watched The Scorpion King. I watched it on Hulu, where you can stream movies and tv shows for free. not an enormous list of items, but a reasonable range of stuff. as I recall, this was an outgrowth of the remake of The Mummy. Vince McMahon was executive producer, and The Rock starred. it is basically Conan, but with more energy than I recall those movies having, but not quite the production values. Arnold Schwarzenegger has always been oppressive to me. in comparison, The Rock is subtle, varied and easy to take. the movie started with some sort of plot stuff, which included The Rock rescuing his brother from some anti-Akkadian creeps. after the rescue there's some more plot stuff, in which The Rock, his brother, and another guy go off to do something. there's a guy that looks like Eric Bana, and quite a few who look like they've worked for McMahon in the squared circle, tho I could not name any of them. the big plot centers on Memmnon, a bad ass king, who has a sorceress who can tell him which battles he will win. the Rock and his team invade a camp to kill the sorceress, I am not sure of the particular impulse for this. brother and other guy get killed but The Rock manages to kidnap the sorceress, who is suitably slinky. um, comic relief guy, who is in a lot of movies in the same role, becomes part of the team. utterly surprisingly, The Rock and sorceress become enchanted with each other. well who would have expected that? okay, there's a scene in which The Rock goes alone against 11 assassins, in the employ of the badass king. there's a sandstorm, okay? and The Rock chases this crew into cave. in a, like, sinister way, he kills off the assassins one by one. it's totally like he's magic. he's free of the constraint of physics, but he's not magic, man. okay. so we got the love interest, the weasly comic relief. do not worry, the cute urchin appears. there's Amazon fighting force, and the guy who happens to have figured out how to make gunpowder. oh, there's the chunky warrior who begins as an adversary but succumbs to the Rock's charm (patented lift of one eyebrow, of course). this crew makes an assault on the city, which happens to be Gomorrah. check it out, there's quite a battle between Rock and hard place, aka bad ass king. simultaneously the big warrior, who is convincingly big but not convincingly agile, fights a mob, the Amazons have a crew of well-timed combatants to defeat (well-timed as in: wait till the guy ahead of you is defeated before you rush in madly), the weasly guy and the inventor have their scene. the denouement occurs when The Rock gets hit by an arrow. he is down, may be out. just like in every Coppola movie, there is a simultaneity of events, each group with their dark night of soul. the weasly guy, desperately breaking free from some guards, sets gunpowder afire, which sets the good vibes a-vibing. The Rock rises as if from the canvas, pulls the arrow from his back, and nice touch, notches it to his bow. it has already been established that the bad ass king can catch arrows, but The Rock outquicks him something fierce, and that, dear friends, is that. as with the best of such movies, it is refreshing to have physics relaxed, so that we can watch The Rock perform felicities of physical nonsense. he has a lot of style as he moves thru space. he should not be given more than 2 sentences in a row to recite, because he has issues with sincerity. he had a good wrestling rap, as I recall, but his conversation come out more like urged declarations. there's a comedic touch there, and he is likable, unlike Arnold. a classic film experience of how small bits of plot and whatever can be coaxed into something almost larger than the what you expected.

I have written several times about Tom Beckett's The Difficulties, and now, recently, Tom has writ a few words about the experience. of publishing, that is, this influential (at least it was an influence for me) journal. I came out of a schooling at Franconia College much inspired by Robert Grenier (and Olson, Williams, Stein, Niedecker, Eigner), but still unable to see a clear path, which is to say that the poetry shelves at the library were monolithic in the confusion they bred in me. Tom's work as editor did a mean job of clearing the way for me. his publications were succour, can I say that? I recognized that his publications found their way to me from, you know, OHIO. an outpost. I valued that, and still do. I learned so much from my confrontations with The Difficulties. I know that I scribbled muchly in my copies, I know that I ordered copies for a friend. I am pretty sure that I added a few bucks to my orders (peccavi, Tom, if I did not). talking with Tom's daughter after his reading last fall, and she remembering collating pages as a child on the kitchen floor or some such picture. and then Tom sells the archive to Yale for a goodly chunk, tho zeroes could be fairly added now. I knew Tom 1st as an editor, tho every work of his that I read, that I would buy or he would add to orders, was solid, serious, great, as anyone who has placed their nose within the pages of Unprotected Texts knows. it is a crappy business, certes. the hustlers get heard, tho I write that and immediately must edit. energetically placing one's words before eyes is no bad thing, but chop back blocks are. aiming for the knees sort of imploring. territorial jerks. Tom mapped an essential hunk of land, essential landscape. for which, all honours from this voice.

 

 

 

yestreen Erin invited me to join him on the green for I presume the last weekly town concert for the summer. I was tired and said no but thought it s nice to be invited, by a stepson, so I mustered myself and hopped on my bike. which is indeed NOT what I did: no one hops on a bike without some manner of excruciation. there have been concerts all summer, and we have witnessed several. the concerts tend towards generic classic rock, competent work by old farts. I mean, one group consisted of doctors and lawyers. I do not mean to disparage, it is just that you realize that a Richard Thompson, or whoever, simply goes beyond, that the engine can be amazing, and not just fun. when I got close to the green I recognized "Magical Mystery Tour", done in straightforwardly Beatles style. hotcha, I like that song. I hurriedly locked my bike and hustled to the music. the band was a foursome, 2 older guys and 2 younger. I think I understood from the start that they were a Beatles cover band. that they played MMT confirmed that. the bass player was a grey beard and played, like Paul, a Hofner bass. the mix was heavy to the bass, but at least he was good. as was/is Paul, his bass lines were awfully tasteful and pretty. they zipped thru the Beatles catalogue competently. the sound system declined thru the night. vocals were not a patch on the original, but then the Beatles were largely a studio band, there's not a lot of extant examples of Beatles live. I was happy to hear the tunes, altho "The Ballad of John and Yoko", a mailed in song (by John et al.) if ever, just annoyed me. the Beatles hit Ed Sullivan and the American consciousness when I was 11. they flipped my world around. it has occurred to me that I can sing, words and lyrics, a very large percentage of the Beatles' catalogue, without having studied much, and without listening to much of it the past 25 years or more. the Beatles were a mega something. you think of Elvis having a similar cultural completion, and Sinatra. I think Mariah Carey may have more #1s than anyone, or some such stat. granted I am not paying attention but all that comes to mind with MC is those looping high notes. who/what is the Beatles of the 90s or the 00s? or is that a deprecated concept now? could Nirvana be said to be the Beatles of the 90s, that is, unavoidably influential? is Radiohead, for the current 15 minutes? maybe the media divergence has made such a unifying force impossible. The Beatles were a cultural imperative then, when I was 11. that concept may hold little or no water now. I certainly do not intend to present the Beatles as some necessity. Erin noted the song "Ticket to Ride", which has been taken by the homeschool coop as the theme song for graduation. which maybe is akin to taking "Born in the USA" as a paean to Republican virtues, but anyway. Howl was the culminating or coalescing thing for that time but god knows no poem will have such influence now.

Books!

Beth and I got around to unpacking books into the built in bookcase in the living room. we moved a few weeks ago, but had not gotten around to freeing our books from their boxes. we are talking only some of our books, we still have much to do getting the rest out, and in fact all will not be freed. we no longer have any in storage now, at least. the point I am working on here is just the deliciousness of unpacking and organizing the books. Beth and I have catholic taste in books, we cover a lot of genres. I had not seen some of these books in a while. I mean, oo, War and Peace: I've been reading about Napoleon lately so rereading W&P is tempting. several Wittgenstein books, I would like to spend some time. an older edition of Mrs Browning's Poetry, and a newer edition of Robert's collected works. The Letters of Henry Roots, they are riotous and will be left out for ready appreciation. a nice illustrated edition of Walden, must be time to read that again. Tristram Shandy, to be read by the fireside, with a dollop of tawny port. the 2 volumes of Olson's Muthologos, which have always been energizing works for me, his conversations and lectures. what about collections of stories by Ray Bradbury? Locus Tides by Mary Rising Higgins, which Beth and I published. Beth knew and was touched by Mary, remembered her untimely death. Eileen's brick, a delight to pick up and wander in. Emily Dickinson's Collected, tho I have not yet found my copy of Howe's remedy to the overarching harvardness involved in that collection, that is: My Emily Dickinson. oh, and My Angie Dickinson (Michael Magee). does this list bring forth any visceral tingle to yourself? Carl Sauer's review of 16th century North America. Simone Weil's discussion of the Iliad. Fitzgerald's translation of the Iliad. 3 different translations of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, each one vigourous and worthwhile. Newton's Principia. 3 books by Carl Sagan. Don Quixote by Kathy Acker, which I have not read yet. I list here books that I am eager to read/reread. 5 of the 17 Aubrey books by Patrick O'Brian that I own. which Beth has just recently begun working her way thru. woohoo. Drafts 1-38 by Rachel Blau Duplessis. I never read Don Quixote by Cervantes either, but the books sits patiently. all books do. maybe 20 dictionaries of various sorts, including Oxford's dictionary of Scottish, a mine of weird looking words of great vigour. says the Sasenach. a wonderful batch of field guides, including mushrooms, the atmosphere, as well as birds, fish, and flowers. I could go on. most of my poetry books are still packed away. poetry as a limitation, as defined by the Poetics list, is a fade, deflated tire. the poetry books are at topshelf, stand on a chair height. to be stepped up to. the spectrum, its light of inclusion, is a poetry. our library, that is, is a poetics.

little known poetry hermit Eileen Tabios has published a new book. she knows that publishing old books sniffs poorly. look here for particulars. some while ago, Eileen asked if she could use blog comments that I made regarding her work. I said yes, because she asked, and because any writer wants the words in front of eyes. I had to say, tho, and did, that my comments seemed pretty Bramhallcentric. her reply was that that was fine, that the use that I (or anyone) could make of her work was of interest to her and, with hope, to others. and it is. I have not read The Blind Chatelaine's Keys but I have read some of the commentary contributed by others, and look forward to the usage that she makes. this kinda brings me to recommend Goodreads, a Facebook for readers, where people share their reading interests. especially cool seeing what other writers are reading. Jeff Harrison, great under-known poet, opened the door of this to me. the connections that we make seem magical, but they are imperatives sprung from the source.

