I took the dog out around 6:30 this morn (en Francais, il est un chien!!!). echoing nearby was a siren. then an amplified voice. and I really thought for a moment, it was some SWAT action. as if. someone's alarm had gone off. maybe a quarter mile away as crow flies. 1st the police siren, then the voice would come in:

BURGLARY! BURGLARY! BURGLARY!
you are trespassing in an area
protected by a security system

with exhortations to absquatulate post haste. the voice was firm, yet with an underlying franticness. I can imagine this guy huddled in his safe room (or under his bed), speaking into the microphone: go away now or we, all ten, I mean fifteen, of us will deal with you before the police get here. right guys? um we're all black belts, too, by the way. we moseyed on for 15 or so minutes then saw two police cars leave the station area speeding towards the alarm. less than 5 minutes later, they drove back to their half eaten doughnuts, and the alarm continued warning. we wandered out of hearing but it must've been 1/2 an hour of that warning before it was curtailed. Lew Welch writes in a letter I think of being on a winery tour when the guide shouted a warning to someone who was close to falling into a vat. and Welch says he would like that same dire immediacy in his writing. when alarms go off, we get an adrenalin jolt. but as they persist, it's just noise. I get what Welch means, it's the imperative that he seeks. when the word quality, its issuance (can I use that word?), is undeniable. not the message, but the word so alive in its wordness. if a miscreant or culprit actually broke into the building, the first vocal warning would dismay. the repetitions only provide guidance that little time remains to do pronto whatever made b & e worth attempting.

Fox News has O'Reilly vs Andrews available on their website. the clip wouldn't work for me yesterday but today I got thru. can't really recommend that you perseverate in a similar quest: O'Reilly's just awful. well, unless you bear a special appreciation for phlegm wads. there's little difference between him and Colbert, except that Colbert's thinking all the time whereas O'Reilly merely gestures the mighty right. he's all fustian but I guess you already know that. his discussions aren't interchange, they're just interjection. schmuck bomb boolean duality, my way or the highway. I couldn't last the whole clip.

in Jacket 30, David J.Alworth apes his professors using Robert Fitterman's Metropolis XXX as victim. crikey, is the aim to make poetry seem no fun at all? did someone tell him to use the word rebarative in his essay (and the adverbial form, as well)? he appears to have read around, is familiar with the lay of the poetic land, but, apparently not having pleasure as a measure for his reading experience, he just agitates about how to read the book. try one word at a time, or perhaps groupings, till you reach the point of the primal language's life. treat the poem as a path or even an experience. is it okay for me to set up such a picture? as a poem, as any text, as a progression into substance? I know I laughed when Fitterman read from the book, and I laughed when I read by my lonesome, so why does Alworth consider the book difficult, and I think by that he means recondite? Alworth obsesses on the idea of close reading, which I think may be a flinch. close reading... is that meaningful? it sounds like a challenge for the work to fit in a box. he spent 2 sentences to box up flarf, inappropriate and googling: c'est ca. taxonomy and limitation. I hate--ooo strong word--this kind of foam rubber criticism, spongy and repelling.

James Cook and Rick Royer read for Demolicious Series, 2pm Sunday, Cambridge. I think we can schedule it.

just got Cousins by Alli Warren (Lame House Press 2006). as always with new books, I want to express the 1st excitement and discovery. just a shine on the surface. this, the I assume self-published Hounds, and the Faux/e-book Yoke, plus blog, are the sum of my Alli Warren reading experience. I recommend all highly. the poetry locates in some free-spinning yet thoughtful warmth. free-spinning as in a jumbly expression, as if the final step in the writing were to put the poem in the dryer and let the forces comfortably wrinkle it up. not to sound too whack or facetious. does the picture of graceful stumbling help? these are my impressions as I read. the book's colourful brick-and-windows cover directs a stunning presence to the eye. the poems subtly follow suit. both the 1st and last poem in this slim chap is titled "My Factless Autobiography". that's not detachment, I infer, but deviation from distraction. there's thinking in these poems, calmly. I take this book as a single work, and just as long as it had ought to be, but I look forward to longer works, greater collections. I have #58 out of 100. visit here for your number.

Rodney Koeneke speaks en blog.

I found a book at the library called Spunk and Bite by Arthur Plotnik. it essentially answers Strunk and White. I like Strunk and White, and periodically reread it. it is concise. this concision comes by way of rules, which can be taken wrongly, but I appreciate having the goods laid out quickly. as Plotnik points out, White breaks the rules all the time. so do I. I like having a sense of firmness in my head concerning writing. that is, a measure, even if I ignore or play against this measure. I don't know if I can make an exact correlation of weak prose means weak poetry, that is, if a poet can't write decent prose, the poetry may lack something as well. by whatever means one writes poetry, one wants to see a tightness, because a poem is more than a collection of words, it's a machine or entity in which its component words are tightly attached together. monolithic maybe... anyway, I think it is okay to refresh my grammar occasionally. Plotnik's book nicely balances Strunk and Whites formidable decrees. thought you'd like to know. I mean, think of Barrett Watten's crit writing with some life in it...

cool photos by Peter Ciccariello, who also has a blog for his digital artwork here. I particularly like this one. I don't do a great deal of adjusting my pictures but if I thought in terms of the printed picture, I would do more. right now, I just hope there's some presence in the images. I have yet to print out a photo on good paper because I've yet to commit to photography to that extent. I will someday, when time and money.

as I walked the dog today I noticed a flock of starlings rushing thru the air. they headed directly towards a large oak, i. e. 'the scene', and settled in the treetop. the birds kept pouring in, until that first batch of birds, with a Malthusian inspiration, uproosted themselves away towards another tree/scene. the flow continued for a good 60 seconds with only brief breaks. I thought, whoa! that's a lot of contemporary poets! they were all, of course, voicing their starling opinions simultaneously. I don't speak starling but so much chatter must reach babelian levels just by sheer numbers. anyway, the contemporary starlings traveled on, then all was quiet, and peaceful.

Kasey Mohammad posted this link to the Bay Poetics discussion blog. nt really a discussion, it is Tom Orange's collation of commentary on the anthology Bay Poetics (Faux Press 2006). I like the idea of a presentation of different views (even mine are included, scraped from this very receptacle that you read now). the anthology is a particularly good subject for such treatment, being, what, a palimpsest or multiplicity. it has its manyness for one to sift thru. the blog, by being there, suggests an alternative to bouncing off to the next book, i. e., sticking with it. it hasn't the poetics intent of New American Poetry, but it is a substantial something that had ought to have a large audience. which almost leads me to wonder what is this generation's Howl or Cantos (poem everyone reads). I said it almost leads me to wonder. my comments used the occasion to consider poetry scene, Boston having its difficulties in that arena, whereas the Bay area. and I should reiterate that Stephanie Young is a reckon withable force, having edited this anthology, and writ the lovely Telling the Future Off (Tougher Disguises 2005), 2 awesome recent additions to the world as we know it. if she can play the solo for Freebird, well, we've got a trifecta. rock on.

sunday we drove around exurbanly. we came to a railroad crossing just as the gates lowered. a guy stood in the street with a camera. the train proved to be a freight rather than the more usual commuter. the guy was taking pictures. I realized I had a camera, so I took pictures of him. here's the link to my Flickr proof. he wasn't the only one who apparently knew the scheduled visit of this train, as several others also stood there waiting and watching. trains do kind of excite me. one regularly passes Walden Pond. rather than feel like an intrusion, it seems like another natural creature of the woods. and if it don't seem fit to have trains buzzing Walden, a train first came thru there a year before Thoreau went to Walden. file this under easily amused, I guess.

Erin got a chance to do lighting for a local play group. no experience needed. he liked doing it well enough to commit to doing more, even if it means missing one or two Halloween parties (at least he went to one last night, as a 6'5" ninja elf!!! (great costume, and he had the 6'5" part down pat)). we arrived to pick him up early, and watched the tail end of the production. Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. I don't know who this production group is, but it's professional to the degree that even Erin will get a little money. when we came in, standing in the doorway, actually, 2 characters were talking. then they started singing. which is standard for musicals but always seems so odd (I think of that character in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who wants to burst into song but his father always clamps down). I don't know why I assumed they would sing flat, but they didn't. a pianist played live backstage but it still seemed a hearty trick to sing in such circs, especially as the music isn't all that catchy. I barely get drama and definitely don't get musicals. I mean the one character is sitting disconsolately while the other sings advice. can't... wraop... around... that... I don't know the play but it is something of a collision between 4 fairy tales. the wife of the giant that Jack slew has come for revenge, and there's Cinderella, Rapunzel and what all. at one point, Prince Charming comes in from the back of the hall near where we eventually sat, singing grandly. it's all rather alarming for my delicate sensibilty. a nice camraderie amongst the troupe, and the director called out the lightning folks or a good job. Erin was in charge of a tracking spotlight. I don't know what sort of set, if any, the production will have. I once saw a bare bones production of The Magic Flute, with 3 musicians playing onstage, costumes but no set, and much of the action occurred thru out the audience. that worked well. I also saw Nutcracker long ago, and it is impressive, even to say magical, to see all that theatrical whizbang.

