Many of the poets at yesterday's Boog City/Chax reading
at ACA Galleries, including the publisher/poet Charles Alexander
were close friends with Gill Ott, poet and publisher of Singing Horse Press
who died yesterday. It was noted that Charles Bernstein and Bob
Perelman both had visited him at his hospital bed last Tuesday. Mr. Ott
had had numerous kidney transplants throughout his brief but
very fruitful life, so had faced this threat for nearly 25 years,
as Charles Bernstein explained during his portion of the group reading.
The reading was in honor of Chax Press' 20th birthday.
Here is a bit more of Gill Ott's poetry from his book *The Whole Note*
from Zasterle Press.

"This feeble stick, this debris. Pry with a twig
the mass aready man dances to reconcile
sounds from a rural grave with vacant uni-
son. He is revealed

spirits demanded split from the grove of
hands to burn, incarnate, white up a sweat.
Name deity the rounds of the blank assem-
bled to charge fealty with alcohol, poverty to
congregate

penury undone. Out of the blood a knife's
work freed him for these rounds and un-
marked he every mark inspected. Glazed

the city of souls thick dependence momen-
tarily undone. Raw sensory equivalence an
animal tongue, a limp or worse affliction
raises the dead among us. Harm and again
relieved."

(another short passage from this book
appeared on ::fait accompli:: yesterday.)

**
For More on Gill Ott click here for Ron Silliman's Blog
Gill Ott memorial page & more links right now on The Philly Sound {click here}