From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct  1 11:20:30 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 11:20:30 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob G.
References: <BB99BC2C.558F%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>
Message-ID: <0f5901c3882f$8d505b40$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>

Hi, Paul--just got back from a trip, which is why I've taken this long to
reply to your post.  My address is 1708 Hayworth Road, Port Charlotte FL
33952.

Because of the trip and lots of other things, the delay is no problem: it'll
probably be a while before I can read it!

Best, Bob



----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Lake" <paul.lake at mail.atu.edu>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 10:49 AM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob G.


>
> Dear Bob,
>
> I accidentally deleted your email with your address, so if you don't mind
> sending it again, I'll get a copy of the essay you requested in the mail.
>
> Sorry about the extra trouble.
>
> Paul
>
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct  1 11:34:56 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 11:34:56 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
References: <3F75CABC.6065C35F@localnet.com><5.1.1.6.0.20030927114658.021e3f48@mail.ilstu.edu> <5.1.1.6.0.20030927125347.02255300@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <11cc01c38831$915d6d20$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>



  Helen, I just reread my previous and I'm wriitng to apologize to you: I apologize if the previous sounded rude. I didn't mean to be rude; perhaps what is behind my shortness of tone in the previous is a certain impatience toward what I take to be an ignorant and incessant need to group, categorize, label, classify and peg poets, poetry, and poems.

  Same thing goes on with food--me, what do I care what it's called?  If I can fit it into my mouth, I eat it.  Ditto with commercial enterprises: who cares if a building is called a restaurant or a hardware store, for instance?  Most nuts and bolts will fit into your mouth!

  --Bob G.
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct  1 11:39:34 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 11:39:34 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <200309241051.h8OApGST005367@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <122701c38832$378aee20$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>


> > ... If I say that something is black, this is reasonable, if I say that
it is
> > white, it is reasonable, too. It means that the object is both, black
and
> > white, they are two opposite colors - contradictory notions, and still
my
> > statement is made reasonable in the moment in which I show you the two
> > opposite aspects of the same object.
>
> If you have an object in front of you that is black and white, and you
tell me
> it is black, and I refer to the black object in front of you later, and
you
> tell me it is white, and I object that you said it was black, and you say
that
> now it is white, so I refer to the white object in front of you and you
object
> and say it is black ... well, you can see how that would engender
frustration,
> I hope, and a good deal of suspicion. Unfortunately, that's the sort of
thing
> that Bob Grumman is doing as he tries to explain what free verse is.

No, I show you a red object and tell you it is a colored object; then I show
you a blue object and tell you it is a colored object.

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct  1 11:45:54 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 11:45:54 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <200309241101.h8OB1WST005450@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <123101c38833$1980ffe0$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>

I know I said I was finished with this thread, but I've had a week off from
it, so can't resist the temptation to once again to take on Marcus.


> > &gt; &gt; poetry and verse are the same
> > &gt; &gt; candies and sweets are the same
> > &gt; &gt; that's one parallel
> > &gt; &gt; free verse and formal verse are two different kinds of poetry
OR
> verse
> > &gt; &gt; gumdrops and chocolates are two different kinds of candies OR
sweets
> > &gt; &gt; that is a second parallel
> > &gt; &gt; Period.
> > &gt;
> > &gt; In other words, you're abandoning your claim that free verse is a
> > &gt; different game -- okay, that's fine -- but that's different than
what
> > &gt; you said when you said free verse was a different game.
>
> > ... "Free verse and formal verse are two different kinds of
> > poetry" is not the same as saying "free verse and formal verse are two
> > different games."
>
> But you said they were. And then you said they weren't. And therein lies
the
> confusion, because first you're claiming one thing, then an incompatible
thing,
> and you seem to want to hold them both at the same time, even yet. You're
the
> one who said "free verse is a different game", not me; now you're saying
that
> it's not a different game. You can't reasonably have it both ways.
>
> > &gt; Do you see that you cannot any longer reasonably hold that free
verse
> > &gt; is a different game if you say that verse
> >
> > by which I do NOT mean "formal verse"
>
> No, no, of course not, Bob -- you mean "all verse, all poetry"; I
understand
> what you seem to want to mean. But that's just the problem, you see? If
> by "verse" you mean "all verse, all poetry", AND by "free verse" you mean
to
> indicate a subset of "all verse, all poetry", you simply cannot reasonably
say
> that "free verse is a different game" from "all verse, all poetry". It
doesn't
> make sense, for if you hold that "all verse, all poetry" is the same game,
then
> you can't reasonably say that "free verse", a subset of "all verse, all
poetry"
> is "a different game".
>
> > I'm saying there is such a thing as poetry, and formal verse and free
verse
> > are two not mutually-exclusive kinds of poetry.  I also say that I use
the
> > term, "verse," to mean all the kinds of poetry there are.
>
> But if you distinguish between "formal verse" and "free verse" within
"poetry"
> tthen you still have a difficult problem because you hold that "verse"
> and "poetry" are "the same", that is, identical. So how do you
differentiate
> between two things that are identical? You cannot reasonably say that
these
> things are identical and different at the same time -- and yet you are
> insisting that these identical things are different things. It isn't
> reasonable. It may be your view, and you're certainly entitled to it, but
it
> isn't reasonable to say that identical things are different things.

I don't.  Verse, for me, is another name for poetry (which, figuratively
speaking, is a class of items called games).

Free verse and formal verse, for me, are two different kinds of poetry--or,
figuratively speaking, two different kinds of games.  What in the world is
your problem with this?  Can anyone else tell me what my error is beside
Marcus?

--Bob G.



From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Oct  1 11:41:50 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 10:41:50 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob G.
In-Reply-To: <0f5901c3882f$8d505b40$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <BBA05FEE.55EC%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 10/1/03 10:20 AM, Bob Grumman at bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net wrote:

> Hi, Paul--just got back from a trip, which is why I've taken this long to
> reply to your post.  My address is 1708 Hayworth Road, Port Charlotte FL
> 33952.
> 
> Because of the trip and lots of other things, the delay is no problem: it'll
> probably be a while before I can read it!
> 
> Best, Bob
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Lake" <paul.lake at mail.atu.edu>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 10:49 AM
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Bob G.
> 
> 
>> 
>> Dear Bob,
>> 
>> I accidentally deleted your email with your address, so if you don't mind
>> sending it again, I'll get a copy of the essay you requested in the mail.
>> 
>> Sorry about the extra trouble.
>> 
>> Paul
>> 
>> ---
>> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-Poetry mailing list
>> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 
Thanks, Bob. I'll get the essay off soon.

Paul

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Oct  1 11:56:01 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 11:56:01 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Newfo poetics -- The Cap'n
Message-ID: <156.255f29fb.2cac5311@cs.com>

In a message dated 9/26/2003 12:54:56 AM Central Daylight Time, 
robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes: 
> 
> (I came on the poem as a teenager in Glasgow in the sixties, via the Michael
> Roberts /Faber Modern Verse/ anthology, and it was what first got me
> fascinated by Ransom.  But one result is that it lives in my head in neither
> a North Carolina nor a Tennessee accent, but in West-of-Scotland
> middle-class urban Scots.  This may be a factor in the way I read it.  <g>)
> 
> Robin
This is where the Appalachian ballad tradition comes from originally.  My 
brother lives there now, in Black Mountain, NC, and there's an annual highland 
games in the area.  His best friend, one David Watson, once commissioned my 
mother to draw the fringe on his tartan.  They take that stuff seriously, even ten 
generations removed.  

Here's but one example of how the ballad tradition morphs into bluegrass.

http://sniff.numachi.com/~rickheit/dtrad/pages/tiWXFRDGRL.html

http://bluegrasslyrics.com/jimmy_song.cfm-recordID=sp799.htm
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Wed Oct  1 12:18:45 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 11:18:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon 
  River
In-Reply-To: <11cc01c38831$915d6d20$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>
References: <3F75CABC.6065C35F@localnet.com>
 <5.1.1.6.0.20030927114658.021e3f48@mail.ilstu.edu>
 <5.1.1.6.0.20030927125347.02255300@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031001111111.0225c050@mail.ilstu.edu>

At 11:34 AM 10/1/2003 -0400, Bob Grumman wrote:
>>what do I care what it's called?  If I can fit it into my mouth, I eat 
>>it.  Ditto with commercial enterprises: who cares if a building is called 
>>a restaurant or a hardware store, for instance?  Most nuts and bolts will 
>>fit into your mouth!


When I reach for a pencil i must know whether it's my Dixon Ticonderoga 
canary yellow or the Spader octagonal in light blue. When i reach for one 
of the fp's, I'm not in the least concerned about its nib size or ink 
color, I want to know if its a Sheaffer Legacy in black an dgold, a black 
Esterbrook leverfill with silver trim, a Lamy 2000 piston fill, a Pelikan 
150 in maroon and black, a Parker 51 demi aeromatic in teal blue or just 
the teal blue Parker 51 Vacumatic. Such categories matter to the words I 
eventually write with each pen or pencil. I can't very well be writing 
about ducks with my Dixon Ticonderoga. Once wrote about a spider with the 
Spader; it was a disaster. 
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct  1 12:41:09 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 12:41:09 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20030927114658.021e3f48@mail.ilstu.edu> <5.1.1.6.0.20030927141040.02240198@mail.ilstu.edu> <03be01c3852c$f5d9c210$29b28051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <1b5201c3883a$d19cc9e0$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>

> > No email submissions, I'm afraid.
> >
> > Gabe
>
> K.  Fair,

Why is Gabe classifying some poems as "email submissions" and some as
something else?  I don't understand, but protest, anyway.  I noticed that in
another post he distinguished between poems a page long and poems longer
than that.  Why can't he loosen up?

--Bob G.





From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Oct  1 13:12:51 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 13:12:51 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
In-Reply-To: <123101c38833$1980ffe0$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F7AD2D3.17301.140F389@localhost>

Bob Grumman:
> ...  Verse, for me, is another name for poetry (which,
> figuratively speaking, is a class of items called games).
> Free verse and formal verse, for me, are two different kinds of
> poetry--or, figuratively speaking, two different kinds of games.  What
> in the world is your problem with this? ...<<

That's like saying that "game" and "sport" mean the same thing in 
order to avoid having to talk about the difference between 
gamesmanship and sportsmanship.








From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Oct  1 13:15:44 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 13:15:44 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
In-Reply-To: <122701c38832$378aee20$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F7AD380.13551.143964B@localhost>

Bob Grumman:
>...I show you a red object and tell you it is a colored object; then
> I show you a blue object and tell you it is a colored object.

And, analogically, destroy a useful distinction, just as you destroy 
one between verse and poetry. I get it. The question is, why do you 
want to destroy the useful distinction?







From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Wed Oct  1 14:03:37 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (tadrichards at prodigy.net)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 14:03:37 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River
Message-ID: <410-22003103118337520@M2W057.mail2web.com>

Don't write about a spider with a Spader,
A porker with a Parker 51
To write about a pellet with a Pilot,
You might as well have used a pellet gun.

Don't be too quick to flick your Bic
To billet-doux that crazy chick
And Shaeffer isn't safer for a mash note
Don't think you can seduce your neighbor 
With an Eberhart or Faber,
Even Pelikan is hardly passionate.


Frankly, friends, it's not so hip to 
use a Stratford or a Scripto
Waterman can't limn a waterfall,
Esterbrook can only babble
Staetler-Mars can't even Scrabble --
Best choice, folks, is not to write at all.


Tad




Original Message:
-----------------
From: Gabriel Gudding gmguddi at ilstu.edu
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 11:18:45 -0500
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River


At 11:34 AM 10/1/2003 -0400, Bob Grumman wrote:
>>what do I care what it's called?  If I can fit it into my mouth, I eat 
>>it.  Ditto with commercial enterprises: who cares if a building is called 
>>a restaurant or a hardware store, for instance?  Most nuts and bolts will 
>>fit into your mouth!


When I reach for a pencil i must know whether it's my Dixon Ticonderoga 
canary yellow or the Spader octagonal in light blue. When i reach for one 
of the fp's, I'm not in the least concerned about its nib size or ink 
color, I want to know if its a Sheaffer Legacy in black an dgold, a black 
Esterbrook leverfill with silver trim, a Lamy 2000 piston fill, a Pelikan 
150 in maroon and black, a Parker 51 demi aeromatic in teal blue or just 
the teal blue Parker 51 Vacumatic. Such categories matter to the words I 
eventually write with each pen or pencil. I can't very well be writing 
about ducks with my Dixon Ticonderoga. Once wrote about a spider with the 
Spader; it was a disaster. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct  1 19:47:31 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 19:47:31 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <3F7AD380.13551.143964B@localhost>
Message-ID: <1d7001c38876$6199e560$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>

> Bob Grumman:
> >...I show you a red object and tell you it is a colored object; then
> > I show you a blue object and tell you it is a colored object.
>
> And, analogically, destroy a useful distinction, just as you destroy
> one between verse and poetry.

No, I just free "verse" as a synonym for "poetry," which has no other
synonyms and needs some.  What you call "verse" remains under a different
name, "formal verse."

> I get it.

YOW!

>The question is, why do you
> want to destroy the useful distinction?

I can't remember, but will, I'm sure, when I get around to working on my
poetics again.  I didn't like doing it but felt I had to.  No time to say
more at present.

--Bob G.






From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct  1 19:56:26 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 19:56:26 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
References: <3F75CABC.6065C35F@localnet.com><5.1.1.6.0.20030927114658.021e3f48@mail.ilstu.edu><5.1.1.6.0.20030927125347.02255300@mail.ilstu.edu> <5.1.1.6.0.20031001111111.0225c050@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <1df601c38877$a0fe1e00$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>



  At 11:34 AM 10/1/2003 -0400, Bob Grumman wrote:

      what do I care what it's called?  If I can fit it into my mouth, I eat it.  Ditto with commercial enterprises: who cares if a building is called a restaurant or a hardware store, for instance?  Most nuts and bolts will fit into your mouth!


  When I reach for a pencil i must know whether it's my Dixon Ticonderoga canary yellow or the Spader octagonal in light blue. When i reach for one of the fp's, I'm not in the least concerned about its nib size or ink color, I want to know if its a Sheaffer Legacy in black an dgold, a black Esterbrook leverfill with silver trim, a Lamy 2000 piston fill, a Pelikan 150 in maroon and black, a Parker 51 demi aeromatic in teal blue or just the teal blue Parker 51 Vacumatic. Such categories matter to the words I eventually write with each pen or pencil. I can't very well be writing about ducks with my Dixon Ticonderoga. Once wrote about a spider with the Spader; it was a disaster. 


  Sorry, Gabe, but you seemed to be against categorizing poems, not against EXCESSIVELY categorizing poems.

  Aside from that, as a visual poet, I find the categorization of writing implements extremely useful when ordering them.

  --Bob G.
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Thu Oct  2 00:29:33 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 23:29:33 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon 
  River
In-Reply-To: <1df601c38877$a0fe1e00$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>
References: <3F75CABC.6065C35F@localnet.com>
 <5.1.1.6.0.20030927114658.021e3f48@mail.ilstu.edu>
 <5.1.1.6.0.20030927125347.02255300@mail.ilstu.edu>
 <5.1.1.6.0.20031001111111.0225c050@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031001232402.023fed38@mail.ilstu.edu>

then Bob Grumman wrote
>>Sorry, Gabe, but you seemed to be against categorizing poems, not against 
>>EXCESSIVELY categorizing poems.
>>
>>Aside from that, as a visual poet, I find the categorization of writing 
>>implements extremely useful when ordering them.

impossible not to categorize things, bob.
but i hope you do send us some visual poetry so that we can have the opp to 
include that category in srpr

please remember if you do wish to send, that you ought not put "spoon 
river" in the address, as those poems will then be sent to the other 
readers and they may reject you without knowing you're of the category 
known as new-poetry poet. ;)
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From cstroffo at earthlink.net  Wed Oct  1 18:40:06 2003
From: cstroffo at earthlink.net (Chris Stroffolino )
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 22:40:06 +0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
Message-ID: <200310020526.h925QdrQ177024@pimout4-ext.prodigy.net>

ah, he shows bunt and takes a ball...



----------
From: Gabriel Gudding <gmguddi at ilstu.edu>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2003, 4:29 AM


then Bob Grumman wrote
Sorry, Gabe, but you seemed to be against categorizing poems, not against
EXCESSIVELY categorizing poems.

Aside from that, as a visual poet, I find the categorization of writing
implements extremely useful when ordering them.

impossible not to categorize things, bob.
but i hope you do send us some visual poetry so that we can have the opp to
include that category in srpr

please remember if you do wish to send, that you ought not put "spoon river"
in the address, as those poems will then be sent to the other readers and
they may reject you without knowing you're of the category known as
new-poetry poet. ;) 
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Thu Oct  2 01:36:19 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 00:36:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon 
  River
In-Reply-To: <200310020526.h925QdrQ177024@pimout4-ext.prodigy.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031002003557.01239730@mail.ilstu.edu>

nah chris, i've already walked

At 10:40 PM 10/1/2003 +0000, Chris Stroffolino wrote:
>ah, he shows bunt and takes a ball...
>
>
>
>----------
>From: Gabriel Gudding <gmguddi at ilstu.edu>
>To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
>Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2003, 4:29 AM
>
>then Bob Grumman wrote
>Sorry, Gabe, but you seemed to be against categorizing poems, not against 
>EXCESSIVELY categorizing poems.
>
>Aside from that, as a visual poet, I find the categorization of writing 
>implements extremely useful when ordering them.
>
>impossible not to categorize things, bob.
>but i hope you do send us some visual poetry so that we can have the opp 
>to include that category in srpr
>
>please remember if you do wish to send, that you ought not put "spoon 
>river" in the address, as those poems will then be sent to the other 
>readers and they may reject you without knowing you're of the category 
>known as new-poetry poet. ;)
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From cstroffo at earthlink.net  Wed Oct  1 19:17:55 2003
From: cstroffo at earthlink.net (Chris Stroffolino )
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 23:17:55 +0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
Message-ID: <200310020604.h9264SrQ085552@pimout4-ext.prodigy.net>

just don't burn yourself out on extra-innings....
i know you want to beat the yankees

----------
From: Gabriel Gudding <gmguddi at ilstu.edu>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2003, 5:36 AM


nah chris, i've already walked

At 10:40 PM 10/1/2003 +0000, Chris Stroffolino wrote:
ah, he shows bunt and takes a ball...



----------
From: Gabriel Gudding <gmguddi at ilstu.edu>
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2003, 4:29 AM

then Bob Grumman wrote Sorry, Gabe, but you seemed to be against
categorizing poems, not against EXCESSIVELY categorizing poems.  Aside from
that, as a visual poet, I find the categorization of writing implements
extremely useful when ordering them.
impossible not to categorize things, bob.
but i hope you do send us some visual poetry so that we can have the opp to
include that category in srpr

please remember if you do wish to send, that you ought not put "spoon river"
in the address, as those poems will then be sent to the other readers and
they may reject you without knowing you're of the category known as
new-poetry poet. ;)

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Oct  2 05:47:36 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 05:47:36 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
References: <200310020526.h925QdrQ177024@pimout4-ext.prodigy.net>
Message-ID: <015f01c388ca$3634b0e0$e031fea9@j1c1k6>

Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River

  ah, he shows bunt and takes a ball...

  Whaddya mean?  It was a called strike!

  --Bob G.

  ----------
  From: Gabriel Gudding <gmguddi at ilstu.edu>
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
  Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2003, 4:29 AM



    then Bob Grumman wrote

        Sorry, Gabe, but you seemed to be against categorizing poems, not against EXCESSIVELY categorizing poems.
         
        Aside from that, as a visual poet, I find the categorization of writing implements extremely useful when ordering them.


    impossible not to categorize things, bob. 
    but i hope you do send us some visual poetry so that we can have the opp to include that category in srpr

    please remember if you do wish to send, that you ought not put "spoon river" in the address, as those poems will then be sent to the other readers and they may reject you without knowing you're of the category known as new-poetry poet. ;) 

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Oct  2 05:48:51 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 05:48:51 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20031002003557.01239730@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <016a01c388ca$62cbca80$e031fea9@j1c1k6>



  nah chris, i've already walked


  Three strikes don't equal a walk in my taxonomy.

  --Bob G.


  At 10:40 PM 10/1/2003 +0000, Chris Stroffolino wrote:

    ah, he shows bunt and takes a ball...



    ----------
    From: Gabriel Gudding <gmguddi at ilstu.edu>
    To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
    Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
    Date: Thu, Oct 2, 2003, 4:29 AM


      then Bob Grumman wrote 
      Sorry, Gabe, but you seemed to be against categorizing poems, not against EXCESSIVELY categorizing poems. 
        
      Aside from that, as a visual poet, I find the categorization of writing implements extremely useful when ordering them. 

    impossible not to categorize things, bob. 
    but i hope you do send us some visual poetry so that we can have the opp to include that category in srpr

    please remember if you do wish to send, that you ought not put "spoon river" in the address, as those poems will then be sent to the other readers and they may reject you without knowing you're of the category known as new-poetry poet. ;) 

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Oct  2 05:53:20 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 05:53:20 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon  River
References: <3F75CABC.6065C35F@localnet.com><5.1.1.6.0.20030927114658.021e3f48@mail.ilstu.edu><5.1.1.6.0.20030927125347.02255300@mail.ilstu.edu><5.1.1.6.0.20031001111111.0225c050@mail.ilstu.edu> <5.1.1.6.0.20031001232402.023fed38@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <017401c388cb$039a7a60$e031fea9@j1c1k6>



  then Bob Grumman wrote

      Sorry, Gabe, but you seemed to be against categorizing poems, not against EXCESSIVELY categorizing poems.
       
      Aside from that, as a visual poet, I find the categorization of writing implements extremely useful when ordering them.

  impossible not to categorize things, bob. 
  but i hope you do send us some visual poetry so that we can have the opp to include that category in srpr

  Will try, Gabe, but haven't done any new ones in a while--plus, most of my current work is in color, and is kinda lame in black and white.

  --Bob G.
   


  please remember if you do wish to send, that you ought not put "spoon river" in the address, as those poems will then be sent to the other readers and they may reject you without knowing you're of the category known as new-poetry poet. ;) 
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From CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com  Thu Oct  2 09:47:03 2003
From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com (CobbCoStudioArts)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 06:47:03 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River
Message-ID: <20031002134703.8FEF4394D@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Oct  2 10:27:57 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 10:27:57 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
In-Reply-To: <1d7001c38876$6199e560$2bb4fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F7BFDAD.20662.9F8835@localhost>

Bob Grumman: 
> No, I just free "verse" as a synonym for "poetry," which has no other
> synonyms and needs some.  What you call "verse" remains under a
> different name, "formal verse."<<

"Verse" is not a synonym for "poetry" except among people who don't 
know or who can't tell or who have an agenda to dismiss the 
difference. 





From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Thu Oct  2 10:59:10 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 09:59:10 -0500 
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A0A9@mail.ripon.edu>

	<<<<<<"Verse" is not a synonym for "poetry" except among people who
don't 
> know or who can't tell or who have an agenda to dismiss the 
> difference. 
> 
> 
> 
Always nice to have a chance to post this one:


What Is Poetry


     The medieval town, with frieze
     Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow

     That came when we wanted it to snow?
     Beautiful images? Trying to avoid

     Ideas, as in this poem? But we
     Go back to them as to a wife, leaving

     The mistress we desire? Now they
     Will have to believe it

     As we believed it. In school
     All the thought got combed out:

     What was left was like a field.
     Shut your eyes, and you can feel it for miles around.

     Now open them on a thin vertical path.
     It might give us--what?--some flowers soon?

--John Ashbery

============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================




From halvard at earthlink.net  Thu Oct  2 11:11:37 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 11:11:37 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry
In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A0A9@mail.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEAEACHHAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

For shame, David. Flinging Ashbery in Marcus's face is
cruel and unusual punishment. ;)

Hal          "Cuidado: Piso Mojado."

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
   
{    	<<<<<<"Verse" is not a synonym for "poetry" except among people who
{    don't 
{    > know or who can't tell or who have an agenda to dismiss the 
{    > difference. 
{    > 
{    > 
{    > 
{    Always nice to have a chance to post this one:
{    
{    
{    What Is Poetry
{    
{    
{         The medieval town, with frieze
{         Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow
{    
{         That came when we wanted it to snow?
{         Beautiful images? Trying to avoid
{    
{         Ideas, as in this poem? But we
{         Go back to them as to a wife, leaving
{    
{         The mistress we desire? Now they
{         Will have to believe it
{    
{         As we believed it. In school
{         All the thought got combed out:
{    
{         What was left was like a field.
{         Shut your eyes, and you can feel it for miles around.
{    
{         Now open them on a thin vertical path.
{         It might give us--what?--some flowers soon?
{    
{    --John Ashbery
{    
{    ============================================
{    David Graham
{    Department of English, Ripon College
{    grahamd at ripon.edu
{         Home Page:  
{    http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
{         My Poetry Library:
{    http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
{    
{    Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
{    ============================================
{    
{    
{    _______________________________________________
{    New-Poetry mailing list
{    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Thu Oct  2 11:26:24 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (tadrichards at prodigy.net)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 11:26:24 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River
Message-ID: <8826845ad86f4aa6abd3da207339f63c@prodigy.net>

Bob -- thanks.


Original Message:
-----------------
From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 06:47:03 -0700 (PDT)
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River

Tad,

I like that!  Of course, a stick in the dirt, cuneiform on a clay tablet, or paint on a rock are good first choices! ;-)

Bob


Poetry Catamaran

"Just how advanced a poetic craft need be to sail along the 'known mainstream' down to the poetic sea?"

Robert R. Cobb
AMONG FRIENDS, original art and poetry.
http://rrcobb.tripod.com



--- "tadrichards at prodigy.net" <tadrichards at prodigy.net> wrote:
Don't write about a spider with a Spader,
A porker with a Parker 51
To write about a pellet with a Pilot,
You might as well have used a pellet gun.

Don't be too quick to flick your Bic
To billet-doux that crazy chick
And Shaeffer isn't safer for a mash note
Don't think you can seduce your neighbor 
With an Eberhart or Faber,
Even Pelikan is hardly passionate.


Frankly, friends, it's not so hip to 
use a Stratford or a Scripto
Waterman can't limn a waterfall,
Esterbrook can only babble
Staetler-Mars can't even Scrabble --
Best choice, folks, is not to write at all.


Tad




Original Message:
-----------------
From: Gabriel Gudding gmguddi at ilstu.edu
Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 11:18:45 -0500
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River


At 11:34 AM 10/1/2003 -0400, Bob Grumman wrote:
>>what do I care what it's called?  If I can fit it into my mouth, I eat 
>>it.  Ditto with commercial enterprises: who cares if a building is called 
>>a restaurant or a hardware store, for instance?  Most nuts and bolts will 
>>fit into your mouth!


When I reach for a pencil i must know whether it's my Dixon Ticonderoga 
canary yellow or the Spader octagonal in light blue. When i reach for one 
of the fp's, I'm not in the least concerned about its nib size or ink 
color, I want to know if its a Sheaffer Legacy in black an dgold, a black 
Esterbrook leverfill with silver trim, a Lamy 2000 piston fill, a Pelikan 
150 in maroon and black, a Parker 51 demi aeromatic in teal blue or just 
the teal blue Parker 51 Vacumatic. Such categories matter to the words I 
eventually write with each pen or pencil. I can't very well be writing 
about ducks with my Dixon Ticonderoga. Once wrote about a spider with the 
Spader; it was a disaster. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .



_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


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From JforJames at aol.com  Thu Oct  2 12:31:02 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 12:31:02 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] No Po Nobel
Message-ID: <1cb.11d61db3.2cadacc6@aol.com>

There has been no Nobelesse oblige
toward poetry of late. Poets have been 
shut out for the past 7 years....

2003 John Maxwell Coetzee

2002 Imre Kert?sz

2001 V.S. Naipaul

2000 Gao Xingjian

1999 G?nter Grass

1998 Jos? Saramago

1997 Dario Fo

1996 Wislawa Szymborska





From DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com  Thu Oct  2 14:00:48 2003
From: DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com (DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 03 14:00:48 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <200310021758.h92Hwu4D218844@northrelay02.pok.ibm.com>

>>For shame, David. Flinging Ashbery in Marcus's face is
>>cruel and unusual punishment. ;)
>>
>>Hal          "Cuidado: Piso Mojado."

Maybe.  But he's earned it.
Richard


From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Thu Oct  2 14:59:17 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 13:59:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon
  River
In-Reply-To: <8826845ad86f4aa6abd3da207339f63c@prodigy.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031002135842.0237d600@mail.ilstu.edu>

yeah, that was a delightful poem, tad, made me chuckle, great off-the-cuff 
yodeling. ;)

At 11:26 AM 10/2/2003 -0400, tadrichards at prodigy.net wrote:

>Bob -- thanks.
>
>
>Original Message:
>-----------------
>From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com
>Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 06:47:03 -0700 (PDT)
>To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River
>
>Tad,
>
>I like that!  Of course, a stick in the dirt, cuneiform on a clay tablet, 
>or paint on a rock are good first choices! ;-)
>
>Bob
>
>
>Poetry Catamaran
>
>"Just how advanced a poetic craft need be to sail along the 'known 
>mainstream' down to the poetic sea?"
>
>Robert R. Cobb
>AMONG FRIENDS, original art and poetry.
>http://rrcobb.tripod.com
>
>
>
>--- "tadrichards at prodigy.net" <tadrichards at prodigy.net> wrote:
>Don't write about a spider with a Spader,
>A porker with a Parker 51
>To write about a pellet with a Pilot,
>You might as well have used a pellet gun.
>
>Don't be too quick to flick your Bic
>To billet-doux that crazy chick
>And Shaeffer isn't safer for a mash note
>Don't think you can seduce your neighbor
>With an Eberhart or Faber,
>Even Pelikan is hardly passionate.
>
>
>Frankly, friends, it's not so hip to
>use a Stratford or a Scripto
>Waterman can't limn a waterfall,
>Esterbrook can only babble
>Staetler-Mars can't even Scrabble --
>Best choice, folks, is not to write at all.
>
>
>Tad
>
>
>
>
>Original Message:
>-----------------
>From: Gabriel Gudding gmguddi at ilstu.edu
>Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 11:18:45 -0500
>To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River
>
>
>At 11:34 AM 10/1/2003 -0400, Bob Grumman wrote:
> >>what do I care what it's called?  If I can fit it into my mouth, I eat
> >>it.  Ditto with commercial enterprises: who cares if a building is called
> >>a restaurant or a hardware store, for instance?  Most nuts and bolts will
> >>fit into your mouth!
>
>
>When I reach for a pencil i must know whether it's my Dixon Ticonderoga
>canary yellow or the Spader octagonal in light blue. When i reach for one
>of the fp's, I'm not in the least concerned about its nib size or ink
>color, I want to know if its a Sheaffer Legacy in black an dgold, a black
>Esterbrook leverfill with silver trim, a Lamy 2000 piston fill, a Pelikan
>150 in maroon and black, a Parker 51 demi aeromatic in teal blue or just
>the teal blue Parker 51 Vacumatic. Such categories matter to the words I
>eventually write with each pen or pencil. I can't very well be writing
>about ducks with my Dixon Ticonderoga. Once wrote about a spider with the
>Spader; it was a disaster.
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>mail2web - Check your email from the web at
>http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>New-Poetry mailing list
>New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>_______________________________________________
>New-Poetry mailing list
>New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------
>mail2web.com&#153; - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>New-Poetry mailing list
>New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From William_Knott at emerson.edu  Thu Oct  2 15:08:29 2003
From: William_Knott at emerson.edu (William Knott)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 15:08:29 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] are there any poet slash photographers out there in po-land????
Message-ID: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CF8F@mail.emerson.edu>

one of my grad MFAers wants "to publish my poems and photographs together"

.... she wants to know of poet-photographers she can look to for inspiration and guidance. . .. .   do such exist?   Names please to pass on to her. . .

are there mags (print or web) that publish these hybrids???

thanks for your help and suggestions......


bill knott
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From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Thu Oct  2 15:08:13 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 14:08:13 -0500 
Subject: [New-Poetry] Others
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A0AF@mail.ripon.edu>

Traveling through the Yard

		          (for William Stafford)

It was lying near my back porch
in the gaudy light of morning--
a dove corpse, oddly featherless,
alive with flies.
I stopped,
dustpan in hand, and heard
them purr over their feast.
To leave that there would make some stink!
So thinking hard for all of us,
I scooped it up, heaved it
across the marriage counselor's fence.

-- Rae Armantrout.  *Veil:  New & Selected Poems*.  Wesleyan UP, 2001.
(originally published 1985)


============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================



From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Thu Oct  2 15:16:37 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 15:16:37 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] are there any poet slash photographers out there in po-land????
References: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CF8F@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <001601c38919$b3cba000$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

I do poems and drawings together, and I'll be glad to talk to her about
that, but I know it's not the same thing.

Tad


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "William Knott" <William_Knott at emerson.edu>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 3:08 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] are there any poet slash photographers out there in
po-land????


one of my grad MFAers wants "to publish my poems and photographs together"

.... she wants to know of poet-photographers she can look to for inspiration
and guidance. . .. .   do such exist?   Names please to pass on to her. . .

are there mags (print or web) that publish these hybrids???

thanks for your help and suggestions......


bill knott



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Thu Oct  2 15:23:44 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 21:23:44 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] are there any poet slash photographers out there in po-land????
References: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CF8F@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <007c01c3891a$b2725c20$61737450@anny>

Let me boast a little, here is a page dedicated to the work by David Howard,
Social Studies is the best composition online I was able to do of Fiona
Pardington's work as a photographer for Howard's poems:

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=18

and here is my review of the book, How To Occupy Ourselves by D. Howard:

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=50

Moreover, you can open the poems by Deborah Russell, the pictures were taken
by the Author, and she told me how to match pic with poem:

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=13

I am the curator of the page: the Poets' Corner.

And here are some of my drawings for the translation I did in Italian for a
book for children by Larry Jaffe, only the first chapters are online,
http://www.loso.it/poiein/infanzia/JL/lj0.htm

Thank you for allowing me to boombaloom-Boast, and good luck for your future
publication,
anny

From: "William Knott" <William_Knott at emerson.edu>


one of my grad MFAers wants "to publish my poems and photographs together"

.... she wants to know of poet-photographers she can look to for inspiration
and guidance. . .. .   do such exist?   Names please to pass on to her. . .

are there mags (print or web) that publish these hybrids???

thanks for your help and suggestions......


bill knott




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Oct  2 16:37:28 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 16:37:28 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <3F7BFDAD.20662.9F8835@localhost>
Message-ID: <01b901c38924$ff25c840$e0dbfea9@j1c1k6>

> Bob Grumman:
> > No, I just free "verse" as a synonym for "poetry," which has no other
> > synonyms and needs some.  What you call "verse" remains under a
> > different name, "formal verse."<<
>
> "Verse" is not a synonym for "poetry" except among people who don't
> know or who can't tell or who have an agenda to dismiss the
> difference.

I'm not so sure of that.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen it used to mean
poetry by people in none of your categories.  I would argue it ought to mean
only one thing, just as I argue, a minority of one, that "art" should mean
only one thing.  I used "verse" in my Most Important Sonnet in the phrase
"Roethke's verse" to stand for poetry because I "poetry" had too many
syllables.  I'm sure any reader would know I meant all his poetry.

Anyway, you're ad hominemming.  The question is whether it is proper to use
"verse" to mean "poetry."  Difficult question for me that I've answered
somewhere between tentatively and permanently (for myself) abd an easy one
for you that you seem to have answered permanently.

Do you feel no poetics term should have its meaning changed?

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Oct  2 16:40:38 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 16:40:38 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A0A9@mail.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <01d001c38925$7074bd80$e0dbfea9@j1c1k6>

Thanks for one of the few Ashbery poems I've enjoyed, David.  It has nothing
to do with poetics, though.

--Bob G.

> <<<<<<"Verse" is not a synonym for "poetry" except among people who
> don't
> > know or who can't tell or who have an agenda to dismiss the
> > difference.
> >
> >
> >
> Always nice to have a chance to post this one:
>
>
> What Is Poetry
>
>
>      The medieval town, with frieze
>      Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow
>
>      That came when we wanted it to snow?
>      Beautiful images? Trying to avoid
>
>      Ideas, as in this poem? But we
>      Go back to them as to a wife, leaving
>
>      The mistress we desire? Now they
>      Will have to believe it
>
>      As we believed it. In school
>      All the thought got combed out:
>
>      What was left was like a field.
>      Shut your eyes, and you can feel it for miles around.
>
>      Now open them on a thin vertical path.
>      It might give us--what?--some flowers soon?
>
> --John Ashbery




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Oct  2 16:45:42 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 16:45:42 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] No Po Nobel
References: <1cb.11d61db3.2cadacc6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <01ff01c38926$25b9c500$e0dbfea9@j1c1k6>

Playwrights have done worse, yes?

Screenwriters--still entirely shut out?

Is the temporal distance of prize-awarders from the best in any art directly
proportionate to the size and prestige among the ignorant of the award?

--Bob G.



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Thu Oct  2 16:47:21 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 22:47:21 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] No Po Nobel
References: <1cb.11d61db3.2cadacc6@aol.com> <01ff01c38926$25b9c500$e0dbfea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <00d601c38926$610b5100$61737450@anny>

Not that I particularly liked him, but he was a playwright, actor, and so
and such:
1997 Dario Fo



From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> Playwrights have done worse, yes?
>
> Screenwriters--still entirely shut out?
>
> Is the temporal distance of prize-awarders from the best in any art
directly
> proportionate to the size and prestige among the ignorant of the award?
>
> --Bob G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Thu Oct  2 04:18:03 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 10:18:03 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River
References: <410-22003103118337520@M2W057.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <000201c38928$ce724bc0$ab84fac1@pavilion>

I enjoyed reading your poem, Tad.

James Alexander


----- Original Message -----
From: <tadrichards at prodigy.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 01, 2003 8:03 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River


> Don't write about a spider with a Spader,
> A porker with a Parker 51
> To write about a pellet with a Pilot,
> You might as well have used a pellet gun.
>
> Don't be too quick to flick your Bic
> To billet-doux that crazy chick
> And Shaeffer isn't safer for a mash note
> Don't think you can seduce your neighbor
> With an Eberhart or Faber,
> Even Pelikan is hardly passionate.
>
>
> Frankly, friends, it's not so hip to
> use a Stratford or a Scripto
> Waterman can't limn a waterfall,
> Esterbrook can only babble
> Staetler-Mars can't even Scrabble --
> Best choice, folks, is not to write at all.
>
>
> Tad
>
>
>
>
> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From: Gabriel Gudding gmguddi at ilstu.edu
> Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 11:18:45 -0500
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] please submit work to new version of Spoon River
>
>
> At 11:34 AM 10/1/2003 -0400, Bob Grumman wrote:
> >>what do I care what it's called?  If I can fit it into my mouth, I eat
> >>it.  Ditto with commercial enterprises: who cares if a building is
called
> >>a restaurant or a hardware store, for instance?  Most nuts and bolts
will
> >>fit into your mouth!
>
>
> When I reach for a pencil i must know whether it's my Dixon Ticonderoga
> canary yellow or the Spader octagonal in light blue. When i reach for one
> of the fp's, I'm not in the least concerned about its nib size or ink
> color, I want to know if its a Sheaffer Legacy in black an dgold, a black
> Esterbrook leverfill with silver trim, a Lamy 2000 piston fill, a Pelikan
> 150 in maroon and black, a Parker 51 demi aeromatic in teal blue or just
> the teal blue Parker 51 Vacumatic. Such categories matter to the words I
> eventually write with each pen or pencil. I can't very well be writing
> about ducks with my Dixon Ticonderoga. Once wrote about a spider with the
> Spader; it was a disaster.
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> mail2web - Check your email from the web at
> http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Thu Oct  2 10:26:41 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 16:26:41 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Merwin
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A09F@mail.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <000901c38928$d6fe6800$ab84fac1@pavilion>

Thanks for the poem & it's...encouragement I guess
----- Original Message -----
From: "Graham, David" <GrahamD at ripon.edu>
To: "'New-Poetry'" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2003 5:30 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Merwin


> Garrison Keillor informs me that today is W. S. Merwin's birthday.  Here's
> WSM's take on John Berryman--
>
> Berryman
>
> I will tell you what he told me
> in the years just after the war
> as we then called
> the second world war
>
> don't lose your arrogance yet he said
> you can do that when you're older
> lose it too soon and you may
> merely replace it with vanity
>
> just one time he suggested
> changing the usual order
> of the same words in a line of verse
> why point out a thing twice
>
> he suggested I pray to the Muse
> get down on my knees and pray
> right there in the corner and he
> said he meant it literally
>
> it was in the days before the beard
> and the drink but he was deep
> in tides of his own through which he sailed
> chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop
>
> he was far older than the dates allowed for
> much older than I was he was in his thirties
> he snapped down his nose with an accent
> I think he had affected in England
>
> as for publishing he advised me
> to paper my wall with rejection slips
> his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled
> with the vehemence of his views about poetry
>
> he said the great presence
> that permitted everything and transmuted it
> in poetry was passion
> passion was genius and he praised movement and invention
>
> I had hardly begun to read
> I asked how can you ever be sure
> that what you write is really
> any good at all and he said you can't
>
> you can't you can never be sure
> you die without knowing
> whether anything you wrote was any good
> if you have to be sure don't write
>
> -- W.S. Merwin.  Flower & Hand (Copper Canyon Press).
>
>
>
>
> ============================================
> David Graham
> Department of English, Ripon College
> grahamd at ripon.edu
>      Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
>      My Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
>
> Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
> ============================================
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Thu Oct  2 14:17:18 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 20:17:18 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A082@mail.ripon.edu> <5.2.1.1.0.20030922144539.00bacc30@medicine.nodak.edu>
Message-ID: <000d01c38928$e544e2e0$ab84fac1@pavilion>

The Golfer (Early Autumn) Early autumn.

You don't notice the wind,
such is your steely resistance,
Till the leaves change colour,
flatten, light green consistence.
Sitting under the wind,
stronger now, the branches sway.
The first raindrops fall,
It is too late for match play.


? J.A.
World wide to walk on the green WWW ong.  Sept./0ct1999.


Sounds for the deaf & for solitary golf by -60C/279 ?Kelvin.

The sun shone an the first green and the second tee
The young oak looked on amused at these futile gests
Her leaves golden spoke tinkling, tinkling falling free
Floating in the early frosted air to a final tinkled rest
I stained my ear to listen to natures tune

From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Thu Oct  2 14:32:15 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 20:32:15 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Jaggy Stuff
References: <1a0.1757d207.2c3517c1@aol.com>
Message-ID: <000e01c38928$e615ee80$ab84fac1@pavilion>

Oh! I thought you had all read this?

Sorry I did not respond before. Thanks for taking the time to read me.  The cross exists, in a town in S.W. Scotland as does-did the gents clothes shop, Adam's, a sad story of  late-friends, man & wife both classmates of mine.

In memoriam

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: JackTar at aol.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2003 7:23 AM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Jaggy Stuff


  Battle Song - Jaggy Stuff.

  (Ode to?)

   

                                                        He looked at himself in the glacey mirror        (?glacey?, cold- franglais->glassy)

  And what he saw was war and terror.

  He looked again and remembered his dream

  His franglais, mixed, shone not quite clean,

  As the laser beam, sharp and unbent

  Highly directional, monochromatic, coherent

  Bringing secour, help and relief at last.

   

  He looked at his dream as a man afar, vast

  Like the antimatter in the quantum glass,

  Present and past in one place on the cross.

  Which door was number three? Right? No left.

  Upon opening was a man, on the table edge deft,

  Behind young cronies drinking merry.

  I left this boat, suffocating ferry.

   

  It was night but the day was dawning.

  I breathed afresh the new belief spawning

  I looked and saw, I listened and heard

  A voice from the other side, (Adams) said

  -Cried out, Morin is dead. I half awoke              

  In the grey and an idea broke,

  untwining the ?frangais? laser clear.

   

  ?Mort? in! ?Death in?, is dead, reborn hear!

   

  I left my long commatic state

  To breath again, with life a date.

   

  J. Alexander (about12/12/98).

  Copyright ? J.A.

  ( Scanned and punctuated 15/12/2001-8/01/2002 Ed.19/03/2003).

   







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From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Oct  2 16:17:57 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 16:17:57 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry
In-Reply-To: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A0A9@mail.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3F7C4FB5.6767.1DFF7C2@localhost>

On 2 Oct 2003 at 9:59, Graham, David wrote:
> What Is Poetry
>      The medieval town, with frieze
>      Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow  ...
> --John Ashbery

Essays in Criticism
Anthony Thwaite
 
I like this more than that.
That is better than this.
This means this and that.
That is what this one wrote.
This is not that at all.
This is no good at all.
Some prefer this to that
But frankly this is old hat.
This is what Thissites call
Inferior this, and yet
I hope I have shown you all
That that way likes a brick wall
Where even to say ?Yes, but
?
Confuses the this with the that.
 
Instead, we must ask, ?What is this??
Then, ?Is that that sort of this,
Or a modified this, or a miss
As good as a mile, or a style
Adopted by that for this
To demonstrate thisness to those
Who expect a that-inclined prose
Always from this one?a stock
Response from readers like these.?
But of course the whole thing?s a trick
To make you place them among those
Who only follow their nose,
Who are caught on the this/that spike
But who think they know what they like.

                   --Anthony Thwaite






From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Oct  2 17:47:47 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 17:47:47 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
In-Reply-To: <01b901c38924$ff25c840$e0dbfea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F7C64C3.28636.23236CC@localhost>

> I'm not so sure of that.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen it used
> to mean poetry by people in none of your categories.<<

Context, of course, can make it clear that by using "verse" one means 
"poetry", or vice versa -- but we're not talking about those kinds of 
gray-area uses. We're talking about using "verse" and "poetry" as 
terms of art in a discussion of several hundred years's standing, and 
you're denying that the terms of art can mean what they've come to 
mean as terms of art. You want to conflate their meanings in all 
instances, saying that they mean "the same thing" when they clearly 
do not.

