I received an email from Ron Silliman telling me that Peter Seaton died last month on May 18, 2010, of an apparent heart attack.

Peter Seaton and I met at City College (CCNY) in 1960 or 1961, when we were freshmen or sophomores. He was born on December 16, 1942. We spent many, many fascinating hours together discussing literature and reading each others writing throughout our college days. Peter's appearance changed little over the years. He had short, close cropped light brown curly hair, which later became gray. He wore glasses, frequently sunglasses or glasses with clear plastic frames through which you could invariably observe twinkling eyes, often a dark brown henley t-shirt and light tan corduroys, and though short in stature he had a distinctive walk, a rolling gait that sometimes reminded me of a sailor. Peter was a terrific marathon one-on-one conversationalist, a mordant, literary wit of the Holden Caulfield variety, an indefatigable reader who loved to endlessly talk and search for books and new ideas. This, combined with the fact that he was among the most private and secretive persons I have ever known, added immeasurably to the quality of mystery that surrounded both his presence and his absence. Other than the fact that he attended boarding school, he spoke little about his early life. One of his first short stories that may have been written for a writing class we took together was of a character obsessed with going out into the city on an inexplicable, lonely search for a certain hard to find poster. Our interests and directions concerning poetry and poetics remained parallel after graduation in 1964, often attending readings together at St Mark’s, reading The World magazine and other poetry magazines and discussing them avidly, through to the establishment of This magazine, and L=A magazine, up to the early 80’s. During the opening and middle years of Language poetry many of Peter Seaton’s long prose poems were published, widely read and influential. Peter and I did some writing collaborations and even some film experiments together in the late 60’s and early 70’s (we were then both big fans of Stan Brakhage) although these may now be lost or hard to locate. I may still have one or two letters or postcards that he wrote to me when I was living for awhile in Italy and Morocco in the late 60’s. It was he that told me that Bernadette Mayer, whose work we both greatly admired, was giving an open workshop at the Poetry Project in 1973. He always encouraged me in my writing and collage productions particularly, explaining to me that he was knowledgeable about this because his mother had once run an art gallery. I am sorry to say that we lost touch with each other in the early 80’s. Peter’s writing and poetry and his penetrating insights into poetry, culture, technology, language and life were of constant interest to me during our many years of close friendship in the 60's and 70's.

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Penn Sound Obit

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Wikipedia page-Peter Seaton

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Peter Seaton Community Facebook Page

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Eclipse Author Index, including three complete books by Peter Seaton Eclipse

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Friend of The Dead

Have you checked out Joanna Fuhrman and Toni Simon's funny, charming and beautiful collaboration Friend of The Dead in Paper Bag Issue 1 yet?


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Contradicta

There are these split second inklings of eternity all day long, right before you start, when it feels like this time it's never going to end


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Forget make it new just make it quick.



--- My thanks to Ray DiPalma who has suggested that this aphorism, for a variety of reasons, might offer a highly suspect bit of advice.



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Shadow Poetics



Juliana Spahr- notes for a talk for rethinking poetics-swoonrocket

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Seinfeld's anomie:Expresso Bongo (Jerome Sala)


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A Renaissance in the Art of the Book 1946-1981-Center for Book Arts- Curated by Kyle Schlesinger

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On March 18, 2003, I attended a reading at Cooper Union that included Ann Lauterbach, Anne Waldman, Michael Lally and Robert Creeley, which I wrote about on this blog: March 19, 2003. Regarding Michael Lally's poem ("March 18, 2003"), I wrote: "Michael Lally read a very powerful long poem in that personal homespun style of his, enunciating so many offensive acts and policies of the far right that he made us understand that we have far too lightly critiqued these vicious movements for the past 50 years in this country, while endlessly muttering to ourselves, the audience seemed reluctant, even after 30 minutes, to allow him to step down." This post, by the way, is included in the book fait accompli, published by Factory School in 2007.

Tonight I had the amazingly moving experience of hearing Michael Lally read that poem again, on his new CD "Lost Angels." The album includes 9 other incredibly cool tracks with two excellent jazz combos behind him. The album includes "My Life 2" and "Before you Were Born," and is available from :Monomania Records. If you were not present at that reading back on the night before the initial bombing of Iraq, or even if you were, you should not miss listening to and having this amazing CD.

