Stacy Doris and Katie Degentesh at the Bowery Poetry Club, Saturday March 13, 2010

The "Segue Series", sponsored by the Segue Foundation which includes Roof Books, goes back to 1977 at the Ear Inn, making it just 33 years old. Can you believe that Nada Gordon and Gary Sullivan have been curating it for two months every year for 10 years now? Anyway (which was the name of the restaurant a few of us went out to tonight after the reading) Gary and Nada have every reason to be proud, for tonight's offering was totally memorable.

At one point early in her reading, Stacy called for a martini which was soon supplied by publisher James Sherry. Someone shouted out, "now that's a publisher!" Instant applause and well, I had to put my hands together to agree. The mood of elegance was instantly set, but Stacy did not really need this particular detail to supply it. Later, Stacy mentioned that she had promised herself to learn German by the age of 40. Of course she should learn German: she is our poetry Marlene Dietrich , no doubt about that. Stacy could have sat there sipping her drink as the whole show, it wouldn't matter. At this point, we all had an instant lesson in what hipness is, could or should be. Stacy misses New York, and New York completely misses her. By the way, she also read some terrific work. First, a manifesto (strangely, and perhaps one day famously, refused by MOMA), then a guide to psychic nutrition (evidently one of her many talents), but also what she described, jokingly, I think, as a translation of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. There's the German again, but we should say, the European again, for, as we know, France is Stacy's second home, in which language some of her work has been written and published, Greece perhaps her third, San Francisco being her current place of teaching work and family life. The third work, for me, the "Hegelian" one, actually pleasurably reminded me of Bernadette Mayer's masterpiece Studying Hunger. Stacy Doris' "Phenomenology" is just that, taking you tellingly, and secretly inside everyday thought and feeling, but within a rhythmic style of literary syncopation that gently walks the listener/reader through internal experience in a vivid novelistic, cinematic way, reminiscent for me of Antonioni's early trilogy, that included L'Aventura. Stacy Doris as Monica Vitti? Easily, very easily, says I. As Stacy Doris writes in her (2000) book Conference: ""What the movie taught me: Time's an enchantment. Refusal never stops, and memory's its opposite. Memory whisks us away, sweeps us off and beyond. The art of living in time where there is none is memory."

Speaking of Monica Vitti (if some of my readers are too young for that reference) I don't know who to suggest for the next reader Katie Degentesh. Toni suggested Pris in Blade Runner (played by Daryl Hannah in 1982). Oh, where are the film makers in the poetry scene? You missed your big chance tonight, or maybe not. Abigail Child, as far as I know is still in Rome, working on her project for her Prix de Rome. Henry Hills filmed the poetry scene back in the 70's with a film called (Money). Did you ever see Alan Davies, James Sherry and Diane Ward in that one? Well, tonight's offering by these two poets reminded everyone who luckily forced themselves through a movie-sized rain storm (Ann Tardos described it to me as passionate) to see and hear these two show us what the word charisma rmeans. (At dinner, later on, James Sherry pointed out what fine performers Nada Gordon and Gary Sullivan have become on the BPC stage as emcees.)

Katie Degentesh's latest book was called The Anger Scale, a flarf work that combines googling with material taken from a psychology test by the same name ("I feel as if I am being plotted against/and the only real way out of it for me/would be pregnancy"; "I feel there is no other alternative than to/pretend to despise you, yet long for your touch."). However she does it, Katie D is a poetry magician, an alchemist who is able to turn the detritus of everyday life into poetry gold. She explained, after reading a few works from the Anger Scale book, that her current work employs a survey using the question "What do you like about sex?" Katie Degentesh's Sex in the City is not very much like the tv series, which this blogger loved, by the way. KD's answers included a boy that is transformed into an owl or a bat, and a girl who likes sex because she likes to get presents, and someone else who liked sex to keep warm; Katie Degentesh's recent poems are small treasures of metamorphosis; part surrealist, part flarf, but also something all its own that challenges whatever we thought poetry could be and be about, a crucial factor that other flarf poets keep reminding us of. Didn't a poet say, "What does not change/ Is the will to change"? This is what the poetry avant-guard, at its best, has shocked and surprised us with in the past. Real change is possible, and very welcome. As the Segue Series has shown us once again, tonight, at the BPC, and, in this instance, with much charm, elegance and style.
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Tomorrow: My Garden Pets Emilie Clark at Brooklyn Botanic Garden
Stenhardt Conservatory Garden Opening Reception: Sunday, March 14, 1-3pm.

Show continues through Monday May 31

"Artist Emilie Clark's exhibition at Brooklyn Botanic Garden was inspired by the 19th century natural scientist Mary Treat, an expert on carnivorous plants and the relationships between plants and insects. Based on the artist's research on Treat in BBG's Rare Book Room and her observations in the Garden, this conceptually-based installation includes paintings, works on paper, archival letters, and plant samples, as well as a mapping of Treat's correspondence with such liminaries as Charles Darwin and Asa Gray, who admired and cited her work."

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Rick Snyder's Escape from Combray

COMMON GROUND ART GALLERY 
in conjunction with
RAMPIKE Magazine
Very Proudly Present

T H E   L A S T   V I S P O  

: selections from the upcoming anthology

edited by Crag Hill and Nico Vassilakis

(This selection compiled by Volker Nix)

Opening reception: Saturday, March 13th, 2010, Windsor, Ontario

Exhibition runs until April 10th, 2010

∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

Way back in 2008, American writers Crag Hill and Nico Vassilakis put out a world wide call for submissions for an upcoming anthology of visual poetry. Slowly, in the two intervening years, a 300 page book of such work has been brought together which covers the decade between 1998 and 2008, and features well over 125 different seasoned and emerging writer/artists from around the world. Cut to March of 2010; while these intrepid editors are busily shopping this gargantuan (and very colourful) manuscript around to an array of would-be publishers, Common Ground Art Gallery of Windsor Ontario has jumped at the opportunity to be the first gallery in Canada to exhibit a sneak peak at what these editors are hoping to see published sometime later this year.

Haven't the foggiest notion as to what The Last Vispo is? Should you find yourself in the area, there's no quicker way to answer that question for yourself by attending the reception we are holding in honour of the many artists, writers and editors who have all profoundly contributed to the curious phenomenon of visual poetry; a veritable black sheep on the landscape of our language arts. So come on down to Common Ground the evening of Saturday March 13th beginning at 7 pm and see for yourself what all the fuss is about.

The following artists from The Last Vispo have works currently on display in the gallery:

mIEKAL AND (U.S.A.), Hartmut Andryczuk (Germany), Petra Backonja (U.S.A.), Michael Basinski (U.S.A.), Guy R. Beining (U.S.A.), Marc Bell & Jason McLean (Canada), John M. Bennett (U.S.A.), Carla Bertola (Italy), Jaap Blonk (Holland), Chrisitan Bok (Canada), Daniel f. Bradley (Canada), Nancy Burr (U.S.A.), Mike Cannell (England), David Baptiste Chirot (U.S.A.), Jo Cook (Canada), Judith Copithorne (Canada), Klaus Peter Dencker (Germany), Brian Dettmer (U.S.A.), Fabio Doctorovich (Argentina), Maria Damon (U.S.A.), Amanda Earl (Canada), Shayne Ehman (Canada), Greg Evason (Canada), Oded Ezer (Israel), Luc Firens (Belgium), Angela Genusa (U.S.A.), Jesse Glass (Japan), Robert Grenier (U.S.A.), Bob Grumman (U.S.A.), Scott Helmes (U.S.A.), Geof Huth (U.S.A.), Serkan Isin (Turkey), Michael Jacobson (U.S.A.), Karl Jirgens (Canada), Alex Jorgensen (U.S.A.), Chris Joseph (England), Joe Keppler (U.S.A.), Dirk Krecker (Germany), Edward Kuleman (Russia), Jim Leftwich (U.S.A.), Troy Lloyd (U.S.A.), Carlos M. Luis (U.S.A.), Jeurgen O. Olbrich (Germany), Sonja Ahlers (Canada), Donato Mancini (Canada), Cy Machina (Canada), Keiichi Nakamura (Japan), Marko Niemi (Finland), Rea Nikonova (Russia), Christopher Olsen (Canada), Clemente Padin (Uruguay), Michael Peters (U.S.A.), Nick Piombino (U.S.A.), Ross Priddle (Canada), e.g. vajda (U.S.A.), Marilyn Rosenberg (U.S.A.), Jenny Sampirisi (Canada), Suzan Sari (Turkey), Serge Segay (Russia), Douglas Spangle (U.S.A.), Litsa Spathi (Greece), Pete Spence (Australia), Matina Stamatakis (U.S.A.), Miroljub Todorovic (Serbia), Cecil Touchon (U.S.A.), Aysegul Tozeren (Turkey), Stephen Vincent (U.S.A.), Reid Wood (U.S.A.) and James Yeary (U.S.A.). -- ENOUGH ! ENOUGH !

