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review of Mark Young, editor, Otoliths issue fifty-six, part two by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - January 31, 2021 I wrote in my review of part one of review of Mark Young, editor, Otoliths issue fifty-six, part two by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - January 31, 2021 I wrote in my review of part one of this ( https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ): "It appears online 1st & then is available, somewhat expensively IMO, as POD hard-copy." Part One is Black & White, Part Two is color. I shd qualify my "somewhat expensively IMO" comment by noting that the printer, who I believe is Lulu, is a bit more expensive than other printers but has a reputation for quality. That quality might not be so obvious in the B&W part but in the color it's glorious. For people who revel in the eye candy of art bks this is definitely a treat - whether one likes the art or not hardly even matters! The lusciousness of the color is sensually overwhelming. What complicates Otoliths, I think for the better, is that it isn't so much an "art" bk as it is a Visual Poetry / Asemic Writing (etc) bk. While that distinction might seem excessively esoteric to people just looking at the work in terms of broader categories, it's probably important for both the creators of the work & for people trying to come to terms w/ it. Or maybe I'm the only one who cares about such nuance. Then again, my claim of textual underpinnings is refuted by the 5 paintings by Judith Skillman that start off the volume after the ToC. These are easily categorized as "art" so if you try to come to terms w/ them you shd be careful that you don't 'buy' the Brooklyn Bridge. The piece that follows, Hao Wang's "Night, Moon and Dream: A Collage of Poems by Li Bai and Other Ancient Chinese Poets", helps make the transition between "art" & visually emphasized textuality. 1st there's a color image, easily enuf interpreted as representational: a sun (or moon), a sky (seemingly a night one), & some hills. This is followed by 2 lines of black txt in Chinese. Then the ideograms in red w/ their names next to them. Then an English translation in black. This pattern follows throughout. The poems are simple. Here's the 1st in translation: "The moon shines on my bed brightly. So that I mistook it for frost on the ground." - pp 10-11 I found these exciting (although I found the periods a bit mystifying). Texas Fontanella's work appears in collaboration w/ 3 other people: John M. Bennett, C. Mehrl Benett, & Stuart Wheatley. What I'm about to say about this is something that just isn't done in poetry world. In Poetry World, one must scratch everyone else's back. Or else find one's self banned to the outskirts where the ill-mannered louts live & prance. Fontanella uses a technique of taking pre-existing texts & scratching out all but the chosen words. This technique fascinated me when I 1st saw it in Tom Philips's A Humament (1970). In fact, I found it stunning. I was a little less stunned when I saw the technique used in Crispin Hellion Glover's Oak Mot but the bk is so lovely & Glover's such an extraordinary person that I was still impressed. But Fontanella's use of the technique 50 yrs after Philips's use of it just seems done-to-death: How can anyone be satisfied w/ still using this technique w/o adding one jot of originality?! Beats me. Of course, what 'saves' Fontanella's work (somewhat) is the collaborator's part. John M. Bennett's work is original, his 'spidery' handwriting is distinctly his own & serves to both present words & a unique visual. In his collaboration w/ Fontanella (pp 20-28) & his solo work (96-103) crumpled brownish paper towels are used to add to the texture. I find the effect extraordinary. Sometimes the paper towels seem like faces in profile to me. I think of d.a.levy & of Trash-Po. Jim Leftwich provides some "dirty vispo" on pp 53-67. It's not quite trashy enuf for me to think of it as Trash-Po: Is "Dirty Vispo" a genre? Then Leftwich & John M. Bennett collaborate on pp 68-79. Bennett gets around, his "Lost & Found Times" is missed. Then there's Kek-w's "HOT HOUSE C" (pp 29-30), another extraordinary work, one that succeeds for me as short fiction (w/o being Flash Fiction). Here's an excerpt: "I tried to comfort her but the security-guard arrived and kicked open the door. He cried out in anquish at the sight of us sat there together. "Damn it, girl — I took good care of you and now you pay me back by running off with that amnesiac ex-husband of yours!" He shot her and blood blossomed unexpectedly on her forehead, like some terrible devil-cactus that only flowers once every century." - p 30 The color, the color.. it's just so overwhelming. Take Michael Rothenberg's artwork on pp 38-52. At 1st, I'm reminded of Paul Klee, then of Gary Panter. I'd ordinarily prefer work that doesn't overly remind me of anyone else's work but that's a hard call given that I've looked at & enjoyed so much, there's so much to compare to. Still, despite my impression of derivativeness, the quality of the color just pushes Rothenberg's art into a realm of pleasure where the rest doesn't matter that much. There's enuf variety of media to keep an old jade like me satisfied. Daniel de Culla used colored pencils for his work on pp 80-82. My own "Butt Poem"s 002-006 appear on pp 89-95. Butt Poetry, a term probably coined by me even tho it's so obvious that many people might've used the term before me, is inspired by "Butt Calls": a Butt Call is a phone call made unintentionally on someone's cell-phone, usually when the phone's in their back pants' pocket, by having pressue applied to the phone's screen, usually set to a shortcut. A Butt Call is easily identified as a call one receives where all one hears from the phone when one answers are muffled environmental sounds. A Butt Poem, at least as I originally conceived of it, is a text accidentally generated & sent accidentally in a similar way, thru a txt messaging app. "Butt Poem #001" appeared in an earlier issue of Otoliths. I lowered my curatorial standards for some of these poems b/c I was eager to add to the pantheon. All 8 of the Butt Poems made to date can be seen here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/ButtPoe... . Following these are the afore-mentioned John M. Bennett solo poems (pp 96-103). I find them so visually stimulating to look at that even tho I've been reading his poetry for decades I still find these particularly remarkable. It's as if he's poured every skill he's honed for so long into them, making a fantastically rich stew. It's strange: in my sparse reviewer notes I tended to pass over the work that's more obviously VisPo & to call attn to work that's more straightforward art. Hence, the paintings of Marilyn R. Rosenberg (pp 121-125), who I think I've previously thought of as VisPo (although I don't really know her work at all), presents work that I just note w/ "aesthetics, art". The closest aspect of a few of the pieces that evoke textuality to me might be gestural strokes vaguely reminiscent of asemic calligraphy - not that there's any reason from Rosenberg's presumed POV for there to be any textual underpinnings at all - I'm just musing over my early statement "that it isn't so much an "art" bk as it is a Visual Poetry / Asemic Writing (etc) bk" & then I go on to somewhat disprove my assertion: there's plenty of art here. Karen Greenbaum-maya presents an image & then some prose. The latter begins: "Chicken and the Egg "Daughter's tattoo froths Hokusai sea foam. Mother's new tattoo cradles a pearl, sealing off a flinty irritation. Daughter signs up for hot yoga class. Not for pregnant women. Mother posts selfies from Bikram, sweat soaking her skin-tone sports bra. My heart center is connecting with the universe. Daughter goes vegan, won't eat what had a mother. Mother inhales smoothies green with kale, bitter with celery. Daughter interns high on the navel of the world in Bolivia, seeking language her mother can't eavesdrop. Mother hikes Machu Pichu. Why don't we learn tennis, she says. Daughter gets a new tattoo, in skin-toned ink." - p 127 It seems like I've been seeing Karl Kempton's typewritten geometric VisPo since the 1980s. He's dedicated & very good at his craft. His "Word" (p 131) has 4 touching hexagons w/ interiors that present a variety of shapes & relations depending on how one perceptually flattens & deepens one's perception of the space evoked. Each hexagon is formed by repetitions of one of the 4 letters in the title. His "Untitled + presents the same geometrical pattern w/ the negative space creating the armature previously created by the letters. The negative is filled w/ what look to me like periods but their imperfect circularity is ambiguous. Pat Nolan's "I Remember Tom Clark" (pp 155-161) is a memorium to a poet that may not interest many non-poets but it interests me. I'm reminded of when I last saw poet Anselm Hollo w/ Jane Dalrymple in their home in Boulder. Anselm died not long thereafter. Anselm was wholy immersed in poems & poets. It was such a pleasure to witness his pleasure in talking about such things. He talked about Tom Raworth. The sincere joy he got out of his respect for Raworth's personality & work were a reminder of what life can be like at its best: appreciation unadulterated by pettiness. Olivier Schopfer's photographs of "Windows" (pp 162-177): such a simple idea.. but what a special selection!! Schopfer lives in Geneva, Switzerland, & if all these windows are located there I'm impressed with the city - but I suspect the photographer has visited multiple areas to get such amazing shots - perhaps San Francisco & New Orleans? Kristian Patruno presents a variety, some of wch are repurposed signs. The 1st one, entitled "Hate Speech", takes a Jesus Saves sign that excoriates "Drunks", "Homosexuals", etc, & leaves an encircled vertical "HATE" to bring out the subtext. (pp 238-243) Michael Brandonisio (pp 318-321) presents several pieces - one of wch has the words "SAINT GERMAIN" on it w/ a caption underneath: "The Quest for Immortality" (p 320). This resonated for me personally b/c of my movie entitled "Ledger of St. Dermain" ( https://youtu.be/vkSSfTcXV2s ). The above cursory review is entirely too short, this publication is very rich. If you just like LOOKING AT THINGS PEOPLE MAKE you'll probably be delighted w/ this one. ...more |
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review of Mark Young, editor OTOLITHS issue fifty-six, part one by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 28, 2020 For the full review go here: https:/ review of Mark Young, editor OTOLITHS issue fifty-six, part one by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 28, 2020 For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... I don't really follow literary/poetry journals, online or hard-copy, so I have no idea how many there are these days, how many exist only online, how many exist only in hard-copy, how many in both forms. This is an example of the latter. It appears online 1st & then is available, somewhat expensively IMO, as POD hard-copy. B/c of this lack of knowledge on my part, I don't know how OTOLITHS compares to other such publications: is it more conservative? more adventurous? I tend to think more eclectic insofar as the types of work presented range from discursive to visual poetic. There doesn't seem to be much Flarf or Conceptual Poetry or Concrete Poetry but I'm sure the editor, Mark Young, wd be open to them. The cover, by Young, is static in printed form but is a simple animation in its online form. At any rate, I'm a contributor & I like it enough to choose to be so b/c it does present variety & I like much of the work by fellow contributors, I'm very glad OTOLITHS exists & that it's made it to issue 56. That, in itself, strikes me as extraordinary, staying power in small periodicals is somewhat rare. The issues that I have are printed out in 2 volumes: a black & white volume that's cheaper for purchasers & then a color volume that's particularly stimulating to look at but definitely not cheap. I contributed to the color volume of this but bought copies of both so that my aRCHIVE wd be more complete. I draw the line at the expense of buying all issues. Thinking about OTOLITHS stimulates me to revisit other such publications that I've contributed to. W/ this in mind I list them here w/ the yr(s) I published w/ them. Perhaps some other old hands will enjoy being reminded of the titles. L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E (1978) Hard Crabs (1979, 1980) RAWZ (1979) DOC(K)S (1981) End Paper (1982) A HUNDRED POSTERS (1983?) Lost and Found Times (1985) Phosphorusflourish (1987) Shattered Wig Review (1988) (S)CRAP (1988) ottotole (1989) Painted Bride Quarterly (1992) Encylopaedia Destructica - Bumba (2007) Zswound (2009) Rampike (2010, 2012, 2014) The OPEN SPACE magazine (2011, 2014) Tip of the Knife (2012) Sibila (2012) And/Or (2014) All in all, OTOLITHS compares quite nicely to the company it keeps here. Publications like RAWZ, End Paper, Phosphorusflourish, (S)CRAP, & Encylopaedia Destructica - Bumba had artist's bks touches that I particularly enjoy. DOC(K)S, ottotole, & The OPEN SPACE magazine came out in more of a bk form, as does OTOLITHS. I'm obsessed w/ bks so that's good too. The black & white volume, the volume reviewed here, tends to have more typewritten poetry since the visual poetry is usually in color — but it's not completely w/o the VP. In fact, visually it's close to stunning. I read thru the whole thing as I always do w/ everything I read & everything I, therefore, review. The only exception is when something's in a language other than English. The pieces I choose to quote from aren't presented as 'the best', they're just things that caught my attn for one reason or another. E.G.: Grace Coughlin's "The Problem is They Grow Up" has a reviewer note connected to it saying "stupid behavior". "When he was twelve, he'd catch fireflies in a jar, tinfoil on top, and every time it would surprise him when they didn't glow for him the way they did in the open air. He'd Shake the jar. He'd Smack the glass. He'd Rattle the metal lid. His mom would say 'That's enough now, set them free,' but for him it wasn't enough. Before the bulbs blew out—suffocated, I would guess, from a lack of air and sky—they'd flicker just a little one last time. And, for him, that was enough. He hasn't been twelve for thirteen years." - p 12 This is one of many bks I've been reading concurrently over a long time. This yr, 2020, has been a difficult one for me & I haven't been enjoying things as much as I might have previously. As such, this was probably read over a period of 8 or more mnths. My reviewer note for this next poem excerpt suggests comparing E. E. Cummings. That wd've been connected to my having reviewed the Richard Kostelanetz edited E. E. Cummings' AnOther E. E. Cummings way back in March 10-17, 2020 ("E.E.: Cum": https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ) so I probably read this poem shortly after writing that review. "Len g thy sir RRow too OOlls Regr owth t OO OO lls sto-sto ny For a theo logy of s worth tor ts Ggg oner wort HY lllo ttos" - Hugh Tribbey, p 14 & what about Kristian Radford returning to Japan? "returning to the country of my birth for the first time in over a decade was meant to be triumphant I got sick within 48 hours and spent most of the week trying to stay in my room" - p 20 & then there's Steve Dalachinsky & Jim Leftwich: I run across their names fairly often, I think we're 'friends' on some social media or another — but such friendships are too ill-established for me to really know them. That's a shame. "where power begets power & the powerful are full of powder where prowess is prevalent & acht(o)ung(e)ing is the norm where the powerful wear egrets to war there is valet parking west of the pro shop & the black widow spiders are full of corn their wings hung on the storm like facts" - p 27 I love pronunication vagaries: "ough ough ough ough ough ough bough love cough love dough love enough love furlough love rough love trough love ough ough ough ough ough ough" - still Dalachinsky & Leftwich, p 37 Notice "trough love" instead of the more obvious follow-up to "rough love": tough love. Then there's Leftwich on his own: "Evaporating hair fiSh FiVe EntrOpic GeNeTic giViNg gAs MaSHed uP potatoes TreMbLing, toRNado" - p 38 I spot no 'rhyme or reason', no NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), no acrostics or mesostics, not even strictly tOGGLE cASE. Methinks he's playing — but maybe there's more going on here than meets my mind. It wdn't be the 1st time I've missed something. All of this can be read online in more correctly laid-out & complete versions: https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2020... Why not carefully read it all there? There's some sort of community at work, at play, might as well get to know us, maybe you'll join us. Kirk Marshall: "The Hermanos Luchador dedicated their days to the ardent defence of their inviolable mistress, a chemical grade of pure-strength crack cocaine which, when first pursued, renewed a person's faith in his calling and, when finally tasted, verified for him the compulsion to serve with unquestioning loyalty. The twins harboured no sluggardly confusion as to the rationale upon which their nation's war was founded; by retaining a monopoly on the manufacture and dissemination of their capital's most lucrative export, they ensured that Sonora's civic industry — nay, Mexico's supremacy as a bastion for trade — would continue to thrive." - pp 43-44 "To solicit her favour and capitalize on her affection meant demonstrating that with cocaine as your advocate and confidante, you could amass power, inspire fear and suffering, broker lucrative transactions, convert your familiarity with the pathology of addiction into expertise. Cocaine would not abide being exploited; it was she alone who administered the exploitation of others." - p 44 Well sd. Sometimes, poetry bks can be a little too precious for me. "William Allegrezza Stone & Type, Cedar Lavender Ink ISBN: 978-1-944884-67-3 86 pages $17.95" The above bk is reviewed. No comment is made about the price & the mere 86 pp. I have a new bk coming out on Entity Press called But Not Limited Too (Smattering 1) that's full color, 152 pp, $15.00. Perhaps the printer of Stone & Type, Cedar does an exceptionally good job. Still, really?, 18 bucks? I wdn't buy it. Then there's the work by people I've been observing for decades, in this case John M. Bennett (in collaboration w/ Stacey Allam), someone I consider a friend although we've never met. "Shirt Lens Speak the shirt blinded by the wicks in a thought bubble and the buttons falling from clouds chips clinking in your blurry glasses fanning out the nosebuds hear the passing air" - p 86 It doesn't make me cry the way Dickens's Bleak House does (& I wdn't want it to). It's more like Variations w/o a Theme, a Lens instead of a Theme. Or what about Márton Koppány's "my post-full-stop period . ." - p 93 I thought that was funny, not LOL funny, but funny. Then there's Jurgen O. Olbrich, another name I've seen around so much I feel like we're friends even tho I don't think we've ever corresponded & I'm sure we've never met. His 4 pp from 94-97 might be called concrete. The 1st page says: "Here is always every- where." w/ the 1st "Here" & the "here" of "where" in grey. Here here. The text is justified too. I like it, it's elegant. Or what about Jim McCrary's fill-in-the-implied-blank piece entitled "Untitled"?: "Covered by noun objects in st She was he was the best at everything And never forgot to endure them fr" - p 101 I think much poetry cd be called fill-in-the-implied-blank pieces but McCrary makes it more explicit. How much poetry invokes, evokes, refers to, implies, teases, etc? Then there's Pat Nolan's "A HISTORY OF HAIKAI Three Dokugin Kasen in memory of Keith Kumasen Abbott" & my thinking: 'Was that the guy who taught at Naropa?" so I looked at the Keith Abbott Wikipedia entry for the Naropa guy & he's listed as still alive & still teaching at Naropa, so NO, it's the Keith Kumasen Abbott who I found things about on SPD: "Keith Kumasen Abbott teaches writing and art at Naropa University." who appears to be, uh, the same Keith Abbott after all & then I found this: "This is a note of appreciation for one of my mentors, Keith Kumasen Abbott, who passed away last week. I met Keith when I worked at Naropa University. He was a faculty member in the Jack Kerouac School of Writing and Poetics where he taught reading and writing." ( https://janineibbotson.com/blog/2019/... ) & that's from Sept 4, 2019, so I went back to the Wikipedia entry & I cdn't find it so did I read something else & think it was a Wikipedia entry? I must have. I did find this: "Keith Abbott teaches at Naropa University, US" on the European Beat Studies Network website ( https://ebsn.eu/about-ebsn/members/ke... ) so I reckon they must be serious about this Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics business. & what about C. Mehrl Bennett? I particularly enjoyed her "Ask A Cow Poems": "Oreo trees Crumble when wet They are fake Ask A Cow Fear Floats on wood Under the earth Ask A Cow" - p 112 Mark DuCharme tells us: "Don't go away Develop laughing pneumonia" - p 126 You probably know that there's a type of pneumonia called "walking pneumonia", a pneumonia too mild to be debilitating. I was a research volunteer for a study of it once. As I'm sure you're also aware, all readers bring their own associations to what they read. That's my bring-to. Jim Melrose: "—into and onto the low pressure passenger seat not cooled a degree by the departure of Driver "Horse"'s hitchhacker Flaxman and the arrival of Driver "Horse"'s hitchhacker Kevin and again the cab became non-empty space and the universe became once more happy. All passenger seats abhor prolonged emptiness. Ah, truckworld do diddly indeedy abhor all empty passenger seats. So, Kevin, having seamlessly poured into the mold of nothing seeded by Flaxman—began and began and took over actually, the careful listening into the cold dashboard radio provided, which was wakening again from its last periodic cross-country station n out of range release and station n+1 in range acquisition blip-staticky-storm cycle." - pp 127-128 I find that an interesting description of one passenger replacing another in a hack, don't you? Volodymyr Bilyk contributed a piece called "Melody Poems". Inspired by them I made a movie of me performing them. Here're the YouTube notes for that: ""A reading of Volodymyr Bilyk's "Melody Poems" with abundant mistakes & liberties on an out-of-tune spinet": In 2020 I had 5 of my "Butt Poems" published in "Otoliths" issue, 56 ( https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2019... ). That's available online but I like having a hardcopy of anything I'm published in so I bought a copy of both volumes of this issue. I'm in the process of reading it cover-to-cover with the intention of reviewing it. When I got to Volodymyr Bilyk's "Melody Poems" I thought it would be fun to play the pieces on the piano & to link to a movie of this as a part of the finished review. Since the "Melody Poems" basically just list note names without specifying octave or rhythm, etc, I decided that it would be fun to play them in ways that most people would find 'unmelodic'. This is the result. As you will no doubt notice, I also tweaked it a bit further. I made entirely too many mistakes & took some liberties so the result is probably a bit far off from Bilyk's imagining of the melodies but, hey!, I still went to the trouble of actually approaching the "Melody Poems" as a score." - https://youtu.be/QvG0YeUR7ls Considering that that movie was uploaded May 11, 2020, that gives you an idea of how long it took for me to get thru this — & this is just the 1st volume!! The same author provided something of even greater interest to me: "from The Song of the Great Tits 1 fa', fall. err. v -/- | v -/- | v -/- | v -/- dubitatione_. nibble. moan! no craven, vale! too" - p 147 I found hiromi suzuki's work to be "closer to Cummings than to Concrete Poetry" although it has somewhat the appearance of the latter: "sur)face( of silence; ) our ( ) p o ( ) O L ( shiver y)our( ) face (" - p 162 & then I found Elmedin Kadric's Visual Poetry (not reproducible here) (wch I very much liked) closer to dominoes than, say the sweetener section in the supermarket. Olchar Lindsann's "ORAcLe" begins w/ a truncated quote from Lautrémont. How can they go wrong? "~^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "is mouth, stuffed with belladonna leaves, let it sli" –Lautréamont, opening to Canto II of Maldoror ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~<~" - p 177 For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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Dec 25, 2020
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Dec 29, 2020
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review of Clark Coolidge's Selected Poems 1962-1985 by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 17-25, 2020 https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... For th review of Clark Coolidge's Selected Poems 1962-1985 by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - November 17-25, 2020 https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... I've reviewed more books by Clark Coolidge than by any other poet. Whether I've ever really 'done him justice' is hard to say but it's obvious that he's at least caught my attn. I've read & reviewed: Ing (1968) ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) Space (1970) ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... ) THE MAINTAINS (1974) ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) Polaroid (1975) ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) Quartz Hearts (1978) ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) Own Face (1978/1993) ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36... ) American Ones (1981) ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) A Geology (1988) ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ) This Time We Are Both (2010) ( https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ) I don't remember when I 1st became aware of his work but I acquired the "10 + 2 : 12 American Text Sound Pieces" record in 1976 & that has Coolidge's reworking of the preface to John Cage & David Tudor's "Variations IV" on it so I would've at least become aware of him then if not before. Since Cage's work in general & that piece specifically were very important to me at the time Coolidge's repurposing of the semi-infamous borderline disclaimer-type intro to the work provided by the record company that published the recording of Cage & Tudor's performance was of special interest to me too. In retrospect I don't find Coolidge's piece to be that remarkable otherwise, it strikes me as just another cut-up. I've long since known that Coolidge is a drummer as well as a poet so in honor of receiving this book for review (at my request, Thank You Station Hill Press) I decided to investigate that aspect of his work more. Hence, I bought a CD by "The Serpent Power", originally released on record by Vanguard in 1967. The back cover blurb says: "A poet's songs and music — The Serpent Power — a form, expression of the poet David Meltzer. It is San Francisco poetry — out of the poetic renaissance — grown into another flowering as San Francisco music — the imagery, the moods of the poems flowing into the imagery of his songs and music—" The band consists of: David Meltzer: guitar, harmonica and vocals Tina Meltzer: vocals Denny Ellis: rhythm guitar David Stenson: bass John Payne: organ Clark Coolidge: drums I enjoyed listening to it, I was reminded a little of Country Joe and the Fish, a San Francisco band from around the same time. It seems that The Serpent Power didn't make it past this 1st release. That seems a shame, they had potential. It's probably a partial result of my cheap CD player but in my listening Coolidge's drumming it's subdued in the mix but I can hear it well enough to recognize that he's skilled, although, perhaps, a bit conventional. The cover of Selected Poems 1962-1985 has a drawing of Coolidge playing drums on it by Susan Coolidge called "Clark at a Serpent Power rehearsal, sitting on a suitcase, wailing away". Given the era covered by this compilation there's quite a bit of overlap in Coolidge's poetry & his The Serpent Power era: SPACE (1965-69) THE SO (1966-67) STRETCHER (1966-67) TOOLS, MODELS, SPECIFICATIONS (1966-68) SUITE V (1967) POEMS (1967-69) Choosing to quote from SUITE V (1967) immediately poses a problem: perhaps the most immediately remarkable thing about the poem is that every page has one one syllable plural word centered at the top & one one syllable plural word centered at the bottom. In between: blank page. The 1st page has "taps" at the top & "buns" at the bottom. The problem comes w/ trying to reproduce that in this review. As far as I know, the formatting of the reviews prevents such use of space. AT any rate, it's a far cry from David Meltzer's poetry. A psychedelic band based around Coolidge's poetry of the time wd've interested me very much. There's an introduction by Bill Berkson that I found informative. "In the late 1960s, our friendship solidified over my acting as an intermediary in asking Philip Guston to make a cover drawing—it ended up being two drawings, front and back—for Clark's book Ing (1968), which was also how Clark and Guston first met, and soon began collaborating, and how the series of poem pictures Guston made with assorted younger poets' poems over the next ten years began, as well." - p xv The drawings, which look to me like paintings done with a brush & acrylic are basically black vertical lines somewhat boxed in. This isn't 'hard-line', there's no attempt at sharp straight geometric edges, the lines are obviously hand-done, the brushed-on paint or ink is applied w/ uneven application, it's more like an arrangement of beans, of something organic, w/ each line having its subtle differences: a place where the paint doesn't cover here, a fatter stroke there. One cd say that it's minimal — in a similar spirit to Coolidge's bk, a bk that uses a suffix as its title, something that's usually just a part of a word rather than something that stands on its own. The poems inside are sparse too — but not as sparse as the title of the bk. No poems from Ing were selected for this compilation. The 1st 3 lines from its 1st poem are: "these ing those" Make of it what you will. "Having to start somewhere, with an idiosyncratic feeling for prosody prepared by his musical training, he began by imitating, along with Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Philip Whalen." - p xvi Hhmm.. I missed that, maybe I've never read that earliest work or maybe I just didn't notice. Have I ever imitated anyone? Maybe.. It seems more accurate to say that I've been inspired by many people. Coolidge's work is peppered w/ references to other poets & musicians, I'm not sure what it's salted wit. "Events in music between 1957 and '59 that we responded to, and took as artistic models in our separate ways, included John Cage's Indeterminacy, Ornette Coleman, Thelonious Monk's stints at the Five Spot and his Riverside recordings of that period, Cecil Taylor, Robert Craft's Complete Anton Webern and the New Directions in Music 2/Morton Feldman LP (liner notes by Frank O'Hara and cover drawing by Philip Guston)." - p xvii I wd've been 3 to 6 during the time specified but when I got old enuf to learn about such things most of the above proved important to me as well. It must've been astounding & wonderful to be able to experience such things as they appeared. "What we shared then, and talked about only later, was a need and readiness for a mode of writing other than what Coolidge has called "frozen literature," a feeling that words, and the sentences they came all-too-neatly wrapped in, required refreshing via intensive disruption and rearrangement. It seemed urgent for the language we had been taught and that was all around us to be short-circuited and aired out in order to give words more breathing space and physicality, away from their preauthorized, anticipated meanings, so they could exist and mean more in themselves' - p xviii Naturally, any avant-garde creator, wch Coolidge may or may not consider himself as being, strives to break past the limits established by previous creators. I do the same. Simultaneously, I find previous writing exhilirating & just fine the way it is. Catullus, Villon, Dickinson.. they're fine. If Coolidge's ambition is as Berkson describes above I'd say that Coolidge succeeded at an amazing level. "Evidently, it is all improvisation: the performative winging it, as unplanned as intense, a case of stamina and decisiveness, admitting of no bluff or cliché, but riding on sustained wonder about whatever's at hand. Coolidge's titles, small wonders in themselves, come last, as if by interpretive afterthought" - p xxi Well, I can accept that as generally accurate but there's at least one exception, & probably more, that of "The Diamonds" (1966) in which the top line is one centered one syllable word, the 2nd is 2 centered one syllable words, the 3rd is 3, & so on until the middle wch is 13 centered one syllable words after wch the quantity of words per line decreases one word per line — hence forming the shape of a diamond. Even if the form of the 1st poem in this series came spontaneously, the following poems obviously didn't since they all follow the same form. Still, Coolidge's love of improvisation is at least a little obvious by his enthusiasm for jazz musicians — even though the many musicians mentioned in the poems aren't necessarily primarily known as exclusively improvisors. The earliest poem in this collection (1962), is fairly obviously descriptive, so maybe it's one of the imitative ones mentioned by Berkson: "MEDITATION IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS Blue sky few crags, the slopes are green air whistling by the granite stopwatch" - p 1 But by page 2, in "Noon Shed" from Motor Growers 'Pedia (1963-65), Coolidge has already taken a leap forward (excuse the lack of correctly quoted indentation here): "this day is grin machine shed powder red rust over every thing girl & tree (slow moons ocher snuff & ideas I breathe past beauty kicks? (on an armor slat sky & the mine-disaster printed on a dark tin wafer" - p 2 From Flag Flutter & U.S. Electric (1964-66) comes the 1st mention of a spelunker who's a recurring feature of many Coolidge poems in "The Death of Floyd Collins". The section of excerpts from SPACE (1965-69) presents a whopping 19 poems, wch might seem potentially the whole bk, but it's only 19 out of a total of 84 in the original. SPACE was published by Harper & Row, a surprisingly large press considering SPACE's exceptional, & uncommercial, nature. Harper & Row are to be commended! Take this 1st stanza from "Machinations Calcite": "acetone imprinted oblique swatch on the skin car barn oil wall ocarina & mumps much wet green I'd leave sole key to this game to my friend, sheet water cat" - p 9 The last line reminds me of lines from my own Telepathy Receptivity Training (1975-?) in wch I transcribe(d) language in my mind while I'm half asleep: "because I lived in the same house, 40 yrs, underwater" or "knack & carack, the carrying away by pens changalamp" The Diamonds were refreshing for me, they were the only poems I'd seen of Coolidge's that were so obviously shaped. Not only are they diamond shaped, as previously described, but they consist of 3 letter words presented in alphabetical order from top-to-bottom, left-to-right. But there are exceptions. Whether these exceptions are mistakes or deliberate disruptions I don't know. My pointing them out is my way of showing that I pd attn. The poem beginning w/ "ace" has these 2 lines: "but bye cab cad cam can cap car cat caw cob cog cod con coo cop cot cow coy cry cob cud cue cup cur" - p 30 Note that "cod" is out of alphabetical order. The poem beginning w/ "gee" has these 2 lines: "ode off old one ohm ore orb our out ova owe" - p 31 Notice that "ohm" & "orb" are both out of place. How the Poetry Police let this guy get away w/ this stuff is beyond me. Then there's the poem beginning w/ "pro": "vow wry why who wad wag wan war" - p 33 What's that old mnemonic? Wry before who except after vow? Something like that. I'm beginning to suspect that Coolidge was under the influence of those dreaded 20th drugs when he wrote these: sugar, pot, alcohol.. who knows? Maybe even TV!! As if that's not bad enuf, starting on page 34 he just defenestrates it all starts using other forms of organization. Consider the left side of the poem beginning "for": for sap the led the was won and the the the not the was the six one car and can the and was and was The guy's starting to get repetitious. By page 34 the guy's just going wild. The poem beginning "mat" has these 2 lines: "urn ken mat bow lip urn ken mat bow lip earn" - p 34 He actually makes a pun. Doesn't he know that it's bad enuf to introduce a 4 letter word? He inner bean counter was probably pacified rather than hospitalized by the next 2 poems. The poem beginning "non" has this as its left side: non out out out out out out out out out out out out tin tin tin tin tin tin tin tin tin tin tin tin The next vertical row in is this: non non non non non non non non non non non out out out out out out out out out out tin off In the meantime, yrs truly went to a park & declared 2 Coolidge poems from this bk "nature poems" & made a short movie of the reading of them: 626. "Reading 2 nature poems by Clark Coolidge" - 1080p - 2:32 - shot July 15, 2020; edit finished July 18, 2020 - on my onesownthoughts YouTube channel here: https://youtu.be/DEnv8pb7yIA - on the Internet Archive here: https://archive.org/details/reading-c... You've really got to watch out for poets like this, they're tricky little buggers. You never know what wanton paths they might lead your unconscious down. Speaking of wch, here's the 1st stanza of "THE SO" from the bk of the same name: "slender gel from cracking odes "punch you," hot, "Hey! Out!" lime cool green eel key, echo, smite "it at last," sag gum in hang, "watching the wrist is . . ." batter sea lode, lodged against, "much!" silk is, argonaut match head "Selby's crazy!", terrible hot tornado ink licked in small rod, "Summer is . . ." relic tricycle hit smile, toad, rills, "Objection, please!" mended seams, ripen that remainder amphibian, "Xylophone right next" simple, oh, "you!"" - p 44 Language use like this keeps the reader guessing, the words bounce around like lottery numbers in a washing machine. It doesn't even almost 'make sense', it throws sense out the window into the loving arms of a trampouline while the firemen look the other way. The language ain't misbehavin', it's spankin' & thankin'. For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ...more |
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review of Dick Turner's New Math - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 2, 2020 Read the entire review here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... I do review of Dick Turner's New Math - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 2, 2020 Read the entire review here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... I don't remember when I 1st met Dick Turner, maybe as early as 1982, maybe even earlier. I knew his sister & his brother & his mom too. It might seem like it would be easy to write a review of a work by someone that one's known that long but, for me, it isn't. It becomes not just a matter of reviewing the work, which is probably what Dick would prefer, but a matter of trying to draw in whatever general knowledge I have of Dick & his other work so as to saturate the review with depth. Making matters even 'worse' is that this bk is published by Tom DiVenti's Apathy Press Poets. I've known Tom even longer than Dick. SO, anticipating the problems, I emailed Dick about it & he replied in an informative manner. Hence, this review will include his interspersed commentary. To quote that exchange in order to explain why I wrote "It becomes not just a matter of reviewing the work, which is probably what Dick would prefer," I start w/ an excerpt in wch I mention Dick's main website home & my intended linking to it: " https://dickturner3.wixsite.com/dick-... [tENT]: "I just looked thru the website, it's perfect for my purposes. I'm glad it has 2 movies based on stories in The New Math. They'll be great to link to. In fact, that website'll make reviewing the book much easier because I can explain you as multi-talented & explain that it's the combination of these talents that creates the biggest impact & then I can provide examples with the links. [Dick]: "I regret to some degree that I am perceived that way by the people who know me. I try hard in my work to make individual objects, each with it's own identity. I think it's normal to see connections between what a person does but I feel that it takes away from the impact of individual works. But perhaps it's inevitable. "My mind is compartmentalized I believe and that is why I work in different mediums. "That is, when I draw, I draw, when I compose, I compose. I work within the medium at hand. [..] "the works are each based upon their own set of principles, or so I believe." (June 20, 2020 email from Dick to tENT) Nonetheless, I'm writing this review about Dick more as a whole creative person then by compartmentalizing the work b/c that's the way I read it. I don't think any reader perceives a work w/o previous experience informing their reading of it. In other words, if the reader had read fables as a child any resemblance of Dick's stories to those fables will resonate & influence the reading. To quote more at length from said email: "Here's the truth: the book is in a sense my autobiography in cryptic terms. Thus the references to my father, my mother, music, painting, fairy tales, a family vacation, the mother of my son (in the Italy poems), the alienation of living in Roland Park, etc, etc. The book is both autobiographical in terms of events and thought processes. "If it helps at all the Prelude, the story Visitors and the Postlude are a sort of framework upon which the rest of the book is composed. "That is, those three stories are about how I deal with ideas. Ideas are at the center of all my thinking. So is the concept of distance. The first story "Prelude" deals with how ideas show up somewhat randomly, the second "Visitors", the selection process, the third "Postlude" the distance one feels from them - after a work has been completed or from one's own experience when looking back. "For me the book is a whole, not a collection of random stories. My goal in putting them together was to have a certain [rhythm] between the stories, rising and falling action, create an overall form like in music." (June 20, 2020 email from Dick to tENT — slightly corrected by Dick on July 1, 2020) NOW, to backtrack to more of my own personal reminiscences. In the early days of my friendship w/ Dick I knew mostly of his compositional talents. He & his brother worked on movies together, Dick both composing the soundtracks & acting in them, Henry writing & filming them. The ones that he & Henry did together are probably these: 1995 "Gun to My Head/Gun to Your Head" 1991 "Wilber Whateley's Sex Drive" 1989 "Edgar Allen Poe's PYM" 1985 "Trashmonster" 1984 "Strangers" 1984 "Danse Macabre" - https://dickturner3.wixsite.com/dick-... I remember seeing the middle 3 (i.e.: "Strangers" thru "Edgar Allen Poe's PYM"). Henry moved to Los Angeles in May, 1995, & Dick moved to Paris in January, 1996, thusly ending their team. I moved away in 1994, 1st to Berlin, then to Canada, then to Buffalo, finally 'shipwrecked' in Pittsburgh. While we were all in BalTimOre together a new film by the Turner Brothers was always an event to look forward to. There weren't that many independent movie-makers in the city so a new release was always exciting (for those few of us who cared). In 1990, Dick participated in a Krononautic Organism event called VEX by contributing a piece called "Eloquent Voices" for car horns. I made a super-8 film of things happening that day & night & used an excerpt from Dick's piece, wch I participated in, as the soundtrack: https://youtu.be/fGDsj1ZJnMU . A few yrs before Dick left for Paris, in 1992, he invented The Smile Machine, a mood impovement aid of sorts. I was the 1st customer! I bought one at the "Smile Machine Cerebration" at the 14 Karat Kabaret. Dick's website about the device is here: https://dickturner3.wixsite.com/dick-... My website about it is here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/SM1992.... Dick came to visit me in Pittsburgh in July, 2007, & we performed on the same bill at Garfield Artworks on July 7, 2007. Also on the bill was The Bureau of Nonstandards. This got us to thinking of doing a tour together — something I set about trying to arrange in French Canada, an area where I'd once had some small renown. Alas, my renown was from too long ago & I was back to being a 'nobody'. I cdn't find anyone who was interested in booking us. We had to cancel the possibility of the tour. In 2010, I published a 2-cassette retrospective of Dick's music in a limited edition of 26 (#027 here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/WdmUCat... ). You can see some images of that publication on my above-linked-to Smile Machine page. In 2018, Dick came to Pittsburgh to participate in the UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIEMAKERS FESTIVAL that I organized . He screened his 2 main movies that he'd made in Paris post working w/ his brother: "La Grosse Commission" (Shit Happens) & "Nature morte avec des oranges". He has a webpage promoting these movies here: https://dickturner3.wixsite.com/dick-... . Despite an almost complete lack of interest in the festival by the general public this was a wonderful fertile time. My complete movie of it is here: https://youtu.be/KwlfRxmRU3E . Dick screened his movies & talked about them & played a solo set at the closing night 'party'. Dick's an excellent trombonist & it was a delight to be able to play some sessions with him both at my home & at outside venues. As usual I documented it all. Four of these duets can be witnessed edited together as "4 X 2": https://youtu.be/1v2B4LgivH0 . AND NONE OF THAT EVEN GETS INTO DICK AS A PERSON. In general, I find Dick to be an exceptionally scholarly, thoughtful, well-spoken & polite person to the extent that I'm grateful for his mere existence & for the good fortune I have in being his friend. Long may he prosper! It's so rare for me to be able to reference just about anything & to receive a reaction other than a blank stare from the person I'm addressing, Dick has actually read ancient Greek philosophy or listened to 19th century classical music or.. it might not seem like much but Dick's being "self-taught", as he says in the quote below, means that he has a curious mind — a quality I find almost completely lacking in the society of SHEEPLE that I think Dick & I both find ourselves moving in an oppostie direction to on an almost daily basis. "My concept of myself, for whatever it's worth, is the following: I am someone who likes getting and expressing ideas. I guess I'd call it synthetic thought, finding/creating connections between things. It is the only thing I can do as far as I can tell, my attempts at practical life having been not too overwhelmingly successful. I prefer music as a medium, it's the only medium I can't live without but I enjoy painting, drawing, writing, film, etc if I get an idea. I think I am some form of a "late classical composer", I call myself a "neo-primitive" [..] because I am self-taught and like the classical forms as a basis of my work." (June 20, 2020 email from Dick to tENT) But, what about the bk?! It's interspersed w/ Dick's drawings. Most of them show human body parts intermingled w/ each other in one grotesquely dysfunctional blob. The body parts might still imply functionality but they're displaced. Hence 4 fingers might form an "X" w/o the rest of the hand & a mouth w/ teeth & an exceptionally long tongue might protrude. Further up the blob, there's another mouth. At least 4 eyes populate the blob, the whole of wch appears to be floating, levitating. An intestinal looking protuberance protrudes from the top next to a penis that has an open eye where the scrotum might ordinarily be. You can see this drawing herein inadequately described on the cover of the bk. There's a feel to these drawings, for me they're like introspective symbols of distress, exceptional deviant mutant spawn, something a psychoanalyst might use — wch doesn't mean that Dick sees them or intends them that way! It's typical for Dick to be philosophical & I can see the drawings as illustrations of a convoluted philosophical process. Take this simple beginning to his 2nd story, "A Failed Epic": "I don't know how it is in your life but in mine everything risks getting complicated. For example, when someone asks me how I am I feel I have two choices, either say I am fine or give a more detailed account of things in my life. Knowing the second is seldom successful I keep it simple meaning no one gets bored but nothing really gets said." - p 3 Indeed, I know the dilemma well! I often tell people in conversation that something I'm trying to address is "complicated", knowing full well that their attn span is only a few seconds long & that there's no chance I can explain what I'd like to in the allotted time — esp given that they're not in the least bit interested anyway. Dick's stories consistently remind me of fables, they have a simplicity of presentation & tend toward philosophically evocative conclusions. But they're twisted, not necessarily dramatically, just enough to show that we're no longer in the day of Aesop. Take this excerpt from "The Ant": "I was sittting on a bench when I heard the sound of stomping feet and clapping hands but unaccompanied by any recognizable rhythm. I turned my head and I saw a man coming down the footpath that leads from the garden gate. He was indeed stomping and clapping in some unrecognizable pattern and I wondered if he wasn't a musician; perhaps a performer of some rhythmically vigorous contemporary music; I thought I recognized a passage from the stochastically composed "Nomos Alpha" of Iannis Xenakis. When he was passing in front of me I excused myself and asked him if he wasn't a musician? "From how quickly he responded I knew he welcomed my question; he clearly wanted to talk to someone; I was there so it was me. He was very direct. "He told me he was killing bugs; any bug, harmless or harmful, it made no difference to him." - pp 22-23 The story's not shocking, there's more of a wry humor to it. These are the observations of a quiet, thoughtful person; the exaggerations bring out subtleties, sometimes these exaggerations present Dick's somewhat pessimistic view of society. Here're excerpts from "To The Peoples Committee": "I, Dick Turner (legal name Henry Dickinson Turner, Jr., Prisoner Number 1959122), composer and artist, freely and under no coercion do make the following statement. "I am guilty of grave social irresponsibility both in my work as in my private life and thought. I regret this and shall work to improve myself. "Believing erroneously in the so-called Cult of the Individual I have pursued a solitary course in my work refusing participation in the important movements of my time flagrantly dismissing them as corporate controlled reflections of consumer culture and the ideology of the state. I regret this and shall work to improve myself." - p 29 Now, does that seem like a statement made "under no coercion"?! Of course not! Even if most other people barely notice, Dick & I both live in societies where individualism is discouraged, where Free Thinking is almost completely taboo. This is presented as being for the general good but it's really mainly for the good of the manipulators. The SHEEPLE don't care b/c they have no individuality to hold dear. It's one thing to have a mind of yr own to begin w/, it's quite another to pretend that yr prefabricated one is anything else. In Dick's fantasy, he's attempting to pull a Galileo. Unfortunately for his survival, he's too much of a Giordano Bruno for it to work: "Internal Note: PETITION REJECTED EXECUTION TO FOLLOW" - p 32 I'm happy to say that Dick is far from being such a victim, poor Bruno WAS. Thank goodness that every thinking person I know has been spared persecution beyond being somewhat 'doomed' to alienation. Dick gets philosophical again: "One of the marvels of the human mind is its faculty of interpretation; its ability to find connections between information and events which may at first seem completely separate." - p 34 This philosophizing leads into the story: "Twenty-five years ago there was a painting exposition of a single work in the basement of an abandoned building in Baltimore. "The work, by an unknown artist, was purchased by a collector who wished to remain anonymous at the suggestion of someone whose identity has yet to be established. "The exposition was unattended and the painting was hung with its face to the wall. "A colloquium is being held to discuss the technique used by the artist and the subject matter of the canvas." - p 35 The punchline brings the lofty down to the earthy: Read the entire review here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ...more |
