money up for poets, that is, thoughts on Jessica Smith charging for the right to read parts of her blog, I see that Lanny Quarles has made a varied offering. he takes a somewhat different approach in that he is releasing selected archives of his blog in printed form. his blog may be more suited for print pub than JS's, because it is mostly poetry rather than commentary and personal reflection, which I take JS's blog to be. so the situations are not comparable. in both cases, tho, you likely must know the person's work some to roll the dice with your own moolah. that would be the difficulty of online purchase. I will assert that Lanny produces an adventurous range of textual and visual work, if you would care to do that supportive monetary thing.

the documentation by Geof Huth (rhymes with Booth) of his open heart surgery has been spectacular, in many ways (here is the link). literally a spectacle, but also the way he manages to present the experience thru its many scary developments. his patient critical factor never wavers, which to me takes courage. he reveals equanimity and focus of a Buddhist sort. there is a position where one could merely be whiny, or one might overwhelm the experience with drama, but Geof doesn't do that. he reluctantly offers an unsatisfying photo of himself because later versions would not properly show the actuality of the surgical wounds at their most raw. I'm impressed that he writes as much as he does. hospitals are stultifying, and it must be worse for one surgically ravaged. I'm reminded of the story attributed to St Francis Assisi. while working in his garden, he is asked what he would do if told that he would die the next day. he responded by saying that he would continue doing what he was doing. not bewail his fate, not party like it was 1999. Geof chose a similar option. we should all think healing thoughts and hope Geof's recovery continues well.

reading Tom Beckett's What Speaks brings back--urgently, I might say--his reading in Cambridge last fall. the words that he writes, and the words that he spoke, are/were tightly wound conveyances. his reading was an event because his commitment to its impetus (the writing) was so palpable and physically felt. in the writing here, Tom accepts the physical insistence, that demand, along with the intellectual, metaphysical space inhabited in the working of the poem. there was zero showmanship in Tom's reading, his poetic commitment is much too saturated to lay in that field. the same goes for the writing here, which comes down to a dynamic sort of physically intense thinking. I do not know how to put it better. I mean, I keep using the word physical, to suggest. Tom possesses a Rimbaudian sort of vision. when Tom finished his reading he was soaked in sweat. there was an effort involved. Tom's modesty does him disservice, because he writes masterpieces. no shit!

I am pleased to point to a review of Days Poem by Anny Ballardini. Days Poem, is, of course, by ME, but the review is by Anny. find the review here , at Galatea Resurrects. certainly I am avid about all things Bramhall, but really, the writing is lovely, as well as percipient. public thanks to Anny for this great gift, and to Eileen for the ever useful review blog that she captains.

a click on the following link brings you to a previous review of Days Poem by Jeff Harrison. my two reviews: I'm very honoured.

If really pressed you might allude to a Worcester source passing secret files under cover of night. Expecting noo thanks - you're really transforming the bits so, they become incidentals. I'm rarely of such use. . . .

a discussion at DIY comment field about Jessica Smith putting a price on some of her blog postings. I don't know why I am drawn to this debate but I wrote some unfocused thoughts earlier (but luckily avoided the PUBLISH POST button) and here I am again. it is odd that people are discussing it, maybe. I do not see JS losing anything here, there's no financial outlay. so if she gets one subscriber, she is ahead. the market decides. it would be nice if she opened the books, give an idea what the venture is doing (just as Eileen Tabios has brought out Meritage Press' tax info). maybe this is the future. I'm trying to think if I have a larger issue in sight here. I do not think this is a breakthru idea, it's a simple trade of goods (intellectual) for money. I don't mean that snipingly, just observing that the internet has a strange economy. it seems to bubble with money transfers, yet indirection is the key. I mean, look at Google, and how it offers goods and services to you, but you are not that aware of how it makes its money. that all occurs beneath the white expanse of the Google pages. so how does a poet gain in that environment? gosh, I don't know. it is worth speculating, tho. certes, writers get their word, and name, out on the internet. that's worth something. it doesn't sully one's work to sell it, but the number of hoops you are willing to jump thru may add an unwanted impression. or who cares about that, really? I think I have bought a literal ton of poetry books and mags. some I bought with avid interest, some I bought dutiful, to learn, and some I bought without knowing the writer but simply to support the press. that seems like the poetry economy. it probably needs some work.

the day made a radical change by mid sunday morning. a friend called and asked if we could use 3 tickets to the ballet. for sunday. Beth already had plans with a friend, but Erin and I were free. he and I were going to work with The Gimp (the open source graphics program). that is, he was going to show me the ropes of the program. but ballet trumps that. I mean, you know how it goes. what better way for male bonding than an afternoon at the ballet? I'm not knowledgeable about dance but it's a spectacle at the very least. Erin has the added interest of having played Tybalt last year in a production of the play. so in to Boston's theatre district went we. the trip included a bus barreling harrowingly close behind us on the Mass turnpike. tra la. Erin and I had a smackerel beforehand, which proved an event. I know Erin will blog about it. the last time we did ballet, we ate at a pleasant Vietnamese restaurant. I couldn't quickly recollect exactly where that was, so we chose a nearby Chinese one. Erin noticed that the place had 3 different names prominently displayed out front: Emperor's Palace, Empire Palace, and Imperial Palace. they knew it was a palace, for sure, and something to do with Emperors. I wonder if the place wasn't originally a theatre, that would account for its vastness. we went up a large curving stairway to get to the restaurant. someone there asked how many, then led us to a very large open room. I thought it was hopelessly crowded, but he waved and someone in the distance waved back, and we were instructed to go to that person. that person gestured toward the table, and tossed a ticket written in Chinese on it. we were then treated to a flow of servers pushing steam tables, who offered different items. this was a new method to me, tho surely it is common enough. I got a little spooked, that we were piling up a credible bill for the meal. some friends were in Italy once, and were offered tartuffe--white truffles--for the meal. they did not realize that each slice added significantly to the cost of the meal. the hall was noisy and communication a little fuzzy, so we got a number of items without knowing exactly what they were. several different dumplings with, you know, stuff inside. egg roll type things, likewise filled with ingredients. it was decent enough. the meal ended up about 14 bucks each. could've gotten a cheaper meal if not overwhelmed by it all. there was no clue as to the cost (in English, at least) of each item. well, that was an experience. at the ballet, we worked our way thru the crowd in the lobby and found our seats. sort of. I should mench that we were dressed in suit coats and I wore a tie. there's no requirement for that, but it seems a propos, just as I wouldn't, being my father's son, go to church without dressing up. Erin in a suit, standing 6'6", is impressive. and me, well, I'm awesome. an usher led us to our seat, even saying, right next to that man. eventually, tho, it proved that that was not our proper seats. we moved to the centre of the balcony, better seats. specifically, we were 4 rows up from the front of the balcony, excellent view. visually, the ballet was 1st class. sets and costumes were treats of colour. I liked that I could see the marks on the floor of the stage. I mean, that sense of the geometry of the dance, the dancers as atomic particles bouncing precisely. I also tried to compare dancers that were doing the same step. my eye is not practiced in this but I could see differences. Prokofief's score is brassy, at times bombastic, and a lot of fun. what I have seen of West Side Story looks silly, the prancing gang members lack any real sense of threat, or touch with reality, for that matter. combined with some crunching moments in the score, the antagonism of the Caps and Mons was portrayed forcefully and effectively in the ballet. the frolicsome moments were perhaps the best, tho, the choreographer (John Cranko ring a bell?) clearly connected with these points in the ballet. Mercutio's death was rather comical. he kept flopping around after he was skewered, springing up and otherwise belabouring the point that he dead. shades of Marlon Brando in Mutiny on the Bounty. the people who gave us the tickets (their children are sick) were particularly excited about seeing this ballet because it was the 1st ballet they had seen together. I overheard the elderly couple next to me say the same thing, that R&J was the 1st ballet they had seen together. I felt some guilt, that our friends couldn't go, and that Beth couldn't. I even teared up thinking that Beth missed out, she has a greater dance aesthetic than do I, not that her day out with her friend was onerous. ah me, the complications.