Anubis Takes Joanna Fuhrman and Toni Simon on a Guided Tour Through Park Slope

Paper Bag Issue 1


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OCHO 30

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RE-ENGLISH-- Daria Fain and Robert Kocik--Governor's Island, June 4, 2010

with Aretha Aoki, Margot Basset, Chung-chen Chang, Stephen Cooper, Levi Gonzalez, Hasuki Homma, Masumi Kishimota, Kora Koimtzi, Athena Kokoronis, Martin Lanz, Mina Nishimura, Peter Sciscioli, Kensaku Shinohara and Samita Sinha.

As part of an ongoing collaborative "research" project conducted by Fain and Kocik that they call The Prosodic Body one of the dancer/singer/workshop member/performance artists recited the following "anonymous 17th century protest poem" titled "Goose":

"The law locks up the man or woman who steals the goose from off the common
but leaves the greater villain loose who steals the common from the goose.
The law demands that we atone when we take things we do not own
but leaves the lords and ladies fine who take things that are yours and mine.
The poor and wretched don't escape if they conspire the law to break;
this must be so but they endure those who conspire to make the law.
The law locks up the man or woman who steals the goose from off the common
and geese will still a common lack till they go and steal it back."

This poem powerfully captures the aims and insights of the "commons" philosophy enacted in the piece and later discussed throughout the film presentation. I was sorry to have missed the earlier panel discussion that included Fred Ho.

The other night Toni and I watched the last of the 5th season of episodes of The Wire.. Although we've been sad to see other tv series end - I noticed this time Toni was particularly perturbed. There were a number of reasons for this, but one of them, I'm sure, was the series' political astuteness along with the excellent acting and narrative power to support the cultural and social points being made, and the stories being told, many of which were based on actual events in recent years in Baltimore..

Like The Wire, but here more in the realm of experimental high art, the Fain/Kocik Re-English has much to offer in the way of social/political critique, the difference being that in this collaboration solutions are being actively sought, and the early seeding of an actual social movement may be observed. The performance went on for about forty-five minutes and there were fourteen performers. Each performer enacted individual movement scenarios, and one by one the performers recited pieces written or collected by Robert Kocik,including the one quoted above. There were sung elements as well, and pre-verbal phonemic utterances that were sometimes said, sometimes chanted and sometimes sung. HIstory, political critique, music, movement, shamanistic chant, and psycho-lexical experimentation and many other elements have been brought together and developed in the Fain/Kocik research mode towards a philosophy they have described as "The commons." The group has been in evolution for over four years, Fain describes the effort as a form of "economic research", ironically referring to the financial struggles of the group as well. It is gratifying to witness the survival of a group that has an aim that combines the political, the social and the artistic.

For me, one of the most exciting moments of the piece was performed by Margot Basset. I can only describe it by saying that she virtually transformed her voice into that of a large, chirping, wailing, whooping, crying bird, in a manner so shamanistically powerful as to bring the energy of the room into another spiritual dimension entirely; this could only have happened in the context of the convincing and moving efforts of the entire troupe, who, it is almost impossible to believe have mostly worked in a piecemeal "commons" fashion employed by the group, as Daria told me later when she and Robert Kocik found me and Toni relaxing on the beautiful Governor's Island lawn as they were leaving after the film and performances. [At that moment Toni and I were in astonished wonder at the synchronicity of our discovering a few minutes earlier that our nephew Michael Burakoff's band Keepaway was then in the process of doing a sound check for their concert later that night at the nearby sound stage at the moment we left after the Re-English piece and the film about the Commons. Put that together with the fact that Governor's Island is my birthplace (my father was an officer stationed there at the beginning of the Second World War), and you've got a series of synchronicities more complex that I can easily process.]

Anyway, In the film shown immediately after Re-English, one goal for the Commons group I feel particularly crucial is the integration of the needs of the individual with that of the group for, up until now, it seems to me all political systems have failed to maximize the potential of these two elements working together on each other's behalf; a goal actually aimed for and often achieved in this choral, soloistic, combinatory, harmonic and planfully anarchic, polycultural, artistic and social theatrical enactment.

