*Death to Reviews II*
Are poets necessarily home alone?
Get the whole story right now on
Tympan {click here}
***********************
A Critical Departure; and a Critical Full Disclosure
The most recent edition of
rhubarg is susan {click here}
announced the departure from blogland
by an excellent blogger, Simon DeDeo,
which seems to have triggered
quite a bit of soul-searching
among some of the most active
literary bloggers. The general
consensus appears to be that
more reviewing is needed; even,
according to Jordan Davis,
to the point of creating a
"review of record." I've stated here
and elsewhere why I think this
approach is not the most effective:
I agree poets are capable of
writng very useful and interesting
critical essays about poetics and poetry.
I am quite dubious about the
notion of "reviews" by poets.
Reviews present themselves as a
form of crtiical reception by means of
objective judgements.
Poets are unavoidably biased in
regards to their peers, in fact, very
or even extremely biased. They are also
quite capable of brilliant,
even ingenius modes of
presenting their biases as objective
and inevitable. In my view, a better
way to go would be to work together
on a weblog that offers reviews,
presented as such, by invited non-poet
readers of contemporary and other poetry,
such as scholars, academics, fiction writers
or artists, for example; the blog
might also include essays about
poetics, poetry-or anything else-
by poets presented as such:
appreciations or persuasive critiques by
peers about peers, acknowledged
as such, but differentiated from the
"reviews"- written, hopefully, by
commentators who are not
actively involved and engaged with
a poetry career and a circle of poets.
In any case, ::fait accompli::
will continue to
present our thoughts and
opinions concerning art and
poetry for what they are: ideas
and reflections about writing
offered by an actively
engaged poet and artist, who
harbors no illusions about
enjoying a lifetime of innumerable
valued long term and new
friendships and acquaintanceships
among poets and artists;
these, of course, include
connections with particular
schools of poetry, perhaps,
now, even blogging!
We do not blush or apologize
for our many affections and loyalties
here at: :fait accompli:: , and we will
continue to enjoy working hard
at remaining as open
as possible to as much
writing and art,
new and old, as is possible
both by friends and strangers.
Distribution Automatique
Friday, June 17
"In this sullen craft or art/ excercised while the moon rages"
is a paraphrase of a line from Dylan Thomas
Jonathan Mayhew, bold blogger of Bemsha Swing {click here} has once again aroused my "anecdotage."
**************
In My Craft or Sullen Art
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art
- Dylan Thomas
************************************
Gary Sullivan (Elsewhere} {click here}
responds to the poetry book meme,
passes the baton to Nada who passes
it to Alli Warren (who has recently
published a new chapbook)
************************************
Yahoo's blog poets {click here}
************************************
Name Your Mood And I'll Build It For You
by Neon on
As-Is {click here}
is a paraphrase of a line from Dylan Thomas
Jonathan Mayhew, bold blogger of Bemsha Swing {click here} has once again aroused my "anecdotage."
**************
In My Craft or Sullen Art
In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.
Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art
- Dylan Thomas
************************************
Gary Sullivan (Elsewhere} {click here}
responds to the poetry book meme,
passes the baton to Nada who passes
it to Alli Warren (who has recently
published a new chapbook)
************************************
Yahoo's blog poets {click here}
************************************
Name Your Mood And I'll Build It For You
by Neon on
As-Is {click here}
Tuesday, June 14
Tony Oursler {click here}
who is interviewed in Henry Hills' *Emma's Dilemma*, discussed below,
has a darkly humorous installation
at the Metropolitan Museum
titled *Climaxed* A cartoon
cloud-character, housed in a roomful
of reddish-yellow clouds,
explodes, again and again, in
comic-book rage at the world.
In *Emma's Dilemma*, Oursler
puts an emphasis on dialogue
and interaction as key elements
in his work and what most
interests him in art. His other
installation at the Met now, an
homage to a painting by
Courbet, commissioned by
the Musee D'Orsay in Paris,
is a replica of his studio.
Saturday, June 11
*Emma's Dilemma*, a film by Henry Hills
was shown last night at Anthology Film Archives.
Although there was an earlier showing of parts
of the film at the Museum of Modern Art, this was the
first complete showing of the 87 minute-long film.
Many of the interviewees were present in the audience,
including Carolee Schneeman, Ken Jacobs and
Kenneth Goldsmith; as well as the Bernstein
family, including Susan Bee's father Sigmund
Laufer as well as Charles Bernstein's mother-
aka the Countess Bernstein (more on that later).
The film focuses on a 12 year
old Emma Bernstein (she is now in her first year
at the University of Chicago) interviewing such
art world luminaries as the artists
mentioned above, as well as
Richard Foreman, Tony Oursler,
poets Lee Anne Brown and
performance artist Julie Patton
and poet Susan Howe. Audience
sightings: Rodrigo Toscano, Bob
Perelman, Francie Shaw, Mimi Gross,
Mira Schor, Bradley Eros, Nada Gordon,
Bruce Andrews, Laura Elrick,
Sally Silvers, Jay
Sanders, Rob Fitterman, Jean Foos,
Abigail Child, Dirk Rountree.
Henry Hills is the consummate
experimental filmaker and this
film will be a delight
for those in search of films
that defy to an extreme
the current Hollywood
model of seducing audiences
determined to protect their limited
or waning attention spans.
Hills is a filmaker who deserves
to be recognized as a
prime contemporary leader of the
avant-garde. If you question
whether such a thing exists,
you are now required to
consider the career of Henry
Hills closely. One could understand
why in the course of this witty, but
uncompromising film, Charles
Bernstein makes a point of
comparing his own aesthetics
closely with that of this filmaker.
Hills defies every precept of
conventional film making:
not only in relation to plot,
but in his insistent and
very thoroughly,
even obsessively,
explored visual and psychological
interests: notably physical gestures
and their expression of situation and
personality. In one of the most outstanding
scenes in the film, Emma is interviewing
Ken Jacobs and the camera focuses on the filmaker's
hands. I did not quite understand all of Henry's
technical details when he explained to
me how he advanced and reversed the
images in doing a study of Jacob's hand
gestures that move rapidly again and again
to create an image
of a whirling globe. Also, the focus on
aspects of "home movie or video" is
suggestive of his wit and avant-gardism
(I'm thinking now of Stan Brakhage and
Vito Acconci), in this case the family
of the poet Charles Bernstein,
his wife the artist Susan Bee
(whose paintings take on a
spectral and stunning stature in this film),
their son Felix (who ends the film
with a show stopping dance in a tutu)
and, of course, the interviewer, their daughter
Emma Bernstein. After the showing
Henry spoke about his fascination
with Emma's rapid personal
transformations going from age
12 to 16 or 17; indeed it is
fascinating to witness the huge
number of psychological and
social changes observable in
Emma's appearance, styles
and attitudes in the course of the
film; her pre-teen and teenage
boredom and sarcasm
occasionally emerges, but
Henry certainly seems to
enjoyably focus on her appealing,
sphynx-like demeanor but- even
more significantly- engages her
prescient and impressive
youthful insights into his own
work and the work and ideas of
such artists as Tony Oursler,
Richard Foreman and Carolee
Schneeman. Sighted also in the
film: poets Sianne Ngai and Fiona
Templeton. The segment on
Richard Foreman is phenomenal;
Foreman is amazingly relaxed with
Emma and startlingly
forthcoming for this usually
extremely reticent playwright;
he does a dance, he kids around
with Emma in delightful and
memorable ways. The filmed
sequences of the play Foreman
was working on at that moment
will doubtlessly be treasured by
future viewers; they richly and
uncannily capture the essence of
Foreman's art, which is itself
so replete in visual concerns and effects
(his work could easily be included in
a compendium of contemporary
installation artists). Another interview
worth seeing more than once:
the one with Susan Howe, where
many of her words appear in writing, words
animated in white on the screen as she speaks.
In another segment, Emma uses the word
"like" innumerable times, that also appear
animated in white on the screen. As a group walked
to a bar with Henry afterwards, Henry
reminded me about a talk Carolee gave not
long ago at the Bowery Poetry Club which
included an intricate take on the use of that
ever-present word. Also, in the after-screening
discussion, Emma and Henry were present to
answer audience questions. Kenny Goldsmith
asked Emma if her friends at the University of
Chicago ask her questions about her artistic family
milieu. She said she doesn't like to mention this
so often (audience laughter) but
she occasionally
surprises people when they
learn she is the daughter of one of their
favorite poets.
Hills seems here to be paying
tribute to artists who
have made it one of their prime
concerns to enlarge the
boundaries of their
chosen medium,
another clear example of his
avant-gardist values.
Both Henry and Emma
mentioned afterwards that
several interviews were
cut from the lengthy film; some with artists,
also footage of the late,
great, Jackson Mac Low.
Emma's engaging and perceptive
commentary is certainly one of
the more entertaining and
vibrant aspects of this
many faceted, complex film. At one point she
says (of the Bernsteins), "My
parents are arty, but not hip."
(Charles later agreed, admitting to
a lack of interest in being fashionable;
another calling card of the avant-garde).
At another point, Susan Bee's collagist
paintings spin into innumberable rectangular,
interpenetrating, transforming fragments.
Later, over drinks, Hills mentioned to
me his memory of going to a nightclub
with CB in the early 80's (thanks to the
Warhol set connections of Charles Bernstein's
mother-known as "the Countess
Bernstein") and feeling they "kind of
stood out there." One wonders
if Emma as yet sustains her 12 year old stated
dream that "an agent might see me
in the film and call me up." Emma also
mentions a serendipitous,
but ultimately frustrating moment when
the filmaker and interviewer happened to
capture Parker Posey in a sponaneous
interview, now lost to us due to a worn-out
camera battery.
Henry Hills' *Emma's Dilemma* is a
cinematic, psychological and
philosophical
tour de force. We should
be grateful to him for so boldly
and entertainingly keeping
alive fast fading, 19th and
20th century utopian visions of
complete artistic freedom.
*********************************
A Henry Hills retrospective
tomorrow night, Sunday June 12
at 7:00 pm
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue at 2cd Street
*********************************
At Philosophy Box
1511 Lexington Avenue
(Between 97th & 98th Streets)
Yu-Whuan, Director)
Abigail Child, New York
Premier of *Cake and Steak* (2004)
also showing: *Kitas Window Image*
by Jackie Matisse
and Miguel Trelles, New Work
from June 8-June 26,2005
Weds-Sun, 2-8 pm
opening reception:
Saturday, June 11th, 6-8 pm
and book party for Abigail Child's
*A Critical Poetics of Film* (2205)
University of Alabama Press
***************************************
Nada Gordon on Emma's Dilemma
Ululations {click here}
***************************************
Over the Bridge: Toni and Nada's Musings
Coming Home from Emma's Dilemma
ululations {click here}
***************************************
was shown last night at Anthology Film Archives.
Although there was an earlier showing of parts
of the film at the Museum of Modern Art, this was the
first complete showing of the 87 minute-long film.
Many of the interviewees were present in the audience,
including Carolee Schneeman, Ken Jacobs and
Kenneth Goldsmith; as well as the Bernstein
family, including Susan Bee's father Sigmund
Laufer as well as Charles Bernstein's mother-
aka the Countess Bernstein (more on that later).
The film focuses on a 12 year
old Emma Bernstein (she is now in her first year
at the University of Chicago) interviewing such
art world luminaries as the artists
mentioned above, as well as
Richard Foreman, Tony Oursler,
poets Lee Anne Brown and
performance artist Julie Patton
and poet Susan Howe. Audience
sightings: Rodrigo Toscano, Bob
Perelman, Francie Shaw, Mimi Gross,
Mira Schor, Bradley Eros, Nada Gordon,
Bruce Andrews, Laura Elrick,
Sally Silvers, Jay
Sanders, Rob Fitterman, Jean Foos,
Abigail Child, Dirk Rountree.
Henry Hills is the consummate
experimental filmaker and this
film will be a delight
for those in search of films
that defy to an extreme
the current Hollywood
model of seducing audiences
determined to protect their limited
or waning attention spans.
Hills is a filmaker who deserves
to be recognized as a
prime contemporary leader of the
avant-garde. If you question
whether such a thing exists,
you are now required to
consider the career of Henry
Hills closely. One could understand
why in the course of this witty, but
uncompromising film, Charles
Bernstein makes a point of
comparing his own aesthetics
closely with that of this filmaker.
Hills defies every precept of
conventional film making:
not only in relation to plot,
but in his insistent and
very thoroughly,
even obsessively,
explored visual and psychological
interests: notably physical gestures
and their expression of situation and
personality. In one of the most outstanding
scenes in the film, Emma is interviewing
Ken Jacobs and the camera focuses on the filmaker's
hands. I did not quite understand all of Henry's
technical details when he explained to
me how he advanced and reversed the
images in doing a study of Jacob's hand
gestures that move rapidly again and again
to create an image
of a whirling globe. Also, the focus on
aspects of "home movie or video" is
suggestive of his wit and avant-gardism
(I'm thinking now of Stan Brakhage and
Vito Acconci), in this case the family
of the poet Charles Bernstein,
his wife the artist Susan Bee
(whose paintings take on a
spectral and stunning stature in this film),
their son Felix (who ends the film
with a show stopping dance in a tutu)
and, of course, the interviewer, their daughter
Emma Bernstein. After the showing
Henry spoke about his fascination
with Emma's rapid personal
transformations going from age
12 to 16 or 17; indeed it is
fascinating to witness the huge
number of psychological and
social changes observable in
Emma's appearance, styles
and attitudes in the course of the
film; her pre-teen and teenage
boredom and sarcasm
occasionally emerges, but
Henry certainly seems to
enjoyably focus on her appealing,
sphynx-like demeanor but- even
more significantly- engages her
prescient and impressive
youthful insights into his own
work and the work and ideas of
such artists as Tony Oursler,
Richard Foreman and Carolee
Schneeman. Sighted also in the
film: poets Sianne Ngai and Fiona
Templeton. The segment on
Richard Foreman is phenomenal;
Foreman is amazingly relaxed with
Emma and startlingly
forthcoming for this usually
extremely reticent playwright;
he does a dance, he kids around
with Emma in delightful and
memorable ways. The filmed
sequences of the play Foreman
was working on at that moment
will doubtlessly be treasured by
future viewers; they richly and
uncannily capture the essence of
Foreman's art, which is itself
so replete in visual concerns and effects
(his work could easily be included in
a compendium of contemporary
installation artists). Another interview
worth seeing more than once:
the one with Susan Howe, where
many of her words appear in writing, words
animated in white on the screen as she speaks.
In another segment, Emma uses the word
"like" innumerable times, that also appear
animated in white on the screen. As a group walked
to a bar with Henry afterwards, Henry
reminded me about a talk Carolee gave not
long ago at the Bowery Poetry Club which
included an intricate take on the use of that
ever-present word. Also, in the after-screening
discussion, Emma and Henry were present to
answer audience questions. Kenny Goldsmith
asked Emma if her friends at the University of
Chicago ask her questions about her artistic family
milieu. She said she doesn't like to mention this
so often (audience laughter) but
she occasionally
surprises people when they
learn she is the daughter of one of their
favorite poets.
Hills seems here to be paying
tribute to artists who
have made it one of their prime
concerns to enlarge the
boundaries of their
chosen medium,
another clear example of his
avant-gardist values.
Both Henry and Emma
mentioned afterwards that
several interviews were
cut from the lengthy film; some with artists,
also footage of the late,
great, Jackson Mac Low.
Emma's engaging and perceptive
commentary is certainly one of
the more entertaining and
vibrant aspects of this
many faceted, complex film. At one point she
says (of the Bernsteins), "My
parents are arty, but not hip."
(Charles later agreed, admitting to
a lack of interest in being fashionable;
another calling card of the avant-garde).
At another point, Susan Bee's collagist
paintings spin into innumberable rectangular,
interpenetrating, transforming fragments.
Later, over drinks, Hills mentioned to
me his memory of going to a nightclub
with CB in the early 80's (thanks to the
Warhol set connections of Charles Bernstein's
mother-known as "the Countess
Bernstein") and feeling they "kind of
stood out there." One wonders
if Emma as yet sustains her 12 year old stated
dream that "an agent might see me
in the film and call me up." Emma also
mentions a serendipitous,
but ultimately frustrating moment when
the filmaker and interviewer happened to
capture Parker Posey in a sponaneous
interview, now lost to us due to a worn-out
camera battery.
Henry Hills' *Emma's Dilemma* is a
cinematic, psychological and
philosophical
tour de force. We should
be grateful to him for so boldly
and entertainingly keeping
alive fast fading, 19th and
20th century utopian visions of
complete artistic freedom.
*********************************
A Henry Hills retrospective
tomorrow night, Sunday June 12
at 7:00 pm
Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue at 2cd Street
*********************************
At Philosophy Box
1511 Lexington Avenue
(Between 97th & 98th Streets)
Yu-Whuan, Director)
Abigail Child, New York
Premier of *Cake and Steak* (2004)
also showing: *Kitas Window Image*
by Jackie Matisse
and Miguel Trelles, New Work
from June 8-June 26,2005
Weds-Sun, 2-8 pm
opening reception:
Saturday, June 11th, 6-8 pm
and book party for Abigail Child's
*A Critical Poetics of Film* (2205)
University of Alabama Press
***************************************
Nada Gordon on Emma's Dilemma
Ululations {click here}
***************************************
Over the Bridge: Toni and Nada's Musings
Coming Home from Emma's Dilemma
ululations {click here}
***************************************
Friday, June 10
You Went to College, I went to Cool-idge
A Compendium of Coolidge Cliches
right now on
Bemsha Swing {click here}
*******************************************
Thanks to Geof Huth (dbqp Visualizing Poetics) {click here}
(that indispensable blog) for reminding us that the
Tom Phillips show at the
Flowers Gallery {click here}
is open for one more day!