if it's all right with you, I point to Youtube, aka Cultural Millstone (but natheless), for a look at Duane Allman. something visceral for me as he gets down to the lowest part of the guitar's neck. sometimes, I feel like my poetry does that. but I cannot tell you that.

sometimes, as Shanna does, you just gotta explain things. in her case, to divert the impression that For Girls is flarf. as a former flarf list denizen, I saw Shanna's flarfistic expressions, hot off the grill. as she notes, flarf isn't a technique but an attitude. and part of the attitude, I wot, is the stolen moment, perhaps-at-work-goof-off of/with language, often reactive and timely. Shanna's contributions were always good, or let's just be honest to say, mine weren't. not in the quick fun roisterous way that signals flarf. I always laboured at flarfy expressions, which is wholly out of key, both to flarf qua flarf, and to my own speed mode. I'm saying that those skittering expressions that Shanna wrote presumably quickly at work are not the same as in her book, tho that is not to deny the writerliness of either faction of her enterprise. and I think the distinction, or the sense of wider palette, if that's a legit image to offer, is useful, or worth considering. the play of single poems versus the pathfinding program of a book. Girls is a book, written, in its way, as a whole, or gathered as a larger installation. I like that Shanna steps to the fore of the proscenium to indicate her own conception, and not just leave it to the reader's assumptions. not to say that any of this can't be argued and such. I have my apparently daunting 1000 page Days Poem, which I view as an inviting variety but I think readership (thou minusculeness) sees as a resistant block. it is not. it is not too many words, it is words, living values, in moments. how many words does each moment contain? or, what's the right number of words for each moment? I want to defend Days Poem as a reading experience, and that the parametre of page count is merely descriptive, not essential. having read For Girls, I know that it is not flarf, tho the flarfy influence can be safely spoken of. anyway, For Girls lives in its own distinction.

oh, hello. haply you will notice that there are now 22 new made poems at Simple Theories and 134 installments to the Harrison/Bramhall set to concerning the practice and thought of poetry at Antic View. have at it.

Wobbling POETRY WORLD

I’ve certainly been somewhere, between ten and twenty times in the last two weeks.

Actually I’ve never been partly, because I’ve been a dozen times

Among those wobbling frameworks going to POETRY WORLD, and among those not going, there turn out to be many concerns about POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the standards of POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the official of POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are ideology of POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about how problem POETRY WORLD changes what wobbling frameworks are.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the relationship between “experimental” wobbling frameworks and POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about who’s more “inside outside” at POETRY WORLD and they’re concerned about what “inside outside” means.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about who gets POETRY WORLD and who does not.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the relationship of the wobbling frameworks at POETRY WORLD to the wobbling frameworks concerned about the relationship between POETRY WORLD and larger U.S. institutional powers of system.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about whether their friends will be POETRY WORLD fun.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about whether there will be enough interesting wobbling frameworks there to balance out the dull, pompous shirts who are POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the importance of being POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks, if they are also concerned about getting word, are available at POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about letting others read schedules at POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about letting others know that they have no POETRY WORLD but in the proximity of POETRY WORLD.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned about the distinction between POETRY WORLD and New York.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned that other wobbling frameworks care about too much.

Some wobbling frameworks are concerned that other wobbling frameworks don’t understand all of these, in greater or lesser degree perhaps

Coda
Are you concerned?
about POETRY WORLD?
and those are concerns?
I mean so many wobbling frameworks?
we are concerned about it anyway?
might we as well discuss what we’re concerned about?

the 1st issue of Critphoria has a poemic collaboration by my self and Tim Peterson's self. interesting presentation of it, as you will note if you follow the link. in addition, a nice collection of work by people who aren't named Bramhall.

I'm glad Jack Kimball made it to the Demolicious reading with Peter Inman and Tina Darragh since we weren't able to attend. 2 of the early, puzzling LANGUAGE poets, from when that aegis kinda meant something.

Tom Beckett is bowing out of EXCHANGE VALUES: no more new ones. but what a resource, both online and in print. I especially like the interview with Mary Rising Higgins, a curiously iconoclastic writer. Beth visited Mary when Mary came east to stay at an artist colony in the shadow of Mt Monadnock in southern NH. Mary was a grade school teacher, and had family responsibilities, so her writing was something she had to squeeze in. you look at her work, her oeuvre, and see how doggedly she worked. the weight of each word, and the lines, is a matter of her effort as a poet. we are lucky to know about her work, she didn't have the sense to hang out in NY bars. the best buzz, I suppose, is what one finds in her books.


I also like (of the more recent interviews), Sheila Murphy's interview with Tom Mandel. particularly because of the discussion of Mandel's collaboration with Daniel Davidson, Absence Sensorium. somewhere on the net, Gary Sullivan writes about Davidson, and there is/was a pdf of some of Davidson's work. it's fascinating work, and made more so, as with MRH, by death.

finally, or, more impressively, finalement, Ron Silliman, linkmeister, gives a good review of Geoff Young's Riot Act. WHICH the percipient few 1st heard about here. good review = I agree, of course, but I will say that Ron uses the right adjective
for the book: delicious. Young's work as publisher has overshadowed just how wonderful he is as a poet, just as Tom Beckett's editing work has taken attention from his own eminent work. may Ron's imprimatur bring more eyes to Young's work.

2 movies. I watched The Last Samurai in sort of mode last week, abed and sick. I efeffed (fast forwarded) thru the boring parts, and was somewhat brain-wonky thru out. which is perfect, it's a Tom Cruise movie. I don't get the TC appeal. the young TC looked like 2nd rate high school jock/jerk, a flinch of recognition that stays with him even now. the scientological silliness that surrounds him now doesn't help. as an actor, he's overly conscious. this was evident in the 1st scene. he's supposed to be drunk, and a renegade, and what all. the great Viggo plays just about the same scene in Hidalgo, which comes across with more resonance than TC manages. whatever. the reason I, a person of consummate taste, would watch this flick is the samurai milieu. I saw the last part of the movie last year when Erin was hospitalized. so okay, plotwise, Tom's a vet of Gettysburg and was a member of the 7th Cavalry, except he did not seem to have been at Little Big Horn, lucky him. now's he's hired to train Japanese troops, to fight the reactionary samurai rebels. at this point the movie steals wholesale from the movie Glory. the green troops are not up to snuff, as TC trains them. in their 1st action, they look into a foggy woods to see wild-looking samurai on horseback, yipes. slaughter slaughter slaughter, all die except for killing machine Tom. the samurai rebels take Tom and, in a way that I didn't comprehend, Tom joins them. the usual scenes ensue. cue Cool Hand Luke, Tom's a rebel himself, and he won't quit. lots of fun looking sword play, with the emotional content of a video game. Tom = implausible, for those keeping score. the big battle scene comes straight from Braveheart. the plucky samurai face off against imperial forces. historically, the imperial forces had something like 6000 troops, and the samurai rebels 300. the samurai rig the battlefield for a devastating surprise for the imperial troops. I wonder if that really happened, just as I wonder if the Scots set up the battlefield like in Braveheart. the samurai really did rout the imperial troops for a while, but then they chose a charge of the light brigade assault, swords versus cannon, that done nothing good for the rebels. only TC survived. oh, don't forget the sensual intercourse scene. TC, prior to this battle, becomes best friends with a female that was, you know, there. the camera scans his iconic Hollywood skin and disinterest as the female person basks in that. I guess you can call that sex. it is, at least, if you are worrying about Xenu and the Galactic Confederacy. the movie looked quite grand, sweeping vistas of Japan, etc, but Tom Cruise is a vortex of dull.

