09 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Subject: poetics briefs Hey Jefferson: Could you send an issue. David Baratier 716 Pine Street Philadelphia, PA 19106 Haven't seen one since doing the article. I think the O-books of Notely arrived recently if you want something on that. Hope things are well there, we might be moving to chicago the end of august. The largest mall in the USA is just outside of Philadelphia, sans roller-coaster, called the King of Prussia Mall. The just added about five or ten ft of space so they could advertise it as such. Be well. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 09:36:43 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Subject: contrasimilitude While philosphy may "rediscover itself in the vicinity of the poetic" what we are talking about here is how folks such as Derrida perform the negative critical work of demystification instead of offering a positive model where assimilation (or some aspect thereof) can be located in culturally perserved forms of idealization. I'm talking about some form of a critique where a dialectic between demystification and idealization emerges, one where the critic allows the audience to understand what passion was found by one person within the impact of the words and the words themselves. Take the passage quoted from Derrida for example. Presently, there is no language in his lungs which has caused me to start being attentive to Celan. Similar to the rest of the book Celan is hardly mentioned or should I say: Celan is a prop, an artifice, a screen for Derrida to freely espouse on philosophy. Why then is there such offense taken when a work of criticism does the same thing due to the writer's "critical lens...? Because it assumes the retardation of the writer's thinking process and does so through a false appropriation or under a faux banner of support for a text which they refuse to write about. The creative writer isn't as smart, is less than the profound philosopher, is not blessed with the intellect of destruction apparent in the embedded criticism of furthering oneself. The overthrow of the current foundational metaphor for criticism is not accepting the experience of language as constrained, as equally poetic and philosophical. David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 10:55:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: poetr cit boo offe BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS BOOKS The Prose of Lewis Warsh: _Agnes & Sally_ and _A Free Man_ through Poetry City for just $15 ppd. _Agnes & Sally_ drew the famous "Mr. Warsh should be our next president" blurb from Mr. Creeley; _A Free Man_ is stoked with Warsh's trademark wit, drama, and sympathy. Send an email message with your name and address to jdavis@panix.com, and I'll bill you. If you respond today, I'll add _Avenue of Escape_, Warsh's most recent book of poems, for another five bucks. That's midnight by the stamp on your email message. The Maria Damon/Walter Lew offer is still good for a few more weeks, kids, _The Dark End Of The Street_ and _Premonitions: the Kaya Anthology of New Asian North American Poetry_ for just $30 ppd. Alas, the 10 book Ron Silliman offer has elapsed. We have a very limited four book deal--_Tjanting_, _Xing_, _Jones_ and _What_--for $25 ppd. Remember, it's National Poetry Month. You're supposed to buy some books that you've actually wanted to read. -Jordan Davis ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 11:01:25 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: poetr cit boo offe In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 12 Apr 1996 10:55:45 -0500 from On Fri, 12 Apr 1996 10:55:45 -0500 Jordan Davis said: >Remember, it's National Poetry Month. You're supposed to buy some books >that you've actually wanted to read. It's national poetry month, but only one person on this list of supposed poets, publishers, & po-promoters has come through after my request for book or mag donations to the Poetry Mission's new resource center on the Cranston-Prov RI line. And thanks to Schurin for reminding me that's Ted Berrigan's native home - I'm leaning toward voting for "Things to Do" as the name of the joint (after his poem "Things to Do in Providence"). So here's to Tim Wood for the generous donation, may I return the favor someday. And to the rest of you "poets" out there, well, perhaps it's my own abrasive motormouth fault - but it's not too late to send us that old obscure journal duplicate or extra book sitting around. We will be very grateful. The assistant librarian at Hall (where the center's located) just contributed a gorgeous enclosed bookcase to hold the mags - you can add to it. Send to: The Poetry Mission, PO Box 2321, Prov RI 02906. Hope you can all come & read/perform/listen/visit someday. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 11:46:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: not not jote Notley. N=O=T=L=E=Y. (Not, not note). ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 10:47:54 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Subject: Permutations of the gallery Pavement Saw Press proudly announces the winner of our 1995-1996 chapbook award: Permutations of the Gallery by Joshua McKinney Poems from this collection first appeared in publications such as the Columbia Poetry Review, Denver Quarterly, Situation, Santa Barbara Review, and Willow Springs. Publication, a prize of five hundred dollars and ten percent of the book run are awarded to the winner of the annual prize. *Permutations of the Gallery* was selected by Naton Leslie as the 1996 winner of the Pavement Saw Poetry Chapbook Award. About the book: Permutations of the Gallery is an ambitious collection, even if recklessly so. Joshua McKinney's poems struggle against the confines of syntax and literal sense, in order to arrive at a uniquely clear grasp of the truces we must maintain with time and spacial existence. To attempt to paraphrase these knotty and paradoxical poems would be akin to stating that Wallace Stevens wrote about the weather. Don't search for narrative threads here, poems about Queen Anne's Lace or cicadas, or paeans for our humdrum, domestic lives. And don't expect to read this book once. Naton Leslie Joshua McKinney knows that philosophy is not an abstract matter, nor in anyway separate from our everyday lives. His poems show that to engage the world intimately, we need to _think_ it in the most particular ways. In *Permutations of the Gallery* family friends, nature, and a troubling social world are not givens, but rather questions by which we explore the twisting, disruptive, estatic, sometimes even annihilating terms of our existence. Mark Wallace A poetry held taut, that revels in economy and clarity, is filled with insights and syntactical compassion. I highly recommend *Permutations of the Gallery*. Simon Perchik Published in a limited edition of 250 copies, perfect bound, 6 by 9 size Availiable April 17th. Price $5.00, includes p&h. Checks payable to: Pavement Saw Press 7 James Street Scotia, NY 12302 Thanks dave.baratier@mosby.