I should have had Jim Andrew's Vispo site in my links long ago. his work is seriously playful, and he is one of the most eloquent thinkers on the subject of visual... well, I was going to say visual poetry, but Jim's work inflects more particularly towards the internet whereas visual poetry conjures the work of, say, Geof Huth, who is indeed an eloquent champion of that vocabulary. if you want to get caught up in terminology. I like this integration of theory into the artistic act. Grenier has this same integration. his visual work extends from his poetry, his poetry from his theoretical work. totally ambient.

Stephen Vincent thoughtfully comments on my thoughts on Grenier's gallery show below, rare visitant to my comments box. my comments were not aimed at Grenier, and certainly were not grudging. I will not say that I was the only one who appreciated the hallway of poems that Grenier created at Franconia, but what I still take as a liberating effort on his part did not garner much attention at the school. but at least he is getting his turn in the limelight, and getting paid. and Grenier looks good in the pictures, just as lean and wiry as I remember him 36 years ago. Grenier's influence is large tho mostly indirect: the people he influenced influenced the many. When Silliman bio'd Grenier for In the American Tree, he neglected to mention Franconia College, where Grenier produced at least some of Sentences, at least one issue of This (in which my 1st publication), and so on. how could Mr Detail miss that? Grenier has a thereness in contemporary poetry that is treated like the most glorious of footnotes. the art world delivers on spiked glamour, with the Warhol Clock ticking. Grenier's minimalist scribbles garner chardonnay attention but his minimalist poems are given asterisks in some regulated scheme of things. if my story's correct, Grenier went from Tufts (alma pater: my father went there) to Franconia, possibly not the sweetest of career moves (the FC student population was 1/2 the size of my high school graduating class). had he hung around Harvard or MIT he would have been locked in. no I do not begrudge the art world attention he now commands, I just wish poetry were seen as just as important.

Robert Grenier en gallerie (scusi the phony French, tho it seems a propos). 6 years before Sentences was published, Grenier pinned the cards thereof onto the corkboard lining a wall at Franconia College. I had next to zero concept of the dynamics of art, the conceptual part, but walking down the hall struck me as a wonder. felt like a gallery, tho its demonstrativeness was warm and unassuming. this picture looks like NYC: synthesized, glisky, opulently reverent. this is not a grudge speaking. I am interested in Grenier's visual work but the seminal formation apparent in the presentation at Franconia has more gusto for me than the chardonnay in the plastic cup stance of the gallery crowd. I remember seeing him pinning the poems up, it had a guerrilla vibe to it, tho it was not like graffiti, just that he was making unusual use of the space. galleries strike me as bemusedly tolerant rather than engaged, and Grenier would be regarded as the latest screwball, soon to be replaced. I learned so much from him. I find myself not wanting to see him in this flashy scene. I saw much of the seminal experience of LANGUAGE poetry, the stuff that Kent Johnson et al. have missed, by way of Grenier's lessons, curiosity and openness. Grenier as just the next artist in a gallery is kinda depressing. I did not expect to get to this point when I began this post.

I am smart enough to join the chorus: Galatea Resurrects is THE thing that is out there. that and the podcast You Look Nice Today. dynamoed by Eileen Tabios, and writ large by everyone, this is an effort to get work involved with readers. the weight is on the side of the look here part of the equation, and less on the branding. the editorial instinct has to do with what engagement the reader discovered. I have written a few reviews for GR and would do more if time allowed. I like the feeling of offering something not definitive but inviting. not reviews but invitations for consideration. not Perloff and Bloom setting up walls but welcoming resonances from the poems. the ratio of review to works extant is so minuscule nowadays that it is simply quantum fresh air to read the light on all this stuff. huzza!

poets write poems, I guess. writers write. it took me a while to admit with confidence that I was a writer. that producing whatever shitload of work, crappy as it might have been, was not confirmation enough. I think Dickinson had 4 poems published while alive, as you know, and Rossetti pumped Blake to life, did he not. I kept keyboard and pen busy for several years before I accepted that I was a writer, and not just that I wrote poems: I was a poet. well, anyway, I no longer recall the point of this preamble. I wanted to speak about Microsoft One Note, which prolly aint the most poetic of possibilities, you might think. what is this unsulliable poetry of which you speak??? je ne said pas. and so. the program came bundled with the rest of MS Office that I scarfed at 91% discount, legal, as recounted here in May. SO One Note. it is not so much a program that I mench here, but a method. it is like note cards, bits of data collected, manipulated, and used. I am only now getting the hang. One Note gives you fields upon which you can write anywhere. discrete units can be combined, or you can draw lines between to connect the thinking process. collect urls, notes, ramblings. organize later. One Note gives you options for putting things together. a good study aid for the computer age. cut and paste cogent passages to your heart's content. I am not selling One Note so much as tickling the possibility. poetry is not just a dose of fly agaric and a bit of transcription. methodology is part of the plum. the learning aggregate enters in, the dashed off, the unthought-thru expression. I am trying to use this program practically, collecting bits that will add up. I see in One Note the excitement of the barely formed. you doodle out what comes to mind and see what that thing is. this is exciting to me. I have always loved notebooks, what people dash off without the effort of formality. if Silliman's School of Quietude deserves any whammo of critique, it would be how foreign incompleteness would be to the work. that is, a drive to make poems start and finish with narrative imperative, this is SOQ. what is most exciting about Olson is his incompletions. poems as notes, or glances. isn't this wonderful? Cinvat Bridge, aer, a mole to get at Tyre. I love this sense of narrative that leaps with the mind. One Note is a tool for very rational building of logical form, and I am trying to use that. but it makes me think, also, of a poetics of incomplete lines. the mind jumps, jumps. not just the press to disjunct, LANGUAGE POETICS 101, but an affirming sort of processual movement. George Oppen comes to mind, just now. Susan Howe collecting and collating. we can learn from the tools we use.

Carl Annarummo writes real purty about Walden Book:

Walden Book is an open door in an era of locked doors and drawn shades. It is a wildly lucid testament, not a eulogy, to the beauty that is Massachusetts' natural world. The poems in Walden Book are as inviting and intimate as a westward drive on route 2 from 128. There will be no poo-pooing of the modern world here - just the history of a place with all of its lights turned off. At least to me, Walden Book assures us that we can have simultaneous submissions of neon lettering and white pines. Picture Thoreau sharing a bill with the Modern Lovers.

5x8 chapbook printed on quality linen paper with hand-stamped envelope. Printed in an edition of 75. The covers are from a book of old Massachusetts coastal maps. Each chapbook has a different cover.

sure, it is a blurb that he writes, but as the author, I would be happy if one took such impressions from Walden Book. or any other impression, really. I invite you.

I just received copies of Walden Book, which is a chapbook of my work, published by Greying Ghost. Carl Annarummo did the work, and the web site is ici. Carl hath not yet gotten ordering info for it up yet, so buy something else from him. he did a lovely job with the design, and I happen to like what I wrote. support these precious examples of DIY, scaled to the person. poetry is intimate.

someone on Poetics posted thoughts about the new Boston Poet Laureate. great, except that the old Poet Laureate never left office. I mean, I saw a need last year, and filled the vacuum. if this Sam Cornish guy thinks he can usurp me from the position, he has another think coming. I am here to stay.

internet fast: just to mench: I wrote "Worcester as an Average" quickly, a rapid evocation of something that had built up. I immediately posted it to Wryting, as is my wont. Halvard Johnson wrote within 20 minutes of my beginning to type the poem, asking to publish it. (this is not a common occurrence for me, but anyway). think of Dickinson, Clare, Blake able to dash so boldly into sight. it does not mean that the public would be ready, as training for Dickinson, and Blake, seems to have been needed, but the process would not have been left to a possibly entrenched editorial concern. think of possibility.

Hamilton Stone Review, edited by Halvard Johnson. A poem of mine, concerned with Worcester, Mass, sits prose-like to be viewed. other poems by other marvellers. a poem is a collection of word-like conveyances that produces the sensation of word-like conveyance.

What part of QQumNglla @#$"p][snodja[] quag snem fwibble don't you understand???

I just wanted to recommend a podcast that I've been listening to. it is called You Look Nice Today. it is not easy to describe, tho I will flail away for a few sentences. I can declare that it is hilarious. I do not think that you get a good idea of the podcast from the web site. it consists of 3 guys, connected by Skype, I presume. they converse. really they riff, do bits, in a dry, low key way. I think what they do is chatter amongst themselves for 2-3 hours then boil it down to about 30 minutes. I'll just say that it is a jumble of arch humour, sarcasm, whimsy, bad taste, and too much education. I might suggest that it is a little like Seinfeld, because they are plangently dedicated to the small and under-inflected. I cannot even quote any felicities, tho I can point to a slobby impersonation of Bill Cosby. I am, right now, a fan, however long that will last.

