tENTATIVELY, cONVENIENCE's Reviews > Love Songs

Written in faint pencil near the back of this bk I find a note from myself to myself: "IT'S A PLEASURE 2 OPEN LOVE SONGS WHEREVER & FIND WHATEVER". The press that published this bk, "pod", was created by Kirby Malone & Marshall Reese of Baltimore's Merzaum Collective. I had high hopes for them but their publishing career was short-lived. This was probably their largest project. I reckon that when most people think of love songs they think of songs w/ narrative lyrics written by one person & directed toward another. Things like: "I love you Billy Jean, way more than my mean machine".

This bk isn't like that. ALTHOUGH, after all the poems, there's a page that reads: "For Ellen; December 25, 1973". So, who knows? At any rate, these love songs may just not be directed from a MAN to a WOMAN, they may have an ironic collection title, they may be love songs for something inanimate - or language, they may be love songs of Bruce for himself.

Whatever the case may be, for me, they're full of the excitement of trying out different ways of putting language units together. There're instructions for tape or performance, there're drawings. I have "SONG NO 150" starred in the table of contents - perhaps b/c I liked the instructions for subvocalization. I have"P"s next to some in the table, perhaps thinking I might perform them. & while I was reading thru them again to write this I found myself immediately wanting to perform them rather than just read them silently. But did I? No. Or, perhaps, only in my head.

"LOVE SONG NO 22" has instructions for 3 performers the 1st of whom is to throw specified cutlery into a sink. It's poetry like this that engages me not so much in the words on the page but at least into imagining the words in the rm, the words off the page. They just don't write love songs like this anymore.