saw Geoff Young read in Lowell yesterday afternoon. Lowell was rather chilly, the wind really quite frore. the venue was the Lowell visitor centre, part of the national park in downtown Lowell. nice place for a reading, a small theatre where, presumably, presentations about Lowell's textile history happen. Bootstrap Press presented the reading to announce the publication of Geoff Young's latest book, The Riot Act. I was going to link to Bootstrap's site but Geoff's book has yet to appear there. well, go anyway to Bootstrap's site here, check out the catalogue. I did the reading alone, Beth taking the opportunity to visit with her cousin who lives down the street. in the visitor's centre I saw a likely character standing at the door and inquired if he was Derek. of course he wasn't, he was Ryan, the other proprietor of Bootstrap. that's Derek Fenner and Ryan Gallagher, just to be clear. Ryan came from Lowell and both went to Naropa, but I guess I get ahead of myself. Ryan pointed to a pile of books on a table and said take one, a copy of Geoff's book. eventually my friend Michael showed up. he's a friend of Geoff's. so I got to meet Geoff before the reading. a pretty good crowd attended. I could name names but that tends to sound icky, it's like counting coup. suffice to say they were there. before Geoff stood to read, Derek gave a brief history of the press. I was surprised to learn that it began in 1998, out in Colorado. I think they've been gaining momenmtum lately. its bestseller is, unsurprisingly, the recent Wieners book that Michael Carr edited. I await my copy from Amazon. I also have Derek's book, which is red. Ryan's introduction included the line, not sure if original to him: there's a fine line between attending a poetry, and not. Geoff read terrifically. he's an engaging person, charming. he reads with a patient measure. his poems often have a sort of dope slap humour. he began by reading a series of short works from, I think ,Pockets of Wheat, little nibbles of poetic insight, I guess you'd say. occasional poems might be the right term. I note this line, from some poem he read: "sometimes you get the best light from a burning bridge". he read from all 3 sections of The Riot Act. the 1st section offered what he called sonnets. they're all 14 lines long, but aren't otherwise too restrictive as to sonnet form. he said that he retrofitted material into these sonnets. he hunted out work that he'd written and redid them. that's an interesting approach, to rewrite like that. reframing the poem allows one to concentrate the poem's energy. wrangling what you've written into a new form gives a different angle to what you wrote. a thoughtful exercise that worked well for Geoff. as usual, I didn't take great notes, just doodles, but there was this line, with its quiet logical mayhem: "poetry's the coconut that under the drowned sailor's head finally sprouts". why yes! I should mention that the book has a cover by Eric Fischl, who also did the one for Tottering State. in both cases a spooky detached image. Geoff's book looked like one from The Figures because of the Fischl cover. and gosh, it was neat getting a copy, to read along with the poet. as Geoff said, all readings should have free books. it was a very nice event. a group of about 12 retired to a restaurant for a beer. I told Geoff, honestly, that it was an honour to meet him finally. it was like with Tom Beckett, receiving books from them for 20 plus years, now finally to meet the person. in both cases, I 1st knew them as editors, later as consummate poets. Tom Beckett notes in a comment below that Tom Fink interviewed Geoff Young for Exchange Values. I don't think the 2nd series of collected interviews, in which this Young interview appears, is out yet from Otoliths (Geoff had a copy, tho), but that's something to look forward to. I wanted to get back to Beth and her cousin so I scooted before the others went in to dinner. I will state publicly, with embarrassment, that in my rush I didn't pay for my Guinness. peccavi, and I will make good to whoever picked up the tab.

some good readings locally this weekend, which I hope to attend. Erin got scary sick earlier this week, scary because of the terrible pneumonia he had in January. scary enough to visit the emergency room at midnight, but he's okay. but if I don't get to the readings, it's because this team sticks together. but anyway, being hopeful:

as mentioned previously, Geoff Young in Lowell tomorrow, Bootstrap Press production. Bootstrap has some vigour going, nice to see the effort. and Geoff Young, as I wrote earlier, supplied me, thru his press The Figures, with many classics. Tottering States by Tom Raworth: is that an awesome book or what? and his own poetry is liovely (lively and lovely: not a typo).

