Tom Beckett on his blog mentions his minimalist preference. true enough in his writing, which is spare, with short careful lines. Niedecker, Corman, Grenier come to mind as minimalists of differing sorts. Tom describes the attention he gives each word. I guess I write by the sentence, or at least the line or phrase: clumps. I think of Beckett as writing slowly, carefully. I do not do that, not like that. I charge forward quickly, hoping not to get in he way. I have trained myself to accept the oddities that arise. this aim differs little from what Tom seeks, but I utilize a different method of reaching that place than does Tom. I almost align with the Beats. almost. or with Whitman. I learned a useful sense of disruption and indirection from the Language Poeticists. ways of subverting the ego noise. that's where the almost comes in, the attempt to sneal by the guardians. the new New Yuk poets, streaming O'Hara, and Koch, play too heavily on the persona, id est Frank O's persona. their language is conscious commodity, (too) thoughtfully well-spent. Tom Beckett doesn't invest with that samenessness of the performing 'I'. he backs off from that. Jordan Davis, for instance, tends toward glib. have you ever sensed that? he could usefully rethink his millions. I say this aware of my own warts, also in relation to Tom Beckett. Jordan still holds onto the reins. Tom Beckett has grown into a loving trust. screw me for saying this.

just stuck some pictures over to R&S. not great scans, and the pix are small, but it's a cool addition to theBlog exp.

the promotion is thick today!

Henry Gould mentioned it on his blog, so I should too. on my blog, that is. he and I will be reading together at Wordsworth next month. part of Jim Behrle's reading series there in Hahvad Squayah. I'm excited.

half past promo time

for the first time, I went to SPD and searched for MY book, namely Simple Theory, the book you've been meaning to get. and there is it for all life, like a real book that you could, you know, order. in fact, I'm sure there is nothing easier than hitting that add to cart button, and having a copy shipped to your personal domicile. it's a real book, I kid you not.

2 more links:

Geoff Huth blog, critical views of visual work, G Huth

David Daniels, stunning visual poetry Gates of Paradise

I'm not on the cutting edge of this stuff, just making sure no one misses out

Highlights

got an A- on source paper about Thurber and Benchley in 7th grade (bad bibliography brought grade down)
got 3rd place and a ribbon in 50 yard dash
got 2nd place in 880
got an A in the course that was mainly about Paulo Freire
long poem published by Robert Grenier
ran around Newfound Lake
ran 10 miles to work at 10 below
made a loaf of bread worth photographing
saw De Danann on their 1st US tour

of course, poetry is the opiate of the college student

ever notice when Nada or Kasey use the word 'I', they mean themselves and not me? I think this is intentional. and James Meetze, the Brutal Kittens guy, he always seems to mention people he knows, people I often don't know or haven't met. I don't like to use the word conspiracy because it is hard to spell right, but...

I'm so powerful, give me blank to fill, reaches word, past, looks over the news and settles on something, continues, proves nothing but beautifully, almost organized, hasn't bothered, need a new Silliman (I am sorry to say), works out, touches, not really effective, diffident posies, downturn market uproar, don't even need X (him!!!), polished flies out the window, you're cheating, loses network charges, figures, cuffs, oh well, wait, time for, reading, written, look and look and look... people...

if you can beat the other one with adverbs, you are doing pretty fuckin' great.

question de jour

which poetry cartel, by the bye, do you consider the most 'interesting'?

I've decided to honour Eileen Tabios by placing her blog in my links list. I hope she can deal with the added traffic that this bold move will generate.

language is a great place to start, but not to stick in.

I've added two blogs to my list of AHB approved sites. no monies, I should declare, were collected by me in conferring this honour. I want to make it clear that I am not in the pocket of the big Poetry Cartels.

one blog is that of Karl Merleau-Marcuse, qui visited my blog and even commented sur a post the day other. why would anyone comment? I like his wound up language.

the other blog is Tim Peterson's. I saw my blog on his links list and thought I ought to share my huge traffic. I found myself reading his blog anyway, so the fit fits.

added a series of poems to my site: On Green Slope. written last fall on Rockets&Sentries, but which commended themselves as a discrete thingie. a prob I have is that a great deal of my work, archival, is ensconced on a computer that I can't easily access. and back up seems to've disappeared like GWB down the bunny hole.