I found Led Zep's Moby Dick (live version) on Limewire. came with the comment, best drum solo ever!!!. well, whatever. took me a while to appreciate Bonham. the contrast of his precision, and JP Jones's, with the looseness of Plant and Page (call it sloppiness for Jimmy), made it seem like Bonham was off the beat. he aint. he sometimes tries to put too much in fills, which can be impressive but also distracts, but his beat is rock hard. "Moby Dick" is like Cream's "Toad", with a ripping rock guitar intro then the band walks away as the drummer shows off. I can't imagine Elvin Jones making such a mess of things. jumping from one rhythmic bit to another, no cohesion. Bonham's impressive, I'll admit, but it's still largely boring. it's nice when he starts hitting the drums with his hands. I remember in high school, someone was crowing about the Zep concert the night before. he couldn't get over that Bonham used his hands. that was enough for him. reminds me of whatever beer commercial, which bespoke the virtue of the beer as being that it's cold. not cold brewed or something like that, just cold. as if that were an intrinsic of the beer. anyway, Bonham used a monster drum kit. which always seems like a bit of baloney. I remember seeing Gene Krupa on tv, soon before he died I think. he had 5 or 6 cymbals, including one maybe 5" across. imagine that. I think you need only so much precision when yo're basically making noise. you listen to his work with Benny Goodman (I used to listen to Live at Carnegie with my father), and his drive is apparent thru out. Bonham's solo lacks drive, he's too busy shifting gears. drum solos always seem like a bone for the cheap seats. my memory of Ginger Baker was of his drubbing 20 minute solos (I saw 2 in one night at a Cream concert, yawn), but listening to some Cream stuff lately and his drumming is quite tasteful. just don't solo, bub. I suppose my favourite drummers are Elvin Jones and Dave Mattacks (of Fairport Convention). Jones makes such definite statements with his drums, give them such presence in the music. I saw a thing on PBS about Coltrane, and there's Jones saying how incredible Trane was. Jones has a faraway look in his eyes as if he can't believe what Trane did. coming from Jones, I mean. Mattack also gives incredible presence. what he doesn't do, the air between the beat, comes alive. that's good drumming, when the silence reverberates. so in conclusion, folks, rock on.

awesome photos by Brandon Downing at his site. architectural shapes and light framed as motion, etc.

contributor copy of Otoliths issue two, part one arrived yesterday, via Lulu.com. a very friendly gesture on Mark Young's part to supply this hard stuff for an online publication. it's a nice range of work. two reasons exist why you might consider purchasing one of the books published by Mark under the Otolith imprint (or is it an aegis?), to wit: the work is good AND you support an effort to get the work out. see, the world is working on ways to free up, isn't that it? hadn't we ought to lend a hand?

our trip to NYC, 2nd version, having lost the 1st to the evils of whatever the computer did (twasn't me, I swear). must give shout out to Bill Luoma's book, from The Figures, My Trip to New York, fine, skewed, earnest language. poetry, that is. yeah so lst version of this travelogue disappeared into the ether. such is writing, then you start again. see, Erin won tickets to the Digital Life conference in NYC. the odds may be greater NOT to win tickets, but it was an excuse to go somewhere. and we had Erin do the planning, just to go all parental upside him, what can be better than? I think it was his inspiration to bust down to Beth's mother's place in Jersey, where we could doss, and the next day take the train to the city. this all sounded green. redder aspects developed, insofar as Erin needed to attend Mock Trial class friday afternoon. and a last minute auto repair necessitated our leaving this area at 5:00, on a friday afternoon, at the beginning of a perfect weekend. begorrah! others, I'm guessing 17,003,001 people, thought they'd do something similar. so it was a slow haul on the Mass Pike and into Connecticut. leisurely dinner in Sturbridge. we reached Lakewood after midnight. we worked out that a train from Pt Pleasant could reach NYC properly and we made the train with 3 minutes to spare. Beth's mother came along. lovely trip. the pretty Jersey Shore and the marshes of NJ. it's funny how the delicate ecological niche of the marshes is zackly where is plunked the hydroelectric turbines and gas tanks of our national energy pastime. as I partake of that jolt, I can't complain, but it is an odd contrast. you see a lone fisherman in a boat, or dabbling ducks, in sight of intimations of massive power, incorporated. and you can believe there are gangland plantings here and there. fascinating. also to recall the evocations of Mark Helperin's Winter Tale, tho its whimsies paled on 2nd read. we reached Penn Station all comfy and right, then came out to the broad city where, according to Erin's best info, a shuttle bus would shuffle us to the Javits Center. we saw nothing of the kind. I betook me to the informational window down below, where I was pitilessly informed that no such shuttle was known about, and that no buses are down here. naught that I could say but, first removing the straw from my mouth, I shore thank you kindly ma'am. armed with that info, I returned to the street. there I enguired of some doormen, knowing full well that they must know all perinent infos. neither doorman knew of any shuttle buses but they'd heard of the Javits Center, even to the point of being able to direct an out of towner. so we walked the 6 blocks. this is only the 2nd time I'd been in NYC. the Javits Centre was your usual airy enormous urban show off place, and as such, right in my wheelhouse. I love such spaces. it was pretty crammed with people and confusion. we first of all had to refuel, especially the teenager in our midst. at the table next to where we ate sat a tableful of young women wearing short plaid skirts. took a few grinds of the gears before I realized that they were part of the show. we entered this show past an irritable gatekeeper who forthrightly advised exiters that they were using enterer's space. the tractor beam caught Erin immediately, and he disappeared into the crowd, tho he waited long enough to hear where we would meet eventually. the rest of us tepidly tiptoed in. it was loud as a throb, music and crowd noise. I was immediately overwhelmed, and like the rest, tired as tired (lack of sleep the night before). it was all just a trade show. as such, it really lacked. it mostly preyed on those wishing to be informed, or who wanted to buy something right away. the young women in plaid were a counter revolution. as were the 3rd echelon girl group (I think I'd heard their name before) who sat charmingly (or beseechingly) at one booth and signed autographs. they almost exuded glamour. I mean it wasn't like meeting Kevin Federline's wife but people seemed to be queuing up for something. there was a Miss Napster in attendence, and some other merchant had young women with purple hair performing something on the half hour, tho I never witnessed it. mostly us older generation just sat and rested our weary. several overheard conversations rested upon how the Mets and Cards played close friday then suddenly the Mets handed the game over. ten years ago, this show would have attracted 99% techo-geeks. now, it was a full cross section. 3/4 of the space was given over to gaming. the rest was for people into pictures, movies, phones, whatever. Microsoft, and supposedly so was Vista, was there but Macroapple wasn't. I was struck how toothsome a display of sleek colourful phones was. not for me, because I hardy do phones and aint looking for new ways to spend money, not to say music downloads and all the other etc aint got appeal. people looked and drooled. one site had karaoke. I saw 3 white guys doing "Insane in the Membrane", which seems like the dumbest of singalongs. "you must be insane / aint got no brain". rap, from my uncultured viewpoint, possesses a rhythm and touch that gets murdered by amateurs. what got me was seeing the man doing the boards for the performance singing along with the 3 guys. everybody now, "insane in the membrane / insane in the brain..." I also watched the tail end of a Dance Dance Revolution contest. a monitor flashes where to place your feet and you try to keep up. my only swag came from Verizon, a keychain with light and 2 cds with games. finally, we got Erin out, and headed for dinner. we found a shuttle bus, which dropped us at Penn Station. next door to Stage Door Deli was Tir na nOg, ah, land of the young. an Arsh pub. well, Arsh enough. I told the hostess a party of 4. she said 15 minutes. a waitress immediately came along and whisked Erin away (Beth and her mother trailed us). I looked at the hostess then followed. so we had a leisurely dinner. a couple of British pints under the belt. I knew Shanna Compton and Mike Magee were reading at the Bowery Poetry Club that day, and if I could have gotten there, I woulda. New York, New York!!! the bit about finding out where your train leaves 10 minutes before it leaves is nervous making, tho common. Beth asked an information person, who troubled to look up and tell us, before it was even posted on the board, which track we could find our train at. seemed like secret info. so we entrained and made it home. tra la. I love trains. my trip to Cambridge passes Walden Pond, and that thrills me every time. now today, we made it home.