But wait, that's not all !

Karl Jirgens, editor of Rampike Magazine (since 1979!) and former Head of the English Department at the University of Windsor currently on sabbatical, (and ALSO one of two local Windsorites whose work will be featured in this upcoming anthology), had the fortuitous good fortune to choose this exact time to bring out his latest issue of RAMPIKE Magazine; an issue coincidentally devoted entirely to the musings of visual poetry, at that! So, in conjunction with this special exhibition featuring selections from The Last Vispo, Karl has very generously offered to bring a stack of the newly minted visual poetry issue of RAMPIKE to the reception to be given away free to all interested parties who attend this reception. So if you don't know what Vispo is, this exhibition of selections from The Last Vispo coupled with the latest issue of Rampike Magazine will certainly go a long way in furnishing a very concrete example for your edification, amusement and enjoyment !

Furthermore, (if poetry is not your thing and you're more easily given over to pursuits of the boogie woogie kind) local artist/musican KERO, featured on the cover of this issue of RAMPIKE, will provide his unique post-electronic musical stylings at some point during the course of the evening.

This, as with all Common Ground events, is FREE and OPEN to the public.

COMMON GROUND
3277 Sandwich St.
Windsor, Ontario
N9C 1A9
CANADA

519-252-6380

common@mnsi.net

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Sven Birkerts on Reading in a Digital Age in The Amercan Scholar

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Stacy Doris at Poet's House March 13

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Stacy Doris and Katie Degentesh will read at the Bowery Poetry Club on Saturday, March 13 at 4pm

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In Your Speakers: Keepaway EP

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Nico Vassilakis Notes on Staring Word/for Word issue 15

Contradicta Aphorisms is now available from SPD


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The Health and Illness Anthology

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Mark Young's Genji Monogatari

"The Paulownia Court"

Most physical quantities- mass,
length, energy- map out her
book: objects of perfect beauty
& symmetry. Or can be
made so. There are dolls
of various kinds. Talk of the
varieties of women. Thumbnail
functions. The photograph & its
usefulness. The caption &
its reliability. Struggle & combat
occur again & again. The function
of poetry is painfully reached."

"The Paulownia Court" appeared as "Genji Mongatari IV" in
OCHO 14

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From Publisher's Weekly:

All the Whiskey in Heaven: Selected Poems Charles Bernstein. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26 (298p) ISBN 978-0-374-10344-6

This gathering of 30 years worth of work by the prominent L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poet and essayist offers a rigorous critique of the art of poetry itself, which means, among other things, a thorough investigation of language and the mind. Varied voices and genres are at play, from a colloquial letter of complaint to the manager of a Manhattan subway station to a fragmentary meditation on the forces that underlie the formation of knowledge. Bernstein's attention to the uncertainty surrounding the self as it purports to exist in poetry—“its virtual (or ventriloquized)/ anonymity—opens fresh pathways toward thinking through Rimbaud's dictum that “I is another.” In addition to philosophical depth—which somehow even lurks beneath statements like “There is nothing/ in this poem/ that is in any/ way difficult/ to understand”—a razor-sharp wit ties the book together: “You can't/ watch ice sports with the lights on!” These exhilarating, challenging poems raise countless essential questions about the form and function of poetry. (Mar.)


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Music Vagabond keepaway intervew

Contradicta



Events are brief; thought is long.



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Extremes partake of emptiness.



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Keepaway performs in Brooklyn, Sunday February 19

L magazine


Our December 2009 blog post on Mike Burakoff, song writer, artist and keepaway band member


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Kimberly Lyons on Peep/Show

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OCHO 29

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March/April 2010 Poets and Artists Online


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Jacket 39: Stan Apps interview with James Sherry

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Jacket 39: Manuel Brito on Ron Silliman

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Mei-Mei Bersenbrugge and Anne Waldman read at KGB, Monday, February 17

A Seventh Birthday Fait Accompli Synchronicity


Today is fait accompli's seventh birthday! It is fascinating, and exciting to me, that copies of Contradicta, our Green Integer book of aphorisms by me and illustrations by Toni Simon, just arrived today. My goal from the beginning of this blog was to try to consciously create conditions that would bring about such synchronicities.This one is, to me, very special indeed. Page 11 in the book contains a collage by Toni, using a calendar page from February. Our sincere gratitude and affection goes out to our publisher, Douglas Messerli. We couldn't be happier with his work on this book.

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Saturday, Feb 13 at the BPC: Rick Snyder and Anselm Berrigan

Rick Snyder and Anselm Berrigan gave terrific readings today at the Bowery Poetry Club, invited and introduced by Gary Sullivan and Nada Gordon. I was thinking of the contrast between these poets which actually brought out what I enjoyed about each of them. Rick Snyder's poems often reflect upon his experiences in a mordantly funny way. For example, Rick Snyder read this poem:

How Are You Doing?

I can't find examples right now of the science-fiction like poem he read, but after the reading I told him in some ways this work reminded me of David Larsen's who read a couple of weeks ago. Both these men are scholars, Snyder working in the area of classics, Larsen in early Arabic language studies. I think Snyder's poem was called Testimonia and represented the equivalent of bits of classic literature found in the far future from contemporary poets. In the literature of the classics, "testimonia" were commentaries by poets about their contemporaries, but Snyder mentioned these seemed often to be at least partly made up and inaccurate. Some contemporary poets were named in these works such as Ron Silliman and Bernadette Mayer's Midwinter Day (nice touch for the weather we're having here). I wish I could describe these poems better, but their laconic humor reminded me of Larsen's translation of Arabic poems from the middle ages which also consisted of commentaries by poets about translations by other poets, and very funny in the way the Larsen read them, just as Snyder's Testimonia were.

Anselm Berrigan's poems, on the other hand, were, to me, more like thoroughgoing phenomenological studies of his own thought processes. Just as thought is fleeting, evanescent and sometimes contradictory and confusing, enfolded upon itself in mysterious and suggestive ways, Berrigan's work, while acknowledging his own opinions and observations of life in a self-effacing, and yet respectful and somewhat obligatory way, prefers to render his own thought process clearly and objectively as he can; but, as we know, the thought process and our own reflections on it are, by definition, as subjective as anything can be. But for the same reasons that one can spend a lifetime psychoanalyzing oneself and others, for reasons that seem important and can be justified in pragmatic ways, can also seem worthwhile doing for reasons that can be quite as obscure and labyrinthine as the investigations themselves sometimes are and perhaps have to be. That's the way it sometimes is, and in the best poetry of this nature, such as Berrigan's, it both justififies and defines itself in its own terms, refusing to be consciously entertaining or didactic, but becoming so perhaps anyway because of its own inherently rigorous processes and techniques, and also somehow because of all this having a beauty and originality all its own. I can tell you as one who knew him a little, I believe his father, Ted Berrigan, would be fascinated, proud, and, if even a little envious, would find a way to make himself and all of us laugh about such envy and yet own it as a human necessity.

Anselm Berrigan's Penn Sound page

Nada and Gary's introductions to the Snyder/Berrigan reading on Ululations

A Middle Way: Mira Schor reads from Jack Tworkov's writings, The Extreme of The Middle at Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery


Mira Schor read from tonight and discussed The Extreme of the Middle, the book of journals, letters, essays and other writings by the artist Jack Tworkov she edited that was published in the summer of 2009, some of whose paintings are currently on display at The Mitchell-Innes & Nash Gallery through February 20, where Schor gave her talk and reading. I read this book this past summer in Provincetown, where I had the opportunity to talk about the book and Jack Tworkov with Mira. One of the many effective aspects of Mira's talk was the way she integrated some of the most powerful paintings on display at Mitchell-Innes into her selection from the texts and her comments about his writings (she focused on #2, Nightfall, and #6, Trace, viewable on the Mitchell-Innes link above). But one of the most impressive aspects of Mira Schor's reading of Tworkov's writing was the fact that her selection and rendition, for me, reflected an eloquent, poetic condensation of what I thought was most impressive about the book: that a vivid, dramatically fascinating multi-faceted portrait of the artist emerges in a most moving and intellectually satisfying way. We see the artist struggling with his career, his relationships with other artists, friends and family, his ideas about painting and his aesthetic philosophy, but even more touchingly perhaps, his personal and philosophical struggle with life itself and mortality. Tworkov's "middle" comprised anything but mediocrity; it was composed of a consistent and quietly courageous and self-critically honest internal stand in relation to art, perhaps most of all to that seductive yet dangerously imposing occupational hazard that faces any artist: his or her struggle with their own sense of self-importance. What I felt was that Jack Tworkov put becoming a great person on a par with becoming a great artist. This is a specific value, of course, not the only possible value that one can arrive at in a career as an artist, but it is one that I admire intensely.