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 11:25:54 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Subject: Re: contrasimilacrum maria I never found a shift, the one you found between working on the renga and writing criticism. Granted a large portion of the reasoning behind this may be the fact that my fiscal livelihood does not depend on publication, therfore the writing is an unpressured situation, a favor for someone if you will. David Baratier ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 12:30:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: contrasimilacrum Well, David---Your "smiling author" has found the same shift Maria spoke of, and at times it's maddening, at other times it's a great fall back strategy of roatating crops since "after all it isn't every day the world arranges itself into a poem" (as Stevens said)...cs... (hey, good luck in chicago---with hoover gone, the town is in dire need of you....as is phila., but oh well one less incentive to want to move there..... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 13:16:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Jewish Encyclopedia bi eryk of the north writes: >so, i'm "doing" ginsberg. but maria, i heard he prefers men! yes and i hear he would have preferred to be written up in the J encyc. by some man in montreal. but the editors ran the options by r kostelanetz (who died and made him God?) and he "okayed" me, tho he'd written me a sharp note when my book came out, didn't like the way i referred to his take on "avant garde", felt i misrepresented him as a meritocratic aesthete. or something. if you're out there, rk, greetings. glad to have passed muster on ginsberg, having fun w/ it.--md ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 13:33:59 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: DIU piece >for one, the poe pieces seem to be distinctively male, or at least >male-identified... yeah, poe's a male, but this isn't quite what i mean... >what i mean is that by conducting critical scrutiny through an---well, >let's say an 1850 stylistic lens, one of the first things to go out the >window is the sense that there's been a transformation in women's roles... >however clever or self-modulated, poe passes judgment with an incredibly >omniscient 'voice,' with little concern for other-ness... such wit, for >example, generally doesn't compensate for race considerations, at least not >as we are accustomed to seeing same displayed... which is where the remarks >poe makes as to physical (un)attractiveness leave me feeling >uncomfortable... which seems, at least, to seep over (in tone?---not quite >sure) into the various "taste"-driven evaluations of a given poet's work... > > >in other words, i get this feeling that poe is a device/persona that >effects, in addition to some perceptive critique, a reintroduction of some >of the less savory aspects of 19th discourse into the current scene, w/o >always taking responsibility for the resulting complications... "but this >is poe, he's gothic" etc. strike me as a---well, to borrow from past >parlance, chris, as a bit of a cop-out... and i know you well enuf to know >this isn't what you intend... joe, one of th valuable points the poe pieces/persona makes (to me) is exactly how little has changed re womens roles, dominant discourse style, etc... i'm pessimistic that those qualities are "reintroduced" by the posts into the dialoge, rather that they continue & poe's satire points that out... always the difference between re-presenting a stance and advocating it... which line, in diu generally, i believe is straddled, transited & transgressed in ways i find useful, as (self)critique & gentle poking fun... sincere lbd ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 19:38:47 +0200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "William M. Northcutt" Subject: That wot rules: That whut rules: Silliman's Xing What Toner abc etc Taj Mahal's Phantom Blues Page 214 of Peter Hoeg's Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (flamingo edition) Willie Walsh's unpublished dissertation: Loose Talk The suspected Unabomber's hair That which inspired the laughter on "And Your Bird Can Sing" Beatles Anthology 2 end of message: Chicken-House Willie's minimalist school of literary theory and poetrythathelenvendlercantread ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 10:44:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Minneapolis This is Dodie. I wish I'd been able to read more of the Minneapolis discussion here, but most of the messages were deleted before I got to them. However, I did read Maria Damon's valient defense of her criticisms of Minneapolis and the Midwest. Last weekend I had a Minneapolis experience. There was an Eckankar seminar here in San Francisco, and since I wrote a cover story on them a year and a half ago or so, and the seminar was only 7 blocks from my house, I went to the Friday night session. Eckankar used to be located out here in Menlo Park, but sometime in the past ten years moved to Chanhausen, which, reading between the lines, I'm assuming is a suburb of Minneapolis. In other words, according to this group, Minneapolis is the spiritual center of the physical world. And some of you are griping about it there! Anyway, since cult members tend to mimic their leaders, and since the head guy is as Midwestern conservative as you can get (for instance, people on welfare are "undeveloped souls" who eventually will have to pay bigtime for what they're taking but haven't earned), the seminar was like having a chunk of the midwest lifted out whole and plopped down in the basement of the Marriot--affect, styles, values. One woman in a dayglo blue business suit got up there and told this elaborate story about the spiritual lessons she learned from slipping on the ice. Detail after detail of Minneapolis life was served up and fetishized. It was awesome. Since all this was happening in San Francisco, there were, of course, comparisons between California and Minneapolis--basically California has great weather, but Minneapolis is Real Life. I think that this categorization is something I've internalized myself, especially since I'm now working as an arts administrator--sometimes, especially during PMS, I question my lack of connection to Real Life--like I don't know anybody who isn't a writer, visual artist, or a dreaded arts administrator. Saturday night I got together with my ex-husband, who is a member of this cult, used to live in Minneapolis and loved it, and who definitely has a Real Life. Since he's Spiritual he never complains about anything, but I was moved to tears by how horrid his Real Life was. He's a regular working class guy struggling to survive. I ran home to Kevin determined to remain a spoiled princess forever. Since I'm from the midwest I'm always trying to resolve something about it. I know I would never in a million years developed as a writer if I stayed there--and it wasn't like I was living in the middle of nowhere--I was in Chicago before I came here. But I can't tell if it would be workable for me now. My experience of the midwest is that of a working class person--I have no idea what middle class people's lives are like in the midwest, just as I have little idea what working class people's lives are like in California. When I was first getting involved in the Bay area writing scene a mentor told me that writing was a middle class occupation (Marxism was still very much part of the Talk back then), and I was really resistant to this idea, but now I'm pretty much convinced it's true. I think that my development as a writer was just a contingent upon leaving my class as leaving the midwest. Sometimes I feel like an immigrant, sometimes I feel like an expatriot. But there's always this aura of living outside. The midwest is seen as this lost Eden of inside. Enough! Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 13:17:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michelle Roberts Subject: Re: poet/critic In-Reply-To: <960411084759_511031361@emout08.mail.aol.com> Maria, The going back and forth from creating mode to critical mode is a rough transition to make in like 5 minutes. It takes me anywhere from a couple hours to a whole day, and I never go from one mode of writing directly to another. I read for a while in the middle, and usually something related to the next bit of writing -- it helps to give the mind time to shift gears. I'm not trying to say that creating and critiquing are THE SAME activity -- only that I think they are intricately interrelated -- both for some individuals and historically. As to fear that you're braindead -- you don't seem to be -- as to braindeath after tenure: I'm still getting my doctorate and I'm not sure my head is up to speed these days either. I think that people who really think just get insecure about their ability to think because it's important to us. That you are concerned seems to show me that you're the sort of prof. who is not resting on tenured laurels, and I'm thrilled to see that. Lastly -- I don't think that a discussion of a literary text from or withing a theoretical frame (and I really mean ANY frame) is worth beans unless it also uses or is based in a close reading. That's one of the problems that so many poets seem to have, is that without close reading, critics seem to discuss a particular text, but they offer that text none of its specificity. The specificity of the text is what close reading maintains, not the author's intentions or any of that. I personally never rely on any critic's reading of anything that doesn't use at least a semiotic close reading (in the case of visual texts, I think semiotics is close reading.) Never! Without close attention to that particular text, the critic could be talking about almost anything. Anyway -- stop stressing and enjoy your work, we are of the few people who get to do what we like to do. And if you're tired, try to rest a little. Meaghan. Meaghan Roberts | ... in our interpreted world... Ph.D. Candidate - Ethics and Literature | The University of Texas at Dallas | Meaghan@UTDALLAS.EDU | ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 14:03:11 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: Minneapolis In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 12 Apr 1996 10:44:07 -0700 from On Fri, 12 Apr 1996 10:44:07 -0700 Dodie Bellamy said: Eckankar used to be located out here in Menlo >Park, but sometime in the past ten years moved to Chanhausen, which, >reading between the lines, I'm assuming is a suburb of Minneapolis. In >other words, according to this group, Minneapolis is the spiritual center >of the physical world. And some of you are griping about it there! Actually the center of the world, or omphalos, is in Hopkins, MN, another suburb, in a backyard on Arthur St (a mid-working class neighborhood at the time) at a certain point by a picket fence where a 2-yr old handed a dandelion to Heidi Johnson in 1954. Eckankar is way off (it's Chanhassen, by the way. Also home to the Chanhassen Dinner Theater, another avant-garde showplace). Dodie, you're getting good at ringing some changes on the Knock the Midwest genre, which is a pretty well-worn rut. - Henry Gould >Since I'm from the midwest I'm always trying to resolve something about it. >I know I would never in a million years developed as a writer if I stayed >there-- sometimes it takes more than a million years to develop - like the glaciers which once turned prehistoric Minnesota into an enormous lake - some of that water is still there, going to writing workshops. >scene a mentor told me that writing was a middle class occupation (Marxism >was still very much part of the Talk back then) when are Neruda & Vallejo going to learn? >midwest is seen as this lost Eden of inside. they don't call it "the heartland" for nothing. - Henry Gould ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 13:29:12 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Subject: Re: contrasimilacrum Hey Smiley, Sorry to hear the news about academia. I hope DK called you about the reading in Brooklyn and you agreed. Rake your strange leaves, your strange leavings, poor brooklyn soil. I do implore you to stop quoting that populist poet just because he's from your home town. So the house was quiet and the world was calm. So the quiet was part of the meaning the mind hooked on classics, the access of perfection to the page. Perpetuating the myth of meaning's multitudinal monkified access. Nothing sucks like success. Why not quote Byron Vassakis. Val at blvd has Jim Tate coming down next month if you'd like to rollick with us. Francois (La Salon) Bacon ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 14:28:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bennett Cerf Subject: thoroughbreds (is: sensitive) Joe Amato is right. The 19th century can't be superimposed over the 20th without certain deformations of vision occurring. The surprise, first of all, is how few, and second, how little light shows through from OUR end of the tunnel. Strictly in translation terms Joe is also right that one of the biggest shift has been in gender roles--though Joe misunderstands the problem. Poe's chivalry (he was, after all, a Southerner) means he is much kinder to the ladies than the gents. For this reason our 20th century Poe (Poe with a differance, Edgar AllEn Poe) has sometimes had to alter the genders (we moderns having freed ourselves from the patronizing prejudice of chivalry). The _political_ content of the Poe pieces thus lies in the friction between the two versions. (See, e.g., Poe's as yet unpublished review of Joe Brainard's _I Remember_, in which an 1842 essay on John G.C. Brainard gives E.A.P. a chance to ruminate on gay pride.) Race is another matter. Poe I's Margaret Fuller may bear _some_ resemblance to Poe II's Lyn Hejinian, but his Tennyson is a distant forebear indeed to Nate Mackey. Other matters: Only an academic could POSSIBLY say that beauty is a male concern. Lastly: Poe the First was America's first serious literary critic; his work remains both acute and funny. He was also, alas, a thug (see, e.g., Poe's as-yet-untranslated Longfellow attacks). Poe II's nastiest moment is his Lew Daly review, but of course the most damning aspect of that piece is the quotes. --Baltimore Raven ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 14:41:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: oetry ity ook ffer BOOKA BOOK BOOK BOOKA Hey! Thanks for your enthusiastic response to the book offers! I'm out of Silliman books. I have a few more Warsh triads ($15! cheap) and a couple of Damon/Lew combos ($30! double cheap). Okay! Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 12:04:00 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: Tennis With/out A Net, Anyone? At 11:52 PM 4/11/96 -0500, Chris S. wrote: > Dear Steve--- > So, white straight male #1 is more like white straight male #2 than > either of them are to black bi female #1..... > the implication that black can not MOVE (or COMMAND the attention) > of white...is that what you're saying? Chris No, not at all. I'm trying to point to a problematic in the relationship between a politics of identity and the democratic ideal. If we emphasize the commonness of our HUMANITY, and ignore color, gender, sexual orientation, class, religion, etc., democracy is possible. If we emphasize the UNIQUENESS of every human being, despite the fact that each one is the same gender as roughly half the others, the same color as X% of the others, the same orientation as Y%, etc., democracy is possible. It's when we pick a few of those factors and overidentify with them, while letting both the things we have in common with those who have diffenent factors and the things that make us unique from those who share these few factors slide that the energy needed to sustain a true democracy tends to really dissipate. It's not that black CAN'T move white, but that too many whites won't allow themselves to BE moved. Steve ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 12:04:00 PDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: contrasimilitude Well, David, I have to ask, are we talking about the same book? _Wordtraces: Readings of Paul Celan_, edited by Aris Fioretos, 1994: The Johns Hopkins University Press? Because I'm not quite halfway through it, but every essay I've read so far is DRIPPING with passion for Celan's work. The passage I quoted from Derrida wasn't speciffically geared to make you attentive to Celan, it was to refute your implicit claim that philosophers have contempt for poets: Derrida says pretty clearly that philosophy and poetry are to be considered equally important as investigations of language. I don't see how any assertion of "retardation of the writer's thinking process" or attitude that "creative writer isn't as smart, is less than the profound philosopher" can be extrapolated from that. Maybe you're just looking for a different kind of idealization from the critics, one that puts the poets above the critics and doesn't tell us anything new about the poetry, just serves as an advertisement for the poetic commodity, instead of acknowledging the value of criticism as a potentially enlightening activity in its own right. Which, I hope you won't be offended by my saying so, is kind of a funny attitude for someone with such a big vocabulary. :-) Steve At 09:36 AM 4/12/96 CST, David Baratier wrote: > While philosphy may "rediscover itself in the vicinity of the poetic" > what we are talking about here is how folks such as Derrida perform > the negative critical work of demystification instead of offering a > positive model where assimilation (or some aspect thereof) can be > located in culturally perserved forms of idealization. I'm talking > about some form of a critique where a dialectic between > demystification and idealization emerges, one where the critic allows > the audience to understand what passion was found by one person within > the impact of the words and the words themselves. > > Take the passage quoted from Derrida for example. Presently, there is > no language in his lungs which has caused me to start being attentive > to Celan. Similar to the rest of the book Celan is hardly mentioned or > should I say: Celan is a prop, an artifice, a screen for Derrida to > freely espouse on philosophy. > > Why then is there such offense taken when a work of criticism does > the same thing due to the writer's "critical lens...? > > Because it assumes the retardation of the writer's thinking process > and does so through a false appropriation or under a faux banner of > support for a text which they refuse to write about. The creative > writer isn't as smart, is less than the profound philosopher, is not > blessed with the intellect of destruction apparent in the embedded > criticism of furthering oneself. > > The overthrow of the current foundational metaphor for criticism is > not accepting the experience of language as constrained, as equally > poetic and philosophical. > > > David Baratier > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 15:21:20 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Henry Gould Subject: Re: contrasimilitude In-Reply-To: Message of Fri, 12 Apr 1996 12:04:00 PDT from On Fri, 12 Apr 1996 12:04:00 PDT Steve Carll said: Derrida says pretty clearly that philosophy and >poetry are to be considered equally important as investigations of language. It's nice to know we can swim together with the philosophers in the same authorless, self-referential goop. Thanks, Jacques. In an essay in Nedge #1 a couple years ago, the late Henry Ghoul wrote: "The French philosophes have buried Plato's God and the Author, together, phoenix & turtle, with solemn Sorbonnean rites. We can relive that poignant moment, again and again, in Language Poetry." [Then he went on to make witty mincemeat of all other literary schools, except those of the Unread Generation] - HG ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 15:34:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Matthew S Sackmann Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" In-Reply-To: On Thu, 11 Apr 1996, Jeffrey W. Timmons wrote: > Maria, > > What states _do_ have magic? I nominate Nebraska, strangely enough. And > I have a predisposition to Oregon. Living in Phoenix I can't speak for > Arizona, but I know that there is a spirituality _somewhere_ to be found > here. DC has some magic tucked away here in there in little > pockets--which I might disclose if prompted--but that may be my own > creation. Thinking of other states, and where there magic is. . . . > > Jeffrey Timmons > States with magic...hmmm... Let me list mine= Northern California (should