"Suppose I was to postulate that being a writer is absolutely ludicrous"

is one of my favorite lines from Richard Foreman's current play
*The Gods Are Pounding My Head (AKA Lumberjack Messiah).*

Another line that makes me think: "In bad times the best that can
be done is to fail (is that what I believe. Even if I believe...)"

I kept jotting lines down from the play throughout, because in
this work, more than in any I can remember, Richard Foreman
appears to want to address the current circumstances
of life, in words, more directly than in any of his plays I can remember, going
back to the late 60's. "How can I activate my heart?" is another
line that surprised me. "Don't touch the big heart. Why can't
I see it?" "The action is elsewhere....Wake up into a world
where people are thin somehow." This line, which repeats
throughout the play, hits the nail on the head of contemporary
existence, for me. Also, throughout the play, two words are repeated
again and again, in varying contexts. These are: "tendency" and
"fidget."

Yet it's important to add that in this work, as in all his plays, words
and statements themselves are problematized. All of Foreman's plays,
perhaps a little less so in this one, make it clear that we
are always saying the same things, but these things are constantly
meaning something else. "We can never go into the future which
is behind us," and, "It's the world itself making these choices
on your behalf," are two paradoxes worthy of the description
"koan." The fact that everything said is also clearly directed to
himself makes this playwright worthy of the title philosopher, and this
line clinched it: "OK Richie, what do we do
with these things?"

Pancake People

Richard Foreman included some notes in the playbill that will
be quoted extensively here later when I have the time to write
more- in a rush right now. But think about this: "...today, I see
within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner
density with a new kind of self- evolving under the pressure of information
overload and the technology of the 'instantly available.' A new self
that needs to contain less and less of an inner repertory of dense
cultural inheritance- as we all become "pancake people"- spread
wide and thin as we connect with that vast network of information
accessed by the mere touch of a button."

The Gods Are Pounding My Head (AKA Lumberjack Messiah)
by Richard Foreman is a joy to behold. Sadly, I have no time
to write about this further now, but if you do nothing else today-
call and make a reservation for this play- reputed to possibly
Foreman's final contribution in this form that he has been working
in since 1968- the completely live staged play- and towards
a form that includes more multimedia elements. We'll see about
that- but either way- make sure to see this wonderfully performed,
gorgeously staged, intensely thought-provoking work.

ontological-hysteric theater {click here}

"Winners"

"If, as is often said, you can't win, it is perhaps because
when you do you have so much to lose. To put it a
little gloomily winning could be called the mark of Abel.
It would be beautiful to photograph the winners of anything
from Nobel prize to booby prize, clutching trophy or money
or certificate, solemn or smiling or bloody, on the
precarious pinnacle of the human landscape."

Text for a project on winners from
Diane Arbus 1962 notebook (No. 8)

[Copied at the Diane Arbus show now
up at the Metropolitan Museum. A
must-see without doubt!]

*Blade Runner* Rides Again

I was at home sick with a aching, sneezy cold
on a gray, incessantly rainy day and
happened to have gotten to the library recently
and pulled a book off the shelf that wierdly
felt like I already knew all about it, and
in a way, I did. The book is resonant with
concepts of deja vu, and problematizes
memory in ways that Proust is famous for,
though sadly I find that eminent author impossible
to read. This book I found is the kind that
can make you glad you have a terrible cold, almost.

Also, if you're a Phillip K. Dick fan, or
a *Blade Runner* fan, you definitely will
want to check out

Los Angeles {click here} by Peter Moore Smith, a novel
I enjoyed almost, but not quite, as much as Grant Bailie's *Cloud 8* and
for similar reasons. First of all, it's a page turner, and secondly
it deals with a lonely figure whose effort to figure out love,
life and the world takes you into unexpected regions. In
this case that region is Los Angeles, a mythical Hollywood
that exists as much in the imagination of the world as it does
in the mind of the central character of this striking second novel.
The main character is an albino who is misogynistic, drug
and alcohol addicted, but, in his own way, as charming as Salinger's Holden
Caulfield. One of his quirks is leaving *Blade Runner* on
on his TV all the time, something I nearly did myself for many years
(the Ridley Scott movie came out in the early 80's).
Who knows, Angel may become this generation's "Catcher in the Rye"
(of course, this one is 30, not 16)
whose attitudes cut right through all the contemporary platitudes about
money, love, religion and politics. What happens is that rich, lonely albino Angel
(his father is a fabulously wealthy movie director) gets visited by
sultry, electrifying, black Angela, who then disappears,
making Angel (himself, a putative screen writer) a
Blade Runner in reverse; he has to find Angela to save her.
His travels take us through the underside of Hollywood as a metaphor
for contemporary existence, most pointedly, family, memory, and the agonizing
process of maturation. The tough, noir language is as irrisistible
as a second scotch on a lonely night. And it's as hard to book this book down
as it is for Angel to put a bottle of pills down; the trip is wild, and worth it.