Commoning on Governor's Island-Wild Horses of Fire (Thom Donovan)

Thom Donovan on The Phonemic Choir

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Ron Loses Link List

While Ron reconstructs and builds his next link list, check out his latest one:

Rons Link List

David Markson, r.i.p.

"Farewell and be kind."
The last line of This Is Not A Novel (2001)

Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind

Jay Sanders interviews Charles Bernstein in Bomb

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A selection from Ron Silliman's Revelator in Poetry Poetry Foundation

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Once again: Don Share's selection from Contradicta on Squandermania

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Poets and Artists July 2010

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R. I. P. Peter Orlovsky; La Times
R, I. P. Louise Bourgeois Silliman's blog Wall Street Journal
MIra Schor- A Year of Positive Thinking
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Leslie Scalapino links, Silliman's Blog

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Alan Davies on why poets should write negative reviews, and how I tried to discourage him from doing so. Alan writes: "I have a friend (Nick Piombino) who has more than once advised me to not write a book review unless I have good things to say about the book. Nick himself doesn’t write book reviews / which might be an indication of how many books of poetry he’s found to be worth reviewing (?!)".


I can imagine that I gave Alan this advice, I don't remember doing so, but if I did it was possibly as long as 30 years ago! I am quite sure I wouldn't have given this advice to Alan within the last 20; I think in the past 20 I would know better than to try to deprive him of his peppery critical zest!

Alan also makes the point that I haven't reviewed anyone of late. Actually, I have posted quite a few poetry reading reviews of late on this blog, but I do want to take this occasion to mention that I edited in 2007 and 2009 two issues of OCHO, published and produced by Didi Menendez. OCHO 14, by the way includes a hefty portion of the work of, well, Alan Davies and OCHO 21 includes the work of 14 other poets whose work I obviously admire. Silliman says of Davies work in OCHO 14:" Davies, on the other hand, offers a wide range of works, including some (textually) discrete poems, a long critical work that organizes itself as an a review of Anne Waldman’s Outrider, then a series of excerpts from a longer text – it seems too limiting to call it a poem – entitled This is Thinking. Davies hasn’t been publishing a lot in recent years & to see this much work at once, this much first-rate work, is completely bracing. He hasn’t lost a step & is every bit as uncompromising as ever. This actually can make Davies a difficult read at times, but it never is complexity just for the sake of showing off. He continues to be the Diogenes of the New York langpo scene. At the same time, Davies always comes across as sweet, vulnerable, friendly, somebody you’d love to know. I’d say that Davies’ contribution is worth the price of the issue alone, but I’d say that of well about Gordon, Vassilakis, Mesmer & several other of the contributors." Not a negative review, but, I'm sure most readers will agree, interesting, at least.

OCHO 14 was also reviewed by Nick Manning in Jacket 35

But I will admit to being a subscriber of the following aphorism of Henry James:
"Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind". Like most others, I can only claim this as an ideal. Certainly not as a political position, but when it comes to poet friends, well, yes.

Still, the article gives me much to think about.


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Contradicta

The way to know people is to care about them. The way to care about them is to forget most of what you know about them.

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If you are looking to get paid as a writer just remember that silence is golden- not your silence, their silence.

Leslie Scalapino passed away on May 28, 2010 in Berkeley, California.

Leslie Scalapino

Blogging and Narcissism Once Again

Oh, Deja Vu: On Social Media and Narcissism [Redux]--Butterfly Hunt--Ernesto Priego

Ron Silliman review of Contradicta- Silliman's Blog

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5/19/10 NY Times: Arakawa, Whose Art Tried to Halt Aging, Dies at 73


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Contradicta offered as help by a reader to a blogger in a comment stream

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Don Share's selection of Contradicta, "unforgettably illustrated by Toni Simon", posted
on Squandermania 5/21/10



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Mira Schor on the new Godard movie

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Boog City 63 ed. David Kirschenbaum


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Ray DiPalma and Michael Lally at The Poetry Project Wednesday May 12

