Dec 31, 2005

Resolution completed ahead of schedule: finished realphabetizing and entering my books into Library Thing. Or rather, all of my books that have ISBNs. I am planning on entering all of the stuff that is in my chapbook archive, but this will involve a considerable amount of manual entry, so it is a project for another day!

Links to my library on the bar at the left.

Happy New Year.

Dec 30, 2005

New Year's resolution #2: I will post the call for submissions for the first (well, technically, second) Cy Gist Press chapbook (very) early in 2006. Those of you privy to my intended first endeavor should know that that one has been postponed due to various SNAFUs, but I am hoping the one I am going to do instead should be just as much goofy fun.

Dec 29, 2005

New Year's resolution, to extensively update links section to make all links current and bid a fond farewell to inactives... So if I dissed you in 2005, hopefully I will make good in 2006. In my defense, I am generally more space cadet than jerk...

Dec 26, 2005

Forest of Ghosts

Forest of Ghosts




Dec 21, 2005

Et tu, Johnny, et tu?

Dec 20, 2005

Nice walk over the Queensboro bridge to work this morning. In parka at a steady clip, not so cold at all. NYC bikers don't look where they are going, either. Something about this city and the wheel turns people into angry zombies. Nevertheless, not altogether unpleasant, and it actually seemed a little shorter than the walk from Cambridge into downtown Boston, which I used to do for fun back in the day. Admittedly, in the spring, summer and fall, but still...

The Fat Cats should be grateful for the opportunity to lose a few pounds.
New York, High 34, Low 25. Currently 23, Sunny, Class War.

Dec 18, 2005

Following the "elections," we couldn't wait to put our Dick in Iraq...

Dec 15, 2005

My new favorite movie is Aeon Flux. Seriously. I will write something more intelligent about it later, but I found it to be absolutely brilliant and gorgeous. An action movie for PoMo theory wonks. Baudrillard meets Logan's Run. Supplanting the latter as my favorite dystopia. Film critics seem to have universally hated it, if that's not an endorsement...

UNFAIREST WHEEL

Over the dark trellis
hit 7 doves & win
a proboscis somnambulist
in the closedown
palace of fun the sweat-
filled little cars
pause before the monkey
automata scrying
kin crowd the thoroughfare
where wanton palm
the fried eyes suspicious
conversations aboard
the Matterhorn implore
the geek with the blunderbuss
Give a guy a goose-
head and he'll follow you
to the dolor booths, or back
along the lovely paved
avenue She's 18 & time
to get underwritten
I am the holes
in the tickets They all
line up to go
upside-down I saw you
under there with a limp
net
Have been busy with end-of-semester shenanigans. More soon.

In the meantime be sure to check out Sean Cole's new December Project from Boog Literature. Quite possibly the best thing ever to come out of December.

Dec 8, 2005


SATURNALIA

That the ghosts who haunt our lives
shan't buckle under the sun of this earth

in the snow in the high stations above
the boulevard waking to quicksand

the joiner of this life a grifter of balsa
roods picker of locks
in woolen mitts the chill
unlocks the gusts of his breath

barefoot winter light

reflects the pasty skies
in fisheyed vestments where the Black
Sun hovers above this world

of fact we love a ship of oars
& no crew they crash

into our cabals the white anchors
of the falling snow


Dec 6, 2005

I have 3 poems up at Unpleasant Event Schedule. Thanks, Dan!

Dec 5, 2005

In the spirit of Tony Tost's list (and in solidarity so he doesn't have to take all that sh*t completely alone) I have compiled my own "Poets who I seem to like considerably less than my peers for nebulously defined reasons," and "Poets who I seem to enjoy considerably more than my peers for nebulously defined reasons" lists. Note that this list has to do mainly with "unexpected" tastes. E.g. I like Ashbery, Zukovsky, Spicer, Baudelaire, and others about as much as you would expect, or that I am "supposed" to. So these lists refer to personal preferences which may (or may not) surprise people. I have made the "enjoy considerably more" list longer because I think I like more work than I am ambiguous about. I think the usefulness of a list like this is that it helps to dispel stereotypes. Keep in mind that the focus in the first list is "less than others," and *NOT* "not at all." I use "in English" to refer to poets in translation who I am able to read in the original (e.g. French).

Work I seem to enjoy less than my peers for nebulously defined reasons (with all due respect):

1. David Shapiro (sorry, everyone!)
2. Frank O'Hara (or at least my favorites tend to differ considerably from others')
3. Emily Dickinson
4. Allen Ginsberg
5. W. H. Auden
6. Susan Howe
7. Gary Snyder
8. Han-Shan
9. John Godfrey's prose poems
10. Arthur Rimbaud in English

Work I seem to enjoy more than my peers for nebulously defined reasons:

1. Eleni Sikelianos (one of our greatest poets, as far as I'm concerned)
2. Bruce Andrews
3. Walt Whitman
4. Fanny Howe
5. Annie Finch
6. James Schuyler
7. Dorothy Parker
8. Keith Douglas
9. John Godfrey's verse poems
10. James Thomson
11. Jim Harrison
12. Laura Riding
13. Edmond Jabes in English
14. Li Ch'ing-Chao
15. James Merrill
16. Michael Palmer
17. Basil Bunting
18. Homer (but never those crappy prose translations)

Dec 4, 2005

Dance dance dance to the radio



Do yourself a favor and check out Scott Glassman's December podcast over at 30 days.

Dec 3, 2005

Extremely busy week filled largely with temping, going right from work to school to home to sleep. Thus not much blogging. Next week should not be so busy so I should be able to say more. In the meantime, check out my essay in Fulcrum 4.

Nov 28, 2005

A Man of Wealth (har!) and Taste



Sorry, I couldn't help it. This quiz seems to be well-researched. (Eileen is an angel!)

gry
You are Form 7, Gryphon: The Wyrm.

"And The Gryphon displaced the balance of
the world in his favor. With grace and
control, Gryphon deceived mankind and ruled
over civillization. But even he realized that
all good things must come to an end."


Some examples of the Gryphon Form are Satan
(Christian) and Baphomet (Assyrian).
The Gryphon is associated with the concept of
control, the number 7, and the element of wind.
His sign is the gibbous moon.

As a member of Form 7, you are a very in control
individual. You maintain your coolness in most
situations and always seem to be prepared.
Though some may say you are a bit of a control
freak, you know that you really do make the
best leader even if others can't see it.
Gryphons are the best friends to have because
they have a positive influence on people.


Which Mythological Form Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Nov 26, 2005

Nov 20, 2005

FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #9
Polka Dots #5

this was
as was
spotted
serpent

or of the eaves

I the corner
or rubble
pegs hands
if

half

of window wainscot

was me
I snake
thus

Nov 19, 2005

It has come to my attention that the Francesca Woodman poems' formatting does not display correctly in Internet Explorer on a PC. If you have a PC, please view the poems with a different browser--such as Mozilla Firefox, which is free to download and far and away superior to IE.
FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #8
Boulder, Colorado, 1972-1975


either other

ether


sister
shatter


lover


never

oro-
borous

Nov 17, 2005

Dear Francesca,

On some days, I can see myself, refected on a spot of chrome on some corner of the city. I can see it, how the body swells with age. On these days I am a disease the light has. I am like Charlie. I can go only as a heretic to your temple. I can walk up and fown 12th Street thinking I can teach myself to see you there. You dare me to catch you. You are a sea urchin. You would roll over me, like that. That is the way a body betrays you, you might say.

This was not your city, either. How loudly you said so. I can walk up and down 12th Street and think of what I am not. How I am not. You were smiling the day I put away the camera. The day my body died. There on 12th Street I am afraid you will see me being, as I am, a ghost. It is not your way to leave anything untouched, any angle unseen. Your song that peels the paint off the walls. But I am less than that.

There is no way to give this to you. Forget it on the floor and let it disintegrate. That is how you speak to me. You only speak. You cannot see me. I am just a body. The parcel is too large. I cannot fit through the little hole you tore in the eye, in the firmament.

Give my love to Gerard. Do not wait up for me, as I am late. I am always late.

Yours,
-M

Nov 14, 2005

FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #7
Self Portrait (Talking to Vince)

Leaning out although
of fire speech

the warm if is was breath
expelled ruffles
a curtain

not words only
frozen spit, swaddles
covers
all my mouths
O my mouths
of the open
of the dark wall
of the open I O
unshod
I

Nov 13, 2005

FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #6
Boulder Colorado, 1972-1975


To die
or to be
4.

Lateral mist
I a
cyclopean
clock
mouth

(Saturn vomits Artemis)

My pins of grass
ears a magician's saw

the mirror in corporeal
reflects only
gush

Arch of me spans the whole
blasted arc

warm to cold hand to foot

is bottom-heavy
foliage A beetle

crawls
what maybe

an edge, an epithet
blurred


It's Here


And should be appearing at your local bookstore soon. Lots of good stuff in this one, as usual.