That Chicago Sound

Elaine Equi, Kimberly Lyons and
Sharon Mesmer wrote to us regarding
our post *The Chicago School* in
reponse to Sharon Mesmer and Elaine
Equi's recent reading at the Bowery
Poetry Club. Elaine wrote:

"...I think you're right, there is a Chicago sound -- funny, talky, kind of
surreal (they were big there for a while)."

Kimberly Lyons sent us the following response.

"Hi Nick,
I'm sweating cuz such a casual remark to you bloggers leads to a thing. Keeps us on our toes!
Sure, I was a freshman and Elaine a senior so to speak at Columbia College. A few years later Sharon Mesmer, and Debbie Pintonelli and Connie Deanovitch came to Columbia. We all studied with Paul Hoover and in some sense Maxine Chernoff. But there wasn't a school. Not sure how much social interaction there was of any of the aforementioned parties until NYC. There certainly are shared concerns through time in the work and styles if you will among these writers and many more - but I know most of them would resist identification as "Chicago" writers.


Elaine E and Jerome S. were at one time part of and even originators of a scene that I think came off of a punk and performance and various literary affilitations . Their work and audiences became inclusive of LA cohorts that I think involved Amy Gerstler, David Trinidad and others. Once they moved east and after years of intensive individual work they are quite independent and have even individuated from each others work! I think their work now needs to be read in the context of the New York School, including Ron Padgett, Elmslie and Brainard; Lang( and 2nd generation lang po) including Bruce Andrews, Rob Fittterman, Rae Armentrout and many other affilitations that criss-cross coteries. Equi and Sala's early work did manifest that cluster of characteristics you listed --as does Sharon Mesmer's work. The divergences and sympathies among these writer's work would be a longer dialogue and reading. Worth doing.
The Chicago poetry scene and the style you allude to or are trying to define, takes its energy, I think, from Chicago's particular working class politics, African American culture (think of the avante garde African American jazz performers coming out of Chicago), comedy, and Chicago's longtime involvement with surrealism - from Breton's famous visit to Maxwell Street to the collecting of the Bergmans; the centerpiece of the Art Institute's Cornell collection. When I was a teen, it was big news when Franklin Rosemont's group threw flour all over Robert Bly at a reading at the Body Politic. The Chicago Imagist painters work also reflects these forces: Big Table magazine, The Little magazine, even Poetry and the Chicago Literary Review and vestiges of other literary scenes has energized activity- even in the ephemeral way of these histories. The brief presence of Ted Berrigan and Alice Notley in Chicago instigated, I believe, a whole new opening up of styles and Barbara Barg, Susie Timmons, Bob Holman, Bob Rosenthal, Shelley Kraut's commitment to poetry and their later moving east. The 15 Chicago Poets group (my tag) are an intereresting constellation. Art Lange's Brilliant Corners, for instance, is a great unsung magazine. Anyway, this is a larger situation and I'm not making a claim for any of the writers' work mentioned as being subsumed in this context - more as being in an unavoidable relationship. My own and Sharon's work, as is evident from her great new collection of stories form Hanging Loose, I think remains haunted by the geography of the experience. The look and feel of things there....

yours, Kim"

Creeley Memorial Reading on The Radio

Matthew Shindell and James Meetze's new show
will open with readings from Robert Creeley
and some tributes from Timothy Yu and others
KSDT radio.org {click here}
on Sunday, April 3rd from 4-6 pm

via
wood s lot {click here}

Transitions

Learning, finding, understanding, unraveling, working through:
all require patience, that transitional music between one melody
and the next. Every success, no matter how large or small
requires it, not just to locate the switch that turns on the lightbulb of
inspiration, but to then find a way to illuminate the room and the landscape
that are to be transformed by the benefits of such enlightenment.
Even procrastination has within it a tiny germ of how
this kind of waiting ought to feel.

