Nicholas and Nicholas continue their discussion on Manning's essay "Art as Comfort: Some Misgivings on a Therapeutic Poetics"

on The New Metaphysicals (Nicholas Manning)l

*fait accompli* third Thinking Blogger Award goes to wood s lot

Mark Woods is a blogger living in Canada whose blog I find to be the most valuable resource on the internet. Mallarme in a poem once imagined a newspaper composed of dreams. wood s lot is the ultimate time traveler's newspaper, bringing you news that stays news. It is the true come dream. On wood s lot you will celebrate Debussy's birthday or the latest essay by Kasey S. Mohammad on the crises of poetry or a series of articles on the subject of happiness. And it is a feast for the eye as well as the mind. It is almost unimaginable that someone could, on a daily basis, provide information that not only feeds the mind but feeds the spirit and the imagination, but this is what you will find constantly at wood s lot.

Our first two awards went to Ray Davis and Tom Beckett.
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The Newer Metaphysicals: Art as comfort: some misgivings on a therapeutic poetics. An excellent article by Nicholas Manning with two cents thrown in from Nicholas you-know-who.

Oh, What A Loverly Bunch of Coconuts

Coconut #9

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Adam Fieled, has guest edited OCHO 11/LuLu, a print poetry magazine produced by Didi Menendez of Mipoesias fame. Adam opens the issue with a sharp and touching introduction, which sets the tone for the entire issue: "This poetry is a tough gig, isn't it? We don't do it to become celebrities, because the machinery is not there to turn us into celebrities. I would like to think that the reasons for pursuing this ancient, contemporary, always relevant art form are spiritual." Read the whole introduction, and some of the poetry, and do consider purchasing it, by clicking on "preview this book" on the LuLu link above. The work in the issue matches the promises and premises of the introduction. There is an overall quality to this charming collection that has entirely its own character: not flip, not pretentious, not "different": merely and wholly pleasurable, considered, insightful, lyrical, imagistic, and, in that sense completely personal, present and absorbing. Check out the lovely cover by Hector Milia on the LuLu page, and click "preview this page" to look at the contents. Again: OCHO 11/LuLu.

Meme Corner

Beckett's Best: this just in


Tom Beckett selected Shanna Compton for his Third Thinking Blogger award; his first two were given to Geof Huth and Eileen Tabios.

*fait accompli* will announce our third choice in a few days: our first two were awarded to Ray Davis (who graciously accepted it, though I found out just today he dislikes memes); and our second went to Tom Beckett.

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Another Great 8

Boynton

Contradicta



In the heart of your wound, find your path.



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


Suffering shouts, happiness whispers.

There's No Such Thing As Intelligence: A Catchy Tune

Some days back, Ray Davis mentioned the above post by Joseph Kugelmass that I'm still rereading. Even if I don't agree with all of his conclusions, I am still returning to many of his allusions. I enjoyed his defense of psychoanalytically informed critique, which he notices are sometimes today too easily dismissed by weighted, if not weighty arguments. And he refers also to a blog called Sour Duck, which I read today and enjoyed a bit of metablogging, something I haven't seen much of for a while:

Sour Duck admits to some ambivalence about the stylistic limitations of blog writing, but feels that, in this context, content makes it all worth it. Kind of like, say, relationships.

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Perusing Ray Davis' loglist

Acephalous (Scott Eric Kaufman)

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Mark Young's *Lunch Poem*
Gamma Ways

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First New Katie Degentesh Post in Two Months

Bloggedy-Blog Blog

Further comments on *There is No Such Thing as Intelligence* The Kugelmass Episodes

It’s hard to imagine a more passionate defender of “brilliance” than Bloom, so I can see why you you brought him in. But I still think his *The Anxiety of Influence*has a lot to offer.

Some of my thoughts about your essay come out of working as a school social worker in NY for 25 years. I often get the feeling that in schools, and in society in general, the less people recognize the given talents and abilities of others, the more shrewdness is a valued and admired substitute for thinking.What happens when there is no status to be earned by intellectual accomplishments, according to the common sense idea that “if you’re so smart why aren’t you rich?” I just finished reading Gissing’s *New Grub Street.* In part, it seems to me, the book is an indictment of contemporary culture’s inability to benefit from the talents of those who cannot transpose their intellectual abilities into saleable skills. What would Gissing say now? I’ll bet there are not a few poverty stricken bloggers out there; and who can make a living as an adjunct? Edwin Reardon, the main character in *New Grub Street* dies clearly as a result of disease brought on by malnutrition. He had written a couple of brilliant novels and waited too long to take a job as clerk because, if he didn’t work as a brilliant intellectual, how were people to know he was one? In a rational and responsible society, it seems to me, it would be considered unethical to underrate people because the visible results of their talents do not match who they are as persons. People would then appraise others according to what they have to offer, not according to what they have been able to sell in themselves.

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OCHO 11is available from LuLu.

as is our own

Free Fall

The publisher, Mark Young, had this to say about Free Fall:

gamma ways

Happy Birthday Tom Beckett!