I'm enjoying Stephanie Young's Telling the Future Off. the felicities are in the class of the best New York poets with surprising yet not jarring leaps. the humour doesn't romp (try David Larsen for rompishness) but lends a hand of warmth. the poems are sweet and serious without those qualities being at odds. there's also a generous sense of space, an openness that can be tender, angry, sad. very fine work.

both Blogger and Hello have given me crap whilst trying to upload pictures so now I try my friend flickr.

quickly to note Stephanie Young's use of 1st person plural. I use it a lot as well. for me, it avoids that maelstrom of 'I'. 1st person singular tempts a certain dull storytelling urge. which is not to say many fine poems aren't writ in it, you just have to watch the potholes. furthermore, there's a warmth to 1st person plural that I aspire to. and Young has that warmth. mixed with the subtle skew of her imagination and humour, her poems reveal an intimacy that doesn't carry intimations of secretiveness.

we gave Erin a sample of the CLEP test for English and he didn't do well. CLEP = College Level Entrance Program and is a way for homeschoolers to get credits. Erin writes really well, naturally. I mean he has a distinctive, direct voice and ease. he complaiend that the test didn't make sense. Erin hasn't taken a lot of tests, and that can be telling. I decided t try the same test. the test was confusing. quite a few qustions offered 5 choices of which none seemed ossibly right. I missed 25 out of a 100 questions. I wonder about the whizbangs who create these tests. I don't pretend to be grammatical brilliant, tho most of my non-standard usage is intentional and I know what I am doing. but I take the matter of writing seriously, and have studied it and practiced it. I try to use English in an adventuresome way, as does Erin, as do many (not all) writers. such adventure seems antithetical to what CLEP's program is. yet CLEP doesn't seem to be aiming for clarity. poop on them.

we watched a show on Isaac Newton last week, made us want to get Principia. Erin's a bit more scientifically minded than Beth or me but we all three have interest in that direction. Barnes & Noble let us down concerning Principia (we didn't want to pay text book prices, yikes), and Opticks as well, so I tried Amazon. both books were available in their used book round up. I dunno what up with B&N regarding Newton, because it turns out that Principia is published by Dover in an inexpensive edition and I've gotten several books by the cheapo pub dom publisher that published Opticks. both copies were in new condition, too. anyway, I took advantage of this raid on Amazon to get Telling the Future Off by Stephanie Young (Tougher Disguises 2005). I'm pretty sure she's the real thing. I mean I've gotten away from excoriating what aint so real--let it moulder, sez I--but the urge to go ahem and point out a leaning towards tripe does build up at times. I trust Young, and I don't say that lightly or often. so I look forward to reading a full book by her. tra la.

The Difficulties, edited by Tom Beckett, was one of the best guerilla press pubs that I ran into in the 80s. Tom has issues of the David Bromige issue available which I heartily recommend. doesn't get old.

Best American Poetry 2005 isn't the type of anthology I like. one poem per poet doesn't work for me. I would prefer depth over breadth. BAP is not, Pinksy's blurb to the contrary, a comprehensive overview of contemporary poetry, the context is too blurry. this anthology makes me feel rushed, try this try this try this. Bay Poetics doesn't feel so, partly, I think, because of the local connection, it does feel like one gets a glimpse of the scene out west. plus most of the poets represented have several poems included. it's kinda weird with BAP that 30% of the book isn't poetry, it's all the back matter/front matter stuff. I know I'm late to the party in bashing BAP, I don't really mean to bash. I can see reading the book straight thru, make an evening of it. there are writers I like here, and forgetable writers (mostly the latter). I haven't looked at America A Prophecy, edited by some combination of George Quasha, Armand Schwerner and Jerome Rothenberg, in some time but I consider that a pretty good model for an anthology. much more adventuresome. that's true of all the anthologies I've seen the above involved with. overview anthologies are always going to have huge holes in them, they just gotta. another saving grace of Bay Poetics is Stephanie Young's aesthetics. definitely she makes Bay Poetics. this BAP, and I'll bet the rest too, has a middle of the road dynamic that doesn't inspire me. with such small sampling from each writer, stylistic differences diminish. the poems start to sound the same. but wait, check out this sentence from the blurb to Mark Doty's book:

"In a style chastened by loss into plainness but still capable of unforgettable lyricism, Doty searches for affirmation in the midst of suffering while at the same time refusing the cheap solace of any affirmation that would diminish the irreplaceable value of those we love."

must credit Alan Shapiro as the perp who wrote that nuggest, which caught my eye as I bethought BAP. it's such a preposterously fluffed up hopefulness on display, that poetry could get involved with solace and affirmation. I believe in that solace and affirmation, but it doesn't come out of a machine. I mean, is James Tate excited when he writes another poem? poem, that is, that is little different from previous and to come. I assume someone handed Doty a list of adjecives and urged him, perhaps on pain of death (!!!) to use them all. what bothers me with the poetry here, Doty and BAP, is that the skill set for writing it is pretty vague and unconditioned. I enjoyed some poems in BAP, not yet with Doty, but I don't get an idea from either as to what a good poem might be or entail. it is hard to say what makes these works poems. what the hell is a poem? it's not so much the point to answer that question, perhaps it shouldn't even be answered. but the question should be pondered headlong by anyone trying to write one. let's say that the question of what a poem is should be implicit in every poem. it doesn't wash to say a poem is a poem because it sounds like one, uses poem language, agrees exactingly with models of yore, etc. complacent acceptance of the norm aint poetry. it aint interesting either.

  

  

  

  

quick visit to the library where, in the new books enticement shelves, I copped a book by Mark Doty, one by Frank Bidart, and BAP 2005. I feel like reviewing them, sight unseen. you know, I predict a poem in which, blah blah blah. I don't love poems. poetry, if the distinction holds, means more to me than the little shacks devised as poems. when I was younger, I read widely in the world of poetry. in my hoary dotage, I don't want to read a lot of poetry. it is bootless to say I want to read only good poetry, I can't know it is good till I present my eyes with the word, but I have less patience with what strikes me as culled from the past. I read a short poem by Doty, and laughed aloud. voici:

Shahid's Couplet

Your old kitchen, dear, on Bleecker: sugar, dates, black tea.
Your house, then ours. Anyone's now. Memory's furious land.

Bleecker, that's got a permanent footnote attached. it's so Greenwichy. that kitchen boiled down to magical three. intended to evoke but the details seem so random. my kitchen boasts the same, but that don't relate me to Doty. the 2nd sentence and 3rd telescope relationship into barest nothing. meat of the poem. couldn't it have been a single sentence? yes and yes. last sentence, very boiled down but with the stupid and excessive adjective. he has received fellowships and is a professor. it's like he didn't quite get Pound's Metro. minimalism is not a trick, but Doty tries t make magic. I think of Tom Beckett, who (I assume) pares and pares. not, that is, just a matter of stopping or cutting out, but intensifying into the very (few) words. or Grenier, who is simply amazed by every word. Doty's yanking our chain, using a trick or gambit. his details have no grasp. there's no specificity in his selection, only the word dear gives any emotional energey. the fury of memory's land is not indicated by anything in the poem. all seems pretty ho hum. professor offers this lalala to HarperCollins, and HC foments the revolution upon the pome-buying public. an exercise in lameness. national book critics circle award for poetry. I'm too tired to wrassle properly with this sort of clunk.

quick visit to Barnes and Noble, whereat I found no copies of Best American Poetry. somebody has dropped the ball. NOR had they copies of Principles of Mathematics by Sir Isaac Newton. the B&N warehouse contains the book, calling it a textbook so that it can be priced at 90 fuckin bucks. cripes, Newton must've signed a hell of a royalty deal.

poking thru my library's for sale books, I found one called Kaddish by Leon Wieseltier. I don't know why it attracted me, except that it's been a kaddishy couple of weeks. I grew up in the Unitarian church, where rituals and ceremonies are half-hearted at best. I know little about the ritual of Kaddish, if ritual is the proper word. this book is an attempt by the author to come to grips with his father's death, and to understand more about Kaddish itself. the book, then, is a journal of his reading and study, and ruminations. a map of his discovery, I guess. I haven't read much but like what I've read. I particularly admire the way it jumps around, as thoughts jump. like any journal, it can be read by skimming, opening any page and reading there. it occurred to me that that's what my book Days Poem does. it spans out, flakes out, leaps about. with Wieseltier's book, you don't know what any page might have on it, because his curiosity shifts his direction all the time. this made me think of Eileen Tabios' big brick of a book I Take Thee, English, For My Beloved. her book is like a Tabios anthology, with interviews, criticism, theory as well as poems. what holds it together, and what I think holds together my book, along with Wieseltier's, is a dogged insistence of attention. what is Kaddish but a ceremonial remembrance. which itelf is a process of understanding. Wieseltier's book goes more than 500 pages, as does Eileen's. I didn't mean to write a defense of big books but, again, taking the freedom to use as much space as you need for a book is a good thing. and I'll reiterate the idea of not knowing where the author is going, how this is a good thing.

here is the Demolicious website. this sunday is Brenda Iiijima, which I hope I spell correctly (just one 'r' in Brrenda?) and Mark Pawlak. I read in April with Alan Davies. yes, that's Alan and Allen. and yes, that means my promotional machine will be working constantly for 6 effing months. enjoy!!!

I don't know why critics makes statements such as this except for a crowning need to reveal their own foolishness. in adapting Lynch's words, Basbol may just be throwing out a maybe, but Lynch isn't. and I don't even accept Basbol's maybe. I don't accept the premise that certain means of expression can't be profound. oooo, profound. what is profundity, by the bye? such statements indicate limitation and resistance. what inherent aspect of collage, or flarf, rules out this profundity? one again, the rules commitee skids offtrack. rather than accept the blockade, try scrutinizing the resistance.

k, so what I've writ about reading this sunday is no longer viable. adjustment of schedules, prison sentences, that sort of thing. Brenda Ijima and Mark Pawlak read this sunday at 2pm, Cambridge (one and only) Mass. I read in April. when the schedule is firm, it has danced in fluidity, I'll post it. Boston area poetry scene needn't be shitty. unfortunately, the stasis that is Harvard University leans a heavy burden on those pushing the sides of the box. that is not to say that NYC and SF and all those other ratcheted places haven't their own issues of frozen stiff. the point everyanywhere is determining a stride and path other than. the pain of which, etc. watch and see if I don't manage to kick out the jams.