on sunday Nick Montfort and Mairead Byrne read at Demolicious. I think Mairead's poetry might be called gnomic. I write that without knowing really what gnomic means, but I imagine a tightly made curving statement, where statement means anything but direct articulation (which is for Republicans, when they're drunk and mean), i. e. the space between words. it says in Montfort's bio that he wrote a 500 page poem in one day. well, okay, that's impressive. I love ridiculous projects, tho I don't mean ridiculous, unless it means gnomic, and if gnomic means some sort of twisting wrangling intention with a mist of fulfillment... so I dunno if I will make either event, but feel dutybound to mark them on the map.

runic message at Walden

runic message at Walden, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

mysteries of the universe

potential jigsaw puzzle

potential jigsaw puzzle, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

found things

found things, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

me

me, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

I was given a copy of Space, by Clark Coolidge. 1st edition, even. it was published in 1970, by Harper Row. imagine a world in which big publishers publish someone like Coolidge. the cover is by Jasper Johns. I can't recall if I owned this book or not. a number of books I got when at Franconia College have, thru the attrition of years, I guess, went gone. but it is familiar to me. Stein, specifically Tender Buttons, was an important disrupting influence on me. and Coolidge... my 1st year at Franconia, there were no poetry classes. the creative writing class was taught by a fiction writer who, in fact, was a pretty good poetry critic but was natheless uncomfortable at it. so Franconia got a poetry teacher, namely Robert Grenier. it was my 2nd year at Franconia, then, that my reading of poetry got focused. the particularly meddlesome writers for me were Stein and Ashbery (Tennis Court Oath), and then Coolidge. the poems in Space look typewriterly. with a typewriter, you could readily move the carriage to where you want it. of course you can do that with computers, but there's a rectilinear mind controlling computers, which can be an encumbrance, and you don't have the physical connection of placing the word where you want. I was surprised, when Coolidge came to the college to read, that he gave such a zesty reading. it put what he did with his disjunctive, curtailed work into a living context rather than just theoretical. from the music of his words you caught the meaning, if meaning exists in the word meaning. the front and back flaps favour the reader with some surprisingly useful salient map points for reading Coolidge. when it states that syntax has been removed, however, that's got to be examined. the syntax of good English has been devastated, no doubt, but syntax remains. even a narrative, if you want to look. I would hazard the guess that Coolidge utilized overheard, and decontextualized, conversation, just as Grenier did so often. the current age may be a bit fuddy duddy in its landscape. I mean a NY stream and a LANGUAGE stream have combined into the normative nowadays. this book suggests a giddy experimentation that takes of the past more than the networked present. a relique such as this is a vital reminder of the urgent process. I actually got into Coolidge more when he shifted to the high-density prose that typifies so many of those great books that The Figures published in the 80s and 90s. it really is a waste of time to keep bonking on bogus anthologies like Best American Poetry. a more thorough study of foundation work seems much more appropriate. Coolidge, it stuns me to realize, is one of our older poets now, age 68. he has an enormous amount of work published, which I'm sure has yet to be well-traced critically. as with Stein, his contribution seeped into me. my earliest confrontations with both writers was uncomfortable and dismaying. yet I see their lessons in my work, or at least, I see the meaning of their lessons.

check out this piece by Stephen Ellis. it has some of the burnt off visionary quality of Olson's very late poems, when O had spiraled from theoretical command and was staring, instead, at death and life. note Stephen's lines, and the beautiful anticipation of his enjambments. admirable.