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Two more must see shows are Star Black,"The Collaged Accordion", at The Center for Book Arts and Emma Amos,"Never Forget" at Flomenhaft Never Forget-link to complete show images


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Another rave review for keepaway's ep-link includes 3 tracks

keepaway at Webster Hall

keepaway on Myspace

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This just in: Douglas Messerli, the publisher of Green Integer Books, has written to tell me and Toni Simon that Contradicta, the book has been printed and a box of copies is on its way to him!


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Contradicta





If a picture is worth a thousand words, an insight is worth a trillion of them.



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Overcoming despair and indolence demands more than persistence; one must also understand the process of spontaneous excitement and its dissipation

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I am continuing to develop the Contradicta series on Twitter


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The Case Against Happiness

I heard Jean-Paul Pecqueur read recently with Joanna Fuhrman (Alice James reading) and enjoyed hearing his work. Here is J-P Pecquer on The Case Against Happiness Bookslut

Rock Beginnings Now and Then: Keepaway and Patti Smith's Just Kids


They can't keep away from

Keepaway

Pitchfork, the music blog, gives Keepaway a 9! Best new music....

Check out our previous Keepaway report on December 20th

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Today, I read Patti Smith's new memoir about Robert Mapplethorpe completely in one sitting, from page 1 to page 276, without moving from the table I was sitting at in Barnes and Noble.

I learned in hearing an interview with Patti Smith that much of this book is drawn from her extensive and detailed journals. I found Just Kids to be poet's journal writing on a par with Stephen Spender's Journals 1939-1983, Cesare Pavese's The Burning Brand, Ned Rorem's The Paris Diary, Allen Ginsberg's Journals Early Fifties Early Sixties, Paul Auster's Hand to Mouth, Bernadette Mayer's Studying Hunger, Anne Sexton's A Self-Portrait in Letters and, dare I say it, The Diaries of Franz Kafka.

In the best writer's journals, as in Just Kids one might find beautifully stated not only the considered insights of an original and culturally significant mind and talent, but the raw experiential material from which these insights have been exacted. As in Pavese's The Burning Brand, Patti Smith offers the outlines of a philosophy of life culled from experiences daringly sought out, that, in some moments, brought searing pain, and others, excitement on an historically important scale. But here is where the comparison to Pavese's journals takes a 90 degree turn. Where Pavese ends his journal with a decision to bring his life to an early close, Smith clearly offers a parable, with no small degree of wit, of strength, compassion, fortitude, devotion and contemplation that drinks deeply from the well of aesthetic meditation and mysticism. But beyond all this, for me Patti Smith's memoir reveals and underscores both the difficulties of and the abiding value of patience and persistence in friendship, love, marriage and parenthood.

In a passage about her involvement with the Poetry Project in the early 70's, she writes: "Later that evening I sat on the floor of St. Mark's for the annual Marathon reading...I sat through much of it sizing up the poets. I wanted to be a poet but I knew I would never fit into their incestuous community. The last thing I wanted was to negotiate the social politics of another scene. I thought of my mother saying, that what you do on New Year's Day will foretell what you'll be doing for the rest of the year. I felt the spirit of my own Saint Gregory and resolved that 1973 would be my year for poetry." In the surrounding passages, Smith makes clear her respect for some of the central poetic lights of that era such as Allen Ginsberg, Bernadette Mayer, Gerard Malanga, Gregory Corso and Anne Waldman and her close friend, Janet Hamill. She fondly remembers Allen Ginsberg once offering her some change when she was broke and hungry at an automat, mistakenly taking her for a cute guy! When I met and once read with Patti Smith in the early 70's little did I know, since she looked so young, that she had already been harshly paying her dues as an aspiring poet and artist in New York for 6 or 7 years.

In interviews and in the book, Patti Smith makes it clear, but in a discrete, sensitive and tactful way, that in many ways Mapplethorpe's commitment to daring sexual experimentation in his work and in his life, and in his unabashed search for connections with wealthy upper class patrons were a far cry from Patti Smith's equally stubbornly pointed populist path. But in no way would either Mapplethorpe or Smith allow their gradually diverging styles and philosophies to end their friendship. As you can see from the reviews below, all agree as to the clarity of Smith's prose in this book. Its pace is faultless, never lingering, rarely rushing, its tone warm yet light and never platitudinous or mawkish. There is little blatant poeticism, evidence of a stylistic restraint I would advise all of her contemporaries, including myself, to pay close heed to. This factor greatly amplifies every moral Smith wants you to take from this book, yet she refrains from making these conclusions overt. On the other hand, she does not obscure them with impressionism or post modernism. The fact that this memoir is based on her extensive journals leads to two more things I want to mention. One is that the constant reference to objects that Patti Smith describes, whether a hat Jimi Hendrix is wearing, or an attitude she picks up from a Jim Morrison performance, or a social moment with Salvator Dali (he puts his hand on her head when noticing a stuffed crow she had purchased from the Natural History Museum), or the first guitar she ever bought, or the many fascinating found objects she receives at the Chelsea Hotel from her friend Harry Smith, or an outfit she wore to woo a band, or the toys she played with as a child, all of these keep the narrative fastened securely to the here and now, a dimension in which she obviously is determined to remain, through ecstasy and death, success and failure, tragedy and triumph. The second thing I wanted to mention is that I predict that every reader of this book will be impatiently waiting for more writing from the many and varied treasures carefully and lovingly stored in Patti Smith's journals.