Eileen Tabios speaks of long poetry books. my Days Poem seems gaudily long at 800 pages in manuscript. too long, even, so that I have been reluctant to offer it. I'd sent Meritage another, shorter manuscript, and simply mentioned Days Poem as an oh by the way. luckily, long piques Eileen's interest (ahem) and she asked to see it. the manuscript, that is. printing it out for her was the 1st time I'd printed the whole megilla. I started the poem under the influence of Jim Leftwich's Doubt, a 500 page tour-de-force published by Potes & Poets Press. I loved his surging dense language but also that extent. the 1st few pages that I wrote, I probably sound like Leftwich. but then I started onto my own path. and the work developed its own necessity. part of which necessity consisted of writing in the work every day. so I wrote on my wedding day, I wrote on the Christmas of the solar eclipse, I wrote everyday at Children's Hospital during our 9 day stay there when Erin broke his leg, I wrote during our travels, I wrote and wrote. after 14 months, the work told me it was done. I appreciate a publisher willing to bring out such a long work. the operative point here isn't about the length, but that the work is allowed its fullness. believe me, I grok the economics. I'd've brought it out myself, if the financials were feasible. this way I luck out with Eileen's eminently supportive presence, which is the greatest gift. if I'd thought small, I'd be scuttling my work toward magazines, anthologies and neat 80 page books. which are fine venues, but, you know, this 800 page poem wouldn't fit there. and I would hate to think I was tailoring my work to the size of such venues. the excitement of Jack Kimball's Post~Twyla, to offer a for instance, feeds off ofthe venture of Jack writing to the work's full extent. you could cut 80 pages out of P~T and have a good read, but that would amount to saying, hey, great arm! it should be noted that print on demand looks like a saving grace, a way of softening the economic blow. anyway, I am full thankful to Eileen and super wow excited that Days Poem will see light.

Erin and I attended another Magic Card tournament, this time at an exurban location. front desk directed us thru the courtyard. this route sent us practically thru an Indian wedding ceremony. wow, that was eyepopping. almost everyone, including the many children, wore fabulously colourful clothing. the courtyard features lots of plants and fountainns (this was at a Holiday Inn), as well as the pool. great setting, and terrifically decorated. Erin and I proceeded to get lost, ended up circumnavigating the building. at the entrance to the tournament hall, and pardon what seems like a cliche, odour of body was pronounced. I saw a few there who fit the figment, who look like their diet consists of pizza and Mountain Dew and that they don't see the sun very often, but mostly you can't really peg a Magic Card enthusiast by any easy fieldmarks. tho there is a consistly eager and intent look on Magic Card players when game is on, and players, not playas, are generously represented by the male sex. I won't say I don't get it, because Magic cards are both a complex and ever-evolving game AND a collectible, I just lack the aesthetic to appreciate. I don't enjoy games generally. Erin and I hung out, waiting for his flight to begin. once it did, I wandered off in search of food and adventure. well, no adventure. the food was a snack machine. I got a few items to keep Erin's strength up (not Dew). just down the hall the wedding guests were partaking of a feast of Indian food, which wasn't fair. by that time the childen were ready to run around. a few represetatives from the Magic Hall of Fame were in attendance. these were players who'd won a lot of tournaments. for a fee you could play these guys. as I sat there, I saw one guy come back to his friends after his flight ended and said, I just got beat by an actual retard. his friend asked for details, but I couldn't hear. probably the retard simply outthunk him. Erin lost in his flight. to play, everyone is given an unopened deck of random Magic cards to play with, so there's luck as well as skill involved. it all looks sorta fun but expensive if you let it. I should mench, just to prove that there's something to the image, that pizza deliveries were continuous.

* * * Reminder * * *

I will be reading for the Demolicious Series, at the Out of the Blue Gallery, Prospect St in Cambridge on October 1, 2006, at 1pm. still time to fire up the transporter. if you come by helicopter, try landing at MIT and asking an MIT student (you'll recognize them: they have adhesive tape holding their glasses together) about the Free Catapault Ride. or you could walk the mile or so, if you're that much against innovation. alas, Tom Cruise has yet to confirm attendance. his daughter Katie just gave birth to Tom's first grandchild, and Tom may still be jumping on Oprah's sofa about that.

well I guess bragworthy is blogworthy, and so, to wit, I announce that Meritage Press has accepted for publication a slightly mammoth poem by the humble person writing this. Days Poem the book is called. just shy of 800 manuscript pages. I am willing to say, advert, pronounce and brag that the words fairly prance upon or above the page (like that picture???), but at any rate, it is a work that I am happy to claim as mine. happy too to thank Eileen Tabios, the Merit in Meritage Press, for giving me this opportunity. there's a tricky emotion here, that I guess I will honour by not freezing into words quite yet. suffice to say, this book means a lot to me.

new blog by Sharon Mesmer. she's capable of great, surreal funniness, which to me, is a good thing.

two things yesterday, a painting class at the adult daycare, and a funeral. the paint class was once again very rewarding. I know that's a dull thing to say, but pretend that such a statement could have value as direct meter of something. Beth and I enjoy the opportunity to see these people work. the artworld as typified by David Lehman BAPness is sorta kinda absoltively tainted, so it feel fine to see art as something with intrinsic value. when we arrive, the place scurries into action. I mean readying the workplace, shepherding people in, plus the excitement a few have to paint, so even those who don't participate get this buzz of activity. even such little things mean something. the fellow with Down's syndrome, a regular, gentlemanly hugged Beth and shook hands with me when we arrived. several of our regulars branched out. one fellow, a very cheerful guy, typically paints stripes. it was a big thing when he did vertical instead of horizontal stripes a while ago. today, one of the assistants at the daycare coaxed him into doing words. he didn't enjoy that tho he perspicaciously went along with the idea. then he did squiggly lines, which he much more enjoyed. he even did a self-portrait. once again, an assistant interfered, told him that he forgot to put the body in. he dutifully fixed that. he was hyped up about this new thing that he did. we've had to tell one of these assistants, who mostly are just cleaning up and fetching things, not to direct the painters. there's a temptation to take the painter's hand and make things happen, but that sucks. you ask me. another woman is immensely eager to paint. the 1st time she was in a class, she smeared black paint on the paper, announced that the class was shit and left. since then she's gotten into it. today she started with black paint, scrubbing this way and that to cover the sheet. interesting textures arise, but there's only so much you can do with such a limted greyscale. then she changed to colours, then she used several colours. purple, then blue, then green mixed in. wowee, she crows, and laughs with delight. she did about twenty, happy as anything. she tells Beth, maybe I should take lessons. just giggling pleasure as the bright colours appear and blend. that's all I want anyone to do: enjoy the colours. many of these people have difficulty starting. they wet their brush and hang it over the paint, kinda frozen. I just ask them what their favourite colour is and tell them to use that. I did that with one woman, who had never really done anything before. this time, I admit I made sure the brush had plenty of colour then gave it to her and she made a line. she did several green lines then asked me what next. I said orange is complementary, and she said, oh yes it is, and proceeded to add orange into the design. she says, as so many do, I don't know what it is. I reply, it doesn't maatter, it's colourful and it's fun. her next one, done on her own, she did a stylized pine tree, placed to the side of the paper. I don't think I suggested that she put her name on (I like them to sign their work, and they are always eager to), but she did, at the top. the white space that remained was very strong. she was happy to stop at that. the 3rd painting, she asked what she should do. I said, try doing a circle. yes, I've read a fair amount of Jung, and was thinking mandala. but it's basic, you see. well, okay, she said. she proceeded to make spirals, which she set up in a nice design. there are two or three people who have been trained, tho probably haven't done much painting in later years, or since diminishment in their function has occurred. it's surprising how much fun they have, even the resistant ones. earlier that day, many of them had been taken out for a walk, perfect shiny New England day yesterday, and I think that helped them all connect to the painting. I could write more, but I fear it may sound like some self-improvement stuff. it's not. it's fun to see them feel colour. the daycare was visited recently by this guy who set up a non-profit that allows him to go to such places as daycares to do something like what we do. he looked at the wall of paintings and saw only amateur work, not worth his time. imagine that kind of bullshit! and he suggested that they bring in objects for the people to paint. a few do paint objects in the room, but the idea of training these people sounds way wrong. some few might benefit from that sort of training, but most won't. I'd rather offer an opportunity, not a labour. the guy's grant-fueled scam is to scoop up elder excellence and I suppose market it, if not actually sell it then add shininess to his own artistic franchise. he can go fuck himself. twice. from there we went tripping up to the funeral. in a nearly 300 year old New England church. a Unitarian church, naturally. I grew up in a similar Unitarian church. I got zero out of the church experience except the church's space, bright and uncluttered. likewise the church we went to today, except it was fancied up with with a pseudo stained glass picture behind the altar, featuring either Jesus or Mary and a young boy, the figures, like so much modern Bible imagery, possessing the exact opposite of anything that might be construed as semitic. the church was full to the brim. I don't want to do the complete blow up of Unitarians but I definitely flinched when the minister spoke. you've heard of poet voice; she did minister voice. there's a bland but inveigling tone to this voice, spiritual in the way that reading Hallmark cards is spiritual. a similar emotional impact as that stained glass image. the trouble being a lack of conviction. Unitarian use of the word God always bears implied quote marks. which stance I won't argue with, but you can't then expect this "God" to possess any omnipotent snap. what was nice, tho, was the readings. friends of the deceased read the usual sort of readings. each of them spoke at length about the deceased, and the genuine insight of that far outstripped the platitudinous readings themselves. I think their process of grief was more useful to the family than the dread, religiousy spouting of the minister. her picture of the deceased hanging over the family is creepy and to me seems unconducive to the grief process. it's more like pretending the deceased isn't. and when she wasn't modulating like a minister, she sat there with a stifling beatific smile. a ceremony at the graveyard followed, then a buffet back at the church. I made a point of speaking with 2 of the speakers at the funeral, one of whom was the brother of the deceased. they helped scale the ceremony to the realm of the real. Beth had met the deceased but hardly knew him. they were to attend a party at our house on the day my father died. we cancelled the party and never managed to get together. both Beth and I wished we'd gotten to know the deceased. a lot of people at the buffet, and a lot of food. many people from the homeschool network, including a lot of youngsters. the kids had many cushioning friends around. in fact, most of them were on hormonal autopilot, enjoy the relief of the social. the widow had the comfort of many family and friends. I don't know how quickly this support will fade. community is an iffy proposition. most communities have an unbalanced sense of who is worthy. that dickhead with the grant looks at the people at the daycare and says, they're not worthy of his time. the widow and her children seem to've gotten the best of their community. I don't think money is a problem, at least presently. I sought help from my father's church, of which he'd been a member for wow more than 50 years, hoping they had some visiting mechanism for him, just to get my father some new conversations, and possibly some time off relief for me. naw, the church community offered nothing of the kind. maybe a couple of people would stop by for 20 minutes, duty calls and no more. what's the point? community is fragile and fading.

