Saturday, August 28, 2004

fergit the code tawk, le's speak natchel

but sof', whut lurks up side John-Boyson's haid? phone call fum Perloff. direckives haf gotten loose. back t'haidquarters t'confab wif Silliman, as enny fool kin plainly see. someone leaked out th' rules but they got misread, cuss it all t' tarnation. when yo' stan' up at a poetry read, doesn't set down, as enny fool kin plainly see. stan' on an' on, this hyar is rule one. all other rules is rule one. af'er th' effeckive wo'ds haf been used, stop, doesn't keep usin' th' used ones. this hyar is rule one. it is only bein' nice. ajunts in th' field haf died fo' our on account o'. time fo' a noos flash: Ajunt Gioia brin's a posy wif secret instruckshuns. th' wawk is in th' field, cuss it all t' tarnation. th' field is about, as usual, ah reckon. readin' this hyar will hafta be rule one, too.

colour day Posted by Hello

Geo. Washington Posted by Hello

disturbance as king Posted by Hello

Friday, August 27, 2004

that translator reminds me of Really the Blues by Mezz Mezzrow. Mezz was on the edge of the jazz scene in the 40s or so. I never heard him play, but his autobiography is an energized thing. WCW even spotted it as a American classic of a sort. which I might dispute, but in the back Mezz serves to teach jive to the reader, and it's fascinating.
thank goodness (or badness, whatever) for people who want us to have enriching fun, namely a translator, check it OUT.
I dunno how Carl Annarummo got a picture of me, or why it's on his blog, but don't I look grand?

Behave by STEVE TILLS

aka California Rant 66 (dPress 2004, no mailing address, try www.dpress.net). I like something different. each rant is part of more rant. good enough. feet planted, sort of. 1st of these, #67, is in and around Ezra Pound. who continues, and we should with him, difficult as that may be. Rant 69 (some are left out) is for not to David Bromige. it sounds corrective, so you wonder about the preposition. I guess these poems are identified moments, with stance, and understood as such. an open process, which is always laudable. full declarations with a recognition of the impulse and the possible undermining thereof. we all have things to say, but we don't need permanent walls. it's okay to be equivocal. anyway, nice flavour.

Walden

I'm a localist, and Walden's right there. I remember the non-beautiful concrete wharf from which one could jump into the water. that's gone, which is better for the eyes, but let's not strike up the flag of Purity. a fence to define the territory of Walden, of course, it's a national treasure after all. a little less easy to accept is the fence around much of he pond at water level, and also preventing wandering into the woods in many places. I know this is to lessen the wear of use, but it does clang a bit against the conception of Walden that WALDEN brings. it's not like Walden hasn't been used a long time. ice houses, and a grand spa sort of place were features of Walden long ago. the commuter train may rattle the respectful visitor, but trains predate Thoreau's venture to the pond. when my legs were springier I used run to and around the pond. now it's impracticable because there are often so many stepping westward on the thin path, just not much room for galloping runners. and god forbid mountain bikes. the pure products of America go crazy, you bet. I used to bike to work, taking a long route so that I could glimpse the pond twice in the day, and feel that refreshment. catch it as the sun goes down. there's a facsimile hut, but it's up by the parking lot, where Thoreau used to park his Mazda. the actual hut site had a hell of a view, especially with fewer trees than now. beanfields, try to imagine them there now. and I frequently think of himself in his doorway, frying up johnnycakes, reading the Baghavad-Gita, writing in his journal. everything was worth seeing, worth invesigating even. I suppose romanticizing is a natural twitch. when I brush aside the ambitious crap, which I can't help, I see my work in that light, of just proceeding in the day with what I have. next stop, bodhisattva, and I'm only partly kidding. one has to respect one's own sense of hope and mission, even as one works to avoid its mastery.