Nov 12, 2005

FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #5
Roma, Italy, May 1977 - August 1978, 28cm x 36cm


So this one eats with death

This one is waiting
what lies

forsaken in walls
the cornerstones of buildings

Remember I was your dream

This is my light that
that teaches the plants
to hiss

This one is ready

Where nerves are
earth
worms

This one is going

Harvest the spaces in the net
for my dress

The air herds trees
This one
had

Nov 11, 2005

FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #4
Boulder, Colorado, 1972-1975

Upright Jack O'
Rabbit a cage of ribs,

each white like
a comma leaf apron

still sewn to the bad tree

knowledge of:

perpendicular brickwork
Our Lord
hovers the black

reaches under the house.
Maureen Thorson generously reviews Another Night here. I still have a couple of copies if anybody wants one.

Nov 10, 2005

FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #3
Eel Series, Roma, May 1977-August 1978



An eel




















annul

Nov 9, 2005

While I was researching the right jellyfish name to use for the poem below, I discovered that this one is called "Aurelia." Moon jellies, along with Gerard de Nerval have always been my favorite. How fucking cool is that?
FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #2
Self Portrait at thirteen, Boulder, Colorado, 1972-1975

Emulsion a lock
scrapes, a damp
weight blanket.

Helix-braided wool, chrysaoran
mane: dilated aperture

a pew
I capsize
a door

hair a camera grows.
Hmm...just add some upside-down crosses and I'd say it's a good idea... Sorry, I've been reading Paradise Lost and have Satan on the brain.

Nov 8, 2005

I have begun work on a project based on the photographs of Francesca Woodman. Yes, I know, another ekphrastic project hot on the heels of Film Poems, but the relationship between word and image is something which seems to be becoming quite important to me. Ultimately I find I relate to the visual arts and visual artists oftentimes moreso than I do with poets. I think our contemporary understanding of poetry is not as developed as our understanding of the visual arts. It is as if art history embraced Abstract Expressionism, but its veracity is still a topic of debate among literary historians and practitioners of writing. One finds a preponderance of the old "my 4-year-old-could-make-a-better-painting" argument, which would get you laughed out of an art history department, but in literature becomes a somehow viable critical stance.

Anyway, that diatribe I guess stands as an introduction to the work. As with any ekphrastic endeavor, there is an important relationship between the poem and the "object." Therefore I guess I will link to the photographs when they are available online from the title of the poem.

FOR FRANCESCA WOODMAN #1
Easter Lillies, Boulder, Colorado, 1972-1975 11.1cm x 11.3cm


The 2 flutes
sprout out

the green axis the
labrys-axe

bilateral symmery:
spine bisects a

legs & arm
spine all alone

this headless
I spine alone

I me the navel pit
I the spine bud

hilt of mind

was never we
under middle grey

the 2 fingers

I always 2

Oct 30, 2005

Oct 28, 2005

The chatelaine discusses my Film Poems here. Thanks, Eileen!

Oct 27, 2005

OK, now I have arrived.

Oct 25, 2005

Pop Art







Assuming that you didn't already know that this is a "Hot Fudge Sundae" Pop-Tart, which painter would you reckon was responsible? I am going to say Rothko.

Also, what other junk food looks like Abstract Expressionism?

Oct 24, 2005




I have a few copies of the chapbook I did for the Sonabooks gift exchange project left that I am willing to trade for stuff (your chapbook, brownies, etc.).

From the introduction:

The source text for these poems was stolen from Harold Brainerd Hersey's book, Night, originally published in 1923. The poems in this volume were accompanied by illustrations in the period style (art nouveau) by Elliott Dold. I have stolen some of these, also, unaltered.

In addition to Night, Hersey also published a book of Cowboy verse, a critical analysis of pulp novels and Helpful Hints on War Risk Insurance, Etc, among others. Dold did illustrations for numerous books and pulp magazines.

I became fascinated by the obsessive vocabulary and thinly veiled sadomasochism of Hersey's somewhat tawdry original, and the way that these texts interacted with the illustrations, and decided to embark upon a project of "literary conservation." The poems in here include every word and mark of punctuation found in the Hersey originals of the same name; the words themselves have been rearranged by my whim, and in accordance with subjects that differ from the originals. I see this as a way of granting the original texts renewed vigor, allowing them to continue to exist into the future. Also, in keeping with one of the favorite subjects of the original author, the process of creating these texts was a kind of bondage game; one composes within the tight fetters of the original works and their own obsessions and compulsions.

With thanks to the original author and illustrator. Peace to their ghosts.




NOCTURNE

clasped is cool and currents
The cup

of sweet steam, the stars
are She, arched;

drunken among the dead
Will fill darkness dropping

fragrant for fingers
that mad cup again

has sunken Down in
Her strangely wet lips;

the monotonous moonlight
in her Most molten body

tasted it through Her
The trees They thirst !

he rests under her
Weaving Through the ages;

Listen to still layers
like bolts out of rock:

.........

All
one in
the glisten,

idolatrous
Soooo behind on email, will catch up today if I do not have a temp. assignment.

Sorry all!

Oct 23, 2005

Brother bought a coconut, he bought it for a dime
BTW, I added a Flickr portal at the bottom of the page.

Oct 19, 2005


INTELLIGENT DESIGN

3 shrouds face in 3
other directions &
the one eye between them

stares up
at a crack in the firmament
where lurks an ochre glow
& one gooey strand
descends from the pinnacle,

a pendulum, ticking.

The neighbor man says,
"Go fuck yourself."

& lo, the self skates,
fucked, along the black tarp

of the polis; each obscure
cave of circumstance. Here
are lights blinking, a velvet

tower full of handsome
lacks: barren
in the noon of Ramadan:

let them eat pastilles & pore
over vapid junk; light-
piped, the butt end of a Buick

at a jaunty angle
from the roof--casts
geometries of rain down

on Bad Boy Wireless. Eat
this peach of rotten

night. Reason in aspic.
Tiny glands on the back
secrete your stony home,

a paean to a simple
time: lurch up from
the tepid pool &
breathe
with your shitty lung.

Oct 18, 2005

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Dusie Two! & I am happy to be in the finest of company there. (Here you will find a big chunk of Astrometry Organon.)

Oct 17, 2005

Today in the New York Times, an article about Landis Everson, featuring Fulcrum's own inimitable Ben Mazer. Landis is an astonishing poet and one of the sweetest people alive, I am looking forward to his book when it comes out.

Oct 15, 2005

Good lord, it's THE SUN!

Oct 9, 2005

NOBLE GAS SONNET #1

Wire envelope puzzled for xenon
fallout shelters shadows' chimera waltz
peaches in heavy syrup hail xenon
revelation clang ghost history halts

slant rain ships empty on Black Avenue
radioactive garters love argon
hermeneutic clause reduction curfew
small god product jingles souls for argon

redded & wedded to bully neon
for gross beer logistic marbles tally
10 good doves & turgid pigeon neon
hovels tramps & crooners boot up sally

forth down Steinway blimps as they pass
gorge on forged breath sloth & Imperial
gas

Oct 6, 2005

Say hello to Dan Bouchard's photo blog.

Oct 4, 2005

In Case You Were Wondering



1. Alias First name?
Huh?

2. Were you named after anyone?
Mark Twain

3. Do you wish on stars?
No.

4. When did you last cry?
Sometime last week listening to Jim Dunn's "Remains of the City." I miss Boston.

5. What is your favorite lunchmeat?
Salami.

6. What is your birth date?
Feb. 20, 1972.

7. What's your most embarrassing CD?
Pink Floyd, "The Final Cut."

8. If you were another person, would you be friends with you?
Sure.

9. Do you use sarcasm a lot?
Never.

10. What are your nicknames?
"The Cheeseburger Guy"

11. Would you bungee jump?
No.

12. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?
Yes.

13. Do you think that you are strong?
Yes.

14. What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Chocolate and Peanut Butter

15. Shoe Size?
9.5

16. Red or pink?
Red.

17. What is your least favorite thing about yourself?
Mortality. After that, relentless succeptibility to memes.

18. Who do you miss most?
My grandfather.

19. What color pants and shoes are you wearing?
Levis 505 Dark Blue Regular fit (the only jeans I will wear), beige Diesel raver sneakers.

20. What are you listening to right now?
Pigeons and honking taxis.

21. What did you eat for breakfast?
2 eggs poached, hash browns, sausage, white toast.

22.If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
I'd be that weird-ass plastic sharpener in the big box. Do they still have those?

23. What is the weather like right now?
Grey, humid.

24. Last person you talked to on the phone?
I forget.

25. The first things you notice about the opposite sex?
I plead the fifth, here.

26. Do you like the person who sent this to you?
I stole it as well, but I like Lorna.

27. Favorite Drink?
Red wine.

28. Hair Color?
Red.

29. Do you wear contacts?
Sometimes.

30. Favorite Food?
Everything.

31. Last Movie You Watched?
Steamboy.

32. Favorite Day Of The Year?
Summer solstice.

33. Scary Movies Or Happy Endings?
SCARY MOVIES--preferably with zombies or demons

34. Summer Or Winter?
SUMMER

35. Hugs or Kisses?
From who?

36. What Is Your Favorite Dessert?
Right now, Canolis.

37.Living Arrangements?
I live in Astoria, Queens with my girlfriend Rachel.