I wonder if Ron Silliman read his own post today, for there's a surprising use of the back hand in his praise of Hejinian and Benson.

an odd, interesting blog enterprise (long-going) by Clifford Duffy. blogs were made for this sort of thing.

much affected, but hard to set the words. someone we know lost her husband. part of the homeschool network of which we. husband died at 48 of a heart attack. man seemingly of good health, wholly unexpected. we stopped by yesterday just to bring food, not expecting to have condoling audience. met at the door by an aunt of the widow, who pulled us in, and a sister of the bereabved as well who insisted that we visit. the house was a-buzz with people, much of he homeschool network. they warn us that she will burst into tears, yet she does want company. we pass thru a room with her youngest, a boy of 10, playing a video game with another boy. enter the terrible room, and she does indeed burst into tears. Beth, who knows her (I don't), comforts her. I stand by like a sensitive rock. the woman wails in tremendous pain. wails, keens, that sort of complete compression into the hopelessly expressed. Beth comforted her. there was bustling in the house, a spread of food put out. others in the room went to help, with the woman's parents remaining. then the woman went off to be alone, and Beth and I condoled with the parents. there were a lot of youngsters about. beside the boy there's a girl of 16 and one of 13. the man came home the ngith before feeling ill, went to the emergency ward, after 4 hours died. the bereaved called her mother, staying with the kids. the grandmother screamed at the news. woke the oldest, girl of 16. so she knew that her father had died. the other 2 learned in the morning. the girl of 13 has a blog, to which she wrote, I woke up today, and my father was dead. a gothic sounding statement. but true. I was struck by the children. the girls, particularly. they had a lot of friends in the house. it was this normal girlie embrace, heightened by the cute boys in attendence. the 13 year old, she looked absolutely wired, like she was playing the part of a girl who was strictly involved in normal happy networking. and, weirdly, the homeschool network had a dance scheduled for that night, which the girls intended to attend. I would've recommended that the dance be cancelled. I wasn't worth much in any of this, mostly just agape and aghast at the pain and desperation. the family live in a big Victorian house with an enormous beech tree and these piercing autumnal notes all around. the fading hosta in the yard, leaves turning, death in the house. it was pretty intense.

felt compelled to read a bio of H P Lovecraft. I chose not to go with what I gather is the most scholarly, by S T Joshi, not willing to invest in the full seriousness, but went with one of those hacks on the back of Robert E Howard: L Sprague deCamp. I suppose it is largely competent. he is at least interested in his subject. too interested perhaps. he doesn't exactly defend HPL's racism and anti-semitism, but he tries to put that all in context. I get the point that it was a different world then, but that doesn't negate the virulence. it's such an unexamined virulance because HPL isn't even talking from experience. the Jews and Blacks he fustians about merge with those horrors and monsters he imagines in his stories. it's a keyed up intensity. that intensity is key to what is good about HPL, or Poe, or list of others. but not to ignore the loathesome shit. honestly, HPL's racism and anti-semitism are beyond the 'real world', they are an imagined conjuction of weirditudes. I think we have to accept that we all flop about in total confusion much of the time. so that even this egregiousness of HPL seems to bring light. I mean we feel enlightened now as compared to then, even the then of de Camp's book, 1975 (his disquisition on latent homosexuality seems like stone age flippy flop). that enlightenment we feel should be regarded as wispy. Lovecraft was a bit of a phlegm wad, but that was just an aspect of the complex human machine that wrote those strong desperate sories.

reading Naked Lunch, which surprises me in seeming dated. Burroughs went to the trouble of washing away a lot of niceties, the effect of which is now dulled somewhat by the freedoms that came after. still and all, to read him in the day must've been explosive, because it aint like his work is slack now. the datedness that particularly strikes me, tho, is one that seems common with much of the Beats: their slang. slang ties itself to a time, and can lose power over time (which phrase seems to wobble into other meanings than I started for). and I think much of that Beat slang is pulled from other cultures. once again, that is, ofay commandeered. well wait, slang is a code, a networking implement. when that code is broken, become common, its secret power diminishes. hmmm. I know I twiddle with inconsistencies here, because Shakespeare is rife with slang, and Rimbaud, Villon, and they still rock... I think the point is that the Beats understood their slang AS a code. as Beat writing became Literature, the slang became more of a prop or sign (rather than the signified?). I don't write off the Beats because of this, just note the weakness of that strategy. opening the floodgates seems most marvelous, tho most open to abuse. oddly, what gets called mainstream poetry suffers from a lack of slang. too cautious about seemliness to employ any but canonically approved dynamos, which consists too often of polysyllabic latin clumps, with overabundance of commas and, heaven forfend, semi-colons, the use of which is 99% of the time pretentious as well as plain misused. check out Amy Clampitt for proof.

yet another great interview by Tom Beckett, this time with Jack Kimball (my dancing fingers were about to type of not with, but that didn't accurately portray Tom's paricipation). I liked hearing about the false start Jack made with Post~Twyla. a big idea, then the big idea changes into some other idea, etc: follow if you can. what particularly caught me, tho, were a few mentions of John Wieners. I am apparently the only Boston-area poet who never met or even saw John Wieners, but I have the picture of a sweet and devastated person, not t sound liek Hollywood meets poetry. I quote Jack for 2 sentences:

"At trench level I'll bitch-slap with the gangliest, I'm imagining, but a poetic model, John Wieners, keeps reminding me of self-restraint, to avoid haters -- there are only a few of those -- and maintain a comfortable distance from the hesitant or half-hangers-on. I watched John ratchet up his courtly dizziness when faced with awkward social choices, and although my strategies are different, his manners instruct me to prepare well for love and its absence. (I hate this.)"

stupidly, Wieners is a poet I came to late--the canon is an indefinite road dependent on chance-engendered opportunities--and more remains for me to read. anything, kudos to Tom and Jack.

footnote: were Hollywood on its toes, some nifty biopics could be made with the life elements of, it has occurred to me, Keats, Dickinson, Stein, John Clare, etc. Wieners for sure. but why do I even bring this up?????

I suppose this comment must be filed under Potshots at Silliman but likening Stephanie Young to Scarlett Johansson, and vice versa, wobbles from the get go (where'd get go come from, anyway?). I've never seen SJ in a movie but I've been in enough waiting rooms to know she's regularly crowded into People magazine. the core of Silliman's gist portends the idea that all the rosiness in Stephanie's still Young poetry career will threaten, finally, her Art. you know the grim story: sycophants fighting each other to get on the Stephanie train, clashes with the good, hardworking poets she knew on the way up, then uppers to help manage her hectic poet schedule, and downers as the only respite therefrom, then well-publicized dates with Harold Bloom orchestrated by her manager Puff Diddy Wah Diddy, then a fistfight with Star Jones outside Spago (which she loses), and when things couldn't get any worse, Poetry Magzine publishes Young's 5000 page tribute to Saul Bellow ("ye novelist of great repute, / hence not forsake me with your rebuke, / for your great works of intense review, / doth produce great sparky inklings for the sensitive few") and Knopf publishes her 270,000 pages linked haiku series I Really Love America, which bombs, and President Jeb Bush, told that there were innuendos in the work, of what nature it matters not, snubs Stephanie at the Inaugural Ball, and so with Domino Theory precision everything good in S Young's life goes catastrophic, Erato gets fed up with her, and in the end Stephanie Young becomes a real estate agent. sad, really.

bashing BAP is pretty much polyester tie dye at this point, and bashing as a modus operandi turns to slumber without a little bolster towards the green, so I'll just repoint towards Shanna Compton's positive outflow of you-can-do-it and you-can-get-it (ycept and aka DIY). here, that is. satire as a constant isn't exactly truffles, COULD GO QUIET ANYTIME. it's a choice there.