and furthermore... I have a Plath collection, not yet read. a note by Hughes states that she finished, one way or tother, almost everything she started. I don't get that sense of craft in poetry anymore. in unrhymed, unmetred poetry, it is hard to figure exactly what the craft is. for myself, e'en tho I often break grammatical rules, I keep Strunk and White in my head. that's my craft. instead of metre, that is, I'm using The Sentence as measure. Plath is probably worrying the imagery. I don't rewrite a great deal, figuring the machine is largely what it is. I can oil and buff the poem a bit, but radical changes aren't going to help. I like Dickinson's method, with the fascicles she made. by binding the poems, she must've been thinking at least partly in terms of finished works. but she addended alternate word choices. which makes me think of hypertext, where alternative readings are built in.

also reading Anne Sexton and Kenneth Koch. Sexton has craft, being tuned to sound. I believe she can write a strong sentence, which is not to be assumed of all poets. her weather reports pall for me, however. dark and gloomy, okay doke. it seems like the best value to her work is seed for studying cultural mores. whoop, but I mean, she's read as someone in the cultural crux. one can do that with Dickinson or Woolf, but you can't stop there. I labour to read her work. Koch is ostensibly interesting. it is his effort to be interesting. I can think of a batch of New Yorkish poets who seem to derive from his example. he is keen to effect. I found myself (I haven't read Koch in a long time) tiring with his poetry. read a couple and put the book down. poems that are (or at least seem to be) discrete cut from the continuum don't stay with me, I guess. O'Hara's poetry seems part of a flow.

reading Strindberg, tho I haven't managed to get far yet. from his memoirs, Inferno. guess he was an intense guy. makes me think of Baudelaire's weariness. I love the picture of him on the cover of the book, dark intense eyes, hair wild. someone who can intellectually appreciate anarchism, altho, like most of us, he expresses this strictly in the parlour.

Blogger et several posts of mine, just so you know
(but I aint agitated

I want to know
more about
insane in the
membrane
perhaps you
could direct
me to appropriate
resources
(and hum along
with the tune

newer brutalism than that brutalism but admittedly not the newest brutalism. hello, I am from power me, adopted inference along sretches of sand.

John Bennett posted this to Wryting-l:

The font for Johnee's Scrawlphabet is available for free download - at
least as a test to see if it works - This is my "scrawl" handwriting as a
complete True Type font, available for Windows or Mac. Check it out at:

Luna Bisonte Prods

The font was created by Jim Wiese, to whom I owe many thanks indeed! It is
a compressed file, and you'll need "Stuffit" to uncompress it. You can get
a free Stuffit if you need it by searching "stuffit" on the net.

Enjoy! And let me know how it works (and send me the results!)

John

* * *

John's scrawl is totally that, and lovely in its fluid oddity. I have downloaded fonts at times, a shitload exists to choose from (just Google up the magic phrase free fonts).fun to use other than Times Roman and Courier New.

"the blind world
whose sockets are stuffed
with suns"--Lanny Quarles

don't it figger: as soon as I announce the great smiley opportunity, the ad is gone. isn't that depressing? I imagine if you continue going to my site (pretend you are visiting Ron Silliman's blog, where everything you read is important), the ad will reappear. here's my site: more guff. good luck!!!!!

big news at my writing site: an ad for 10,000 animated smileys! holy shit, think of the rush of imagination that that comprises! I mean go ahead: think!!! and they are NOT just cute, they transmit meaning, with colourful vigour, and a dash of humour. hahaha, I luv 'em! you will definitely want to transport yourself to my site, then to this smiley site. I sincerely hope that you find some super wonderful smileys that express your personality and which you and your personal friends, family and co-workers can all enjoy, laughing heartily at the goodnatured fun of it all!!!

since last August I've posted 526 pieces to Rockets and Sentries. I'm impressed, you don't have to be. with about 5 exceptions, they are written in the blog box. I should but haven't saved them to disk. it has been an interesting project for me.

I mentioned a review I read by Meredith Quartermain that ranin the Capilano Review. land o' Goshen, it also appears in Jacket: thus go to it