(closes Saturday, June 11th)
A Compendium of Coolidge Cliches
right now on
Bemsha Swing {click here}
*******************************************
Thanks to Geof Huth (dbqp Visualizing Poetics) {click here}
(that indispensable blog) for reminding us that the
Tom Phillips show at the
Flowers Gallery {click here}
is open for one more day!
(closes Saturday, June 11th)
Thursday, June 9
Penn Sound
just added the reading we did recently on the My Vocabulary show
to their listings:
Featured Authors {click here}
*************************************************
Whmsey Speaks {click here}
in answer to Radical Druid's nine questions
**************************************************
thanks to Green Integer (Douglas Messerli)
for sending us three very exciting new books
they just published:
Charles Bernstein, *Shadowtime* libretto for the
"thought opera" about Walter Benjamin*
**
Douglas Messerli, editor: *The PIP Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century
Volume 5, Intersections: Innovative Poetry in
Southern California"; includes: Will Alexander, David Antin, Rae Armantrout,
Therese Bechand, Todd Baron, Guy Bennett, Franklin Bruno, Wanda Coleman,
Robert Crosson. Catherine Daly, MIchael Davidson, Leland Hickman,
Barbara Maloutas, Deborah Meadows, Douglas Messerli,
Harryette Mullen, Martin Nakell, Dennis Phillips, Christopher Reiner, Martha Ronk,
Joe Ross, Jerome Rothenberg, Mark Salerno, Standard Schaefer,
John Thomas, Paul Vangelisti, Pasqualle Verdicchio, Diane Ward
**
and
Paul Celan, *Lightduress* translated by Pierre Joris
just added the reading we did recently on the My Vocabulary show
to their listings:
Featured Authors {click here}
*************************************************
Whmsey Speaks {click here}
in answer to Radical Druid's nine questions
**************************************************
thanks to Green Integer (Douglas Messerli)
for sending us three very exciting new books
they just published:
Charles Bernstein, *Shadowtime* libretto for the
"thought opera" about Walter Benjamin*
**
Douglas Messerli, editor: *The PIP Anthology of World Poetry of the 20th Century
Volume 5, Intersections: Innovative Poetry in
Southern California"; includes: Will Alexander, David Antin, Rae Armantrout,
Therese Bechand, Todd Baron, Guy Bennett, Franklin Bruno, Wanda Coleman,
Robert Crosson. Catherine Daly, MIchael Davidson, Leland Hickman,
Barbara Maloutas, Deborah Meadows, Douglas Messerli,
Harryette Mullen, Martin Nakell, Dennis Phillips, Christopher Reiner, Martha Ronk,
Joe Ross, Jerome Rothenberg, Mark Salerno, Standard Schaefer,
John Thomas, Paul Vangelisti, Pasqualle Verdicchio, Diane Ward
**
and
Paul Celan, *Lightduress* translated by Pierre Joris
Wednesday, June 8
Poet, Publisher, Playwright
Douglas Messerli {click here}, aka Kier Peters and Per Bregne now has a Homepage at the electric Electronic Poetry Center.
Douglas Messerli {click here}, aka Kier Peters and Per Bregne now has a Homepage at the electric Electronic Poetry Center.
Tuesday, June 7
The Vogue for Questions Continues
Evelio's Meme (Blindheit) {click here}
Thanks to Evelio for sending me the following questions.
1. Total number of books I've owned:
About 8000 (figuring
about 100 per box,
I moved recently and
gave away or sold 40 boxes
and moved 40)
2. Last book I bought:
I bought 6 books at McIntyre
and Moore in Somerville, on
Memorial day. They were:
*Theodore Dreiser's "Every Month"*
edited by Nancy Warner Barrineau.
Hardbound, Unversity of Georgia Press,
1996. Paid $9. Theodore Dreiser's
earliest writings, October 1895-
September 1897, published
in a piano music magazine
of the era. Dreiser's brother
was a songwriter. Many of
these articles are intensely
political and anticipate Dreiser's
first novel *Sister Carrie*.
Mircea Eliade, *Journal III:
1970-1978*, Hardbound,
University of Chicago Press,
1989. Paid $9. Eliade's journals
are classics in the form. "17 October.
Joint seminar with Paul Ricoeur on
hermaneutics in philosophy and
the history of religions. Ricoeur
gives an excellent historic
overview, from Aristotle up to Kant."
Anne Sexton, *A Self-Portrait in Letters*,
edited by Linda Gray Sexton and
Lois Ames. Hardbound,
Houghton Mifflin, Boston,
1977. Paid $7.50. The
famous volume, 433 pages.
Possibly a first edition.
"Perhaps now I have learned
only one thing, a very American
thing- that to fail (the endurance
shattered, broken into small
unimporant pieces) is the ultimate
humiliation. How does one muddy
oneself with failure in this
'literary marketplace' and survive?"
George Orwell, *Essays,
Journalism and Letters*,
three volumes: 1: An Age Like This,
1920-1940; 2: My Country Right or Left,
1940-1943; 3: As I Please, 1943-1945.,
edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus,
David R. Godine, 2000. Softcovers,
paid $9 a volume. "As I write,
highly civilized human beings are
flying overhead trying to kill me."
3.
Last book I read.
Cathy Yardley, *L. A Woman*,
Worldwide Library, 2002.
Another in a welter of novels
coming out of contemporary L.A.,
probably engendered by
the novels of Kate Braverman,
including *Wonders of the West*,
1993, and *Palm Latitudes*. In
Yardley's LA Woman, sedate
Sarah leaves suburban Northern
CA for LA and becomes wilder,
and wiser. Subway reading,
a little on the trashy side, but I
enjoyed it. Purchased for $1
on an outside shelf at Ivy's
Books on the Upper West Side.
4.
Four books that mean a lot to me.
Lynne Dreyer,
*Lamplights Used
To Feed The Deer*,
Some of Us Press, c. 1975.
"And then I looked down I/
saw not only thousands of people
/but thousands of people making/
noises, wailing"
Nada Gordon, *V. Imp*,
Faux Press, 2003.
"Poetry...I too.../my head...I won't go into it"
Douglas Messerli, ed.
*The Gertrude Stein Awards
In Innovative Poetry*, Sun and Moon,
1995. "Suspend craft,
hesitation, influence,
and dramatize/inherent
wilderness (light side of sin..."
- Sheila Murphy, "Floor Piece #4"
Daniel Davidson, *Product*, e.g., 1991.
"Humans are planning made
easy, all the thorny, perplexing,
tedious situations that sell."
***************************************
Passing the baton to:
Phaneronoemikon (Lanny Quarles) {click here}
and
Elsewhere (Gary Sullivan) {click here}
Evelio's Meme (Blindheit) {click here}
Thanks to Evelio for sending me the following questions.
1. Total number of books I've owned:
About 8000 (figuring
about 100 per box,
I moved recently and
gave away or sold 40 boxes
and moved 40)
2. Last book I bought:
I bought 6 books at McIntyre
and Moore in Somerville, on
Memorial day. They were:
*Theodore Dreiser's "Every Month"*
edited by Nancy Warner Barrineau.
Hardbound, Unversity of Georgia Press,
1996. Paid $9. Theodore Dreiser's
earliest writings, October 1895-
September 1897, published
in a piano music magazine
of the era. Dreiser's brother
was a songwriter. Many of
these articles are intensely
political and anticipate Dreiser's
first novel *Sister Carrie*.
Mircea Eliade, *Journal III:
1970-1978*, Hardbound,
University of Chicago Press,
1989. Paid $9. Eliade's journals
are classics in the form. "17 October.
Joint seminar with Paul Ricoeur on
hermaneutics in philosophy and
the history of religions. Ricoeur
gives an excellent historic
overview, from Aristotle up to Kant."
Anne Sexton, *A Self-Portrait in Letters*,
edited by Linda Gray Sexton and
Lois Ames. Hardbound,
Houghton Mifflin, Boston,
1977. Paid $7.50. The
famous volume, 433 pages.
Possibly a first edition.
"Perhaps now I have learned
only one thing, a very American
thing- that to fail (the endurance
shattered, broken into small
unimporant pieces) is the ultimate
humiliation. How does one muddy
oneself with failure in this
'literary marketplace' and survive?"
George Orwell, *Essays,
Journalism and Letters*,
three volumes: 1: An Age Like This,
1920-1940; 2: My Country Right or Left,
1940-1943; 3: As I Please, 1943-1945.,
edited by Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus,
David R. Godine, 2000. Softcovers,
paid $9 a volume. "As I write,
highly civilized human beings are
flying overhead trying to kill me."
3.
Last book I read.
Cathy Yardley, *L. A Woman*,
Worldwide Library, 2002.
Another in a welter of novels
coming out of contemporary L.A.,
probably engendered by
the novels of Kate Braverman,
including *Wonders of the West*,
1993, and *Palm Latitudes*. In
Yardley's LA Woman, sedate
Sarah leaves suburban Northern
CA for LA and becomes wilder,
and wiser. Subway reading,
a little on the trashy side, but I
enjoyed it. Purchased for $1
on an outside shelf at Ivy's
Books on the Upper West Side.
4.
Four books that mean a lot to me.
Lynne Dreyer,
*Lamplights Used
To Feed The Deer*,
Some of Us Press, c. 1975.
"And then I looked down I/
saw not only thousands of people
/but thousands of people making/
noises, wailing"
Nada Gordon, *V. Imp*,
Faux Press, 2003.
"Poetry...I too.../my head...I won't go into it"
Douglas Messerli, ed.
*The Gertrude Stein Awards
In Innovative Poetry*, Sun and Moon,
1995. "Suspend craft,
hesitation, influence,
and dramatize/inherent
wilderness (light side of sin..."
- Sheila Murphy, "Floor Piece #4"
Daniel Davidson, *Product*, e.g., 1991.
"Humans are planning made
easy, all the thorny, perplexing,
tedious situations that sell."
***************************************
Passing the baton to:
Phaneronoemikon (Lanny Quarles) {click here}
and
Elsewhere (Gary Sullivan) {click here}
Monday, June 6
Sunday, June 5
Nada Gordon and Corinne Robins
gave excellent readings at the Ceres Gallery
on Thursday evening. If you weren't there you
didn't get to hear Corinne's poems about
artists, including a beautiful one about Joseph
Cornell. Nada read a terrific autobiographical
poem, in a mode of channeling Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, I think it was.
Also at the reading I got to meet
Burt Kimmelman, who is the editor of the recently (1/05) pubished Companion to 20th Century American Poetry {click here}, and who
has promised to send me a copy
of one of his own books of poetry.
The four volume compendium includes discussions
of the following poets:
Companion Poets, poems, topics, etc {click here}
*****************************
Downfall {click here}
Thanks to Heathens in Heat {click here} for
posting this review of the
recent movie about Hitler,
a balanced review that rightly
takes issue with the inevitable
"humanizing" of the Nazis this
film indulges in.
***********************
Who cares? {click here}
***************************
gave excellent readings at the Ceres Gallery
on Thursday evening. If you weren't there you
didn't get to hear Corinne's poems about
artists, including a beautiful one about Joseph
Cornell. Nada read a terrific autobiographical
poem, in a mode of channeling Elizabeth Barrett
Browning, I think it was.
Also at the reading I got to meet
Burt Kimmelman, who is the editor of the recently (1/05) pubished Companion to 20th Century American Poetry {click here}, and who
has promised to send me a copy
of one of his own books of poetry.
The four volume compendium includes discussions
of the following poets:
Companion Poets, poems, topics, etc {click here}
*****************************
Downfall {click here}
Thanks to Heathens in Heat {click here} for
posting this review of the
recent movie about Hitler,
a balanced review that rightly
takes issue with the inevitable
"humanizing" of the Nazis this
film indulges in.
***********************
Who cares? {click here}
***************************
Friday, June 3
The Silence of the Lambs
"The arrogance of critics prospers, even fattens,
on the silence of the poets over whom the critic
means to tyrannize."
Jerome Rothenberg {click here}
thanks to Mappemunde (Tim Peterson) {click here} for the link.
Parrhesia
from Gary Sullivan's *Elsewhere*
"Just before leaving, I had a brief
but kind of strange conversation
with Bruce Andrews.
I hadn't seen him in a while,
not since the Coolidge/Gizzi reading,
where I had given him--Bruce--a copy of my comic.
Bruce congratulated me on the comic,
said that while he hadn't read it,
he didn't think it was worth my having
dropped out of the scene for a year
to create. I reminded him
that I had been "missing" really
only for half a year, and he said,
"even so." He said it nicely enough,
so perhaps he simply meant
that he missed me.
But the subtext seemed to be
"What you're doing isn't worth
the time you're spending on it."
Wasn't sure how to respond to that.
I could have, I suppose,
reminded him that my procedure
is different from his own,
that drawing comics physically
takes a lot of time, and
that it is a learned skill--very
different from scribbling on
3x5s while on auto-pilot,
which he's been doing for the
last twenty years or so.
Too, I felt like reminding him
that I had already sold more
copies of my little
self-published comic in
its first month than that
powerhouse Sun & Moon
probably sold of what's
considered his best book,
I Don't Have Any Paper, Or Shut Up,
in its first year in print.
This is hubris, of course,
but if sales continue as they've
been, I'll sell out of the first printing
before a year has gone by, whereas
Shut Up was published
more than a decade ago, and
I don't think it has yet gone
into a second printing.
I can't imagine that more than
1000 copies were made.
I suppose I could have patiently
explained all of that to him, but
I was tired after a long day of working.
Plus, it seemed more intended
as a kind of conversation stopper, not starter.
His comment--and he's famous
for these kinds of comments--
shouldn't have bothered me,
but it did. As a personal slight, sure,
but more as a kind of reminder
of the worst aspects of the poetry
scene, of why it can sometimes
seem a monumental waste of
one's energy and resources to
engage with it. If one's interaction
with the poetry scene leads to
these kinds of banal but hurtful
conversations, why would anyone
in their right mind steal time away
from their creative endeavors to be
available for them?
Of course, I'm overreacting. (
I'm a Leo; we do that.)
The truth is, I had a great time with
everyone else, picked up some
wonderful-looking books,
and look forward to the next event,
which is tonight, I realize:
The Hanging Loose book party
at Teachers & Writers.
New books by Sharon Mesmer
and Jeni Olin! I guess I have to go to the ATM."
rom Gary Sulllivan's
Elsewhere {click here}
for the complete text excerpted from
above scroll down to *Getting Out More*
"The arrogance of critics prospers, even fattens,
on the silence of the poets over whom the critic
means to tyrannize."
Jerome Rothenberg {click here}
thanks to Mappemunde (Tim Peterson) {click here} for the link.
Parrhesia
from Gary Sullivan's *Elsewhere*
"Just before leaving, I had a brief
but kind of strange conversation
with Bruce Andrews.
I hadn't seen him in a while,
not since the Coolidge/Gizzi reading,
where I had given him--Bruce--a copy of my comic.
Bruce congratulated me on the comic,
said that while he hadn't read it,
he didn't think it was worth my having
dropped out of the scene for a year
to create. I reminded him
that I had been "missing" really
only for half a year, and he said,
"even so." He said it nicely enough,
so perhaps he simply meant
that he missed me.
But the subtext seemed to be
"What you're doing isn't worth
the time you're spending on it."
Wasn't sure how to respond to that.
I could have, I suppose,
reminded him that my procedure
is different from his own,
that drawing comics physically
takes a lot of time, and
that it is a learned skill--very
different from scribbling on
3x5s while on auto-pilot,
which he's been doing for the
last twenty years or so.
Too, I felt like reminding him
that I had already sold more
copies of my little
self-published comic in
its first month than that
powerhouse Sun & Moon
probably sold of what's
considered his best book,
I Don't Have Any Paper, Or Shut Up,
in its first year in print.
This is hubris, of course,
but if sales continue as they've
been, I'll sell out of the first printing
before a year has gone by, whereas
Shut Up was published
more than a decade ago, and
I don't think it has yet gone
into a second printing.
I can't imagine that more than
1000 copies were made.
I suppose I could have patiently
explained all of that to him, but
I was tired after a long day of working.
Plus, it seemed more intended
as a kind of conversation stopper, not starter.
His comment--and he's famous
for these kinds of comments--
shouldn't have bothered me,
but it did. As a personal slight, sure,
but more as a kind of reminder
of the worst aspects of the poetry
scene, of why it can sometimes
seem a monumental waste of
one's energy and resources to
engage with it. If one's interaction
with the poetry scene leads to
these kinds of banal but hurtful
conversations, why would anyone
in their right mind steal time away
from their creative endeavors to be
available for them?
Of course, I'm overreacting. (
I'm a Leo; we do that.)
The truth is, I had a great time with
everyone else, picked up some
wonderful-looking books,
and look forward to the next event,
which is tonight, I realize:
The Hanging Loose book party
at Teachers & Writers.
New books by Sharon Mesmer
and Jeni Olin! I guess I have to go to the ATM."
rom Gary Sulllivan's
Elsewhere {click here}
for the complete text excerpted from
above scroll down to *Getting Out More*
Thursday, June 2
Radical Druid Asks:
1. Do you write with the intent of submitting (and getting published)? Is that your primary objective in writing poetry (publishing to print media, or online journals, or other outlets [i.e., contests, prizes, etc.])?
I fell in love wtih the printed page at an early age. So I
always wanted to see my writing in print and be a part
of the vast libraries of books I loved so much as a child.
My earliest poems were imitations
of my favorite poets:
A.E. Housmnan and Thomas Gray,
poets I read in the high school anthology.
