this is wicked cool. I've done this a little bit on a small scale, rubbing credit cards and coins and other embossed/engraved items. it is fascinating enough to see what comes up. I can see where one can make some neat images with this method. and Chirot's quest just seems so cool. thanks, Geof, for pointing this out. Geof's blog is a trememdous resource. he steadfastly refers to these visual creations as poems, which forces a redefinition of the term. or better still, an undefinition of poetry.

I was up at dawn this morn and lord but the sun shone. it's been a while, several weeks perhaps, since the sun was so visible. I took maybe 300 pix of this rare event. till midday, nary a cloud, after that a wondrous buildup of cumulous, piles of them. I decided that holding the camera still may effect the clarity of the resultant picture, may even make for "focused" pictures, and, you know, it just might work. don't worry, I still consider the blurry picture my idiom, so there will continue to be plenty of them. and now that I've started tweaking pictures, you can be assured that every one of my pictures will be arty. that's a guarantee from AHB!!!

joni mitchell 

glow 

Tim can't be referring to me because I am already on record that I don't like poetry. I don't quote poetry much because it doesn't have that utility for me. my critical element is basically nervy. poetry is not a thing beyond me. poetry is interpretive. it's not the rock on the ground, or the love in me, but the nerve endings dealing with those things. and sharing that. poetry is intrinsic to my confusion. cripes, now I am explaining what poetry is. my dislike for poetry stems from my difficulty with that confusion in which I find myself. I disliked poetry from the start, but my dislike doesn't account for my persistence with poetry. thus the rub, the interesting part. I like the attempt to remain within that confusion (which Keats articulates so well, go read Keats). over the years, I recognized an excitement in words that I read, and sometimes in words that I wrote, and that was poetry for me. over time, I came to identify places of excitement, like knowing where to find an interesting bird. these occasions are spontaneous, it seems, and unpredictable, but at least I could say here it is. or here it is. or here it is? it is not just a matter of tying flashing things together, like George Lucas and his Hollywood ilk do. I've read and I've written a certain amount of poetry as in poetry as in poetry as in what I think I mean. something keeps me going in both attempts. I can't explain better, and don't even wish to. don't nobody ask me the hard questions anymore.

I thougth I included this blog in my list but hadn't, more Leftwich, Lowe, and so on.... great words and images here.

Erin down the road 

expert pillow photo 

sun tree 

Expoetical updated. to me, such a list as this is quite interesting, even without consideration of my alphabetizing abilities. there's a lot of choice represented in this list, and indications of my taste, but also many books that just accrued, or that I haven't even read.

art movement 

spoon business 

Great Meadow 

David Hess warns then unwarns then sorta warns even so. I don't think these general interests in certain writers at certain times are fads, but too much agreement is stultifying. personally, I'm waiting to find out why Harryette Mullen is spoken of so often. why latch onto her work particularly, as distinguished from _____. the canon can be pushy, in the sense that folks in the 50s and 60s might've felt bullied by Ginsberg or Olson. with living writers, the push of their work can be linked to personal charisma or some social factor (I don't mean the Jorie effect). I'm not writing off Mullen, but her work hasn't stopped me in my path as I glean it has with others. I could posit other names instead of Mullen. sometimes it is good just to be disagreeable. I mean I want to be a savvy critical reader, I just don't want to get caught in a crowd.

elegy such a delicate thing. here with Stephen Vincent's poem a voice speaks carefully, in the emotion, not using it. it does read to be read aloud. by the ocean.

more Jukka, wih friends.

still posting at Three Spot.

Smelron flies in, I wasted the best years!
Detergent expert backs away.
Notable scheme fence cough, Smelron beyond notice.
Bushcosh frantic in a bite.
Let's elope, they say to each other.
This country is a dynamo, they agree.

Streets go everywhere, and all the time, says Smelron.
Bushcosh laughs that laugh

In time, there will be no time.

pursuant to string 

Ohio State University will be taking my archive material as soon as I tape up the boxes and send them. it's 10 boxes of notebooks and mostly typescript papers. in atrocious order, at this point, tho I started dating my work early on. give them that much of a clue. I have no interest in looking at the stuff. it's not necessarily all bad stuff. but I had a poetry rebirth in 1999, it's hard to count work before that. this represents 10 fewer boxes to move when we move.