---Just a quick note to say that both poets gave first rate performances on this occasion. As it happens, these two readers are superb actors as well as being brilliantly accomplished poets at the top of their form. Each read a few published works, but focussed on unpublished manuscripts. Ray's recent poems were each stunning in their manifestations of surprise and inventiveness.In one poem Ray repeats a line a number of times, each time with a specific and unique ambience, offering, for example, the comic, reflective and ambiguous facets of each line, as if you might be turning a jewel around in the light. Ray DiPalma's mode of reading is acutely and precisely dramatic. Each poem was not only elegantly read in his carefully modulated and pleasant bass voice, but profoundly elucidated by his intricately nuanced internal interpretations as well. Hovering within and around each poem I detected a discrete dramatic persona. This is all the more amazing when you realize that Ray DiPalma's work also emanates on the printed page the penetrating eye of a great visual artist. Thus the multiple layering of Ray DiPalma's work, I would guess can only be completely experienced in eventually reading the work on the page and hearing him read it as well. How many poets can you think of are equally blessed with talents in the visual, verbal and dramatic dimensions? In this way, perhaps, Ray DiPalma is unique among his contemporaries.

Ray's was a hard act to follow. But Michael Lally was up the the task. His abilities as an actor are well known, but in this context, no doubt inspired by Ray's amazing performance, Michael was in incredibly top form tonight. After reading from a few published poems, Michael wove a mesmerizing autobiographical commentary into a selection of newer manuscripts. Michael's minutely described perceptions of his recent experiences before, during and after brain surgery for me, as I told him later, rose to the descriptive wonders of Oliver Sacks. For us, Michael made his struggles with learning how to read and write again, in tiny, gradual steps, fascinating, inspiring; in point of fact, poetic. I think also, for some reason of Christopher Knowles and Adrian Piper. After the operation Michael was unable, as he explained, to blend individual perceptions together. For that reason, trying to watch Jon Stewart and follow his subtle ironies Michael found, for the first time, strangely impossible. (After a decade of watching Stewart's bits, I am starting to feel the same way without having had brain surgery). Another example was that Michael could not be with someone and watch t.v. at the same time. Individual sounds would also be heard by his brain in a way that demanded equal attention, thus making it difficult for him to meld them together into a whole perception. He gave an example by noticing the sound of someone's water bottle very quietly popping in the audience. Michael also wondered whether the simplistic comprehension abilities of right wingers might owe something to a similar tendency toward concretization and the inability to form insights. He had us all laughing at this one. As Michael Lally wove his monologue around readings of some spare, but moving poems written before and after his operation, we were offered an unusual opportunity to glimpse the inner workings of his uniquely moving, and personally revealing creative process. I remember a poem in which he tells a young woman how much he is enjoying being in a comfortable bed after having slept in some pretty grungy ones. The woman said to him, perhaps this is why you are not more successful, you are so easily satisfied! Has Michael Lally gained enlightenment, he wonders aloud at the end of the reading? He hopes so, while we know so.

As they has been able to do for decades, on this occasion Michael Lally and Ray DiPalma, by means of their poet/actor magic alchemy, renewed our love for life's ambivalent mixture of tragedy and triumph, pain and laughter.

Jerome Sala on Michael Lally's reading [Expresso Bongo]

Lally's Alley- ML on his reading with Ray DiPalma

Lalley's Alley- 6 Months Since Brain Surgery

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Contradicta


Expect the best; people tend to give you what you expect, rather than what you want.



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All your longings know where to go, but you have to tell them when to open their eyes.

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Life ia a Time of Contraction

Drunken Boat
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Mother's Day

This was posted on Mother's Day on Wood s lot
Once again, Mark Woods gets it!