Critical Praise for Just Kids
“Terrifically evocative and splendidly titled...JUST KIDS is the most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s that any alumnus has committed to print. The tone is at once flinty and hilarious, which figures: [Smith has] always been both tough and funny, two real saving graces in an artist this prone to excess. What’s sure to make her account a cornucopia for cultural historians, however, is that the atmosphere, personalities and mores of the time are so astutely observed...This enchanting book is a reminder that not all youthful vainglory is silly; sometimes it’s preparation. Few artists ever proved it like these two.”
— NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“Tenderly evocative...it makes perfect sense for [Smith] to use a memoirist’s sleight of hand...to recapture an eager, fervent and wondrously malleable young spirit. It also makes sense for her to cast off all verbal affectation and write in a strong, true voice unencumbered by the polarizing mannerisms of her poetry.”
— JANET MASLIN, NEW YORK TIMES
“Smith’s intimate memoir is a tender elegy for the man with whom she had a two-decade-long relationship...”Just Kids” is astonishing on many levels, most notably for Smith’s lapidary prose...As a primer on self-discovery and the artist’s journey, “Just Kids” is as inspiring as Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet.” It reminds us that becoming an artist is a worthwhile and brave endeavor....There’s no need to ghettoize this book by praising it as an impressive memoir by a famous musician. It is simply one of the best memoirs to be published in recent years: inspiring, sad, wise and beautifully written.”
— SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
“A heartbreakingly sweet recollection of just that sort of vanished Bohemian life...Just as [Smith] stands out as an artiste in a movement based on collectivism, her singular voice gleams among rock memoirs as a work of literature.”
— BOSTON GLOBE
“[JUST KIDS] is funny and sad but always exhilarating. Smith’s sense of wonder at the possibilities of art, and of New York City, seems as fresh as it was the day she first arrived in Manhattan. And as rooted as their story is in the eventful late ‘60s and early ‘70s, Smith’s graceful prose reminds us of the timelessness of love and friendship.”
— TAMPA TRIBUNE
“Patti Smith’s telling of the years she spent with Robert Mapplethorpe is full of optimism sprinkled with humor...JUST KIDS...is sorely lacking in irony or cynicism; Smith’s worldview is infectious. She’s a jumble of influences, but that’s part of her charm.”
— AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN
“The most compelling memoir by a rock artist since Bob Dylan’s ‘Chronicles: Volume One,’ written with intimacy and grace, filled with revelation about a romance that might seem inscrutable to anyone but the two who were once so passionate about each other and remained so passionate about each other’s work.”
— CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“A moving portrait of the artist as a young woman, and a vibrant profile of Smith’s onetime boyfriend and lifelong muse, Robert Mapplethorpe, who died of AIDS in 1989...JUST KIDS is ultimately a wonderful portal into the dawn of Smith’s art.”
— LOS ANGELES TIMES
“A remarkable book --sweet and charming and many other words you wouldn’t expect to apply to a punk-rock icon.”
— NEWSDAY
“The reckless, splendid circus of New York’s royal bohemia in the 1960s and ‘70s — rock idols, cowboy poets, Warhol Superstars — surrounds Smith in her heady recounting of a halcyon era. But the heart of Just Kids, a captivating memoir, is the lifelong love affair (first romantic, later creative and platonic) between Smith and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, before she became music’s punk poet laureate and he one of the art world’s most provocative and controversial figures. In her inimitable, lyrical style, Patti Smith recalls the pair’s coming together as young, monumentally broke dreamers: ‘’just kids.’’ What follows is both a poignant requiem (Mapplethorpe died of AIDS at age 43) and a radiant celebration of life. Grade: A.”
— ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
” A story of art, identity, devotion, discovery, and love, the book is [Smith’s] first prose work...[it] conjures up the passionate collaboration--as lovers, friends, soul mates, and creators--that she and Mapplethorpe embarked on from the summer they met in Brooklyn in 1967.”
— ELLE
“[Smith] has great insight into the development of their creative processes, especially her evolution from writer to rock star, and [Mapplethorpe’s] from painter to shutterbug (not to mention from straight to gay).In the end, it’s not just an ode to Mapplethorpe, but a love letter to New York City’s ’70s art scene itself.”
— TIME OUT NEW YORK
“Deeply affecting...a vivid portrayal of a bygone New York that could support a countercultural artistic firmament...the power of this book comes from [Smith’s] ability to recall lucid memories in straightforward prose.”
— BOOKFORUM
“Funny, fascinating, oddly tender.”
— O, THE OPRAH MAGAZINE
“Patti Smith’s memoir of her youth with Robert Mapplethorpe testifies to a rare and ferocious innocence...’Just Kids’ is a book utterly lacking in irony or sophisticated cynicism.”
— SALON.COM
“A shockingly beautiful book...a classic, a romance about becoming an artist in the city, written in a spare, simple style of boyhood memoirs like Frank Conroy’s ‘Stop Time.’”
— NEW YORK MAGAZINE
“[Patti Smith] managed to make garage rock both literary and iconic. More than 30 years after its release, Horses still has the power to shock and inspire young musicians to express themselves with unbridled passion. Now she brings the same raw, lyrical quality to her first book of prose, Just Kids, out this month.
— CLIVE DAVIS, VANITY FAIR
“[A] beautifully crafted love letter to [Robert Mapplethorpe]...Smith transports readers to what seemed like halcyon days for art and artists in New York...[a] tender and tough memoir...[an] elegant eulogy.”
— PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (STARRED REVIEW)
“Riveting and exquisitely crafted.”
— KIRKUS REVIEWS (STARRED REVIEW)
“She was once our savage Rimbaud, but suffering has turned her into our St. John of the Cross, a mystic full of compassion.”
— EDMUND WHITE
“A heartwarming love story, a clear song of devotion from Smith to Mapplethorpe, pure and beautiful and fascinating in its own way...a delightful insight into [Smith and Mapplethorpe’s] shared experiences; and for aspiring artists in New York (or anywhere), it’s a ray of hope — a we-did-it-so-you-can-too.”
— FLAVORWIRE
“Captivating....a poignant requiem...and a radiant celebration of life. Grade: A.”
— ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
“More than 30 years after its release, Horses still has the power to shock and inspire young musicians to express themselves with unbridled passion. Now she brings the same raw, lyrical quality to her first book of prose.”
— CLIVE DAVIS, VANITY FAIR
“In the end, [JUST KIDS is] not just an ode to Mapplethorpe, but a love letter to New York City’s ‘70s art scene itself.”
— TIME OUT NEW YORK
“The most compelling memoir by a rock artist since Bob Dylan’s ‘Chronicles: Volume One,’ written with intimacy and grace....”
— CHICAGO TRIBUNE
“Astonishing on many levels, most notably for Smith’s lapidary prose....[JUST KIDS] is simply one of the best memoirs to be published in recent years: inspiring, sad, wise and beautifully written.”
— SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
“[JUST KIDS] is funny and sad but always exhilarating.”
— TAMPA TRIBUNE
“Terrifically evocative and splendidly titled...the most spellbinding and diverting portrait of funky-but-chic New York in the late ’60s and early ’70s that any alumnus has committed to print....This enchanting book is a reminder that not all youthful vainglory is silly; sometimes it’s preparation.”
— NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
“A touching tale of love and devotion.”
— ASSOCIATED PRESS
“JUST KIDS describes [Smith and Mapplethorpe’s] ascent with a forthright sweetness that will ring true to anyone who knows her work.”
— BLOOMBERG.COM
ISBN: 9780066211312; ISBN10: 006621131X; Imprint: Ecco ; On Sale: 1/19/2010; Format: Hardcover; Trimsize: 6 x 9; Pages: 304; $27.00; Ages: 18 and Up

Books by Patti Smith
Auguries of Innocence
Auguries of Innocence is the first book of poetry from Patti Smith in more than a decade.

NY Times: Haiti in Ink and Tears, A Literary Sampler

* * * * *

Laraaji: The Dance


* * * * *

Freewill Applicator (Stan Apps)- top songs of 2009

Earthquake Day in Port au Prince

Rollings in Haiti

Contradicta


Even time stops for a moment, to bow, astonished, to real happiness.



* * *



Poetry abides in paradox: Too much is too little, too loud is too soft, too heavy is too light, totally deciphered by none, contemplated by all.



* * * * *
Don Share, editor of Poetry Magazine, reviews Ray DiPalma's The Ancient Use of Stone

"...Of the poets I was fortunate to meet during close to a decade of hosting poetry readings, Ray was the most interesting and lively by far. Even the sound of his voice is unforgettable, but what really sticks with me is how he's an intellectual alchemist, taking the stuff of books and refining and transmuting it into the vigorous sinews of his everyday living. His mind is a distillery, an alembic, and that's why his quotidian pluckings and gatherings are so musical - and so fascinating."

More...Daybooks and other Reaches of the Page--Squandermania and other Foibles

* * * * *


onedit issue 15


* * * * *

e ratio 13 edited by Gregory Vincent St Thomasino

Happy New Decade

Imagine this: Imagine sung by John Lennon played for everyone this year as the ball went down for the crowds on 42cd Street and the many seeing this on tv. Toni and I were struck by the fact that they went through with it, even though it includes the lovely, provocative lines:

"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace..."

Then, after watching the fireworks over Prospect Park, celebrating the New Year with Toni, I've been spending part of the first hour of the new decade reading a chapbook of poems by Ray DiPalma that he brought over here to give us last week. The book is called Pensieri and it was published by Echo Park Press in Los Angeles.

(from "LITMUS AND THEORY"):

"I had previously regarded it as an unsuspected
knowledge of habit, crediting the universal option:
being not unhappy with the response -
'I don't presume to know what you lack, but perhaps
my friendship would be of value to you.'
The formula elaborates a decorum
and offers a sense of confirmation beyond any resource
of patience, most often defined by remaining silent."

I reminded Ray when he visited us last weekend that he had given me my first copy of the aphorisms of Antonio Porchia, translated by WS Merwin, titled Voices. After obtaining Merwin's latest translation lately I've been unable to find on my bookshelves the copy Ray gave me years ago. So I went online and was able to track down and send for another copy of the earlier edition, this copy signed by WS Merwin. Porchia has this amazing ability to find beauty in the places that we generally concede to frustration thereby reclaiming for us some of the most familiar and paradoxically redemptive aspects of existence. This is the aphorism by Porchia I have been thinking about most often lately:

"Suffering is above, not below. And everyone thinks that suffering is below. And everyone wants to rise."

and another:

"Everything is like the rivers. The work of the slopes."

and another:

"One lives in the hope of becoming a memory."

and another:

"The have stopped deceiving you, not loving you. And it seems to you they have stopped loving you."

and one more:

""For a thousand years I have been asking myself: "What will I do now?" And still I need not answer."

* * * * *
Karen Marie Garrett- Moon Night

* * * * *

Steve Roach Dream Body

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Echoes of Orion- MIke Burakoff

* * * * *

Steve Roach Halcyon Days


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Lynn Behrendt- It's All Lovely Thank You

* * * * *l

Felix Bernstein- Teeny Mouse's Video Diary

* * * * *

Literary Silence
via wood s lot

Keepaway

Mike Burakoff who created the video version of our collage book Free Fall (featured on Nick Manning's The Continental Review)
plays in a band called Keepaway with a new release out now titled "Family of the Son" Keepaway

* * * * *

When Keepaway was IN

Jezebelmusic.com

* * * * *

Contradicta

The best winners learn much when they lose, the great discoverers are challenged when lost, to know having is to feel deeply when bereft.


* * *



If memory is the cake, nostalgia is the icing, the icing that no one can resist licking off their fingers.

O Beautiful Obscurity...

Obscure Poet of Obscure Writing Discussed on Anything But Obscure Website

Nada Gordon on the Huffington Post!

Ululations

Pageant by Joanna Fuhrman

On a stormy night in Williamsburg, poet friends and admirers of Joanna Fuhrman's poetry gathered in a lovely loft to read from and celebrate Joanna's terrific new book Pageant, with cover art by famed Ida Applebroog. Readers included poetry celebrities Adeena Karasick, Safie Karasick, Adeena's 7 year old daughter, to the great delight of the audience, Sharon Mesmer, David Shapiro, and, of course, Joanna. After the reading, the packed gathering shared a birthday cake in honor of poet/performer Sharon Mesmer.