38. What Books Are You Reading?
Roberto Bolano's "By Night in Chile," Michael Palmer's "A Company of Moths," Collected James Schuyler, Clark Coolidge's "Crystal Text," and "Super #1 Robot, Japanese Robot Toys."

39. What's On Your Mouse Pad?
That's a coffee stain.

40. What Did You Watch Last Night on TV?
Nothing.

41. Favorite Smells?
Garlic, nasturtiums, red wine.

42. Favorite junk food?
Hot dogs, White Castle Cheeseburgers, Little Debbie Nutty Bars.

43. Rolling Stones or Beatles?
Actually, I'm not a big fan of either. Generally speaking, I don't like the Beatles (with the exception of a few songs) and I'm ambivalent about the Rolling Stones, so I guess the answer to this is the Rolling Stones. Rachel says I like music that "sounds like a car alarm."

44. What's the farthest you've been from home?
Xalapa, Mexico, physically. Spiritually, Olympia, Washington.

Oct 2, 2005

Folks who have purchased my Film Poems but have not been able to see any of the films will be pleased to note that 1 of them, Atavazd Peleshian's "Obitateli (Inhabitants)" is available here (listed as "Atrtavazd Pelechian 'Les Habitants'.") I highly recommend looking at the film and then reading the poem again.

P.S. Thanks to Ron Silliman for pointing to the link on his blog.

Sep 30, 2005

Boog City presents

d.a. levy lives: celebrating the renegade press

Katalanche Press (Cambridge, Mass.)

Thurs. Oct. 6, 6 p.m., free

ACA Galleries
529 W.20th St., 5th Flr.
NYC

Event will be hosted by Katalanche Press editors
Michael Carr and Dorothea Lasky

Featuring readings from

Will Esposito
Chris Jackson
Mark Lamoureux
Lori Lubeski
Christopher Rizzo
&
Michael Carr w/poems by Samuel Greenberg

With music by
Limp Richard

There will be wine, cheese, and fruit, too.

Curated and with an introduction by Boog City editor David Kirschenbaum
OK, NYC pals, where does a guy get his hair cut in the ballpark of $20?

Sep 27, 2005

ETA for Fulcrum 4 is October 18.

Sep 26, 2005

HYMN TO ATHENA

In the public park on 30th Avenue stands grey-
eyed Athena in effigy,

age brings sorrows numberless as stars
& so going, a man pays them no heed, like stars,
but to navigate.

A beggar among the joints that proffer
sullen pizza--Odysseus--you & I
both strangers among Greeks for a time,
tribulations rung around that pearl,
Ithaka, such a city as there never was;

these thoughts, a scar a man gives
himself to be known by.

Grey-eyed Athena, will you descend your pillar
& walk with me awhile?:

I've poured no wine to bodiless gods,
their wildeyed prophets &
their martyring abstractions.

I also am a man of twists & turns, master
of the winged word & the subtleties
of theft. We lose the art of speech.
We lose the anchor of the song.

& my men gone & my hollow black ship
dashed to bits. We walk as the dead
do, nameless, among men
who know no proper customs: such are we
who sing your songs, derived, to repicas.

Such is this life on the other side of the mirror:
signless, no body to cast an image, a thousand
reflections as made by a shattered glass.

Your face stares from the coffeecups, the lights
of the city hide the numberless stars,
as they do sorrows. On the screen writhes
our queen Kalypso & no grey-eyed
goddess, no son or country
to call us home.

Sep 25, 2005

A car just drove by my apartment blasting "These Boots Were Made for Walking."
Eventually, one learns to accept one's uncorrected personality traits. Like being helpless before memes, for instance.

By way of phil by way of Reb:

1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

My 23rd post was only two sentences, so I guess that makes the second the closest to.

Blackbird: "Yeah, I know how it is..."

Sep 21, 2005

Hold fast, my Texan friends. 2005 seems to be the year of angry winds and waters.

Sep 16, 2005

IMAGINARY OWNERSHIP

Is an invisible horse, blandly seething among
disintegrating vestibules. The chromium cross

reigns oblique over unelevated bakeries among
the fictions of a doppleganger; hindsight

a cake of nostalgias, glazed & threaded among
crystal boxes sheltering a ceramic nymph in a green shift,

a compass needle upright in foam among
careless abstractions--the ruthless imperative

broadcasting damp rhetoric: to eat glass bread among
plastic castles & a clockwork giraffe with a glyph

on its neck. High-impact organ research among
authorial shivers, an arbitrary pestilence, a

santicfied narrative: "Pretty pink Aurora gets a chilblain among
ponies in summer."
A steel bud among dank revisions.

Navy beans & beetles spilling out the cup of the bodhran among
witching hours, labeled griefs. A cave of

discourse for gibbering knaves, golems among
zombies: horizontal vs. vertical stripes

on the trunks of the beholder. Mythic laughter among
bebarnacled barrels. The spill of the hold into

the frozen sea. The Master is a haughty buccaneer among
scribes. Hash-mark. Totem. Your anathema.
OPHELIA

Succumb to waters
become the
waters


"If you grew up in a family that practices a religion, and while you were still a kid if you lived in a community of diverse sects, you may recall some degree of ease hanging with your own 'pastor,' 'minister,' 'rabbi,' 'roshi,' and also how different you felt (e.g., reserved) when in the presence of their counterparts from other faiths. That sense of creedal difference begins to explain the origins of disrespect among poets and, more particularly, between schools and generations. If you grew up faithless, perhaps you have less to lose (because you are less likely to conflate sectarianism with output) and find it noncontroversial crossing thresholds."

Amen. Sign me up for the church of Kimball. (I myself was raised atheist BTW...)

Sep 14, 2005

I was a finalist in The Chatelaine's Summer Pleasure Poetry contest. Check out Eileen's blog where she prints the winning poem and the finalists AND details the selection process (for all of you (koff) Foetry (koff) types out there.)

This furthers my notion that my ideal audience is a bunch of drunks in a cave...

Given the importance it played in the composition of Astrometry Orgnanon, I might have won if only they were drinking Kindzmarauli. Given that my taste in wine is Kindzmarauli and Malbec, the judges are probably happy that the wine went to someone with most likely less perverse taste...

Sep 13, 2005

More photos of the Tiny reading in DC are here.
CABAL

Say this is irrefutable, a sack
of bones sings when prodded
with sticks:

the arid limbs of this grove,
which throw portentous shadows
on visages, the bowl

wherein the sea & the air &
the blood are contained. The stars
dip & swerve: this is justice.
The fragrant herbs come
up from the warm ground, the ground
drinks the thick
potions. Bury them
with scarves & gourds. The ghosts
of the unwanted swirl, a torrent
around this clay hill. We repel
them with a racket. Still,
we fall, as many as one
each day.

Sep 12, 2005

Met some swell folk in DC, some of whom I didn't even realize were bloggers.
Me & a small corner of Willem de Kooning's "Seated Woman on a Bench"




Sep 10, 2005

If ye be in the den of snakes this weekend:

THE TINY IN WASHINGTON DC

Featuring Mark Lamoureux, Erica Kaufman, Shafer Hall & Maureen Thorson

at Washington Printmakers Gallery
(1732 Connecticut Ave. NW)

Ruthless Grip reading series hosted by Kaplan Harris & Lorraine Graham

Help!



Does anyone in New York City have a copy of John Godfrey's Private Lemonade that I can borrow for a couple of days?

Sep 9, 2005

I got a print of Rachel's by the Israeli artist Yosl Bergner framed at a framing shop in Astoria run by an old Arab man. The journey of art. A work is the ultimate ambasador, objecting to nothing, giving freely of its essence unconditionally. It's people who need to learn to live like objects. Art doesn't exist for us, rather we exist for it.

Sep 7, 2005

Woke up this morning with the lyrics from an old Bauhaus song in my head. (I suppose this is dating myself, as well as letting on to my gothy adolescence...):

All we ever wanted was everything
All we ever got was cold
Get up, eat jelly
Sandwich bars, and barbed wire
Squash every week into a day

Sep 6, 2005

Almost finished unpacking the apartment, after which point I can begin living like a human again. In spite of my previous post, not finidng much to blog about. I see no point in calling an official hiatus, but I'm just not feeling any blog mojo lately. Feeling cynical about the digital ether in general these days. Perhaps it is best to talk to humans and write poems, two things I have not been doing very extensively since the move.

Sep 3, 2005

I'm a sell-out when I start getting paid.

Sep 2, 2005

Via Jordan's Equanimity, from the Poet Laurate of Louisiana:

To Whom It May Concern:

Those of us who did leave the City before the hurricane are scattered and waiting to return to begin again. Reports of looting, shooting and fires are distressing; but we hold on to faith that order will be quickly restored. What is most important is that those housed at the LA. Superdome not be forced to remain in what is clearly an untenable situation. Medical attention and supplies, food, clothing and transportation out of the City must be provided them. Repairs of levees and pumps must begin now.

