You can't always get what you want,
but sometimes you can!
Check out Jonathan Mayhew's {click here}
translation of Heriberto Yepez's powerful writing.
****
And while you're there,
read Jonathan Mayhew's
latest poem just below.

Do you like, or love, Rilke's Duino Elegies?
Then read Allen Bramhall's parodies, quietly titled
*Songs* {click here}
Very funny!

This just in from
David Nemeth: Nemski.com {click here}
ALex Cumberbatch
exzentrick libretti {click here}
is back online.
***
Coming soon on
Nemski.com:
homophonic translation
experiments a la
Charles Bernstein
***
August may be the hottest month:
Mark Lamoureux on
Verse {click here}
***
Saying goodbye to Catier-Bresson, aged 95,
Boynton {click here}
style.
***
By the way, at Patrick 'Durgin''s
Berkeley goodbye barbecue
last week, David Larsen told
me he has a book due soon from
Jack Kimball's Faux Press {click here}
which published
Nada Gordon's gorgeous
*v.imp*

"poetry...I too
my head...won't go into it.
The movement is bird. Sure, all's dire,
but look! What comes out! Dark as grapes,
but sounding, hot-hot-persisting in wanting
to be wanted."

Learning Spanish is one of the
many important things to do when
there is never enough time.

Clearly, Babel Fish is not much
of a translator, but who is when
it comes to poetry?

Here is a brief passage from
a much longer post that needs real
translating desperately:
from e.n.s.a.m.b.l.e. (Herberto Yepez) {click here}

I cannot let write like who cannot leave the alcoholism. I have tried the love and the academy, the Gestalt psycotherapy and the Tecate beer, the aphorism and zen, the photography and the bicycle, but nothing. I always return, I add more text to a work that it wanted to consist of one joint done of pure pieces of silence. But I cannot. Whenever I write a word comes an intermediate silence, it is certain, but soon other words come, too many. If somebody observes and listens to well this text it can give account of this. But also extrañ can be given account of something enough: in all text there are many words but also much silence, many empty syllables, syllables of silence that they avoid that all the language becomes a single word and, simultaneously, that silence is a secret triumph. But that triumph is not mine, because whenever I want to write an empty syllable leaves a word to me. To write is a lost battle. #
*************************************************************************
The most recent issue of the magazine
*Verse*, devoted to prose, contains an
interview with Charles North {click here} and {click here}
in which he says:
"...I agree that the American poetry scene is dominated
by "false reputations." Why this is the case is probably
a combination of things: the Establishment is in the
business of award-giving, critics (there are exceptions
of course) seem more comfortable with already
established names, the most interesting poetry
by and large (and I don't think I am saying anything
particulary radical) is published by small, and sometimes
very small, presses--again, it's the unhealthy ideas
in the air that seem to be received with no resistance.
I don't believe populism is the only way to go, though
I know it's unfashionable in some circles to say that.
By the way, Ashbery's book *Other Traditions* (his
Norton lectures at Harvard) deals with negelected poets
like the wonderful David Schubert and John Wheelright.
The big anthoogies used by the colleges-ironically
Norton is one of the chief culprits- are part of the problem.
Did you know they dropped Schuyler from the second
edition of their *Anthology of Modern Poetry*? You need
to look at anthologies like Sun & Moon's *From The Other
Side of the Century* to get a sense of what some of the
"other traditions" are and how exciting they are."

After a couple of weeks in weather's minor keys,
Zeus relented and let Berkeley offer us a sunny farewell.

Tributary (Allen Bramhall){click here} discusses the Boston Poetry Marathon in detail

"milk and honey within easy reach
Honesty & it passes
on from its objects those exquisites"

*The Petrarch Project*
Rychard Bromige
and David Denner
dPress
2004
Sebastopol

****
*Thanks For The Memory*
Bemsha Swing {click here}
Jonathan Mayhew, Serendipity and time travel
****
It's been freezing
and foggy here in Berkeley for two weeks
and it's nice to look at somewhere sunny
Topher's Tunes Times {click here}
*****
Listen to all the warnings
and still your heart will have its say.

Gary Sullivan (Elsewhere) focusses on Jerome Sala's Selected Poems.