> ... I used "verse" in my Most Important
> Sonnet in the phrase "Roethke's verse" to stand for poetry because I
> "poetry" had too many syllables.  I'm sure any reader would know I
> meant all his poetry.<<

Not necessarily at all -- it depends on the context in which you use 
it. Not just the formal context (it's a sonnet and "verse" has one 
and "poetry" three syllables) but in the context of the meaning -- 
just how you used it. You might have used it disparagingly to 
indicate that you felt that none of Roethke's work qualified as 
"poetry", for example. I don't know if you did, and it doesn't matter 
if you did -- you COULD have, easily, because context could easily 
have determined "verse" to mean something disparaging or dismissive; 
just as easily as it could mean "poetry", depending on usage.

> Anyway, you're ad hominemming.<<

No, I'm not -- I'm suggesting that those who hold that "verse" and 
"poetry" are the same are either unaware of the long-standing 
differences (which is not ad hominem), or cannot understand the 
differences (which is ad hominem only if you put yourself in that 
category, which I do not), or who have an agenda to conflate the two, 
which is also not ad hominem.

> Do you feel no poetics term should have its meaning changed?<

No, terms change gradually all the time. For example, "sophisticated" 
used to mean what we'd now call "adulterated", and not what we also 
call "cosmopolitan" now. But the distinction between "verse" and 
"poetry" is one that can be traced back to the Renaissance's re-
discovery of Aristotle, and their interpretation of Aristotle's ideas 
about Greek drama in terms of Renaissance art.

Why give up on a distinction that's proved useful for hundreds of 
years?  What's the agenda for conflating "verse" and "poetry"?







From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Thu Oct  2 18:20:38 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 18:20:38 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] No Po Nobel
References: <1cb.11d61db3.2cadacc6@aol.com> <01ff01c38926$25b9c500$e0dbfea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <013001c38933$68ebd810$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

Dario Fo was a playwright.

Do you suppose his connection with screenwriting was what zeroed out Graham
Greene?


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 4:45 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] No Po Nobel


> Playwrights have done worse, yes?
>
> Screenwriters--still entirely shut out?
>
> Is the temporal distance of prize-awarders from the best in any art
directly
> proportionate to the size and prestige among the ignorant of the award?
>
> --Bob G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From antrobin at clipper.net  Thu Oct  2 18:36:17 2003
From: antrobin at clipper.net (Anthony Robinson)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 15:36:17 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: are there any poet slash photographers out there in po-land????
In-Reply-To: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CF8F@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <000d01c38935$a2d7f5c0$74331c40@Emily>

Bill,

The Northwest Review has done this sort of thing.  We have an art
feature each issue, and sometimes poem/photograph combos are used.

Tony

-----Original Message-----
From: William Knott [mailto:new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf
Of William Knott
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 12:08 PM
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: are there any poet slash photographers out there in po-land????

one of my grad MFAers wants "to publish my poems and photographs
together"

.... she wants to know of poet-photographers she can look to for
inspiration and guidance. . .. .   do such exist?   Names please to pass
on to her. . .

are there mags (print or web) that publish these hybrids???

thanks for your help and suggestions......


bill knott




From chris at chrislott.org  Thu Oct  2 18:40:23 2003
From: chris at chrislott.org (Chris Lott)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 14:40:23 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] No Po Nobel
In-Reply-To: <1cb.11d61db3.2cadacc6@aol.com>
References: <1cb.11d61db3.2cadacc6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F7CA957.2080909@chrislott.org>

JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> There has been no Nobelesse oblige
> toward poetry of late. Poets have been 
> shut out for the past 7 years....

The selection committee is waiting for the definitive definition of 
poetry first. I understand Coetzee composes a mean limerick, a form most 
agree does exist.

c
-- 
Chris Lott (chris at chrislott.org)
http://www.chrislott.org/

"Him you do not teach to fly, teach to fall faster." --Nietzsche





From MIM47 at aol.com  Thu Oct  2 18:57:44 2003
From: MIM47 at aol.com (MIM47 at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 18:57:44 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] pens and pencils
Message-ID: <102.36957f07.2cae0768@aol.com>

I have been described by various friends, colleagues, and family members as 
out of control on the pen and pencil obsession that grips me (pun intended). I 
can be writing right along and suddenly that pen will no longer do. I am off 
in a mad scramble to find one that will suffice. 

And pencils....ahhh pencils. Color (body of), point sharpness, lead softness 
levels, what kind of logo might be on the body, all are huge pencil issues. 

And there's that "writer's bump" on the "tall-man" finger of my writing hand. 
I've cultivated it carefully and consciously since 4th grade. When it seems 
to be shrinking I know there is a vacation from the computer keyboard in the 
offing!


Carol Bachofner

Once I was out somewhere and found myself not to have a pen or pencil in my 
bag. I began to sweat and had to go to a store and get one of each. Panic was 
beginning to set in and I needed to feel secure.



From paul at tbhinc.com  Thu Oct  2 19:09:55 2003
From: paul at tbhinc.com (Paul C. Howell)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 19:09:55 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <200310022146.h92Lk5ST008404@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20031002190740.03b1fae8@mail.tbhinc.com>

Keep tossing poems over the net, and when time's up the jury will award a 
wreath.

This is good sport.

On 2 Oct 2003 at 9:59, Graham, David wrote:
 > What Is Poetry
 >      The medieval town, with frieze
 >      Of boy scouts from Nagoya? The snow  ...
 > --John Ashbery

Essays in Criticism
Anthony Thwaite

I like this more than that.
That is better than this.
This means this and that.
That is what this one wrote.
This is not that at all.
This is no good at all.
Some prefer this to that
But frankly this is old hat.
This is what Thissites call
Inferior this, and yet
I hope I have shown you all
That that way likes a brick wall
Where even to say ?Yes, but
?
Confuses the this with the that.

Instead, we must ask, ?What is this??
Then, ?Is that that sort of this,
Or a modified this, or a miss
As good as a mile, or a style
Adopted by that for this
To demonstrate thisness to those
Who expect a that-inclined prose
Always from this one?a stock
Response from readers like these.?
But of course the whole thing?s a trick
To make you place them among those
Who only follow their nose,
Who are caught on the this/that spike
But who think they know what they like.

                    --Anthony Thwaite




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Oct  2 21:16:07 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 21:16:07 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <3F7C64C3.28636.23236CC@localhost>
Message-ID: <003901c3894b$ed190be0$b8edfea9@j1c1k6>

> > I'm not so sure of that.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I've seen it used
> > to mean poetry by people in none of your categories.<<
>
> Context, of course, can make it clear that by using "verse" one means
> "poetry", or vice versa -- but we're not talking about those kinds of
> gray-area uses. We're talking about using "verse" and "poetry" as
> terms of art in a discussion of several hundred years's standing, and
> you're denying that the terms of art can mean what they've come to
> mean as terms of art. You want to conflate their meanings in all
> instances, saying that they mean "the same thing" when they clearly
> do not.

Actually, I'm saying that in MY poetics they mean the same thing.  That they
also mean the same thing in dictionaries for the general public suggests to
me I'm nottoo flagrantly opposing traditional usage.

> > ... I used "verse" in my Most Important
> > Sonnet in the phrase "Roethke's verse" to stand for poetry because I
> > "poetry" had too many syllables.  I'm sure any reader would know I
> > meant all his poetry.<<
>
> Not necessarily at all -- it depends on the context in which you use
> it. Not just the formal context (it's a sonnet and "verse" has one
> and "poetry" three syllables) but in the context of the meaning --
> just how you used it.

Sure.  And I'm saying that its meaning in the poem I'm speaking of would be
clear.

>You might have used it disparagingly to
> indicate that you felt that none of Roethke's work qualified as
> "poetry", for example. I don't know if you did, and it doesn't matter
> if you did -- you COULD have, easily, because context could easily
> have determined "verse" to mean something disparaging or dismissive;
> just as easily as it could mean "poetry", depending on usage.

Right.

> > Anyway, you're ad hominemming.<<
>
> No, I'm not -- I'm suggesting that those who hold that "verse" and
> "poetry" are the same are either unaware of the long-standing
> differences (which is not ad hominem), or cannot understand the
> differences (which is ad hominem only if you put yourself in that
> category, which I do not), or who have an agenda to conflate the two,
> which is also not ad hominem.

You're ad hominemming--because you're concerning yourself with motives,
which are irrelevant.  And you seem to be doing this to show that only
people with bad motives conflate the two.

You for some reason find it impossible to believe me, but my agenda is 95%
to improve the discussion of poetry through (what I take to
be)clarification, greater systematization and wider, more detailed
applicability of terms.  Sure, if it publicizes my own poetry and/or helps
my reputation, fine, but those are trivial concerns, for me.

> > Do you feel no poetics term should have its meaning changed?<
>
> No, terms change gradually all the time. For example, "sophisticated"
> used to mean what we'd now call "adulterated", and not what we also
> call "cosmopolitan" now. But the distinction between "verse" and
> "poetry" is one that can be traced back to the Renaissance's re-
> discovery of Aristotle, and their interpretation of Aristotle's ideas
> about Greek drama in terms of Renaissance art.

But much has changed since then.  "Atom" doesn't mean what it did to
Democritus.  I'm pretty sure "science" has changed meaning several times
over the millennia, but can't remember much about it.

> Why give up on a distinction that's proved useful for hundreds of
> years?  What's the agenda for conflating "verse" and "poetry"?

I'll get back to you on that.

--Bob G.



From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Thu Oct  2 22:42:10 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 21:42:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <01d001c38925$7074bd80$e0dbfea9@j1c1k6>
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A0A9@mail.ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031002213948.02260c70@mail.ilstu.edu>

poetry is for real people
poetry is a political act"
poetry is complete nonsense
poetry is a destructive force by stevens
poetry is the drug of choice
poetry is a sudden process of verbal compression
poetry is the sudden process of verbal compression
poetry is powerful
poetry is plucking at the
poetry is for poets
poetry is poetess sondra faye's official site of
poetry is for everybody
poetry is a very complex thing
poetry is fun
poetry is found in life
poetry is about onelivingthing
poetry is increasing
poetry is banned
poetry is this?
poetry is sent in by you
poetry is published
poetry is everywhere
poetry is bad
poetry is not a luxury" la women of color
poetry is sexy
poetry is not something
poetry is the beginning
poetry is in play / daniel sendecki
poetry is bread
poetry is ugly by angela armitage
poetry is no shameful disease
poetry is not a luxury"
poetry is sacred
poetry is written in the
poetry is more than just words
poetry is for
poetry is not an hermetic academic pursuit
poetry is life
poetry is a joyful music to the ears
poetry is pretty much like life
poetry is connected to the body
poetry is built like that
poetry is free
poetry is driving me mad by brad evans
poetry is redundant
poetry is ultra
poetry is what fish won't eat by clarinda harriss and three red
poetry is black
poetry is often understood to be about
poetry is useless
poetry is the strength of
poetry is done"
poetry is direct
poetry is for the ear
poetry is exciting
poetry is for real people like me
poetry is this 'my country'? on the anniversary of the tampa
poetry is celebrated
poetry is a political act?
poetry is in the details
poetry is complete nonsense spike milligan
poetry is a destructive force by wallace stevens
poetry is for by john olson
poetry is the drug of choice by john olson
poetry is a sudden process of verbal compression a collection of poetry by 
elisha porat
poetry is the sudden process of verbal compression a collection of poetry 
by elisha porat
poetry is sense
poetry is just the evidence
poetry is plucking at the heartstrings
poetry is for americans
poetry is for immigrants
poetry is life version
poetry is not nutritious
poetry is fun back to list
poetry is about one living thing a report of an aesthetic realism class by 
amy dienes
poetry is about one living thing
poetry is neuroanatomy
poetry is the reason i live
poetry is her life
poetry is this? i
poetry is william saroian
poetry is for wimps
poetry is not a luxury" la women of color
poetry is not something poetry is not something i do every now & then i do 
& it doesn't every now & then i am
poetry is for sissies
poetry is the beginning & art by d
poetry is in play
poetry is ugly
poetry is no shameful disease?
poetry is that one will
poetry is not a luxury" author
poetry is written in the four line ballad form of rhymed quatrains
poetry is once more the talk of the town an old art form enjoys a broad
poetry is called
poetry is bread page you can reach me by e
poetry is bread you can reach me by e
poetry is psychoanalytic treatment
poetry is pain
poetry is not my vice
poetry is
poetry is everywhere poetry is music to your ear poetry is a graceful 
dancer with elegance and flair poetry has many shapes and forms but poetry 
is not square
poetry is connected to the body again
poetry is built like that arts profile
poetry is driving everybody crazy pay off baudelaire's debt heal the wrist 
shot by verlaine heal verlaine's wife their poetry is driving everybody crazy
poetry is redundant ?1992 by sam mills from his book
poetry is the best prophylactic against
poetry is what fish won't eat
poetry is black the last poets
poetry is the showcase for poetry written by teens
poetry is often understood to be about little other than courtly love and 
romantic excess
poetry is useless; but still; under a starry sky; manifestations of non
poetry is for suckers
poetry is the strength of ghazal
poetry is the place for you to
poetry is done" by dean blehert you can make any sentence poetical by 
mentioning blood or bone

www.googlism.com




From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Thu Oct  2 22:58:13 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 21:58:13 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] pens and pencils
In-Reply-To: <102.36957f07.2cae0768@aol.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031002214255.02234d10@mail.ilstu.edu>

Carol,
I understand this. I used to dream about fountain pens nearly every night. 
After collecting many vintage and modern pens and becoming obsessed with 
them, I somehow recently managed to lose the obsession. I no longer dream 
nightly about them and I am starting to sell off my collection; for 
whatever reason, they no longer have a hold on me. But for several months 
about three years ago, fountain pens were all I could talk about, both at 
home and at work. I became so infatuated, at one point, with a Sheaffer 
oversized stub with inlaid nib that I actually began putting my lips around 
the nib and sucking the ink out of the nib. A few friends would stop me in 
the halls and ask me what that blue or black streak on my lower lip was all 
about.

I prefer vintage pens, Esterbrooks, Parkers, Sheaffers, but of moderrn fps, 
I favor those made by Lamy: they're inexpensive, stoutly and smartly 
engineered, and carry lifetime warranties.

Gabe


At 06:57 PM 10/2/2003 -0400, MIM47 at aol.com wrote:
>I have been described by various friends, colleagues, and family members as
>out of control on the pen and pencil obsession that grips me (pun 
>intended). I
>can be writing right along and suddenly that pen will no longer do. I am off
>in a mad scramble to find one that will suffice.
>
>And pencils....ahhh pencils. Color (body of), point sharpness, lead softness
>levels, what kind of logo might be on the body, all are huge pencil issues.
>
>And there's that "writer's bump" on the "tall-man" finger of my writing hand.
>I've cultivated it carefully and consciously since 4th grade. When it seems
>to be shrinking I know there is a vacation from the computer keyboard in the
>offing!
>
>
>Carol Bachofner
>
>Once I was out somewhere and found myself not to have a pen or pencil in my
>bag. I began to sweat and had to go to a store and get one of each. Panic was
>beginning to set in and I needed to feel secure.
>
>_______________________________________________
>New-Poetry mailing list
>New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Thu Oct  2 23:05:54 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 22:05:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20031002190740.03b1fae8@mail.tbhinc.com>
Message-ID: <BBA251C2.47C5%grahamd@ripon.edu>

A Theory of Prosody


When Nellie, my old pussy
cat, was still in her prime,
she would sit behind me
as I wrote, and when the line
got too long she'd reach
one sudden black foreleg down
and paw at the moving hand,
the offensive one. The first
time she drew blood I learned
it was poetic to end
a line anywhere to keep her
quiet. After all, many morn-
ings she'd gotten to the chair
long before I was even up.
Those nights I couldn't sleep
she'd come and sit in my lap
to calm me. So I figured
I owed her the short cat line.
She's dead now almost nine years,
and before that there was one
during which she faked attention
and I faked obedience.
Isn't that what it's about--
pretending there's an alert cat
who leaves nothing to chance.

--Philip Levine.  *A Walk With Tom Jefferson*.  Knopf, 1988.



====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


> From: "Paul C. Howell" <paul at tbhinc.com>
> Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 19:09:55 -0400
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
> 
> Keep tossing poems over the net, and when time's up the jury will award a
> wreath.
> 
> This is good sport.



From kpaul at mallasch.com  Thu Oct  2 23:12:04 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 22:12:04 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20031002213948.02260c70@mail.ilstu.edu>
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A0A9@mail.ripon.edu>
 <5.1.1.6.0.20031002213948.02260c70@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <20031002215704.R53011@kpaul.spinweb.net>

Poetry is news / from the frontiers / of consciousness

-Ferlinghetti

poetry is the drug of choice
poetry is a very complex thing
poetry is found in life
poetry is the beginning
poetry is not an hermetic academic pursuit
poetry is for suckers
poetry is in the details
poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings; it takes its
          origin from emotion recollected
poetry is ugly
poetry is

-Google
(http://www.googlism.com/what_is/p/poetry/)


-kpaul
mallasch.com/mug/

On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, Gabriel Gudding wrote:

> poetry is for real people
> poetry is a political act"
> poetry is complete nonsense
> poetry is a destructive force by stevens
> poetry is the drug of choice
> poetry is a sudden process of verbal compression
> poetry is the sudden process of verbal compression
> poetry is powerful
> poetry is plucking at the
> poetry is for poets
> poetry is poetess sondra faye's official site of
> poetry is for everybody
> poetry is a very complex thing
> poetry is fun
> poetry is found in life
> poetry is about onelivingthing
> poetry is increasing
> poetry is banned
> poetry is this?
> poetry is sent in by you
> poetry is published
> poetry is everywhere
> poetry is bad
> poetry is not a luxury" la women of color
> poetry is sexy
> poetry is not something
> poetry is the beginning
> poetry is in play / daniel sendecki
> poetry is bread
> poetry is ugly by angela armitage
> poetry is no shameful disease
> poetry is not a luxury"
> poetry is sacred
> poetry is written in the
> poetry is more than just words
> poetry is for
> poetry is not an hermetic academic pursuit
> poetry is life
> poetry is a joyful music to the ears
> poetry is pretty much like life
> poetry is connected to the body
> poetry is built like that
> poetry is free
> poetry is driving me mad by brad evans
> poetry is redundant
> poetry is ultra
> poetry is what fish won't eat by clarinda harriss and three red
> poetry is black
> poetry is often understood to be about
> poetry is useless
> poetry is the strength of
> poetry is done"
> poetry is direct
> poetry is for the ear
> poetry is exciting
> poetry is for real people like me
> poetry is this 'my country'? on the anniversary of the tampa
> poetry is celebrated
> poetry is a political act?
> poetry is in the details
> poetry is complete nonsense spike milligan
> poetry is a destructive force by wallace stevens
> poetry is for by john olson
> poetry is the drug of choice by john olson
> poetry is a sudden process of verbal compression a collection of poetry by
> elisha porat
> poetry is the sudden process of verbal compression a collection of poetry
> by elisha porat
> poetry is sense
> poetry is just the evidence
> poetry is plucking at the heartstrings
> poetry is for americans
> poetry is for immigrants
> poetry is life version
> poetry is not nutritious
> poetry is fun back to list
> poetry is about one living thing a report of an aesthetic realism class by
> amy dienes
> poetry is about one living thing
> poetry is neuroanatomy
> poetry is the reason i live
> poetry is her life
> poetry is this? i
> poetry is william saroian
> poetry is for wimps
> poetry is not a luxury" la women of color
> poetry is not something poetry is not something i do every now & then i do
> & it doesn't every now & then i am
> poetry is for sissies
> poetry is the beginning & art by d
> poetry is in play
> poetry is ugly
> poetry is no shameful disease?
> poetry is that one will
> poetry is not a luxury" author
> poetry is written in the four line ballad form of rhymed quatrains
> poetry is once more the talk of the town an old art form enjoys a broad
> poetry is called
> poetry is bread page you can reach me by e
> poetry is bread you can reach me by e
> poetry is psychoanalytic treatment
> poetry is pain
> poetry is not my vice
> poetry is
> poetry is everywhere poetry is music to your ear poetry is a graceful
> dancer with elegance and flair poetry has many shapes and forms but poetry
> is not square
> poetry is connected to the body again
> poetry is built like that arts profile
> poetry is driving everybody crazy pay off baudelaire's debt heal the wrist
> shot by verlaine heal verlaine's wife their poetry is driving everybody crazy
> poetry is redundant ?1992 by sam mills from his book
> poetry is the best prophylactic against
> poetry is what fish won't eat
> poetry is black the last poets
> poetry is the showcase for poetry written by teens
> poetry is often understood to be about little other than courtly love and
> romantic excess
> poetry is useless; but still; under a starry sky; manifestations of non
> poetry is for suckers
> poetry is the strength of ghazal
> poetry is the place for you to
> poetry is done" by dean blehert you can make any sentence poetical by
> mentioning blood or bone
>
> www.googlism.com
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



From kpaul at mallasch.com  Thu Oct  2 23:38:57 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2003 22:38:57 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <BBA251C2.47C5%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <BBA251C2.47C5%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <20031002223841.D53011@kpaul.spinweb.net>

The Naming of Cats

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, or George or Bill Bailey -
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum -
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover -
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

T S Eliot



On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, David Graham wrote:

> A Theory of Prosody
>
>
> When Nellie, my old pussy
> cat, was still in her prime,
> she would sit behind me
> as I wrote, and when the line
> got too long she'd reach
> one sudden black foreleg down
> and paw at the moving hand,
> the offensive one. The first
> time she drew blood I learned
> it was poetic to end
> a line anywhere to keep her
> quiet. After all, many morn-
> ings she'd gotten to the chair
> long before I was even up.
> Those nights I couldn't sleep
> she'd come and sit in my lap
> to calm me. So I figured
> I owed her the short cat line.
> She's dead now almost nine years,
> and before that there was one
> during which she faked attention
> and I faked obedience.
> Isn't that what it's about--
> pretending there's an alert cat
> who leaves nothing to chance.
>
> --Philip Levine.  *A Walk With Tom Jefferson*.  Knopf, 1988.
>
>
>
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> ====================================================
>
>
> > From: "Paul C. Howell" <paul at tbhinc.com>
> > Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 19:09:55 -0400
> > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
> >
> > Keep tossing poems over the net, and when time's up the jury will award a
> > wreath.
> >
> > This is good sport.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct  3 06:51:37 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 06:51:37 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A0A9@mail.ripon.edu> <5.1.1.6.0.20031002213948.02260c70@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <00b701c3899c$52088760$9709fea9@j1c1k6>

It would be interesting if everyone recorded his serious definition of
poetry at New Poetry.  Anyone up to it?

--Bob G.




From Thom424 at aol.com  Fri Oct  3 07:49:07 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 07:49:07 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <6.19830f07.2caebc33@aol.com>

Bob--some kindling:


"A poem is anything said in such a way or put on the page in such a way as to 
invite from the hearer or reader a certain kind of attention." 

--William Stafford

 I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.
 - Edgar Allen Poe

Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best
order.
- S. T. Coleridge

... the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an
illusion of the imagaination...
- Macaulay

...the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and
happiest minds...

- Shelley

...speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest even over
and above its interest of meaning...
- Gerard Manley Hopkins

...the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from and overclothed
blindness to a naked vi- sion...
- Dylan Thomas

...language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction,
something that can not be said...
- E. A. Robinson

...the art of saying everything and reducing it to nothing...

- Barbara Hyett

POEM: a composition designed to convey a vivid and imaginative sense
of experience, charac- terized by the use of condensed language chosen
for its sound and suggestive power as well as its meaning, and by the
use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadenc- es,
rhyme, or metaphor.

- American Heritage Dictionary

A poem is "a sonorous molded shape of form".

- Osip Mandelstam

... a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed
as a table or a motorcyle...
- W. H. Auden

Poetry amounts to arranging words with the greatest specific gravity in the
most effective and externally inevitable sequence.

- Joseph Brodsky

A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism participates.

- Charles Simic

A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it...by way of the
poem itself, all the way over to the reader.

- Charles Olson


Thom Tammaro
Moorhead, MN
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From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 08:30:26 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 08:30:26 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
In-Reply-To: <003901c3894b$ed190be0$b8edfea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F7D33A2.23637.316681@localhost>

On 2 Oct 2003 at 21:16, Bob Grumman wrote:
> ... I'm saying that in MY poetics [verse and poetry] mean the same thing. 
> That they also mean the same thing in dictionaries for the general
> public suggests to me I'm nottoo flagrantly opposing traditional
> usage.<<

Well, the question remains, vis a vis "your poetics", why do you want 
to dispose of a distinction that has proved useful for centuries for 
the shared poetics of western civilization? What's your agenda for 
disposing of a useful distinction? It is as if, to use your other 
analogy, you decided never to distinguish between red and blue any 
more, but merely to refer to them as "color" for some reason. Well, 
what's the reason?

As for the dictionary, those who are content to let the constraints 
of the lexicographer's problems define their words deserve the 
results.
 
> You're ad hominemming--because you're concerning yourself with
> motives, which are irrelevant.  And you seem to be doing this to show
> that only people with bad motives conflate the two.<<

No, motives and intentions are NOT irrelevant. You want to conflate 
the meanings of two useful terms in the poetics of western 
civilization; you claim that your poetics is better (implicitly, 
because you put it forward all the time, and you defend it); you 
clearly have an agenda. You must have a reason for prefering to 
conflate two useful terms: what is that reason?  If you don't have a 
reason, of course, then you don't have a reason and that is probably 
dispositive in regard to whether anyone should take your "poetics" 
seriously.

> You for some reason find it impossible to believe me, but my agenda is
> 95% to improve the discussion of poetry through (what I take to
> be)clarification, greater systematization and wider, more detailed
> applicability of terms.<<

And to the end of greater clarity and more detailed applicability of 
terms you choose to conflate the meanings of two terms in general use 
in the field as terms of art for centuries? The notion is ridiculous 
on the face of it. 





From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 08:33:39 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 08:33:39 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <6.19830f07.2caebc33@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F7D3463.16297.345866@localhost>

Frost: a momentary stay against confusion.


On 3 Oct 2003 at 7:49, Thom424 at aol.com wrote:

> 
> Bob--some kindling:
> 
> 
> "A poem is anything said in such a way or put on the page in such a
> way as to invite from the hearer or reader a certain kind of
> attention." 
> 
> --William Stafford
> 
> I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.
> - Edgar Allen Poe
> 
> Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best
> order. - S. T. Coleridge
> 
> ... the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an
> illusion of the imagaination...
> - Macaulay
> 
> ...the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and
> happiest minds...
> 
> - Shelley
> 
> ...speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest even over
> and above its interest of meaning... - Gerard Manley Hopkins
> 
> ...the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from and overclothed
> blindness to a naked vi- sion... - Dylan Thomas
> 
> ...language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction,
> something that can not be said... - E. A. Robinson
> 
> ...the art of saying everything and reducing it to nothing...
> 
> - Barbara Hyett
> 
> POEM: a composition designed to convey a vivid and imaginative sense
> of experience, charac- terized by the use of condensed language chosen
> for its sound and suggestive power as well as its meaning, and by the
> use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadenc-
> es, rhyme, or metaphor.
> 
> - American Heritage Dictionary
> 
> A poem is "a sonorous molded shape of form".
> 
> - Osip Mandelstam
> 
> ... a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly 
> constructed
> as a table or a motorcyle...
> - W. H. Auden
> 
> Poetry amounts to arranging words with the greatest specific gravity
> in the most effective and externally inevitable sequence.
> 
> - Joseph Brodsky
> 
> A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism 
> participates.
> 
> - Charles Simic
> 
> A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it...by way of
> the poem itself, all the way over to the reader.
> 
> - Charles Olson
> 
> 
> Thom Tammaro
> Moorhead, MN 





From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 08:30:26 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 08:30:26 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <BBA251C2.47C5%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <5.1.0.14.0.20031002190740.03b1fae8@mail.tbhinc.com>
Message-ID: <3F7D33A2.8959.31643C@localhost>

On 2 Oct 2003 at 22:05, David Graham wrote:

> A Theory of Prosody
> --Philip Levine.  *A Walk With Tom Jefferson*.  Knopf, 1988.
> 
> When Nellie, my old pussy
> cat, was still in her prime,
> she would sit behind me
> as I wrote, and when the line
> got too long she'd reach
> one sudden black foreleg down
> and paw at the moving hand,
> the offensive one. ...

After Horace
Owen Seamen

What asks the bard?  He prays for nought
	but what the truly virtuous crave:
That is, the things he plainly ought
	To have.

?Tis not for wealth, with all the shocks
	That vex distracted millionaires,
Plagued by their fluctuating stocks
	And shares;

While plutocrats their millions new
	Expend upon each costly whim,
A great deal less than theirs will do 
	For him.

The simple incomes of the poor
	His meek poetic soul content
Say, thirty thousand pounds at four
	Per cent.

His taste in residence is plain:
	No palaces his heart rejoice ?
A cottage in a lane (Park Lane
	For choice) ?

And lands that stretch with endless span
	From east to west, from south to north,
Are often much more trouble than
	They?re worth.

Let epicures who eat too much
	Become uncomfortably stout:
Let gourmets feel the approaching touch
	Of gout ?

The bard subsists on simpler food:
	A dinner, not severly plain,
A pint or so of really good
	Champagne ?

Grant him but these, no care he?ll take
	Though Laureates bask in Fortune?s smile,
Though Kiplings and Corellis make
	Their pile:

Contented with a scantier dole
	His humble Muse serenely jogs
Remote from scenes where authors roll
	Their logs:

Far from the madding crowd she lurks,
	And really cares no single jot
Whether the public read her works
	Or not!
                 --Owen Seamen








From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Fri Oct  3 09:27:38 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 14:27:38 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <3F7D3463.16297.345866@localhost>
Message-ID: <005c01c389b2$1d4d8730$b8ae8051@MyPC>

From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>

> > Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best
> > order. - S. T. Coleridge

Gosh -- and there I'd always thought that this was original to Ezra Pound in
_The Art of Reading_.

Learn something new every day ...

<g>

Robin




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Fri Oct  3 09:44:37 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 14:44:37 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <3F7D33A2.23637.316681@localhost>
Message-ID: <006201c389b4$7c88bb00$b8ae8051@MyPC>

From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>

> As for the dictionary, those who are content to let the constraints
> of the lexicographer's problems define their words deserve the
> results.

Marcus, that's simply silly.  At their least-worst, dictionaries record
usage, and while you may not like what they say, they do record how people
speak and spoke.  Ignore the definitions, read the citations.

My own feeling is that the poetry/verse distinction is being presented here
in stunningly a-historical terms.

One focus on it would be the (originally Greek?) distinction between
poesis/vates -- craft maker vs. inspired reciter (cf. Plato's Ion, and
Dunbar's "Lament for the Makaris").

Then there's the sense of "verse" as a *line*.

Add in the point in time at which the term "literature" (sometime in the
18thc?) began to replace the older term poetry/poesie as the default term
for *all* imaginative fictional writing, at roughly the same point when the
novel began to dominate English narrative fiction.

Then there's the blur between the uses of "poetry" and "verse" as either
evaluative or simply descriptive terms.

Oof!!

Robin Hamilton




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Oct  3 10:31:59 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 09:31:59 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <3F7D33A2.8959.31643C@localhost>
Message-ID: <BBA2F28F.47F8%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Ars Poetica

The goose that laid the golden egg
Died looking up its crotch
To find out how its sphincter worked.

Would you lay well?  Don't watch.

--X. J. Kennedy


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================



From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 10:43:47 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 10:43:47 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <BBA2F28F.47F8%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <3F7D33A2.8959.31643C@localhost>
Message-ID: <3F7D52E3.23043.AB799D@localhost>

On 3 Oct 2003 at 9:31, David Graham wrote:
> Ars Poetica
> --X. J. Kennedy
> The goose that laid the golden egg
> Died looking up its crotch
> To find out how its sphincter worked.
> Would you lay well?  Don't watch.

Adam's Curse 
William Butler Yeats 

     We sat together at one summer's end,
     That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
     And you and I, and talked of poetry.
     I said, "A line will take us hours maybe;
     Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
     Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.
     Better go down upon your marrow-bones
     And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
     Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
     For to articulate sweet sounds together
     Is to work harder than all these, and yet
     Be thought an idler by the noisy set
     Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
     The martyrs call the world." 
                                             And thereupon
     That beautiful mild woman for whose sake
     There's many a one shall find out all heartache
     On finding that her voice is sweet and low
     Replied, "To be born woman is to know --
     Although they do not talk of it at school --
     That we must labour to be beautiful."
     I said, "It's certain there is no fine thing
     Since Adam's fall but needs much labouring.
     There have been lovers who thought love should be
     So much compounded of high courtesy
     That they would sigh and quote with learned looks
     precedents out of beautiful old books;
     Yet now it seems an idle trade enough."

     We sat grown quiet at the name of love;
     We saw the last embers of daylight die,
     And in the trembling blue-green of the sky
     A moon, worn as if it had been a shell
     Washed by time's waters as they rose and fell
     About the stars and broke in days and years.
     I had a thought for no one's but your ears:
     That you were beautiful, and that I strove
     To love you in the old high way of love;
     That it had all seemed happy, and yet we'd grown
     As weary-hearted as that hollow moon.

                            --William Butler Yeats






From Thom424 at aol.com  Fri Oct  3 10:51:35 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 10:51:35 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
Message-ID: <15b.25913139.2caee6f7@aol.com>

                Because You Asked about the Line between Prose and Poetry

Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible

From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Oct  3 11:02:55 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 10:02:55 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <15b.25913139.2caee6f7@aol.com>
Message-ID: <BBA2F9CF.47FF%grahamd@ripon.edu>

I Stop Writing the Poem

to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I'm still a woman.
I'll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I'll get back
to the poem. I'll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there's a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it's done.

--Tess Gallagher 



====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


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From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 12:02:14 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 12:02:14 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
In-Reply-To: <006201c389b4$7c88bb00$b8ae8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <3F7D6546.14441.F34C35@localhost>

On 3 Oct 2003 at 14:44, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> ... At their least-worst, dictionaries
> record usage, and while you may not like what they say, they do record
> how people speak and spoke.  Ignore the definitions, read the
> citations.<<

Sure they record usage -- but all usages. What those who refer to 
dictionary definitions almost invariably try to do is pretend that 
the word in question has one and only one denotative definition and 
no connotations if they can find a dictionary that has a definition 
that agrees with theirs.

I'm not arguing that dictionaries are useless; only that they're only 
good for some things. One thing they're not good for is for defining 
terms of art and their usages within the jargon of the trade, 
especially when there's an ongoing dialogue and interlocutors are 
defining their terms as they go for use in that dialogue in order to 
try to communicate their ideas to one another, and come to agreement 
about how to use the terms.
 
> My own feeling is that the poetry/verse distinction is being presented
> here in stunningly a-historical terms.
> One focus on it would be the (originally Greek?) distinction between
> poesis/vates -- craft maker vs. inspired reciter (cf. Plato's Ion, and
> Dunbar's "Lament for the Makaris").

Well, my understanding of it is that when the Greeks wanted to speak 
of "verse" they spoke of "metron", as in ton meta metrou poiematon 
from Isocrates or in Aristophanes's "The Clouds" when he seems to use 
it to mean something more broad, perhaps "measure", where Socrates is 
trying to explain prosody to a farmer. 

It seems to me the Greeks seemed to think that in at least one way 
meter and poetry were the same, for doesn't Gorgias say something 
like "I will speak without meter because I am not a poet" in The 
Republic? But they do also distinguish between the rhythm of prose 
and the meter of poetry, too, I think. More significantly, though 
there is also the "mimesis" issue, the notion that poetry is fiction, 
that it must imitate life and not merely report it as history does, 
though it is still going too far to say that the Greeks thought all 
poetry must be mimetic. Plato distinguishes three types of poetry, 
drama, or a pretty pure imitation where the dialog and the chorus do 
all the work; a mixed mimesis such as the epic where there is dialog 
and narration, and then more or less pure narrative.

Aristotle's opinions seems to have been that the mimesis is more 
important to distinguish poetry from non-poetry, or perhaps more 
characteristic of poetry, than metron -- but Aristotle's goal in 
making such distinctions seems to have been to illustrate that not 
all poetry is truly poetic; that is to say, that one can write in 
hexameters and still not write poetry, and Aristotle was taking some 
pains to distinguish between those who tell a story that actually 
happened and those who make up a story that is representative of what 
could happen, to argue that the latter were poets but the former were 
historians -- even if they wrote in hexameters or elegaic couplets.

It was in the Renaissance, after Aristotle's Poetics was rediscovered 
in the early 16th century and translated that the scholars started to 
make distinctions between versificatori and poeti even as they argue 
about whether it is the subject-matter or the type of verse that 
makes a poet a poet and a versifier a versifier.

Still, the distinction between verse and poetry was nascent among the 
Greeks and Romans and blossomed in the Renaissance and has been 
pretty current ever since.





From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 12:51:28 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 12:51:28 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <BBA2F9CF.47FF%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <15b.25913139.2caee6f7@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F7D70D0.27130.1205EE8@localhost>

On 3 Oct 2003 at 10:02, David Graham wrote:
> I Stop Writing the Poem
> --Tess Gallagher 
> to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
> or who dies, I'm still a woman. ...

Casting and Gathering 
for Ted Hughes 
Seamus Heaney

Years and years ago, these sounds took sides:
On the left bank, a green silk tapered cast 
Went whispering through the air, saying hush 
And lush, entirely free, no matter whether 
It swished above the hayfield or the river. 

On the right bank, like a speeded-up cornrake, 
A sharp ratcheting went on and on 
Cutting across the stillness as another 
Fisherman gathered line-lengths off his reel. 
I am still standing there, awake and dreamy, 
I have grown older and can see them both 
Moving their arms and rods, working away, 

Each one absorbed, proofed by the sounds he's making. 

One sound is saying, 'You are not worth tuppence, 
But neither is anybody. Watch it! Be severe.' 
The other says, 'Go with it! Give and swerve. 
You are everything you feel beside the river.' 
I love hushed air. I trust contrariness. 
Years and years go past and I do not move 

For I see that when one man casts, the other gathers 
And then vice versa, without changing sides.
 





From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Fri Oct  3 13:09:32 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 12:09:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Moorhead, MN
In-Reply-To: <6.19830f07.2caebc33@aol.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031003120515.0247ae68@mail.ilstu.edu>

Thom,

You are from Moorhead, Minnesota?

I used to live there. I was raised there. I was a boy there. My grandmother 
lives there. My aunt, her daughter, lives there. My mother, her other 
daughter, lives there. I visit there. My father lives there. My mother and 
father and their dog Happy live there. My sister, Jean, and her husband 
Stan, and there boy and girl, they live there. I went to school there. I 
was a boy there. It is flat there, windy there, it is cold there, I love 
Moorhead. Smalll town on the plains! Good for you for being there! Good for 
Moorhead for holding you!

>Thom Tammaro
>Moorhead, MN

When I visit there again, soon, Thom Tammaro, can I buy you a coffee? :)
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Fri Oct  3 13:24:54 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 18:24:54 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <3F7D6546.14441.F34C35@localhost>
Message-ID: <000901c389d3$42e16b80$b8ae8051@MyPC>

Marcus:

Just to stick to dictionaries for the moment ...


> On 3 Oct 2003 at 14:44, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> > ... At their least-worst, dictionaries
> > record usage, and while you may not like what they say, they do record
> > how people speak and spoke.  Ignore the definitions, read the
> > citations.<<
>
> Sure they record usage -- but all usages.

No, OF COURSE not all usages, and even the OED (whichever version you cite)
simply records the "first recorded written usage" and frankly by the time
you get Stanley Wells' recent TLS article on "a recent Shakespespeare
discovery" and note that the "first recorded usage" of the term "[Model] of
Poetry" is first cited in the OED  {2[3] in my referencing} is a 1623 text
by Francis Bacon ...  Frankly, you're (or I am) up shit creek without a
paddle.  I can't speak generally, but ANY reference to a Renaissance term
has to be cross-checked from the OED via the EMEDD and the Ann Arbor folks'
work on the MED.  Not to speak of the DOST and the SND which might if we're
all lucky be online, FOE, in the next couple of years.

> What those who refer to
> dictionary definitions almost invariably try to do is pretend that
> the word in question has one and only one denotative definition and
> no connotations if they can find a dictionary that has a definition
> that agrees with theirs.

This is *so* sad -- you (one) can't say "dictionary" with any precision.
It's like saying "book" -- the bloody concept is so broad, the mere term
alone makes no sense.  Merriam-Webster or the OED or Collins ... ?

> I'm not arguing that dictionaries are useless; only that they're only
> good for some things. One thing they're not good for is for defining
> terms of art and their usages within the jargon of the trade,

Oh bloody HELL, Marcus, do you know anything at all about Partridge's work
on thieves' slang and cant, or the Zwingali dictionaries, or rhyming slang?
Initial slang, or the way Villon uses thieves' cant in some of his poems?
The difference between creole and dialect?  Flyting, which is mostly what
you engage in.

Shite, have you ever even tried to triage the terms used by Chaucer, and Ben
Jonson in _The Alchemist_, and Shakespeare's _The Tempest_,  in terms of
"terms of art and their usages within the jargon of the trade"?  And that's
friggin' *simple* before you get to the level of say the way the use of the
Alectorian stone recurs in _Culpepper's Herbal_.

:-(

> especially when there's an ongoing dialogue and interlocutors are
> defining their terms as they go for use in that dialogue in order to
> try to communicate their ideas to one another, and come to agreement
> about how to use the terms.

<sigh>

Language is a consensual medium.  (A truism that would cross from
Wittgensein to de Saussure.)  You can play games with it but please at least
stick to the rules.

Robin Hamilton.





From hruggier at localnet.com  Fri Oct  3 14:17:30 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 14:17:30 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <3F7D3463.16297.345866@localhost>
Message-ID: <3F7DBD39.3AA18546@localnet.com>

Addition - Prose goes all the way to the margin, poetry doesn't.
                            don't know who said it, but I like it
H. Ruggieri

Marcus Bales wrote:

> Frost: a momentary stay against confusion.
>
> On 3 Oct 2003 at 7:49, Thom424 at aol.com wrote:
>
> >
> > Bob--some kindling:
> >
> >
> > "A poem is anything said in such a way or put on the page in such a
> > way as to invite from the hearer or reader a certain kind of
> > attention."
> >
> > --William Stafford
> >
> > I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.
> > - Edgar Allen Poe
> >
> > Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best
> > order. - S. T. Coleridge
> >
> > ... the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an
> > illusion of the imagaination...
> > - Macaulay
> >
> > ...the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and
> > happiest minds...
> >
> > - Shelley
> >
> > ...speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest even over
> > and above its interest of meaning... - Gerard Manley Hopkins
> >
> > ...the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from and overclothed
> > blindness to a naked vi- sion... - Dylan Thomas
> >
> > ...language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction,
> > something that can not be said... - E. A. Robinson
> >
> > ...the art of saying everything and reducing it to nothing...
> >
> > - Barbara Hyett
> >
> > POEM: a composition designed to convey a vivid and imaginative sense
> > of experience, charac- terized by the use of condensed language chosen
> > for its sound and suggestive power as well as its meaning, and by the
> > use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadenc-
> > es, rhyme, or metaphor.
> >
> > - American Heritage Dictionary
> >
> > A poem is "a sonorous molded shape of form".
> >
> > - Osip Mandelstam
> >
> > ... a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly
> > constructed
> > as a table or a motorcyle...
> > - W. H. Auden
> >
> > Poetry amounts to arranging words with the greatest specific gravity
> > in the most effective and externally inevitable sequence.
> >
> > - Joseph Brodsky
> >
> > A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism
> > participates.
> >
> > - Charles Simic
> >
> > A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it...by way of
> > the poem itself, all the way over to the reader.
> >
> > - Charles Olson
> >
> >
> > Thom Tammaro
> > Moorhead, MN
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From JforJames at aol.com  Fri Oct  3 14:20:38 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 14:20:38 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
Message-ID: <71.357d3e06.2caf17f6@aol.com>

THE POETS AGREE TO BE QUIET BY THE SWAMP

They hold their hands over their mouths
And stare at the stretch of water.
What can be said has been said before:
Strokes of light like herons' legs in the cattails,
Mud underneath, frogs lying even deeper.
Therefore, the poets may keep quiet.
But the corners of their mouths grin past their hands.
They stick their elbows out into the evening,
Stoop, and begin the ancient croaking.

        David Wagoner



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Oct  3 14:33:28 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 13:33:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <71.357d3e06.2caf17f6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <BBA32B28.481C%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Prosody 101

When they taught me that what mattered most
was not the strict iambic line goose-stepping
over the page but the variations
in that line and the tension produced
on the ear by the surprise of difference,
I understood yet didn't understand
exactly, until just now, years later
in spring, with the trees already lacy
and camellias blowsy with middle age
I looked out and saw what a cold front had done
to the garden, sweeping in like common language,
unexpected in the sensuous
extravagance of a Maryland spring.
There was a dark edge around each flower
as if it had been outlined in ink
instead of frost, and the tension I felt
between the expected and actual
was like that time I came to you, ready
to say goodbye for good, for you had been
a cold front yourself lately, and as I walked in
you laughed and lifted me up in your arms
as if I too were lacy with spring
instead of middle aged like the camellias,
and I thought: So this is Poetry.

--Linda Pastan.  *A Fraction of Darkness*.  1985.

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================



From wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu  Fri Oct  3 14:34:27 2003
From: wwmorgan at mail.ilstu.edu (Bill Morgan)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 13:34:27 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <3F7DBD39.3AA18546@localnet.com>
References: <3F7D3463.16297.345866@localhost>
Message-ID: <4.1.20031003133333.03bce0a8@mail.ilstu.edu>

At 02:17 PM 10/3/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Addition - Prose goes all the way to the margin, poetry doesn't.
>                            don't know who said it, but I like it
>H. Ruggieri
>
	I think that's Jeremy Bentham.  