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review of Richard Kostelanetz edited E. E. Cummings' AnOther E. E. Cummings by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 10-17, 2020 for the full review: htt review of Richard Kostelanetz edited E. E. Cummings' AnOther E. E. Cummings by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 10-17, 2020 for the full review: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... I, & the world, owe a great debt of gratitude to Richard Kostelanetz for the depth & scholarliness & passion that he's dedicated to his studies of the avant-garde. Until I read this bk, I'd somewhat dismissed Cummings as 'avant-garde lite', now I think he's a truly great writer that I'm happy to've finally come to appreciate. Near the beginning there's a section of relevant quotes. Here're 3 selections: "[Guillaume Apollinaire] achieved the final dismemberment of poetry as an exposition in the "calligrammatic" style, often undeniably effective, sometimes merely cute. The visual aptness of these poems is seldom matched by appropriate qualities of sound, which Apollinaire could easily have produced. His idiogrammatic ideas did not find such disciplined application as we find later in E. E. Cummings, Ezra Pound, and Charles Olson. —Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years (1958)" - p vii "Cummings was . . . the very model of a modern anarchist general; the kinky sexuality—surrogate whores, doll-women, weird dildos, and assorted promiscuities" —Robert Peters, Where the Bee Sucks (1994) - p viii "Simultanism, the third voice of life, signifies an approach to immobility and this an extremely sensitive attunement to the infinite universe. Baudelaire, Bergson, and Cummings are all describing this state. —Roger Shattuck, The Banquet Years (1958)" - p viii Note that 2 of these quotes are from The Banquet Years, a bk that was important to me when I was in my early 20s in the 1970s. As for the middle quote.. well.. "An anarchist general"? Perhaps Peters is unaware of this being a contradiction — or perhaps, typically of so many people, he simply doesn't understand anarchism. In a dedication "To the memory of S. Foster Damon (1893—1971) that follows this brief section of quotes it's stated that Damon "owned a rare copy of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons, which delighted and bewildered Cummings. (p ix) It's worth noting that I made a movie of me sucking pussy while reading the entirety of "Tender Buttons" & that an excerpt from the audio from that is on my Significantly Different from the Other One CD. "Tender Buttons" is possibly my favorite of the Stein that I've read. I detested her The Making of Americans (see my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ). In Kostelanetz's Preface he states that: "I wanted to do an anthology that would gather in one place this Other Cummings, much as an earlier anthology, The Yale Gertrude Stein (1980)" [..] "AnOther Cummings represents the fruit of twenty-five years of thinking and perhaps a decade of selecting" - pp xiii-xiv I have a copy of The Yale Gertrude Stein & I'm glad I do but I think that one of the reasons why Gertrude Stein 'scholarhip' tends to the shallow b/c academics primarily read the work in excerpt instead of reading entire pieces. This attitude that 'that's enough to get the idea' leads to work like The Making of Americans being praised by people who've never read more than a few pages of it. Let's hope the same thing doesn't happen w/ Cummings. It's my DUTY now to read entire Cummings bks rather than just the delightful excerpts collected here. From the Introduction: "No one would dispute the opinion that E. E. cummings (1894—1962) ranks among the prominent modern American poets. What is surprising, and thus debatable, is that no other major American poet of his generation remains so neglected and misunderstood." [..] "Even when Cummings is acknowledged, it is usually for his more conventional lyric poems. Richard Ellmann's higbrow The New Oxford Book of American Verse (1976) is no different from Nancy Sullivan's more mundane Treasury of American Poetry in including only his lyrics, while he appears not at all in Helen Vendler's The Harvard Book of Contemporary American Poetry (1985), even though he ranks among Harvard's more distinguished literary alumni." [..] "Only one scholar, Milton A. Cohen, has written a book about another dimension of his creativity—the paintings and drawings, on which he worked most of his daytimes; indeed, they have never been satisfactorily exhibited or sompletely examined." - pp xv-xvi I'm certainly amongst the 1st to praise & support the work of the UNDERAPPRECIATED (see my documentary about the UNDERAPPRECIATED MOVIEMAKERS FESTIVAL: https://youtu.be/KwlfRxmRU3E ) but it's a little hard for me to accept Cummings into that category. After all, his writing has been widely published & distributed. I wd've known about it at a fairly young age, at a time when I wdn't've been very aware of a variety of poetics. AND, as this very bk makes clear, Cummings gave Norton lectures at Harvard in 1952 & had a show of his artwork at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester in 1945. As such, he might be 'neglected' in contrast to, say, an extremely popular author such as Stephen King, but he's nowhere near as obscure as I am or as many other people are. "Some of his affectations were disaffecting, such as not capitalizing the first person singular. (Spelling his name entirely in lower-case letters was someone else's invention that should be forgotten.)" - p xvi Thank you, Kostelanetz, I didn't know that. All these decades, I thought that Cummings spelled his name in all lower-case as a self-effacing continuation of "not capitalizing the first person singular" — it's good to have that misinformation revealed. "As the epigraph to this essay suggests, Cummings observed a clear distinction between ordinary speech and poetry. The former was common language; the latter, exceptional language. Thus, contrary to current fashion, he enthusiastically used such traditional devices as meter, alliteration, resonant line breaks, and even rhyme." - p xvii Ok. "A second rich Cummings device was the use of one part of speech to function in place of another. Thus, verbs sometimes appear as nouns: my father moved through dooms of love through sames of am through haves of give As Malcolm Cowley carefully observed in the New Republic (Jan. 27, 1932), nouns also "become verbs ('but if a look should april me') or they become adverbs by adding 'ly,' or superlative adjectives by adding 'est' (thus, instead of writing 'most like a girl,' Cummings has 'girlest'). Adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions, too, become participles by adding 'ing' ('onlying,' 'softlying,' 'whying,'); participles become adverbs by adding 'ly' (kneelingly')."" - p xviii That, predictably enuf, interests me much more than the use of tradtional means, Cummings manages to skew familiarity, it's still familiar but it's bent out of shape or sculpted anew. As such, it's akin to Modern Art of roughly the same time &/or earlier: Cubism (Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907)), Futurism (Boccioni's Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913)), etc. "Though Cummings was nearly an exact contemporary of Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), the two never met and probably had no effect upon each other; nonetheless, Cummings illustrates Mayakovsky's dictum: "Neologisms are obligatory in writing poetry."" - p xxii "Cummings probably worked as hard at his paintings and drawings as he did at his writing, the former being done by day and the latter at night. More than 2,000 completed paintings exist; the Houghton Library at Harvard reportedly has over 10,000 sheets of drawings. His literary eminence notwithstanding, Cummings had remarkably few exhibitions and scare dealer representation." - p xxiii This bk was copyrighted in 1998. Much has changed since then as to what's easily searchable online. Going to https://eecummingsart.com I find "Paintings, Drawings & Sketches for Sale" by Cummings available from "Ken Lopez Bookseller". The work is browseable by subject (Landscapes, Portraits, Abstracts, Nudes, Still Lifes, & City & Interiors) &/or by medium (Oil Paint, Watercolor, Ink, Pencil). I find the artwork to be generally uninteresting, maybe there's good reason why it's unknown in relation to Cummings's writing. Take an oil painting labeled as "full moon, tree, and mountain" (Item # 0901) made on "1945-02-14" ( https://eecummingsart.com/gallery/art... ): there's broadness of gesture, prominent brushstrokes, slightly garish colors. In other words, nothing as new as "Adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions, too, become participles by adding 'ing' ('onlying,' 'softlying,' 'whying,')". I find a drawing that's vaguely more interesting to me: Item # 0011, described as a "figurative abstraction", no date ( https://eecummingsart.com/gallery/art... ). It's vaguely Chagallesque & I like Chagall. It's small, ripped & appears to have what might be a glue stain. The price online is $1,750. I might buy it if the price were 10% of that — but then I've spent most of my life in poverty. In general, I find the work slightly above amateurish — but not by much. The 1st porm presented by Cummings is under the heading of "Deviant Traditional Verse": "guilt is the cause of more disauders than history's most obscene marorders" - p 3 &, yes, I find that very elegant. By taking the ends of dis-orders & mar-auders & switching their places, Cummings directs the reader to mentally (or audibly) slightly distort the pronuniciation. "order" & "auder" are close enuf to each other to still 'work' but far enuf apart to result in implied neologisms. What wd a "disauder" be? What wd a "marorder" be? & how do these implied new meanings tie in to Cummings's philosophical claim? There is plenty of sex, something I didn't associate w/ Cummings in my 'avant-garde lite' image of him: " she,straddling my lap, hinges(wherewith I tongue each eager pap) and.reaching down,by merely fingertips the hungry Visitor steers to love's lips Whom(justly as she now begins to sit, almost by almost giving her sweet weight) O,how those hit thighs juicily embrace! and (instant by deep instant)as her face watches,scarcely alive,that magic Feast greedily disappearing least by least— though what a dizzily palpitating host (sharp inch by inch)swoons strenly my huge Guest! until(quite when our touching bellies dream) unvisibly love's furthest secrets rhyme." - p 6 It's interesting to me the way I'm unnerved by Cummings not putting spaces after punctuation — but, then, why is it 'needed'? The punctuation serves its conventional purpose w/o the space, the space becomes superfluous. BUT, THEN, in line 7, he has the space: "and (instant" & I wonder whether that's a typo or whether he's fucking w/ the reader. I shd mention that the 1st line is actually substantially indented but I've never gotten such indentations to work here on Goodreads. In general, I love the language, his wordplay always keeps things lively & surprising. "helves surling out of eakspeasies per(reel)hapsingly proregress heandshe-ingly people trickle curselaughgroping shrieks bubble squirmwrithed staggerful unstrolls collaps ingly flash a of-faceness stuck thumblike into pie is traffic this recalls hat gestures bud plumptumbling hand voices Eye Doangivuh sud- denly immense impotently Eye Doancare Eye And How replies the upsuirtingly careens the to collide flatfooting with Wusyuhname a girl-flops to the Geddup curb leans carefully spewing into her own Shush Shame as(out from behind Nowhere)creeps the deep thing everybody sometimes calls morning" - p 11 There's that switching again. "helves surling" cd've been 'shelves hurling', more specifically: 'shelves hurling out of speakeasies' — & isn't "ingly" lovely on its own detached from its usual end position? But how do you feel about science there E.E.? "of Course life being just a Reflex you know since Everything is Relatives or to sum it All Up god being Dead(not to mention in Terred) LONG LIVE that Upwardlooking Serence Illustrious and Beatific Lord of Creation,MAN:" - p 22 [indentation on line 4] People seem generally so content to use punctuation as is generally done, Cummings loves to shake it up, I find it so refreshing. "emptied.hills.listen. ,not,alive,trees,dream( ev:ery:wheres:ex:tend:ing:hush ) and Dark IshbusY ing-roundly-dis tinct;chuck lings,laced ar:e.by(" - p 26 Even if one finds it nonsensical, i.e.: not contributing to semantic content, so what? There's a sense of liberation to it. "BALLAD OF AN INTELLECTUAL" is practically long by Cummings standards, a whole 2pp w/o much space. It seems a bit sarcastic about the intellectual &, yet, I'd say that Cummings was one so.. There's even an "EROTIC POETRY" section. I have mixed feelings about erotica in general. It's usually too 'soft porn' for me. Still, I like Cummings's, I can relate somehow. Maybe it's just the heterosexuality of it. "there is between my legs a crisp city. when you touch me it is Spring in the city;the streets beautifully writhe, it is for you;do not frighten them, all the houses terribly tighten upon your coming: and they are glad as you fill the streets of my city with children." - p 66 "skies may be blue;yes (when gone are hail and sleet and snow) but bluer than my darling's eyes, spring skies are no hearts may be true;yes (by night or day in joy or woe) but truer than your lover's is, hearts do not grow nows may be new;yes (as new as april's first hello) but new as this our thousanth kiss, no now is so" - p 69 It's odd, to me at least, that I picked the above 2 to quote from. Neither is particularly explicit, as some of the others are, & the 2nd is downright romantic. My slip is showing. Under "LANGUAGE EXPERIMENTS" this one is printed on the page sideways w/ the left margin parallel to the bottom of the page: "life hurl my yes,crumbles hand(ful released conarefetti)ev eryflitter,inga. where mil(lions of aflickf)litter ing brightmillion of S hurl;edindodg:ing whom areEyes shy-dodge is bright cruMbshandful,quick-hurl edinwho Is flittercrumbs,fluttercrimbs are floatfallin,g;allwhere: a:crimbflitteringish is arefloatis ingfallall!mil,shy milbrightlions my(hurl flicker handful in)dodging are shybrigHteyes is crum bs(all)if,ey Es" - p 84 &, like most or all sensible & kind people, Cummings is against war: "Lis -ten for the full review: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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not set
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Mar 08, 2020
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Mar 17, 2020
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Paperback
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| 1912017741
| 9781912017744
| 4.20
| 5
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| May 21, 2019
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really liked it
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review of Tom DiVenti's The Baltimore Kid — Collected Texts by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 30, 2019 For the complete review go here: https:/ review of Tom DiVenti's The Baltimore Kid — Collected Texts by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 30, 2019 For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... Reading this bk was like reading my autobiography in an alternate universe — not that Tom & I are that much alike, we're not — but we still led parallel lives & much of what he writes about are things that I was around at the same time. The "Introduction" is written by one William Moriarity. Bill & I were roommates in maybe late 1977 / early 1978. His intro ends: "In this artist's world there's no difference between life and art, writing like composing music, creating sculpture or paintings is as natural as breathing and The Good Lord has blessed DiVenti with one Hell of a set of lungs. A word of caution before you open and read: Be prepared for the hangover of this intoxicating book." - p 5 Tom's a good writer, he loves words, he uses them carefully, succinctly, he has a way of using cultural references as shorthand. I met Tom no later than 1977, maybe as early as 1975, & we're still friends, I even made a movie about him ( https://youtu.be/UydvbT-1geQ ). "Let's dance like an Egyptian doing the rock lobster with a googamuck, frug, watusi, jerk, mash potato, pony, twisting in the wind. Turn it down. I'm doing my own thing. I can't hear a damn thing. I'm too busy twerking. You do the Freddy with The Monkees. Crank it up. All the way to Memphis dancing in our graves. Maybe it's as simple as the Beatles and the Stones. And that's okay. Shake it baby. Shake that thing." - p 122 "Zoom in up close to a pinpoint of light. Watching dust particles move between sun rays. Constant flux of a solar dust storm on a dead planet. The exact time that Black and White became Technicolor, analog went digital as all information became a weapon." - p 140 "I founded the first punk rock band in Baltimore in 1976, Da Moronics." - p 8 I don't remember hearing Da Moronics until, maybe, 1977, when they played at Tom's carriage house venue, The Apathy Project. Bill was the singer, we called him "Billy Mo" then. He was hilarious. As to whether Da Moronics were "the first punk rock band in Baltimore"? I tend to think they were but I can't say what was going on in neighborhoods that I didn't go into. Sometimes I think of Grand Poobah Subway, later to be just plain Poobah, as the 1st Baltimore Punk Rock Band — but I'm not sure they were even 'strictly' 'punk'. I 1st heard Grand Poobah Subway at the End of the World show organized by Tom Dantoni at Shriver Hall on the Johns Hopkins campus around 1972 or 1973. They destroyed styrofoam guitars & were very theatrical. In a sense they were more of an 'art school band' but I'm not sure any of the members were art school students — members of Da Moronics were, maybe all of them were MICA (Maryland Institute College of Art) students. Anyway, back to that parallel universe: "Some folks are good at sports, others at making money, my occupation was free thinker, rabble rouser, ne'er do well, rapscallion, artist, poet, musician, possibly subversive, even deviant." - p 13 Then there's a picture taken by my friend Paula Gillen (quite a few by her, actually). It's of 3 members of a band called The Shop Girls. You can see plenty of Paula's photos from that era here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/2102217... — including ones of Da Moronics & of yrs truly. The strange thing about the one of The Shop Girls is that it lists the 3 women that show as "Gayle Hanson, Paty Holton, and Laurie Stepp". I was lovers w/ Laurie at the time & Gayle & I had had a band together before The Shop Girls called Crab Feast. Gayle had written the lyrics for one of Crab Feast's songs & I'd 'composed' the vamp for it & that had carried over into The Shop Girls's repertoire. The way I remember the membership was: Gayle, Laurie, Nora Ligorano, & Peema Tartoon (Amy Plamondon). No "Paty Holton". Before I even lived in Baltimore City proper I'd go to the Theater Project for open readings & I was usually deeply unimpressed by people's recounting of how much booze they drank, how many cigarettes they smoked, & how much coffee they drank the next day to get over it. Then I heard David Franks read his poems made from the correction tape he used when typing. That was more like it. THEN I witnessed performance poetry from Billy Mo & Tommy & that was really more like it. Tom calls it "prop poetry". "During my reading, I recited a poem about the Baltimore City Fish Market Master. He was recently arrested for molesting young boys. The poem told a sordid tale. His sister was a Catholic nun. No one knew of his perverse hobby beforehand. As I read the poem I pulled the objects as examples from the suitcase and tossed them into a nearby garbage can. Fascinating because I knew this guy who we called "Murph" who'd cruise up and down Harford Rd. from Lauraville to Hamilton looking for bad boys who wanted to make a quick buck. Turned out it was him that I read about. Billy Mo read next. He opened his suitcase and began pulling out paper plates with hand-painted comic faces on them. A mother, a boy, a father, an uncle, among others. He wore each of the paper plate masks and mimicked the characters. The crowd went nuts! It was hilarious as he switched masks and ad-libbed the characters. I believe we were among the first "prop poets," mixing comedy, tragedy and theater, creating a new poetry form." - p 21 I remember one where Tom pulled a cover off a bird cage large enuf to be holding Bill inside & another where Tom was wearing something like a Hazmat hood that he sprayed something like oven cleaner into to make himself high while he read. Both might've been around 1976 or 1977, both might've been in a space associated w/ the MD Writer's Council, a happening thing at the time. As Tom's vast empire grew, he turned to publishing: in the beginning was the Apathy Project (the very 1st place I gave a 'reading'), then there was Apathy Press. Somehow, the name strikes me as ironic. "I've had success and failure as a poet. My underground press, Apathy Press Poets, has published dozens of poest since the 1980s, notably Richard Sober, Chris Toll, Dan Higgs, Sandie Castle, tENTATIVELY a cONVENIENCE, Jennifer Blowdryer and Carl Watson among many more." - p 24 Tom remembers integration in his youthful school days. "Students were informed of the arrival of black children on school buses one morning. We were told we'd be assigned to, and welcome each student. White boys were to greet black boys and white girls greet black girls. It was very organized and exciting to be part of the welcoming committee." - pp 27-28 "All the kids got along well, and it was casual and natural." - p 28 "Saying my father was a bigot sounds harsh, but it was true. He'd say things like, "They're not all bad but you can't trust them" or "Don't show them your money, hide it in your shoe, or they'll take it from you." "Cross to the other side of the street if you see them coming your way."" - p 29 OK, so his father was a bigot — but how much of that was just based in blunt, unadulterated working class experience? One anarchist anti-racist friend of mine was the only white guy in an otherwise all-black high school in Reservoir Hill in Baltimore. He told me not a single student talked to him the entire time he went there. Perhaps more relevantly, when I was a kid I'd go to Leakin Park, a place that became infamous b/c of serial killer Reginald Vernon Oates, an African-American youth: "THEY were all under 10, and their mutilated bodies were found in an overgrown section of Baltimore’s Leakin Park in April, 1968. "Larry, 9, and Matt Jefferson, 5, Louis Hill, 10, and 10-year-old Lester Watson were murdered by janitor Reginald Vernon Oates, 18, who was found carrying a bag containing the genitalia of three of his young victims. "When police examined the bodies, they also found that one boy had been decapitated, his little hands cut off, and another had had his throat cut. "Oates was committed to a mental institution in 1968, where he has been since. He continues to petition the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene for release." - https://www.news.com.au/world/north-a... I was definitely raised in a bigoted environment where Oates might've been used as a racist example. However, I don't remember that actually being the case (although it seems likely that it was). Even before that happened, I remember being, maybe, 12 or 13 & playing in Leakin Park w/ 2 white friends & seeing a group of maybe 6 black boys approaching us. I figured they were going to try to rob us b/c there certainly wasn't any friendly integration going on in that area at the time so I suggested to my friends that we put what little money we might've had in out back pockets so that if & when the kids demanded it from us we cd pull out our front pockets & show that there was nothing there. Was I a bigot? Or a realist? B/c what happened next is that the black kids demanded our money, maybe at knife point, we pulled out our empty front pockets, & they turned away convinced by our charade. Even telling a story like that these days runs the risk of the teller being accused of being racist. Oh, well, I'm an anti-racist & black people certainly had plenty to fear from whites so it went both ways. So where are we at 'today'? I'm writing this in the AM of New Year's Eve, Dec 31, 2019. I'm in a motel in Baltimore. Yesterday I was turned away from a motel across the street from this one by an Indian woman who pretended that the motel was full (it was almost empty) &/or that her computer was down. Why? I don't know. Maybe it's b/c I look 'too tough'. Maybe there's the fear that I'll be yet-another white gunman. Lardy knows there's plenty of them these days. Now I'm in a motel also run by Indians. They didn't seem prejudiced against me. I just ate breakfast in a rm w/ a TV on giving the 'news' (always a fear-mongering experience). There was a black news anchor & a white one. The 'news' was about a black man who attacked a Jewish community w/ a machete on the last day of Hanukkah. He'd been researching why Hitler hated Jews. Is he a nazi? People are saying he's mostly a "gentle giant" but mentally ill. On the same day a white guy shot & killed 2 people in a church before being gunned down himself. I'm not sure who his victims were or what his motivation was. There's no amelioration of his crime by mention of "mental illness", instead there's "history of violence". Then there's the footage of the police preparing for protection against terrorism for New Year's celebrations. Heavy armaments & dogs. The place where I had breakfast was equally occupied by whites & blacks. People seemed 'normal' & friendly, just people getting breakfast, nobody suddenly pulled out an automatic weapon & started a massacre. We're still the majority. We've 'come a long way' since the civil rights struggles of the 1960s but we sure are still fucked. "America's entrenched powers neutralized the youth movement—and the progress achieved from the Civil Rights and anti-war protests—rendering it useless and creating the tense racial vacuum that still exists today. The assassinations of Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, and the Kennedy brothers permanently closed any hope of meaningful change." - p 30 This is one of the places where Tom & I part ways. BIG TIME. "America's entrenched powers" aren't strong enuf to neutralize any populist mvmt. Murdering 4 prominent figures wasn't enuf to destroy the spirit of millions of others. Humans are a conflicted & violent mess & the greedy & power-hungry take advantage of that to further their own selfish causes — but there're plenty of instances where different temperaments do things in the spirit of Mutual Aid. Food Not Bombs is an excellent example. I find Tom to be too negative, too pessimistic. SOMETIMES. His story of peaceful & positive integration shows the possibilities that I, personally, think are as strong as ever. Fortunately, not everyone's the serial killer in Leakin Park, the church & school & concert & mall shooters. In this day & age of President Rump it's easy to forget sometimes that having a malevolent idiot for a country's figurehead doesn't make the majority of the people malevolent idiots too (even if it sometimes seems that way). But what about the Mount Royal Tavern? you might ask if you'd been a drunk artiste in BalTimOre in the '70s & 80s. It was home-away-from-home for many of us. "Elliot was the owner, and always seemed constantly worried, fretting over the business even though it was packed with the faithful both day and night. Also Michael, a daytime barkeep who became Tess. I worked with him pre-op, Michael in the MICA mailroom and with post-op Tess at Martick's Restaurant." - p 36 This will resonate w/ many of us. Tess was the 1st sex-change person I ever knew — way back in 1977 or thereabouts. I remember going to a party at s/his apt & having s/him explain that he was involved w/ a woman who wanted to be a man so they were both switching sexes. Plenty of us were alcoholics, I wasn't but I think I was just lucky to have a metabolism that was addiction-resistent. "I had a first beer at a family crab feast when I was eight." - p 33 Uh, adults? Not to state the obvious but don't give yr kids alcohol. The worst alcoholism that I've witnessed always started young. "I was an alcoholic and loving it. It was part of everything I did. Later on, when I was playing music as T.T.Tucker, the band motto was "free beer for life." We didn't always get paid for gigs but were guaranteed free beer at every gig. That went on for three decades. My drinking had become problematic. DWI's, blackouts, fights, anger, depression, and broken relationships. By my 50s, I can honestly say I'd been thrown out of every bar in Baltimore. It's not a source of pride or regret, just a simple fact." - pp 36-37 Come, come, Tom — even for a guy w/ yr fiesty proclivities there are just too many bars in B-More (Bar-More) for ANY person to get thrown out of all of them in a single lifetime — you'd have to be reincarnated just for that purpose. In general, The Baltimore Kid is a great bk for eulogizing people of a very particular time & place. What a community that was. For the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ...more |
Notes are private!
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Nov 15, 2019
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Dec 31, 2019
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Paperback
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| 5.00
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| Jun 2018
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it was amazing
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review of OPEN SPACE's Things That Matter by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 4-22, 2019 To read the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.c review of OPEN SPACE's Things That Matter by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 4-22, 2019 To read the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... I've praised OPEN SPACE's publications before & I'll do it again. This is a h(e)aven for open-minded & caring intellectuals. Given that the majority of the contributors are composers/musicans & that they've been given the theme of "Things That Matter" a situation is created where responses to the theme are, perhaps, less predictable than they wd be if everyone solicited were exclusively political activists. From Steve Cannon's portion of Russell Craig Richardson's early 2018 interviews collected under the title "On Ornette Four conversations around Ornette Coleman": "What it was, is a whole bunch of artists and musicians, they lived there, what had happened, the City had abandoned that schoolhouse, so it was empty, and they just — you know — moved in and took it over, that's all. You know, and they did a combination of things, meaning they made it habitable in terms of a performance space, an of course rehearsal space at the same time, you follow? "And they fixed it up. You know, brought in the heat, brought in the air conditioning, all that kinda stuff, that was needed to make the place habitable, and stuff like that, you know? Didn't last that long, they ended up arguing among themselves, fighting among themselves, but by that time Ornette had moved out" - p1, Steve Cannon [I quoted the above for this review on July 9, 2019 — the same day I went to my friend's place for a BBQ in the afternoon. My friend said: "Have you ever heard of Steve Cannon?" I replied: "The name sounds familiar but it's probably not whoever you're about to tell me about." "Cannon was a beloved NYC poet who founded A Gathering of the Tribes, or something like that, who just died 2 days ago." "Yeah! That's the same guy!! I just quoted him in a review I was writing this morning!!" We were both very impressed by the coincidence.] From Leonard Easter's portion: "At one point, Ornette acquired a 'sweetheart option' to purchase a former school building on Rivington Street, on the Lower East Side. He wanted to form a community center, of sorts, encompassing a musical recording and educational space that would appeal primarily to kids. Of course, he took up residence and rehearsed there, loft style - it was kind of funny because each classroom had a distinct function: he lived in one, performed in another, etc. However, it was tough for him to raise the necessary funds to finalize the eventual purchase of the building. I know that he wanted to form a non-profit for this project but eventually everything fell through and he had to relocate. "It was difficult because he not only lived there, but he tried to renovate and maintain it himself. He became a bit discouraged when, late one evening, someone broke in and smashed him across the back with a crowbar causing one of his lungs to collapse. He did eventually recover, but there was that lingering fear factor for a while that he wasn't going to be able to ever play again." - p 6 Notice the differences between the 2 versions: In the 1st, Coleman was squatting; in the 2nd, Coleman had a financial deal w/ NY City. The latter seems more likely to me but what do I know? Then again, the 2nd description quoted is from a lawyer talking so it's probably a lie, eh?! From Jack DeJohnette's portion: "You know, Ornette's concept of Harmolodics, I think it was a need for him to take charge of what his music was, so that critics wouldn't brand it. Cos the critics were branding music all the time. And so, I had my music - I called it multi-directional music - and Ornette... you know, that was a way of the musician taking charge fo what that music was being called, so when anybody referred to Ornette's music they would say 'Harmolodic'." - p 9 I can relate. I've spent most of my life self-defining. I think it's important. The 'problem' is that lazy perceivers (the vast majority) lose interest in things that don't have pre-fabricated contexts. It's too much trouble to 'think' outside the box., in other words it's too much trouble to THINK at all. Then there's a "Review of Baraka & Taylor at the Poetry Project (2000)" by Christopher Funkhouser. Given that Amiri Baraka is at least someone of interest to me & that Cecil Taylor is one of my favorite pianists AND that I gave a performance at the Poetry Project way back on Monday, May 27, 1985 ( http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/MereOut... ), this catches my interest considerably. Baraka "continued by reading a series of shorter poems, including "Pilgrims Progress" (where both god & the devil are addressed as "motherfuckers"), and "Lo-Ku's" ("the african-american version of haiku", e.g. "you can pray all day/and get no answer/but dial 911 and the devil will be there in a minute"), all interspersed with AB scatting." - p 14 Are there any creative people anywhere in the world who get enuf respect to enable them to speak for awhile w/o having their audience get restless? I truly wonder. Take Funkhouser's commentary on Taylor's part of the reading. "Since he was speaking of vibratory essences, I shouldn't have been surprised when, after 30 minutes or so, cell phones began to ring. Half the audience was visibly agitated because of the reading's duration; there was restless commotion in the back. Others traveled about in the space of the poem and moment. An artist was sketching. When Cecil sensed people's impatience, did he stop? Hardly: A false ending, followed by a sigh of relief from the beleaguered, was followed by more poetry. Cecil kept going, lightly prancing behind the podium! By the time he quit, the audience was 1/3 of what it had been." - p 17 Ok, these are 2 amazing guys, they're not going to live forever, maybe this is their last reading. Still, it was too much for people: Ho Hum, there are so many amazing people in the world, I'm impatient to get out to my favorite bar. Whatever. Maybe they were both being self-indulgent old bores. Maybe if the audience lllooooovvvveeeedddd them I'd be sickened by reading about it. I hated it when full houses at the Andy Warhol Museum hung on every word of Stan Brakhage's self-aggrandizing bullshit.. on every word of Kenneth Anger's insidious psychic vapirism & con artistry. This publication is more vast than my review will adequately touch on. This review will skip over sections. Another reviewer cd only focus on what I leave out & still be very thorough. There is no chase to cut to. Next I quote Benjamin Boretz, perhaps THE elder of this astonishing cluster of minds. "So are the things that matter not things at all? Or are they things metaphorically separated from the mattering attributed to them, the mattering which they are felt to have occasioned? When I play music for you, and it doesn't matter to you, I know by something that happens in my being that we have together conjured a space of mutual nonconsonance, that where we each are is not quite in the same world, or at least not the same room. That kind of experience (which one has had) makes me think of that primal shock of originary cognitive dissonance which simultaneously and instantaneously forces every infant's revelation of other, self, and the world; the moment that compels the discovery, really the invention of thought, as an emergency tool conjured in panic to restore sanity, equilibrium, cohesion. From the outside, ontological creativity appears to be volitional, "the chosen"; but from within it reads like Stravinsky's "I do not seek, I find". And, "I know there's a real world out there, because not all of my fantasies work" (-BB) - pp 26-27 Then there's David Lidov's take on the theme: "The THINGS-THAT-MATTER gauntlet would have been easier to snatch in '68 or '72. I might have said stopping the war matters. My late wife was chronically ill and couldn't take the air downtown. I might have said not living downtown mattered. "Matters to whom? Even back then, I would have quickly yielded if challenged. With less than a minute of reflection, I would have been ready to acknowledge that my concerns didn't matter outside my personal world's time, didn't matter to the Milky Way or the cosmos beyond." - p 29 When Dorota Czerner, one of OPEN SPACE's editors, offered the opportunity for me to contribute to the issue that will hopefully follow the one I'm reviewing here she sd I cd address the issue of "THINGS THAT MATTER" if so inclined. I find the issue dauntingly large given that almost everything I've ever invested energy in in my whole life might be THINGS THAT MATTER to me. I'm an anarchist, a political activist — but I'm also a writer, a critic, a d composer, a usician, a performer, a moviemaker, & a person who's been many other things as well in order to make a living. All of these things MATTER to me & to other people. The idea of "THINGS THAT MATTER" strikes me as a human scale idea. I'm not convinced that "the Milky Way or the cosmos beyond" have any sense of THINGS THAT MATTER so, unlike Lidov, I have no problem w/ addressing the issue on a human scale. I was completely opposed to the Vietnam War in 1968 & 1972. I have no problem or hesitation saying that such opposition was one of the THINGS THAT MATTERed to me then. I'm still opposed to ALL war. I'm still opposed to the mind-boggling tendency of human beings to cause suffering for other life, both to the same species & to non-humans. I think THAT MATTERs. If one watches the Robert H. Gardner History Channel 'documentary' about the Vikings then one hears the dramatic narrator intone at the end something to the effect that, yeah, the Vikings were brutal but they expanded world trade, etc. My reply is: anything that 'requires' mass murder isn't worth it. Certainly there cd've been less-greed-&-murder-based ways of expanding trade. Today's 'Free Trade' was yesterday's Viking raid. We still live in a world of state-sponsored terror (what was once the Roman Empire) & Barbarian terror (the Huns). It still sucks for the rest of us, the ones who get killed &/or traumatized who really don't care about having a golden goblet. This MATTERs to anyone caught in the crossfire & to plenty of the rest of us who can actually feel sympathy for our fellow human beings. Lidov continues: "Years later, I understand that that false question of mattering to the cosmos has never been anything but a cover-up for discouragement. When young, I could quickly push it away with fantasies of what WE could accomplish: Stop the War! Care for all the children! Empower the workers! At my present age, the "We" progressively gets pretty diffuse for the standard reasons, plural is shrinking toward singular. I will not be able to clean up the plastics in the oceans. I will not be able to stop Netanyahu from wiping out the Palestinians or Assad from gassing folks. I will not be able to stop global warming. But, Ah-Hah, I may well be able to enrich your understanding of that crazy piece by LvB—if only I don't get discouraged!" - p 30 "that crazy piece by LvB" being Ludwig van Beethoven's last Bagatelle in his last set, Op. 126. Somehow, Lidov gets to Nero: "Was the matricidal and Christian-slaughtering Nero Claudius, rumored to be plucking his cithera through the great fire of 64, really not distraught by the plight of Rome? Wikipedia says he was quick to organize food relief. As with Richard M Nixon, some good points surfaced afterwards." - p 39 Well, let's consult Suetonius about that little myth about Nero, shall we? "But he showed no greater mercy to the people or the walls of his capital. When someone in a general conversation said: "When I am dead, be earth consumed by fire," he rejoined "Nay, rather while I live," and his action was wholly in accord. For under cover of displeasure at the ugliness of the old buildings and the narrow, crooked streets, he set fire to the city so openly that several ex-consuls did not venture to lay hands on his chamberlains although they caught them on their estates with tow and fire-brands, while some granaries near the Golden House, whose room he particularly desired, were demolished by engines of war and then set on fire, because their walls were of stone. For six days and seven nights destruction raged, while the people were driven for shelter to monuments and tombs. At that time, besides an immense number of dwellings, the houses of leaders of old were burned, still adorned with trophies of victory, and the temples of the gods vowed and dedicated by the kings and later in the Punic and Gallic wars, and whatever else interesting and noteworthy had survived from antiquity. Viewing the conflagration from the tower of Maecenas and exulting, as he said, in "the beauty of the flames," he sang the whole of the "Sack of Ilium," in his regular stage costume. Furthermore, to gain from this calamity too all the spoil and booty possible, while promising the removal of the debris and dead bodies free of cost he allowed no one to approach the ruins of his own property; and from the contributions which he not only received, but even demanded, he nearly bankrupted the provinces and exhausted the resources of individuals." - http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E... I trust Suetonius's account. As for Nixon? Wasn't he responsible for the deaths of huge quantities of people in Vietnam, Cambodia, & Laos? Whatever "good points" might've "surfaced afterwards" must be very small in contrast. THINGS THAT MATTER to me often involve fariness.. kindness.. Cruelty begets misery begets cruelty begets misery. It's literally a vicious cycle. Guilherme Zelig: "From age fifteen João was a mason. Ebony black, already by that age he had lost his parents. Had to go to work. By twenty-three he'd started a family of his own. The only thing he knew how to write with a pen was his name. He would leave home for work early having taken his morning coffee, made by his wife. Would get back late, and sometimes stopped by the bar to take a couple of beers. But one time João lost his life. The police mistook him for someone else, they had assumed he was involved in a robbery in the posh area of the city." - p 60 So they killed him. Just like that. No chance to prove that he was at work at the time of the robbery. Ignorance, stupidity, hatefullness, racism, quickness-to-kill, impunity. More suffering added to the world. This is one of the THINGS THAT MATTER. Russell Craig Richardson appears again starting on page 64: "THNGS THT MTTR How It Is All women are the property of all men. Any one man. Any man All children are the property of all adults. Any adult at all All poor people are the property of any wealthy person (All black people are the property of any and every white person) Set against which, Three Miracles Being Awareness of Being Contact" - p 64 I find the How It Is section to be deliberately provocative. Richardson may believe it's true. There are certainly many people eager to complain about being victims that wd at least profess to believing the parts relevant to them to be true. In my personal experience, many women are very successfully domineering & control the men in their lives w/ a mind-boggling viciousness. Children are hypothetically protected by adults to help them grow past dangers they're initially unaware of. But I wdn't exactly call them "property", as Richardson does. Anyone who's spent time around young children & their parents might find the parents being led around by the nose as the child subjects them to violent selfish mood-swings. All poor people are likely to be ordered around by most wealthy people as servants regardless of the circumstances but does that make them "property"? Wealthy people might not want "property" that has to be cared for, poor people are cheaper than slaves when we can be used as disposable tools. Even at the height of slavery in the US & elsewhere there wd've always been 'white' people who refused the attitude that 'black' people, or ANY people, are "property". I find these generalizations of Richardson's unproductive & offensive. For one thing, it posits all the power in the oppressor but I think we all have power. But I like Richardson & I'm interested in his writing so I read on: "Once Upon A Time, there was an artist who decided to incorporate danger into his art." - p 64 I think of Chris Burden having himself shot &/or SRL having machines fight each other in ways dangerous to any observers. "The artist gets on with his life, sleeping, reading, writing, eating, thinking, making art. The artist's movements are restricted to a space no more than six feet in front of this wall. A red line is drawn on the floor to make this zone visible." - p 64 I think of Tehching Hsieh & his one yr long performances such as the one where he lived in a small jail cell for a year without any entertainment materials, without communicating, eating only bread & water twice a day. "The target area is potentially 50 feet wide x 10 feet high. The artist will always be in this area. When the klaxon sounds, the artist must freeze in his current posture and wait until the shot is fired. Or not fired." - p 65 I think of the Soviet propaganda cartoon, "Shooting Range" (1979) by V. Tarasov, in which desperate US citizens resort to being human shooting range targets to make a living. "Once Upon A Time, I decided to read a book in a language I do not fully master. Each time I came upon a word whose meaning was not clear, I noted it down, and tried to guess the meaning from its context. Later, I looked up the words thus listed, and verified their meanings." [..] "adoquines (n) something to do with a dark street at night? "cobblestones" - p 68 I read this OPEN SPACE over what was probably a few mnths, always reading multiple other bks during this time. I finished reading it on May 24, 2019. Today is July 14, 2019. 51 days have elapsed since I finished reading the whole thing, at least another mnth since I read Richardson's article. What his opening provocations have to do w/ his 'fairy tales' that follow is beyond me. It's tempting to at least skim the article to refresh my memory. This wd be easy & wd enable closure. Instead, I think I'll finish this part of the review in a way inspired by "I decided to read a book in a language I do not fully master." Unlike Richardson, I won't check the correctness of what I speculate. Richardson's grim provocative beginning, which I don't agree with, is countered by: "Three Miracles Being Awareness of Being Contact"" His "Three Miracles" are the 3 fairy tales he tells. These "Three Miracles" are not only NOT "Miracles" b/c they're not outside the possibilities of human nature & 'laws' of nature & they do nothing to counteract the grim 'laws' of oppression. They are, however, far more likely to inspire positive action in a world that's all too often like walls closing in on victims whose destruction is watched for the entertainment of people who've long since lost their connection to others thanks to the privilege that's cauterized their humanitarian potential. To read the complete review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ...more |
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review of Bernadette Mayer's Poetry State Forest by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - April 17-20, 2019 For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads. review of Bernadette Mayer's Poetry State Forest by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - April 17-20, 2019 For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... or be DAMNED! Meyer probably 1st came to my attn in the late 1970s as someone associated w/ Language Poetry. I don't recall that making much sense to me b/c her poetry didn't strike me as 'non-transparent'. Still, her "Experiments" ( wch is presented in a larger version here: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/library/... ) is in the 1st edition (&, presumably, later ones too) of The L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Book. L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, the magazine that focused on theoretical issues of such writing that the bk is culled from, presented work relevant to & by a variety of people who I think the editors were just interested in. As such, Hannah Weiner was there, as was something about Louis Zukofsky. I don't think they necessarily 'belonged' but I was interested in all the work & was glad the magazine was more inclusive than exclusive. It seems that Mayer doesn't have much fondness for her Language Poetry days. In her Winner of the Bad Poem Contest she writes: "Just throw em under the pile all the bad poems written never to be seen again all the poems of the twentieth century" [..] "the language poems about something or other, throw em all over a pile" - p 57 I'm sure I read her "Experiments" & liked it. I have a copy of her Moving, wch I also read but don't remember at all. What clinched my interest in her was her bk Studying Hunger (1975). The cover has a close-cropped shot of her face. To anyone who's familiar w/ how it feels to fast, her fasting will be immediately apparent. There's a CLARITY. I've gone w/o food fairly often, sometimes b/c of poverty, sometimes b/c I chose to. For those who have the discipline to fast, it's an extraordinary experience. That experience radiates from the picture of Mayer's face. After that? There're so many things to read. Even tho I was interested in Mayer, in the long-run she was only one of many. MANY. Maybe I read Studying Hunger in the early 1980s. It wasn't until over 20 yrs later that I read her poems in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (2008). The only poem that did it for me was her "First turn to me. . . ." (1992) the sexual explicitness & passion of wch is something that I can deeply relate to. As w/ Studying Hunger, if you've been there, you recognize it. A sidenote here is that if your writing is truly experimental, as much of mine is, & you prefer to operate outside of the cliché categories &, therefore, don't call yourself a poet or say that you've writing poetry, YOU WILL BE MOSTLY IGNORED. If they can't pigeonhole you in an established category then, chances are, there will be no interest. I'm looking for people beyond category. We are a rarity. I'm looking for polymaths. We are a rarity. I became interested in Mayer again when I learned that she & Vito Acconci edited a magazine together called 0 to 9. Vito Acconci is an artist whose work I have total admiration for. I knew that in his early phase he was a writer but I still haven't read much, or any, of his writing. I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that she'd been the director of the St Marks Poetry Project from 1980 to 1984. In short, Mayer has led an interesting life. I performed a Mad Scientist Didaction at the St Marks Poetry Project on Monday, May 27, 1985, that some of the attendees tried to prevent from continuing. I wonder if Mayer was there? See the 1st entry here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/MereOut... . SO, on March 22, 2019, I was at Caliban Books in PGH celelbrating Lawrence Ferlinghetti's approaching 100th birthday by reading dome of his poetry ( https://youtu.be/c-FLu6yW_TY ) where I took advantage of their 55% off poetry sale & bought Poetry State Forest. I only had enuf money to buy 1 bk & it was toss-up between this & a Cubist collection. I probably shd've gotten the Cubist one but it was more expensive. Anyway, I'm still glad I got this one & I'm glad I read more Mayer. "when my children were growing up we never had candy at home but when we went to poetry readings i always brought chocolate bars to make the poetry palatable or more interesting so they'd be relatively quiet, it only backfired" - p 3 I'm not generally interested in 'discursive poetry' or 'autobiographical poetry' & Poetry State Forest falls largely in those categories. I'm much more interested in writing along these lines: http://permutations.pleintekst.nl/neo... — but the subtxt of that wd be hidden to most readers. But there're people whose lives interest me & people whose lives are of less interest to me. Given the 'authenticity' of Mayer's writing about fasting & sex I can relate too much to not be interested. Even the excerpt from the above-quoted Chocolate Poetry Sonnet appeals to me in a very direct way. I'm sure that Mayer has been a pleasure to be around. I wish I knew her personally. Maybe I shd make an effort in that direction — but I doubt that I ever will. Her website, https://www.bernadettemayer.com , has no contact info that I cd find. That's usually a bad sign. I wd credit Mayer w/ being politically savvy but reading this excerpt from her Howard Zinn Sonnet makes me wonder: "having lived through two wars, time to cease fire forever! any newborn would agree!" - p 5 Howard Zinn, for those of you who don't know, is the author of A People's History of the United States, a groundbreaking work in defiance of history-belonging-to-the-victor. But, "two wars"? Even if Mayer wrote that in the mid-'70s & is only talking about wars in wch the US played a major part, she wd've already lived thru the Korean War & the Vietnam War, as well as conflicts in Lebanon, the Congo, & the Dominican Republic. In the 66 yrs that I've been alive, the US has never not been at war. If there were no other 'justification' for this, I suspect that most or all government leaders think it's advisable to have battle-hardened troops available at all times. It's ironic, isn't it? In this day & age no smoking laws can be enforced for the hypothetical good of the population but war still goes on. Isn't war bad for our health too? "i guess patriots dont smoke; in new york city a fancy restaurant has a heated stretch limousine parked outside to smoke in after dinner" - p 22 Why not do the same thing w/ war? If you want to wage war, there's an unheated stretch limousine outside that you're welcome to do it in. Mayer's sexually explicit poem in Postmodern American Poetry is probably relevant to this: "now that poems've got everything in them even rhetoric and dailiness plus the names of things again including flowers like the spotted touch-me-not so inviting to hummingbirds & I'm writing one & it's so touch & go with men & women I'd like to mention to say blatantly I got my period today probably like nobody certainly in the nineteenth century ever did" - pp 26-27 I tend to think she's right about that — but what if no-one dared publish such a poem? Wd we know about it now? It was in her WIHAHITITTUAVTB * What I Have Always Heard Is That It Typifies and Vacates the Body that I was. once again, struck by how eerily close some of Mayer's experiences & mine have been: "1. You don't aggressively soothe the butter 2. And the aspen, list theorists 3. Stop give me ten good readings and one for good measure" - p 46 Why does this resonate w/ me so deeply? On p 47 she explains: "These are 30 of the sentences that I perceived while in a hypnagogic state, that is, the state between sleeping and waking." I've been keeping a list of such phrases since 1975, although I've neglected the list for the better part of the last 30 yrs or more, & I've collected together these txts in a bk called Telepathy Receptivity Training (wch I published in fall, 1991). A website about that is here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Book199... . Some of my readings of it are here: https://youtu.be/dDrKuf7ybE8?t=1188 & here: https://youtu.be/SeKRPVGa_ko . Here're 3 of the earlier lines: "i put german cars into the pencil she's such a cheerful little fleaklist she's afraid the heel is fallin' off her liver" - http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Book199... As soon as I read Mayer's 1st lines I recognized the state of mind they were written in even before I read her end explanation. That might not seem like much to some people but it means alot to me. "here people steal spongebob squarepants from the tops of burger kings" - p 48 Something relevant is an excerpt from my review of William S. Burroughs & Allen Ginsberg's Don't Hide the Madness, esp Steven Taylor's introduction: ""One of my between-tour jobs was to compile all the footnotes from the foreign editions of Ginsberg's work and then go through his whole oeuvre to make footnotes explaining various persons, events, etc. This was aimed at the Collected Poems 1947-1980, then in preparation. I asked him what should get a footnote. He said, "Anything a high school kid fifty years from now might not understand." So, for example, one of the foreign editions had a footnote explaining "supermarket." At the time, I thought it kind of crazy that in the US collection of the Collected, "supermarket" would need explanation. But fifty years ahead would have been 2032, so who knows? Young readers might need that explained, just as my generation needed a footnote explaining the "automat" of the 1940s. The man thought long-term. Many of my footnotes were culled later in the editing process by less prophetic heads." - pp i-ii "NOW, that's the sort of thing that I think is important. It's a scholar's issue. I agree w/ Ginsberg & Taylor here. If I were to talk to a so-called "Millenarian' now & mention Federico Fellini, arguably one of the most famous film directors of the middle to late 20th century (active 1945-1992), how many of them wd have any idea who he is? They're more likely to know who directed a recent Batman film. Maybe." - "Don't Hide (unless you're Ginsberg's mom)": https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... In other words, I find it interesting wondering how much of "here people steal spongebob squarepants / from the tops of burger kings" will be comprehensible to future readers? I know that "spongebob squarepants" is a cartoon character, w/ the attendant action figures & the like, & I know that "burger kings" are a chain of fast food restaurants — but how people will know that a mere 50 yrs from now? Even now, as I'm reading this poetry, I find things that I'm sure will be missed by many readers — a phrase from a song that a person familiar w/ the song might sing while reading the poem, e.g.. But what about the people who don't know the song? A reader will find a deeper relationship to the poem when these shared cultural experiences are referred to. "I remember when a crazed nun in the fifth grade during the mccarthy era said to us how many of you would die for your faith if the communists came, raise your hands" - p 54 This is the same kind of morbid insanity that Moslem children are subjected to as well as Christians. I publish an audio cassette by Beth Anderson on one side & Gayle Hansen on the other. On Gayle's side she tells a similar story & said that she began studying communism after that. Thank the holy ceiling light that even children can manage to see thru the brainwashing from time-to-time. Mayer can be a political poet. Take her parody, Idyll as an example: "On the way up the hill I threw my cigarette butt into the pile of shit the poodle had left in the sand & wandered on through the forest" - p 61 [..] "At dusk I go back down to the lake to throw our garbage in & drink in some more of the beauties of nature" - p 62 I'd say she captures the mindset of a callous polluter of nature fairly well. "Solstice Anthem Against Fear If nothing happened A big ugly man with flowers on a skateboard Yet I do want your company Do you speak Bardo? This untaught being into another way of seeing That could be spent making love which is all" - p 64 Having recently watched "David Attenborough's Life in the Undergrowth" about insects & having seen shot after shot of the processes that various insects go thru in order to couple & the male transfers its giant ball of sperm to the egg-bearer, the thought of fucking as "making love" is mostly humorous to me. One type of spider has a female 4 or 5 times the size of the male. The male has to approach carefully or the female will just eat him. Even if they mate she might just eat him afterward anyway. You might argue that humans aren't insects. I might argue that we're not as far apart as might be typically thought. "Images & Phrases From Shakespeare's Sonnets & Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels roses have thorns big cow-y deer those tears are pearl an electromagnetic crazy arrangement of bored eternal power strong offense's cross eventual searing blisters like needles silver fountains (have) mud tugs hoot in the harbor I travel forth without my cloak mosquitoes humming in harmony" - p 69 Tractor Pull! Monster Poets Raised 10 Feet Off The Ground by Drugs! So far I've only quoted excerpts. Here's a whole shebang dagnabbit-all-to-heck poem: "Wren Warbler Sonnet the wind blowing on one of those innocent days, this year we became landlords of birds on the front porch robins, starlings, wrens, warblers they pay no rent, we clean up their shit once in the warbler nest there was a squabble feathers & nest stuff everywhere, i had seen a wren go into the warbler enclave, maybe i was mistaken, perhaps for a visit just one bird to another, on my plate i put all the downed feathers covered by petrified rock i thought, i am way too involved with these birds next day a warbler said to me that wren is a terrorist, report him" - p 71 Those last 2 lines shd be indented but whenever I've tried to use the html to do that it didn't work but that doesn't really bother me like that letter z does. What do I like about the above poem? Not that much, really.. but at the same time that I was typing it I was listening to Obray Ramsey playing what I think was probably "Lonesome Road Blues" at a pretty fast pace on the banjo & that made it all seem so exciting. Shows to go ya. Then again, I like birds & I like the poet's being "way too involved with these birds" & I'm amused by the fantasy of a warbler telling the poet that the wren's a terrorist. Are we there yet? Mayer seems somewhat unconcerned whether Poetry State Forest has any meta-structure, she seems satisfied (I envision her sitting on her haunches, all haunched over) with just having one poem after another, some of them united by her recounting of her life w/ Phil, most of them apparently chosen just b/c she likes them. She does spoof: "I think that I shall never see Easy puddings in a tree You say you must type everything You can't read your words in handwriting Mary says she has a double or a twin And now a triplet And she is a skinny energetic person too" - p 72 How much of this poetry is written for her friends? Why, just t'other day, I saw an Easy pudding in a tree & I asked how that terrorist wren situation was going & they looked at me like I was crazy. ALSO, I never sd anything about typewriting. ALSOALSO, are we talking about the same Mary? She also listens to other people. "Ancient Brooklyn Talk by the Boardwalk We're at fucking Cooney Eyeland now not that fancy fucking abandoned lake inna fuckin Berkshires dontcha wanna be the virgin mother fer me people fallin in love hey Duke what the fuck man getthefuckouttahere dat's my girlfrien's birdsnest Da-neece Da-neece you fucking turn me fuckin on Lew you fuckin shit ass Jew turn up yr fuckin ghetto blaster louder yeah ok some fairy raybans them fuckin spics got lookit them fuckin secret-fairies wanna go inta the tunnel of love wit me" - p 80 Puhleese, watch your language! I'm trying to write a class review here. "Don't-Drink-Bush-Beer Sestina c'mere all of you, my sestina writers i'm coming to you from east nassau which is having indian summer, it's 60° & bush is still ostensible president of the fallout from his own lies, i wish for his downfall fuck you, you fucking fuck is written on a new orleans t-shirt. fuck you, i reiterate to bush; writers should work for bush's downfall as the so-called president of a country which is a so-called democracy; stay in your fallout shelters till bush blows away or he (bush)" - p 82 "A complex French verse form, usually unrhymed, consisting of six stanzas of six lines each and a three-line envoy. The end words of the first stanza are repeated in a different order as end words in each of the subsequent five stanzas; the closing envoy contains all six words, two per line, placed in the middle and at the end of the three lines. The patterns of word repetition are as follows, with each number representing the final word of a line, and each row of numbers representing a stanza: 1 2 3 4 5 6 6 1 5 2 4 3 3 6 4 1 2 5 5 3 2 6 1 4 4 5 1 3 6 2 2 4 6 5 3 1 (6 2) (1 4) (5 3)" - https://www.poetryfoundation.org/lear... Don't-Drink-Bush-Beer Sestina ends w/: "rise up, writers! solve universal problems! end the bush reign! let this fallout signal his downfall, so in peace we fuck!" - p 83 NOW, if I understand the sestina definition above, Mayer's poem is not a sestina. If "The end words of the first stanza are repeated in a different order as end words in each of the subsequent five stanzas" then the 2nd stanza wd've had to end something like this: 'fucking fuck fuck you, you' instead of as it did: "shelters till bush blows away or he (bush)" I'm sorry, Ms Mayer, but we're going to have to let you go. After that blow to her ego she started talking w/ her house: "H: I've had it with your dreams, you think anything you dream is true. B: And my poetry too. H: That's another thing, all those poetry books. Where did all the Hebrew books go? B: Sorry the Rabbi doesn't live here anymore — just us poets. And Hector too. H: Yes, the dog is a fine addition, even if he leaves his hair everywhere. B: I'm glad you approve of the dog. And how do you feel about all the poets meeting on your porch? H: My porch is falling apart and needs to be painted like the rest of me. B: I'm sorry we're not rich enough to hire a crew of painters to restore your beauty." - p 94 Rich enough, Schmich enough. Paint it yourself. To be fair, though, I had to reconcrete the back foundation wall of my house & I did a good enough job but I never want to have to do that again. ...more |
