Jack Gilbert: Poet Without a Career
Jim Finnegan

via Word Pond

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The Brooklyn Book Festival

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Argotist Online Interview with Sheila M. Murphy

Thanks to James Geary for featuring Contradicta: Aphorisms on

All Aphorisms All The Time

and to Jim Finnegan for the recommendation Uraprache

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Ten New poems from Ray DiPalma on Jacket 40

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The new book from Argotist Online is Ric Carfegna Symphony Number 2


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My Whole Street is a Mosque Mira Schor: A Year of Positive Thinking


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The latest Mipoesias

The new Argotist Online E-Book is Doom Cusp by David Meltzer

Jerome Sala (Expresso Bongo) on The Critic as Artist and Vice-Versa:Thoughts on Oscar Wilde, Wallace Stevens, and Nick Piombino (July 30)

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Mark Young writes about his father The Victorian Age


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Les Black "The Listeners" Eurozine
Via wood s lot

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Otoliths Number Eighteen

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The latest issue of Poets and Artists edited by Didi Menendez

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"Wikipedia refers to Sven Birkerts' 1994 study The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in the Electronic Age, and the work of developmental psychologist Maryanne Wolf, who pointed out the loss of "deep reading" capacity. Internet-savvy users, she states, seem to lose the ability to read and enjoy thick novels and comprehensive monographs".

The colonization of real-time and other trends in Web 2.0"

viaWood s lot
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Looking for Love: Douglas Messerli on Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts Green Integer Blog

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the new books on The Argotist Online:

The Blast Area by John Tranter

Pesticide Drift by F.A.Nettlebeck

Noise Difficulty Flower by J. D. Nelson

Solzhenitzen Jukebox by Ann Bogle
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Fragments of a Broken Poetics by Jennifer Moxley

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Blogging is Dead: :Long Live the Blog by Joshua Corey

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The new book on Argotist Online is A Year of Ordinary Moments by Rich Curtis


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New from Otoliths Expanding The Radius by Mary Ellen Derwis, Joe Balaz

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New Books from Argotist Online by Chris Stroffolino and Evelyn Posamentier


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Norman Fischer interviewed by Hank Lazer on the Argotist Online

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Fiber Optic Tapestry by Ligorano Reese- Kickstarter


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The new book from Argotist Online is


King Amour by Jack Foley

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A Celebration in Poetry and Art for Didi Menendez

50/50 Words and Images for Didi Menendez

High Resolution PDF

Low Resolution PDF


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The Project for Innovative Poetry

Today, Douglas Messerli posted a listing for me on his PIP blog:

THe Project for Innovative Poetry

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--Nico Vassilakis-asemic poetry--"In this episode, the alphabet refuses to be belittled by word logic and takes its revenge by dismantling it".
--from: The Bleed A journal of vital, progressive visual, concrete and experimental poetries

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Cpntradicta



While all lives end with death, most novels begin with one.



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Everything in the world exists in order to end up looking for a book.

Video: Stop Gambling on Hunger


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Amiri Baraka interview-- Argotist Online


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Don Share on Ron silliman on W. S. Merwin as Poet Laureate Squandermania

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Poets and Artists Summer 2010 (Didi Menendez, ed)

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Argotist Online E-Books

The two latest ebooks for Argotist Online are by Alan Sondheim and Jeff Harrison. Here is the entire backlist of free ebooks from publisher Jeffrey Side:Argotist Ebooks

The new ebook from Argotist Ebooks is “Stories Short and Strange” by Bill Drennan.

Description:

“Stories Short and Strange” is the first volume of a unique collection by Bill Drennan. These tales are typically laced with blends of absurdist science fiction, satire, childish cartoonism and black space humour.

Available as a free ebook here:

Stories Short and Strange

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The latest issue of Wig edited by Kristen Gallagher and Tim Shaner just arrived. This issue features watercolors by Steve Benson and writing from Laynie Browne, Del Ray Cross, Thom Donovan, Patrick Durgin, William Fuller, Kristen Gallagher, Judith Goldman, Brandon Holmquist, Rodney Koeneke, Richard Kostelanetz, Bill Marsh, Tim Shaner and Carol Szymanski. $10 to Tim Shaner at 130 E. 49th Avenue, Eugene, OR 97405 gets you 95 pages of exciting new art, poetry and commentary.

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The latest issue of Provincetown Arr Magazine features a cover, interview with Charles Bernstein and an article/essay about artist Mira Schor

Blog-A Year of Positive Thinking

Ray DiPalma- Obloquium and Committer of Tidings- 7 Poems (Jacket) .

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"Mr. E. was a self-made man who grew up in a poor immigrant family. He was a brilliant businessman, though, and for those at Pickwick who showed more than just a passing interest in the industry, he gave of his wisdom freely. ONe of the many pearls he shared with me was that although the best sellers are exciting, they come and go. It's basically a business of one's and two's when it comes to the backlist books that consistently make money for a bookstore over the long haul. More than three decades later, I believe this philosophy still holds true for independent bookstores."

An Alphabetical Life: Living it Up In the World Of Books- Wendy Werris- 2006

An Alphabetical Life- Goodreads listing

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.

* * *
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?


* * * *

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)


* * * * *

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

* * * * *

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

* * * *

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
* * *
Leslie Scalapino links, Silliman's Blog

* * *

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.


* * * * *
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.

* * *

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

* * * * *

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

* * * * *


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



* * * * *


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

* * * *
Contradicta


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



* * *


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

* * * * *

Life ia a Time of Contraction

Drunken Boat
* * * *
Mother's Day

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

* * * * *

Otoliths Issue 17

* * * *

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)


* * * * *

Ron Silliman Jacket Feature


* * * * *
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.
* * * *

Tony Torn's iBatross


* * * * *

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

* * * * *

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


* * * * *

Bob Perelman feature on Jacket

Bob


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Rae Armantrout Wins The Pulitzer Prize

* * * * *

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

* * * * *

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
* * * *
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

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

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Stacy Doris at Poet's House March 13

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

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In Your Speakers: Keepaway EP

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Nico Vassilakis Notes on Staring Word/for Word issue 15

Contradicta Aphorisms is now available from SPD


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The Health and Illness Anthology

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Mark Young's Genji Monogatari

"The Paulownia Court"

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

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

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From Publisher's Weekly:

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

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


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Music Vagabond keepaway intervew