We are proud that Joanna Fuhrman's witty, wise, politically savvy, captivating poetry was featured in our recent issue of Ocho, 21. If you haven't yet checked out this collection, I strongly urge you to do so now. The issue included Joanna, plus Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Christina Strong, Bill Marsh,Douglas Messerli, MIchael Lally, Jessica Grim, Drew Gardner, Anthony Hawley, Elizabeth Fodaski, Laura Elrick, Joe Elliot, Abigail Child and Laynie Browne.

Sharon Mesmer's work was included in OCHO 14 along with Mark Young, Nico Vassilakis, Gary Sullivan, Jerome Sala, Corinne Robins, Tim Peterson, Kimberly Lyons, Brenda Iijima, Mitch Highfill, Nada Gordon, Elane Equi, Ray DiPalma, Alan Davies and Charles Bernstein. Cover art for both issues by Toni Simon

* * * * *

I was sorry not to make it to the closing reading for Emilie Clark's awesome show at the Morgan Lehman Gallery that included Lytle Shaw, Brandon Downing, Rob Fitterman, Kim Rosenfield, Monica de la Torre and others. This successful and popular show was extended at least an extra week at the gallery.

Artbeat review

Artnetwork review

* * * * *


On Friday, December 4, Toni and I attended the opening party for the Generations 7 Show at the A. I. R. Gallery. This extensive show, a silent auction of small works included work by Toni Simon, Susan Bee, Yoko Ono, Francie Shaw and many others, continues through January.

* * * * *

Contradicta




Books are our companions not only because they gave us knowledge and experience but also because they remain tiny monuments of the moments of its transfer.



* * *




Poems and poets may remain unknown, and the action of their poetic work may cause poets to remain at least partially unrecognizable to themselves.

New Review of Ray DiPalma's The Ancient Use of Stone by Terence Winch

Best American Poetry


As you know doubt know, if you have been reading this blog over the years, I am excessively fond of temporal convergences, coincidences, and the like. The early years of fait accompli consisted of a conscious effort to create synchronicities by blogging from my journals and selecting moments that felt similar to those in the here and now.

There is something special about the Thanksgiving holiday for me. For many years, Toni and I have been visiting her sister and brother-in-law and spending a few days. Bob and Beryl tend to indulge my need to be near books, so I am usually transported to one or more bookstores in the course of the several days visit. A few years ago during the Thanksgiving visit we travelled up to Gloucester, checked out some terrific bookstores and I found a book by Gerrit Lansing I enjoyed very much. After I blogged about it to my surprise Lansing called me. Gerrit is reading on Sunday at the BPC hosted by Mitch Highfill and I am certainly looking forward to that reading.

Yesterday Toni's sister took us to the Brandeis Rose Museum, which has an excellent collection, notably a great Rauchenberg, a fine DeKooning, terrific paintings by Matta, Reginald Marsh, Stettheimer, Max Ernst and many others. Unfortunately the whole collection may have to be sold off due to some bad investments on the part of University with Madoff.

Then Beryl took us to Back Pages Books owned by Alex Green. When I entered the store I noticed Pariah by Dave Zeltserman was on display in the front of the store. I just finished reading the book and found it to be a page turner, a strange but interestingly twisted story about a gangster , having already read and enjoyed his earlier book, Small Crimes. Turns out Zeltserman lives in the area and has read at Back Pages Books. Alex told me Dave likes to hear from readers, so maybe I can track him down and get in touch.

The Final Beginning (Poets and Artists 12/09)

* * * * *

National Book Award for Keith Waldrop

It isn't often that a major literary award goes to a poet whose work I've always enjoyed and admired.

Keith Waldrop on the EPC

"Sing fast. Voices fail."

[from Semiramis If I Remember (self-portrait as mask)]

"An uncertain line we walk, the line- ill-marked and slippery-between inhibition and exhibition."

[from The Silhouette of the Bridge (Memory Stand-Ins)]

"(you are more im-
portant to me
than words or
melody)

we will not remember
the word
return"

[from The Locality Principle]

Poets and Artists (O & S) December 2009

I am pleased and proud to announce that some of my work has been included in the latest issue of Poets and Artists December 2009 edited and produced by Didi Menendez


* * * * *


Contradicta



Information plus passion=knowledge; information minus passion= document


* * *



Success consists of 1% holding forth and 99% holding back.



* * * * *


Contradicta



Feelings are the language of experience; words tell us what the world wants-and needs- from us and are maps to what we want and need from the world.



* * *



Silence in response to biting words helps make thought into a kind of music.



* * * * * *
OCHO 27

* * * * * *

l'amour fou

Tom Beckett's latest blog

Which I found by reading all the latest posts on dbqp, Geof Huth's blog, including his detailed review/memoir concerning a recent reading at Bard by Rachel Blau Duplessis

Proving once again, that information is best discovered by means of avid reading, in which case it is usually no longer simply information, but knowledge (information plus passion=knowledge; information minus passion=hot air)

* * * * * *



Otoliths Issue 15

* * * * * *

Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh- sample pages (PDF)

buy it from
Salt Publishing It's a great book and Salt could use the help- Let's keep this valued press alive!

* * * * * *

New Paintings by Susan Bee (posted on Charles Bernstein's Web Log- via Ron Silliman's Blog)

by Susan Bee 2009
* * * * * *

Paul Auster's terrific new novel Invisible is a must-read

"The reason to read this book is that it's a startling tale of how a life can be wasted through being ruled by the past".


Read more: Auster's Invisible

* * * * * *

Drew Gardner from Second Avenue Volume 2

* * * * * *
Steve Buscemi was the lead in Fiona Templeton's First Play- see photo in this fascinating post about Templeton's work


The Kenning Anthology of Poet's Theater

David Bromige Memorial At Poet's House, Friday October 16, 2009

Ron Silliman has posted a terrific essay on David Bromige, in celebration of what would have been David's 76th birthday, here:Silliman's Blog.

I understand there is more to come about David from both Ron and Bob Perelman in the Grand Piano series. This is something I am eagerly looking forward to.

Here is a version of the talk I gave about David B at Poet's House:

David Bromige is difficult to describe because he was a fascinating person of contrasts and complex contradictions. Solitary thinker and and social charmer, mild man and wild man, diabetic and dionysian, respected professor and perennial rebel, poet of love and longing and poet of language, poetics and thought, urban wit and country squire, California and Canadian American and European, his many facets shifted in the changing moment of perception. I think part of the reason for this was his wariness of "tight corners" and his determination to see and experience what lies around them.

David and I had one of those mutually supportive poet relationships so hard to stay with later in life. As an editor of Avec, in the late 80's and into the 90's, he featured and supported my work at a significant moment in my own career. Some months after he retired from teaching in 1993 he wrote me an enthusiastic letter about a chapbook of mine published around that time [by Peter Ganick in his Abacus series]. David wrote that he had become dispirited after retiring, to his suprise, but that when he had come across my chapbook that he had tossed into a box (probably packing up at Sonoma State) he had to write to me about it. This is a letter I treasured, read and reread.

A favorite moment in my relationship with David took place once when we were discussing irony. I was saying that at one point in my life I did things deliberately differently each and every day, but that with a busier schedule of commitments I could no longer do this. For some reason I had switched into doing the opposite, doing things almost identically each and every day. David said, "But that is a kind of irony too. An irony of action." David''s conversation was replete with such insights and compressed wisdom. You will find it in abundance in his writing.

Preparing for this celebration I came across a poem in his book The Harbormaster of Hong Kong called Lines. The poem consists of a series of short poems in a call and answer mode, like this: "a poem should not mean but be [underlined]whereas the opposite is true [below the line], club universe [underlined] before the universe club you [below the line] kiss me quick[underlined] too late[below the line] unconscious [underlinesd] we have only the present moment to be unconscious in [below the line] life is brief [underlined] it says here [below the line]" Only after rereading this work the other day did I realize what an influence this poem had on my series of aphorisms titled Contradicta that I have been writing for several years now.

[after this I read two poems of David's: "Soul Mates" and "The End of The Stranger" from Desire]

Toni Simon work and interview in November issue of Poets and Artists

Poets and Artists Nov 2009



Contradicta




What happens, I think, is that you start thinking more about credit than substance and then you are not a writer anymore, you're a promoter.



* * * * *




Try to remember your dreams.