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review of the Will Shutes & Jess Chandler edited Test Centre Seven by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 13, 2018 It seems all too often that I revi review of the Will Shutes & Jess Chandler edited Test Centre Seven by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 13, 2018 It seems all too often that I review a poetry publication beginning w/ something like: 'I'm not a good person to review poetry b/c I find too much of it to be self-indlugent & vague in ways I find close to impossible to have any interest in.' I rc'vd this from a distributor w/ whom I made a trade of some of my audio publications. I was glad to receive it b/c it's not something I would've been likely to find otherwise. The writers whose work is presented are: Chris Torrance, Sam Buchan-Watts, Allen Fisher, Holly Pester, MacGillivray, Pierre Guyotat, Daisy Lafarge, Josephy Persad, Rachael Allen, Sam Riviere, Francine Elena, Erik Stinson, Chrissy Williams, Wayne Holloway-Smith, Jen Calleja, Vahni Capildeo, Iain Sinclair, Ralf Webb, Angus Sinclair, Paul Buck, Caleb Klaces, Stephen Watts, Laura Elliott, Jack Underwood, A. K. Blakemore, Nick Thurston, S J Fowler, & Ahren Warner. I'd probably read work by more than one of these folks before but the only one I'm sure of is Allen Fisher. Most, but not all, of the writers seem to be London-based so as a taste of London poets this is probably useful. I've expressed before a primary interest in poetry that distinguishes itself formally in some strikingly innovative way. I can't honestly say that I felt that to be the case here but I was still willing to accept the challenge of more subtle issues. The problem for me, as a 'critic', is whether it's subtlety that I'm encountering or lack of imagination & inspiration. I reckon the poets wd rally for the former. There's no email address given for potential submissions, only a street address. It's sometimes the case that that's a way of avoiding a deluge of work submitted. It cd also be a way of unintentionally winnowing out the poor who might find postal rates from a country outside Great Britain too prohibitive. I made a note to myself to "quote the entire poem" entitled pigeon grey by Sam Buchan-Watts: "I dreamt the pigeons were stressful to look at because of their own stress, which is deep-down where their guts are like the place the tube goes in the afterhours. Pigeons greay at their core like seaside rock, black toenails emeeging from their blunt feet. It was a moot point of history when a pigeon was forced to wash its coat only in the great grey fountain; grey like speed sweating and hot in its national lottry stub; a discrete kind of carrier. I dreamt that pigeons long for a vestibule marked off from the sky, something to slip into, to have the remaining sky fold over the gap, and that pigeons appear afflicted because affliction is the only means of engagement with a sky they hate deep down in their toenails, toenails clacking lightly on the unkind floor. Where to hide from a sky, how to fall out of it? Their feet stick on the ground in collaboration — stick to its Maltesers and other treats we leave and still we hate them for this. They walk awkwardly in the way a person would fall. They think about affliction and the dumb euphemism of the word 'fall' for those who 'fall' in battle on any grey Tuesday in regular midwinter, and they pity them" - p 2 Why this poem? It's early in the publication so the poetry was still somewhat fresh to me. It's short. I don't dislike it. My reaction to it somewhat exemplifies my reaction to most or all of the other poetry published here: It doesn't really mean anything to me but I don't expect it to & don't think there's any reason why it 'shd' do anything in particular. It cd've been written very carefully, it cd've been written very spontaneously. It cd mean something to its author, it cd be something playful that just hangs together in a pleasant way for the author. It cd be many things. The author cd've been stoned or drunk or under the influence of some other drug while writing it, the author cd've been sober. For me, I just enjoy the language somewhat. If I had the opportunity to hear Buchan-Watts read I might go to listen for the sake of hearing his contextualization (assuming "Sam" is a man). It's not a favorite poem b/c I had no Eureka! moment reading it, no moment of spin-off inspiration. It was just there for me. It has periods w/in but not one at the end Holly Pester's "Space is low" begins: "I've been waiting for years for you to write about my damaged kidneys and the eighteen different oils that got to them. What I was doing was feeding the newer cows in the lower field, leaving just enough food for the babies to act dead and for my dad to not feel dead himself except in the neck and jaw which is normal when the ache passed through my kidneys (or you could say the 2 big cows in my lower back field) like a toxic radio signal that left its bad news in my magnificently-autonomous- body." - p 5 Now, somehow, I found that moderately amusing — she seems to be writing about personal things w/ a wry sense of humor & I like the cows recurring as apparent metaphors for her "damaged kidneys". Still, it was vague, as if the writer used poetry to avoid writing anything too specific. Maybe she really is a farmer. Maybe she really did have kidney problems. Maybe her friends care. I quote an excerpt from Sam Riviere's "Extract from Safe Mode: "Tags are the short questions that we put on the end of sentences, particularly in spoken English. There are lots of different question tags but the rules are not difficult to learn. If the main part of the sentence is positive, the question tag is negative. I am careful with sentences that start 'I am'. The question tag for 'I am' is 'aren't i?' Tags can either be 'real' questions where I want to know the answer, or they can simply be asking for agreement when I already know the answer. If the question tag is a real question I use rising intonation, don't I? My tone of voice rises. If I already know the answer I use falling intonation. My tone of voice falls, doesn't it? You can't hear me, —————? I'm next, —————? She already knew him, —————? They haven't met, —————? They don't like me, —————? They've seen me, —————? He's gone, —————? Finish/Try Again." - p 23 I found this "interesting' (so say my notes) b/c it teaches me something. Does that make it more of an essay? Am I, therefore, just expressing a preference for essays &/or narrative over poetry? & what about the pithy?: "On the first night after you read this sentence you will imagine me in your dreams whether you know it or like it or not." - p 58 That was the entirety of Nick Thurston's "In Your Dreams". If Ihis assertion came true I don't remember. I'm not giving him the benefit of the doubt. Even if you generally like poetry that's no guarantee that you'll like this collection. Still, why not read it anyway? There might be a treasure trove waiting for the unsuspecting in here. It didn't happen for me but I'm not writing it off. ...more |
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review of David Antn & Charles Bernstein's A Conversation with David Antin by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 28, August 13, 25, 2018 My review is p review of David Antn & Charles Bernstein's A Conversation with David Antin by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 28, August 13, 25, 2018 My review is presented in its entirety here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... For most of my life the cultural products that I'm interested in have been cheap to buy b/c they're not popular w/ the 'masses'. That's good for me b/c I'm not popular w/ the 'masses' either so I have very little money. As such, the bks & records, etc, that I like are also the ones most affordable & few people are competing w/ me to get them. I often point out that when I got interested in Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention when I was a teenager their records made it to the cut-out bins & sold for $2. Even things like Stockausen Deutsche Grammophon double record sets sold in record stores for $2 b/c the owners of the stores, apparently, just thought that they were crap that they cdn't get rid of fast enuf. Now, 45 yrs later, I can get a copy of A Conversation with David Antin, published by what is to me an important poetry press, Granary Books, for $1 even tho the original publication price was $12.95. That's ok, consumers, you just keep buying the latest teen romance vampire series & save the scholarly stuff for me. It was probably in the 1970s when I started looking more deeply for poets & writers who were straying from the pack when I wd've found David Antin & his talk poems. I don't recall ever hearing recordings of them or witnessing them in movies & I certainly never had the opportunity to witness him deliver in person. As such, I only got to experience them as written texts. I liked them somewhat but I didn't find them as innovative as other things I was discovering so my interest waned. Nonetheless, he's always been someone I remember as a writer whose work I might revisit — partially b/c he was of importance to my exceptionally talented & scholarly friend Bruce Stater who probably studied w/ both Antin & Jerome Rothenberg, who's also mentioned a fair amt in these pages. SO, when I saw this bk for sale & saw that it was both on Granary & featured Charles Bernstein in addition to Antin the time was ripe. Charles is someone whose work I've liked & who liked my "txt msg editorial" enuf to publish it online in "Sibila" (August 12, 2012) ( http://sibila.com.br/english/tentativ... ). So, cool: 2 intellectual poets discuss poetry. What's not to like? Antin: "I wanted to be an inventor, whatever I thought that meant then. i guess I was thinking of Edison or maybe James Watt. Or maybe even Newton. I had read all about his optical discoveries and I had managed to figure out how the steam engine worked from the Encyclopedia Britannica." - p 7 Antin: "My father died when I was two. He got a strep throat before there was penicillin or sulfa. That was his second mistake. He first was marrying my mother, who was apparently quite beautiful, but so what. My mother was a social climber headed downward. She started with a high school education, a high degree of literacy and a Pennsylvania accent acquired by arriving in Scranton at age seven. In those days the family had expectations. In the twenties they were successful business people and figured she would go to college. They figured wrong. She took a job as a bookkeeper in the family business, spent her money on looking pretty and married my father as soon as she could. When he died a couple of years later, she turned into a professional widow. By the forties she was already a marginally competent examiner in the dress business. She couldn't understand why I wanted to be an engineer, she thought I should be a chicken farmer in Lakewood." - p 8 I'm reminded of Gypsy Rose Lee's mystery novel: Mother Finds a Body. I quote from my review of that: "Lee doesn't depict her mother in a very favorable light & her son claims that Lee's mom sued her over it. I got a great deal of pleasure from seeing the depiction of her mother as unscrupulously manipulative. I've been there. ""Many people have wondered: How much of Mother Finds a Body is true? Ultimately, all of mother's writing was based on her life, so by the time she got to Gypsy she was comfortable with the characters. Ironically, she waited until after her mother died to write it because she wanted to avoid another lawsuit, but she got sued anyway. This time by her sister. Like the earlier suit by her mother, it was settled with money. To call our family mercenary would be an understatement." - p 9" - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... It's obvious that Antin has a low opinion of his mother & wasn't impressed by her 'beauty'. The older I get, the more aware I am of how 'beauty' is used to manipulate. Lee was similarly cynical about her mother. My own mom was told when she was younger that she looked like the popular actress Doris Day. I think that that was a point of pride. I never saw her as beautiful but I've come to realize that getting her hair done was a higher priority than most things so I think that maintaining that 'beauty' has always been central to her life. Similarly to Antin's mother wanting him to be a chicken farmer, mine wanted me to be an insurance salesman. My being a reasonably accomplished mathematician, artist, & musician by the time I was a teenager was neither here nor there. According to her, I was 'exactly like the insurance salesmen at work' despite my having matted long hair a foot or so past my shoulders (not that common at the time) & my living as a hitch-hiker/drifter. This bk is divided into 2 parts: the interview & a section of annotated family photos called "Album Notes". Antin returns to his mom & dad in the latter: "They told me he died as a result of medical incompetence at the age of twenty-seven, when I was two. I never completely believed it. I suspected he'd run away to escape my mother, for which I didn't blame him in the least." - p 103 Bernstein: "I often get a sense of poetry being disappointing to you, that the failure of poetry to do something it could be doing or doing better was a kind of inspiration for writing poetry (well you know that's my current theory, speaking of theories, and I do see you as a particularly good model for it). What do you or did you think poetry should be doing?" - p 13 Antin: "Reading through Simone Weil's journals and an insurance manual, there were lots of sentences whose meaning I didn't really understand. They weren't unusually difficult sentences. They often contained words that were cultural commonplaces or cliches, ordinary abstract terms that everybody seems to understand. "Loss" "Value" "Power." But as I looked at them I found out I didn't understand them at all. So I started to write them down, thinking that by writing them down, I could concentrate on them, ask them questions and find out what meanings they might conceal. And I saw that my not-understanding could be a way to go on. And as I went on with this writing down I didn't think about whether I was writing poems. I was thinking. And the more I was thinking, the more there was I didn't understand. The first part of "definitions for mendy" with its questions about "loss" and "value" and "power" and "brightness" were written this way and temporarily stopped on the day Jack Kennedy was killed in the fall of 1963. My two first books — definitions and Code of Flag Behavior — were written this way, bringing not-understanding as a set of questions to puzzling commonplaces and cliches — linguistic and cultural acceptances of every kind. So I was trying to find out what it was that everybody else understood without giving up my stubborn and hard won lack of understanding. Of course my lack of understanding kept expanding." - pp 16-17 How many people go thru the process of analyzing commonplaces? IMO: almost no-one. That's a part of what makes Antin's work potentially important to me. I've been saying for decades that people like things b/c they're familiar & not b/c they have any understanding of them. Recently, e.g., a friend of mine expressed displeasure at Arnold Schoenberg's "atonality" w/o having the slightest idea what that meant. He isn't a musician. He probably likes tonal music b/c it's familiar & not b/c he understands what makes it tonal or 'consonant'. I often say that if I only play the white keys on a piano & use the sustain pedal alot non-musicians are going to think I'm 'good'. Antin provides examples of poems of his to represent what he's talking about in the interview. Bernstein provides a few explicatory examples of his own. I don't really like most of the poetry by Antin presented but I like an example or 2 of Bernstein's. Bernstein: "I have long been fascinated by Laura Riding's turn away from poetry in the late '30s, at the beginning of World War Two, and her ultimate move to philosophical prose. She certainly spoke of poetry's insufficiencies. You twice moved away from poetry and indeed, finally, to a kind of telling, in (Riding) Jackson's sense. Yet I persist in seeing this as innovation not renunciation." - p 28 Antin emails Bernstein an old poem & discusses how it was changed in its initial publication: Antin: "I'm sending it to you without capitalization or punctuation, which was the way the damn poem was written. But The New Yorker in their stylistic commitment insisted they had no lower case for poem titles. A week or two later they called back to ask if I'd let them put a capital letter at the beginning of the poem and a period at the end. But, I said, the poem contains lots of sentences between the first word and the last. That's okay, they said, but we really like to start a poem with a capital letter and we need the poem to end with a period. I'd already spent the money they paid me. So I figured, the hell with it." - p 29 Now, hopefully not surprisingly, I find The New Yorker's interference w/ the form of the poem to be inexcusably moronic. I've had things like that happen too. When I started writing "tentatively, a convenience" in tOGGLE cASE in 1979 as "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE" I didn't really want to spend the rest of my life fighting for the 'right' to do that but, yep. I still do. The comma (",") in the name also presents a big problem for people. In the 1970s I tried applying for 2 NEA grants for myself as a writer. The submission requirements were that everything had to be typed in double space. The most interesting writing I was doing at the time was in field form. Double space was irrelevant to my writing & actually interfered w/ its content. As such, I didn't follow the rules. I can easily imagine the robopath at the NEA taking one look at the work, seeing that it wasn't double-spaced & rejecting it w/o trying to read it or understand it. Bureaucrats like that are an impediment to the support of creativity. Antin: "But getting back to your take on these early poems, it's hard for me to think about poems I haven't looked at for thirty-five years. And it's harder to explain accurately or reliably why I twice abandoned ways of writing that I had become quite skillful at. Like you, I don't see my move away — or escape — from the image-driven work late in 1963, and then from what you call the "process poetry" by 1971 or 72, as renunciations." - pp 30-31 Some of the connections & interests of Antin's were not what I expected: Antin: "My new work of 1963 had more in common with George Brecht than Bertolt Brecht and still more in common with the Judson dancers than with the Frankfurt School. It's hard to remember '63 without thinking of Yvonne Rainer, Judith Dunn, Steve Paxton, David Gordon and their fellow dancers, jogging, crawlings, climbing, or falling or simply walking around, carrying strange objects, wearing trashy furs or grey sweatsuits" - p 36 Given that I like George Brecht & the Judson School of dance, Antin's connecting his work to theirs interests me b/c in my limited experience of it I wd've never made that connection. Antin: "I always had the feeling I should put up a sign over the entrance to any of my performances: "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here," because I don't feel obligated to "entertain" — though I reserve the right to tell shaggy dog stories or even common jokes as part of what I'm doing. But I also don't give a damn if half the audience walks out. This separates me not only from" [Lenny] "Bruce, but from other entertainers like Spaulding Gray or Garrison Keillor, all of whom I enjoy. I'm standing up on my feet thinking. Anybody who wants to listen is welcome." - p 46 I had a rubber-stamp made that read "Abandon HOPELESSNESS all ye who enter here" ( http://othercinema.com/otherzine/arch... ). I much prefer that. I remember Jackson Mac Low telling me that he considered his work entertainment & I find his work much less likely to please consumers-in-search-of-a-'good'-time than Antin's. I remember telling the (v)audience after the premier of my "A Catamaran Animist Vigor" ( http://youtu.be/cn3U055X-2U ) that that was my idea of entertainment & asking them if they'd also found it to be entertainment. The answer was "NO". On Friday, April 2, 2004, as response to my performance at the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB), half the audience DID walk out by the time I got to this portion of my program: https://vimeo.com/29371740 & one of the 2 organizers tried to get me to stop soon thereafter. Bernstein: "One stream of thinking from Walter Ong's Presence of the Word to David Abraham's Spirit of the Sensuous has suggested that alphabetic literacy, compared to what preceded it, puts its users in a fundamentally more alientated relationship to language and the body. Such thinking suggests the value of a return to "orality"" - p 50 Perhaps. After all, written language is a mediation & any mediation might be an alienation. Nonetheless, you wdn't be reading this review & I wdn't've read the bk if we returned to orality. As such, our experience w/ language is likely to be more narrow w/o "alphabetic literacy" — limited, perhaps, to the speakers around us — unless radio & such-like were accepted as "orality" — but, then, they're mediating/alienating too IMO. Bernstein: "This tradition is described in great detail by Frances Yates in her marvelous book The Art of Memory. The idea was to call to mind a familiar and complicated building and stage a mental walking tour of all of its rooms, imagining precisely and in their places all of its decorative details, and then to place each of the images of a projected speech in a particular detail of the building in the sequential order that it would have to be recalled in the speech. It's a kind of mental roadmap with illustrated "view points" or "rest areas." This isn't writing, but it is a way of spatializing memory" - p 51 I'm 'inevitably' reminded of A.R.Luria's The Mind of a Mnemonist — A Little Book About A Vast Memory in which the mnemonist's instinctual method of remembering is described thusly: "When S. read through a long series of words, each word would elicit a graphic image. And since the series was farily long, he had to find some wayof distributing these images of his in a mental row or sequence. Most often (and this habit persisted throughout his life), he would "distribute" them along some roadway or street he visualized in his mind. Sometimes this was a street in his home town, which would also include the yard attached to the house he had lived in as a child and which he recalled vividly. On the other hand, he might also select a street in Moscow. Frequently he would take a mental walk along that street—Gorky Street in Moscow—beginning at Mayakovsky Square, and slowly making his way down, "distributing" his images at houses, gates, and store windows." - pp 31-32, A.R.Luria's The Mind of a Mnemonist, Basic Books, 1968 A part of what fascinates me about the mnemonist is that he naturally used this technique w/o reading about it or otherwise coming upon as presented by someone else. I ordered Frances Yates's The Art of Memory almost immediately upon reading about it. Bernstein: "couldn't you write one of your talks? Who would know the difference beside you? What would be the telltale signs? Antin: "Taking your last question first. I used to think it was the speed at which it had to be done. In a talk piece I usually have between a half hour and a hour and a half to do whatever I have to do. I can't walk away to check sources for quotations. If I am trying to analyze something, I have to live with whatever abilities and resources I bring to the occasion. I have to have complete confidence in my abilities for the occasion." - p 54 That's interesting to me. Those distinctions seem like limitations to me. Perhaps those limitations are part of why I was never that impressed by the Talk Poems. Maybe I prefer taking advantage of the resources that enable checking quotations, maybe I prefer analysis that can be modified by further reflection than what's available in the moment. Although, Antin does go on to explain: "I have to find a way to turn my momentary inadequacy to dramatic advantage" (p 54) & that appeals to me, the thinking-on-his-feet mother-of-invention. Antin: "While I've had a great distaste for what's usually called "song" in modern poetry or, for what's usually called "music," I really don't think of "speech" as so far from song and I don't think of "talk" as "unmusical." Prose may be most of the time unmusical — because it wants to be. It wants to be responsible. And music is playful and irresponsible. Phonologically overdetermined, as Jakobson might say. Jingling or tuning. Think of the blues refrain in Stein's "Melanctha." It sneaks into the novella right after one of the narrator's "prose" paragraphs. "Why did the subtle, intelligent, attractive, helf white girl Melanctha Herbert love and do for and demean herself in service to this coarse, sullen, ordinary, black childish Rose, and why was this unmoral, promiscuous, shiftless Rose married, and that's not so common either, to a good man of the negroes, while Melanctha with her white blood and attraction and desire for a right position had not yet been really married." - p 80 SHEESH. The reader is informed that "music is playful and irresponsible". That seems like the sort of mind-bogglingly stupid oversimplification that a non-musician wd plop out ye olde sphincter. Then he brings in Gertrude Stein as some sort of example. Antin tells the reader that what he learned from this is "that even the stiffest prose sections threaten to become musical". My review is presented in its entirety here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ...more |
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review of the Mark Young edited Otoliths issue forty-nine, parts one & two by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 25, 2018 My full review is here: https review of the Mark Young edited Otoliths issue forty-nine, parts one & two by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 25, 2018 My full review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... This whole issue is available online ( https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2018... ) but b/c I have something it it ( http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Book201... ) I bought both volumes for my aRCHIVE. As I wrote for the latter webpage: "What isn't self-explanatory is what an extraordinary 2 volume book "Otoliths" 49 makes. If the other 48 issues are this stunning then I hope libraries all over the world are collecting them." See for yourself. The 1st volume's black & white, the 2nd's color. Ostensibly, the online version is no different from the hard copy. However, that's not true, the hard-copy lacks the bios. My online bio says this: "tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE self-describes as a: Mad Scientist / d composer / Sound Thinker / Thought Collector / As Been / PIN-UP (Postal Interaction Network Underground Participant) / Headless Deadbeat of the Pup tENT Cult / booed usician / Low Classicist / H.D.J. (Hard Disc Jockey) / Psychopathfinder / Jack-Off-Of-All-Trades / criminally sane / Homonymphonemiac / Practicing PromoTextual / Air Dresser / Sprocket Scientist / headitor & earchivist / Explicator / Sexorcist / Professional Resister of Character Defamation / Proponent of Classification-Resistant What-Have-Yous / tOGGLE nUT cASE / Princess of Dorkness's Right Hand Man / Human Attention-ExSpanDex Speculum / Imp Activist / SPLEENIUS / Cognitive Dissident He's written 13 bks (all published in some form or another), made 504 movies, has 208 audio publications, is an early & very active member of the neoist movement & a SAINT in the Church of the SubGenius. More info than anyone is ever likely to read is available here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl but why stop there? He further recommends that you become completely obsessive & go here too: http://www.youtube.com/user/onesownth... &/or: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/..." - https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2018... As such, the online version is more complete. The printed matter version is somewhat expensive but that's understandable b/c it's beautifully done. I didn't take many review notes about this as I read it. Basically, it's contemporary poetry w/ a higher quantity of Visual Poetry than most compilations might offer. That's enough for me. Starting on page 8 there's Lauren O'Connor's "THE HIGHWAY QUEEN: an interview with Louise Landes Levi". I found her interesting. She was part of a performance group about wch she had very interesting things to say: "The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company — was the first fusion orchestra in America. It didn't become wildly famous, like the orchestras that followed, the Mahavishnu Orchestra or Theater of Eternal Music, in NYC — but there were some great musicians who were involved, Terry Riley, Agnus MaCleise," [I assume that this is meant to be Angus MacLise] "Suzi Archuletta & others. After I left, magnetized by my sarangi teacher & by the instrument, (for better or for worse) there was a write up about the opera in Rolling Stone. Within two weeks of that article, an apparently charismatic individual — Ian Dallas — arrived in Berkeley. Within the next two weeks, the director, the assistant director and his wife, who was my best friend, converted to Shiite Islam. The opera stood for communal, utopian values. It was dissolved and its major proponents were absorbed, at least I think, into a kind of mind control program for the next decade, or so. Linda and Richard Thompson, fr. England's The Fairport Convention were also sucked in. I didn't know the details & the consequences suffered by those involved until 30 years later. My friend fr. California had been a close friend of Linda's in all this. Nothing against the Muslims, some members of that group, friends of mine, did make, in London, a very beautiful & recently released recording (on vinyl) Habibiya but I don't think Ian Dallas was the real thing. I think he was working for the man. He destroyed our opera and he destroyed the spirit of my best friend, who was a really brilliant female musician." - pp 12-13, part 1 Fascinating. Levi's search for spiritual enlightenment is an extraordinary narrative but it seems to me that the lesson to be learned from the above is that most or all such quests are prey to authoritarian megalomaniac control freaks & that that's intrinsic to the way all religions operate. If there are any recordings of "The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company" I'd definitely like to hear them. Terry Riley's having been involved is enuf to interest me right there. Angus MacLise is reputed to've been the 1st drummer w/ The Velvet Underground & was also in The Theatre of Eternal Music. He's described on Wikipedia as "A heavy drug user who was never particularly mindful of his physical health, MacLise died of hypoglycemia and pulmonary tuberculosis at the Shanta Bhawan Hospital in Kathmandu on June 21, 1979, aged 41. The cause of death has also been attributed to malnutrition. He was cremated to the traditions of Tibetan Buddhists in a funeral pyre." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_M... ) I quote the negative part of the bio b/c I think it ties in w/ the 'spiritual' aspect. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry re the opera: "The opera company was based in North Berkeley, California, from around 1966 to sometime in 1969, and for three years presented two major musical ritual dramas, The Walls Are Running Blood, and Bliss Apocalypse. The cast, crew and orchestra members were primarily enthusiastic amateurs, many originally painters or artists in other mediums who were intrigued with the vision of The Floating Lotus and eager to participate in what was a celebration and expression of the tribal consciousness "in the air" in Berkeley, California at that very explosive and expressive time. Often, however, the orchestra in particular was graced with actual musicians of some stature, such as poet and musician Angus MacLise (formerly of the Velvet Underground), poet, musician and translator Louise Landes Levi, light-artist and musician Daniel Conrad, writer and musician Marc Allen and others. Internationally famous composer Terry Riley occasionally played his erhu with the orchestra and provided some musical direction, as did Ramon Sender, who spent some time coaching the players and dancers as well." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floatin... I was surprised to learn from reading the above that a friend of mine was a member & that Riley played erhu rather than keyboards or saxes. It's also interesting to me that Levi describes the group as "the first fusion orchestra in America". When I think of what I thought was the most commonly used musical sense of "fusion" I think of music that combines jazz & rock. On Wikipedia the category of "Fusion music genres" is divided into 35 subcategories w/ 79 pages discussing them. The closest I find to the apparent sense of Levi's usage is "Shaman punk" & "World music". Levi's usage seems to mean a fusion of cultures, in this case, perhaps, a fusion of hippie & Buddhist culture — w/ World Music in there somewhere. I'd probably credit The Incredible String Band as important in this area but they weren't "in America" so they don't really apply to Levi's claim. As for Ian Dallas? I'd never heard of him — but then I take it for granted that charismatic religious leaders are megalomaniac control freaks looking for weak-minded individuals to manipulate. As such, if the director & assistant director of the Opera converted to his religion w/in 2 wks then that doesn't say much for their resistance to mind-control does it? If you follow the torch of the charismatic leader you might just find him or her burning your life w/ it. I looked up Dallas online & found an article wch I quote briefly: "Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi has founded mosques in England, Spain and South Africa but clearly his hatred is clear for all to see. Of course, he likes to use words like kafir but of course when he was born he was but a poor and lost kafir who then found Sunni versions of Islam along the Sufi path of hatred and he hates in abundance. "Indeed, it amazes me why many Muslim converts try to rise even higher up the hatred ladder but maybe it is because of the need to belong? Sadly, it appears that age will not mellow Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi and instead he just espouses hatred and clearly much of this hatred is aimed at the Shia." [..] "In the article I mention the Sufi leader of hatred can’t hide his loathing and somehow the person born Ian Dallas is now entering the Sunni-Shia sectarian world. Of course, to this religious bigot called Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi, then he, like Osama bin Laden, deems the Shia to be un-Muslim. "Yes, Ian Dallas is clearly in the schizophrenia world of radical Sunni Islam where this non-Muslim convert to Islam is now telling people who are or who are not Muslim. Despite this, his deluded followers will either turn a blind eye or if they have been brainwashed enough, then they will probably follow the same path of hatred." - https://islamicpersecution.wordpress.... The above-quoted article's from June 3, 2011. Maybe Dallas is still at it. Don't be put off by the somewhat awkward English of the above. The article's from the "Modern Tokyo Times" & English might not've been its 1st language. Lest you think that the Modern Tokyo Times is a daily hard-copy newspaper: "Modern Tokyo Times is a fully interactive e-journal that mainly publishes in-house articles. At the same time, Modern Tokyo Times is honored to have the right to publish major international think tanks in the area of terrorism and geopolitics. "Modern Tokyo Times is always looking for positive partnerships, investment, independent writers that can fit neatly within our target area – and other areas related to finance, social media and members to support our independent work." - http://moderntokyotimes.com/about/ Maybe English is their 1st language. Dunno. "Abdalqadir as-Sufi (born Ian Dallas in Ayr, Scotland in 1930) is a Shaykh of Instruction, leader of the Darqawi-Shadhili-Qadiri Tariqa, founder of the Murabitun World Movement and author of numerous books on Islam, Sufism and political theory. Born in Scotland, he was a playwright and actor before he converted to Islam in 1967 with the Imam of the Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fez, Morocco." [..] "Abdalqadir as-Sufi advocates adherence to the original legal school of Islam, the tradition of the people of Medina as recorded by Malik ibn Anas, since he considers this the primal formulation of Islamic society and a necessity for the re-establishment of Islam in the current age. "Abdalqadir has been responsible for the establishment of the Ihsan Mosque in Norwich, England, the Great Mosque of Granada, and the Jumu'a Mosque of Cape Town "Abdalqadir as-Sufi teaches that suicide terrorism is forbidden under Islamic law, that its psychological pattern stems from nihilism, and that it "draws attention away from the fact that capitalism has failed." He has stated that Britain is on "the edge of terminal decline" and that only Britain's Muslim population can "revitalise this ancient realm". He has written extensively on the importance of monarchy and personal rule. He also regards the face-veil (or Niqab) of Muslim women as unislamic. describing it as an "evil hinduisation of women". "In 2006, he issued a fatwa, following a visit and speech given by then Pope Benedict XVI in Germany. In his Fatwa Concerning the Deliberations of Pope Benedict XVI in Germany, he stated that "in my opinion, Pope Benedict XVI is guilty of insulting the Messenger of Allah". He was an early mentor of American Sufi scholar, Hamza Yusuf." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdalqa... Ok, I'm an anarchist, so it's no surprise that I get as fucking sick as I do of all this talk about Islamic law. Islamic law, like any law, serves the purpose of keeping some people, like Abdalqadir as-Sufi, in power while criminalizing &/or demonizing whoever gets in the way of that. To quote myself: "We are all UNEQUAL under the LAW & THAT is its PURPOSE". The fact that the world keeps producing sheep for Dallas to shear is a depressing one but it shows how intrinsic it is to most people to think they need to be subserviant. Der Untertan. Get a life! At any rate, you can read the entire interview w/ Levi here: https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2018... . Otoliths is full of work by people I know & people I don't know — both, of course, of interest. Jim Leftwich is someone in between those 2 categories, we've brushed presences in passing for many yrs &'re social networking friends but we've never communicated much. My interest in his piece here was excited by his mention of Sun Ra's "Magic City" record, one of my personal favorites: "Sun Ra is from Birmingham, Alabama, nicknamed The Magic City because of its rapid growth. Roanoke is called the magic city for the same reason.. Magic business financing the Pocahontas coalfields." - p 33, part 1 Interesting. Each section of Leftwih's piece has a boldface heading specifying what he's listening to as he's writing. Most of it is music I know & like. "Anthony Davis — Episteme" (p 40, part 1) Given my obsession w/ music this appeals to me. Sometimes when I write reviews I list what I'm listening to. Lately, I've mainly been iistening to a 16 volume tape retrospective that I assembled of Pierre Boulez's music or work that he conducted. In this rm, tho, the rm that I'm writing this review in, my personal library, I've been listening to "Two Halves Volume Three", a compilation of duets curated by & published on BandCamp by {AN} EeL ( https://panpanpanaviandistresscall.ba... ). Clara B. Jones contributes a "Love Sonnet" wch doesn't surprise me by not being in traditional sonnet form but wch I enjoyed as something that might be looking at various notions of what constitutes 'love' in 14 numbered sentences: "1. You planned a life together, but something went terribly wrong." "11. What happend to Kathleen Cleaver?" - p 116, part 1 What did happen to Kathleen Cleaver, (married to Eldriidge Cleaver)? "After leaving Eldridge, Kathleen Cleaver went back to university in 1981, receiving a full scholarship from Yale University. She graduated in 1984, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. In 1987, she divorced Eldridge Cleaver. She then continued her education by getting her law degree from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating, she worked for the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and followed this with numerous jobs including: law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia under Judge A. Higginbotham, the faculty of Emory University in Atlanta, visiting faculty member at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, the Graduate School of Yale University and Sarah Lawrence College. "In 2005, Cleaver was selected an inaugural Fletcher Foundation Fellow. She then worked as a Senior Research Associate at the Yale Law School, and a Senior Lecturer in the African American Studies department at Yale University. She is currently serving as senior lecturer at Emory University School of Law. In addition to her career, she works on numerous campaigns, including freedom for death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal and habeas corpus for Geronimo Pratt. Cleaver has also worked for many years on and published her book Memories of Love and War. She and other former members of the Black Panther Party continue to meet and discuss issues and heal from the movement." Kathleen Cleaver is still alive & kicking, thank the holy ceiling light. 5 typewriter VisPos by fátima queiroz appear on the following 5 pages (117-123, part 1). I'm reminded a bit of work by Karl Kempton. 12 pages of one word concrete poems by Andrew Topol in wch the graphical presentation expresses the meaning appear on 143-154, part 1. I'm reminded of Richard Kostelanetz. Kostelanetz has 4 pages of 4 word sentences in large typeface (167-170, part 1). The 1st of these is "Alphabets are language's numerals." There's Scott MacLeod & Texas Fontanella's "Stop Every Tragedy Except This One", a détournment of a comic (171-189, part 1) whose 1st panel shows an airman in uniform standing at attn in front of a superior officer. The airman is made to say: "I know I can find a more attractive way of life." to wch the officer replies "In this storm? Why Jackson you couldn't live a minute out on the balcony." It's little details that help a reader relate when the bigger picture may not be so apparent: "We are like stink bugs together—no one smashes us in their homes because of our emissions, and then we die soon, in only a day or so, falling from the ceilings and are vacuumed up." (p 211, part 1, Joseph V. Milford) I never even knew what a stink bug was until they became very dominant here in Pittsburgh for a few yrs starting around 2008 - I don't kill them, I scoop them up if they're slow enuf & put them out a window. Linc Madison presents a dysfunctional relationship, or skirts it, in alternating diary-like entries & text messages from the other party: "Text from Dick Sorry u know me when my life is so fucked up. I am better than this. "Selling merchandise most of the day and into the night." - p 236, part 1 Txt msgs have gotten to be part & parcel of so many people's lives that their presence in a larger text makes it seem more personal — much as hand-held (or pseudo hand-held) camera in a Hollywood movie makes it seem believable that the scenario cd happen to you. Txt msgs & other electronically enabled means are so omnipresent that tech-speak might be more prevalent than ever as a result. Take Thom Sullivan's "'Diesel & Dust' homestead [a landscape]": "Make —PENTAX Software — Adobe Photoshop 7.0 Date and Time (Modified) — 2011:07:03 12:06:26" - p 279, part 1 The brands are, of course, domineering in their struggle for survivial, apps are 'everywhere', such specificity of date & time is enabled by the software. One doesn't have to check the date & time to note it, it's done automatically. That, combined w/ GPS, is useful for historians such as myself AND for Big Brother, a surveillance I cd do w/o. I didn't take many review notes about either part 1 or 2. Read it all yourself online at the above provided URL &/or buy a copy & support the editor/publisher's efforts to present a selection of work that you might not see elsewhere. ******************************** My full review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ...more |
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| 1878972057
| 9781878972057
| 3.84
| 391
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| Jan 15, 2008
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review of Philippe Soupault's Last Nights of Paris by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 25, 2017 The last review I wrote, finished today, was one o review of Philippe Soupault's Last Nights of Paris by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - October 25, 2017 The last review I wrote, finished today, was one of Bruce Sterling's Heavy Weather wch I began by writing: "I keep picking on Cyberpunk writing in much the same way I pick on Surrealist writing. At the same time that I like it in theory I'm annoyed by it in praxis." ( https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ) The point is that most Surrealist writing that I read doesn't strike me as Surrealist enough - but, then, I don't read much Surrealist writing anymore so I'm usually dependent of my memory of it. This might be the 1st Surrealist novel I've read since Lisa Goldstein's The Dream Years read in April of this yr & that doesn't really qualify. Before that, the 1st bk I finished reading in 2009 might fit the bill: Giorgio de Chirico's Hebdomeros: With Monsieur Dudron's Adventure and Other Metaphysical Writings.. or maybe not. Even this novel doesn't fit into the category if one takes Soupault's expulsion from the Surrealists before its writing seriously. William Carlos Williams, the poet, translated it & I think he did an excellent job. However, he refers to it as a "Dadaist novel" & I think that's even further off the mark than its being a Surrealist one is. The "Publisher's Note" has this to say: "Co-author with André Breton of the first self-proclaimed book of automatic writing, Les Champs Magnétiques (1919), and co-editor with Breton and Louis Aragon of the avant-garde journal Lttérature (1919—1923), Philippe Soupault was one of the founders of the Surrealist movement. A poet, novelist, and journalist, with a much less political and less theoretical approach to writing than his colleagues Breton and Aragon, Soupault was expelled from the movement in 1926—along with Antonin Artaud—for "their isolated pursuit of the stupid literary adventure." Les Dernièrs Nuits de Paris was his third prose work, published in 1928." - p v "Indeed, Last Nights of Paris seems to share much with both the Surrealist novels (Nadja, Paris Peasant) and the American expatriate novels (The Great Gatsby, The Day of the Locust) of its day." - p vi "both the Surrealist novels"? Does that mean that it's commonly thought that there were only two? I've read them both & didn't find either very Surreal. As I've probably overstated by now I find Raymond Roussel's novels far more Surreal than anything the Surrealists ever wrote. As for "the American expatriate novels"? Ok, The Great Gatsby was published on April 10, 1925 while the Fitzgeralds were traveling in Europe a few weeks before they settled in Paris but he began planning it in 1923 when he was still in New York. The Day of the Locust (1939) was written when Nathanael West was living in the US long after a brief 3 month trip to Paris in the early 1920s. Calling him an "expatriate" is stretching things a bit & calling either of those novels "expatriate" is also stretching it given that both are set in the US. Interestingly, West died the day after Fitzgerald did. When I praise Williams' 'poetic' translation I mean passages like the following: "The virtuosity of words in this historic quarter is amazing. Those that escape from the houses have a quicksilver sheen, those that hide in their cracks are phosphorescent." - p 4 In other words, the descriptions use images not usually associated w/ what's described, things like: words w/ a "quicksilver sheen" or words "that hide in" [..] "cracks". I enjoy this so the bk got off to a good start for me. It also has a fairly linear plot but one that's revealed in an intriguing enuf way: "Georgette, the sailor, the dog and I myself had no answer ready and this we sought wandering at random, driven here rather than there by an invincible fatigue. "Thinking it over as we were walking with soft steps under the trees of the Champs-Elysées, I seemed to catch a purpose, that of all the night prowlers of Paris: we were in search of a corpse." - p 20 Given that there've probably been many novels written about the criminal underworld, as this one partially is, I wonder how many criminals so depicted ever read such things? "I read that they were on the assassin's track, a sailor from Chacal who had killed and cut to pieces one of his friends." - p 22 W/ friends like that, who need enemies? The poetic descriptive language continues to please me: "Paris swelled out with boredom, then slept as if to digest it." (p 36) I hate to break it to you, Paris, but you might be pregnant & time has been known to eat his children. "I took pains to notice the time at each clock we passed on the trip, and on passing the seventeenth, and despite the distance run, pointed to eleven thirty-five. Had time stopped?" (pp 37-38) No, but when Paris is digesting, time slows down drastically. Now, Philippe, is this type of behavior becoming of you?: "She was picked up, near the Pont-Neuf, by some sort of student in a béret who was taken by her to a hotel room. With decision, Jacques bribed the patron of the hotel and obtained the room next to that in which the student was undressing. We were misled by the banality of that interview. Georgette first demanded her pay, then, having complained about its smallness, declared that she was in a hurry because of a rendezvous with a Spaniard. "Jacques and I made no secret of your joy. Georgette was no more than an ordinary prostitute; and by ourselves we had manufactured a mystery out of whole cloth." [..] "However when the characteristic noises and the succeeding silence indicated to us that all was over, we quitted the room and took up our watch at the door of the hotel. We wanted at least to make the acquaintance of the Spaniard." - p 45 Hence, the historic meeting between Soupault, Cousteau, Breton, & Buñuel did not take place in an aqualung sauna as usually reported. This explains Soupault's eventual marriage to a street: "The avenue de l'Opéra was no longer the stream that I had always followed, nor the highway that one usually pictures. It was a great shadow flashing like a glacier, which one must first conquer, and then embrace as one would a woman." (p 46) Awkward, eh? Maybe this explains the alligators in the sewers? But to each his own & que sera, sera. Ah.. but what about Georgette? Men are so fickle. "I realized perfectly that in appearance she was just a common prostitute, the sister of all the prostitutes who overrun Paris and who, they say, are all more or less alike. But Georgette was seductive only because she was somehow different and because her appearance was obviously deceptive." - pp 48-49 "She loved only the dark which seemed each night to wed and her charm itself did not become real until she withdrew from the light to enter obscurity." - p 49 Maybe it was just to hide traces of disease. Chapter Five begins w/ a quote from Roussel, Soupault can do no wrong: "O, Treïul, remember that we are of the same race and that I am entitled to your aid. "—Raymond Roussel (La Poussière de Soleil)" - p 60 We are all the alligator children of Philippe Soupault & the avenue de lOpéra. As such, I make beginnings meet. ""You have come for some drawings, sir?" asked Georgette, and I couldn't tell whether she spoke in this way to deceive me or to deceive Octave. I was careful not to contradict and passed myself off as an art lover." - p 62 Well, I guess that makes sense: 1st he's embracing the avenue de lOpéra & now he's tossing off himself as an art lover. He's probably thinking of one of the sewer covers opened at a "^" intersection. Is it any wonder that Octave is a little odd? Thank goodness he's not a 9th, then he'd really be odd. "He stopped talking suddenly and began to count the number of hairs in a paint brush. "Then, in spite of my questions, he relapsed into silence like someone drowning. "Wasted effort. Octave had departed, and for a realm to which I could not follow him. He seemed to push aside the horizon, drive back the walls of the room, wipe out the boundaries of day and dismiss the objects which surrounded us." - p 68 Then, all heck broke loose & metaphor was forsaken as simile piled on simile in a veritable cluster fuck tackle of the quarterback, halfback, fullback, & backhand. "One of them was torn and hung like a dead hand above the shining tracks of the railroad. Here and there the red point of an electric lamp, as sad as the dead body of a dog. The cars on the switches looked like pretentious tombs. / Octave took up his walk. It was like the refrain of a hackneyed ditty" (p 79) "Chance meeting on a dissecting table of a sewing machine and an umbrella" - Comte de Lauréamont - NO WAY that was chance, Bub. "Chance, said I to myself, is at least sincere in that it does not conceal its deceptions from us. On the contrary it exposes them in broad daylight, and trumpets them at night. It amuses itself, from time to time, by stupefying the world with the shock of a terrible surprise, as if to remind men of its great strength, thinking they might forget its flightiness, its mischief, its whimsicalities." - p 83 I discovered Restif de la Bretonne in recent yrs, in particular his "Anti-Justine". This is early 19th century French incest pornography of the most vivid sort. I just stumbled across the bk while browsing my favorite used bkstore & got it b/c of the reference to de Sade. I don't recall ever seeing any mention of de la Bretonne before when, Lo & Behold!: "He described to us with many details the check room for small children, who were deposited under a number by nursery girls. This custom, he affirmed with a disarming certainty, is very ancient. And he cited cases of substitution of children infinitely more numerous than one would suppose. Now and then he underlined what he said with an observation borrowed from Restif de la Bretonne, who was plainly his model." - pp 106-107 The implication being here that the children were vulnerable to sexual use. As if that weren't enuf, we further get to learn of walking privies. "["] Do you know," said he, smiling in his best manner, "that toward the end of the middle ages, bucket carriers circulated through the streets to give aid to people who were 'caught short'? They were armed with a great cloak forming a sort of temporary shelter from which emerged the face alone of the crouching client. After which the bucket was emptied into the nearest stream." - p 107 Chapter Nine begins w/ this quote: "A something or other that has no name in any language. —Tertullian" Lately I've been preoccupied w/ the notion of concepts specific to particular languages. See, e.g., my review of Howard Rheingold's They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words & Phrases: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... . But an idea that I haven't come across yet is the one presented in the above Tertullian quote & an excellent idea it is. There are currently over 6,000 languages, what ideas don't have a word for them in any of them?! Discuss. The novel's action meanders thru the activities of some criminals who're roughly clotted around a kingpin named Volpe: "One day he sold pictures, the next day cotton and in all probability women. He possessed blocks of shares in a number of newspapers, whose policy he controlled and which served him at the same time as buffers against the world. What struck one about Volpe was his remarkable gift for using to the hilt everything that belonged to him. He had the taste for small enterprises whose yields were prompt and it could be said that he enriched himself through makeshifts. Like all those in his category, Volpe had a great number of vices. But he loved best of all to dominate." - p 126 The Publisher's Note declared Soupault a "poet, novelist, and journalist" & it's interesting to speculate how much of each was at play in the writing of this. The above description seems likely to me to be based on either a single individual known to the author or an amalgamation of character types - but is it? & what about the rest of it? I wonder if Soupault was ever interviewed in depth about just how fictional or non-fictional this is - but I don't wonder enuf to research it at the moment. "One day, in a café—one of those cafés they love so much—I saw them listening with particular attention to a refrain spit out by a gramophone: it was the hackneyed of the hackneyed: "Paris, c'est une blonde Paris unique au monde. "The imbecilic words spilled themselves before them and they listened with open mouths, ravished, convinced." - p 134 Ha ha! My French-Canadian friend Alan Lord wrote a bk called ATM SEX (you can read my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ) in wch he writes about Paris thusly: "You love Paris because you've never actually lived there. You just passed through with a temporary load of money, gawked at the usual tourist trappings, then said au revoir Les Mis-arabes. You didn't have to try dialing for operator assistance in a phone booth (it doesn't exist, and anyway your pocket change is useless—you need a phone card, which you can only buy in a Bar Tabac). And you didn't get kicked out of a supermarket for squeezing in through a checkout aisle instead of going all the way to the end of the interminable checkout aisles and going in through the proper "IN" gate like the rest of the obedient French sheep, who in fact are much more conservative and knee-jerk respectful of rules, tradition, and hierarchy than their former Nazi masters." - p 98, ATM SEX In my review of that I recount my own story: "In 1984 I went into the Paris underground, the former Roman mining tunnels, w/ some friends & a Parisian reporter who knew his way around somewhat. I picked an area that I then proclaimed the "PS.B.B.T.O.U.C." (the "Paris Suburban Branch of the BalTimOre Underground Club"). I explained that everywhere I went became a suburb of BalTimOre. Now BalTimOre's a hopeless shithole of the 1st order & I was parodying imperialism but the reporter failed to see the humor in it & seemed more than a little offended that I wd dare to reduce the-great-Paris to a mere suburb of an American industrial city in decline. I thought that was funny." I don't actually have any feelings about Paris one way or another. I remember being treated rudely there b/c my French was so horrible, I can't blame them for that - although when I meet someone who doesn't speak the local Lingua Franca I try to help them not castigate them. But let's not dwell, s-hell we? Let's refresh ourselves w/ some more poetic description: "Empty-handed, I set out upon the discovery of the flight of time and space. Words, like joyous companions, started before my eyes and spun about my ears in a carnival of forgetfulness." - p 135 Do all Parisians speak like this? Alaseth, I thinketh noteth. They're more like our pal Blin below: "Blin, seizing his courage in both hands, got up and said: "There are various degrees of doubt just as there are progressive stages of insanity. You make me laugh. Let one of you throw the first stone, I'll fling it back. My position today permits me to face these obligations of which I myself have fixed the value. I demand, I DEMAND. . . ." The words—empty, useless, out-of-date—flowed until he was breathless." - p 170 Ok, maybe not. Here're excerpts from Soupault's afterword on translator poet Williams's time in Paris: "I think it was the memory of these nocturnal wanderings that made him decide to accept translating my "testimony," incorrectly subtitled "novel," Last Nights of Paris. Which for me was a great joy. I was one of the few Europeans (or Americans) who knew that Williams was a great, a very great poet and an admirable writer of incomparable lucidity and even of incurable modesty." - p 178 Perhaps my question-mark-less question above, "I wonder if Soupault was ever interviewed in depth about just how fictional or non-fictional this is", is answered here by Soupault saying ""testimony," incorrectly subtitled "novel["]". I think Williams did a great job - esp considering that the original is just one symbol: "^". "But, as he has written, he had retained pleasant memories of our walks in Paris, which he evoked in translating, with his mother, Last Nights of Paris. "And after reading his translation I congratulated him, because he had done an admirable job of describing the atmosphere of the Parisian nights." - p 179 ...more |