All this rushing around is destroying everything: affection, charm,
connection- every possible accomplishment. Contemporary life
never ceases to conspire to deflect us from the one activity that can't
fail to bring us closer to all that we most need and want: real thinking.

The Best Minds

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed
by madness, starving, hysterical, naked..."
Allen Ginsberg

"In art, there is all too much thinking about liking
and disliking."
Jackson Mac Low



For quite awhile now I’ve been postponing reading
*The Best American Poetry 2004* edited by Lyn Hejinian,
though I knew I would, inevitably. How could I ignore a
project like this from such a first-rate mind?
I took it home from the library today, and I dipped into it
and thought: this is going to be difficult. Of course, there are
the expectable ideas or reactions about not having been
included, any poet might feel this. But, as I read through it, I realized
a few of the reasons that I have had some problems reading
AND writing poetry, especially of late. For a very long time, especially since
9/11, I’ve noticed that I frequently avoid newspapers,
news broadcasts, sad movies and many other things
that might depress me. (By the way, my work as a
therapist does not at all affect me this way – on the
contrary, it is stimulating and interesting because I find
doing therapy intensely engrossing,
more and more over time, especially
because I enjoy learning and most of all following
and trying to assist the process of change.)

As soon as I began to read the book, it occurred
to me that a great deal of contemporary poetry continually
reflects on disillusionment and suffering, and not
a little of it, including much of my own recent work
focuses on the hardships of being a poet.
I am tired of thinking about this. I think about it
all the time. It feels like I have always thought
about this all the time. I closed the book and considered
writing a satiric parody of a contemporary poem. But
oh please, not that again! So I reopened the
book and continued reading here and there.

Then, as I paged through the book, I got an idea.
I thought of pulling out one sad, depressed, angry,
bitter or tragic line from each poem. At first I
did this in a provocative or critical way, but then
it became a way of reading the book with an eye
towards insight. While thinking about the work in
this way, I discovered that the book is, in fact,
very worthwhile reading, an absorbing assemblage
of poetic minds and approaches to writing
and thinking about poetry; and also, that the
overall selection does connect; and very beautifully
so. In this manner I forced myself to read each and every
poem completely , though quickly, in order to select the one
line or phrase from each work to include here.
It's interesting also to note, that
when I have read a book of poems in this way, I will
inevitably return to it, as I have made my acquaintance
now with the poems (and in a number of cases, the
poets), and I have become curious about getting to know
them better. (The obvious benefit of a useful anthology).
Finally, I constructed a title from two of the lines.
*****************************************************

“Going Toward Nothing”: “The Self-Stung Unfolding”

(Lines from The Best American Poetry of 2004, edited by Lyn Hejinian)




“she should have stayed in her little cage
shat on by her sisters above her” (15)

“Not some writhing in a tortuous canine presence” (17)

“tighten up your resumé sphincter living for a better suicide” (22)

“Almost all the words we’ve said to one another are gone” (26)

“bombing another car…you so hate” (29)

“Now see the damage” (31)

“We were going toward nothing/all along” (32)

“Does something for everyone mean nothing for anyone” (34)

“Memory is to life like a band-aid to a wound” (38)

“I know I’m fucked” (43)

“…he went ballistic” (45)

“’From those who have nothing, even what they have
will be taken away,’ I thought” (46)

“I am on a drive where a mirror has collapsed” (48)

“his face a glass that has shattered but not yet fallen” (51)

“…the city on the hill having failed us” (54)

“It is difficult to describe what we felt” (55)

“who’s pushing who?” (58)

“-your negligence constantly reminds-“ (59)

“and there’s plenty to be unhappy about” (61)

“*I am wretched*” (63)

“stunned from the sleep of a Nobody” (66)

“Inducing doubt and self-hatred in all you come into contact with” (71)

“sent out a feeble cry signifying
grief and confusion, et cetera” (73)

“its heartless calculation, its profound sadness” (78)

“something dirty, something you only do if you are sick and caught in deep clots of blood” (81)

“Adolf Hitler’s radio rant” (85)

“Desperate to see themselves as merry/
In the mirror they carry around with them” (88)

