I got hooked by University of California Press's bonzo sale, to wit:

Creeley's Collected--30 years missing from the real collection, but it includes several books I don't have, and inspires me to go back to this source!!!

Paul Klee's diaries--a favourite painter, and I love journals

Lorine Niedecker's collected--she's wonderful, really. you might think of her as complementary to Zukofsky, and there's something to that, but there's something about surviving in her work, finding a voice despite impossibleness. I just happened on this nifty nugget:

Van Gogh could see
twenty-seven varieties
of black
in cap-
italism

Olson's collected prose--he's always been a college for me, and tho I have much of the stuff here, I didn't have Call Me Ishmael

complete posthumous poetry of Cesar Vallejo (Eshleman/Barcia)--Vallejo has always interested me but I haven't read a great deal. am I right in thinking Spanish translations are often terrible? maybe I associate all Spanish translations with Robert Bly. I feel I can trust Eshleman to some extent, at least. this is by no means an expert opinion.

Juliana Spahr's This Connection of Everyone with Lungs--courtesy Jack Kimball's enthusiasm (I seem to be stalking Jack, don't I?). I was pulled in immediately. powerful reaction to 9/11.

Lenin Body Surfs for Certain

Lenin groaned on the way to new groaning, which was the same as writing home from the war inside. that war—labeled Iraq with pictures of Iran—shows you just how much a little might be. A little fit for saying how the waves bend over certain experiments in human nature, letting force imply a coarse determination. But what, pray tell, is Lenin's best relation to current events? He's sworn to uphold the letter of grey branches in a plush circumstance of rain. Isn't that a dilly, where dilly means something extended, and where the verb to be needs a way to sprout future entanglements. Can this sort of language foster more brunt along the lines of asking wedded couples to strike the ground with every pledge? Can we see thru such social constant while still looking for Anne Frank? Wasn't Anne Frank a retard, or dork, or just fairly unattractive? I keep forgetting. Lenin, for sure, was not charming at all: he couldn't endure the fees. He just laid out a plump nostrum, and the singers began. That singing finished Anne Frank. Her part was worn. We still love Anne, and Lenin's awful nice in gabardine. More tunes can be relayed, as we circle investment on the map. That's our next target of approximation. To simulate is to cool the project to the point of almost current effect. Our program begins now.

I 1st looked at Jack's post noted below with my Blog Scan(tm) glasses on, and phrases leapt out. that was my 1st excitement. having read it thru, in order, I'll call it a tour-de-force. the piece is well wound up. it is satiric, roman-a-cleffy (I surmise, tho I don't hold the clef), but where the thing goes oblique from that is where that I find the most interest. its hyped-up Hollywood energy goes athwart language gone wry as well as awry. a tussle of sequencing, bombardment, and humanness proves a piece of the puzzle. Jack's looking at a certain pizzazziness that's been providing comfort for well too long. monadic self-congratulation in crowds secures the well-featured world. really impressive.

I went to the trouble of reformatting Jack's recent pieces into chronological order. worth doing. maybe Blogger someday will make it easy to go old to new, or maybe I gots to learn how myself...

I've just scanned this so far but Jack's got something totally wtf as the youngest member of this household might put it.

Really Bad Movies reminded me of Plan 9 from Outer Space. I used to own the tape but that went gone. ah, but I searched the library network and bingo. so Beth and I watched it yesterday, Beth for the 1st time. too much is said about how bad it is. it sure is amateurish. but it also has a weird integrity. Wood was really serious ablut what he was doing. and the movie is oddly compelling, despite bad everything. right off the bat, with bizzaro Criswell, these sterling words are voiced: future events such as these shall be with us in the future. hmm, yes, I think I see what you mean. how about the line the detective gets to speak: Clay is dead--murdered--and somebody is responsible. or the dialogue in which Jeff tells his wife that he saw a flying saucer, and she replies, flying saucers! you mean the kind from up there? and Jeff answers, yes, or their counterpart. huhn??? and this plan 9, in which the dead are risen to, well, it's like, uh, somehow this'll help. the dialogue seems quite random, like Wood was listening to a bunch of movies or conversations as he wrote. quite flarfy, really. I've compared Plan 9 to Coppola's Dracula. of course Coppola had an enormous budget, and he knows cinematography. which just means the lameness of that movie are the more appalling. I don't think Dracula is more compelling to watch than Plan 9. you don't get cops scratching their heads with their revolvers in Dracula, that's for darn sure. nor flying hubcaps neither.

poem by Lanny Quarles

From the Ragged Breasts of Onlookers

Anne Frankensteinlageryetimedusaqualung
whose dick chaineys swing like welks
whose bush is putrid banana slugs
whose colon pals are luminous barnacle sausages
stuffed with Volkswagen assclowns with squidbeard mudra-applets
whose ivory tower moustache tentacles (sojourn, sojourn!)
are like a jungle gem for jaded jingles jangling in their angling oogles

O Doktor Jekyll-jelly-doom Breasted Concentration Camp
you genre of queer hyena soccer hooliganeshas (robo-retards!)
hoboing amongsth sad veteran's of psyd-chic Vars,

Ye Thrice Bullock'd Buskers of
THE NEW EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN (Crayon Redeemer Armor made of Heiligenacht naughty snakes!)
come lately from your Nabi-Nazi-hutch-puch-punchinutella smeared tribadic thropsiers
to dangle your labial petticoat instruction manuals
into my motley-brained fool's paradise

What have YOU to offer ME~!

I was there when Granada moored its Blind Emily
Dick-in-Sun to the Logan's Run Fatima Hand
so holy red jew'ld
wrapped in candied hogsnout and bitter gut-lace,
so fete-shrimp'd for the horking pons

O ye Tiny Gnaouan biscuit peddlers
whom stars love
I cannot fry Mohammad in effigy
in Jimmy Dean
as somebody has put a delete key squarely in the forehead
of your absent faith

Flibbigibbeted in Direct Mailings!