Though I heard e.e.cummings and Lewis Warsh read in college in NY in the early 60's, I didn't
discover many of my favorite contemporaries
until the middle to late 60's and on to the 70's. Meanwhile, I had strongly pulled away from trying to publish, when certain late 60's
anti-ego values became attractive to me. At this point, my social concerns and anti-war activities, and a concommitant quest for answers
to personal concerns submerged
aesthetic concerns in favor of wanting and needing to understand things-to answer life's
questions. Jackson Mac Low's poetry became an inspiration and challenge, as did the work of John Ashbery, the work and teaching
of Bernadette Mayer and the
work of Robert Smithson and Vito Acconci.
It wasn't until I began to give readings
after participating in Bernadette Mayer's
workshop in the early 70's that I again
started to get a handle on where poetry and publishing might fit into my life after my lttle bit
of publishing poems in the middle 60's. I see now that my love of abstraction in poetry and art,
but my simultaneous interest in
psychology and philosphy just
wouldn't mesh to a point that I
could see a way for my many
extremely varied experiments
to arrive in print; though I was very
interested in (but still shy about
at first) reading them aloud when invited.
The issue for me was that my poems
were meant to be stationary
points in the frequently conflctual
currents of experience and thought;
they felt like part of a personal
project that I couldn't easily frame
within a public persona.
While all of this was intensely
problematic career wise, my
relative obscurity seemed to
allow an internal fanning
of the flame of my poetic
concerns and interests,
in the same way that my
avoidance of academic
employment helped me to
remain enthusiastic about
literature in general, or so it
seemed. I guess I really didn't
want to professionalize my
writing interests. Eventually,
after discovering some ideas
in the work of Paul Valery,
working with poetics offered a
method for dealing with such
concerns that paralleled my
use of psychoanalysis in
working with my personal
issues and those of others-
an approach that seemed more
constructive to me; these were
modes of connecting my
experiences and activities
with others that still allowed
my poetic process to remain
somewhat private,. Presenting my writing
to others has consistently created
personal challenges for me,
even at times seemingly
insurmountable challenges
and conflcts in terms of my inner
concerns with the issues in the work
itself. I never liked the emotionally
cumbersome process of arranging
and submitting my work for
publcation, though I certainly
enjoyed and benefitted from
seeing my works in print when
they were published and
having them available in an
attractive and convenient way
to readers. As I've said countless
times now, and never seem to tire of
saying, weblogging and the web in
general have, for the first time, made
available some of the rapidity and availability of interaction and response, combined
with the "automatic" archiving and
record-keeping, that I've always
longed for. One of my collages in the 80's was titled *Distribution Automatique.*
The other part of the publishing/critical
reviewing system I didn't appreciate was the academicism, a quality in
intellectual life I have had a problem with since my honors courses in college. I'm uncomfortable with
pretentiousness and afraid and worried about seeing
it increase in myself; though
I cerainly enjoy the satisfactions
and pleasures of eperiencing
my own and others'
successes in doing artistic work
1. Do you write with the intent of submitting (and getting published)? Is that your primary objective in writing poetry (publishing to print media, or online journals, or other outlets [i.e., contests, prizes, etc.])?
I fell in love wtih the printed page at an early age. So I
always wanted to see my writing in print and be a part
of the vast libraries of books I loved so much as a child.
My earliest poems were imitations
of my favorite poets:
A.E. Housmnan and Thomas Gray,
poets I read in the high school anthology.
Though I heard e.e.cummings and Lewis Warsh read in college in NY in the early 60's, I didn't
discover many of my favorite contemporaries
until the middle to late 60's and on to the 70's. Meanwhile, I had strongly pulled away from trying to publish, when certain late 60's
anti-ego values became attractive to me. At this point, my social concerns and anti-war activities, and a concommitant quest for answers
to personal concerns submerged
aesthetic concerns in favor of wanting and needing to understand things-to answer life's
questions. Jackson Mac Low's poetry became an inspiration and challenge, as did the work of John Ashbery, the work and teaching
of Bernadette Mayer and the
work of Robert Smithson and Vito Acconci.
It wasn't until I began to give readings
after participating in Bernadette Mayer's
workshop in the early 70's that I again
started to get a handle on where poetry and publishing might fit into my life after my lttle bit
of publishing poems in the middle 60's. I see now that my love of abstraction in poetry and art,
but my simultaneous interest in
psychology and philosphy just
wouldn't mesh to a point that I
could see a way for my many
extremely varied experiments
to arrive in print; though I was very
interested in (but still shy about
at first) reading them aloud when invited.
The issue for me was that my poems
were meant to be stationary
points in the frequently conflctual
currents of experience and thought;
they felt like part of a personal
project that I couldn't easily frame
within a public persona.
While all of this was intensely
problematic career wise, my
relative obscurity seemed to
allow an internal fanning
of the flame of my poetic
concerns and interests,
in the same way that my
avoidance of academic
employment helped me to
remain enthusiastic about
literature in general, or so it
seemed. I guess I really didn't
want to professionalize my
writing interests. Eventually,
after discovering some ideas
in the work of Paul Valery,
working with poetics offered a
method for dealing with such
concerns that paralleled my
use of psychoanalysis in
working with my personal
issues and those of others-
an approach that seemed more
constructive to me; these were
modes of connecting my
experiences and activities
with others that still allowed
my poetic process to remain
somewhat private,. Presenting my writing
to others has consistently created
personal challenges for me,
even at times seemingly
insurmountable challenges
and conflcts in terms of my inner
concerns with the issues in the work
itself. I never liked the emotionally
cumbersome process of arranging
and submitting my work for
publcation, though I certainly
enjoyed and benefitted from
seeing my works in print when
they were published and
having them available in an
attractive and convenient way
to readers. As I've said countless
times now, and never seem to tire of
saying, weblogging and the web in
general have, for the first time, made
available some of the rapidity and availability of interaction and response, combined
with the "automatic" archiving and
record-keeping, that I've always
longed for. One of my collages in the 80's was titled *Distribution Automatique.*
The other part of the publishing/critical
reviewing system I didn't appreciate was the academicism, a quality in
intellectual life I have had a problem with since my honors courses in college. I'm uncomfortable with
pretentiousness and afraid and worried about seeing
it increase in myself; though
I cerainly enjoy the satisfactions
and pleasures of eperiencing
my own and others'
successes in doing artistic work
A Blogland Vogue for Questions:
Radical Druid Asks Jonathan Mayhew
Radical Druid {click here}
asks
Jonathan Mayhew (Bemsha Swing) {click here}
and
Laura Carter {Ecritures Bleues) {click here}
answer
***********************************
Speaking of Whispers, Don't Miss These
Jack Kimball (Pantaloons) {click here}
boards time's winged chariot
Radical Druid Asks Jonathan Mayhew
Radical Druid {click here}
asks
Jonathan Mayhew (Bemsha Swing) {click here}
and
Laura Carter {Ecritures Bleues) {click here}
answer
***********************************
Speaking of Whispers, Don't Miss These
Jack Kimball (Pantaloons) {click here}
boards time's winged chariot
Tuesday, May 31
The Unbearable Lightness of Blogging
Listening to Sibelius, as played by Maxim Vengerov,
a little enervated after
dinner, and a long train ride home
after a holiday
weekend out of town, reading
Boynton (Melbourne)
opening the
mail, mostly damn bills,
reading the email, welcome words from friends,
reading
Never Neutral (Mexico City)
I'm home again.
Listening to Sibelius, as played by Maxim Vengerov,
a little enervated after
dinner, and a long train ride home
after a holiday
weekend out of town, reading
Boynton (Melbourne)
opening the
mail, mostly damn bills,
reading the email, welcome words from friends,
reading
Never Neutral (Mexico City)
I'm home again.
House of Fame
One thing about visiting my in-laws in Arlington is the shopping,
and, in particular-used book shopping- more on this
later (now the books are in the suitcases, we're leaving shortly)
but one amazing book we found was Chaucer's *House of Fame*,
a late 19th century copy in the old English. Fascinating stuff
(hadn't even heard of this work before, though McIntyre and Moore,
the great scholarly used bookstore in Somerville, had tons
of books about it; the poem has a lot of material about dreams)
and I can't wait to read it and learn more about it. Another book
found in McIntyre and Moore, not purchased but examined led
to a fact that was interesting, though perhsps not that surprising-
the Routledge Press (published in 2000)
*Who's Who in 20th Century World Poetry*
edited by Marc Willhardt with Alan Michael Parker, has a
lengthy entry on Charles Bernstein; the book, covering every
country in the world for the whole century, has only 900 entries sent
in by 75 contributors!
One thing about visiting my in-laws in Arlington is the shopping,
and, in particular-used book shopping- more on this
later (now the books are in the suitcases, we're leaving shortly)
but one amazing book we found was Chaucer's *House of Fame*,
a late 19th century copy in the old English. Fascinating stuff
(hadn't even heard of this work before, though McIntyre and Moore,
the great scholarly used bookstore in Somerville, had tons
of books about it; the poem has a lot of material about dreams)
and I can't wait to read it and learn more about it. Another book
found in McIntyre and Moore, not purchased but examined led
to a fact that was interesting, though perhsps not that surprising-
the Routledge Press (published in 2000)
*Who's Who in 20th Century World Poetry*
edited by Marc Willhardt with Alan Michael Parker, has a
lengthy entry on Charles Bernstein; the book, covering every
country in the world for the whole century, has only 900 entries sent
in by 75 contributors!
Monday, May 30
Poetics Trek Episode 6: Memorial Day
The Vogue Continues
Limetree {click here}
Kemel Zaldivar {click here}
{P.S. Note the contrasting answers
to question 5; inevitable absorption
in poetry as a way of life or
"my vocabulary did this to me"
windbagging: you choose}
The Vogue Continues
Limetree {click here}
Kemel Zaldivar {click here}
{P.S. Note the contrasting answers
to question 5; inevitable absorption
in poetry as a way of life or
"my vocabulary did this to me"
windbagging: you choose}
Sunday, May 29
Swept Away
Jonathan's Vogue-for-Questions Solo,
plus sets from JEWISHYIRISHY
and A New Broom
Bemsha Swing {click here}
JEWISHYIRISHY {click here}
A New Broom {click here}
Jonathan's Vogue-for-Questions Solo,
plus sets from JEWISHYIRISHY
and A New Broom
Bemsha Swing {click here}
JEWISHYIRISHY {click here}
A New Broom {click here}
A Vogue for Answers, Episode 4
It's such a pleasure browsing other people's bookshelves,
don't you agree? Visiting in-laws in Arlington, Mass, we long
ago noticed their petit collection of charming antique books,
including a complete 19th Century edition of Addison & Steele's
18th Century version of blogging, *The Spectator*. Having
nearly finished a cup of double-strength coffee, we wandered
over to our sister-in-law's I-book. And to our endless joy we
were charmed to start the morning reading Nada Gordon's
entertaining answers to Professor Mayhew's most stimulating
questions to bloggers. Full disclosure: these days, Nada Gordon {click here}
our #1 favorite poet. Nada's response includes a quote from a series
of hilarious questions put to her by the then ardently courting Gary Sullivan
in Swoon {click here}
This is cool:
Ululations {click here}
It's such a pleasure browsing other people's bookshelves,
don't you agree? Visiting in-laws in Arlington, Mass, we long
ago noticed their petit collection of charming antique books,
including a complete 19th Century edition of Addison & Steele's
18th Century version of blogging, *The Spectator*. Having
nearly finished a cup of double-strength coffee, we wandered
over to our sister-in-law's I-book. And to our endless joy we
were charmed to start the morning reading Nada Gordon's
entertaining answers to Professor Mayhew's most stimulating
questions to bloggers. Full disclosure: these days, Nada Gordon {click here}
our #1 favorite poet. Nada's response includes a quote from a series
of hilarious questions put to her by the then ardently courting Gary Sullivan
in Swoon {click here}
This is cool:
Ululations {click here}
Saturday, May 28
A Blogland Vogue for Answers Part III
Ron Silliman {click here} steps up to the plate re: the Bemsha Swing poetics poll; and comments on the trend, including some kind words for a number of the blogged responses, including our own: Ron Silliman {click here}
************************
Jack Kimball writes:
"(a) I think the distinction drawn between ceaseless v. sporadic comp. practice is not altogether apparent."
For starters, check this out, for the distinction:
Robert Kelly publications {click here}
compare
Anne Sexton {click here}
compare:
Sylvia Plath {click here}
compare:
Hart Crane {click here}
compare:
Charles Baudelaire {click here}
compare:
Frank Kuenstler {click here}
Selected bibliography- Wallace Stevens
* THREE TRAVELLERS WATCH A SUNRISE, pub. 1916 - play
* CARLOS AMONG THE CANDLES, 1917 - play
* HARMONIUM, 1923 (rev. ed. 1931)
* IDEAS OF ORDER, 1935
* OWL'S CLOVER, 1936
* THE MAN WITH THE BLUE GUITAR, AND OTHER POEMS, 1937
* PARTS OF A WORLD, 1942
* NOTES TOWARD A SUPREME FICTION, 1942
* ESTHÉTIQUE DU MAL, 1945
* TRANSPORT TO SUMMER, 1947
* THE AURORAS AUTUMN, 1950
* THE NECESSARY ANGEL, 1951
* SELECTED POEMS, 1952
* THE COLLECTED POEMS OF WALLACE STEVENS, 1954
* OPUS POSTHUMOUS, 1957
* LETTERS OF WALLACE STEVENS, 1966 (ed. by Holly Stevens)
* THE PALM AT THE END OF THE MIND: SELECTED POEMS AND A PLAY, 1971 (play: Bowl, Cat and Broomstick)
* SOUVENIRS AND PROPHECIES, 1977 (ed. by Holly Stevens)
* SECRETARIES OF THE MOON, 1986
* SUR PLUSIEURS BEAUX SUJECTS, 1989
* COLLECTED POETRY AND PROSE, 1996
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The more important thing is,
Jack Kimball {click here} is a damn fine poet...
Ron Silliman {click here} steps up to the plate re: the Bemsha Swing poetics poll; and comments on the trend, including some kind words for a number of the blogged responses, including our own: Ron Silliman {click here}
************************
Jack Kimball writes:
"(a) I think the distinction drawn between ceaseless v. sporadic comp. practice is not altogether apparent."
For starters, check this out, for the distinction:
Robert Kelly publications {click here}
compare
Anne Sexton {click here}
compare:
Sylvia Plath {click here}
compare:
Hart Crane {click here}
compare:
Charles Baudelaire {click here}
compare:
Frank Kuenstler {click here}
Selected bibliography- Wallace Stevens
* THREE TRAVELLERS WATCH A SUNRISE, pub. 1916 - play
* CARLOS AMONG THE CANDLES, 1917 - play
* HARMONIUM, 1923 (rev. ed. 1931)
* IDEAS OF ORDER, 1935
* OWL'S CLOVER, 1936
* THE MAN WITH THE BLUE GUITAR, AND OTHER POEMS, 1937
* PARTS OF A WORLD, 1942
* NOTES TOWARD A SUPREME FICTION, 1942
* ESTHÉTIQUE DU MAL, 1945
* TRANSPORT TO SUMMER, 1947
* THE AURORAS AUTUMN, 1950
* THE NECESSARY ANGEL, 1951
* SELECTED POEMS, 1952
* THE COLLECTED POEMS OF WALLACE STEVENS, 1954
* OPUS POSTHUMOUS, 1957
* LETTERS OF WALLACE STEVENS, 1966 (ed. by Holly Stevens)
* THE PALM AT THE END OF THE MIND: SELECTED POEMS AND A PLAY, 1971 (play: Bowl, Cat and Broomstick)
* SOUVENIRS AND PROPHECIES, 1977 (ed. by Holly Stevens)
* SECRETARIES OF THE MOON, 1986
* SUR PLUSIEURS BEAUX SUJECTS, 1989
* COLLECTED POETRY AND PROSE, 1996
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The more important thing is,
Jack Kimball {click here} is a damn fine poet...
Friday, May 27
A Blogland Vogue for Answers
Laura Carter, Odalisque, Bill Marsh, Jack Kimball and Radical Druid
sing out new answers to Jonathan Mayhew's cool poetics questions
Laura Carter likes our question 5 answer below and calls it "heartfelt"
Jack Kimball demolishes our question 5 argument with verve and savvy
Right now on
Bemsha Swing {click here}
Laura Carter, Odalisque, Bill Marsh, Jack Kimball and Radical Druid
sing out new answers to Jonathan Mayhew's cool poetics questions
Laura Carter likes our question 5 answer below and calls it "heartfelt"
Jack Kimball demolishes our question 5 argument with verve and savvy
Right now on
Bemsha Swing {click here}
Thursday, May 26
Tuesday, May 24
A Blogland Vogue For Questions
Who knows how fads get started.
When I was a kid there was
always a season for an activity,
but it was hard to tell which
kid ushered in the fad.
There was a skating season where
every kid showed up outside on skates,
there was a bike
season, a handball season,
a stickball season,
a coin collecting season,
a card playing season, a carry around
your new transistor radio
and lean against the cars and
listen to them together season.
Once I even
started a fad in my set for wearing
jackets with bird decals sewed
onto them; it got around further
and lasted longer than I expected.
Anyway, you always did
what the others did, though
some activities might interest
you more than others.
Of course, your favorite
thing would always come back
into vogue eventually.
Well, as you must have noticed,
the same tendency takes place here
in Blogland. We have the take
a test online season (my least
favorite), we will no doubt have
a write a few words on Star Wars
season, we have a write in the
comments section season
(going on right now), and also,
right now, thanks to Sullivan and Gordon
we are noticing a tendency towards
comics (boys) (Gary's and the ever-
popular poetry comic blog of Jim Behrle)
and fashions (girls)-no doubt Nada's
interest in fashion will trigger quite a buzz!