movie 2. Harry Potter and whatever, the 5th movie. I haven't read the Pothead books, only seen the 1st movie. the 5th looked good enough, they keep the scale fantastic. it feels like the story line is straining to stay on topic. you go the larger story, with Harry inexorably moving towards a showdown with the evil Mallomar. the private school hijinx is tired. I wonder how the books go. I'm not agin reading them, just am not in a novel mode currently.

pretty good review of Mark Scroggins book on Zukofsky. I'd already read the review but didn't take note of the whizzer photo of Z till I saw it at Silliman's collective. the Buddy Holly glasses and Z's piercing orbs make for a strong effect. come the Revolution...John Latta has also done a reading of Scroggins' book. I'd like to read it, but I don't think it will happen anytime soon. maybe you could, and give me the gist...

since S Compton and J Kimball popped comments on my recent little rumination on blogs, which (really) makes it seem like this blog is a definable space and not just my romantic thrill of thinking myself, I shall ruminate further... pass me the cud, podner... in the previous, I thought of the word anthology as applying to the blogosphere. I think my articulation did gang a-gley a bit then so I want to embolden the idea more clearly. a blog is not bookish, in the sense of being a detached module of literature. instead, a blog situates with other blogs, in a way that books and mags do not. many blogs are obviously conversations, but even those that aren't involve themselves in a wider conception. so I think that considerations such as Jack is given to do, critiques of the blog machine, are not just useful as critical activity but as reminders of the greater theme. it is not a matter of rules but an embrace of the procedure. content is almost not the point, tho that's too pointedly post-modern for my shoes. I would prefer a tensile construct to the pix of babies and dogs, and the Youtube excavations as well, if we're talking content. but I could write of the Christmas tree coming down today. Erin was off at a Magic card tournament whilst Beth and I removed ornaments from the tree. then mid afternoon it was the Patriots vs the Chargers, and once more the Pats pulled away in the 2nd half. about 3 years ago my father went hospital for the final act. it seems so yesterday. last sunday, Beth and I visited a couple who we lost track of the past year or so. they now live in a rehab center, tho nursing home might draw a better picture. sadly, because of differing condition, they live in separate wings. we found one, the less restricted one, at a concert in the facility's auditorium. a small band earnestly played show tunes and standards. it took a while to find our friend, who we finally located up front, and longer to work our way to her. many sunday afternoon visitations were in progress, and the concert itself was apparently part of an extra effort to get patients involved with the outside world. brownies and punch were being served, either staff or volunteers were making stark effort to look like fun (dancing theatrically and such), and kids were overloading on sugar and creep out. before we made contact with our friend, we waited in the hallway outside the auditorium. several children were playing violently, a kind of desperate articulation of youth. a woman was wheeled from the festivities and immediately began scolding the children. I'm sure she scolded everything in her purview. our friend was pretty lucid tho with serious memory issues, which she was aware of. she was pretty calm about the memory loss, at least at the time. I remember my father's distress at times, a boat slipping from shore. she was always intellectually involved, still retained interest but her memory was an issue. we had a nice visit with her then brought her, she was comfortably peripatetic, to her room. she had an expectation that her husband would be along soon, and was fuzzy why he wasn't. she said she needed time alone to put things together in her head. we went to the other wing to visit her husband. that wing was closed off because the flu was present. they let us in with a caution. his condition was more tenuous. he made an effort to stay present and lucid. people there would be surprised to know that he was a dynamic, very accomplished person with a type A+ personality. and yet. I didn't mean to speak of specifics but it was all so sad. we are, culturally, I guess, so stupid concerning children and elders. our schools are full of adult concepts of situated success rather than progressive sense of learning procedure. our elders are captivated in the dullest gloom. my mild anointing of blogs (including my own) only remarks on the connected position of our assertions. I say that hopefully. I assert that Tributary is a Poetry blog tho you can weigh the actual references to the P-word and its productions as being mightily partial, all in all. but poetry is language with an asserted necessity. just speaking for myself, the shopping tours and what not, the contexts of this blog radiate from how language moves around a subject. the subject is not the point, the language is. returning to the beginning, the pets, the Youtube, if this is just filler or markers, it shows. when the connection to the underlying process asserts its present drive, then it lives, not just as content but as process. so I am ok with whatever, so long as something happens...

there's an industrial machine called Jukka-Pekka Kervinen who creates a lot (roughly Mucho to the 7th) of digital work that doesn't keep to boundaries all too well. in addition, he makes the work of other artists available in various publishing ways. to wit, Forward/Text. this is a culling of the Wryting-L list. it shames me that I haven't made note of this earlier. Sheila Murphy, John M Bennett, Lanny Quarles, me... etc...

Jack Kimball encourages a critical eye towards the blogs here. it is good to remember that blogging is a public enterprise. and we're all in this together, in some way. taking Jack's points:

1) obits. if you haven't written about the deceased previously, then I'm not interested now. obituaries are bad writing, almost by you definition. haven't you ever noticed?

2) youtube. I don't even follow Youtube links unless a compelling case is made. I can do my own time-wasters there, if that's all it is about.

3) snaps of infants and pets. I kind of get the sense of Facebooky sharing that must inspire these offerings, and indeed my quadrapedic friends have appeared here. maybe they should remain in the wallet, unless they have the gumption of (some sort of) weirdness.

4) reminiscences. memory as authority, good point. I like when memory springs to the instant, the tangled thing brought to light once more, so I don't mind letting these things appear even here. for me, at least, that's the opposite of authority, it's the spectacularly random invoking some radical of process. as in, why this now?

I don't mean to make rules, but for sure a causal sense of the blog you write should be endemic to the process. Jack's periodic critiques of blogging are good reminders of the larger enterprise. that the solo-est of bloggers still commits to a greater world. if this anthology is to continue to fly, an awareness needs to remain, of the intersections and rebounds, conversations and interruptions, and variously charged particles...