O dry waterless tongue of exquisite beauty!

so faithful to Heather LockLear
so certain of her G-spot
and S-spot
and D-spont:

God, I am in your way.
Push me aside, and make this day,
this
Chubby Checker Istanbul Strip Club
with Anne Frankenstein Yeti Medusa Aqualung hash boys
painted by Runnabeegle "Bosch-und-Loam" Marais..

noticed last night that the door was open, and the dog... he's part German shepherd and part husky and that means he wants to see what's over there, and there, and there... that put me in a panic and I called the troops. while Beth and I scurried about, Erin just ran out barefoot. by the time I got out, Erin was carrying Brownie (that's Next County Brownie). Brownie had ventured into a particularly muddy area, which I didn't realize until Erin put him down and the dog ran inside and with muddy feet, anointing the carpet wonderfully. oh the jolly fun. Brownie knows exactly how to get home, his homing sense is perfect, it's just a matter of when. under previous ownership, his owner found him inside a restaurant dumpster, having the time of his life. one time I ran to the nearby farm for some dinner essential and noticed by the side of the road this very dog. just sitting there? I wasn't aware that he'd snuck out. usually in such circs and runs away, just to make the experience so much more fun, but this time he remained where he was. when I got up to him, I saw a gash in his shoulder, and thought he'd been in a fight, unlikely as that would be. then I saw that he favoured a leg. then I saw that that leg dangled. okay, so he'd gotten hit by a car. he was patched up expensively, complete with splint. one week later, he espied an open door and sure enough, off he limped. luckily Beth was out there to corral him. an earlier adventure occurred over the 4th of July weekend. I tied him outside not realizing that his line was unanchored. so he wandered off per orders. I ran around looking for him. I went to neighbouring homes to get permission to look in their yards but because of the holiday, no one was around. so I was skulking about like a criminal. finally I thought I heard something nearby. a neighbour has a rabbit hutch and there I found the arch criminal. he had wrapped the line that was still attached to him around the leg of the hutch. he stared at the unavailable rabbits and yipped forlornly. when he saw me, there was a look of relief, as in, finally some help getting the rabbits. so there's some of my dog adventures, read 'em and weep.

Lenin Body Surfs for Certain

Lenin groaned on the way to new groaning, which was he same as writing home from the war inside. that war—labeled Iraq with pictures of Iran—shows you just how much a little might be. A little fit for saying how the waves bend over certain experiments in human nature, letting force imply a coarse determination. But what, pray tell, is Lenin's best relation to current events? He's sworn to uphold the letter of grey branches in a plush circumstance of rain. Isn't that a dilly, where dilly means something extended, and where the verb to be needs a way to sprout future entanglements. Can this sort of language foster more brunt along the lines of asking wedded couples to strike the ground with every pledge? Can we see thru such social constant while still looking for Anne Frank? Wasn't Anne Frank a retard, or dork, or just fairly unattractive? I keep forgetting. Lenin, for sure, was not charming at all: he couldn't endure the fees. He just laid out a plump nostrum, and the singers began. That singing finished Anne Frank. Her part was worn. We still love Anne, and Lenin's awful nice in gabardine. More tunes can be relayed, as we circle investment on the map. That's our next target of approximation. To simulate is to cool the project to the point of almost current effect. Our program begins now.

I neglected an important detail from yesterday. I wandered off to a quiet part of the student union, where I found vending machines. one offered ice cream, those crappy items you might find in an ice cream truck. of course I had to have one. having standards, I chose the least crappy of those crappy ice creams. after accepting my money the machine slowly (that is to say, with building anticipation) positioned this black tube above the appropriate bin. I was wondering how it would collect the ice cream then realized that that tube was a vacuum cleaner and would grasp the ice cream that way. oh lordy, I was excited. the tube went down, the machine made more noise and out came my delectable, which was brought over to the opening and unceremoniously dropped. wow! the trail mix I got for Erin was merely shoved from its display perch once I'd paid. as to the water I got, the machine helpfully displayed the message vending whilst it pecuniously stowed the money and dropped the bottle. just so you know that vending had occurred at the vending machine, which are well known to vend.