“I returned your book of poetry to the store/
I returned to the scene of the crime” (90)

“Molten days, because of lingering
Nothing’s personal, including yours” (93)

“I have lost the doves of Milan, floating politely” (94)

“Baby would be raped or murdered by now
kidnapped or placed in a holding cell at the police station…” (99)

“*I think I know, but the world’s still mum*” (109)

“Anything can happen under these conditions. Nuclear bombs, dirty/ bombs, small time random murder, and abduction” (117)

“and then everyone gone and not found” (123)

“the beginning of a sentient, formless life” (125)

“I am none but the king of sad persuasion” (126)

“I heard a voice saying ‘Blundering
Coma dancing wild ineptitude…” (131)

“The speculations of that secret self/
For whom to even try to talk to you is death” (134)

“…a replenished body
singing its way into doubletalk” (136)

“Dark passages wait for us…” (142)

“And still we did not speak, did
not know to whom to speak…” (146)

“…a republic of none, the one included/us,/
no one to speak it with, dumbstruck” (148)

“no longer dreaming plowing on through thick mud” (153)

“Perhaps Paul Celan is the crematorium built
especially for Language poets” (161)

“…frozen in terror” (169)

“Is bad weather coming/
how would we know/
Is bad weather coming
call everyone” (174)

“an era of night sweats, gasps and pants” (177)

“the paranoia I feel about all the award
winners
I’m like king of the losers again” ( 179)

“why is the president so popular? because he is vicious” (184)

‘Like an x-ray of infant bronchitis. Wrist slitting stuff” (186)

“Don’t invite me to your pity party.
Don’t call me up on your pity party line
and invite me over for punch and cookies.
I won’t come…” (187)

“terrible vision. I don’t think I can fall asleep” (188)

“a terror that being emperor in no matter how many other brains/can’t squash” (191)

“but nothing sticks, that doesn’t/
have to. Not memory;
not the naming…”(193)

“City of healers and cheaters” (195)

“Your themes/ are plein-air/ endless/ sad.” (197)

“jumping in flames from roaring height for a fooled god/
and his cow disease of long rotting memories” (198)

“Don’t look here for a view
the ice will just cream all over you
latency barometer zero” (201)

“on I trouble raped” (204)

“listen to me./ mirrordown./ these notions are halfbaked understand/
it’s just what’s right/ I’m tired just let me rest” (206)

“The melanoma on my skin
Resumes what’s wrong with me within” (207)

“In the injured house
made of local sun and stone-
In the city of numbers
Which everyone counts and hates and wants-“ (214)

“Lines link lives like words,
glances, an embrace, capable
entirely of administration, deceit,
want, need, the long sigh,
meaning evident to no one.” (223)

“*slowly, poetry had failed me*” (224)

“People are like ciphers. They say this. They say that.” (227)

“just a mistake- I scream outright at the likeness.” (228)

“…when the sky opens up/
and pelts the earth with a momentary lapse of crying.” (229)

“eighteen women in singular postures of
mourning along the sides of the sarphagus;” (231)

“The sudden pressure to
act normal was killing me.” (233)

“..inventing a paranoia into the sleepless
monster that is this bastard maggot poetry.” (236)

“Raucous how fun to rip it apart soon…
Poetry scene lurker as mass-popular unit.” (240)

“We who love precise language
Need a finer way to convey
Disappointment and perplexity.” (241)

“And the chorus of tone-deaf guards is bellowing
Lock down and Body Search! Silence and Lights Out!” (243)

“Nothings undoing among the self-stung unfolding of things.” (244)

susan and connie

Susan Bee and Corinne Robins*
(Charles Bernstein in background)
taken at the Poetry Plastique show
at the Maryann Boesky Gallery
February 2001

*photo by Toni Simon

Poetry Radio Show with Matthew Shindell and James Meetze-Coming Soon!