EOAGH 5

* * * * *

M.C Blakeman (San Francisco Chronicle) opines on the public (library) option (via The Casual Tee)

* * * * *

Wood s Lot: Raymond Federman (1928-2009)

* * * * *

Friday, October 9

John Lennon's birthday

via wood s lot

* * * * *

This is What A (Pro) Feminist [Man Poet] Looks Like

Delirious Lapel

* * * * *

The Only Known Video of Anne Frank

Daniel Menaker, the now retired longtime Executive Editor-in-Chief at Random House opines on the roulette-like nature of publishing: Redactor Agonistes

I'm in the middle of reading Menaker's damn good novel The Treatment (1998), so I was googling Menaker. Some of the best writing in recent years comes from publishers. I've been waiting for four years to see a new novel from Joseph Kanon, having recommended his Alibi to anyone who will listen. Those who took me up on it liked it. Menaker's The Treament has those Yates-like qualities I've been searching for lately. I sure hope Menaker is working on another one. Menaker's novel contains the most gutsy, straightforward, unsentimental, useful presentation of contemporary psychoanalysis I have ever read by a non-analyst. And that's by far not the only fine thing about it.

* * * * *

Another notable read: Will Clark's 2006 book The Worthy. A murdered frat pledge's ghost contemplates revenge on his murderer. Will Clarke's hilarious Lord Vishnu's Love Handles was published in 2005.

Paul Carson's 2005 book Betrayal is a fairly exciting, politically savvy revenge saga concerning the life of a prison doctor in Ireland.

* * * * *

Stop Smiling: online record reviews.

* * * * *

Recently received: De Witt Henry's memoir Safe Suicide published by the Los Angeles Red Hen press in 2008.

* * * * *

John Latta on Ray DiPalma's The Ancient Use of Stone
Isola di Rifuiti

* * * * *

Nico Vassilakis Notes on Staring

Word for /Word # 15

* * * * *

Mira Schor (editor of " The Extreme of the Middle: The Journals of Jack Tworkov) interview and performance on

Art on Air

* * * * *

Contradicta


Caring and loving are the food, achievement and success are the condiments; hard to believe for many, whose lives are therefore tragic.


* * *



In the USA, where aging is feared and hated, skepticism about the traditional goals of old age flourishes: wisdom, prudence, compassion, etc

Rough, Raw, Rowdy, Ribald, Raucous, Raunchy, Randy, Risky, Rebellious, Resplendent, Reckless, Rich, Robust, Rousing, Rude, Rare, Ravishing, Readable, Real

Lynn Behrendt's Luminous Flux
Lines Chapbooks 2009
23 Linden Avenue
Red Hook, NY 12571

"Am I coarse linen?
A harangued form?
Am I a harpoon or sharp dog?
Do I plunder?
Do I cook words like animal entrails
then serve them
kneeling on a cushion in church?
Are you spear-shaped & plunged?
Does a long chain mail coat clang around your ankles?
Where is your stem? Can we go now?
Can you breathe? Why is everything
Covered in petty Socratic white questions?...
Could anyone wade through my thought-infested marsh?
Can you?
Am I supposed to screw whatever it is you worship & fear?
Am I an instrument for counting or something?
Don't I bleed?...
Do you think I'm a liar?
Are you squinting in the dark?
Sweating hail the size of golf balls?
Is this my hip-thrust hierogram, hinged on everything
That's happened?
Do you not love my corruption and scheming?"

* * * * *
Shampoo #36

Contradicta


Until information and experience are minted into insight and direction they are like food and drink without taste
and texture.



* *



Purpose, not pleasure, provides the greatest ongoing satisfactions of existence.




* * * * *

Review of the Jack Tworkov show and his recently published book of journals, edited by Mira Schor

The New Criterion

UBS Gallery review in The New York Times

Jack Tworkov

Examiner.com review

* * * * *

The Current Assignment-in the new issue of Poets and Artists (Oranges and Sardines)

The Current Assignment

* * * * *

Never Neutral-Ernesto Priego-Bloggng and Narcissism- Five Years Later

Many thanks to Ernesto Priego

Blogging and Narcissism- January 2004

* * * * *

Twitter Art

whatar


* * * * *



Contradicta

Those perfectionists who pride themselves on their tastes refuse to admit when they are satisfied and then wonder why they are often unhappy


* * * * *


We fill ourselves with the brilliant accomplishments of others forgetting that it is others that are filling us,not only the accomplishments


*************

Lately, I've been developing the Contradicta on Twitter

Profile


************

Poets and Artists- The Self-Portrait Issue

Poets and Artists: The Self-Portrait Issue

***********

La Comunidad Inconfesable Septiembre 2009

The Ancient Use of Stone by Ray DiPalma, Seismicity Editions, 2009. (Distributed by SPD)

While contemporary poets and critics opine and debate about whether or not originality is still possible, contemporary poet Ray DiPalma has been quietly at work on a project for 10 years that demonstrates that not only is creativity and originality by poets alive and well, but Otis Books/Seismicity Editions has presented The Ancient Use of Stone, DiPalma’s superb new book, subtitled Journals and Daybooks 1998-2008, in a form that defies comparison with any other book of new writing for sheer visual and typographical beauty. The book includes six separate journals, all considerably varied in their approaches, and arranged in chronological order: The Ancient Use of Stone (1998), Jihadgraphy (2002), An August Daybook (2005), Mules at the Wake (2006), Ascoso (2006) and Salt in the Rock (2008), 213 pages in all, published in an ample 8" by 10" softcover format. Two of the sections contain considerable visual work. In addition to writings both Jihadgraphy and An August Daybook include DiPalma's graphically complex and frequently witty collages throughout. Jihadgraphy, a 43 page long journal, was written in a succession of 3 juxtaposed vertical entries per page. It has a series of collages running down the right hand side of all the pages in 2" by 8" columns. These have a cinematic and iconographic quality, while the text reflects on DiPalma’s life and literary concerns, including poems and comments on the piece itself as it emerges. DiPalma writes in the opening lines of Ascoso [Hermetic Anonymity], the sixth piece in the book: “There is nothing here to be measured—/simply take your share. Pensa, lettor”. As DiPalma explained to me recently, this means, “reader, give this some thought”; and this is then balanced in turn by the words a few lines later: “Prenda, lettor”—“reader, take this occasion in hand.” Both invitations are essentially derived from DiPalma’s reading of Dante. Collected here are opportunities I am sure many present readers as well as readers to come will avail themselves of with great pleasure as they delve into DiPalma’s generous and masterful The Ancient Use of Stone.

twitter

profile

The Enthusiast, a novel by Charlie Haas

* * * * *

The Summer 2009 Oranges and Sardine Is up!

* * * * *

Bits

Sven Birkerts
via wood s lot

* * * * *

Writing as Thinking

Silliman's Blog

* * * * *

Otoliths 14

* * * * *

La Comunidad Inconfesable Agosto 2009

* * * * *

Contradicta


The dissemination of creativity and productivity gradually grinds to a stop in the universal contagion of hurt feelings.



* * *


Perfection is an aroma best applied in tiny doses. Employ more and your day will reek of it like perfume in small room.

Contradicta



The stairways go higher between some of the floors, that's all. And every now and then, you've got to take a break from all that climbing.



* * * * *



What do I feel, what could it mean, what do I think, what do I do



* * * *

Contradicta are being developed/posted on twitter now

* * * *

"Why is writing important? Mainly, out of egotism, I suppose. Because I want to be that persona, a writer, and because there is something I must say. Yet why not that, too? With a little ego building- such as the fait accompli this journal provides- I shall win through to the confidence that I (I) have something to say, that should be said."

Susan Sontag,12/31/57, from Reborn, Journals & Notebooks, 1947-1963

* * * * *

William Shatner reads Sara Palin's farewell speech as a Beat nature poem

Via Al Filreis on Twitter

* * * * *
Richard Baker

Toni and I visited Richard, Liz and their two daughters yesterday in Wellfleet. I've never met anyone more excited about hunting for great used books than Richard. And not only is he looking for great books, but he's looking for subjects for his portraits as well.

Check out some of Richard's book portraits here::poets and writers http://www.pw.org/content/richard_baker039s_book_portraits


* * * * *

This just gets it

Leonard Cohen on poetry and life

Jobless Checks Delayed for Millions of Americans

Feeding America


* * * * *

Destined for You Tube Fame: The Catcerto played by Nora the Cat

Nora


* * * * *
Tom Beckett: Sitting Shirtless Under a Ceiling Fan

Slim Windows

Ryan MacDonald video on

The Continental Review

* * * * *

William Kentridge

Automatic Writing

* * * * *

Somerset Maugham on Life and Art

* * * * *

Contradicta on Twitter

Contradicta

Contradicta

* * * * *

Laughter

FreeSound

* * * * *

Didi Menendez

For Love of an Armadillo
illustrations by Jeremy Baum

Ideas that Work

"In the presence of some people we inevitably depart from ourselves: we are inaccurate, we say things we do not feel, and talk nonsense. When we get home we are conscious that we have made fools of ourselves. Never go near these people".
Mark Rutherford More Pages from a Journal, 1910

Wood s lot remembers fait accompli's Unbearable Lightness of Blogging: A Mid-Summer Night's Masque (scroll down) July 13, 2005

David Bromige (via Pennsound)

Shorn of Duration

David Bromige-Pennsound

Peter Ciccariello- "Hidden poem with brain scans and chairs"


Peter Ciccariello-hidden poem with brain scans and chairs"

Mourning and Poetics



The most recent thread on the Suny Buffalo Poetics List has been mourning and poetics. This absorbing issue is concerned with poetry one might read at a time of mourning and how this reflects on issues of poetics. To read the thread in its entirety or to join the list go to:

Poetics LIst Archive
Click on July 2009 on topic headings: poetics and mourning.