Eileen Tabios is willing to review wines, to which I add: hey! send me a bottle, too!!! seriously, tho, I worked a long time for a wine store and can honestly say that tasting wines in a formal way enhanced my critical faculty. when I began there, I was in my early 20s with no interest in wine. bottles were always open for sampling in the tasting room (with sinks, mind you: we all spat what we sampled), and I took the opportunity. in formally tasting wines, one methodically assesses colour, aroma, and (finally) taste. I like the idea of this methodical approach. it is a way of staying on topic. Pound's ABCs of Reading similarly offered procedures of assessment, based on one's actual experience of the work. blind tastings are often great levelers of the playing field. lacking the bolstering effect of a wine's reputation, one must rely on one's senses. which is as it should be. I came to respect the critical process. customers would ask about wines and even ask, quite frequently, for recommendations. I learned to speak of each wine as accurately as possible, bringing forth the wine's qualities, not my taste. the Boolean like/dislike function is pretty boring, after all. the excitement of a poem is not simply a tripping of the I like sensor in my brain, but the experience of its whatness, if I can use such a Heideggerian sort of term. I have what I think is a reasonable resistance to Robert Bly's poetry. to speak of the clunky way he fakes his way thru a poem is not quite a pleasure, but it is still a poetic experience in which I (the Reader) enter language's potentialities. he doesn't write what I consider good poems, but his so called bad ones demarcate, in their way, what I do like. in the wine store, I found that each wine had a raison d'etre. someone could be found to like any wine, and what's wrong about that? I definitely had my preferences, and I certainly wouldn't spend the asking price for a great many wines, but I reached a point where I respected every wine for their specific qualities. the lacuna evident in (or not in...?) crummy poems expresses something dynamic even as I, maybe, figuratively fling the book aside. of course we all have our taste, which is to say our boundaries. to leave our taste in the uncomplex world of like/dislike is lazy and unfulfilling. the idea that any poem is all bad or all good is also pretty weak. the yes/no world is flat and prosy. the poetic world is an utter engagement of all salients and dimensions of language, even if it ruffles your truculent feathers.

Tom Beckett dips into the new book by Jean Vengua, Prau, here. he apologizes for being fragmentary, but I think that the fragmentary approach is genuine, consistent with how we read. it is interesting to see the process of reception, rather than just the resolution of a formal essay. with time, the formal essay is the right thing, an exercise in pulling the pieces together, but a new book deserves to the darting interest of the first excited reading. to read poems is a constant revelation not a culminated static state. what bounces off Tom's receptors is by definition of interest. and Jean Vengua is a poet whose work I wish to read. I look forward to reading Prau, and Tom's ongoing divagations.

what is poetry, and how does it define itself from other writing? oh, like I can answer that. I am not consumed by the reading of poetry as I used to be. much of that was a dutiful consumption, as I scouted out the territory and possibility of this manner of writing. it may be that I've always looked at poetry as and all else. poetry is what other writing is not. I fell to poetry because of this indefinition. I'm reading a book on the Gettysburg campaign (not just the battle but what led up to and followed), and it seems a correct energy for me at this time. I think defining poetry's world as different from that one we live in is a poor dalliance. there's a social construct of poetry, which is fine as a social construct, just as church is fine as a social construct. social construct is not the essence, tho. my modest peregrinations and musings, as reported on this blog, strike me as essential in some way that I feel obliged to defend. that the poetry life is not just reading poetry and attending readings. but I shall defend no further. saturday, Beth and I went to Barnes and Noble. almost didn't go in, it was tremendously crowded. we followed a family just leaving the store, in hopes of snaring their parking space. it was like we would rob them once we got to the back of the building. this B&N is a stand alone castle, and next door, essentially the same parking lot, is Chili's, also buzzing. across the street, the mall was more congested than we saw before Christmas. I know there are sales and gift cards to get people out on a surprisingly foggy afternoon. furthermore, the Patriots were to play the Giants, going for 16-0 for the season. the game surely kept a few people home saturday night. among them, me. much as I like watching football, this was only the 2nd game that I watched this season. I watched the 1st half of a blow out earlier. saturday's game was fought in high dudgeon, with the Pats going for a record. I like that Brady and Moss set NFL records on the same pass. and they came up with a Solomonic solution: Moss said cut the ball in two, Brady said keep it. funny, the year my father died, both the Sox and Pats won championships. this (past) year my dog died, which somehow in my mind tied to my father's death. my previous dog died 8 years after my mother died. I looked into the dog's eyes as she passed, could see the light go out, but also, I saw/sensed my mother. one doesn't realize how much one grieves, that the loss burns on. my father's last years were difficult as he grew more distant, ans as his care became more demanding. so that it was a relief that he died. similarly with Brownie. that would be the selfish part of me talking, I guess. when the Red Sox won in 04, it felt like some rare confluence. car horns sounded and church bells rang. my father showed only mild interest, which itself was a pain for me, for him to be that distant, finally. what I write of here is deep pool stuff, twined to the idea of writing that I carry. writing is not just about making these things that people may read. it is a participation and examination. the production of poetry as a manufacturing of things becomes a distraction from the real task. those written events and the living effort that go into them announce a process that exceeds ambition. none of us are beyond ambition, of course, but spiritual implication exists in the process, which strains and gathers thru life. Ron Silliman's grim tally of poet death's for 2007, complete with death head atop the blog post, tastes obnoxious to me. these people that did something then stopped. I don't want to collect that kind of stuff, statistics. the poet's life is written in words not numbers. quantification is a dismal exercise. so we had a quiet New Year's Eve at home. the church across the street rang, more than 12 strokes. hail the new year, lads and lasses.

Walden, again

, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

unusual Christmasiness this year: we watched a lot of movies. okay, 1st, the solstice, Beth and I celebrated our 7th anniversary. we ate at the Colonial Inn, which belonged to the Thoreau family back in the day. a festive 19th century New England atmosphere to the dining room. afterwards we sought out the solstice drum circle by the river. it was too cold, dressed (nicely) as we were, so we passed on. saturday following, our Christmas party. Beth loves to cook for crowds. I help but Beth does the heavy lifting. essentially every dish in the house gets used, and that's what I did sunday, cleaning them, that is. on the 24th, we did a little food shopping, then visited a nearby gallery that we like. and so on, Christmas. a roast with Yorkshire pudding. I've had 3 versions of Yorkshire pudding: my mother's mine, and Beth's, all derived from Fannie Farmer, whatever edition current when my parents married in 1944. eggs, flour, water, and salt. usually throw it in the pan with the roast and potatoes. this time, more like a popover, baked in a cast iron pan. our nucular Christmas tradition. so anyway, the things we watched:

Hogsfather, presumably a BBC production, of one of Terry Pratchett's books. I read the 1st 20 Disc World novels pretty much as they came out, now I'm way behind. I turned Beth onto them, and she has read every one, most of them multiple times. now Erin has begun reading them. the production had the usual low rent special effects typical of British tv, but also the solid acting. Death, who has temporarily replaced Hogsfather (read Santa Claus), is a wonderful character. most adjustments from the book made sense, like the absence of the Death of Mice, a little rodent Reaper. surely the cgi for that would have killed the budget, as would making Death's jaws move.

Pirates of the Caribbean--seen it maybe 4 times and still love it. Depp and Rush have great fun with their roles, scenery is great, special effects, swordplay, etc. all lost in the ensuing crap. the 3rd one both put me to sleep and angered me. surely a 4th is due, whether they can scrouge up Depp for it or not. it can be the Keira Knightly show.