Maximum Go in the Resulting Hogshead {click here}

Stacy Doris and Chet Weiner, The Ear Inn, January 1996

Chet Weiner and Stacy Doris at the Ear Inn,
January 1996*

*photo by Toni Simon

The Chicago School of Poetry

A google seach of the above phrase led me to a citation
on Carl Sandburg, Vachel Lindsay, and Edgar Lee Masters
who were active from 1860-1914. I would like to propose
a more recent phenomenon that might be known as
the Chicago School, that includes Elaine Equi, Jerome
Sala, Sharon Mesmer, and Kimberly Lyons. Would welcome
hearing about others: please write me by clicking the
contact box above. I am
quite sure there are many others, and would love to
learn who they might be. Kimberly Lyons* and I got to
discussing this right after Sharon Mesmer's and shortly
before Elaine Equi's readings yesterday afternoon
at the Bowery Poetry Club. It happens that Kimberly
was studying in Chicago around the same time that
Jerome Sala, Elaine Equi and Sharon Mesmer
were writing and performing there. By now you must
surely know that Jerome Sala was challenged to having
the first known performance bout held in a boxing ring,
back in the 70's, certainly one of the earliest if not *the*
first inspirations for what is now known
as Slam Poetry (this will be documented, I learned from
Jerome in a book of interviews on Oral Poetry to be published
by Soft Skull Press, including an interview with him).

Although I am unable to list enough characteristics
right now to definitively elucidate the qualities of a possible
Chicago School of poetry, one of them would certainly be the presence
of sparking, provocative, witty, charming, and not infrequently
hilarious, paradoxical and/or shocking anecdote. Yet these
so-called anecdotes might be better described as parables
or even fables. In Mesmer's performance I am thinking
of one in particular that offers an account of an intimate
relationship in the 70's with the bass player of the Bay
City Rollers. Here, my own descriptive powers fail me.
Like an excellent film, I will be thinking about it for days.
But I will say the following about this reading as
well as Elaine Equi's reading yesterday:
amazing, awesome,breathtaking, brilliant,
fabulous, fantastic, magnificent,
marvelllous, outstanding, sensational, super,
superb, tremendous, wonderful. Got the idea?

I had a few free moments right before the reading to
run over to the St Mark's Book Shop at 31Third
Avenue, near East 10th Street. Fortunately,
this is only a very short walk to the Bowery
Poetry Club, at Bowery near Houston Street,
so the two activities make for a great double
feature. One of the books I purchased was
*The Frequencies: a poem* by Noah Eli Gordon.
from James Meetze's Tougher Disguises Press
in 2003. In the very first poem, Noah Eli Gordon
writes: "It might be adding amnesia to my
watering can, but the saddest thing in the world
is someone's to-do list stuffed in the pocket of
my new thrift-store coat." When I read that line last
night after getting home after the readings, and
after dinner with Jerome and Elaine and after
going to the St Mark's Bookstore a second
time yesterday, I remembered a haunting
poem that Elaine read yesterday which I can't
quote precisely but was dedicated to Joe Brainard
and said something to the extent that one should always
leave something undone on one's to-do list
so that one feels there is always something left
to do. Oh, I wish I had written out the one about
the seasons that went something like: Winter is
fortitude, Spring is longitude, Summer is turpitude,
Fall is gratitude (this is only a paraphrase of sorts,
but it went on beautifully like this for a few rounds).

Elaine Equi {click here}


Coming soon at the Zinc Bar: A book party
for a new book of stories by Sharon Mesmer from
Hanging Loose Press {click here}


Sharon Mesmer {click here}


*This is from Kimberly Lyons' new book *Saline* (Instance Press, 2005):
"At night, with a fever, the smell is of my own tongue,
swollen and of a washrag. Peppermint pink
stripped, it feels alien and particular as though my skin had
detached and was being reapplied in rough strokes by a
hovering woman. She is shushing but I'm not sure who
is making noises or why."
*********************************
Thanks to Jordan Stempleman (Growing
Nation) {click here}

for writing to us about
The Poetry Center
of Chicago {click here}

*********************************
Gina Myers was at Elaine's reading
also.

A Sad Day For Sad Birds {click here}

This Just In: Films on UBUWEB

UBU WEB {click here}
[Caveat: UBUWEB recommends downloading rather tthan streaming
these films, as they are large files]

III.5 *Pacis Amor deus est, pacem veneramur amantes*

"The god of peace is Love, we lovers venerate peace:
Hard battles with my mistress suffice for me.
My heart is not consumed for hateful gold,
My thirst doesn't drink from cups of precious stone,
Fat Campania's not ploughed for me by a thousand yoke.
I get no bronzes from your ruin, hapless Corinth.