A bit of silence here on *fait accompli*
due to computer problems in the house
we are staying in here in the Berkeley hills.
Tried twice to write about a visit to
Serendipity, the amazing bookstore on
University near Chestnut. The owner
and I chatted a bit, then the next
day at a goodbye party for Patrick
Durgin and Andrea (hurray! Patrick
completed his dissertation and defends
it in August) who are moving back
to Minnesota. At their party at the
Berkeley Rose garden, Laura Moriarty
told me (first, that she is completing
a science fiction novel!Wow! can't wait
to see this) but second, that Peter B. Howard,
Serendipity's owner, was one of the
founders of SPD. At the store I found
an amazing collection, tøtally amazing
collection of literary books,including
a cache of books by David Bromige, and
naturally I purchased a number of these.
OK, I also bought an early edition of
Wallace Stevens, which was expensive,
but I could do it because Steve Clay
in New York recently sold some of
my books when we moved to Brooklyn.
More stuff to do today on our next
to last day in Berkeley, so must sign
off now. Don't even have time right
now to get the update on the Cambridge
Poetry Massacre.

More soon!

Visit to Cecelia and David Bromige
in Sebastopol. Great luck, a rare sunny
day for this season this year. Cydney
Chadwick and Richard Denner, David's
collaborator and publisher joined
us for an excellent lunch in a local
restaurant garden. David gave me a copy
of his latest book(s), written with Richard
Denner: *Spade* and *The Petrarch Project.* Each is
180 pages and contains 33 Cantos; they are
working on the third volume.

A quick look of these books- love at
first sight! Can't wait to read them.
Learned also that Richard has published
over 60 books of his own, and 100 books in
his press dPress.
*************************************************

Boynton {click here} takes off on a suggestion we made
concerning a certain
case of the flu
{Watch a few
Marx Brothers
movies,
Quai Brothers
movies,
or any funny
movies.

Roll your eyes.
Then
close your eyes

Sleep.}

*fait accompli* hopes you all
have great time today and tomorrow
at the Cambridge, Mass
Wordsworth Boston Massacre
Poetry Marathon
(The "Blogocratic Convention")
Check out the sidebar right now
for the reader/delegates:
The Jimside (click here}
**************************



"Tears for fears"

A memoir from
Elsewhere (Gary Sullivan) {click here}

**********
Joe from London opines on narcissism
and blogging right now on
p-ramblings {click here}
(comment#26)
Do I hear 27?
**********
Get stuck reading Hegel
and/or Kojeve on Hegel?
Check out
Bad with Titles {click here}

notebook:7/25/04

...the tiniest spray of meaning starts to
cover the day as canvas. The surface
(=the day) is scanned again and again.
This is also a pleasure, watching for
those specks which (what did you expect,
doesn't meaning go away and come back, permanently?)
flicker, then hide.

OK, then, perpective is everything. It
dominates everything we think about or
do. Again and again, scanning, spotting
and refocusing. It doesn't matter that it
repeats itself incessantly, like cries. The
important thing is to come back to the fact
that what is covered is a complete segment
of one horizon.

This time, for example, there is a flock of
four birds going by, in patterned formation.

Anyway, meaning is one such speck, forever
dissolving and appearing again. The amount
of focus determines meaning's visual spray.
******************

Thursday: Moss Beach produces not only
an immersed, dark sprial jetty of rocky reef
(thoughts of Smithson's here)
but spiral energies everywhere, swirls
of amemones, snail shells, holy rocks,
a grand, primordial, unchanging spiral
dance of birth and change, dawn and night.
And not far away, Half Moon Bay
and Pescadero.

There's something particularly
interesting about writing
that reveals, in an open way,
what is unique
about writing or "trying"
to write poetry.
Red Thread(s) {click here}
********************************************
Nada Gordon responds to Well Nourished Moon (Stephanie Young) re: automated phone systems, weeping and more
********************************************
A long poem by Ray DiPalma online in
Verse {click here}
********************************************
Noah of vertical mattress.com brings the dreaded
(n)arcissism word into the discussion
on blogging right now on
p-ramblings (Bill Allgrezza)

Muir Woods with the sun on my face.
In a revery, yesterday
afternoon I listened to an owl,
and later a woodpecker.

Thoughts about knocking."Knocking
on heaven's gate," in the sense
of thoughts wanting to be heard, in
the sense of wanting someone to respond,
in the sense of
knocking on the door to another
world.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Jim Behrle hosts a weekend poetry marathon-expected to
be better attended than the Demo Convention!!!
(Better security too)

Al JimZeera {click here}
********************
Third Factory (Steve Evans) {click here} That inveterate poetry reader and reviewer,
is busy reading the new issue of The Poker- possibly the
hottest poetry mag around

The writer Joe Amato, blogging at the Democratic Convention, and more...
"And I'm very afraid of what will happen next in Blog Capitalism..."
Read the whole story right now on
Poop Chute (Brooke Nelson) {clck here}

Well Nourished Moon (Stephanie Young) {click here} continues publishing complete texts from the New Brutalism Cabaret at 21 Grand on Sunday July 18.