From JforJames at aol.com  Fri Oct  3 14:37:15 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 14:37:15 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <b7.3706d019.2caf1bdb@aol.com>

or is it...

things that are true expressed in words that are beautiful. 
-- Dante 

the art of uniting pleasure with truth by calling imagination 
to the help of reason. 
-- Samuel Johnson 

the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. 
-- William Wordsworth 

musical thought
-- Thomas Carlyle 

emotion put into measure. 
-- Thomas Hardy 

If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, 
I know that it is poetry.
-- Emily Dickinson 

speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest 
even over and above its interest and meaning. 
-- Gerard Manley Hopkins 

a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget.
-- Robert Frost 

a revelation in words by means of the words.
 -- Wallace Stevens 

Poetry is prose bewitched. 
-- Mina Loy 

not the assertion that something is true, but the making 
of that truth more fully real to us. 
-- T. S. Eliot 

the clear expression of mixed feelings. 
-- W. H. Auden 

the body of linguistic constructions that men usually refer to as poems. 
-- J. V. Cunningham 

hundreds of things coming together at the right moment. 
-- Elizabeth Bishop 

Poetry is life distilled.-- Gwendolyn Brooks 

A poem is something that penetrates for an instant into the unconscious. 
-- Robert Bly

Poetry is the synthesis of hyancinths and bisquits.-- Carl Sandburg

Poetry is the diefication of reality.--Edith Sitwell

the story of a soul. --Czeslaw Milosz

getting something right in  language-Howard Nemerov

Poetry is the great stimulation of life...Poetry is redemption from pessimism.
-Susan Howe

In a message dated 10/3/03 7:50:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Thom424 at aol.com 
writes:

> "A poem is anything said in such a way or put on the page in such a way as 
to 
> 
>  invite from the hearer or reader a certain kind of attention." 
>  
>  --William Stafford
>  
>   I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.
>   - Edgar Allen Poe
>  
>  Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best
>  order.
>  - S. T. Coleridge
>  
>  ... the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an
>  illusion of the imagaination...
>  - Macaulay
>  
>  ...the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and
>  happiest minds...
>  
>  - Shelley
>  
>  ...speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest even over
>  and above its interest of meaning...
>  - Gerard Manley Hopkins
>  
>  ...the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from and overclothed
>  blindness to a naked vi- sion...
>  - Dylan Thomas
>  
>  ...language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction,
>  something that can not be said...
>  - E. A. Robinson
>  
>  ...the art of saying everything and reducing it to nothing...
>  
>  - Barbara Hyett
>  
>  POEM: a composition designed to convey a vivid and imaginative sense
>  of experience, charac- terized by the use of condensed language chosen
>  for its sound and suggestive power as well as its meaning, and by the
>  use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadenc- es,
>  rhyme, or metaphor.
>  
>  - American Heritage Dictionary
>  
>  A poem is "a sonorous molded shape of form".
>  
>  - Osip Mandelstam
>  
>  ... a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly constructed
>  as a table or a motorcyle...
>  - W. H. Auden
>  
>  Poetry amounts to arranging words with the greatest specific gravity in the
>  most effective and externally inevitable sequence.
>  
>  - Joseph Brodsky
>  
>  A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism participates.
>  
>  - Charles Simic
>  
>  A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it...by way of the
>  poem itself, all the way over to the reader.
>  
>  - Charles Olson
>  
>  


From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Fri Oct  3 14:40:41 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 13:40:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <3F7DBD39.3AA18546@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <BBA32CD9.5650%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 10/3/03 1:17 PM, Helen Ruggieri at hruggier at localnet.com wrote:

> Addition - Prose goes all the way to the margin, poetry doesn't.
>                           don't know who said it, but I like it
> H. Ruggieri

Yeah, but this only works in a print culture. What about in an oral culture?

Paul Lake

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Fri Oct  3 14:49:54 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 20:49:54 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <b7.3706d019.2caf1bdb@aol.com>
Message-ID: <005c01c389df$22f500a0$6d1c2dd5@anny>

Thank you all, James and Thom and Helen (yes I can also remember yours), I
am wondering, is it possible for me to gather these quotations on a page and
put them on my poets' corner or am I stealing or misusing copyrights?
If yes, I could add information on those who collected them, or?
Anny

From: <JforJames at aol.com>


> or is it...
>
> things that are true expressed in words that are beautiful.
> -- Dante
>
> the art of uniting pleasure with truth by calling imagination
> to the help of reason.
> -- Samuel Johnson
>
> the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
> -- William Wordsworth
>
> musical thought
> -- Thomas Carlyle
>
> emotion put into measure.
> -- Thomas Hardy
>
> If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,
> I know that it is poetry.
> -- Emily Dickinson
>
> speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest
> even over and above its interest and meaning.
> -- Gerard Manley Hopkins
>
> a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget.
> -- Robert Frost
>
> a revelation in words by means of the words.
>  -- Wallace Stevens
>
> Poetry is prose bewitched.
> -- Mina Loy
>
> not the assertion that something is true, but the making
> of that truth more fully real to us.
> -- T. S. Eliot
>
> the clear expression of mixed feelings.
> -- W. H. Auden
>
> the body of linguistic constructions that men usually refer to as poems.
> -- J. V. Cunningham
>
> hundreds of things coming together at the right moment.
> -- Elizabeth Bishop
>
> Poetry is life distilled.-- Gwendolyn Brooks
>
> A poem is something that penetrates for an instant into the unconscious.
> -- Robert Bly
>
> Poetry is the synthesis of hyancinths and bisquits.-- Carl Sandburg
>
> Poetry is the diefication of reality.--Edith Sitwell
>
> the story of a soul. --Czeslaw Milosz
>
> getting something right in  language-Howard Nemerov
>
> Poetry is the great stimulation of life...Poetry is redemption from
pessimism.
> -Susan Howe
>
> In a message dated 10/3/03 7:50:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
Thom424 at aol.com
> writes:
>
> > "A poem is anything said in such a way or put on the page in such a way
as
> to
> >
> >  invite from the hearer or reader a certain kind of attention."
> >
> >  --William Stafford
> >
> >   I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.
> >   - Edgar Allen Poe
> >
> >  Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best
> >  order.
> >  - S. T. Coleridge
> >
> >  ... the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an
> >  illusion of the imagaination...
> >  - Macaulay
> >
> >  ...the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and
> >  happiest minds...
> >
> >  - Shelley
> >
> >  ...speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest even over
> >  and above its interest of meaning...
> >  - Gerard Manley Hopkins
> >
> >  ...the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from and overclothed
> >  blindness to a naked vi- sion...
> >  - Dylan Thomas
> >
> >  ...language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction,
> >  something that can not be said...
> >  - E. A. Robinson
> >
> >  ...the art of saying everything and reducing it to nothing...
> >
> >  - Barbara Hyett
> >
> >  POEM: a composition designed to convey a vivid and imaginative sense
> >  of experience, charac- terized by the use of condensed language chosen
> >  for its sound and suggestive power as well as its meaning, and by the
> >  use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadenc-
es,
> >  rhyme, or metaphor.
> >
> >  - American Heritage Dictionary
> >
> >  A poem is "a sonorous molded shape of form".
> >
> >  - Osip Mandelstam
> >
> >  ... a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly
constructed
> >  as a table or a motorcyle...
> >  - W. H. Auden
> >
> >  Poetry amounts to arranging words with the greatest specific gravity in
the
> >  most effective and externally inevitable sequence.
> >
> >  - Joseph Brodsky
> >
> >  A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism
participates.
> >
> >  - Charles Simic
> >
> >  A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it...by way of the
> >  poem itself, all the way over to the reader.
> >
> >  - Charles Olson
> >
> >
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Fri Oct  3 14:51:11 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 20:51:11 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <BBA32CD9.5650%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>
Message-ID: <006001c389df$508f8080$6d1c2dd5@anny>

In this specific case :
it is prose when it fills your mouth,
poetry when it gives you enough time to breathe...
:-)
a

From: "Paul Lake" <paul.lake at mail.atu.edu>


> on 10/3/03 1:17 PM, Helen Ruggieri at hruggier at localnet.com wrote:
>
> > Addition - Prose goes all the way to the margin, poetry doesn't.
> >                           don't know who said it, but I like it
> > H. Ruggieri
>
> Yeah, but this only works in a print culture. What about in an oral
culture?
>
> Paul Lake
>
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From JforJames at aol.com  Fri Oct  3 15:06:54 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 15:06:54 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <7a.48ca54bb.2caf22ce@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/3/03 2:49:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
paul.lake at mail.atu.edu writes:

>  Addition - Prose goes all the way to the margin, poetry doesn't.
>  >                           don't know who said it, but I like it
>  > H. Ruggieri
>  
>  Yeah, but this only works in a print culture. What about in an oral 
culture?
>  
Paul, I think one could say that prose doesn't really exist in an oral 
culture.
There would be stories and everything else would be just speech.
Finnegan


From JforJames at aol.com  Fri Oct  3 15:15:59 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 15:15:59 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <1ac.1aea2052.2caf24ef@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/3/03 2:55:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
anny.ballardini at tin.it writes:

> Thank you all, James and Thom and Helen (yes I can also remember yours), I
>  am wondering, is it possible for me to gather these quotations on a page 
and
>  put them on my poets' corner or am I stealing or misusing copyrights?
>  If yes, I could add information on those who collected them, or?
>  Anny
Anny, it's fine with me. I wish I had citations for all those I posted...most 
now are in the public domain of course...and "fair use" could be claimed
for the rest, I would think.
Finnegan


From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Fri Oct  3 15:18:44 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 21:18:44 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] b/c
References: <1ac.1aea2052.2caf24ef@aol.com>
Message-ID: <007e01c389e3$29d1c260$6d1c2dd5@anny>

Thank you again, James,
if you wish I would like to add a paragraph on you after the quotations you
posted, if that is ok with you,
(I am here translating a contract, and this topic is so much more
interesting....)
I remember I looked on google for some information on you, or to read some
of your poems, is there a site on which your work appears?

anny

an also remember yours), I
> >  am wondering, is it possible for me to gather these quotations on a
page
> and
> >  put them on my poets' corner or am I stealing or misusing copyrights?
> >  If yes, I could add information on those who collected them, or?
> >  Anny
> Anny, it's fine with me. I wish I had citations for all those I
posted...most
> now are in the public domain of course...and "fair use" could be claimed
> for the rest, I would think.
> Finnegan
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From kpaul at mallasch.com  Fri Oct  3 15:24:18 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 14:24:18 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <1ac.1aea2052.2caf24ef@aol.com>
References: <1ac.1aea2052.2caf24ef@aol.com>
Message-ID: <20031003142408.O33266@kpaul.spinweb.net>

Be sure to share the URL once you get it up. :)

-kpaul

On Fri, 3 Oct 2003 JforJames at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 10/3/03 2:55:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> anny.ballardini at tin.it writes:
>
> > Thank you all, James and Thom and Helen (yes I can also remember yours), I
> >  am wondering, is it possible for me to gather these quotations on a page
> and
> >  put them on my poets' corner or am I stealing or misusing copyrights?
> >  If yes, I could add information on those who collected them, or?
> >  Anny
> Anny, it's fine with me. I wish I had citations for all those I posted...most
> now are in the public domain of course...and "fair use" could be claimed
> for the rest, I would think.
> Finnegan
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Fri Oct  3 15:23:33 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 21:23:33 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] b/c
References: <1ac.1aea2052.2caf24ef@aol.com> <007e01c389e3$29d1c260$6d1c2dd5@anny>
Message-ID: <008c01c389e3$d60d8e60$6d1c2dd5@anny>

It was meant to be back/channel...
yes, contracts they can mess up your mind..

From: "Anny Ballardini" <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> Thank you again, James,
> if you wish I would like to add a paragraph on you after the quotations
you
> posted, if that is ok with you,
> (I am here translating a contract, and this topic is so much more
> interesting....)
> I remember I looked on google for some information on you, or to read some
> of your poems, is there a site on which your work appears?
>
> anny
>
> an also remember yours), I
> > >  am wondering, is it possible for me to gather these quotations on a
> page
> > and
> > >  put them on my poets' corner or am I stealing or misusing copyrights?
> > >  If yes, I could add information on those who collected them, or?
> > >  Anny
> > Anny, it's fine with me. I wish I had citations for all those I
> posted...most
> > now are in the public domain of course...and "fair use" could be claimed
> > for the rest, I would think.
> > Finnegan
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 15:52:29 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 15:52:29 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
In-Reply-To: <000901c389d3$42e16b80$b8ae8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <3F7D9B3D.13889.1C61AE8@localhost>

> No, OF COURSE not all usages, and even the OED (whichever version you
> cite) simply records the "first recorded written usage" ... 
> ... Partridge's
> work on thieves' slang and cant, or the Zwingali dictionaries, or
> rhyming slang? Initial slang, or the way Villon uses thieves' cant in
> some of his poems? The difference between creole and dialect? ...<<

I don't see the point you're trying to make given the tone you're 
using.<<

> Language is a consensual medium.  (A truism that would cross from
> Wittgensein to de Saussure.)  You can play games with it but please at
> least stick to the rules.<<

Perhaps if you were a little clearer about the rules you think I'm 
not sticking to?







From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 15:53:56 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 15:53:56 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <3F7DBD39.3AA18546@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <3F7D9B94.2683.1C76EF8@localhost>

On 3 Oct 2003 at 14:17, Helen Ruggieri wrote:

> Addition - Prose goes all the way to the margin, poetry doesn't.
>                             don't know who said it, but I like it H.
> Ruggieri

Jeremy Bentham, I believe.

Marcus


> 
> Marcus Bales wrote:
> 
> > Frost: a momentary stay against confusion.
> >
> > On 3 Oct 2003 at 7:49, Thom424 at aol.com wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > Bob--some kindling:
> > >
> > >
> > > "A poem is anything said in such a way or put on the page in such
> > > a way as to invite from the hearer or reader a certain kind of
> > > attention."
> > >
> > > --William Stafford
> > >
> > > I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.
> > > - Edgar Allen Poe
> > >
> > > Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the
> > > best order. - S. T. Coleridge
> > >
> > > ... the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an
> > > illusion of the imagaination... - Macaulay
> > >
> > > ...the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and
> > > happiest minds...
> > >
> > > - Shelley
> > >
> > > ...speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest even
> > > over and above its interest of meaning... - Gerard Manley Hopkins
> > >
> > > ...the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from and
> > > overclothed blindness to a naked vi- sion... - Dylan Thomas
> > >
> > > ...language that tells us, through a more or less emotional
> > > reaction, something that can not be said... - E. A. Robinson
> > >
> > > ...the art of saying everything and reducing it to nothing...
> > >
> > > - Barbara Hyett
> > >
> > > POEM: a composition designed to convey a vivid and imaginative
> > > sense of experience, charac- terized by the use of condensed
> > > language chosen for its sound and suggestive power as well as its
> > > meaning, and by the use of such literary techniques as structured
> > > meter, natural cadenc- es, rhyme, or metaphor.
> > >
> > > - American Heritage Dictionary
> > >
> > > A poem is "a sonorous molded shape of form".
> > >
> > > - Osip Mandelstam
> > >
> > > ... a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly
> > > constructed as a table or a motorcyle... - W. H. Auden
> > >
> > > Poetry amounts to arranging words with the greatest specific
> > > gravity in the most effective and externally inevitable sequence.
> > >
> > > - Joseph Brodsky
> > >
> > > A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism
> > > participates.
> > >
> > > - Charles Simic
> > >
> > > A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it...by way
> > > of the poem itself, all the way over to the reader.
> > >
> > > - Charles Olson
> > >
> > >
> > > Thom Tammaro
> > > Moorhead, MN
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct  3 15:53:48 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 15:53:48 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <3F7D33A2.23637.316681@localhost>
Message-ID: <010001c389e8$10c575a0$ffa0fea9@j1c1k6>

> Well, the question remains, vis a vis "your poetics", why do you want
> to dispose of a distinction that has proved useful for centuries for
> the shared poetics of western civilization? What's your agenda for
> disposing of a useful distinction? It is as if, to use your other
> analogy, you decided never to distinguish between red and blue any
> more, but merely to refer to them as "color" for some reason. Well,
> what's the reason?

Wrong again, Marcus, but I'm not going to try to straighten you out.  It's
just too much trouble.

> As for the dictionary, those who are content to let the constraints
> of the lexicographer's problems define their words deserve the
> results.

Which I, of course, did not do.

> > You're ad hominemming--because you're concerning yourself with
> > motives, which are irrelevant.  And you seem to be doing this to show
> > that only people with bad motives conflate the two.<<
>
> No, motives and intentions are NOT irrelevant. You want to conflate
> the meanings of two useful terms in the poetics of western
> civilization; you claim that your poetics is better (implicitly,
> because you put it forward all the time, and you defend it)

Ridiculous.  I put it forward to see if it works for others, and if not, why
not--or if it does, if it can be improved, anyway.

; you
> clearly have an agenda. You must have a reason for prefering to
> conflate two useful terms: what is that reason?  If you don't have a
> reason, of course, then you don't have a reason and that is probably
> dispositive in regard to whether anyone should take your "poetics"
> seriously.

It doesn't matter what my reason is.  What matters is whether my poetics
works or not.

> > You for some reason find it impossible to believe me, but my agenda is
> > 95% to improve the discussion of poetry through (what I take to
> > be)clarification, greater systematization and wider, more detailed
> > applicability of terms.<<
>
> And to the end of greater clarity and more detailed applicability of
> terms you choose to conflate the meanings of two terms in general use
> in the field as terms of art for centuries? The notion is ridiculous
> on the face of it.

Good work, Marcus: you've climbed from ad hominemming to argument by
assertion.

--Bob G.




From hruggier at localnet.com  Fri Oct  3 16:00:58 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 16:00:58 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <BBA32CD9.5650%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>
Message-ID: <3F7DD579.54F67E00@localnet.com>

Who am I to argue with Jeremy Bentham.

Paul Lake wrote:

> on 10/3/03 1:17 PM, Helen Ruggieri at hruggier at localnet.com wrote:
>
> > Addition - Prose goes all the way to the margin, poetry doesn't.
> >                           don't know who said it, but I like it
> > H. Ruggieri
>
> Yeah, but this only works in a print culture. What about in an oral culture?
>
> Paul Lake
>
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct  3 15:55:52 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 15:55:52 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <3F7D3463.16297.345866@localhost>
Message-ID: <010601c389e8$59c66ca0$ffa0fea9@j1c1k6>

You left out perhaps the most useless definition of all: Emily's, about
something that takes the top of her head off or something.  But I thought I
asked for a serious definition.

--Bob G.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 8:33 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> Frost: a momentary stay against confusion.
>
>
> On 3 Oct 2003 at 7:49, Thom424 at aol.com wrote:
>
> >
> > Bob--some kindling:
> >
> >
> > "A poem is anything said in such a way or put on the page in such a
> > way as to invite from the hearer or reader a certain kind of
> > attention."
> >
> > --William Stafford
> >
> > I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.
> > - Edgar Allen Poe
> >
> > Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best
> > order. - S. T. Coleridge
> >
> > ... the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an
> > illusion of the imagaination...
> > - Macaulay
> >
> > ...the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and
> > happiest minds...
> >
> > - Shelley
> >
> > ...speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest even over
> > and above its interest of meaning... - Gerard Manley Hopkins
> >
> > ...the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from and overclothed
> > blindness to a naked vi- sion... - Dylan Thomas
> >
> > ...language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction,
> > something that can not be said... - E. A. Robinson
> >
> > ...the art of saying everything and reducing it to nothing...
> >
> > - Barbara Hyett
> >
> > POEM: a composition designed to convey a vivid and imaginative sense
> > of experience, charac- terized by the use of condensed language chosen
> > for its sound and suggestive power as well as its meaning, and by the
> > use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadenc-
> > es, rhyme, or metaphor.
> >
> > - American Heritage Dictionary
> >
> > A poem is "a sonorous molded shape of form".
> >
> > - Osip Mandelstam
> >
> > ... a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly
> > constructed
> > as a table or a motorcyle...
> > - W. H. Auden
> >
> > Poetry amounts to arranging words with the greatest specific gravity
> > in the most effective and externally inevitable sequence.
> >
> > - Joseph Brodsky
> >
> > A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism
> > participates.
> >
> > - Charles Simic
> >
> > A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it...by way of
> > the poem itself, all the way over to the reader.
> >
> > - Charles Olson
> >
> >
> > Thom Tammaro
> > Moorhead, MN
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From hruggier at localnet.com  Fri Oct  3 16:03:07 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 16:03:07 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <b7.3706d019.2caf1bdb@aol.com> <005c01c389df$22f500a0$6d1c2dd5@anny>
Message-ID: <3F7DD5FB.E64EE26@localnet.com>

That would be a great grouping and I think you're allowed brief chunks for the
purposes of review (or something like that).

I like your breath quote too - downright Olsonish

h

Anny Ballardini wrote:

> Thank you all, James and Thom and Helen (yes I can also remember yours), I
> am wondering, is it possible for me to gather these quotations on a page and
> put them on my poets' corner or am I stealing or misusing copyrights?
> If yes, I could add information on those who collected them, or?
> Anny
>
> From: <JforJames at aol.com>
>
> > or is it...
> >
> > things that are true expressed in words that are beautiful.
> > -- Dante
> >
> > the art of uniting pleasure with truth by calling imagination
> > to the help of reason.
> > -- Samuel Johnson
> >
> > the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings.
> > -- William Wordsworth
> >
> > musical thought
> > -- Thomas Carlyle
> >
> > emotion put into measure.
> > -- Thomas Hardy
> >
> > If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off,
> > I know that it is poetry.
> > -- Emily Dickinson
> >
> > speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest
> > even over and above its interest and meaning.
> > -- Gerard Manley Hopkins
> >
> > a way of remembering that which it would impoverish us to forget.
> > -- Robert Frost
> >
> > a revelation in words by means of the words.
> >  -- Wallace Stevens
> >
> > Poetry is prose bewitched.
> > -- Mina Loy
> >
> > not the assertion that something is true, but the making
> > of that truth more fully real to us.
> > -- T. S. Eliot
> >
> > the clear expression of mixed feelings.
> > -- W. H. Auden
> >
> > the body of linguistic constructions that men usually refer to as poems.
> > -- J. V. Cunningham
> >
> > hundreds of things coming together at the right moment.
> > -- Elizabeth Bishop
> >
> > Poetry is life distilled.-- Gwendolyn Brooks
> >
> > A poem is something that penetrates for an instant into the unconscious.
> > -- Robert Bly
> >
> > Poetry is the synthesis of hyancinths and bisquits.-- Carl Sandburg
> >
> > Poetry is the diefication of reality.--Edith Sitwell
> >
> > the story of a soul. --Czeslaw Milosz
> >
> > getting something right in  language-Howard Nemerov
> >
> > Poetry is the great stimulation of life...Poetry is redemption from
> pessimism.
> > -Susan Howe
> >
> > In a message dated 10/3/03 7:50:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> Thom424 at aol.com
> > writes:
> >
> > > "A poem is anything said in such a way or put on the page in such a way
> as
> > to
> > >
> > >  invite from the hearer or reader a certain kind of attention."
> > >
> > >  --William Stafford
> > >
> > >   I would define poetry as the rhythmical creation of beauty.
> > >   - Edgar Allen Poe
> > >
> > >  Prose: words in their best order; poetry: the best words in the best
> > >  order.
> > >  - S. T. Coleridge
> > >
> > >  ... the art of employing words in such a manner as to produce an
> > >  illusion of the imagaination...
> > >  - Macaulay
> > >
> > >  ...the record of the best and happiest moments of the best and
> > >  happiest minds...
> > >
> > >  - Shelley
> > >
> > >  ...speech framed...to be heard for its own sake and interest even over
> > >  and above its interest of meaning...
> > >  - Gerard Manley Hopkins
> > >
> > >  ...the rhythmic, inevitably narrative, movement from and overclothed
> > >  blindness to a naked vi- sion...
> > >  - Dylan Thomas
> > >
> > >  ...language that tells us, through a more or less emotional reaction,
> > >  something that can not be said...
> > >  - E. A. Robinson
> > >
> > >  ...the art of saying everything and reducing it to nothing...
> > >
> > >  - Barbara Hyett
> > >
> > >  POEM: a composition designed to convey a vivid and imaginative sense
> > >  of experience, charac- terized by the use of condensed language chosen
> > >  for its sound and suggestive power as well as its meaning, and by the
> > >  use of such literary techniques as structured meter, natural cadenc-
> es,
> > >  rhyme, or metaphor.
> > >
> > >  - American Heritage Dictionary
> > >
> > >  A poem is "a sonorous molded shape of form".
> > >
> > >  - Osip Mandelstam
> > >
> > >  ... a verbal artifact which must be as skillfully and solidly
> constructed
> > >  as a table or a motorcyle...
> > >  - W. H. Auden
> > >
> > >  Poetry amounts to arranging words with the greatest specific gravity in
> the
> > >  most effective and externally inevitable sequence.
> > >
> > >  - Joseph Brodsky
> > >
> > >  A poem is an instant of lucidity in which the entire organism
> participates.
> > >
> > >  - Charles Simic
> > >
> > >  A poem is energy transferred from where the poet got it...by way of the
> > >  poem itself, all the way over to the reader.
> > >
> > >  - Charles Olson
> > >
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 16:03:45 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 16:03:45 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <BBA32B28.481C%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <71.357d3e06.2caf17f6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F7D9DE1.4537.1D06CDF@localhost>

On 3 Oct 2003 at 13:33, David Graham wrote:
> Prosody 101
>Linda Pastan
> When they taught me that what mattered most
> was not the strict iambic line goose-stepping
> over the page but the variations ...<<

Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur
Lewis Carroll

"How shall I be a poet?
How shall I write in rhyme?
You told me once 'the very wish
Partook of the sublime.'
The tell me how! Don't put me off
With your 'another time'!"

The old man smiled to see him,
To hear his sudden sally;
He liked the lad to speak his mind
Enthusiastically;
And thought "There's no hum-drum in him,
Nor any shilly-shally."

"And would you be a poet
Before you've been to school?
Ah, well! I hardly thought you
So absolute a fool.
First learn to be spasmodic --
A very simple rule.

"For first you write a sentence,
And then you chop it small;
Then mix the bits, and sort them out
Just as they chance to fall:
The order of the phrases makes
No difference at all.

'Then, if you'd be impressive,
Remember what I say,
That abstract qualities begin
With capitals alway:
The True, the Good, the Beautiful --
Those are the things that pay!

"Next, when we are describing
A shape, or sound, or tint;
Don't state the matter plainly,
But put it in a hint;
And learn to look at all things
With a sort of mental squint."

"For instance, if I wished, Sir,
Of mutton-pies to tell,
Should I say 'dreams of fleecy flocks
Pent in a wheaten cell'?"
"Why, yes," the old man said: "that phrase
Would answer very well.

"Then fourthly, there are epithets
That suit with any word --
As well as Harvey's Reading Sauce
With fish, or flesh, or bird --
Of these, 'wild,' 'lonely,' 'weary,' 'strange,'
Are much to be preferred."

"And will it do, O will it do
To take them in a lump --
As 'the wild man went his weary way
To a strange and lonely pump'?"
"Nay, nay! You must not hastily
To such conclusions jump.

"Such epithets, like pepper,
Give zest to what you write;
And, if you strew them sparely,
They whet the appetite:
But if you lay them on too thick,
You spoil the matter quite!

"Last, as to the arrangement:
Your reader, you should show him,
Must take what information he
Can get, and look for no im
mature disclosure of the drift
And purpose of your poem.

"Therefore to test his patience --
How much he can endure --
Mention no places, names, or dates,
And evermore be sure
Throughout the poem to be found
Consistently obscure.

"First fix upon the limit
To which it shall extend:
Then fill it up with 'Padding'
(Beg some of any friend)
Your great SENSATION-STANZA
You place towards the end."

"And what is a Sensation,
Grandfather, tell me, pray?
I think I never heard the word
So used before to-day:
Be kind enough to mention one
'Exempli grati?'"

And the old man, looking sadly
Across the garden-lawn,
Where here and there a dew-drop
Yet glittered in the dawn,
Said "Go to the Adelphi,
And see the 'Colleen Bawn.'

"The word is due to Boucicault --
The theory is his,
Where Life becomes a Spasm,
And History a Whiz:
If that is not Sensation,
I don't know what it is,

"Now try your hand, ere Fancy
Have lost its present glow --"
"And then," his grandson added,
"We'll publish it, you know:
Green cloth -- gold-lettered at the back --
In duodecimo!"

Then proudly smiled that old man
To see the eager lad
Rush madly for his pen and ink
And for his blotting-pad --
But, when he thought of *publishing*,
His face grew stern and sad.

                 --Lewis Carroll









From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Fri Oct  3 16:12:13 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 21:12:13 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <3F7D6546.14441.F34C35@localhost>
Message-ID: <00ab01c389ea$a2bd66a0$b8ae8051@MyPC>

Marcus:

> It seems to me the Greeks seemed to think that in at least one way
> meter and poetry were the same, for doesn't Gorgias say something
> like "I will speak without meter because I am not a poet" in The
> Republic?

Oh jeezus freaking WEPT, Marcus, that's the whole fucking POINT!!!!

> But they do also distinguish between the rhythm of prose
> and the meter of poetry, too, I think.

:-(

{Although the distinction between "meter" and "rhythm" isn't absolutely
transparent.}

Reread _The Poetics_.

Read Rosemary Huisman's book, _the written poem_, and her analysis (which I
don't entirely agree with) over the signficant difference over the
orthographical presentation of OE "poetry" and Aelfric and Wulfstan's Saints
Lives (which she doesn't carry forward into, which I'd do, as she's a bit
hung-up on orthography) the difference between Piers Plowman and the Gawain
Poems.

> More significantly, though
> there is also the "mimesis" issue, the notion that poetry is fiction,
> that it must imitate life and not merely report it as history does,
> though it is still going too far to say that the Greeks thought all
> poetry must be mimetic. Plato distinguishes three types of poetry,
> drama, or a pretty pure imitation where the dialog and the chorus do
> all the work; a mixed mimesis such as the epic where there is dialog
> and narration, and then more or less pure narrative.

Oh god this is just so blah I refuse to engage with it.

Apart from anything friggin' ELSE, the crucial difference in formal types is
between the epic, the lyric and the drama.

Homer, Archilochocus, Sophocles.

Right?

Temporally, and this is a platitude, they are, in Greek literature,
sequential.

> Aristotle's opinions seems to have been that the mimesis is more
> important to distinguish poetry from non-poetry, or perhaps more
> characteristic of poetry, than metron -- but Aristotle's goal in
> making such distinctions seems to have been to illustrate that not
> all poetry is truly poetic; that is to say, that one can write in
> hexameters and still not write poetry, and Aristotle was taking some
> pains to distinguish between those who tell a story that actually
> happened and those who make up a story that is representative of what
> could happen, to argue that the latter were poets but the former were
> historians -- even if they wrote in hexameters or elegaic couplets.

Oh christ, this is so confused it's incredible.

In _The Poetics_, Aristotle drew a distinction between poetry and prose, and
between fiction, philosophy, and history.  Other things as well.  The above
"summary" (frankly) sucks.

Also, of course, it manages to omit the one element of _The Poetics_ which
might just be relevant to this debate -- that Aristotle located the centre
of "poetry" in "metaphor".

Which you can carry forward to Wallace Stevens and "Poetry is the supreme
fiction, madame," which as a USAmerican, you ought ot know better than me.

> It was in the Renaissance, after Aristotle's Poetics was rediscovered
> in the early 16th century and translated

I'm not really quite sure where to start here ...  Thomas Aquinas in the
*14thC* and the pre-Renaissance access to Aristotle?  The fall of the
Byzantine Empire and and refugees porting copies of Plato to Western Europe?
Petrarch's access to Plato MSS he couldn't read?  The Arabic element in the
whole business?

Shit, Marcus ...

:-(

Robin Hamilton




From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Fri Oct  3 06:59:22 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 12:59:22 +0200
Subject: Fw: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter Alex the Great had it easy?-The Gordian Knot & Other Things.
Message-ID: <000001c389ec$dae90fa0$0587fac1@pavilion>

to Jack Tar ?
For putting my Jaggy Stuff on share - auction.

to Robin who needs no translation:
I did mean the Bell Shaped Curve as I was refering to the common statistical
name to lead up to " bath tubes -yield /reliability curves, corned
hats -polytechnicians, arts & metiers french engineers & chip pokes - Alex
Smith's boys brigade hats or more precisely Pill Boxes when I served my
time. Then as I scribbled on, I found as many scientist  do,  a shape which
brought me to a more common reality which I spotted again in the T.S.Eliot's
piece on New-Poetry.

Of course you are right, it is to my mind  "A Bell Curve". But I must
persist & sign. I shall stock your suggestion for later & hopefully remember
to mention you as the
corrector. How can your profession "litterature - I presume as Stanley
addressed Livingstone" tolerate the unacknowledged writing. Science may be
heavy on the subject but science & maths can only advance, as is reported,
mostly because of  a minimun of discipline (questions of : appearance, of
belief & of values- respectively in order of importance I think).

For more profound comments on modern science, I must say I nolonger have
access to the Brilliant Smith's bookshop in Glasgow ( worse I believe it had
to close!!!!!)  As for Catastrophy theory your "Tom Cat" could perhaps be
Ren? Thom (ze famous french mathematicien?)  As for Cats travelling through
walls, I am still at the the nevertheless very useful Josephson Junction
stage in my quantum notions.

On problems of  Sets (Jet one's?) Classes-working one's as in teaching...&
Categories etc. The Brit J. Phil Science is a good place to start -try a
free sample via the web if your are far from "civilisation" but in Glasgow
copies abound. For background reading The Encyclopaedia Britannica is a very
good reference (I am still on the 1974-1985 edition except the one Vol.
which has disappeared and was never replaced-pretty incredible even in
France. I was foolish enough to comment on Venn Diag's. on www.Chemweb.com
so now I feel obliged to maintain minimun service as any serious
professional does.  I hope educ threads are useful or good reminders.

On the British lists? I made a copy of one contribution - I am no ungrateful
traitor: Lochs abound but there is only one Lake.
But have too much of a job with my Web zines & New Poetry to request special
authorisation at present. A pity. Don't hesitate to
bash it on to any friends on the Brit List with my following remarks.

Do you think I could make the price of my much awaited passport renewal - it
got lost in the Glasgow post...etc Admin Job stuff,  can you imagine!
I made quite a scandale well before 9/11. - No corny remarks please.


to Henry for reminding "New - Poetry" that many/most of the world must cut
the Gordian Knot every day (Alex the Great had it easy?) cf below -read on.

to Gabe -Lots of good efforts

to the Davids for their contributions

to Jimmy Cervantes for giving me courage.

to the Lassies,  for I'm from "THE Burns Country - Ayrshire "& linguists
even if
"Italy-Italian" does not have a good reputation in the EU, the best have
left, I guess EXCEPT at least one couple who gave my wife a cardigan to keep
when on the top of mount Ethna when
we wondered up in near beach wear!!!

to Tom Bell who may like "The Bell Shaped Curve" & Other Extracts


to Jim Finnigan for putting up with all this.

IF I FORGOT ANYONE IT IS DUE TO MOMENTARY OVERLOAD. I SHALL BE PLEASE TO
RECTIFY ANY OFFENSE CAUSED.
FOR CIVILISATION - I write as much as to remind myself  to cut ....





THE GORDIAN KNOT (many of us must cut it every day!)

At a loose end.

Tying up loose ends,
Can only lead to knots,
Stories of curves and bends,
Hardly stuff of comfortable thought.  ( "Slipping & Slidding-just an
accident due to ease of word processing as I edit this").

     ? J.A. ( march 2001).


LE NOEUD GORDIEN. (beaucoup d'entre nous doivent le coup? tous les jour !)

En lambeaux

Accrocher des bouts de pendants cordages
Ne peut mener qu'aux noeds,
Des histoires de courbes et de virages,
Pas vraiment mati?re ? penser-
Confortablement ? eux..


 Version Fr. par J.A. (Avril 2001) ? JA.
(mostly just a metallurgist - m. j. a. m.)

Robin:
"Did you ever read my "Market gits Spice" thrown out of
the EU as a "non-recognised offical language (form?) Oh I must give you this

Market gits Spice.
           (To Mr.  D. Footham and friends).                   (revised
version of foot and mouth disease).

Ye git's! Ye bunch o'git's,
ye mak' me mad, blin' daft.
Market gits Spice.

David Bootham, or is it back'm?
No enough cash, I'd brand 'im!
Tae squander on spice and the  likes, bluster!(buster?)
The kind that wid gae the strangest an ulcer.    (wid-would)
I'm doubled up in shear pain.
'Must be market's  shear strain.
The git's, wid they feel ony shame?
We've heard how much he's worth but to whae?
But does ay ken  hoo much 'e-costs an' to wham?

REFRAIN: Ye git's! .

The pair wean's the  pair wee weans.
Yur daddy ponded yur wee toy train
Yur fired! Yur a' damned fired by goad!
Naebuddy wi' sense wid gae yeese a joab.
Is it  Boab or Alex that sets the wage?
The slate's a nae Start, richt Salty gage
Doon richt stupidity has nae boun' or age
Busby' s babbes must turn in their graves
A-spire,
Their weans waited near forty years save

REFRAIN:  Ye git's!

Fig's guid, Zizou, and king 'Enry too
Emperor Eric a'ways did his team true
Ryan presses the wick, victory he riggs            & Homage too to  Ryan Air
that flies Beauvais to Prestwick
Glides like the white ghost*, a fine Gigg.            *The late John White,
footballer, of Spur's & Scotland way back....
But a' this dope, incense an' spice?                                  .
It's  lawfu' but no'  a' quite  nice.
I've got it, thanks tae a day's thoucht
(Thought for the day, BBC4)
That's richt, a chap broadcast oucht                          oucht -the
other day
"In auld Britannia a man is mare concerned                        mare -
more & a "lady horse"
Wi the inequalities in horsies, race banned

REFRAIN: (Ye git's!.
Market gits Spice)

Than awe the inequalities in blessed mankind"
A man's a man  fur a' that an' a' that"
So whit's the trouble, lay me alain ye top hat
Tae win the price o' a packet a coffin nails
 Or a pint o' bitter tae pit wind in ma sails
Fur company while I canter hame.     (Canter, today= drive)
Yur no gonie put on me ony blame?
Fur 'a that an' a' that it's coming yet
That man to man the warld o'er
Shall brothers be for a' that

So listen tae yur brither noo

REFRAIN: Ye git's!.
Market gits Spice
    James Alexander  copyright @ ADA Grp.  Dammit my machine is bugged on
copyright, I shall be obliged to copyleft. at .
    (29/03/2001).

 On a better footing?

Footy note
To help out on issues of differenciation as most of you know I guess,


----- Original Message -----
From: "james.alexander1" <james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 8:17 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter


> The Golfer (Early Autumn) Early autumn.
>
> You don't notice the wind,
> such is your steely resistance,
> Till the leaves change colour,
> flatten, light green consistence.
> Sitting under the wind,
> stronger now, the branches sway.
> The first raindrops fall,
> It is too late for match play.
>
>
> ? J.A.
> World wide to walk on the green WWW ong.  Sept./0ct1999.
>
>
> Sounds for the deaf & for solitary golf by -60C/279 ?Kelvin.
>
> The sun shone an the first green and the second tee
> The young oak looked on amused at these futile gests
> Her leaves golden spoke tinkling, tinkling falling free
> Floating in the early frosted air to a final tinkled rest
> I stained my ear to listen to natures tune
> From tee to tee and tree to tree ever since
> I realize the uniqueness my experienced roon
>
>
>
> Jas. Alexander
>
> Copyright ? J.A.
>
>
> Roon=round in S.W. Scots vernacular.
> The ground, a free way in France
> True story to a tee.
>
> MORE CONTRIBUTIONS (Poetry as you judge it & other things) IN STOCK.
available upon Requested.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richard Wilsnack" <rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 9:47 PM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter
>
>
> > At 12:23 PM 9/22/2003 -0500, Paul Lake wrote:
> > >on 9/22/03 11:31 AM, Graham, David at GrahamD at ripon.edu wrote:
> > >
> > > >>>>>>>>>>>> Some formal poets feel the same way about free verse that
> > > > baseball purists
> > > > feel about the designated hitter rule in the AL: they fell it's a
> > > newfangled
> > > > invention that violates the purity of a very old game.
> > > >
> > > > Paul Lake
> > > > -------------------
> > > >
> > > > Yup.  But the real problem here is that damned iambic pentameter
> stuff.
> > > > Fancypants French import.  Never shoulda messed with those good old
> Saxon
> > > > rhythms, I say. . . .
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ============================================
> > > > David Graham
> >
> > Well litter'd with alliteration?
> >
> > Richard W. Wilsnack
> > rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Fri Oct  3 08:29:40 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 14:29:40 +0200
Subject: Great timing !Re: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
References: <BBA251C2.47C5%grahamd@ripon.edu> <20031002223841.D53011@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <000201c389ec$dead6aa0$0587fac1@pavilion>

Thanks.

I suppose I can pass this along, quoting references?

Our friends have a terrible tile trying to name their cat.
A little all white chap who stands on his hind feet a lot
and uses his front paws like hands. (for the inspired).

J.A.
----- Original Message -----
From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 5:38 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry


> The Naming of Cats
>
> The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
> It isn't just one of your holiday games;
> You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
> When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
> First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,
> Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
> Such as Victor or Jonathan, or George or Bill Bailey -
> All of them sensible everyday names.
> There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
> Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
> Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -
> But all of them sensible everyday names.
> But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
> A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
> Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
> Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
> Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
> Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
> Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum -
> Names that never belong to more than one cat.
> But above and beyond there's still one name left over,
> And that is the name that you never will guess;
> The name that no human research can discover -
> But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
> When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
> The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
> His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
> Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
> His ineffable effable
> Effanineffable
> Deep and inscrutable singular Name.
>
> T S Eliot
>
>
>
> On Thu, 2 Oct 2003, David Graham wrote:
>
> > A Theory of Prosody
> >
> >
> > When Nellie, my old pussy
> > cat, was still in her prime,
> > she would sit behind me
> > as I wrote, and when the line
> > got too long she'd reach
> > one sudden black foreleg down
> > and paw at the moving hand,
> > the offensive one. The first
> > time she drew blood I learned
> > it was poetic to end
> > a line anywhere to keep her
> > quiet. After all, many morn-
> > ings she'd gotten to the chair
> > long before I was even up.
> > Those nights I couldn't sleep
> > she'd come and sit in my lap
> > to calm me. So I figured
> > I owed her the short cat line.
> > She's dead now almost nine years,
> > and before that there was one
> > during which she faked attention
> > and I faked obedience.
> > Isn't that what it's about--
> > pretending there's an alert cat
> > who leaves nothing to chance.
> >
> > --Philip Levine.  *A Walk With Tom Jefferson*.  Knopf, 1988.
> >
> >
> >
> > ====================================================
> > David Graham
> > grahamd at ripon.edu
> > Home Page:
> > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> > Poetry Library:
> > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> > ====================================================
> >
> >
> > > From: "Paul C. Howell" <paul at tbhinc.com>
> > > Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2003 19:09:55 -0400
> > > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
> > >
> > > Keep tossing poems over the net, and when time's up the jury will
award a
> > > wreath.
> > >
> > > This is good sport.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Fri Oct  3 16:38:35 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 21:38:35 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <3F7D6546.14441.F34C35@localhost>
Message-ID: <00d201c389ee$513119e0$b8ae8051@MyPC>

Marcus:

> doesn't Gorgias say something
> like "I will speak without meter because I am not a poet" in The
> Republic?

Apart from anything else, Georgias was a Sophist, so it might help to have
even a mild sense of the dynamics of a Platonic dialogue, even if you can't
tell early from middle from late.

_The Republic_ is a Middle Period Dialogue, so we're two stages removed (at
least) from Socrates.

And as the interlayering ironies of _The Republic_ are manifest ...

Robin Hamilton






From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Oct  3 16:41:45 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 15:41:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <3F7D9DE1.4537.1D06CDF@localhost>
Message-ID: <BBA34938.483D%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Some People Like Poetry

Some people--
that means not everyone.
Not even most of them, only a few.
Not counting school, where you have to,
and poets themselves,
you might end up with something like two per thousand.

Like--
but then, you can like chicken noodle soup,
or compliments, or the color blue,
your old scarf,
your own way,
petting the dog.

Poetry--
but what is poetry anyway?
More than one rickety answer
has tumbled since that question first was raised.
But I just keep on not knowing, and I cling to that
like a redemptive handrail.
 
--Wislawa Szymborska. *Poems:  New & Collected, 1957-1997*.  Trans.
Stanislaw Baranczak & Clare Cavanagh.  Harcourt, 1998.


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================



From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Oct  3 16:53:45 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 16:53:45 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <3F7D9DE1.4537.1D06CDF@localhost>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECECOHHAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Pilgrimage

I go with my father's staff in my hand
My burning heart on the staff

My footsteps murmur the letters
Which the holy road writes out

I trace them in the sand with my staff
Before sleep
At every hospice

Lest they be wiped from my memory

I am still far from guessing
Their meaning
But they look like the constellation Wolf

No empty nights for me
If I get home safe and sound

--Vasko Popa

tr. Anne Pennington
fr. *Earth Erect*
[London: Anvil Press Poetry, 1973]


Hal     

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Fri Oct  3 16:53:38 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 22:53:38 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <1ac.1aea2052.2caf24ef@aol.com> <20031003142408.O33266@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <001301c389f0$6c249900$6d1c2dd5@anny>

Here we go:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=287

I filed the link under
_Quotations_, here is the Index:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content

Any needed changes, please let me know,
Anny

From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> Be sure to share the URL once you get it up. :)
>
> -kpaul
>
> On Fri, 3 Oct 2003 JforJames at aol.com wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 10/3/03 2:55:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> > anny.ballardini at tin.it writes:
> >
> > > Thank you all, James and Thom and Helen (yes I can also remember
yours), I
> > >  am wondering, is it possible for me to gather these quotations on a
page
> > and
> > >  put them on my poets' corner or am I stealing or misusing copyrights?
> > >  If yes, I could add information on those who collected them, or?
> > >  Anny
> > Anny, it's fine with me. I wish I had citations for all those I
posted...most
> > now are in the public domain of course...and "fair use" could be claimed
> > for the rest, I would think.
> > Finnegan
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 16:57:49 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 16:57:49 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
In-Reply-To: <00ab01c389ea$a2bd66a0$b8ae8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <3F7DAA8D.21795.201ECB0@localhost>

> > It seems to me the Greeks seemed to think that in at least one way
> > meter and poetry were the same, for doesn't Gorgias say something
> > like "I will speak without meter because I am not a poet" in The
> > Republic?
> 
> Oh jeezus freaking WEPT, Marcus, that's the whole fucking POINT!!!!