I was surprised to learn of a rippling buzz about the Sex and the City movie. I am not paying attention, admittedly, I mean, I really watch no more than 2 hours of tv a week, if that. which I do not say with any superiourity. I would love to swell with the best and worst that tv can deliver, but my time just does not afford it. I have seen several episodes of SITC, found it agreeable enough. I was unaware that it had such an audience that would clamour, if not clamber, the full monty of a Hollywood release. it rides a different camel than the latest Indiana Jones movie. both are resumptions after hiatus, but powered differently. IJ is Lucas' sluggish response to the original movie. he had this franchise but both IJ and Star Wars had to wait for Lucas to fulfill his micromanaging imperatives. isn't that the case? the 3rd episode was a dissertation on the art of phlegmatic perfunctoriness. this 4th is, without my seeing it, a visionary extenuation of that perfunctoriness. I do not know why SITC dawdled into the current flower that it is but I do not think it was entirely canny in its arrival a ce moment. what ev, it caught the Hillary flush. which is to say that it can be read, in the wide media, as a feminist document, just as Hillary's candidacy can. the feminism in both is both real and invented. the real is just the inescapable politicized fact of women perceived, media-wise. the 4 SITC leads are made heroic monstrances, but you cannot carry that far. they are 4 well-etched but not extraordinary people. Hillary is a politically-charged ion. the feminism in both cases is personal. there is a degree to which you can see the Democratic race as sexism vs racism, which will die 1st. that's intellectually lazy but we take what we're fed. Hillary, like Bill, brings a lot of savvy, an eager necessity, and sleaze. maybe those qualities are more effective than Barack's charm. I really do not know how to play that one. SITC never struck me as fully loaded, so its sweep of the nation is a surprise. I hate how racism and sexism are mediated in the public debate, ulteriour gamesmanship. SITC and the Democratic primary race both take hold of the public imagination in a sloppy popcorn way. I mean the way the audience finds its voice as audience thru the ventriloquism of media pundits. the wisdom almost says that stupid Southerners favour Hillary while over-educated Northerners favour Barack. check the tattoo on your forehead to see which one you are. does race beat sex, then? not in SITC, I warrant. the candidates shrivel to a minor detail, and who cares what finally happens

we ate out for dinner yestreen. as we went out, we could see commotion across the street on the green. why, it was the Prom Walk! which I had never heard of prior to seeing a sign for it a few days ago. I suppose it is a town tradition but it never crossed my path before. I didn't look carefully at the proceedings. a red carpet was set up on the green, and a flowered archway. I gather couples would strut their prom stuff under the arch. which, methinks, would hardly take the 3 hours that the sign indicated. it was weird to see gown dresses and shorts intermingled. guys in hoodies, etc. I suppose the casually dressed were family and underclass kids. our neighbour remarked, about last year, on seeing a group of boys dressed in white tuxes wearing white baseball caps turned to the side. what ev. this sort of thing is and was meaningless to me, tho I don't sneer at these who do it. well, maybe I do. it seemed laboured and hoky. but I do get the need to do it. an assertion of the specific time and place. okay so we went in search of a restaurant, having a vague idea of one. which we found, at exactly 5:00. didn't look overly open, but lights were on. inside it looked tonier than we were looking for, dressed as we were and not wanting to pay a lot. but we were swept in with much hospitality, and that was a good sign. indeed we were about the only customers. menu prices were on the high side but, lo, the early bird specials were reasonable, so we stayed. a list of dishes at $14.95, including soup and dessert. in my previous life, in the wine business, I had opportunity to eat at several of Boston's most lala restaurants at the time. which I did not pay for, because I would not pay 100 dollars (in the 90s) for dinner (the company supplied the wine). I can remember, as an example, being served 1 1/2 bay scallops, AND three string beans. other dishes were served, but you get the idea. nouvelle cuisine. when I got home, I had something to eat. that's art at its most superficial and pointless. there are aspects of art that are simply stemware. the wine taster lifts the glass to the lips but does not taste the glass but the wine therein. it is not the genre that is of interest, but the thing inside it, the specific event. ANYWAY, we three muddled thru the decision process. I chose chicken marsala. Beth had something with mussels and Erin lasagna. my dish was delicately rendered. the marsala was subtly evoked. I don't mind a crunching use of such flavourings but the fragrant dollop was skillful. Beth was very happy with the mussels. I have little interest in seafood, tho will eat it, so I didn't sample her fare. Erin's lasagna was meatless. I find lasagna oppressive. even when I was running 80+ carb-demanding miles a week, I was not wild about lasagna. the waitress, Debbie, asked if Erin wanted marinara or creamy basil. had I been confronted with that choice, I might have gone with the lasagna. the creamy basil was lovely, delicate. Erin had raspberry iced tea, which was pleasant if too sweet for me. he finished it quick so Debbie brought a carafe, and later a 2nd (Erin has a mighty thirst). Beth and I shared a bottle of Monkey Bay sauvignon blanc, fresh, crisp, and grassy. product of New Zealand. I have yet to have a sauvignon blanc from NZ that could not stand next to the Sancerre and Pouilly-Fume of France, which are also made with the grape. I hate the mark up that restaurants use. 200%-500%, and it is not like they did not order the wine last tuesdays so have no holding costs. I have had, btw, the white wines from Chateau Margeaux and Chateaux Haut-Brion, as well as Chateau d'Yquem's dry wine. those are off the board, if you want to sell your children to try them. I never took wine that seriously but I will cop to the aesthetic of such wines. which does not of itself place me in the hell of bourgeoisie. lusting for them would. I did not mench the soup course, minestrone for all three, which was fresh and clean. for dessert, Erin and Beth had chocolate mousse. I had cannoli. both were wonderful. our server seemed to be closer to management. she brought a new hire to our table to show the ropes. she was certainly more than what's yours?. I do not like lusting after subservience, but a sociable awareness aint bad. the decor of the place showed effort. on the wall outside, there was a rendering of a tomato can label. which was nice. a faux marble pillar was too amateurish. in the room where we sat, there was a rogue's gallery of paintings. one I know was a knock off of one by John Singer Sargent, the proud European lady. the others were knocks offs too, likely, but I could not say of who. not good knocks offs. as Beth said, they were like Addams Family. the walls were painted a grim burgundy, on a swirled plaster. it was reasonably ridiculous and distracting. the 2 other rooms were much more ordinary, wood and windows. it was a fine dinner for all three of us. I bring it up because food is an accepted aesthetic. we all can critique food, just as we all can critique movies. poetry is seen too arcane to speak to. which is silly because the process is no different. in a poem, words are nodes of interest. the reader takes them in their configuration. the reader need not accept the cultural emphasis (that Shakespeare is the bee's knees, for instance) nor any other outside force. the whole event is in the poem, there. just as the dinner is on the plate, not in a review of the restaurant. you will notice, when you look at your copy of Days Poem, that I dedicate it to Beth and Erin. this is locus, nexus. wine is not efflorescence for me, but from the aesthetic consideration of it I developed a sense of critical and aesthetic standpoint, and of critical process. the important thing was Beth, Erin, and I dining together, not that the service was A1, tho it was. poetry is not arcane, it is made of words, and we use words all the time. poetry uses words in ultimate emphasis, let us say, tho I do not really think it is ultimate. those kids trooping under the archway were in a heightened context. relevance comes, tho, thru a cogitation of the symbolism. I do not think the Prom Walk invites that cogitation. the satisfactions of dinner are more than sensory. the writing of today does sound ALL ALIKE. a centripetal force exists that can throw one free of the mundane manacles of sensation to a deeper thought. this is the real aesthetic, hard fought for. it is the brimming awareness that counts. hello.