be it's own state), Washington, and that's about it. There are a few magic cities too= 'Frisco, N'Awlins, Key West, and Quebec City. Well, that's all i have to say. ~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~ Matt Sackmann- counting down the days 'till summer. "The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life. And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy." -Oscar Wilde "Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer." -OW ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 13:32:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: Smurfing U.S.A. In-Reply-To: <199604120453.AAA01902@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> "How did you feel your dead mother while you were writing that poem?" --Bill Moyers ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 13:37:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" In-Reply-To: <960411084817_511031515@emout08.mail.aol.com> What is this disgusting talk about "no magic in Minnesota"? I think it's time for "us" to consider how small-minded such statements of regional prejudice are. So all midwesterners are hicks, all southerners are racist, and all christians are fundamentalists. Keeps it right simple, don't it? The poetry festival in Minnesota that Charles Alexander describes could have happened anywhere in the country--it's not a reflection of midwestern values but rather the obsessive marketing of everything in this country including poetry. That seven-year-old aviatrix, Jessica Dubroff, died because her parents were marketing her as the next Amelia Earhart. And what's this crap about the "hinterlands"? I thought "we" were supposed to be sensitive to "difference." Saw FARGO, by the way. Clever, violent, ultimately hollow--rather like a Quentin Tarantino movie. The ethnic stereotype is of white midwesterners as bland hicks. But I loved the pregnant sheriff. Paul Hoover ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 16:40:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: motivational training seminars [Then he went on to make witty mincemeat of all other literary schools, except those of the Unread Generation] - HG ___ Gee, why'd he do that? --Jordan PS the winner of the 'free tjanting' contest was Tim Davis, whose answer to the question, "what are those black things under seals' eyes"--"Nepalese kleenex"--was selected by the invisble power brokers who say whose work we have to read and like. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 16:56:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert A Harrison Subject: Provincialism A few comments in response to the recent comments on the midwest, since I'm living in Milwaukee. There are lots of times I feel that maybe the midwest isn't the best place, but I've lived outside the midwest, in several places, most of my life, and have had the same feeling about those places. As far as poetry goes, Woodland Pattern is a far better place to find anything I'm looking for than Beyond Baroque, SPT, or St. Marks, for example. I know there are lots more poets interested in writing similar to what I'm interested in in say places like SF or NYC, so sometimes I think I'm missing being part of a scene. But, more and more I think that the fact that I don't have to hassle as much with finances, crowding, etc., makes up for this. Besides, now that we're all in cyberspace, isn't this the most noplace of places? A question for Maria D, how many of the outsiders you've written about are from outside California and NYC? Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 16:48:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: DIU piece luigi, could well be, i'm probably sensitive most to the 'straddling' you refer to... anyway, i'm eager to hear what others may think of this... no way do i see mself as 'right' here, but i do know when i'm feeling uncomfortable... not that good writing is meant to yield only comfort or some such... but there are some unpleasantries i'd just as soon pass on... it's sometimes difficult in those poe pieces to know whether the writer(s?) isn't taking cheap shots through the persona... and i guess i'd feel more comfortable without this particular uncertainty... oddly enuf, i never feel this way reading, say, kathy acker... go figger... best// joe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 15:05:39 PST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Franklin Bruno Subject: Elmslie Okay, a comment before my question this time: A poet that should be named in any discussion of the interface between song lyrics and poems is Kenward Elmslie, who's done extensive work in the musical theater as well that has clearly informed his highly condensed, highly musical, Tin Pan O'Hara-ish poems. So my question is this: I'm sure that I saw a long interview w/ Elmslie in some journal in the last two or three years. I thought it was -Conjunctions-, but I haven't been able to turn it up. Can anyone help with this? He's a somewhat mysterious poet to me (as in, info about him is hard to come by), and such poets usually end up being the ones I dig the deepest into. And heck, another comment: Guided By Voices are fine, but there's something of the low-rent Surrealist about their work (see also everything Robyn Hitchcock's done since about '85). Although, they were being characterized as 'throwaway,' so why complain? Pavement have, I think, a more nuanced lyrical stance, although they're often misread by their numerous fans (who, unfortunately, all form bands of their own and put out bad singles--I've exaggerating) as being absurdists of some kind. (I'm convinced that several of their songs are about Robert Smithson.) I'm going to try to think of a few rock lyricists whom the people who are interested in such things on this list might find intriguing, but in the meantime, someone help me with Elmslie. fjb ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 19:06:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert A Harrison Subject: diu About DIU, I'd like to add my two cents. I think its basically pretty much a waste of time, all due respect to the editors/authors. I never get the sense from it that it goes beyond any sort of deadening cynicism, which seems to me common enough. I don't ever find it funny in the least. Quite different than something like say, EXHILE, which I think is often hilarious. And, speaking as a Panamanian-American, English my second language, and wanting as much as anyone for there to be more space for difference, I don't quite see the point in ending every issue with acknowledging "the final days of the white race." Seems to me that race based reasoning is what needs to finalized, not any particular race. Bob Harrison ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 18:22:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tim Wood Subject: Re: poetr cit boo offe I find this annoying to say the least. I can't keep up with the flow of what too often