I am advised that copies of RIOT ACT by Geoffrey Young will be given away at his reading, noted below, next saturday in Lowell. and it is a Bootstrap Press production. very exciting.

a few pictures below, and at my Flickr page, of Walden in fog. we went there yestermorn (id est Thanksgiving). the water was smooth and clear, surprisingly few people were around. less than a mile away Concord/Carlisle fought Bedford on the field of football. whoever won, God smiled on the winner. today, at my urging, we went to the mall. with no urge to buy anything, just look around. it was only slightly challenging to park. things were busy, that is, people were buying stuff. we did a tour last year and saw less purchases occur. the Apple Store was a-buzz. and there was a swarm of people working there. woohoo, buy Apple stock. Aeropostale appeared to be stuffed with eager young shoppers. Abercombrie and Fitch, however, looked like try to hard. are you taking notes here? at the entrance of A&F stood 2 models, I guess they were. one a gogo dancer and/or cheerleader in short skirt. the other a standard issue slouchy, skinny, hip male model type, with shirt unbuttoned and pants low, body hair removed. such a show is a swipe towards edginess for a suburban mall, but I think it means A&F has lost altitude. it was busy, and the thumping trance of music had its message, but it's like Starbucks, you can see the need for effort now. the poetry has turned to doggerel. Crate & Barrel scooted to its own separate building recently, so its space was filled with a Christmas Ornament shop. the same space held a Halloween shop up till a month ago. will it shift to something else in January? we have zero need for ornaments, in fact, the lower ceiling here means we have a superfluity of decorations, but there were some beauts calling to us, all glitter, shine, jolting colour and what. such are m 1st notes on this most telling of American whatever.

Geoff Young reads in Lowell,
to wit:

Geoffrey Young’s THE RIOT ACT: book release and reading
Saturday December 1st, 2007
3:00 p.m.
National Park Visitor Center
246 Market Street
Lowell, MA 01852

Geoff Young ran the terrific press The Figures for many years, whence came a raft of important books. he is also a wonderful poet and, as I understand, a deft reader. I am certain that this will be an awesome event (I think Bootstrap Press is involved).

, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

DSCN9165, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

DSCN9160, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

John Latta's blog is crackling. his reading and views fit wonderfully into blog format. his doubtfulness is always well backed up. he isn't merely acerbic, tho he has a Dahlbergian whip. I guess I'm too tired to rattle on. I'm glad he's "out there". shamefully, I haven't read a book of his...

must... remedy... this...

a review, by Jeff Harrison, in Galatea Resurrects, of Days Poem.

I got For Girls & Others by Shanna Compton (Bloof Books 2007). hey hey, I'm others, I think. this is her 2nd collection, which is saying something, because the first, Down Spooky, is a pretty mature work. I'm guessing that Girls began with a plan whereas Spooky was collected, for whatever that observation is worth. Girls delivers of advice to/for girls, which being the actual words of advice (from cranky old books) and, more crunchingly, the cultural enclosures meted out. there's the theme of the book, for you English teachers. well, I don't read like that. that's the normative part of the tale. Shanna recontextualizes some 19th century advice to girls with a flarfian beat. I actually hear the persistent trawling of Robert Fitterman here, that method, I mean, not stylistic residue. I haven't read enough to provide a detailed map but there's a sense of sudden rescue to a number of her poems. for instance, "Awful White Wine", great title, wraps around an O'Hara-like flightiness. the last stanza then performs a shift, arabesque, what you will:

All night the cervix of Our Lord
glistens & slurps with an enlarged pink
fiddling sound. We're ready to ascend.

I mean, heigh ho, that's quite a turn, a coaxial collision of intentions. it's funny stuff, with a flarfy jolt and an undazed commitment. I was reading without pen in hand, so I haven't collected many quotations but I assure you that I bounced on numerous felicities. I mean to write further of this book, which I have only just met. my idea is to make a blog where I write more formally and at greater length than what you see here. in lieu of that project, let these few notes tempt you to read and even to own Shanna's latest. it's a handsome ton of energy.

I shot you, Elk, and then I said,
"I feel better now, because you're dead."


file under: Doggerel Will Save Us

extreme Walden

extreme Walden, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.