back from Erin's Graduation. Beth's mother and I left early, Erin and Beth are still partying. this is graduation from the homeschool cooperative to which we have belonged for, whoa, 5 years. Erin in fact did not attend the cooperative this year. meant to do the Shakespeare play (performance of which earnestly reported here a few weeks ago), but his class schedule at the community college proved impervious to such additions. so Erin and 6 other fellow travelers were honoured for moving on. schooling options, especially for someone who might be deemed different (like that's a prob, but that's the point), were not enlightened in Alaska and Idaho when Beth and Erin lived there, so homeschooling was a natural, well, the 1st word that comes to mind is resignation, as in being resigned to how formalized and closed thinking public school can be. the idea of the cooperative is to pool resources. over the years it has become more school-like, but it has been a good experience for Erin. he did Shakespeare, Mock Trial, various classes. Beth and I taught there, as well. this past year, he did quite well in college. academics weren't the question, schedules and tests and such, the structured stuff, were. yet he done well. a few weeks ago he was invited to dinner at the school, because he had participated in a number of school events and so was honoured for being an Emerging Leader. Beth had to work that evening so he and I went. I tried, twice, to write of it here, but couldn't get the words right, my pride. I mean, I could not portray my sense of his accomplishment, knowing as I do but you do not what it took for him to be where he is. every child is special needs. IQ tests and SATs are tools for understanding (flawed, at that), they are not character studies. having been in the wine business, where way too many people think those 100 point scales for reviewing wines are guarantees for enjoyment, I know that people are easily confused. as if you could taste a number. so... each graduate had "7 minutes" (not all 7 minutes are alike) to do something. a couple performed music, a couple stood and riffed. one, a loudly outgoing girl, did a hilarious PowerPoint performance about her life, all 18 horse-infused years, churning her personality-plus into an implacable career path. Erin perspicaciously put his suit coat on (no tie) when he was called. he had prepared nothing, which several others admitted to. he rapidly bailed and called us to the microphone. Beth gave a neat encapsulation of the homeschooling experience that she and Erin had. two issues exist with homeschooling. dealing with the bureaucracy, which, depending on where you live, can be criminally retrogressive, and dealing with the academics, how to get it taught, particularly that which you don't know. it is a heroic effort. Beth did that. she did it without a lot of resources initially. Beth turned to me when she finished, but Beth had said it all and I did not want to invade her glory (glory it is). and we went back to our seats. but Erin stayed at the mike to make a joke that I cannot replicate, alluding to gaming, referencing graduation, which had the effect, I am not kidding, of one of Carl Yastrzemski's mind-blowing exploits during the Red Sox's 67 season. that is, an up against it moment, and somehow... the poetics of this is situation. this is the locus from which I write. not in the sense of biography, tho that is there, but the influencing forces. critics revel in the association of facts of an artist. what could be juicier than the suicide of father that Berryman witnessed (if I have my facts right, which I need not). Erin is part of my poetics. it was interesting at the graduation because each graduate used their 7 minutes differently. one boy played a tape of a piece that he composed. Beth and I both assumed that he was a musician in the rock band sense but indeed was he composed was orchestral, strings and woodwinds, sight read by a high school orchestra. I thought there were points where the development stalled, but it was a delicious piece nathless. 7 or 8 individuals were presented. compared with the uniforms marching to the stage at other graduations, which is such an appalling image when considered. I could launch a rumination/screed on homeschooling but I will let it go. Beth knew all along, and I agree, that Erin would have been a target in the definition rich environment of public school. you know, lord of the flies: big kid = oaf, innocent = stupid, unhip = lost. poetry, you readers who are poets must know, is a strain of language, and I mean the complexity of the word strain. I do not dismiss public schools. I did not shine in public school but I got thru, perplexingly ordinary because I can conform. not meld, but I flowed along. Erin cannot conform or meld. he is always so obviously so. which seems like an affront to many people. he writes with knowing ease. at his age I wrote with blind vigour, an exacting idea of juvenelia. he is taking a drawing course this summer, suddenly declared an interest, and in his 1st class drew something or other. excellent composition, and a very good feel for shape and the gradation of shade. tho he hates using charcoal. I don't want to make Erin's case, that is his job. I am just keenly aware of Erin's, um, Kampf. the world does not respect uniqueness, unless it has to. okay, we'll accept this Emily Dickinson character, eventually... poetry, friends, is a primal idiosyncrasy. we accept it for its exceptions. we also tiresomely, accept poetry as a function of conformity: poets as Byronic heroes, poems as heighte4ned confessions, etc. these simplifications place stones in the passway. Erin's is not a simple story, but no one's story is simple. homeschooling, when it is not defending the comfy chair called Intelligent Design, deigns to keep a few doors open, instead of forcing definitions to enclose. it is a courage to attempt the task, but courage is a central quality to Beth. with homeschooling, inevitably, you reach a point of wondering, did I do the right thing?. as if paying that much attention in one's child's education could possibly be wrong. as I said, it was not the academics that we worried about with Erin at Com Coll, but navigating the social construct. at that community college function, I felt pride seeing Erin making headway with that large mystery of social nexus. he could never politicize that, turning it into a condition of definitions. he just was not equipped with those distinctions. but he could be, will be, a poet of an expanding universe. he learned early, within the instrumentation of his life. poetry was a little bit hip when I was 16, I mean I could contrive a vision of poetry being a winnowing of sensitivity types. which it is. the odes to dead pets fall away. yet poetry, at base, is an effort to make words mean what they mean. they are what they are, and continue so, responses to the world lived now.

Jack Kimball points to a poem by Stephen Ellis. intertwine and alleviation. Stephen's poem is like, why aren't you reading it? Jack is like, this is a sensation. act of sensing. do you see how the energy is shared? poets as poets.

Meritage Press, in the angelic form of Eileen Tabios, informed me that the check is in the mail. in other words: Royalties!!!. before you offer me 1st dibs on your Florida swampland, let us just say that the incoming greenbacks will not overstuff my stylish purple wallet. still, let us affirm that the nuance of this economic turn seems right. neither the inherent barter system nor the potlatch of the poetry world bothers me, I rather regale in it, to the degree that I can afford to. and yet it is ridiculous to think that the books, the product, of this writing enterprise are so little valued. a cookbook, a thriller, an earnest self-helper: these all bear worth. but poetry, you have to give it away. not to say that there is no earnest audience for poetry. that big time real estate monopoly in Cambridge that owns the rights to Emily Dickinson knows there are paying customers to serve. it's an odd, and contagious, reluctance that confirms that poetry should be diminished in respect. you might read Da Vinci Code once (which is about all the crappy binding of the paperback could take) rather than the many times reading a poetry book, but the commodity of the thriller is much easier to accept than poetry's. wanting to get the work out to a small, recalcitrant audience means giveaway. the internet supplies a good free access, with potential to make it lucrative. I think publishers ought to work on the model of capitalistic enterprise rather than charity. perhaps put resources to fewer books but support those books, and the author. I speak of larger books, perfect bound ones. chapbooks are good for expressing the charitable side, if you want to publish tactilely. but I didn't mean to go afield like this, I wanted to nod in respect to Eileen, for the respect she shows her authors by offering, and paying, royalties. so here, once more, is a link to Days Poem, which has earned its author royalties.

Goodreads, if you have not discovered, is a social network of readers. you can post your library and books you want to read or have read, and check out the selections of others. with that in mind, go to the site and search for Lanny Quarles. he lists more than 2500 books, a wild, enthusiastically eclectic range of interests. which is what it is all about.

Briefly, just to keep my hand in, a blog post. by the way, I like reading my blog. I like watching the movements of my thoughts, which just flutter away if I don't write them down. so anyway, Beth worked late friday so Erin and I watched a movie. I deemed it necessary for the movie to be stupid, in some way. the winning selection was Krull. which was not abject, but it could have been a victim of Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Which I miss… Anyway, Krull was fantasy with un poco scifi. I have seen it before, actually, back in its day, which was the 80s, I believe. was Krull the hero’s name? I don’t think I caught anyone’s name. He was played by Ken Marshall. Who looks like someone I should know, but I can’t think of any other appearance of himself in something I have watched. Several others in the cast were like that. The director was Peter Yates, who I think is a noted director (you tell me, I’m merely an amateur cineaste). This movie would not be a highlight of his career. But let us consider the plot, shall we? It seems this Krull, if indeed Krull he is, is to wed the curly haired damsel in the flouncy princess suit. They are even performing the ceremony, which includes him sticking a flame in water, and she taking a flame out of the water, when a motley of evil doers called slayers invaded the proceedings. It brought to mind the wedding scene in M Python and Holy Grail. The slayers were maybe space creatures or something. When killed they screamed and a wiggly wormy thing would scurry off. The movie’s prologue I guess prepares one for such a fact, but not well. During the brawl, Krull’s lady love is whisked away, and even Krull is battered to unconscious. In the morning some guy exhorted Krull on his quest. I never got the back story on this guy. He knew about the prophecy and that’s enough for any sane fantasy hero. 1st step, for some reason, was to seek the doodad that was displayed in the credits, a 5-pointed thingie that resembles ninja throwing stars. this may be Krull, but if so, what is our hero’s name??? Krull finds the Krull in a river of lava. He pulls it out, unharmed, and it is clear that there could be psychedelic fun in future. Next step is to be cornered by a band of outlaws, who Krull enlists in his quest. And they go on. And on. There is a Cyclops, good guy, who helpfully divulges some key plot points. Other stuff certainly happens, I mean, Erin and I were watching an active television screen. At some point near the end Beth arrives and is immediately swept into the theory of dramatic excitement that founded (not foundered, please) this film. And MST sort of commentary began to spill from ourt mouths. I should mench that the slayers have the same zesty lack of response as Imperial Storm Troopers, and indeed, I thing P Yates spent a few moments studying Star Wars. To no avail. Periodically we would leave Krull’s quest to witness princess in her problematitude. She was stuck in some amateur theatre set for Alice in Wonderland, which is the plot of a Tom Petty video, as I just now realize. The evilest doer was a space creature, I wot, tho on the order of the Wizard of Oz. she had few wardrobe changes. The one I can think of, she was enwrapped by the evilest one in a gown made of aluminum foil, a quirk I cannot quite divine. the evil one appears to be a space alien. the effects are crappy, think Dr Who, tho they may have been considered hotcha in the day. EO looked like a blurry picture on a screen. So... Krull and his merry band quest on toward this flying mountain, sic, where trhe Evil One holes up. of course the band is whittled away thru various malfeasances. oh, Liam Neeson was in the cast, as a hearty lug who buy it near the denouement. the cyclops, who has prescience concerning the day he will die, excuses himself from the final assault on that mountain lair. so this handful of men attack the mountain, which is exactly what it looked like, and don't make headway until the cyclops comes running.he climbs up to0 the entrance and holds the door open for the rest, then is crushed as the door inexorably closes. sic transit gloria cyclops. Krull finds the princess and rather quickly dispatches EO with the krull, and that's that. quest quest quest. it had all the elements of entertainment but never quite committed to that principle. even tho the acting wasn't wooden or lame, nothing came together. nowadays you get bulkier heroes and better swordplay. we really were in the doldrums in the 80s.