Many Americans know New Orleans primarily as a tourist destination, a playground of tourists and wealthy businessmen. The fact is that this is one of the greatest cities this country has known. It is unique in the history of the nation and through such industries as oil & gas, shipping and transportation and the growth and spread of jazz and the music culture that has grown out of it, has provided the backbone for much of what the rest of the world knows and thinks of as "American." Years ago we were dubbed "the City that Care Forgot," " Big Easy," "Silver City" not only because we knew how to enjoy life, because we were and are an open-handed and open-hearted people. New Orleanians the world over intend nothing less than the salvation of our City. Report that.

I, my Mother and my companion left New Orleans on Sunday afternoon, traveled through Mississippi and Arkansas, and landed eventually in Shreveport, LA. at the Isle of Capri Casino Hotel. My brother remained in the City and still has land-line telephone service and water. Presently, I am able to make but not receive calls on my cell phone. We are safe and anxious to return to our City.

New Orleanians are a people of unimaginable strength and resilience and New Orleans will be rebuilt as a great city. I am returning to begin again as soon as possible. Report that. Tell that to the world again and again.


Brenda Marie Osbey
"From the cold lakes of the North to sultry Southern savannas --
From the bleak shores of the sea to the lands where the Father of Waters
Seizes the hills in his hands, and drags them down to the ocean,
Deep in their sands to bury the scattered bones of the mammoth.
Friends they sought and homes; and many, despairing, heartbroken,
Asked of the earth but a grave, and no longer a friend nor a fireside.
Written their history stands on tablets of stone in the churchyards.
Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and wandered,
Lowly and meek in spirit, and patiently suffering all things."

From Longfellow's "Evangeline," which describes in part the expulsion of the Acadians from Canada and their journey to Louisiana. Now it seems they are displaced once again. The Acadians who didn't go to Louisiana came to lose their limbs and history in the mill towns of Massachusetts. Those were my ancestors. I've never been to New Orleans and environs to see where the rest of us went. Now I wish I did. Perhaps these folks can return to Acadia. I wonder if the Provincial government has said anything about this?
Please help bring the people of New Orleans some food, if you are able.

Aug 31, 2005

I wrote this for the victims and survivors of the Tsunami, but it seems relevant also to the people of New Orleans on the day after the end of the world:

ANKAA

The gloaming's blue seeps
into the white of the snow
& renders it blue too.

Jellied thoughts in
these skunky hours of
winter. A lance of ice
besets the verdant mind
& the verdant mind's grace.
Folly of the world maybe
calls forth an ocean blade
that swoops over warmer
lands while this chilly one
sleeps.

Why, lightbringer,
should such horrors
amass? You in your blue
sky who flaunts cold
order, the ordered dolor
of the metal mind? I listen
to winter's chimes & foam
& glower at the gloaming
as it blues the snow.

The snow's blues cloister
& the ocean's blues
cleave foreign soil. We
are not your people. We
were never your people.
The sun knows nothing,
the boat dreams of the sea
& the sea's dream screams
over the naked land. The sea's
not your papa, either. We
orphans in the blue gloaming
& the foaming seas.

What temple? The void
& the bobbing boat
& the salty deep wells
of tears are our only charge:
shepherds whose sheep are bare.

Say to me 10 things
to be done & pass to night's
province. Your boat is small,
little Phoebe, no phoenix little
sunbird, your concern's
not at all.

Sun wolf, ocean blade
a million tarry hearts
beat over these waters now
stilled but no recompense
from that water's whims,
the sun's folly or fury
& who will tend the ghosts
of those that water's killed?

The queen of ghosts
is a rumor, us pigeons all
concerned, conceived

immaculate.
I am hoping to get back to the blog soon. I have landed safely in NYC and am still sorting myself out. Once I get sorted, I am hoping to be able to offer up some more substantial content than I have in the past given that I am presently unemployed and will have the time to do so!

Aug 26, 2005

While I am libating this evening, I will have to raise a glass to the debut of Tony Tost's herculean editorial masterpice, Fascicle. As a contributor, I have gotten a sneak-preivew of it and I'm sure it's going to knock your socks off. I'm sorry that I won't be sitting at my machine when it goes live tonight! But if you do happen to find yourself in front of a screen this evening, check it out!
Be sure to check out Christina Strong's new chapbook from Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs:

Aug 24, 2005

I'll be holding court at the Sheraton Commander Lounge in Harvard Square starting from around 8 or so this Friday August 26th. This is my last night in Boston, so anybody who wants to show up and say so long, good riddance, etc. etc. should feel free to do so. After the 26th, well, you'll have to visit me in Queens!

Aug 23, 2005

Jess Mynes interviews Aaron Tieger, editor of Carve Poems, here.
I have a lot to say about authorial intent, a poem's ability and/or responsibility to convey the same and it's realtion to "truth" e.g. the possibilities of expressing things mimetically in poems and the manner in which these possibilities are realized (relevant to the ongoing discussion in regard to the discourse between sincerity and the postmodernist project of exploring subjectivity). I'll have a piece in Fulcrum 4 on these very subjects, which should be coming out in a couple months, if not sooner. I'm sort of loathe to discuss the issue in any more detail at present, lest I render the essay redundant. But folks please look for it when Fulcrum comes out, and my position on these matters should be made clear.

Aug 19, 2005

You know, I just *assumed* you all knew that Carve 6 was available, but in case you don't, well, Carve 6 is available featuring work by:

Emma Barnes
Clark Coolidge
Yuri Hospodar
Dorothea Lasky
Bill Marsh
and some other guy who writes poems about stars...

Aug 18, 2005

Can anyone recommend a good phono cartridge for use with a Technics SL-5 turntable?
I'm not really interested in becoming a New Sincerist, however I would join the "Straight Guys for Kate Bush" fanclub with Tony.

The first I ever heard of Wilhelm Reich (on whom my mansucript Astrometry Organon is partially based) was in the Kate Bush song "Cloudbusting," which I have known since I was about 12.


Aug 17, 2005

Geek props to Nester for using S.I.D. as the background of his poems page. I am a big Gerry Anderson enthusiast (as evinced by the large toy Thunderbird 2 that lives on my bookshelf.) U.F.O. was probably the pinnacle of Anderson's coolness: who can argue with purple bobs and a hero who drives a lavender sprotscar? (Don't let that fool you, though, the main characters were all revoltingly sexist... (Even when they are wearing white turtlenecks under peach-colored leisure suits.) This was the 70's, after all.)

Aug 16, 2005

I had a great time at both the chapbook release party and the Gloucester New Arts festival.

The performance/reading on Sunday with Dear Old Stockholm Syndrome was a lot of fun, and to boot I became aware of two musical acts that I had been unaware of but who were completely amazing. The first being UV Protection who I can only describe as operatic post-industrial maenads, their set incorporates video and dance segments as well. Sort of Devo by way of Bohemian Rhapsody. I thorougly recommend checking out their CD, "Consumer Material," which I picked up at the festival and have been listening to. It is not as sublime as their live performance, but good nevertheless. The second act was Willy Loco Alexander and the Boom Boom Band who brought the clock back to 1979. Which is something a lot of bands do. The exception here being that they were actually performing in 1979. Alexander must be in his 50's or 60's, but succeeded in making me feel like an uncool old man at 33 (this is a good thing.) These guys are news to nobody in these parts, but it was the first time I had seen them, and now I understand. It's too bad I'm discovering these acts on my way out of Boston, as I would definitely go see either of them again! Of course, there's no shortage of music in New York, however it can take a lot of time and effort to discover music one would actually go spend money to see. Since most of my heroes can't even charge money to do readings, I am famously reticent about spending $10 to go watch frat boys imitate the MC5, which is what usually seems to happen when I go to shows unawares...

Aug 12, 2005

For some reason, the fact that Art Spiegelman was behind the first series of Wacky Packages gives me an intense sense of elation and well-being. Ah, the 70's, back before the days of IP lawsuits. I wish I still had some of those stickers, they strike me as a kind of pop-culture marxist self-critique.
IT'S ALLIIIIIIVE!...

Here is the cover of my beautiful new chapbook from Katalanche Press! Copies may be had at the release party this weekend, or by way of the Katalanche Press website.


Aug 11, 2005

Why always the self-deprecating assertion that there are too many poets producing too much work and not enough audience? Why not demand the populace live up to the poetic fertility of the nation. Not too many of us but too many of the earless/eyeless. Is it the plant's fault if the fruit is left to rot on the vine? Especially when so many are starving.
Dear Old Stockholm Syndrome will be performing this Sunday (August 14th) afternoon
at the Gloucester Arts Festival.

Mark Lamoureux, Christina Stong and Richard Aliberti will be reading
some of their poems with us.

The festival will be happening all over Gloucester. We will be at the
Maritime Heritage Center, 23 Harbor Loop.