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| 0224613790
| 9780224613798
| 3.80
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| May 1968
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review of Charles Olson's Mayan Letters by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 13, 2017 For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show review of Charles Olson's Mayan Letters by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 13, 2017 For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... I've written before that Olson probably came to my notice b/c Ed Sanders used one of his poems as lyrics for a Fugs song. Since then, I've probably very sparsely read a poem here &/or an excerpt there but nothing really substantially Olson related until I read Charles Stein's The Secret of the Black Chrysanthemum - The poetic cosmology of Charles Olson & his use of the writings of C. G. Jung. In my review of that I wrote: "I have the utmost respect for scholarly works - even those on subjects I'm not necessarily that interested in. IF SOMEONE'S GOING TO TAKE THE TROUBLE TO WRITE ABOUT SOMETHING THAT HAS DEEP CONTENT, ONE CAN ONLY HOPE THAT SOMEONE'S GOING TO WRITE ABOUT IT DEEPLY - & that's certainly the case here. This is no half-assed study, Stein truly cares about the subject & takes us places w/ it that perhaps no-one else wd - & that makes this a valuable bk. "W/ that sd, reading this didn't necessarily make me any more interested in Olson or Jung than I already was. In fact, it firmly established for me that Olson is a type of poet for whom I have very little entry point." - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11... I DID enjoy reading this. I chose it b/c I've been doing language research for my 'opera', Endangered Languages, Endangered Cultures, Endangered Ideas (you can some idea of the progress of the software for that here: https://youtu.be/fiAVrCNtKvQ ). It wasn't really any use for my research but I'm glad I read it. The preface was written by the well-known poet Robert Creeley to whom these "Mayan Letters" were directed: "Some time towards the end of 1950, it was in December I think, but the letter isn't dated, I heard that Charles Olson was off to the Yucatan." (p 5) Olson as a person comes across, perhaps, a bit more in this than he might in a poem. Writing about caring for a bird that'd been injured by vicious rock-throwing boys, I can relate: "So I reached down and raised the right wing up to the top of the wall. Then the left. And, itself, it pulled its body up, perched for an instant, and swung off, off and up, into the sky, god help us, up and out over the sea, higher and higher, and, not like the others but working its wings in shorter, quicker strokes, it pulled off and off, out over the shrimp ship moored out in the deeper water, inside the bar, from which it swing inland again, and, as I watched it a good five minutes, kept turning more an more to the west, into the sun, until that peculiar movement of the wings began to give way to the more usual flight of a chii-mi." (pp 10-11) Helping out an injured bird is the kind of thing that's going to make me like someone &, yes, Olson comes across as just my kind of fellow: questioning authority & getting his ass out there in the world to try to have his own perceptions of it instead of the prepackaged ones. "I am the one who is arguing that the correct way to come to an estimate of that dense & total thing is not, again, to measure the walls of a huge city but to get down, before it is too late, on a flat thing called a map, as complete a survey as possible of all, all present ruins, small as most of them are. "They'll cry, these fat and supported characters: 'Oh, they are all over the place, these, ruins!' Which is quite, quite the big and astounding fact - so much so are they all over the place that Sanchez & Co., Campeche, Mex., is not the only sand and gravel company in business: already, in this walking area from this house, I have come to learn of four sites – and of some size more than 'small' – which have already been reduced to white cement in bags!" - pp 14-15 Olson's disgust w/ the reduction of ruins to building materials that eradicate the history of the culture the ruins potentially contain cd be seen as a creative reuse in wch the history isn't perceived as of much value as the present. Olson does have an appreciation for creative reuse of contemporary items: "You will imagine, knowing my bias toward just such close use of things, how much all these people make sense to me (coca-cola tops are the boys' tiddley-winks; the valves of bicycle tubes, are toy guns; bottles are used an re-used, even sold, as cans are; old tires are the base foot-wear of this whole peninsula (the modern Maya sandal is, rope plus Goodyear); light is candle or kerosene, and one light to a house, even when it is a foco, for electricidad" - p 18 Olson's letters are predictably peppered w/ references to other poets, in this case to Ezra Pound: "Ez's epic solves problem by his own ego: his single emotion breaks all down to his equals or inferiors (so far as I can see only two, possibly, are admitted, by him, to be his betters – Confucius, & Dante. Which assumption, that there are intelligent men whom he can outtalk, is beautiful because it destroys historical time, and "thus creates the methodology of the Cantos, viz, a space-field where, by inversion, though the material is all time material, he has driven through it so sharply with the beak of his ego, that, he has turned time into what we must now have, space & its live air" - pp 26-27 I once performed on video a text of mine written esp for George Quasha's "Poetry Is" project in wch I sd: "Poetry is, when unquestioned, just another religion to be exalted as a proxy for the self. "Poetry is a way of saying something vague while deluding oneself as being rigorous. "Poetry is something that sets off my Bullshit Detector. "Poetry is something that I enjoy most when poets make the least claims for it." I don't think George will ever use the footage. His series seems to prefer statements by people who use poetry as "a way of saying something vague while deluding" themselves "as being rigorous." I, as a matter of fact, currently love poetry (sortof) but I have no intention of coming inside it as if it can become pregnant in the process. Whether Pound "destroys historical time" or whether he's "turned time into what we must now have, space & its live air" is open to debate. That strikes me as the kind of thing that one poet writes to another in order to glorify the myth of the potentials of a shared profession. To again quote from my "Is Is" txt: "Myth is alright as long as no-one believes it." but maybe I'm just a spoil-sport.. William Carlos Williams's Paterson, NJ, makes it in here too: "but such blueberry America as Bill presents (Jersey dump-smoke covering same) also WENT (that is, Bill, with all respect, don't know fr nothing abt what a city is)" - p 30 Now maybe Olson never intended these letters for publication, maybe this snarky comment about Williams cd've been considerably broadened into a critique. Regardless, Williams's Paterson was published in 5 volumes & I doubt that it was all hot air so maybe he at least knew something about Paterson, a city, at least. Olson puts his money where his critical mouth is & goes off to practice some amateur archeology when he can endure the heat: "christamiexcited, getting that load off my heart, to you, thursday, did a trick. for it pulled out, that afternoon, down the road AND BROKE THRU– "hit a real spot, which had spotted fr bus, and which same, apparently, untouched: Con & I came back with bags of sherds & little heads & feet – all lovely things "then, yesterday, alone, hit further south, and smash, dug out my 1st hieroglyphic stone! plus two possible stela (tho, no crowbar, so no proof)" - p 37 Predictably, I like Olson's idiosyncratic expressiveness: "christamiexcited" instead of "Christ! Am I excited!", "fr" instead of "from" & "tho" instead of "though". Fortunately for him, he was writing using a typewriter - there was no spellcheck to fight him every step of the way. He cd actually write the way he wanted to w/o having to constantly undo 'corrections' that actually represent the limited intelligence of the app programmers. In general, I like his observations too: "It's grass that is the big enemy of maize, the only real one, for they burn off the bush, before they plant. But grass keeps coming in. And in the old days, they were able to stand it off – for as long as seven years (the maximum life of a milpa) – by weeding out the grass by hand. But then came the machete. And with it, the victory of the grass in two years. For ever since that iron, the natives cut the grass, and thus, without having thought about it, spread the weed-seed, so that the whole milpa is choked, quickly choked, and gone, forever, for use for, maize (grass is so tough it doesn't even let bush or forest grow again!)" - p 39 In general, Olson convinces me he's a scholar so I'm interested in his forays into Mayan linguistics: "Example: the big baby I spotted yesterday means CHUNCAN means TRUNK OF THE SKY – and by god, the pyramid is so sharp and high it is just that, and most beautiful, high over the sea and the land (more like a watch-tower than anything templish) ..." - p 38 "CHUN-CAN, by the way, which I told you was TRUNK OF THE SKY, is – says Martínez not that (which is what the Seybanos told me) but TRUNK OF THE SERPENT. He says, to be the 1st, it would have to be CHUN-CAAN. (Which of course it may have been.)" - p 44 "One curious this is, that the place of origin (in the legends) keeps coming up as TULE (also Tula, Tullan, Tulapan). And it is sd to be the place where he, 'the great father-priest,' was" [..] "But this TULE us curious in other ways (not to mention the fact that, in one people's version it is on the other side of the ocean to the east, & in another, to the west): the wildest of all is, what you will remember, that ultima Thule, was the outermost reach of the world to the ancients, was, to the Greeks. Thoule, or Thyle. In the light of Waddell, I should like to know (or Berard, as well as Waddell, for that matter) if that word goes back behind the Greeks to the Phoenicians, Cretans, Sumerians." - p 46 "(Hippolito, for ex., was telling Con and me – with considerable excitement – about a Lacondon Indian who was his & Stromsvik's guide when they were at Bonampak three yrs ago (these Lacandones are an isolated tribe in Chiapas, near the Guatemala border, who have stayed in a state of arrestment apparently equal to the period of the Maya before the cultivation of maize – which goes back, maybe, 3 millennia before Christ, or , into that area of time which coincides with the opening out of the Persian and Mediterranean world by the Sumerians.)" - p 47 I have a special interest in the Lacadone, about whom I know next to nothing, b/c I read a short mention of them in what might be issue 2 of High Frontiers magazine (1985) in wch the Lacadone are described as highly anti-authoritarian. I even had a self-inking rubber stamp made using brown ink that reads: "bin in tsikbal yete wes - lacadone I'm going to talk to the president". Talking to the president means taking a shit & a 'pencil for the president' means a corncob for wiping one's ass. "But it's hieroglyphs, which are the real pay-off, the inside stuff, for me. And that's not in situ, that is, you can't see them – why Sánchez is so very much the value, for me, here (he came to dinner Monday night, and by god if he doesn't come in with the whole set of little books published in Campeche with his drawings of same, damndest sweetest present, and, too much, as you'd say, too much ..." - p 50 It'd be interesting to see a much larger edition of this bk w/ pictures of things that Olson refers to. I have to wonder about at least one minor detail of this edition: Olson supposedly typed (& hand-wrote) these letters. Unless he was using a Selectric typewriter w/ replaceable font balls I doubt that his typewriter had italics. Therefore, italicized words like "see" in the above may've been hand-written in for emphasis (that strikes me as unlikely but then I don't know Olson's letters so it might be something he did) OR a liberty in printing has been taken or? In general, I found this bk fascinating enuf - whether it's Olson's attempt to follow the Mayan calendar: "monday, mars (Or, as I figure it comes out, on the Maya calendar: CEH, day AKBAL (Ceh meaning the New Fire Ceremony, Instituted by Kukulkan, 1159 AD or c." - p 52 or his description of cleaning w/ shell fragments: "...yesterday was a bitch, & beautiful : we took 7 A.M. bus down coast, to a glyph, then set off up the road back, walking some 8 kilometres to a place on coast called Sihoplaya, which same beach is only equalled by Oregon coast : we stripped, and washed each other with the sand (not sand, but minute fragments of shells)" - p 52 or his recounting of a myth: "moon is girl, living with grandfather, weaving, sun is not yet sun, is a young man full of himself, who wants this girl, & poses as great hunter, to win her first looking. to come closer he borrows the nature of hummingbird, but, while drinking honey out of teh tobacco flowers near her house, grandpa pings him with a clay shot fr blowgun. moon picks sun-bird to bosom, then to room, then sun to consciousness, then sun to human shape, and business! he persuades her to elope. but g-pop gets rain to toss bolts at pair fleeing in canoe : sun converts to turtle and escapes, but moon, trying on crab shell, is not protected enough & is killed." - p 55 or his comments on the language: "what i want to get to, with you, is, at the nature of this language, of which the glyphs are the most beautiful expression (much more beautiful, by the way, than the codices, which are late & Mexican (pictographic, not, as were the Maya, both ideographic & phonetic) and much more beautiful due to the limits of stone plus the limits of language)" - p 58 "Well, said, it doesn't seem to say much. But i smell it as important, tho, just yet, i can't demonstrate (it opens up, the fluency of, the glyphs, for me : which is what i have felt in them since that first day i saw them through Sánchez's drawings. and leads straight on in to the heart of their meaning & design as language, not, as astrological pictographs "the distinction is, that it is necessary to separate the glyphs from the use they were put to, that is, no argument, that the major use was, to record in stone the investigations by the learned of time & planets, but – because the stone has stayed, while another use – for books, painted or written with a brush – has mostly disappeared, there is not reason not to come in quite fresh from the other end, and see the whole business of glyphs as, 1st, language, and, afterward, uses of same "and it is the fact that the glyphs were the alphabet of the books that puts the whole thing back to the spoken language. Or so it seems to me, this morning." - p 62 Olson suffers from gastro-intestinal & other illnesses that people from North America seem to be generally not immune to when they visit more tropical climates. "Uxmal & Kabah "(((found out, it's tick poisoning, which, I've had : you shld not be me, this morning, with my trunk wholly raised in sores, plus, fr the jail water, tourista, viz, GIs : up at 6 this morning))) ..." - p 70 UGH. In other words, there're more limits than just cultural ones. He has to be restricted by the environment & by his budget. "Any one place requires, instantly, two to three days : that is, all one can do the first day, is to get there. For by that time the sun is too far up to do anything but sleep in some place out of the sun. So that evening, and the next morning, early, are the only work times. Which means, almost, the 3rd day, for return. All of which is too expensive for the likes of one sole adventurer as me!" - p 71 "LATE CLASSIC VAULT II TEPEXU" [..] "abandonment of site, even tho site still top shape!" - p 77 "As against the agronomy explanations of, the abandonment of, the southern cities. AVKidder argues, excellently, that it won't hold (either (1) that they maized-out, or (2) that they cut off so many zapote tress, they got erosion, & silted up their lakes into malaria swamps), simply because such sites as Quirigua (on the river Montagua, which, floods like the Nile, offsetting either of above explanation, obviously) and the Usumacinta sites (river, again : Piedras Negras, Palenque) were also deserted when, the other, inlands, were! Copan, likewise! which sits, even today, ready, for occupancy" - p 78 WHY?! I know so little about this part of the world. Olson's gotten me more interested. Contrarily, the poverty, I expect, but it's saddening, as usual. "And by god none of them get enough to eat, even so. And I do not mean by gorging American comparisons. By minimums. 4 eggs, for example, for an omelet for a family of 7!" - p 81 Olson's full of 'unfettered' observations. Here's another example of one that I find pleasing: "Con figures, the animals, can't any more resist Saturday night in town – paseo, Senor y Senora, pasanado? – than any of us can. Every Saturday night – and no other night, by god, if three goats don't come in and chew their way through it all! And precisely ma, pa, and little goat! Exactly like a Maya family in, from the farms, back of Quila!" - p 83 For the full review go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ...more |
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review of AG Davis's Báthory by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 5, 2016 My full review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... . This review of AG Davis's Báthory by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 5, 2016 My full review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... . This version is cut off in the prime of its life. "As I recall, my attention was 1st called to the work of AG Davis by Monty Cantsin in Belarus, probably in 2015, who told me that Davis was one of his favorite sound artists or some such. Not long thereafter, an offer was made to publish a split 7" lathecut record with a piece by me on one side & one by Davis on the other. "We got in touch with each other online & traded by snail-mail. Davis sent me his "Bionicism" CD & a tape done in collaboration with {AN}-Eel possibly entitled "airporting roseate with crude basement xenakis" (nicely wrapped in fake fur), & a book of his entitled "Báthory" published by Abstract Editions. The proposed split 7" didn't happen & AG proposed that we collaborate. I counter-proposed that we each interview each other for my "Interviewee" & "Interviewer" websites. My interview by AG is here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Intervi... . The above is quoted from the introduction to an online interview I conducted by email w/ Davis. The simultaneous interview he conducted w/ me is also online here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Intervi... . Both are worth consulting for more on the author under discussion here. I started off interviewing Davis in a fairly straightforward way by asking him: "Do you consider yourself to be an outlaw?” to wch he replied: “AG: I consider myself to be an outlaw, yes; laws, order, structure mean very little to me” To wch he quickly amended: AG: “Pitched maledictions are stuck within the borders of foul cards, a private read that spells ''INTENT'', these cards portray noumenal meat; Christ was possible, this condition remaining a bleeding jugular objecting to the reproving of the magnetism of self-espionage; because where does the desire derive, and what is desiring to excavate? for wch he provided an addenda: “i have to warn you, that altho i am very introspective, i have great difficulty putting my conclusions in regards to myself into words. i write better in a poetic form. straightforward answers are very difficult for me.” & THAT's a pretty good beginning to trying to review Báthory wch is certainly NOT 'straightforward'. The "Báthory" referred to by the title is Elizabeth Báthory who "has been nicknamed The Blood Countess and Countess Dracula" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabe... ) b/c "Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (" [..] "7 August 1560 - 21 August 1614) was a serial killer from the Báthory family of nobility in the Kingdom of Hungary. She has been labelled by Guinness World Records as the most prolific female murderer, though the precise number of her victims is debated. Báthory and four collaborators were accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women between 1585 and 1609. The highest number of victims cited during Báthory's trial was 650." (ibid) "According to all testimony, Báthory's initial victims were the adolescent daughters of local peasants, many of whom were lured to Csejte by offers of well paid work as maidservants in the castle. Later, she is said to have begun to kill daughters of the lesser gentry, who were sent to her gynaeceum by their parents to learn courtly etiquette. Abductions were said to have occurred as well. The atrocities described most consistently included severe beatings, burning or mutilation of hands, biting the flesh off the faces, arms and other body parts, freezing or starving to death." - ibid Do you ever wonder why anti-aristocratic revolutions happened? Compare Báthory's abuse of her powerful position to the Marquis de Sade's similar buses. In Gilbert Lély's "definitive biography" of de Sade he carefully gets into the case of Rose Keller & her case against de Sade in wch she accused him of luring her to a place w/ false promises & of then physically abusing her. Keller claimed that she was lured w/ an offer of payment for 'doing out his room'. The Marquis claimed that he "made it clear to her that it was for a bout of libertinage." Keller accused de Sade of beating her w/ sticks. The Marquis said he "whipped her with a car-o'-nine-tails with knotted cords but used neither birch nor stick." Lély observes that "Sade risked nothing by being cynically frank, while at the slightest hint of admission that Sade's was the true story, the woman risked incarceration." (all quotes & paraphrasings from Lély are from page 78 of the 1970 First Evergreen Black Cat paperback Edition) In other words, Keller, whose husband had died & who's out of cotton-spinning work, can be imprisoned for resorting to prostitution in an attempt to survive while Sade, secure in his inherited wealth, risks little by quibbling over whether he beat her w/ a cat-o'-nine-tails or a birch. As it turned out, Sade was punished but Lély makes the case that this was for political reasons rather than necessarily out of any concern for the abuse of the poor by the rich. Lély quotes Maurice Heine as saying that: ""Then why so much fuss about a beating? The reason was that public opinion, with which a weakened central authority was to have to reckon more and more, had for a long time been made indignant by the impunity granted to misdeeds, or even crimes of libertinage, provided they were committed by somebody bearing one of the big names. The indulgence or at least the lenience shown in a high place to certain guilt persons, especially a prince of the Royal blood, Count de Carolais, notorious for his bloodthirsty fancies, demanded some compensation, a sort of sacrificial goat. . . .["]" - p 83, The Marquis de Sade - Gilbert Lély Why "so much fuss about a beating?" How much fuss would there've been if Rose Keller, an unemployed cotton-spinner, had lured the Marquis de Sade to somewhere & beaten him? I'm sure the "fuss" wd've been considerably more. I think of Philippe Biesmans's opera La Passion de Gilles about Gilles de Rais, born in 1404 in France. According to the bklt notes written by Philippe Reliquet accompanying the boxset of the opera that I have: "Rais is foremost a very rich man" [..] "Good fortune has bequeathed him considerable land and wealth" [..] "More and more, Gilles de Rais ceases to fight and, instead, organizes fantastic, extravagant feasts, the most famous of these given in Orleans to commemorate the liberation of this city in 1435. Surrounded by a sumptuous court of parasites and leeches of all kinds, Rais goes bankrupt within a few years, sells his land and possessions, falls into debt and thus loses many of his privileges in France and Main." [..] "The Marshall, lost, turns to alchemy and witchcraft in the naive hope of finding gold and regaining his wealth." [..] "Meanwhile, the chaotic disorder in his life leads him to commit outrageous crimes over a period of eight years (1432-1440). He kidnaps young children who pass his way, rapes them, and tortures and kills them." What seems left out in Reliquet's acct is that Rais, by having vast inherited wealth, has little practical knowledge about how to accumulate more wealth thru any methods other than criminal ones. Furthermore, having been born into power, it comes naturally to him to take it for granted that it's ok to abuse it & destroys the lives of children as part of this. It's part of his aristocratic 'natural order'. My point in all this is that when I think of Báthory, I think of just another person born into power who uses this power to increase the sufferings of those less in power b/c her power enables her to get away w/ it much more than someone less empowered. Of course, other people might relish Báthory's sadism as the actions of a person 'free' to indulge in whatever fancies her irrespective of the harm it does others. Davis's reference to Báthory, however, seems to have little to do w/ either position or, perhaps, a tad to do w/ both. In my interview w/ him I asked him about this: tENT: "09. Why did you name your book Bathory?" "AG: 9. Bathory, as an historical character, was for me a perfect analogy for what i attempt to do with words in my work; the book had next to nothing to do, obviously, with the historical character as you pointed out; she was only a point of reference, a way to branch off into different territory -:here is the description from the 'Bathory' webpage: "Báthory, is a ''metempsychotic journal'' that dismantles language just as much as it constructs it. Words as virgins to be sacrificed and drained of their life substance, until Language is put on trial, and the Pure Word is reborn in a different form.'' "tENT: 10. Are you saying that you're kidnapping, torturing, & murdering the language you use? "AG: . in my mind, yes - in other people's eyes (possibly nearly everyone): NO. which means the book might be a failure from other people's standpoint and with my intention in mind. oh well, i put it out there. that is good enough for me. If I understand the above correctly, the bk, Báthory, itself is the 'sadist'. My question is: Is the bk also putting itself on trial or is that the reader's, the critic's, job? A religious undercurrent runs throughout the bk & the idea of the "Pure Word" being "reborn" seems consistent w/ that to me. Again, a comparison to Gilles de Rais seems appropriate given that he fought along w/ Joan of Arc & after her sacrifice as a heretic he switched from Christianity to witchcraft. The Marquis de Sade, too, was a heretic whose blasphemy I wholeheartedly support but not the form it took. Davis's interview w/ me took a somewhat religious turn that I find illuminating in the light of the above analysis: "AG: ? - what do you think, if anything, about the idea that if there is no god as of yet, that a god could be potentially created as an actual ''entity''? i know this question can only be answered with a somewhat inflexible definition of what ''god'' is, so i will define this potential god as an entity having all of the attributes of the christian conception of god: god as all-powerful, all knowing, etc., etc..--- as even though god would be created, it would have the ability to be anywhere/everywhere in space/time; therefor being a created god, but one which would, at its inception, grasp the entirety of space/time and be able to manipulate/control every aspect of space/time. it would become god retroactively; a god created by us, but paradoxically, its extension as god would retroactively encompass ALL, therefor making it able to know everything, past, present, and future. . Such a notion of God might make Davis heretical in relation to dominant church ideologies in wch God creates Man & not the other way around. Báthory is full of the language of sadism & Biblical language intertwined in a way that might strike some as blasphemy: "Farther hell, it's virtually symbolic safe thanks to God in a public spilled listener, because this is vigorously cognate and unlocked interwoven cantankerously. She manumitted greedily on this sordid and fulsome nova. Likewise, Báthory as superb sadist pulled away and redid whereto deleted, but because fecal is a curious kind of moth ideas the greeting—headless." "Thus, Lot exeunt sodomized depressing more of. Lark summer shingles chortles sums upper dash. Share Báthory stark start the plaster animation. On the nature of killjoy turmoil sinks horizontal statuettes. Divorced crisp refractory wrinkle from salvage tosses overt limp rain, said swipe ... Oh, Mary!" "Seedless when plant first has, and the jester zips topless hound, seven hierophant letting lettering bursting, Amen." Amen to WHAT, exactly? & the next paragraph yields: "Lycanthrope equation wasted portal crone folly, and mustard pastures are rotting." The religious, "Amen", mixed w/ the 'monstrous', "lycanthrope". Davis falls back on the trope of being a "conduit" & ends my interview w/ him by saying: "AG: yeah, the interview process is NOT for me. i simply can't give detailed explanations, or rather, any explanations for what i do. if someone wants a detailed explanation they can run a brain scan on me and get the data. what i do comes naturally. i dont think or dwell on it, i act. no theory. no thought. anything that i've said about any of my work has been formulated (often poorly so) after the fact, but only because i was ASKED by other ppl (publisher, etc.) to do so. don't try and find anything HERE in terms of explanations. i'm also NOT interested in others' work processes. so yeah, throw the interview in the trash and sorry for wasting your time. i do admire your work, and i'm sorry if i annoyed you - not my intentions - but it is what it is. THIS TAUGHT ME A LESSON THOUGH, and that is that I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY BEYOND MY WORKS THEMSELVES, as they stand as products of my actions, without thought, or very little thought - i am a conduit. i am not here to theorize on my work or offer any explanations. thank you." I think it's quite possible for people to use stream-of-consciousness to bring to the surface what goes on in their sub- or un- conscious & I can accept that as being the case here. Perhaps Davis is letting a force flow thru him but I don't think the force 'originates' w/ a 'God', constructed or otherwise, as much as I think that it's a life-force that 'we' all have as an aspect of being alive. If I'm to put the language on trial it's fro me, as the reader/critic, to 'put the 'conduit' on trial' along w/ it. In other words, to criticize whether the 'conduit' is spurting out a lively automatic writing or a deadened example of language subjected to too many irrelevant expectations - irrelevant b/c they reflect more notions about the force than the force itself. I think of William S. Burroughs's cut-ups being channeled into novelistic narrative form & I think of Bob Cobbing's contrastingly more 'pure' atomization of language. I think Davis does a pretty good job of avoiding entrapment in the obvious. That sd, Davis's very lack of theory & control might be what I'd consider to be Báthory's ultimate weak spot. Consider this exchange from Davis's interview w/ me: "AG: question: you obviously are antipathetic toward words which have become stock, or, rather are generally perceived as being words that relate to things in a strict given manner, such as the word 'god' - or rather - words whose connotations have almost become denotations. why is this? i mean, beyond the obvious of 'this necessarily' necessarily means this, and nothing more...to be honest, i like playing with these strict words, as they usually don't mean the same to me as other people might imagine them meaning, or believe them to mean; they might be buzzwords for most ppl, but it depends on the take, my take being the marginal, the understated, the ignored, the UN-canonical. is it the word 'god' which bothers you bc of what it represents to the majority, or, is it because of something else - maybe the idea that you might not be in control? "tENT: Actually, I use stock words all the time. Starting in the 1970s I often framed my texts w/ quotation marks meant to signify that the language I was using wasn't mine, I was simply arranging it. SO, I'm not necessarily "antipathetic toward words which have become stock" given that I use common articles, prepositions, etc.. Therefore, I'm not "antipathetic" toward a word that begins w/ the 7th letter of the alphabet I use, has as its middle letter the 15th one, & ends w/ the 4th. God god god god; god god god god god, god god. "However, I was raised in a Christian family. My mom was a Sunday School teacher, my sister was a missionary, the woman who introduced my mom & stepdad was a missionary, one of my stepdad's brothers was an army chaplain. The man who lived at the end of my small dead end street was a street preacher. His legs had been blown off in Vietnam. He walked on his hands, wch he wrapped in rags. Since he knew that I was both an atheist & opposed to the Vietnam War & to war in general he followed me around on his hands screaming that I was going to go to hell. He had discussions about this w/ my mom. She agreed w/ him. "The point is it's not the signifier that I am "antipathetic" toward it's what's signified. People use the idea of a supreme being to pass the responsibility buck: 'It's God's will' & that sort of thing. Given that I'm an anarchist & a person who prefers to take responsibility for my own actions I choose to, therefore, have as much control over those actions as I can manage. As w/ almost, or all, of the questions you ask me, you phrase the following question in an either/or way that leaves no room for my actual opinion unless I sidestep your provided answers (as I'm about to do): "is it the word 'god' which bothers you bc of what it represents to the majority, or, is it because of something else - maybe the idea that you might not be in control?": "As already explained, the word is irrelevant. The "idea that you might not be in control" is closer to what might bother me. Imagine this: I'm driving on a street where children are playing, you grab the wheel of the car & try to force me to run over the children. I struggle w/ you to regain control of the car while pushing the brake firmly down to prevent any further motion toward the endangered. You say: "What's the matter? Are you bothered "that you might not be in control?"" I park the car as safely as I can, remove the keys & try to get you to leave the car or get a safe distance away from you. I'm not going to run over the kids b/c 'God told me to'. No thanks. I prefer to be responsible. My initial impression of Báthory is that it's like a cross between Comte de Lautréamont's Les Chants de Maldoror & Language Poetry. I don't truthfully think that Báthory is a great as either but I still think that's an interesting combination. The "Prologue"'s single paragraph is a good introduction to the overall style & content: "A single bloody finger beyond a bloody hand approaches negative antithesis in which mental anesthesia imploded its inner shell, purging its being. I mounted this leftover shell out of curiosity, and I peered inside ..." Compare that to this section of Les Chants de Maldoror chosen (somewhat) 'at random': "When I set upon my heart this mute and delirious interrogation it is less for the majesty of form, for the picture of reality, than that the sobriety of style conducts itself in such a manner. Whoever you are, defend yourself, for I am about tom fling in your teeth a terrible accusation: those eyes do not belong to you . . . where did you steal them? One day I saw a fair woman passing before me; she had eyes like yours: you tore them from her." - pp 184-185, New Directions paperback edition, translated by Guy Wernham "Being not herself, Mary bristled in reverse typing facsimile introductions ... flowed my screening of screens behind mirrors; she bathed in hot cells. RNA my collapsed modern pornographic minds sequestered dimes apoplexy. Dead room bombardment iron this sadist pool hopping away, away, away. The flash mobile bomb upchuck finances, all for pecuniary attitude; coming is not frugal in wanting lights." ...more |
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Nov 23, 2016
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Dec 06, 2016
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| 1557132399
| 9781557132390
| 3.96
| 24
| Jan 01, 1997
| 1997
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it was amazing
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review of Barrett Watten's FRAME (1971-1990) by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 18-20, 2016 Yadda, yadda, my review's 'too long'. Read the full thin review of Barrett Watten's FRAME (1971-1990) by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 18-20, 2016 Yadda, yadda, my review's 'too long'. Read the full thing (entitled "Off the Watten Path OR Watten Down the Hatch") here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... This bk is published by Sun & Moon Press & is part of their "Classics" series. It was published in 1997, 7 yrs after the last of the writing presented. It's my understanding that 'classics' are things that withstand the 'test of time' by surviving in culture over centuries. The writings of Rabelais, eg, wd, therefore, be 'classic' b/c they're still being printed & read almost 500 yrs later. Hence, calling the writings of Watten 'classic' is marketing-speak on the part of Sun & Moon. It's a way of framing something as time-tested before the time has elapsed, a preemptive strike for advertising purposes. One might even say that it's pompous. However, I will say that, by my standards at least, FRAME has withstood the test of time nicely of the 19 yrs that've elapsed since its publication. This IS a great bk. THIS was a great magazine. It was edited by Barrett Watten. It was one of my favorite poetry magazines. Now, THAT's a magazine I wish I'd had something published in. I quote from my review of Steven Clay & Rodney Phillips' A Secret Location on the Lower East Side - Adventures in Writing: 1960-1980: "This, a magazine I've always liked very much (I have issues 4, 6, 7, & 8), is credited by Bob Perelman here as ""the first self-conscious journal of what would become known as language writing"" (p 239). That might very well be accurate. Barrett Watten & Robert Grenier were the editors. It seems to me that it was either Perelman or Watten who were outraged by the positive critical reception that Marshall Reese's bk, Writing (published by pod), rc'vd. Most, if not all, of Writing was made from "slugs", the cast-off text from the printer that Marshall worked for in the 1970s. That seemed very Language Writing to me - but, apparently, it offended the more conventional authorial position of at least one other Language Writer. I thought that was funny. "Then again, maybe Tottel's deserves more credit even than This, having been founded a yr earlier. Ron Silliman was the editor & I've always liked Silliman's writing. "Named after the first anthology of English poetry, Tottel's Miscellany of 1557" [..] ""there can be no such thing as a formal problem in poetry which is not a social one as well."" (p 243) "The first gathering of individuals who were to become known as "language poets" was edited by Ron Silliman under the title "The Dwelling Place: 9 Poets." Published in Alcheringa, it included work by Bruce Andrews, Barbara Baracks, Clark Coolidge, Lee De Jasu, Ray DiPalma, Robert Grenier, David Melnick, Silliman himself, and Barrett Watten." (p 244)" - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/79... The 'problem' being, as usual, for me that "poetry" strikes me as a mediocre entry point. The back cover says that Watten "has expanded the very definition of poetry and opened the genre to history, philosophy, and politics." When poetry wasn't open to "history, philosophy, and politics" is a bit beyond me. Didn't Catullus dip his wick in it?: "Just now I laughed at a listener, who, when my Calvus had neatly disclosed the charges against Vatinius, said, inspired, his hands in a fidget, "My god, what an eloquent midget!"" - Catullus's poem 53 (circa 54 BC) translated by Roy Arthur Swanson Or what about Villon?: "When I start to feel useless and miserable, my heart usually tells me to cool it "And not be feeling so sorry for myself, getting depressed with so much general decay. "It bids me remember how poverty is the specter of genius, and better to be "poor and live under a writing table, than rich and rot behind nine tons of granite." - Villon's De Povretéˆ - (15th century EV) translated by Jean Calais Or what about Byron?: "For six hours bore they without intermission The Turkish fire, and, aided by their own Land batteries, worked their guns with great precision: At length they found mere cannonade alone By no means would produce the town's submission, And made a signal to retreat at one. One bark blew up, a second near the works Running aground, was taken by the Turks." - Canto VII, stanza XXX from Byron's Don Juan - (1818-1823) Or, more contemporaneously, what about Ed Sanders?: "I will not pretend that I was a very big part of '68 "I surged through the year on my own little missions most of them not much matter now "but then I strutted through the time-track daring to be part of the history of the era "& believing that huge change was imminent— that the United States would become more free and sharing that poverty would be banished and racism ebb very very quickly by the time we were middle aged." - Sanders's 1968 - A History in Verse - (1997) You get the idea. Then again, Watten & all the rest are apparently incapable of moving past what strikes me as one of the biggest mental blocks of them all: the very notion of poetry, per se. Don't get me wrong, I like Watten's writing very much but the bone of contention is whether Language Poetry's method of stimulating an engaged reading accomplishes a deeper level of critical & political thinking than more straight-forward discursive writing does. I don't think this is an either/or situation, I think they're both valuable. To again quote from the back cover blurb: "As Ron Day has summarized, "I would be hard pressed to think of an art writing which is more engaged with the relation of poetic method and contemporary political and cultural materials than Barrett Watten's."" Perhaps. At any rate, that's the stance of many Language Poetry theorists - ie: that "poetic method and contemporary political and cultural materials" are inter-related in ways that're structural. Watten's 1980 "STATISTICS" starts off w/: "There is no language but "reconstructed" imaged parentheses back into person "emphasizing constant" explanation "the current to run both ways." The ocean he sees when as "sour frowns of the ancients' 'signifier'" that person jumps in. We are at liberty "to take 'the' out of 'us,'" to have selves "not here" in the machinery of dramatic monologue to "smash, interrupt." To focus primarily "using examples of work" produces "difficulty": "you" in indeterminate distance "building a tower" as the circumstance of writing "to look over 'with concern' the bones of 'speech.'"" - p 11 I like this for the sheer writing of it: it's different from most writing, it's different in a way that interests me. I think of Blissymbolics: "Blissymbolics is a communication system originally developed by Charles K. Bliss (1897-1985) for the purpose of international communication. It was first applied to the communication of children with physical disabilities by an interdisciplinary team led by Shirley McNaughton at the Ontario Crippled Children's Centre (now the Bloorview MacMillan Centre) in 1971. "The Blissymbolics language is currently composed of over 5,000 graphic symbols. Each symbol or Bliss-word is composed of one or more Bliss-characters which can be combined and recombined in endless ways to create new symbols. Bliss-words can be sequenced to form many types of sentences and express many grammatical capabilities. Simple shapes are used to keep the symbols easy and fast to draw and because both abstract and concrete levels of concepts can be represented, Blissymbolics can be applied both to children and adults and are appropriate for persons with a wide range of intellectual abilities." - http://www.blissymbolics.org/index.ph... As I recall, Bliss was a survivor of WWII concentration camps. Part of his intention was to create an international language that demagogues couldn't use for propaganda purposes. Given that Blissymbolics is a written language rather than one to be spoken it might at least exclude the dramatic oratory common to crowd manipulation. Watten's language is similarly unlikely to (cattle-)prod the (sheep-like) masses into genocidal frenzy. Still, what does the reader get out of it? It's my understanding that the desire is for each reader to have a more personal experience w/ it than writing that attempts to homogenize people into belief-systems. I'm all for a resistance to homogenization. If Language Writing takes the "I" out of the writing & encourages more of the "I" in the reading then what do I makes of the above-quoted excerpt from "STATISTICS"? One thing I like to do as a writer is take stock-phrases & substitute a different word or phrase for the one standard to the stock. EG: There's the expression: "putting the shoe on the other foot" meaning 'changing a situation so that the perspective shifts from the subject to the object'. Isn't that what Language Writing purports to do? NOW, I use sports metaphors all the time. Nonetheless, I don't like sports. SO, I like to write phrases like 'putting the baseball glove on the other foot'. The sensitive reader familiar w/ the original expression will realize that "baseball glove" is being substituted for "shoe". A baseball glove is worn on the hand, a shoe is worn on the foot. Both objects are things put on bodily extremities so they're not really so far apart & yet this shift in object changes the meaning significantly. A baseball glove worn on the foot wd make walking difficult instead of helping it - as a shoe is intended to do. The reader might imagine the body of the wearer trying to catch a baseball w/ their foot, the wearer might have to lay on their back & raise their foot in the air. The intention is to stimulate the 'object', the YOU, the reader, into undergoing the absurd process of imagining this transformation w/o spelling it out for YOU. But now I've spelled it out & I've gone & ruined everything (sobs uncontrollably). Back to Watten: "There is no language but "reconstructed" imaged parentheses back into person "emphasizing constant" explanation "the current to run both ways."" Applying my own logic to this txt I might find the above sentence to be an evocation of a polemical statement: "There is not language but" might be completed, in more transparent circumstances, w/ something like 'language that leads the reader down a path' - in wch case those of us who beat a dead horse to the tune of a different drummer by staying off the beaten path to try to discover vistas that aren't preplanned by someone other than ourselves might prefer that the seemingly polemical beginning seems to get sidetracked into less familiar territory. 3 portions of Watten's opening sentence are in quotation marks: ""reconstructed"", ""emphasizing constant"", ""the current to run both ways."" Quotation marks can be sd to say that the enclosed language is a quote. Single quotation marks are usually meant to imply a questioning of the enclosed. EG: imagine this phrase presented 2 different ways: "The reader is stupid" vs 'The reader is stupid'. ""The reader is stupid"" implies that someone has made this claim. "'The reader is stupid'" implies that someone is questioning that claim. BUT, it doesn't 'have to' work that way. Watten might be using the quotation marks to throw the reader off the beaten path. All 3 of these txts might be quotes - after all, someone has certainly sd or written the word "reconstructed"; someone has certainly sd or written the phrase "emphasizing content"; & someone has certainly sd or written the phrase "the current to run both ways[.]" BUT given that no attribution is given the txts just 'float there', they have no special meaning other than what they're ordinarily taken to mean, they're just isolated by the quotes. "the current to rub both ways" might be from a technical manual for an AC set-up, "emphasizing constant" might be reference to DC. All 3 quotes cd be taken from a technical manual, removed from their original context, no longer serving their original master. "The ocean he sees when as "sour frowns of the ancients' 'signifier'" that person jumps in. We are at liberty "to take 'the' out of 'us,'" to have selves "not here" in the machinery of dramatic monologue to "smash, interrupt." To focus primarily "using examples of work" produces "difficulty": "you" in indeterminate distance "building a tower" as the circumstance of writing "to look over 'with concern' the bones of 'speech.'"" Watten's txt cd be read as a manifesto of writer-reader relationship that's expressed thru doing more than thru saying, to have subjects removed from "the machinery of dramatic monologue" - or maybe I'm reading too much into it & getting too little out of it in the sense of getting out of the txt altogether. BUT, of course, I don't want to get out of the txt nor do I want to go w/ the flow so Watten's txt is 'perfect' for me b/c the flow, such as it is, is a whirlpool w/o a center, an obstacle course rather than a joy ride. I find the 1st stanza of "NON-EVENTS" incredible - by wch I don't mean that I don't believe, there's not necessarily anything to believe. The hypothetical desired critical reading process of Language Poetry is exemplified here: "Morning turns inside out, The engine is diseased, as it spreads along approximate ice. High contrast geometry of person straightens out from meandering road. Desperate focus never looks back. Progress makes possible a paralyzed attendant, set apart an end to himself (moral noise)." - p 13 Then again, it cd just be seen as just-another stanza as this sentence can be read as just-another sentence as this paragraph can be read as just-another paragraph. Does one sentence a paragraph make? Just what is this stanza? Is it simply another instance of poetry exercising its right to be abstruse? I wdn't call it "surreal" wd YOU? I was recently a, b, or c OR x, y, or z -mused (or was it ab used?) by Richard Kostelanetz's entry for "LANGUAGE-CENTERED POETRY" in the 2nd edition of his A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes: "Whether this constitutes a genuine artistic category or simply an opportunistic banner is a good question. Excessive mutual backslapping, very much in imitation of earlier "New York Poets," raises suspicions, especially in America, because the work paraded under this newer rubric is quite various (while the work of others working in esthetically similar veins, but not included, is often superior). The interior mental states of Hannah Weiner's (1929-1996) poetry, for instance, scarcely resemble the dry experimentalism of Bruce Andrews (1948), whose poetry has little in common with the fragmented, elliptical narratives of Michael Palmer (1943) or Barrett Watten's (1948) extracting phrases from ulterior texts. (If any artists' group lacks esthetic principle, it is really functioning as an exclusive club more worthy of acknowledgment in a history of false snobbery. Willfully excluding individuals who might by esthetic right belong smacks too much of elitism for common comfort. And people behaving like an army inevitably raises questions about what others think of military mentalities.) In the earlier edition of this Dictionary, I questioned whether this entry would ever be reprinted—whether the term would survive; the doubt is raised again." WHEW! Alright, I was a subscriber to, & minor contributor to, "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" magazine, arguably the primary theoretical journal of Language Poetry of its time, & I have all of the issues from April 1978 to October 1979 & I've read them all. Texts are printed from (in order of 1st appearance (ie: names aren't repeated (not intentionally at least)) in the issues I have) - some in reprints (not provided by the original authors: EG: Barthes & Crosby): issue 2: Roland Barthes Bob Perelman Barrett Watten Craig Watson Ed Friedman Michael Lally Ron Silliman John Perlman Charles Bernstein William Corbett John Taggart Susan Bee Laufer Bruce Andrews Michael Gottlieb Steve Mc Caffery Ted Greenwald Barbara Baracks Jackson Mac Low issue 3: Bernadette Mayer & the members of the St. Mark's Church Poetry Project Writing Workshop Alan Sondheim Rosmarie Waldrop Harry Crosby Abigail Child Keith Waldrop Lyn Hejinian Loris Essary Nick Piombino Ernest Robson Douglas Messerli Ray Di Palma Ted Pearson James Sherry Peter Seaton issue 4: Robert Grenier Ronald Johnson Alan Davies Fredric Jameson John Ensslin Stephen Fredman micha(f)l fr(f)d(f)rick tolson (f)t al (incorrectly attributed to "MICHAEL FREDERICK TOLSON" Eric Mottram Richard Foreman Peter Mayer Joseph Timeo Laszlo Moholy-Nagy issue 5: Jed Rasula Ted Pearson Carole Korzeniowsky Dick Higgins Geoffrey Cook issue 6: Gertrude Stein Michael Davidson Larry Eigner Peter Seaton Rae Armantrout Carl Andre Steve Benson Rod Mengham issue 7: Bill Berkson Tina Darragh Susan Howe Kit Robinson Kirby Malone & Chris Mason Bernard Noël issue 8: Jerome Rothenberg Lynne Dreyer Clark Coolidge Madeleine Burnside Milli Graffi Robert Kelly David Bromige issue 9/10: Kathy Acker Barbara Barg Bruce Boone Don Byrd cris cheek, Kirby Malone, Marshall Reese Mark Chincer Terry Eagleton Brian Fawcett P. Inman John Leo Chris Mason Robert Rakoff Lorenzo Thomas Hannah Weiner In issue 8, Charles Bernstein, the co-editor of "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" (along w/ Bruce Andrews) wrote an article entitled: "THE CONSPIRACY OF "US"" wch began thusly: "I don't believe in group formation, I don't like group formation, but I am constantly finding myself contending with it, living within it, seeing through it. "Okay, break it up boys." First, there is the isolation of the atom, looking for some place to feel housed by, a part of. & every which way the people passing seem to have that--"see it over there"--"look". But every group as well has the same possibility for insularity as each individual: this new "we" having the same possibility for vacancy or satisfaction, a group potentially as atomized in its separation from other groups as a person from other persons. This is the problem of family life. Property, territory, domain. But, "for us now", group (family, aesthetic, social national) is merely another part of our commoditized lives--for we consume these formations, along with most other things, as commodities, & are ourselves consumed in the process." W/ all due respect to Kostelanetz who's been 'at it' for a long time & who's certainly dedicated to the Avant-Garde, I think he completely misses the point. When I was writing my 1st bk (from 1975-1977) I was largely isolated from any intellectual community sympathetic to my concerns (in fact, I still am 40 yrs later). William S. Burroughs's systematic resistance to control thru language was about the closest I'd come to finding a like-minded thinker (altho I must've known about Concrete Poetry by then too) Meeting people like Kirby Malone & Jackson Mac Low & finding out about "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" was exciting! ...more |
Notes are private!