I neglected to include the url for the Microsoft Office deal that I noted yesterday, so here it is. offer ends May 16.

for a few more days you can get Microsoft Office, complete, for 91% discount, totally legit, if you are a student with an edu email address. I eschewed MSOffice for OpenOffice, which is freeware and a great tool. however, MS products are default everywhere. tho OO can save to doc format, you have to tell it to, so there is this whole compatability thing that may make OO less useful for you. so I have turned back to MS, just to be well-armed. which leads me to mull the words processors I have used. Xywrite, back in the day, that long agone day. back in the day of command driven programs. Xywrite was brisk and efficient. as I understand, it was eventually swallowed up whole by IBM, tho it had been an industry standard for newspaper publishing. less so was my 1st shareware, PC-write, which just seemed clunky. I mean, I bought the thing, had the documentation, but never enjoyed the writing experience, which wasn't to my mind intuitive. I learned Word Perfect at work. I did graphics with it, which were a pain, defining EXACTLY where they would sit in the document and such, those triangulations were difficult. Word was much like WP, I just wanted a typewriter, mostly. but you can typeset books with Word, if you are careful. OpenOffice and Word give you a lot of power in producing documents. Word is clearly a clunky program. files are much larger in Word than OO, astonishingly so. in the days of gigabytes, that is not so important, but it remains telltale. I have only used Word 2007 a little, it is a symphony of bells and whistles. all of which work, after a fashion,, but it is more like a computer game than a program. not to go all MS-negative. if you make eligibility for the deal, and have the 60 bucks, I recommend that you strive for this deal, which ends May 16. the documentation for OO kinda sucks, tho there is a turmoil of dedicated explainers in the community. MS has a universe of vocal users. I think technical issues are under regarded in poetry world. I needed Erin's help, and angel Shanna Compton's generous (Photoshop issues) intervention, to get Days Poem, the manuscript, into proper fettle. brothers and sisters, it is a tech world. part of your poem's broadcast resides in making it computer feasible. yes, you can find an 18 year old to tech out, but you still must understand what the 18 year old is talking about. and you can work your own magic. so anyway, a slew of business-like, grownup up programs could be yours if you have that edu email address.

a friend's milestone birthday tomorrow, coinciding with Erin's mere 19th. we've already done something for Erin, the opposite of belatedly (be-earliedly). but there is a party for our friend. so we made a mall excursion for a present, namely a beach cover up, our friend being quite the swimmer/surfer. 1st off: it was as crowded as at Christmas time. everyone spending their economy boosters? mebbe so. speaking of Christmas, the mall's central area is decorated for Christmas, and has been so for the past 6-8 weeks. a movie is being filmed there. we were there a while back when filming was in process, with security preventing access to portions of the mall and extras being ushered into the scene, just like reg'lar folks. anyway, in search of beach wrap. Sears and its Lands End franchise: nothing suitably colourful. we targeted Chicos as a likely source, but Beth chose to stop in numerous shops along the way. one place was clearly for the young but looked like it might yield some swimwear options. $10 and $15 dresses, which Beth assured me wouldn't last a single washing. and many eager teenage girls. a few years back, if I may travel a tangent, I sorta got interested in an earring. inquired at a jewelry store where I might get my ear pierced. the guy there, suitably crisp and mature, pointed across the way to Claire's. and I'm like whoa!. a buzzing place full of jewelry-like gimcrack made for the teenaged female consumer. with actual teenage females not only consuming the gimcrack, but selling it. I felt out of place but, heigh ho, I was on a mission. a teenaged female doctor of ear-piercing performed the surgery, and now everyone can see that I'm rad. end of tangent. we actually entered Abercrombie and Fitch, the ambiance of which strikes me as grimly soulless. we actually exited A&F, before some young hipster gave us the boot. we tumbled into a place called Ruehl, which was quite an experience. its store design is much like A&F: a thumping beat to pull you in, dark doorway, dark rooms with moody lighting. it was a strange maze of discrete rooms that perhaps would be a wonder if the merchandise attracted me. the place looked like where you meet your cocaine source, or Liza Minelli and Andy Warhol, or some damn grunt. wait, just for a moment, imagine Louis Zukofsky at Studio 57, a big A on his forehead... well, transcendence exists: a large b&w photo of a male model with finger in mouth seemed to make a good representation of the store's, um, thrust. from there we went to Nordstrom. which is brand new to the mall and, for all I know, new to the area. Beth knows Nordstrom from Seattle. it was a wonderland. a vast expanse of store space, with exquisite lighting, shiningly polished floors, and a lovely palate of colours (the clothing displayed). it was the only store where the help helped, a charming business model. I couldn't quite hold my attention to the task at hand but luckily there was a large tv screen feeding videos to any eyes that have strayed from the merchandise. I imagine all videos are made by film school auteurs, who have studied 3 minute narrative larded with phony ass performance histrionics, and got better than B in their film project. hi, this is the state of poetry, by the way. ie, what is the opposite of essence, and how do you make a gang of it sell? Beth found a possible right answer but we reconned other sources, just to be sure. a few indistinct options and such, then we tramped to Chicos. Chicos aims for a more mature clientele. the colours are quite pleasing there, painterly, even. I was a bit outraged because there were 2 chairs there. in one sat a man, patiently bored. in the other, a young--teenaged, maybe--woman. chairs in stores like Chicos are for men to anchor themselves while the shopping experience reshapes time. this young woman was eating a sandwich and talking on the phone. she was using my chair. this is disorder. will the murder of Hillary by Obama or vice versa solve this??? winds blow, spring breaks upon us, and Beth found a just right item. oh, we stopped in J Crew, where slim is the password but at least the primary colours are happy. like I said, Nordstrom was the only place where staff made any connection with 'customer'. do you ever wonder if poetry is a living function, or just the crust of some past condition? do you ever think about packaging, as you read those poems, so many poems?

Antic View resumes after all my fault hiatus, episode 135, don't miss it if you can. 4 years ago I wrote out of the blue to Jeff Harrison, denizen of Wryting-L list. I guess I determined some simpatico (reference to Mr Kite), and queried the possibility of collaboration. which ensued for over the years, a poem (we agree) called (we agree) Monster, with again all my fault hiatuses. and then, a sucker for endlessness, I approached Jeff, who I have triangulated as 2000 miles away, miles we have yet to shrink, concerning this interview that I bethought me. it continues to ride. I could, in my Ethan Frome way, advert my own star qualities in poetry universe, but I will leave that chatter to another time. I think Jeff is a distinct wonder, and there are enough bolts of evidence online (Antic View offers links to same). Ron Silliman follows in the steps of Robert Duncan, in awarding Aram Saroyan... I am not about to fight the equation, just want to note that the equation exists. well and good, but a writer of consummate, like Jeff, remains in this still not very. listen, the cheese is in the trap. just to haul up a memory: I remember Robert Grenier showing me a book by Saroyan, The Beatles. Each of its 4 pages with a different Beatles' name. I liked the idea of that, but the thought of owning such a book seemed extraneous. I could here refer to Ed Sander's wonderful Love and Fame in New York, with its myriad art concepts on display. and Saroyan's book was topped by some NY poet, in an anthology (where I saw it), a poem called "The Rolling Stones", which consisted of 5 lines, 3 Rolling Stones, and 2 players (pitchers I think) for the Philadelphia Phillies. so, bottom line, Jeff Harrison is a wonderful poet, I am honoured to work with him, he should be honoured to work with me, and you Dear Reader, if you are up to the charge...

I have all 6 of these, the 6 recent chapbook releases from Faux Press. reading them would be the next step. I will keep you updated.

quick mench of seeing Midsummers Night Dream yestreen, traditional day of Shakespeare's death. by way of the homeschool co-op that Erin no longer attends. he initially signed up for the play but he is taking courses at the community college and could not accommodate the play schedule. I have not seen many amateur play productions but it seems like these Shakespeare productions, of which I have seen all five, boast pretty high standards. costumes and scenery are particularly well done. a prologue was included, strictly to satisfy a need for swordplay among the participants. it represented the battle between Theseus and the Amazons. a bit of a gallimaufry but fun to watch. one fellow, after being smited, did a cartwheel. the particular stand outs in the play were the girl--ALMOST 13, as she states in the notes--who played Puck, and the boy, 15, who played Bottom. she enunciated very well, did these great sidelong glances (which were accentuated by makeup) and otherwise fulfilled the role nicely. Bottom, is the troupe founder/director's son. he capably played Romeo last year but Bottom is totally in his wheelhouse. he's a big loud bumptious kid, completely happy to ham it up. all the rude mechanicals were up to the task. the 9 year old girl who played the wall was at least a foot and a half shorter than Bottom/Paramus, which made for good visual humour. a backdrop tumbled toward the audience but the prompter caught it. later, during the performance of Thisby and Paramus, another chunk of the set fell, but the mechanicals caught it, and Bottom said, 'we're not trying to destroy your house'. Bottom's brother, 10, played Thisby, and used a ridiculously effective falsetto. I do not know if the mechanicals could be made any funnier. I think the director wanted Erin to play Thisby, which would have been another effective sight gag. we've never seen the alternate production, but it would be interesting. stars in one production get minor roles in the other. interesting to compare. the young son of friends of ours, with the sterling name of Kempton, played the Indian boy. someone held his hand thru out, elsewise, no doubt, he'd wander off, or something. he and his family were at the halloween party we attended last year, at the home of the play's director. this little fellow spent the evening wandering around. he wore a pirate outfit and carried a sword and a flashlight, indoors and out. at one point, people had gathered around the tv, because the Red Sox were playing the Rockies in maybe the last game of the World Series. Kempton sat all piratey on a hassock up close to the tv, fully rapt. wonderful picture.