but hey, Flarf festival in NYC, Magic the Gathering Tournament in Bawston. Erin and I made the journey, to wit: commuter train to subway to shuttle out to Umass Boston, with Boston Harbour as backdrop. I love that there commuter train, I truly do. the bells start ringing at the crossings, then you hear the bell of the train, then the mythic creature hies into sight, then the whoosh as it decelerates, and we can board. and 2 minutes after embarking, there's Walden Pond out the window. which absolutely always excites me. at Porter Square we catch the subway. to reach the subway, one can take an absurdly long escalator down. I usually opt for the stairs but didn't this time. looking straight down it disconcertingly looks like we're moving horizontally. which causes a vertiginous wobble in my brain, I can't speak for anyone else. the tournament was at Umass's student union, this enormous new edifice, specifically in the cafeteria. it was a while before Erin's flight began, affording him plenty of time to survey the cards on sale. this stuff is fairly well out of my ken. I'm not a gamer by any stripe. Magic the Gathering throws me because for every rule, there seems to be a card that countermands that rule, and new ones always on the way. it's just too fluid for me. the crowd was older than I expected, college age more, with quite a few well older than that. and totally into it. while the temptation exists to think of a standard Magic type aficionada--you know: nerd--in sooth it's not that easy. yuh, there were quite a few there who look like they subsist on soda and don't get much sun, but there were many enough that don't fit the category at all. and there were a few females, so there's an outside chance that another generation of Magic enthusiasts may be born. sorry, just kidding. the common denominator was intense focus. those there to play can spend hours ogling cards, explaining to each other how particular cards work, and various strategic finepoints. once Erin got into his game I roamed. I had a notebook and just parked one place or another and wrote. eventually I stepped outside. I passed near a trash container, on which sat a seagull (herring gull). I was as close as 3 feet from it when it finally decided to move away a little. its confrere, bigger, was busy with a piece of trash. it would perspicaciously shake and chew the thing then drop it on the ground. finally a bit of food flew out, which the bird immediately consumed. the smaller bird watched in awe. the bigger bird went back to work on the rubbish until a much larger morsel, of a doughnut, became the prize. both of them continued at this work. they fluttered onto the trash container and snatched bits of trash out, to then be dealt with. it was like panning for gold. the larger one found something that rustled and I thought score!!!, but it proved to be a crushed cup with ice in it. I spent 15 minutes watching these 2 birds. I'm sorry they are eating doughnuts and french fries but it was fascinating to witness their endeavour. this reminds me of the botanist Edgar Anderson, a great deal of whose study into plants occurred in a vacant lot in St Louis. somewhere along the line a fellow asked if Erin wanted to trade cards. this is a feature of Magic card collecting. they went thru each other's available trades and picked out a few. they wrangled, discussed and came to an agreement. I'm sure there are instances of bad blood from these trades but my observation of this scene saw a sort of collabortive effort. I used to play a lot of pickup basketball games. no refs, of course, so if you felt that you were fouled you called it. it was surprisingly rare, no matter how tense the game, that anyone questioned such calls. I guess it's like that with these trades. Erin dashed off after completing the trade. after a while the fellow, who had remained at the table, said, hey where's he gone? he left his cards. this is an Erin trait, we're glad he brought his coat home. the guy handed me the box saying he'd lost his collection at one of these events. as Erin did last year. the guy could've horked them, as I was no more aware of their remaining there as was Erin. so that was nice. it was a fun trip, and we didn't even get lost.

I don't need to link to Jordan Davis's for chrissakes, whereat link to pictures of living flarfists on the hoof can be found. same goes for Nada Gordon. flarf is very expensive to produce: those Google searches do not grow on trees.

I think Stan Apps has come up with a new genre: the this poem was written genre of poetry intro. the amazing way The Muse came particularly to you bearing this wonderful gift.

further with Mayhew's statement. I grok that balance between genius and fraud, tho I wouldn't put it in those terms. one feels like a genius because one has a purpose, and that purpose feels original. one feels like a fraud because one can't match one's ideals, meaning both those artists who came before and that vision in the head. taking too much and not enough credit simultaneously. Mayhew's terms sound so Charlton Heston. children create all the time without these boundaries. as wise adults, we think too much. genius occurs when we free ourselves from those wise boundaries, fraudulence sets in when we formalize that freeing.

this just sounds stuck. I mean Vic Wertz hits a long fly ball and Willie Mays is running back thinking I'm the greatest damn centerfielder AND I'm a fraud: should I bother reaching over my shoulder?. I feel like I've made mistakes but I don't feel like a fraud. and I think I've done good work, but I still put my pants on one arm at a time. my theory is that art aint made out of such worrying, unless Harold Bloom is now making art.

Erin and I went for a short bike ride yestreen. passed a girl's softball game and had to watch a bit of that. an organized league game, ages, I'd guess, 8-12. there's an assumption that MLB is the only real baseball, but I've happened upon high school games, Little League, even those semi-organized sunday morning games that occur. the pitcher we saw was young, not overwhelming but steady. she didn't do any of those wild softball deliveries, which is probably just as well for young arms. a couple of batters didn't look too hot then this small girl came up. I thought she had a nice stance, good crouch and weight on her back foot. just as I thought that she smacked a solid single thru the shortstop gap. after her came the biggest girl out there. the coach yelled his team to back up but the outfielders (there were 4!) already knew what to do. this girl just had to play 1st base and bat 4th. she waved her bat like a club, shades of Leon Daddy Wags Wagner. she clobbered the 1st pitch, sending it over the outfielder's head. she motored around the bases but possibly could've been caught if the outfielder hustled to retrieve and the relays were on target. a few more hits and walks and then the game stopped, I imagine because the winning team had created too large a margin. we rode on for a while. saw some white tails crossing the forest path ahead of us. deer in the distance always look like dogs to me. didn't have a camera, alas, the deer didn't mosey far off. it was a beautiful clear evening, tho a bit cool. love this time of year.

reading My Life as a Lover, by Brandon Brown (the other Brandon?). it is available in pdf format from Detumescence here. the press offers other e-books, and stuff, so go raid, as I will further do. MLaaL has a narrative thrust with embedded poems. as such does indeed resemble Dante's Vita Nuova. BB tries to explain his life as a lover, a matter of intense focus. the poems are all sonnets, which arise from certain situations that he describes. a dry humour pervades: "I began to love my love, and I promise I yielded to love's commands. Shortly thereafter, a warrant for my arrest was issued." this love that he speaks of need not be seen as love. he does not situate any person in this love except for himself. his sonnets are mostly real sonnets, formally made. his syntax is cracked, which plays well against his earnest prose. this is the 1st sonnet:

awed din enemy, not vested, called “we”
came so low, cored me, tentatively man
a quantity feels a shadow, the plan
purloined delicacy copiously.
belly flu more aching drove under knee
my car resting, caved in a loaned annul
keys a doublooned archer press the panel,
a consciousness of solely bitter tree.
he trusted boys’ and girls’ toys suspiring
he cried me Satan’s necklace, saved or tied,
keyed my party speaking to fucked-window.
alarmed apartment desecrated morning,
it comes, pain of the day, kills his becried
case of ugly consumes the tree then sows

the sonnets are all divided, he says, into 2, 3 or 4 parts. you can sometimes see what he means but not always. section XVIII has this sonnet, which he wrote "After returning from vacation":

becalms bedaubs bedims befog
because bedecks befriends begrudged
beclouds bedevils befits bequests
bedews bespeaks betrays befouls
befalls betroths bestirs begets
before begets bereaves belies
belabors belike bemused bewigged
beneath belittles besot bewail
begrimes bewares below bemoan
benumbs begone between bestows
behaves bespoke beheads begin
beguiles between bewildered beholds
belays belauds bestrides betimes
betakes beside bereft berate

this is his explanation: "This sonnet has three parts. In the first part I tell how I encountered Love and how it looked. In the second I relate what I was told. In the third I tell how it vanished. The second part begins: Yet as we met, the third: And then so much."