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| 188712361X
| 9781887123617
| 3.90
| 10
| 2002
| Nov 02, 2002
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really liked it
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review of Anne Tardos's The Dik-dik's Solitude - New & Selected Works by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 2, 2016 As is so often the case, my full r review of Anne Tardos's The Dik-dik's Solitude - New & Selected Works by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 2, 2016 As is so often the case, my full review is too long for this space. What I then do is put the full review under "My Writing" ("Lop-Lop Dik-dik": https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ). Typically, I then provide the link, as I've done here, & then just post the beginning of the review in this space. THIS TIME, I'm going to post the end of the review minus its actual end instead for a change.. For me, some of the poetry, rather than being "daring" wd fit quite comfortably into a British nonsense poetry lineage such as that embodied by Carroll & Lear already mentioned. I LIKE that nonsense lineage. Below's an early example: "A Fancy "When Py-crust first began to reign, Cheese-parings went to warre, Red Herrings lookt both blew and wan, Green Leeks and Puddings jarre. Blind Hugh went out to see Two Cripples run a race, The Ox fought with the Humble Bee, And claw'd him by the face." - attributed to Anon,, taken from "Sportive Wit: The Muses Merriment (London, 1656), p. 48." - The Origins of English Nonsense by Noel Malcolm, p 231 Obviously, the above poem relies on absurdities of improbabilities of nature & scale: foods become anthropomorphized, a blind man goes out to see, people implied to be unable to walk are racing, & an ox, a large animal, fights w/ a bee, a small insect "And claw'd him by the face", an 'impossibility' due to scale. Now let's consider a sample stanza from Lewis Carroll's "POETA FIT, NON NASCITUR": ""For first you write a sentence, And then you chop it small; Then mix the bits, and sort them out Just as they chance to fall: The order of the phrases makes No difference at all." - p 880, Complete Works the above stanza being in answer to the opening stanza: ""How shall I be a poet? How shall I write in rhyme: You told me once 'the very wish Partook of the sublime.' Then tell me how! Don't put me off With your 'another time'!"" - p 880, Complete Works Carroll's parody can be interpreted as both a mocking of poetic pretensions AND of Carroll himself. At the same time Carroll's 1883 (or earlier) poem suggests proto-Dadaist approaches, Tristan Tzara's newspaper cut-ups. The title translates from Latin as "A poet is made, not born" ( https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/ht... ). Is the title ironic? Finally, a little Lear limerick, since I've referred to him: "There was a Young Lady whose chin Resembled the point of a pin; So she had it made sharp, And purchased a harp, And played several tunes with her chin." - p 20, A Book of Nonsense The Lear poem includes a drawing of Lear's illustrating the poem. NOW, Tardos's "CAMOUFLAGE SHOE COLLAGE" begins & ends w/ this stanza: "Camouflage shoe collage Window-budget aspiration Buddha-Bambi escalation Spiderweb." - pp 36 & 37 & has an intermediate stanza of: "Dinner-ready-floor-is-dirty Have-you-fed-the-cat-yet? Alternating horror-stricken Crackle burning crumple cricket" - p 37 It seems to me that Tardos's rhyme schemes have a similar liltingness to those of the nonsense poets. Perhaps the main difference between Tardos's work & that of the 3 poets I quoted by way of preface is that Tardos's work is more purely nonsense than its predecessors insofar as it's liberated from having to have any narrative thread. Nonetheless, there're formal elements that provide a sortof continuity thread by using a standard rhyme scheme & by having the opening stanza also be the closing stanza - making a simple conventional closure. Furthermore, her 3rd stanza has the line "Trigger-happy pacifier" wch certainly evokes for me the war absurdities of the above-quoted poem by Anonymous. So, it seems that rather than Tardos's work being related to the absurdism of Jarry & the whatever of Sartre it's rather more related to British nonsense. A part of my point being that I like Tardos's poetry despite what I interpret as a somewhat pompous theoretical prefacing, despite all the bullshit, the poetry's fun for me: "Much earlier: "Novro timidi djenprah Schleich zeuch divinity sonogram abomination rifkin sulzkarp gelled carp idegenek a család Familiar but very strange." - p 40, from the poem "A WEEK IN MAINE" The device of repeating a line or a stanza seems to me to be a fairly conventional device for providing continuity, closure, for 'tying things up'. In 'CAUGHT IN A CAGE IS A CONGO BAR" the 1st line is: "Caught in a cage is a Congo bar" - p 48 & the 3rd to the last line is the same again: "Caught in a cage is a Congo bar "Active future, passive past. "Autobiography of a photon. And you are the photon." - p 50 This is followed on the facing page by a face, the face of "Esther van Meesel, Fire Island, 6/10/2001." (p 315) My review note to myself re this foto being: "I like the txt but the foto seems irrelevant". Then again, the foto is, presumably, not intended to be illustrative - hence, issues of 'relevance' are irrelevant. In "NOTHING for Ernst Jandl" Tardos uses phonetic translation: "Mir fällt jetzt nichts ein (Emir felt jets Nick's ion)" [..] "Nothing falls for me in the present ——— "Nichts fällt für mich im Geschenk (nights phallus for me in a gay shank)" - p 54 & in "APE-SHIT SCUMBAG": "Monkey taxi penguin crap —— Taxi-singe merde de pingouin Taxi singes murder the penguin" - p 57 I like this process & did something similar in my own "Lost in Translation" (1997): "Isabel Allende became Isabel Beyond became Isabel Más allá de. Clara del Valle became Clear of the Valley became Claro del Valle. The Netherlands became la Países Bajos became the Low Countries. Remo Ardosain became Oar Ardosain. Augusto Roa Bastos became August Gnaws Coarse became Agosto Roe Burdo. Bustos Domecq became Bust Domecq. Alejo Carpentier became I Remove Carpentier became Yo Quito Carpentier. Julio Cortázar became July Cortázar. Famas (of “Cronopios y Famas”) became Reputations. Carlos Fuentes became Carlos Sources became Carlos las fuentes. Marcos Gonzalez became Frameworks Gonzalez. G. Cabrera Infante became G. Cabrera Infant became G. Cabrera El infante. Tinieblas became Gloom. Palomino Molero became Dove Molero. Vera Martins became Saw Martins became La sierra Martins." People interested in learning more about this piece are directed to: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/W1997.L... "ANXIETY FROM ANXIETY: AN APPROXIMATION" refers to "Ay-O of the Ainu" (p 58). Ay-O, an artist associated w/ Fluxus since the 1960s, is from Japan. The Ainu are "are an indigenous people of Japan (Hokkaido, and formerly northeastern Honshu) and Russia (Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands)." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_pe... ) In his wikipedia entry, Ay-O is referred to as Japanese. Whether he's actually of Ainu descent or not I was unable to determine. Tardos's poetry seems like a somewhat free-associative admixture of nonsense, multiple languages, semi-random reference, & things of personal relevance. The last 3 lines of the final stanza of "MY HAWAIIAN SPINE" are about cooking for guests: "Gently poke an ahi poke, add grated ginger, toasted sesame oil, sesame seeds, soy sauce, and maybe some chopped scallions. If Susan is coming skip the sesame seeds." - p 60 The reader is to perhaps to conclude from that that Susan is either allergic to sesame seeds, wch might seem to imply that the sesame oil shd also be deleted, or that Susan just doesn't like sesame seeds. I don't see much reason why I shd care one way or the other given that Susan isn't about to be my dinner guest but I do like this as an ending to a poem that begins: "Kumquat kupfernickel kursaal Abracadabra kilowatt amulaet Amulet ornament fullerene grace Grace beloved agreeable favor." - p 60 the other words, the poem veers 'unpredictably' & that keeps me 'entertained'. The Dik-dik's Solitude isn't restricted to any one formal approach of how-one-must-write & that, too, helps keep it lively for me: "WHAT HAPPENED "For Marjorie Perloff and all those who asked "Our experience on September 11 was rather terrifying as we are about eight blocks from the site and really didn't know what was going to happen. the wind, blowing the other way, spared us the worst of the fallout, but I remember being very upset and pacing up and down a lot during the first couple of days. Jackson was cool as a cucumber. (We celebrated his birthday on the 12th by being grateful for being alive.) But on 9/11 we had no water and I immodestly called the no-water complaint number, not even expecting them to pick up the phone, let alone give us a case number and come by and turn the water back on by the evening. But while there was no water coming up from the faucets I went down to the corner restaurant and brought up buckets full to our sixth floor without an elevator. This physical effort grounded me somehow and I calmed down." - p 68 I 'can't help' but compare the importance of 'the project' of getting water to people after a warring attack to 'the project' of poetry. I've grown to love poetry but its 'importance' is of a completely different nature to the importance of water. A world w/o poetry might be considerably less stimulating for me but people will still be running around fucking & killing each other, as usual. A world w/o water isn't likely to have people running around doing anything. That's a big difference. Page 76 has "A Note on the Notes": "At first, when I considered these notes to be aseparate piece, I called them "How Memory Deepens: Analytical Footnotes to Four Plus One K." Here, for the first time, I place the notes below the stanzas they refer to. They are poems derived from the stanzas and, because they took the form of annotations, they became annotations." That interests me, I like elaborating processes, they provide depth: "Female executive Long-faced Britannica Budgeting ecstasy Bungee mark water stain "Kerouac. "When we purchased the online version of Britannica, we experienced a budgeting ecstasy. "A bungee is a long and strong rubberband capable of holding up a human being. A bungee mark water stain is the stain caused by the enormous splash resulting from the unplanned impact of the jumper." - p 78 Tardos has a sense of humor, thank the holy ceiling light. P 121 provides a picture of a "Road runner, a daily visitor at Jill Krosesen's hotel, Lido Palsm Hotel, in Desert Hot Springs, California, 5/9/2001." (p 316) Having seen many a road runner cartoon I always think of them as much larger. What a beaut. "Poodle viceroy salad dressing Nympholeptic sitzbath Mummified cadenza friction "Erotica. "Poodle viceroy salad refers to a poodle who not only made it to viceroyhood, but who has since developed a taste for salad dressing." - p 136 Who say Tardos isn't a nonsense poet? I challenge you to a dual! Embrace yr inner nonsense poet! The poem that the above is excerpted from, "Ginkgo Knuckle Nubia" has each poem end with a word beginning w/ whatever the latter of the alphabet has been reached. Therefore, the above poem is the 5th poem in the series, as indicated by the ending of "Erotica." The last poem: "U-turn. "Violet. "We're all in this together. "Xenophobic. "Yiddish. "Zoom." - p 152 I enjoy that, even tho I don't attach great importance to it. On the other hand, the scores, whether they're for music or sound poetry, don't do much for me, they're (IMO) too unproductive of anything unusual sounding (from the POV of this esp knowledgeable &/or jaded person's perspective). "Compositions #1-4" (2001) have "text boxes" "contain"[ing] "fragments of words from the first few strophes of the preceding poem, "Ginkgo Knuckle Nubia."" "I suggest two or more performers so they can engage in a dialogue, using the word fragments. They can do this at any speed, pronouncing the word fragments in any order and in any way they choose." (p 153) Then the 1st 4 "word fragments" are "Gink", "gin", "pen", & "brou". This is so not-cutting-edge that it's lower on the sharp-witted end of things than using a butter knife for brain surgery. It's not even brain-sugary. Having already personally done something like this waaaayyy back in 1977 or before, at least 24 eons earlier, I am not impressed. For more info on my thingamawoosiewob go to: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/MereOut... or witness the 2011 're-enactment' thereof here: https://youtu.be/iWwMJDdEGr8 . Is the following a "spoiler"?: "Tenacious turmoil promptitude Agglutination turpitude Stylized a tutu Climbed under a choo-choo Took in the dik-dik's solitude "A dik-dik is a small, solitary deer not much bigger than a cat. My cellphone is not much bigger than a waterbug." - p 167 Tardos definitely has a sense of humor & that's one of the things that made this bk enjoyable for me. She even quotes Isaac Bashevis Singer twice: "We have to believe in free will. We simply have no choice." - p 186 & p 255 Andrew Bolotowsky's also mentioned twice: 1st in a dedication for "Music After "Considerations" & 2nd in a dedication for "Music After Uxodo". That might not mean much to many people but I publish tapes by Beth Anderson & Franz Kamin & Bolotowsky appears on both of them. That makes hima prominent man-around-town in my bk. As stated earlier, I don't find the music very interesting, but at least it adds to the diversity. I AM tickled by words Tardos puts in an image of Mac Low in a cartoonish sequence: "Better a bad peace than a good war." (p 229) Wd that the world shd be so lucky. One of the things I've liked about Tardos's work from the get-go is her use of multiple languages in the same txt. For me, it enables a sortof meta-reading, a reading where one experiences the presence of the multiple languages as ONE language & interprets the etymology & grammar on the fly. As Tardos says: "Why do I mix languages? Why shouldn't I?" (p 255) That sd, I don't always find the accompanying footnotes to add to the experience: "Tovább1 the butter davaj2 Le monkey the wave Die Welle3 die Schwester4 the miracle whip The goiter the laughter Sardinia kiván5 Ambulance walking remember me now Donatello on Sunday" [..] "1 TOW-vahn [Hung.: "further"] 2 duh-VAYIE [Russ.: "let's go!" (also Hung: vaj=butter) 3 DEE VELLer [Ger.: "the wave"] 4 DEE SHVUS-ter [Ger.: "the sister"] 5 KEY-vahn [Hung.: "he/she/it desires"]" - p 254 Does knowing that the stanza translates into: Further the butter let's go! le monkey the wave The wave the sister the miracle whip The goiter the laughter Sardinia he/she/it desires Ambulance walking remember me now Donatello on Sunday really enhance its meaning for me? Not to this reviewer. Does doing the footnotes eyeball dance enhance it? Nttr. "David Tudor pays close attention. John said to pay attention in a much nicer way than any of my school-teachers or parents ever did." - p 261 Given that I like the work of David Tudor & John Cage very much, this passage pleases me. For more of my takes on such subjects see my reviews of: the Larry Austin and Douglas Kahn edited Source - Music of the Avant-Garde, 1966-1973 full review entitled "Re: Source": https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... Benjamin Piekut's Experimentalism Otherwise - The New York Avant-Garde and Its Limits full review: "Experimental, Ism; Other, Wise": https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... In the introductory notes to "Cellular Dialogue" Tardos tells us that: "Jackson and I premiered this performance piece in 1994 at the Anthology FIlm Archives, during the "NyMax" fluxus festival organized by Nam June Paik." (p 265) Since I like Fluxus & Nam June Paik, I might as well add some details to this: "From October 8 to November 6, 1994, Anthology Film Archives will present SeOUL-NYmAX: A Celebration of Arts Without Borders, which will bring together over seventy artists and critics working with dance, music, performance, electronic arts, film, and video. On the first afternoon the celebration will be at the Judson Memorial Church and Washington Square Park; thereafter all programs will be at Anthology Film Archives on the Lower East Side. During SeOUL-NYmAX there will be sixty in-person performances, forty filrn screenings, twenty electronic arts installations, four receptions, and panel discussions dealing with arts that bridge different disciplines and cultures - arts that are not concerned with aesthetic or national borders. The artworks on view in this Celebration are often multimedia, and in many cases embody the aspiration for freedom of expression. Broadly, these artworks can be grouped as " * the arts of Korea, especially modern dance, film, the electronic arts of video, computers, and interactive installations; * classic and new multimedia, ranging from a 1960s piece by Takehisa Kosugi to interactive 1990s computer art; * an international Fluxus reunion (20 artists in person, 5 in absentia). "All three floors of Anthology will be used to house this extraordinary gathering with guests from Lithuania (Vytautas Landsbergis, a Fluxus artist who was his country's first president), Austria (Hermann Nitsch), Korea, Japan, and the United States (including Susan Sontag and Nam June Paik). This project is sponsored by the Korean Cultural Service and the Korea Society, with support from Nam June Paik, Film/Video Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts." - http://www.panix.com/~fluxus/MedialeM... Tardos goes on to explain that: "We improvised a dialogue around previously agreed-upon topics printed on small cards. Aside from text to be spoken or discussed, we also prepared actions to perform. It would not be wrong to refer to this type of performance as structured improvisation." (p 265) One of the conversation starters was: "Why did the crocodile cross the river?" & I reckon the answer to that one's pretty simple: 'to eat the chicken crossing the road wondering if it came 1st or the egg'. ANYWAY, this is my favorite of the performance pieces. Perhaps my 2nd favorite is the one described thusly: "Among Men is a performance piece that began with simple research—I was curious to see the proportion of entries for female versus male artists and composers in two reference works—and ended with a radio production of the piece" (p 272) "The four composers whose music I excerpted, cut up, removed keys and signatures from, in some cases turned upside down, and superimposed over the artworks, are Jeanne Demessieux, Vivian Fine, Ruth Crawford, and Dame Ethel Smyth. "The eleven artists whose paintings and sculptures were superimposed over the scores are Rosa Bonheur, Mary Cassatt, Helen Frankenthaler, Eva Hesse, Frida Kahlo, Marisol, Georgia O'Keefe, Merte Oppenheim, Bridget Riley, Suzanna Valadon, and Elisabeth Vigé-Lebrun. "Among Men was premiered by the Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, conducted by Petr Kotik, in February 1994, In New York. the readers were myself and Jackson Mac Low." - pp 274-275 ...more |
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review of Bill Luoma's Some Math by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 19 & 25, 2015 I was somewhat predisposed to like this bk b/c it was sent to me review of Bill Luoma's Some Math by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - August 19 & 25, 2015 I was somewhat predisposed to like this bk b/c it was sent to me by its publisher, Kenning Editions, who had also published an excellent Hannah Weiner bk (Hannah Weiner's Open House - full review: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ). I became even more predisposed to liking it when my anticipations were aroused by the text on the back cover: "In Some Math, the syncopations of poetry meet the (ir)regularity of mathematical equations. Consider the "story problems" of high school math class. When encountering the word "and," replace it with the addition symbol "+." When encountering the word "of," replace it with the multiplication symbol "x." Now reverse the process. The result is a series of sound poems". I became slightly less inclined to like the bk b/c the cover is an image of a painted target that's been shot by a shotgun. That reminds me of "The Thousand Symphonies": "Dick Higgins The Thousand Symphonies (July, 1967) boldly proposes machine-gunning score-paper & using the result as notation for symphonies. This predates considerably William S. Burroughs's more famous shotgun paintings (1982->) & David Franks's shotgun poems (1990s). Of course, shotgun weddings predate them all & are quite possibly more important." ( "Re: Source": https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ) In other words, I'm over it. But, THEN, I started reading the 1st poem, "Dear Filesystem Panic". & I was bowled over by the freshness (3 strikes & you're spared!) or was it fowled by the brashness?: "Dear filesystem panic with whining the pleas of a coward to the heart of of and the fantasies it feeds to the rearing of the hindquarters of the automount of message to the position of the saber of the people of we to the ass of bluxome limn in donutsburg pennsylvania to the jerk of tenderloin in funnelcake new jersey to the pig the pig the message has hindquarters to kingpin the mount point and the candlepin of wickets on the occasion of the benediction of the shaftway I'm calling the destructor on an iroq layer of inodes by inserting into the sidebodies of the multiplex of molly a handsfree ipod wired to the hooded electrodes /* your wires and my electrodes */ I'm shorting the dendrites of the backbrain to the oblong iteration of the superblock" - p 9 I loved the language so much he cd practically do-no-wrong after this. There's a thin line here between Surrealism, Nonsense, Language Writing, Stream of Consciousness, & Bullshit but it worked for me. I found the poems to be basically of 2 types: ones broken into stanzas & ones not broken into stanzas. I was a bit disappointed by this lack of formal variety but I still enjoyed reading the work. It just work works. One might even call the stanza poems 'classic' Language Poetry (if such a term isn't ridiculous - or even if it is): "ammo glan ye gary reynolds tiz bat wren funky neros shrimp fare tule varmin dot dot jill b tay" - p 21 cd be compared to, oh, say, a stanza from Clark Coolidge's The Maintains (1974): "gainer indwell lifts form base by a cause to be parts been one chambers as own coerce bias dog not and cease takes just only in also" - p 42 insofar as there's a tendency to just use one or 2 syllable words some of wch are unusual (cf: "ammo glan" to "gainer indwell") & that don't necessarily have any typical grammatic progression (cf: "dot dot jull b tay" to "takes just only in also") but Coolidge tends to greater erraticness & variety of stanza length & indentation while Luoma's stanzas are all 4 lines & left-justified. Luoma even goes so far as to rhyme: "flavor berry singa brew julie billiard banka tow laker nono bootie skate marley waver leather mate" - p 24 &/or: "Bluo courting kaski fair mobil aphro no dye hair" - p 49 &/or: "pulsate flatness plank length hot jetty superluminous wet so companion globule sky coldie cluster garching spry" - p 75 but, then, even those remind me of Alan Davies's bk ODES & fragments in such poems as "For you'n": "sling sluck over slend end oven sluck fend aall 's ise tend nd the than that end such 'n for t 'en sloughing is the enden oder firckin zie zen send of the lader glend (blend" - p 106 or, going a bit further afield (& aflame of afun of walking faces), I think of "Shracticlat", an animation by Skizz P. Cyzyk of a poem by Bean wch is, in itself, closer to Lewis Carroll's "Jaberwocky". Enuf. There're repetitions that're just odd enuf to seem like beacons of formal undercurrents but cd more easily be novelties thrown in to create that appearance. EG: poems numbered 6 & 9 both have the same title: "When the Pathogenic Wind Comes". Given that 6 & 9 are graphic inversions of each other that're paired as a symbol of mutual oral sex having such a repetition 'makes sense'. The technique of framing a coupling phrase w/ "/*" & "*/", as in "/* your wires and my electrodes */", recurs: "/* your jammies and my prestolog*/" (p 13), "/* your elocution and my habitrail */" (p 14), & then changes on p 17: "/* that's a really good place for those power lines */". He frequently plays w/ repeating "of" in ways that fly against typical grammar: "of of at point among the canthus and access disperses eyebrow of of with them of functions" [..] "of of indications of of" - p 54 & really lets loose w/ that on later pages: "of the head of of of of of" - p 57 "Pouring itself of Of" [..] "of the yin of Of of the three navel of of of of of of of of great pouring." - p 60 Those "of" passage quotes are from the 1st of the 2 "When the Pathogenic Wind Comes" poems. The 2nd one doesn't seem to have that much in common w/ the 1st but then the "of" appears similarly again: "of Of of Of of of of of of aphasia of asthma" - p 113 P 113 starts off w/: "Over here shenmen" wch I take to be a reference to "Shem the Penman" in James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. It's not that I haven't seen anything like this before. I have. But somehow Luoma makes it fresh. EG: he takes the tried & true form of the list poem & 'breaks its rules' by not keeping the same line beginning throughout. It's not really a big deal but it wORKS: "who ships the strategy for problem solving to the new shore who notifies the inodes of immament domain change who mounts the superblock with stubs who memcopies the clit of little white opie to the foreskin of the beast of mexican larry to the backbrain of the elocution of the ipod to the sidebodies of the religion of the kitty collar" - p 12 he makes slight reference changes that wdn't be noticed by people not steeped in the same culture: "starring gary mathers as the beaver" - p 18 That's a reference to Jerry Mathers as "Beaver Cleaver" in the tv show "Leave it to Beaver" (1957–1963). To someone like myself, born in 1953, such a reference is as American as Apple Pie but wd it be just-another nonsense phrase to someone younger? Or take this for instance: "stuck inside the large hardon collider" - p 31 instead of "Large Hadron Collider". It's a simple enuf pun, an easy rearrangement of 2 letters only to sexualize the scientific - how many people wd 'get' this? I imagine the LHC is pretty famous & maybe most of the presumably literate readers of Luoma wd read this & have some sort of mental equivalent of a chuckle.. but maybe not. Then there's: "posse commutation loggy androne tony floor" - p 45 in wch "posse commutation" cd be read as a substitute for "Posse comitatus". How many of these substitutions am I not noticing or not 'getting'? What about this one?: "loo pet franky valley lana turner cheese quake" - p 44 Ok, the "franky valley" is easy enuf to turn into "Frankie Valli, the singer, but "lana turner"'s spelled as the actress's name wd ordinarily be spelled but that doesn't mean that there isn't something else going on b/c Lana Turner just so happens to also be the name of "A Journal of Poetry and Opinion". Not that any of that necessarily matters. Luoma helps keep it lively by combining language ordinarily kept separate: say the language of asses, physics, & baseball (I'll bet you didn't know that asses have their own language did you? Ask Le Pétomane about that one..): "will be reversed. Supersymmetry predicts that your superpartners all have the same ass. Ground ball." - p 37 & then there appear to be made-up words that Luoma reuses wch might actually be words that I simply can't find on the internet. Pick out the questioable word in the following lines: "solenoid of awry with illustranves ago the mouth combinations" - p 67 "illustranves with meetings makes adjacent the headache" - p 68 "iluustranves with the adjacent meetings" - p 68 "dizziness apprehensions illustranves of with" - p 69 "of vertebra bilizing the three yang with the illustranves of one large ra" - p 70 I looked up "illustranves" & found one link to the poem in wch this appears. I also looked for it in Mrs. Byrne's Dicitionary of Unusual, Obscure, and Preposterous Words & didn't find it. then I tried The Oxford Dictionary of New Words. No luck. Finally, The Oxford Dictionary of Difficult Words. No luck there either. It might not be English. But, nah, I'm betting on nonsense neologism. OR, if it's been put thru a large hardon collider, a nonsense neolojism. What I didn't really find was the systematicness implied by the back cover copy - but that doesn't mean it's not there. ...more |
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review of N. H. Pritchard's The Matrix Poems: 1960-1970 by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 8, 2015 I'm usually on the look-out for poetry w/ imagina review of N. H. Pritchard's The Matrix Poems: 1960-1970 by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 8, 2015 I'm usually on the look-out for poetry w/ imaginative typography, for poetry that isn't just just constructed of parallel lines in stanzas, for poetry that uses placement as part of its vocabulary. Hence my interest in Concrete Poetry & Visual Poetry. Furthermore, I'm interested in poets whose work isn't supported by the status quo, often b/c of suppression of content &/or b/c of isolation from an economic mainstream, often b/c of classism & racism. Hence I search for work on small presses that may present unusual &/or unpopular &/or minority viewpoints. N. H. Pritchard is a black poet, The Matrix Poems uses placement as a major part of its vocabulary, a most unusual combination. According to Richard Kostelanetz's "Why Assembling" (1973) "Only one one-man collection of visual poetry, for instance, has ever been commercially published in the United States, even though “concrete” is reportedly “faddish”; and since that single book, N. H. Pritchard’s The Matrix (1970), was neither reviewed nor touted, it seemed unlikely that any others would ever appear—another example of how the rule of precedent in literary commerce produces de facto censorship." ( http://www.richardkostelanetz.com/exa... ) Kostelanetz is certainly an expert on the subject, more so than me, but I still feel the critical 'need' to differ from him here: I don't categorize these poems as either Visual Poetry or as Concrete Poetry. I think of Visual Poetry as poetry in wch basic elements usually associated w/ language in its most conventional sense, letters & words, are repurposed as primarily visual elements w/o necessarily referencing their defined semantic content. Instead, the more 'expanded' semantic content may be referenced: letters seen as evocative gestures, eg. For me, Visual Poetry, even when it uses the defined semantic content of words, may not be using the visual presentation of sd content to embody it but may, instead, be incorporating words into a pictorial situation where they're 'matter' to be mixed into a more generally imagistic collage. See the Anthology Spidertangle (2009) for an excellent selection of such work (my review's here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62... ). Concrete Poetry, on the other hand, for me, is poetry in wch the visual appearance reinforces the defined semantic content w/ other visual elements irrelevant to this purpose not present. Take, eg, Aram Saroyan's simple example: "eyeye" in wch the word "eye" is doubled & conjoined to evoke the more usual 2 eyes of the reader. These distinctions are hardly hard & fast, they're ones I make that others will no doubt disagree w/. For me, Pritchard's Matrix Poems don't seem to use the placement of elements either for primarily imagistic purposes or to 'flesh out' the definitions. His poems, while they're certainly more visually inventive than the conventional stanzas of parallel lines evenly spaced, strike me as more 'conceptually' ponderously placed, as mostly designed to prompt a path for the reader's eyes, to complicate the reading experience by making the words more present as objects but w/o heightening their defined semantic content in the process or making them primarily visual & ignoring or downplaying their defined semantic content. As such, while Pritchard cd certainly be lumped in w/ Concrete & Visual Poets, I find him to be somewhat in his own category. The previous publication credits interest me. I'd like to see the original places to see what the other work w/in them is like in contrast. I suspect that Pritchard dramatically stands out: "Umbra #2, #3, #4; Athanor; The New Black Poetry, edited by Clarence Major". The epigraph that precedes the table of contents in Matrix Poems is a quote from Pritchard himself: "Words are ancillary to content." The implication, as I read it, is that words aren't necessarily the primary carrier of content but are a part of a larger support system. In speech, body language would also be ancillary to content. Pritchard's use of positioning seems to be the main other half of what produces the content. There's a formal strategy at work in wch "o"s in various sizes appear - mainly, but not entirely, as graphic elements on their own, like brackets. The 1st poem is called "WREATH" & consists entirely of an "O". That cd easily enuf be called "concrete" or a Picture Poem. The poem beginning on p 191 is called "O" as is the very last one. For those of us inclined to pay attn to detail, it's noteworthy that in the Contents the title listed for 191 looks like a lower-case "o" whereas on p 191 itself it looks upper-case "O". Again, in the Contents, the title of the last poem seems to be an upper-case "O" while on the page itself it looks more like a circle, round rather than ovoid. I don't see a typesetting credit so I imagine Pritchard chose the fonts himself. The "O" motif also appears on pp 17, 44 (marking the beginning of Pt II), 50, 68, 78, 86, 125, 126 (marking the end of Pt II), 138, & 185. Most of the time, they're circles. Circles are (perhaps, all-too-) easily read as symbols of tautological & regenerative completeness, as holistic. I prefer to just see them as a recurring visual element here - thusly, perhaps, making them akin to Visual Poetry. Much of the poetry strikes me as evocative of leisurely, relaxed days spent in pleasant environments. Perhaps the closest poet I can compare him to is Ian Hamilton Finlay. One of the main techniques Pritchard uses is spacing between subunits of words: "W here quiet ly on ly go e s" - p 3 What Pritchard's intention was, I don't know. The effect is multiple: it makes reading more difficult, it slows the reader, it makes the reader look at the words differently. "Where" becomes "W" + "here". In a sense it becomes 3 words: "W", "here", & "Where" (or a letter & 2 words if one doesn't want to accept "W" as a word). "OLOGY" (p 8) goes a bit further in its placement-as-direction-of-the-eye insofar as there's a left column that spells out "a / see / d / r" downward wch then has the "r" continue on to become "r / i / s / e / s:" in an upward diagonal - w/ the "s:" being the top of the right column. This right column then descends thru "s: / to / gather / nes / t". The whole can be read as evocative of a bird picking a seed off the ground & flying w/ it to its nest. Again, it's close to a picture poem but the placement is more exploitative of a process than it is an image, it's time-based. A similar semi-concreteness characterizes "AGON" wch has the poem upside-down starting at the bottom of the page w/ the title right-side-up at the top: "b low C oo p e r Sq u are the fun era r y late n e s s" - p 8 There's some ambiguity: "b low" can be "blow" or "below". Hence we have "below/blow Cooper Square the funerary lateness". Cooper Square being an area in NYC the poem's inversion makes me think of its being underground there, perhaps bodies buried, perhaps a burial ground not too different from the one not so far away uncovered decades later than this bk in October 1991 & memorialized as the "African Burial Ground National Monument". This technique of spaces w/in words seems to be Pritchard's most common one. In "the own" (pp 53-55) the ambiguity of "blow/below" is both expanded & contracted: "an d a t he l as t" is difficult to resolve b/c the isolated "t" can be both part of "at" & of "the" but the "the" is syntactically odd whether it's "the" or "he". In other words, the pieces can be conjoined thusly: "and at the last" wch requires having the "t" do double-duty but the typical phrase of "and at last" is disrupted by the "the" or "he". The next line, tho, somewhat resolves this w/ " t he f irst is n ear" or "the first is near" making the "the" of "the last" more in keeping w/ the patter/n of " and at the last / the first is near". In the same poem, the phonetic abbreviation of "b" for "be" is less ambiguous in "b not shaken by the pat h" insofar as "bnot" is not a word but "be not" is semantically conventional. "THE HARKENING" is another 'separation poem' (to, perhaps, coin a term) where slight irregularities make the reading process a little more 'bouncy': "da dirt h o fsh all sha ll we" - p 69 "da" instead of the or, perhaps, as a variant on "pa" or "daddy" cd make the beginning of this brief excerpt be "daddy dirt" similar to "mother earth" but the following "h" is more likely to conjoin in readers's minds as "dirth", a phonetic equivalent to or common misspelling of "dearth" - yielding "the dearth of shall". "shall" occurs twice: 1st broken into "fsh all", 2nd broken into "sha ll". The 1st combination has "fsh" wch can easily be read as "fish". SO, alternate reading: "daddy dirt fish all, shall we". This, however, is taken out of context by me here & a fuller reading might produce different or clearer results. "GYRE'S GALAX" (pp 46-49) gets into quasi-permutational territory reminiscent of Brion Gysin from roughly the same time in Paris but not as systematic. I imagine it read aloud: "Sound variegated through beneath lit Sound variegated through beneath lit through sound beneath variegated lit sound variegated through beneath lit" "VISITARY" (pp 64-67) functions similarly w/ stanzas like this: "Where winged wings Where winged wings Where winged wings Where winged wings Where winged wings walk Where winged wings walk Where winged wings Where winged wings walk Where winged wings Where winged wings Dewinged wings Dewinged wings Wings dewinged Dewinged wings wings dewinged wings dewinged dewinged wings wings dewinged dewinged wings dewinged wings" - p 65 As I wrote earlier, "Much of the poetry strikes me as evocative of leisurely, relaxed days spent in pleasant environments." "THE NARROW PATH" (p 74) is an unusually straight-forward example: "Very due that being each one dwells through errant woods of stone and roaming unknown streams where few prints mark the air contested only by that dare and the narrow path bending but to where" "AURORA" (pp 87-124) is, perhaps, the most adventurous in the path it creates for the reader. The 1st page starts w/ "There", down a space diagonally right, "are", down a space diagonally right, "only", down a space diagonally right, "pebbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb" & the "b"s continue on at the same roughly middle-of-the-page position onto the next page & on to the next where the word is finished at the right margin w/ "bles". The next 2 pages both have "NOW" placed in their center, the next pages after that have a similar centering but of, 1st, "NO", 2nd, "w". As such "NOW" transforms into "NO" - ie" "NOW" w/ "no w". From there, the trip becomes considerably more complicated by a variety of placements & hummings. This wd be a great one to be read aloud in an attempt to honor the layout as notation - perhaps w/ multiple voices. Beginning the section titled "III Objects 1968-1970" the poems do become more 'concrete' but, again, less for the purpose of semantic amplification than I usually associate w/ Concrete Poetry. EG: the 1st poem is a capital "A" made out of capital "Z"s. It's very neat, I'm reminded of later work by Karl Kempton. It cd be read as an encapsulation of an alphabet: A to Z. All in all, I find Pritchard's work to be very sparse & very original. I'm not moved by it in an emotional sense, I'm moved by it in a physical sense. Take the 1st 4 lines of """ (p 187): " " " " " " " " red " " " " " " " red " " " " " " red " " " red" I'm sure that the neat columns won't display correctly on GoodReads. The quotation marks ("""s) can be re(a)d as "ditto". The 1st line of "ditto"s can be read as dittoing the title. The reader is seeing "red", an expression meaning "being angry" - but the reader is also just reading, the reader has read "red", has re(a)d. What Pritchard means by this is somewhat opaque to me but it definitely seems symptomatic of an active mind encouraging an active reading. Thank you, Doubleday & Company, for having the audacity to publish this. ...more |
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review of John M. Bennett's The Sticky Suit Whirs: Los Preolvidados by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - April 25, 2015 John M. Bennett's body of poetry is review of John M. Bennett's The Sticky Suit Whirs: Los Preolvidados by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - April 25, 2015 John M. Bennett's body of poetry is like a glacier. It's huge, he's prolific, anyone on his mailing list gets 3 to 6 poems from him a day, anyone on the Spidertangle VisPo list-serv gets those same poems daily. The form of the poems change very slowly over the yrs. A poem of his 20 yrs ago might've been hand-written w/ a special spidery hand-writing. Today they're usually written using a computer. So they're like a glacier, huge & slow-moving. Now that he writes in Spanish almost as much as he does in English the writing's more like 2 glaciers. Someday you might look out yr window & see a glacier to the North w/ "The Sticky Suit Whirs" written on it & another to the South w/ " Los Preolvidados" written on it. But that won't mark the End Times, it'll mark the Lost & Found Times. The Lost & Found Times was the name of the magazine that Bennett published from 1975 to 1998 (& beyond?). There's a marvelous anthology from those called Loose Watch published by Invisible Books. Highly recommended. Bennett's work & his editorial inclinations combine the influence of Dadaism, Surrealism, Sound Poetry, Visual Poetry, Mail Art, Language Poetry, & the kind of visceral humor that one might expect from a parent who spends a fair amt of time changing diapers or a worker in a hospital or a nursing home who embraces the flatulence & pustulence for its vividness. As such, if Post-Modernism is an eclectic combination of preceding theories & movements, one might call Bennett's work "Post-Modern". Is he, therefore, in the Paul Hoover edited Postmodern American Poetry - A Norton Anthology? Nope. How about the Jerome Rothenberg & Pierre Joris edited Poems for the Millennium - Volume Two: From Postwar to Millennium? Nope. This isn't to say that they aren't both excellent anthologies but I do tend to think that there's often a prejudice against Mail Artists for being 'too' inclusive & a prejudice against people living in smaller American towns that AREN'T NYC or the West Coast. Bennett lives in Columbus, OH - who cares, right? But, of course, one of the reasons why there're Mail Artists in smaller towns is so that they can carry on international correspondence w/o having to tolerate the crowded conditions of bigger cities or to pay the exorbitant living expenses of NYC or SF or Toronto. I've reviewed 3 bks of Bennett's already: John M. Bennett & Bruce Andrews's Joint Words ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... ), Bennett's Milk ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3... ), & Bennett's La Vista Gancha ( https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8... ). Ultimately, I prefer writers who change their writing technique to reflect the central idea(s) of the work - w/ these central Ideas changing for every new work. That eliminates, by far, most writers. Bennett does tend to have trademark characteristics that didn't necessarily originate w/ him but wch he concentrates on in a very focused way. Take, eg, the 1st 5 lines of the 1st poem in this bk: "elimination storm cuzzle late s ock fold blinky t ,ape sugar fasted in ,faster slope runt bang a bang .a lipper goop m ule bray ing the wheeze l" The 1st line ends w/ "s" & the 2nd begins w/ "ock" - the line break occurs mid-word. Having heard recordings of Bennett's reading many times I mentally hear his aggressive pronunciation, the alliteration of stutters & pauses as sound poetry. The middle of the 2nd line has a characteristic Bennett device: the placing of punctuation where it wdn't ordinarily go in its usual function. Here we have the word "tape" broken into "t" & "ape" w/ the "ape" beginning w/ a comma rather than the "t" ending w/ one. That problematizes the reader's reading. A casual reader might ignore it. A reader such as myself who accepts the challenge at least tries to imagine what a pause at the beginning of a word or a word-fragment might sound like. "faster", in the 3rd line, also begins w/ a comma & then there's ".a lipper". In general, Bennett's 'punctuation' seems to serve more as visual poetry than as indicators of compartmentalization. The poem on p 62, eg, is titled ")". The next appearance of a close-parenthesis consists of 2 adjacent to each other, then 3, then 4, then 5. There's a progression but there's no open-parenthesis. In the same poem the capital "O" is written 'O' 1st & then [O]. "wasn't" becomes "wa,s,n't". I'm not sure Bennett articulates these sorts of abnormalities in a systematic way in every reading. I tend to think that he explores them spontaneously as sound poetry interruptions to conventional reading flow. Much of the writing, for me, is viscerally imagistic w/o relying on context to give it meaning. Hence we have in the 1st poem "ruse or heavy wiping mean", wch is ambiguous as to what sort of "wiping" might be referred to, & "place )neck ((( green stool's teaming p ile my" - p 59 wch might refer to a green stool that one sits on or a green stool that one shits out & "turated was ,that su pperated bright bead oozed 00ticking(( the" - p 60 wch might refer to a suppuration that oozes.. or, as in language poetry, there might be a process initiated in the reader that's not necessarily definitive as reference but, rather, infinitive as non-finite verb forms. Bennett's a slippery character: "the dingle mot ,h ,ot her all was ,indyclept" - p 45 The reader might get "moth" or "hot" or "mother" or "other" or "her". None wd be 'right', none wd be 'wrong'. The intermingling of 2 languages adds another layer of ambiguity: "hacia "junk an clapping ,senda way torn s hr oud ,ackt pile hem porglosero ,fl ender prim e g g rime me ans o ne)kkid na(da ño ,the haw lobe ¡ chew so r did knot ,heng lumbps deflappy when ,spray an born ,loud black miles "when" o pulgateca glo lawn groped the es)ca (lera f l o j a" - p 8 I recommend this bk to all readers who don't speak English or Spanish. ...more |
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review of Jackson Mac Low's 42 Merzgedichte in Memoriam Kurt Schwitters by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 12, 2015 My full(ish) analysis is here: review of Jackson Mac Low's 42 Merzgedichte in Memoriam Kurt Schwitters by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - March 12, 2015 My full(ish) analysis is here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... & it's got a nifty title. It was as recently as last mnth that I wrote that "my top 5 of greatest 20th century (dead) poets" includes "Tolson, Zukovsky, & Mac Low" ( https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ). I was being hyperbolic for affect but, still, I seriously value Mac Low's work highly. Nonetheless, this is the 1st bk by him that I've read in its entirety &, really, I have to admit that "my top 5 of greatest 20th century (dead) [or still alive] poets" wd have to include at least 50 poets: there's really no "top 5" for me. I'd also have to admit my positive feelings for Mac Low's work are deeply rooted in what my (admittedly limited) personal interactions w/ him were like. As I recall, the Merzaum Collective (esp Kirby Malone & Marshall Reese) brought Jackson to perform at the Red Door Hall in Baltimore in 1977 or 1978. That must've been when I 1st met him & I'm not sure whether I knew of his work by then. I was fairly aware of a large amt of Fluxus work by then so I might've encountered Mac Low's. It might've been during this visit that I gave Jackson a copy of my 1st bk, t he bk (etc) ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25... ). Dating my encounters w/ him in the late '70s is a bit vague for me now. I do remember being in someone's Baltimore apt (Kirby's?) & showing jackson some of my writings, particularly writing I'd done w/ just numbers, & having him respond very positively to them. That was close to unprecedented. Those number writings were so abstruse & so d liberately d void of convention that it's hard for me to imagine anyone getting anything out of them but when I explained them to Jackson he was right there w/ it. I attended that New York Avant-Garde festival in 1979. I remember Dick Higgins giving me a brochure for his fairly new Printed Editions publications (Something Else must've ended shortly before). I probably wd've met Mac Low then too. There were so many great people participating in that. Mac Low was also generous enuf to give me a copy of his bk Asymmetries 1-260 (published by Printed Editions) & to inscribe it to me thusly: "For Michael (Tolson) with best wishes (Keep yer chinup! — er . . .) Jackson (Mac Low) Balto. 