learning xml, reading Creeley, and today listened to my first White Stripes. I used to take interest in latestness, but perhaps that is a young person's sport. at any rate, I don't keep up, admitted, tho I'm still a pretty good cultural sponge without trying. so I'm late to the WS party but must weigh in. I like the sense of sound in WS, weird sounds, precise ones. that's a poetic sensibility behind the music. I am utterly taken with the drums. Meg maintains a solid beat with a clattery ambiance. and the drums are kept forward, to secure visceral lift. Phish is great but their sound balance leans heavily towards guitar, tho drums, bass, and piano are just as solid as Trey's feature. "We Are Going to be Friends" is an oddly sweet, folkie song. Jack has a voice of character. the strangled effects of his full-throated rock singing is not to my taste, less interesting, but it is his, at least. for shouty rock singers I'll take Steve Marriott (Small Faces, Humble Pie) who is really good (supposedly Jimmy Page saw Marriott as model for the singer Page wanted for Zep) or, heaven help me, one of the singers for AC/DC. my favourite song, of what I have met, is "My Doorbell". lush piano chords, heavy handed drumming, and splashing cymbals. I've played it at least 20 times today. so what are we going to do about poetry? is the game up or what??? I don't need to be saved tho my blood's in the water. I have voiced my persistence, independent of fair reader. this music here is light, and I think of Creeley's earnest interest, that transcended all that politically-inspired commitment to metered process. he was not quite a garage band, but he kept his instrumentation pretty austere, maybe moreso than Zukofsky, say, who wielded some plump classicism amidst his paring down. Lorine Niedecker. I'm a 1000 page poem guy, yet these practiced essentials are learning nodes for me. I wrote something at work... two things, actually, that I have not looked at. nor have you. poetry is not a social context for me. if you take Creeley free from his connections, well, it is an experiment in essence.

That's Where Dr Bedford Ended Up

died young
is just
a thing
local theatre
production
Bob was not
much better
prepared

I am learning XML. XML stands for X-Men Language and... Okay, it stands for eXtensible Markup Language. I mention this because XML demands firm accuracy. If you open a tag, you have to close it (unlike html, which is a similar mark up language, but much more loose about rules), and all statements must follow a rigid logic. Heaven forfend that you should commit a typo. Please do not fall asleep yet, I am bringing this to thoughts on poetic practice. The rigid demands of xml are challenging to work within, at least when you first start out with it. Think of Oulipo, or simply a defined rhyme and rhythm scheme. Those defined parametres can actually open possibilities for a writer. Oh look, I am beginning sentences with capitals! This, for me, is a stricture. When I first began typing, on a typewriter, I found that the less I used the shift key, the better, one less thing to deal with. A lot of poetry is written at odds with its structure. How many poets make a craft of rhyme and rhythm? Few do, by my reading. Especially in the current day (Henry Gould is an exception, from what I have seen). Metre and rhyme are more like burdens for many poets, as they follow rules they feel they must adopt. One of the keen things about Emily Dickinson is how she subverts the rules. The missteps in her metre and the off rhymes are canny realignment of old virtues. On the other hand, Whitman + rhyme/metre = botched Tennyson, he kowtowed to that structure till he had the good sense to blow it all up. Creeley, who really is the point of this ramble, follows from Dickinson. I cannot think off hand if he ever spoke of her or her influence. His early career was plangently poised in rhyme and metre. Plangently, because he was not smooth or comfortable with the stricture. But he was dogged. In that doggedness, he was able to greet words profoundly Yes, an early volume of his work was Words, followed by Pieces. I did not cotton to Creeley ay tall, when I first met his work. All I could witness then was the clunkiness in For Love and Words. That and the persistent attention in and of words. Which I regard as a virtue, but to read at a time when I didn't know poetry or its possibilities, all I saw was a grey bind. Creeley is not a colourful poet, which is to say, he gave me no toehold. Not until Pieces, which I discovered with the help of Robert Grenier and his class, did I decide that Creeley was great, with writing of a trippy focus.

The Bird
flies. She
flies.

Pretty sure Mr C was at least stoned if not tripping during the composition of these pieces, slightly post-psychedelic age (past the early giddiness, that is). I got Pieces where I didn't get For Love (my copy of that book is loaded with griping marginalia). I got one or two Creeley tomes after P, then moved on (oops, not counting his prose, especially his criticism)). I felt that I had the use of him. Creeley has always been there for me, tho. I want to read deeper now. I think I saw Creeley as Heading 2 to Olson's Heading 1. But that conversation between them, Creeley 16 years younger, was a matter of equals. This downright constancy of Creeley's sense of word and relationship was a structuring influence on the broadcasting intensity of Olson. Olson was a lifelong scholar, but he was a sloppy, crazy ass one. He was an adventure in the act. And that is what I love about him. But not to be fooled that he was clear, organized, or orderly. Creeley had the metre. Olson had this poignant energy that remains a worthy exercise. Olson made arabesque, Creeley found the words. What is wonderful is that they found each other, and combined (to some extent). Olson's local is mapped, whereas Creeley's is personal. We do not need to choose. Creeley took the unit as word, tho that unit had dimensions or aspects within. That breath that Olson talks of, and Ginsberg likewise, sounds nice, locus for their energy (Olson has always been an energy transfer for me), but it is more like a story. Olson's breath is a nervous New England accent, which I imagine I have I am stuck with my heritage). The commanding momentum of Olson is not his breath, but his crazy exuberance. Creeley was never exuberant, he was too tranced by the most local and plain. I am admitting thru out this piece that I fought Creeley. I have had to learn the simplest things last. Olson is all unbound complexity. Creeley is about the words that people us. I hope some of this makes sense. In xml, when you say something, you say it very precisely. Your xml editor will tell you that you have erred. It will not validate what you wrote, it will not tell you that your xml is well-formed (both italicized terms are official xml distinctions). Try thinking of poetry that way, which I think Creeley did. Try thinking of poetry, in general.

to make up for saturday's wretched dragon movie, which I believe was called Dragon Lance (there was yet another dragon flick, as well), Erin and I watched Beowulf. at least it made a modicum of sense, tho it certainly was a sloppy thing. it was done in that live action animation, like 300. it seemed more cartoony than 300. everyone looked made of plastic, and the backgrounds weren't so floridly thrilling as in 300. still, it evoked a sense of Beowulf and that world. I am not saying accurately, just that it all kinda worked. the merrymaking in the mead hall had a stilted quality but you could imagine a real place from that suggestion. by stilted I mean that the animation was of the quality of video games (quality and video games should not, I wot, be associated in the same sentence), especially those bits that delineate the 'plot', before gamester does all that mindless jumping and exploding. then Grendel. he looked misdrawn, or like Gumby after the steamroller hits him. I had the same feeling with the dwarf in 300, the grotesqueness went too gaga. in action, Grendel looked 2-dimensional. his actions were brutal, tearing limbs and biting heads off. these atrocities weren't quite focused on, as if good taste were trying to peek thru. which is silly. I actually think that it should have been more gory, because it came across as Wile E Coyote, especially given that the physics of tossed human bodies didn't seem exactly Newtonian as they floated and revolved serenely. Beowulf was played by a beefy guy unknown to me. I detected Anthony Hopkins behind a beard and big belly, and John Malkovich. Beowulf was kinda like Cuchulain plus super hero. when he fought Grendel, he earnestly did so nude. the naughtiest bits were kept discreetly obscured. again, I think they might as well show them, as a kind of integrity. because there was at least a touch of the priapic in the way Beowulf was presented. his fight with Grendel was fairly stupid. Grendel seemed to change in scale in various shots, Beowulf looked plastic, and movements of both were nothing close to lifelike. okay, so then Grendel dies, and Grendel's mom... Beowulf must deal with her. and she's... it's Angelina Jolie! she's in a gold plastic (opaque Saran Wrap, I'm thinking) body suit, or it is a department store mannekin playing body double. she wears heels, sic, and a long tail. now if this isn't Beowulf with a Hollywood aesthetic then I know not what is. at least it is Angelina Jolie, who can reasonably be cited as iconic hottie of the present day (and she roosts with the male counterpart of that). (!!!). she seduces Beowulf basically by being Angelina Jolie. it doesn't quite work. I mean I acknowledge that in cultural terms there's an uh huh attached to her name, at least if my reading of People magazine is correct. natheless, it is a bit too easy for grand Beowulf to go wobbly. so Anthony Hopkins understands that Beowulf fell for Angelina, as he had earlier. he kills himself. Beowulf is king. blah blah until elderly Beowulf battles the dragon (was it her? I got confused). this is cinematic silliness, enthralling to the degree that people would actually offer such cartoonitude to an intelligent audience. what captivated me was the nihilism that is so intrinsic to Norse myth. Beowulf, the character, was deep in that. which is why gore and John Thomas desrve to be featured. trust me, I am not overweighting this movie. after all, Robert Zemeckis is involved, and the junk that he's done does not impress me. I HAVE read Beowulf, tho it has been decades, and I DO want to read it again. I love the sound of English that way, and the whole framework is compelling. I shall, when I can, return to the written Beowulf. this is the biggest plus of the movie.