  

a crisp bright autumn day today and as I recall not unlike 5 years ago. I don't wish to dive into that brew again--and brew is a good word, the yeasty activity that still bubbles--but I looked up this morn whilst walking the dog to see a plane flying casually, as they are wont to do. we still live close to an airfield (formerly an Airforce base, now mainly commercial), and in the flight path of Logan flights, so planes in the sky are common to the point fo constant. but 5 years ago, snap, the sky was quiet. and the silence could really be felt. I couldn't, then, help obsessing on the claustrophic fear of anyone in those planes, the same fear I feel when watching the dismal scenes in Perfect Storm and Titanic. the night of the 11th or 12th was loud with the thunder of jet fighters mobilizing. which brought a more dismal claustrophobia: this means war. and then the talking heads.

I will be reading in Cambridge (Central Sq) on Sunday October 1, 2006, as part of the Demolicious Series. I don't know yet with whom but I look forward to the event. if you're Paris Hilton, Tom Cruise, David Ortiz or Rosa Parks, comp tickets will be at the will call window. if you're Tom Brady or Eileen Tabios, you can sit on my lap as I read!!!!

reading some Lovecraft, wooee. fascinating, unsettling stuff. unsettling? I think I mean alarming. I've read about 12 stories, so I'm not fully possessed of his work, but even in those 12, a consistent impression of an oozy, obscene, subterranean world persists. calls to mind Poe's tour-de-force craziness Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym with its ultimate vision of a primordial underworld. Lovecraft fits right in line with Hawthorne's puritan weirdness and Poe's hyper sensitivity. he's poetic in a gripping, surreal way, perhaps as Rimbaud was. Jung would have a heyday with with these visions that seem to come directly from the unconscious. I say seem because Lovecraft is a technically skilled writer, his stories aren't simply the rantings of a psychotic. not that he wasn't, let us say, a bit touched. as who aint... I'm reading the Library of America edition, nice to see they're willing to publish the likes of Lovecraft, tho I think he certifiably rates as one of them pure products that Williams was on about. there was a period when I read a fair bit of horror. I'm not really into creepiness, but the sort of possession that occurs with horror interests me. I think it compares with Rimbaud en enfer, as a for instance, tho I don't mean that horror = poetry. a lot of horror is hokum. and you have writers like Stephen King (cripes, I read 11 of his novels one summer), who have moments that touch of the mysterious and unconscious, but then they slick it up for the cheap seats. King particularly is prolix, his books rattle on beyond the point where intensity can survive, all for the sake of summer reading. anyway, the book's chronology notes HPL roaming around New England and New York. I was surprised that he found his way to Athol, Massachusetts, an out of the way and run down factory town in the center of the state. a good place, I suppose, tho, for the Recluse Press, which published a bit of his work.

more Antic View, episode 92. awesome poem by Jeff Harrison there, worth the peek.

Ron Silliman's post re the Paul Butterfield Band is an odd concatenation of facts. I mean like a Wikipedia entry, that expression of the Take Your Chances School of Scholarship, somewhat obsessed yet not exactly attached. wobbly, let us say. and with errors: Elvin Bishop played guitar, not bass, had to 2nd fiddle for totally flash Mike Bloomfield. I mean, the passion seems to be in his facts, not the music. in which case, no errors allowed. a lot of times, he writes about the facts of poetry, those facts being his reception of what he has read. he doesn't express it balls to the wall, but as deeper foray into the sytematic. which makes no sense to me. he pushes his binary exploitations into fussy corners, swept clean of insolence. of course Ron has cred in the Parnassian realm, which is why his control sequences seem so awry.

I have three pieces published at Listenlight. check out all six writers but of course give awed attention to my work. I like the greyscale lettering of the titles. I've been too busy admiring my name in sans serif to read the work of the others, but I did hap upon these lovely lines by Tim Yu: "There’s a patriotic carillon concert / every evening in the perfect sky."

well I know that Joshua Clover is smarter than me, because he could detect that the star of that teen flick now out is the hipster in opposition to my hero John Hodgman in the Mac commercials. I was about to quote a felicitous paragraph to indicate the lovely collisions of which Clover is meter, but I think it is as well to point and let you reap. I love how the cork bobs to the surface.

Antic View is up to section 91, which you are invited to peruse. I'm mostly on the defensive as Jeff Harrison curiositizes me. I think we stick on topic in a respectable way (this aint false modesty, I'm willing to declare (if it would help) my kickassness as poet). don't make me get snarly about this, I think we are writing worthwhileness, and it aint just about us.

what Stephen Vincent is doing with his mother here is a treasure.

when I 1st tried googling for interesting phrases, with the aim of poetry production, I got lousy results. I couldn't see how people were making the poems they were making by the method. as I continued efforting it, I got better. the results improved when I expanded my search parameters (I hope it'll be at least a month before I use the word parameters again, not counting that use of parameters nor that one...). I used to search just on, say, George Bush or Joan Houlihan, the 'subject'. adding another search term, like crab cake instigated a collision of what, perspective? possible absurdity. well, I guess this places that subject into a context, probably an unexpected one (note: anything unexpected in a poem is probably a good thing). and it's more interesting if that context kinda reeks in some way. you know what you'll get with Joan Houlihan and poem, or George Bush and Iraq. either they self-petard themselves or the public answers the usual yea or nay. the additional search term provides a bit of centripetal action. and the point arises that there's determinism going on. this isn't a random procedure, tho randomness influences. it can feel shaky to have an idea in mind, like you are forcing things. but in saying that, I also state that that idea can be wrenched into another direction just by what turns up. so there are some pinball bumpers in the mix. but you don't get the purity of John Cage's more fully random procedures. it's a method, with which you do what you can. or not, whatever. it's a much slower process for me than plain 'writin' the pome', what with collecting and then paring down. and it feels shaky because I'm not fully in command of the poem, if it even gets to the point of being one. bottom line is what's on the page, whatever one does. if your 1st worry point when you read is whether what you are reading looks like flarf, or language poetry, then you've flunked. sorry, we've got to be strict in these matters. I've already pointed to Rob Fitterman's lovely and elegiac This Window Makes Me Feel, a totally google-assisted affair. worries about flarf and language have gotten so internecine that if one could put on blinders and just stay focused on poem qua poem, a good service could be done. I guess even an asshole can write a good poem, anyway. down with gatekeepers! you probably don't even know who you are.

this is Whimsy speaking. it occurs to me that I used to do something similar, with the journal I hand writ in the 90s: I kept track of whatever came over the transom. for me it would include rumination on New Yorker ads, with a sort of corallary of doing precise decriptions of scratch and sniff perfumes, asserting as best as I could what the olfactory bulb registered. also surveys of catalogues that flooded in was a natch for scribble scribble. plus stupid moveis, occasionally tv shows, the weathrer, oh yeah and books. I had mucho fun doing this, but I see it can be something of a service, as I read Jeffery's take on the modality. I've never seen BAP, and there's a chip on my shoulder saying (chirp chirp) that I don't care if I never, yet I think it is nifty that there's a receptor, not merely a satirist, on call for when the next Best presumes to appear. what if opinions weren't dramatic, for instance? or crucial, in a ductile way. what if opinions flickered into more chemical responses, or do I mean less chemical? the image I want to foster, is of taking the matter as it is, within human type limits, of course. rather than performing god duty, gatekeeper shit. as in here's what my receptors got, within their paltry human limits. misreading is kinda what we all do, that's the adventure. but misreading as a stupid ploy to self-generate, as a political ignorance: that sucks the berry bush. it's rough enough when someone doesn't grip what's on the page, but that's the challenge we all accept. it's the sweating the criminally inferred into a box beyond the page that brings the stink. unsurprisingly, I've wandered here, but I think I can at least acknowledge a reasonable process in the postings at Whimsy Speaks. I hope my own muddle brings a beam once in a while.

been having dental fun. a tooth broke after fillings (misspent youth) gave way. and the tooth couldn't be saved, so it was pulled last monday. and because of the mysteries of dry socket (dry soscket = pain), I've been back twice already, to inspire healing and be done with it. so okay, I have whinged: with pain you grow. anyway, when I was waiting the other day, an elderly womnan came in with her son. she talked loudly so getting swept in was unavoidable. she was nearly deaf so everything her son said had to be repeated. and her memory was porous, so his every question met with a cheerful, blithe even, I don't know. the son was not the usual one to deliver her places. a daughter, somehow unavailable, was the regular one to perform ferrying. he spent most of the time consulting his daytimer and asking her about her schedule, which consisted of upcoming medical visits, of which she had plenty. his mother asked about the rest of the family, and neighbours, happy to chat. the doctor appeared and she greeted him happily, introduced her son the replacement ferrying agent. all this is quite familiar to me. today another elderly woman was in. she was less frail. she was trying to schedule some dental work for her husband, who was in the car (I saw him as I entered). he had lots of doctor visits planned as well. she was concerned that the dental work that her husband needed would prove too much spread over 2 visits. while she was negotiating, in comes her husband. he used a cane, and wasn't too wobbly, but he was out of breath just from the trip from the car. he inquired where the bathroom was then told his wife that he left the car unlocked because he had to go to the bathroom in a hurry. I have no graceful synthesis to make of this. parents of special needs children have a way of finding each other. at least, when you are feeling down about the difficulties, you find someone who's had similar experiences. same goes for those who care for their parents. I remember once seeing a woman helping a much older woman along the sidewalk, I'll assume mother and daughter. the mother walked with difficulty. I think I was waiting for them to pass, not hurrying them at all. the daughter looked at me and smiled a smile of consummate patience. I could only think how often my emotion was embarassment or frustration or just plain weariness in similar circs. I know that's not cutting myself slack, but you see, it all is very hard, very very hard.