For more info check out the website (and our bio!) www.newartsfestival.com
You can also check out some of our recorded stuff at:
www.myspace.com/DearOldStockholmSyndrome
Presently obsessed with this verse from Slint's "Nosferatu Man":

"Like a bat I flushed the girl
And I flew out my back door
And I came to no one no more
She ran without glances
And railed like a red coal train"

Aug 9, 2005

I hate it when these barroom brawls break out. Some of us just want to quaff spirits in peace.

Just call me Cassandra.

Aug 4, 2005

WILL WRITE FOR WINE

Eileen Tabios will send wine to the winner of this contest. Why don't all poetry contests offer wine to the winner?

Down with Apollo, up with Dionysos!


Aug 3, 2005

Keeping it surreal since 2007. I write for the Efreet in my dishwasher.

Change the Date



In order not to conflict with the reading at the Gloucester New Arts Festival, we've changed the date for my reading/farewell fete to Saturday August 13. More info as the date approaches.

Aug 2, 2005

Mes amis, y'all are making me feel like a hippy. (Well, *that* doesn't take much, I suppose). There may be a lot of us these days, but I still think there's room for all of the poets. We all act like jerks sometimes. We all write stuff some of us may or may not like at certain times. Aesthetic debate is all well and good. But there seems to be a lot of...like, heavy energy these days, man. Maybe I'm just an intellectual pacifist. Maybe I'm a fence-rider. Maybe I'm just lazy.
But my emotions don't (always) speak in sentences.

Jul 29, 2005

Save the Date



The release reading for my Katalanche Press chapbook, Film Poems / going away party for yours truly will be Friday, August 12th at the Katalanche Press headquarters (e.g. Mick's house). More details as the day approaches.

Jul 28, 2005

Poet Tics



Since we're all into manifest toes these days, I thought I would share this that I wrote a few years back and still holds true for the most part. One can't do footnotes in Blogger, so I have tried to indicate them as unobtrusively as possible.



I write to set the river on fire. {FN1}.

Amid the din of work and the commerce of narrative, {FN2} thoughts leave the marks of their mouths (the grins of their teeth, the spit on their tongues) on whatever surface is made available to them. These small wounds make poems when left undressed.

A poem comes into the world numb, dumb, and moaning for the attentions of the demon emotion. {FN3} It is made pretty through revision until ready to meet the eyes of the world unflinching, as a corpse is made ready for a wake. It is at this point that the demon has had its way with it and leaves the poem to recount: weeping, laughing or sleeping according to its nature.

Through its life, the poem will teach us that our dead cannot be reclaimed, the things that things without brains know, and the names of our doubles, if we're lucky. Our doubles who listen to each word we speak and shriek and cackle. {FN4}

The poem will forget what it speaks at the moment it is spoken. This speech is recorded as marks on the poem's body. The poem speaks most clearly, most musically those words that are written on its back, the balls of its feet. These assertions will run counter to those found on the hands, the forearms and the face of the poem. {FN5} Some say this speech is musical, some say it is like silence. {FN6} Some listen to this speech and mistake it for the sound of their watches. It is these people who comprise the majority of our populace.

Some poems lack certain limbs, some with flippers instead of legs, wasps' nests instead of heads. It is these poems we must listen to most carefully, the ones the demon emotion scorns and is secretly afraid of, the ones whose speech amongst themselves mimics the ticking of watches.

**********************

1. The river remembers every injustice done to it, the name of each person who has offered it a kindness & the stories of those injustices and those names. These stories move through the river in a kind of communal dream. The figures of this dream can be seen as shadows dancing in the flames when the river burns. The river burns only when no human eye is watching, a sight that birds know but cannot speak of.
2. Desire, acquisition, the release of desire, regret.
3. The angel emotion.
4. The existence of these doubles has been all but ignored by contemporary thought; the doubles of a few have been made known and assigned the names of particular deities.
5. Common practice in preliterate cultures is the recording of stories as pictures on the body. The practice is similar in literate cultures, but the recordings themselves move though the world as words, carried forth by the invisible bodies beneath them. These ghost-word bodies will inhabit our cities and occupy our homes when we are but dust; never speaking, the task of speech having been completed already.
6. "I can write a rhyme where nothin' rhymes,"--High Priest of the Antipop Consortium.

Jul 27, 2005

Still speaking of hot, the July 2005 issue of Carve looks to be just that. I'm in there with some of my favorite poets. Makes me feel nekkid. Which I suppose is a good thing on a day like today...
I am hot, too. It is very hot here. Hard to think.

Jul 26, 2005

Jack Kimball is hot.

The three Pakistani men were taken into custody and questioned after other passengers complained that they were moving about the cabin, FBI spokeswoman Gail Marcinkiewicz said.


I suppose they're lucky they didn't get shot 5 times for trying to use the fucking rest room.

You know, I think *I* hate whitey. And I am whitey!

Jul 25, 2005

Je Suis L'autre



The mysterious Clifford Duffy seems to be behind a watershed of poet-machines over Here.

Jul 21, 2005




Since we're on the subject of children's literature, I feel compelled to point to what was perhaps my earliest experience with the novel: Thornton W. Burgess. Though I suspect my interest in these books was fueled largely by my love of Harrison Cady's illustrations. Burgess's world was engrossing, though; once you had entered, the repetition of characters and themes made for an incredibly vast-seeming community of anthropomorphosized animals. (Most likely similar to the books that Kasey and Ron mention). Burgess wrote around the turn of the cetnury so his stilted and idomatic language sounded exotic and arcane to a kid in the 70's. There was a novel for virtually every species of animal one was likely to encounter in the New England forest (Burgess was from Sandwich, MA)--what's more, Burgess was a naturalist and a realist--his love of animals extended to possums, muskrats, rats, wolves, coyotes, the lives of whom were explored with naturalistic detail and a humanistic eye (animal characters were motivated largely by hunger, protection of their families, etc.) which transcended (or at least looking back) the usual good/evil dichotomies of children's literature. The most questionable characters in these books are the humans. A lesson we all do well to learn early on.

Jul 20, 2005

C'mon, what good's a swimsuit calendar without a redhead?

Jul 18, 2005

I don't really know where my garden-gnome fixation comes from. Maybe because my pediatrician had one of those old Gnomes books in his office, which may have been the first place I ever saw pictures of naked people (well, in this case, gnomes, I guess). But for whatever reason they pop up in my writing on numerous occasions. I consider lawn ornamentation in general to be a worthy subject, so alternately this could simply be an anglophilic manifestation of a general interest in vernacular public art...

Apparently I am not the only one, either.

Et Tu, Alibris?



Just got an email from Alibris stating that they had plenty of copies of Harry Potter and the Well-paid Ghostwriter or whatever it is available. Just in case I missed the display NEXT TO THE SPAGHETTI SAUCE AT THE FUCKING SUPERMARKET.

Though I have to say, upon seeing a townie-ish looking woman sitting on a lawnchair in front of her apartment reading the text out loud to her young child, my general reaction skewed slightly from bilious to indifferent. I suppose if it is getting people who ordinarily wouldn't to pick up a flesh-and-blood book, it can't be all bad. Though to my mind it just seems like a bowdlerization of any number of classics (C.S. Lewis's Narnia, Lloyd Alexander, Ursula LeGuin) with a shot of John Hughes Botox. I'm most likely not qualified to state this, however, having seen only about 45 minutes of one of the films, and never having read a word of Rowling's prose...

Jul 15, 2005




Somebody, quick! Rehnquist is in need of the BLOOD OF THE LIVING!

Jul 13, 2005

Maya Deren said the project of mythology was that it illustrated "the facts of the mind made manifest in a fiction of matter."


I think this is also an apt analogy for poetry. Articulating that world of one's own sentience that nobody else will ever truly be able to inhabit.

Thus in speaking of one's own work there is only the phrase: "Does the noise in my head bother you?"
Received and read Maureen Thorson's UDP book, Novelty Act this weekend and I give it 4 thumbs up. Reading the book inspired the following poem by way of praise. (Unrelatedly, the phrase "black arts" is stolen from Aaron Tieger.)

FAMILY TREE
-After Maureen Thorson's Novelty Act

That moon is goddamn green &
the cheerleader's dreams are all sinister:

black arts, brown heart & red
boots. All the rockets hung low
from her bower.

An eyeless boy comes to serenade,
his lungs are full of years--

that's how you were born.

Little weevils in a maze of salt:
the statuettes are tired of the yard.

Solemn, the bad gnomes abandon
the Scrabble bush--the letters click
on the hard, dry ground. O our sorrow is made
all of vowels:

little brother fell down a molehole,
he sends back cash & posters
for strange films about heaven.

Down by the sea, a shelf
of tight-lipped oysters where monsters
have hidden tiny, luminous pearls.

Jul 8, 2005

So, NYC folks, I will be living in Astoria, Queens as of August 27. Come and visit then and help me uncurl from the foetal position...