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Otoliths Issue 17

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Poets and Artists May 2010 Poets and Artists

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Gregory Vincent St Thomasino reviews our book party for Contradicta at the Zinc on Sunday e ratio


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I'm still very proud of my interview with GVST on The Argotist Online

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Gregory Vincent St Thomasino's work was included in OCHO 21 OCHO 21

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Jerome Sala's new blog-- Expresso Bongo

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Mira Schor's new blog-- A Year of Positve Thinking

Reading Carla Harryman --ed. Laura HInton-- How 2 Silliman's Blog

Book Launch & Signing
Sunday April 25, 2010
6:30pm
Zinc Bar
82 W. 3rd St, New York, NY


Contradicta: Aphorisms
by Nick Piombino
with illustrations by Toni Simon
Green Integer

and

If Not Metamorphic
Brenda Iijima
Ahsahta Press


Music and projection by Pattern Diver (aka Mike Burakoff) of the band Keepaway
Pitchfork magazine's "Best Music 2009"


Contradicta available from SPD
http://www.spdbooks.org/Search/Default.aspx?SearchTerm=Contradicta
St. Marks Bookshop (NYC)
Unnameable Books (Brooklyn)


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Ron Silliman Jacket Feature


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THE THING at WHITE SLAB presents VIRAL VENTURE: a digital movie by
Joseph Nechvatal. Tuesday, April 27, 2010 @ 8:30 pm and 10:00 pm. Free.

White Slab Palace is located at 77 Delancey Street (Southeast corner
of Allen and Delancey) Transit: F to Delancey St.; J/M/Z to Essex St.

The Viral Venture projection consists of imagery of Nechvatal’s most
recent artificial-life computer virus attacking his digital images.
The score is by Rhys Chatham, recorded at the Sacré-Coeur Basilica in
Paris using 400 electric guitars.
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Tony Torn's iBatross


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Composer Franz Kamin died 4/11/10

"The stranger may appear in any locale...may dance with some...make secret pacts with others....may walk among the dead....or abandon himself to the flames of madness....the stranger is all-pervasive...he will come to carry you away..." (Behavioral Drift XV, "News", performed May 25, 2007)

Franz Kamin, Wikipedia

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Ursprache

it's all poem


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from Jack Kimball's Pantaloons

Friday, April 09, 2010

For the first time a round of Faux books, due earlier this year, will be late but not too late. Michael Gottlieb’s, for instance, Memoir and Essay arrives in a couple of weeks


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Bob Perelman feature on Jacket

Bob


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Rae Armantrout Wins The Pulitzer Prize

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All The Whisky in Heaven-Bernstein's Selected reviewd in the NY Times Book REview

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this just in: from Nico Vassilakis
on April 16th thru 18th in Bellingham, WA
PHRASINGS: Words and Dance
among other poets
the Bellingham Repertory Dance Company
will be interpreting my sound poem VOWELIST
(you can see/hear a snippet of the poem performed by John Olson & myself - VOWELIST
for more info:
calendar
staring poetics:
staring poetics
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Hannah Weiner's Romeo and Juliet in Semaphore

Kenning Editions

Yes, We Can

No, You Can't (Featuring John Boehner)

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

* * * * *

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


* * * * *
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

* * * * *





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.



* * *



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!


* * * * *


Contradicta





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



* * * *




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

* *

I am continuing to develop the Contradicta series on Twitter


* * *
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

* * * * *

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

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onedit issue 15


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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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.



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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)

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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


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Contradicta



Information plus passion=knowledge; information minus passion= document


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



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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.



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



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OCHO 27

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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)

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Otoliths Issue 15

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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!

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

by Susan Bee 2009
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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

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Drew Gardner from Second Avenue Volume 2

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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.



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Try to remember your dreams.

EOAGH 5

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

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Wood s Lot: Raymond Federman (1928-2009)

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Friday, October 9

John Lennon's birthday

via wood s lot

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

Delirious Lapel

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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.

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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.

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Stop Smiling: online record reviews.

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

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

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Nico Vassilakis Notes on Staring

Word for /Word # 15

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

Art on Air

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Contradicta


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


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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?"

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Shampoo #36

Contradicta


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



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




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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

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

The Current Assignment

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

Many thanks to Ernesto Priego

Blogging and Narcissism- January 2004

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Twitter Art

whatar


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Contradicta

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


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


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Lately, I've been developing the Contradicta on Twitter

Profile


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Poets and Artists- The Self-Portrait Issue

Poets and Artists: The Self-Portrait Issue

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La Comunidad Inconfesable Septiembre 2009