oop, jokes on me. Williams did this sort of thing as well. I keep reading Brown's love as something, anything, else. or in addition to. he writes in the prose sections with a focused earnestness that recalls Stein. the narrative, you could even say the story, has a 19th century feeling of import, a boding of large scale issues. I'm thinking particularly of Poe, where something of magnitude hovers over all, something barely imaginable (is anything in "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym" imaginable?). a subtle political context comes thru. the prose sections give a most detached plea for love. what the hell is this love and why isn't it attached to anything? can't that be read as ruthlessly politcally? descriptive, that is, of the particular plight assailing the current national scheme? in these prose sections, you could replace love with writing poems, playing hockey, eating sandwiches, invading Iran. such imperative to something that's so poorly defined. this is a rascally, fascinating book. its assertions divert from sense, overawed by a stupid utopian medication. thinking of, say, Bush, or the author of Manliness, who share a like deference to ornate, unmeasured stupidness. Brown's really poking at something important, as unlikely as it might at first seem. I'm not, just to be clear, reading Brown's book as opinion but as poetry. it's not a matter of what he says, but what the language is doing. I can make that distinction.

a quick trip to Pearl Art Supply yesterday. 3 floors of lots of stuff. I needed tack sheets for something I'm doing. a place like Pearl might outbid bookstores for my attention when moolah is unmitigated but this time I was being very budgetary, sensible, boring. perhaps you know the picture William Blake drew of me saying 'I want'. not his time, but man, I could spread some wealth around there, were I to have it. to work at Pearl you apparently need proof of disaffection. I mean I'm like, hey, you know what I mean? I can't distinguish if this is viral arty coolness, or a viral coolness from some other precinct. I usually don't need to ask questions at stores, or don't bother, but this time I was working outside my knowledge base. it's not like anyone was rude, only that they suffered this whole job thing: it really cuts into your free time. people typically, normally, read me as standoffish, when in fact I'm a lovely gentle soul, so I'm not all antsy with judgment here. but look, arty coolness is for the birds, I don't care if it's your personal revolution. leastwise if we're talking cool at 20, insurance sales at 30. I outcooled that reading a Reader's Digest version of a Michener novel to my mother in the hospital as she lay dying. I'm not taking away from youth defining themselves away from the creaky generation: that I get. cool hip art, elitist shrugs, that's all crap. art can be rarefied, to me it touches the sacred, but snotty ass is dregs. I couldn't in my narrow survey tell amongst the Pearlites what was arty cool and what was hope I die before I get old. really not talking specifics here, just reckoning some distinctions as best I can.

Kimball does Spahr and Clover AND Durand and Scappettone. Jack's critical acumen is always highly intelligent and highly personal: he gives you a serious view. bloggers are surprisingly lax about writing reading reports, so I welcome Jack's perspicacity in that arena. I manage to get to readings infrequently, which makes them events for me. which is why I am not going to the Joan Houlihan one 5 miles down the road tonight. I realize that readings are ephemera, but notes on what floated by are always happily received, at least at this address. Jack's reviews, such as these two, should be praised. which, gosh darn it, I've just done.

Alan Sondheim has hisself a blog. the vastness of his work includes just about everything imaginable, and some things perhaps not even that. d'ja know he was in a band with Al Wilson (of Canned Heat, the guy with the Skip James voice)? he hung with Kathy Acker, he hung with Clark Coolidge. like him or not, he's the sine qua non of sine qua non, there's no way to argue otherwise. and given the breadth and variety of his work, if you can't find something in his work then you're just being a shit. as evidence, the weenies that periodically (that is to say regularly) griped about his presence on the Poetics list. a blog is kind of a populist step for him, but it does allow a narrative sense to come forth.

  

  

  

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.

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.

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.

  

  

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.

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.

new blog, and hoping she keeps at it: hassen. her work used to pass thru on the wryting list. I always liked her writing, and a sense of personal integrity always came thru. help make her famous so publishers will publish her work.

dudes, you gotta read Dr Bloodmoney by Philip K Dick. took a while and hadn't ought to to read but distraction, other things, tired, made me go slow. the book is like totally awesome. I'm reading it and I'm, like, completely alarmed or whatever by some of PKD's concepts. it's scifi for sure but it's like horror too. f King weren't prolix and if he did scifi too... Dick's like real headlong as far as writing. in his less good books you feel his urge just to get done, move on to the, like, next one. DB's got a real neat (creepy neat) post nuke vision. I rcommend DB's awesomeness to you all.