At the present moment in literary
Blogland there is a fad for asking and
answering questions in poetics.
I'm not sure who started it,
but of course it is Ron Silliman's answers to
some set of questions floating around
that bloggers took notice of.
At the moment on *Bemsha Swing*
you will find a set of questions I dare
you to read, if you are a blogger,
and not find at least one
you want to answer on your blog right now.
I read them very late last night, and was
even tempted to get started right
then and there, though I had
just gone through an intensive
grilling of my own, as it happens,
for separate reasons, from a
couple of poet friends. But more
on that later.
Jonathan Mayhew's questions,
(for R.S. and anyone else):
Bemsha Swing {click here}
when looked at together as a group,
probably have a thread. But I
am right now too excited about one of them
to stop and think about that.
More than likely, I have to admit, I am
picking one at random.
My hunch is that, at least
around here, the
fad will continue for days,
and more than likely on many other
blogs, but who knows.
Like kids' seasons, Blogland’s are ephemeral.
Here is the question I picked:
5. Is "total absorption in poetry" benign?
How about "poetry as a way of life"?
After falling asleep last night,
I woke up this morning thinking about things
that go best with this question,
though I have to admit, all of Jonathan's
questions I find intriguing. He is
quite the blog poetics
provocateur, in his own quiet
and unassuming way!
I have a feeling that total absorption in
poetry is not so benign in the (very) long run,
but exhilarating and generative in the short run.
By short run I mean, maybe
a decade. By long run I mean a lifetime.
In my observation, total absorption
in poetry in the long run leads, as
Shakespeare put it, to an early "anecdotage."
One of the reasons I avoided becoming
a poetry professor when I was in
an English honors program in college
is that it seemed to me that even my
most brilliant and favorite professors
appeared to be in a kind of zombie state of
automatic recitation of things they had said
before countless times. In a friend
or lover this state of consciousness
might be boring and difficult to tolerate; but
for a poet, it seemed to my young perception,
this might be deadly, or even lethal.
At least in this one way my insight was prescient.
The tendency to bore other people is a trait
that each and every poet is obliged to
track with the persistence of a terrier. Or
else. Or else, what? You know!
Again: 5. Is "total absorption in poetry" benign?
How about "poetry as a way of life"?
I've noticed that (again, in the long run,
the long run being a lifetime) poets fall
into two types. The first type
writes-and publishes- book
after book without cease, and gives
regular readings the same way.
They never do anything else, and revel in their
total absorption in poetry. The second type
eventually finds other outlets as well for their
energy. On the whole, a distinguishing
characteristic of most (lifetime) poets is
an outstanding access to energy.
Here's where I find it necessary to offer a second
speculation that many other poets
might not agree with. In my opinion:
the inspiration
to write poetry is sporadic.
I think the intuitive inspiration to write a poem, for this
reason, should not be forced.
I found early on that if I forced myself to write poetry,
the result was wooden. The best analogy
that I can think of to writing poems
(never thing of writing "poetry" a sure
danger sign; only write "poems") is creating
melodies. Sit down at your piano or
take out your guitar right now. Try to create
a new melody and you will see what I mean.
Ninety-nine percent or more of your
production will be of two types: the first type
might be usable: a derivative offshoot
of another melody. Actually, this type is
fairly interesting. But most of your production
will be of the second type, the type I call
"noodling around." Listen to a lot of the
classical music literature and be honest:
even among many famous works, there is
tons and tons of noodling around. You will
find this even in such stellar composers as Schubert,
Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn. Haydn is
amazing in this regard; an incredible number
of melodies that are identifiable and distinctive.
The same for incredible Chopin. But
most composers noodle around for a
lot of the time; they noodle
around in an interesting
way, but a lot of what they write
is just kind of, well, noodling around!
You see what I'm getting at;
The same is true for poets.
Most poets who produce book
after book without cease
(I do greatly admire this,
nevertheless, and hugely enjoy
the work of a number of poets
who work this way-including Jordan
Davis' endlessly absorbing blog project
Million Poems {click here}
, where he
has published well over a thousand poems
and extends the genial and impressive offer to write
a poem to order for anyone who emails him!)
do not consistently write
works of the same caliber and intensity
of engagement. What some ambitious poets
do to sustain their engagement with an audience
is - something else! They go "elsewhere" as
Gary Sullivan puts it. Ever noticed how often
interviewers ask well known poets:
"Have you been writing any poetry lately?" Since,
as I said, the majority of poets have abundant
amounts of energy, and since, as I believe to be the case,
actual poetic inspiration is, at best, sporadic, what many do is
try to transfer their unstoppable energy
into another, related medium.
As Emerson put it, "Write one poem and lean on
your oars forever..." Meaning,
writing a poem releases
more energy than can be put
into writing other poems.
Emerson is a fine example
of a poet who found a
way to express the
ingenious products of his mind
in other forms: through essays.
Another example
is the great Italian poet
Cesare Pavese who wrote
novels and a great diary,
as any reader of this
blog will attest, noticing
the many quotes of this literary
journal that have been posted here.
Paul Valery famously
took a twenty year break
from writing poetry to work
on poetics in his journals.
One of the best known example of this
tendency historically is, of course,
Thomas Hardy, whose poetry is read today
only by few scholars. But who among us hasn't
read at least one novel by Thomas Hardy?
*Jude the Obscure*! *The Mayor of Casterbridge*!
Hardy thought of these works as his minor interest.
Only his poems meant anything special to him.
Still today, few can stop with only one!
If you haven't read any you have a major treat in store.
How about Gertrude Stein's many prose works?
More recent examples include:
Allen Ginsberg's photography,
Bernadette Mayer's conceptual
art works and prose poetry, John Ashbery's
and David Shapiro's art criticism (he also makes collages),
Charles Bernstein''s opera
librettos (his *Shadowtime*, an opera about
Walter Benjamin, is being produced at
Lincoln Center this summer) and essays;
David Antin's talks;
Lewis Warsh's novels, Elaine Equi's collaborations
with artists, Bruce Andews' music and
collaborations with dancer Sally Silvers,
Jackson Mac Low's works for dancers,
and his sound and visual poems,
David Bromige's collaborations with David Denner,
the "novels" of Kathy Acker,
the playwriting and genre bending
creations of Carla Harryman;
There is, of course, best known to us, Ron Silliman's blog.
Think of the visual poetry of bloggers Geof Huth and Crag Hill,
Harry Stammer and Jukka-Pekka Kervenin
that offers another fertile and growing
field for poets' exploration and production.
Some poets abandon formal poetry altogether:
notably Marshall Reese and Vito Acconci.
These two became pioneers in video art and
Acconci went on to focus on outdoor sculptural installations.
Question: have they actually
abandoned the field of poetry or have they transmuted it?
Visual poetry is surely coming
to the fore as an acceptable poetic field of investigation.
(The great-grandparent of this work was, of course, Blake,
whose astoundingly beautiful,
brilliant and heroic creations of his own hand printed
illustrated and self-published books was a financial failure).
I was astonished when Ron Silliman recently
complimented Geof Huth's blog
dbqp visualizing poetics {click here}
and made the comment that he might be opening
the most novel new field of endeavor for poetry.
because I can remember a time-long ago- when Ron seemed
somewhat dubious about my interest in making collages
(although I surely could have been reading
in to a comment he made back then).
I have the sense that with poets who
are unable to at least occasionally
transmute their talents and
energies into other media-and even some
who have been able to do this- tend to
become obsessively interested in
cataloguing the data of contemporary poetry.
Poetry as a "way of life", it seems
to me, is a uniquely challenging, difficult proposition,
for the simple reason that there are
so few available public functions to perform.
There is publishing and editing:
Lyn Hejinian, Leslie Scalapino,
Tom Beckett's classic single poet issues
of the journal, *The Difficulties*
Barrett Watten, James Sherry, Douglas Messerli,
Matvei Yankelvich, Peter Ganick,
Juliana Spahr and Jena Osman's excellent
visual/verbal magazine *Chain*
to name but a few; then, of course,
there are the many excellent webzines.
*Sidereality*, *Shampoo*, *Poetic
Inhalation*, all created and posted by poets,
to mention but a handful.
There is running poetry series, witness
the recent energetic efforts of Bob Holman
at his own creation, the Bowery Poetry Club
and the countless coordinators throughout the years..
There is arts administration:
Ed Friedman, Anne Waldman
and coordinating and assisting at
the Poetry Project, right now Anselm Berrigan,
Cori Copp and Miles Champion,
of course many others throughout the years.
And this is only the people who have worked
in New York.
There is cultural and political
transformation through political acts
and organizing- Allen Ginsberg
and Leroi Jones;
essay writing and teaching: Bob Perelman,
Robert Creeley, who also worked on
many great collaborations with artists
such as Archie Rand and Susan Rothenberg;
drawing-Robert Grenier;
Jerome Sala, in additiion to publishing
his poetry, lately his witty ,social/politically insightful
*Look Slimmer Instantly* (Softskull, 2005)
has worked forever at a full time job in marketing/advertising
and is now completing, at the same time, a
Ph D at NYU in Cultural Studies,
the program created and administered by Andrew Ross.
Let me say that it is easier
to make a loving at
poetry than it is to make a
living at it, to say the least!
As a "way of life" people interested
in this field are well advised to find
additional avenues thorugh which to
connect with others that utilizes their
proclivity for aesthetic inspiration,
their "lust for life" you might say, in an allied field.
The growing cultural phenomenon of
poetry creation is, in a sense,
a form of momentum tending to
mount vertically, so to speak,
with little horizontal expansion
into the culture at large.
What scholars, cultural commentators
like Walter Benjamin and poets realize, looking back
historically, however,
is that it remains a powerful, crucial, albeit,
largely subliminal cultural intervention.
If you examine history you will see that
there is a clear tendency for poets, as they
age, to become discouraged about the
possibilities for career in poetry.
Not so long ago I read the
Journals of Stephen Spender
(beautiful book, by the way).
Now here was a famous
poet
("I think continually of those/
who were truly great")
who, having written in addition to his many
volumes of poetry,
countless books including a critical study of
TS Eliot and a book about the cultural phenomena of the Sixties,
who was an editor of a magazine (*Horizon*),
and a teacher with immensely wide and varied interests.
Yet Spender's final years were an
emotional misery. He was constantly trying
to find adjunct teaching jobs wherever he
could and spent much of his later
years apparently quite depressed.
I don't want to dwell on this topic,
but history abounds with similar episodes.
In dealing with the ebb and flow of
poetic inspiration, as in all things, there
is a Scylla and Charybdis.
There is the Scylla of neglecting one's muse
and a Charybdis of becoming her slave.
A poet is well advised to
remain alert in guiding the
ship of life among the reefs and seductions
and quick sands that plague the currents
of a poetry "career": if, indeed, there is such a thing,
per se.
Who knows how fads get started.
When I was a kid there was
always a season for an activity,
but it was hard to tell which
kid ushered in the fad.
There was a skating season where
every kid showed up outside on skates,
there was a bike
season, a handball season,
a stickball season,
a coin collecting season,
a card playing season, a carry around
your new transistor radio
and lean against the cars and
listen to them together season.
Once I even
started a fad in my set for wearing
jackets with bird decals sewed
onto them; it got around further
and lasted longer than I expected.
Anyway, you always did
what the others did, though
some activities might interest
you more than others.
Of course, your favorite
thing would always come back
into vogue eventually.
Well, as you must have noticed,
the same tendency takes place here
in Blogland. We have the take
a test online season (my least
favorite), we will no doubt have
a write a few words on Star Wars
season, we have a write in the
comments section season
(going on right now), and also,
right now, thanks to Sullivan and Gordon
we are noticing a tendency towards
comics (boys) (Gary's and the ever-
popular poetry comic blog of Jim Behrle)
and fashions (girls)-no doubt Nada's
interest in fashion will trigger quite a buzz!
At the present moment in literary
Blogland there is a fad for asking and
answering questions in poetics.
I'm not sure who started it,
but of course it is Ron Silliman's answers to
some set of questions floating around
that bloggers took notice of.
At the moment on *Bemsha Swing*
you will find a set of questions I dare
you to read, if you are a blogger,
and not find at least one
you want to answer on your blog right now.
I read them very late last night, and was
even tempted to get started right
then and there, though I had
just gone through an intensive
grilling of my own, as it happens,
for separate reasons, from a
couple of poet friends. But more
on that later.
Jonathan Mayhew's questions,
(for R.S. and anyone else):
Bemsha Swing {click here}
when looked at together as a group,
probably have a thread. But I
am right now too excited about one of them
to stop and think about that.
More than likely, I have to admit, I am
picking one at random.
My hunch is that, at least
around here, the
fad will continue for days,
and more than likely on many other
blogs, but who knows.
Like kids' seasons, Blogland’s are ephemeral.
Here is the question I picked:
5. Is "total absorption in poetry" benign?
How about "poetry as a way of life"?
After falling asleep last night,
I woke up this morning thinking about things
that go best with this question,
though I have to admit, all of Jonathan's
questions I find intriguing. He is
quite the blog poetics
provocateur, in his own quiet
and unassuming way!
I have a feeling that total absorption in
poetry is not so benign in the (very) long run,
but exhilarating and generative in the short run.
By short run I mean, maybe
a decade. By long run I mean a lifetime.
In my observation, total absorption
in poetry in the long run leads, as
Shakespeare put it, to an early "anecdotage."
One of the reasons I avoided becoming
a poetry professor when I was in
an English honors program in college
is that it seemed to me that even my
most brilliant and favorite professors
appeared to be in a kind of zombie state of
automatic recitation of things they had said
before countless times. In a friend
or lover this state of consciousness
might be boring and difficult to tolerate; but
for a poet, it seemed to my young perception,
this might be deadly, or even lethal.
At least in this one way my insight was prescient.
The tendency to bore other people is a trait
that each and every poet is obliged to
track with the persistence of a terrier. Or
else. Or else, what? You know!
Again: 5. Is "total absorption in poetry" benign?
How about "poetry as a way of life"?
I've noticed that (again, in the long run,
the long run being a lifetime) poets fall
into two types. The first type
writes-and publishes- book
after book without cease, and gives
regular readings the same way.
They never do anything else, and revel in their
total absorption in poetry. The second type
eventually finds other outlets as well for their
energy. On the whole, a distinguishing
characteristic of most (lifetime) poets is
an outstanding access to energy.
Here's where I find it necessary to offer a second
speculation that many other poets
might not agree with. In my opinion:
the inspiration
to write poetry is sporadic.
I think the intuitive inspiration to write a poem, for this
reason, should not be forced.
I found early on that if I forced myself to write poetry,
the result was wooden. The best analogy
that I can think of to writing poems
(never thing of writing "poetry" a sure
danger sign; only write "poems") is creating
melodies. Sit down at your piano or
take out your guitar right now. Try to create
a new melody and you will see what I mean.
Ninety-nine percent or more of your
production will be of two types: the first type
might be usable: a derivative offshoot
of another melody. Actually, this type is
fairly interesting. But most of your production
will be of the second type, the type I call
"noodling around." Listen to a lot of the
classical music literature and be honest:
even among many famous works, there is
tons and tons of noodling around. You will
find this even in such stellar composers as Schubert,
Beethoven, Mozart and Haydn. Haydn is
amazing in this regard; an incredible number
of melodies that are identifiable and distinctive.
The same for incredible Chopin. But
most composers noodle around for a
lot of the time; they noodle
around in an interesting
way, but a lot of what they write
is just kind of, well, noodling around!
You see what I'm getting at;
The same is true for poets.
Most poets who produce book
after book without cease
(I do greatly admire this,
nevertheless, and hugely enjoy
the work of a number of poets
who work this way-including Jordan
Davis' endlessly absorbing blog project
Million Poems {click here}
, where he
has published well over a thousand poems
and extends the genial and impressive offer to write
a poem to order for anyone who emails him!)
do not consistently write
works of the same caliber and intensity
of engagement. What some ambitious poets
do to sustain their engagement with an audience
is - something else! They go "elsewhere" as
Gary Sullivan puts it. Ever noticed how often
interviewers ask well known poets:
"Have you been writing any poetry lately?" Since,
as I said, the majority of poets have abundant
amounts of energy, and since, as I believe to be the case,
actual poetic inspiration is, at best, sporadic, what many do is
try to transfer their unstoppable energy
into another, related medium.
As Emerson put it, "Write one poem and lean on
your oars forever..." Meaning,
writing a poem releases
more energy than can be put
into writing other poems.
Emerson is a fine example
of a poet who found a
way to express the
ingenious products of his mind
in other forms: through essays.
Another example
is the great Italian poet
Cesare Pavese who wrote
novels and a great diary,
as any reader of this
blog will attest, noticing
the many quotes of this literary
journal that have been posted here.
Paul Valery famously
took a twenty year break
from writing poetry to work
on poetics in his journals.
One of the best known example of this
tendency historically is, of course,
Thomas Hardy, whose poetry is read today
only by few scholars. But who among us hasn't
read at least one novel by Thomas Hardy?
*Jude the Obscure*! *The Mayor of Casterbridge*!
Hardy thought of these works as his minor interest.
Only his poems meant anything special to him.
Still today, few can stop with only one!
If you haven't read any you have a major treat in store.
How about Gertrude Stein's many prose works?
More recent examples include:
Allen Ginsberg's photography,
Bernadette Mayer's conceptual
art works and prose poetry, John Ashbery's
and David Shapiro's art criticism (he also makes collages),
Charles Bernstein''s opera
librettos (his *Shadowtime*, an opera about
Walter Benjamin, is being produced at
Lincoln Center this summer) and essays;
David Antin's talks;
Lewis Warsh's novels, Elaine Equi's collaborations
with artists, Bruce Andews' music and
collaborations with dancer Sally Silvers,
Jackson Mac Low's works for dancers,
and his sound and visual poems,
David Bromige's collaborations with David Denner,
the "novels" of Kathy Acker,
the playwriting and genre bending
creations of Carla Harryman;
There is, of course, best known to us, Ron Silliman's blog.