O primal earth Prometheus unluckily shaped-
Too little prepared, he began to work on our hearts:
Skilfully ordering bodies, he did not look to the mind.
From the first there should have been a straight path
For the soul: now we are tempest-tossed far out to sea:
We seek out enemies, and join fresh wars to wars.
You shall carry no riches to Acheron's waters:
Naked, fool, you'll be borne on hell's ferry.
Victor and victim shades are mingles as equals:
Consul Marius, you sit by the captive Jugurtha.
Lydian Croesus does not stand off from Dulichian Irus:
The death is best which comes at fate's appointed hour.
I am glad that in early youth I worshipped Helicon,
And linked my hands in the Muses' choral dance:
I am glad that plenteous Bacchus enchains my mind,
And always to wreathe my head in vernal roses.
When heavy age has interrupted Venus
And age's white has brindled my black hair,
Then may it please me to study's nature's ways:
Which god controls by art our home this world;
How comes the rising sun, how sinks, and how each month,
Horns brought together, the moon returns to the full;
Whence winds overmatch the deep, what Eurus snatches
At with his squall, whence the clouds' perennial water;
If a day shall come which undermines world-fortresses;
Why the shining bow imbibes the water of rain;
Why Perrhaebian Pindus' summits shook
And the sun has mourned, horses draped in black;
Why Bootes is late to turn his oxen and cart,
Or the Pleiads group their fiery dance so close;
Or why the deep main does not exceed its bounds;
Or why the whole year passes in four sections;
If underground are tortured Giants; gods' laws;
If Tisiphone's head is maddened with black snakes;
Alcmaeon's Furies, Phineus' hunger,
The wheel, the rock, the thirst amid the waters;
If Cerberus guards with triple jaws the pit
Of hell; nine acres too strait for Tityus:
Or fictions have come down to hapless folk,
And no alarms can be beyond the pyre.

Such going is what is left to me. You
Who welcome war, fetch Crassus' standards home."

from *Propertius/The Poems*
translated by W.G. Shepherd
Penguin Books, 1985

The Unbearable Lightness of Blogging

::fait accompli:: is proud to announce
we have been banned by *foetry*!

Now, get this: the foetry blog links to my name-here's the link on Google:

Foetry :: View topic - A new Blog!
... some-combination just haven't seemed like the types that would have run a blog with
a blogroll that included Jordan Davis, Jim Behrle, Nick Piombino, Josh Corey ...
foetry.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=2296& - 58k - Cached - Similar pages

and then bans me from visiting it even though I've never attempted
to visit the blog...But we're in excellent company!

Here's the link:

LISTSERV

foetry {click here}

from *The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950*
Cesare Pavese

"12 August (1940)

Love and poetry are mysteriously linked, because both
are a desire for self-expression, for talk and communication,
no matter with whom. An orgiastic desire for which there is
no substitute. Wine can induce a fictitious state of the same
sort, and, in fact, a drunkard talks and talks and talks."

"14 August (1940)

A man succeeds in completing a work only when his
qualities transcend that work."....

"10th October (1940)

There is an art in taking the whiplash of suffering
full in the face, an art you must learn. Let each single attack
exhaust itself; pain always makes single attacks, so that its
bite may be more intense, more concentrated. And you, while
its fangs are implanted and injecting their venom at one spot,
do not forget to offer it another place where it can bite you,
and so relieve the pain of the first. Real suffering is made up
of many thoughts. You can think only one thought at a time,
so learn how to dodge from one to another, and you will
relieve each pain in turn."

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

"What I hear whispered, I whisper to you."


