the frozen tundra of Providence, RI, has a poet or two. one of which: Henry Gould AT WORK. the war rages, theories are sided or sides are theory. the point is sides. Henry wants to get 'into it' but considers: isn't it all circular in nature? which side of the circle, then, could he be on? anyway, he's writing unapproved poems, into singular night. suddenly the 'phone' rings. Henry listens to the voice on the far speak implement. it is 'Kent'. Kent has a plan...

re pre ceding

btw, the Sentences site didn't work with Mozilla, which is probably some settings issue that I dunno, but it worked fine with Mcdonaldsoft Implorer

I actually own Sentences by Robert Grenier, probably got it from Small Press Distribution. having seen it on walls of a Franconia College hallway. Ron Silliman has written usefully about it, on his blog and elsewhere (has anyone else?), and I would refer Gentle Reader, and you guys too, to look into Ron's commentary, as well as the thing itself. this site is a really useful replication of the Sentences experience. but you can do more with the thing, the index cards, in hand.

Jukka...

do you ever use typewriters? my own electric yardsale ($1.00) beauty belly-upped just WHEN I NEEDED IT last winter, but I see how the utilization of which (hey, this goes back to CHARLES OLSON) could produce, etc. tho I dunno how Gary Sullican, among others, produce the pictures they do with (I assume) typewriters. and the mench of Gary allows me to say ARGH, got the TIME wrong. we was GOING to see HIM and BRANDON DOWNING at Analagous Series somewhere amidst MIT's ownership, starting 4 minutes ago. honest, we wuz gonna be there. now we is square.

the preceding post does mention Kent Johnson.

The Poetry Wars (the story so far...

with cudgels in hand, Ron and Jimmy face a horde of Non-Idolators. "I got your back, Ron," said Jimmy with youthful fire in his eyes. "Back atcha, good buddy," replied Ron, whose steely gaze says nothing if not Obey!. suddenly, the chilling visage of Dana Gioia® can be seen moving to the head of the horde. "ohmigod!" blurted Jimmy, "that's...!" "It's gonna get rough, little feller," Ron told his pal, "I can't lie to you. oh where is Eliot Weinberger? where is Kent? we need them!!!" meanwhile, at his secret citadel in backwater Illinois, Kent peers thru his Pomoscope. "It's a big battle comin', no question. I've got to enter the affray! if only I could get my sabbatical early..."

project report 

good cop/bad cop, and always ready to switch roles: Ron Silliman and Jim Behrle. it's not like I don't read these blogs. I've just wanted to be chary with my list, but what the heck. they can both expect to be flooded by upwards of one hitpoint more a day! perhaps that hitpoint will be what puts you guys over the top!!!

tough break for Behrle and local reading series with the demise of Wordsworth (the store not the daffodil guy and former Pope Laureate of England). another bookstore bites the dust. Henry Gould's reading really ruined things, I'm afraid, and not even my presence in the reading series could save things. selah. impressive and steady list of poets read in Behrle Productions, and I don't doubt he'll resurface with more at some other venue.

I ordered--yes I commande--the library to send me some HD books. all I own by her is Selected Poems. which requires more than the cursory search thru my books that I've so far made for it. I've read, in the day, quite a bit by her but it's been a while. tho not her Freud book, which I have coming. psyched about that. I was pleased that New Directions finally produced a collected poems. I realize such aren't always the berries, but they tend to be economical, plus tracking down such and like can be difficult. if a lump of money falls my way, I may invest in HD. I like her early lyrics. the longer works may be pressed too hard into a mystifying corner. that's the impression I remember. I can see the early HD being amuse for Pound, and the late HD one for Duncan. by muse I mean inspiration and influence.

Duncan's The HD Book is here along with a lot of other largely Canadian works. I've been slowly working thru Duncan's book. thanks to Silliman for pointing it out. he 1st mentioned it a year ago. it's been in my mind to read for years and.

this post is not about Kent Johnson.

I liked this visual poem at Geof Huth's blog, and Jack Kimball has done some useful pondering thereof. like, yoiu don't need me. I routinely scribble in books, and also have bought my share of used books that have been annotated. for the most part I like the scribblings I find, even when the jottings are mechanical channelling of the prof. I may scan some examples.

it costs $250 to learn to read poetry for pleasure? why, I can learn to hate poetry for free!!!

I read Sistah Tongue by Lisa Linn Lanae, from Tinfish Press today. I've had it for 2 years, but only now. well, I did scan it earlier, but now I've closer done it justice. it's a terrific thing. it's an essay, in a way, about pidgin Hawaiian, speech disorder, colonialism nd more. if I've made you think some trenchant tract, it aint. the essay core has mutated with the rhythm of the language, plus the book's design breaks up the essay push. the book's design is by Kristin Kalenani Gonsales. she places lines and boxes on the page disruptively, xeroxed scraps of quotes are introduced and there's a great sense of intersection on display, between author and designer, between the various confluence of themes. wow, it makes me want to write run on sentences I guess. the book is really much better than I am describing it. very exciting piece of work. and I must say, the work I've seen from Tinfish is excellent. Susan Schultz is editor, there in Hawai'i, with a focus on the Pacific rim. which is muchly new to me. Tinfish publications possess a rich, idiosyncratic design. please go to the site and see. there are some free downloads available (I'm about to make use of), too.

a little WD40 over to Blogspot, and things are working fine.

by the way, I wonder who produced the accompanying write up. Grenier? the quote marks are Grenierian, and some of the funny statements seem possible as of himself. wonder.