What's the whole point? Are you saying you think that Bob Grumman is 
actually a knowing Platonist who is in his conflation of the terms 
"verse" and "poetry" is reverting to a sort of Idealism? Or that 
Grumman, or Plato, represent the best thinking on whether there is a 
difference between verse and poetry in contemporary discussion? 

> Read Rosemary Huisman's book, _the written poem_, and her analysis
> (which I don't entirely agree with) over the signficant difference
> over the orthographical presentation of OE "poetry" and Aelfric and
> Wulfstan's Saints Lives (which she doesn't carry forward into, which
> I'd do, as she's a bit hung-up on orthography) the difference between
> Piers Plowman and the Gawain Poems.

And in what sense do you mean this to indicate that there has not 
been a useful distinction drawn over the last 500 years between verse 
and poetry? 
 
> > ...  Plato distinguishes three
> > types of poetry, drama, or a pretty pure imitation where the dialog
> > and the chorus do all the work; a mixed mimesis such as the epic
> > where there is dialog and narration, and then more or less pure
> > narrative.

> Apart from anything friggin' ELSE, the crucial difference in formal
> types is between the epic, the lyric and the drama.

Well, the lyric and the narrative are, broadly speaking, the same, it 
seems to me, in that it is the author speaking directly to the 
audience. I don't think we disagree on this. I don't really see where 
we are disagreeing at all. 
 
> Also, of course, it manages to omit the one element of _The Poetics_
> which might just be relevant to this debate -- that Aristotle located
> the centre of "poetry" in "metaphor".<<

Yes, the passage is well-known, but my point is to try to trace the 
bifurcation between the notion of 'verse' and 'poetry', and it seems 
to me that Aristotle has something to say about that.

Averroes's paraphrase of The Poetics was known, but do you really 
want to count that as Aristotle's influence given the rediscovery of 
actual Greek texts and their translations? There was no reliable 
translation of Aristotle's Poetics of which I'm aware until the 
largely ignored 1278 translation by William of Moerbeke based on a 
Greek text. But not until 1498 with Valla and 1536 with Pazzi did 
good Latin translations of the Greek text start to circulate widely 
enough that by the end of the 16th century the Poetics is an 
important piece of widely-known work again, and there is a lot of 
thinking going on to try to square Aristotle's views with 
Quntililian's and Plutarch's.

My point here is to try to show that there is a connection between 
the distinction between verse and poetry that is in use in the modern 
world and the way that poetry was discussed in the ancient world -- 
to find at least an explanation of why the distinction between verse 
and prose occurred and flourished. 





From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Fri Oct  3 17:01:23 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 22:01:23 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter Alex the Great had it easy?-The Gordian Knot & Other Things.
References: <000001c389ec$dae90fa0$0587fac1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <00f201c389f1$81220580$b8ae8051@MyPC>

> Alex
> Smith's boys brigade hats or more precisely Pill Boxes when I served my
> time.

Hey, well, if you wore a Pill Box hat in the BB, you are even older than me.

I go back a bit, but not *that* far back.

<g>

Robin

(Not just Ayrshire but birthed in Kilmarnock Infirmary.)

... and you're right, I don't have to translate.

Even Bell Curves vs. Bell Shaped Curves ...

Robin




From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct  3 17:02:42 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 17:02:42 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <BBA34938.483D%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <3F7D9DE1.4537.1D06CDF@localhost>
Message-ID: <3F7DABB2.12628.2066561@localhost>

         A Teacher's Song
   David Graham


        Imagine I am the one sent to save you.
I am the one who's going to say the True Path
is nearer that you thought--your feet are on it--
and has nothing to do with safety.
I will point out those who make it sound harder
than it is so they can make a buck, 
like scribes of old who sold you charms
so your soul would not be eaten by the crocodiles.
Listen, there are no crocodiles. There is,
unless you built one for yourself, no hell.
    Imagine I am the one who laughs
    out loud at the right moment.

        Imagine I am the one who discovered
it's better to stay home playing with your cat
than to exact the most exquisite revenge.
Or that, though I cannot claim to have revealed
first that money does not buy happiness,
it does buy a wheaty-gold sauterne for after dinner,
a house by the shore, a credit card so you can
order books with the tap of a finger. 
The land is fat; the green sea teems; the wind
bows down with the sufficiency of wings. 
    Somewhere is a legacy for you, which
    you've neglected to reach out and take.

        Imagine we have laid by such store of wisdom
that we, like two great stone faces of the mountain,
gaze at the procession of the sun and moon
with those unchanging smiles writ on our countenances,
patient and merry, infuriating to the cunning,
terrifying to the cruel, who see in us the other
blade, the unused sharpness of their own dark sword. 
Imagine we have been coming the whole time to
the paradise foreseen, whose colors are ready
to cry out at the arrival of the true heirs, somewhat,
    by now, delayed, but homing
    finally as a thrown spear.

        Imagine I sow what I have to say like treasures scattered
at the roadside, which you take up, exclaim over,
think are come to you by chance, by mystic adoration
of the white weeds of the ditch, without that
rebellion of the too-well-known, the exhaustion
of the face-to-face. Or that I, like a white bird thundered
inland from the sea, call in such strange timbres you cannot
anything but follow, and my wings under the moon your pathway
to the tossing, illimitable edge of things neither of us
anticipated.
    Imagine your own voice singing
    in that last sleep before the light.





From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Fri Oct  3 17:16:46 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 22:16:46 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter Alex the Great had it easy?-The Gordian Knot & Other Things.
References: <000001c389ec$dae90fa0$0587fac1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <00fd01c389f3$a762e3c0$b8ae8051@MyPC>

>Brilliant Smith's bookshop in Glasgow ( worse I believe it had
> to close!!!!!)

Yeah, the last time I hit Glasgow the George Square branch of  John Menzies
was closed.

Even the Hillhead branch didn't seem to have any decent poetry magazines.

This may make sense to James if no one else ...

:-(

Robin







From MillB at aol.com  Fri Oct  3 18:01:17 2003
From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 18:01:17 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] pens and pencils
Message-ID: <40.351257aa.2caf4bad@aol.com>

The Unwritten
W.S. Merwin (from The Second Four Books of Poems)


Inside this pencil
crouch words that have never been written
never been spoken
never been taught

they're hiding

they're awake in there
dark in the dark
hearing us
but they won't come out

not for love not for time not for fire

even when the dark has worn away
they'll still be there
hiding in the air
multitudes in days to come may walk through them
breathe them
be none the wiser

what script can it be
that they won't unroll
in what language
would I recognize it
would I be able to follow it
to make out the real names
of everything

maybe there aren't
many
it could be that there's only one word
and it's all we need
it's here in this pencil

every pencil in the world
is like this
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/pipermail/new-poetry/attachments/20031003/34674d03/attachment.html>

From JforJames at aol.com  Fri Oct  3 18:16:21 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 18:16:21 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
Message-ID: <7b.1a28fe25.2caf4f35@aol.com>

 Young Poets
        by Nicanor Parra (trans. by Miller Williams) 

    Write as you will
    In whatever style you like
    Too much blood has run under the bridge
    To go on believing 
    That only one road is right.
    In poetry everything is permitted.

    With only this condition of course,
    You have to improve the blank page.


From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Fri Oct  3 18:34:20 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 23:34:20 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <3F7DAA8D.21795.201ECB0@localhost>
Message-ID: <012d01c389fe$7d4b2100$b8ae8051@MyPC>

Marcus:

> Averroes's paraphrase of The Poetics was known,

Fair to pull me up on the Arabic Connection ...

> but do you really
> want to count that as Aristotle's influence given the rediscovery

Jeezus wept, it wasn't "rediscovery", it was refugees from the Crash whose
main portable wealth (relatively easy to carry) were Greek texts, mostly of
Plato, since Aristotle was ALREADY known in Western Europe via the Arabic
link ...

> of
> actual Greek texts and their translations? There was no reliable
> translation of Aristotle's Poetics of which I'm aware until the
> largely ignored 1278 translation by William of Moerbeke based on a
> Greek text.

Well, that rather shoots yourself in the foot, as the 13thC was a little
before the Renaissance.

> But not until 1498 with Valla and 1536 with Pazzi

Who the fuck is Pazzi?   Do you mean Patrizzi?

Most of this impacted in England with Stanley's _History of Philosophy_ in
the mid-17thC,  if we're talking translations (which is also, incidentally,
contains first English translation of Aristophanes' "The Clouds").  Stanley
also managed, in a feat of incredible serindipity, predating Kierkegaard, to
link Socrates, Plato, Aristophanes, and Pico della Mirandola.

And there IS a nice medieval Plato thing which is the _Timaeus_.  The
Western European Renaissance switch was to _The Republic_ and the
_Symposium_.

For the centrality of the _Timaeus_, in the Middle Ages, I'm sure you know
about Klibansky's _Continuity of the Platonic Tradition_ (1939)?  As for the
Renaissance focus on _The Republic_ and _The Symposium_, it's so bleeding
obvious (Thomas More and Ficino) that I refuse to bother to document this.

But the basic point is that neither Plato nor Aristotle were completely
unknown in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, but Aristotle, partly through
Arabic translations, was a damn sight BETTER known than Plato, at that
point.

Among other things, via Thomas Aquinas, who was a hell of a lot more
influential than the Moerbeke translation of the _Poetics_.

> did
> good Latin translations of the Greek text start to circulate widely
> enough that by the end of the 16th century the Poetics is an
> important piece of widely-known work again, and there is a lot of
> thinking going on to try to square Aristotle's views with
> Quntililian's and Plutarch's.

Which, of course, links directly to whether Sir Philip Sidney's
_Apology_/_Defence is more Plato than Aristotle.

Me, I'm with  Partee that _The Apology_ owes a damn sight more to Plato than
to Aristotle.

Ah, well ... Aristotle was never quite lost to Western Europe the way Plato
was, partly because of the Arabian Connection, and Plato never quite
vanishes ever.

But for the Western European Middle ages, Plato was the _Timaeus_.    For
the Renaissance, it's _The Republic_  and _The Symposium_.

> My point here is to try to show that there is a connection between
> the distinction between verse and poetry that is in use in the modern
> world and the way that poetry was discussed in the ancient world -- 
> to find at least an explanation of why the distinction between verse
> and prose occurred and flourished.

Phoey.

Robin Hamilton




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Fri Oct  3 18:54:10 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 23:54:10 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
References: <3F7DAA8D.21795.201ECB0@localhost>
Message-ID: <014701c38a01$424f27b0$b8ae8051@MyPC>

From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>

> > Read Rosemary Huisman's book, _the written poem_, and her analysis
> > (which I don't entirely agree with) over the signficant difference
> > over the orthographical presentation of OE "poetry" and Aelfric and
> > Wulfstan's Saints Lives (which she doesn't carry forward into, which
> > I'd do, as she's a bit hung-up on orthography) the difference between
> > Piers Plowman and the Gawain Poems.
>
> And in what sense do you mean this to indicate that there has not
> been a useful distinction drawn over the last 500 years between verse
> and poetry?

No, all I'm saying here is that RH makes a powerful point (though not one I
agree with) over the strange blur between poetry and prose.

Read the book.

Robin Hamilton




From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Fri Oct  3 19:04:47 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 01:04:47 +0200
Subject: Knots - Re: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter Alex the Great had it easy?-The Gordian Knot & Other Things.
References: <000001c389ec$dae90fa0$0587fac1@pavilion> <00f201c389f1$81220580$b8ae8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <000301c38a08$0da9a920$c9e6f9c1@pavilion>

Lies Damned Lies & Statistics

"Lies, damned lies & statistics"
could there be something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Here lies ever more causes for lying.

 "Lies, damned lies & statistics"
Well I am know convinced that there are statistics & Statistics and ever
more causes for lies!
Word processor's running  awry

Lies Damned Lies & Statistics

"Lies, damned lies & statistics"
could there be something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Here lies ever more causes for lying.

"Lies, damned lies & statistics"
could there be something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Here lies ever more causes for lying.



 "Lies, damned lies & statistics"
Well I am know convinced that there are statistics & Statistics and ever
more causes for lies!
Word processor's running  awry.

Stand back and take an aerial view.

? JA.  (the ctrl alt c  for ? only works on my Word 2000 not on Outlook
Express correcting my earlier hurried closing remark)
Nevers 00H02 Green wich summer mean time.

Of pills & chips I saw the transition "Combining old & new....but no
out-right World War my boy!
I feel younger every day since I discovered one way to put the clock back
was by using an egg timer.

"Old man time has cast his arrows way,
Breaking the egg timers universal symmetry."

from Newton is Dead 2 - The earl version had no punctuation - I was
dreadfully loosing my native tongue and grammatical rules were never my
forte
Bonus on www.chemweb.com    pasted below as a good anti-virus technique .

Seen Willie MacIlvaney of late? - can't find off hand his book "the Big Man"
the only one I have, to spell his name properly. Willie hails from
Kilmarnock.  Willie's brother went to the  Jimmy Hamilton High School in
Killie Marnock. Willie's brother couldn't kick a
football (soccer) to save himself (quote his teacher-who considered this a
serious lack of culture) but went on to be one of UK's best soccer writer's
(my opinion) with the... Sunday Times was it?
Apparently the whole family are gifted writers. No the cross is not
Kilmarnock cross.

                                     (Inspired  by  -"Newton is dead" by
Peter M. Allen, MIT Prof. of Physical Chemistry
ref: "La Mort d Newton" Ed. Maisonneuve & Larose(in French translated from
Italian under the direction of Augusto Forti-Bureau Europ?en de l'UNESCO,
Paris).

Newtonian physics and thermodynamics have succeeded.
In economy, biology, and ecology, problems have receded.
Based upon some false sense of equilibrium,
We have reduced the complex sys. Triumvirum
To some potential function; utility, convenience, efficiency,
Vital to human condition if only one could wait and see.

The blind watchmaker has had his say.
Old man time has cast his arrows way,
Breaking the egg timers universal symmetry.
Please don't get me wrong, there is no gimmickry.

Even in evolution, which is where it's at,
Darwin is in essence a view of the past.
The mechanical world is in a right damned panic,
Dissipative processes have sapped dynamics,
In breaking systems into constitutive parts,
Atoms and molecules have lost life's spark.

Could it be that my own equilibrium is fleeting

From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Fri Oct  3 19:56:33 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 16:56:33 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Why does What? or Why is What?
Message-ID: <3F7E0CB1.97CDCDA5@earthlink.net>

Why does the What is poetry question come up as often as a
two-year-old's Why?  Is it so ineffable, so mysterious?  And for whom? 
Poets? Readers of poetry who aren't themselves poets?  Do those of us
who are poets, or claim to be poets, not understand it totally?  Or just
because it's there?  Why, mommy, why?

- Jim, who, if he wore knee-britches, would up to them in work, but for
whom the questions itch pleasurably.


From kpaul at mallasch.com  Fri Oct  3 20:54:15 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2003 19:54:15 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Why does What? or Why is What?
In-Reply-To: <3F7E0CB1.97CDCDA5@earthlink.net>
References: <3F7E0CB1.97CDCDA5@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <20031003195249.V84690@kpaul.spinweb.net>

Don't make me turn this email-list around... ;)

I don't know. Personally, I think it's good to dust it off once in a while
and take it for a spin.

Are we there yet?

-kpaul

On Fri, 3 Oct 2003, James Cervantes wrote:

> Why does the What is poetry question come up as often as a
> two-year-old's Why?  Is it so ineffable, so mysterious?  And for whom?
> Poets? Readers of poetry who aren't themselves poets?  Do those of us
> who are poets, or claim to be poets, not understand it totally?  Or just
> because it's there?  Why, mommy, why?
>
> - Jim, who, if he wore knee-britches, would up to them in work, but for
> whom the questions itch pleasurably.
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Oct  3 21:35:36 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 20:35:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <3F7DABB2.12628.2066561@localhost>
Message-ID: <BBA38E18.485F%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Apparently I'm experiencing blackouts.  Don't remember writing this one. . .
.

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


> From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
> Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 17:02:42 -0400
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
> 
> A Teacher's Song
> David Graham
> 
> 
> Imagine I am the one sent to save you.
> I am the one who's going to say the True Path
> is nearer that you thought--your feet are on it--
> and has nothing to do with safety.
> I will point out those who make it sound harder
> than it is so they can make a buck,
> like scribes of old who sold you charms
> so your soul would not be eaten by the crocodiles.
> Listen, there are no crocodiles. There is,
> unless you built one for yourself, no hell.
> Imagine I am the one who laughs
> out loud at the right moment.
> 
> Imagine I am the one who discovered
> it's better to stay home playing with your cat
> than to exact the most exquisite revenge.
> Or that, though I cannot claim to have revealed
> first that money does not buy happiness,
> it does buy a wheaty-gold sauterne for after dinner,
> a house by the shore, a credit card so you can
> order books with the tap of a finger.
> The land is fat; the green sea teems; the wind
> bows down with the sufficiency of wings.
> Somewhere is a legacy for you, which
> you've neglected to reach out and take.
> 
> Imagine we have laid by such store of wisdom
> that we, like two great stone faces of the mountain,
> gaze at the procession of the sun and moon
> with those unchanging smiles writ on our countenances,
> patient and merry, infuriating to the cunning,
> terrifying to the cruel, who see in us the other
> blade, the unused sharpness of their own dark sword.
> Imagine we have been coming the whole time to
> the paradise foreseen, whose colors are ready
> to cry out at the arrival of the true heirs, somewhat,
> by now, delayed, but homing
> finally as a thrown spear.
> 
> Imagine I sow what I have to say like treasures scattered
> at the roadside, which you take up, exclaim over,
> think are come to you by chance, by mystic adoration
> of the white weeds of the ditch, without that
> rebellion of the too-well-known, the exhaustion
> of the face-to-face. Or that I, like a white bird thundered
> inland from the sea, call in such strange timbres you cannot
> anything but follow, and my wings under the moon your pathway
> to the tossing, illimitable edge of things neither of us
> anticipated.
> Imagine your own voice singing
> in that last sleep before the light.
> 



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Fri Oct  3 21:16:28 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 03:16:28 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter Alex the Great had it easy?-The Gordian Knot & Other Things.
References: <000001c389ec$dae90fa0$0587fac1@pavilion> <00fd01c389f3$a762e3c0$b8ae8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <000201c38a15$6614eea0$8d86fac1@pavilion>

It does.

I bought my Macdairmid Vol I of II  (complete works) I believed in Smiths or
was it Menzies, Hillhead,  from the hard earned procedings of my short
contract with Alcan -ex-British aluminium in Warrington, near Manchester in
the North of England (ie near Scotland)
(I dare walk the streets of old England ),

They were involved in scrap recycling in messy open hearth gas fired
furnaces. (Combining old & new, recycle, sustain develope,)

Can you believe, I could not understand the Lancaster vernacular of one of
the workmen who in no uncertain terms screemed at my "by now fairly refined
Franco-Scots accent but English just the same, I thought"  Can you speak
bloody English! More of a statement than a question.

I was quite taken aback. Me! The laddie who had fought it out nose to nose
in French, slightly piggin, often, on the shop floor of  a special steels &
alloys plant. Aye with descendents of  people who had put one of the four
steel block foundations holding the Le Tour Effel !

Maybe he was right???

Once I feel my english is OK (cf. Jaggy Stuff),  I then try and improve my
french. This is what happens
(don't be afraid you have the original, Macdairmid, it is like the Bible,
language is not a serious problem. please read on:


(Reflections in an Ironworks by H. MacDiarmid Ed. Penguin Vol.1.)




Seriez-vous semblable au m?tal que vous travaillez,
Serait ce que le fer est entrer dans vos ?mes souill?es,
Seriez-vous devenu comme l'acier pour votre propre compte ?
Est vous encore seulement de la p?te, par la tyrannie, lamin?e
Entre ses doigts ! Vous, fabricants de ba?onnettes et de fusils
Pour votre propre destruction ! Il n'est pas surprenant que ces
Armes, que vous fabriquez, tournent contre vous,  meurtre et meurtri !
Vous, les  sots qui ?quipent vos ennemies par ailleurs sans d?fense.


    Traduit 14/04/2001 par J.A.
 ( m. j. a. m.)

The translator worked as chief metallurgist,  quality control and assurance
manger  in order to improve methods & honour outstanding orders subjected to
stringent QA.  standards, during the early stages of the closure of the
special steels & alloy foundry by Imphy SA. at their plant in  Imphy, France
in 1980. He resigned from this position when the decision not to undertake
development was made clear then took a leading role in the alloy 718
development project, whose results were reported at the Trace elements in
superalloys meeting in London 1983 part of which  were published in
Materials Science & Technology first issue Feb. 1985.


Reflections in an Ironworks by H. MacDiarmid Ed. Penguin Vol.1. P335.
 (Ed. Michel Grieve and W.R.Aitken copyright:Christopher Murry Grieve 1978.
         Copyright: Valda Grieve 1985.)


Would you resembled the metal you work with,
Would the iron entered into your souls,
Would you become like steel on your own behalf!
You are still only putty that tyranny rolls
Between your fingers! You makers of bayonets and guns
For your own destruction! No wonder that those
Weapons you make turn on you and mangle and murder-
You fools who equip your otherwise helpless foes!

WEB preparation Study


English French
If there are bounds to any man.    Beyond Exile          Reflections in an
Ironworks.         If I was not a Soldier .         Why I choose red.
The End of Usury.
S'Il y a des Bornes ? N'Importe Quel Homme. Au-del? de l'exile. Des Pens?es
dans une Fonderie D'Acier.      Si je n'?tais pas un Soldat.      Pourquoi
j'ai  choisi  le rouge.           La Fin de L'Usure.

MORE - PLUS ?   Well , cut & paste does not do justice to this lost the
colour, & the lay out.

 It is late    "too late for match play!

Cheerio.

J. A.

Footy notes:
My Brit @ ADA Grp associates feel that many American writers are translated
but few English one's despite British Council & Embassy in Paris.
I reported on our local library's ressources.
The main signs, like in the factory you have to learn to read the writing on
the wall.  Ezra Pound took pride of place.
So dispairingly down to earth these people, I thought.

I thumbed this book of Pound and settled for a couple of W.H.Auden
collections one bilingual
the other in french only. Brilliant I forgot my Macdairmid for a while and
my secretly very cherished John Updike in French only but a great
translation (unfortuneately not for loan as it is consigned in the Fonds F.
Mitterand.).
His "Natures Processes or Natures Natural Processes are excellant
interpretations.

It is really late. Goodnight.

I had a copy of a PHD thesis as part of the cycle, Penn State Univ, in my
hands a couple of days ago, on Malarm? and A.N.Other 2 central figures
representative of...  Theatre & Peotry  in French (1993 or there abouts)   I
did not have time to study it nor check my references. Good Good night this
time


----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
To: "james.alexander1" <james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr>; <JackTar at aol.com>;
"Henry Gould" <Henry_Gould at brown.edu>; "Gabriel Gudding"
<gmguddi at ilstu.edu>; "James Cervantes" <jvcervantes at earthlink.net>; "David
Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>; "David Kellogg" <kellogg at duke.edu>
Cc: <JforJames at aol.com>; <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>; "tom bell"
<trbell at comcast.net>
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2003 11:16 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter Alex the Great had it easy?-The
Gordian Knot & Other Things.


> >Brilliant Smith's bookshop in Glasgow ( worse I believe it had
> > to close!!!!!)
>
> Yeah, the last time I hit Glasgow the George Square branch of  John
Menzies
> was closed.
>
> Even the Hillhead branch didn't seem to have any decent poetry magazines.
>
> This may make sense to James if no one else ...
>
> :-(
>
> Robin
>
>
>
>
>



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Oct  3 21:47:46 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 20:47:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <BBA38E18.485F%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <BBA390F1.4862%grahamd@ripon.edu>

WHAT THE CHAIRMAN TOLD TOM

Poetry? It's a hobby.
I run model trains.
Mr Shaw there breeds pigeons.

It's not work. You dont sweat.
Nobody pays for it.
You could advertise soap.

Art, that's opera; or repertory -
The Desert Song.
Nancy was in the chorus.

But to ask for twelve pounds a week -
married, aren't you? -
you've got a nerve.

How could I look a bus conductor
in the face
if I paid you twelve pounds?

Who says it's poetry, anyhow?
My ten year old
can do it and rhyme.

I get three thousand and expenses,
a car, vouchers,
but I'm an accountant.

They do what I tell them,
my company.
What do you do?

Nasty little words, nasty long words,
it's unhealthy.
I want to wash when I meet a poet.

They're Reds, addicts,
all delinquents.
What you write is rot.

Mr Hines says so, and he's a shcoolteacher,
he ought to know.
Go and find work.

       --Basil Bunting.  *Odes* II:6, 1965


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Fri Oct  3 22:58:20 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 19:58:20 -0700
Subject: Fw: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter Alex the Great had it easy?-The 
 Gordian Knot & Other Things.
References: <000001c389ec$dae90fa0$0587fac1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <3F7E374C.69DFC63@earthlink.net>

Dats a wee wah doo wop iffin you couch it (sans potato) in the vernal lacquer-you-lear.

- Jim

p.s. - Only my mom calls me "Jimmy," otherwise thems fighting word



"james.alexander1" wrote:
> 
> to Jack Tar ?
> For putting my Jaggy Stuff on share - auction.
> 
> to Robin who needs no translation:
> I did mean the Bell Shaped Curve as I was refering to the common statistical
> name to lead up to " bath tubes -yield /reliability curves, corned
> hats -polytechnicians, arts & metiers french engineers & chip pokes - Alex
> Smith's boys brigade hats or more precisely Pill Boxes when I served my
> time. Then as I scribbled on, I found as many scientist  do,  a shape which
> brought me to a more common reality which I spotted again in the T.S.Eliot's
> piece on New-Poetry.
> 
> Of course you are right, it is to my mind  "A Bell Curve". But I must
> persist & sign. I shall stock your suggestion for later & hopefully remember
> to mention you as the
> corrector. How can your profession "litterature - I presume as Stanley
> addressed Livingstone" tolerate the unacknowledged writing. Science may be
> heavy on the subject but science & maths can only advance, as is reported,
> mostly because of  a minimun of discipline (questions of : appearance, of
> belief & of values- respectively in order of importance I think).
> 
> For more profound comments on modern science, I must say I nolonger have
> access to the Brilliant Smith's bookshop in Glasgow ( worse I believe it had
> to close!!!!!)  As for Catastrophy theory your "Tom Cat" could perhaps be
> Ren? Thom (ze famous french mathematicien?)  As for Cats travelling through
> walls, I am still at the the nevertheless very useful Josephson Junction
> stage in my quantum notions.
> 
> On problems of  Sets (Jet one's?) Classes-working one's as in teaching...&
> Categories etc. The Brit J. Phil Science is a good place to start -try a
> free sample via the web if your are far from "civilisation" but in Glasgow
> copies abound. For background reading The Encyclopaedia Britannica is a very
> good reference (I am still on the 1974-1985 edition except the one Vol.
> which has disappeared and was never replaced-pretty incredible even in
> France. I was foolish enough to comment on Venn Diag's. on www.Chemweb.com
> so now I feel obliged to maintain minimun service as any serious
> professional does.  I hope educ threads are useful or good reminders.
> 
> On the British lists? I made a copy of one contribution - I am no ungrateful
> traitor: Lochs abound but there is only one Lake.
> But have too much of a job with my Web zines & New Poetry to request special
> authorisation at present. A pity. Don't hesitate to
> bash it on to any friends on the Brit List with my following remarks.
> 
> Do you think I could make the price of my much awaited passport renewal - it
> got lost in the Glasgow post...etc Admin Job stuff,  can you imagine!
> I made quite a scandale well before 9/11. - No corny remarks please.
> 
> to Henry for reminding "New - Poetry" that many/most of the world must cut
> the Gordian Knot every day (Alex the Great had it easy?) cf below -read on.
> 
> to Gabe -Lots of good efforts
> 
> to the Davids for their contributions
> 
> to Jimmy Cervantes for giving me courage.
> 
> to the Lassies,  for I'm from "THE Burns Country - Ayrshire "& linguists
> even if
> "Italy-Italian" does not have a good reputation in the EU, the best have
> left, I guess EXCEPT at least one couple who gave my wife a cardigan to keep
> when on the top of mount Ethna when
> we wondered up in near beach wear!!!
> 
> to Tom Bell who may like "The Bell Shaped Curve" & Other Extracts
> 
> to Jim Finnigan for putting up with all this.
> 
> IF I FORGOT ANYONE IT IS DUE TO MOMENTARY OVERLOAD. I SHALL BE PLEASE TO
> RECTIFY ANY OFFENSE CAUSED.
> FOR CIVILISATION - I write as much as to remind myself  to cut ....
> 
> THE GORDIAN KNOT (many of us must cut it every day!)
> 
> At a loose end.
> 
> Tying up loose ends,
> Can only lead to knots,
> Stories of curves and bends,
> Hardly stuff of comfortable thought.  ( "Slipping & Slidding-just an
> accident due to ease of word processing as I edit this").
> 
>      ? J.A. ( march 2001).
> 
> LE NOEUD GORDIEN. (beaucoup d'entre nous doivent le coup? tous les jour !)
> 
> En lambeaux
> 
> Accrocher des bouts de pendants cordages
> Ne peut mener qu'aux noeds,
> Des histoires de courbes et de virages,
> Pas vraiment mati?re ? penser-
> Confortablement ? eux..
> 
>  Version Fr. par J.A. (Avril 2001) ? JA.
> (mostly just a metallurgist - m. j. a. m.)
> 
> Robin:
> "Did you ever read my "Market gits Spice" thrown out of
> the EU as a "non-recognised offical language (form?) Oh I must give you this
> 
> Market gits Spice.
>            (To Mr.  D. Footham and friends).                   (revised
> version of foot and mouth disease).
> 
> Ye git's! Ye bunch o'git's,
> ye mak' me mad, blin' daft.
> Market gits Spice.
> 
> David Bootham, or is it back'm?
> No enough cash, I'd brand 'im!
> Tae squander on spice and the  likes, bluster!(buster?)
> The kind that wid gae the strangest an ulcer.    (wid-would)
> I'm doubled up in shear pain.
> 'Must be market's  shear strain.
> The git's, wid they feel ony shame?
> We've heard how much he's worth but to whae?
> But does ay ken  hoo much 'e-costs an' to wham?
> 
> REFRAIN: Ye git's! .
> 
> The pair wean's the  pair wee weans.
> Yur daddy ponded yur wee toy train
> Yur fired! Yur a' damned fired by goad!
> Naebuddy wi' sense wid gae yeese a joab.
> Is it  Boab or Alex that sets the wage?
> The slate's a nae Start, richt Salty gage
> Doon richt stupidity has nae boun' or age
> Busby' s babbes must turn in their graves
> A-spire,
> Their weans waited near forty years save
> 
> REFRAIN:  Ye git's!
> 
> Fig's guid, Zizou, and king 'Enry too
> Emperor Eric a'ways did his team true
> Ryan presses the wick, victory he riggs            & Homage too to  Ryan Air
> that flies Beauvais to Prestwick
> Glides like the white ghost*, a fine Gigg.            *The late John White,
> footballer, of Spur's & Scotland way back....
> But a' this dope, incense an' spice?                                  .
> It's  lawfu' but no'  a' quite  nice.
> I've got it, thanks tae a day's thoucht
> (Thought for the day, BBC4)
> That's richt, a chap broadcast oucht                          oucht -the
> other day
> "In auld Britannia a man is mare concerned                        mare -
> more & a "lady horse"
> Wi the inequalities in horsies, race banned
> 
> REFRAIN: (Ye git's!.
> Market gits Spice)
> 
> Than awe the inequalities in blessed mankind"
> A man's a man  fur a' that an' a' that"
> So whit's the trouble, lay me alain ye top hat
> Tae win the price o' a packet a coffin nails
>  Or a pint o' bitter tae pit wind in ma sails
> Fur company while I canter hame.     (Canter, today= drive)
> Yur no gonie put on me ony blame?
> Fur 'a that an' a' that it's coming yet
> That man to man the warld o'er
> Shall brothers be for a' that
> 
> So listen tae yur brither noo
> 
> REFRAIN: Ye git's!.
> Market gits Spice
>     James Alexander  copyright @ ADA Grp.  Dammit my machine is bugged on
> copyright, I shall be obliged to copyleft. at .
>     (29/03/2001).
> 
>  On a better footing?
> 
> Footy note
> To help out on issues of differenciation as most of you know I guess,
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "james.alexander1" <james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2003 8:17 PM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter
> 
> > The Golfer (Early Autumn) Early autumn.
> >
> > You don't notice the wind,
> > such is your steely resistance,
> > Till the leaves change colour,
> > flatten, light green consistence.
> > Sitting under the wind,
> > stronger now, the branches sway.
> > The first raindrops fall,
> > It is too late for match play.
> >
> >
> > ? J.A.
> > World wide to walk on the green WWW ong.  Sept./0ct1999.
> >
> >
> > Sounds for the deaf & for solitary golf by -60C/279 ?Kelvin.
> >
> > The sun shone an the first green and the second tee
> > The young oak looked on amused at these futile gests
> > Her leaves golden spoke tinkling, tinkling falling free
> > Floating in the early frosted air to a final tinkled rest
> > I stained my ear to listen to natures tune
> > From tee to tee and tree to tree ever since
> > I realize the uniqueness my experienced roon
> >
> >
> >
> > Jas. Alexander
> >
> > Copyright ? J.A.
> >
> >
> > Roon=round in S.W. Scots vernacular.
> > The ground, a free way in France
> > True story to a tee.
> >
> > MORE CONTRIBUTIONS (Poetry as you judge it & other things) IN STOCK.
> available upon Requested.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Richard Wilsnack" <rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu>
> > To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> > Sent: Monday, September 22, 2003 9:47 PM
> > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Designated Hitter
> >
> >
> > > At 12:23 PM 9/22/2003 -0500, Paul Lake wrote:
> > > >on 9/22/03 11:31 AM, Graham, David at GrahamD at ripon.edu wrote:
> > > >
> > > > >>>>>>>>>>>> Some formal poets feel the same way about free verse that
> > > > > baseball purists
> > > > > feel about the designated hitter rule in the AL: they fell it's a
> > > > newfangled
> > > > > invention that violates the purity of a very old game.
> > > > >
> > > > > Paul Lake
> > > > > -------------------
> > > > >
> > > > > Yup.  But the real problem here is that damned iambic pentameter
> > stuff.
> > > > > Fancypants French import.  Never shoulda messed with those good old
> > Saxon
> > > > > rhythms, I say. . . .
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > ============================================
> > > > > David Graham
> > >
> > > Well litter'd with alliteration?
> > >
> > > Richard W. Wilsnack
> > > rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct  4 00:11:39 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 23:11:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Toot
Message-ID: <BBA3B2AB.4866%grahamd@ripon.edu>

The new issue of *Eclectica* is up, with a couple poems by someone named
David Graham.  (These ones I do remember writing.)

http://www.eclectica.org/v7n4/david_graham.html

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================




From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Oct  4 08:45:48 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 08:45:48 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <BBA38E18.485F%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <3F7DABB2.12628.2066561@localhost>
Message-ID: <3F7E88BC.30952.8FA6C@localhost>

You posted it; perhaps I am mis-attributing it because I missed the 
name of the person you said did write it.
Marcus


On 3 Oct 2003 at 20:35, David Graham wrote:

> Apparently I'm experiencing blackouts.  Don't remember writing this
> one. . . .
> 
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> ====================================================
> 
> 
> > From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
> > Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2003 17:02:42 -0400
> > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
> > 
> > A Teacher's Song
> > David Graham
> > 
> > 
> > Imagine I am the one sent to save you.
> > I am the one who's going to say the True Path
> > is nearer that you thought--your feet are on it--
> > and has nothing to do with safety.
> > I will point out those who make it sound harder
> > than it is so they can make a buck,
> > like scribes of old who sold you charms
> > so your soul would not be eaten by the crocodiles.
> > Listen, there are no crocodiles. There is,
> > unless you built one for yourself, no hell.
> > Imagine I am the one who laughs
> > out loud at the right moment.
> > 
> > Imagine I am the one who discovered
> > it's better to stay home playing with your cat
> > than to exact the most exquisite revenge.
> > Or that, though I cannot claim to have revealed
> > first that money does not buy happiness,
> > it does buy a wheaty-gold sauterne for after dinner,
> > a house by the shore, a credit card so you can
> > order books with the tap of a finger.
> > The land is fat; the green sea teems; the wind
> > bows down with the sufficiency of wings.
> > Somewhere is a legacy for you, which
> > you've neglected to reach out and take.
> > 
> > Imagine we have laid by such store of wisdom
> > that we, like two great stone faces of the mountain,
> > gaze at the procession of the sun and moon
> > with those unchanging smiles writ on our countenances,
> > patient and merry, infuriating to the cunning,
> > terrifying to the cruel, who see in us the other
> > blade, the unused sharpness of their own dark sword.
> > Imagine we have been coming the whole time to
> > the paradise foreseen, whose colors are ready
> > to cry out at the arrival of the true heirs, somewhat,
> > by now, delayed, but homing
> > finally as a thrown spear.
> > 
> > Imagine I sow what I have to say like treasures scattered
> > at the roadside, which you take up, exclaim over,
> > think are come to you by chance, by mystic adoration
> > of the white weeds of the ditch, without that
> > rebellion of the too-well-known, the exhaustion
> > of the face-to-face. Or that I, like a white bird thundered
> > inland from the sea, call in such strange timbres you cannot
> > anything but follow, and my wings under the moon your pathway
> > to the tossing, illimitable edge of things neither of us
> > anticipated.
> > Imagine your own voice singing
> > in that last sleep before the light.
> > 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 





From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Oct  4 08:48:45 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 08:48:45 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
In-Reply-To: <BBA390F1.4862%grahamd@ripon.edu>
References: <BBA38E18.485F%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3F7E896D.21722.BADE2@localhost>

On 3 Oct 2003 at 20:47, David Graham wrote:
> WHAT THE CHAIRMAN TOLD TOM
> Basil Bunting.  *Odes* II:6, 1965
> 
> Poetry? It's a hobby.
> I run model trains.
> Mr Shaw there breeds pigeons.
> 
> It's not work. You dont sweat.
> Nobody pays for it.
> You could advertise soap....

The White-tailed Hornet
Robert Frost

The white-tailed hornet lives in a balloon
That floats against the ceiling of the woodshed.
The exit he comes out at like a bullet
Is like the pupil of a pointed gun.
And having power to change his aim in flight,
He comes out more unerring than a bullet.
Verse could be written on the certainty
With which he penetrates my best defense
Of whirling hands and arms about the head
To stab me in the sneeze-nerve of a nostril.
Such is the instinct of it I allow.
Yet how about the insect certainty
That in the neighborhood of home and children
Is such an execrable judge of motives
As not to recognize in me the exception
I like to think I am in everything ?
One who would never hang above a bookcase
His Japanese crepe-paper globe for trophy?
He stung me first and stung me afterward.
He rolled me off the field head over heels
And would not listen to my explanations.

That?s when I went as visitor to his house.
As visitor at my house he is better.
Hawking for flies about the kitchen door,
In at one door perhaps and out another,
Trust him then not to put you in the wrong.
He won?t misunderstand your freest movements.
Let him light on your skin unless you mind
So many prickly grappling feet at once.
He?s after the domesticated fly
To feed his thumping grubs as big as he is.
Here he is at his best, but even here ?
I watched him where he swooped, he pounced, he struck;
But what he found he had was just a nailhead.
He struck a second time.  Another nailhead.
?Those are just nailheads.  Those are fastened down.?
Then disconcerted and not unannoyed,
He stooped and struck a little huckleberry
The way a player curls around a football.
?Wrong shape, wrong color, and wrong scent,? I said.
The huckleberry rolled him on his head.
At last it was a fly.  He shot and missed;
And the fly circled round him in derision.
But for the fly he might have made me think
He had been at his poetry, comparing
Nailhead with fly and fly with huckleberry:
How like a fly, how very like a fly.
But the real fly he missed would never do;
The missed fly made me dangerously skeptic.

Won?t this whole instinct matter bear revision?
Won?t almost any theory bear revision?
To err is human, not to, animal.
Or so we pay the compliment to instinct,
Only too liberal of our compliment
That really takes away instead of gives.
Our worship, humor, conscientiousness
Went long since to the dogs under the table.
And served us right for having instituted
Downward comparisons.  As long on earth
As our comparisons were stoutly upward
With gods and angels, we were men at least,
But little lower than the gods and angels.
But once comparisons were yielded downward,
Once we began to see our images
Reflected in the mud and even dust,
?Twas disillusion upon disillusion.
We were lost piecemeal to the animals,
Like people thrown out to delay the wolves.
Nothing but fallibility was left us,
And this day?s work made even that seem doubtful.

                                   --Robert Frost






From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Oct  4 09:35:56 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 09:35:56 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Blurt?
In-Reply-To: <012d01c389fe$7d4b2100$b8ae8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <3F7E947C.19895.36E0B7@localhost>

> ... it wasn't "rediscovery", it was refugees from the Crash
> whose main portable wealth (relatively easy to carry) were Greek
> texts, mostly of Plato, since Aristotle was ALREADY known in Western
> Europe via the Arabic link ...<<

The "Poetics", though, was not as far as I know available widely 
until the 16th century because the 13th century translation was, as 
you seem to agree, pretty much ignored.  I'm still trying to trace 
the distinction between verse and poetry that was so widely used from 
the 16th through the 20th centuries in order to show that it was a 
useful and important distinction, and to question why Bob Grumman 
wants to conflate it.  Are you saying that it should be conflated, or 
that the distinction was invalid all along, or that it is  no longer 
useful, or something else?

> Well, that rather shoots yourself in the foot, as the 13thC was a
> little before the Renaissance.
 
Aristotle was practically unknown; even in Rome the predominant 
models were Horatian. Aristotle's influence in classical antiquity 
seems, according to Spingarn, "so far as it is possible to judge, 
very slight." The manuscript of the Poetics was preserved, but not in 
the Western Roman Empire.  A version was translated from the Syriac 
into Arabic (about 935 A.D.) by Abu-Baschar. Averro?s made an 
abridged version in the 12th century, and that was translated into 
Latin in the  thirteenth century by Hermann in Germany, and by  
Mantinus of Tortosa in Spain in the fourteenth. One of the  extremely 
rare references to Aristotle is found in Roger Bacon;  Petrarch just  
mentions him.

> > But not until 1498 with Valla and 1536 with Pazzi
> 
> Who the fuck is Pazzi?   Do you mean Patrizzi? ...
> But the basic point is that neither Plato nor Aristotle were
> completely unknown in Western Europe in the Middle Ages, but
> Aristotle, partly through Arabic translations, was a damn sight BETTER
> known than Plato, at that point.<<

Not completely unknown, no, but Aristotle's Poetics was not well 
known at all until, as you know, Giorgio Valla published his Latin 
translation of the Poetics in1498, followed by Aldus Manutius's 
Aldine edition of the original Greek text in 1508. Alessandro de' 
Pazzi published the Greek original with a revised Latin text in 1536. 
Bernardo Segni, in 1549, published an Italian translation.

> Among other things, via Thomas Aquinas, who was a hell of a lot more
> influential than the Moerbeke translation of the _Poetics_.<<

Where does Aquinas discuss Aristotle's Poetics? Besides, isn't this 
just an example of the Aquinas joke: "Boethius says that appeal to 
authority is the weakest argument"?

> > My point here is to try to show that there is a connection between
> > the distinction between verse and poetry that is in use in the
> > modern world and the way that poetry was discussed in the ancient
> > world -- to find at least an explanation of why the distinction
> > between verse and prose occurred and flourished.
> 
> Phoey.

Oh -- well, good point! Wish I'd thought of that!







From hruggier at localnet.com  Sat Oct  4 11:26:37 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 11:26:37 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <1ac.1aea2052.2caf24ef@aol.com> <20031003142408.O33266@kpaul.spinweb.net> <001301c389f0$6c249900$6d1c2dd5@anny>
Message-ID: <3F7EE6AC.75B7DA32@localnet.com>

nice job, AB

h

Anny Ballardini wrote:

> Here we go:
> http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=287
>
> I filed the link under
> _Quotations_, here is the Index:
> http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content
>
> Any needed changes, please let me know,
> Anny
>
> From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>
> > Be sure to share the URL once you get it up. :)
> >
> > -kpaul
> >
> > On Fri, 3 Oct 2003 JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> >
> > > In a message dated 10/3/03 2:55:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> > > anny.ballardini at tin.it writes:
> > >
> > > > Thank you all, James and Thom and Helen (yes I can also remember
> yours), I
> > > >  am wondering, is it possible for me to gather these quotations on a
> page
> > > and
> > > >  put them on my poets' corner or am I stealing or misusing copyrights?
> > > >  If yes, I could add information on those who collected them, or?
> > > >  Anny
> > > Anny, it's fine with me. I wish I had citations for all those I
> posted...most
> > > now are in the public domain of course...and "fair use" could be claimed
> > > for the rest, I would think.
> > > Finnegan
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Oct  4 11:33:48 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 11:33:48 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com>

"It is not rhyming and versing that maketh poetry.  One may be a poet
without versing, and a versifyer without poetry."  - Philip Sidney,
~Apologie for Poetrie~

"What is poetry?  Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. 
We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is."  -
Samuel Johnson ~Boswell's Life~


From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Oct  4 11:36:21 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 11:36:21 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
Message-ID: <118.29b0438c.2cb042f5@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/4/03 8:46:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
marcus at designerglass.com writes:

> You posted it; perhaps I am mis-attributing it because I missed the 
>  name of the person you said did write it.
>  Marcus
>  
>  
>  On 3 Oct 2003 at 20:35, David Graham wrote:
>  
>  > Apparently I'm experiencing blackouts.  Don't remember writing this
>  > one. . . .
>  > 
A suspected case of plagiaristic amnesia.