current fad of facts

I'm kind of a fat guy meeting with the rules committee, if you must know. I'm a brick short of a license to kill, so I'm staying into something less apportioned. I'm meaning the need for exactitude, reaching certainty by the usual route. I've averaged out homespun with a bar tab. I'm not even interested in clumping the annoying one who shows too nervous, after all these years. that's not a problem, that's life. I'm not very social, as perhaps you'll see. other lists will just show other lists, otherwise nature takes hold. you've heard this before, etc.
yesterday was a rush that scooted me past reading, writing or not watching the Sox at Fenway, thus noted a piece by Tim Peterson re O'Hara but didn't read intake then. and I see that he must've corrected its mirage into something worth another look, after Bizarro is done.
I owe it all to you 10,000, each one that takes a word from where I wrote it.
but soft, what lurks up side Johnson's head? phone call from Perloff. directives have gotten loose. back to headquarters to confab with Silliman. someone leaked out the rules but they got misread. when you stand up at a poetry read, don't sit down. stand on and on, this is rule one. all other rules are rule one. after the effective words have been used, stop, don't keep using the used ones. this is rule one. it is only being nice. agents in the field have died for our since. time for a news flash: Agent Gioia brings a posy with secret instructions. the work is in the field. the field is about, as usual. reading this will have to be rule one, too.

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

hi, I'm teaching my career move, first with a response letter on Poetics concerning something obvious but it's my name on the line. next the dole comment there and there, my name amidst further names, into several namings. and I will be teaching my class everything concerning what you listen sometimes. I am bold even to say this in a mirage of poetry at function, but I just had to say.
but will I feel better about myself when I start adding comments to Ron Silliman's blog?
I wish to continue delighting in a world in which Ron Silliman and Kent Johnson, I forget which one of them is Beelzebub, acquire the song plus dance to inspire a generation and the poetics said generation must employ. I want to be in the heartburn of that feast, I want to be located somewhere near now, and all the radical embellishments of continuing in the social train of thought. basically, I want. I see a future in which everything that's present is accounted for.
Blogger's cranky today, crying for a little WD40.
both Tills and Murray mention Thoreau. I love Thoreau as a writer, as a persistent step around these parts, and as a moral voice, ggod damn it. and Walden too, the pond, held captive by Park Service admittedly much needed fences. visit his gravesite and you will see letters and other crap left by fans: Dear Henry, I'm wonderful too!!! Thoreau's attention is palpable, his basis sensible. tell me that aint poetic.
reading Inner Revolution (Shambala, I think (book not handy) 1998) by Robert Thurman. when I started this blog, I found that buddhism was my main topic. because buddhism itself was growing more important for me. a good long streak in which all I wanted to read was buddhist texts. that was, I realize, preparation for practice. and when I say practice, I mean meditating but not well and trying to take the lessons out of the books and into my life. sorry if this sounds like hokum. anyway, Thurman's book is a consideration of buddhism as an active answer to the world around. pointing to how buddhism can be political. buddhism's pretty simple, in that it sums up well with the 4 Noble Truths (I suppose most religions and philosophical systems can likewise be made simple). all the surrounding literature tries to get those 4 Truths across, likewise the practice of buddhism. I don't want to talk about it, I just want to see buddhism working. Thurman's book seeks to enliven buddhism to the political world we know. which is powerful. I can only say that reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (Thurman's translation) at the burial of Beth's father, meant something to us.
Steve Tills has an informative blog.
come to that, so does Steve Evans and
Chris Murray. all three will be glad to know that I know this.
okay, I'm still using the old poetics, which I guess I believe has served me well. when the realization hits that I'm doing it all wrong, that improvements have been made in the very conception of poetry and all the arts, that'll be very cool. until then, same old from AHB. sorry.
the amity continues! Kent Johnson and Ron Silliman worked thru the night (sans rulebook, alas) and were able to delineate a completely new poetics. I am sure I speak for everyone when I say that the chance to work within this new conceptual blandishment will be an excitement of untellable delight and importance. come the revolution, there will be no pencils!
I did, after all, write a post about George Butterick's Collected Poerms yesterday, but Blogger ate my scintillating. I don't want anyone to think I'm not trying.

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

BAD NEWS!!!

the Johnson-Silliman rulebook just floated off into space. I feel chill, lonely, broken. I may never write literature now.

latest info

Kent Johnson and Ron Silliman have begun talks to CHANGE LITERATURE as we know it. don't ask questions: do as they say. this is bigger than big.
I fear that Karl Merleau-Marcuse betook himself too heavily of the powers of ABBA. serious mojo at work there, not to be taken lightly.
I'm writing this entry from the top of Mount Olympus, where, I should say, the view's terrif.

it's about time

I just gave myself the award for Best Blog. Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair. I couldn't've done it without me.
Henry Gould states on his blog that he will not repeat not be reading Wordsworth at Wordsworth on saturday, 'our' reading. which leaves the task to me.

when oft to stream the delicate repose
and wending cloudlike o'er the rustic lea,
sweet Lucy, soft of breath and in fell throes,
performs an outdoor appendectomy

opportunity teaching

This fall instituted will lead a Paulo Freire, which will meet 11 Tuesdays in my South. Arrive lime flavoured garden during indoor drill thru intending to go.