Think of the visual poetry of bloggers Geof Huth and Crag Hill,
Harry Stammer and Jukka-Pekka Kervenin
that offers another fertile and growing
field for poets' exploration and production.
Some poets abandon formal poetry altogether:
notably Marshall Reese and Vito Acconci.
These two became pioneers in video art and
Acconci went on to focus on outdoor sculptural installations.
Question: have they actually
abandoned the field of poetry or have they transmuted it?
Visual poetry is surely coming
to the fore as an acceptable poetic field of investigation.
(The great-grandparent of this work was, of course, Blake,
whose astoundingly beautiful,
brilliant and heroic creations of his own hand printed
illustrated and self-published books was a financial failure).
I was astonished when Ron Silliman recently
complimented Geof Huth's blog
dbqp visualizing poetics {click here}
and made the comment that he might be opening
the most novel new field of endeavor for poetry.
because I can remember a time-long ago- when Ron seemed
somewhat dubious about my interest in making collages
(although I surely could have been reading
in to a comment he made back then).
I have the sense that with poets who
are unable to at least occasionally
transmute their talents and
energies into other media-and even some
who have been able to do this- tend to
become obsessively interested in
cataloguing the data of contemporary poetry.
Poetry as a "way of life", it seems
to me, is a uniquely challenging, difficult proposition,
for the simple reason that there are
so few available public functions to perform.
There is publishing and editing:
Lyn Hejinian, Leslie Scalapino,
Tom Beckett's classic single poet issues
of the journal, *The Difficulties*
Barrett Watten, James Sherry, Douglas Messerli,
Matvei Yankelvich, Peter Ganick,
Juliana Spahr and Jena Osman's excellent
visual/verbal magazine *Chain*
to name but a few; then, of course,
there are the many excellent webzines.
*Sidereality*, *Shampoo*, *Poetic
Inhalation*, all created and posted by poets,
to mention but a handful.
There is running poetry series, witness
the recent energetic efforts of Bob Holman
at his own creation, the Bowery Poetry Club
and the countless coordinators throughout the years..
There is arts administration:
Ed Friedman, Anne Waldman
and coordinating and assisting at
the Poetry Project, right now Anselm Berrigan,
Cori Copp and Miles Champion,
of course many others throughout the years.
And this is only the people who have worked
in New York.
There is cultural and political
transformation through political acts
and organizing- Allen Ginsberg
and Leroi Jones;
essay writing and teaching: Bob Perelman,
Robert Creeley, who also worked on
many great collaborations with artists
such as Archie Rand and Susan Rothenberg;
drawing-Robert Grenier;
Jerome Sala, in additiion to publishing
his poetry, lately his witty ,social/politically insightful
*Look Slimmer Instantly* (Softskull, 2005)
has worked forever at a full time job in marketing/advertising
and is now completing, at the same time, a
Ph D at NYU in Cultural Studies,
the program created and administered by Andrew Ross.
Let me say that it is easier
to make a loving at
poetry than it is to make a
living at it, to say the least!
As a "way of life" people interested
in this field are well advised to find
additional avenues thorugh which to
connect with others that utilizes their
proclivity for aesthetic inspiration,
their "lust for life" you might say, in an allied field.
The growing cultural phenomenon of
poetry creation is, in a sense,
a form of momentum tending to
mount vertically, so to speak,
with little horizontal expansion
into the culture at large.
What scholars, cultural commentators
like Walter Benjamin and poets realize, looking back
historically, however,
is that it remains a powerful, crucial, albeit,
largely subliminal cultural intervention.
If you examine history you will see that
there is a clear tendency for poets, as they
age, to become discouraged about the
possibilities for career in poetry.
Not so long ago I read the
Journals of Stephen Spender
(beautiful book, by the way).
Now here was a famous
poet
("I think continually of those/
who were truly great")
who, having written in addition to his many
volumes of poetry,
countless books including a critical study of
TS Eliot and a book about the cultural phenomena of the Sixties,
who was an editor of a magazine (*Horizon*),
and a teacher with immensely wide and varied interests.
Yet Spender's final years were an
emotional misery. He was constantly trying
to find adjunct teaching jobs wherever he
could and spent much of his later
years apparently quite depressed.
I don't want to dwell on this topic,
but history abounds with similar episodes.
In dealing with the ebb and flow of
poetic inspiration, as in all things, there
is a Scylla and Charybdis.
There is the Scylla of neglecting one's muse
and a Charybdis of becoming her slave.
A poet is well advised to
remain alert in guiding the
ship of life among the reefs and seductions
and quick sands that plague the currents
of a poetry "career": if, indeed, there is such a thing,
per se.
Monday, May 23
Monday, May 16
Art and Friends On A Serendipitous Sunday
Naps and strolls in Prospect Park on that lovely sunny Saturday (remember?)
prepared us well for the rigors of an art-filled Sunday in Queens. If you haven't
been out there lately, you must go soon! We began the day with a visit to our friend
Jean's gorgeous new studio-
Saturday was open studio day in this sunny,
beautifully designed collection of studios
at Jevenal Reis Studios- 43-01 22cd Street
(E or V train to 23rd St./Ely Ave.
#7 to 45th Road/Courthouse Square
G to Court Square)
(you take the same train to get to MOMA's PS 1
but after leaving the subway walk the opposite
direction to get to Jeval Reis Studios)-
walk north on 23rd Street (under the train
tracks) make a left on 44th Avenue
and right on 22 Street
Jean Foos
Images {click here}
In addition to work similar to the work you may view by clicking above,
Jean Foos has some exciting new work that includes printed fashion photos
which she has appropriated and painted over in her signature style.
You must see these witty and elegant works;
I hope she posts them on her site soon. Even better, we would love
to see them in a gallery & we wouldn't be at all suprised if a clever
curator saw this show and scooped them up!
From there we walked over to an opening at the Sculpture Center
for the grand opening of the Sculpture Center's new show
*Make It Now* a title with some double-edged meanings I thought
about a bit as we walked through this relatively recent site for new sculpture.
28 artists are shown here. The first floor is well worth the visit, even if only to
see the space if you haven't been here before. I should have been prepared
for the many synchroncities tha occurred on this Queens visit when I
realized that my favorite work in this show was by Charlie Foos!
This was a video he titled "Monument with Anthem". Probably it is the artist
who is sitting on a coin operated rocking horse in front of fairly delapidated
storefront. He is holding what is very likely a plastic or cardboard shield and
lance; an ancient cassette player sits on a pedestal playing Wagner's Sigfried Idyll
over and over- the tape skips and slows and speeds; the artist stares somewhat
glumly into the camera, while again and again he puts coins into the box so
that he can keep that wooden horse rocking. This work attraced me because
in addition to participating in the current plethora of works of art reflecting
and celebrating childhood (contemporary artists seemed determine to keep
their connection with their imaginations clear by holding on securely to those
fleeting freedoms -of thought and dream-of early life) this artist found a way
to gently laugh at himself and this trend towards cheap and simple materials,
toys and structures based on childhood pleasures. As I walked through the
show I marvelled at the almost total triumph of the artistic credos of such
contemporary giants as Richard Tuttle- whose philosophy of using inexpensive
materials in spontaneous and direct ways seems to now be pervasive among
younger artists- easily eclipsing the sculptural requirements of other ages demanding
such materials as marble, bronze and gleaming metals. The only exception to
this rule I have noted is in works like those of Timothy Hawkinson which require
extensive construction and use of electronic or electric machinery and gadgetry;
still, often in the case even of this work, artists like Charlie Foos stick to found
or discarded gadgets.
As we left the Sculpture Center lucky for us we ran into our friends, the poet
and art critic Connie Robins and her husband the sculptor Sal Romano.
Sal is known for his large sculptural installations employing metal constructions
and water. Recently at a visit to his studio I marvelled at a -for him- tiny work
which combined figurative and abstract elements, including a fish and triangles.
Sal and Connie decided to join us for a bit on our second visit to the giant
Greater New York 2005 show discussed below. On the way in we noticed that
a number of artists were carrying out large frames containing obviously recently ripped
paper with calligraphic type designs. As we entered the museum we ran into our
friend Jay Sanders, one of the curatorial assistants at the Maryann Boesky Gallery.
He and I chatted a bit about the current Sarah Sze show at Boesky (see sidebar)
and the fact that these ripped frames were used by a dance friend of his for a
performance that was ending at the very moment we walked in! Jay helped
Charles Bernstein curate the Poetry Plastique show we had the good fortune
to be part of in February 2001.
On this vist I remembered a number of works I saw the first time around and
really enjoyed. Sal also pointed out a couple that I had missed! Among these
was a hilarious peformance installation by Jamie Isenstein. Sal called me
over to an inset frame hung on the wall with what appeared to be a
plastic or molded hand inside. Sal said "Wait and watch." After a few moments
the hand moved! Then after awhile it moved again! We all discussed whether it
was real and hesitated awhile and then touched it. Surely this was the living hand
of a woman- obviously the artist. Hurrying over to the wall label I noticed it said
"2003 Performance Installation with picture frame, picture light and hand- or "Will Return"
sign." Ha-ha! What a piece. When we visited the neighboring room we saw the door
where the artist could be let in to sit. Sal wondered what she might be doing
in there- watching videos- drinking a coke- who knows? In another room Sal pointed
out a piece I had walked right by last week without noticing and walked right by
again on Sunday. Karyn Oliver has installed a false vertical column right next to
a real horizontal column on the ceiling of this gallery room. The column sits on top
of an antique brown wooden coffee table right in the center of the room. More
artistic hijinx and hilarity- excellent! Another double-take type work that I noticed
on the first visit but forgot take notes on is Courtney Smith's marvelous "Psyche
Complexo" (2003) owned by the artist and Roebling Hall. This impressive work
lists the following constituants: I wardrobe, 1 vanity with mirror, 1 stool with cushion,
2 side tables with mirrors, and new chrome plated hardware. In this piece, the furniture
is split in two and rehinged together creating a mysterious and claustrophobic effect,
indeed capable of well representing complex psychological states,
redolant with associations and "remembrance of things past." Another visit to
Aida Rulova's DVD projection with sound installation "It had no feelings" (2003)
convinced both Toni and I that this was among the best works. The altered voice
track repeats a story of what must have been a psychological trauma, repeated
again and again- the visual part shows faces hidden in light and the repeated
phrase "a bag over my head" suggests a terrifying experience. This is a must see and
hear! A return visit to Anna Conway's startling painting discussed and linked to
below revealed two tiny rowboats near the huge puppet head floating in the ocean.
We liked the painting on this visit even more. The DVD concerning the violinist mentioned
below was by King/Diaz de Leon and was filmed in digital video 2003-2004. We watched
the entire approximately 8 minute piece through in its entirety again! Two more
paintings definitely worth checking out:
Wade Guyton's {click here}
"untitled" 2005- a striking
constructivist style painting -inkjet on printed linen 39'x 37" and Lisi Raskin's "In
The Town Where I Was Born" (2004- Guild and Grayshkul Gallery)- a room full
of computer and electronic gadgetry is depicted mostly in bright yellows using
crayons and colored markers, another of the many memorable works
in this show echoing and recalling childhood. Another of the many excellent
projected DVD's in this show that must be mentioned is Nebojsa Seric Shoba's
eerie "Let There Be Light" depicting computer animations looking very much like
the creation of the world via mud slides. On the second floor don't forget to see
and listen to David Moreno's subtle 2004 electronic music in his work "Steremo*. The
piece is beautifully placed in front of a window with view of the sky and an old
adjacent brick building. The speakers, mounted on bending metal supports,
wave and bob as the music emerges giving the impression that you can physically
see the sounds. This is a theme in a good number of the pieces in this
show- various types of synesthesia. Throughout this show there are many pieces
placed so that you might discover them in surprising ways in this enormous
space with so many windows, corners, and stairways. Bethany Bristow's
aptly named "Insinutate" i(2005) is constructed of multiple site specific materials
including melted glass, feathers and corn syrup is placed inconspicuously on
a gallery window ledge in a hallway on the second floor. And, as we were leaving
the show I noticed again and remembered being stuck by on the first visit,
outside the gallery on a large ledge in front of a window, Bozidar Brazda's surprising
and frightening piece made out of a dummy lying down on the ledge and a parachute
lying nearby, blowing open and closing probably by means of a wind machine placed
nearby- this work suggested to me the breathless excitements- and severe risks-
of the artist who must jump into the unknown to achieve his or her discoveries-
and who, like all of us, must someday return to the ground beneath their feet after
their extravagant flights into the stratosphere of the imagination.
After this we headed downtown to our favorite restaurant the Orlin Cafe
on East 8th Street. And who walks by after a bit? Two poet friends, Mike
Scharf and Drew Gardner, We talked about the show (Drew decided
he did not want to read these notes before seeing ths show). We had
a chance to chat with Drew about movies, his workshop at the
Poetry Project and the fact that he is now working on putting together a CD
(hopefully to be heard soon on My Vocabulary) of my reading at the BPC with
Lee Anne Brown and Ange Mlinko and Drew's Poetics Orchestra. This
was indeed a serendipitous ending to our Sunday of Art- serendipity
which extended to quickly catching the Q home to Park Slope so
we could grab a quick bite and as quickly crash
into bed exhausted. Strangely, I dreamt
of a strikingly actual Paul Auster giving me advice about publishers!
Naps and strolls in Prospect Park on that lovely sunny Saturday (remember?)
prepared us well for the rigors of an art-filled Sunday in Queens. If you haven't
been out there lately, you must go soon! We began the day with a visit to our friend
Jean's gorgeous new studio-
Saturday was open studio day in this sunny,
beautifully designed collection of studios
at Jevenal Reis Studios- 43-01 22cd Street
(E or V train to 23rd St./Ely Ave.
#7 to 45th Road/Courthouse Square
G to Court Square)
(you take the same train to get to MOMA's PS 1
but after leaving the subway walk the opposite
direction to get to Jeval Reis Studios)-
walk north on 23rd Street (under the train
tracks) make a left on 44th Avenue
and right on 22 Street
Jean Foos
Images {click here}
In addition to work similar to the work you may view by clicking above,
Jean Foos has some exciting new work that includes printed fashion photos
which she has appropriated and painted over in her signature style.
You must see these witty and elegant works;
I hope she posts them on her site soon. Even better, we would love
to see them in a gallery & we wouldn't be at all suprised if a clever
curator saw this show and scooped them up!
From there we walked over to an opening at the Sculpture Center
for the grand opening of the Sculpture Center's new show
*Make It Now* a title with some double-edged meanings I thought
about a bit as we walked through this relatively recent site for new sculpture.
28 artists are shown here. The first floor is well worth the visit, even if only to
see the space if you haven't been here before. I should have been prepared
for the many synchroncities tha occurred on this Queens visit when I
realized that my favorite work in this show was by Charlie Foos!
This was a video he titled "Monument with Anthem". Probably it is the artist
who is sitting on a coin operated rocking horse in front of fairly delapidated
storefront. He is holding what is very likely a plastic or cardboard shield and
lance; an ancient cassette player sits on a pedestal playing Wagner's Sigfried Idyll
over and over- the tape skips and slows and speeds; the artist stares somewhat
glumly into the camera, while again and again he puts coins into the box so
that he can keep that wooden horse rocking. This work attraced me because
in addition to participating in the current plethora of works of art reflecting
and celebrating childhood (contemporary artists seemed determine to keep
their connection with their imaginations clear by holding on securely to those
fleeting freedoms -of thought and dream-of early life) this artist found a way
to gently laugh at himself and this trend towards cheap and simple materials,
toys and structures based on childhood pleasures. As I walked through the
show I marvelled at the almost total triumph of the artistic credos of such
contemporary giants as Richard Tuttle- whose philosophy of using inexpensive
materials in spontaneous and direct ways seems to now be pervasive among
younger artists- easily eclipsing the sculptural requirements of other ages demanding
such materials as marble, bronze and gleaming metals. The only exception to
this rule I have noted is in works like those of Timothy Hawkinson which require
extensive construction and use of electronic or electric machinery and gadgetry;
still, often in the case even of this work, artists like Charlie Foos stick to found
or discarded gadgets.
As we left the Sculpture Center lucky for us we ran into our friends, the poet
and art critic Connie Robins and her husband the sculptor Sal Romano.
Sal is known for his large sculptural installations employing metal constructions
and water. Recently at a visit to his studio I marvelled at a -for him- tiny work
which combined figurative and abstract elements, including a fish and triangles.
Sal and Connie decided to join us for a bit on our second visit to the giant
Greater New York 2005 show discussed below. On the way in we noticed that
a number of artists were carrying out large frames containing obviously recently ripped
paper with calligraphic type designs. As we entered the museum we ran into our
friend Jay Sanders, one of the curatorial assistants at the Maryann Boesky Gallery.
He and I chatted a bit about the current Sarah Sze show at Boesky (see sidebar)
and the fact that these ripped frames were used by a dance friend of his for a
performance that was ending at the very moment we walked in! Jay helped
Charles Bernstein curate the Poetry Plastique show we had the good fortune
to be part of in February 2001.