  

  

I have been reading Allen Ginsberg recently. I forget how good his good work can be. verymuch like Whitman in tht way, and in a few other ways as well. it's pretty amazing to think that Ginsberg was on the Merv Griffin show in the late 60s talking about the greenhouse effect. he states that he wants to illuminate humanity, and made a pretty good effort. in his best work, like Kaddish, Sumflower Sutra, Howl, America, his release is awesome. and it occurs to me he was about the same age as Whitman when the Good Grey wrote his best work. Ginsberg strips himself in a, well, generous way. it's not confessional, because he isn't trying to validate. it's his buddha side. in his lesser work, his insecurity takes over, and he's wishing to write a poem. he didn't really skill up in his technique. his poetry doesn't grow much after the 50s, or does anyone think so? I think his politics are the prime engine of his work, his politics and his buddha nature. it all gets messy because he was such a celebrity. one gets distracted by that stuff. back when he trimmed the beard and started wearing suits, a reporter asked what it was all about and Ginsberg answered, I'm in drag. that quote got twisted into, life's a drag. but it wasn't for him. he was an instigator, a Trickster. aside from those poems where he's firing on all cylinders, I find his journals to be his best work. most natural for him, I mean. because he not only instigates, he receives. I must've given away my City Lights editions when I got Collected but those pocket-sized books, less drossy, are the way to read him.

Jack Kimball sent a pdf of Post~Twyla, which shall soon be published by Blue Lion Books. I've heard Jack read much of it publicly and privately, and I've been poking thru since it arrived. verdict: highly recommended (word!). it's 346 pages, less'n Jack has last minuted it, so it qualifies as an anti-chapbook. no offense to the which, but I like extent and large scale in my po books. what I mean is, it has ambition. for all the 346, it's breezy and varied. it makes good on Jack's enthusiasm for the book.

I'm not sure I linked to this wonderful e-book by Robert Fiterman: This Window Makes Me Feel. he read some and talked about it when I saw him last spring in the Demolicious Reading Series. this work is touching, odd, funny, chilling, make your own selection of adjectives. it also can answer those who feel that googled poetry co-opts. I see no co-opting in here. I hear variety in the voices, see people awash in distances and differences, and feel a touching connection. nor, to reply to another claim against 'this type of writing' is there anything mechanical about this work. Fitterman googled on the the phrase this window makes me feel, then collected the responses. I quote at random:

This window makes me feel like an unemployed useless lump. This window makes me feel guilty like I’ve committed some horrible crime; the spider never did anything to me. This window makes me feel better when I convince myself that I am not angry with the Lord but with myself. This window makes me feel great; it reminds me of when I was doing lots of exercises and felt good about myself. This window makes me feel like I’m all out of options, that I’m so poor and cheap I think I might cry but I need new shoes and jeans and shirts and shit real bad. This window makes me feel sick and grossly irresponsible, so I will hunker down and berate myself for a few hours.

such momentum and embrace!

up to 87th installment of Antic View. I think this work inquisition or disquisition is worth reading. because I am surprised by what Jeff writes, and by what I discover as I write as well.

oh, hello. apparently I wrote a number of reviews for Galatea Resurrects 3 [wait a sec: reviews! that rhymes with Tom Cruise!!! Paramount just cut ties with Tom, poor Tom, poor Tom, poor Tom, and he with new bride and baby to support...]. I think Galatea Resurrects is a wonderful opportunity, an internetty sort of fresh model allowing immediacy into the review process. I review Jon Leon, Anny Balladini, Ernesto Priego, Mark Lamoureux and Stephen Ellis. I was already well-acquainted with the work of Stephen, which, friends, you should keep your eyes peeled for, but had read very little of the other writers until I put nose to book. check out this treasury of engagement, a useful tool.

an e-journal, listenlight, with a quiet smattering of good work.

we did another paint class at the adult daycare. I guess we had 30 people, spread over a bunch of large and small tables. it made for an intense time. there's a great deal of energy aroused as people apply themselves. many are resistant but even as they demur they're getting sucked in in some way. art therapists use a clinical tool called kinetic house-tree-person. the therapist asks the client to draw a house, tree and person in a scene. in talking about the scene, the client can safely (from a distance) speak of traumas. obviously, you can write books about what I boiled to a weak sentence. many of the people in our class do k-n-t-p scenes of their own accord. I always ask whose house it is, who the people are. really just to affirm the realness of their expression. many of the people suffer dementia or Alzheimer's but younger people are there as well. I was really surprised by a young woman. she may not even have been in her twenties. she went along with whatever was offered. I gave her paper, paints, brush and water. she took the brush in hand and hovered it over the paints. as if putting paint on the paper was just too far. I always ask the hesitant what their favourite colour is, and suggest that they start with that. she chose red and made a 'C'. she spelled out CARL. the man across from her had just done the same thing. when I came back she somewhat eradicated the word and tried to develop it into a design. she spoke very quietly, with a garble. and was so wary and wounded. it haunts to think of such loss and sadness. Carl on his 2nd efort painted LOVE with hearts, one with an arrow thru it. his third was simply a message: To Hell With Hitler. a woman who works there brought her grandson, a 4 or 5 year old. he did a perfect k-h-t-p. the person was his brother, who had hurt himself and was bleeding. at least three people did scenes with tulips. one was a scene with a house and a large Easter basket as a centerpiece. and a Star of David in the sky. I know this all sounds lalala, but shuffle aside my ego contribution. something is biting and true in the extent here. the losses these people live, and the memories that stay. it's the grand forget-about-it that swallows these people into some unnoticed parenthesis. marginalization is a terrble way that people hide. children, elders, "retarded", 3rd world [endless list], all devitalized in the world debate. I'll back off from the heroic tone. aesthethics often seems like a weapon. sometimes it's the 'bad' stuff that really has the resonance. it's not just about fine tricks for the appreciation of Harvard grads. Maria Damon has written a book about I guess you could say outsider poetry, and she's on to something. there's something powerful in the raw expressions.

been listening to "Devil in the Kitchen" by Ashley McIsaacs, several times o'er. punk Celtic I suppose he's been called. it's a traditional tune, presumably from Cape Breton, but played at a ferocious speed. so fast, in fact, that it took me a while to realize that Rare Air, a wonderul sui generis Canadian group, have done the same tune, which itself had a pretty peppy tempo. speed is exuberance. props to the drummer who manages to put fills where there's hardly room to put them.

and then we went to Costco. oh yes. we just decided, okay, there's bulk things we can buy and save, save, save. why not? we got out membership, which is a weird concept for me, but let's play the game. the woman who took my picture said it looked just like my license. same grim discomfort in front of the camera. passed down from my mother. with an oversized shopping cart we zigged and zagged down all the food aisles. a surprising number of items found at Whole Foods can be found at Costco as well. so we don't have to change our diet to disodium whatsis or red dye number 666. my Judy Collins approved granola at WF, however, is cheaper than anything similar at Costco. the cart filled with cleaning and paper products, woohoo. to the point of being hard to steer. yay! we didn't buy potato chips but it is nice to think that you could place yourself in the wonderful position of never having to buy chips again in your lifetime. or Lucky Charms, now fortified with extra green marshmallows. someone once came into the wine store I worked at with the goal of never having to buy port again, port being a wine that can age and improve for decades. we're talking some 50 cases (he had two winecellars!!!). anyway, Beth and I won't wake up tomorrow realizing that 35 pounds of butter is somewhat more than we need near term. a surprising aspect of Costco, really surprising to me, was the atmosphere there. it struck me that the employees were happy, at least not miserable. you don't get that feeling at Wal-Mart, K-Mart or Target. I understand Costco pays decently. what a concept. that was our day's adventure.