Jul 4, 2005

Aaron Tieger and I once decided to start a literary movement called the Venomous Dogs. (There is a long story behind the title). I don't remember coming up with any particular tenets for the movement. I suppose whatever tenets Aaron had would have become the editorial slant of Carve Magazine. Though given this was about 10 years ago, I suspect many of our perceptions of poetry have changed. I myself have written a statement of poetics once and only once (unrelated to the Venomous Dogs). Personally, I'd be suspicious of any movement that would have me... I suppose that makes me a pretty much garden-variety postmodernist. But I am willing to substitute for any movement that doesn't make me pay dues... Alternately you can think of me as some sort of literary mercenary. Call me "The Fixer."

Jul 1, 2005

Check out some beautiful photographs from Poland.
Get well soon, Eileen!

Jun 30, 2005

Is it me or does the poblogosphere seem particularly surly lately? Perhaps it is the summer heat. Or this moronic century. Or maybe it's just me. Not that I am particularly surly, but perhaps I am just presently oversensitive to surliness or something.

Maybe I need to think of some kind of fun meme to cheer myself up...

Jun 29, 2005

Pwoermd: The Goddess of Postmodernism:



Isnotis

Jun 24, 2005

Great reading by Lori Lubeski, Jess Mynes, and Doreothea Lasky last night. There are few readers who can match Dottie's aural power, so hearing her read (as well as Lori and Jess) is always a pleasure.

Picked up Jess and Dotty's Anchorite Press chapbooks, and they look stunning as usual. I recommend picking up copies. Contact Chris Rizzo at Anchorite Press to order. (Also pick up the 2 new Katalanche Press chapbooks from Lori Lubeski and Travis Nichols). All 4 chock-full of poetic goodness.

Shee-it.

(That's a review)

Jun 23, 2005

DEA descends on medical marijuana growers in CA, flag-burning outlawed, government seizure of homes for private development OK-ed, and the Pentagon can keep a database of your kids' names for recruitment purposes("fresh meat")...

What's goddamn next? I shudder to think.
Tonight in Somerville:

Thursday, June 23, 7:30 pm
Lori Lubeski, Jess Mynes & Dorothea Lasky
Katalanche Press / Anchorite Press
McIntyre & Moore Books
255 Elm Street
Davis Square
Somerville, MA

Jun 22, 2005

Installed Tiger on the Mini this morning. Rowr.


I am the sonnet, never quickly thrilled;
Not prone to overstated gushing praise
Nor yet to seething rants and anger, filled
With overstretched opinions to rephrase;
But on the other hand, not fond of fools,
And thus, not fond of people, on the whole;
And holding to the sound and useful rules,
Not those that seek unjustified control.
I'm balanced, measured, sensible (at least,
I think I am, and usually I'm right);
And when more ostentatious types have ceased,
I'm still around, and doing, still, alright.
In short, I'm calm and rational and stable -
Or, well, I am, as much as I am able.
What Poetry Form Are You?

Jun 21, 2005

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Jess Mynes come to help us steal the jobs of hard-working, non-internet-using poets.
Back from an informative and fun trip to New York City. The reading at the 4-Faced Liar was very fun and I enjoyed the other readers quite a bit. It isn't often that I get to read poems and drink beer (the two things in life I am best at) simultaneously.

Someone appears to be harassing Tony on his blog. Every once in awhile a bout of this seems to go around. I guess some poets who don't use the internet are angered by poets who do. Apparently all poets who use the internet constitute some kind of demographic or movement, despite the fact that many of us have next to nothing in common. Evidently it is part of the Famous and Important daily regimen to remind those of us doomed to obscurity that this is our fate. It's difficult being Famous and Important, because you have so much to do keeping homeless people, waiters, toll-booth attendants and poets who have web-logs in line. Understandable, since it's next to impossible to tell any of us apart and none of us use deodorant.

In the words of Groundskeeper Willie, "These colored crayons are the work of the devil!"

Jun 17, 2005

Happy Birthday Rachel!

Jun 16, 2005

10 Things you don't know about me.


1.) I am obsessed with the 70's Japanese cartoon "Space Runaway Ideon."
2.) The first concert I ever went to was Tears for Fears touring for "Songs from the Big Chair" and the second was Julian Lennon touring for "Valotte."
3.) I have 1 tattoo and 1 piercing.
4.) When I was 3 or 4 I stole a Legg's Egg of pantyhose from my grandma because it was shiny.
5.) I like things that are shiny.
6.) I hate the White Stripes.
7.) I never drank, smoked, did drugs, or kissed a girl in high school.
8.) I had done all of the things in #7 by the end of my first week of college.
9.) Until about puberty or so, I worried obssessively that I would become possessed by the devil.
10.) When I hit puberty, I became possessed by the devil.

Jun 15, 2005

I've been tagged by Erica... Having been a tenacious tagger lately, I will answer the question but refrain from any furhter tagging this time around! (Anybody who wants to participate in the comments box or whatever, feel free, but I won't implore anyone to do so.) Well, except for Guillermo, because I know he wants to answer this...

"List five songs that you are currently digging. It doesn't matter what genre they are from, whether they have words, or even if they're any good but they must be songs you're really enjoying right now. Post these instructions, the artists, and the five songs in your blog. Then tag five other people to see what they're listening to."

In no particular order:

1. "Bulletproof"--DJ Rap

While her new record, "Bulletproof," is not necessarily everything I hoped it to be, the title track is pretty amazing.

2. "Music in Me"--DJ Rap vs. Konvertor

"Because the music in me is the only thing that keeps me alive."

3. "Flu (Acoustic)"--The Peopletree feat. Milla Jovovich

Say what you will. The quirkiest and best pop song about intimacy ever. "I gave you my flu. My flu, for you..."

4. "Driven Like the Snow"--Sisters of Mercy

"Like a voice in the wind blow little crystals down
Like brittle things will break before they turn"

5. "A Little Louder"--DJ Icey.

Because I love vocoders.

6. "Rough Boy"--ZZ Top

Because I hate rules. "What in the world's come on over me, I ain't got a chance of walking free..."
Gutcult Summer 2005.

Jun 13, 2005

Also, I have a review of Annie Finch's The Body of Poetry in the June/July issue of Art New England (on sale now).

Sunday June 19, 4-Faced Liar, NYC



I will be reading at the 4-Faced Liar Frequency series in Manhattan this Sunday at 2:30. With Maureen Thorson.

The Four-Faced Liar
165 West 4th Street,
(Between 6th and 7th Avenues)
New York, NY 10014
Phone: (212) 366 0608

Jun 10, 2005

Later this summer I am expecting a new bouncing baby chapbook, Film Poems from Katalanche Press. This will be a collection of the film poems I have written to date. Watch for details concerning release date and reading, etc. here and at the Katalanche site. This should be very interesting, I have seen the proofs and they look great!

Jun 9, 2005

Finally saw the Star Wars film.

Enough people have commented on Revenge of the Sith already, so all I have to say is that, in the current renaissance of the female action hero, the fact that we only get to see Aayla Secura for about 40 seconds, which constitute her getting shot in the back and subsequently shot-up by Storm/Clone Troopers, proves that it is still your father's "Star Wars." And no, Natalie Portman running around in Danskins and taking an occasional pot-shot (in Episode II) with a water pistol doesn't count.

Overall, I liked it OK. But I still maintain that the cartoons are still the true heir to Episodes IV-VI...

Jun 8, 2005

Luckily for me, all of my books have been chronologically not published.
Eveything seems to be in it. It must have just gotten knocked out of my pocket when I was rushing through the crowd of doddering Harvard grandparents. Now I'm really glad I didn't take the money in the supermarket. Maybe that was the test. Who knows? Maybe if I'd taken it the wallet would not have come back with everything in it.

Yes, I know I sound like a paranoid schizophrenic, but I'm just saying, from a karmic perspective...
HUPD found my wallet. Now to go see what remains in it...

Jun 7, 2005

I walk through a dense crowd of ogling Harvard-types, jammed packed into Harvard Square, for graduation and somesuch. I'm in a rush, everyone seems to be moving sluggishly. I run down the stairs and reach for my wallet to pay my fare for the T. Nothing in my pocket. Look through my bag, nothing there. Sit down at the Dunkin' Donuts table and take everything out. Laptop, keys, The Crystal Text, On Language, cellphone, iPod, "White Noise" from Netflix. People are staring. But no wallet. I realize that someone has stolen my name, and all of my money from my pocket, in the crowd. Probably others, too. Fortunately I'm by the bank and it's still open so I dash over there and have them cancel everything. Call information on the cellphone and cancel all of my other cards, too. I'm penniless. The bank lets me write a check to myself and I get some money. I go home, nameless.

It feels disorienting, being nameless. I can't seem to calm down much, I decide to go to the supermarket. Walking in the doors, in front of the self-checkout machine, there's a wad of 20's just sitting there. I look around for someone who's dropped it. Nobody. There was money in my wallet when it was stolen. I wonder if this is karma here, paying me back. I check my pocket to see if it is the money I lost from the bank. Nope, still there. Somebody else has dropped these 20's. Nobody else sees them. Am I being paid back? Is this karma, I lose money, it is returned to me. An eye for an eye, etc. Desolation and retribution. Nobody will ever know if I take it. The way of the world. They bomb our buildings, we kill their children. They take a house, we take a block. Exchange of prisoners.