Fellowship of the Ring/The Two Towers. lots of issues with this but it still holds up okay. the stalwartly heroic Aragorn was a linchpin in the books and Viggo (who I want to be, someday) does the same for the movies. when he sends Frodo off, so that he can meet the oncoming orcs, you think, poor orcs. it's not that I have anything against Liv Tyler but any scene with her in it was bereft of energy. absolutely useless plot addition. Cate Blanchett was ridiculous, too, as the hey look at me Elf. so went all the Elves, really, except Orlando Hottie and, perhaps, Mr Smith. Jackson just didn't have a way to deal with these timeless creatures. Merry and Pippin were too Bowery Boys for my taste. the homoerotic theme certainly filled the book but it becomes oppressive in the movie, all that male weeping and hugging. it's funny to think that this movie may be what people know of LOTR. not that it aint being read (when the new Harry Potter is finished), but that Elijah Woods IS Frodo, etc. New Zealand looks like home to me.

several recent additions to Antic View here. the conversation that Jeff Harrison and I have here is Poet Work.

strange emanations from the paranormal world continue to be documented at Amazement Stuff. my approach to the paranormal is, of course, rigorously scientific, but don't think my discoveries cannot scare the bejesus out of you.

we've gone to the mall numerous times this Christmas season. we go without the shopping imperative, for the most part. instead, we go and look. I'm very fond of this. I don't know what sort of business season it is but it seems more lively than last year. one time, we went to the Apple Store because Erin's new iPod had a problem. they were fine with replacing it, but tried to make him wait 3 days for a new one to ship in. I gather the point of that was to prevent merchandise leaving the premise at this special time of the year for free when a crazed holiday shopper could be carting away the selfsame. after some dialogue Erin got his Pod. which just shows to go you, but while awaiting the final judgment I noted 20, that's TWENTY, people working at Apple. and a Motley Crue, too, older humans as well as young ones. and pretty darn busy. I love my 4 gig Nano dearly, with a love that's true, but it is all I can do not to yearn for... but I'll cut it off there. I notice that Sony has a store that looks to be modeled similarly. less well lit, but offered as a spacious meeting place between people and their potential new electronic toys. a more refined experience than the noisy intensity of Best Buy and Circuit City. for ambience, J Crew took the cake. the store is new to the mall. whoever designed its look deserves a gold star. the rich colours were beautiful and eye catching, the place was open and inviting. both Abercrombie & Ef and Hollister opt for dark stores and barriers to prevent anyone seeing in/out. obviously a segregation, filtering out parental units and other duds. plus the imperative dance beat to set the hormonal climate. we had a couple of pretty wonky episodes with disinterested store help. given current economic trends, you'd think stores would labour to brighten up the help. we were at the local package store where we noticed a giftie item labeled Abacus. it was in the display of specialty bottlings, in a fancy box, your basic winery sucker punch. I knew it had to be a wine but there was no telling further. Beth remarked on the box and the cashier enthusiastically said, oh yes!. I inferred she knew something about it so I asked for details. she didn't really know, but she enquired of someone of apparent greater responsibility. he said it was a wine, and that was all he was willing to divulge. earlier, at Whole Foods, I happened to notice that one of the items at the prepared foods counter listed trisodium phosphate as an ingredient. my guess was that it was a preservative, which I didn't see the need for. and I didn't see how well it might fit the all natural spectrum that Whole Foods boasts. I asked of the person at the counter, who said she didn't know. I found that perplexing. when we got home, I applied my questions to Google. Abacus is a lardy dardy bottling from ZD Wines. I always detested the fake clamour of such bottlings (in my days working in a wine store, that is). a fancy, uesless box to dazzle thee, and the wine is what? that a winery reserves certain lots of wine for their special bottlings means, literally, that their other wine is 2nd rate. it's a bullshit marketing scam that shouldn't be acceptable. but you know, iPhones and Wiis with their instrumental rarity, playing you and me to a fare-thee-well. oh well. regarding trisodium phosphate, it is indeed a preservative. it also has the feature of softening acidity. I still don't get it in terms of Whole Foods, all natural, and what not. NOR do I get that horrid song, "Santa Baby". I gather that Marilyn Monroe 1st sang it. I've heard it several times in stores. this must stop. it is a stupid song. and speaking of stupid: those inflatable outdoor decorations. they creep me out. Santa on a Harley, hahaha.

let me engulf you with my new blog, The River's View. I will endeavour to write serious, formal reviews and whatnot on this blog. introductory remarks are here.

a review of Shanna Compton's book For Girls & Others is here.

watched Anaconda 2, the sequel to the award-winning documentary starring J-Lo, Ice Cube and Jon Voight. I am a veteran of the original, from which I learned so much about the athletic and distinctly mean-spirited ways of the anaconda, and yet I still needed to learn more about this gigantic reptile that leaps thru the trees like a lumberjack. the movie begins in a conference room, where the CEO of a pharmaceutical threatens to deep six a non-moneymaking project. the project's team manages to convince him, using a Powerpoint graph (no greater argument can be made than a Powerpoint graph), that the project is a winner. and so it obviously is. as you well know, there is a flower called the blood orchid (which name appears in the movie's subtitle, which I forget). it only blooms, you know, once every 7 years. the flower has a component that prolongs life. well, that's what Big Pharma is looking for, you bet. the team is forthwith sent to Borneo, to fetch the flower, which reportedly is in bloom. why didn't the person who reported this bring a bouquet home? only a few weeks of bloom remain. okay, switch to the wilds of Borneo. I should mention that the previous movie was set in the Amazon, I'm pretty sure. I should also note that I recognize the names of none of the actors but they all were chosen for reminding the audience of... somebody... at one point, a character tells another that he read a news report about an expedition that had anaconda trouble, namely the original movie, a nice way to make it seem there was some narrative consistency going on. because of flooding, no captain wants to go upriver. none, that is, except a certain rough-hewn, unshaven someone. and they start upriver, and the viewer can start guessing which character buys it. I'll tell you right now: the J-Lo-ish big business type, the blonde research assistant, the tech guy who screamed all the time (he could've been replaced by the actor/comedian, can't recall his name, who was in the 5th Element, had the movie the budget for such spendiness), and of course Captain Heroical, were the only survivours. the captain's monkey also survives. the movie put a lot, I would even say undue, pressure on the little guy. several times we are led to believe that the little guy, Kong, is mouldering in the belly of an anaconda. okay, well, not one but two roguish sciency types on the team, who were overly interested in the females, get et quickly by anaconda. the 1st mate of the boat gets lunched. the screaming guy inexplicably misses out, much as relief from his yelling would have been nice. oh, the leader of the team decided to call the mission off after numerous misadventures, so the greedy guy on the team paralyzes him with a spider and the poor guy gets to watch as an anaconda slowly slithers into position for a gulp. I think the anaconda ate a village but I may have been repairing my brain cells with a modest doze during this sequence. I am concerned about my own home town, I don't think we are prepared for anaconda onslaught. I'll bet today's snow would just piss them off further. after much to do, the greedy guy gets his, as do all extant anaconda, except I think the one called Darth Vader. the remaining 4 characters, not counting Kong, pair up on the raft heading for home. the snakes were somewhere between 40 and 800 feet long, heads the size of T-Rex. they weren't above barfing up victims so that they could get more. tho they could constrict in a pinch, so to speak, they were more apt to lunge lightning quick and swallow their victim in a gulp. malevolent? for sure! I love hard science.