Ketih Waldrop
*Semiramis if I Remember
(Self-Portrait As Mask)*
Avec, 2001

Vispo Show at the Durban Segini Gallery, Miami, Florida {click here}

Spring In This World Of Poor Mutts

was the title of a book of poetry by the superb poet
Joe Ceravolo. Early this morning, at about 7:30 am,
the first moment of Spring, the vernal equinox, occurred.
What poet does not respond to the coming of Spring
without a little song in the heart? Lots of songs were in the air
yesterday at the Bowery Poetry Club where we went to hear and see
Tim Peterson and Brenda Iijima. Tim, whose
blog is Mappemunde {click here},
and who sponsors the Analogous series (see the blog for details,
Lyn Hejinian and Emilie Clarke are presenting today, in Cambridge, Mass),
has had two chapbooks published, one titled Cumulous from
Brenda Iijima’s Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, and the other
from Jack Kimball’s ebook faux press, Trinkets Crushed In A Blender.
On Saturday, Tim, in a ringing, clear, yet sensitive and lyrical voice,
read mostly from his chapbook Cumulous. His reading style put these
absorbing works in a fine light: syncopated, sure, the line enjambments
came through strikingly, criss-crossing each other, and creating a layered effect
of meanings and juxtapositions. We hope he comes back soon, as some
who unfortunately may have missed this program, deserve another
chance to hear him. Brenda, who is a painter as well as a poet,
read works from her recent book
around sea- O Books {click here}.
My copy was purchased directly from Brenda at her reading a few months back at the Zinc Bar, and
I obtained one whose cover was graced by a painting she added by hand;
she had brought a number of copies, each with a unique cover.
As a publisher and as a poet, Brenda reveals an inventive
outpouring and wide range of thought-provoking ideas and
interests. Her unmatchable determination and fortitude were
revealed on this occasion by the fact that she read in spite of a
terrible case of the flu. Still, in an aside, she had the focus to talk
about a recent article concerning the thought processes of animals,
and wondered aloud if the poem she was about to read were channeled
to her by the local birds!
Noted in the audience were poets Rodrigo Toscano,
Mark Weiss and Mitch Highfill, as well as bloggers
Xtina Strong and Drew Gardner.

The emcee, Charles Borkhuis accompanied a few of us
to one of the BPC poets’ favorite local Indian restaurants
Haveli, where Toni and I had to content ourselves with
appetizers because we had reservations so soon nearby
at PS 122 for Fiona Templeton’s, workshop version of a few
acts from her play-in-progress Medead. Before we left,
Mitch Highfill gave Toni and I a copy of Kimberly Lyons’
new book Saline from Instance Press, in Boulder. Colorado,
with a cover designed by Brenda Iijima and Anna Moschovakis.
The title is taken from the concluding prose poem:
“Like perpendicular shadows, people grab one another
suddenly in affection. Rattle drawers throwing everything
to the floor while looking for keys or something bought at a
drugstore or something found behind papers on a high shelf.
A person might scream in pain or seem beset with some feeling
while looking for this. People laugh so hard they kick their boots
on the floor and tears come to their eyes.”

[Aside: this quote was changed from the original version
of this post, which was completed and then unfortunately
bleeped out, due to so-called “instability” in the functioning
of blogger. The quote beautifully reflected my
response to this experience]

Then we hurried over to PS 122. “Medea on the Argo”
and “Medea in Corinth” by
Fiona Templeton {click here}
were shown as parts of a
development workshop by the Mabou Mines
Resident artist program for 2004-2005.
The cast included: Amelie Champagne Lyons as Medea in
Aia, Clarinda MacLow aas Medea on the Argo,
Theo Stockman played Jason, Jackson Loo was Orpheus,
Anna Kohler played Medea in Corinth and Valda Setterfield
was "Medea returns and bird". The latter referred to the bird
sounds created by Valda Setterfield during the first part, a
moving, eerie musical accompaniment to most of the
first act evoking a lonely sea voyage. Clarinda MacLow
was electrifying as Medea in this part, bringing together
a powerful portrayal of Medea’s insanity with a rendering
of Fiona Templeton’s poignant poetry that will be
long remembered by all who were there.
Between the acts during a break,
Toni mentioned that she thought of
Clarinda MacLow’s father, the late Jackson Mac Low’s
poetry performances, during most of the first act, and,
though I hadn’t thought of this, I knew exactly what she meant.
Clarinda has certainly had much experience hearing and seeing poetry
read by one of the greatest poets of her generation, her father the late
Jackson Mac Low. Still, her own performance
work revealed astonishing originality
and penetrating insight into human emotions and conflict.