No. I look for somebody who's working there, I spot a guy with long dark hair in a Shaw's uniform. My age. Thoughtful looking, perhaps trustworthy.

"Somebody dropped some money there, " I point to the money, "I didn't see anybody drop it."

"Thank you," he says, "thank you very much." Trustworthy lookng. I want to tell him that 2 hours ago somebody in a crowd took my wallet and all of my money, and please that he should not pocket this money, he should save it in case someone comes back to claim it. I want this to stop with me. Please, don't take it, I want to tell him. But namelessness has made me feel uncertain, small.

"Someone will come back for it," I say and that's all. Why can't I tell him more. He's my age, just a guy with a job, just like me. Probably broke, just like me.

It will take effort now, money, to get my name back. I wonder who has it. I wonder who has the image of me, my health insurance cards, my Coop number, all of those numbers whereby the world rewards and punishes me. I am nameless, I should feel free. But I feel invisible. The money from the supermarket will not find its original owner. Perhaps the thoughtful guy will take it. Maybe he's a good man, maybe he opposes the war, maybe he cares for his family. But I can't bring the money back to the person who lost it. Nor can I stop the war, the prison camps, the loss of our rights. I can only cower before them and ask them for my name back and give them some money so they will return it to me. But it was stolen, why should I have to pay? I didn't take the money in the supermarket, why should I have to pay? Nobody will ever know happened in the supermarket. Except for you, that is.

Jun 3, 2005

Received this baton from Guillermo. So here goes:

1. Total number of books I've owned

This is more or less impossible to speculate. Like Guillermo, some of the earliest books I owned were comic books (it would be interesting to do a comic-book meme) and there were tons and tons of them. Most of them were Marvel superhero comic books. I especially liked the ones based on toys when I was very young, and then as I progressed to adolescence I started reading Moon Knight, The X-Men, and The New Teen Titans (mostly because of Starfire's chainmail bikini...). Also, when I was a little kid I was allowed to purchase as many books as I wanted (other purchases obeyed the usual parental restrictions, but I was given more or less a carte blanche with books), which must have, I suppose, contributed to my later bibliomania in one form or another.

As it stands now, I have no idea how many books I own. Thus, the only real answer I have to this question is, "A lot."

2. Last book I bought

Again, tough to answer because I'm pretty much constantly in the process of buying books online from places like Alibris, etc. The last books I have received in the mail, more or less simultaneously are a copy of Bernstein's A Poetics (had only read photocopied chapters prior), an old library copy of John Wieners' Nerves, and a used copy of Mamoru Nagano's Five Star Stories Vol. 1 (old habits die hard, I suppose.)

3. Last book I read

This is also somewhat difficult to answer, believe it or not. I read very slowly and I read a whole bunch of things simultaneously. Chronologically, I believe the last thing I finished in its entirity was Balzac's Unknown Masterpice, which was for a class. Chapbooks (which *are* [ahem] "real books") I read more quickly and frequently, so that is tough to answer.

4. Five books that mean a lot to me

This is much easier to answer.

Kenneth Rexroth 100 Poems From the Chinese. My discovery of this book in the midst of an undergraduate library job was epiphonic. Though I had long toyed with the idea of becoming a poet, this book for some reason gelled it for me. Odd given that the poets here are from a different culture and long dead, but for me it was a point of entry alternate to the Western Romantic/Modern tradition and opened up a lot of doors for me. My studies of Asian literature would eventually lead me to an Asian Studies professor at Marlboro who would introduce me to literary theory and postmodernism (Eagleton, Kristeva, Barthes, Benjamin, etc. etc.).

Gerard Manley Hopkins Collected Poems. I have owned any number of editions of Hopkins' work over the years, so this just sort of stands in for his ouevre. It is perhaps cliche for a writer of my stylistic bent to mention Hopkins, but as they say, the reason it's a cliche is because it's true. Hopkins' way of making language shimmer and sputter and clang was eye-opening to me, as well as his penchant for inventing hybrid words. Inscape as a metaphor for the subjective singularities of an entity or experience would also become an important touchstone for me. His use of artifice to adumbrate the nigh-inexpressable sublimities of the "soul" were and are a guiding force.

John Berryman The Dream Songs. Like so many others this was my bible through many years of bad behavior and worse writing. There is still much of worth to be found here, but if only there were the same cornucopia of SSRIs available then as now, things would have ended differently for Mr. Berryman and we would have seen changes in him and his writing later in life. I mean, yeah, I probably still haven't stopped imitating Shakespeare, either, but Berryman's "I'm a drunk old overeducated pervert" schtick is cloying to me now.

Ange Mlinko Matinees. A little while after I moved to Boston, before I knew anybody in these parts, I stumbled across this book and bought it because I liked the cover. It opened doors for me, stylistically, and also insofar as it offered a window into literary Boston which had existed and was existing in my midst. I would later make the acquaintance of any number of characters who appeared therein. Thus, this book was important to me aesthetically, and also as a kind of premonition of things to come.

Plato Cratylus. This is a recent addition, but I have found in this text and interesting dramatization of many of the central elements/issues manifest in my writing. Heartening that these things were being thought of in antiquity. The echoes of the Cratylus/Hermogenes dispute are still heard today in any of the various dialectics/bumper-car matches present in our contemporary literary culture. Socrates/Plato's arch synthesis/disarmament of the whole mess is inspiring, and a worthy paradigm to think upon.

5. Which five bloggers am I passing this to?:

I will pass this on to others with an eye towards those who aren't already meme-weary (there have been a lot of them going around lately): Gina, Chris (hello, Chris, are you there?), Cat, Jean, and Scott.

Jun 1, 2005

Received my contributor's copies of LIT yesterday, and it appears to be packed cover-to-cover with literary goodness. Lest we at Fulcrum think we have the monopoly on genre-spanning behemoths, this healthy tome seems harbors styles from yours truly to K. Silem Mohammad to Billy Collins. While I am indeed a fan of small, specialized publications, I think that these sorts of inclusive mega-magazines are important. Like a crowded club, there's something for everyone, there is a giddy potentiality manifest in the fact that there's bound to be someone/thing that one likes. There's also a feeling of autonomy, like a big lumbering cruise-ship: bring one of these babies to the beach and you won't need anything else.

Despite reports from any number of partisan enclaves, journals like LIT prove that U.S. literature is thriving and couldn't be more alive and well and diverse. The rainforest is stronger than a field of peas (as much as one may love peas). What we need is more celebration of our multiplicity (by way of big journals like LIT and also by the proliferation of more specialized smaller ones) and less snarky infighting. The next time someone tells you that U.S. poetry has dissolved into a morass of ceaselessly bickering and impotent factions, just whack them with a copy of LIT or Fulcrum or some other journal with an interest in catholicity.

May 31, 2005

Mick and Dotty at Katalanche Press have posted a PDF version of the venerable Dachshund Magazine. Give it a read, if you have not. Also give all of their other chapbooks a read, if you have not.

May 25, 2005

My two cents: one of the problems manifest in this here blogosphere is that we can't really see/hear/smell/bask in each other's auras--it's harder to call someone a nitwit when you think they're hot/cute/handsome or whatever. That's why parties don't turn into the same sort of slap-fights as we find hereabouts (well, not *here*-abouts, I think my general tangentiality has long since exceeded anyone's ability to give a shit...). Flame wars are the dark side of the etherial community which the internet provides. The advent of the comment-box may have changed the tenor of the scene a little bit, made it a little less diaristic with the addition of the notion that someone can respond to what you are saying; enter the social dynamic sans the corporeality of actual society; and thus I guess begins some kind of demolition derby of little id-homunculi. A necessary evil I suppose, though it might be more fun to just play some online Unreal Torunament or something ("Look out, Quietude has a railgun!...) Yes, I am neglecting the aesthetic shibboleths at stake here. Mostly because I am generally freaking sick of them...
Does anyone else feel like we are being cursed by the gods? Who wants to help me build a cloudbuster?

If only I had a yard and a shed. ("What's he building in there?") Actually, I don't honestly want either a yard or a shed. OK, maybe a shed, on the roof of a skyscraper or something. As part of the Weed (no, not that kind) Liberation Front, I am ethically opposed to lawns...


May 24, 2005

I'm sorry, I couldn't help it. Once again it is Josh's fault....



(Note: links to get to this quiz not entirely 100% worksafe if you work in an uptight environment...)

May 20, 2005

I am having problems with my Yahoo email account. It seems that for the past few days, people have been receiving emails I sent during the past month or so at random intervals. So if I owe you an email and you never received it, please contact me. It seems to have been sporadic, so I have no idea which emails I have sent during the past month or so have reached their destination.

So if you are wondering what the hell my problem is, my problem is Yahoo!...

May 19, 2005

Sonaweb 3 is live.

Featuring new work by

Jennifer Firestone
Laura Hinton
Brenda Iijima
Eugene Lim
Sarah Rosenthal

"And if you're in the Brooklyn area on June 4, visit the Brooklyn Alternative Small Press Fair from
10-4 at Camp Friendship, 339 8th Street in Park Slope. Look for Sona Books--we'll be there.