seems like... well anyway... it seems particularly annoying for a group this verbal and active about poetry not responding to your offer. If you'll send me a short paragraph this weekend on the Poetry Mission, I'll include a blurb in the next issue of the arts magazine I publish. I can't make any guarantees about issues such as quality, but I believe we can roust up a few books (at least) for you. Hmm... idea. I'll try and turn it into a poster and put it up around town and talk to a few people. We'll see what happens. Tim >On Fri, 12 Apr 1996 10:55:45 -0500 Jordan Davis said: >>Remember, it's National Poetry Month. You're supposed to buy some books >>that you've actually wanted to read. > >It's national poetry month, but only one person on this list of supposed >poets, publishers, & po-promoters has come through after my request for >book or mag donations to the Poetry Mission's new resource center on >the Cranston-Prov RI line. And thanks to Schurin for reminding me >that's Ted Berrigan's native home - I'm leaning toward voting for >"Things to Do" as the name of the joint (after his poem "Things to Do in >Providence"). > >So here's to Tim Wood for the generous donation, may I return the favor >someday. And to the rest of you "poets" out there, well, perhaps it's >my own abrasive motormouth fault - but it's not too late to send us that >old obscure journal duplicate or extra book sitting around. We will be >very grateful. The assistant librarian at Hall (where the center's located) >just contributed a gorgeous enclosed bookcase to hold the mags - you can >add to it. Send to: The Poetry Mission, PO Box 2321, Prov RI 02906. >Hope you can all come & read/perform/listen/visit someday. >- Henry Gould in space no one can hear you scream in Dallas no one cares... ______________________________________________________________________________ Check out the Voices new poetry website at http://www.connect.net/twood/ the Word, Dallas' monthly arts guide: http://www/connect.net/twood/word.html poetry & video poetry ---- graphic design & database development ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 16:56:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Sheila E. Murphy" Subject: psychic geography It was enormously engaging to watch FARGO'S pregnant chief of police this past Sunday. It seems impossible to paint the Midwest in any way that people would agree upon. Or any other part of the US. But one thing DOES seem certain: Some geographic locations tend to be conducive to one's OWN physique, temperament, and God knows what else. And if I knew more about psychic geography, I'd quote chap and verse. In any case, the West is a gift for me. It's a good thing it exists. That most familiar Midwestern fragrance I grew up in never really worked for me on any count. The desert DOES. And along with my theory that one should "Stay far enough from people or places that you can still love them" parts of the world and the collective psyche are very very nice just where they are. Away! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 17:21:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: main Subject: Re: Minnesota In-Reply-To: <199604120521.BAA00845@destrier.acsu.buffalo.edu> On Fri, 12 Apr 1996, William R Howe wrote: > jeff the question in some respects is not nec weather there is a possibility > for an avant whatsit in oh vader a tive poetics to congeal underneath the > bly blindness but rather within the context convexness of middle amtrak hinter > lands it is possible to perform any transfiguration of culture whatsoever > i recently was asked to read in my home town of lubbock tx (which in itself was > rather wierd) and was amazed by the interest i was shown in my oddness but i am > not at all convinced that poetry for the mass micky-d mall kulturni allows us > (as eno elevators) any kind of voice what hinterlanders see are the blynders and > not the <> if only because of their true faith in the market and > what the mall represents (arrival) do you look behind the toilet in a rfast food > feeding traugh to see if it is clean > william-- curious: does lubbock figure into this "culture" that's to be transfigured by "avant whatsit" poetry? i'm asking this because it seems there is a lot of ambivalence toward the mass culture audience among the "avante garde": on one hand, an ironic dichotomizing between "high" and "low" audiences (while simultaneously trying to blur the high/low art distinction in the work) and exclusionary attitude, and, on the other hand, a feeling of responsibility to "transforming culture" en masse (_including_ lubbock and Minnesota). i think that some of the most powerful art and philosophy of this century have come out of this so-called low-culture matrix; arguably, it puts the _post_ in modern. as far as "context...of middle...lands" goes, i would argue that geography is being superseded by more complex models of communalspace/ place (or, as Wallace points out, experimental poetics isn't-- for good or bad --as anchored to geography as it was, say, thirty years ago). i'm wondering whether this exclusivity between the "avant garde" and "lubbock" is mutual. if so, what does it mean about the role of the avant garde in "transforming culture." _avant_, in other words, of what? dan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 09:14:05 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Subject: Re: Provincialism In-Reply-To: This anti-Minnesota thread is fascinating. I have lived in the mid-West as well as up and down the east coast, but mainly the Far East (forgive the Britishism). I can assure you that (excepting New York City, America's Hong Kong) most foreigners won't distinguish midwest from west coast from south from east coast, except for the weather and natural scenery. doesn't it extend one to live in different places and rub/bump up against the local culture? or is that too alienated a way to live? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 12 Apr 1996 22:22:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Ziolkowski's "Our Son the Arson" is out Thad Ziolkowski's _Our Son the Arson_ is out from what books and is available. Given the great changes in my life recently, I just cannot be expected to remember who responded to my earlier announcement and would like for -anyone- who is interested, in purchasing the book for $5 ($9 cover) to pass on a message (back channel) to me. I'll send the books, you send the bucks. All what books, including my own, _Ruin_, are available from SPD - just contact Steve Dickison if you want to stock them in your stores, or you can arrange something with me directly. Thanks putting up with duplicate requests if you've made them. Patrick Patrick_Phillips@brown.