Tom Beckett video on *The Continental Review*

Beckett's *Unprotected Texts* reviewed in the current Jacket (#33, July 2007)

Tom Beckett/poetry/Otoliths

Allen Bramhall on Tom Beckett

Tom Beckett/Steps/Meritage Press

Tom Beckett, curator/E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S The First XI
Interviews/Otoliths

Tom Beckett's e-x-c-h-a-n-g-e- v-a-l-u-e-s blog

hb t.b. Arroyo Chamisa

Tom Beckett is the recipient of our second Thinking Blogger Award (the first was Ray Davis). Tom's blog, Soluble Census, as well as his earlier blogs, have become mainstays of the literary blogging world. Tom is a true thinking blogger if there ever was one: his openness, knowledgeability and dedication to poetry and poetry blogging are legendary. In the stormy seas of contemporary poetry, Tom Beckett's blog is a lighthouse and it is our pleasure to have proffered this token of appreciation. (fait accompli/ 7/17/07)

Tom Beckett today awarded Soluble Census' second Thinking Blogger Award to Eileen Tabios (the first went to Geof Huth)

By George

I've just finished reading the remarkable novel "New Grub Street* by George Gissing. For the past few years I've been searching out early novels that reveal underlying factors leading to the reality of social life as it is lived today. I've been fascinated by the work of Flaubert. Dickens, Wharton, Dreiser, James, Maugham and Orwell, to name a few, partcularly Flaubert's *Sentimental Education*, Orwell's *Keep the Apidistra Flying*, Wharton's *House of Mirth*, Dickens' *David Copperfield*, Maugham's "Of Human Bondage*, Dreiser's *Sister Carrie.*, and James' "Washington Square*. I've been trying to trace themes and connections in these writers, and have been garnering impressions and ideas about prophetic and predictive qualities in the turn of the century and early 20th century realist novel.Any suggestions? Please write to me at nickpoetique@earthlink.net.

The remarkable influence of George Gissing on George Orwell is discussed in an interesting essay I found today on the George Gissing site.

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E ratio9 edited by Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino is just out.

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Veni, Vidi, Vici

Tom Beckett (Soluble Census) has chosen the pied piper of Vispo as the recipient of his first Thinking Blogger award.

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pseudopodium loglist

The second selection, in our ongoing perusal of Ray Davis' loglist is the wonderfully titled
Languor Management

Tom Marches On

Tom Beckett kindly responds and accepts our Thinking Blogger Award and promises to continue the meme.

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While The Boss is Out to Lunch

check out The Process of Avant-Garde Practice, a longish essay on William Watkins' Blog

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Rain, Rain Go Away

but until it does, check out Amy King's Links
which include tons of audio interviews she has conducted, including one with Elaine Equi

King of Brooklyn
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Too Warm? Take Off Your

July Jacket and read on...
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If The Truth Be Told

Tracie Morris and Charles Bernstein sing a duet in
The Brooklyn Rail
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Rachel Maddow

our recent Provincetown neighbor interviews Steve Buscemi, our Park Slope neighbor
today on The Rachel Maddow Show | Air America Radio
Steve Buscemi will be in studio talking about his latest film

Tom Beckett

is the recipient of our second Thinking Blogger Award. Tom's blog, Soluble Census, as well as his earlier blogs, have become mainstays of the literary blogging world. Tom is a true thinking blogger if there ever was one: his openness, knowledgeability and dedication to poetry and poetry blogging are legendary. In the stormy seas of contemporary poetry, Tom Beckett's blog is a lighthouse and it is our pleasure to proffer this token of appreciation.

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pseudopodium loglist bloggers

The very first link we came across on the pseudopodium loglist is a gold nugget. Check outLink Machine

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On My Desk

Our New Orwell?

*Alibi* by Joseph Kanon

Multiple reviews of *Alibi*

*

Toni, an aficianado of 19th century novels loved *New Grub Street* by George Gissing

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Two More Great 8

Jean Vengua

Nicholas Manning

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Jean Vengua, in one of her 8 random facts, mentions she's read all of the stories of H. P. Lovecraft. I was reminded that my friend, the novelist Peter Straub, who has published many terrific novels in the horror genre, is the editor of the Library of America collection of The Tales of H.P. Lovecraft,

Anger at the Scale

Just as Katie Degentesh, pointedly critiques psychological tests in her book The Anger Scale, Kugelmass takes aim at the idea, and specifically, the culture of intelligence, in an essay Ray Davis notably mentions and links to it in his latest post, discussed below, possibly making an indirect critique of the notion of the award I had just presented him with! Enjoy, you geniuses: Kugelmass: There is No Such Thing As Intelligence.