interesting to see Robert Grenier's work at an art gallery. while I was at Franconia, he took over a hallway that usually was used to display artwork (usually photography). he pinned index cards on which he'd typed his little poems. these would eventually become the box of poems called Sentences. so I guess he always had that sense of his work. it was a nat display, put you 'in' the poetry. Robert's daughter Amy provided the cover art for several issues of This. she was at the time around 4, and as I recall the drawings weren't so dissimilar from Robert's, altho she drew 'pictures' rather than 'words'. I think the example here is lovely. the prices are definitely New York prices. suffice to say that I am not a minimalist, but I have room to accept it. I very much respect Grenier's work, but don't entirely get want Silliman is on about with him. but I accept that this could be my ignorance or inability to understand. anyway, Jukka, out there in blogland, check this guy out if you haven't before.

I'd say Blogger's not okay children is showing.

great stuff here. 250 bucks to learn to read poetry for pleasure. probably cheaper in the long run than heroin, you know, as a way to spend your time. and a hundred bucks on using sci fi in poetry. it's actually 350 bucks saved for me, as I guess I figured both out for myself.

HILARY DUFF IS THE GREATEST!!!!!

aside from ascertaining that no one reads my blogs, the other great thing about Site Metre is discovering what people are searching for. what serendipity caused me to refer to Anthony Kiedis a bunch of times on R&S? yeah baby! bring on the diappointment when they land there. someone searched for the phrase "language is prison" and, thank you thank you, I supplied it as of last year: 8/26/03 on R/ckets & S/entries. glad to be of service

the connection is tenuous, the world spins a forest into paper found by the river, the river runs a sampling music, troops to hear, this river bumbles over rock and institute, tells the time a tricky launch, forgets the seaon and anything, rubs the landscape into distance, pours a reasoning, finally tags a person there: (Chris Murray). so be it.

Kevin Magee poking. we need a commitment to our own words. "what pillow could have been softer than the novel?" Or, what pillow could have been softer than post-70s theories of form?"

okay, how does one do this?. it's fascinating. when I work with texts, usually in a collage way, I'm a bit anal about keeping the text fairly readable. yet this isn't necessary. if you lose that meaning, there are other meaning possibilities. what the hell is meaning anyway?

the pure products...

Albert Ayler: "The cats, they say the better you are, the harder it is for you to make it but when you make it, you make it big. That's what America is, see. 'Cause they'll copy it from you"

check out the whole Ayler site including a link to a bio.

Ayler's stuff has gone into my music rotation. I laugh to hear this music, it is giddy, happy, perfectly evolved into the moment where we meet. I'm feeling a little crunchy now, seeing my father disappear but jeez is there a meeting in a fluid position of musical out and out? the noise is exuberence, this moment when I could be to you. something that I could hand you...

my father asked me my name today. see how rich it is to think you know. I told him, I wrote it down, and he knew I was right. where does he live? where's his bed?

decided I enjoyed Stephanie Young's blog, so it's on the list. she says somewhere that she feels like a cub reporter when she writes her blog. I have a similar feeling about mine, albeit for me it's a self-involved cub reporter. I like that sense of the thing. rather that than Ozymandias. funny how foreign the left coast scene sounds, I mean the names and places seem so far away. not that I'm well connected with the right coast scenes, nor even Cambridge/Boston.

but I mention Ron Silliman:

here’s a crisp rendering breeze from a hurried canister of weather down below. it rocks the blimp for memory’s sake, into the waves of ruction telling certainty how to go. remaining strands connect us to the long end of the thought. going miles to miles and all around, a cup of tea awaiting. it bothers one and doesn’t another. and above Fenway Park the crowd notes the hand of facts. sure a helicopter consummate in traffic watch. we could be there. or run the tunnel toward the place, trained for the moment when arrived in the time. someday or two a plane will burst, a fracture in the sky with all the need around. this love poem that presents itself, and calls America like all continents are one of ours. which you have to admit, complaining all the way. the rhythm is absurd, and you will take of different skies. Ron Silliman was in the air about it. he listed things and swept away. we thought it fancy, tender or newer than the door. the sky is still or not the same or when I was a child or more than ever. look at your trust. the blimp heads to a place in time, where else would it need to go?


---from ongoing work, "Blimp Gulf

I haven't mentioned Kent Johnson in a while.......

two pieces done while struggling with calligraphy (but I let the struggle be part of it), and one using the printer. I really like how the wind tore the text in the tree one. believe me, I don't know what I'm doing. but it's fun.

tree 

further thanks 

mention poem to me 

I should have posted this link earlier, John Byrum's Generator Press. I have many publications from Generator, collected over the years when I had the money. just not in the position to spend as I'd like now. the site has some terrific visual stuff. one of the later issues of Generator the mag is hand made and stitched, really a neat thing.

this passage by Frank Kuenstler, quoted by Nick Piombino is nifty in its own right, and follows neatly my thinking in the previous post. I guess I like the lines that are less determined -- "In which butterflies in toto" -- over the more determined ones: "In which Big Buddha is watching you", tho I wouldn't mind stealing that Buddha line.

I'm glad to've found Chomsky's blog. nice to have reminders of depth. I get a little nervous about Michael Moore as a fount of information. he seems like a television spirit. I mean, make the words smaller for us. he has done interesting stuff, I just worry about the thinness.

expenditure 

spaceship brownie 

seasonal