All the best,

Jill Magi
Editor/Publisher"

May 18, 2005

Criminy, an allusion & a pastoral meditation. I'm hemorrhaging street cred like there's no today. Faith: that on the last scale the double-agent's heart is still light as a feather...

May 12, 2005

Kneel before ZOD!
Stuart Kelly reviews 4 Pressed Wafer chapbooks (Jack Evans's Work, Joe Torra's After the Chinese, Sean Cole's Itty City, and mine) in the most recent (or at least I think it's the most recent) Poetry Review from the UK.

This review of my 29 Cheeseburgers, which is one of the most generous and astute reviews I have received thusfar:

"29 Cheeseburgers is a more complex volume. Like a more
calorific Proustian madeleine, these "edged
circle[s] of nausea" conjure various losses.
Lamoureux has a quiet but convincing surrealism;
as he says "whenever tragedy smacks / I think of
smiling elves." The poetry reflects the
"constant crush of tongues" in the modern city:
Japanese cartoons and bureaucratic jargon,
advertising jingles and ouija board jinks. It's
an interzone, where you "can't tell the cafes
from the bars." Cutting thorugh the white noise
is a powerfully articulated vision of complex
emotions; a simultaneous blending of cynicism and
hopefulness. "Would that I were/ punk rock &
could/ care less about those girls". Evoking, as
in [Joe] Torra ['s "After the Chinese" from PW]
also involves admitting absence."
You scored as Postmodernist. Postmodernism is the belief in complete open interpretation. You see the universe as a collection of information with varying ways of putting it together. There is no absolute truth for you; even the most hardened facts are open to interpretation. Meaning relies on context and even the language you use to describe things should be subject to analysis.

Postmodernist

100%

Cultural Creative

81%

Idealist

75%

Existentialist

69%

Materialist

69%

Modernist

63%

Romanticist

19%

Fundamentalist

13%

What is Your World View?
created with QuizFarm.com

May 11, 2005

Reading W.G. Sebald's Austerlitz and enjoying it immensely. To me it is demonstrative of what the tenets of Postmodernism (or Derrida's conception of history) look like when conveyed in modernist terms. It is a sort of slow-motion depiction of the moment of impact, those years and events which made Postmodernism necessary. It is powerful in the oblique way it addresses matters of utmost gravity (prison camps, fascism), as if one can no more look into the black sun directly than the real sun itself. Though looking at Amazon.com reviews (why do I do this?) and other criticism, people seem to have reacted to this novel as if it WERE nonlinear. Which is insane. It is completely linear, you could script it as a radio play, ableit the narrative contains many stories-within-stories (the Austerlitz character recounts most of them). But it is a NARRATIVE, which goes from point A to point B in an explicable fashion. Peoples' reactions to this book make me worried about what our reading public has come to expect--Cold Mountain and Stephen King ad infinitum? Sebald if explicity laying things out for the reader with Austerlitz's mouth, I think it provides a fabulous segue into pomo, were I teaching a course where I had to introduce pomo students unfamiliar with the concept, I would employ this text.

May 9, 2005

KILL YR ARCHONS

Some cultures locate the heart as the seat of consciousness. Others make no distinction between poetry and prose. Dithyrambs, folks, and hymns. We need new categories, new terminology, new structures. Kuhn's shattering crystal. Raw or cooked or hot or cold or left or right or up or down, why is this pigpile so adamant? Saxifrage breaks the rocks but what cuts a diamond? Alien alloy. But I am an onanistic Deleuzian...
The Robert Creeley memorial reading was, well, memorable.

May 6, 2005

I have been sick with food poisioning for a few days. A word of advice: if you ever find yourself asking yourself if an item in your freezer has been there too long to eat--don't eat it! The gamble isn't worth it. It really felt as if an alien was going to burst out of my stomach.

While I was sick I read Eleni Sikelianos's The Book of Jon, while our backgrounds are somewhat different, I could relate pretty explicitly to the world from whence this book comes--a kind of poisonous vernacular. And also the subject matter: the father as an unreachable, doomed anti-hero. Sikelianos engages with the subject matter in a vital fashion, interacting with it on its own terms, but never becoming poisoned by its refulgent mediocrities. A kind of postmodern rethinking of "On the Road," peering unflinchingly at the realities behind the myth of "rugged American individualism." Though it atones all involved with its reaching, a kind of absolution by way of narrative blurring, an alchemy that turns plastic fake wood panelling into gold...
I added a list of funny links to the left. "JOKES!... I GET JOKES!"

May 3, 2005

I did a few more film poems at the Video Balagan Choreographing Cinema event at the MFA this weekend.

These are all done during the films, in the dark, writing on a square notepad. I try to recreate the spacing in word documents as best I can. Using the PRE tag does not quite capture the actual appearance, but it is close enough.

(They won't display correctly in Internet Explorer. Say 'fuck you' to the man and download Firefox (link at the bottom of my blog)...)


ROSA--Peter Greenaway

Bartok chasm


pneumatic pinwheel

cinema fragments

dissect

hook caesura

stuttering mirror

& propelled

collision
delta vectors



crab sideways tumble

Budapest
chandelier
pinion
exuent

KAZUO OHNO--Daniel Schmid

trail barcarole

shadow fold shrinking

bloom
white to orange or red

aisle creep

* * * *

cobalt lust lantern
blade

bluejay cavern


* * * *
harbor extant
Nereid-shadow
cloud pillar
shelter birds

grasp edifice

* * * *

shiny & carol flying

bridge

obelisk ascent

* * * *
bower
leaves
livre
face
drop




CLOWN--Irina Evteeva

Moon noose

flatfoot raven

cosmos comrade

a fly buzzed

bison speech history errant

fish mouth chrysalis

Herculean shoals

brown prow spectre

figurehead
cherish
boats such angels

or

cupid
clock
locomotive snow

loss parade

sea self rain




DOM SVOBODE--Saso Podgorsek

Line company
this wall

vodka random

bad sneakers-- bad building

alleycat concur

catacomb

ice ballet breath
stop


Tuba

* * * *

Corner fire need
dirt pirouette



rose chorale
chthonic composition
element


Bowler lawn

crane shyster

shrub furies

propaganda tombeats

buckle crane

smokestack pastoral

cruciform

diamond
suspension

choreograph
braided
line
cycle



GOD--Konstantin Broznit

Shiva twitch

imortal fly sure

limb riot

scripture
tumble




HEART OF THE WORLD--Guy Madden

Cadaver Christ
triangle


dead world
heart

JEEZUS!

tragic bangs

BIG CIGAR!

treachery
surgery

M C
O I
V N
I E
E M
S A




LOVESONG--Stan Brakhage

Capillary view atrium

flux ganglia origin

honey cloud collision

refractory ecto-

cosm rapport wash

petrol

rain bug

collusion back

elation carapace

plastic heart chamber

taffy sutra

chalice layer foyer

spermata

Zoroastrian comma blur

radio membrane passion

lichen syrup burr


rotunda ribcage scorch

pestle

prism plasm proto

zoan ecstatic

spinal lapse traffic

figure flutter

erasure solo map

blossom slime

sludge stanza

strophe


pause

tendon rain


damp rush rush pupa leaves



left open


orifice bloom cousin

fountain charge flotsam

fecund bliss token

dark swimming

fire

basin, resin

blink
fraction


ink tumble

stained back black

glass tunnel light

iris mask

ochre dance

tension
suite




ELLIS ISLAND--Meredith Monk

Inner aria lapse


* * * *

Chain throng cadre

suture culture
houseboat dumping

variegated
stick waiting
haunch traffic

cotton threshold

manes rest

white divider
Hasidic stairs

Name bingo

#79

Fauna erasure

glottal stop

past dance chair trance

ceilidh queue

dismorphic century

Apr 30, 2005

I want my body of work to be like stained glass, variously translucent and opaque: the each depending upon the other. Neither a window nor a closed door, but something that looks out on infinity.
MARITIME

The wrong red sky,
a pin-bright waxing moon & I
am pieced by weariness,
hooves smack
the metal hull
as frantic horses fall
into the sea.

Saltwater's god
's joke, us mostly made
of water, we go astringent
at sea: a mouthfull
of brine razoredged
mussels, blood mostly
salt too, pillars of it
stain the seawall, seagulls
drop shelled things
onto the fierce rocks, eat
what's soft left inside.

Apr 29, 2005

Just received a copy of Carve Poems 5 in the mail a couple of days ago and it looks to be another splendid issue, featuring Stacy Szymaszek, Jordan Davis, Guillermo Juan Parra, Cheryl Clark, Bill Corbett on Ric Caddel, and Ric Caddel. You can tell from all the hyperlinks that the blogosphere is well represented in this issue.

I highly recommend that anyone unfamiliar with Carve contact Aaron and pick up a copy. To quote KRS-ONE, "This is the new, new, new, new shit."

Apr 25, 2005

BTW, the Orgonon trip didn't happen beacause of foul weather. You'd think they could have used the Cloudbuster or something...