 

watched Transformers yestreen. I'd seen the trailers and was sure that it would lack gumption, but then it just cried out to me. the trailer had it right. the movie consisted of constant robotic transformation and explosions. the stuff in between the transformations owed to Gremlins and Short Circuit. the movie at least brought the viewpoint down to a mildly likable character, the boy meets girl guy. boy meets robot, as well. the plot spun around autistically while the special effects confused the show. the transformations consisted of flashing movement that never clarified into anything the brain could hold steadily. and the action was a blur. I found myself checking my email and adding content to my new paranormal blog. I believe the door is open for a remake.

I watched the Fantastic Four movie, 2nd one is it? with Silver Surfer. when I say watched, that admittedly means that I missed a certain amount (most) due to sleep. still, I did see some of it. how much does one need to see, anyway? I saw the 1st one, and this one had the quality of being the 2nd one. it begins with the dopey premise of the FF being fab NY celebs. this seems unlikely because Reed's a nerd, Ben's a grump, and Sue's too well-grounded. only Johnny seems likely for such a trip. frankly, the dark night of the soul stuff that Marvel hit the jackpot with is exactly what turned me from comix. I never cottoned to the FF anyway. I'm not sure why except I will declare that Reed's stretchy super power is ridiculous. the computer-aided effects in the movie didn't help: he had cartoons for arms. it is funny to think how much silliness you can take, then there's a bit more and you just can't accept it. I can't wait to read the book, the physics of human torches. I had pretty well permanently stepped away from comics by the time Silver Surfer appeared. I got the impression that he was just another cosmic Hamlet moping thru the clouds. I hardly saw him in the movie last night. so anyway, Reed's stretching power is stupid. I am reminded of a Justice League of America comic from my fulsome youth. the story concerned a cadre of rejects who weren't up to Justice League snuff. JLA consisted of such youthful, lauded crimefighters as Super Boy, Super Girl, Ultra Boy, and Brainiac 5, in the year 3000 (SB and SG had to fly faster than light into the future to make the monthly JLA meetings and otherwise serve the organization). B5 was the 5th generation nephew of Brainiac, Superman's Nemesis. this fact could prove puzzling because Brainiac was an android, but there you go. anyhoo, the losers decided to form their own crimefighting unit, the Substitute Justice League of America. members all had super powers that were found wanting by the esteemed JLA. Chlorophyll Kid could make plants grow at an alarming rate. Polar Kid could freeze things with a beam from his hands. Night Girl had an array of super powers that, er, only worked at night. my favourite was Stone Boy who could turn to stone. unlike Ben Grimm, Stone Boy couldn't move in the lithic state. good defense, zero offense. in the comic, the JLA got into a 1st class pickle and whaddya think: the Substitutes form a rescue mission. everyone parachutes into the fray except Night Girl who, I believe, went to the night side of the planet and dug her way to the battle scene. impressive, but then, I recall Super Boy cut a planet in half, discarded the part that was engulfed in flames, took half of another planet, fused the two together. honestly, I read this, in 8 pages of stirring action. anyway, as they float down, Polar Boy barks out directions for everyone, including the immortal cry: and Stone Boy, you turn to stone!!!. even as a 10 year old, I thought as how Stone Boy in his lithic state might be more dense, thus heavy, thus too burdensome for his parachute. as in: why the heck doesn't he plummet like a stone? it was just that one bit of implausibility too much. not to leave you fretting, the Subbies saved the day and were awarded some recognition as 2nd rate super heroes. I am not aware that they ever appeared again in JLA activities.

I have allowed you to think, Tributarians (or the Multitude, as I like to call you), that I am keenly interested in poetry, shopping and the like. I am, certainly, but I am also committed to paranormal research!!!

 

I concur with Jack Kimball that Stephen Ellis's poetry should be read. Stephen's work possesses a momentum that requires repeated reading to make sense of. Stephen writes in what often seems like a run-on sentence, tho it's a run-on sentence with a driving spiral that grows clearer by its own insistence. the spiral grows clearer? the poem does, the energy does. happily, Stephen has, so far, embraced the blog space, is posting regularly. please attend.

I saw three poets read over the weekend. I was struck by the potential, or inspiration (I know that's a hefty word), that these poets offered. both Geoff Young and Nick Montfort presented the working idea of constraint, constraint as a creative possibility. Geoff utilizing the sonnet as a form to obey and disobey illustrated a canny opportunity available in the conscious attention to process. I take it that he squeezed existing poems into the sonnet constraint. his sonnets don't behave as sonnets, as he himself said, and yet they do, as he also said. his sonnets adhere to sonnet form only in being 3 1/2 quatrains in length. yet they possess sonnet grace, let us say. let me state that the idea of free verse, somewhere along the way, transmogrified into lazy verse, where poems merely consist of adjectives busying about a few nouns, in celebration of hyped up emotion. rote poem. constraints demand more effort, and not rote effort, but creative problem solving, which is what Beth says art is. rhyme and metre got tired as poets mechanically obeyed the timeworn rules. metre and thyme are exquisite when the poet actually feels involved with these elements, with the constraint that these elements offer. going thru the motions, however, adds nothing vital to a work. Whitman, when he deigned to rhyme, shows the weakness of this duty: the music of a tin ear. Dickinson, or later, Creeley, take metre and rhyme, stare them down, and wriggle free. there is a wonderful value displayed here, a historical view pushed against a futuristic one. the wrench of wondering. Whitman had no time for metre and rhyme, except that they made him Tennysonian, so he just wasted his time pretending toward such poesy. these are lessons, friends. as to Mairead, her work spoke of vantage, or persona. the Flann O'Brien wisdom of absurdity that I heard in her work is a conscious stance (I don't mean to imply that it is from O'Brien, only that it reminds me of his work), a working program. I thought, how can I stand thus. well, I cannot, really, that's Mairead, not me. but a learning possibility exists, placing questions where I hadn't thought to put them. she read ripplingly well, so that the humour and skew made imperial sense. I really liked the sense of input and influence that came from these readings.

I'm like to wore out with a 2nd reading in 2 days: Nick Montfort and Mairead Byrne reading at Demolicious. Nick Montfort does digital whatsis at MIT. digital whatsis is a way of acknowledging the uncorralled nature of the art. his reading was lecture-like. he discussed each piece and the context was rather illustrative. he began with a vision piece, a video. Nick wrote the words and someone else did the filming. the aesthetic of the vid was Youtube. it consisted of disjointed, fuzzily rendered imagery. the voiceover favoured its own disconnection. the result was a calmly trippy sensation. after the vid, Nick read an array of pieces. all worked within declared limits. one, quite funny, was written entirely on the 2nd row of a keyboard. the last line: "you putter out rote poop." I don't mean to be brief but time is burning. Nick has a site with much on it, here.

Mairead gave a terrific reading as well. many of her poems, all from the same chapbook, were urgent sounding soliloquies. they were built on a goofy logic. "do you happen to know your height? boy, did I". I thought of Flann O'Brien because the absurdity she offered was so reasonable. I wish I had better notes but I opted to listen. I wish more had attended, it was a fine reading.