a busy day in this stupid town. the library's booksale is today, and tomorrow. the library is all of 10 minutes away by foot, so I'm there almost daily. a large conference room held fiction, but I didn't even bother to go there (no offense, Fiction). I found the non-fiction room, which was small, filled with upright shelving and, squeezed tight with people. I spent upwards of 2 minutes in there, realized my butt was not big enough to crowd people effectively, so squirmed my way out. no doubt a goodly number of books there formerly were mine, I gave the library a ton last summer. a lot of older folks bookhunting, or rather, few if any younger ones. outside, Little Leagers gathered at the nearby ballfields. a greater gathering was for the town celebration. 231 years ago there was some sort of Sons of Liberty sort of rambunctiousness in this town. I don't truly know if it was exactly the Sons of Liberty, nor if Johnny Tremain attended, but it was that sort of thing. so the township celebrates subversion each year by reenacting what those whoevers did back them: raise a pole and stick a red wool cap atop. I hung around beforehand watching the gathering of minutemen in colonial garb. it is funny to see men with muskets walking around. I had my camera but things got boring quick enough. I went back home. Beth wanted to see this event. I've lived in this town for years but never saw the polecapping. we collected Erin and hustled over. the parade of minutemen (I don't think there was any of that youth organization stuff in this parade) was just making it to the little park at the confluence of 3 roads near the center of town. festivities began with the local priest invoking God. listen to me now and hear me later. a long list of state and town reps were introduced. I'm sure they're all Democrats, which is to say, they were taking this time away from being underfoot of the big mean Republican Party. one of these dorks, head of the town council I think, was brought in to speak. while the talking went on a few minutemen readyied the pole to be lifted into place. there was an air of anticipation. but instead of the usual few words about liberty, and even acceptably some remarks about our brave men and women in the various undemilitarized zones in our global village, he started in on terrorists. this guy got all his information regarding the Iranian hostage situation from a 1980 issue of Time magazine. our hero Ronnie Reagan. I grew up where the 1st shot of the Revolution was fired (possibly from a tavern window), and have endured my share of liberty-strewn speechifying. but I have to say the plangency today was more than I've met before. and aside from that, this celebration was getting boring. the offensiveness of the speech was the key stink, and we just left. too many words. perhaps in the spirit of this, I had to sign for a letter today from this town regarding Erin's education. they decided they want to be interested in his schooling. well not to the degree of helping with text books or any fuckin shit like that. maybe they could make a special needs student out of him (aren't all studetns special needs students, because each child actually (radically!) is an individual?). how is Erin going to learn about America being a melting pot? how will Erin discover the importance of football players and cheerleaders? in sooth we are not screwing around with Erin. here are a number of real schools that will provide accreditation of homeschool work, and it is not rubber-stamped accreditation. anyway, sometimes it seems like the local is dead.

Joseph Torra writes about the Grolier Book Shop. I used to go occasionally, with some excitement. the last time was dreary and I didn't want to go back. I first went there when Gordon Cairnie still ran the place. I didn't have much interaction with him, but I got the impression that he was crochety. I asked him, has the third volume of Maximus poems been released and he replied with a terse no that seemed to be the answer to any further questions I might have. another time a hapless fellow bumbled in, asked if the store would like to take his book on consignment. the same no was the reply that he received. once I was there reading a book perhaps by Berrigan, in which he recounts visiting Grolier Bookstore, oo trippy. the store didn't change much when Louisa took over. a shelf was given over to Women's Studies, and a cat or dog moved in. she never bothered me but once when I went in with a friend she kept an eye on him, and rather acidically warned him not to put books back in the wrong place (like it mattered there), even tho he hadn't threatened the like. I stopped making the journey to the store because I was finding books thru Segue and SPD. when I went back a few years ago, there was now a security gate. it's hard to believe but she claims pilferage has been heavy. that heavy. at any rate, that security gate took room that the little storefront couldn't really afford. she was remarkably suspicious too. so the place was anything but fun to shop in. the shop should carry on, it's a landmark. I hope the new owner understands that. a restaurant in Boston called Durgin Park is somehow famous for its rude waitresses. tourists are supposed to throng there for the pleasure of that. I doubt locals go there. Grolier was kinda like that. I don't get it. it really is a store full of poetry, tho, and that's a wonder.

the family that watches The Colbert Report together... last night Colbert's guest was a Harvard prof who's published his opinions. somehow. this guy 1st of all was peeing his pants with nerves, so he wasn't too lively. 2nd, Colbert's brain speed was outstripping the prof's by quantum, it hardly seemed fair. Colbert pretty much told the guy to say something really stupid about women's role in society and the guy obliged. if you're going to assert something of such extent as did he, you'd think there'd be some vigour. Colbert's faux caveman just danced and danced around the dead Neanderthal meat. dead Neanderthal meat was too dumb to notice, or could do nothing about it. I'd have to think that the Harvard thinktank would remove this guy soonestly from public view and stick him in a petri dish because he did nothing for the image of that ivy-walled sancutary.

this link is to a piece that Lanny Quarles and I wrote. here's the details: Jeff Harrison posted this to Wrytings-l. Lanny responded with this. I posted a reponse to that, and then... I like this process, a kind of demystified let's get going. that's why I like the Wryting list, it's chugga chugga see what's up. the negative reactions to flarf or googly stuff probably centers on some sense of how the work isn't serious or crafted or some shit. altho both Chris Daniels and Dan Hoy make a point of not even refering to the actual work in ttheir criticism of flarf so it's a bit fuzzy. in this case, the emails arrive and someone responds. the flarf list is all about that. it's fun, see, to write. Daniels' self-advertised fardels seem not so interesting. perhaps he's been palling around with Franz Wright but at any rate the funless self-ad pretty well thwarts the political vision.

thru a homeschool group we went to the Museum of Science to see a lecture on robotics. could've gotten away real cheap, even parking is cheapened. but of course there are revenue streams within revenue streams, so we didn't get away quite unscathed. still, it was fun. the lecture was hosted by... wait for it... Anthony Daniels. come on, you know: the actor inside the gold robot suit in all the Star Wars films. he was fun and engaging, no shades of Galaxy Quest here. a child asked early on, were you in the movie? oh now R2. he was fun to hear. fun to watch too, he moves like a mime. he brought on 3 MIT robotics experts who talked. one of them, a happy geek, demonstrated his swarm of little robots that manuevered around the stage. most excellent. after the lecture there was a chance for hands on/up close demonstrations. we ate lunch in the frantic cafeteria with 10,000 of our closest teenage friends. the place is right on the Charles, with wonderful Boston skyline views. we parked on the roof of the garage, where there was a terrific view of the nearby Zaiken Bridge (that's misspelled, and Google has yet to guess what I mean), the skyline, and a rather astonishingly tall crane. I had ought to have brung my camera. there was a de rigueur Star Wars exhibit that, grr, was a separate charge. it was both hommage to the movies, yawn, and some nifty interactive science stuff. the hommage stuff was interesting, actually, but Lucas has spent a wee bit too much time on such like, and on his brutal marketing quest (Mr Lucus meet Mr Gates), when he could've produced more than a gargantuan pure product of America. I mean, sheesh. Erin got into the interactive stuff, as did Beth. I was too tired but it looked fun. for an extra fiver Erin took a ride on the Millenniel Falcon. Erin went to a Star Trek extravaganza in Vegas with his father a couple years ago, came home with pictures of himself as part of the crew of the Enterprise, right there with Picard and Geordie and the rest. also, a short cd of him in a scene with Captain Kirk, superimposed on the original actor. what a hoot. so all in all it was an educational and informative time for all.