Today I posted the following as a contribution to that thread:

This is one of those threads that gets me thinking, and I've been looking forward to every post. I've not read them all, so I apologize if I am repeating anything. Eight years ago when someone I felt particularly close to died, almost literally in my arms, I needed some poetry that would help. What met my need at the time was Lynn Dreyer's book The White Museum (Roof,1986). Here's a sample: Lynn Dreyer. Something about its heartbeat, its wave-like backbeat, soothed me, the way a mother might rock a child during a stricken moment. That episode of choice in reading pushed me towards thinking about writing as healing, an issue that's been on my mind ever since.

Much of post-avant writing, obviously, employs parody, often of a particularly biting kind. It's no surprise that at a time of ear splitting, mind smashing hypocrisies and assaults on a social/political level that some of our best minds might want to address such grotesque realties in ways that accurately reflect them when modes of earnestness or literal or symbolic or abstract statement, what I once called writing below the din, won't suffice.

At a time of personal crisis, what one might want, what I wanted as I said, are truthful yet gentle words, singing, compassionate, and yes, even quiet words. Still, such occasional personal needs probably do not justify a dominant poetics of quietism in an ongoing way. There is something reassuring and stimulating about experiencing a number of relatively newer voices work to invent and persist with new forms that convincingly reflect the impossibility of accepting as such the eco-socio-political realities we are forced to live in right now. The post avant employs a biting, confrontational voice that says, to me anyway, don't give up trying to dispassionately recognize and reveal what that reality is, as painfully traumatic, as incessantly quotidian as it is coming to be. Forms that meet that continuous nightmare face to face, as unimaginable as it is, or was. Is the most relevant issue in contemporary poetics hegemony, or power, or is it which model, the quietist or the post-avant, suggests the more apropos interpretation of current reality as it actually presents itself?

Either way, life's needs are inordinately complex, and issues of poetic movement aside, one size will not always fit all.
* * * * *

New Links

Check out:

Contemporary LIterary Horizon

Drunken Boat 10

I Am A TV Junkie-Rachel Maddow's Big Catch Thanks for the link!


* * * * *

Caterina, one of the pioneer bloggers, who helped create Flikr, has created a new site, Hunch.

Here is the poet category: Hunch Poets

In The Middle of It All with Fred G. Leebron

So far, Fred G. Leebron has published three novels, all well worth reading; Out West in 1997, Six Figures in 2001 and In the Middle of It All in 2002. Six Figures was made into a movie in 2005.

Contemporary novels, it seems to me, fall basically into two large categories; one type giving great attention to physical description and depiction, the other focussing essentially on the mind and internal life of the characters. Leebron's exceptional writing style and point of view encompasses both. Critics have compared his work to Richard Yates, and the comparison is apt. Having recently completed reading every word available by Richard Yates in print, I was initially so greatly attracted by these books because it feels that Leebron is the clear inheritor of Yates' vision. But there are enough touches of Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote and Milan Kundera and his own very unique and original style to make Fred G. Leebron already a standout in today's fiction. Along with Heather O'Neill, Paul Auster and Jonathan Lethem, he has quickly joined my group of favorites.

Out West tracks a young pair of murderers closely through virtually every physical action, feeling and thought they have over several days. The book is astonishing in its cinematic qualities, but also in its philosophical depth and complexity. The writer's excitement in writing every single sentence is palpable; this has become my measure in assessing quality in writing. If the writing feels dutiful and labored, I start to wonder why the writer bothered. In the three books by Leebron I've read in the past week, I notice a gradual transition towards a close examination of family life. Leebron in his two more recent books takes the risk to examine the quotidian with the same great focus on detail as his first book, which depicts a greatly unusual and grotesque situation, the same risk that Yates takes, of course. And with Leebron I see an empathy with the issues that plague nearly every marriage and relationship that makes Yates so unusual, particularly for a male writer. Six Figures follows a suburban couple in their intense efforts to remain ethical and become adequately financially successful at the same time. This is without doubt among the most unexplored and undocumented crises of our time. The pathos, dark comedy and masked desperation implicit in American suburban living is exactly what made the film American Beauty such a classic. There are lots of numbers out there assessing this, but few portrayals on the level of Leebron's. Like Out West, in Six Figures a mysterious violent act ( in Six Figures, the aggression is acted out against the wife and mother character) tests every internal and social aspect of all the novel's characters, major and minor. The family's efforts to deal with all this creates a Sisyphus myth for our own time. In each of his novels, Leebron's concerns with the dialectic between what someone can show, and what a person can know and care about in the life of another is explored in a way that creates a kind of suspense of the social kind that is well beneath the surface and mostly concealed and camouflaged in everyday life. It is in this sense that Leebron's take on suspense in fiction is so cathartic yet so unique psychologically and philosophically.

I will conclude with a quote from Leebron's most recent novel In The Middle of All This, which mostly concerns itself with the effects on a brother of a sister who is slowly dying of cancer. The sibling aspect of couples is a theme throughly and very interestingly explored in all of Leebron's books. What I found fascinating about the following quote is the fact that this internal moment is the actual, though not apparent, climax of the book, a fact that may have thrown off some of the book's critics. The passage, one of Leebron's best yet, I think captures Leebron's acute sensitivity and the breadth of his perceptions about contemporary living and, importantly, dying:

"Everybody died. But what went on between now and then- all the entanglements and annoyances and deprivations and enjoyments and inspirations and despair and redemption- you could never really know unless it was you or the person came right out and told you, and even in the telling there'd have to be a shift between what it was and what language made it sound like it was. Could nothing be shared? He wished he were back in his own bed with his screaming thoughts and fears and dreams. He wished he were younger, he wished he were older. He wished that his wife could tell him everything she ever thought, and he wished that he'd be interested by all of it. He wished he didn't ache for a hundred different women. He wished that his kids wold stop growing up, and he wished that they were already grown up and done and safe and out of the house. He wished that his father were dead and he wished that his father were once again young enough that he could actually talk with him. Had he every really talked with his father? And what the hell did that mean?- really talk? Did anyone really talk? Did anyone really listen?"

Rachel Maddow's Big Catch

Toni and I ran into Rachel Maddow who was with some friends on Herring Cove Beach today walking her good sized black dog. I mentioned to her that we had spoken with her a couple of years ago in Provincetown when the dog was still a puppy who clearly liked meeting Toni (the dog reacted similarly to Toni today also). At that time, as you will see in our post from two years ago, Rachel seemed doubtful that she would land a show of her own on cable. Well, I'm quite sure you know what happened since then, now that she is back to back nightly with Keith Olbermann (she has hosted her own show on MSNBC since September, 2008). I mentioned to Rachel that I had noticed on Twitter yesterday that she was heading for Nelson's Bait and Tackle on Race Road in Ptown. She told me that she caught a 22 pound bass this very day! Check out the story and photos at their website, here: Nelson's Bait and Tackle

check out our Rachel Maddow post from two years ago, here: Rachel's puppy

Laura Elrick on Penn Sound

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Have you read Laura Elrick's work in OCHO 21?

Joseph Nechvatal video interview

via twitter

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Iran's Twitter Revolution: Myth or Reality?

Contradicta



The inability to be completely and totally silly or to respond sympathetically to such reveals a dead or dying spirit. Of all the pretenses available to most, to be utterly silly might also be among the hardest responses to fake.



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The imagination is not about picturing things. Even if it is, this is a small, unimportant part of it. Imagination is more about believing in possibilities where none had existed before. But accepting limitations might assist in this. Knocking one's head against the wall is bad for the mind so it is equally bad for the imagination.

The Extreme of The Middle-Jack Tworkov writings edited by Mira Schor

I've been following Mira's progress in editing this book for awhile now, and I'm so excited it's out. My early summer reading is looming into view: The Extreme of the MIddle, I Am You by Anne Tardos, Notes on Conceptualisms by Fitterman and Place and Douglas Rothschild's Theogony. Ah, the pleasures of the text, as Roland Barthes put it so well!

Oh, and one more: Reread David Bromige's selected, titled Desire.

David Bromige

David Bromige, a friend whose writing and spirit I much admired and was grateful for, had a way of saying things sometimes that I still think of, again and again, years later. Once we were talking about irony. Later in the conversation I had occasion to mention that I used to have a great repugnance for doing anything twice the same way. But, given the direction my life had eventually taken, becoming more and more bound to a tight schedule, I told him I had given in, but had switched over to the opposite and now did as many things every day as much as possible exactly in the same way. "But, NIck", he said, in his witty yet warm way, "that itself is a kind of irony, an irony of action."