From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Oct  4 11:38:34 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 11:38:34 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Volleypoetry
Message-ID: <97.3ebfb490.2cb0437a@aol.com>

Of Poetry

there is only the work.

The work is what speaks
and what is spoken
and what attends to hear
what is spoken.
            
    William Bronk (Death is the Place)


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct  4 11:44:53 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 11:44:53 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <1ac.1aea2052.2caf24ef@aol.com> <20031003142408.O33266@kpaul.spinweb.net> <001301c389f0$6c249900$6d1c2dd5@anny> <3F7EE6AC.75B7DA32@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <007201c38a8e$74d4d440$8304fea9@j1c1k6>


  nice job, AB 
  h 

  Anny Ballardini wrote: 

    Here we go: 
    http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=287 

Yes, an entertaining list.  Now, would anyone like to contribute to a list on what poetry is--one, that is, that might allow someone knowing nothing about it to recognize it?  What American Heritage Dictionary and Jeremy Bentham said would be okay starters.

Note: there are definers and there are evokers; never go to the latter for a definition--or to the former for an aesthetic experience.

--Bob G.
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sat Oct  4 11:53:31 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 16:53:31 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com>
Message-ID: <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC>

> "It is not rhyming and versing that maketh poetry.  One may be a poet
> without versing, and a versifyer without poetry."  - Philip Sidney,
> ~Apologie for Poetrie~

That's virtually straight out of Aristotle's Poetics.

And at least one ghost behind "a poet without verse" is the status of
Plato's dialogues.

Behind *that* is partly at least Socrates at the end of his life trying to
write poems.  Verses.

Stir in Plato at some point turning from staged-drama to ...

... I was about to say, "philosophy", but *that* blurs the entire issue of
the relation of the three stages of Plato's writing to the historical
Socrates, still best dealt with by Kierkegaard in _The Concept of Irony_.

... and you find more than a little business behind Sidney's apparently
transparent remark.

> "What is poetry?  Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not.
> We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is."  -
> Samuel Johnson ~Boswell's Life~

Sam being a premature Saussurean -- we may not know what poetry is, but it
defines itself as not being prose.

Robin

(Actually, we *don't* all know what light is -- a wave or a particle?  -- 
but it's unlikely that Sam Johnson was alluding to this at the point-in-time
that he was chatting to Boswell.

R2)




From William_Knott at emerson.edu  Sat Oct  4 12:00:24 2003
From: William_Knott at emerson.edu (William Knott)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 12:00:24 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poet-photographers???
Message-ID: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CF91@mail.emerson.edu>

thanks to the folks who responded to my request for poet-photographers. . . .

but i'm surprised there weren't more. . . . and some of the responses seemed not to the point, which is probably my fault in not making myself clear....

so again i ask:  are there poets who are also photographers, and who publish their poems and photographs together?

Not poets who publish their poems with someone else's photos???

i'm seeking the names of poet-photographers only.   Do such hybrids exist?
are there books?  or websites?  where do they publish?  

thanks from
bill knott
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From hruggier at localnet.com  Sat Oct  4 12:49:36 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 12:49:36 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poet-photographers???
References: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CF91@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <3F7EFA20.BBD93670@localnet.com>

You might check under haiga - a japanese form  of picture and poem  now almost exclusively photo and poem.  Google Ray Rasmussen

xxx
H

William Knott wrote:

> thanks to the folks who responded to my request for poet-photographers. . . .
>
> but i'm surprised there weren't more. . . . and some of the responses seemed not to the point, which is probably my fault in not making myself clear....
>
> so again i ask:  are there poets who are also photographers, and who publish their poems and photographs together?
>
> Not poets who publish their poems with someone else's photos???
>
> i'm seeking the names of poet-photographers only.   Do such hybrids exist?
> are there books?  or websites?  where do they publish?
>
> thanks from
> bill knott
>
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>                   Name: winmail.dat
>    winmail.dat    Type: application/ms-tnef
>               Encoding: base64



From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Oct  4 12:53:40 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 12:53:40 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Why does What? or Why is What?
Message-ID: <f8.31362409.2cb05514@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/3/03 8:01:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
jvcervantes at earthlink.net writes:

> Why does the What is poetry question come up as often as a
>  two-year-old's Why?  Is it so ineffable, so mysterious?  And for whom? 
>  Poets? Readers of poetry who aren't themselves poets?  Do those of us
>  who are poets, or claim to be poets, not understand it totally?  Or just
>  because it's there?  Why, mommy, why?
>  
>  - Jim, who, if he wore knee-britches, would up to them in work, but for
>  whom the questions itch pleasurably.

Some implausible answers:
Because we spend so much time engaged with it, we want
our life to be about something we can claim to be worthwhile.

Because words fail us so often in poetry 
we must make an excuse that in turn will fail to find the right words.

Because we need to put on a brave face 
even while being in total darkness. 

Finnegan


From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Sat Oct  4 02:45:09 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 01:45:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Romans 8:38-39
In-Reply-To: <BBA3B2AB.4866%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031004013422.02387d10@mail.ilstu.edu>

8:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor 
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,

8:39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to 
separate us from the love of God






From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct  4 12:59:06 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 11:59:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: poet-photographers???
In-Reply-To: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CF91@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <BBA4668A.489F%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Plenty of notable poets are hobby photographers, seems to me (William
Stafford was a pretty serious amateur, for example), but I'm not aware of
any/many who publish both together.  It does seem odd there aren't more who
spring to mind.

Very interesting question.  There is a rather famous photographer who
happens to share my name, and an ongoing daydream of mine is to put out a
book with him someday (he's done books with Andrei Codrescu).  Till then, I
just keep his photo books on my coffee table and smile sweetly when visitors
notice them. . . .

(Once I got rejected by the NEA for a fellowship in photography that I
hadn't applied for, too.)

In fiction the great example is Wright Morris, who is equally distinguished
as writer and photographer, and has a number of books combining the two.
Eudora Welty also published at least one book of photos that I know of, but
I'm not sure she combined it with fiction.

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


> From: William Knott <William_Knott at emerson.edu>
> Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 11:00:24 -0500
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: poet-photographers???
> 
> thanks to the folks who responded to my request for poet-photographers.
> . . .
> 
> but i'm surprised there weren't more. . . . and some of the responses
> seemed not to the point, which is probably my fault in not making myself
> clear....
> 
> so again i ask:  are there poets who are also photographers, and who
> publish their poems and photographs together?
> 
> Not poets who publish their poems with someone else's photos???
> 
> i'm seeking the names of poet-photographers only.   Do such hybrids
> exist?
> are there books?  or websites?  where do they publish?
> 
> thanks from
> bill knott




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct  4 14:19:48 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 14:19:48 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Romans 8:38-39
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20031004013422.02387d10@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <005e01c38aa4$19016fa0$8939fea9@j1c1k6>


> 8:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor 
> principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
> 
> 8:39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to 
> separate us from the love of God

Just using his name in vain.

--Bob G.
 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sat Oct  4 14:22:39 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 11:22:39 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] poet-photographers???
References: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CF91@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <3F7F0FEE.80C75AFD@earthlink.net>


William Knott wrote:
> 
> thanks to the folks who responded to my request for poet-photographers. . . .
> 
> but i'm surprised there weren't more. . . . and some of the responses seemed not to the point, which is probably my fault in not making myself clear....
> 
> so again i ask:  are there poets who are also photographers, and who publish their poems and photographs together?

I personally know one such person, though she doesn't publish the photos
and poems together.  She is, however, a poet and a photographer. 
Interested?  Backchannel, please.

- Jim


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct  4 14:27:12 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 14:27:12 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6>

> (Actually, we *don't* all know what light is -- a wave or a particle?  --

On that basis none of us knows what anything is.  But I'd say that to know
something is to be able to identify it, and point it out to others.  So we
all do know what light is.

--Bob G., in another quibbling mood



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct  4 14:30:17 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 14:30:17 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poet-photographers???
References: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CF91@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <007a01c38aa5$8fdbf5e0$8939fea9@j1c1k6>

thanks to the folks who responded to my request for poet-photographers. . .
.

but i'm surprised there weren't more. . . . and some of the responses seemed
not to the point, which is probably my fault in not making myself clear....

so again i ask:  are there poets who are also photographers, and who publish
their poems and photographs together?

There are many burstnorm poets who publish photographs they've taken on a
page with their own words--usually integratedly rather than as caption and
subject: Thomas Taylor and Guy Beining are two that spring to mind.

--Bob G.


Not poets who publish their poems with someone else's photos???

i'm seeking the names of poet-photographers only.   Do such hybrids exist?
are there books?  or websites?  where do they publish?

thanks from
bill knott




From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Sat Oct  4 14:34:15 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 13:34:15 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Romans 8:38-39
In-Reply-To: <005e01c38aa4$19016fa0$8939fea9@j1c1k6>
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20031004013422.02387d10@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031004133251.0243bc68@mail.ilstu.edu>

No. Actually I'm not.

>Just using his name in vain.
>
>--Bob G.



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sat Oct  4 14:34:21 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 11:34:21 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Why does What? or Why is What?
References: <f8.31362409.2cb05514@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F7F12AB.937EB645@earthlink.net>


JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 10/3/03 8:01:33 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> jvcervantes at earthlink.net writes:
> 
> > Why does the What is poetry question come up as often as a
> >  two-year-old's Why?  Is it so ineffable, so mysterious?  And for whom?
> >  Poets? Readers of poetry who aren't themselves poets?  Do those of us
> >  who are poets, or claim to be poets, not understand it totally?  Or just
> >  because it's there?  Why, mommy, why?
> >
> >  - Jim, who, if he wore knee-britches, would up to them in work, but for
> >  whom the questions itch pleasurably.
> 
> Some implausible answers:
> Because we spend so much time engaged with it, we want
> our life to be about something we can claim to be worthwhile.
> 
> Because words fail us so often in poetry
> we must make an excuse that in turn will fail to find the right words.
> 
> Because we need to put on a brave face
> even while being in total darkness.

That's why I have one of those watches that lights up when I push its
little button.  That doesn't make much sense, does it?  But it's what I
thought of.

- Jim

p.s. - No, I do not wear my watch to bed.  It sits on the nightstand so
I can check what ungodly hour it is when I wake up for no good reason --
a stupid little action that makes me even more awake.  Poets are such nerds.


From Thom424 at aol.com  Sat Oct  4 14:47:25 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 14:47:25 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] poet-photographers???
Message-ID: <6d.1a30561f.2cb06fbd@aol.com>

*pincushion's strawberry* a chapbook by jared carter, pairs his poems & his 
photographs. cleveland state university press (i think)   published it, 
probably sometime inthe late 1980s.
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From kpaul at mallasch.com  Sat Oct  4 14:58:56 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 13:58:56 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6>
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC>
 <007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <20031004135817.R21000@kpaul.spinweb.net>

Maybe, then, the only ones who truly understand what poetry 'is' are those
who don't write it and obsess over it?

Hmmm...

-kpaul

On Sat, 4 Oct 2003, Bob Grumman wrote:

> > (Actually, we *don't* all know what light is -- a wave or a particle?  --
>
> On that basis none of us knows what anything is.  But I'd say that to know
> something is to be able to identify it, and point it out to others.  So we
> all do know what light is.
>
> --Bob G., in another quibbling mood
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct  4 15:02:48 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 15:02:48 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Romans 8:38-39
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20031004013422.02387d10@mail.ilstu.edu> <5.1.1.6.0.20031004133251.0243bc68@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <00b201c38aaa$1afa71c0$8939fea9@j1c1k6>

> No. Actually I'm not.
> 
> >Just using his name in vain.
> >
> >--Bob G.

Good, 'cause that would separate you from the love of God.

--Bob G.



From halvard at earthlink.net  Sat Oct  4 14:53:08 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 14:53:08 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poet-photographers???
In-Reply-To: <3F7F0FEE.80C75AFD@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEGEENHHAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

 
{    I personally know one such person, though she doesn't publish the photos
{    and poems together.  She is, however, a poet and a photographer. 
{    Interested?  Backchannel, please.
{    
{    - Jim

Gerard Malanga and Allen Ginsberg also, though not together
as far as I know.

Hal            "language--the Riviera of consciousness"
                                 --Bob Perelman

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Sat Oct  4 15:45:20 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2003 14:45:20 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Romans 8:38-39
In-Reply-To: <00b201c38aaa$1afa71c0$8939fea9@j1c1k6>
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20031004013422.02387d10@mail.ilstu.edu>
 <5.1.1.6.0.20031004133251.0243bc68@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031004144428.0236ded0@mail.ilstu.edu>

then Bob G.said
><<Good, 'cause that would separate you from the love of God.>>


I think you mean the love of Pete.




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sat Oct  4 16:23:42 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 21:23:42 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC> <007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <015d01c38ab5$6774d710$2f808051@MyPC>

Bob:

> > (Actually, we *don't* all know what light is -- a wave or a
article?  --
>
> On that basis none of us knows what anything is.  But I'd say that to know
> something is to be able to identify it, and point it out to others.  So we
> all do know what light is.
>
> --Bob G., in another quibbling mood

Ah, not to go into details, the light problem is pretty specific -- *not*
simply epistomological, a la Berkeley and kick-it-and-see, but it turns on
quantum mechanics.

{Although your implied look/see point-to version of linguistic acquisition
in the sentence above makes me want to scream ... }

A real pain, and it only recently struck me that this must be what Schrody's
moggy was thinking about sitting in The Box as s/he sat pairing his/her
nails and waiting to see -- and who said the Dog doesn't play dice? -- which
way the photon would buck.

But lordy, by the time you get down to how you actually define an
alternative-universe text in terms of London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and
whether Conrad's London in the Secret Agent is really Dostoevski's Moscow in
disguise ...  Make your brain bleed.

Robin

(Incidentally, and as no one seems willing to give me a straight answer to
this, where do you stand on Stanley Wells' "Discovered"
comment-on-Shakespeare text?  I'm *still* pretty-much convinced it's some
sort of complicated Stratford Maff joke, but if it's not a joke, the damn
thing is actually even *more* devastating than Wells makes out.

:-(

R2)





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct  4 22:14:02 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 22:14:02 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC> <007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6> <015d01c38ab5$6774d710$2f808051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <00a501c38ae6$593284a0$19bffea9@j1c1k6>

> Bob:
>
> > > (Actually, we *don't* all know what light is -- a wave or a
> article?  --
> >
> > On that basis none of us knows what anything is.  But I'd say that to
know
> > something is to be able to identify it, and point it out to others.  So
we
> > all do know what light is.
> >
> > --Bob G., in another quibbling mood
>
> Ah, not to go into details, the light problem is pretty specific -- *not*
> simply epistomological, a la Berkeley and kick-it-and-see, but it turns on
> quantum mechanics.

What doesn't?  Do you know what a hat is?  I know millyuns of things about
light--do I not know what it is because I'm not sure whether it's a particle
or a wave?  Or some combination.

> {Although your implied look/see point-to version of linguistic acquisition
> in the sentence above makes me want to scream ... }

> A real pain, and it only recently struck me that this must be what
Schrody's
> moggy was thinking about sitting in The Box as s/he sat pairing his/her
> nails and waiting to see -- and who said the Dog doesn't play dice? --
which
> way the photon would buck.
>
> But lordy, by the time you get down to how you actually define an
> alternative-universe text in terms of London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and
> whether Conrad's London in the Secret Agent is really Dostoevski's Moscow
in
> disguise ...  Make your brain bleed.
>
> Robin
>
> (Incidentally, and as no one seems willing to give me a straight answer to
> this, where do you stand on Stanley Wells' "Discovered"
> comment-on-Shakespeare text?  I'm *still* pretty-much convinced it's some
> sort of complicated Stratford Maff joke, but if it's not a joke, the damn
> thing is actually even *more* devastating than Wells makes out.
>
> :-(

I think it's interesting.  Not sure in what way it might be devastating.
But I haven't read the essay by Scott, so can't say much about it.

--Bob G.
> R2)




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct  4 22:15:19 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 22:15:19 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Romans 8:38-39
References: <5.1.1.6.0.20031004013422.02387d10@mail.ilstu.edu><5.1.1.6.0.20031004133251.0243bc68@mail.ilstu.edu> <5.1.1.6.0.20031004144428.0236ded0@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <00c401c38ae6$86823fe0$19bffea9@j1c1k6>


> then Bob G.said
> ><<Good, 'cause that would separate you from the love of God.>>
> 
> 
> I think you mean the love of Pete.
> 
> 
Both.  God is everywhere (aside from here)

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct  4 22:20:53 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 22:20:53 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC><007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6> <20031004135817.R21000@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <00dd01c38ae7$4dc15460$19bffea9@j1c1k6>


> Maybe, then, the only ones who truly understand what poetry 'is' are those
> who don't write it and obsess over it?
>
> Hmmm...
>
> -kpaul

I don't know about "truly understanding" it, but I believe that the only
ones who have a viable concept of it know it from the outside and
inside--and can define without some need to do so evaluatively.  The biggest
problem in getting everyone to agree on what poetry is the way they do about
what automobiles are is simply that so many want it to include only what
they admire.

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct  4 22:25:32 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 22:25:32 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC><007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6> <20031004135817.R21000@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <00f301c38ae7$f4538aa0$19bffea9@j1c1k6>

As I was thinking about light, it occurred to me that we probably know what
it is better than we know what anything else is.  For what could be mistaken
for it?  What else is so distinctively itself?

--Bob G.



From kpaul at mallasch.com  Sun Oct  5 00:46:14 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 23:46:14 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <00dd01c38ae7$4dc15460$19bffea9@j1c1k6>
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com>
 <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC><007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6>
 <20031004135817.R21000@kpaul.spinweb.net> <00dd01c38ae7$4dc15460$19bffea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <20031004234334.U98266@kpaul.spinweb.net>

Bob -

If you know it too well from the inside, though, can you truly know it
from the outside. Something I noticed in school was that when I started
learning about magazines, I could never look at them in the same way
again. They were changed when I was reading them because in my mind -
consciously or not - I thought about font selection, layout, etc.

I see what you're saying about the difficulty, though, in it meaning the
same thing for everyone.

-kpaul

On Sat, 4 Oct 2003, Bob Grumman wrote:

> I don't know about "truly understanding" it, but I believe that the only
> ones who have a viable concept of it know it from the outside and
> inside--and can define without some need to do so evaluatively.  The biggest
> problem in getting everyone to agree on what poetry is the way they do about
> what automobiles are is simply that so many want it to include only what
> they admire.
>
> --Bob G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From elemenope at icubed.com  Sat Oct  4 13:13:12 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 01:13:12 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poet-Photographer
In-Reply-To: <200310050154.h951s6ST030190@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200310050154.h951s6ST030190@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <a05100300bba4afd68090@[204.215.201.114]>

Leonard Nimoy
-- 


From elemenope at icubed.com  Sat Oct  4 13:15:12 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 01:15:12 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poet-Photographer
Message-ID: <a05100301bba4b091ac69@[204.215.204.54]>

Gerard Malanga
-- 


From elemenope at icubed.com  Sat Oct  4 13:24:10 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 01:24:10 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poet-Photographer
Message-ID: <a05100302bba4b0d7bcf2@[204.215.204.54]>

Richard Dillon


An extended photo and poetry account of a two week expedition (with 
prelude staring out near Plymouth Rock, Massachucetts, thence across 
America)into the back country of the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming:

_From Jackass Pass To Mt. Bonneville And Back_

Sections of this long work
published in Mountain Gazette
Boulder, Colorado.
Editor: G. Guenin
1978



-- 


From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sun Oct  5 01:35:49 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 06:35:49 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC> <007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6> <015d01c38ab5$6774d710$2f808051@MyPC> <00a501c38ae6$593284a0$19bffea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <007f01c38b02$8a131e10$03df8051@MyPC>

From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>

> What doesn't?  Do you know what a hat is?  I know millyuns of things about
> light--do I not know what it is because I'm not sure whether it's a
particle
> or a wave?  Or some combination.

Is your wife a hat?  Can twenty million catholics be wrong?

>>  where do you stand on Stanley Wells' "Discovered"
> > comment-on-Shakespeare text?  I'm *still* pretty-much convinced it's
some
> > sort of complicated Stratford Maff joke, but if it's not a joke, the
damn
> > thing is actually even *more* devastating than Wells makes out.
> >
> > :-(
>
> I think it's interesting.  Not sure in what way it might be devastating.
> But I haven't read the essay by Scott,

Who has, other than SW?  If it exists ...

> so can't say much about it.
>
> --Bob G.

It's off the Web by now -- the TLS seem only to do the current issue.  I've
got it on disk somewhere.

But it's deeply Aristotleian -- EITHER it's a joke, OR it's a bombshell.

For starters, the use of the term "Model" in the sense Scott uses it
predates the first OED cite in 1623 by years ...  And beyond that, the
entire line of model/archetype references in the article as Stan Wells
describes it ...

And that's BEFORE we get to the Essex Connection ...

But I'm still bothered by the first and last sentences of the article -- 
talk about twee.

Robin





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct  5 07:05:05 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 07:05:05 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com><00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC><007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6><20031004135817.R21000@kpaul.spinweb.net> <00dd01c38ae7$4dc15460$19bffea9@j1c1k6> <20031004234334.U98266@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <00c601c38b30$88d41f80$98affea9@j1c1k6>

> Bob -
>
> If you know it too well from the inside, though, can you truly know it
> from the outside. Something I noticed in school was that when I started
> learning about magazines, I could never look at them in the same way
> again. They were changed when I was reading them because in my mind -
> consciously or not - I thought about font selection, layout, etc.

Aye, 'tis hard.  But I do think it possible to go blank and look at
something with close to full objectivity even if you've been inside it a
lot.  For instance, I have no trouble looking at the moon as a ball of light
even though I know quite a bit about what it "really" is.

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct  5 07:10:37 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 07:10:37 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC> <007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6> <015d01c38ab5$6774d710$2f808051@MyPC> <00a501c38ae6$593284a0$19bffea9@j1c1k6> <007f01c38b02$8a131e10$03df8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <00cc01c38b31$4eba5ac0$98affea9@j1c1k6>


> From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>
> > What doesn't?  Do you know what a hat is?  I know millyuns of things
about
> > light--do I not know what it is because I'm not sure whether it's a
> particle
> > or a wave?  Or some combination.
>
> Is your wife a hat?

I refuse to get into that--except to say that it would seem you are now
agreeing with me.

>Can twenty million catholics be wrong?

Can twenty million human beings of any type be right?

> >>  where do you stand on Stanley Wells' "Discovered"
> > > comment-on-Shakespeare text?  I'm *still* pretty-much convinced it's
> some
> > > sort of complicated Stratford Maff joke, but if it's not a joke, the
> damn
> > > thing is actually even *more* devastating than Wells makes out.
> > >
> > > :-(
> >
> > I think it's interesting.  Not sure in what way it might be devastating.
> > But I haven't read the essay by Scott,
>
> Who has, other than SW?  If it exists ...
>
> > so can't say much about it.
> >
> > --Bob G.
>
> It's off the Web by now -- the TLS seem only to do the current issue.

I meant the essay, not the article, which I read but now can't remember much
of.

> I've got it on disk somewhere.
>
> But it's deeply Aristotleian -- EITHER it's a joke, OR it's a bombshell.
>
> For starters, the use of the term "Model" in the sense Scott uses it
> predates the first OED cite in 1623 by years ...

Why would that be a bombshell?  Surely, almost all the words cited in the
OED predate what they're cited from by decades or more.

>And beyond that, the
> entire line of model/archetype references in the article as Stan Wells
> describes it ...
>
> And that's BEFORE we get to the Essex Connection ...
>
> But I'm still bothered by the first and last sentences of the article --
> talk about twee.
>
> Robin

You have me thinking maybe I didn't read the article.  I don't remember any
of the things you mention.  I expect Wells will publish more on the essay,
though.  I can't believe it's a hoax, at least by Wells--maybe one from a
hundred years ago, when the Scott essay was known about.

--Bob G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sun Oct  5 09:24:24 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 15:24:24 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry - What is light 
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC> <007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6> <015d01c38ab5$6774d710$2f808051@MyPC> <00a501c38ae6$593284a0$19bffea9@j1c1k6> <007f01c38b02$8a131e10$03df8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <000201c38b44$95488260$ebe7f9c1@pavilion>

Light is a good analogy, Robin.
The questions facing humanity are not of the type "what is light" (as you so
well explained) but what is it's role in Sustainable development, durable
development (life, civilisation, society.. as we know it) by whichever name
one likes.   It's place is pretty certainly central by whichever definition
you give it. (new "What is list for memory?" to direct application say)
Science will advance the knowledge of the "physical" nature of light as it
has ably shown . This will not of itself ensure adequate treatment of
"current short or long term concerns."  I referenced a book in "Conversation
on Innovations"  "L'Incandescent" by M. Serres not yet translated to english
I believe. At first it is the almost banal sad, story of an ageing very
erudite philosopher of science & teacher, so you put it down, and you
take -it up again and you put it down and you go dig out the biggest dico
you can find -damit the word "apeiron" is not in it. And you read on
puzzled " The group and not the class of white concepts" ? (my translation)
Oh! Set Theory again oh why oh why did I ever use such a beast.



And what I set out to quote
(from a mine(d) field of quotes
is this one, nothing personal,                              (anti-personnel
is fr. for landmines.) Just slipped in!
(from the ? "Work (or The Work)
& Metaphysics?):

" Metaphysics has the worst of reputations, when all is said and done, but
at the start (or in the beginning) it has the best of reputations."

Serres explains that most imporant work is undertaken on a hunch, an
intuition....

Herin lies one of my joys of poetry

Poetry is one of the arts which I spend time on.

I  suppose "L'Incandescent" is what you at New-Poetry call free verse.



Jas. Alexander

MORE:

Help on Hand:

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Volume 6 Issue 18
6 May 2003  on Chemweb.  Zine



"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at
it."



ALBERT EINSTEIN.



& By extension



"Poetry is....?





James Alexander





"Amateur de Poesie" & other things.



Poets Challenge



QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Volume 6 Issue 20
19 May 2003

"In science one tries to tell people, in a way as to be understood by
everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the
exact opposite."



Paul Dirac





NB PAM Di-rac invented the Bra - Ket notation. Does anyone know if the
undoubtedly great quantum physicist spoke french?   Limpid?

Or are other views





(ps. Bill & Melinda Gates & Assocs. are funding this cf. Forbes 400. & if
this fails we shall impose a gas tax in USA on oversized vehichules).

NB. my paper "Conversations on Innovations-Le Tour de France " which you all
know by now, was entirely drawn-up(except the figs.) in the famous BG's
no-paper approach. I may require an eye refit but it was a great challenge,
Bill. Any other case studies not to mention the problems of future
work-Conversations on conservation? The method Kiss would suggest share it
around on as many systems  as possible.



Bill - Arny Schwartzy on gas waste.



"Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at
it."












----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 7:35 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
>
> > What doesn't?  Do you know what a hat is?  I know millyuns of things
about
> > light--do I not know what it is because I'm not sure whether it's a
> particle
> > or a wave?  Or some combination.
>
> Is your wife a hat?  Can twenty million catholics be wrong?
>
> >>  where do you stand on Stanley Wells' "Discovered"
> > > comment-on-Shakespeare text?  I'm *still* pretty-much convinced it's
> some
> > > sort of complicated Stratford Maff joke, but if it's not a joke, the
> damn
> > > thing is actually even *more* devastating than Wells makes out.
> > >
> > > :-(
> >
> > I think it's interesting.  Not sure in what way it might be devastating.
> > But I haven't read the essay by Scott,
>
> Who has, other than SW?  If it exists ...
>
> > so can't say much about it.
> >
> > --Bob G.
>
> It's off the Web by now -- the TLS seem only to do the current issue.
I've
> got it on disk somewhere.
>
> But it's deeply Aristotleian -- EITHER it's a joke, OR it's a bombshell.
>
> For starters, the use of the term "Model" in the sense Scott uses it
> predates the first OED cite in 1623 by years ...  And beyond that, the
> entire line of model/archetype references in the article as Stan Wells
> describes it ...
>
> And that's BEFORE we get to the Essex Connection ...
>
> But I'm still bothered by the first and last sentences of the article --
> talk about twee.
>
> Robin
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sun Oct  5 09:24:55 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 15:24:55 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry- Help on Hand, just round the corner & Poets Challenge
References: <1ac.1aea2052.2caf24ef@aol.com> <20031003142408.O33266@kpaul.spinweb.net> <001301c389f0$6c249900$6d1c2dd5@anny> <3F7EE6AC.75B7DA32@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <000301c38b44$96a8fcc0$ebe7f9c1@pavilion>

Help on Hand:

      QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Volume 6 Issue 18
      6 May 2003  on Chemweb.  Zine
     

     
      "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
     

     
      ALBERT EINSTEIN.



      & By extension



      "Poetry is....? 





      James Alexander





      "Amateur de Poesie" & other things.



      Poets Challenge 



      QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Volume 6 Issue 20
      19 May 2003

            "In science one tries to tell people, in a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."
           

           
            Paul Dirac
           




      NB PAM Di-rac invented the Bra - Ket notation. Does anyone know if the undoubtedly great quantum physicist spoke french?   Limpid?

      Or are other views 





      (ps. Bill & Melinda Gates & Assocs. are funding this cf. Forbes 400. & if this fails we shall impose a gas tax in USA on oversized vehichules).

      NB. my paper "Conversations on Innovations-Le Tour de France " which you all know by now, was entirely drawn-up(except the figs.) in the famous BG's no-paper approach. I may require an eye refit but it was a great challenge, Bill. Any other case studies not to mention the problems of future work-Conversations on conservation? The method Kiss would suggest share it around on as many systems  as possible.



      Bill - Arny Schwartzy on gas waste.



            "Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it."
           

           





     



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Helen Ruggieri 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 5:26 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


  nice job, AB 
  h 

  Anny Ballardini wrote: 

    Here we go: 
    http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=287 
    I filed the link under 
    _Quotations_, here is the Index: 
    http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content 

    Any needed changes, please let me know, 
    Anny 

    From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com> 
    To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu> 

    > Be sure to share the URL once you get it up. :) 
    > 
    > -kpaul 
    > 
    > On Fri, 3 Oct 2003 JforJames at aol.com wrote: 
    > 
    > > In a message dated 10/3/03 2:55:40 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
    > > anny.ballardini at tin.it writes: 
    > > 
    > > > Thank you all, James and Thom and Helen (yes I can also remember 
    yours), I 
    > > >  am wondering, is it possible for me to gather these quotations on a 
    page 
    > > and 
    > > >  put them on my poets' corner or am I stealing or misusing copyrights? 
    > > >  If yes, I could add information on those who collected them, or? 
    > > >  Anny 
    > > Anny, it's fine with me. I wish I had citations for all those I 
    posted...most 
    > > now are in the public domain of course...and "fair use" could be claimed 
    > > for the rest, I would think. 
    > > Finnegan 
    > > _______________________________________________ 
    > > New-Poetry mailing list 
    > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
    > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry 
    > > 
    > _______________________________________________ 
    > New-Poetry mailing list 
    > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
    > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry 

    _______________________________________________ 
    New-Poetry mailing list 
    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From halvard at earthlink.net  Sun Oct  5 11:15:02 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 11:15:02 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Alice Fulton, "Sequel"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEGEFMHHAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Sequel

The universe's ignorance of me is privacy.
I know the endangered meadow in a way
it will never know itself.

Must be the cosmos wanted something
to hear the splendornote
and find the fossil data,

to take an interest
in extinction events and ask
what pulsation is this

exserted from, what What.
I don't know about purpose,
the why of why

we're here, but we seem to witness
with a difference.
To think is to exercise

godheat. Haven't I been given
everything, my life?
I might as well revise

the opening to read
the universe adores me.
It leans. It likes. It feels

no one could fail in quite
the same way as I've.
It gives burnish

when what is worthy of it.
The cosmos must have wanted something
to provide ovation

and disdain and inquire
under whose auspices
comes applause and hiss

and ask whose modulations unscroll
in flowers so immoderate that many
fewer would be none the less

a form of excess.

--Alice Fulton

fr. *Felt*  [New York: W. W. Norton, 2001]


Hal            

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct  5 11:22:57 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 11:22:57 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry - What is light 
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC> <007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6> <015d01c38ab5$6774d710$2f808051@MyPC> <00a501c38ae6$593284a0$19bffea9@j1c1k6> <007f01c38b02$8a131e10$03df8051@MyPC> <000201c38b44$95488260$ebe7f9c1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <008901c38b54$8ef76ec0$a674fea9@j1c1k6>


QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Volume 6 Issue 20
19 May 2003

"In science one tries to tell people, in a way as to be understood by
everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the
exact opposite."

I've always said just about the same thing, except using "art" in place of
"poetry."  Didn't know I was plagiarizing Dirac.

Or: artists corrupt what is known (truth) for the sake of beauty; scientists
corrupt (see Wordsworth) what is unknown (beauty) for the sake of truth.

--Bob G.




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct  5 11:49:40 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 11:49:40 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] About a Review of Writing To Be Seen
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com><00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC><007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6><20031004135817.R21000@kpaul.spinweb.net> <00dd01c38ae7$4dc15460$19bffea9@j1c1k6> <20031004234334.U98266@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <00f501c38b58$4a19e5e0$a674fea9@j1c1k6>

I happened on the following review of the anthology I co-edited at some
website called "Visio."   I remember the fellow who wrote it, someone who
posted to New-Poetry for a time, but can't recall his name, and it doesn't
seem to be indicated at his website.  I may want to write something about
the review, in which case I'd like to be able to name him.  Would he be good
enough to let me know, or does anyone else remember who he was.

The review, by the way, typifies just about all that is wrong with 90% of
poetry reviews: it's nothing one or two empty assertions, floating above the
standard Philistine assumption that what the Philistine can't appreciate
must be bad.

--Bob G.

REVIEWS for Writing to Be Seen: An Anthology of Later 20th Century
Visio-Textual Art


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

One of the editors, Bob Grumman, suggested I read this book as an
introduction to visual poetry. I'm not sure how good of an introduction to
visual poetry I'd say this book is. Most of the work inside I would call
visual art that uses text and words in the piece. There are a few 'visual
poems'. But it is subtitled 'visio-textual art' so I guess it delivers on
what it claims to. The problem is that most of the work inside isn't very
good. This 'poetry' isn't mainstream because of the establishment or The Man
keeping them down, it's not well-known because it isn't very good.





From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sun Oct  5 13:22:00 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 19:22:00 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Why does What? or Why is What?
References: <3F7E0CB1.97CDCDA5@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <000201c38b96$43a13720$2e81f8c1@pavilion>

Sincerely y,

Jas Alex
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Cervantes" <jvcervantes at earthlink.net>
To: "new-poetry" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 1:56 AM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Why does What? or Why is What?


> Why does the What is poetry question come up as often as a
> two-year-old's Why?  Is it so ineffable, so mysterious?  And for whom? 
> Poets? Readers of poetry who aren't themselves poets?  Do those of us
> who are poets, or claim to be poets, not understand it totally?  Or just
> because it's there?  Why, mommy, why?
> 
> - Jim, who, if he wore knee-britches, would up to them in work, but for
> whom the questions itch pleasurably.
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sun Oct  5 14:30:15 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 20:30:15 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Correction : Questions of appearance, of belief, of value(s) in one of my responses
Message-ID: <000301c38b96$4c0299e0$2e81f8c1@pavilion>

In inverse order of importance-depth of feeling obviously.
"Worth fighting over, for" ....!

ref. simple analysis taken from a book on pedagogy found on the shelves of the Univ. du Mirail in Toulouse, France (British auther)
New to me at the time. (mid 1980's). 


Sincerely y,

Jas Alex.

develop!
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From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sun Oct  5 15:16:19 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 21:16:19 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mac Cervantes "vernal lacquer-you-lear?"
Message-ID: <000401c38b96$58c708a0$2e81f8c1@pavilion>

Not bad vernacular?

Jamie Cervantes " vernal lacquer-you-lear."
.

"Dats a wee wah doo wop iffin you couch it (sans potato) in the vernal lacquer-you-lear".


What do you say Robin? 

Real footy note:
Silly ideas: What would the same line look like in every accent from almost every state in USA -Canada (and maybe in UK and even simply in Scotland
I remenber my first experience upon meeting a chap from Fife?

Save me Epiloging (Cheap) !
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From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sun Oct  5 18:57:46 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 00:57:46 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry & Improving the blank page
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com>
Message-ID: <000501c38b96$6149fd20$2e81f8c1@pavilion>

ref: resuling from a Conversation with Robin Hamilton on the shape of
things.



Aerial View - The right Incursion
  (but not a birds eye view)

"Lies, damned lies & statistics"
could there be something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Herein lies evermore cause for lying.

"Lies, damned lies & statistics" tying
could there be something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Herein lies evermore cause for trying.



"Lies, damned lies & statistics" thinking
there is something now quite
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now entirely convinced
Herein lies evermore causes for sighing.

"Lies, damned lies & statistics" tinkering
there is indeed something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Herein lies evermore causes for dying.



? J.A.  6 Oct. 2003.  here.













----- Original Message -----
From: <JforJames at aol.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2003 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> "It is not rhyming and versing that maketh poetry.  One may be a poet
> without versing, and a versifyer without poetry."  - Philip Sidney,
> ~Apologie for Poetrie~
>
> "What is poetry?  Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not.
> We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is."  -
> Samuel Johnson ~Boswell's Life~
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sun Oct  5 19:35:20 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sun, 05 Oct 2003 16:35:20 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Mac Cervantes "vernal lacquer-you-lear?"
References: <000401c38b96$58c708a0$2e81f8c1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <3F80AAB7.659003DF@earthlink.net>

What can I say?  Rack it up to 1) students' mispronunciation of just
about anything 2) reading too much Joyce many years ago 3) being a
musician and having an "ear" 4) living in Scotland for a year/ear &
having a wee bit o' Ross in me genetics 5) having lived in the SW
(including Texas), the NW, an the NE 6) just plain word play.  Beyond
that, let's not get too analytical.

- Jim, Jimmy, Jamie, Jaime, Diego etc.

> "james.alexander1" wrote:
> 
> Not bad vernacular?
> 
> Jamie Cervantes " vernal lacquer-you-lear."
> .
> 
> "Dats a wee wah doo wop iffin you couch it (sans potato) in the vernal
> lacquer-you-lear".
> 
> What do you say Robin?
> 
> Real footy note:
> Silly ideas: What would the same line look like in every accent from
> almost every state in USA -Canada (and maybe in UK and even simply in
> Scotland
> I remenber my first experience upon meeting a chap from Fife?
> 
> Save me Epiloging (Cheap) !


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Oct  6 06:19:53 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 06:19:53 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry?
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <000501c38b96$6149fd20$2e81f8c1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <010c01c38bf3$62773840$8826fea9@j1c1k6>

I think the real question is why people keep asking what poetry is, but that
so very very few like discussing the question, or any question about poetry.
Out of the millions of people in the US only a handful actively discuss it
here.  A few more contribute to the Buffalo poetics site I follow, but most
of them discuss politics, or just announce new books or magazines.  Almost
no magazines discuss poetry.  My conclsuion is that nobody's interested in
poetry, including the majority of poets.

--Bob G.



From ron.silliman at verizon.net  Mon Oct  6 07:23:14 2003
From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 07:23:14 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog
Message-ID: <000001c38bfc$407bf1f0$5afef343@Dell>

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

The Boss Town Sound -
do different regions read differently?

Philadelphia Progressive Poetry Calendar

Leslie Scalapino
being in the syllable, using space

Fanny Howe's Tis of Thee
A verse drama of race mixing

Post-avant Boston
in the shadows of Quietude

Jonathon Williams
Loco Logo-Daedalist indeed

DC Poetry -
Using a website to document a scene

"This is a totally / accessible poem" -
Meaning & masks in Charles Bernstein

Anthony Tognazzini -
Constructing selves in writing
(my poem "Berkeley" for example)

Kudzu textuality
in deep weeds

Russian poetry & the American South
(Another South, an anthology from Bill Lavender)

Del Ray Cross'
Cinema Yosemite -
elegance & specificity

Paul Blackburn
writes a "lunch poem"
Ritual XVII

Jacob's fallacy - 
Thinking small about the prose poem

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/






From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Oct  6 14:14:06 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 14:14:06 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Bob Perelman, "Driving to the Philadelphia Poetry Festival . . ."
Message-ID: <000001c38c35$a1ae0ec0$6de8c043@computer>

[Note: This poem consists of three-line stanzas with one long central line 
preceded and followed by short lines. If that's not what you see, please go 
to the following link: http://www.dcpoetry.com/anth2003/perelman2.htm .]

Thanks.

Hal

=====
 
Driving to the Philadelphia Poetry Festival at the Free Library 

Emerging from the middle 
of a donut-shaped dream, I rolled out of yesterday like there was no tomorrow, turning left 
onto Crittenden 

with its consonants and trees, 
right onto the not necessarily bitter irony of Mt Pleasant, which goes both up and down, 
like life they say 

but maybe not. 
There are channels all around us, most too greasy for us to do anything but slide along, 
data bits constantly told 

we're special and deserve 
the latest information. The curves of Lincoln Drive are only the vaguest approximation 
of Lincoln's changes 

of mind and his face 
as he masked them, those are things the past will keep under wraps for good. 
So we're here 

without the help 
of any physical certainty other than our own edgy linkages. 
But each time 

they ring the bell, 
with nothing but heaven to talk about, I have to say no thanks, forever, 
since I pledge 

my allegiance to 
the dinky effervescence of what passes for here-and-now, in this case Falls Bridge, 
which fails 

to live up to its name 
once again but does contribute its two cents toward the peaceable kingdom 
I'm driving at, 

if you'll accept a ride, 
at least part way. I suppose Kelly would have been quicker. 
Why are the poetry maps 

always out of date, 
unreadable, and expensive to boot? "Here be epics, here be epiphanies, here 
be state 

of the art oceanic 
marginalities," etc. But aren't poems supposed bring the news, uninterrupted, 
spitting out the ads 

like a horse 
would spit out the bit once it had made up its mind to speak? Not Pegasus, winged poetry 
horse, horsey myth, 

oily logo so easy 
to drive after all these poetic centuries. Ugh, how many 
bits are there 

in my mouth, 
now that I stop to spell them out? Momentum's only half an answer here. Where were we 
and why there or anywhere 

in particular? why 
us? At least the Parkway is the Parkway, especially now the flags have been put away. 
Wouldn't it be nice 

if it stayed like that? 
No flags, neither the familiar one nor the unfamiliar ones. Pretty as they might be. 
That would be 

better than nice. 
But then what would hold places together? Well, still way too early to worry 
about that one. 

Here we are: 
the Free Library of Philadelphia. Just free, that's all, Philadelphia, 
free, 

and broke as usual. 
But there's nothing in the Constitution that says the usual gets to 
be boss. 

In fact it says 
the opposite. When every broadcaster is dressed as the same superhero that's a sign 
something more 

than big overdue fines 
are on the way. But you can only argue with history as you pay. Ever wonder 
how languages die? 

It happens 
in an instant. A person, anyone, that's the point, walks into a bar, 
and asks for the usual. 

--Bob Perelman
 
fr. DCpoetry < http://www.dcpoetry.com/anth2003/perelman2.htm >


Hal      

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard





From chris at chrislott.org  Mon Oct  6 15:32:20 2003
From: chris at chrislott.org (Chris Lott)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2003 11:32:20 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry?
In-Reply-To: <010c01c38bf3$62773840$8826fea9@j1c1k6>
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <000501c38b96$6149fd20$2e81f8c1@pavilion> <010c01c38bf3$62773840$8826fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F81C344.3000601@chrislott.org>

Most poets I know, like most other artists I know (for various reasons I 
am friends with quite a number of painters and sculptors) don't spend a 
lot of time publically discussing theory and engaging in that kind of 
debate and discourse. This doesn't mean they aren't interested... again 
most of these folks have these discussions on a smaller scale, with 
their friends and fellow artists. Many of them are deceptively 
well-versed in the theoretical underpinnings but don't feel compelled or 
passionate about engaging in large-scale debate.

There is certainly a group that feels such discussion is pointless and 
perhaps even detrimental, just as there is a group that engages in inane 
and shallow pseudo-philosophical discussion. But for the most part the 
artists I know work hard at understanding their art and executing their 
projects, though a lot of that activity remains below the surface.

I fall somewhere on the end of the spectrum that such discussion can be 
fun and occasionally productive, but most often my participation is just 
another method of procrastination, and past a certain point the 
repetitions and lack of traction robs such discussions of the vitality 
they might have had early on. There are a limited number of hours in the 
day and I'd personally rather spend more of them making art than talking 
about it, and a lot of my investigation doesn't rely on public 
discourse. Which doesn't mean that investigation isn't happening.

Another salient issue is what the productive ends of such discussion is 
for those who hold it. For myself, I am selfish-- I am interested in the 
way it affects me as an artist and as an audience-member. I'm not 
completely interested in the kind of public taxonomies and objective 
definitions that Marcus and Bob are lately constantly debating and 
discussing. I want only a few bites out of *that* pie.

c
-- 
Chris Lott (chris at chrislott.org)
http://www.chrislott.org/

"May my silences become more accurate" --Theodore Roethke





From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Oct  6 15:56:30 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2003 15:56:30 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry?
In-Reply-To: <3F81C344.3000601@chrislott.org>
References: <010c01c38bf3$62773840$8826fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F8190AE.7388.1C0585E@localhost>

> I'm
> not completely interested in the kind of public taxonomies and
> objective definitions that Marcus and Bob are lately constantly
> debating and discussing. I want only a few bites out of *that* pie.

Well, I have to say that I'm mostly interested in trying to get Bob 
to say what he really means, or to mean what he's really said, one or 
the other.






From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Mon Oct  6 17:14:05 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 23:14:05 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] not only bosch
Message-ID: <008001c38c4e$c6b82340$301c2dd5@anny>

http://noosphere.cc/clas7.html
enjoy! 
(choose next or previous)
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Oct  6 19:16:07 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 19:16:07 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry?
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <000501c38b96$6149fd20$2e81f8c1@pavilion> <010c01c38bf3$62773840$8826fea9@j1c1k6> <3F81C344.3000601@chrislott.org>
Message-ID: <009d01c38c5f$d2a64680$e4c1fea9@j1c1k6>

> Most poets I know, like most other artists I know (for various reasons I
> am friends with quite a number of painters and sculptors) don't spend a
> lot of time publically discussing theory and engaging in that kind of
> debate and discourse. This doesn't mean they aren't interested... again
> most of these folks have these discussions on a smaller scale, with
> their friends and fellow artists. Many of them are deceptively
> well-versed in the theoretical underpinnings but don't feel compelled or
> passionate about engaging in large-scale debate.