whoopy doo. whilst working on the computator today I let Limewire dredge up all sorts of quaintness. to wit: a live version of "Hey Joe" by Richard Thompson chanelling Hendrix. "Itchycoo Park" by Small Faces, psychedelic nicety. "All the Small Things" by Blink 182: are these rascals basically just plain sweet? "A Combination of the Two" by Big Brother etc, yet another paean to the Fillmore. it all goes directly to the pod, so that dogwalking turns into a trip, man. I mean, if I have to explain...

Jack Kimball points to this post by Chris Daniels. the needle swings high on the Than Thou metre in his post, so you'll have to do some weeding. Daniels is very much right to point out the irony aspect of google-searched works. I need go no further than my own attempts at the modus. some of the things I've created read snide, even tho I didn't mean that. a certain luridness attaches to the explorations: you're listening in. yet the internet is public, e'en tho users of it forget this all the time. so yeah, one can fall into irony. irony as a means is all right, it's irony as a lifestyle where things go crap. Daniels doesn't mention specific poems, which pretty well drains his argument of insight beyond the usual righteousness of bloc mentality. "the flarfistes disrespect ordinary working people in the most patronizing manner". which is what Daniels does in this post, not to make flarf poets the epitome of downtrodden. without tuning in to the poetry itself, this whole argument just drums on as rant, which is a genre without subject. I have read flarf-type poetry that was not ironic, that was indistinguishable from 'real poetry'. I have myself written one or 2 pieces myself that succeed by the purest avowals of poetry that I can make. the assumption that those using these methods are not aware of the issues is an assumption. like Hoy's tender attributions, the claims are 2nd hand at best. Robert Fitterman spoke of how his google search works were a reaction to 9/11. "I like the personal, it just doesn’t have to be my own." I think that statement encloses the exact opposite of what Daniels claims of flarf. Fitterman made available his talk on appropriation at his reading saturday (ooops, syntax alert), and I guess I can send a copy of it to anyone who asks. or write John Dooley via the Demolicious.net site. Daniels had ought, for as it stands, he's arguing with himself.

...and finally Fitterman read

a day of... well it began with me thinking the clocks changed today, and I was all set to spring back, except my computer that changes automatically decided to spring forward. that caused a slight unsettling of the day, right from the start. canny readers of this blog will note that your correspondent was under the impression that last sunday was Palm Sunday. which would make today Easter. I convinced Beth of this fact, and we planned a nice Easter brunch for the 3 of us. it wasn't till this morning that I was alerted to the possibility that Easter wouldn't arrive for 2 more weeks. well yeah, maybe for those not involved with the Bramhall Orthodox Church. so anyway, things looked ripe for our actually going to a poetry reading today. the Demolicious Series runs monthly readings in the People's Republic of Cambridge. today's honoured readers were Joel Sloman and Robert Fitterman. I met and heard Joel read last year, and I've read the 1st volume of Fitterman's Metropolis. so happy happy. just needed to find he place. Mapquest came thru again, identifying the most circuitous route and adeptly using a code in which right means left. in sooth the Out of the Blue gallery is a block from Mass Ave in Central Square. I mean, like, there should be no prob finding. we parked across the street from Pearl Art Supply, something of a Mecca. the gallery is a small store front. the art on display made me feel um good about my own artistic efforts. I guess I shouldn't say that. the work probably earns the rubric Outsider Art. at least there was something welcoming about the place and the work on display, not snobby. funky would be the word. Demolicious pays next to nothing for use of the room, and that's a kind and positive thing. I paid the cover charge to the person who looked liked he wanted it. he asked me if I'd like to be on the mailing list. I did and wrote my email down. he recognized my name and I calmly replied, you know me? as if: wtf. and he was John Mercuri Dooley, co-curator. I had in fact been on the list, before my email address changed. so. we sat on a sofa in back with another fellow. I saw Christina Strong, Ruth Lepson, Jack Kimball, James Cook, which is to say, local poets who have not moved to NY. yet. Christina seems imminently aimed in that direction, howsomever. several women read open mike, all temperate in time usage. I had thoughts about narrative, that its flow can become too wearing, like water thru a channel. disjunction is a freshness. just a thought. Joel read in, or out of, a sort of nervous calm. his performative energy is tentative yet persistent. I know I'm hovering around paradoxes. I'm trying to describe his comfort in discomfort. he read a couple of works that he described as not translations but improvements. French poems that he has pulled into a different milieu. I didn't mench the cat that made its appearance. it greeted the 3 of us on the sofa but was particularly impressed by our sofa mate. who would as soon not have a cat on his lap, but there no gainsaying. the cat twisted into perfect comfort and randomly squeaked in overflow of contentment. the Cook's daughter, a toddler, puttered around at my feet, poking thru a collection of small prints, the which were luckily cellophaned. when she grew bored of that she started to fuss until Beth handed her a cow puppet that was nearby. so anyway. Robert Fitterman had planned to give a talk as well as read but decided to forgo the talk (the topic was appropriation). I believe he gave it initially at the Poetry Project. he read predominantly, if not entirely, from his still ongoing work Metropolis. I have the 1st 15 sections of the work (Sun & Moon, and out of print according to Fitterman). a 2nd volume, I don't know the publisher, offers sections 16-29. the most recent book is Metropolis XXX: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Robert, GASP, makes considerable use of internet searches in his work. he said "I like subjectivity but it dosn't have to be mine". that's pretty good. one hears earnest voices in Fitterman's work, even if they are not "his". poetry isn't opinion, I would like to remind the dunderheads. I assume Mr Kimball will supply a report of this reading that will give Dear Reader a clearer view of the event. I do not capture words auditorially well. I also can't help doodling and writing as I listen, so I won't pretend that I can crit proceedings like a pro. just so you know where I comin from. Fitterman is comfortable with bad puns: "you can't handle Duluth" and quirky advice: "don't expect anything new from the gentle cycle". there's a subtle hilarity in his work, a hilarity that simply seeps into your ken. he read several poems that are combinations, or collisions, of contemporary poets and 70s anthem rock. from the Tim Davis / Steve Miller conjunction: "some people call me the brand name Maurice". I noted from some poem this stark nugget: "Steve you are not alone". and what say such a line as: "a leper might have done the trick"? a terrifically compelling poem was a list of store names, familiar chain store names: KMart, Taco Bell etc. he read slowly, hitting full stop that left us listeners waiting for punchline, but he just read another list (repeating names). there was no pay off. and somehow the entrance of a couple of people (hopefully to the gallery not the reading) as Robert read added to the experience. is this poetry???. damn straight. he was wonderful. the humour hung on a slight mismatching whereby these internet voice meet a poetic intent. of course Robert fits things, but he does so without irony or underline. his reading of store names stolidly ignored the necessity of wrapping things up and punchlining. like I said, read Jack Kimball for a full report. I found the whole event quite comfortable, which is something in parochial ole Boston. let's assume that Brad Pitt, Ben Affleck, Joan Houlihan, Dave Chapelle, Josh Beckett, Lyn Hejinian, gay cowboy movie stars, the entire courageously undispirited George Mason b-ball team, Ashlee Simpson, etc etc all attended. afterwards a small gathering went restaurantwards. a 2 car carvavan found East Boston. this caravan included me n Beth, Christina, Jack, John, Robert and an Andrew whose last name didn't come my way. I don't get out much so this was wowzer. it was a great way to celebrate Bramhall Orthodox Easter. I got Metropolis XXX (Edge Books 2004), which I can't wait to read. I could write more here, if I weren't so tired, but mebbe you get the idea...