On this vist I remembered a number of works I saw the first time around and
really enjoyed. Sal also pointed out a couple that I had missed! Among these
was a hilarious peformance installation by Jamie Isenstein. Sal called me
over to an inset frame hung on the wall with what appeared to be a
plastic or molded hand inside. Sal said "Wait and watch." After a few moments
the hand moved! Then after awhile it moved again! We all discussed whether it
was real and hesitated awhile and then touched it. Surely this was the living hand
of a woman- obviously the artist. Hurrying over to the wall label I noticed it said
"2003 Performance Installation with picture frame, picture light and hand- or "Will Return"
sign." Ha-ha! What a piece. When we visited the neighboring room we saw the door
where the artist could be let in to sit. Sal wondered what she might be doing
in there- watching videos- drinking a coke- who knows? In another room Sal pointed
out a piece I had walked right by last week without noticing and walked right by
again on Sunday. Karyn Oliver has installed a false vertical column right next to
a real horizontal column on the ceiling of this gallery room. The column sits on top
of an antique brown wooden coffee table right in the center of the room. More
artistic hijinx and hilarity- excellent! Another double-take type work that I noticed
on the first visit but forgot take notes on is Courtney Smith's marvelous "Psyche
Complexo" (2003) owned by the artist and Roebling Hall. This impressive work
lists the following constituants: I wardrobe, 1 vanity with mirror, 1 stool with cushion,
2 side tables with mirrors, and new chrome plated hardware. In this piece, the furniture
is split in two and rehinged together creating a mysterious and claustrophobic effect,
indeed capable of well representing complex psychological states,
redolant with associations and "remembrance of things past." Another visit to
Aida Rulova's DVD projection with sound installation "It had no feelings" (2003)
convinced both Toni and I that this was among the best works. The altered voice
track repeats a story of what must have been a psychological trauma, repeated
again and again- the visual part shows faces hidden in light and the repeated
phrase "a bag over my head" suggests a terrifying experience. This is a must see and
hear! A return visit to Anna Conway's startling painting discussed and linked to
below revealed two tiny rowboats near the huge puppet head floating in the ocean.
We liked the painting on this visit even more. The DVD concerning the violinist mentioned
below was by King/Diaz de Leon and was filmed in digital video 2003-2004. We watched
the entire approximately 8 minute piece through in its entirety again! Two more
paintings definitely worth checking out:
Wade Guyton's {click here}
"untitled" 2005- a striking
constructivist style painting -inkjet on printed linen 39'x 37" and Lisi Raskin's "In
The Town Where I Was Born" (2004- Guild and Grayshkul Gallery)- a room full
of computer and electronic gadgetry is depicted mostly in bright yellows using
crayons and colored markers, another of the many memorable works
in this show echoing and recalling childhood. Another of the many excellent
projected DVD's in this show that must be mentioned is Nebojsa Seric Shoba's
eerie "Let There Be Light" depicting computer animations looking very much like
the creation of the world via mud slides. On the second floor don't forget to see
and listen to David Moreno's subtle 2004 electronic music in his work "Steremo*. The
piece is beautifully placed in front of a window with view of the sky and an old
adjacent brick building. The speakers, mounted on bending metal supports,
wave and bob as the music emerges giving the impression that you can physically
see the sounds. This is a theme in a good number of the pieces in this
show- various types of synesthesia. Throughout this show there are many pieces
placed so that you might discover them in surprising ways in this enormous
space with so many windows, corners, and stairways. Bethany Bristow's
aptly named "Insinutate" i(2005) is constructed of multiple site specific materials
including melted glass, feathers and corn syrup is placed inconspicuously on
a gallery window ledge in a hallway on the second floor. And, as we were leaving
the show I noticed again and remembered being stuck by on the first visit,
outside the gallery on a large ledge in front of a window, Bozidar Brazda's surprising
and frightening piece made out of a dummy lying down on the ledge and a parachute
lying nearby, blowing open and closing probably by means of a wind machine placed
nearby- this work suggested to me the breathless excitements- and severe risks-
of the artist who must jump into the unknown to achieve his or her discoveries-
and who, like all of us, must someday return to the ground beneath their feet after
their extravagant flights into the stratosphere of the imagination.
After this we headed downtown to our favorite restaurant the Orlin Cafe
on East 8th Street. And who walks by after a bit? Two poet friends, Mike
Scharf and Drew Gardner, We talked about the show (Drew decided
he did not want to read these notes before seeing ths show). We had
a chance to chat with Drew about movies, his workshop at the
Poetry Project and the fact that he is now working on putting together a CD
(hopefully to be heard soon on My Vocabulary) of my reading at the BPC with
Lee Anne Brown and Ange Mlinko and Drew's Poetics Orchestra. This
was indeed a serendipitous ending to our Sunday of Art- serendipity
which extended to quickly catching the Q home to Park Slope so
we could grab a quick bite and as quickly crash
into bed exhausted. Strangely, I dreamt
of a strikingly actual Paul Auster giving me advice about publishers!
Saturday, May 14
Anything You Can Do
the conversation continues....
Crowing, boasting, workshop critiques, MFA programs, fame, success and more on
Poesy Galore {click here}
the conversation continues....
Crowing, boasting, workshop critiques, MFA programs, fame, success and more on
Poesy Galore {click here}
*Writing is a fine thing*
"Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two
pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.
If you were able to write without making any alteration,
without revising, without republishing, would your
pleasure be increased? The ideal method is to polish yourself;
calmly and quietly to set about making yourself into a crystal."
Cesare Pavese
May 4, 1946
*The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950*
Walker and Company, 1961
translated by A, E, Murch
"Writing is a fine thing, because it combines the two
pleasures of talking to yourself and talking to a crowd.
If you were able to write without making any alteration,
without revising, without republishing, would your
pleasure be increased? The ideal method is to polish yourself;
calmly and quietly to set about making yourself into a crystal."
Cesare Pavese
May 4, 1946
*The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950*
Walker and Company, 1961
translated by A, E, Murch
Thursday, May 12
Don't Fence Me In
Greg Perry (Grapez) opines on poet ranking and hierarchies
*********************************************************************
The Blogger's Code
The discussion continues on
Tympan {click here}
Greg Perry (Grapez) opines on poet ranking and hierarchies
*********************************************************************
The Blogger's Code
The discussion continues on
Tympan {click here}
Envy Eclipsed: Poesy Galore on Competition
Poesy Galore {kick here}
************************************************
Bemsha Swing continues to host a discussion on the virtues of poetry criticism by poets
Bemsha Swing {click here}
Poesy Galore {kick here}
************************************************
Bemsha Swing continues to host a discussion on the virtues of poetry criticism by poets
Bemsha Swing {click here}
Wednesday, May 11
Poet, Be Not Proud
Interesting discussions about blogging, poetry, poet's
reputations and criticism over at Jonathan Mayhew's
Bemsha Swing {click here} and Timothy Yu's
Tympan {click here}. The comments sections are smokin'!
Anyway, we bloggers seemed to have gotten all hepped up about something or other
late at night. Hope you will check it out!
**********************************************
Singin' In The Rain
The latest interview on
E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S {click here} between
Mark Young and Jukka-Pekka Kervinen is a collaborative
poem in itself, chock full of information about this
excellent poet's ideas and ways of working.
***********************************************
If you haven't seen it yet, please don't miss our review below of
Greater New York 2005, the 160 artist group show now
on at MOMA's PS1 in Long Island City...
Interesting discussions about blogging, poetry, poet's
reputations and criticism over at Jonathan Mayhew's
Bemsha Swing {click here} and Timothy Yu's
Tympan {click here}. The comments sections are smokin'!
Anyway, we bloggers seemed to have gotten all hepped up about something or other
late at night. Hope you will check it out!
**********************************************
Singin' In The Rain
The latest interview on
E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S {click here} between
Mark Young and Jukka-Pekka Kervinen is a collaborative
poem in itself, chock full of information about this
excellent poet's ideas and ways of working.
***********************************************
If you haven't seen it yet, please don't miss our review below of
Greater New York 2005, the 160 artist group show now
on at MOMA's PS1 in Long Island City...
Sunday, May 8
Saturday Double Feature
Toni had the idea yesterday that if were going to
go to Flux Factory to -hopefully- meet Grant
Bailie- at the Novel launch party at 7pm-
we might as well also go to PS 1 to see
Greater New York 2005- 160 New York
artists who have "emerged" since 2000-
which was nearby. This turned out to be a prescient
idea as Flux Factory was anything but easy to
get to. Our cab driver managed to barely
miss going over the Queensboro Bridge twice
trying to locate the Flux Factory. But we
did locate it in plenty of time. We also managed
to find the nearest N Train subway stop after
leaving the Flux Factory party. But Toni was
damn mad we didn't get a cab out of there!
We were disappointed to have to miss
Stan Apps and Douglas Rothschild at
the Bowery Poetry Club. Hopefully, another
blogger has filed- or will- file a reading report
on what must have been a dynamite reading!
Well, we did get to meet Grant Bailie-
and we do have good news. Here's a treat
for ::fait accompli:: readers. Two of the *Novel*
writers- so far- Grant Bailie and Laurie
Stone- have opened blogs in which they
promise to post excerpts of their novels.
These blogs are
Grant Bailie Novel Blogspot {click here}
and
Laurie Stone Novel Blogspot {click here}
After going to the blockbuster
Greater New York 2005 {click here}
we did get to meet Grant Bailie and Ranbir Sidhu
at the Flux Factory Launch. As Grant mentioned
in the interview below, he was anxious to get
started on the project. Flux Factory is a loft
building in Long Island City near Northern
Blvd where 15 artists and writers-in-residents
live and do their work. We were very pleased
to meet Grant- and Ranbir Sidhu at the launch party.
We're sure many - if not all of you- have had the
experience of meeting someone online and
finally getting to meet them in person. After a little bit of
party type waiting around, it was
a sheer delight to meet Grant- and Ranbir Sidhu.
We had spotted Grant chatting with someone
in the corner and fortunately had seen his photo
in the aforementioned interview (see below).
Fortunately we didn't need to ask him a whole
lot of questions about the project
that had already been fully answered in this very
recent interview (Grant was surprised to hear
it was already online). But we did find out that
the Flux Factory novelists involved in this project
can't leave the Factory- for long- for the entire month! Pretty
strict rules. We'll be following this project closely
here on ::fait accompli::. Best of luck to Grant
and to the other novelists participating in this
adventurous- and very rigorous- experiment in writing!
Can't resist mentioning that wandering around looking
for something to eat after visiting the amazing PS 1
massive group show we found an
excellent French restaurant in the
middle of this relatively deserted Queens area.
It is called *Tournesol* and it is located at
50-12 Vernon Blvd- but this won't help you find
it after visiting PS 1. We suggest calling for
instructions- and maybe even reservations
(we got there early but we were lucky to get a table)
(#7 train to Vernon-Jackson stop)
(718) 472-4355. Cool place.
*****************************************************
The PS 1 show is fortunately up until September 26.
We'll say right off the bat that we have never heard
Toni say she wanted to return to a group
show right after seeing one before this.
But even with several hours it was impossible to cover
this entire show. We hurriedly scribbled down a few
notes but missed the name on our favorite video in
the show- a video of a violin performance that is transformed
into a complex and rapidly mutating film, doubling and
quadrupling the image of the violinist along with constantly
accelerating the film and the music!
Here are a few favorites:
Oliver Michaels lyrical *Train* (2003-2004)
originally shown at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery.
This is a 13 minute film. The observer is a passenger
on a little train riding along the floor of a room which
disappears again and again into tiny mouse-hole
tunnels in the floorboards of the rooms only to emerge
into another room or somewhere in the surrounding
area.
Anna Conway's stunning 2001 35"x 48" painting
titled *October 17th, 41 degrees 46 minutes
N. 70 degrees 31 minutes W.* The painting
depicts four puppet heads floating in a whirling ocean
storm, with a searchboat casting a beam on
each head in moody, continuous rain.
Anna Conway- *October 17th* {click here}
James Yamada's quirky, hilarious *Smoking at Home #1* (2005).
(wood, steel, DVD player, DVD, karaoke version of
Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" sung by Takayoshi
Nonaka, Mica Joshita and Hanayuki Hagashi, motors,
mirrors, cigarette smoke, cigarettes, laser, smoke
detector, misc. 30"x 30"x 18" plus pedstal).
This piece consists of a small wooden house constructed
out of wood and steel. The museum guard has to light a
match, put it inside the little house, which triggers a smoke
alarm- this starts up a small blue laser light show inside the tiny house
and the Johnny Cash song sung by the singers listed above.
The piece was originally shown at the Galleria Raucci in
Santamaria, Naples.
James Yamada-interview {click here}
Frank Magnotta's intricate, subtly detailed, surrealistic drawing *Breakout*
(2004 graphite on paper). An imploding, eroding, abandoned factory with broken
sign "OXY" falling off the side of the building, with a bent wire fence around it it.
Frank Magnotta at White Columns {click here}
Carol Bove's nostalgic, wistful *Adventures In Poetry* (2002) which
consists of a cheap, brown wood bookshelf with various books from
the 60's piled on it: Henry Miller, Freud's *Civilization and Its Discontents*,
The Radical Therapist, Quotations from Mao-Tse Tung, A Skeleton
Key to Finnigans Wake, the script for Michaelangelo Antonioni's *Blowup*,
Genet, The Communist Manifesto, Clockwork Orange
Carol Bove {click here}
Tobias Putrih's delicate, yet incredibly monumental cardboard sculptures,
called *Macula Series A & L* (2005) originally shown at the Max Protech
Gallery. These are biomorphic forms about 3-4 feet high and varying dimensions
around, made by cutting out thin slices of cardboard
attaching, stacking and sandwiching the pieces. The
sculptures are shown in one of the most beautifully lighted rooms in the museum,
with windows facing out on the skyline and the bridge.
You can see light through these gorgeous
cardboard sculptures, about 10 in all. Don't miss this work!!
Rico Gatson's 2001 film *Gunplay* . Sounds and images from
westerns are altered into bent and twisted, multiple, kaleidoscopic,
cartoon-like sequences, faintly reminiscent of op-art,
with sounds of gunshots and some of the lines repeating
thoughout. A witty must-see piece shown on one of the 3rd or 4th
floor staircases.
Rico Gatson- video still from Gun Play- Ronald Feldman Fine Arts {click here}
Peter Coffin's dreamlike installation piece,
*Untitled (Hollow Log with Model of the'
Universe)* A teepee in the sand, with
Neil Young-like 70's dancemix playing
inside. A mannikin with long hair, dressed in cowboy
clothes is standing in the sand looking out the
museum window onto a brick wall, with a couple of rusty beercans
lying at his feet. The piece made me think of Neil Young's
*Cowgirl in the Sand*
One of the most interesting aspects of this young
artists show is to consider what aspects of modern
and recent art is still of interest to them. Notably: Dada,
surrealism, collage, altered film and sound images and
filmed animation.
There are numerous apparent references to contemporary
artists such as Tony Oursler, Jenny Holzer, Carolee Schneeman,
Tim Hawkinson, Barbara Kruger and Vito Acconci, and many others, of course.
This is a fine opportunity to try to pick out which artists
and artistic techniques are being noticed and
seized on by more recent artists.
Nostalgia for the colorful, imaginative,
idealistic world of the 60's is clearly revealed
in many of the pieces.
But a good many of these works are more meditative
and consciously less "flashy" than their predecessors,
even when the earlier works are being echoed.
Still, preoccupation with fragmentation and discontinuity
continues apace as it has from the later 19th through the 20th century,
and much earlier, if you think of Bosch and Archimbaldo,
just to select two examples.
Very few 1980's influences seemed to be present,
thinking of the recent Lower East Side retrospective
at the Chelsea Museum: much more emphasis on technique.
Not so many pop references, a la Andy Warhol and when
they are referenced the allusions are embedded securely
within the formal techniques being employed.
Cut paper and cardboard, collage, mixed media,
and most notably gentle irony and humor are
constantly in evidence. We noted a work reflecting on
9/11 and another one concerned with the Lebanon car bombings.
We were impressed by the huge amount of excellent work
and the generally impressive qualities of of the work in this show:
profundity, social awareness, formal innovation, focus.
We'll identify many more works for discussion more closely on our
next visit.
We are definitely returning to this show next
weekend - so more on these artists next week-
there are a number of artists, such as
Mika Rothenberg and Aida Rulova, and numerous others
-whose names we missed- we need
to consider further. No doubt a number of
works will jump out at us only after a
second visit- which we plan to make
after going to view the work of
Jean Foos- studio #403
May 14 and May 15 open studio
at Jevenal Reis Studios- 43-01 22cd Street
L.I.C. 646-403-9584
E or V train to 23rd St./Ely Ave.
#7 to 45th Road/Courthouse Square
G to Court Square
walk north on 23rd Street (under the train
tracks) make a left on 44th Avenue
and right on 22 Street
Jean Foos
Images {click here}
Toni had the idea yesterday that if were going to
go to Flux Factory to -hopefully- meet Grant
Bailie- at the Novel launch party at 7pm-
we might as well also go to PS 1 to see
Greater New York 2005- 160 New York
artists who have "emerged" since 2000-
which was nearby. This turned out to be a prescient
idea as Flux Factory was anything but easy to
get to. Our cab driver managed to barely
miss going over the Queensboro Bridge twice
trying to locate the Flux Factory. But we
did locate it in plenty of time. We also managed
to find the nearest N Train subway stop after
leaving the Flux Factory party. But Toni was
damn mad we didn't get a cab out of there!
We were disappointed to have to miss
Stan Apps and Douglas Rothschild at
the Bowery Poetry Club. Hopefully, another
blogger has filed- or will- file a reading report
on what must have been a dynamite reading!
Well, we did get to meet Grant Bailie-
and we do have good news. Here's a treat
for ::fait accompli:: readers. Two of the *Novel*
writers- so far- Grant Bailie and Laurie
Stone- have opened blogs in which they
promise to post excerpts of their novels.