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.

fish 2

fish 2, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

mysterious crop circle

mysterious crop circle, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

if you seek more work by AHB to delight in, be bored or displeased by, or simply ignore, I have a new blog for some of my recent works, yclept Simple Theories. tra la.

I have three poems in Eoagh 4, here. the whole issue is replete, check it out. I don't know if e-journals give a greater sense than print of the ratiocinations and bifurcations but... well I will declare that they do. these many offerings gathered under the aegis, each writer with a direction and plan, explored by Reader. I know some of the people in the masthead by name, by work, by rep, or by nothing at all. whatever I know of them, I understand that they all consider their work important, carrying resonance. and Reader will be delighted by some work, bored or displeased by other, ignore still other. each writer performs this dedication to writing, then flips the work into a stream, where the competition begins. I guess one can worry about that.

my friend Michael wants us to meet up at this reading. we have friends coming over saturday, however, so it is no go. I remain interested.

but.

that picture.

of the dead elk.

bugs me.

is the guy with knife and gun Buck Downs? I realize, writing this, that I assume a lot as I wriggle with the inferences of the picture. no, I do not like the idea of hunting but, yes, I eat meat. file my judgments, which I shan't even enumerate here, under whatever. it is the poetry not the poet that is of interest, as is proven by all our faded heroes. still, killing an elk seems wasteful. I mean, the rare opportunity to see a elk, and then to plug it. I could be sadly unprepared to face the irony of this picture. it seems creepy as a promo picture, tho, doesn't it? I would still want to hear Downs read, and of course Eileen Myles, but a part of me would think of the elk.

I have a 4 gig iPod Nano now. I could expatiate on the technical wonder but instead will mention my nephew's great grandfather, who died some years back at the age of 101. he used to be so astonished at modern cars. his little car could barely make it up the hills of New Hampshire but that was quite the improvement over whatever 1st car he remembered. one day he extolled the raw power of his vehicle to my nephew, who was about 4. my nephew said with exasperation, face it, Grampie, it's a Vega. not really, it's a paradigm shift. so anyway, I have a day's worth of music on the pod, isn't that lovely. and then I started listening to podcasts, and this is quite a wonder. one more step onto the egalitarian slope. I have mostly just scoured iTunes for science or history podcasts but the potential exists for grander, personal usage. indeed, I'm thinking of reading Days Poem as a podcast. I'd be doing it even now but I'm working out the kinks of recording. the built in microphone of this laptop isn't getting my quiet voice well, and the other microphone I have seems to cause a hum. but I will get it out there. the poetry scene commitment to imprimatur is, frankly, just stones in the passway. we can publish ourselves in all manner of expression without waiting on editorial acceptance. let's not squawk about how self-serving this is. if you're going to write, you might as well air it out. the podcast, the blog, these are furtherances, as brilliant as you choose to make them.

I am excited, pleased and furthermore that Stephen Ellis now has A BLOG. Stephen is a terrific poet for whom politics and poetics are eternally, let us say grandly, entwined. I hope, as one does with every new blogger, that he sustains the project. his writing genuinely illuminates me.

I see that Norman Mailer has died. I've never read a novel by him, don't think I've read any of his non-fiction work tho I know that in high school I read a collection of his poetry (sic). so I guess I'm in a perfect position to comment on his writing. and my comment boils down to: why did/do people read his work? talk about thingness, the thingly aspect of Mailer's work is what? being a celeb, he has this high impact presence, and that seems to be the igniting agent to people's imagination. I, personally, don't hear talk about the particular shimmer of his work, the vague lines of artistic extent that map into the plush dimensions, or whatever art does. what I hear is the Time Magazine jazziness of notoriety, in other words the prefab meaning that flies with this particular bird. just to repeat, I have read close to none of Mailer's work. what I am reading here, then, is the public imagination, or lack thereof. how reputations are onslaughts, and that sort of thing. in the sense that Allen Ginsberg can be replaced by or Madonna (or whoever you want to list), it's that stuff about the person before anything else. I think matters of criticism plunge often into Behlresques of thoughtfulness, punchy provocations instead of internal challenges. so a Norman Mailer becomes a battlefield, he and his work. like we will always need a dickweed to fuss over. maybe I've missed something in not reading his work. I never made a proud stand against his work, only selected other avenues to explore, as one must practically make such choices.

Geof Huth, not Jeff Booth, gives a clear appraisal of the Shively/Beckett reading here.in truth (rhymes with Huth), I cannot absorb the words in a reading, as Geof so obviously does, so I involve myself with the mechanics and surroundings. I sense the poet's work but not in a readerly way. Geof, I saw, took copious notes (I took random intersections), and he must have a better auditory memory than do I. perhaps the note-taking, or his particular responsiveness, caused Shively seemingly to direct his reading towards Geof. not that Shively didn't scan everyone, make eye contact. but his professor instincts perhaps were drawn to the one most obviously connecting. anyway, I did apologize, twice, for my numbness in introduction to Geof. I guess I don't even think of the power of the blog (any blog, I mean) because I am always surprised that people recognize my name. selah. I look forward to Jack Kimball's promised account.

Pats won, Sox still are champs, and a nifty reading at Demolicious today, featuring Charley Shively and Tom Beckett. nice weather too. I'll speak of the reading. Beth in NYC with her mother so I trained in. killing time I walked from Porter Square to Central, then rambled some more. finally, in front of the gallery, I saw a familiar, from photos, figure, and the clincher that he's tall: Tom Beckett. I introduced myself. I've 'known' Tom for more than 20 years, I imagine. his journal, The Difficulties, however I came to it, was integral to my development as a poem making type writer. I think Tom's contribution to poetry as an editor is worthy of whatever Hall of Fame that exists for poetry (none, I realize, but pretend one does), just as Babe Ruth's pitching stats could put him in Cooperstown, forget about the 714. Tom's poetry, as I discovered in the spare publications of his own works that I got, is a strong, definite statement. we have the further category of blogger, tho he's seen fit to shutter his latest blog. Tom was accompanied by his daughter and son in law, who live in Brookline, home town of Theo Epstein. as he and I were conversing, I'm an awesome converser, he told me that a friend of his was behind me. this friend, I heard his name as Jeff Booth. from NY, near Albany, I think. it wasn't till Tom read a poem dedicated to this Jeff Booth that I gleaned that Jeff Booth was in fact Geof Huth. Geof Huth is a wonderful, I'll even say cruciual, poet and, dare I say, scholar. his work is really avant in the visual context. I hope he can be persuaded to read locally. the reading, as usual, began with the local poet, Charley Shively. I only knew him by name. he was a friend of Wieners. he was also, and I'm sure still is, a legendary gay rights activist. he's a retired history professor. none of which did I know before he read. his reading was quirky and charming. think absentminded, if not dazed, professor. by dazed I am trying to describe an ephemeral quality. a very present and unencumbered attention. I mean, he wore unmatched shoes, and he said whatever sluiced into the main channel first. I can imagine he was a popular professor but drove a cetrtain few students crazy. such students would not just wonder what his last remark had to do with the Peloponnesian War but what the Peloponnisian War had to do with anything today. his observations and tangents were integral to his reading. given his general driftiness, which I do not present as a negative quality, his muscular sense of syllable was maybe a surprise. his poems appeareed to be short-lined affairs, and he read them with a careful syllable by syllablpe rhythm. he didn't exert much vocal dynamics, but the words came thru with a strong metric. he read for quite a while, timelessly, you might say. no way that I can replicate his performance. his 1st poem, which was to Wieners, and in fact was edited by him, included an aside about a dream he had in which Wieners was blowing Bob Dylan. I don't know what I can add to that. happily Jack Kimball attended and his reportage will no doubt supply a richer impression of the event than I can supply. from the small sampling I am willing to suggest that Shively is a great poet. Wieners class, that is. that was a hard act to follow but Tom gave a terrific reading too. he read entirely from Unprotecxted texts. which is a wonderful book, highly recommended. he read the entire Zombies series, which is funny, quirky and inviting. the lengthy, self-revelatory piece that followed, argh what's the title, was a tour de force, and solicited deserved applause even as he was starting his next set of poems. Tom read in a dry but involved way. his last reading was 7 years ago. you'd think the powers of NYC would be enlightened enough to invite someone of Tom's credentials to read. special thanks to John and Andrew for bringing Tom to town. let's get it straight: Tom isn't just sputum from an mfa program, he isn't just the newest vanilla to write a poem, he isn't just that friend of the friend of the friend, he isn't the latest advertising approach, he isn't the glory of sneer factor. no, Tom Beckett is a writer and editor of poetry, a poet living not on the cushy pulse but in the rugged definitions of the hinterland. do you see that the colostomy of networking is a failed sizzle, New York New York? the heroes aren't the ones who tell you they are heroes, okay? Beckett and Shively are clearly under-regarded. and Geof Huth, unexpected guest, should be given David Ortiz level praise as an innovator. as per, extra innings occurred at a pleasant Irish bar down the block (food's pretty good, tho I didn't partake today). where I sat didn't allow me to enter the conversation of Tom, Geof, Charley and Jack, but I had a good conversation with John Mercuri Dooley, who helped bring the event to fruition. I didn't start writing till I was 16, which is later than a number of writers I know. John didn't start till he was in his 40s. it is curious how we come to our expressions, how the necessities declare themselves. John and Andrew deserve commendation for the variety of readers that they've chosen for their series. that inclusion extends to the friendly nature of their events. the gatherings after the readings are as important as the readings themselves. alas that I had a train to catch. I scooted while things were still bubbling. great event, even so.