we received a delivery the other day. the delivery guy saw my congas and said, I should get a set of those, my son would love them. he said his son has a set of traps from KMart and loves to play on them. he sweetly spoke with pride of his son having played "Twinkle Twinkle Litle Star" on the xylophone in front of his class. his son, he said, is autistic. it was nice that the man encouraged the noise-making rather than lean on his son. too many normal people would feel stress about their child's intensity about such things as drumming.

reading Doctor Blooodmoney by Philip K Dick. I read Whatsis of the Alphane Moon recently, which had some cleverness but rather plangently obeyed those usual rules of novel necessity, that is, resolution at all costs. for all that, DB is a really fine evocation of post-nuke civ. Dick pushes too much along with character thoughts, but his sense of and sensitivity concerning the sitch is quite wonderful. I also read some interviews with him, that took place soon before he died. he was a wound up space shot, tho not in the messianic sense of L Ron Hubbard. His lucidities are compelling. he says he enjoys writers block nbecause, him being so obsessive, it affords him a respite. he mentions a 3 years period during which he wrote 18 novels, all of which were published. he was in a rush, no doubt, but there is an integrity to his work, his oeuvre, I mean. his characters are so much better than what I deem the average is lot in scifi. tho his science and situations are intriguing, Arthur C Clarke's characters are all pure duds. and that's a fair standard for the genre. the Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson (I think) posited some beautiful organics but his characters are crap. and the list goes on. so Dick's character depth is to be honoured. a fun thing with Dick, his futures are circa 1979 or so. anyway, I am surprisingly glad I did this little jump into Dick's work. I guess I had ought to look into Delany now.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

my morning romanza began around 4:00, when the cat started knocking things onto the floor. cats are great. this subtle means is how he gets me up. sans doute if whatever hit the floor stays there, the dog will eat it, which is not always a good thing. I took the dog for a walk before 7:00. I noted that the Catholic church was already busy, causing me to realize that today must be Palm Sunday. Easter was always a rather insipid holiday for our family. I grew up in a Unitarian church, so the Christ is risen stuff is safely kept in a box marked Quaint Ideas of Others. that's what the Unitarians are about, respect for but not belief in the quaint ideas of others. there was decorating eggs, which I didn't like, the candy, which I did like, and a big dinner. I became interested in Easter when I made the connection to rebirth of the world. and when I started doing gardening, Easter effectively become whoopee. one hard winter years ago, I'd amassed a huge pile of snow from shovelling so often. ths pile was right on a planting of crocus. on Good Friday I got anxious that the crocus wouldn't survive till when the pile melted, so I attacked it with shovel and spade. and sure enough, on Easter, crocus appeared. I think that year Good Friday was on April 1. which I thought funny: He's gone! April Fools. anyway, later I took my bike out for a short tour. one of the sleepyhead Protestant churches rang out a hymn, sure, a dreadful one but still. I shan't have a garden this year, nor any bulbs, alas. the last couple of years my garden was largely on auto pilot, as we just didn't have the time or energy. I miss scrubbing around in the dirt.