These blogs are
Grant Bailie Novel Blogspot {click here}
and
Laurie Stone Novel Blogspot {click here}
After going to the blockbuster
Greater New York 2005 {click here}
we did get to meet Grant Bailie and Ranbir Sidhu
at the Flux Factory Launch. As Grant mentioned
in the interview below, he was anxious to get
started on the project. Flux Factory is a loft
building in Long Island City near Northern
Blvd where 15 artists and writers-in-residents
live and do their work. We were very pleased
to meet Grant- and Ranbir Sidhu at the launch party.
We're sure many - if not all of you- have had the
experience of meeting someone online and
finally getting to meet them in person. After a little bit of
party type waiting around, it was
a sheer delight to meet Grant- and Ranbir Sidhu.
We had spotted Grant chatting with someone
in the corner and fortunately had seen his photo
in the aforementioned interview (see below).
Fortunately we didn't need to ask him a whole
lot of questions about the project
that had already been fully answered in this very
recent interview (Grant was surprised to hear
it was already online). But we did find out that
the Flux Factory novelists involved in this project
can't leave the Factory- for long- for the entire month! Pretty
strict rules. We'll be following this project closely
here on ::fait accompli::. Best of luck to Grant
and to the other novelists participating in this
adventurous- and very rigorous- experiment in writing!
Can't resist mentioning that wandering around looking
for something to eat after visiting the amazing PS 1
massive group show we found an
excellent French restaurant in the
middle of this relatively deserted Queens area.
It is called *Tournesol* and it is located at
50-12 Vernon Blvd- but this won't help you find
it after visiting PS 1. We suggest calling for
instructions- and maybe even reservations
(we got there early but we were lucky to get a table)
(#7 train to Vernon-Jackson stop)
(718) 472-4355. Cool place.
*****************************************************
The PS 1 show is fortunately up until September 26.
We'll say right off the bat that we have never heard
Toni say she wanted to return to a group
show right after seeing one before this.
But even with several hours it was impossible to cover
this entire show. We hurriedly scribbled down a few
notes but missed the name on our favorite video in
the show- a video of a violin performance that is transformed
into a complex and rapidly mutating film, doubling and
quadrupling the image of the violinist along with constantly
accelerating the film and the music!
Here are a few favorites:
Oliver Michaels lyrical *Train* (2003-2004)
originally shown at the Shoshana Wayne Gallery.
This is a 13 minute film. The observer is a passenger
on a little train riding along the floor of a room which
disappears again and again into tiny mouse-hole
tunnels in the floorboards of the rooms only to emerge
into another room or somewhere in the surrounding
area.
Anna Conway's stunning 2001 35"x 48" painting
titled *October 17th, 41 degrees 46 minutes
N. 70 degrees 31 minutes W.* The painting
depicts four puppet heads floating in a whirling ocean
storm, with a searchboat casting a beam on
each head in moody, continuous rain.
Anna Conway- *October 17th* {click here}
James Yamada's quirky, hilarious *Smoking at Home #1* (2005).
(wood, steel, DVD player, DVD, karaoke version of
Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" sung by Takayoshi
Nonaka, Mica Joshita and Hanayuki Hagashi, motors,
mirrors, cigarette smoke, cigarettes, laser, smoke
detector, misc. 30"x 30"x 18" plus pedstal).
This piece consists of a small wooden house constructed
out of wood and steel. The museum guard has to light a
match, put it inside the little house, which triggers a smoke
alarm- this starts up a small blue laser light show inside the tiny house
and the Johnny Cash song sung by the singers listed above.
The piece was originally shown at the Galleria Raucci in
Santamaria, Naples.
James Yamada-interview {click here}
Frank Magnotta's intricate, subtly detailed, surrealistic drawing *Breakout*
(2004 graphite on paper). An imploding, eroding, abandoned factory with broken
sign "OXY" falling off the side of the building, with a bent wire fence around it it.
Frank Magnotta at White Columns {click here}
Carol Bove's nostalgic, wistful *Adventures In Poetry* (2002) which
consists of a cheap, brown wood bookshelf with various books from
the 60's piled on it: Henry Miller, Freud's *Civilization and Its Discontents*,
The Radical Therapist, Quotations from Mao-Tse Tung, A Skeleton
Key to Finnigans Wake, the script for Michaelangelo Antonioni's *Blowup*,
Genet, The Communist Manifesto, Clockwork Orange
Carol Bove {click here}
Tobias Putrih's delicate, yet incredibly monumental cardboard sculptures,
called *Macula Series A & L* (2005) originally shown at the Max Protech
Gallery. These are biomorphic forms about 3-4 feet high and varying dimensions
around, made by cutting out thin slices of cardboard
attaching, stacking and sandwiching the pieces. The
sculptures are shown in one of the most beautifully lighted rooms in the museum,
with windows facing out on the skyline and the bridge.
You can see light through these gorgeous
cardboard sculptures, about 10 in all. Don't miss this work!!
Rico Gatson's 2001 film *Gunplay* . Sounds and images from
westerns are altered into bent and twisted, multiple, kaleidoscopic,
cartoon-like sequences, faintly reminiscent of op-art,
with sounds of gunshots and some of the lines repeating
thoughout. A witty must-see piece shown on one of the 3rd or 4th
floor staircases.
Rico Gatson- video still from Gun Play- Ronald Feldman Fine Arts {click here}
Peter Coffin's dreamlike installation piece,
*Untitled (Hollow Log with Model of the'
Universe)* A teepee in the sand, with
Neil Young-like 70's dancemix playing
inside. A mannikin with long hair, dressed in cowboy
clothes is standing in the sand looking out the
museum window onto a brick wall, with a couple of rusty beercans
lying at his feet. The piece made me think of Neil Young's
*Cowgirl in the Sand*
One of the most interesting aspects of this young
artists show is to consider what aspects of modern
and recent art is still of interest to them. Notably: Dada,
surrealism, collage, altered film and sound images and
filmed animation.
There are numerous apparent references to contemporary
artists such as Tony Oursler, Jenny Holzer, Carolee Schneeman,
Tim Hawkinson, Barbara Kruger and Vito Acconci, and many others, of course.
This is a fine opportunity to try to pick out which artists
and artistic techniques are being noticed and
seized on by more recent artists.
Nostalgia for the colorful, imaginative,
idealistic world of the 60's is clearly revealed
in many of the pieces.
But a good many of these works are more meditative
and consciously less "flashy" than their predecessors,
even when the earlier works are being echoed.
Still, preoccupation with fragmentation and discontinuity
continues apace as it has from the later 19th through the 20th century,
and much earlier, if you think of Bosch and Archimbaldo,
just to select two examples.
Very few 1980's influences seemed to be present,
thinking of the recent Lower East Side retrospective
at the Chelsea Museum: much more emphasis on technique.
Not so many pop references, a la Andy Warhol and when
they are referenced the allusions are embedded securely
within the formal techniques being employed.
Cut paper and cardboard, collage, mixed media,
and most notably gentle irony and humor are
constantly in evidence. We noted a work reflecting on
9/11 and another one concerned with the Lebanon car bombings.
We were impressed by the huge amount of excellent work
and the generally impressive qualities of of the work in this show:
profundity, social awareness, formal innovation, focus.
We'll identify many more works for discussion more closely on our
next visit.
We are definitely returning to this show next
weekend - so more on these artists next week-
there are a number of artists, such as
Mika Rothenberg and Aida Rulova, and numerous others
-whose names we missed- we need
to consider further. No doubt a number of
works will jump out at us only after a
second visit- which we plan to make
after going to view the work of
Jean Foos- studio #403
May 14 and May 15 open studio
at Jevenal Reis Studios- 43-01 22cd Street
L.I.C. 646-403-9584
E or V train to 23rd St./Ely Ave.
#7 to 45th Road/Courthouse Square
G to Court Square
walk north on 23rd Street (under the train
tracks) make a left on 44th Avenue
and right on 22 Street
Jean Foos
Images {click here}
Saturday, May 7
Tom Beckett is Still Editing His MiPoesias Issue
but not for long:
How to send Tom Beckett work for MiPoesias {click here}
but not for long:
How to send Tom Beckett work for MiPoesias {click here}
Facing the Gallows at Flux Factory
An interview with Grant Bailie about his upcoming month's
"monk like" devotion to Art {click here}
*****************************************************************
::fait accompli:: review of
*Cloud 8* by Grant Bailie {click here}
****************************************************************
FLUX FACTORY
is at 38-38 43rd Street in Long Island City, Queens. It now encompasses 7,500 square feet and the population of Flux Factory has grown to approximately fifty individuals internationally.
take the #7 train at Times Square/42cd Street
to 40th Street/Lowery Street stop and
walk 5 blocks
An interview with Grant Bailie about his upcoming month's
"monk like" devotion to Art {click here}
*****************************************************************
::fait accompli:: review of
*Cloud 8* by Grant Bailie {click here}
****************************************************************
FLUX FACTORY
is at 38-38 43rd Street in Long Island City, Queens. It now encompasses 7,500 square feet and the population of Flux Factory has grown to approximately fifty individuals internationally.
take the #7 train at Times Square/42cd Street
to 40th Street/Lowery Street stop and
walk 5 blocks
Friday, May 6
Take A Bow
Grant Bailie, author of *Cloud 8*, Laurie Stone and
Ranbir Sidhu will participate in a unique writing
experiment over the next month-writing a complete
novel on the spot. Opening party
at Flux Factory this Saturday, May 7th 7-10pm {click here}
****************************************************************
Tickets have just gone on sale for *Shadowtime*,
an opera about Walter Benjamin, libretto
by Charles Bernstein
Shadowtime {click here}
****************************************************************
Bowery Poetry Club
Saturday, May 7 2005
4:00pm
Segue: DOUGLAS ROTHSCHILD and STAN APPS $5
Douglas Rothschild is the creator and host of “The Poetry Game Show”
currently running at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York.
He has also served as Curator of the Zinc Bar Reading Series
and the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, and is a
Co-Founder of Subpress. His books include
The Minor Arcana (Bivouac/subpress) and MatchBook (Situation).
He lives in Albany, NY.
Stan Apps was born in Canada and has lived in Texas and California.
He has recently published poems in Mirage#4/Period(Ical).
His chapbook, Barbara Bush’s Visit on Behalf of the Chosen One
(umbrellad devil press) was performed by the Oracular Vagina Collective at
L.A.’s Inshallah Gallery. Stan has a blog (refried ORACLE phone)
and a few collaborative blogs, such as bed bird bed
(whereisericbara.blogspot.com) with Marco Saenz,
and genius nieces (geniusnieces.blogspot.com) with
Ara Shirinyan. A chapbook is forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse.
Grant Bailie, author of *Cloud 8*, Laurie Stone and
Ranbir Sidhu will participate in a unique writing
experiment over the next month-writing a complete
novel on the spot. Opening party
at Flux Factory this Saturday, May 7th 7-10pm {click here}
****************************************************************
Tickets have just gone on sale for *Shadowtime*,
an opera about Walter Benjamin, libretto
by Charles Bernstein
Shadowtime {click here}
****************************************************************
Bowery Poetry Club
Saturday, May 7 2005
4:00pm
Segue: DOUGLAS ROTHSCHILD and STAN APPS $5
Douglas Rothschild is the creator and host of “The Poetry Game Show”
currently running at the Bowery Poetry Club in New York.
He has also served as Curator of the Zinc Bar Reading Series
and the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, and is a
Co-Founder of Subpress. His books include
The Minor Arcana (Bivouac/subpress) and MatchBook (Situation).
He lives in Albany, NY.
Stan Apps was born in Canada and has lived in Texas and California.
He has recently published poems in Mirage#4/Period(Ical).
His chapbook, Barbara Bush’s Visit on Behalf of the Chosen One
(umbrellad devil press) was performed by the Oracular Vagina Collective at
L.A.’s Inshallah Gallery. Stan has a blog (refried ORACLE phone)
and a few collaborative blogs, such as bed bird bed
(whereisericbara.blogspot.com) with Marco Saenz,
and genius nieces (geniusnieces.blogspot.com) with
Ara Shirinyan. A chapbook is forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse.
Thursday, May 5
Life and Art on the Suny/Buffalo Poetics List
Awhile ago, a discussion that, for once,
wasn’t about the list itself emerged on the
poetics list. It is about the life versus the
work of the poet. Some of the remarks
a few days ago inspired me to
scribble the following.
You can read the listserv by clicking here:
Poetics List Archives {click here}
To contribute to the discussion, follow the instructions for
subscribing. At the present time, the list is calling for
writing on poetry and poetics; we would
love to see many more reviews of books, chapbooks
and blogs by contemporary writers as well as focused commentary on
related issues.
.
Anyway, here’s
my brief recent offering:
on the life versus the work of a poet
Obviously, over time, poets' works and lives
are interwoven in the public imagination, and are occasionally
seen together as representative of an era and even have been
claimed by some to usher in an artistic era. In this case, the
"humanity" of the poet is looked at closely. Think of Mallarme
in this light; few ardent readers have not read about and
visualized his famous "Tuesday night" soirees, attended
by such luminaries as Debussy. Mallarme and
Baudelaire's interest in the visual arts
have been a great influence on countless subsequent poets.
A fascinating example of this tendency are the oft-cited
discussions of Walter Benjamin on Baudelaire. Baudelaire's
way of handling his poverty, and the fact that his poetry
remained largely unrecognized in his lifetime helped to
create the very concept of the "bohemian" lifestyle.
Think of how Emily Dickinson and Gertrude Stein are
depicted not only in the light of their works, but their lives.
The "imperfections" of an artist's life might later be seen as an
opening for liberating possibilities for the lifestyles of countless
others. My favorite book on this is Shattuck's *The Banquet Years.*
Despite the earnest and sincere efforts on the part of
many critics and theorists to separate poets' lives
from their works, readers of poetry and people
on the whole generally connect the two. Who
hasn't thought about the implications of Kafka asking, shortly
before he died, that his writing be destroyed by his best friend,
who, thankfully, disregarded this? There are so many
examples of such anecdotes that shape the
way we regard a writer's works.
For me, "biography" or published biographies do not represent
the totality of the continued cultural presence of anyone,
particularly their crucial cultural "imago," least of all that of a poet.
There was a life lived; it is experienced and remembered in
certain ways; there were words written, and things said; these are
initially experienced in a cultural context and then recorded
and remembered in certain ways. Most people who become
fascinated with a book or a movie eventually want to know
everything they can learn about the person who wrote
the book or made the movie. This is because the movie has
caused them to think about the experience we call "life."
Countless memoirs and biographies continue to appear
about Sylvia Plath, for example. Most of her readers do not
content themselves with rereading her poems.
They want to know more. A better example might be the record
made of the life of Wallace Stevens, "Parts of a World Remembered",
where nearly every living person who knew Wallace Stevens
at all was interviewed. Paul Celan's poetry is loved, treasured even,
but the reality of his cultural presence evolved not only from the publication
of the poems themselves. These reflected things thought and spoken by an actual
living person. Celan is a "character" is the ongoing cinema we call "real life."
JW's [list member's] statement, for me, somewhat discounts this aspect
of dream in so-called "real life." There are no such sharp distinctions in the life
of art, in either its creation or its reception. Check out D.A. Levy's
*Translating Tradition* concerning Paul Celan, for example.
The cultural role of Celan grows more complex and interwoven with the lives of countless people each and every day. This isn't only because of the poems.
Pavese is another great example. Poet suicides go to the heart
of the issue we are discussing here. Their final acts are just as much
a "statement" as anything that was written or said by them.
Their works and their lives constitute a total "statement." We
don't just read, we feel, we empathize, we have antipathies,
we react, we identify. Writing and reading poetry, or any literature,
or significantly experiencing any work of art, is also partly
an adventure in personal insight and transformation.
It is utterly "personal", even when contemporary life at the
moment is less and less so. Poetry and poets and all artists
struggle to enliven the personal, individual aspect of living.
I would imagine at one time people talked about poetry-
even here on the list the still do sometimes- the way now
almost everyone talks about movies, movie actors, directors, etc. *Blade
Runner* is a cultural touchstone in every detail now. Book after
book keeps appearing offering more and more information, opinion
and insight. At one time the same thing happened with Byron.
Such discussion is not just for the purpose of intellectual
understanding. It is part and parcel of cultural experience,
in the sense that culture is a work in process, wherein artistic
works and lives are interventions in the process, interventions
towards change, nor "progress" but mutative transformation.
Andy Warhol played off these blurry boundaries between art
and life more or less constantly. He carried a tape recorder
around he called his companion and published he diaries
and journals even though he was mainly a visual artist. He did
this with humor and irony; nevertheless the presence of living
people was crucial; out of this he created his films in which his
"stars" were very deliberately people in the act of living their lives,
also trying to become *stars* themselves. OK, they were underpaid
but that's another story.
The Dada poets, and in a more diluted way, the surrealists
were out to make just this point. But in a literary culture obsessed
with critique and evaluation of a poet's book's "greatness",
it is only the actual product that counts, not the person who creates it.
In art the story is different; everything counts.
******************************************************************************
Drew Gardner on Tim Hawkinson
Overlap (Drew Gardner)
Awhile ago, a discussion that, for once,
wasn’t about the list itself emerged on the
poetics list. It is about the life versus the
work of the poet. Some of the remarks
a few days ago inspired me to
scribble the following.
You can read the listserv by clicking here:
Poetics List Archives {click here}
To contribute to the discussion, follow the instructions for
subscribing. At the present time, the list is calling for
writing on poetry and poetics; we would
love to see many more reviews of books, chapbooks
and blogs by contemporary writers as well as focused commentary on
related issues.
.