3/30/81" - so he must've been in BalTimOre again at that time but I don't remember that at all. I've never read that completely b/c I've tried to read it in accordance w/ the performance instructions wch slowed me down to a halt. W/ that in mind can I really blame the many people I've given bks & movies & audio recordings to who've never read them or witnessed them or listened to them? (Yes, I can.) On January 9, 1982, I gave a reading at the EAR INN in NYC. I'd made Frame-of-Reference shaped cards w/ text on them that were intended to be my only conversational materials. One of the cards had this written on it: "I'V D CIDED 2 ONLY READ 2DAY, SO, I'V WRITTEN 60 CARDS OF SENTENCES I'V ANTICIPATED WANTING 2 SAY." Another one had: "WAIT, PLEEZ, UNTIL I FIND T HE CARD." At least 12 of them were addressed to specific people, Jackson wasn't one of them but he was there. He was also the person who called me out when I read the only card that had 2 sentences on it instead of one. He was paying attn. On September 12, 1982, I attended an all-day celebration of Jackson's birthday in a church in NYC where many amazing folks performed his work. I must've talked to him then, too. In retrospect, it seems like I must've crossed paths w/ Mac Low a fair amt in the late '70s & early '80s. I was certainly in NYC, where Jackson lived, more then then in any time since. I don't recall seeing him again until 1989 in Rockville, MD, at the historic John Cage birthday Music Circus. I wd've given him a copy of the 1st edition of my bk How to Write a Resumé - Volume II: Making a Good First Impression (the 2nd edition is reviewed online here: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25... ). Then there was a long pause until I was in Melbourne, Australia, in 2000 at Warren Burt's place & Warren was having an email exchange w/ Jackson in wch Jackson sd to tell me HI. I was touched that Mac Low wd remember me after all those yrs. Such reminiscing might be boorish to the reader but it's important to me. Not only was Mac Low always supportive of my work, not only did he seem to GET IT when just about no-one else did, but he was also consistently warm & intelligent. My experience of him was 100% positive. I shd write a Yelp review praising him! Wch brings me up to this bk. I was in Boulder, CO, maybe in 2011, when I found it in a used bkstore. Finding Jackson's bks is rare & I was very excited. Making it even better is that it's brought to us by Station Hill Press, one of my favorite publishers. SO, I've finally read an entire bk by Jackson. At 1st I was somewhat disappointed, it seemed like a bit of a waste of paper. Then, it grew on me, I got more & more engaged in the permutations, in the fragmentation, in the obsessive rewriting, in the process. On the back of the bk there's a blurb by Robert Kelly. I've met Kelly & vaudeoed him for my movie on Franz Kamin & quite liked him. That sd, his poetry is far more traditional than what my usual interests are. As such, it might seem surprising that he'd blurb a Mac Low bk but it's not. Kelly's a Bard prof, Bard's not too far from where Station Hill is, all these folks are friends. Kelly wrote: "I woke up one morning thinking I have this advantage over Kurt Schwitters, that at least I'm alive, whereas he's dead. Then I happened out to the mailbox and found there a typescript of Jackson Mac Low's 42 Merzgedichte and now I'm not so sure. The greatest American poet of Make It New has gone traveling in the unstable skyey spaciness inside some texts, may of them by and about Schwitters. And he's been talking them over. Now Kurt Schwitters has something more to say. The genial, vivid humanity of Mac Low converses tunefully with the joyous dignity of Schwitters" There's more to Kelly's blurb but that's a pretty good taste. Kelly really nails it & it doesn't matter that his own poetry isn't as experimentally inclined (at least what I've read) as Mac Low's, Kelly still really understands. I'm assuming, probably incorrectly, that most readers of this review will already be familiar w/ Schwitters' work, esp his Merz collages from detritus, & that it's, therefore, not necessary for me to go into them here. Instead, I'll focus on the computer-assisted nature of much of the work. Mac Low writes in his introduction: "Then soon after I began writing on computers, early in 1987, I completed the first draft of "Pieces o' Siz -- XXXI" (whose first sentence had been written in the Louvre in July 1986): the "six" became the number of computer pages in the first draft. "Thus it was that I began writing an "hommage" to Schwitters on my computer as "Pieces o' Six -- XXXII," and because of its subject and dedicatee, I decided to take advantage of the typographical possibilities (e.g., changes of character format corresponding to changes of "voice") offered by the computer (limited as they were at the time by the capabilities of my word processor and my dot-matrix printer). I also adopted a collage method involving "impulse-chance" appropriations, adaptations, paraphrases, etc., mainly from two books lent me by the poet, essaying, and psychoanalyst Nick Piombino" - p vii Piombino, by the by, is on GoodReads. I'm hardly an expert on the history of using computers for writing. Of course, I don't mean the history of simply writing w/ computers, I mean the history of using computers to do special things w/ writing. There's the term "Code Poetry" that, if I understand correctly, refers to poetry that somehow references or engages w/ computer encoding. I have a bk about it somewhere in the piles-of-bks-waiting-to-be-read but I cdn't find it just now. I wonder if Mac Low's in it? It might mainly feature more recent writers. Still, I think of Jackson as a pioneer of such writing. This bk was written between 1987 & 1989 & it's heavily dependent on software for quasi-chance permutations. I, too, have used computers to generate text manipulations of various types. Perhaps my earliest was my "computer etc" published in DOC(K)S in 1981 as "prikalkulilo ktp" (an Esperanto translation) visible here: http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/W1981pr... . Another notable example being ""Corrected" Dyslexic Variations" published in (S)CRAP 6 (1988) & ottotole (Number 3, Spring 1989). "Lost in Translation" (self published in an abridged form, 1997) came next. "diSTILLed Life / rfeEINr Ashairenm / reFINEr Anarchism / reINfer Arachnism" being probably the most recent piece of note (created: December, 2003; published in Vertov from Z to A: February, 2008). To any publishers out there reading this review, I'd love to see those works collected into one bk (hint, hint). But enuf self-promo, back to Mac Low: "I called "Pieces o' Six -- XXXII" a "Merzgedicht [MERZ poem] in Memoriam Kurt Schwitters" because of both its subject matter and its collage-like structure. However, when I wrote it, I had no idea that it was the first of a series of Merzgedichte. But soon after I finished it, I derived a chance-operational method that used random digits (generated by a simple Turbo-C program) and the "glossary" capabilities of my word processor, Microsoft Word, to select certain linguistic units from "Pieces o' Six -- XXXII" and to juxtapose them and place them on the pages in entirely new constellations. When I completed the first poem produced by this method, the "2nd Merzgedichte in Memoriam Kurt Schwitters," I realized that a new series of poems had sprouted from the "Pieces o' Sex" (like a new bough branching from an older one near its end)." - p viii Indeed, 42 Merzgedichte in Memoriam Kurt Schwitters isn't just a new bough, it's a whole new tree grown to venerable substance. Some of these poems are additionally dedicated to Charles O. Hartman who provided Mac Low w/ some of the software necessary for the permutations. "Prof. Hartman also sent me the latest version of TRAVESTY, a program that generates "pseudo-texts," written by the critic Hugh Kenner and the computer scientist Joseph O'Rourke and first published in BYTE magazine in November 1984. In their words, TRAVESTY used "English letter-combination frequencies . . . to generate random text that mimics the frequencies found in a sample. Though nonsensical, these pseudo-texts have a haunting plausibility, preserving as they do many recognizable mannerisms of the texts from which they are derived. . . . [F]or an order-n scan, every n-character sequence in the output occurs somewhere in the input, and at about the same frequency." According to what "order" of "travesty" one chooses to generate, one, one may generate either texts that seem fairly close to normal English or ones that are far from it. "I utilized these programs in different ways, employing earlier Merzgedicht as source texts: (1) For the 31st Merzegedicht, I ran the 25th Merzgedicht through DIASTEXT alone. (2) For the 32nd, I ran the 4th through DIASTEXT alone. (3) For the 33rd, I ran the 2nd through DIASTEX4 alone. (4) For the 34th, I ran the 8th through DIASTEX4 alone. (5) For the 35th, I ran the 9th through DIASTEX4 alone. (6) And for the 36th through the 42nd, I ran the 29th first through TRAVESTY, asking for "low-order" output--i.e., scanning for sequences of very few characters, to insure the outputting predominantly of letter strings that aren't real words (pseudo-words), along with a few real words, most of them embedded in pseudo-words--and then through DIASTEX4. I also submitted the output, in most cases, to certain systematic types of postediting, mainly of format and capitalization, some of which amounted to final chance operations." - p ix That may seem dreadfully dry to many readers but to readers such as myself it results in challenging reading. A large part of what made it enjoyable for me was going thru the slow & laborious process of taking discursive text & so fragmenting it that it becomes functional at a different level. In the "1st Merzgedicht the text is in sentences, some of wch describe Schwitters: "Even close friends found it difficult to reconcile Schwitters' jovial, extrovert, and clownish nature with the seriousness of his commitment to art. The liveliness of Schwitters' art may well have arisen from the widely noted contradictoriness of his existence, and that very contradictoriness prevented Merz from becoming an ideology, allowing him to embrace a myriad of materials and methods and to approach, willy-nilly, imitating nature in its manner of operation." - p 4 But by the 37th Merzgedicht there're lines like this: "OvOcarammmGer luTO BaumeTruPT hirlied ging." - p 205 & the reading experience of getting there proved quite entertaining for me. It was during the reading of the 2nd thru 7th Merzgedichte that I was thinking that this was a waste of paper. There just wasn't enuf development to keep me interested. But by the 8th the ante was upped (presented here in very incorrect formatting): "Schwitters' jovial, extrovert, and clownish nature carefully cropped details from printers' reject material Merzbau Hannover, begun by Schwitters around 1923 and" - p 28 By the 9th Merzgedicht new material creeped in that wasn't in the 1st one: " A typical Schwitters collage, such as Mz 271 Kammer [Cupboard] , combines the formal stability of the grid format with carefully plotted diagonal movements that enliven the rectilinear geometry without diminishing its solidity. " - p 35 Similarly, more new material appears in the 12th: "The slogans he composed for display on the municipal trolley line were especially popular. "experience BUREAUCRATIC REGULATIONS RUBBER-STAMPED MESSAGES When the Germans invaded Norway in 1940, Schwitters escaped with his son to England, where he was interned for the first seventeen months. "harmonically arranged colored rectangles, the colors, free of painterly modulations, treated as sheer, signatureless, anonymous coats of paint Futurism unaltered found materials stupidity of institutions AN IMAGE OF THE REVOLUTION Fluxus Hollow burns the stomach flame sulfur blood. "Hülsenbeck excluded Schwitters from the Berlin Club Dada in 1920 because Schwitters was friendly with the Sturm circle and indifferent or opposed to Hülsenbeck's Leninism." - p 67 Somewhere along the line, excerpts from Schwitters' well-known sound poem "Ursonate" seep in. Not only do they assist in a mushroom-like breaking down of the conventional semantic material, but they infuse considerable new life. Here's the 1st 'pseudo-word' of the 13th Merzgedicht in Memoriam Kurt Schwitters: Pumpfftilfftoo? (p 70) - wch, as far as I can tell, is an alternate rendition of "Rummpfftillfftoooo?" ( http://www.costis.org/x/schwitters/ur... ). Throughout these Merzgedichte, the reader encounters mention of the Merzbau being built to break thru the floor into the rm above the rm of its origin. There're some slight discrepancies in tellings of how long Schwitters worked on it & when he started. Still in the 13th Merzgedicht, the telling includes a greater expansion of the Merzbau's growth - alas, my retyping of it, again, doesn't show the original spacing: "In the fourteen years Schwitters worked on the Merzbau in Hannover, the edifice grew through the ceiling of the original room, broke through the wall of adjoining chambers, and descended below the ground into a subterranean cistern." - p 73 By the 14th Merzgedicht, some sentences & phrases stand out to me as key philosophical statements: "Meaningless elements stand alongside "clues," and no importance is attached to decoding. (p 82), "I called it MERZ: it was a prayer about the victorious end of the war, victorious as once again peace had won in the end; everything had broken down in any case and new things had to be made of fragments: and this is Again in the 14th, a technique description: "carefully cropped details from printers' reject material" (p 83). Reading mention of this prompts me to inform the reader about Marshall Reese's bk entitled Writing (pod books, 1980) in wch the primary material is constructed entirely from printer rejects. As I recall, one California-based Language Writer was outraged that this bk got more attn than a more conventionally intentionally composed bk did that was contemporaneous to it. This shows that such dadaist technique still has some potency (or did at the time). By the 16th Merzgedicht the writing becomes considerably more abstract, by the 17th, the lines breaks become considerably more fragmenting: "or p h ras e is written into the picture f r eehand." - p 108 & this fragmentation continues over considerably into the 18th Merzgedicht. By the 20th, sentences pull these fragments together again: "Schwitters' jovial, clownish nature fragmented Helma's apartment floor. "Pelikan sleekly in the whipair's jovial, extrovert nature experienced New York, perceived released from objects' mundane functions. "Disaffection had THIS NAILING too. "Bussum's featherbeds are Pelikan's scraps experience allows her to letter with ingenuity." - p 125 The 31st Merzgedicht is the 1st of the ones dedicated to Charles O. Hartman. It's also the longest (pp 161-196). the end note states: "Derived from my "25th Merzgedicht in Memoriam Kurt Schwitters" (7/ 14/ 88), including its title, author's name, and date and place of composition, aided by Charles O. Hartman's text-selection program DIASTEXT (an automation of one of my diastic text-selection procedures developed in 1963). This is the first poem I made with the help of one of Prof. Hartman's programs." - p 196 At 1st I found reading this one particularly tedious. Then, I gave myself the challenge of mentally reading it aloud - ie: imagining how I'd articulate some of the unusual features: "Bussu cunning cunning effect signal, ound objec absurd erformerlecturertypographe urine Hannov first Ursonatea stampsodd mailing real.never required weisst utilityan utilityan formation everything.The exileinterened material.used fabricspasted appearance--had stationerywoodwire" - p 190 [The articulation continues here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ] ...more |
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review of Melvin B. Tolson's "Harlem Gallery" and Other Poems by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 3-9, 2015 For my complete review go here:https: review of Melvin B. Tolson's "Harlem Gallery" and Other Poems by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 3-9, 2015 For my complete review go here:https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... My given last name is "Tolson". I've never known anyone w/ the same last name so when I learned of the existence of a writer named Melvin B. Tolson several decades ago I was interested. What complicated matters was that I'm so-called 'white' & that MB Tolson's so-called 'black'. That's fine w/ me except that I'd read somewhere that slaves took their 'owner''s last names. Given that I abhor slavery, I had to wonder whether any of my distant relatives had 'owned' any of MB Tolson's not-so-distant relatives. Not a nice thought. I was born in BalTimOre, Maryland - one of the 3 states w/ slavery that didn't secede from the Union during the American Civil War. As I understand it (not being very knowledgeable about this history), BalTimOre, at least, was partially kept from seceding by having Union cannons pointed at it from Federal Hill in the Inner Harbor - in other words, under duress. Melvin B. Tolson was born in Moberly, Missouri & spent most of his life in the South. Both of us were born after the abolition of slavery in the US. MB in 1898 & myself in 1953. As such, there's even less likelihood of an interconnectedness due to slavery in our 2 immediate families. I've never been close to my family. I've never had much interest in its genealogy. When people ask me what my ancestry is I say I'm from BalTimOre. That's good enuf for me. All this obsession over wch countries one's ancestors come from interests me not a whit. My parents were Republican & a sort of missionary streak runs thru my mom & sister. I'm an anarchist & an atheist. My family was not what I wd call "open-minded", I'm what I prefer to think of as a "free thinker". As an adult, I've often exaggeratedly joked that leaving 'home' was like being a runaway slave. I've joked that if my mother cd've sold me into slavery she wd have. I've sd that being raised by her was like being an adopted Jewish child raised by Nazis. I'd hear about how loved I was while the feeling was dramatically contradictory. [My father once told a German girlfriend of mine that the mistake the US made in WWII was to not back Hitler against Stalin!! - That sd, neither of my parents were actual Nazis, nor were they anti-Semites - my "adopted Jewish child" is meant metaphorically.] I was raised by a matriarchy of my grandmother, my mother, & my sister. They had all the authority, I had none. It wasn't just that I was the youngest, it was that I was a male & that males were servants only. It wasn't that there was a conscious philosophy that men shdn't have any purpose other than servitude for women, it was that it was literally inconceivable for it to be otherwise. My mother told me recently that her 2nd husband, a pretty nice guy, "knew how to treat a woman because he learned it from his father." His father, I was told, "carried around his wife on a silk cushion." Total servitude. My mom & stepdad saw a feral cat going thru their suburban backyard. They arduously befriended the cat over a period of perhaps a half yr or so by building it a home & giving it food. When they finally got it to trust them they took it & had it killed. As it was explained to me, it was much better for the cat to be dead than to be wild. That attitude, to me, is a deeply insane & dangerous one. That story explains my "Jewish child raised by Nazis" metaphor well. You get the idea. Some people like to believe that at least one of their parents was from a different planet than Earth. I don't believe that but if I did it might help explain my dad's indifference to his family if my mom had actually been impregnated by an abducting UFO passenger instead of by him. I'm just glad that I had the strength of character to develop in accordance w/ my own intuitive nature - otherwise I'd be a square watermelon grown in a box. W/ all this background, I've never had any desire to associate w/ a 'family' of any kind. I'm much more comfortable as a lone wolf. I don't want forced associations based on blood lineages. I prefer to associate w/ people that I actually have things in common w/. THEN, I finally read this bk by Melvin B. Tolson & for the 1st time in my life I actually deeply identified w/ the intelligence of someone who shared my given last name. I decided to finally investigate the name a little. 1st, I wanted to learn whether the story of slaves taking 'master''s names is historically accurate. That took me here: "The myth of the 'master's name'": "It is commonly believed that most slaves took their masters' surnames upon emancipation. In fact, many African-American genealogy classes inform their students that this should be the first place to look when trying to identify their ancestors' owners. Students are told to look for white families nearby bearing the same surname. "The truth of this belief, however, does not stand up to scrutiny." [..] "Among the 6,319 legible names of slaves recorded in the Slave Statistics of Prince George's County, Maryland, the originals of which are held at the Maryland State Archives in Annapolis, only twenty-six (26) freedmen and women maintained the same surname as their most recent owner. This amounts to just 0.41% of the slaves held at the time of their final emancipation." - http://www.examiner.com/article/the-m... Now, I don't necessarily trust sources unless I'm deeply aware of their history & find it to have integrity. I know nothing about the source of the above quote. For all I know, they're trying to whitewash their own history. But, provisionally, I'll accept it as accurate & move on. Then I looked at "Tolson" specifically. 1st, there's a Tolson Facebook page w/ close to no activity: "Tolson is not a very common last name and there is not much genealogy information about the Tolson surname, so we created Tolson.org as a way to help find other Tolson Family members." - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tolson... Then there's a genealogy site that provides this: "Contemporary Notables of the name Tolson * Clyde Anderson Tolson (1900-1975), American associate director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation * Joe Pat Tolson, American Democratic member of the North Carolina General Assembly * Melvin Beaunorus Tolson, American Modernist poet, educator, columnist, and politician * Randall Tolson, American memorial clockmaker who lived in Cold Spring Harbor, New York * Edgar Tolson (1904-1984), American woodcarver and well-known folk artist * Max Tolson (b. 1945), Australian former footballer * Dickon Tolson, British actor" - https://www.houseofnames.com/tolson-f... What interests me about that entry is that both Clyde Tolson, J. Edgar Hoover's partner, & MB are in among the "notables" & there's no race distinction made. I'm glad of the absence of race distinction but it seems so out-of-character in this race-obsessed society. In 1983, when I was arrested for my "Poop & Pee Dog Copyright Violation Ceremony" John Waters told me that people reading the newspaper stories about it wd think I was black - so, apparently, he, at least, thought of "Tolson" as a name more common among blacks - or maybe he meant that 'white' readers wd just think that such outrageous conduct was something that 'only a 'black' person wd do'. Here's a little more basic bio about Melvin B. Tolson: "Melvin B. Tolson was born in Moberly, Missouri, on February 6, 1898, and he died at the age of 67 on August 29, 1966, in Dallas, Texas, a few days after undergoing surgery for cancer. In 1922 he married Ruth Southall, and in 1924 he graduated with honors from Lincoln University. From 1924 until 1947 he taught at Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, taking a year's leave in 1930-31 to pursue work in a Master's degree from Columbia University. His project for a thesis centered on interviewing members of the Harlem Renaissance. From 1947 onward he taught at Langston University in Langston, Oklahoma (where he also served three terms, from 1954 to 1960, as Mayor)." - Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's MAPS (Modern American Poetry Site) website ( http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/... ) ( http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/... ) There are, obviously, many ideas about what poetry 'shd' do. One of these ideas is that poetry 'shd', or maybe just typically does, condense content in a highly allusive way. Tolson fits this bill. The work is SO DENSE w/ meaning -as if Tolson's trying to cram every powerful archetype he's ever encountered into a small space that then still becomes epic anyway. I love it. This edition is published by the University Press of Virginia. I'm impressed, I'm IMPRESSED!! The scholarship here is profound. Are all editions of his work this good?! That seems unlikely. This is academia at its best, an academia that seems all-too-often to be a hollow sham is here a rock-solid fundament for deep learning. The end-notes that provide explication for "Harlem Gallery" are so damned informative that for someone like me it's practically paradise. & they're not even credited. I presume they're provided by the editor, Raymond Nelson as culled by his own research into the annotations of others. In his Editorial Statement he concludes w/: "Harlem Gallery is another kettle of fish. Our decision to provide extensive apparatus for it reflects not only a judgment that a reader would welcome such assistance but a judgment as well about its priority among Tolson's works. Of all the achievements of a distinguished career, Harlem Gallery seems the one most likely to find a place in humanity's great anthology. The need for an annotated edition of it was among the first motives that led to the collection presented here. "One of the lessons Harlem Gallery teaches is about the responsibility of curators, critics, scholars, and other subalterns of art to facilitate and clarify. An editor should recognize an opening when he sees one." - p XXVIII In fact, my 1st note to myself as to what to refer to in this bk is to the introductory notes to Harlem Gallery: "Michael Berube's Marginal Forces/Cultural Centers (1992), which considers Tolson in tandem with Thomas Pynchon, is the most sophisticated literary discussion of Tolson that has yet appeared." (p 368) "Tolson in tandem with Thomas Pynchon"?! Another one of my favorite writers?! That I've got to read!! In fact, to put my money where my mouth is, I just ordered it thru Amazon - hardcover w/ shipping for $5.98! It must be good or it wdn't be selling that cheap. A recurrent theme in my life is that almost anything that I find truly interesting is of almost no value at all to most other people. From Rita Dove's Introduction: ""I will visit a land unvisited by Mr. Eliot." With this self-confident boast, Melvin B. Tolson throws down his glove before the pantheon of Modern Poetry. Like many of his public utterances, this sentence scribbled in a notebook bristles with half-tones and quarter-tones. Is Tolson merely staking out his particular poetic territory and in effect confirming the southern poet-critic Allen Tate's smug pronouncement that "the distinguishing Negro quality is not in language but in the subject-matter, which is usually the plight of the Negro segregated in a White culture" in other words, stick to your side of the tracks and we'll stick to ours? Or is he challenging T. S. Eliot, claiming a larger vision than that of the Disgruntled Modernists; could he find a way of reclaiming the wasteland of postwar disillusionment without turning to religion or to other heavily structured systems of thought as Eliot, Pound, Yeats and some of their lesser Anglo-Saxon contemporaries did? And what of the exquisitely formal address: is "Mr. Eliot" an expression of respect, distance, or irony? "With Tolson one can safely say: all of the above. A glance at nearly any passage from the poems reprinted here will confirm that one is in the presence of a brilliantly eclectic mind determined not to hide its light under a bushel. In an interview the year before his death in 1966, Tolson stated; "I, as a black poet, have absorbed the Great Ideas of the Great White World, and interpreted them in the melting-pot idiom of my people. My roots are in Africa, Europe, and America." - pp XI-XII & deep are those roots. As my friend the Reverend Ivan Stang might say: "Don't just eat that burger, eat the HELL OUT OF IT!!" I cdn't say it better. Tolson has taken nourishment from the melting pot of his roots into the human encyclopedia of the melting pot of his being - & he's done a damned good job of it. "In 1947 Tolson was appointed Poet Laureate of Liberia" (p xvi). Just. imagine. that. Who's the current United States Poet Laureate? "The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate serves as the nation's official poet. During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry." [..] "Currently, the laureate receives a $35,000 annual stipend" [That's got to make it one of the lowest pd honors in this country] ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_S... ) Anyway, the current USPL is a man named Charles Wright. I don't think I've ever read his work. On the official government website for such things it's written that "For almost 50 years his poems have reckoned with what he calls language, landscape, and the idea of God." ( http://www.loc.gov/poetry/laureate.html ) Right, God. Anybody remember the separation of Church & State? If this were an Islamic country the Poet Laureate (if there were one) wd have to be a mouthpiece for Allah. Why are the Christians & Moslems perpetually at war? After all, they're practically identical in some ways. B/c it helps their respective ruling elites keep their own peoples at bay. Strangely?, the author of this bk's introduction, Rita Dove, has also been one of the US Poet Laureates. "As a book, Libretto for the Republic of Liberia finally appeared in 1953 under the imprint of Twayne Publishers. In his foreword Allen Tate accurately describes the conundrum of Tolson's achievement: "Here is something marvellous indeed. A small African republic founded by liberated slaves celebrates its centenary by getting an American negro poet to write what, in the end, is an English Pindaric ode in a style derived from but by no means imitative of one of the most difficult modern poets."" - p XVII "When Tolson published part 1 of his projected epic poem, Harlem Gallery, in 1965, critical response was immediate and controversial. Whereas many mainstream literati were enthusiastic, proclaiming Tolson's piece as the lyrical successor to The Waste Land, The Bridge, and Paterson, proponents of the rapidly solidifying Black Aethetic were less than impressed to say the least. Part of the controversy was sparked by Karl Shapiro's well-meaning foreword. "Tolson writes and thinks in Negro," Shapiro announced, prompting poet and essayist Sarah Webster Fabio to remark: "Melvin Tolson's language is most certainly not 'Negro' to any significant degree. The weight of that vast, bizarre, pseudo-literary diction is to be placed back into the American mainstream where it rightfully and wrong-mindedly belongs."" - p XVIII "pseudo-literary diction" belonging in "the American mainstream"?! Them's fightin' words!! Now the above criticism is specifically re Harlem Gallery so maybe it's not fair to quote from - Rendezvous with America in Tolson's defense but how cd anyone attack Tolson thusly after he'd written this?!: "They tell us to forget Democracy is spurned. They tell us to forget The Bill of Rights is burned. Three hundred years we slaved, We slave and suffer yet; Thought flesh and bone rebel, They tell us to forget!" - Rendezvous with America - pp 38-39 & "The New Negro strides upon the continent in seven-league boots . . . The New Negro Who sprang from the vigor-stout loins Of Nat Turner, gallows-martyr for Freedom, Of Joseph Cinquez, Black Moses of the Amistad Mutiny, Of Frederick Douglass, oracle of the Catholic Man, Of Sojourner Truth, eye and ear of Lincoln's legions, Of Harriet Tubman, Saint Bernard of the Underground Railroad." - Rendezvous with America - p 39 & "Black Crispus Attucks taught Us how to die Before white Patrick Henry's bugle breath Uttered the vertical Transmitting cry: "Yea, give me liberty or give me death."" - Rendezvous with America - p 37 "Shapiro describes Gallery as "a narrative work so fantastically stylized that the mind balks at comparisons." Divided into twenty-four sections corresponding to the letters of the Greek alphabet, Harlem Gallery contains allusions to Vedic gods, Tintoretto and Minyan pottery, as well as snippets in Latin and French. No wonder many of his black contemporaries thought he was "showing off."" - p XVIII & why shdn't he have such broad allusions?! Tolson's not "showing off", he's being an anti-racist internationalist, something that's pretty obvious in most of the work presented in this bk. He has too broad a mind to willingly cage it in the myopia of other people's agendas. "To be sure, the timing was bad for such a complex piece. The Civil Rights movement was at its peak, and black consciousness had permeated every aspect of Afro-American life, including its literature. Black writers rejected white literary standards, proclaiming a black aesthetic that was distinctly oral, where poems and fiction used the language patterns and vocabulary of the street to arouse feelings of solidarity and pride among Afro-Americans." - p XVIII & that's all well & good - BUT the written word is not the same as the oral one so why shd it simulate it? That's like driving a car as if it were a bicycle - by pumping the gas & letting up on it - all you get is a jerky ride w/o any of the qualities of either mode of transport. Back to Nelson's Editorial Statement: "This edition of the poetry of Melvin B. Tolson collects the three books he published in his lifetime, Rendezvous with America (1944), Libretto for the Republic of Liberia (1953), and Harlem Gallery (1965), and five fugitive poems, "African China," "A Long Head to a Round Head," "The Man from Halicarnassus," "E. & O. E.," and "Abraham Lincoln of Rock Spring Farm," which were for the most part written and published during the interim between Rendezvous and Libretto. We have not attempted to collect fugitive poems written or published prior to 1944, on the principle that Tolson himself made the decision to exclude them from Rendezvous, so that our edition consists of the early poetry gathered in that volume and all subsequent poetry that Tolson saw through publication. Our purpose has been rather to make Tolson's important work available than to be exhaustive or definitive." - p XXVII ...more |
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review of Sabine Hadley's Sabine: Facebook Subversive by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - September 24, 2014 Sabine Hadley is a Facebook Personality, an a review of Sabine Hadley's Sabine: Facebook Subversive by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - September 24, 2014 Sabine Hadley is a Facebook Personality, an almost unbelievably popular one (see for yrself: https://www.facebook.com/sabine.hadley ). Sabine was curious about how many Facebook friends a person cd have w/o actually knowing them. She lost interest in that PDQ but accumulated 303 anyway. In contrast, the notoriously unpopular Amir-ul Kafirs has 478 friends. The compiler of this Sabine collection asked Cleverbot a few questions: "What do you think about Sabine's subversive Facebook poems? "I think this is... Cool. "I agree. Do you think Facebook has changed what it means to be a friend? "No." - www.cleverbot.com I decided to do the same: "What do you think of Sabine Hadley, Facebook Personality? "I could ask you the same thing but my intelligence isn't artificial. "Snarky! "What's your name? "Amir-ul Kafirs - although some call me Emir al-Kuffar. "Ahh, ok, I'm sorry about that. "I don't accept your apology. I challenge you to a duel personality. "Challenge accepted. "What do you think of Sabine Hadley, Facebook Personality? "It's cool, but dangerous." After this Cleverbot intro the rest of this little chapbk is "Newsfeed Poetry": Sabine reads the posts of her FB friends, picks lines she likes & edits them together in association w/ an image taken from Quinn Clip Art. Here's a sample: "Did Someone Say Robots? "I see your "wow" and raise you a "crazy"! Kind of like life, huh? Just a mess in my noodle... I knew God was from Brooklyn!" - p 1 This chapbk was compiled in time for sharing at the October 8, 2013 Film Kitchen screening at the venerable Pittsburgh Filmmakers in Detroit (nah, just kidding, it's in Pittsburgh!). Its release was meant to coincide w/ the screening of a movie called "PHEW! 11" from a yr before wch is one of those thingies that explores the new wonderworld of picture telephones, Artificial Stupidity, & other things like that. All I can say is, if you haven't met Sabine in the flesh you don't know what it's like. ...more |
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review of Johann Lynge's Year 13 by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - September 21, 2014 Johann Lynge is a writer who tried to rob a bank on September 4, 2 review of Johann Lynge's Year 13 by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - September 21, 2014 Johann Lynge is a writer who tried to rob a bank on September 4, 2002, got caught & was sentenced to prison for 5 yrs to be followed by 7 yrs parole. On the last day of his parole, September 3, 2014, he gave a reading in conjunction with the release of his 1st bk at a coffee shop near where he lives followed by a bk signing at a nearby bar. Year 13 os that bk. The title signifies the beginning of his moving on from the 12 yrs of his life that he pd for his bank robbery attempt. A short movie version of this bk launching reading can be found on my Vimeo channel here: https://vimeo.com/106542078 . The 'full' version of the reading can be found on my YouTube channel here: http://youtu.be/kt-t0nM8J-c . If I understand correctly, while Johann was in prison he discovered "Book 'Em", an anarchist created bks-to-prisoners program founded by 2 friends of mine: Etta Cetera & Neo. This volunteer-run service mails publications to pisoners upon request. Its purpose is to encourage education over incarceration. I made a documentary about Book 'Em that can probably be found in a highly abridged form here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U98LDX... . After his release from prison, Johann volunteered for Book "em b/c he had found it so positive & helpful while he was in & he wanted to further its purpose. I met him soon thereafter. In Year 13 Johann thanks Etta specifically: "Thanx Etta for your love, encouragement, all the good you bring to the world and for trusting a complete stranger when it seemed no one else would." (p 92) Thank you, Johann, for thanking Etta - may she always receive the appreciation she so richly deserves. I found Johann to be affable, thoughtful, & honest. Year 13 impresses me as the product of a person trying to take a clear-thinking introspective look at life, the product of a person trying to philosophically make sense of it all, trying to articulate his feelings, trying to get a handle on who he really is & to not fall into the traps of being defined by other people - esp other people who don't have his best interests at heart. Unlike most bks, there're no endorsements on the back cover. Johann might not've thought of asking people to write them, the bk production might've been too rushed. Whatever the cause of this absence, the effect is to give the outward appearance of the bk a simplicity of self-presentation. The 1st txt begins: "I once had a book that I dared not let anyone see. I was afraid to let anyone know the real me." (p 5) When a person has the courage to look inward they might find something that either they or other people might find abhorrent or just plain difficult. Or they might simply realize that they prefer going against the grain of society - often, as in Johann's case as well as mine & that of many other people I know & respect, b/c the mainstream thrust of society is destructive to justice, to individuality, to thinking in general. Whatever the case, not everyone is to be trusted w/ personal revelations. Some people are dishonest, malevolent, selfish - they're more than willing to turn another person's vulnerability to their own advantage w/o concern for the person being open. hence, perhaps, Johann's fear "to let anyone know the real me." It's not paranoia, it's realism. An advantage to writing is that it can become a process of self-articulation, the writer can clarify their own philosophical position to a degree where it's easier to hold their own in conflict w/ others. The articulation can be used to find allies, people who think similarly, people who appreciate the articulate of something felt but not personally articulated as well. Then a bk like Year 13 can become public, Lynge can essentially say: herein I've satisfactorily spelled out who I am, I have much further to go, but I'll stand by this as a fair & accurate statement of who I am & what I think. One of the 3 txts that Johann read at his bk launching has a 1st sentence of "My pen has been silent so long." That 1st sentence is followed by: "Awake oh ye beast of burden and bear the brunt brutality of vocabulary as you vocalize volumes of voracious verbs, verbose but not forgotten as forlorn fingers foil fantasies forgiving memories and moments momentous and magical that musically adorn arduous ears. Ever eager, even when we while away winters weeping whispers of snow sneaking silently softly onto our open orifices opulent and orating." - p 6 I don't follow Hip-Hop so I'm hardly the person most qualified to make an intelligent statement in reference to it but I think it's safe to say that Johann's writing is often inspired by the practice, common to Hip-Hop, to write in a way that's memorable for recitation w/o consultation of paper. At the bk launch, Johann didn't read from the bk, he recited from memory. Of the 3 pieces he presented, 2 were just shy of 8 minutes long each - for a total of about 17 minutes memorization, That's no mean feat, I cdn't do it. Of course, what helps w/ this memorization is the use of alliteration & rhyme exemplified by the above-quoted paragraph. It's easier to remember how one word flows into another. This being the key to oral culture throughout history - Homer, eg. I find that I enjoy reading this rhyming more in prose form than in verse - in verse it seems too cliché sometimes. Introspection is far from always joyful, people inclined to it are often trying to solve the problem of their own suffering. "In these moment of ineptness that I'm quite experiencing now I find myself dragging down everything into the pit of my mind. But I juts know my existential narcissism is what truly believes that everything can be brought down. I begin to wonder if I can change anything and if I can should I try to change it because what if my idea is wrong — I know not truth. I barely know myself none the less anything else." (p 14) Admitting to oneself that one might be wrong is a good way of enabling oneself to look at others w/ fewer misleading preconceptions - a quality I wish more people had. "To know oneself is a pain of the hardest breed to bear. Bare all to yourself and you will truly know what it is to suffer. Because one must accept one's self at all times. But to know one's self is to know the evil that all men do and then how could you truly judge your neighbor for you have your own slights of mind." (p 16) Many of us find it hard to survive in this society. Some of us resort to crime, there's a feeling of fighting back to it. Alas, the types of crime that the most victimized members of society typically enact are crimes against our companions in suffering, the people most accessible but least deserving. We all suffer from the crimes of white collar criminals who steal so much from so many that they generally become immune to prosecution b/c they're rich enuf to join the class that makes the laws that suppress their victims. If Johann had been born rich wd he've tried to rob a bank? No, he'd be the bank president instead - that way he cd rob w/ impunity. "Money makes the world go round. Lust and looks make hearts pound. Pleasure is only skin deep. Love is something not to seek. Tears are begotten of the weak. fears are begotten of the meek. Strength and power make a man. Women want money in hand. A beautiful body, such a delight. A beautiful mind such a ghastly sight. Who wants to hear "I love you"? Everyone wants to hear, "I'll pay for you". It's no longer "what can I do to help?" It's only, "how can I help myself?" Survival of the fittest in a man's world is played with wide open legs of a girl. Sex, money and power thrive. "How can a man like me ever survive?" - p 22 For many of the more thoughtful of us, a political analysis is 'inevitable': "I've almost forgotten that philosophy is a much better place to stand than capitalistic ideology. Capitalizing being, taking advantage of given circumstances or opportunities. But now in the New America its not circumstances that we are taking advantage of, it's one another." (p 24) "Anarchy: the lack of structure. A no-holds-barred world w[h]ere anything goes and everything is left to chance. "Morality is the foe of freedom. Morality is not the base of structure, nor does structure create the foundation of morality. What a cultural society perceives as morals is dictated by what? Where the morals are created from is the greater question. "When morals are questioned and then tossed aside to fight, kill, and destroy for those "morals", is that morally correct?" - p 86 "My morals are based on how I want to be treated for I do unto others as I would have them do unto me. Not so that I can live free in heaven. Not so that this mythical being of light can smile, but so that we, all of us here together on this earth can survive together." - p 86 I don't think of anarchy as a "lack of structure", I think of it as a preferred absence of imposed structure - as w/o rule: wch is a more literal meaning of the word. "Morals" are generally a code of conduct laid out by religious 'authorities' who, as the saying goes, 'don't practice what they preach because they're not who they're preaching to.' As such, the code serves to mainly regulate the behavior of the parish, of the flock, of the flock of sheep so that they can be more easily manipulated for the purposes of the religious hierarchy. How does Christinanity justify "Thou shalt not kill" w/ having military chaplains? How does Islam promote charity while its Imams promote constant jihads? No need, religions thrive on hypocrisy & submission. I prefer the term "ethics" to morals - at least their aren't any religious overtones. My own personal code of ethics is based on not harming other people. But it's not that simple b/c other people don't have that same code - regardless of what mask they put on to the contrary. SO, be savvy, don't take it for granted that you're dealing w/ a forthright person. It's easy enuf to assume that a used car salesman & an insurance salesman is going to be a crook - no matter how pretty their smile & their suit is - but don't think that just b/c someone has superficial appearances that mark them as somehow belonging to yr subculture that they're trustworthy. Be a subculture of one & look out for others that show the signs that you know deep inside yrself. "I am but what you make of me." (p 30) I can relate. I was on tour in 1986. My girlfriend, ever the passive-aggressive, had made my life miserable the whole tour & decided to leave me stranded in Ann Arbor w/o a car & my performance gear. A few hrs later, I gave a performance. As I describe in my "Mere Outline" entry re the event: "I told the audience that I wouldn't start until everyone there "introduced" me - explaining that people are whatever other people make them into with their perceptions. There was some resistance to this. 1 of the co-sponsors of this event, from the "Campus Crusade for "Bob"", said that he didn't know me but that he thought I was crazy. "Crowbar", the only person there who even knew me somewhat, was friendly in his intro. 1 of a couple of deadbeat fashion "Goths" just said "Fuck You!" - apparently desperate for some "hard-core" "clever" response. I accepted this latter & began." (Saturday, April 26, 1986, 8PM - http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/MereOut... ) The idea being here that if you "make of me" a criminal don't be surprised if you get abused back. On the other hand, a person capable of transcending this hostile imposition is a person capable of self-defining out of the box, out of the cell. What if I had responded to the Bobbie of the "Campus Crusade for "Bob"" by biting his nose off? Would that have fulfilled his perception of me as "crazy"? Would it have been a self-fulfilling prophesy? What if I had responded to the moronic fuck-you of the Goth by punching him in the face? Wd that've given him what he wanted? &, yet, there's a different side to 'Goth' that's more than fashion, there's the melancholy: "There once was a man whom emotions consumed overflowing with warmth, vitality and life despite the murky waters of a life less desirable. then lost love entered his mind and now he may not lay to rest, for the nature of the beast within that encompasses his heart with charred hands and razor sharp teeth that dig into that pumping vessel. Too often the cheapness of a moment is procured by the hindsight of an evil vixen. never a warm eye held in an embracing stare shall once again reign where tremors of the heart have been stifled by such hands and lazy tongues beseeching another's mouth. the moon but a reminder of the distance of peace. How far away from a lonely yearning grasp it doth stray in the middle of yet another lonely night. Freedom for my soul is but death in my heart. the beheading of my emotions. the capture of the lost emotion. Tranquility os death's glassy eyed stare at the emotional upheaval of the world thus proclaimed. Destruction of the primal forces of nature leave me empty inside once again." - p 38 Many of us feel enslaved, many of us dislike our 'options'. Few of us take a stand against what seem like overwhelming odds. Last night, I checked out a filmed interview w/ Huey P. Newton, cofounder of the Black Panther Party, made while he was in jail awaiting trial for the murder of a police officer. Newton talked about how the "vanguard" the people who lead revolutions have to gain the trust of the people before they can get their support. I find that once this support is gotten that it's likely that someone else pretending to be the vanguard will come along & co-opt the whole process. Stalin, the secretary, hires the killer to eliminate Trotsky, the real revolutionary, & then ruins everything Trotsky struggled for. I find it's better to seek out the daring few & to resist co-optation as much as possible. "Puke. Let out the wretched taste of society because they don't understand the universality of the loner. The man who stands alone. Not because he can't function in the games and masks that take harbor on all faces but because he knows that the masks are just that. Foolish toys for the children who don't know better because they are raised as sheep." - p 44 "We all have our different paths. Mine lost in drugs and the written words. Maybe yours lost in corporate America where the almighty buck rules your life. Or maybe neither of those. But I'll always prefer to be an artist rather than another one of societies children." - p 45 "Why can I not be delivered from my burdens? Who will save me? Who will be my redeemer? And dare you say God? the same God I loved with my whole heart who let me raped as a child? the same God who I still love even though my judgment tells me he's not real, nor really there." - p 49 Nope, I don't advise expecting 'God' to do you any damned bit of Go(o)d. 'God' is a pipe dream held out by pushers who can't wait to turn you into slaves by addicting you to false promises. If you hanker for an ideal to pursue, I suggest cutting out the middlemen, the priests, the ministers, the imams - even, yes, the Dalai Lama! THINK FOR YR FUCKING SELF - b/c those who offer to do it for you are going to want a cut, a cut of yr flesh, a cut of yr soul, to own yr mind. Johann is far from being only darkness - let's say, as my friend Suzy does about herself, that he has a greyheart - not a black one: "Let us hopeless romantics never die. Let us still fuel the fire for the "lost emotion." It's in you. You can feel as I do. Take hold. Don't let that slip away. Don't let any of it fall from your swaying grasp because you hold the happiness of your own existence in your own subtle hands." (p 56) Yes, there's optimism, there's strength, there's perseverance - but you might have to find it w/ some 'soul'-searching: "Am I good, am I evil? Am I both, am I neither? Where does the dichotomy end? Where do I begin?" (p 58) & there's always that old source of pleasure, consensual sex - there's even an old-fashioned love poem: "Thine eyes sparkle like soft candlelight. The flip of thy hair whispers pleasure through the night. They gentle touch send shivers down my spine. For thee my lady are the love of mine. if thoust knew the songs sang to me from they finger tips, traversed across our souls between embracing lips. Then solemn chords of angels ring. Upon our hearts whilst of love they sing. It is the harmony of orchestra reflected in thy voice to my yearning ears." - p 70 By page 80, the reader reaches the 2nd longest of the longer pieces that Johann read at , the one that begins w/ "He trips a thousand dreams." - his most optimistic statement to be read - clocking in at 7:37 reading time. During the reading, Johann apologized for reading such 'long' pieces - contrarily. these pieces are only long if one considers the afore-mentioned ability to memorize them. If the audience finds such work 'long' then their attn span is suspect. There's certainly nothing to apologize about. "New day, new way. No way to live locked away behind closed doors and false charades. Walk the parade, fall in line, but march to the beat of your own time. Not like a herd of sheep merely grazing but live your life with your mind a'blazing. Turn up the fire, turn up the heat, just clap your hands to the beat. Feel my rhytm, feel my flow, feel the world just so you know, where you stand and where you sit, what it is you're going to get. What it is your heart desires." - p 82 "And why should we be free? For freedom's sake. For the simple purpose of being as we are for that is the definition of freedom. the only reason to be is to be. The only way to truly be is to live free. That is why I write, why I question, why I fight. So that I may be as I am and to see myself for what I truly am." - p 88 ...more |