On second thought, I think I agree with you--to a point.  By which I mean I
doubt that they are as involved (or tangled up) in what poetry is as much as
I am.

> There is certainly a group that feels such discussion is pointless and
> perhaps even detrimental,

The members of this one seem the most vocal, and are the reason for what I
said about poets in general.  I think they greatly outnumber the poets who
are interested enough in what poetry is to discuss it publically, at length.

> just as there is a group that engages in inane
> and shallow pseudo-philosophical discussion. But for the most part the
> artists I know work hard at understanding their art and executing their
> projects, though a lot of that activity remains below the surface.
>
> I fall somewhere on the end of the spectrum that such discussion can be
> fun and occasionally productive, but most often my participation is just
> another method of procrastination, and past a certain point the
> repetitions and lack of traction robs such discussions of the vitality
> they might have had early on. There are a limited number of hours in the
> day and I'd personally rather spend more of them making art than talking
> about it, and a lot of my investigation doesn't rely on public
> discourse. Which doesn't mean that investigation isn't happening.
>
> Another salient issue is what the productive ends of such discussion is
> for those who hold it. For myself, I am selfish-- I am interested in the
> way it affects me as an artist and as an audience-member. I'm not
> completely interested in the kind of public taxonomies and objective
> definitions that Marcus and Bob are lately constantly debating and
> discussing. I want only a few bites out of *that* pie.
>
> c


Actually, Marcus and I haven't been discussing it much for some time.  We've
only recently exchanged a few quite brief posts about a trivial point.  But,
watch out, I may be gearing up to have a major go at Marcus again.

> "May my silences become more accurate" --Theodore Roethke

Great quotation I'm a bit dismayed, as a Roethke-fan, not to have seen
before you started posting it.

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Oct  6 19:41:46 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 19:41:46 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry? Grumman vs. Bales, Match #3789
References: <010c01c38bf3$62773840$8826fea9@j1c1k6> <3F8190AE.7388.1C0585E@localhost>
Message-ID: <00ba01c38c63$68328c60$e4c1fea9@j1c1k6>

> Well, I have to say that I'm mostly interested in trying to get Bob
> to say what he really means, or to mean what he's really said, one or
> the other.

For some reason, Marcus, I see you as being interested--why, I can't
comprehend--in getting me to say something acceptable to you.  But, for some
reason, I seem to be in the mood to have another go at you, so here's what I
propose: I will unleash my poetics to New-Poetry one statement at a time.
You will reveal what is unclear about each statement as it appears, and we
will discuss the matter exclusively until (1) you agree my statement is
clear either due to a change in how you perceive it or my revision of it or
(2) one of us tires of the other's refusal to back down.  If (1), I will
post another single statement about my poetics; if (2), we will end the
thread.

A REQUEST OF OTHERS (which is probably unnecessary): please leave this
thread to me and Marcus.

Here's my first statement:

Verbal expression can be of three and only three kinds: texts concerned
primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with providing information;
texts concerned primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with
persuading its readers to perform some action; and texts concerned primarily
(according to a consensus of readers) with providing pleasure.

Remember, Marcus: if you want to play this game with me, you can only judge
my statements on their clarity, and consistency with any of my other
statements recorded during this description of my poetics, or with itself.
We can argue their verity some other time.

--Bob G.



From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct  7 07:57:55 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 07:57:55 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry? 
In-Reply-To: <00ba01c38c63$68328c60$e4c1fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F827203.27010.1BD1AF@localhost>

> ... I will unleash my poetics to New-Poetry one
> statement at a time. You will reveal what is unclear about each
> statement as it appears, and we will discuss the matter exclusively
> until (1) you agree my statement is clear either due to a change in
> how you perceive it or my revision of it or (2) one of us tires of the
> other's refusal to back down.  If (1), I will post another single
> statement about my poetics; if (2), we will end the thread....

So long as in the discussion you and I both allow for exposition on 
the contexts in which we're reading these statements because 
statements taken alone out of context are thereby often confusing.

> Here's my first statement:
> Verbal expression can be of three and only three kinds: texts
> concerned primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with
> providing information; texts concerned primarily (according to a
> consensus of readers) with persuading its readers to perform some
> action; and texts concerned primarily (according to a consensus of
> readers) with providing pleasure.
 
I think "to perform some action" is too narrow by a good deal; that 
you should stop with "persuading its readers", for there is lots of 
writing, it seems to me, that seeks to persuade without prompting the 
reader to action. Some persuasion is, indeed quite the other way: to 
prevent action (unless you want to say that "taking no action" is as 
active as "taking action", which would be, at best, unclear).

You might want to say "persuading its readers to act or forbear to 
act" if you insist on "persuade to action" as one of your categories -
- but if you do, then I think there are at least four kinds of 
writing: your second would be "to PROMPT to action or to forbear 
action" and the fourth would be "to persuade".

Even "persuade", though, is ambiguous, it seems to me. What counts as 
persuasion? Is acceptance that your brand of toothpaste cleans teeth 
whiter, without the action of buying a tube, enough? Is "acceptance" 
an "action" in your view? 

Also, I think there is a distinction to be made between "providing 
information" and "communicating". I imagine that to provide 
information one must merely "get it out there", leaving it to 
whatever audience may exist, or none, to get what it can from that 
information irrespective of the way it was presented. But to 
communicate, it seems to me, one must "get it across", which means 
understanding the context in which the likely audience is likely to 
find it -- not so that it necessarily "persuades" but so that it is 
taken as it it was meant, understood as it was meant, and evaluated 
as it was meant.

Then there is the school, which holds (if I don't misunderstand it) 
that random words, or even random things even if they're not words, 
are meaningful exactly as the observer/audience takes them to be 
meaningful, irrespective of the intention of the artist to mean 
anything. So that kind of writing would be a fifth kind: writing not 
intended to do anything at all, but merely randomly to exist, to be, 
though whether there is any hope that any observer/audience will 
arrive to make meaning out of it isn't clear to me.






From JforJames at aol.com  Tue Oct  7 10:35:20 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 10:35:20 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <128.329f4481.2cb42928@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/4/03 11:54:39 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com writes:

> > "What is poetry?  Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not.
>  > We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is."  -
>  > Samuel Johnson ~Boswell's Life~
>  
>  Sam being a premature Saussurean -- we may not know what poetry is, but it
>  defines itself as not being prose.
Robin, does anyone know how he defined "poetry" in his famous dictionary?
His sense of humor often showed through in his definitions...he defined
a "lexicographer" (& thus himself) as "a harmless drudge".
Finnegan


From JforJames at aol.com  Tue Oct  7 11:11:40 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 11:11:40 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <190.20be7d34.2cb431ac@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/4/03 11:49:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes:

> Yes, an entertaining list.  Now, would anyone like to contribute to a list 
on 
> what poetry is--one, that is, that might allow someone knowing nothing 
about 
> it to recognize it?  What American Heritage Dictionary and Jeremy Bentham 
> said would be okay starters.
>  
>  Note: there are definers and there are evokers; never go to the latter for 
a 
> definition--or to the former for an aesthetic experience.
>  
I'm not certain what it would tell us, but the measurement 
of all the definitions collected thus far, plus others that 
one might dig up, would be interesting project....
As someone alluded to, there is a lot of bias built into
the existing list of definitions, being that most of the definers 
were practicing poets or critics, plus a few philosophers
thrown in for good measure, but not many of our definers 
were looking in from outside the art of poetry. Anyway, 
one could identify a group of possible aspects that these
definitions share or don't share, which itself would be 
fairly subjective list of criteria, I'm afraid. Then on scale of  
0 - 1 - 2,  grade each definition against the set of aspects 
and see how the definitions as a group fall out in terms 
of being more or less... 
metaphoric 
explanatory
fanciful 
straight forward
pithy/aphoristic 
long-winded
oblique 
romantic
classical
concrete
abstract
etc.
Finnegan


From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct  7 11:26:35 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 11:26:35 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <190.20be7d34.2cb431ac@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F82A2EB.13036.DADB20@localhost>

> ... Then
> on scale of  0 - 1 - 2,  grade each definition against the set of
> aspects and see how the definitions as a group fall out in terms of
> being more or less... metaphoric explanatory fanciful straight forward
> pithy/aphoristic long-winded oblique romantic classical concrete
> abstract etc.<<

Arbitrarily and subjectively assigning numbers to non-numerical 
values is cargo-cult science.






From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Oct  7 11:30:42 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 16:30:42 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <128.329f4481.2cb42928@aol.com>
Message-ID: <004701c38ce7$f8af06e0$7cc18051@MyPC>

 > > > "What is poetry?  Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not.
> >  > We all know what light is, but it is not easy to tell what it is."  -
> >  > Samuel Johnson ~Boswell's Life~
> >
> >  Sam being a premature Saussurean -- we may not know what poetry is, but
it
> >  defines itself as not being prose.
> Robin, does anyone know how he defined "poetry" in his famous dictionary?
> His sense of humor often showed through in his definitions...he defined
> a "lexicographer" (& thus himself) as "a harmless drudge".
> Finnegan

Good point, Finnegan -- just got this from OED2[3] where it's cited under
POETRY, definition II.3:

1755 Johnson, Poetry, metrical composition; the art or practice of writing
poems.

-- but there's surely more.

The Dictionary as a whole doesn't seem to be on-line (though the Preface
is).

        http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html

(The term 'poetry' occurs there twice, possibly relevant in this contestion
of a "definition" of poetry.)

Jack Lynch has recently published a selection, and the definition may be
there -- anyone have access to that, or indeed the 1755 original?

{  For lots on and around Johnson, see his Page:

  http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Johnson/    }

Robin




From JforJames at aol.com  Tue Oct  7 12:09:32 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 12:09:32 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <1e3.111e0936.2cb43f3c@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/7/03 11:28:02 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
marcus at designerglass.com writes:

> Arbitrarily and subjectively assigning numbers to non-numerical 
>  values is cargo-cult science.
I acknowledged the inherently "subjective" nature of such
a venture, but if handled with a modicum of evenhanded judgment,
though surely not science, I think it might tell us something
useful about the how these definitions fall out as a group.
Finnegan


From rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu  Tue Oct  7 13:01:23 2003
From: rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu (Richard Wilsnack)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 12:01:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Pistols for two...
In-Reply-To: <05bc01c382e8$d1221080$478f8051@MyPC>
References: <15d.25110d71.2ca35831@aol.com>
Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20031007114328.00bb2638@medicine.nodak.edu>

Two weeks ago Robin Hamilton used the phrase, "pistols for two,
coffee for one," in referring to a debate with Sam Gwynn over
"Captain Carpenter." As a phrase describing no-compromise,
take-no-prisoners, winner-take-all conflicts between two sides
or parties, it seems well-suited to the attitudes of many present-day
political or ideological combatants. There is a broad (and possibly
long) history of using this phrase to describe duels, in which
champagne, breakfast, or tea have sometimes been substituted
for the coffee. However, using the Web and my limited supply of
hard-copy reference books, I've been totally frustrated in trying to
find information on how and when the phrase originated. As far as
I can tell, it is not in Barlett's or a few other familiar dictionaries
of quotations. Can any of the scholars on this list identify or suggest
a source (on or off-list, if only for relief from the more serious
dialogues about poetry)? The phrase seems too pseudo-civil to have
arisen just by accident among duellers or their seconds.

Richard W. Wilsnack
rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu



From halvard at earthlink.net  Tue Oct  7 13:11:08 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 13:11:08 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <190.20be7d34.2cb431ac@aol.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEGEJJHHAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

POETRY, n. A form of expression peculiar 
to the Land beyond the Magazines. 

	--Ambrose Bierce


Hal                Serving the tri-state area.

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Mon Oct  6 07:11:46 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 13:11:46 +0200
Subject: Poetry Challenge Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry - What is light 
References: <bd.37729730.2cb0425c@aol.com> <00bf01c38a8f$a913f640$2f808051@MyPC> <007001c38aa5$221f0100$8939fea9@j1c1k6> <015d01c38ab5$6774d710$2f808051@MyPC> <00a501c38ae6$593284a0$19bffea9@j1c1k6> <007f01c38b02$8a131e10$03df8051@MyPC> <000201c38b44$95488260$ebe7f9c1@pavilion> <008901c38b54$8ef76ec0$a674fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <000201c38cfc$14789580$2b85fac1@pavilion>

TITLE: Poetry Challenge.

Quote on Science & Hope (& Doubt) - from chemweb
I goes roughly as follows:

"It is not that scientist do not hope with the rest of humanity,
It is just that they hope more precisely."

hope I find who said this -betrayed by cut & paste.

Bob,

Thanks for picking up this thread.

If I let this pass, this thread will not lead to knitting something useful
for winter (residue of my Scots origin & an unthinkable betrayal of my
school's motto as " A place of useful learning ".

Quote is taken from ChemWeb -

I deserve neither credit nor responsibility for it's authenticity nor it's
originallity.

I thought it may be put to a good cause (& hence worth innovating
something).



I do not believe scientifically speaking that  "knowledge is truth".

I echoed one definition of knowledge on my chemweb thread.

I believe you made a similar comment on the list along these lignes
(knowledge understanding and it's transmissibility -teaching preoccupation:
I guess poets are more concerned with communicability?

(Then too are most of modern media abused society -again from my gifted
Forbes I see Fox's.. Rupert Murdoch has increased his earning again, I
suspect due to his influence in US?  but this is not the subject ).

Corruption is one possible intention of  an artist
but not of art, I would a argue. Giving one the benefit of doubt
(presumption of innocence in law if not in professional fields) I suggest
that Artists are Challenge accepted Views -Optics....  and of beauty as we
all know
(statitists excepted! conscensus) beauty is in the eye of the beholder ( no
un-necessary comments on professional attachment to beholders of
wealth! -Zen baby, Zen.).

Similarily arguements apply to scientist who run  similar risks. Science &
"any well gouverned-science is one very good example I would argue"
discipline however does not and cannot corrupt  (cf. comments on Bell Lab
scandale in and around my Bell Curve-to coin Rob Hamilton on chemweb & all
over the media). It models. It may highlight some aspects, better understood
according to the
rules and experimental methods which gouvern science.
It's declared aim which it shares with other disciplines is the never ending
search for "truth" recognised and acceptable as knowledge, contested when it
compromises beauty -according to some consesus or authority such as
Wordsworth. I would thus agree that
beauty is like truth, unkown.

Footy note:

1. I struggled not to shoot myself in the foot
on this. Well done Bob. G. and succinctly put.

2.   I am neither skilled in linguistis, nor philosophy and logic -dispite
contributions in and around Venn Diagrammes-which I used with great sucess
in one occasion-for those who have taken time to follow my threads (alone or
with friends at the faculties) - Not to mention poetry (and its art) where
great humility and restraint must be my coin.

3. Bob G. - I avoided all reference to you, due to my mental association
with a beautifully dangerous and versatile aircaft of the same name.





----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 05, 2003 5:22 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry - What is light


>
>
> QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Volume 6 Issue 20
> 19 May 2003
>
> "In science one tries to tell people, in a way as to be understood by
> everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the
> exact opposite."
>
> I've always said just about the same thing, except using "art" in place of
> "poetry."  Didn't know I was plagiarizing Dirac.
>
> Or: artists corrupt what is known (truth) for the sake of beauty;
scientists
> corrupt (see Wordsworth) what is unknown (beauty) for the sake of truth.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Oct  7 13:58:10 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 18:58:10 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Pistols for two...
References: <15d.25110d71.2ca35831@aol.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20031007114328.00bb2638@medicine.nodak.edu>
Message-ID: <008d01c38cfc$92d67000$7cc18051@MyPC>

> Two weeks ago Robin Hamilton used the phrase, "pistols for two,
> coffee for one," in referring to a debate with Sam Gwynn over
> "Captain Carpenter." As a phrase describing no-compromise,
> take-no-prisoners, winner-take-all conflicts between two sides
> or parties, it seems well-suited to the attitudes of many present-day
> political or ideological combatants.

[SNIP]

>I've been totally frustrated in trying to
> find information on how and when the phrase originated. As far as
> I can tell, it is not in Barlett's or a few other familiar dictionaries
> of quotations. Can any of the scholars on this list identify or suggest
> a source (on or off-list, if only for relief from the more serious
> dialogues about poetry)? The phrase seems too pseudo-civil to have
> arisen just by accident among duellers or their seconds.
>
> Richard W. Wilsnack

I can't even begin to document this -- it's the sort of phrase which doesn't
crop-up in slang dictionaries.  The obvious place for it appear would be in
Brewer's Phrase&Fable, but it's not there, which may itself be significant.

I'd always taken the pistols to be flintlock, and the coffee to be a
reference to duels taking place at dawn (followed by an early breakfast for
the survivor).

I suspect the phrase may originate with the nineteen fifities bodice-ripping
school of historical novelists -- it's just too pat to be 18thC
contemporary -- but that's a totally undocumented guess.

Robin




From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Tue Oct  7 14:55:23 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 14:55:23 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Pistols for two...
Message-ID: <111.28f42680.2cb4661b@cs.com>

Brewer?s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable is a good source for looking up this 
sort of thing.
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Oct  7 15:56:11 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 20:56:11 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Pistols for two...
References: <15d.25110d71.2ca35831@aol.com> <5.2.1.1.0.20031007114328.00bb2638@medicine.nodak.edu> <008d01c38cfc$92d67000$7cc18051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <00e701c38d0d$11c302b0$7cc18051@MyPC>

> I suspect the phrase may originate with the nineteen fifities
bodice-ripping
> school of historical novelists -- it's just too pat to be 18thC
> contemporary -- but that's a totally undocumented guess.
>
> Robin

I was wrong on this -- goes back at least to Flann O'Brien in the Keats and
Chapman pieces (courtesy of google):

"
Chapman, who was no duelist, went home and explained what had happened to
Keats.

'And I think he means business', he added. 'I fear it is a case of "pistols
for two, coffee for one". Will you be my second?'

'Certainly', Keats said, 'and since you have the choice of weapons I think
you should choose swords rather than pistols.'
"

http://www.wunderblogs.com/missveen/archives/001285.html

Can be found in print (once I had the google lead, I managed to find this on
my shelves) as "Coffee for One", in _The Various Lives of Keats and
Chapman_, p. 38, but it obviously existed before that, as Chapman puts the
phrase in quotes.  Although, god help me, that's no infalliable guide when
it comes to Flann O'Brien.  I'd love to think he invented the phrase.  Maybe
even there?

Dunno when this was originally printed -- my text is light on publication
details and doesn't deign to say in which issue of _The Irish Times_ the
column was printed.  As a total guess, the forties?  F O'B began writing the
column in the late thirties, though he carried on writing it till his death
in 1966 ...

Robin




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Oct  7 16:11:28 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 16:11:28 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry? 
References: <3F827203.27010.1BD1AF@localhost>
Message-ID: <00df01c38d0f$31a61660$7c69fea9@j1c1k6>

> > ... I will unleash my poetics to New-Poetry one
> > statement at a time. You will reveal what is unclear about each
> > statement as it appears, and we will discuss the matter exclusively
> > until (1) you agree my statement is clear either due to a change in
> > how you perceive it or my revision of it or (2) one of us tires of the
> > other's refusal to back down.  If (1), I will post another single
> > statement about my poetics; if (2), we will end the thread....
>
> So long as in the discussion you and I both allow for exposition on
> the contexts in which we're reading these statements because
> statements taken alone out of context are thereby often confusing.

I would allow anything relating to the clarity or lack thereof of the
statement being discussed.

> > Here's my first statement:
> > Verbal expression can be of three and only three kinds: texts
> > concerned primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with
> > providing information; texts concerned primarily (according to a
> > consensus of readers) with persuading its readers to perform some
> > action; and texts concerned primarily (according to a consensus of
> > readers) with providing pleasure.
>
> I think "to perform some action" is too narrow by a good deal; that
> you should stop with "persuading its readers", for there is lots of
> writing, it seems to me, that seeks to persuade without prompting the
> reader to action.

Quick response (because I can only stay on the computer a little while
because I'm expecting an important phone call): "action," is, I think, the
problematic word.  I thought it such when I wrote it.

>Some persuasion is, indeed quite the other way: to
> prevent action (unless you want to say that "taking no action" is as
> active as "taking action", which would be, at best, unclear).

I was thinking of action in very broad terms, so should probably better
define what I mean.  (I was thinking of a decision as a mental action, for
instance).

> You might want to say "persuading its readers to act or forbear to
> act" if you insist on "persuade to action" as one of your categories -
> - but if you do, then I think there are at least four kinds of
> writing: your second would be "to PROMPT to action or to forbear
> action" and the fourth would be "to persuade".
>
> Even "persuade", though, is ambiguous, it seems to me. What counts as
> persuasion?

Off the top of my head: using words to get some person to do something.

Is acceptance that your brand of toothpaste cleans teeth
> whiter, without the action of buying a tube, enough? Is "acceptance"
> an "action" in your view?

Acceptance doesn't matter since the definition depends on what is intended.

> Also, I think there is a distinction to be made between "providing
> information" and "communicating". I imagine that to provide
> information one must merely "get it out there", leaving it to
> whatever audience may exist, or none, to get what it can from that
> information irrespective of the way it was presented. But to
> communicate, it seems to me, one must "get it across", which means
> understanding the context in which the likely audience is likely to
> find it -- not so that it necessarily "persuades" but so that it is
> taken as it it was meant, understood as it was meant, and evaluated
> as it was meant.

Again, it is the intention that counts, and in this case the intention must
be to communicate information, in your usage, it seems to me.

> Then there is the school, which holds (if I don't misunderstand it)
> that random words, or even random things even if they're not words,
> are meaningful exactly as the observer/audience takes them to be
> meaningful, irrespective of the intention of the artist to mean
> anything. So that kind of writing would be a fifth kind: writing not
> intended to do anything at all, but merely randomly to exist, to be,
> though whether there is any hope that any observer/audience will
> arrive to make meaning out of it isn't clear to me.

If I understand you correctly, you're now discussing the merits of my
statement, not whether it's clear or not.  But I feel you're responding to
my invitation appropriately and that maybe we can actually get somewhere.
It will probably very slow going at times.  I have a full schedule right
now, for instance.  But I'll return to the above before TOO long.

--Bob G.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct  7 16:35:59 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 16:35:59 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Pistols for two...
In-Reply-To: <00e701c38d0d$11c302b0$7cc18051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <3F82EB6F.24773.1F620A4@localhost>

I think it was some German doctor who, on being challenged by 
Bismarck to a duel, had the choice of weapons and showed up at the 
appointed hour with two sausages. "In the one, my lord," the doctor 
said, "there is nothing but the finest pork; but the other has been 
infected with dysentery. Do you choose one and I'll take the other 
and we'll each eat our sausage." Bismarck is said to have called the 
duel off at once.

Probably aprocryphal, but a charming thought.

Marcus



On 7 Oct 2003 at 20:56, Robin Hamilton wrote:

> > I suspect the phrase may originate with the nineteen fifities
> bodice-ripping
> > school of historical novelists -- it's just too pat to be 18thC
> > contemporary -- but that's a totally undocumented guess.
> >
> > Robin
> 
> I was wrong on this -- goes back at least to Flann O'Brien in the
> Keats and Chapman pieces (courtesy of google):
> 
> "
> Chapman, who was no duelist, went home and explained what had happened
> to Keats.
> 
> 'And I think he means business', he added. 'I fear it is a case of
> "pistols for two, coffee for one". Will you be my second?'
> 
> 'Certainly', Keats said, 'and since you have the choice of weapons I
> think you should choose swords rather than pistols.' "
> 
> http://www.wunderblogs.com/missveen/archives/001285.html
> 
> Can be found in print (once I had the google lead, I managed to find
> this on my shelves) as "Coffee for One", in _The Various Lives of
> Keats and Chapman_, p. 38, but it obviously existed before that, as
> Chapman puts the phrase in quotes.  Although, god help me, that's no
> infalliable guide when it comes to Flann O'Brien.  I'd love to think
> he invented the phrase.  Maybe even there?
> 
> Dunno when this was originally printed -- my text is light on
> publication details and doesn't deign to say in which issue of _The
> Irish Times_ the column was printed.  As a total guess, the forties? 
> F O'B began writing the column in the late thirties, though he carried
> on writing it till his death in 1966 ...
> 
> Robin
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 





From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct  7 16:46:09 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 16:46:09 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry? 
In-Reply-To: <00df01c38d0f$31a61660$7c69fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F82EDD1.31195.1FF6EA9@localhost>

On 7 Oct 2003 at 16:11, Bob Grumman wrote:
> Quick response (because I can only stay on the computer a little while
> because I'm expecting an important phone call): "action," is, I think,
> the problematic word.  I thought it such when I wrote it. ... Off
> the top of my head: using words to get some person to do
> something.<<

And the next question about the notion of action is "how soon?" Does 
it have to prompt or persuade to immediate action, or is the delay of 
some seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades allowed to 
justify the notion that acted was prompted or persuaded?

> > Is acceptance that your brand of toothpaste cleans teeth
> > whiter, without the action of buying a tube, enough? Is "acceptance"
> > an "action" in your view?
 
> Acceptance doesn't matter since the definition depends on what is
> intended.

But if the definition depends on "what is intended" then how can we 
tell whether the writing is successful in any sense in prompting or 
persuading to action? If the sole criterion by which to judge whether 
writing "persuades to action" is "the intent of the writer" then what 
prevents us from claiming that any writing at all was intended to 
prompt to action -- or not to? 
 
> > ... I think there is a distinction to be made between "providing
> > information" and "communicating". I imagine that to provide
> > information one must merely "get it out there", leaving it to
> > whatever audience may exist, or none, to get what it can from that
> > information irrespective of the way it was presented. But to
> > communicate, it seems to me, one must "get it across", which means
> > understanding the context in which the likely audience is likely to
> > find it -- not so that it necessarily "persuades" but so that it is
> > taken as it it was meant, understood as it was meant, and evaluated
> > as it was meant.
 
> Again, it is the intention that counts, and in this case the intention
> must be to communicate information, in your usage, it seems to me.

But "to communicate information" conflates the very distinction I was 
trying to make. I distinguish between "information" as "getting it 
out there irrespective of the success at communication, or getting it 
across" and "communication" as "getting it across".
 
> > Then there is the school, which holds (if I don't misunderstand it)
> > that random words, or even random things even if they're not words,
> > are meaningful exactly as the observer/audience takes them to be
> > meaningful, irrespective of the intention of the artist to mean
> > anything. So that kind of writing would be a fifth kind: writing not
> > intended to do anything at all, but merely randomly to exist, to be,
> > though whether there is any hope that any observer/audience will
> > arrive to make meaning out of it isn't clear to me.
 
> If I understand you correctly, you're now discussing the merits of my
> statement, not whether it's clear or not.<<

Well, what I'm saying is that what you've said is neither clear nor 
complete in my view, and part of the lack of clarity inheres in its 
incompleteness -- because in the context of a serious discussion of 
the whole it is not enough to be clear (even if you were clear) about 
only part of what you're examining, while ignoring the rest.





From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct  7 17:03:39 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 17:03:39 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Gazebo: Arnold Groping
In-Reply-To: <3F82EDD1.31195.1FF6EA9@localhost>
References: <00df01c38d0f$31a61660$7c69fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F82F1EB.20086.20F7533@localhost>

Arnold Groping

Groping is a gripping 
pressure in a sexually
rewarding area
with a force of between 3 and 12 
lbs./sq, inch,

The same action with less than 3 
lbs./sq.inch 
is known as 
fondling.

The same action with more than 3 
lbs./sq.inch 
is known as 
pinching

Arnold's failure 
was he overapplied pressure
and crossed the line from
fondling to groping.
because he thought
these values were in 
kilograms
instead of pounds.






From halvard at earthlink.net  Tue Oct  7 17:04:02 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 17:04:02 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Toottt! Toottt! Toottt!
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEJOHHAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Hey, at least *somebody's* got it right
(besides me, that is).

	http://www.villagevoice.com/bestof/2003/detail.php?id=3797

Hal               "I need big art."
                         --overheard in a Chelsea gallery
Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Oct  7 18:02:11 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 18:02:11 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry? 
References: <3F82EDD1.31195.1FF6EA9@localhost>
Message-ID: <01fa01c38d1e$a93a2040$7c69fea9@j1c1k6>

> On 7 Oct 2003 at 16:11, Bob Grumman wrote:
> > Quick response (because I can only stay on the computer a little while
> > because I'm expecting an important phone call): "action," is, I think,
> > the problematic word.  I thought it such when I wrote it. ... Off
> > the top of my head: using words to get some person to do
> > something.<<
>
> And the next question about the notion of action is "how soon?" Does
> it have to prompt or persuade to immediate action, or is the delay of
> some seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades allowed to
> justify the notion that acted was prompted or persuaded?

Back briefly.  I think it should not matter.  The intention should be to
persuade, period.


> > > Is acceptance that your brand of toothpaste cleans teeth
> > > whiter, without the action of buying a tube, enough? Is "acceptance"
> > > an "action" in your view?
>
> > Acceptance doesn't matter since the definition depends on what is
> > intended.
>
> But if the definition depends on "what is intended" then how can we
> tell whether the writing is successful in any sense in prompting or
> persuading to action? If the sole criterion by which to judge whether
> writing "persuades to action" is "the intent of the writer" then what
> prevents us from claiming that any writing at all was intended to
> prompt to action -- or not to?

It's in my definition, which we should probably try to keep in each post: it
has to seem to be primarily intended to persuade by a consensus of readers.

> > > ... I think there is a distinction to be made between "providing
> > > information" and "communicating". I imagine that to provide
> > > information one must merely "get it out there", leaving it to
> > > whatever audience may exist, or none, to get what it can from that
> > > information irrespective of the way it was presented. But to
> > > communicate, it seems to me, one must "get it across", which means
> > > understanding the context in which the likely audience is likely to
> > > find it -- not so that it necessarily "persuades" but so that it is
> > > taken as it it was meant, understood as it was meant, and evaluated
> > > as it was meant.
>
> > Again, it is the intention that counts, and in this case the intention
> > must be to communicate information, in your usage, it seems to me.
>
> But "to communicate information" conflates the very distinction I was
> trying to make. I distinguish between "information" as "getting it
> out there irrespective of the success at communication, or getting it
> across" and "communication" as "getting it across".
>
> > > Then there is the school, which holds (if I don't misunderstand it)
> > > that random words, or even random things even if they're not words,
> > > are meaningful exactly as the observer/audience takes them to be
> > > meaningful, irrespective of the intention of the artist to mean
> > > anything. So that kind of writing would be a fifth kind: writing not
> > > intended to do anything at all, but merely randomly to exist, to be,
> > > though whether there is any hope that any observer/audience will
> > > arrive to make meaning out of it isn't clear to me.
>
> > If I understand you correctly, you're now discussing the merits of my
> > statement, not whether it's clear or not.<<

> Well, what I'm saying is that what you've said is neither clear nor
> complete in my view, and part of the lack of clarity inheres in its
> incompleteness -- because in the context of a serious discussion of
> the whole it is not enough to be clear (even if you were clear) about
> only part of what you're examining, while ignoring the rest.

It's the first statement.  The question is whether it is clear in normal
English.

--Bob G.



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Tue Oct  7 18:46:22 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 00:46:22 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <190.20be7d34.2cb431ac@aol.com>
Message-ID: <000401c38d28$2cc7b680$e284fac1@pavilion>

I could be considered in your "don't know category" (Class 1 in a 1 to 3 say
scale)
& to a certain extent don't care.

 - I tend to know what I like, mostly,
and no longer analyse or discuss it.
Until now.

My final year high school teacher was a published poet - He read some in
class.
I did not like it-I found him obscessed literally with the word shit!
He was not French -

Merde! if only I had known.

I have momentarily forgotten his name
but he insisted I read,  in a class reading,
the part  of the "autodidact" in the play
the "Angry Young Man.."

He was a colleague of Willie MacIlvaney
the now well known Scots novelist &
Glasgow crime writer who also taught in that school.
        Robin.

Setting up categories may have some "utility" value

Of statistics and Statistics, one must not confuse
questions of Identity - here labelling for counting with questions of
Belonging (categories)  taking another idea from Michel Serres-
L'Incandescent out 2003.

Of statistics and Statistics
Even number categories (0 to 3 or 1 to 4)
force clear choices.
For the fuller picture
use mulicomponent methodes
all with computor back- up-better consult the maths faculty - this will
force clarification
 the what, the why, the how,
when, for whom  sort of issues.

This may mean nothing to a poet but more to his publisher
of the very casual reader who likes to be seen at cultural
events.

If you prefer put this down to the lateness of the hour.

Sincerely


J.A.


----- Original Message -----
From: <JforJames at aol.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 5:11 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> In a message dated 10/4/03 11:49:41 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes:
>
> > Yes, an entertaining list.  Now, would anyone like to contribute to a
list
> on
> > what poetry is--one, that is, that might allow someone knowing nothing
> about
> > it to recognize it?  What American Heritage Dictionary and Jeremy
Bentham
> > said would be okay starters.
> >
> >  Note: there are definers and there are evokers; never go to the latter
for
> a
> > definition--or to the former for an aesthetic experience.
> >
> I'm not certain what it would tell us, but the measurement
> of all the definitions collected thus far, plus others that
> one might dig up, would be interesting project....
> As someone alluded to, there is a lot of bias built into
> the existing list of definitions, being that most of the definers
> were practicing poets or critics, plus a few philosophers
> thrown in for good measure, but not many of our definers
> were looking in from outside the art of poetry. Anyway,
> one could identify a group of possible aspects that these
> definitions share or don't share, which itself would be
> fairly subjective list of criteria, I'm afraid. Then on scale of
> 0 - 1 - 2,  grade each definition against the set of aspects
> and see how the definitions as a group fall out in terms
> of being more or less...
> metaphoric
> explanatory
> fanciful
> straight forward
> pithy/aphoristic
> long-winded
> oblique
> romantic
> classical
> concrete
> abstract
> etc.
> Finnegan
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Tue Oct  7 19:18:31 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2003 19:18:31 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Toottt! Toottt! Toottt!
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOEJOHHAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <002001c38d29$52a1b210$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

Hal -- Lynda deserves all the kudos she gets. She's a wonderful writer.

Tad


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Halvard Johnson" <halvard at earthlink.net>
To: "New-Poetry" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2003 5:04 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Toottt! Toottt! Toottt!


> Hey, at least *somebody's* got it right
> (besides me, that is).
> 
> http://www.villagevoice.com/bestof/2003/detail.php?id=3797
> 
> Hal               "I need big art."
>                          --overheard in a Chelsea gallery
> Halvard Johnson
> ===============
> email: halvard at earthlink.net
> website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Oct  8 04:32:58 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 09:32:58 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <190.20be7d34.2cb431ac@aol.com> <000401c38d28$2cc7b680$e284fac1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <002d01c38d76$c7b6d010$e4118051@MyPC>

> He was a colleague of Willie MacIlvaney
> the now well known Scots novelist &
> Glasgow crime writer who also taught in that school.
>         Robin.

What school was that, James?

It's odd how things cycle, or walls grow up or all those tedious
metaphors -- _Lanark_, not intentionally, seemed to draw a line in the sand,
and I don't know how much later writers like James Kelman would go back to
MacIlvaney.  Talk about not being able to talk about "Glasgow Urban Speech"
in the singular -- not just the twenty or so different ways of speaking
themselves, but ways of representing them.

In the same way, Ian Hamilton Finlay's _Glasgow Beasts_ *should* have been
an influence on the poets, but wasn't.  Somehow, not the language but how to
deal with it, got reinvented in the sixties, and it all went on from there.
Post-sixties, there was both a dynamic and a continuity that wasn't there
before.  Not so much schools rather than individual writers (though that was
part of it) but at long last Glasgow was less of a puddle and more of a
pool.

Now Scottish detective fiction seems to be mostly Edinburgh  (Ian Rankin,
say), and Glasgow is SF -- Iain M. [sic] Banks and Ken MacLeod.

(Sorry about this just-awake self-indulgent witter -- James' mention of
MacIlvaney set me off.  Nice way to start the day.  <g>)

Robin




From lattaj at umich.edu  Wed Oct  8 12:06:26 2003
From: lattaj at umich.edu (John Latta)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 12:06:26 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [New-Poetry] New blog
In-Reply-To: <20031008141710.UXJQ10143.fed1mtao05.cox.net@smtp.west.cox.net>
References: <20031008141710.UXJQ10143.fed1mtao05.cox.net@smtp.west.cox.net>
Message-ID: <Pine.SOL.4.58.0310081201170.22086@asteroids.gpcc.itd.umich.edu>

I'm a year behind the pack, but there you have it.

The usual doodlings to keep my head up amidst my day job.

Hotel Point

http://hotelpoint.blogspot.com/


John Latta


From elemenope at icubed.com  Wed Oct  8 02:14:09 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 14:14:09 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: Pistols for two... (Robin Hamilton)
In-Reply-To: <200310072049.h97Kn4ST000602@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200310072049.h97Kn4ST000602@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <a05100301bba95a8f94ab@[204.215.201.77]>

FOR IAN RANKIN

Tea for Two
Pistol in drawer
On cue

"Hello, Dear,
Last night,
Where were you?"




-- 


From kpaul at mallasch.com  Wed Oct  8 23:17:45 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2003 22:17:45 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] poem drop
In-Reply-To: <000401c38d28$2cc7b680$e284fac1@pavilion>
References: <190.20be7d34.2cb431ac@aol.com> <000401c38d28$2cc7b680$e284fac1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <20031008221609.R85895@kpaul.spinweb.net>

dropped a few poems on K5 tonight. how will the public at large react to
poetry?

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2003/10/8/225720/881

-kpaul



From JforJames at aol.com  Thu Oct  9 15:54:55 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 15:54:55 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Jacobsen honored
Message-ID: <178.2109c08a.2cb7170f@aol.com>

 
http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/howard/bal-ho.poet09oct09,0,5558084.story?co
ll=bal-local-howard 
Poetic memories of Jacobsen
Tribute: Baltimore's nationally acclaimed poet will be honored by readings of 
her works tomorrow by HoCoPoLitSo.

By Phil Greenfield
Special To The Sun

October 9, 2003


"The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he 
has taken an immortal wound -- that he will never get over it," Robert Frost 
said. 

The lovers of the printed and spoken word who populate the ranks of the 
Howard County Poetry and Literature Society undoubtedly would agree. 

It is in the spirit of those immortal wounds that HoCoPoLitSo will celebrate 
its 30th anniversary tomorrow by honoring the memory of one of its dearest 
friends, the nationally known poet Josephine Jacobsen, who died in July at age 
94. 

"She was very encouraging and generous with us," said the society's founding 
director, Ellen Conroy Kennedy, remembering the poet's many readings in 
Columbia. "We loved her writing, we loved her, and we think she is somebody whose 
work will continue to interest people for years to come." 

The Baltimore-born Jacobsen, who published her first poem at age 11, was 
something of a literary Grandma Moses, a woman whose writing would win her fame 
late in life. 

At 63, she was appointed poetry consultant to the Library of Congress -- a 
position that later became known as the library's poet laureate and was held by 
such luminaries as Robert Penn Warren, Joseph Brodsky and Stanley Kunitz. 

It was in her 70s and 80s that Jacobsen won the Robert Frost Medal, the 
Poetry Society of America's highest honor, the Lenore Marshall Prize and a 
prestigious fellowship from the American Academy of Poets. 

The citation electing her to the National Academy of Arts and Letters at the 
age of 86 extolled her observations of life as having "the dark resonance of 
great art." 

"A piece of hers ran in the New Yorker magazine in September 2002, when she 
was 93 years old," said Kennedy. "She was a poet to the end." 

Paying tribute to Jacobsen's extraordinary life and art at tomorrow's 
gathering will be three of the poet's admiring colleagues: 


Lucille Clifton of Columbia, a former poet laureate of Maryland and a recent 
winner of the National Book Award for Poetry, who teaches at St. Mary's 
College of Maryland. 

Michael Collier, Maryland's current poet laureate, who directs the creative 
writing program at the University of Maryland, College Park and is a frequent 
host of HoCoPoLitSo's cable television show The Writing Life. 

Elizabeth Spires, poet-in-residence at Goucher College, who edited Jacobsen's 
lectures and occasional works of prose. 
Also part of the tribute will be a rediscovered videotape of the writer 
reading her works before the local literary society in 1982. 

These images of a poet still very much in her prime also will be part of a 
Writing Life segment to be taped with Clifton, Collier and Spires at Howard 
Community College's television studio and made available to six Maryland 
educational cable channels in December. 

Jacobsen once referred to herself as a "short-range pessimist and long-range 
optimist," and her poetry abounds with those contrasting views. 

In one moment, she awaits the arrival of a cousin "under blue sky, white 
cloud, grass, bird-call, stone angle in the green city of the dead." 

Yet in another, a mockingbird is partnered: "Arrives, dips in a blur of 
wings, lights, is joined. Sings. Sings." 

Either way, a wound to remember. 

The Howard County Poetry and Literature Society opens its 30th season with a 
poetry reading and tribute to the late Josephine Jacobsen at 8 p.m. tomorrow 
in the new Instructional Lab Building at Howard Community College, Columbia. 
Admission is $10 and is free to students with identification. An on-site 
reception and book sale will follow the celebration. Information: 410-730-7524 or 
301-596-6183. 



Copyright ? 2003, The Baltimore Sun 



From JforJames at aol.com  Thu Oct  9 16:26:47 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 16:26:47 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <9b.3ee7a6f1.2cb71e87@aol.com>

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-10-2003_pg3_7

Neruda--
I believe that poetry is an action, ephemeral or solemn, in which there enter 
as equal partners solitude and solidarity, emotion and action, the nearness 
to oneself, the nearness to mankind and to the secret manifestations of nature. 


From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Thu Oct  9 18:48:32 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 18:48:32 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <9b.3ee7a6f1.2cb71e87@aol.com>
Message-ID: <004d01c38eb7$7718f6f0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

This is the best definition of art that I know, and I love what Calvino says
about the poetic:

"Both in art and in literature, the function of the frame is fundamental. It
is the frame that marks the boundary between the picture and what is
outside. It allows the picture to exist, isolating it from the rest; but at
the same time, it recalls- and somehow stands for - everything that remains
out of the picture. I might venture a definition: we consider poetic a
production in which each individual experience acquires prominence through
its detachment from the general continuum, while it retains a glint of that
unlimited vastness."
Italo Calvino,1985

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <JforJames at aol.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 09, 2003 4:26 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-10-2003_pg3_7
>
> Neruda--
> I believe that poetry is an action, ephemeral or solemn, in which there
enter
> as equal partners solitude and solidarity, emotion and action, the
nearness
> to oneself, the nearness to mankind and to the secret manifestations of
nature.
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct 10 05:47:01 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 05:47:01 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <9b.3ee7a6f1.2cb71e87@aol.com> <004d01c38eb7$7718f6f0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <018601c38f13$74fb9060$ed7bfea9@j1c1k6>

> This is the best definition of art that I know, and I love what Calvino
says
> about the poetic:

But it's not a definition of art, just a comment on an aspect of it.  As is
Neruda's and all but two of the "definitions" I've seen so far.

--Bob G.

Poetry is what birds would do far better than we if they could play tennis.



> "Both in art and in literature, the function of the frame is fundamental.
It
> is the frame that marks the boundary between the picture and what is
> outside. It allows the picture to exist, isolating it from the rest; but
at
> the same time, it recalls- and somehow stands for - everything that
remains
> out of the picture. I might venture a definition: we consider poetic a
> production in which each individual experience acquires prominence through
> its detachment from the general continuum, while it retains a glint of
that
> unlimited vastness."
> Italo Calvino,1985




From Cadaly at aol.com  Fri Oct 10 14:31:44 2003
From: Cadaly at aol.com (Cadaly at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 14:31:44 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry Tonight in Eagle Rock, CA
Message-ID: <16a.24d7a8ed.2cb85510@aol.com>

Yep!  That time of the month again.  You can always tell with me when it's 
that time of the month because, you know, I just go off on anyone, 
e-mails-a-blarin', just hollerin' to the top of my digital lungs about the stupendous 
frickin' poetry reading I'm fortunate enough to host.  See, I am simply the 
channel, a delivery system of fine verse for your poetic pleasure.  And you need 
poetic pleasure.  Oh, don't give me no lip, no sass from you, youngun.  You need 
it bad.  Some of you have no idea how bad you need to be sitting in my folding 
chairs till the night's over and you look at me all...pleased.  And that's got 
nothing to do with the oft promised, sometimes delivered Krispy Kremes I'm 
always talking about.  It's all about the words, baby, the words...

Every month on the 2nd Friday, a fine pair of poets grace the Eagle Rock 
Community Cultural Center along with a quality passal o' open readers, making fun 
and merriment for poets and poetry consumers alike.  This month is certainly 
no exception with talented, winsome and fine LA poets Linda J. Albertano and 
Catherine Daly. (See bios & photos below.) 
Open reading sign-up starts at 7:30 pm
Reading starts at 8 pm
Hosted by Teresa Willis
 
2nd Friday Poetry Series
Eagle Rock Community Cultural Center
2225 Colorado Boulevard ? Los Angeles, CA 90041
(near Eagle Rock Blvd.)
 