Anyway, here’s
my brief recent offering:
on the life versus the work of a poet
Obviously, over time, poets' works and lives
are interwoven in the public imagination, and are occasionally
seen together as representative of an era and even have been
claimed by some to usher in an artistic era. In this case, the
"humanity" of the poet is looked at closely. Think of Mallarme
in this light; few ardent readers have not read about and
visualized his famous "Tuesday night" soirees, attended
by such luminaries as Debussy. Mallarme and
Baudelaire's interest in the visual arts
have been a great influence on countless subsequent poets.
A fascinating example of this tendency are the oft-cited
discussions of Walter Benjamin on Baudelaire. Baudelaire's
way of handling his poverty, and the fact that his poetry
remained largely unrecognized in his lifetime helped to
create the very concept of the "bohemian" lifestyle.
Think of how Emily Dickinson and Gertrude Stein are
depicted not only in the light of their works, but their lives.
The "imperfections" of an artist's life might later be seen as an
opening for liberating possibilities for the lifestyles of countless
others. My favorite book on this is Shattuck's *The Banquet Years.*
Despite the earnest and sincere efforts on the part of
many critics and theorists to separate poets' lives
from their works, readers of poetry and people
on the whole generally connect the two. Who
hasn't thought about the implications of Kafka asking, shortly
before he died, that his writing be destroyed by his best friend,
who, thankfully, disregarded this? There are so many
examples of such anecdotes that shape the
way we regard a writer's works.
For me, "biography" or published biographies do not represent
the totality of the continued cultural presence of anyone,
particularly their crucial cultural "imago," least of all that of a poet.
There was a life lived; it is experienced and remembered in
certain ways; there were words written, and things said; these are
initially experienced in a cultural context and then recorded
and remembered in certain ways. Most people who become
fascinated with a book or a movie eventually want to know
everything they can learn about the person who wrote
the book or made the movie. This is because the movie has
caused them to think about the experience we call "life."
Countless memoirs and biographies continue to appear
about Sylvia Plath, for example. Most of her readers do not
content themselves with rereading her poems.
They want to know more. A better example might be the record
made of the life of Wallace Stevens, "Parts of a World Remembered",
where nearly every living person who knew Wallace Stevens
at all was interviewed. Paul Celan's poetry is loved, treasured even,
but the reality of his cultural presence evolved not only from the publication
of the poems themselves. These reflected things thought and spoken by an actual
living person. Celan is a "character" is the ongoing cinema we call "real life."
JW's [list member's] statement, for me, somewhat discounts this aspect
of dream in so-called "real life." There are no such sharp distinctions in the life
of art, in either its creation or its reception. Check out D.A. Levy's
*Translating Tradition* concerning Paul Celan, for example.
The cultural role of Celan grows more complex and interwoven with the lives of countless people each and every day. This isn't only because of the poems.
Pavese is another great example. Poet suicides go to the heart
of the issue we are discussing here. Their final acts are just as much
a "statement" as anything that was written or said by them.
Their works and their lives constitute a total "statement." We
don't just read, we feel, we empathize, we have antipathies,
we react, we identify. Writing and reading poetry, or any literature,
or significantly experiencing any work of art, is also partly
an adventure in personal insight and transformation.
It is utterly "personal", even when contemporary life at the
moment is less and less so. Poetry and poets and all artists
struggle to enliven the personal, individual aspect of living.
I would imagine at one time people talked about poetry-
even here on the list the still do sometimes- the way now
almost everyone talks about movies, movie actors, directors, etc. *Blade
Runner* is a cultural touchstone in every detail now. Book after
book keeps appearing offering more and more information, opinion
and insight. At one time the same thing happened with Byron.
Such discussion is not just for the purpose of intellectual
understanding. It is part and parcel of cultural experience,
in the sense that culture is a work in process, wherein artistic
works and lives are interventions in the process, interventions
towards change, nor "progress" but mutative transformation.
Andy Warhol played off these blurry boundaries between art
and life more or less constantly. He carried a tape recorder
around he called his companion and published he diaries
and journals even though he was mainly a visual artist. He did
this with humor and irony; nevertheless the presence of living
people was crucial; out of this he created his films in which his
"stars" were very deliberately people in the act of living their lives,
also trying to become *stars* themselves. OK, they were underpaid
but that's another story.
The Dada poets, and in a more diluted way, the surrealists
were out to make just this point. But in a literary culture obsessed
with critique and evaluation of a poet's book's "greatness",
it is only the actual product that counts, not the person who creates it.
In art the story is different; everything counts.
******************************************************************************
Drew Gardner on Tim Hawkinson
Overlap (Drew Gardner)
Wednesday, May 4
Echo Zone
"When we read, we are not looking for new ideas, but
to see our own thoughts given the seal of confirmation on the
printed page. The words that strike us are those that awake
an echo in a zone we have already made our own- the place
where we live- and the vibration enables us to find fresh
starting points within ourselves.
What a great thought it is that all *effort* is futile! It
is sufficient just to let our ego blossom, go along with it, take
it by the hand as though it were someone else, have faith
that we are more important than we realized."
Cesare Pavese
3rd December, 1938
*The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950*
Walker and Company, 1961, p.139
"When we read, we are not looking for new ideas, but
to see our own thoughts given the seal of confirmation on the
printed page. The words that strike us are those that awake
an echo in a zone we have already made our own- the place
where we live- and the vibration enables us to find fresh
starting points within ourselves.
What a great thought it is that all *effort* is futile! It
is sufficient just to let our ego blossom, go along with it, take
it by the hand as though it were someone else, have faith
that we are more important than we realized."
Cesare Pavese
3rd December, 1938
*The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950*
Walker and Company, 1961, p.139
Now at a Tributary near you {click here}
Allan Bramhall's blog is getting to be addictive.
Today he opines on the first issue of Gary Sullivan's
new comic *Elsewhere*
Tuesday, May 3
"Rarely remembering it was Congreve who said
Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.
Rarely remembering that it was Congreve who said
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
In the same play."
David Markson
*This Is Not A Novel*
Counterpoint, 2001
pps. 97-98
Review of David Markson's latest book *Vanishing Point* {click here}
Remarks by Congreve {click here}
Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast.
Rarely remembering that it was Congreve who said
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
In the same play."
David Markson
*This Is Not A Novel*
Counterpoint, 2001
pps. 97-98
Review of David Markson's latest book *Vanishing Point* {click here}
Remarks by Congreve {click here}
ON'T MISS THIS
Text/Styles
A poetry/fashion event
to benefit international garment workers
Sunday May 22 Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery) 8-10 pm
$5 donation
Featuring:
Kim Rosenfield
Rob Fitterman
Adeena Karasick
Shanna Compton
Katie Degentesh
Virginie Poitrasson
Tim Peterson
Christina Strong
Jack Kimball
Marianne Shaneen
Douglas Rothschild
Brenda Iijima
Tonya Foster
Jordan Davis
Meghan Cleary
& (organizer/MC) Nada Gordon
Wear your favorite or most outstanding clothing. Bring clothes to sell for the benefit of garment workers worldwide. All proceeds will be donated to Cleanclothes.org, #
*******************************************************
The Latest on PennSound Audio
(via Suny/Buff poetics list)
"Since out launch on January 1, we have added many new files, and continue
to do so on a weekly basis. We are developing a fully functioning catalog,
but this will take at least one more year. We are also beginning to create
links to author sound files from EPC author pages. In the meantime, we have
installed a quick search feature, which, combined with our "singles" index,
will help to locate most of our files.
PennSound {click here}
Recent additions to our "featured authors" include a selected poems of John
Wieners and Fanny Howe, and readings by Lyn Hejinian, Adrienne Rich,
Barrett Watten, Norman Fischer, Robert Creeley, Myung Mi Kim, and talks by
Ron Silliman and Leevhi Lehto.
On our "Series" pages, in addition to the new Studio 111 shows, we have
added "Poetic Brooklyn," produced by Susan Brennan, which features readings
by Anja Mutic, Matvei Yankelevich, Arielle Greenberg, Vijay Sheshadri,
Julien Poirier, and Filip Marinovic.
Also at "series", we have added a new season of Cross Cultural Poetics,
Leonard Schwartz's radio interviews/readings. New programs feature Robin
Blaser, Meredeith Quartermain, and Peter Quatermain, from Vancouver;
Richard Seiburth, who talks about, and reads from, his extraordinary
translation of Buchner's Lenz; and John Taggart on "Peace on Earth". Other
programs feature Trevor Joyce, Khaled Mattawa, Rodrigo Toscano, Charles
Borkhuis, Russell Banks, Joseph Donahue, Albert Mobillio, John O'Leary,
Wang Ping Stacy Doris, Ed Foster, Nada Gorden, Maxine Chernoff, Rita Wong,
Wang Ping, Mark Wallace, and more.
We have also just launched PennSound/Classics, with readings of Pope and
Swift by John Richetti and David Wallace reading Chaucer.
I also want to recommend a marvellous Rockdrill CD series of selected
poems, from Birkbeck (UK)
*Robert Creeley: 'I Know a Man', poems 1945-1975
* Robert Creeley: 'Just in Time', poems 1976-1998
* Lee Harwood: 'The Chart Table', poems 1965-2002
* Tom Raworth: 'Ace', poems 1966-1979
* Tom Raworth: 'Writing', poems 1980-2003
* Jerome Rothenberg: 'Sightings', poems 1960-1983
* Jerome Rothenberg: 'Seedings', poems 1984-2003
You can order these from Carcanet's web site:
go to http://www.carcanet.co.uk/search2.html
and put "rockdrill" in the title box"
(from Charles Bernstein)
Text/Styles
A poetry/fashion event
to benefit international garment workers
Sunday May 22 Bowery Poetry Club (308 Bowery) 8-10 pm
$5 donation
Featuring:
Kim Rosenfield
Rob Fitterman
Adeena Karasick
Shanna Compton
Katie Degentesh
Virginie Poitrasson
Tim Peterson
Christina Strong
Jack Kimball
Marianne Shaneen
Douglas Rothschild
Brenda Iijima
Tonya Foster
Jordan Davis
Meghan Cleary
& (organizer/MC) Nada Gordon
Wear your favorite or most outstanding clothing. Bring clothes to sell for the benefit of garment workers worldwide. All proceeds will be donated to Cleanclothes.org, #
*******************************************************
The Latest on PennSound Audio
(via Suny/Buff poetics list)
"Since out launch on January 1, we have added many new files, and continue
to do so on a weekly basis. We are developing a fully functioning catalog,
but this will take at least one more year. We are also beginning to create
links to author sound files from EPC author pages. In the meantime, we have
installed a quick search feature, which, combined with our "singles" index,
will help to locate most of our files.
PennSound {click here}
Recent additions to our "featured authors" include a selected poems of John
Wieners and Fanny Howe, and readings by Lyn Hejinian, Adrienne Rich,
Barrett Watten, Norman Fischer, Robert Creeley, Myung Mi Kim, and talks by
Ron Silliman and Leevhi Lehto.
On our "Series" pages, in addition to the new Studio 111 shows, we have
added "Poetic Brooklyn," produced by Susan Brennan, which features readings
by Anja Mutic, Matvei Yankelevich, Arielle Greenberg, Vijay Sheshadri,
Julien Poirier, and Filip Marinovic.
Also at "series", we have added a new season of Cross Cultural Poetics,
Leonard Schwartz's radio interviews/readings. New programs feature Robin
Blaser, Meredeith Quartermain, and Peter Quatermain, from Vancouver;
Richard Seiburth, who talks about, and reads from, his extraordinary
translation of Buchner's Lenz; and John Taggart on "Peace on Earth". Other
programs feature Trevor Joyce, Khaled Mattawa, Rodrigo Toscano, Charles
Borkhuis, Russell Banks, Joseph Donahue, Albert Mobillio, John O'Leary,
Wang Ping Stacy Doris, Ed Foster, Nada Gorden, Maxine Chernoff, Rita Wong,
Wang Ping, Mark Wallace, and more.
We have also just launched PennSound/Classics, with readings of Pope and
Swift by John Richetti and David Wallace reading Chaucer.
I also want to recommend a marvellous Rockdrill CD series of selected
poems, from Birkbeck (UK)
*Robert Creeley: 'I Know a Man', poems 1945-1975
* Robert Creeley: 'Just in Time', poems 1976-1998
* Lee Harwood: 'The Chart Table', poems 1965-2002
* Tom Raworth: 'Ace', poems 1966-1979
* Tom Raworth: 'Writing', poems 1980-2003
* Jerome Rothenberg: 'Sightings', poems 1960-1983
* Jerome Rothenberg: 'Seedings', poems 1984-2003
You can order these from Carcanet's web site:
go to http://www.carcanet.co.uk/search2.html
and put "rockdrill" in the title box"
(from Charles Bernstein)
Monday, May 2
"30th November" (1938)
"I) There are two stages in writing a novel. The first
is as though a sheet of water were becoming opaque and
dark with mud; there is a violent movement, upheaval, foam;
then there is a calm, a period of quiescence; the quivering
water grows still, begins to clear and suddenly is transparent
again. The depths and the sky reflected in them are
motionless.
The novel comes into existence quietly, during this
elimination of all motion and every impurity. Remember:
it happened quietly.
II) So a novel is born; the agitated water trembles,
grows clear and then is still. There are two stages: I)
cloudy and disturbed, II) Calm and serene."
Cesare Pavese
*The Burning Brand*
Walker and Company, 1961
p. 138
"I) There are two stages in writing a novel. The first
is as though a sheet of water were becoming opaque and
dark with mud; there is a violent movement, upheaval, foam;
then there is a calm, a period of quiescence; the quivering
water grows still, begins to clear and suddenly is transparent
again. The depths and the sky reflected in them are
motionless.
The novel comes into existence quietly, during this
elimination of all motion and every impurity. Remember:
it happened quietly.
II) So a novel is born; the agitated water trembles,
grows clear and then is still. There are two stages: I)
cloudy and disturbed, II) Calm and serene."
Cesare Pavese
*The Burning Brand*
Walker and Company, 1961
p. 138
Saturday, April 30
Tuesday, April 26
Drew Gardner and Katie Degentesh
Drew Gardner and Katie Degentesh
March 2003 at the
March Against the War In Iraq
[photo by Toni Simon-
click on photo to see
enlarged version on
*flikr*]
********************
One of the poems read on Sunday's *My Vocabulary* was
a tribute to Drew Gardner's poem, published in his book
*Sugar Pill* (Krupskaya) titled *Drew's Atlantic Sky*
published in
Slope 17 {click here}
********************
Katie Degentesh's blog is
Bloggedy Blog Blog {click here}
Drew Gardner's blog is
Overlap {click here}
Sunday, April 24
Put Another Nickel In
"In the nickelodeon
all I want is lovin' you
and music, music, music"
Matthew Shindell has created a most
unusual poetry show and it was
a blast to read on it. In between
each of my audioblog sets
he interpolated and interwove
some terrific songs, creating
an interesting emotional texture.
The playlist is already
available on
My Vocabulary {click here}
Be sure to stay tuned
for updates on coming
shows.
By the way, while he was listening
to the My Vocabulary show,
Brother Tom Murphy blogged
it, including a link
to my poem *Silenced*!
Check it out, and thanks Tom!
This Journal Blug {click here}
For those of you who missed the
show, hopefully I'll have the
links or mp3's available
on a site for you to listen to soon.
For now, as we say here in blogland,
it's a fait accompli.
***
....Ron's complete reading,
portions of which were broadcast today
on *My Vocabulary* is available
on his PennSound site at
Silliman on PennSound {click here}
"In the nickelodeon
all I want is lovin' you
and music, music, music"
Matthew Shindell has created a most
unusual poetry show and it was
a blast to read on it. In between
each of my audioblog sets
he interpolated and interwove
some terrific songs, creating
an interesting emotional texture.
The playlist is already
available on
My Vocabulary {click here}
Be sure to stay tuned
for updates on coming
shows.
By the way, while he was listening
to the My Vocabulary show,
Brother Tom Murphy blogged
it, including a link
to my poem *Silenced*!
Check it out, and thanks Tom!
This Journal Blug {click here}
For those of you who missed the
show, hopefully I'll have the
links or mp3's available
on a site for you to listen to soon.
For now, as we say here in blogland,
it's a fait accompli.
***
....Ron's complete reading,
portions of which were broadcast today
on *My Vocabulary* is available
on his PennSound site at
Silliman on PennSound {click here}
One More Time
Had an interesting, enjoyable conversation
with Matt Shindell, who is a history of science graduate
student at UCSD, after recording the audioblogs
due to be broadcast here today at 7pm Eastern Daylight Time
(is that what you call it?) Either way, we hope
you have the time to tune in to hear me and
Ron Silliman. Click on
KSDT Radio {click here}
at 7pm (if you live in the East)
or 4 PM (if you live in the West)
or sometime in between if you
live in between!
Or click on:
My Vocabulary {click here}
which will lead you to
the link for the station.
*My Vocabulary* is a new
blog sponsored by Matthew Shindell and
James Meetze, offering readings on
the UCSD college radio station at 4pm
Pacific Standard Time on Sundays.
Last week's show featured
Keith Waldrop and Rosemarie Waldeop.
Had an interesting, enjoyable conversation
with Matt Shindell, who is a history of science graduate
student at UCSD, after recording the audioblogs
due to be broadcast here today at 7pm Eastern Daylight Time
(is that what you call it?) Either way, we hope
you have the time to tune in to hear me and
Ron Silliman. Click on
KSDT Radio {click here}
at 7pm (if you live in the East)
or 4 PM (if you live in the West)
or sometime in between if you
live in between!
Or click on:
My Vocabulary {click here}
which will lead you to
the link for the station.
*My Vocabulary* is a new
blog sponsored by Matthew Shindell and
James Meetze, offering readings on
the UCSD college radio station at 4pm
Pacific Standard Time on Sundays.
Last week's show featured
Keith Waldrop and Rosemarie Waldeop.
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