Anna Kohler’s Medea dominated the second half,
and was also powerful. Much of her performance
took place on a platform moved by pulleys and her mastery
of Templeton’s poetry was also impressive.
I was reminded of how astonished I was seeing
Mac Wellman’s plays some years ago, when actors
were able to memorize page after page of
highly disjunctive poetry and work with their roles
as if they were speaking ordinary language.
Anna Kohler created her Medea masterfully,
portraying the character’s motivations and conflicts
with convincing psychological reality,
without losing any of the haunting,
yet forceful and stirring aspects of Templeton’s poetry.
“What, unraveling already?”, she says at one point,
as her character’s personality dissolves
in the agonistic atmosphere
of her homicidal conflicts. Templeton’s poetry, in the speeches of her
characters demands to know, again and again:
what do our words really say
about what we are experiencing and wishing
or trying to say to one another?
At just the moment when I was writing that last comment
on my playbill, Medea (Anna Kohler) was saying:
“A baby is an easy word to say. It’s a hard eared basket case.”
At another point Medea says to the chorus:
“If it’s not true how do we know so much about it?”
The chorus answers in one voice: “It was told!”
It was told indeed, and told well and masterfully
by Fiona Templeton & cast.

And, thankfully, there’s more to come: The playbill tell us:
"Watch for more this summer at The Ice Factory, with Valda Setterfield as Medea:
Ice Factory {click here}

"Be big."

Ted Berrigan
from *Bean Spasms*

*****************
Remembered Poem- Ted
Berrigan on the EPC {click here}

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Blogger

Well, no one's "passed the stick" to poor lonely
::fait accompli:: so, we are going to crash the party
and say that: the book we would save from the
fires of the Fahrenheit flames is: *Voices* by
Antonio Porchia.

Reading: right now mainly:

*How To Make A Living As A Poet* by Gary Mex Glazner,
Soft Skull Press, 2005. Due to the fact that Soft Skull is
about to publish by my good friend Jerome Sala's new book
of poems

Look Slimmer Instantly {click here},

and that I am an admirer of Soft Skull's general attitude and politics, I gladlly accepted an emailed offer of a review copy of How To Make A Living As A Poet {click here}, even though the title kind of made me wonder about it. You remember hearing about Gary Mex Glazner, I am sure. He's the guy that left 45,000 copies of his book on guest pillows in hotels all over the country awhile back.. Actually, the book is a collection of quite interesting interviews with poets, including one with that human dynamo, the owner-operator of the Bowery Poetry Club, Bob Holman. The book must have been in process for years, as the interview was done when Bob was just getting the place into shape: "I love this point, where it's got paper on the windows like it's just meant to write on and also cause I'm so scared it's not going to work at all. There's so much that's been done over the last couple of years. There's so much left to do. .." There are numerous other interviews, including those of Sherman Alexie, Janine Pommy Vega, and Naomi Shihab Nye who titles her piece: "The Word Career Does Not Fit My Whole Way Of Thinking About Poetry , but the Word Devotion Does*- a terrific piece. There are numerous other interesting chapters, including Glazner's cogent advice on how Poetry magazine might best spend their 100 million dollar bequest. Anyway, despite the faux ad agency hype title, this is a book well worth its modest price of $15.

I quite realize I haven't been asked, but I'l tell you anyway that I'm also reading: *The House of Mirth* by Edith Wharton, and just finished reading *Jane Eyre*. I'm on a kick of reading novels by women writers, so if you have any suggestions please let me know: nickpoetique@earthlink.net.

Desert island books? *V.imp* by Nada Gordon; David Copperfield; The Tennis Court Oath-Ashbery; Theodore Dreiser-Jennie Gerhardt; Bernadette Mayer,-Studying Hunger; Frank Kuenstler-Lens; Charles Bernstein- Republics of Reality; Barrett Watten-Bad History; Carla Harryman-Under the Bridge; Joe Ceravolo-Fits of Dawn; Phillip K. Dick-Time Out of Joint; kari edwards-Day in the Life of P; David Bromige-Desire; Ron Silliman-Tjanting; Jackson Mac Low-Twenties; Walter Benjamin-Selected Writings; Orwell-1984; Grant Baille-Cloud 8; Finnigan's Wake; Joan Retallack -Errata Suite; Jerome Sala- Raw Deal;Tom Phillips -Humament; Elaine Equi -Views without Rooms; Allen Ginsberg-Howl; Cesare Pavese -The Burning Brand; Cesar Vallejo-Trilce. Ann Lauterbach-If In Time; I mean, there's plenty of room on a desert island, right?

I'll leave you with this line from *The House of Mirth*:

"The Wetheralls always went to church. They belonged to the vast group
of human automata who go through life without neglecting to
perform a single one of the gestures executed by the surrounding puppets."