a spring day in the full range of that possibility. Beth left before 8:00 to visit her mother in NJ. I had an html project to work on. it was pretty rainy when Beth left. it is Pole Capping Day in this burg, but with the rain that ceremonial event looked unlikely. around 9:30, tho, a clamour began to develop on the green across the street. sun was out, sky was clear. I roused Erin, who normally spends most saturdays in bed, zzzzzzz, but he was excited to see what up. it was a muster of Minuteman companies. which is to say, cosplay, American colonial style. a gallimaufry of fife&drums, and muskets, and the buzz of people. I could at this point explain that Polecapping is a re-enactment of a Sons of Liberty demonstration lo these 233 years agone. we met our friend from the Billerica (that's 3 syllables, s'il vous plait: drop the 'e') Minutemen. we were interrupted by a call to parade. this parade is all of 200 yards, to where the polecapping occurs. one of the few times the town rouses itself from its mundane torpour. the ceremony itself occurs in this traffic island at the edge of the centre. obnoxious speechifying, crap about freedom. a state rep, a town somebody, prattling about what they know not. we listened to this a couple of years ago, and left before the pole was capped. Erin and I waited it out this year, and won the spectacle of... okay, it's like this. back in the day, the Sons of Liberty placed a red cap in an oak tree, signifying defiance. that tree is gone, so the minutemen (women as well) erect a pole there. then a stalwart climbs up, aided by a rope. cap tops the pole. one of the silly myths that speakers tried to promulgate was a sense of unanimity. it is never like that, come on. I've read that the colonies were split roughly in 3rds: against the crown, for it, and neutral. but it was all treated like Thanksgiving rivalry, with no sense of the human complexity. bleah. Erin and I then got hamburgers and sat on the porch and ate. a while later we went on an errand: Erin needed a watch. we biked down to T J Maxx, where you get the max for the minimum. no go. it was spitting rain when we left. coming back, that spitting became torrential. and there was thunder. we pit-stopped at CVS, consumer value store, just to get under cover. I stood at the doorway watching a tremendous downpour. a man in a vehicle parked in the handicap space called me over. he sat in a wheelchair inside the vehicle and asked me to lift the ramp in. I did so but the door would not close. I was soaked before he asked my help, but the rain was even more intense than before, I felt like I was inside a blur. finally he decided that his door control had shorted out, so he had me lower the ramp. Erin had, by this time, come out to help. the man went in in search of screwdriver, where's my Swiss Army knife when needed? back in the store I noticed a selection of watches, and Erin was able to find one both inexpensive and duly high in gizmo rating. I think the man got batteries, and both the clerk and store manager were suitably concerned and helpful. we purchased the watch, then stood in the doorway again, watching a tremendous downpour. the man in the chair solved his problem and drive off. I don't mind the rain but it bothers me to subject my bike to it. but I was now quite cold and we were not far from home. so we cycled off. inches of water were in the road, once more a blur. we both dried and oiled our bikes and changed into dry clothes. by which time the rain had ceased and the sun was out. after dinner the boys settled in for a movie. the choice was between Beowulf and some dragon movie. dragon movie won. we lost. a very long, confused set up supposedly readied us for present day action. it did not. suffice to say that the stiff, male model lead meets with the blonde, bland starlet, and dragons and overlords screech about LA, or whatever city it was. plotwise, it was like taking a text thru various Babelfish excursions before arriving back to English. or what passes for. movies like this are coded, you use the shorthand to get over the need to explain. this movie thrust explanations at us at the beginning, then just unleashed the pyrotechnics. that I dozed off periodically (I am wickedly weary lately) should not suggest that I missed anything. basically, if there is anything basic at all here, Godzilla, and Nazghul, and Transformers, and Power Rangers, and Star Wars, and Lord of the Ring all conspired to inspire this movie. every time I woke up, the pair was elsewhere and more explosions and screeching beasties. I thought there would be deconstructable material in this flick, but there doesn't seem to be any material in it at all, just motion. which relates right back to that stupid ceremony, in which tar and feathering was actually presented in a positive light as part of the Sons of Liberty's actions. sounds like terrorism to me. as too, if you've ever read Nelson Mandela's autobio, his youthful exuberance. a friend brought up Creeley today, a writer I greatly respect and acknowledge debt to, but who I don't entirely enjoy. I think the strength and value of Creeley lies in his dogged attention to the veriest of mundane speech and act. neither the movie or the ceremony evinced any such thing. words and acts are shams, and shameful in that condition. Creeley could not see things that way. I have to return to the texts, Creeley's, because the bullshit is politically and morally not viable. at all.

two not so related things before work. 1st, Days Poem, the book, sits near the top of Ron Silliman's most recent Recently Received. the 1st book on the list is The Journey to Kailish by Mark Allen. hm. down the list a ways, Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore has 16 books, which total may (or may not) best Days Poem in page count. it's an odd satisfaction seeing my name listed (Ron, read my book first!!!!!), and I am suddenly reminded of WCW's poem El Hombre. except that that poem suggests more modestly than I am willing to claim. god knows if Ron will ever read Days Poem, or many of the books on the list without an Armantrout as author. which is not to doubt his willingness, if only to 'keep up'. but it still feels like being present, my book there in that list. the world is so crowded! knowing that Ron Silliman possesses a certain book, and may thus read it someday, mayhap will tempt you to get said book. duly note that he provides links, which is going the extra mile:

the other thing with which I mean to ramble concerns Facebook. some while ago, I unexpectantly received an invitation to be a Friend. which meant, for me, joining Facebook. and so I went all facebooky for a while. I haven't really given it much time lately, and it does seem to take a bit of time to proceed well with Facebook. so I have a short list of Friends. it's a neat list of people tho I cannot claim them all as homeys. I've met or even know a handful, the rest I have had at least some correspondence with. it is kind of like Silliman's recently Received, or his comments box (to which I do not (well, I think I have once or twice) contribute). I remember seeing a valuation of Facebook as being around 15 billion. which probably is inflated but still. I do not know how Facebook revenues itself, but sure enough people are interested in its service (it seems less overwhelming than Myspace, where florid web design reigns). I just think of the correspondences of which we have record, how that dynamically worked. can Facebook rattle up the same courage of writers. the letters of Olson and Corman (I have always been juiced by Letters To Origin) was never in display mode until the letters were long writ. so that differs from the Facebook practice of public encounter. Facebook distinguishes from listserv, where confrontation is the only distinction. and blogs remain personal territory in the main, with corrals where comments can sun themselves. Facebook may just be a game, but we all must acknowledge how tempting it is to see our names dance out there, all 6 degrees of connection, as if poetry were a power... please meet me on Parnassus top, and bring your Facebook Friends... salut a tous!

I may not have made it clear that I like and respect Jonathan Williams' work, both as poet and as publisher. as a poet, he was adventurous and fun, rollicking even. such playfulness did not deter the seriousness of his work, it informed it. Davenport must have inspired me to read Williams deeper, and I am glad that I did. as publisher, JW brought forth some classics. all honour to him.

the death of Jonathan Williams got me thinking. I never really studied him, in that sense of literary imperative. I met his work in the early 70s, when I read New American Poetry. I enjoyed Elite/Elate, and a couple of short later books. I'm not trying to place him in the poetry pantheon, just indicating my acquaintance. when artists die, exquisite documents of effect appear. those documents tend to work from template and are not, finally, useful. not having met JW, I cannot count coup on his memory in that way, either. it occurred to me that I have no iconic heroes left alive. I think the possibility of iconic hero has burnt off, in fact. Charles Olson affected me as a writer perhaps more than any other, tho I will say that the 1st writer that I emulated was probably Robert Benchley, he also of Worcester, Mass). I did not hear about Olson until as much as a year after his death, so he could hardly fulfill the role for me that Pound and Dahlberg did for O. but I did follow his indications. I read much of those writers associated, however accurately, with Black Mountain. sought out the historians that he touted, Sauer and Harrison, and the ancients. etc. it made sense to me, following this course, and still does. having said that, I recognize that Olson was nuts. Guy Davenport has a terrific essay in which he tries to find someone, among Olson's partisans and peers, who actually got what the Big O was talking about. good luck on that. nothing wrong with that bizarre sort of murk. I would say Jung, for instance, was pretty arcane as well. the caution is simply not to take it all too gullibly or systematically. the Olson Now conference that I attended last year couldn't quite shake free from slavish respect, tho Ben Friedlander for one posed some useful and sharp questions regarding Olson (an unvoiced anti-Semitism). Olson's body has lain mould'ring in the grave for nearly 40 years so the common grief of knowing him should have worn off. for that matter, the equal and opposite re-evaluation should have toned down too, but I do not think it has. I'm reading The Poem of a Life by Mark Scroggins, about Zukofsky. I may not finish it any time soon, my time is focused elsewhere, but it is a fine book about a fascinating character (don't miss the picture of Zukofsky posing on a motorcycle with a couple of friends). there's an urge to study these people that seems both useful and damaging. I have not yet read Scroggins' account of the relationship of the 3 Zukofskys with Lorine Niedecker but know enough that it was muddled and probably not quite as everyone may have said it was. I mean, this sort of thing is context, but also distraction. I learned a lot from Robert Creeley but I essentially stopped reading him 30 years ago. my attention turned elsewhere, which should not be taken as final judgment. I had a dynamic response to the LANGUAGE poets--I should be more specific and not use the damning lump module: Silliman, Bernstein, Hejinian, Perelman, Susan Howe--but they never were larger than life. Kenner identifying a Pound Era is reasonable, but the poetic landscape that I see (in the direction that I am looking) might be called post-LANGUAGE, but only in a dispirited way. CAConrad eulogizes Jonathan Williams with a hail to the positive energy that JW supplied to the poetry world. Conrad kinda deflates that by mentioning the cat and bat in JW's home, personal attributes that I the reader never partook of. Conrad had the opportunity to meet JW but poetry cannot be contingent on such meetings. such personal assertions are distracting, tho I understand the loss. we can look at Olson and see his Dahlberg daddy, his Pound daddy, even his Creeley daddy, as well as his Creeley son. truth is there, but it also follows a literary line to insist too strongly on these dimensions. we have got to keep our eye on the work itself. I guess that's the bottom line I was heading towards when I began this ramble.