I stuck Stan Apps' Blog into my personal, and not necessarily permanent, Valhalla. he lists his 10 favourite novels and bedad it looks like I aint read a one (well, I read half of On the Road. I've read several novels by Samuel Delany, probably all early ones, liked them all, but saw nothing that transcended the genre (and scifi needs to be transcended). I've read Rudy Rucker but not the specific one he menches, nor have I read the Dick he menches, but will soon. I've never read Dostoyevski, nor will I till I can comfortably and reliably spell his name. I am remiss with Kathy Acker, have only read a couple of short things by her. I feel novels can be a fruitful study for poetry, anyway, am tired of the insistence of genre boundary. my own list for fav novels would be college professor approved, I'm afraid: Moby Dick, Remembrance, Mrs Dalloway, Ulysses. there are batches of writers for whom no one work sticks out: Flann O'Bien, Henry James, maybe I'd put Woolf in this list. then there's Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey series, Tolkien... well frankly I'm not much of a list maker.

Erin and I are batching it while Beth is away for a couple of days. we went out to lunch yesterday, at a so called deli. the high school was only half day yesterday, so, tho it was after 1 when we went in, the place was loaded. so many teenagers, especially on the loose, puts me on edge. the buzzing energy and explorations are almost overwhelming. I noticed, in watching the Mock Trial competitions that Erin's team was in, that there's a difference between school kids and those taught at home. the social hierarchies are more heavily enforced in the school kids. you can almost see the weight on all of them. at the table next to us were 2 girls sharing intimate information about each others' cellphones, talking in Valley Girl inflections. the cellphone certainly has changed things for teens, as well as everyone else. Time this week wonders how kids can get anywhere in school what with cellphones, iPods, Gameboys and all that, but I've wondered before that. lots of the kids held the phones in their hands even when not using them. in fact, Erin pulled his out. one boy started to sit down and another pulled the seat out from behind him. I was amazed how much mileage that prank got. the victim sat slowly, sinking to the expected seat, then slowmo down to the floor. everyone, especially the perp, kept laughing and recounting the funniest aspects of that jape as if it were the most Wildean of bon mot. the perp was older and bigger, so there was the necessary sense of bullying tho largely it was all goodnatured. I have to say, the boys seemed like White Male Poet Blogger in waiting. the interactions and insistences seemed so so, if you know what I mean. Erin, with Aspergers (a form of high function autism) would be a mark in school, because he's sweet and innocent in a way that that social hierarchy devours. I don't mean to sound bleak about the kids themselves, but there's a great deal of potential out there that aint being addressed at all. it's not something I easily aver, but I do believe people die every day for lack of poetry. middle class aspirations are so plain and straight.

the song "Save it for Later" by the English Beat is now podded, and I've been listening to it repeatedly. Peter Townshend also does a version, with acoustic guitar and somewhat slower. both versions are nifty. the Beat's version starts off with a few jangly chords from a slightly jarringly tuned guitar. very inviting. I like the song for being--oh my god can I saw this?--genuine in its emotion. emotional content in art, especially in performances is something to be leery of. I mean, is it being faked up, heartstrings and all that? EB's song has some lush strings in it, that came directly from the Left Banke's "Walk Away Renee". neither song is smarmy tho you wonder why not. the lyric content of the song is sad and wistful, yet the beat is bouncy, the sax is a happy yelp, and there's a shouty countdown to the 2nd chorus in the background that's plain enthusiastic. it comes together. manipulated emotion, see, or emotion with intention, is right out. yet emotion is a core drive in the arts, leastwise if we include confusion as as emotion. I think of Frank O'Hara's work, which can be chatty, arch, funny, surprised. his work is an intersection in which "he", the writer, exists, within or amidst the crossing rays, those rays being the various emotional impulses connecting at that moment. Jack Kimball's poetry collects voices of varying effect. there is no one emotion to his work, but there is the moment of the poem. I would say I strive for that, if I strive for anything. I know I've written my share of singular impulse poems. these are poems I somehow thought I had to write, from sadness, anger, love, whatever. I guess the point is to sway, not to steadfast it in one direction. because we live in currents of emotions, or eddies. SIFL is 'about' disappointment and loss, yet its beat is gleeful. I like these curious complexities and find them essential in all art.

I'm Hitting My Head with My Tail

hey, my name is donald rumsfeld And, I'm like,
really used to people staring when I work out,
because, like, I'm a hottie...how u doing?
i just came by to say hi and...
that I am the savior of aspartame,
or more commonly, Nutrasweet
lol anways get at me sometime
Just wanted 2 say I Will Sign
Condolence Letters so
wat up show me sum luv holla
yooo bitchhh... 9-11 plane was 'shot
down' in Pennsylvania during
surprise Christmas Eve trip
lmao i knew ud loveee that note! Haha.
i need to listen to some music that has
screaming in it or something. Lol
or some emo music he he
Love ya Punk !
I'm a girl who doesn't get laid...it happens
eyy ! godd ii miss you soOo much !
juss wanted to say hey
there is no civil war in Iraq
n ii love youu ! ill ttul !
Dude! cheney keeps telling me
"you need to start talking to people
with respect." well.. you gtta come by sometime
so we can chill.. call me or something..
thought i leave a comment saying i love ya!!
i miss u even tho i saw u
20 minutes ago u rock my world!!!!!!

I like to stay behind the curve but you can only keep that up for so long, so I've finally stuck Anne Boyer's blog into my list of honoured (by me) blogs.

I liked Mark Lamoureux's poem Anhedonia, posted 3/13. the format's effective, dodging left and right as well as heading downward. it reminds me of Idea's Mirror by Stephen Ratcliffe, insofar as the word units chain together while remaining discrete. single lines in the case of Ratcliffe, doubles in the case of Lamoureux. the white on blackpage works nicely, as well. I don't seem to muck around with format a whole lot. clunky prose blocks, that's largely my hallmark. it seems like the poem could go for some length. I'd like to read more.

a piece by J Lehmus, 17 p pdf. I fancy these sorts of expansive surging prose-ish sorts of pieces. a little tired, that is, of 8 line epiphanies, and the subgenre consisting of 26 8 line sections, each one an epiphany.