I am not very much in agreement with Kugelmass' thesis. There may be no such thing as intelligence, per se, but there is such a thing as intelligent resourcefulness and this can be taught. Lets not drown the baby in the bathos, Mr. Kugelmass!! Also, check out K's arch reference to Harold Bloom's amazing book, *The Anxiety of Influence*. He seems to feel the A of I was written because Bloom could not create literature on his own (has he wanted to?), in the spirit of those who can do, and those who cannot, teach. Anyway, this is a fine and provocative essay, and our thanks to Ray Davis for pointing us to it.

Ray Davis

Whose blog pseudopodium recently celebrated its eighth birthday, and was our first choice for a Thinking Blogger award, has invited us to peruse his loglist in search of blogs worth thinking about. This is a fine recommendation for a veteran blogger to make, as in my own case, there has been a declining propensity to wade into the ever increasing ocean of new blogs. Happily, Ray takes the moment to talk a bit about himself, and in so doing, mentions Miranda Gaw, and Mark Woods. I see in my crystal ball another Thinking Blogger award coming into view. And who would deserve it more?

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Nobly Disheveled

ursprache

Kyle Schlesinger

has posted an interview he did with us at SUNY-Buffalo in 2000, published by Cuneiform in a chapbook edition of 100. It has not been otherwise published.

"What appeals to me about disrupting nar-
rative structure is the transgression of auto-
maticity. The “automatic” and the machine
gun are apt contemporary images for the
internally terrifying sensation of violence
exactly because 'reaction time' has been
effectively eliminated. No time for pity or
sympathy. Just plug’em. Simply stated: nar-
rative structure = violence. Or, as I put it in
The Boundary of Blur: The cutting edge of
narrative often turns to blood and is fasci-
nated by monsters."

Ray Davis Receives The Thinking Blogger Award

I've been thinking about the Thinking Blogger award. Having received this distinction the other day from Michael Lally, I've decided to pass it on to Ray Davis for his pseudopodium which recently reached its eighth birthday.


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from a Letter from Debussy to Robert Godet, 18 December 1911

"Talking of organization, I haven't managed so far to find what I want for my two Poe stories...They smell of the lamp and you can see the 'seams.' The longer I go on, the more I detest the sort of intentional disorder whose aim is merely to deceive the ear. The same goes for bizarre, intriguing harmonies which are no more than parlour-games...How much has first to be discovered, then supressed, before one can reach the naked flesh of emotion...pure instinct ought to warn us, anyway, that textures and colours are no more than illusory disguises."

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The Best of 8 Random Facts

Tom Beckett's Soluble Census
(It is rumored that Tom Beckett will soon receive a Thinking Blogger Award).

Ron Silliman announces The Age of Huts has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize

Speaking of classics, at his Zinc Bar reading, on Sunday, June 17 (Father's Day), Ron Silliman made the amazing announcement that his UC Berkeley Book, *The Age of Huts* has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize! Hear it for yourself (Ron reads second, after Jessica Smith). It is unclear at the moment whether this means that *Huts* is now a finalist-or was submitted by UC Berkeley for consideration as a nominated finalist- but either way, this is breaking poetry news!

Ron Silliman and Jessica Smith reading at the Zinc Bar

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New listings on our homepage at the Electronic Poetry Center
New
our EPC homepage("New" is under Online Works)

Classic

It is, of course, hard to predict what poems from our era will be seen in the future as classics. Yet it was no surprise to me that when I posted James Sherry's haunting poem "She'll Be Comin' Round" awhile back there were many appreciative comments and links posted on blogs. Here is James Sherry reading what I predict will be one of the poems that will be remembered in most future anthologies of today's poetry:

James Sherry reading "She'll Be Comin Round" via Penn Sound

We've Been Nominated!

by Michael Lally on his Lally's Alley blog for the Thinking Blogger Award, which we deeply appreciate. Check out Michael's other nominees. His blog, quickly becoming an online favorite, was nominated and he was asked to nominate five bloggers himself. Poet Michael Lally is also a successful film and tv actor.

Vengua's Velvet Voyage

Jean Vengua's excellent new book of poetry will include our blurb on its cover. Check it out on her blog

Okir

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Two Art Shows in Provincetown we visited last night were

Moby Dick, the chapters, Timothy Woodman, which continues at the Albert Merola Gallery, 124 Commercial Street, until July 19. Philip Hoare's new book about Melville *Leviathan* will be published in 2008. Timothy Woodman created the cover which is composed of coloful painted panels, each with a symbol for a chapter from the book.

Our friend Elizabeth Fodaski was there with her children and her husband, the artist Richard Baker. Liz told us she recently completed her MFA, studying with Elaine Equi and David Lehman. Liz is the author of fracas.

and

the Provincetown Art Associationwhich now features an ambitious full retrospective of work by the late artist Jim Hansen.

We were invited to these shows by Mira Schor, who, with Susan Bee, edited M/E/A/N/I/N/G which is now available online at M/E/A/N/I/N/G

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Close Listening

edited by Charles Bernstein was published in 1988. Google has placed the entire book online. One of the essays, mostly about found poetry, is our The Aural Ellipsis and the Nature of Listening in Contemporary Poetry. You can read it here:
Close Listening