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review of Blaster Al Ackerman's Huff Hacks by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - September 8, 2014 "I forget who wrote this book, or what itssssssssssssssss review of Blaster Al Ackerman's Huff Hacks by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - September 8, 2014 "I forget who wrote this book, or what itsssssssssssssssssssssssssssss title is, or what it's about.. or who I am or why I read it.. but I'm convinced, CONVINCED I TELL YOU, that there's something about it that you must know.. "YOU! No, no! It's impossible! You're dead! But, but, I tell you it's not TRUE, I didn't do it.. argurgleEEeeeee.." So begins John M. Bennett's account of a recent trip to Gary, Indiana that he took as a boy of only 77 in 1942 while war production was in full swing. The rest is self-explanatory: .domination world eventual for plans and hospitalizations many his about things wonderful me told and politics development center/highway shopping local on in me filled has ,Chairperson Committee neighborhood as capacity his in ,John .Bennett M. John with conversations grand having and sitting of pleasure extreme the have had I years the Over (from the highly honored CANTAR DEL HUFF) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF, a poem sequence comparable to the story of John Wesley when he was wandering loose that time down around Juarez and couldn't stop twitching) (from JMB's extended gland of ecstacy CANTAR DEL HUFF) (Once again, ladies and gentlemen, from JMB's mighty CANTAR DEL HUFF) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF and, one would guess, many of Rudolf Steiner's books--including several hundred vols of those fog pressed in you until you just had to "dance the logorrhea glottis" "way down there" "in the hazur of fat," I betcha) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF and this, I believe, is pure CANTAR DEL HUFF with maybe a little Haddock on the side, and that's the best reason to have an experience with an outsider who suspects nothing) (from JMB's familiar CANTAR DEL HUFF. Too familiar by now perhaps, some will say? Look at it this way. How many dots and dashes, what strange relation to a bee, how much mucus in yr beard lavished upon it, count yr nose your legs & groin ah butt the fundus interest and before you know it "all is torn off" all is string you defy the deaf with . . . wacka wacka) (This of course is from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF, it is also from JMB's rOlling COMBers. What JMB wrote while drunk is there for all to see, and then making for the bride's place and an all-night party. The snow tastes more like weasle pee because of the undergrowth. Here we are jumping labmice retaining fluid like the disaster story of mice and floods) (from JMB's vivid notions proper to a buried head otherwise known as Cantar Del Huff intended for a mental home go on drinking as the webbed-darkness of a sewing basket helps you imagine what loins of trichinosis are made upon) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF--more the spirit than the words in this case you might think but then again I still think about your shirt after lunch, yr fondled grey blusters and tell m other ham "Rock Wigwam") (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF and in this case several new ones of 8/23 such as "Rugged" etc. Now we must go on. Look at the tree, watch the tree. We will know the real truth--but later, much later--when we wake at the end of the world. Laughs, drinks water . . . [Reviewer's interjection: To some of you.. well, admittedly, not very many, maybe not even anybody but me & I'm not really a part of "you" - am I part of "you" when I look at me in the mirror? In wch case, is the "me" that's part of "you" the reflection or the guy looking? Anyway, like he was saying, "To some of you" the above interjection before this interjection might remind you of this: "You realize you're in the downstairs hall of a college building; it's some kind of dormitory building, you've never been there before, you're wearing a gunny pink robe, like a cheesy old dressing gown. With yellow crusty stuff spilled down the front. (Laughs. Drinks water.)"] ) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF and let me again assure you that you are in no danger of any indignity from those hysterical ones who go around unaccompanied by a stocky angry man whose neural flow is full of uneven spurts, indicating emotional disturbances, but oddly enough whose deja-vu keeps him accompanied by those hysterical ones who go around accompanied by him at all hours) (from the immortal CANTAR DEL HUFF, and that's not all! Poems from 8/30 also make their bow this time. It seemed to me that this time I stepped in, stood by the door, closed the door, avoiding the puddles of snow which he who possessed the reckless sanka-butt had tracked in from some world I couldn't imagine. Perhaps Earth) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF which that from underneath comes very near even when death by tractor-seeds leapt out into the air as though to convey the virus of undula / / ah ah / /) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF, an authority that genuinely speaks from its heart, letting us know that the roof yr burning mall burns like doubled snake-faces thrashing like a biological context of insects healthy despite certain accusations of lacerations. Another minor influence is a speaker-of-filth with curly hair) (Kenneth Fearing meets JMB and they disport themselves by the light of those great ones from 7/12, 7/19, and the ever-popular CANTAR DEL HUFF) (from JMB's habitual best-seller CANTAR DEL HUFF and also some of the new ones of 7/19, here it is. That is what we've been leading up to. I said we cannot trifle with this reality, now that Heidegger demands a new beginning to our thinking but a beginning can never be the thing that preserves its full momentum. I said oooohh-ooooohh the rain is falling) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF; "not since yr meat trained to glow like spiritualism and mesmerism has the clangy wish for yr head bouncing in a shopping cart emerged beside yr cage, kinda rusty and enchanted," says a big fan of this hack) (from 6/21 and of course Bennett's amazing CANTAR DEL HUFF) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF, a poem so memorable that its territory resembles that "where the dying spend their time before death." Those who return alive from such a place, bring to a point of view equal in its rapture and chilling exposure to the slum world of the big frogs and the tiny frogs) (from JMB's famous CANTAR DEL HUFF which, beyond the tents where friends pissing meet and blame each other, as cannot fail to leave a lasting stain. But what is sadder? Burning mouth inside a clam sombrito wired? or Mr. Pecho getting smutty with "my" brim" and I jumped in (out into my "muffin fiesta") (from Bennett letter about romane of neighborhood violence, poems of 5/3/06 and 6/7/06 and the epic CANTAR DEL HUFF) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF. I know it now. But I didn't know it before Mollie called me. I was in my way to see Ricori. Troubled I hung up and went back to my chair. Had she not asked me about Ricori? What did he have to do with any of this . . . and would the questions stop there?) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF and how I was struck by the fact that JMB was able to concentrate for such long periods. Under his circumstances I wd certainly have found it harder to suppress my nervousness. But I came to believe that this was because he felt that his job of driving the headache beef round and round a temple with a faucet buried in the center explained why, at present, he enjoyed such a top reputation among the avant garde for his curious blend of sadism, science fiction and world-weary pessimism) (from JMB's oft-requested CANTAR DEL HUFF and "Psyciatry or no, there's much you have to learn about new clothes, clothese designed to show what they were supposed to hide-- Meanwhile, get this through your head. You're on the long passage!") (from JMB's poem of sharer of his roving life waiting latent in all men or anyway in all those named CANTAR DEL HUFF who thought rushing contact high in space together, a living, fierce, gyrating sock drawer possess the same as some drunk half-staggering comrade named Baron) (from--what else?--JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF and rOlling COMBers) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF plus a few newer ones such as "Done beetle" and "User" etc. Out of some dim inner room came the people who had said all along it's so hard to keep in touch with old high school friends. But tonight I'm not home to any outlaws) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF or any agony of bruised vocables, and I mean that, dear polyphead, those curiously bruised vocables, nor yet another writing "scarred-with") (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF plus some newer gems from 9/24 or if it sometimes is how like appearance of tender exiquity I sad what thing of abased calling reality never has to worry about the too-same look of Uncle Flood and vice versa) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF--and shaving off the shirt-clay, you know that the question's gonna arise: Can your rectum tolerate crude rotation, it might be as a water-wheel at a distance from your all too prompt anticipation as from a salami occasional reincarnation of the Hairless Thing can be found, only now they call it the cave behind yr eyes) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF by JMB, the poet himself, who says with his wife out of town "ideas beyond themselves and them standard functions as well as objects that both refer to abstract ideas that situate those objects as if it illuminated the contrast between abstract atemporality and the identical present not to mention all that bang thump bang thump bang thump bang thump bang thump bang bang bang bang BANG bang sure do torque my jaws") (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF or where you hail from do they say she is the heavenly mother the stars are fish swimming in the heavenly ocean a touch of giganticism to give her arms with 400 breasts but sometimes in the afternoon) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF about which little is known unless you count anything you might grab out of any sun which would be more difficult than grabbing the planet itself. Why not do it directly by just taking the planet, stopping it in its orbit and hurling it into the sun itself. The forces present in the sun would be more difficult to handle, if you see what I mean, jelly bean) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF, oft celebrated in song and story. Tonight what about that disintegrating ray which affects only inorganic matter? I examined it before breakfast and I could reduce it to the size of a spark plug and retain the same power. All we have to do is verify that it could be buried in the sand about three or four miles south of here. What you stroked beside the gleaming thigh full of boxes deafness next the hornets' meathead where I sucked my hat a boon filled and empty of my skull and boiling urine washed the gun projection off, as yr itchy tooth of hair says. next I cleaned the meathead off yr neck and proudly subscribed to a magazine, Giantess, that was exactly what I have been fantasizing about. Unfortunately, it's no longer in print) (from JMB's delightful CANTAR DEL HUFF) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF which many have called "the either animal" and to walk and dress and wake and take and leave and laugh at or not, reminds us that there's two farts and how long can not choosing between such an opposite pair while you go whining either back, to the first or forward and that to the frozen well only musing how long yet it is not to an idiot it falls to talk wisely, is it? Oh I'm all confused) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF, and did you notice that opening from "L ucked" and "C lunch" and others by JMB, 9/13/06. During this period, an occassional reincarnation of the Hairless Thing can be found. Only now, the accent is on an excerpt from some spiritual thing, sacred because thick yr phone "clamping" / tick yr fool conch pry it off you cluck, see the pool blaze with farm animals, liberated and fuzzy-like, yowling in yr lap a place they recognize through the rude noise of "rough trade") (FROM JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF or is it that these of 10/11/06 are more to blame? or has something else more like panic got hold of you--you'll agree this wd be a perfect moment for a real case of agoraphobia (fear of large spaces)--and just in case that is what you're feeling, I think it only healthy to tell you that a concealed computer has been welded beneath the floor and shortly after I had that insight I abruptly experienced a sensation in my eyes that I have never had before! It was a high-speed eye-movement that made people disinclined to be near or converse with me. I myself feel it as an exceedingly fast flickering motion. It occurs to me that with this condition I'm also in danger of running awkwardly and tripping over things, and so I figure I better just hunker down here and wait for you to bring me all my meals. Since in all essentials I'm telling the truth, I fear no repercussions, though I do believe that there's a latticework made of billions of glowing balls and that this is called "Balls-on-Parade." When you consider that anyone with this sort of overpowering insight has at least twice the average brain capacity, you can see that I represent the beginning of a breakthrough into something new and greater than sematico "slayer" descended from your nose) (from CANTAR DEL HUFF) (from JMB's CANTAR DEL HUFF "running" through the crowded room nine ways to mull over fallen men from the middle period of development of the western United States; the "murk-thought" you carried regarding these fallen sleek duffs was not unlike the danger your country is in that it doesn't even know about; shall we call it a steady clunk wrapped behind a pocket fire and pills dancing on the kitchen floor - lotta weeds here . . . lotta weed-heads, too, for that matter, thank the Lord) NOTE: FILL IN THE BLANKS are drawn at random by Blaster Al Ackerman using the poet John M. Bennett's classic work CANTAR DEL HUFF while Bennett was in town reading at another venue and tempting young people to observe how flat balloons stuff his shoes. .backwards out laid trail lamer swaying the avoid to order in years pen last these up scarfed it whatever or simmer my led "doubt in labio coo coo" whose lavage blind in for excell to tried scarfing as such practices what knowing your us with sharing for you thank so ,ass my olive evening's with the acrid kinda save raisins my explain to order in anchovy particular this about writing am I .anchovies stapled with wrote It .particular in remember I form One .floor the on forms for good were work of kind any for search always not do who people ordinary when farming started father my--way Either ...more |
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| 4.08
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really liked it
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review of Paul Verlaine's The Cursed Poets by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 9, 2014 Yadda, yadda, review too long. See the full thing here: https: review of Paul Verlaine's The Cursed Poets by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - July 9, 2014 Yadda, yadda, review too long. See the full thing here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... I probably 1st learned about Paul Verlaine thru learning about Arthur Rimbaud (born October 20, 1854) when I was a teenager in the early 1970s. Rimbaud wd've probably been an author I wd've heard about from the same group of friends who wd've exposed me to Hermann Hesse, Kahlil Gibran, & Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. I wd've then read the New Directions Paperbook editions of Rimbaud's A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat & Illuminations - both translated by Louise Varèse. In the former, in the introductory "A Rimbaud Chronology" (prepared by Hubert Creekmore for the publisher w/ its "factual data [..] taken largely from the definitive biography of Rimbaud by Professor Enid Starkie" - p vii), I read that when Rimbaud was around 16 he "read everything he could lay hands on including the work of the new poet Paul Verlaine." (p x) "Bretagne, who knew Verlaine, suggested that Rimbaud write to him and himself added an introduction. In the letter Rimbaud enclosed some of his poems and received an enthusiastic reply from Verlaine and an invitation to come to Paris." (p xii) 1871: "Rimbaud's visit to the Verlaine household in Paris scandalized both the conservative family and the neighbors. His wife's parents felt that Verlaine, although twenty years older than Rimbaud, was being debauched by the young man" (p xii) Rimbaud & Verlaine's relationship resulted in Verlaine's leaving his wife & the 2 of them moving to London. 1872: "the following January, Verlaine, ill with influenza, recalled Rimbaud by picturing himself as dying alone in a strange city; and their debauchery was resumed. During this period, Rimbaud felt a growing disgust for Verlaine's sentimentality and wished to separate himself from what he now considered a debilitating influence." (pp xiii-xiv) "When he announced that he was leaving, Verlaine shot at him three times with a revolver, striking him once in the wrist. Mme. Verlaine and Rimbaud managed to quiet his hysteria, but when, on the way to the railroad station, Rimbaud remained firm in his decision to leave, Verlaine again lost control and threatened him. Rimbaud called for police protection. Verlaine was arrested, tried and sentenced to two years' hard labor and a fine." (p xiv) &, w/ that latter, I, as a young anarchist, parted ways w/ Rimbaud. Given that I was about the same age as Rimbaud was when he went thru this I probably had the strong philosophical inclination to NOT have someone arrested under such circumstances. Now, I'm just glad I've never been shot. "In 1875 he traveled to Germany, and in Stuttgart, Verlaine, just released and full of his new religious zeal acquired in prison, joined him. Of this visit which lasted two and a half days, Rimbaud wrote in a letter to his old friend Delahaye: "Verlaine arrived here the other day pawing a rosary. . . Three hours later he had denied his God and started the 98 wounds of Our Lord bleeding again."" (p xv) Verlaine had it bad. Obviously, Rimbaud gave him something that his wife didn't. "at last in May, 1888 [Rimbaud] returned to Hasar as partner of two established gun-runners and slave-traders." (p xviii) Here, I part ways w/ Rimbaud again. "When he did not answer a letter from Verlaine, the older poet assumed that he was dead and had an edition of his poems published in 1886." (p xvii) Rimbaud didn't actually die until November 10, 1891. Now, finally, I get to The Cursed Poets. The translator, Chase Madar, begins w/: "Assembled from articles published in the journals Lutèce and La Vogue, the full version of Les Poètes maudits was first published in 1888. The little book helped build the reputations of the poets; it also helped fortify Verlaine's own renown, and finances." (p 5) Verlaine's praise for the 6 poets he writes about is enthusiastic, well written, convincing (to me, ie), &, apparently, deeply sincere. I got the impression that Verlaine, does, indeed, obsessively care about poetry & has well-developed ideas about what constitutes important poetry. One of the poets praised is Rimbaud. I provided the back-story about Verlaine's relationship w/ Rimbaud partially to show that Verlaine's praise for his writing continued even tho Rimbaud had him put in prison. This can be taken to mean both that Verlaine was 'hopelessly' 'in love' w/ Rimbaud &/or that he intended to praise the poetry as great regardless of how disastrous his personal relationship may've been w/ him. A lesser man, a man less sincerely dedicated to poetry, might've retaliated against Rimbaud instead of continuing to praise him. I can think of many an ex-girlfriend who destroyed my work upon breaking up w/ me - thusly revealing the petty vindictiveness that made them worth breaking up w/ in the 1st place. Most of the poets written about by Verlaine were probably obscure at the the time, some are still obscure today: "Rimbaud, Mallarmé, and Verlaine himself don't need my introduction, but the other poets very well might. Tristan Corbière was, with Jules Laforgue, a major influence on T. S. Eliot; his directness and unfussily abrupt prosody have aged well." (p 5) I am, as always glad to learn of the more obscure people - & it's particularly enlightening to have Verlaine's contemporaneous critique. But the above version of who's obscure by the translator is not Verlaine's own at the time of writing over 100 yrs before this edition: "The name and work of Corbière and those of Mallarmé are assured for the duration of time; some will stay on men's lips, the others in the memories of all worthy of them. Corbière and Mallarmé have been published, — that enormous minor detail. Rimbaud, too scornful, more scornful even than Corbière who at least flung his volume square at the century's nose, did not want any of his verse to appear in print." - p 59 "It has to be said: Much of Verlaine's prose is deep purple fustian. A good weave, and made of sturdy stuff, yes, but still deep purple fustian. Often it's been tempting to leach out some of the purpleness, but that is not the translator's role; that would, in fact, go against the translator's humble, professional duty not to try and improve (read: distort) the original work." - pp 5-6 Bravo! No translator shd try to 'improve' the original work - a translator's very difficult job is to try to faithfully present the work in the language the intended readers know. Alas, in the very next paragraph, the translator writes: "In many instances, the poem given by Verlaine differs from the definitive version; in all cases I have taken the definitive version rather than the one originally given in Les Poètes maudits." - p 6 I wd've preferred that Madar, the translator, wd've NOT made this decision. Something's becoming "definitive" is not always w/o a suspicious process behind it. For scholarly purposes, having access to variant versions of a poem might be quite useful for understanding its development etc. To have access to such a rare collection of poetry gleaned from a source as primary as Verlaine is an opportunity wasted by defaulting to more well-known versions. As Verlaine writes, pleading for poems by Rimbaud he knows to exist: "So let us here beseech all our known and unknown friends who might possess Les Veilleurs, Accroupissements, Les Pauvres à l'église, Les Reveilleurs de la nuit, Douaniers, Les Main de jeanne-Marie, Souer de Charité and anything else signed by this prestigious name, to be willing to send them to us for the probable case in which this work must be finished. In the name of the honor of Letters, we will repeat our prayer. The manuscripts will be religiously returned, once copies are made, to their generous owners." - p 59 Keep in mind, this wasn't the day of photocopiers & scanners. Either he was going to have them hand-copied or typeset or whatever. Copies of poems were RARE. "Definitive" versions of poems might've been Rimbaud's idea of the best one or a Rimbaud scholar's idea of the best one or whatever but that doesn't necessarily discount other versions. Otherwise, this is a lovely edition insofar as the poems are presented in both French & English. Alas, one thing that's apparently missing are portraits of the poets that the reader learns about having been in the original edition by reading Verlaine's "About The Following Portraits". The only one provided in this edition is of Rimbaud & is the same portrait on the cover of the edition of Illuminations that I have (although less cropped in The Cursed Poets). Verlaine has this to say about it: "Étienne Carjat photographed M. Arthur Rimbaud in October 1871. It is this excellent photograph that the reader now has in front of him, reproduced, just like the picture taken from nature of Corbière, by the process of photogravure. "Is he not the "Sublime Boy" without the atrocious failure of Chateaubriand, but not without the protestation of lips which have long been sensual, and a pair of eyes lost in very old memories rather than any dream, however precocious? A kid Casanova, but even more so a certified expert in love-affairs, doesn't he laugh with his flaring nostrils and his handsome dimpled chin; doesn't he seem to have just said, "go take a hike" to all illusions that don't owe their existence to the most irrevocable will? The proud mop of hair could only be tousled, like cushions gracefully rumpled by the elbow of some sultanesque whim. And this virile disdain for all good grooming, so useless besides the devil's own quite literal beauty!" - pp 10-11 Yes, Verlaine had it bad - but at least he wasn't mediocre about it! "We might have called them Absolute Poets to be more cautious, but, aside from the fact that caution is hardly in season these days, our title has something for the type of reader whom we hate, and, we're sure of it, something for the survivors among the All-Powerful Ones in question, for the common herd of élite readers — a rude jab of the middle finger that makes us feel better." - p 12 So, apparently, the middle finger gesture dates at least back to the 19th century & was used in France. According to Wikipedia, "The gesture dates back to Ancient Greece and was also used in Ancient Rome. Historically, it represented the phallus. In some modern cultures, it has gained increasing acceptance as a sign of disrespect, and has been used by music artists, athletes, and politicians. Most still view the gesture as obscene." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_finger ) Looking online, I also found this: ....................../´¯/) ....................,/¯../ .................../..../ ............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸ ........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\ ........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...') .........\.................'...../ ..........''...\.......... _.·´ ............\..............( ..............\.............\... ( http://www.ascii-middle-finger.com/ ) Nice! Even the URL's a hoot! The 1st poet discussed is "Tristan Corbière [who] was a Breton, a sailor, and the aloof scornful type par excellence" (p 13) A "Breton" being a person from Brittany, the Northwest coast of France, an area that interests me more & more partially thanks to the information rc'vd about the area from a friend of mine from there: Brittany's incorporation into France is not necessarily any more welcome than many other such incorporations. Verlaine references his 'Breton-ness' thusly: "What a Breton bretonning in the grand old style! The child of the moors and great oaks and riverbanks that were! And how he remembers and cherishes, this frightening faux-skeptic, the closely held superstitions of his tender, rustic brethren of the coast!" - p 21 The 1st of his poems presented starts off in French like this: RESCOUSSE Si ma guitare Que je répare, Trois fois barbare, Kriss indien, - The full translation from Madar follows: If my guitar which I repair, triply barbaric, Indian kriss, Torturer's tool, guillotine, bag of tricks, doesn't do well . . . If my worse voice can't tell you of my sweet martyrdom . . . — A dog's life! — If my cigar, comfort and lighthouse, doesn't bother you at all; — Fire for burning . . . If my menace, passing cyclone, lacks gracefulness; — Mute from howling! . . . If my soul the sea in flames has no sharp edge — Cooks by freezing . . . Then I'm leaving! - pp 14- 15 (Corbière lived from 1845-1875, not quite making it to 30 yrs old) for those of you who, like myself, get a sense of a person's originality or lack thereof based on their placement in a chronology) 1st, I love the poem; 2nd I'm struck by the challenge the translator faces: the original has the last words of the 1st 3 lines of each stanza rhyme, the 4th & last line of each stanza rhymes w/ that of the 4th line in the 1st 3 stanzas & then the rhyme changes so that the 4th lines in the next 3 stanzas rhyme w/ each other AND w/ the final line that stands alone. This rhyme scheme is obviously taut & influences what words Corbière can choose. Madar's approach to the translating is to not render the rhyme schemes but to opt instead for the sense of the words only. Given that I'm NOT a translator but that I appreciate the extreme difficulties of doing a good job of it, I can only admire the success w/ wch Madar does his job. What I'm reminded of is the Preface written by Jean Calais to his edition of the poetry of Villon published as number one of "The Pick Pocket Series": "Some of these poems as a result are literally reckoned and others literally are not. Nowhere did I deliberately deviate from the muse (sic) of the original, and where I did I always believed I was playing an actual rope supplied by Villon. If I have anywhere taken liberties with a particular passage, it is a text which continually liberates its intelligence by the undoing of its adversaries. "I did take the task "seriously." That is, I wanted to make the best poems possible, ones that would have the directness, the vitality, the immediacy and the energy (not to mention the sunsets) of the original, without sacrificing authenticity and everyday liveliness." I loved Calais's rendering of Villon but, not being familiar w/ the original French, am not qualified to comment further on the quality of the translation. It certainly got me interested in Villon so I reckon Calais more than did his job there. All that sd, I can't help but yearn somewhat for poetry translations that accomplish all this AND preserve the rhyme scheme. A tall order, I know, but on a generally formal level (rather than a strictly 'poetic' one), an order prodigiously met by Gilbert Adair in his translation of George Perec's La Disparition, wch Adair translated as A Void. If Adair can take a French novel in wch the letter "e" never occurs & translate it into English w/o having the letter "e" occur EITHER & still preserve the plot of the novel AND have it be 'good' reading than, surely preserving the rhyme scheme in relatively simple poems shdn't be so impossible. Of course, translators aren't necessarily pd well enuf to justify the expenditure of time that might be required, etc, etc.. Onward. Corbière strikes me as borderline proto-Surrrealist in "ÉPITAPHE" ("EPITAPH"), the last section of wch is translated as: "Of je ne sais quoi. — But not knowing where; of gold, — but penniless; of nerves, — but nerveless. Vigor without force; of élan, — but with a sprained ankle; of soul — and no violin; of love, — but of the lowest kind; — Too many names to have a name. —" - p 17 But, in the long run, not really stream-of-consciousness enuf to be Surrealist, too expressive, but successfully I find, of a "je ne sais quoi" state of mind.. or being.. I reckon that the "soul" w/ "no violin" is some sort of associative reference a little more metaphorically based than it's preceding pairs & that it's rooted in cultural imagery that wd've been plain to the readers of its time.. But what if "violon"'s rhyming w/ the end word of the next line, "étalon", determined its choice a bit more than its meaning? What if another word, less metaphorical, wd've been chosen if the rhyme had worked that way? That's when I wonder what a rhymed translation wd be like.. A translation that preserves the sound structure & has to resort to straining the metaphor to do it.. Verlaine comments on Corbière: "As for the rest, we would have to cite the entire section of this book, and then the entire book, or rather it would be necessary to reprint this unique work, Les Amours jaunes, which appeared in 1873 and is today nearly impossible to find, a book in which Villon and Pyrrho would be pleased to find an often worthy rival — and the most renowned of today's true poets would find a master (to say the least) of their own stature." - p 18 Indeed. He's got me interested. & I certainly understand the "we would have to cite the entire section of this book, and then the entire book" - as anyone who reads my reviews may groan knowingly! SO, is These Jaundiced Loves "today nearly impossible to find"?! No, thank the holy ceiling light, no. There're copies available online for as low as $6.21. Do I HAVE $6.21? No, indeed, I don't, not after losing my last $6 out of my pocket yesterday. Maybe someone else will find that $6 & buy These Jaundiced Loves w/ it! Not bloody likely. & now we reach Rimbaud. I wrote earlier that "I provided the back-story about Verlaine's relationship w/ Rimbaud partially to show that Verlaine's praise for his writing continued even tho Rimbaud had him put in prison. This can be taken to mean both that Verlaine was 'hopelessly' 'in love' w/ Rimbaud &/or that he intended to praise the poetry as great regardless of how disastrous his personal relationship may've been w/ him." & here's how Verlaine (in translation, ie) introduces the subject: "We have had the joy of knowing Arthur Rimbaud. Today things separate us from him without, of course, his genius and his character ever having lacked our deep admiration." - p 29 "Here a parenthesis, and if these lines happen to fall under his eyes, then let Arthur Rimbaud know that we do not judge men's motives, and let him be assures of our complete approval of (and dark sorrow at, as well) his abdandonment of poetry, provided, as we don't doubt, that this abandonment was for him sensible, honest, and necessary." - p 30 [Coincidentally, while I was reading the above, I was also reading (well, not quite simultaneously) Stephen Emerson's "Letters to Verlaine" in RAMPIKE Vol. 23, No. 1] For the complete review, go here: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... ...more |
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[This review is NOT elegant] review of OPEN SPACE 15/16 by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, Practicing Promotextal - January 19-27, 2014 Once upon a time the [This review is NOT elegant] review of OPEN SPACE 15/16 by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, Practicing Promotextal - January 19-27, 2014 Once upon a time there was a reviewer who had too much to say. His reviews were inelegant (ie: LONG). This one's no exception, you shd really read the whole thing, really: https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/... In Elaine Barkin's OPEN SPACE 15/16 article "Telling it SLANT or In Search of the Early Years or 'A Sitting on a Gate'", a remembering of her involvement w/ the magazine Perspectives of New Music (reprinted from the same as it appeared in Volume 20, Nos. 1 & 2 (2012)), she describes PNM in a way that cd just as easily be a description of OPEN SPACE: "In 1980, the Big Fat White issue included complex theoretical-philosophical discourse by Robert Morris, John Clough, David Lewin, and John Rahn, sitting in the same pew with Arthur Margolin's evocative "Mozart's D major String Quartet / k 593 / mm. 53-56" (four measures to die for: ERB), preceded by Wallace Berry's "Symmetrical Interval Sets and Derivative Pitch Materials in Bartók's String Quartet No. 3", my own "A Dedication / Five ADmusementS, & A Digression", all coming after a 250 page riot of texts celebrating Kenneth Gaburo" - pp 350-351 "Ben's stunning "TALK. If I am a Musical Thinker." melding with Naomi's arresting Rohrschachian ink-blobs, its layout created with the assistance of Bruce Huber, beckoning reader-viewer-listener. But many had been crying "foul", hiss-filled air reeked again; several Yale graduate music theory students hassled me in 1981 with: "it's just poetry"—as if "poetry" was a dirty word, as if expressive verbal language was an irrelevance; did "IT" belong in The Academy, in Music-Talk? Did they—or whoever they were speaking for—think that they "owned" Perspectives?" - p 351 "For many of us, Perspectives had become a utopian vision, communitas. Why not dream of better ways of doing things?; being inclusive, responsible but not narrowly responsive to any one way" - p 351 "It was more like a Crazy Quilt, each unique patch from a different expressive-investigative corner of the emerging, diversely un-unified multicultural music-analytic-theoreticspeculative-soundscape." - p 351 Now I, alas, don't have any issues of Perspectives of New Music in my otherwise very substantial personal archive/library - probably b/c it was mainly aimed at academia where high prices cd be pd for its sustenance & where the majority, if not the entirety, of its readership & contributors lived anyway. The same observation cd be aimed at OPEN SPACE as well: after all, single issues are priced at $45, double issues (like the one being reviewed here) at $80, & even the student rates price per issue is $38! The "utopian vision, [the] communitas" definitely doesn't include people outside that financially luxurious environ as far as purchase access goes. Nonetheless, many OPEN SPACE recordings, tapes & CDs, had cheaply wended their way into my collection before I ever made contact w/ OPEN SPACE's editors & I've since found these folks to be generous & exceptionally open-minded. If they weren't, I wd've never been included in 2 issues so far - occupying, as I do, a place in what many wd consider to be a 'lunatic fringe'. In many ways that are important to me, I IDENTIFY w/ Barkin's statement: consider this seemingly trivial instance: she places commas after quotation marks - something that some people to this day find almost insufferably heretical even tho I, personally, do the same thing & find it quite logical. & there are many things in Barkin's descriptions above that resonate w/ my own experiences in different environments. Take, eg, "several Yale graduate music theory students hassled me in 1981 with: "it's just poetry"—as if "poetry" was a dirty word, as if expressive verbal language was an irrelevance": in the mid 1990s I was a participant in a list-serv for improvisors called PhiBa, for Philadelphia-Baltimore, where I had similar experiences to those that Barkin had w/ the Yale students. In one thread I participated by cutting & pasting other people's comments & reorganizing them into a more experimental text wch I then posted as a continuation of the thread. My logic was that I was playing w/ the list-serv as a way to improvise, using, of course, the musician's common imitation & recontextualization technique, thinking that I was moving the discourse onto a level on a par w/ everyone's purported interest. There was an uproar, a strong voicing of disapproval to the effect that 'I didn't join this list-serv for poetry!!' I didn't get the impression that anyone even noticed that I was quoting from previous postings. Ironically, 2 of the people who protested the most were 2 Pittsburgh-based musicians that I'd encouraged to join the list. Since I'd been a prime mover in the improvisation community in BalTimOre before moving to Pittsburgh where I once again became involved w/ improvising, it seemed fit to me that the participation of PGH peops justified renaming the list-serv PhiBaPit or some such. I even went so far as to propose that the Washington DC participants be acknowledged in the name as well. My proposal was met w/ stony silence. This was clearly a snobbish closed circle. I repeatedly submitted info about an upcoming event I was organizing to the PhiBa improvising calendar: the Anonymous Family Reunion to take place at Ringing Rocks State Park & at the Sonambient Theater where Harry Bertoia's sound sculptures are housed. Both locations are in eastern Pennsylvania w/in fairly easy driving distance of Philly & B-More. These locales were chosen for their extraordinary potential as places for site-specific improvising. But, apparently since they weren't 'conventional' improvising events at a club or gallery, my promotion was ignored by the administrator of PhiBa & not posted in the calendar. When I finally complained about this, the moderator acted frostily as if I were just being an asshole. When the Anonymous Family Reunion finally happened in the late summer of 1997, only one participant came from PhiBa. He & I are still friends 16+ yrs later. It probably wasn't much after this that I dropped off the list-serv. W/ the exception of the very few friends & collaborators that I met thru it, it was mostly a waste of time. OPEN SPACE 15/16 begins w/ a memorial from Benjamin Boretz, the founder of PNM & coeditor (& presumed cofounder) of OPEN SPACE , for composer/teacher Harold Shapero (1920-2013). As Barkin writes about the 1st issue of PNM from the Fall of 1962 it had a "memoriam to Irving Fine who died way too young and also with whom Ben and I had studied at Brandeis" (p 346) &, Lo & Behold!, here's another tribute to a Brandeis music prof that Boretz studied w/ who managed to hang in there until 51 yrs later after the 1st issue of PNM! Long live longevity! Boretz describes Shapero as a "local young-turk jazzpianist all-music wunderkind, [who] was not yet 35, inconceivably young for an actual official professor." (p 1) To quote Wikipedia: "The Young Turks [..] was a Turkish nationalist reform party in the early 20th century, favoring reformation of the absolute monarchy of the Ottoman Empire." "The term "Young Turks" has since come to signify any groups or individuals inside an organization who aggressively pursue liberal or progressive policies, or advocate for reform." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Turks ) I 1st recall encountering the term as, perhaps, the tile of a publication from the late 1970s or early 1980s by artist Stephen Seemayer about artists that he appreciated in LA & its rough urbanity, including himself. More recently, however, in a 2005 record called Totalitarian Sodomy by punk band "World Burns to Death" I encountered a song called "All the Young Turks" about wch they write "This song is inspired by a poem called "The Bride", written by poet Siamanto (real name Atom Yarjanian) who was born in 1878 and died in 1915, one of the first of the 1.5-million people murdered by the Young Turks movement during the Armenian genocide." That puts quite a different spin on things, eh?! Back to Boretz: "Harold himself wrote about "the musical mind" as a manifestation of subconscious processes". (p 1) while this article is brief, it's still highly welcome to me b/c I only have 2 records w/ Shapero's music on it & don't really know his work at all. One of these is on the Columbia Masterworks series - one of the highest recommendations - & is a playing of his "String Quartet No. 1" (I'm listening to it now). The other is on The Louisville Orchestra's First Edition Records & is his "Credo for Orchestra" (I'll listen to it next). Boretz praises Shapero's "Symphony for Classical Orchestra". Perhaps I'll get to hear that someday. Perhaps the person whose articles herein excited me the most is James Hullick, or ")-(Ull!c]<" as he (almost) writes it here. In his "Never Mind the Bollocks" he says: "Meditating on sonic art as an act of social conscience can lead to philosophy; and specifically the interabilities agenda. "Interabilities" is a term that denotes the interaction of people of all abilities. As an agenda for sonic practice, it describes people of varying abilities working together toward some sonic outcome. In and of itself, the term "interabilities" does not have anything to do with the quality of a sonic outcome. People of all abilities could be working together to make absolute rubbish and the term "interabilities" would be met. But the ethics behind interabilities activities elevates the activities beyond this broader blanket term. In the case of sound, for example, if people of all abilities work together to produce a truly dreadful concert, then the positive ethic and social benefit of the interabilities agenda can be lost. The audience may have suffered. It lies at the heart of the interabilities agenda that interabilities activities will eventually strive to inspire participants and audiences alike to our greatest vision of humanity — where all people stand equal in society, and where all abilities are considered of equal worth to the wider human mission." (p 6) Now, I very much like this statement & laud the term "interabilities" wch I've never encountered before & wch )-(Ull!c]< may very well have coined. HOWEVER, I question some of its implications: )-(Ull!c]< being the guider of these interabled activities is in some sense the composer. He's also, presumably, being pd to be an interabilities facilitator. In his ideal interabilities scenario do ALL PARTICIPANTS have equal access to being the guide/facilitator & to equal pay? Also, are ALL PARTICIPANTS going to be in agreement on what a "truly dreadful concert" is & will someone's opinion be more privileged in relation to this? ()-(Ull!c]<'5, eg?) & will they all be in agreement that "if people of all abilities work together to produce a truly dreadful concert, then the positive ethic and social benefit of the interabilities agenda can be lost"? & that "The audience may have suffered"? &/or even that this 'suffering' is a bad thing? I've been told by 'friends' of mine who know close to nothing about what I do that my 'obvious' intention is 'just to irritate people' - this b/c I produce dense & challenging work that people find difficult to process - hence, it 'must' be 'sadistic'. NOT. Cf this excerpt from my own article in this issue, "30 4 5 + 97.9": "my 1st reel-to-reel recorded audio piece from 1976: dadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadadada A part of the significance of this latter was that it is a piece designed to be easily performable by almost anyone & that what wd distinguish one performance from another cd just as validly be the performers' incompetence or other foibles as well as their skills & strengths. This was an important 1st step for me in stepping outside of the disciplines of classical music into what I usually now refer to as "Low Classical Usic"." (pp 200-201) The idea being here is that this, too, is an example of an interabilities situation but there is no such thing as a "truly dreadful concert" & whether "The audience [considers itself to] have suffered" or not is irrelevant - unless actual nonconsensual physical pain (psychological pain can be a bit harder to assess) is being induced. &, of course, I am the d composer here &, despite the extreme d liberate simplicity of the score/title, my function as such places me in a unique unequal position in relation to the performers. )-(Ull!c]< does address possibilities that other more people living in a more insulated world wdn't even think of in their delusional utopian imaginings. That's one of the things that leads to my respecting his article(s) so much. "So while I think an interabilities agenda should be open to the experience of darkness that many people feel, I also think that we can find ways of embracing both the darkness and the light, that don't end in murder." (p 10) "The project responded to the story of Milarepa, a Buddhist saint from the 11th century (c. 1052-1135) who had started life out as a mass-murderer." (p 10) I'm reminded of an interview w/ John Waters from several decades ago. He'd made Pink Flamingos in wch his drag queen star, Divine (named after a Jean Genet character), actually ate dog shit. Waters remarked about changing the direction of his filmmaking b/c 'To be more shocking I would've had to kill somebody and I wasn't going to do that.' In a promotional email sent out announcing this issue, the OPEN SPACE editors proclaimed: "As a longtime supporter, you already know something of our guiding aspiration to extend the boundaries and horizons of the community of creative thinkers and artmakers. After fifteen years of publication, we believe our new issue has broken through to a significantly new level toward that goal; we have produced a 364-page panoramic, kaleidoscopic book which is composed in a meaningful way to lead you through a huge diversity of subjects treated with consummate seriousness, personal investment, and creative originality. "The current issue of The Open Space Magazine includes an introduction to magical practice" & it's this latter sentence (chopped off in my excerpting of it here) that leads to my next comments. Robert Podgurski provides a "Graphic: First Enochian Call to Spirit" that I find interesting to look at in a similar way to the way I enjoy Visual Poetry or a score. Peteris Cedrins also contributes things occult-relevant. I particularly like his imagistic writing: "'Twas the night before feminism, & all through the hows ... ... ... the stirrings of rats, & at night there are bats in your hair. The colibri of hope are finally kaput, to be eaten like ortolan. Laima's lord tells of the south wind, wch years ago brought blistering heat to the village. Between two to four hundred prostitutes were deported to northern Kazakhstan as anti-Societ elements. Kiss the doorknob, kids would say, & you'll see Riga. It was an iron doorknob, of course, In the dead of winter. Lick it. Eat the bunting." - p 33 Other Podgurski sigils & a poem close the issue. The PNM logo in White's article quoted above looks very much like a sigil too. I'm reminded of my own fanciful theory that sigils are actually circuit diagrams for controlling energy flow (both metaphorically & directly). Maybe someday I'll actually build circuits somehow based on them & see what happens when electricity is introduced. As w/ White's recalling that "several Yale graduate music theory students hassled me in 1981 with: "it's just poetry"—as if "poetry" was a dirty word, as if expressive verbal language was an irrelevance" & can easily imagine that happening here in reference to "an introduction to magical practice". But, to me, it's the mindset that I'm interested in. One ex-girlfriend who was a poet was interested in experimental writing but her tastes in relation to music were pop all the way. I've never understood that. Why differentiate so between disciplines? It's the experimentation that does it for me. ...more |
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review of Francis Poole & Blaster Al Ackerman's Break Up My Water (Illustrations by Haddock) by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 28, 2013 Blaster review of Francis Poole & Blaster Al Ackerman's Break Up My Water (Illustrations by Haddock) by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - December 28, 2013 Blaster Al Ackerman died this yr. I got this bk as part of my quest to read everything by him I can find & to try to compile an overview of his work. As such, this review will concentrate largely on Blaster w/o any intention of slighting Poole & Haddock. Blaster 1st came to my attn thru Mail Art. Blaster was one of the great tricksters of MA - rarely interested in using the network as just a way of repetitively spreading his name around, Blaster used the network as a way of maximizing considerably more complex interpersonal relations - often under a slew of aliases - even Blaster Al is an alias. Haddock, or Eerie Billy Haddock, as I'll probably always think of him, was one of Blaster's most cherished correspondents. In Blaster's last missive to me, in the mnths before he died, he was excited that Haddock had gotten a tattoo of one of Blaster's drawings & then quit his job! As for Poole? Well, alas, I know very little about him - I associate him w/ the great, &, alas, now defunct, "Lost & Found Times" - edited by John M. Bennett - another close friend of Blaster's &, probably, his main publisher. Blaster was a slippery eel, an Eel Leonard, a subtle man whose subtlety may've reached its apotheosis in his writing. Blaster didn't just turn a phrase, he contorted it, he wrung its hairy little neck, he turned it on its back & flung it across the ring & into inner space, he gave it a slobbering kiss despite its Hansen's Disease, he caressed it while it lay melting, he he.. He took a phrase & sought out its fistula w/ robotic insects partial to freon huffing - these insects were introduced to the rectum during crowded bus trips w/o the phrase even turning around, that's how crowded it was. "This book has not received moral or financial support from any literary awards competition, academic, government, or interplanetary arts agency. In fact this book has been turned away by publishers more times than a leper at a wedding reception." - p 4 This latter being on the verso of the title p where the copyright info n'at is. Blaster spent at least the last 20+ yrs of his life being the most accomplished couch surfer of any human being I've ever met. So he was supported, indeed, he was SUPPORTED - but by individuals, not by grant-givers. Grant-givers favor people who don't need the money, people who can barely wipe their ass w/o declaring it the latest breakthru in technological primitivism (or whatever today's catchwords are) & expecting $15,000 as a result. Grant-givers prefer the cheap imitations to the originals, originals are too loose, Lautrec, loose cannons, ie. 'Better' to support the exploiters, the parasites off the originators, they know who butters their bread & don't fire off rounds at squares. Blaster was easy to get along w/ & very, VERY difficult to pin down. Bless 'im. In Poole's Introduction, he writes: "I would send Al a poem, prose fragment, or dream I had written down and if it resonated with him he would "hack" into the piece and add his own images and voice, steering the work in other directions. In turn, I would rewrite some of the things he would send me." (pp 7-8) &, yes, this bk is oneiric - as if the dreams, themselves, are playing (imp)practical jokes on the dreamers. An epigraph that begins the bk is classic Blaster: "If you ever drop your keys into a pool of lava, forget about them, cuz man, they're gone. --Jack Handley" (p 11) Such 'sage' 'advice' stinks of Blaster's MO - on the one hand, yeah, it's 'sensible': don't try to put yr hand in a lava pool, on the other hand, uh, if you're so close to a lava pool that you've managed to drop yr keys in mightn't you have something more, uh, pressing to care about? It's all so 3rd-hand. Blaster sets up the pins & then makes them levitate: "Last night I dreamed about a whirling apparatus similar to the thing used to make cotton candy... only in my dream it was filled with millions of mosquitoes. They were spinning around and being pressed together into some kind of mosquito paste or pâté. Such an unappetizing taste it had!" - p 15 Now that's credited to Ackerman & Poole so I may be misattributing that passage by concentrating on Blaster alone. Still, the setting the reader up w/ a vision of something particularly unappetizing to yr average human & then having the dreamer EAT it ANYWAY & then comment on its DREAM TASTE seems like a typical Blaster twist. Blaster was a twister. Now, in Poole's 'EVERY TENT MUST BE RAISED" we have: "They were going to take me to the hospital but we had to get home first before my curfew and by that time I was feeling a little better. When I went inside the house I was disoriented and crawled into bed. The next day I was feeling a little fuzzy and my head still hurts. Also my ribs and neck. Admittedly I had had a few drinks but wasn't loaded, although I think Dr. Spivey suspects I had gotten into his nurses's bag o' silly pills." (p 17) Blaster's collaboration produces this: "They were going to take me to the hospital but we had to get home first before my curfew and on the way I dreamed again of the floating pencil in anus light. When I went inside the house I beheld my whole AA group coming toward me waving human torches that were igniting the Kama Sutra for all time." (pp 18-19) It somehow strikes me as 'perfect' that in Blaster's dream he dreams about somewhat else dreaming. What did I say about "the dreams, themselves, are playing (imp)draculatical jokes on the reamers"? Well, nothing, actually. "In the dream I saw that you were dreaming that you'd been turned into a medium-sized, crablike thing, covered with jet black integument." (p 20) Even the word "integument" seems like classic Blaster. 'I even got into an intense integument w/ him about it.' Poole's "CALIFORNIA DREAM" features Blaster in a cameo appearance: "We decided to leave and found the car. The driver had left. We got in and I drove down the road which abruptly went up a cliff almost vertically. Just as the car reached the top and the front wheels began to grip where the road flattened out, the car fell backwards, only the rear wheels touching the road surface. I thought it would flip over completely and land on the roof. But it didn't. The car ended up resting on all four wheels. The Blaster was silent and looked stunned." (p 25) In the collaborative rewrite, Blaster twists an already oneiric story off into a new dimension: "The Blaster and I cautiously approached the giant's body. We didn't see any blood but he wasn't moving. We moved a little closer and we began to see the portion of his skull which had been broken open by his fall. No blood but there was a jagged actinic light and, at this, we couldn't help but sense the auroral energy of near Hilbert space contact. We knew we were peering clear down into the universal "Brane" (short for "membrane")—or so the mathematicians are always trying to tell us." (p 27) Right, as if "the mathematicians are always trying to tell us" anything, eh?! Such word-play as a veering from "brain" to "brane" as an excuse to throw in Hilbert space is what I call Schizophrenic Literalism (well, not really). In the titular bra, "BREAK UP MY WATER", Blaster does something I've never seen him do before: ACKNOWLEDGE A PSEUDONYM!!: "EEL LEONARD a.k.a. Blaster Al Ackerman". (p 31) One might almost think that Blaster isn't Eel after all, eh?! "One afternoon I was hanging around in the yellow weedy space out behind the 7-Eleven when I found a kind of sump hole in the ground. It seemed filled with tapioca and I took my shoe off and unwrapped the bandage and as I got my foot down into the oozing wetness I wiggled my toes around and eventually saw that it was a million frog eggs ready to hatch and that they had all coalesced around my foot, as though to kiss and love on the sores" (p 34) Of course, there's a bandage, of course, there're sores. Blaster's 'normal' life really is, sortof, 'normal': people are suffering, people are in & out of 'reality' - to a color 'blind' person the colors are what they see - not what someone 'objectively' tells them they are. & Poole's atmosphere is similar to Blaster's: "I was standing in the kitchen, slightly ill from the smell of sour milk in the sink filled with dishwater and dirty dishes. Outside there were several kids from the neighborhood who seemed to be playing some kind of game in the dirt. They were pushing and kicking at each other and yelling." (p 38) But Poole's slight decay is realistic, Blaster depicts the meta-realism of the brain-damaged. Poole: "A desert highway where me and my brother were left on the roadside; no water, no money, no hope. Bone-colored sky and desert of bone." (p 45) "A new flame midget can adorn your feet" (p 40) What's a new flame midget? How can it adorn yr feet? Such images from Blaster are rich, filthy rich. "so that you see nothing pee dropped blooms from my hat there's nothing to do about what pee drops just as there's nothing to do about when a window wobbles in the back of my eye hopefully creeping toward yr blouse but just as likely seeping in the leaves and grabbing your knobby back thrust goodies". (p 40) I'm reminded of the writing of Rupert Wondolowski, another of Blaster's main publishers. A little surreal, a lot grotesque, a fun-house mirror of human fallibility seen from the home for the hopelessly senile. Did Blaster hack Wondolowski like he did his old buddy John M. Bennett?: "suddenly my hanky floats across the room and tiny yellow hairs watch your aspic and a pants shadow seems to leave your dampness file and tiny yellow hairs shudder on the floor off in the direction of my belt hole while crash rental tests my buttered ham which is like meat mist without tested ham and tiny yellow hairs nag heel sleep, that's way more than back and forth before bobbing skull turns up by that time more tiny yellow hairs have arrived by that time the crust grins like a runny shirt fund for you my french-fries in the jello clasp the rest, so go on admiring my giggling under the bed although it just might be more clocking the floor brought to you by that gush demon of tiny yellow hairs pustules and teeth" - p 55 Another collaboration between our too fine authors yields: "This was meant to be the title of a poem by Blaster Al but before anything materialized I had a dream about a woman named Hatchback Helen. I was back in the Navy, on submarine duty, and had been at sea for many months. Totally out of touch with my wife, the former pride of Needles, California; Miss Uranium U-238." (p 57) Nice veering, nice kerplunk. & how about this simile?: "To begin with I could only envision half the world as solid reality, the other half was like an eggplant in a graduate seminar on people made of clay." (p 58) Right. "And that's about it—not much more than a series of cloying encounters that in the end can leave you gibbering. But how often do you find pirate women who are ready day and night to tell you the old, old story of How the Snake Lost His Limbs?" (p 69) This writing is highly imagistic, wch, as far as I can tell, is likable to many people b/c the content can be ignored in favor of going along for the ride - so why isn't it more popular? For one, it isn't mass-marketed - one has to be 'in the know', one has to care; for another, like many great things, it-----doesn't-----quite-----fit: it ain't exactly surrealism, it ain't exactly poetry; it certainly ain't about to be taught in UNIVERSITIES anytime soon (thank the holy ceiling light!) b/c, 'uh, I mean, are these guys serious?!' After all, we wdn't want another Ern Malley on our hands now wd we? Read this bk.. before IT finds you, snaking thru the weeds around yr domicile, & reads YOU instead. ...more |
Notes are private!