I'll be impressing people with my Leo charm today, so hold onto your collective hats.

familiar puddle 

wisteria chimney 

grape hyacinth 

butterfly icon fever 

yeast of Eden 

wow, neat collage!

another writin' project. it's an experiment. I'd like to write 3 pages a day, but that won't happen.

Mayhew poll

1.What is your sense of the poetic tradition? How far back does your particular historical sense range? What defines your tradition? Nationality, language, aesthetic posture? What aspect of your poetic idiolect or tradition most distinguishes you from your closest poetic collaborators?

I think public school imprinted on me the idea that the poetic tradition began with the English Romantics. who I did not read until I was in my early 20s. I think of poetry as a primal force of sorts, somewhat in the sense of Graves' White Goddess. my historical sense, then, ranges pretty far back, but I can't claim to be well read in ancient words. I do not trust translation so my tradition rests mainly in English. which is not to say that I haven't read translations. I have futzed my way in works in French, Spanish and German, plus old and middle English. I am not a scholar, I write more than I read. I'm not sure what aesthetic posture means. that romantic picture of the English Romantics was one I had to beat off (tuberculosis as a hobby and nympholepsy). I don't know what or who my closest poetic collaborator might be. I have read Olson more deeply than any other poet but I don't know how much that shows in my work. long ago Robert Grenier suggested that I read O'Hara and Koch, which seems very apt.

2. How would you define contemporary poetic practice? (Say, the typical poem that would be published alonside one of your in a magazine where you are published.) How does this practice relate to the tradition defined above? Does poetry of the "past" (however you define the past for these purposes) occupy a different corner of your mind?

I wouldn't define contemporary poetic practice, that's Ron Silliman's job, haha. a lot of things are going on, viable diversity. methods of production have changed greatly, likewise methods of publication. I think there's a different sensibility towards the arts now, in which the formailities are more personally defined rather than imposed. "past" poetry occupies the same part of my mind as contemporary.

3. Whom, among poets you most admire, do you understand least? What is hindering a greater understanding of this poet?

Pound's lucidity and craziness, together, boggle and worry me. Zukofsky, Stein, Dickinson all challenge me because they demand a patience that I can rarely rouse. I see a hermetic quality to their writing (differently expressed) that I greatly respect but which isn't easy for me to penetrate.

4. Are we over-invested in poetic "hero worship"? Is it necessary to have a poetic "pantheon"? How does the poetic pantheon relate to the notion of an academic "canon"? Are they mirror opposites, rivals?

I think I've rid myself of heroes but I think I needed them when I was younger. I think it is wise to let go the heroes. the poetic pantheon perhaps is another matter. I regard that as a necessity: those writers who still bring the bacon. the poetic pantheon is personal. the academic canon provides road markers, which are good to check out tho they might be wrong. I mean, it's fine that Harold Bloom exists to provide canon advice, but I reserve the right to consider him a goofypants. we need both the canon and the pantheon, and the strength to break from both.

5. Is "total absorption in poetry" benign? How about "poetry as a way of life"?

such an absorption, if it exists, wouldn't be benign in my life. and yet, poetry is my discipline. it's the lantern I use on my way.

6. Do you see poetry as a part of a larger "literature," or is poetry itself the more capacious categtory?

the categories blur, and I really have no definition of poetry. but the interesting stuff is poetry.

7. Are humor, irony, and wit (in whatever combination) a sine qua non? Or conversely, is humor a defense mechanism that more often than not protects us from what we really want to say?

not sure what this question asks. humour, irony and wit can say something but, like with poetry, what is said is less interesting than how.

8. Is the poem the thing, or the larger poetic project?

the larger poetic project. a single poem is like building a birdhouse. the continuing process is what interests me.

9. What is the single most significant thing anyone has ever said about poetry?

I don't know, but I'd like to hear.