"Dear Friends" from Cecelia Belle

Oranges and Sardines

review of Nick Manning's Novaless on pps 119-120

Blogger Alert


Do check out Feedmill

New E- Chapbook by Andrew Lundwall

Honorable Mention

Happy Birthday, Walt Whitman

Possible sound recording of Walt Whitman reading from "America"

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Twitter Poetry

Baby Trotsky reviewed on Lemon Hound

Elaine Equi Photographs

at Turtle Point Press. Two of Elaine Equi's latest photograph series A Guide to the Cinema Tarot and Votive Candy, with accompanying poems, were on display at the opening at Turtle Point Press in the beautiful Woolworth Building at Park Place and Broadway.Two examples, first from A Guide: "Use your powers for good/and one day they'll name a robot/in a theme park after you" and second, from Votive: "Somewhere between/three wise men and three stooges/an epiphany comes." Elaine's photos encompass both the wit and the double-take insight her poems have become rightfully famous for. On hand to celebrate these terrific works were Turtle Point publisher Jonathan Rabinowitz, Elaine Equi and her husband poet Jerome Sala, as well as many poetry and art notables including Dirk Rountree, Wayne Koestenbaum, Geoffrey O'Brien. Star Black, Corinne Robins, Sal Romano. Coffee House publisher Allen Kornblum, Joanna Fuhrman, Toni Simon and many others.

When I was there, by the way, Sal Romano gave me an invitation to a group show opening May 27 6-8pm called Wiser Than God ("born before 1927, working and living") at the BLT Gallery (270 Bowery) right across the street from the New Museum show Younger than Jesus featuring 50 artists from 25 countries under age 33.
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Freud's Office and a Zombie Parade

Toni Simon's slide shows from our recent trip to Prague and VIennainclude photos from the Vienna Freud Museum and the Prague Zombie parade.

Music on Twitter

The Music of Jukka- Pekka Kervinen located today on Twitter

JPK
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The Twitter Poets

OCHO 24-the Twitter Poets

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10 OCHOs AGO
OCHO 14 Did you miss this one?

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Or This One?
OCHO 21

Salt of The Earth: Saving A Press One Book at a Time
[Check out Salt's impressive catalogue: I just bought this book:
I Am You
Anne Tardos
Paperback
2008

I Am You collects three new poems: “The Aim of All Nature Is Beauty,” which Tardos wrote soon after the death or her husband and frequent collaborator Jackson Mac Low; “Letting Go,” a 100-page poem which combines memoir and self-examination in the face of loss, and the 50-page “The Letter: A Bloodbath.”]

Movie Nite (Saturday May 2) at Dixon Place

[for Movie Nite on Friday, May 1 See Nada Gordon's Capsule Reviews on Ululations]

Movie Nite took place this past Saturday evening at Dixon Place. Neo-Benshi by Brandon Downing, David Larsen, Tisa Bryant, Nada Gordon, Gary Sullivan, Eileen Myles, Linh Dinh, Bruce Andrews (with Brandon Downing), Mac McGinnes and Konrad Steiner and Drew Gardner and Risa Puno.

For those of you who have not yet heard about or experienced this relatively new form (already very popular on the West Coast), here poets add their own dialogue, sound effects, comments, sound tracks, etc to already existing films. While the themes, in general, were satiric and parodic send-ups, still, there was much intense poetic ambience to immerse oneself in, as one might expect of a line-up like the one above. There were so many surprising, artistically complex and satisfying, even exhilarating moments throughout the evening that I would love to describe for you, but due to my newness to the form, this might be difficult. But at least I can mention Brandon Downing's (who introduced and organized these presentations) "After Eileen Myles' Hell, Pterodactyl I, The Ship,The Anchor, and Pterodactyl II", David Larsen's stirring, heroic "Paris of Troy", Tisa Bryant's "Inspiration," sizzling B movie noir renditions, Nada Gordon's "Navrang," labyrinthine and operatic Bollywood recitations, Gary Sullivan's "Darby O'Gill and the Little People," Irish giants and midget leprechauns at odds in a magic poetry cave, accompanied by sly, hilarious references to the contemporary poetry scene, Eileen Myles' witty "Satyricon" with handmade original sound effects (at the end she joyfully rolled across the floor), Linh Dinh's "Smooth Life," fatal attractions behind a stack of modern classics (I kept trying to read the titles, while constantly being distracted by the heavy breathing in the movie), Bruce Andrews and Brandon Downing's ' "Gossip Bruce," one liner darts to the tune of endless conversations between two preening, priviliged Upper East Side girl friends (great fun for me as I am a fan of chick lit), McGinnes and Steiner's "Love Before Breakfast: An Interstellar Interlude", with a text by James Schuyler, starring Norma Cole as MOON, Edith Kramer as LAKE LONESOME GAL, David Larsen as CANOE and Roham Shakhani as SPACE, including the moon, stars and ducks in lyrical dialogues, and Drew Gardner and Risa Puno's Untitled piece focussing on violent video game targets, accompanied by a first, a haunting Drew Gardner movie soundtrack.

While academics continue to dispute the number of avant-guard angels that can stand on the head of a pin, the flesh and blood personnel like those who performed so brilliantly at Dixon Place last night will continue to create and perform works that astonish, confound, and provoke their grateful and delighted audiences.


[Comments, corrections or additions from Flarfists or audience members will be gladly published in the comments field].

Rain


Once, a long time ago, Toni and I got caught in a heavy downpour in Central Park. We waited, watched and listened, not saying much, under a huge tree. Eventually the storm passed, but for some reason, the moment stayed. Many years, storms and memories have, since then. come and gone. But this one stayed.

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Rain- 140 character version on Babytrotsky

New 140 space Contradicta

Babytrotsky on Twitter

Babytrotsky


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Ciccariello-Recycled Poem

Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh edited by Rupert Loydell, an anthology of manifestoes and antimanifestoes to be published in September, 2009 has just been announced by Salt Publishing. The book will contain 8 of my automatic manifestoes.

My Lunch With Sala

After some of the more personal items were touched on over sandwiches, coffee and Jerome's diet coke with a twist of lemon (health, friends, work and lit life) Jerome and I talked about poetry, the arts and the lives and careers of the younger generations. Finally Jerome revealed he had been publishing on a blog provocatively titled,The Best American Poetry. His ideas about Hegel, Creeley and William Carlos Williams' dictum "no ideas but in things" offers much to think -and talk about further- at our next lunch, which I hope is very soon.

The Flarf/Conceptual reading at the Whitney Friday 4/17 was terrific, fun, a great success, featuring readings by Bok, Goldsmith, Wershler, Rosenfield, Gordon, Mesmer, Mohammad, Sullivan, introduced smartly by the organizer, Conceptual poet/artist Kenny Goldsmth. Hard to believe that each poet read for only 5 minutes, so much happened. Very concentrated thought, laughter, language, verbal and body, quite a charismatic bunch. Goldsmith, bearded in an orange tie, Sullivan in t shirt and suit jacket, Mesmer and Rosenfield, Wershler and Bok dressed to the nines, Nada in a striking cartoony dress she made herself, Mohammad in a costume composed of an astronaut's uniform. Each of the eight offered a thoroughly enjoyable performance of distinctively inspired writing enacted/ framed by a clearly conceived and energetically presented dramatic persona. Much applause for individual poems, much laughter. We will undoubtedly be hearing and seeing more from the flarf/conceptual groups. They were welcomed in a way that telegraphed that they are here to stay. Audience sightings: Susan Bee, Charles Bernstein, Star Black, Katie Degentesh, Jordan Davis, Laura Elrick, Rob Fitterman, Chris Funkhouser, Kristen Gallagher, Drew Gardner, Mitch Highfill, Tan Lin, Sean Killian, Marianne Shaneen, Toni Simon, Stephanie Strickland, Christina Strong, Rodrigo Toscano and many other familiar faces. The room was completely packed, and some stayed until they had to get out of the way of the closing crew. Sorry I couldn't make it to the downtown party later on. Perhaps there will be more about this on other blogs, that of Drew Gardener, Gary Sullivan, Nada Gordon or Sharon Mesmer, let's see.

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flarf vs conceptual poetry: the vids via Nada Gordon's Ululations

Flarf vs Conceptual at the Whitney (via Limetree)

Search Cube

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Nico Vassilakis New York Art Show opens April 16
Rhizome


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Nico Vassilakis reading at the Poetry Project April 24


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Poets and Writers Interview

By Pamela ?oler
(repostiing: original posting 4/1

"We" Follow

twitter: we follow

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Half an hour of browsing led to one twitter worth following
Al Gore

thus:

The Extreme Ice Survey