Today's offering:
The text of Myrtle Poe by
K. Silem Mohammad,(wonderfully)
performed last
Sunday at the New Brutalism
Cabaret by Patrick Durgin and Jen Hofer
****************************************
Though Bill Allegrezza has once again let those
bunnies out for a long overdue walk on
p- ramblings {click here}
that interesting discussion on blogging and publishing
continues with comments from Jordan Davis, Joe in London,
Tim Peterson, Bill A and others-now up to comment #22!
Wd love to know what YOU think...
*****************************************
Gary at home, taking care of Nada with
the flu, goes through tons of comics,
dvd's, books and poems, and takes the
trouble to tell us all about them. Wow!
click here:Elsewhere (Gary Sullivan)

"like it or not, the internet (& especially the blogosphere part
of it) now is the functional equivalent of the small press twenty
or twenty five years ago. but i think the differences have not
yet affected poetic practice as much as they are going to..."
(from poetic grimoire and notions {click here})

The discussion on blogging and publishing
continues right now on

p-ramblings (Bill Allegrezza) {click here}

If you haven't yet seen this
excellent show, try to go,
it's really worth a visit.
It's in a ample, very bright & airy
space, and you'll get to see
the light and etherial metal
mesh mini-tower of our
friend Nikki Schrager {click here}.
The art critic Kenneth Baker,
despite his somewhat fussy complaining
about the choosing and installation process,
made some fine choices for this show as
you will see if you make it over there.
And why not?

Pacific Rim Sculptors Group
Annual Members Exhibition
July 22 thru August 27 at
the Atrium Gallery
600 Townsend Street @ 7th

Kenneth Baker, juror
******************************
Toni has some wonderful artist
friends in the Bay area, among
them, the charming
Leonie Guyer, whose work
is utterly unique, and will not
conform to contemporary expectations
or categories, but is haunting, subtle
and unforgettable.

Leonie
Guyer {click here}

Leonie Guyer at Marjorie Wood (online) Gallery {click here{
*********************************************
Also, I really wish you could see the
mosaic planters, small
end tables and mosaic
full size table by Toni's friend
Zee Zeleski. You've never seen mosaics
like these. Zee creates these witty mosaic
collages out of broken crockery, many
of which are now stepping stones in the
tropical garden paradise she created
in her back yard. As Toni's friends chatted
& talked art
over drinks and appetizers, I realized as
Toni showed her friends her own quizzical
& kinetic textile designs
(which all her friends enthusiastically
agreed easily qualify
as great fine art), I realized that this is
a very special group of artists that ought
to be seen together as an example of what I
might call: Shapes of Light, in my afternoon
of a faun, woozy, schmoozy curatorial fantasy.
***********************************************
Then, after a quick drive home and a little rest,
we drove to Enrico's (in North Beach)
to hear our friend Macy Blackman
play & sing rock'n roll. Macy, whose
rhythm and blues piano playing derives from a
true devotion to the history of blues in all
its ramifications (as he explained to me one night
as we enjoyed the view from window of he and his
wife Marsha's home in Kensington), also sometimes
reveals some pleasurable echoes of his friend Doctor
John, the Night Tripper's playing.
Macy played an album for me of possibly the first
blues singer, Charlie Patton,
then brought me one and I played it all the way
to Stinson Beach today, Sunday (the fog burned off!)
and back to Berkeley.
As it turns out, Macy's piano
work and singing, like Dr.John's,
is rooted in a true Lousiana bayou
tradition, one might say, despite the fact that like
me, Macy is a New York person all the way. Macy
is playing again at Enrico's in August.
****************************************
Dinner later Sunday night at the Mediterranean Cafe
in Berkeley with Laynie Browne and her
scientist husband,Brad. We spent a lot
of time telling each other ghost stories.
Turns out that more scientists are interested
in ghosts and the occult these days than
I might have guessed.

Tod Thiellman will
be publishing a book of Laynie's poetry
soon, I also learned.

Brad, a marine biologist discovered that
a tiny marine animal developed the first prototype
of the heart organ.

Brad also mentioned something that may have
some significance for time travel (of a sort).
When I mentioned that Macy Blackman had reminded
me that the earliest recordings involved using a megaphone
over a crystal, Brad said that now computer scientists
can photograph the grooves on old wax recorded cylinders,
and then are able to replay the sounds once recorded there.
I reminded Laynie of my quote in my Boundary of Blur
book from Rilke, who, on first hearing recorded sound,
imagined that one day we might be able to hear the
sounds recorded from the thoughts inside human skulls!