10. Which of these questions asks you to define yourself along lines of division not of your own making, in the most irksome way? How close do these questions come to the way in which you habitually think about poetry? What other question would you add to this list?

christ this whole thing was tough. defining poetic practice is the most irksome, I guess. only question 8 came easy. these questions are much more external than I am given to.

we 3 plus Erin's friend saw Revenge of the Sith. it's just a movie. it was visual, hyperkinetic, wanting. whenever Natalie Portman was on screen, it was okay to go get popcorn. not a slur on her, but the words she was given to say. George Lucas versus do I have to. welcome to movies, your world. it always bothered me that a Muppet (voiced by Miss Piggy) was a central character in this malarkey. I thought the light sabre battles were stupid just as I thought the Matrix battles were. flash flash no rules flash. I would just as soon they eschew plot and just show the worlds, with rockets flittering about and all that. the demand that I care about the characters is pretty presumptuous. if Lucas left it at nerve candy, well and good. it is well and good enough as it is, it was entertaining enough. just not worth much discussion.

Jonathan Mayhew's poetry poll outdoes the Fulcrum one by a good several leagues. I grok them, whereas, etc. Jack Kimball and Gary Sullivan answer JM valiantly, links supplied by himself. perhaps I'll answer the poll myself, when less tired (tired's a constant lately, running on adrenalin, of which, I fear, there's a limited supply)(sadness eats adrenalin). I think I would, like Jack, cite Pound as the poet who I admire who I understand least. there's such lucidity in Pound's criticism, and in the Cantos, and then... omne is forced to add it all up, and it just don't go. Jonathan's poll questions show a worthy lucidity themselves. I'd like to compare his poll with Fulcrums's, because F's questions are perfectly unrespondable by my lights, whereas JM's questions set things going.

another Jim Leftwich blog. his work fascinates me.

Nosferatu's dining room 

interested 

pole 

re Commentville: texture is more interesting than statement. I wonder why poets resort to statementalism so much. the Poetics list died on the declamatory wings of statementalists.

I make nothing whatever of these questions that Fulcrum posed to Ron Silliman. first of all, they're loaded, or at least expectant. hopeful of creating a buzz. I guess they have, and well enough: Fulcrum's a good pub. for myself, tho, what joy I get from poetry doesn't derive from the logic that these questions spring from. does yours? I guess we can agree to disagree, just don't bore me. I think (god knows I can't be sure) that I was drawn to poetry specifically because it wasn't of such logical basis as these questions plangently purport. these questions belong in the explain-jokes category. William Blake would make a perfect hash (kick ass!!!) of these questions, and well he should. building a corral around a leaping antelope, or some such figure to suggest the bland attempts to restrict the excilient. and by the way, the commentary to Ron's post is pestilential: wow to the max how bad.

American ginger 

rain 

I'm not sure Ron Silliman's step to eliminate some of the crapoo from his comments boxes will get the job done. I don't blame him for the low rent commentary that associates itself with his posts. his thoughtfulness (even when he's 'out of it') deserves better. the caustic anonymous comments are loserville, of course, and the smarmy compliments bite the big one. the ones that don't relate to the post in question are annoying. attempts at cleverness are best done on your own patch, maybe? ripostes and repartee represent diminishing return, which the writers of same never realize. folks, please have some sense of the medium in which you are working! alas and alack. Ron's comments field is a faked up community. a network, at best, with too many associated gropers. Ron's a lodestone causing chemical changes in the environment, so that people react in curious fashion. that Ron has maintained a non-low profile despite bearing a big red L on his chest says something positive about him. I can almost understand the attitude Bruce Andrews seems to have, tho maybe he's just an a-hole. Perloff, I surmise, suffers from Head of the Dept. syndrome, but that's just a guess. not to characterize overly but what the heck. Silliman's posts are so definitive that they invite comment, but the weakness of the comments box medium, and the kind of knuckleheads attracted to it, syphons a lot of potential from dialogue. Ron doesn't need the comments box like the commenters largely do.