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 01:46:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Brannen Subject: Re: Culture with a "Q" Maria & Mike, _Fargo_ was reviewed on the editorial page of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune rather than in the entertainment section. The editor described the film as "immature" and suggested that it takes more than a few cheap shots at Minnesota. He (and, you bet, I mean he) then expressed sadness because of the "lack of artistic growth" demonstrated by Minnesota's "native-sons" the Coen brothers. This reaction is so Minnesotian, that I had to share it with you. Personally, I can't wait to see the film!!! Henry, Balkanization of the universe? All I want is a colorized Minnesota! Cheers, Jonathan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 09:09:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Provincialism bob harrison: two of my outsiders were frm boston, one (bob kaufman) from new orleans. bests, maria d ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 04:05:07 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gabrielle Welford Subject: May Day Poetry in L.A. (fwd) For any of ye so inclined... Gab. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- On May 1st at Sam's Book City in North Hollywood a poetry rant and chant will occur. It is titled "Wobblies, Pilebutts and Other Heroes: Words and Songs of Social Struggle". Featured are Robert Chambers (of the Homeless Writers Coalition), Obi (from the Peace and Justice Center), Dirk DeGeyndt (from Minds Matter), Andrew Willett (Wobbly troubador) and Miguel Sanchez (agitator). There is an open reading to follow. All are invited except bosses, scabs, and other agents of repression. amor y solidaridad, miguel ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 09:31:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: thoroughbreds (is: sensitive) br, or bennett, or whoever: on the matter of beauty: "beauty" is not strictly a "male concern," no, but how it's addressed certainly is (wasn't it fred turner, whose name i saw around here recently, who penned some relatively recent and imho awful(ly) academic ideas re same?)... critique of the concept of beauty is not quite the same thing as rendering judgment based on, let's say, arbitrary and motivated 'standards'... and i have many non-academic friends who would understand same put in precisely such terms... now as to the rest: i really don't know about poe's work "remain[ing' funny"... but i'm not going to write mself into a box here, esp. b/c there's always an interpretive way out of any such bind... i'm expressing my discomfort, again, at certain of allEn poe's judgments... it's a feeling, and it's based of course on my interpretive tendencies... but you don't sound too willing to allow for these latter... i guess you're telling me, br, or bennett, or whoever, that in fact allEn poe is juggling the distances?... i mean, the sociocultural distances twixt poe's earlier incarnations and the contemporary scene?... and that i'm to interpret 'him' as self-consciously doing so, or as a self-conscious construction that works so (another blurring)?... ergo anything that seems nasty i'm to s'pose is not nasty by poe's or his creator's (s') intentions/motivations, but is meant to problematize (there's a nice academic word), again, the aforesaid distances?... ok... here's the catch: the interpretive given here is being given to me by you, br, or bennett, or whoever, whom i assume is (or are) poe's creator(s)... presumably i'm a little slow here... i take it back---i'm NOT slow!... but presumably you are nonetheless providing an apologia for allEn poe, or at the very least a method or way of understanding 'his' motivations... so not only do allEn poe's creators create poe, but they argue for the effect of his discourse?... to folks like me, i mean, who don't quite 'get' it, or if they do, don't quite like what they're getting?... honestly, now, i'm feeling a bit imposed upon, hermeneutically speaking... i mean, you can't really account for the way i'm feeling... i mean, why not bend a bit, br, or bennett, or whoever, and accept the fact that allEn poe IS leaving open the possibility of the response you're getting---from me and, judging by poetics, a few others?... a final note: i refer you, most academically, to book three, section xvi of augustine's _on christian doctrine_... a logic of interpretation similar to what you propose is to be found there... to wit, re the scripture: "if a locution is admonitory, condemning either vice or crime or commending either utility or beneficence, it is not figurative. but if it seems to commend either vice or crime or to condemn either utility or beneficence, it is figurative"... peace, out// joe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 09:59:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: poet/critic, provincialism, etc... yknow, the poet/critic discussion and the provincialism discussion come together for me at this idea of place: seems to me that there ARE negative factors just about every place one goes, though what we're each willing to put up with varies... that said, i don't really see why it's beyond the pale (a phrase whose etymology comes from anglo domination of dublin, no?) to consider that there may be an entire region whose *general* political tendencies are loathsome... while at the same time allowing for a certain u.s./mall-ish homogeneity, and the fact that said loathsome politics may be regarded by said inhabitants as LESS loathsome than other such realities (such as traffic, or pollution, or whatever---again you can hear that rural-(sub)urban distinction)... at the same time: having spent some time permitting my head to wander OFF the page and the sentence whilst composing 'criticism' (i call it that, anyway), i can assure anybody who desires such assurance that there's a real sense of freedom comes in working through discourse using writing practices that are often thought to be discrete---poetry and criticism, if you like, provided each term is construed broadly... and that this unorthodox gesture will most assuredly complicate one's publishing potential... hence complicate one's "sense of freedom," raising to the surface the economics of publishing and writing... and i mean, whether or no one writes 'for a living,' b/c a steady stream of rejections (which we've all seen, i'm sure) has some effect regardless... now for me this latter constitutes a certain conception of place too... i mean, one's community is prefigured by place, traditionally, though perhaps virtual place is now prefiguring (or at worst, serving as a pretext for) community... once you shift or mix places around, denying a simple metaphysics of place, say, you shift, well, the where's and perhaps how's of readership... and it strikes me that (really reaching now) the politics of form may thus be seen as related to a politics of fora through this altered conception of place... put simply: when you shake & bake as on this list, you're bound to be shaking & baking regional differences that are a complex of aesthetic forms and geographic predispositions... which is not to suggest a direct link twixt geographically-discrete culture and form, or cognition (though i've always suspected same), but that there ARE nonetheless cultural gradients that shape the places of our writing practices, and that writing through *these* electronic places is bound to result in a shift in same, altering the basis for said (writing) practices... hell, just look at that word 'basis,' and all words having a foundational, subStantive 'base' (kenneth burke writes about this latter someplace or other, no?)