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not set
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Dec 21, 2013
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Dec 28, 2013
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Hardcover
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| 0963753681
| 9780963753687
| 3.75
| 4
| Apr 30, 2013
| Apr 28, 2013
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really liked it
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review of Alan Davies' ODES & fragments by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 18, 2013 I feel like practically every review I write about Alan's bks st review of Alan Davies' ODES & fragments by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 18, 2013 I feel like practically every review I write about Alan's bks starts out similarly - something along these lines: 'I've been friends w/ Alan Davies for at least 34 yrs now & I STILL have difficulty relating to his writing.' This bk is ALMOST an exception. I hate to fall into the pattern I'm about to describe but it still strikes me as somewhat accurate so I'll describe it ANYWAY despite its non-flatteringness to my self-image as an intellectual: I've found that when I screen movies of mine that're short, say 5 minutes or less, people LOVE them.. but when I screen a movie that's a 'feature' people find it to be insufferable. In the case of Alan's writing, when the font size is LARGE & the poem's short, I'm immediately RELIEVED. It's bite size. Don't eat anything bigger than yr head n'at. But when I get to something like the poem beginning on p 212 in ODES & fragments, where the font size is unusually small in relation to most of the other poems in the bk, I find myself feeling like I've reached a chasm that I have to jump across, a chasm that I CAN jump across - there's no way I'll 'fall' - the simile doesn't extend that far - so there's no danger - just extra exertion. The very name of this bk, & the simple floral pattern that adorns the cover under the title, evoke a traditional poetry that's, for the most part, absent here. EXCEPT, perhaps, for the rhyming - but even that's subtly misleading, subtly playing w/ stereotyping expectations subverted. In my own more experimental writing, what some people wd call "poetry" & what I call "concrete essays", there's usually a goal, a vision, & a precise technical means for reaching that goal. Take, eg, something like "Po" (My "Po, a language game" is online @: http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/6... The movie version is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/onesownth... & it's been published in RAMPIKE (volume 19/No. 1: "Visual Poetics" (March, 2010))) in wch I use one word that has different meanings in multiple languages & try to construct a narrative w/ that one word that references those multiple meanings. When I look for signs of such procedures in Alan's writings, I find things that seem to point that way but the overall pattern created always eludes me in regards to a formal purpose.. &, yet.. in his bk a an av es (Potes & Poets Press, 1981) I completely missed that he was systematically not using ascenders (letters that go above the upper baseline such as "t") & descenders (letters that go below the lower baseline such as "y") despite this absence being glaringly in front of me, the reader! Until he explained that to me, ie. I was fortunate enuf to get a review copy of this bk. It came w/ a 3pp press release (& a copy of what appears to be a polaroid of Alan w/ a note - THX Alan!). This PR comes w/ praise from Craig Dworkin, Carla Harryman, Ron Silliman, Barrett Watten, & Juliana Spahr - fairly well-known intellectuals. Silliman is once again quoted as saying that Alan "continues to be the Diogenes of the New York langpo scene." As I comment, at much greater length than in the excerpt presented here, in my review of Alan's recent Raw War ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17... ): "My kind of guy, a real pain-in-the-ass to rc'vd 'wisdom'. But Silliman's characterization of Alan is more of a metaphor. Alan only begs for a living in a welfare-state kind of a way & doesn't sleep in "a large ceramic jar in the marketplace". Thank goodness. He lives in New York, the weather's not nearly as human-friendly as it was in Diogenes' neck of the woods. Alan does make a virtue of poverty of sorts but he's not homeless. Thank goodness. He leads a comfortable enuf life. Thank goodness. & I don't think he's so much a 'man-of-action' in a Herculean sense as much as he is a 'man-of-letters'. I do think he uses "his simple lifestyle and behaviour to criticise the social values and institutions of what he saw as a corrupt society" & therein lies the crux of the matter - & the way in wch Silliman's comparison comes closest to home." Silliman, &, no doubt, many others, still considers Alan part of the "lang[uage ]po[etry] scene" but is he? I reckon in some sense YES.. but I have a vague memory of talking w/ Alan about whether he considered himself to still be a Language Writer, maybe as early as September, 1982, & getting an answer along the lines of 'not really'.. Perhaps I'm misremembering. Once a Language Writer, always a Language Writer? Maybe.. What exactly IS Language Writing?! The term seems to've become such a catch-all for any poetry that's not openly confessional & even some that is (maybe. maybe Bernadette Mayer, whose work i like very much, eg), work that seems opaque to immediate simple interpretation. For me, the 'promise' (as in 'potential') of Language Writing was/is that it might undermine passive norms of Pavlovian Dog reading, that it might, w/ high formal consciousness, challenge the 'transparency' of writing enuf to call the reader's attn to the language & its ways of functioning, a sortof Brechtian alienation technique, a Burroughsian attack against CONTROL. To some, Language Writing might be writing w/o an "I" - that's all well & good but I often wonder whether some Language Writers might just not have a very interesting 'I" to refer to/from. If you lead a very safe, well-pd, academic life you're certainly not going to refer to yr life as a Direct Activist in yr writing, there's none to refer to. SO, the politics tend to become diverted to what I contend are less effectual avenues, intellectual wanking. In Steve Zultanski's essay in the press release for ODES & fragments, he begins w/ the sensational "Alan Davies is the only Language poet who has ever had sex." Ok, that's pretty fucking funny. Zultanski continues: "The rest of them are virgins, which, I know, is weird — I don't know how to explain it, it's just a historical fact. But because of this, Davies's work stands out as addressing an aspect of life, of reality, and of vitality that other writers might not have had the experience to write about. [..] I'm thinking of his most formally experimental poems, like those in Active 24 Hours, which are concerned as much with bodily erotics as with the functioning of language." I read Zultanski's intro as deliberately provocative, funny, & absurd - so I won't even address the obvious layer of it. To, instead, go immediately to the claim that Alan's work is "concerned as much with bodily erotics as with the functioning of language": to me, this implies that Alan is concerned w/ praxis as much, if not more, than w/ theory. I don't really think that that distinguishes Alan's writing from many or most other poets. After all, most poets have had sex, most people who have sex are profoundly affected by it, therefore most poet's writings have some level of erotics in them, somewhere - including Language Writing. HOWEVER, if we think of "bodily erotics" as something like running one's hand over the surface of one's body or that of a lover, of running one's hand delicately over curves, inserting into mucous membranes, tweaking nipples, tickling, making erect, etc, causing the body to become sensually charged in anticipation then, perhaps, Zultanski's promotion as a analog for Alan's writing might be getting us somewhere. What I find in ODES & fragments, perhaps more than in any other of Alan's bks, is a flow, a caress of the surface w/ alliterative & playful language that isn't necessarily referential & isn't necessarily NOT referential, that plays in ways that repeat in a way akin to the way one's fingers might return again & again to a nipple to perk it back into erectness as it's relaxed from its last excitation. As w/ the author's foto that was sent as part of my review copy, the author's pose seems very relaxed & comfortable, the writing flows the way a lover's caress might on a peaceful day naked in bed, weather warm, a trusting contented coupling. In continuation of this analogy, the words that Alan repeats so often are favorite textual body parts. There's "And is All a Thrall a Bell", "Take Thrall", & "Remembering the Threll"; there're the n repetitions of "sweatered" (p 56, eg) (this latter cd almost be fetishistic à là some people's fetishizing of Angora, eg); "the harvestable sloughed sodden few" (p 203), "sloughing (a favorite word" (p 205). Favorite words. Alan uses many device that might trip up the reader: he uses open parentheses ("(") but rarely closed ones, " I think it is unsafe to say even to today that the programmable portion(s of reality of taken and that the momentary singulars are spoken for by what is over with (and quite possibly forgotten " - p 117 he inserts "l"s into words: "Today As A Way of Esclape" (p 38), "From the sluck thingle quackers going over and aboard the bring" (p 39), "Sqleaking over the of into the prepositionless abetment sequestering quest / lons that slick up the slide of flate, glaring over the frost flick of frame of form", "Chance of sequestering greetings as against the fluck slam dim crape corpse", "Into the lingering fluck gutter, old memories of the old memories slept past", "Of clop, as the cakers snake off with the sped slup slangers (those who can speak)", 'but saying so isn't fair either (dammit!) so flut the shuck up (maddit!) or sleep" (p 40), "From the flurth, get that through your flucking fled, I did and by glod did that hurt!" (p 41), "tlake it" (p 136). I find this latter device to be especially effective w/o being exactly a formal pointer - in other words, seeing these repeated "l" insertions (are they 'el's or capital "i"s?) to be like textural changes - imagine walking down a long stairwell & running yr hand sensually along the bannister, feeling the connectors of the bannister to the wall from time-to-time. There's an installation at the Mattress Factory (an installation museum in PGH) that I dearly love: the bannister(s) is/are a trough w/ heated water running down it - placing the fingers in the trough produces a pleasant sensual surprise. In the font I'm typing this in, it's hard (or 'impossible') to distinguish between a capital "i" & a lower-case "L" - perhaps this is Alan's sly way of reintroducing the first-person singular back into Language Writing. As a tangent, I note that Zultanski wrote "a historical fact" & Alan wrote "An horrible thing, again" (p 13). As one of my thousands of 'side interests', this leads me to deduce that Steve is probably a generation younger than Alan & I are - we were taught that "an" precedes any word beginning w/ "h", Steve probably wasn't - thusly demonstrating that one generation's 'correct' is another generation's 'mistake' or 'oddity'. Is this another removal of a British practice from American English? Like changing "theatre" to "theater" even tho "theatrical" doesn't become "theaterical"? Dunno. Alan's writing is often dedicated to women who're important in his life: Dianne Ward, eg. Here, it's poet Christina Strong. And neither is there pain is dedicated "For Christina" (p 13) & p 231 starts off w/ this stanza: "Maybe cadences are tokens for small gestures Christina or is that a cracked moment oblivious to the cheer, as if that were here and not taken from the past into the past that were token" Maybe we're all reaching out to people we've loved, even the most 'abstract' of us. Whatever Alan's doing, I imagine that many poetry readers will enjoy it - if only in that vague non-analytic sensual way that many poetry readers seem to read (what's THAT opinion based on, eh?!): " Toward, the ward, the to, the Toward you, you, you, the one Over, over toward, to, to And all that slushes up is not slush, but eagerness Or the half-life of larvae, or The larvae living more than half a life, given the off-chance That larvae exist, that life Happens, happens to larvae " I enjoyed that, did you? Much is made in poetry of the SOUND of it, of the BREATH of it n'at. Like much Language Writing (is that what this is?) this isn't really DRAMATIC ENUF to be Sound Poetry (who says it has to be dramatic?), it's not really focused on the sound exactly.. it's more the hop, skip, & jump of it all.. Probably ANY school or style of writing / creating at least CLAIMS to have philosophical implications - usually in theoretical writings (such as in "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" magazine, RIP). What're the philosophical implications of this?: " Slooping Down the Long Slope Toward Slooping down the long slope toward sloops And finding uncanny reward in no reward Nor in that either (neither), as we escape into The timbrest of slad October airs, as a sweater Becomes itself only when of no longer use Or the bickering flux (flugs) matriculates us Past what we weren't going to be anyway Not out here, not past where we never got And hadn't wanted to be, or to get anyway " - p 30 What if "l" is a lower-case "L" & not an upper-case "i"? What if it's a recurrent typo that Alan makes that he doesn't notice or chooses to leave in there as a token of his aging? i find that unlikely but not unprecedented or impossible. That wd have implications of acceptance that might fit w/ Alan's apparent casualness - do the typical meanings of the words reinforce this interpretation? "And finding uncanny reward in no reward"? Not being knowledgeable (or, really, that interested) in traditional poetry rhyming patterns (I don't know the particulars of a sonnet or of Alexandrine (?) verse or whatever) I don't know if the following adheres to a particular syllabic history: "As err as far as far can see And all live well in err or tree That swell nor line the can't to be As well as might as might as we" - p 43 but I can at least speculate that its meaning is articulated somewhat anew. My very (generic) skeletal outline of the evolution of poetry goes something like this: poetry w/ strong simple rhyme schemes & straightforward abbreviated tale-telling to enable unwritten perpetuation of history/philosophy thru oral means the complication of the rhyme schemes in connection w/ the printing of the words - ie: the reduction of the necessity of memory & oral transmission the discarding of rhyming altogether, 'free verse', to make the flow & vocabulary less restricted the branching out of language into specializings that concentrate on particular aspects of written & pronounced language: sound poetry, visual poetry, etc.. If Alan's writing is Language Writing & if Language Writing is PostModern & if PostModern is taken to mean a formal approach that accepts & incorporates previously disparate &/or competitive approaches, then Alan's writing might be vaguely PostModern - a reading that might be highly objectionable to Language Writing & PostModernist theorists. I just mean that Alan's writing seems to rhyme when he feels like it, to disrupt when he feels like it, to refer when he feels like ti, to be what it is when he feels like it - w/o worrying too much about whether it fits into this, that, or t'other. As I've pointed out in another review, he even interpolates quotes from Bob Dylan! Surely this wd be a no-no for more rigid purists: "for the sad eyed lady of the lowland / she with harvest on her feet" (p 51), "life / all along the watch tower" (p 142), "is all over now baby blue / unglued" (P 159), "(but it's all / (it's all / (it's all / (over now / (baby blue" (p 161), " it's all over now baby blue " - the entirety of the poem on p 188 Does Alan quote many other poets / songwriters whose work I don't recognize? There's "as this You see remember me" (p 122) wch I associate w/ Gertrude Stein (a variation's in the libretto of "Four Saints in Three Acts", eg) but wch harkens back to memento mori / memento mei that predate Stein, from wch Stein got the phrase. There's also "Thrake ralldom riddle and crash / as rash dillddom is childless and middling and frish / but all if thralldom or crashing and dish / o'er the thingish that takesh all of that thrash" (p 104) wch reminds me of 'Shake, Rattle, & Roll' as well as Lewis Carroll's (& Terry Gilliam's) "Jabberwocky". On pp 63-64 there's: " It all falls away in the halting motion that night brings over these evenings of halting things Slender as that may seem There are quadrangles even in thought in the mind and that is the way of all things singing back over the shoulders of the body toward the body that might be listening But thre's always space for space to have seem at any age at any time And darkness is only a language Full of feral cats And the swing of postulate toward postulateless things eagerly as that may be to be a thing We know nothing It's only quiet quiet is all it brings and the sequesterless overlings that only seem to sing as that thing and as this thing Outside all is quiet Inside " & I'm reminded of the great absurdist symbolist Alfred Jarry saying something to the effect that he was writing over his own head when he wrote Exploits and Opinions of Doctor Faustroll Pataphysician & about how this might apply to the work of many poets - there's the writing in wch one is reaching for something just out of reach, describing/inscribing something beyond one's peripheral vision - no matter how much one turns one's inner vision. Mostly, I find Alan to be alliteratively flowing: "And it was / a windy day / somewhere / today / That way / there was / a way/ to be there / today" (p 65) - even in ways that teeter on the conventional: "There are days with flocks of roses / That careen upon the shore / And ways of getting nowhere / That still require an oar" (p 71) Alan PLAYS w/ language & sometimes i wonder if this PLAYING is an end in & of itself: " sling sluck over slend end oven sluck fend aall 's ist tend end nd the than that end such 'n for t 'en sloughing is the enden oder frickin zie zen send of the lader glend (blend affer en tend that than t as ifffer 'n ox en butten end der offen comp ent sliffen pren d as ifferen war dem immin then diggen don " - p 106 I think of when my stepdad took me to his hunting lodge when I was 15 or so & about a 8.5x11" piece of 'typewriter' paper that had a faux German text on it. I loved that thing & my stepdad gave it to me. Snippets of the above strike me as German used as nonsense: "oder / frickin zie" eg. & then there's even possible dyslexic play: "qoeted then the one worn down offtlen slong" (p 160) that cd be taken to be the "p" of "poet" taking a spin. ...more |
Notes are private!
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Jun 17, 2013
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Jun 18, 2013
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Paperback
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| 0811218716
| 9780811218719
| 4.26
| 694
| 1978
| Jan 31, 2011
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it was amazing
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review of Louis Zukofsky's "A" by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 5, 2013 Lardy, I get tired of writing things like this: "Review is too long. You review of Louis Zukofsky's "A" by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - May 5, 2013 Lardy, I get tired of writing things like this: "Review is too long. You entered 39826 characters, and the max is 20000" . In other words, if you want to read the full review, go here: http://www.goodreads.com/story/show/3... I knew about Paul Zukofsky, Louis' son, before I ever encountered mention of Louis. Paul's a violinist, Paul's probably the 1st violinist I ever started thinking of as a 'great violinist' - probably largely b/c his repertoire was so appealing to me. The 1st records I ever got by him were the double-record set of Ives' "Sonatas for Violin & Piano" - wch I got in early 1975 when I was a mere 21 yr old. I'm listening to that now as I write this. Later that yr I got the excellent Mainstream label's "New Music for Violin and Piano" w/ works on it by George Crumb, Charles Wuorinen, Isang Yun, & John Cage. Both of these publications also feature the piano playing of Gilbert Kalish. Somewhere along the line I heard a record of Zukofsky playing solo violin works by Glass & Scelsi & ?. Eventually I picked up the excellent box-set entitled "Music for a 20th Century Violinist" w/ works by Shapey, Riegger, Cage, Crumb, Mennin, Feldman, Sahl, Brant, Wolpe, Piston, Sessions, Babbitt, Berger, & Sollberger - again w/ Kalish. Paul was a man after my own 'heart' - someone largely dedicated to 20th century classical, mostly 'avant-garde'. It probably wasn't until a few yrs later, perhaps thru "L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E" magazine articles, that I started reading about Paul's dad Louis' giant poem "A". It was intriguing to me, apparently of great intellectual substance. Nonetheless, studying music, for me, is a whole different ball of earwax than reading poetry so I didn't FINALLY get around to reading it until NOW, April-May, 2013. I recently read & reviewed Iannis Xenakis' Formalized Music wch was such a heavy intellectual dose that I felt the 'need' to take a break & take an easier joy-ride thru 8 back-to-back Jules Verne novels. Reading "A" brought me back to challenging myself again. &, yet, in the end, while "A" was certainly challenging, "A" was much more of a pleasant read than I expected. I even read it pretty quickly. Of course, I have the attitude that I think many readers of poetry have: that I don't 'have to' understand it, just experience it. As for 'understanding' it, Barry Ahearn's excellent introduction (in this 2011 New Directions edition) went a long way to helping. Ahearn writes that "We sit at the poet's elbow as he writes, walk with him through the streets of Brooklyn, read his correspondence, and listen to the talk of his father, wife, and son. Zukofsky was quite serious in stressing the degree to which his poem was "of a life"—his life." (p vii) Much has been made of Language Writing's removal of the subject position from poetry. I'm all for that as ONE strategy for writing - not as dogma. A pet peeve of mine is that many people who've probably removed the "I" from their writing probably don't really have much of an "I" to write about anyway - at least from my perspective. In other words, some people live a life that I find worth writing about, they/we live to set examples of the possible (amongst other things). I'm not sure that Louis did. But what Louis apparently did was lead an intensely intellectual & politically thoughtful life & the manifestation of that in "A" is good enuf for me. Ahearn continues: ""Hermetic" implies a text impossibly abstruse." (p viii) I don't think that's necessarily accurate. To me, hermeticism is a philosophical approach that metaphorically opens doors that lead to other doors, that asks questions that lead to other questions - & that can seem "abstruse" if one doesn't understand the usefulness to developing open-mindedness that such an approach can have. Ahearn quotes Louis Zukofsky as saying "The best way to read me is literally" (p viii) & then Ahearn adds that "paying attention to the simple facts on the page—reading him literally—has some limitations. As "A"-12 observes: "Everything should be as simple as it can be, / Says Einstein, / But not simpler."" (p x) The quote in context being on p 143 of "A". Now in "A"-12, written from 1950-1951, Zukofsky writes in epistolary form: "What struck you, as / I think you meant, choppy in / "A", 13 years or so" [ie: in "A"-8 &/or the 1st half of "A"-9] "or so back when / I tried hard for the "fact," I / reread sometimes to tie in with / what goes on now, and the "fact" / is not so hard-set as a paradigm. / I have to reread several times / to find out what I meant." (pp 214-215) If the author has to reread it in order to understand it, then, we the not-so-privileged reader are not going to be able to so easily identify "the simple facts". "Like the sea fishing / Constantly fishing / Its own waters" (p 215) & by the time we get to the last section written, "A"-23 (1973-1974), I think it's safe to claim that "paying attention to the simple facts on the page" has become considerably more remote: "animal probities father risk. Keys punt: arbors tutor us: air is, air is, short or long sounds air's measure. In toga—chord: release—pine, dewed olives, damn papyrus, method, blot of famine. Cart a new case: fritt'll lose? Stave lucre." - p 552 What this brings up for me is the notion of 'literal' 'vs' 'figurative': what is 'literal'? what is 'figurative'? "Literal" is usually used to mean "actual" & "figurative" is usually used to mean as-in-figuratively: ie: as in a a "figure-of-speech": ie: not meant to be actually descriptive but as more as a metaphor. However, to me, the etymology of the words implies the opposite of their typical usage: "literal" meaning related-to-literature, related-to-language itself rather than "figurative" meaning related-to-figure, meaning related-to-an-embodied-shape. Therefore, reading Zukofsky "literally" wd mean to read the writing as language 1st & foremost - bringing us to Language Writing - wch is what the excerpt from p 552 above reminds me of. On the other hand, I'd called the title of the bk, "A", more figurative, in my terms, b/c: "Horses" [..] "For they have no eyes, for their legs are wood, / For their stomachs are logs with print on them" [..] "two legs stand A, four together M. / "Street Closed" is what print says on their stomachs" ("A"-7, p 39) In other words, "A" is used for its visual graphic quality, for its shape: a capital "A" looks like 2 of the 4 legs of a saw-horse. "Then I — Are logs?! Two legs stand "A"" (p 40) "Be necks, two legs stood A, four together M" (p 41) Predictably (to me, at least), I'm reminded of "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe") - the text under a painting depicting a pipe - courtesy of the painter Rene Magritte - to wch I might add here: "This "A" is not a pair of saw-horse legs" - not only b/c it's a symbol & not the object referred to, but also b/c the "A" doesn't have a gap in the top for the horizontal board to rest in. The "literal/figurative" vacillates in meaning like a figure-ground ambiguity. Ahearn: "Words are grounded in physical facts." (p xiii) Are the saw-horse legs broken or out-of-wack when "A" is italicized: "A"?! Horses are used w/ a similar multiplicity as "A" is. In "A"-12, there's what I take to be a quote from & a reaction to a very young child: ""Then he put / His horse into / His pocketbook" / And you can't put / A horse into / A pocketbook / Even an old horse — Despite what Lorine's tiny neighbor / Told her the night / She was a rich sitter." (p 137) What if the pocketbook is made of horse leather? What if the pocketbook is a notebook & the horse that's put in is a drawing of one? " — Look, Paul, where The sawhorses of "A" — 7 Have brought me. In the eighth month In the second year of Darius I saw by night — " - p 228 This is probably from the ancient Jewish writing of Zechariah but I chose to quote L.Z.'s quoting of it partially b/c I recognize a pun when I come upon one. Just like I recognize a Spoonerism when I come across one. Or maybe I don't. I WAS going to quote: "'I make my money by my hobby.' / His very honey is his lobby." (p 296) &, see?, I DID quote it. But is it a Spoonerism? Or just a rhyme? The "h" of hobby replaces the "m" of money but the "h" of hobby is replaced, in turn, by an "l" instead of the "m". WeLL, the "l" is one letter before "m" in alphabetical order so it's close enuf for me. Alas, according to multiple online sources, spoonerisms are named after the Reverend William Archibald Spooner's tendency to accidentally generate them. I wd've been much happier if they'd deliberately originated w/ the individualist anarchist Lysander Spooner. Then there's language as spoken: "the American language as she is spoke (oreye mush blige), the ballad of Frankie and Johnie, the poem "Look at Johnie was a man,"" (pp 615-616) & what about "Catullus played Bach"? (p 344) The famous poet (ca. 84–54 BC) predates the famous composer (1685–1750AD) so maybe a different Catullus is referred to? One that I've never heard of? Methinks L.Z. is fucking w/ us here. I've always been attracted to "A" as a title b/c of its function as a gateway into a lexical system & I liked it even more as I read Zukofsky's exploitation of the broadness of such possibilities: "Lime, phosphorous and vitamin "A"" (p 64), "Hiroshima's "A"" (p 426) - as in "A-Bomb", presumably. "A"-14 cd be sd to have this title: "beginning An" followed by stanzas the 1st of wch is: " An orange our sun fire pulp " - p 314 & the 5th of wch is: " First of eleven songs beginning An " - p 315 If this is to be taken to mean that "A"-14 is the "First of / eleven songs / beginning An" then "A"'s title's meaning can be further enriched to be the article "A" & one can, perhaps, deduce that each of "A"'s remaining sections, 14-24, is a 'song'. & 15 does begin w/ "An", the 2nd stanza of wch is: " He neigh ha lie low h'who y'he gall mood So roar cruel hire Lo to achieve an eye leer rot off Mass th'lo low o loam echo How deal me many coeval yammer Naked on face of white rock—sea. Then I said: Liveforever my nest Is arable hymn Shore she root to water Dew anew to branch. " - p 359 [I'm listening to "New Music for Violin & Piano" now] The above seems Joycean to me, I reckon it's a reference/take-off to/of something specific. I don't know. Whatever it is, I love the language. There's more marvelous language hear than ,U, can Shake "A" Speare at: " 'What nature delights in' says Savage 'the observer on the level with the object: a shell reversed no false ornament, moss and fern stuck with root outward, a crystal sparkling at bottom or top, loose soil or plashing water; rudeness is here no blemish' the emasculated conception: 'A man who hates children and dogs can't be all male vicieuse.' Demolition: what fears of tears their hateful deference water for mash: Hell a mood (that hollow word!) His Friday's pun Good but does not pass for that: an opera's mournful wail 'Bye-Bye Brook-a-leen-a' portent I shivered to as a kid: a Sicilian brass band blaring Brahms' march to the 6-foot blot what Mad King pawn braiding his pubic hairs Divine comedy. We'll move from our belongings disposed of in a song 'Kwanon, sine qua non' " - p 402 " L.E. Nip & Tuck Jimtown Rake Pocket CH. Hog Eye Steal Easy Possum Trot " - 459 I've been too lazy to quote the full dialog begun above. This is the 3rd day of writing this review. "A" was written intermittently over 46 yrs, it's not my intention to spend as many yrs reviewing it. Jimtown Joyce & Finnegans Rake Pocket. & what about "whoobsx"? It appears at least twice in "A" (pp 55 & 492). " her on, acclaim's own sun go new on. Rector of ox-stealers (May's born) a varied finger, tortoise tasting th' odoriferous grass, means to live love-thee-ever, virtuous his home contént: inform'd a lute twinklings' eye rich (off and on and) apt to learn—sought out integrity, desire to light up reverencing with his soul the Sun to all Earth's sweetest air exposed, reaps infinite acres a new voice lording swindle house-break, shop-lift—a song worth 50 cows. "Ho, old man! you grub these stumps before they will bear wine? (old animal no Dogwood shaft) Attend advice: Seeing, see not; hearing, hear not: and—if you have understanding, understand." (His gain mother earth—pant on—I sum it up) happy (when) glory invests his sons fit means to live: when the sun's evening's horses down, to stand its rise some time his own. Agave: " - p 546 Maybe it's just me, maybe it's just my expectations - but it seems like LZ's poetic shorthand means & unmeans faster & faster, fluidly, fluidity, as he gets older. The above is from the last section he wrote: "A"-23 (1973-1974). " Whether it was 'impossible for matter to think?' Duns Scotus posed. Unbodily substance is an absurdity like unbodily body. It is impossible to separate thought and matter that thinks. " - p 46 " The simple will be discovered beneath the complex Then the complex under the simple Then again the simple under the complex And, and, the chain without sight of the last term, etc., Etc., " - p 47 Indeed. Note that he writes "term", presumably meant to be a mathematical word, rather than "link", a word more commonly associated w/ "chain" in description of the object. Sometimes I have formal questions such as: Why 2 couplets in the midst of all 3 line stanzas on pp 273-274? I tend to experience the work formally, to note things as musical lines, perhaps. EG: the only line in the Poetry of pp 640-679 is a repetition of the phrase "Voice a voice blown, returning as May". B/c such a repetition is an anomaly, it has a strong presence for me. 16 begins w/ "An", 17 w/ "Anemones" - ie: IF, as w/ 14 ("beginning An"), we reject the title ("A CORONAL") as the beginning. The process of defining, or, at least, thinking about what constitutes a beginning & what doesn't seems to be part & parcel of what pronouncing "First of / eleven songs / beginning An" might prompt. 18 begins "An unearthing", 19, "An other" - yet another variation. 20 bends the rules anew by having "An" be the 1st (& only) word whose placement is far left of the rest of the text - nonetheless, NOT the 1st word - either of the title or the stanzas. Similarly, 21 cd be sd to 'begin' w/ a title, then a subtitle, then a stage instruction in parentheses before we get to "an 'twere any nightingale. (p 438) As such, the stage instruction is excluded from the poem. 22 has the appearance of a title being: " AN ERA ANYTIME OF YEAR " - p 508 B/c of the above precedents set, we can deduce that this ISN"T the title but is, indeed, the beginning of the poem. Perhaps this is trivial. To me, we're being shown variations, possibilities. 23 begins: "An unforeseen delight a round". (p 536) & Celia Zukofsky's contribution, the last of the "eleven songs / beginning An" does 'begin' w/ "And it is possible in imagination". This tying together implies an overall long-term vision, or, at least, the illusion of one. Given that 14 & 15 were written in 1964 & that 16, 17, & 20 were written in 1963, it cd be that when 14 was written the "An" of 20 was further left-justified to make it retrofit. & how did C.Z.'s contribution work out? Was she aware of this "An"-beginning strategy? Was it a coincidence? Presumably, it was deliberate. The plot thickens. "If we find ourselves lost in segments of "A" where meaning utterly escapes us, the fault lies not with the poem, but with our constrained definition of meaning." (p xiii) Ha ha! If there's fault to be placed anywhere aren't some presuppositions 'necessary'? If a bridge is built, its purpose is commonly taken for granted as being to facilitate the passage over a body of water or a valley or some other obstacle. If the bridge collapses or only goes partway then there're fairly clear criteria for considering it to be a failure - but if "meaning utterly escapes us" in a poem what're the criteria for declaring any 'failure' or 'success' as being involved? Sometimes, poetry can be a type of shorthand where the poet is packing as much meaning into a restricted space as they're capable of - this, for me, evokes my own expression: "TTQ-EA" (Thoughts Too Quick - Expressions Anachronistic): ie: the poetry is a way of enabling fast thought to be expressed in compacted symbols. But when it comes time for the reader to unpack it, if there's no clearly common way of doing so shared between the author's intent & the reader's interpretation then the "fault" is not necessarily anywhere - the reader & the writer are sharing whatever they have to share & that differs from instance to instance. Some may find that situation unsatisfactory. The relevance of Paul in all this, & a thing that enriched the text for me enormously, is the presence of music references throughout & the references to young Paul's budding skill w/ & interest in the violin. But unlike w/ Paul, Louis' musical interests seem to be mostly baroque, largely w/ the Bach family. Ahearn: "We learn in "A"-8 that the turning of a mill wheel helped Veit Bach, an ancestor of Johann Sebastian Bach, to keep time as he played his flute." (p xii) It seems to me that Louis stresses the Bach family as much as he does to draw parallels w/ the also-phenomenally musical Zukofsky family. Not only is Paul a great musician, but Louis' wife Celia is a composer who sets poems to music. Ahearn: "Rhythms of the past return to consort with modern cadences. The whole poem, in fact, is a masterpiece of rhythmic invention and recuperation. / Therefore we might consider "A" a collaborative poem, uniting disparate voices across the centuries. The poet's wife, Celia, unwittingly became part of that process when in 1968 she composed the L.Z. Masque, a selection of her husband's writing set to music by Handel. Celia drew on a variety of her husband's works, including a play, essays, a story, and "A" itself. her choice of accompanying music from the eighteenth century is appropriate in two respects. First, it pays tribute to a composer who was Bach's exact contemporary (both he and Handel were born in 1685), and therefore amplifies the musical theme present since "A"-1." [..] Louis Zukofsky's "delight was such that he decided to include it in the poem as the concluding movement, "A"-24." (p xiv) It's worth noting that this "concluding movement" constitutes 243 pages of the work's total 806 pages (not including the index)! & it is a very remarkable conclusion indeed!! ...more |
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Paperback
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| 0977004988
| 9780977004980
| unknown
| 4.18
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| Jan 01, 2010
| 2010
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it was amazing
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review of Peter Lamborn Wilson's ABECEDARIUM by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 22, 2013 This is brilliant. I always hesitate to give any bk a 5 review of Peter Lamborn Wilson's ABECEDARIUM by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - February 22, 2013 This is brilliant. I always hesitate to give any bk a 5 star rating & I don't really like the rating system anyway but, nonetheless, 5 stars it is. This is scholarly, imaginative, stimulating, rebellious, funny, entertaining. It also reminds me that its publisher, Xexoxial Editions, is another one of my favorite publishers up there w/ Station Hill Press, Something Else Press, Encyclopedia Destructica, Atlas Press, Dalkey Archive, Grove Press, etc.. I'm most reminded of William S. Burroughs' The Book of Breeething ( http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18... ), another bk I gave 5 stars to. In the early days of my GoodReads reviews, my reviews were short, just capsules, if even that much. In the one about the Burroughs bk I wrote: "It all ties together: visionary, magikal (&, yes, my spelling is deliberate). It's as if Burroughs achieved a highly disciplined penetrating vision & locked it in place." In the section on the letter "M" he even references Burroughs: "Wm Burroughs once demanded of the State that it return all the colors it stole to animate its symbolic imaginaire: give back the green from the dollar bill to trees & grass, etc. The alphabet has also "stolen" symbols in order to perpetuate itself as the framework of a certain social relation. M has stolen the moisture out of the baby's mouth. It should give back its waves to the sea & its breasts to the Goddess." (p 42) By comparing Wilson to Burroughs I don't mean to belittle him as derivative - far from it. ABECEDARIUM is as rich in difference as it is in similarity. Wilson shares w/ Burroughs an anti-authoritarianism & a visionary speculative scholarliness uncowed by fear of looking foolish, secure in the audacity of his personality. Peter gave me this bk when I visited him in December, 2010. It was a marvelous, albeit brief, visit. He ushered me straight into the entryway bedroom of his home & immediately spread out large ceremonial collages & explained their relations to recent rituals he'd been conducting. Rituals of sacrificing jewelry to rivers & such-like. It was SO Peter! So unique, so original.. &, yet, so tied into so many occult currents. & ABECEDARIUM is fertile w/ the same spirit: "B is for barn or byre or building or house -- perhaps cattle share it with humans like in old Ireland. Maybe the ox isn't so much coming forth as going in -- down into Egypt. Sounds have been enclosed in rigid sounds -- A is A, B is B. Beneath them the archaeographologue uncovers walls of old houses broken pottery bones. What did they bury with the dead & why? Surely the dead have provided these ruins with an immense gravity or suffocating heaviness -- almost suction. These mummies are dehydrated & they long for the blood of living words or even inarticulate sounds. "Without letters there could be no machines; what letters do for sound the machine does for force. A machine is the sign of its own operation. Nothing ever melts into something else." (p 14) "Each of the letters kills the thing it has replaced." (p 17) "Cabalistic or hermeto-critical praxis precludes any pure negative approach to alphabetic symbolism -- even tho this ABC stresses spectral rather than formal aspects of alphabetism. No idyllic return to pre-literacy. There's nothing particularly "oral" about radio & TV since they could never have been invented without the machine of letters in the first place." (p 19) The current coursing thru this is questioning, questioning not only the language being used to write the bk but also the concept of 'progress' that such language represents to some. &, yet, while almost everything is questioned, there's a deliberate ambiguity, a reveling in 'poetic' tangents: "Palm of the Hand. Two fingers poked in the eye of three stooges. Take give bless, the Three Graces or anti-stooges. Spectre & Form. "K the letter of Earth, X for Air, Z for Fire, Q for Water. Unspell these letters if you can. Disney characters have three fingers perhaps a hint of their demonic origin. "Lines on the palm of the hand as a possible source of letters: reading the palm, crossing it with silver. Dreams are the thing but not the thing: images words memories but not the thing. A doubling has occurred -- a doppelgänger in the invisible world of words -- and eventually this displacement goes so far that writing must be invented to contain restrain fixate & even kill the dream images like so many maggots. Contraction of awareness as defense against too much sensation. Gods no longer speak to us, the selfish bastards." (p 34) In drawings announcing each letter's section, the letter is shown & a history of its development from a hieroglyph to its current form is hypothesized. In almost every case, the hieroglyph is turned on its side. Wilson speculates that this is to hide the original magik. "What does it mean to say that the Prophet was unlettered? literally illiterate? So that Gabriel using yet another variant of the old Ehypto-Sinaitic abecedarium had to fill him up with letters like an empty sack? there in the cave of the daemon of dreams? Or -- as certain sufis allege -- because he'd gotten rid of the letters in some way, transcended or absorbed them, erased them or washed them out in a howl of light? The Hurufiyya the original Lettrists created calligrammes of Mohammed & Ali in which their faces & bodies are made of letters. I have a behind-glass painting from Cirebon in Java in which the body of the shadow-puppet clown Semar (albino hunchback hermaphrodite dwarf) is composed of the Arabic letters ALLAH -- green and gold." (p 37) All in all, GREAT! & where shd I file it in my library? Under poetry? Under literary studies? (I don't think I have such a section) Under occult? Perhaps all great works don't easily fit into any pre-existing categories. ...more |
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poetry
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it was amazing
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really liked it
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Nov 15, 2019
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it was amazing
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Jun 2018
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really liked it
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Oct 06, 2017
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Oct 26, 2017
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Jun 18, 2017
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Jul 14, 2017
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Nov 23, 2016
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Feb 26, 2016
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Aug 19, 2015
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it was amazing
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Sep 20, 2014
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really liked it
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Sep 08, 2014
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Sep 09, 2014
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| 4.08
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really liked it
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Jul 02, 2014
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it was amazing
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Jan 17, 2014
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Jan 27, 2014
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really liked it
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Dec 21, 2013
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Dec 28, 2013
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Jun 17, 2013
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Jun 18, 2013
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| 4.26
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it was amazing
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May 04, 2013
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May 06, 2013
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| 4.18
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it was amazing
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Feb 22, 2013
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Feb 22, 2013
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