Saturday, April 15, 2006

Section 9 Doobie Doobie Doobie

Joan Houlihan have new email address!
Joan Houlihan can now email everyone and poets!


Greetings to Joan Houlihan and respond urgently to all poet email, all poet really know that Joan Houlihan can stand as Joan Houlihan mine

all poet believe Joan Houlihan and also let Joan Houlihan know the secret of life and all poet will like Joan Houlihan to promise all poet that Joan Houlihan will not disappoint all poet in terms of rest of all inherited life with Joan Houlihan in Joan Houlihan country


Please it’s secret!!! all poet want Joan Houlihan to stand and claim


all poet can't handle transfer because of all poet condition here in poet camp


all poet will be planning of meeting Joan Houlihan in Joan Houlihan country, as Joan Houlihan good investment poet wills


all poet have all covering documents and bearing all poet name as next of kin and only doughtier of all poet family who will inherit late poetries.


All poet have map of total Joan Houlihan as Joan Houlihan


commissions of assisting confirm the received


Joan Houlihan manage all poet behalf there in Joan Houlihan country


all poet wait


Joan Houlihan reply answer soonest


For the Poem User Agreement, Section 9, Joan Houlihan may immediately issue a warning, temporarily suspend, indefinitely suspend or terminate all poet poetry and refuse to provide Joan Houlihan services to all poet if Joan Houlihan believe that all poet actions may cause financial loss or legal liability for Joan Houlihan, all poem users or what. Joan Houlihan may also take these actions if Joan Houlihan are unable to verify or authenticate any information all poet provide to Joan Houlihan.

Friday, April 14, 2006

Get Out of the Moat Double Quick, Joan Houlihan

Write what Joan Houlihan know.
I mean it's like
Gangsta can i *** on u?

That probably the most advice
any writer can get. It build
walls in writer's mind, imposing
artificial Joan Houlihan.

How many writers, hearing those
words, have despaired? Those leading
quiet, normal -- boring -- lives no
doubt think that nothing
of interest happens to them. A
laundry list would be interesting.

dodgy beef, sulphurous broccoli, still
strange after four weeks of sharing the loo: but
how can what Joan Houlihan know
make an interesting laundry list?

What Joan Houlihan know isn't always
a year in the life of Frog Class.
what Joan Houlihan see around you
in a moat of risotto
does not read poetry.

A masked man however sure can make
a girl who knows salsa or reggaeton
do crazy things for love, so if
Joan Houlihan download sample
job offer letters as guides to write
IT WOULD FEEL OH SO TINGLY
IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES.

You know what other treat
Joan Houlihan should give
Joan Houlihan everyday?
non-capitalized sentences.

I mean it's like my skin
is sensitive to that stuff.

so who really has ever
experienced a stellar Joan
Houlihan? Do Joan Houlihan think
anyone has ever actually seen
a girl's head, or tasted
a vacuum cleaner? Yup.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

I assume you read Jack Kimball's blog so I needn't perform linkage, but I enjoyed his visit to the realms of James Tate poetry in Harvard Square. Tate came to Franconia College whoop whoop 35 years ago, I guess at the behest of Robert Grenier. I say I guess because of the readers who (I remember) read at the school whilst Grenier, and I, were there, Tate sticks out as different from the others. those others were Coolidge, Eigner, Ashbery, Creeley. Tate would have been in his late 20s then, long-haired, nervous cool. he read well-paced and funny. I think I was impressed that he had a book titled The Oblivion Ha Ha (I was easy to impress). at one point, Grenier started laughing for no apparent reason. or maybe there was a reason, but Grenier kept laughing beyond the social okay. whichever, Tate got distracted, wondering if Grenier were crazy. Tate possessed (probably still possesses) a certain intensity, an edge of absurdity. humour has been described as a sort of disaster that upsets expectations. Tate's humour is compelling, or I should say potentially compelling, because I think there's that about Tate fighting the implications of the disaster. Grenier seeming to lose it made Tate wary. I'm suggesting the difference between a 'real' poet and an entertainer, at least a little bit, somehow or other.
I'll stay peripheral, but the discussion vis-à-vis-ing the Publisher's Weakly (sic) article on blogs on various blogs and in comments boxes (Shanna, Stephanie, Jessica, Anne et all-a'-ya) has been fascinating, eyeopening and even collaborative in a way I have not witnessed comments boxes to be.
just to note that Jeff Harrison and I are up to the 68th segment of Antic View. I think my contribution to the conversation involves trying to keep up with the mysterious and theoretical wanderings that Jeff takes. he asks questions that I have never considered before, let alone tried to answer. differences aren't the point. we've collabbed together for several years, in a way that has always fit like a glove. we take different routes to reach points of meeting. I'm not so sure it is useful merely categorizing such differences. I suppose registering differences is natural. I'm thinking there may be a fetishization involved in the idea of that difference, and I swear that's the 1st and last time I use the word fetishization. I mean, maybe mom's are more visual than dads, it's not a question that I've thought to think of. I just don't know where to take that sort of line. there's something about meeting that's important, yes? I am kinda interested in that which doesn't gum up the works. strict barriers cut off limbs, or some other equally vivid pictogram for your assayal.

Monday, April 10, 2006

  Posted by Picasa
  Posted by Picasa
of course I hate flarf because wah wah wah, but I get a contact high when even flarfists get methodological, and show some of the thinking involved. thus some flarfian Sullivania. hate on.

Sunday, April 09, 2006

and while recommending: go get Robert Fitterman's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. he attempts an updating or translation of Gibbons' little tome. the humour is dry and subtly relentless. Fitterman lets things extend so that one passes thru and beyond the simple stingings of irony, sarcasm and satire. those are present, as natural human reactions, but not weighted for glory. which is to say, a humanism wins thru. anyone who hates flarf or google-searches are just saying they aint got any effort in them. a teacher I had says "depth is on the surface". I think it is a vital work to sound the depth of our public surface.
hassen offers 2 pdfs of her chapbooks on her blog. both are part of Sky Journal. I was reading the From Land section last night. her project is interesting, a person in nature. the poems are descriptive of the natural moment, which is those moments of intake, breath of the elements. one notes hassen in the midst, but not how she feels so much as how she is. I know I'm not hitting the notes right here but it is difficult to find a non-blurby language for what I have in mind. this line is wonderful: "encourage galileo to stay away from here / until things blow over. the measuring, logical mind held back whilst the rampant and wild is rampant and wild. "my indirect navigation takes more than a lifetime". and this: "my own rigid skeleton functioning independently / can't recall how it felt knowing the data". this is nature poetry, not picturesque but awakened. I know there are times when I don't want to be apparent in the landscape, and I infer similar in hassen's work. yet of course the 'I' comes back. I think this is a major issue in poetry, and not just now in this crisp modern world. if flarf, for instance, is a critque of anything, it certainly touches on the egoistic assertions that WE make, as witnessed in internet exculpations. to think that Google-sculptors are picking on the downtrodden is just romantically biased (have you looked at what people are saying on the internet???). and to assert the snide restorative is equally so. hassen is tenderly present in her writing, guarded or wary about the possible egotistical bloom. yes, you are allowed to speak 1st person, just please retain a sense of the surrounding landscape, in which your royal we may not command more than a speck of space. and just to say a little more directly about her poems: they are untitled, coaxed into modest shapes with some drift across the page, and the 'i' is uncapitalized. recommended.