watched Blades of Glory yestreen. Will Farrell now identified as a go to guy. neither of the WF star vehicles that I've seen are perfect but they have a consistent artistic demeanour, let us say. I don't think that Farrell is a one trick pony. it seems like he has a vision of his work. but my experience of his work is slight so I wouldn't want to press this opinion too far. this one is about competitive skating, which is as likely as a subject, because of its local weirdness, as NASCAR. Farrell is paired with ugh I can't recall the actor's name, as rival skaters. the other skater, Jimmy, is fey (1st time I ever used that word) and sensitive, stereotypical skater type. Farrell's Chazz is bumptiously macho, rowdy rock star. our 1st encounter with the adult Jimmy, he wears peacock feathers on his rump and is a study of ridiculous skaterly grace. the movie captures the obsequious patter of skating announcers, and the crowd as suckers for the show. near the end, famous Jim Lampley gets to tell his announcing partner (Scott Hamilton, in fact) that he just wet his pants. Chazz comes on like a pro wrestler, strutting and emblazoned sex. it's such a toot to see. naturally the 2 get into a fight during the awards ceremony, naturally they are banned for life from competition. after a quick 3 years of dark night of the soul for them, they are brought together as a pair, since it isn't specified in the rules that they can't. that's all de rigueur stuff. fire and ice. I'm not capturing the good parts of the movie with this recount. the two actors work well together. Farrell, the star, looks comfortable sharing the screen. his characters need something to bounce against, anyway. his swagger arrives from the moon or somewhere, just as in Talledega Nights. Jon Heder, who must be someone but he's new to me, looks properly whippet-like to suggest a skater but Farrell looks like sitting on the front porch with a beer. the movie sneaks past campiness, just barely I think. for all the grace and athleticism of the sport, it has a high density of schlockiness. the whole play to the crowd aspect is what undermines it as a sport. so the target is rich. the skating routines are great, combining piss ant drama and physical impossibility. the movie tails off when the plot becomes needy. I know plot and denouement are integral to such a spoofy approach but plot really becomes dead air so often, a linear express to the next set piece. it's time, friends, that we review our need for plot. the resolutions seem mostly sham or incomplete. the Pirates of the Caribbean movies have been criticized for their confusing plot. I think the confusion comes from a need to make plot sense. if Johnny Depp et al weren't bound by that necessity, the play could be more adventurous. poetry is far from cured of that narrative need, that sort of storytelling completion, but at least the issue is on the table. we're totally inured to the auto pilot in artworks, it's hard to break thru to the mechanics. in the finale of Lord of the Rings, movie version, there's a smirky grand depletion of plot points amongst the survivours. Tolkien did the work at a respectful pace. in the movie, clock running, it's a nod to all. which particularly gives the scene with Viggo at marrying point with Liv an odd scantness. the movie's so homoerotic, another word I've never used before, that this ceremonious inclusion of a female jostles the mind. where'd she come from, basically. from a need to tie loose ends. a satisfaction exists in that, but girls are so rare in the movie that we really aren't prepared for this normative streak. it almost happens in Blades. you can see the bond between the guys, similar drives and interests. when the girl comes along, the attraction is mostly that she's kinda pretty. well gee whiz, if you want to make plots work, you have to cut out a lot of interesting stuff. if you want Viggo and Liv to look right together, you'll have to cut out monsters and sword play. in Blades, if you really need to tie Jimmy to the sweetheart, you'd have to sacrifice the good stuff on the ice. ah well. it was a fun movie, anyway. I'll take Farrell over Jack Black, who seems like a 2nd rate Lou Costello or even Curly Howard.

U Cal Press sent this link: Mark Twain. I like Twain, judiciously (H Finn). more wowzer is just the idea of a chugging press offering what do they call it content fer free. I haven't run the metrics to say that the thing works (sells hard copy books) but I'm thinking as how it does. anyway, when he aint all a-gloom, morbid, self-pitying, and that, Mark Twain is the berries.

poetry, haw! I don't write it. I write sentences, and I sometimes jiggle them. and that satisfies my writin' urge. I've done my study of poetry, learned to like some of it. for the 1st time in my life, I'm writing rarely. this isn't a bad thing, just different. my writing rhythm has been jostled, no biggie. and the dog that is not here describes a space that I haven't figured how to fill. ANYWAY, I'll be tuning in Tom Beckett and Charley Shively at Demolicious on sunday. I only know of Shively, local writer, so this will swell my local awareness (a likable tactic for the series: one local, one foreigner in each reading). Tom Beckett is one of the undersung heroes of the poetry landscape. most definitely wrangling with his journal The Difficulties greatly changed my writing arc, as did having Grenier as a teacher for a year. elsewise I'd be lyricking some false motive or another, romantic view of the poet as confessional claptrap and heroic bum out. I like Tom's spareness, antipodal to my wordy way. and just to finish this ramble, a house didst I see hereabouts, decorated for Halloween, with ghosts and Jack o' lanterns all a-glow. plus a sign: We Support Our Troops. so the ectoplasmic crowd support the reaper man, quel surprise!!!