just a quick mench of a kitty Kodak moment. said kitty passed thru the house with imperative. upon investigation (an imperative on our part) we discovered that he had a mouse in his mouth. he seemed rather proud of his catch but suddenly, he dropped it. the cat and the 3 of us studied under the furniture for the escapee till finally mousie scampered forth. our cat, Mowgli, put up a good effort in chasing the mouse till the mouse got wise and climbed a bookcase. Mowgli did not think vertically. the mouse remained there so I easily placed a handy mug over it, a piece of cardboard slipped under that, then I transported it to the porch. I placed the mug on the table, and lifted it. mouse took a moment to get its bearings then hopped onto the bannister then leapt a full 6' horizontally while also dropping 6'. and scampered off. Mowgli has finished off mice but admittedly he isn't a great hunter. when he was still kittenish he chased a mouse into a corner. I wanted to capture the mouse so I got close, with glass in hand. well that mouse had some fight in him, he lunged forward and both Mowgli and I lurched back, and mouse escaped. and one more hunting adventure: I saw that a previous cat, who was an effective hunter, caught a chipmunk. I went out and put my hand on the cat to convince him to release the chipmunk. he did. before skipping off, the chipmunk actually swatted the cat on the nose. it was a Chip 'n Dale moment that really pissed the cat off.

a few notes before I do other things with the day. as an early birthday present we gave Erin a hotel room for last night, so that he could spend more time at Anime Boston. he took the bus in early yesterday. we went in in the afternoon with his bag and because the hotel needed to see the credit card personally. his room was on the 28th floor, with a view of the Charles, upon which sailboats darted like tropical fish. and the Prudential Building looming above. it actually gave me vertigo to approach the window. we spent a little while in the lobby, which of course was busy, with a fair share of anime fans in costume. Erin was dressed simply, with furry ears and a long tail, representing I dunno what. the ears match his hair colour, and with his Olsonian proportions, he makes quite a spectacle. which he likes. people really get into the cosplay stuff. many clearly have practiced their poses, wielding their weapon, wand or whatever prop just so. it is fun to watch. I saw an older guy, in the mall outside the convention centre, wolfishly approach a small group of costumed teens. he looked pervy in his rush towards them. I didn't notice him wearing a convention tag, and he didn't look like someone who would attend. just hanging around looking for photo ops. creepy. there are some nice costumes, that took a lot of effort, and money, to make. sometimes it seems some of the kids are overly committed to the dress up, seemingly too earnest in the statement, but mostly it is just fun. when we got home we watched Balls of Fury. I'll say right off, it was pretty decent. it belongs in that widening genre of flicks ruled by Jack Black and will Ferrell. in fact, the star, whose name I just this moment forgot (never heard of him before) could easily replace Black in Black's movies. same slobby appeal, tho I find him sweeter than JB, whose humour is pretty passive-aggressive. which wears on me. the movie was written and produced by Thomas Lennon, who is behind Reno 911, and some sketch comedies that I've seen. the plot concerns a ping pong wunderkind whose career crumbles when his father is killed. then, as an adult, is coaxed back into the game so that he can get access to this criminal overlord, the same one who killed his father. etc, that sort of plot. in the Ferrell movies that I've seen, and in Nacho Libre, the plot got in the way, but didn't seem to with Balls of Fury. there's a truism, comedies need less plot, not more. having said that, I was taken aback when the female lead suddenly becomes love interest. I didn't notice the turning point when her initial antipathy towards him melted. I guess you need to connect a few of the dots. I think the star's name is Dan Fogler, and maybe if I would have kept up with reading People or Rolling Stone, I'd know more about him. the best thing about the movie was James Hong and Christopher Walken. Hong has been in zillions of movies, Hollywood's go to Asian. within that imposed limit, he's a terrific character actor. in B of F, he has the Mr Miyagi role, and has lots of fun with it. Walken is simply a weirdo. in this movie he gets to ham it up, but there's always something twisty in his characters. and he has that same way of giving odd readings to his lines that Brando had. the movie sustained its pace, which is something the other entries in the genre have failed to do. so anyway, I guess I should check to see if there's anything behind this big rock over here.

things are not scheduling real nifty for me. this saturday has a Vincent Ferrini memorial in Gloucester. in the evening is this:

Saturday, March 22, 8 pm
John Mercuri Dooley, Derek Fenner, John Mulrooney, and Ryan Gallagher
So-and-So Series
The Distillery
516 East 2nd Street
South Boston

the Johns supply woozy ole metro Boston with 2 solid reading series (life! there is life in this burg!), and Derek and Ryan (Bootstrap Press) provide local publishing zest. I support their efforts.

Gary Sullivan is, like, totally talking poetry book covers, and it is an interesting ramble. I have 3 book covers in my cv. Simple Theory. which Beth designed. b&w, a small photo of a nest with 3 eggs, that she twiddled with. I must've added the typography. the image is lovely, more clear than I could have done. simple... theory... works for me.

Days Poem (in 2 doorstopping volumes). 2 pictures by moi-meme. a favourite, scribbly picture done with watercolour pencil, trees, volume 1. trees and stuff, in acrylic, for volume 2. check it out. in both cases, the pictures wrap around to the back.

I'm thinking: the rightness of a cover is defined by the reading. one might just eschew thinking that the work is slagged because of scruffy cover, s'il vous plait. when the poetry lights up, the cover will too. but not vice versa.

Gary's right, it would be nice to have covers, me just standing there a la Three Poems Ashbery. because that photo seems to have a full moment involved, rather than a stiff, thoughtfully implicative image pressed hard on consuming eye. hey, when I met JA, he looked like that.

Days Poem included the work of Erin, who photoshops better than me. and Shanna Compton, whose knowledge exceeded my confusion, which confusion sent Erin astray. do you see things here? the input streams and hopefulness, for something to enclose and advert or suggest the words within. who knows how to do it, except budding Goebbels. choices were made by enthusiasms, a pretty good calculus.

y'know, yesterday was Lloyd "Little Poison" Waner's birthday (104th?). one month later will be Paul "Big Poison" Waner's birthday. but nemmind that. Henry Gould informs me of a reading next month with hisself and Anny Ballardini, to wit:

Brown University's John Hay Library will host a bilingual poetry reading, in English and Italian, by Anny Ballardini, a visiting poet, editor and translator from Bolzano, Italy; Henry Gould, of the Brown Library staff; and Peter S. Thompson, Assistant Professor in Comparative Literature at Roger Williams University, on Wednesday, April 23rd, from 3 to 5 p.m., in the Lownes Room. The reading is free and open to the public, and will include a discussion with the poets afterward, and refreshments. (Please note : the Lownes Room, on the 2nd floor, is fully accessible; if you require assistance, please call the Library at 863-3723 a few hours beforehand.)

what better way to celebrate Shakepeare's birthday? if it proves impossible for me to attend, make sure you take good notes. remember: keyword: refreshments.

bulbs that I planted last fall, a bit late, started peeking thru the soil last week or so. I also noticed that elsewhere in the yard was evidence of more bulbs, planted by previous residents. since friday was springy and verging on mild, I thought saturday would be a likely day to rake out the beds. saturday was the day that snow and rain fell, at least during the morning. ne'ertheless in the afternoon I took rake in hand. I speak of this because it is a ritual, one that I haven't celebrated in a couple of years. I love bulbs. my 1st bit of gardening came about when I got a bulb catalogue some time in early summer. I decided to order. this entailed waiting 3-4 months for the bulbs to arrive at planting time. then it was another 6 months before I got to see what I had planted. it was worth it. I never begrudged raking in the fall, because I can mulch the garden with the leaves, and replenish the compost pile. and in the spring, digging those leaves out to let the yellow tops of bulbs feel the sun. one winter when we'd had a lot of snow, I had to chop away at the residue of snow, now impacted ice, that I'd shoveled there earlier in the season, because bulbs were under there. I did this on Good Friday, and wouldn't you know that on Easter, the blooms showed. righteous. it's early for bulbs here, by a week or 2. one of the 1st listservs that I subscribed to was a gardening one (which was a surprisingly snarly gathering of cranks: more flame wars and such kind of moronic crap there than on any other list I've been on). folks in California and elsewhere were trumpeting the arrival of their daffodils in January. aint you people got no winter? daffodils are my favourite, especially when I'm wandering lonely as a cloud. bright and brilliant, and disinclined to be bothered by pests, not even deer. I like that a bulb carries the entire plant to come within it. I extend that image of renewal to Geof Huth, and wish him the recovery that spring brings to us all.

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.