... too fast, ssorry, just running through... joe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 12:45:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Provincialism schuchat writes: doesn't it extend one to live in different places and rub/bump up against the local culture? or is that too alienated a way to live? theoretically, i agree. in addition to growing up in new england, i've spent a lot of time in rural denmark (w/ my mother's family), a year in paris (on high school scholarship), and 7 years in palo alto (grad school) preceding these 7 years in minnesota. culturally, i resisted the move from MA to CA but ws not traumatized. going to mn i was Deeply traumatized. this may also have been cuz my department was so not what i'd expected. apparently my obvious depression was a topic of discussion among my colleagues (even wd come up at my annual review) but the few times they asked what could be done, at the departmental level, to make me happier, i'd say, whatever (forge closer bonds w/ interdisciplinary depts, foster a more intellectually suportive environment for incoming faculty, etc) i was told that this was impossible. so and so in english had a fight w/ so and so in comp lit 20 years ago, so even tho both so and sos have retired or moved to other universities, of course we can't do anything w/ comp lit, etc). meanwhile, in my attempts to find community outside the U, at my women's support group, for example, i was mistrusted cuz i was professional, single, emotional, used "big words," etc. people were afraid of me cuz i was "different." i think it's true that it can stretch one to live in other environments, but in this case, i was stretched to far, and snapped. bests, maria d ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 13:23:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Holman s from a couple days ago so I try again... Subj: Michael Smith Date: 96-04-10 01:26:48 EDT From: Nuyopoman To: POETICS@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu "Michael Smith was on the threshold of consolidating a rapidly rising international reputation as a poet when he was murdered by supporters of the Jamaican Labor Party on 17th August, 1983" writes Linton Kwesi Johnson on the back cover of "It A Come: Poems by Michael Smith" (Race Today Publications:London, 1986). Smith's first LP, "Mi Cyaan Believe It," had just been released by Island Records. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 13:24:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Holman Subject: National Poetry Month Subj: National Poetry Month Date: 96-04-10 01:25:09 EDT From: Nuyopoman To: POETICS@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu Thanks, David Bartier, for the Hass scoops. I have taught from his River of Words curriculum, and enjoyed esp. his essay re: Duncan and spawning salmon. I had a pleasant enough chat with him 3-4 weeks ago and set up an inteview for iGuide (http://ww.iGuide.com/music/poetry) which he blew off, just up and disappeared. I finally roused his assistant yesterday (three weeks later), when Ileft a message I'd composed questions _and_ answers myself ala Berrigan-Cage and wondered if Bob would like to see the thing before I publish it.... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 14:25:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: Minneapolis In-Reply-To: from "Henry Gould" at Apr 12, 96 02:03:11 pm I've noticed that people living in California are particulary subject to that form of imaginative disability which limits magic to some place the sun shines all the time. I've actually found magic in Buffalo, of all places. Although Lorrine Niedecker writes from Wisconsin rather than Minnesota, the magic is much the same. The problem with the mall thing is endemic to America, no? Certainly not one state or another. Maria's disenchantment seems to me deeply personal, and hence neither refutable nor generalizable. The magic, folks, is where you live. If you can't see it, maybe you're not living there. As for _Fargo_, how is it hollow? I thought it beautifully addressed American culture without slipping into Tarrantino's slick emptiness. Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 14:29:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: More on Malls In-Reply-To: <960413132427_512858314@emout10.mail.aol.com> from "Bob Holman" at Apr 13, 96 01:24:29 pm Glenn Gould loved to hang out in malls for their magic. Do americans know who Glenn Gould is? Mike ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 11:47:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: Minneapolis At 2:25 PM 4/13/96, Michael Boughn wrote: >I've noticed that people living in California are particulary subject to >that form of imaginative disability Michael, I know there's a word that applies to people who make these kinds of pissy generalizations--it ends with "ist" I'm sure, but I just can't figure out what that word is. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 14:49:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mary Rising Higgins Subject: Re: More on Malls of course! one of my perfectly crazed heroes. mrh ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 15:02:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Samuels Subject: Re: More on Malls In-Reply-To: <199604131829.OAA22876@epas.utoronto.ca> from "Michael Boughn" at Apr 13, 96 02:29:42 pm hmm hmm i'd like to answer you but hmm hmm i'm playing the piano. ls > > Glenn Gould loved to hang out in malls for their magic. Do americans > know who Glenn Gould is? > > Mike > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 12:16:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: Abu-Jamal In-Reply-To: <199604130406.AAA08669@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> for any who are interested -- a new journal out of the Comp. Lit. department at UCLA titled _Suitcase_ includes a translation into English of the short article Derrida published in France last Summer as a plea for Mumia Abu-Jamal -- a couple of other worthwhile articles as well, though the fiction & poetry in this new mag. leaves much to be desired -- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 13 Apr 1996 12:25:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: braindeed In-Reply-To: <199604130406.AAA08669@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> Can't say that I've experienced such a startling shift while passing back and forth between the writin