Upcoming features:
November 14th ? June Melby & Orchid Black
 
For more info, go to www.allthingstee.com 
 
Linda J. Albertano is a musician, artist, and poet who has unleashed her 
language on unsuspecting audiences for more tham two decades. She's performed 
full-length original works at the LA Theater Center and the John Anson Ford 
Theater. She's also been a regular at Beyond Baroque, the Knitting Factory, London's 
October Gallery, and other performance art and spoken word meccas. She was 
one of five poets chosen to represent Los Angeles in Amsterdam's One World 
Poetry Festival, and her words are among those etched in concrete on the Venice 
Poet's Wall. Her spoken CD "Skin" is available on New Alliance Records

Catherine Daly was valedictorian of her class at St. Teresa of Avila High 
School in a small blue collar city in the American Midwest. An Illinois Scholar 
at Trinity College and Merit Fellow at Columbia University, Daly has worked as 
a technical architect, officer in a Wall Street investment bank, engineer 
supporting the space shuttle orbiter, software developer for motion picture 
studios, and teacher. She lives in Los Angeles. She is also author of a book of 
poetry entitled Locket.
Teresa Willis
writer - performer 2219 W. Olive Ave., #117
Burbank, CA 91506 
teewillis at earthlink.net mobile: 818-631-6743 


 

 


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From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Oct 10 15:22:46 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 15:22:46 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] FYI: NYT piece on Samuel Menashe
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEPIHHAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

There was a nice piece on Samuel Menashe is this morning's
NYT.

	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/books/10POET.html

Hal                Serving the tri-state area.

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

October 10, 2003
A Shoe That Fits: A Bohemian Poet's Life
By JULIE SALAMON

Don't make me seem too picturesque," Samuel Menashe urged, making a
difficult request.

It is tempting to regard Mr. Menashe as an heirloom from a more colorful
era. He is a poet, both lauded and obscure, who has lived in the same
Greenwich Village tenement apartment on lower Thompson Street since
1956. His rent was $29 a month when he moved in. It has been raised
since then, but is still a small fraction of what his newer neighbors pay.

Mr. Menashe remains a striking figure at 78, speaking with a resonant voice,
his leonine silver hair swept back from his forehead. He frequently illustrates
a conversational point by reciting, with elegant diction, one of his own short
poems ? which Stephen Spender once described, in The New York Review
of Books, as "intense and clear as diamonds." There is neither computer nor
typewriter in his apartment on the fifth floor of a walk-up building; Mr.
Menashe composes his poetry with a pen, often in Central Park, to which
he travels several times a week by subway.

"I suppose I am a classic bohemian," he admitted, sitting on a sagging couch
in one of his three tiny rooms.

The ancient bathtub, perched on legs, stands in the kitchen, near a large
refrigerator that Mr. Menashe has unplugged and uses as a storage closet.
(He has a small refrigerator, containing food, in the living room.)

It's a light, airy space packed with phenomenal clutter, mainly books and
papers. The walls, which haven't been painted in 25 years, are decorated
with lively paintings, works of friends. Near the center of the room is a large,
unlikely burst of greenery, a tree produced from seeds that Mr. Menashe
saved from a grapefruit he had eaten.

He is an anachronism, a purist who has remained apart from the network that
makes a career. Not that Mr. Menashe has been dismissed as a Village
character, or that his poems have gone unnoticed. He has been published in
prestigious journals like The Partisan Review, The Times Literary Supplement
and The New Yorker, as well in as anthologies and textbooks. His work has
been widely reviewed.

He has been helped by well-known writers. Dana Gioia, chairman of the
National Endowment for the Arts, wrote the introduction to Mr. Menashe's
seventh collection, "The Niche Narrows" (Talisman House), published in 2000.
Two years ago Billy Collins, then the United States poet laureate, invited Mr.
Menashe to read his work at the Library of Congress.

He regularly gives readings, often in his local library, the Jefferson Market branch
in Greenwich Village (where he will appear on Dec. 6), and he can be heard
tomorrow at the public library in Fort Lee, N.J.; on Oct. 21 at the Williams Club
in Manhattan; and on Nov. 18 at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism on
West 86th Street in Manhattan. Or you can hear him read his work on a CD
released by rattapallax (www.rattapallax.com).

A `Singular Talent'


Considering the significant recognition that he has received from other poets, he has
remained remarkably unknown. "The public career of Samuel Menashe demonstrates
how a serious poet of singular talent, power and originality can be largely overlooked
in our literary culture," Mr. Gioia writes.

In his essay Mr. Gioia offers several reasons, especially the brevity of Mr. Menashe's
poems, which generally finish within 10 lines. It has not helped that he has been a
throwback, preferring not to teach or to work at a literary publication. "He has lived
a bohemian life in an age of academic institutionalism," Mr. Gioia observed.

Mr. Menashe's poetry resonates with biblical themes and metaphysical concerns,
though there are works specific to Central Park, to Greenwich Village and to
Thompson Street. One day, sitting in the little asphalt park between Thompson and
Sullivan Streets, he recalled an old woman in the tenement across from his, who used
to lean out the window every day, from dawn to dusk. The neighborhood was then
primarily Italian, with a substantial Portuguese subculture. The memory of that woman
inspired a recitation, lines from a poem called "Tenement Spring."

There is a pillow
On the window sill ?
Her elbow room ?
In the twin window
Enclosed by a grill
Plants in pots bloom
On the window sill

"That was the custom of the place," he said. "People would be watching the street all day,
old people at the windowsills. As far as I knew that woman's feet never touched the ground."

Then he laughed. "Now I am the old man on the street!"

The street has changed considerably. This part of the South Village is now generally
considered part of SoHo and is far more chic than shabby. Mr. Menashe's "hovel," as
he calls it, is on the same block as 60 Thompson Street, a trendy hotel where a standard
room goes for $325 a night. DKNY has an outpost up the street; at the nearby Chocolate
Garden, a single morsel of exquisite chocolate sells for $1.25.

Rocco's is still around, however ? not the nouveau Rocco's of reality television, but the
still popular, homey Italian restaurant north of Houston Street where Mr. Menashe's mother
took him almost 45 years ago, when he was depressed about something. Now, though,
across the street, people also line up at Tomoe Sushi for Japanese food.

The poet neither apologizes for nor sentimentalizes his circumstances. "You could transport
me to a big apartment uptown overlooking the Central Park lake, and I would be very
happy," he said. "But this shoe fits."

Streets Full of Writers


When he arrived on Thompson Street 47 years ago, romantic notions of artistic purity
prevailed, still reminiscent of Anatole Broyard's description of the area just after World
War II:

"Rents were cheap, restaurants were cheap, and it seemed to me that happiness itself
might be cheaply had," Mr. Broyard wrote in "Kafka Was the Rage," his Greenwich
Village memoir. "The streets and bars were full of writers and painters and the kind of
young men and women who liked to be around them. In Washington Square would-be
novelists and poets tossed a football near the fountain, and girls just out of Ivy League
colleges looked at the landscape with art history in their eyes."

Mr. Menashe expresses no nostalgia for those bygone days; in some ways he's still
living in them. "It's very poetic, the bathtub is in the kitchen," he said ruefully. "But if I
had any foresight I'd now be the owner of a proper middle-class apartment."

He offered a poem, called "At a Standstill." For a spontaneous orator like him, his
living room couch makes a fine podium.

That statue, that cast
Of my solitude
Has found its niche
In this kitchen
Where I do not eat
Where the bathtub stands
Upon cat feet ?
I did not advance
I cannot retreat

Mr. Menashe considers himself an accidental bohemian. He grew up in Queens,
the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants; his father owned a laundry and dry-cleaning
store. They were educated people, Mr. Menashe stipulated. "It is assumed that
immigrant parents means ignorant parents," he said. "Part of the American image
of your achievement is that you are a self-made man, that you are totally other
than your parents rather than you are a continuation."

He graduated from the elite Townsend Harris High School at age 16 and then
studied biochemistry at Queens College, thinking of perhaps becoming a doctor ?
the more predictable path for someone from his background.

But when he was old enough, he enlisted in the Army to fight in World War II, and
everything changed. At the Battle of the Bulge, Mr. Menashe's company started with
190 men in the morning; 29 were left by evening ? the rest dead, wounded or taken
prisoner. At the war's end, he was just 20.

"When I came back, I heard people talking about what they were going to do next
summer," he said. "I was amazed that they could talk of that future, of next summer.
As a result, I lived in the day. For the first few years after the war, each day was the
last day. And then it changed. Each day was the only day."

This thought is echoed in what he referred to as the "war poem," called "Winter."

I am entrenched
Against the snow,
Visor lowered
To blunt its blow
I am where I go

Yet Mr. Menashe rejects the notion of the "po?te maudit," the suffering poet. "It's
very important not to present me as a grim person because I'm not," he said.

With that, he recited "Family Silver":

That spoon fell out
Of my mother's mouth
Before I was born,
But I was endowed
With a tuning fork

Before moving to the Village, Mr. Menashe studied in Paris at the Sorbonne on the
G.I. Bill and received a doctorate in literature there. He had decided to become a
writer, but of short stories, not poetry. "As far as I knew, poets were dead, they were
immortal, one didn't decide to be a poet," he said.

Leaving Academia


Yet that is what he became, supporting himself at first with teaching jobs but then
preferring to be a waiter, a tour guide, a French tutor, a poetry lecturer on cruise ships.
Why did he leave academia? He answered with the story of a student who never missed
a deadline for a paper ? but the papers were terrible. Then, one day, Mr. Menashe
saw the young man through the window of a dormitory, playing jazz piano with incredible
joy. "I told him he was better off spending the time he wasted on term papers playing the
piano," Mr. Menashe said.

While he spends most of his time alone, he isn't a recluse. "If people meet me at a dinner
party, they can't tell that I had to bend my head under the kitchen sink to wash my hair,"
he said. "I have a good suit."

Only one; he has no closet space. He once went to Hollywood, driving cross country in
hopes of breaking into the movies. He stayed a year, but on the day he was finally
scheduled for an interview for a studio job, he was in a car accident. "I thought I was
punished for worshiping the golden calf," he said of the concussion he suffered. He
returned to New York.

Balance and Poetry


He travels by the C train from Spring Street to Central Park almost every day, with
a pen and a work-in-progress in his pocket. Often he is joined there by an old friend,
John Thornton, a retired banker, whom Mr. Menashe met when they were both
young recruits in the Army. He enjoys company but is happy to be alone.

"I find I like to walk a poem to its completion, even before I write it down," he said
during a recent excursion through a lushly green Sheep Meadow. "I don't feel that I am
writing ? maybe sculpting. You know, "poet" means "maker" in Greek. Sometimes I
feel like someone working on an algebra problem, and you're coming to the conclusion,
and it has to be perfectly balanced."

Mr. Menashe, elderly without seeming old, might have been describing his outlook on
life as well. Later, in another conversation, repeating his concern that he not seem grim
or despairing (he does not), Mr. Menashe invoked a favorite poem, "Promised Land."

At the edge
Of a world
Beyond my eyes
Beautiful
I know Exile
Is always
Green with hope ?
The river
We cannot cross
Flows forever



--30--




From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Fri Oct 10 15:46:19 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 21:46:19 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] FYI: NYT piece on Samuel Menashe
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEPIHHAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <006201c38f67$2d8992a0$68737450@anny>

I read every single word of it, and in cases like this I breathe very
little, thank you Halvard,
Anny

From: "Halvard Johnson" <halvard at earthlink.net>
To: "New-Poetry" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


>
> There was a nice piece on Samuel Menashe is this morning's
> NYT.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/books/10POET.html
>
> Hal                Serving the tri-state area.
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ===============
> email: halvard at earthlink.net
> website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
>
> October 10, 2003
> A Shoe That Fits: A Bohemian Poet's Life
> By JULIE SALAMON
>
> Don't make me seem too picturesque," Samuel Menashe urged, making a
> difficult request.
>
> It is tempting to regard Mr. Menashe as an heirloom from a more colorful
> era. He is a poet, both lauded and obscure, who has lived in the same
> Greenwich Village tenement apartment on lower Thompson Street since
> 1956. His rent was $29 a month when he moved in. It has been raised
> since then, but is still a small fraction of what his newer neighbors pay.
>
> Mr. Menashe remains a striking figure at 78, speaking with a resonant
voice,
> his leonine silver hair swept back from his forehead. He frequently
illustrates
> a conversational point by reciting, with elegant diction, one of his own
short
> poems ? which Stephen Spender once described, in The New York Review
> of Books, as "intense and clear as diamonds." There is neither computer
nor
> typewriter in his apartment on the fifth floor of a walk-up building; Mr.
> Menashe composes his poetry with a pen, often in Central Park, to which
> he travels several times a week by subway.
>
> "I suppose I am a classic bohemian," he admitted, sitting on a sagging
couch
> in one of his three tiny rooms.
>
> The ancient bathtub, perched on legs, stands in the kitchen, near a large
> refrigerator that Mr. Menashe has unplugged and uses as a storage closet.
> (He has a small refrigerator, containing food, in the living room.)
>
> It's a light, airy space packed with phenomenal clutter, mainly books and
> papers. The walls, which haven't been painted in 25 years, are decorated
> with lively paintings, works of friends. Near the center of the room is a
large,
> unlikely burst of greenery, a tree produced from seeds that Mr. Menashe
> saved from a grapefruit he had eaten.
>
> He is an anachronism, a purist who has remained apart from the network
that
> makes a career. Not that Mr. Menashe has been dismissed as a Village
> character, or that his poems have gone unnoticed. He has been published in
> prestigious journals like The Partisan Review, The Times Literary
Supplement
> and The New Yorker, as well in as anthologies and textbooks. His work has
> been widely reviewed.
>
> He has been helped by well-known writers. Dana Gioia, chairman of the
> National Endowment for the Arts, wrote the introduction to Mr. Menashe's
> seventh collection, "The Niche Narrows" (Talisman House), published in
2000.
> Two years ago Billy Collins, then the United States poet laureate, invited
Mr.
> Menashe to read his work at the Library of Congress.
>
> He regularly gives readings, often in his local library, the Jefferson
Market branch
> in Greenwich Village (where he will appear on Dec. 6), and he can be heard
> tomorrow at the public library in Fort Lee, N.J.; on Oct. 21 at the
Williams Club
> in Manhattan; and on Nov. 18 at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism
on
> West 86th Street in Manhattan. Or you can hear him read his work on a CD
> released by rattapallax (www.rattapallax.com).
>
> A `Singular Talent'
>
>
> Considering the significant recognition that he has received from other
poets, he has
> remained remarkably unknown. "The public career of Samuel Menashe
demonstrates
> how a serious poet of singular talent, power and originality can be
largely overlooked
> in our literary culture," Mr. Gioia writes.
>
> In his essay Mr. Gioia offers several reasons, especially the brevity of
Mr. Menashe's
> poems, which generally finish within 10 lines. It has not helped that he
has been a
> throwback, preferring not to teach or to work at a literary publication.
"He has lived
> a bohemian life in an age of academic institutionalism," Mr. Gioia
observed.
>
> Mr. Menashe's poetry resonates with biblical themes and metaphysical
concerns,
> though there are works specific to Central Park, to Greenwich Village and
to
> Thompson Street. One day, sitting in the little asphalt park between
Thompson and
> Sullivan Streets, he recalled an old woman in the tenement across from
his, who used
> to lean out the window every day, from dawn to dusk. The neighborhood was
then
> primarily Italian, with a substantial Portuguese subculture. The memory of
that woman
> inspired a recitation, lines from a poem called "Tenement Spring."
>
> There is a pillow
> On the window sill ?
> Her elbow room ?
> In the twin window
> Enclosed by a grill
> Plants in pots bloom
> On the window sill
>
> "That was the custom of the place," he said. "People would be watching the
street all day,
> old people at the windowsills. As far as I knew that woman's feet never
touched the ground."
>
> Then he laughed. "Now I am the old man on the street!"
>
> The street has changed considerably. This part of the South Village is now
generally
> considered part of SoHo and is far more chic than shabby. Mr. Menashe's
"hovel," as
> he calls it, is on the same block as 60 Thompson Street, a trendy hotel
where a standard
> room goes for $325 a night. DKNY has an outpost up the street; at the
nearby Chocolate
> Garden, a single morsel of exquisite chocolate sells for $1.25.
>
> Rocco's is still around, however ? not the nouveau Rocco's of reality
television, but the
> still popular, homey Italian restaurant north of Houston Street where Mr.
Menashe's mother
> took him almost 45 years ago, when he was depressed about something. Now,
though,
> across the street, people also line up at Tomoe Sushi for Japanese food.
>
> The poet neither apologizes for nor sentimentalizes his circumstances.
"You could transport
> me to a big apartment uptown overlooking the Central Park lake, and I
would be very
> happy," he said. "But this shoe fits."
>
> Streets Full of Writers
>
>
> When he arrived on Thompson Street 47 years ago, romantic notions of
artistic purity
> prevailed, still reminiscent of Anatole Broyard's description of the area
just after World
> War II:
>
> "Rents were cheap, restaurants were cheap, and it seemed to me that
happiness itself
> might be cheaply had," Mr. Broyard wrote in "Kafka Was the Rage," his
Greenwich
> Village memoir. "The streets and bars were full of writers and painters
and the kind of
> young men and women who liked to be around them. In Washington Square
would-be
> novelists and poets tossed a football near the fountain, and girls just
out of Ivy League
> colleges looked at the landscape with art history in their eyes."
>
> Mr. Menashe expresses no nostalgia for those bygone days; in some ways
he's still
> living in them. "It's very poetic, the bathtub is in the kitchen," he said
ruefully. "But if I
> had any foresight I'd now be the owner of a proper middle-class
apartment."
>
> He offered a poem, called "At a Standstill." For a spontaneous orator like
him, his
> living room couch makes a fine podium.
>
> That statue, that cast
> Of my solitude
> Has found its niche
> In this kitchen
> Where I do not eat
> Where the bathtub stands
> Upon cat feet ?
> I did not advance
> I cannot retreat
>
> Mr. Menashe considers himself an accidental bohemian. He grew up in
Queens,
> the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants; his father owned a laundry and
dry-cleaning
> store. They were educated people, Mr. Menashe stipulated. "It is assumed
that
> immigrant parents means ignorant parents," he said. "Part of the American
image
> of your achievement is that you are a self-made man, that you are totally
other
> than your parents rather than you are a continuation."
>
> He graduated from the elite Townsend Harris High School at age 16 and then
> studied biochemistry at Queens College, thinking of perhaps becoming a
doctor ?
> the more predictable path for someone from his background.
>
> But when he was old enough, he enlisted in the Army to fight in World War
II, and
> everything changed. At the Battle of the Bulge, Mr. Menashe's company
started with
> 190 men in the morning; 29 were left by evening ? the rest dead, wounded
or taken
> prisoner. At the war's end, he was just 20.
>
> "When I came back, I heard people talking about what they were going to do
next
> summer," he said. "I was amazed that they could talk of that future, of
next summer.
> As a result, I lived in the day. For the first few years after the war,
each day was the
> last day. And then it changed. Each day was the only day."
>
> This thought is echoed in what he referred to as the "war poem," called
"Winter."
>
> I am entrenched
> Against the snow,
> Visor lowered
> To blunt its blow
> I am where I go
>
> Yet Mr. Menashe rejects the notion of the "po?te maudit," the suffering
poet. "It's
> very important not to present me as a grim person because I'm not," he
said.
>
> With that, he recited "Family Silver":
>
> That spoon fell out
> Of my mother's mouth
> Before I was born,
> But I was endowed
> With a tuning fork
>
> Before moving to the Village, Mr. Menashe studied in Paris at the Sorbonne
on the
> G.I. Bill and received a doctorate in literature there. He had decided to
become a
> writer, but of short stories, not poetry. "As far as I knew, poets were
dead, they were
> immortal, one didn't decide to be a poet," he said.
>
> Leaving Academia
>
>
> Yet that is what he became, supporting himself at first with teaching jobs
but then
> preferring to be a waiter, a tour guide, a French tutor, a poetry lecturer
on cruise ships.
> Why did he leave academia? He answered with the story of a student who
never missed
> a deadline for a paper ? but the papers were terrible. Then, one day, Mr.
Menashe
> saw the young man through the window of a dormitory, playing jazz piano
with incredible
> joy. "I told him he was better off spending the time he wasted on term
papers playing the
> piano," Mr. Menashe said.
>
> While he spends most of his time alone, he isn't a recluse. "If people
meet me at a dinner
> party, they can't tell that I had to bend my head under the kitchen sink
to wash my hair,"
> he said. "I have a good suit."
>
> Only one; he has no closet space. He once went to Hollywood, driving cross
country in
> hopes of breaking into the movies. He stayed a year, but on the day he was
finally
> scheduled for an interview for a studio job, he was in a car accident. "I
thought I was
> punished for worshiping the golden calf," he said of the concussion he
suffered. He
> returned to New York.
>
> Balance and Poetry
>
>
> He travels by the C train from Spring Street to Central Park almost every
day, with
> a pen and a work-in-progress in his pocket. Often he is joined there by an
old friend,
> John Thornton, a retired banker, whom Mr. Menashe met when they were both
> young recruits in the Army. He enjoys company but is happy to be alone.
>
> "I find I like to walk a poem to its completion, even before I write it
down," he said
> during a recent excursion through a lushly green Sheep Meadow. "I don't
feel that I am
> writing ? maybe sculpting. You know, "poet" means "maker" in Greek.
Sometimes I
> feel like someone working on an algebra problem, and you're coming to the
conclusion,
> and it has to be perfectly balanced."
>
> Mr. Menashe, elderly without seeming old, might have been describing his
outlook on
> life as well. Later, in another conversation, repeating his concern that
he not seem grim
> or despairing (he does not), Mr. Menashe invoked a favorite poem,
"Promised Land."
>
> At the edge
> Of a world
> Beyond my eyes
> Beautiful
> I know Exile
> Is always
> Green with hope ?
> The river
> We cannot cross
> Flows forever
>
>
>
> --30--
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Fri Oct 10 15:37:37 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 14:37:37 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] FYI: NYT piece on Samuel Menashe
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEPIHHAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <BBAC74B1.570C%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

Nice piece on Menashe. Thanks for posting it, Hal. My old mentor at
Stanford, Donald Davie, was a fan of the poet and wrote and essay or review
on him I read once without ever taking up the challenge of tracking down and
reading his work. This little essay piques my curiosity.  Now I'll have to
read his work.

Paul

on 10/10/03 2:22 PM, Halvard Johnson at halvard at earthlink.net wrote:

> 
> There was a nice piece on Samuel Menashe is this morning's
> NYT.
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/books/10POET.html
> 
> Hal                Serving the tri-state area.
> 
> Halvard Johnson
> ===============
> email: halvard at earthlink.net
> website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
> 
> October 10, 2003
> A Shoe That Fits: A Bohemian Poet's Life
> By JULIE SALAMON
> 
> Don't make me seem too picturesque," Samuel Menashe urged, making a
> difficult request.
> 
> It is tempting to regard Mr. Menashe as an heirloom from a more colorful
> era. He is a poet, both lauded and obscure, who has lived in the same
> Greenwich Village tenement apartment on lower Thompson Street since
> 1956. His rent was $29 a month when he moved in. It has been raised
> since then, but is still a small fraction of what his newer neighbors pay.
> 
> Mr. Menashe remains a striking figure at 78, speaking with a resonant voice,
> his leonine silver hair swept back from his forehead. He frequently
> illustrates
> a conversational point by reciting, with elegant diction, one of his own short
> poems ? which Stephen Spender once described, in The New York Review
> of Books, as "intense and clear as diamonds." There is neither computer nor
> typewriter in his apartment on the fifth floor of a walk-up building; Mr.
> Menashe composes his poetry with a pen, often in Central Park, to which
> he travels several times a week by subway.
> 
> "I suppose I am a classic bohemian," he admitted, sitting on a sagging couch
> in one of his three tiny rooms.
> 
> The ancient bathtub, perched on legs, stands in the kitchen, near a large
> refrigerator that Mr. Menashe has unplugged and uses as a storage closet.
> (He has a small refrigerator, containing food, in the living room.)
> 
> It's a light, airy space packed with phenomenal clutter, mainly books and
> papers. The walls, which haven't been painted in 25 years, are decorated
> with lively paintings, works of friends. Near the center of the room is a
> large,
> unlikely burst of greenery, a tree produced from seeds that Mr. Menashe
> saved from a grapefruit he had eaten.
> 
> He is an anachronism, a purist who has remained apart from the network that
> makes a career. Not that Mr. Menashe has been dismissed as a Village
> character, or that his poems have gone unnoticed. He has been published in
> prestigious journals like The Partisan Review, The Times Literary Supplement
> and The New Yorker, as well in as anthologies and textbooks. His work has
> been widely reviewed.
> 
> He has been helped by well-known writers. Dana Gioia, chairman of the
> National Endowment for the Arts, wrote the introduction to Mr. Menashe's
> seventh collection, "The Niche Narrows" (Talisman House), published in 2000.
> Two years ago Billy Collins, then the United States poet laureate, invited Mr.
> Menashe to read his work at the Library of Congress.
> 
> He regularly gives readings, often in his local library, the Jefferson Market
> branch
> in Greenwich Village (where he will appear on Dec. 6), and he can be heard
> tomorrow at the public library in Fort Lee, N.J.; on Oct. 21 at the Williams
> Club
> in Manhattan; and on Nov. 18 at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism on
> West 86th Street in Manhattan. Or you can hear him read his work on a CD
> released by rattapallax (www.rattapallax.com).
> 
> A `Singular Talent'
> 
> 
> Considering the significant recognition that he has received from other poets,
> he has
> remained remarkably unknown. "The public career of Samuel Menashe demonstrates
> how a serious poet of singular talent, power and originality can be largely
> overlooked
> in our literary culture," Mr. Gioia writes.
> 
> In his essay Mr. Gioia offers several reasons, especially the brevity of Mr.
> Menashe's
> poems, which generally finish within 10 lines. It has not helped that he has
> been a
> throwback, preferring not to teach or to work at a literary publication. "He
> has lived
> a bohemian life in an age of academic institutionalism," Mr. Gioia observed.
> 
> Mr. Menashe's poetry resonates with biblical themes and metaphysical concerns,
> though there are works specific to Central Park, to Greenwich Village and to
> Thompson Street. One day, sitting in the little asphalt park between Thompson
> and
> Sullivan Streets, he recalled an old woman in the tenement across from his,
> who used
> to lean out the window every day, from dawn to dusk. The neighborhood was then
> primarily Italian, with a substantial Portuguese subculture. The memory of
> that woman
> inspired a recitation, lines from a poem called "Tenement Spring."
> 
> There is a pillow
> On the window sill ?
> Her elbow room ?
> In the twin window
> Enclosed by a grill
> Plants in pots bloom
> On the window sill
> 
> "That was the custom of the place," he said. "People would be watching the
> street all day,
> old people at the windowsills. As far as I knew that woman's feet never
> touched the ground."
> 
> Then he laughed. "Now I am the old man on the street!"
> 
> The street has changed considerably. This part of the South Village is now
> generally
> considered part of SoHo and is far more chic than shabby. Mr. Menashe's
> "hovel," as
> he calls it, is on the same block as 60 Thompson Street, a trendy hotel where
> a standard
> room goes for $325 a night. DKNY has an outpost up the street; at the nearby
> Chocolate
> Garden, a single morsel of exquisite chocolate sells for $1.25.
> 
> Rocco's is still around, however ? not the nouveau Rocco's of reality
> television, but the
> still popular, homey Italian restaurant north of Houston Street where Mr.
> Menashe's mother
> took him almost 45 years ago, when he was depressed about something. Now,
> though,
> across the street, people also line up at Tomoe Sushi for Japanese food.
> 
> The poet neither apologizes for nor sentimentalizes his circumstances. "You
> could transport
> me to a big apartment uptown overlooking the Central Park lake, and I would be
> very
> happy," he said. "But this shoe fits."
> 
> Streets Full of Writers
> 
> 
> When he arrived on Thompson Street 47 years ago, romantic notions of artistic
> purity
> prevailed, still reminiscent of Anatole Broyard's description of the area just
> after World
> War II:
> 
> "Rents were cheap, restaurants were cheap, and it seemed to me that happiness
> itself
> might be cheaply had," Mr. Broyard wrote in "Kafka Was the Rage," his
> Greenwich
> Village memoir. "The streets and bars were full of writers and painters and
> the kind of
> young men and women who liked to be around them. In Washington Square would-be
> novelists and poets tossed a football near the fountain, and girls just out of
> Ivy League
> colleges looked at the landscape with art history in their eyes."
> 
> Mr. Menashe expresses no nostalgia for those bygone days; in some ways he's
> still
> living in them. "It's very poetic, the bathtub is in the kitchen," he said
> ruefully. "But if I
> had any foresight I'd now be the owner of a proper middle-class apartment."
> 
> He offered a poem, called "At a Standstill." For a spontaneous orator like
> him, his
> living room couch makes a fine podium.
> 
> That statue, that cast
> Of my solitude
> Has found its niche
> In this kitchen
> Where I do not eat
> Where the bathtub stands
> Upon cat feet ?
> I did not advance
> I cannot retreat
> 
> Mr. Menashe considers himself an accidental bohemian. He grew up in Queens,
> the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants; his father owned a laundry and
> dry-cleaning
> store. They were educated people, Mr. Menashe stipulated. "It is assumed that
> immigrant parents means ignorant parents," he said. "Part of the American
> image
> of your achievement is that you are a self-made man, that you are totally
> other
> than your parents rather than you are a continuation."
> 
> He graduated from the elite Townsend Harris High School at age 16 and then
> studied biochemistry at Queens College, thinking of perhaps becoming a doctor
> ?
> the more predictable path for someone from his background.
> 
> But when he was old enough, he enlisted in the Army to fight in World War II,
> and
> everything changed. At the Battle of the Bulge, Mr. Menashe's company started
> with
> 190 men in the morning; 29 were left by evening ? the rest dead, wounded or
> taken
> prisoner. At the war's end, he was just 20.
> 
> "When I came back, I heard people talking about what they were going to do
> next
> summer," he said. "I was amazed that they could talk of that future, of next
> summer.
> As a result, I lived in the day. For the first few years after the war, each
> day was the
> last day. And then it changed. Each day was the only day."
> 
> This thought is echoed in what he referred to as the "war poem," called
> "Winter."
> 
> I am entrenched
> Against the snow,
> Visor lowered
> To blunt its blow
> I am where I go
> 
> Yet Mr. Menashe rejects the notion of the "po?te maudit," the suffering poet.
> "It's
> very important not to present me as a grim person because I'm not," he said.
> 
> With that, he recited "Family Silver":
> 
> That spoon fell out
> Of my mother's mouth
> Before I was born,
> But I was endowed
> With a tuning fork
> 
> Before moving to the Village, Mr. Menashe studied in Paris at the Sorbonne on
> the
> G.I. Bill and received a doctorate in literature there. He had decided to
> become a
> writer, but of short stories, not poetry. "As far as I knew, poets were dead,
> they were
> immortal, one didn't decide to be a poet," he said.
> 
> Leaving Academia
> 
> 
> Yet that is what he became, supporting himself at first with teaching jobs but
> then
> preferring to be a waiter, a tour guide, a French tutor, a poetry lecturer on
> cruise ships.
> Why did he leave academia? He answered with the story of a student who never
> missed
> a deadline for a paper ? but the papers were terrible. Then, one day, Mr.
> Menashe
> saw the young man through the window of a dormitory, playing jazz piano with
> incredible
> joy. "I told him he was better off spending the time he wasted on term papers
> playing the
> piano," Mr. Menashe said.
> 
> While he spends most of his time alone, he isn't a recluse. "If people meet me
> at a dinner
> party, they can't tell that I had to bend my head under the kitchen sink to
> wash my hair,"
> he said. "I have a good suit."
> 
> Only one; he has no closet space. He once went to Hollywood, driving cross
> country in
> hopes of breaking into the movies. He stayed a year, but on the day he was
> finally
> scheduled for an interview for a studio job, he was in a car accident. "I
> thought I was
> punished for worshiping the golden calf," he said of the concussion he
> suffered. He
> returned to New York.
> 
> Balance and Poetry
> 
> 
> He travels by the C train from Spring Street to Central Park almost every day,
> with
> a pen and a work-in-progress in his pocket. Often he is joined there by an old
> friend,
> John Thornton, a retired banker, whom Mr. Menashe met when they were both
> young recruits in the Army. He enjoys company but is happy to be alone.
> 
> "I find I like to walk a poem to its completion, even before I write it down,"
> he said
> during a recent excursion through a lushly green Sheep Meadow. "I don't feel
> that I am
> writing ? maybe sculpting. You know, "poet" means "maker" in Greek. Sometimes
> I
> feel like someone working on an algebra problem, and you're coming to the
> conclusion,
> and it has to be perfectly balanced."
> 
> Mr. Menashe, elderly without seeming old, might have been describing his
> outlook on
> life as well. Later, in another conversation, repeating his concern that he
> not seem grim
> or despairing (he does not), Mr. Menashe invoked a favorite poem, "Promised
> Land."
> 
> At the edge
> Of a world
> Beyond my eyes
> Beautiful
> I know Exile
> Is always
> Green with hope ?
> The river
> We cannot cross
> Flows forever
> 
> 
> 
> --30--
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Fri Oct 10 15:56:42 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 14:56:42 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Visiting Walt
Message-ID: <BBAC792A.4A90%grahamd@ripon.edu>

I'm very pleased to announce the appearance of a new anthology,  *Visiting
Walt: Poems Inspired by the Life & Work of Walt Whitman*.  It's from U Iowa
Press, and the editors are Thom Tammaro and Sheila Coghill, with foreword by
Ed Folsom.  This is a companion volume to an earlier anthology by the same
hands, *Visiting Emily*, containing poems on Emily Dickinson.

Right after you have read my poem, "The Varied Carol," feel free to take a
look at the contributions of Sherman Alexie, Mark Doty, Toi Derricotte,
Louis Simpson, Anne Waldman, Daisy Fried, Gray Jacobik, Paul Hoover, Sharon
Olds, and many others.

Plus quite a few from the honored dead:  Ginsberg, Lorca, Neruda, E. A.
Robinson, Pound, Langston Hughes, Ignatow, Borges, Jiminez, et al.

 

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================




From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Oct 10 16:08:35 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 16:08:35 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Bedouin
Message-ID: <001901c38f6a$493c4da0$6fe8c043@computer>

Lynda and I had breakfast this morning over at the Bus Stop, 
our little breakfast joint at the corner of Bethune and Hudson
Streets, where Hudson Street feeds its traffic onto 8th Avenue.
The 9th Avenue bus stops just a few steps from the Bus Stop's
door, sometimes pausing there before going around the block
and up Greenwich St. on the beginning of its uptown run up
10th Avenue.

My poached eggs were just right this morning, except that
there was a bit too much water in the dish they were served in,
and they didn't come on top of the soggified toast as they had 
the last time we breakfasted there. A first, by the way.

Outside the restaurant I saw the woman I've come to think of
as the Bedouin. She was at the corner of Bethune and Hudson
just opposite the Bus Stop with a great heap of her gear. 

I've seen her often in the last few months. The homeless people
in our neighborhood appear and disappear (and sometimes
reappear) according to some mysterious schedule. For several
months last year there was a guy who lived on Bethune Street
between Hudson and Greenwich across from our restaurant
but over more towards Greenwich. This guy had several
supermarket baskets full of his possessions, usually packed in
dark plastic trash bags. 

The Bedouin, who's also a self-talker,  travels with some of
her stuff in plastic bags, but most of it in suitcases strapped to
wheelies--you know, the metal things we all used before
suitcases with built-in wheels came along. 

I've never known exactly where the Bedouin is coming from
or where she's going, but I usually see her here and there in the 
neighborhood, in the process of moving. She moves her great
heap of treasures incrementally, taking a couple of wheelies
a third of the way down a block, leaving them there, going
back to fetch more, and so on. It seems to take her several
trips to move her pile from one place to the place. Then, the
process begins again.

Although I remember seeing her once or twice sitting on a
suitcase, surrounded by her stuff, covering herself against the 
rain with a plastic bag, or--again once or twice--sitting on a
bench in the little park at the corner of Bleecker Street and
W. 11th Street carrying on some sort of conversation with
herself. The time I passed her closest to her there I almost
thought she was talking to me.

I don't know how old she is, though I'd guess she's in her
forties or fifties somewhere. She dresses in black with a
neat little cap. If she lost all the baggage and had a cell-
phone in her hand, I'd take her for just another cell-talker
passing by.

And she seems to be in pretty good shape physically. I
mean, she has no trouble handling all her suitcases and
bags. She doesn't seem weak or ill. Just a bit nuts, with all
that chatter going on, and she seems to chatter mostly
when she's sitting still, not when she's moving camp.

Lynda, this morning, opined that it would be nice for her
to be in a home somewhere, and maybe at one time in
this country (maybe some pre-Reagan time) she would
have been. But my guess, now as I write this, is that she
might very well have some shelter to spend her nights in.
(I've never seen her sleeping on the streets.) But shelter
folks have to be out at 5 am (I think that's what I've heard 
or read) and can't get back in until suppertime. So, maybe
that's how she spends her daytime hours, just moving
her stuff, a third of a block at a time. Keeping in shape.

Hal          "Cuidado: Piso Mojado."

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Fri Oct 10 16:40:53 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 16:40:53 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] FYI: NYT piece on Samuel Menashe
Message-ID: <1d3.125fbe3b.2cb87355@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/10/2003 2:33:37 PM Central Daylight Time, 
halvard at earthlink.net writes: 
> 
> There was a nice piece on Samuel Menashe is this morning's
> NYT.
> 
>     http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/books/10POET.html
> 
> Hal                Serving the tri-state area.
> 
> Halvard Johnson

Glad to see Samuel getting some notice.  I've met him several times and, 
while not an unqualified admirer of his poetry, find him very original.
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From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Oct 10 17:30:57 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 17:30:57 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] FYI: NYT piece on Samuel Menashe
In-Reply-To: <1d3.125fbe3b.2cb87355@cs.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEAEACHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Oh, Sam, I'd never take you to be unqualified.

Hal
  Glad to see Samuel getting some notice.  I've met him several times and,
while not an unqualified admirer of his poetry, find him very original.
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From elemenope at icubed.com  Fri Oct 10 05:43:56 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 17:43:56 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Menashe
In-Reply-To: <200310101922.h9AJMBST022029@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200310101922.h9AJMBST022029@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <a05100306bbac2e0d5532@[204.215.200.3]>

In 1968, or thereabouts, I was in the audience for a reading by 
Samuel Menashe in Dupont Hall at Washington and Lee University in 
Lexington, Virginia.  He was introduced by Dabney Stuart, my teacher, 
who said of the poet's new book:
"There is no testimony by anyone else on its back cover as to the 
merits of this poet's poems.  Nor could there be.  By speaking for 
and within themselves alone and only, they achieve their permanent 
places in the sun."
-- 


From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Fri Oct 10 18:16:06 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (tadrichards at prodigy.net)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 18:16:06 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Menashe
Message-ID: <4910-220031051022166472@M2W054.mail2web.com>

In other words, he gave the book a cover blurb in his introduction.

Original Message:
-----------------
From: ELEMENOPE Productions elemenope at icubed.com
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 17:43:56 +0800
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu, anny.ballardini at tin.it
Subject: [New-Poetry] Menashe


In 1968, or thereabouts, I was in the audience for a reading by 
Samuel Menashe in Dupont Hall at Washington and Lee University in 
Lexington, Virginia.  He was introduced by Dabney Stuart, my teacher, 
who said of the poet's new book:
"There is no testimony by anyone else on its back cover as to the 
merits of this poet's poems.  Nor could there be.  By speaking for 
and within themselves alone and only, they achieve their permanent 
places in the sun."
-- 
_______________________________________________
New-Poetry mailing list
New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

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From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Fri Oct 10 18:21:35 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (tadrichards at prodigy.net)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 18:21:35 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <281450-2200310510222135175@M2W044.mail2web.com>

It is a definition of art -- followed by a definition of good art (that
which we consider poetic), which is an entirely different ballgame, and
Calvino understands the different. Art is anything you put a frame around -
spatial or temporal - and say "look at this -- it's part of life but
separate from it -- it's to be experienced in a different way." Good art
adds something else to the detachment from the continuum -- a glint of that
unlimited vastness.

Original Message:
-----------------
From: Bob Grumman bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 05:47:01 -0400
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> This is the best definition of art that I know, and I love what Calvino
says
> about the poetic:

But it's not a definition of art, just a comment on an aspect of it.  As is
Neruda's and all but two of the "definitions" I've seen so far.

--Bob G.

Poetry is what birds would do far better than we if they could play tennis.



> "Both in art and in literature, the function of the frame is fundamental.
It
> is the frame that marks the boundary between the picture and what is
> outside. It allows the picture to exist, isolating it from the rest; but
at
> the same time, it recalls- and somehow stands for - everything that
remains
> out of the picture. I might venture a definition: we consider poetic a
> production in which each individual experience acquires prominence through
> its detachment from the general continuum, while it retains a glint of
that
> unlimited vastness."
> Italo Calvino,1985


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From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Fri Oct 10 18:48:06 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (tadrichards at prodigy.net)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 18:48:06 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] FYI: NYT piece on Samuel Menashe
Message-ID: <1530-220031051022486523@M2W056.mail2web.com>

I didn't know Menashe at all. This is wonderful work.

Tad


Original Message:
-----------------
From: Halvard Johnson halvard at earthlink.net
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 15:22:46 -0400
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: [New-Poetry] FYI: NYT piece on Samuel Menashe



There was a nice piece on Samuel Menashe is this morning's
NYT.

	http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/books/10POET.html

Hal                Serving the tri-state area.

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

October 10, 2003
A Shoe That Fits: A Bohemian Poet's Life
By JULIE SALAMON

Don't make me seem too picturesque," Samuel Menashe urged, making a
difficult request.

It is tempting to regard Mr. Menashe as an heirloom from a more colorful
era. He is a poet, both lauded and obscure, who has lived in the same
Greenwich Village tenement apartment on lower Thompson Street since
1956. His rent was $29 a month when he moved in. It has been raised
since then, but is still a small fraction of what his newer neighbors pay.

Mr. Menashe remains a striking figure at 78, speaking with a resonant voice,
his leonine silver hair swept back from his forehead. He frequently
illustrates
a conversational point by reciting, with elegant diction, one of his own
short
poems ? which Stephen Spender once described, in The New York Review
of Books, as "intense and clear as diamonds." There is neither computer nor
typewriter in his apartment on the fifth floor of a walk-up building; Mr.
Menashe composes his poetry with a pen, often in Central Park, to which
he travels several times a week by subway.

"I suppose I am a classic bohemian," he admitted, sitting on a sagging couch
in one of his three tiny rooms.

The ancient bathtub, perched on legs, stands in the kitchen, near a large
refrigerator that Mr. Menashe has unplugged and uses as a storage closet.
(He has a small refrigerator, containing food, in the living room.)

It's a light, airy space packed with phenomenal clutter, mainly books and
papers. The walls, which haven't been painted in 25 years, are decorated
with lively paintings, works of friends. Near the center of the room is a
large,
unlikely burst of greenery, a tree produced from seeds that Mr. Menashe
saved from a grapefruit he had eaten.

He is an anachronism, a purist who has remained apart from the network that
makes a career. Not that Mr. Menashe has been dismissed as a Village
character, or that his poems have gone unnoticed. He has been published in
prestigious journals like The Partisan Review, The Times Literary Supplement
and The New Yorker, as well in as anthologies and textbooks. His work has
been widely reviewed.

He has been helped by well-known writers. Dana Gioia, chairman of the
National Endowment for the Arts, wrote the introduction to Mr. Menashe's
seventh collection, "The Niche Narrows" (Talisman House), published in 2000.
Two years ago Billy Collins, then the United States poet laureate, invited
Mr.
Menashe to read his work at the Library of Congress.

He regularly gives readings, often in his local library, the Jefferson
Market branch
in Greenwich Village (where he will appear on Dec. 6), and he can be heard
tomorrow at the public library in Fort Lee, N.J.; on Oct. 21 at the
Williams Club
in Manhattan; and on Nov. 18 at the Society for the Advancement of Judaism
on
West 86th Street in Manhattan. Or you can hear him read his work on a CD
released by rattapallax (www.rattapallax.com).

A `Singular Talent'


Considering the significant recognition that he has received from other
poets, he has
remained remarkably unknown. "The public career of Samuel Menashe
demonstrates
how a serious poet of singular talent, power and originality can be largely
overlooked
in our literary culture," Mr. Gioia writes.

In his essay Mr. Gioia offers several reasons, especially the brevity of
Mr. Menashe's
poems, which generally finish within 10 lines. It has not helped that he
has been a
throwback, preferring not to teach or to work at a literary publication.
"He has lived
a bohemian life in an age of academic institutionalism," Mr. Gioia observed.

Mr. Menashe's poetry resonates with biblical themes and metaphysical
concerns,
though there are works specific to Central Park, to Greenwich Village and to
Thompson Street. One day, sitting in the little asphalt park between
Thompson and
Sullivan Streets, he recalled an old woman in the tenement across from his,
who used
to lean out the window every day, from dawn to dusk. The neighborhood was
then
primarily Italian, with a substantial Portuguese subculture. The memory of
that woman
inspired a recitation, lines from a poem called "Tenement Spring."

There is a pillow
On the window sill ?
Her elbow room ?
In the twin window
Enclosed by a grill
Plants in pots bloom
On the window sill

"That was the custom of the place," he said. "People would be watching the
street all day,
old people at the windowsills. As far as I knew that woman's feet never
touched the ground."

Then he laughed. "Now I am the old man on the street!"

The street has changed considerably. This part of the South Village is now
generally
considered part of SoHo and is far more chic than shabby. Mr. Menashe's
"hovel," as
he calls it, is on the same block as 60 Thompson Street, a trendy hotel
where a standard
room goes for $325 a night. DKNY has an outpost up the street; at the
nearby Chocolate
Garden, a single morsel of exquisite chocolate sells for $1.25.

Rocco's is still around, however ? not the nouveau Rocco's of reality
television, but the
still popular, homey Italian restaurant north of Houston Street where Mr.
Menashe's mother
took him almost 45 years ago, when he was depressed about something. Now,
though,
across the street, people also line up at Tomoe Sushi for Japanese food.

The poet neither apologizes for nor sentimentalizes his circumstances. "You
could transport
me to a big apartment uptown overlooking the Central Park lake, and I would
be very
happy," he said. "But this shoe fits."