Institute means faction, nonfaction, prosit, poet, wry cross-genre (and cross gander) including but not anything edgy to present that feels too rind of orange risky or sexy fustian or queer for academic. The buds are awful in the mountain boundary rating. The totally open-ended five people present a week, scheduling that the weak people usually bring in something less copies. For everybody, we critique it that longer pieces are also okay, but they need to be handed ahead of people. Each student typically gets time. Institute critiques the classes lots and lots. Personal attention takes place in my South, which comes complete.

Institute’s latest book, Pink’s Team, a collection of force fitting fiction, meuble memoir, and my memoiresque cat, was in June. Suspect thought’s press, dozens have daily read away. My vampire letters of University of Wisconsin teaches creative writing at SF State. Institute also taught at Institute. I'm the winner.

Institute you're interested about etc, you know anybody, please pass them. Past classes have quickly, if so you're interested. Treat an ounce with you liquor demon about a next time policing.

Thank doting, skip to my faction.

Monday, August 23, 2004

"Yet I don't see myself so much as reclusive as unfortunately faced with nothing to be reclusive from."--from a comment by Geof Huth on Ron Silliman's hitpoint enriched blog. Geof speaks specifically of the visual poetry non-scene, there being no hubs of likeminded. I guess I feel similarly, tho for me it's merely that I haven't pressed myself into the scene. do I really have to do that to be read? types are not men.

Sunday, August 22, 2004

16th section (of 18) of Digital Cellular Phone now up but please don't go there unless someone you respect tells you to

At The Beginning with AHB, the Langpo Experience

here’s the true story. in 1972, Barrett Watten came to Franconia College, in Franconia New Hampshire. this tiny ‘experimental’ hippie college sat on a mountainside just north of Franconia Notch, site of the geologic outcropping of stone called the Old Man in the Mountains (rest in pieces). legendary poet Robert Grenier (pre-legend) taught at this college, using strange writings by such writers as Charles Olson, Gertrude Stein, Louis Zukofsky to bedazzle and confuse youthful students of the so called poetic art. Barrett came to visit Robert, ostensibly, as my investigations determined, to develop the 3rd issue of This. a buzz flickered thru the tiny school’s keen community of poets, all ten of them. Anselm Hollo, at another time, visited our school, tho I caught only a glimpse of him, as he smoked his thin cigar. Larry Eigner had visited, even to sit with us round a cafeteria table and talk poetry. I knew thru all these machinations and others (such as Robert posting his index card poems on a hallway wall) that something was ‘up’. Barrett sat in on one of our classes, literally. in the corner, coolly, not saying anything. he did not betray his mission. sources indicated, however, that there was more going on than two fellow experimental poets meeting in the deep places of New Hampshire, much more. secret meetings between these two powerhouse post-modernist influences were in the books. their plans to change the face of literature was in process. there was no way I could access these meetings, for my cover was as a common semi-serious student as much concerned with Quicksilver Messenger Service (they would never, alas, top their “Happy Trails” album) as I was with poems of one word—e.g. lighght–perhaps even more so. luckily I was able to, let us say, get wind of a few facts. having written a publishable poem of a certain experimental sort, I’d worked my way into a position of trust amongst the inner sanctum. This 3 would even have a place for me! and I was trusted enough to have dinner with visiting important poet John Ashbery at Grenier’s post-modern headquarters, and being introduced (three times) to poet-hero Robert Creeley at a post reading party. people, I was there at the beginning!!! the furtive joys of a nEw WritiNG were being sown. the bloody revolt against mainstream poetry, the sanctity of certification thru viable academic dialogue, the scads of really dope books written by feverish undergrads with awesome degrees on their minds were bringing avant garde (or is that avant grade?) back into the present where we can see it: all 'this' had yet to happen at this point in time. but the world was turning. yes, and it was my good fortune not to get reviewed or noticed or published or whatever till years and years later I decided, what the fuck, I’ll just use this internet shit to get my work before a public that, like, well, may or may not care that much, but anyway, you know, here it is and all…