Beth and I paid a visit to Jack Kimball today. that isn't necessarily news you need, but the visit extended to his reading aloud, and we reading from the monitor, a goodly portion of his manuscript Post Twyla. which I guess will be coming out fairly soon. Jack read from the work at his Demolicious reading last spring, we got an even larger dose today. it was nice to meet the work again. Post Twyla is some 280 pages, and not quite that many separate works, altho Jack said he regarded the whole thing as a poem, so I guess by works I mean sections. most of these sections are short, three lines or so, with a smattering of longer pieces. they all can stand alone tho they weave together well. Post Twyla offers a wonderful spectrum of tone. wickedness, tenderness, wisdom, ennui variously instigate the work. the view can be bizarre, oblique, hilarious and sometimes painfully straightforward. regard this post as fair warning. save up your lunch money for when Post Twyla becomes fully commodified.

oh ah hi  

some fascinating discussion of procedure by Jeff Harrison at Antic View, our interview blog (more soon to come). note how he devises an elegant way of minimizing author's desperation to control writing. I think by author here I mean id, but the point is to put that stern debater into the backseat. such procedures are just one way. one can do it other ways, meditative concentration, say, or utter distraction. people flinch at the seeming mechanical nature of using procedural methods to create texts but really, such people are just resisting. resistance is a natural reaction, but one should acknowledge one's resistance, try to understand the blockade. people have hung on terms like LANGUAGE and flarf, seemingly as a way to avoid reading or understanding the work itself. those terms are subfolders to the poetry folder, possible paths to take. I like working flarfistically. it exercises different muscles. my regular type-forth method goes linearly. my flarfish method moves more slowly, accretes and carves. yesterday I took a People magazine article on the Paul McCartney/Heather Mills Texas Divorce Match and worked it into a poem that retains almost nothing of that article. here is the poem (you can guess how the article goes, can't you?).

The Mills of Heather Rented the Same Agents
every time I make a report you do this to me
the enemy is everywhere across the street

in that window up that alley
life has been anything but an ipod.

I've always been in awe of the sky
I'm some B-boy cat that's over with

worry about my feet later Let's open up to Romans
Social class can influence who lives and who dies

Walking down the street I would bump into people
because I could only see from one side

My wife actually found out we were expecting
when I was in the hospital after my first episode

We've been first with other transitions too
Aw man We're not astronauts We're just asses

I just hope and pray that the Germans
we can wake up enough people

I'm probably the only person in America
who doesn't think I've had overwhelming lawsuits

* * * * *

I sent it thru Babelfish with the idea that I'd translate back into English myself. a quick cogitation told me that that would involve work, so I abandoned that idea. I then searched on the phrase 'said Paul'. what proved interestng got squeezed in here and there. then I shaped it into lines, then I deleted everything except the 'said Paul' stuff. shades of O'Hara and Oranges! the title, perhaps obviously, is a line from the People article translated from French back to English. the title is the only part of the piece retained from the original article, everything else got obliterated. somehow, it still contains an essence of Paul, Heather and People mag. even tho all words in it are found things, I made many decisions in creating this text. what I love about flarf, and what perhaps makes some people uneasy, is the pure voices that come thru. tho their contexts have changed, you hear the voices of Others, in all their oddity, difference, collision and helplessness. those voices can be so beautiful and unnerving. the writer of flarf, and the reader, Walt Whitmanly comprise those voices. what is poetry but a touching tenderness compelled towards the world? I use flarf here as an illustration. however one attains that touching tenderness is how poetry is made. difference is okay, and in fact, what worries you is what's most interesting.

  

  

  

  

  

zowie, that's some typo fest in the travel notes below. let's just say it being my 1st post since my birthday that I decided to celebrate in the style of my co-birthdayist Lt William Clark, the world record holder in spelling eccentricity.

Mark Young, in the 2nd issue of Otoliths, has kindly published a series of alien poems from the typing fingers of yours truly. here is the contents, but read my piece 1st.

back from a walkabout sort of week plus. Beth and I headed south to New Jersey on wednesday. rather than 84 to 95, we opted for the various parkways (Merritt and Huitchinson) into the city. it's a lovely ride and skips some of the crappy parts of both 84 and 95. the bridges you pass under must be the gifts of CCC. each one uniquely decorated with whatsis and crenellations. and holding up a wee bit better than the Big Effing Dig. tho on a positive note, I don't think anyone died due to Big Dig Malfeasance today!!! shady tree lined parkways right to the foot of the George Washington Bridge, highly recommended. we went to NJ to paint Beth's mother's home but the job shrunk so we didn't need to slave at it. I managed to read and write some. I also had a birthday, it couldn't be helped. one day Beth's mother and I went on an errand. in the offing were some wonderful clouds building. I could almost believe a tornado was brewing. the wind had jumped to say 30 mph judging by the snapping horizontal flag I saw. I was wishing Beth could see it, she and I share a love for clouds and weather. she did glom a view out the window of some whipping up, which, finally, threw a quick stunning bucketful onto the ground then moved on. whoosh. in a parkng lot I heard the clicking of someone's car lock, then I noticed an elder man waving his electronic key thingie around like a wand. he muttered generally, where's my car? I pointed and he plodded on, found his car and said, thanks buddy. the world grows more difficult. we left NJ's cramped shores on tuesday, my birthday. we aimed for the Catskills. we stopped at the Vince Lombardi plaza, just before the GW Bridge. I went back to the car to lock it, and witnessed a bust. a cop had a drawn gun aimed at someone in a car. the car was pinned in by a police car. fascinating. keep your hands in sight, said the cop with the gun. all the while folks are passing by. I admit I wanted to get close and watch but Beth kinda thought good sense ought to prevail. after a couple wrong turns we got onto the Palisades Parkway. gosh it's lovely. wicked hazy and hot. pictures from the overlook are fuzzier than I would like but ne'ertheless. we moved onto Rt 9W, essentially parallel to the PP. and wandered hither and yon. stopped for lunch in Piermont, then drove along the river past fascinating houses and such. I realize I'm writing slackly here, tired, but it was fun to absorb. the Hudson's lovely, even in its rather wrecked state. by which I mean, the commercial crush that has occurred since Thomas Cole packed up his paints. Cole and the Hudson Rive school were the first painters that attracted me, back in high school. nature at its most stunning and overwhelming. we wound our way into the mountains, which were impressive, but even there it was hot. we stopped on some ridge overlooking a hazy view of potentially everywhere. some buzzards flew about, and Melville's Catskill eagle did, and legitimately, occur to me. just a few feet above our heads but seveal hundred feet above the ground. we took a motel in Ellenville. the area lacks options, it's pretty distressed there, but what a crappy motel. looked okay from the outside, but the room smelled and and and. a wholly unnecessary meanness, an economic stupidity. things like no srinking cups, to save money. we proceeded to Phonecia, where we ate breakfast. we stopped at a Tibetan store there run by a rug weaver who regaled us about everything. it's a manner of sales that is engaging. he certainly did his best to interest us in his rugs, which indeed were wonderful tho outside the presumption of our paying power. I think he kindly sets aside sizing up his customers, which is wise, because you never know who's got the moolah and the inclination. Beth and I stopped in a rug shop in Waltham once, just curious, specifically about some thangka in the window. the proprietor talked with us, showed all his wares, explaining intricacies, made us cups of saffron tea. we did buy a bit from the Tibetan, and the transaction felt genuine. we meant to toddle over the mountain there but were advised that floods had taken the road away so we aimed for... wait for it... Woodstock, NY. we stopped at the information place, where we were helped in our search for a place to stay. I asked the woman about Big Pink. she said the place is privately owned and in fact has a fence around it so you can't see it. not that it is a Mecca for me, I was just curious. but it's a historical fact of the town. we never saw the site of the other historical fact of the place. we stayed in ascrupulously clean place near a brook. the town seems well filled with burnt out hippies, and future bums of America. the latter being kids just dully, tho with attitude, hanging out. I'm probably overly sensitive, it just seemed slackly hip in a way difficult to maintain. the place has a cash cow because its name. it is overloaded with art galleries. quain tho. I got old last tuesday, officiall so my opinion is probably besmirched. Beth and I had this cool idea of having dinner but jinkies, but surprised to find that several of the restaurants in town don't open on wednesday. well don't that beat all! we survived on burritos and whatever Beth had. while we ate a fellow came in with a backpack and frame on his back, with a wool blanket over that. time warp, he looked exactly like someone at the famed concert. he 1st Phish concert I went to, I seemed to be about 20 years older than anyone else there. and I saw so many kids who looked like kids I knew back then, even saw myself. and I wasn't even stoned!!! we stopped at a bookstore that proved better than I expected. the poetry section was small but it offered a number of books I would not mind owning or reading. there were at least 5 titles by Ed Sanders. I asked the woman there if he lived in town, I couldn't quite recall what I'd heard. she wasn't sure but he comes in regularly. a blurb on one book said he indeed lives in Woodstock. I bought volume 3 of a lengthy history of America series he's writing. 1961-1970. an intersting era and furthermore, I'm currently reading Beat and the Brightest by David Halberstam, about the long journey into and into Vietnam. Sanders' book is a neat companion piece. Sandeers is a lot like Ginsberg in being so connected to and aware of so much that was going on. I remember seeing Ginsberg on the Merv Griffin show in the late 60s talking about global warming and the ozone layer, definitely ahead of he curve. I really like Sanders' project. of course it is opinionated: that's its virtue. why not take the idea of 'istorin seriously? Sanders shows some interesting paths. I'm really psyched by the book, which being also of an era that fascinates me. we left on thursday, taking a poky route that included the Rip van Winkle Bridge. earlier we'd gone over the FDR bridge. I love bridges. now household back to almost normal (Erin's still away). a girl comes in daily to take care of our quadripeds. neither dog or cat likes being left. the dog gets walked and played with but our cat doesn't like strangers. the girl has never seen him. both animals know that we're going to leave, and when bags come out, that's critical mass, especially for the cat. he takes to our bedroom closet and looks as sad as can be. the dog of course has a nutty when we return, but the cat usally goes sulk-mode for a while before deigning to join us. and then remains inches away from us.