Streets Full of Writers


When he arrived on Thompson Street 47 years ago, romantic notions of
artistic purity
prevailed, still reminiscent of Anatole Broyard's description of the area
just after World
War II:

"Rents were cheap, restaurants were cheap, and it seemed to me that
happiness itself
might be cheaply had," Mr. Broyard wrote in "Kafka Was the Rage," his
Greenwich
Village memoir. "The streets and bars were full of writers and painters and
the kind of
young men and women who liked to be around them. In Washington Square
would-be
novelists and poets tossed a football near the fountain, and girls just out
of Ivy League
colleges looked at the landscape with art history in their eyes."

Mr. Menashe expresses no nostalgia for those bygone days; in some ways he's
still
living in them. "It's very poetic, the bathtub is in the kitchen," he said
ruefully. "But if I
had any foresight I'd now be the owner of a proper middle-class apartment."

He offered a poem, called "At a Standstill." For a spontaneous orator like
him, his
living room couch makes a fine podium.

That statue, that cast
Of my solitude
Has found its niche
In this kitchen
Where I do not eat
Where the bathtub stands
Upon cat feet ?
I did not advance
I cannot retreat

Mr. Menashe considers himself an accidental bohemian. He grew up in Queens,
the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants; his father owned a laundry and
dry-cleaning
store. They were educated people, Mr. Menashe stipulated. "It is assumed
that
immigrant parents means ignorant parents," he said. "Part of the American
image
of your achievement is that you are a self-made man, that you are totally
other
than your parents rather than you are a continuation."

He graduated from the elite Townsend Harris High School at age 16 and then
studied biochemistry at Queens College, thinking of perhaps becoming a
doctor ?
the more predictable path for someone from his background.

But when he was old enough, he enlisted in the Army to fight in World War
II, and
everything changed. At the Battle of the Bulge, Mr. Menashe's company
started with
190 men in the morning; 29 were left by evening ? the rest dead, wounded or
taken
prisoner. At the war's end, he was just 20.

"When I came back, I heard people talking about what they were going to do
next
summer," he said. "I was amazed that they could talk of that future, of
next summer.
As a result, I lived in the day. For the first few years after the war,
each day was the
last day. And then it changed. Each day was the only day."

This thought is echoed in what he referred to as the "war poem," called
"Winter."

I am entrenched
Against the snow,
Visor lowered
To blunt its blow
I am where I go

Yet Mr. Menashe rejects the notion of the "po?te maudit," the suffering
poet. "It's
very important not to present me as a grim person because I'm not," he said.

With that, he recited "Family Silver":

That spoon fell out
Of my mother's mouth
Before I was born,
But I was endowed
With a tuning fork

Before moving to the Village, Mr. Menashe studied in Paris at the Sorbonne
on the
G.I. Bill and received a doctorate in literature there. He had decided to
become a
writer, but of short stories, not poetry. "As far as I knew, poets were
dead, they were
immortal, one didn't decide to be a poet," he said.

Leaving Academia


Yet that is what he became, supporting himself at first with teaching jobs
but then
preferring to be a waiter, a tour guide, a French tutor, a poetry lecturer
on cruise ships.
Why did he leave academia? He answered with the story of a student who
never missed
a deadline for a paper ? but the papers were terrible. Then, one day, Mr.
Menashe
saw the young man through the window of a dormitory, playing jazz piano
with incredible
joy. "I told him he was better off spending the time he wasted on term
papers playing the
piano," Mr. Menashe said.

While he spends most of his time alone, he isn't a recluse. "If people meet
me at a dinner
party, they can't tell that I had to bend my head under the kitchen sink to
wash my hair,"
he said. "I have a good suit."

Only one; he has no closet space. He once went to Hollywood, driving cross
country in
hopes of breaking into the movies. He stayed a year, but on the day he was
finally
scheduled for an interview for a studio job, he was in a car accident. "I
thought I was
punished for worshiping the golden calf," he said of the concussion he
suffered. He
returned to New York.

Balance and Poetry


He travels by the C train from Spring Street to Central Park almost every
day, with
a pen and a work-in-progress in his pocket. Often he is joined there by an
old friend,
John Thornton, a retired banker, whom Mr. Menashe met when they were both
young recruits in the Army. He enjoys company but is happy to be alone.

"I find I like to walk a poem to its completion, even before I write it
down," he said
during a recent excursion through a lushly green Sheep Meadow. "I don't
feel that I am
writing ? maybe sculpting. You know, "poet" means "maker" in Greek.
Sometimes I
feel like someone working on an algebra problem, and you're coming to the
conclusion,
and it has to be perfectly balanced."

Mr. Menashe, elderly without seeming old, might have been describing his
outlook on
life as well. Later, in another conversation, repeating his concern that he
not seem grim
or despairing (he does not), Mr. Menashe invoked a favorite poem, "Promised
Land."

At the edge
Of a world
Beyond my eyes
Beautiful
I know Exile
Is always
Green with hope ?
The river
We cannot cross
Flows forever



--30--


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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct 10 21:46:48 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 21:46:48 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <281450-2200310510222135175@M2W044.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <029c01c38f99$899f69c0$0784fea9@j1c1k6>

> It is a definition of art -- followed by a definition of good art (that
> which we consider poetic), which is an entirely different ballgame, and
> Calvino understands the different. Art is anything you put a frame
around -
> spatial or temporal - and say "look at this -- it's part of life but
> separate from it -- it's to be experienced in a different way."

Okay, I'll accept that.  The way it was put made it seem like a discussion
of framing as simply an element of an artwork, not as definitional.

What about tomatoes on display at the supermarket?  To nitpick.

> Good art
> adds something else to the detachment from the continuum -- a glint of
that
> unlimited vastness.

I find this to be gush--because subjective and unspecific.  It's like saying
poetry is beautiful words.  (Though a little more sophisticated.)

--Bob G.


> Original Message:
> -----------------
> From: Bob Grumman bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net
> Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 05:47:01 -0400
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
>
>
> > This is the best definition of art that I know, and I love what Calvino
> says
> > about the poetic:
>
> But it's not a definition of art, just a comment on an aspect of it.  As
is
> Neruda's and all but two of the "definitions" I've seen so far.
>
> --Bob G.
>
> Poetry is what birds would do far better than we if they could play
tennis.
>
>
>
> > "Both in art and in literature, the function of the frame is
fundamental.
> It
> > is the frame that marks the boundary between the picture and what is
> > outside. It allows the picture to exist, isolating it from the rest; but
> at
> > the same time, it recalls- and somehow stands for - everything that
> remains
> > out of the picture. I might venture a definition: we consider poetic a
> > production in which each individual experience acquires prominence
through
> > its detachment from the general continuum, while it retains a glint of
> that
> > unlimited vastness."
> > Italo Calvino,1985
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
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> http://mail2web.com/ .
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct 10 21:53:29 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 21:53:29 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <281450-2200310510222135175@M2W044.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <02e501c38f9a$7893e600$0784fea9@j1c1k6>

While this thread is still going, I figured I might as well add an old poem
of mine to it that's called, "Still Another Definition":

A poem has happened if, after a
statement's struggled intricacies through wh
atever agitextities or calms
of day or night
it tries its words against,
some length of it,
in a minute sudden
lurch, reveals at
brilliantly once
the statement's text as nowhere
not the statement's core,
and years of loci
and miles of moments
behind and ahead
begin to fill
with periphery-engendering peripheries of it.


Pretty minor, and close to worthless as a philosophically useful definition
of poetry, and not even a definition I believe in as a taxonomist, but
interesting enough, I hope.

--Bob G.



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Fri Oct 10 22:16:27 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 22:16:27 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] FYI: NYT piece on Samuel Menashe
Message-ID: <11b.2916b40c.2cb8c1fb@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/10/2003 4:38:38 PM Central Daylight Time, 
halvard at earthlink.net writes: 
> 
> Oh, Sam, I'd never take you to be unqualified.
>   
> 
I am more often unqualified than not, O Prince Hal.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Fri Oct 10 22:18:25 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 22:18:25 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Menashe
Message-ID: <16f.24daff60.2cb8c271@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/10/2003 4:56:17 PM Central Daylight Time, 
elemenope at icubed.com writes: 
> 
> In 1968, or thereabouts, I was in the audience for a reading by 
> Samuel Menashe in Dupont Hall at Washington and Lee University in 
> Lexington, Virginia.  He was introduced by Dabney Stuart, my teacher, 
> who said of the poet's new book:
> "There is no testimony by anyone else on its back cover as to the 
> merits of this poet's poems.  Nor could there be.  By speaking for 
> and within themselves alone and only, they achieve their permanent 
> places in the sun."
> -- 
Ol' Dab, he has a way of putting it right.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Fri Oct 10 22:19:33 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 22:19:33 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Menashe
Message-ID: <1d1.12488ade.2cb8c2b5@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/10/2003 5:24:39 PM Central Daylight Time, 
tadrichards at prodigy.net writes: 
> In other words, he gave the book a cover blurb in his introduction.
> 
Oh, c'mon, Tad.  Everybody repeats himself eventually.
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From elemenope at icubed.com  Fri Oct 10 11:26:42 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 23:26:42 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: Menashe (tadrichards@prodigy.net)
In-Reply-To: <200310102159.h9ALx2ST024143@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200310102159.h9ALx2ST024143@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <a05100308bbac7f457083@[204.215.200.3]>

So in other words, Tad is a sharp shooter
who looks to blow the smoke off of his gun
and lean back and feel real satisfied.



>
>--__--__--
>
>Message: 6
>Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 17:43:56 +0800
>To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>From: ELEMENOPE Productions <elemenope at icubed.com>
>Cc: Anny Ballardini <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
>Subject: [New-Poetry] Menashe
>Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
>In 1968, or thereabouts, I was in the audience for a reading by
>Samuel Menashe in Dupont Hall at Washington and Lee University in
>Lexington, Virginia.  He was introduced by Dabney Stuart, my teacher,
>who said of the poet's new book:
>"There is no testimony by anyone else on its back cover as to the
>merits of this poet's poems.  Nor could there be.  By speaking for
>and within themselves alone and only, they achieve their permanent
>places in the sun."
>--
>
>--__--__--
>
>Message: 7
>From: "tadrichards at prodigy.net" <tadrichards at prodigy.net>
>To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] Menashe
>Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 18:16:06 -0400
>Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
>In other words, he gave the book a cover blurb in his introduction.
>
>Original Message:

-- 


From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Oct 11 10:07:59 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 10:07:59 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <029c01c38f99$899f69c0$0784fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F87D67F.24635.277E8D@localhost>

Bob Grumman:
> ... What about tomatoes on display at the supermarket? ...<<

What about an advertisement for hemerrhoid medication? This is the 
category I pointed out you left out of your categories of poetry: the 
category that art is what an artist says it is, and an artist is 
anyone who claims to be an artist. 








From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sat Oct 11 10:31:24 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 10:31:24 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <3F87D67F.24635.277E8D@localhost>
Message-ID: <005b01c39004$5970a7d0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

And if you don't allow that as a definition of art, you don't have one. Art
basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it is -- the act of
calling it art makes it art. It doesn't make it any good, but that's a
different issue.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 10:07 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> Bob Grumman:
> > ... What about tomatoes on display at the supermarket? ...<<
>
> What about an advertisement for hemerrhoid medication? This is the
> category I pointed out you left out of your categories of poetry: the
> category that art is what an artist says it is, and an artist is
> anyone who claims to be an artist.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From halvard at earthlink.net  Sat Oct 11 11:07:25 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 11:07:25 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <3F87D67F.24635.277E8D@localhost>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEBEHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

{    that art is what an artist says it is, and an artist is 
{    anyone who claims to be an artist. 

Duchamp, of course, made the first claim, but not,
as far as I know, the second. I like to think of this
as his little joke. 

Hal, who often thought that Keats lacked humor
until he realized that "Beauty is truth" and "Truth
is beauty" have very different meanings



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sat Oct 11 13:23:29 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 10:23:29 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEBEHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3F883C91.4BFC2D01@earthlink.net>


Halvard Johnson wrote:
> 
> {    that art is what an artist says it is, and an artist is
> {    anyone who claims to be an artist.
> 
> Duchamp, of course, made the first claim, but not,
> as far as I know, the second. I like to think of this
> as his little joke.
> 
> Hal, who often thought that Keats lacked humor
> until he realized that "Beauty is truth" and "Truth
> is beauty" have very different meanings

Or, Beauty can lie and truth is sometimes ugly.

- Cheery Jim


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct 11 13:36:59 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 13:36:59 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <3F87D67F.24635.277E8D@localhost>
Message-ID: <00b701c3901e$46de53a0$cb87fea9@j1c1k6>

> Bob Grumman:
> > ... What about tomatoes on display at the supermarket? ...<<
> 
> What about an advertisement for hemerrhoid medication? This is the 
> category I pointed out you left out of your categories of poetry: the 
> category that art is what an artist says it is, and an artist is 
> anyone who claims to be an artist. 

Not so.  Reread my taxonomy essay at Comprepoetica.

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct 11 13:49:13 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 13:49:13 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <3F87D67F.24635.277E8D@localhost> <005b01c39004$5970a7d0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <00c601c3901f$fbf48d80$cb87fea9@j1c1k6>

> And if you don't allow that as a definition of art, you don't have one.
Art
> basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it is -- the act
of
> calling it art makes it art.

I disagree.  Otherwise, we isn't a car anything a person who claims to be a
carmaker says it is?

Unless you're talking about what I call illumagery, or VISUAL art.  I think
anything that is intended to be art, and shown to be intended as such by
something that acts, for almost anyone, as a frame FOR ART, is (probably)
art.  The "(probably)" is because I'd have to think about it more to be more
sure.  Actually, I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I'm too worn out
to think what that more is.

For instance, swords in museum display-cases are not art, but visual
journalism.  I don't know of a name for it, does anyone else?  It's like the
difference between the movie, "Dumbo," and a documentary about elephants.
Art tries for aesthetic pleasure, documentaries for truth, or
scientifico-philosophical pleasure.

> It doesn't make it any good, but that's a
> different issue.

I agree with this.  Too many people say of something they don't like that it
isn't art just because they don't like it.

--Bob G.





From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sat Oct 11 14:07:34 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 14:07:34 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <3F87D67F.24635.277E8D@localhost> <005b01c39004$5970a7d0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <00c601c3901f$fbf48d80$cb87fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <004101c39022$8bc38400$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

"Frame" is used to mean any device, spatial or temporal, that defines the
beginning and end of a human artifact which is designated by the creator as
art.

Performance artist Linda Montano once did a piece where she manacled herself
to a guy with a leg iron for a year...a longish temporal frame, but a
temporal frame nonetheless. (Montano has since stretched that definition
even farther, by declaring her entire life since 1984 to be a single piece
of performance art.)






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 1:49 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> > And if you don't allow that as a definition of art, you don't have one.
> Art
> > basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it is -- the
act
> of
> > calling it art makes it art.
>
> I disagree.  Otherwise, we isn't a car anything a person who claims to be
a
> carmaker says it is?
>
> Unless you're talking about what I call illumagery, or VISUAL art.  I
think
> anything that is intended to be art, and shown to be intended as such by
> something that acts, for almost anyone, as a frame FOR ART, is (probably)
> art.  The "(probably)" is because I'd have to think about it more to be
more
> sure.  Actually, I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I'm too worn
out
> to think what that more is.
>
> For instance, swords in museum display-cases are not art, but visual
> journalism.  I don't know of a name for it, does anyone else?  It's like
the
> difference between the movie, "Dumbo," and a documentary about elephants.
> Art tries for aesthetic pleasure, documentaries for truth, or
> scientifico-philosophical pleasure.
>
> > It doesn't make it any good, but that's a
> > different issue.
>
> I agree with this.  Too many people say of something they don't like that
it
> isn't art just because they don't like it.
>
> --Bob G.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Sat Oct 11 14:12:59 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 14:12:59 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEBEHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <8BC51D08-FC16-11D7-A219-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Saturday, October 11, 2003, at 11:07 AM, Halvard Johnson wrote:
> Hal, who often thought that Keats lacked humor
> until he realized that "Beauty is truth" and "Truth
> is beauty" have very different meanings

Is isn't commutative, but was is.

Wendy

Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sat Oct 11 15:00:14 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 15:00:14 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <71.35eb4b95.2cb9ad3e@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/11/2003 1:08:41 PM Central Daylight Time, 
tadrichards at prodigy.net writes: 
> 
> Performance artist Linda Montano once did a piece where she manacled herself
> to a guy with a leg iron for a year...a longish temporal frame, but a
> temporal frame nonetheless. (Montano has since stretched that definition
> even farther, by declaring her entire life since 1984 to be a single piece
> of performance art.)
> 
Was it her piece of art or his?
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From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sat Oct 11 15:10:32 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 15:10:32 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <71.35eb4b95.2cb9ad3e@cs.com>
Message-ID: <002001c3902b$58309c00$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

I have, of course, pondered that same question, and basically it's hers because she says it is. It also is relatable to her ouevre, but that's secondary.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 3:00 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


  In a message dated 10/11/2003 1:08:41 PM Central Daylight Time, tadrichards at prodigy.net writes: 


    Performance artist Linda Montano once did a piece where she manacled herself
    to a guy with a leg iron for a year...a longish temporal frame, but a
    temporal frame nonetheless. (Montano has since stretched that definition
    even farther, by declaring her entire life since 1984 to be a single piece
    of performance art.)


  Was it her piece of art or his? 
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From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Oct 11 16:22:51 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:22:51 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <200310111958.h9BJwZST030152@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

> ... Art basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it is 
> -- the act of calling it art makes it art. ...<<

But this just begs the question. How do you tell who's an artist? Anyone who 
claims to be one? How does that differentiate art from non-art in any 
meaningful way?








From marcus at designerglass.com  Sat Oct 11 16:27:08 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:27:08 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <200310112002.h9BK2pST030195@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

Marcus:
> {    that art is what an artist says it is, and an artist is 
> {    anyone who claims to be an artist. 

Hal: 
> Duchamp, of course, made the first claim, but not,
> as far as I know, the second. I like to think of this
> as his little joke. 

Yes, Duchamp's little joke because saying anything is art that an artist says 
it is still begs the question: who then, is an artist? How do you tell an 
artist from a non-artist? Is an artist anyone who claims to be one? If so, how 
does that distinguish art from non-art in any meaningful way?






From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sat Oct 11 16:42:55 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 22:42:55 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <200310112002.h9BK2pST030195@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <007601c39038$3fe2c3a0$b8737450@anny>

Very difficult, to distinguish an artist from a non-artist, and not
everybody who is exhibited in a museum is an artist, and not everybody who
is published as a poet and/or author is an author. As we all know.

There is no general way to establish who is an artist. I have no sure rules
because the artists I liked say 10 year ago, are not necessarily the ones I
consider artists now.

The same goes with movies. Or poems, or books. I think one has to respect
the opinion of others, and enjoy our own brief/or long fruitions.

Besides keeping a critical eye on a market which creates and destroys
pseudo-artists according to an economic profit.

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 10:27 PM
Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> Marcus:
> > {    that art is what an artist says it is, and an artist is
> > {    anyone who claims to be an artist.
>
> Hal:
> > Duchamp, of course, made the first claim, but not,
> > as far as I know, the second. I like to think of this
> > as his little joke.
>
> Yes, Duchamp's little joke because saying anything is art that an artist
says
> it is still begs the question: who then, is an artist? How do you tell an
> artist from a non-artist? Is an artist anyone who claims to be one? If so,
how
> does that distinguish art from non-art in any meaningful way?
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct 11 16:46:19 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 15:46:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <200310112002.h9BK2pST030195@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <BBADD64B.4B24%grahamd@ripon.edu>

I think it was Thoreau who defined poetry as "healthy speech."  Now that has
as many problems as any metaphorical definition of the indefinable.

But I like it because it suggests that when language gives me a huge
headache, as this thread usually does, I know that I'm not reading poetry. .
. . 

Here's some healthy speech, in my opinion--



The Whipping 
       Robert Hayden


The old woman across the way
     is whipping the boy again
and shouting to the neighborhood
     her goodness and his wrongs.

Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
     pleads in dusty zinnias,
while she in spite of crippling fat
     pursues and corners him.

She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
     boy till the stick breaks
in her hand.  His tears are rainy weather
     to woundlike memories:

My head gripped in bony vise
     of knees, the writhing struggle
to wrench free, the blows, the fear
     worse than blows that hateful

Words could bring, the face that I
     no longer knew or loved . . .
Well, it is over now, it is over,
     and the boy sobs in his room,

And the woman leans muttering against
     a tree, exhausted, purged--
avenged in part for lifelong hidings
     she has had to bear.

        


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================



From halvard at earthlink.net  Sat Oct 11 16:44:18 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 16:44:18 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <200310112002.h9BK2pST030195@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEBNHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

{    Marcus:
{    > {    that art is what an artist says it is, and an artist is 
{    > {    anyone who claims to be an artist. 
{    
{    Hal: 
{    > Duchamp, of course, made the first claim, but not,
{    > as far as I know, the second. I like to think of this
{    > as his little joke. 
{    
{    Yes, Duchamp's little joke because saying anything is art that an artist says 
{    it is still begs the question: who then, is an artist? How do you tell an 
{    artist from a non-artist? Is an artist anyone who claims to be one? If so, how 
{    does that distinguish art from non-art in any meaningful way?


From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sat Oct 11 17:18:02 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 17:18:02 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <200310111958.h9BJwZST030152@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <003301c3903d$279de590$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

You differentiate it in exactly that way. Art calls attention to itself as
separate from the continuum of life, and as such, intended to offer a
perspective on life -- to offer itself up for interpretation.

What makes

   lighght

a work of art? The fact that Bob Grumman attests to its profundity? And if
Sam Gwynn says it's crarap, does that make it sometimes art and sometimes
not, or art and not art at the same time, like Schrodinger's cat?

It's art because it gives us an opening to look at language, at silence, at
structure, in a different light, or even a different lighght.

It's different from

  light

partly in that it takes up a different amount of space. It creates the page
as a frame, and it occupies a larger space within that frame, without making
any more sound if you say it out loud. Or maybe all the letters have the
same value, because actually they're all silent on the page. And maybe if
you said it out loud you'd gargle the middle of it. And maybe this is all
bullshit, but it's one kind of bullshit that art, specifically, draws from
us.

For some of us, it's instantly forgettable -- but actually, ALMOST instantly
forgettable, and there's a difference.

Otherwise, what do you have? Besides a headache, I mean. You have Anny's
definition, in which the same thing is sometimes art and sometimes not, the
same individuals are sometimes artists and sometimes not, depending on how
she feels about. And no disrespect -- I love what Anny has to say about
poetry -- but this says more, and I believe is intended to say more, about
Anny than it does about what art is.

You can look at

  lighght

and say "that's not art," but

  lighght

requires you to say it. The hemorrhoid ad doesn't.





----- Original Message ----- 
From: <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 4:22 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> > ... Art basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it is
> > -- the act of calling it art makes it art. ...<<
>
> But this just begs the question. How do you tell who's an artist? Anyone
who
> claims to be one? How does that differentiate art from non-art in any
> meaningful way?
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sat Oct 11 17:30:26 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 14:30:26 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: What is Poetry
References: <BBADD64B.4B24%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3F887672.FA55A7BE@earthlink.net>

"His tears are rainy weather/to woundlike memories" gives me a headache
AND an earache.  Jeez, David, edit these poems first. ;-)

- Jim

David Graham wrote:
> 
> I think it was Thoreau who defined poetry as "healthy speech."  Now that has
> as many problems as any metaphorical definition of the indefinable.
> 
> But I like it because it suggests that when language gives me a huge
> headache, as this thread usually does, I know that I'm not reading poetry. .
> . .
> 
> Here's some healthy speech, in my opinion--
> 
> The Whipping
>        Robert Hayden
> 
> The old woman across the way
>      is whipping the boy again
> and shouting to the neighborhood
>      her goodness and his wrongs.
> 
> Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,
>      pleads in dusty zinnias,
> while she in spite of crippling fat
>      pursues and corners him.
> 
> She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling
>      boy till the stick breaks
> in her hand.  His tears are rainy weather
>      to woundlike memories:
> 
> My head gripped in bony vise
>      of knees, the writhing struggle
> to wrench free, the blows, the fear
>      worse than blows that hateful
> 
> Words could bring, the face that I
>      no longer knew or loved . . .
> Well, it is over now, it is over,
>      and the boy sobs in his room,
> 
> And the woman leans muttering against
>      a tree, exhausted, purged--
> avenged in part for lifelong hidings
>      she has had to bear.
> 
> 
> 
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> ====================================================
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
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From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sat Oct 11 17:35:15 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 14:35:15 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <200310111958.h9BJwZST030152@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <003301c3903d$279de590$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <3F887793.5536C66D@earthlink.net>

Could we have all that but say, instead:  Art calls attention to itself
as *part of*  the continuum of life, and as such, intends to offer a
perspective on life -- to offer itself up for interpretation?  I would
be very happy if we could.

- Jim

TheOldMole wrote:
> 
> You differentiate it in exactly that way. Art calls attention to itself as
> separate from the continuum of life, and as such, intended to offer a
> perspective on life -- to offer itself up for interpretation.
> 
> What makes
> 
>    lighght
> 
> a work of art? The fact that Bob Grumman attests to its profundity? And if
> Sam Gwynn says it's crarap, does that make it sometimes art and sometimes
> not, or art and not art at the same time, like Schrodinger's cat?
> 
> It's art because it gives us an opening to look at language, at silence, at
> structure, in a different light, or even a different lighght.
> 
> It's different from
> 
>   light
> 
> partly in that it takes up a different amount of space. It creates the page
> as a frame, and it occupies a larger space within that frame, without making
> any more sound if you say it out loud. Or maybe all the letters have the
> same value, because actually they're all silent on the page. And maybe if
> you said it out loud you'd gargle the middle of it. And maybe this is all
> bullshit, but it's one kind of bullshit that art, specifically, draws from
> us.
> 
> For some of us, it's instantly forgettable -- but actually, ALMOST instantly
> forgettable, and there's a difference.
> 
> Otherwise, what do you have? Besides a headache, I mean. You have Anny's
> definition, in which the same thing is sometimes art and sometimes not, the
> same individuals are sometimes artists and sometimes not, depending on how
> she feels about. And no disrespect -- I love what Anny has to say about
> poetry -- but this says more, and I believe is intended to say more, about
> Anny than it does about what art is.
> 
> You can look at
> 
>   lighght
> 
> and say "that's not art," but
> 
>   lighght
> 
> requires you to say it. The hemorrhoid ad doesn't.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <marcus at designerglass.com>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 4:22 PM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
> 
> > > ... Art basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it is
> > > -- the act of calling it art makes it art. ...<<
> >
> > But this just begs the question. How do you tell who's an artist? Anyone
> who
> > claims to be one? How does that differentiate art from non-art in any
> > meaningful way?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From kpaul at mallasch.com  Sat Oct 11 18:49:52 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 17:49:52 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
In-Reply-To: <281450-2200310510222135175@M2W044.mail2web.com>
References: <281450-2200310510222135175@M2W044.mail2web.com>
Message-ID: <20031011174719.A29817@kpaul.spinweb.net>

The Copy Editor's Lament

I was sitting on the copydesk
just watching o'er the scene
when the dealer sent a juicy
story over to my screen.
It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
and the headline on the dummy said:
- 6 column 48.

So I rearranged the commas
and I tidied up the lede
and I patched up all the typos
and gave it one more read.
I typed in all the coding
and prepared to write the hed
when a voice came from the news desk,
and this is what it said:

"Pass me back that dummy, please,
I have to change the page.
Composing found a missing ad,
the foreman's in a rage.
If they find the guy that lost it,
they'll be skinning him alive.
And that headline that you're working on ...
- make that a five."

Four columns? Well, that's tougher
but a deskman does his best
to keep the story's gist intact
and leave out all the rest.
I thought a little while,
and then my hands did fly
But just before the head was writ,
I heard the news desk cry:

"Pass me back that dummy please,
I have to make a fix.
It really needs a graphic
or the editor will bitch.
They'll make it on the Macintosh
and ship it here to me.
And that headline you are writing ...
- make that a three."

Now a head that's just three columns
forces choices quite absurd
do you write it as a label
or just use only verbs?
I struggled and I puzzled
and at last I did compose.
When over at the news desk
a voice once more arose:

"Pass me back that dummy, please,
I have to make a change.
How I forgot the sidebar,
is really very strange.
A page without a sidebar,
would make the reader blue.
And that headline you are writing ...
- make that a two."

Now a head that's just two columns
is a challenge and a strain;
they often make no sense at all,
to write them is a pain.
I finally got a concept
but before I put it down
I looked up from my VDT
and saw the news desk frown.

"Pass me back that dummy, please
there's one more thing to do.
We have to have a locator map;
the reader needs a clue
to where this all is coming down
and where it's being done.
And that headline you are writing ...
- make that a one.

Sometimes a copy editor
is like a cornered rat,
hemmed in and surrounded,
his hopes collapsed and flat.
There's no way out, all one can do
is fight with tooth and claw.
This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:

Panel
eyes
law

http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct 11 20:36:33 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:36:33 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <3F87D67F.24635.277E8D@localhost> <005b01c39004$5970a7d0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <00c601c3901f$fbf48d80$cb87fea9@j1c1k6> <004101c39022$8bc38400$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <005e01c39058$e3592d60$7163fea9@j1c1k6>

> "Frame" is used to mean any device, spatial or temporal, that defines the
> beginning and end of a human artifact which is designated by the creator
as
> art.

The frame has to be accepted by a consensus of informed viewers as an
art-frame, it seems to me.  I'm halfway to agreeing to the above inasmuch I
would accept anything its creator calls art that is within an art-frame.

> Performance artist Linda Montano once did a piece where she manacled
herself
> to a guy with a leg iron for a year...a longish temporal frame, but a
> temporal frame nonetheless.

It could not have been a constant art-frame.  I think one key to a
reasonable definition of art is distinguishing it from life, and during
Montano's yea, she and the guy had to have been doing non-art things in a
non-art context.

Or, no one would recognize the frame or the art within the frame as an
art-frame containing art most of the time.  Even the creator would not think
of what she was doing as art much of the time, I am pretty sure.

(Montano has since stretched that definition
> even farther, by declaring her entire life since 1984 to be a single piece
> of performance art.)

I say it was and is an automobile.

--Bob G.

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 1:49 PM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
>
>
> > > And if you don't allow that as a definition of art, you don't have
one.
> > Art
> > > basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it is -- the
> act
> > of
> > > calling it art makes it art.
> >
> > I disagree.  Otherwise, WHY isn't a car anything a person who claims to
be
> a
> > carmaker says it is?
> >
> > Unless you're talking about what I call illumagery, or VISUAL art.  I
> think
> > anything that is intended to be art, and shown to be intended as such by
> > something that acts, for almost anyone, as a frame FOR ART, is
(probably)
> > art.  The "(probably)" is because I'd have to think about it more to be
> more
> > sure.  Actually, I'm sure there's more to it than that, but I'm too worn
> out
> > to think what that more is.
> >
> > For instance, swords in museum display-cases are not art, but visual
> > journalism.  I don't know of a name for it, does anyone else?  It's like
> the
> > difference between the movie, "Dumbo," and a documentary about
elephants.
> > Art tries for aesthetic pleasure, documentaries for truth, or
> > scientifico-philosophical pleasure.
> >
> > > It doesn't make it any good, but that's a
> > > different issue.
> >
> > I agree with this.  Too many people say of something they don't like
that
> it
> > isn't art just because they don't like it.
> >
> > --Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct 11 20:46:15 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:46:15 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <200310111958.h9BJwZST030152@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <003301c3903d$279de590$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <00a401c3905a$3e46f580$7163fea9@j1c1k6>

A huge problem here is the failure to distinguish the question, "What is
art?" from the question, "What is worthwhile art?"

The evokers are only interested, it would seem, in the latter question--but
unwilling to allow that question to be different from the other question.

I think "light" on a page by itself in a book called "Poems," say, is a
poem.  It's just not a very good poem.

--Bob G.



From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct 11 20:53:00 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 19:53:00 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <3F887793.5536C66D@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <BBAE101C.4B33%grahamd@ripon.edu>

THE SNOW MAN

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

    --Wallace Stevens
*****************************************


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct 11 20:59:25 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 19:59:25 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <BBAE101C.4B33%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <BBAE119D.4B35%grahamd@ripon.edu>

An Old Man?s Winter Night
 
All out-of-doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him?at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;?and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon, such as she was,
So late-arising, to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man?one man?can?t fill a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It?s thus he does it of a winter night.

--Robert Frost


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================





From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct 11 21:00:45 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:00:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <BBAE119D.4B35%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <BBAE11ED.4B37%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Apr?s Le Bain

I gotta
buy me a new
girdle.

(I'll buy
you one)  O.K.
(I wish

you'd wig-
gle that way
for me,

I'd be
a happy man)
I GOTTA

wig-
gle for *this*.
(You pig)
--William Carlos Williams


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================





From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct 11 21:15:13 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:15:13 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <BBAE1551.4B39%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Man Cursing the Sea


Someone
just climbed to the top of the cliffs
and began to curse the sea.

Dumb water, stupid pregnant water,
slow, slimy copy of the sky,
you peddler between sun and moon,
pettifogging pawnbroker of shells,
soluble, loud-mouthed bull,
fertilizing the rocks with your blood,
suicidal sword
dashed to bits on the headland,
hydra, hydrolizing the night,
breathing salty clouds of silence,
spreading jelly wings
in vain, in vain,
gorgon, devouring its own body,

water, you absurd flat skull of water--

And so he cursed the sea for a spell,
it licked his footprints in the sand
like a wounded dog.

And then he came down
and patted
the tiny immense stormy mirror of the sea.

There you go, water, he said,
and went his way.  
    --Miroslav Holub.  Trans. David Young & Dana Habova.
        from *Sagittal Section*.  1980


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct 11 21:19:18 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 20:19:18 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <BBAE1646.4B3B%grahamd@ripon.edu>

"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can *see*--
But *Microsopes* are prudent
In an Emergency. 

--Emily Dickinson


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================




From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sat Oct 11 21:45:08 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 18:45:08 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: What is Poetry
References: <BBADD64B.4B24%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <3F88B224.4DA57BBF@earthlink.net>

Stone Arch, Natural Rock Formation

It is higher, more narrow, more treacherous than we imagined.  And here
we are in a spot where there's no going back.  It has become too
dangerous to continue as we have. We simply are not as sure-footed and
daring as we were when we started out.  There's nothing to do but sit
down, carefully, straddling the rock.  Once seated I'm going to turn
slightly and hand the bag of groceries back to you.  Then I'm going to
scoot ahead a few inches and turn again.  If you then lean forward
carefully and hand me the bag you will be able to move ahead to the spot
I previously occupied.  It is a miserably slow process and we still have
the problem of the steep descent on the other side.  But if we are
patient, my love, I believe we will arrive safely on the ground again a
few yards from where we began.

- Louis Jenkins, _Just Above Water_, Holy Cow! Press, 1997 & _No
Boundaries: Prose Poems by 24 American Poets, ed. Ray Gonzalez, Tupelo
Press, 2003


From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sat Oct 11 21:53:49 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 21:53:49 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <136.258d4835.2cba0e2d@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/11/2003 7:54:41 PM Central Daylight Time, 
grahamd at ripon.edu writes: 
> 
> THE SNOW MAN
> 
> One must have a mind of winter
> To regard the frost and the boughs
> Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
> 
> And have been cold a long time
> To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
> The spruces rough in the distant glitter
> 
> Of the January sun; and not to think
> Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
> In the sound of a few leaves,
> 
> Which is the sound of the land
> Full of the same wind
> That is blowing in the same bare place
> 
> For the listener, who listens in the snow,
> And, nothing himself, beholds
> Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
> 
>     --Wallace Stevens
> *****************************************

I've always been troubled by the first line of this poem.  Does he mean "one 
should" or "one would have to"?  I prefer the latter--a conscious rejection of 
the pathetic fallacy.  Stevens always complained about the Hartford winters.
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct 11 22:13:40 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 21:13:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
In-Reply-To: <136.258d4835.2cba0e2d@cs.com>
Message-ID: <BBAE2185.4B3F%grahamd@ripon.edu>

I prefer your reading, too.  Robert Langbaum has an essay, as I recall,
about how rejection of the pathetic fallacy became a very common modernist
motif, one way the modernists declared independence from romanticism; and
this poem was one of his central examples.  (Again, if I'm remembering
rightly, one problem is that the fallacy is courted even as it's being
rejected, often, and many modernists were as romantic as they come.)  I
think that Robert Pinsky makes a similar case in *The Situation of Poetry*,
also using this poem.

Me, I just love those junipers shagged with ice. . . .

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com
Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 21:53:49 EDT
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


In a message dated 10/11/2003 7:54:41 PM Central Daylight Time,
grahamd at ripon.edu writes:

THE SNOW MAN

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

   --Wallace Stevens
*****************************************


I've always been troubled by the first line of this poem.  Does he mean "one
should" or "one would have to"?  I prefer the latter--a conscious rejection
of the pathetic fallacy.  Stevens always complained about the Hartford
winters. 


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From kpaul at mallasch.com  Sat Oct 11 22:37:06 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 21:37:06 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <136.258d4835.2cba0e2d@cs.com>
References: <136.258d4835.2cba0e2d@cs.com>
Message-ID: <20031011213506.K65446@kpaul.spinweb.net>

"What is poetry if it cannot save nations of people?"

Czeslaw Milosz




From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Oct 12 00:33:35 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 00:33:35 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <3a.3f860d42.2cba339f@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/11/2003 9:15:02 PM Central Daylight Time, 
grahamd at ripon.edu writes: 
> 
> I prefer your reading, too.  Robert Langbaum has an essay, as I recall, 
> about how rejection of the pathetic fallacy became a very common modernist motif, 
> one way the modernists declared independence from romanticism; and this poem 
> was one of his central examples.  (Again, if I'm remembering rightly, one 
> problem is that the fallacy is courted even as it's being rejected, often, and 
> many modernists were as romantic as they come.)  I think that Robert Pinsky 
> makes a similar case in *The Situation of Poetry*, also using this poem.    
> 
> Me, I just love those junipers shagged with ice. . . .

Most of the criticism I've read seems to favor the first reading, indicating 
that Stevens is advocating a "mind of winter."  I'll look for Pinsky's 
reading.
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From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Sun Oct 12 00:57:00 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 00:57:00 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
In-Reply-To: <3a.3f860d42.2cba339f@cs.com>
Message-ID: <83B4D699-FC70-11D7-A219-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Sunday, October 12, 2003, at 12:33 AM, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote:
> Most of the criticism I've read seems to favor the first reading, 
> indicating that Stevens is advocating a "mind of winter."? I'll look 
> for Pinsky's reading.

Just out of curiosity, Sam--why would you want to establish one reading 
over the other?  I've always leaned toward the first, not in the sense 
of "you should" but in the sense of "that's what it takes."  Most of us 
probably have that mind of winter pass by fairly often in our long 
parade of minds.  It's a drag when it comes in July, is all.

Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu

  
               
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From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sun Oct 12 05:30:29 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 11:30:29 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <200310111958.h9BJwZST030152@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <003301c3903d$279de590$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <00ac01c390a3$7a1a0360$fc607550@anny>

Thank you TheOldMole (what is your name?) for putting me after a
headache...:-), you are not the first. And interesting is your

lighght

you could write a poem around it, the concept is _enlightening (difficult to
be positive nowadays without stirring contempt, if not cynicism)_

there are passages I would say, in order to continue what I previously
started, in an individual life-span and in the course of humanity, seen as
an only body. Vico is the clearest example to quote, or Goethe with his
Romantic young Werther and his mature Faust. In history we have also
witnessed revivals, opposite points of view, arrest of talents, as with De
Chirico, after a certain date all what he produced were remakes of his
previous period.
Art is different from Poetry, I would also like to underline this. Some
parameters which fit well with visual art do not apply to poetry. For the
immediacy of the visual medium. If the one we are looking at is not a
constructed painting. And in that case we have to go back to some marvelous
paintings of the 1500s to understand, where a specific observation comes
with the maturity of the observer.
(showing off my signature), a good Sunday,

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky


> You differentiate it in exactly that way. Art calls attention to itself as
> separate from the continuum of life, and as such, intended to offer a
> perspective on life -- to offer itself up for interpretation.
>
> What makes
>
>    lighght
>
> a work of art? The fact that Bob Grumman attests to its profundity? And if
> Sam Gwynn says it's crarap, does that make it sometimes art and sometimes
> not, or art and not art at the same time, like Schrodinger's cat?
>
> It's art because it gives us an opening to look at language, at silence,
at
> structure, in a different light, or even a different lighght.
>
> It's different from
>
>   light
>
> partly in that it takes up a different amount of space. It creates the
page
> as a frame, and it occupies a larger space within that frame, without
making
> any more sound if you say it out loud. Or maybe all the letters have the
> same value, because actually they're all silent on the page. And maybe if
> you said it out loud you'd gargle the middle of it. And maybe this is all
> bullshit, but it's one kind of bullshit that art, specifically, draws from
> us.
>
> For some of us, it's instantly forgettable -- but actually, ALMOST
instantly
> forgettable, and there's a difference.
>
> Otherwise, what do you have? Besides a headache, I mean. You have Anny's
> definition, in which the same thing is sometimes art and sometimes not,
the
> same individuals are sometimes artists and sometimes not, depending on how
> she feels about. And no disrespect -- I love what Anny has to say about
> poetry -- but this says more, and I believe is intended to say more, about
> Anny than it does about what art is.
>
> You can look at
>
>   lighght
>
> and say "that's not art," but
>
>   lighght
>
> requires you to say it. The hemorrhoid ad doesn't.
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: <marcus at designerglass.com>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 4:22 PM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
>
>
> > > ... Art basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it is
> > > -- the act of calling it art makes it art. ...<<
> >
> > But this just begs the question. How do you tell who's an artist? Anyone
> who
> > claims to be one? How does that differentiate art from non-art in any
> > meaningful way?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 12 06:19:55 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 06:19:55 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <136.258d4835.2cba0e2d@cs.com> <20031011213506.K65446@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <004301c390aa$6398bc60$6b6afea9@j1c1k6>

> "What is poetry if it cannot save nations of people?"
>
(Also sometimes translated as "What is politics if it doesn't rhyme.")
 
> Czeslaw Milosz

Yow, this may be the silliest definition of poetry I've ever seen.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 12 06:27:27 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 06:27:27 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
References: <3a.3f860d42.2cba339f@cs.com>
Message-ID: <006101c390ab$6feb3a00$6b6afea9@j1c1k6>


    I prefer your reading, too.  Robert Langbaum has an essay, as I recall, about how rejection of the pathetic fallacy became a very common modernist motif, one way the modernists declared independence from romanticism; and this poem was one of his central examples.  (Again, if I'm remembering rightly, one problem is that the fallacy is courted even as it's being rejected, often, and many modernists were as romantic as they come.)  I think that Robert Pinsky makes a similar case in *The Situation of Poetry*, also using this poem.    

    Me, I just love those junipers shagged with ice. . . .


  Most of the criticism I've read seems to favor the first reading, indicating that Stevens is advocating a "mind of winter."  I'll look for Pinsky's reading. 

  The Grumman reading, from my one published book, Of Manywhere-at-Once, has this: "According to the poet, one would have to have 'a mind of winter . . . and have been cold a long time' to be able to be objective about the scene he describes, to be able to bear the wind in it without thinking of misery."  I frankly never thought of the other meaning.  I will continue to consider my interpretation the better, even if Pinsky does, too.

  --Bob G.

   

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 12 06:35:33 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 06:35:33 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
References: <83B4D699-FC70-11D7-A219-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <007601c390ac$917d79c0$6b6afea9@j1c1k6>

    Most of the criticism I've read seems to favor the first reading, indicating that Stevens is advocating a "mind of winter."  I'll look for Pinsky's reading.


  Just out of curiosity, Sam--why would you want to establish one reading over the other? I've always leaned toward the first, not in the sense of "you should" but in the sense of "that's what it takes."

  But that's the second meaning, isn't it?  Ordinarily, I'm all for the more meanings, the better, but--to me--the first seems to be preaching that one should be objective, and I don't like poems that preach, nor is it my sense that Stevens ever does this.  Can anyone think of a poem in which he tells the reader what some proper thing to do is?

  I'm also with David on this one (as I understand him) in considering the poem primarily a wonderful evocation of winter, which makes the question of "should" versus" "have to have" secondary, at best.

  --Bob G.
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From marcus at designerglass.com  Sun Oct 12 08:45:57 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 12:45:57 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
Message-ID: <200310121221.h9CCLcST026769@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad name in the 
first place. 
Marcus

> The Copy Editor's Lament
> 
> I was sitting on the copydesk
> just watching o'er the scene
> when the dealer sent a juicy
> story over to my screen.
> It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> and the headline on the dummy said:
> - 6 column 48.
> 
> So I rearranged the commas
> and I tidied up the lede
> and I patched up all the typos
> and gave it one more read.
> I typed in all the coding
> and prepared to write the hed
> when a voice came from the news desk,
> and this is what it said:
> 
> "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> I have to change the page.
> Composing found a missing ad,
> the foreman's in a rage.
> If they find the guy that lost it,
> they'll be skinning him alive.
> And that headline that you're working on ...
> - make that a five."
> 
> Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> but a deskman does his best
> to keep the story's gist intact
> and leave out all the rest.
> I thought a little while,
> and then my hands did fly
> But just before the head was writ,
> I heard the news desk cry:
> 
> "Pass me back that dummy please,
> I have to make a fix.
> It really needs a graphic
> or the editor will bitch.
> They'll make it on the Macintosh
> and ship it here to me.
> And that headline you are writing ...
> - make that a three."
> 
> Now a head that's just three columns
> forces choices quite absurd
> do you write it as a label
> or just use only verbs?
> I struggled and I puzzled
> and at last I did compose.
> When over at the news desk
> a voice once more arose:
> 
> "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> I have to make a change.
> How I forgot the sidebar,
> is really very strange.
> A page without a sidebar,
> would make the reader blue.
> And that headline you are writing ...
> - make that a two."
> 
> Now a head that's just two columns
> is a challenge and a strain;
> they often make no sense at all,
> to write them is a pain.
> I finally got a concept
> but before I put it down
> I looked up from my VDT
> and saw the news desk frown.
> 
> "Pass me back that dummy, please
> there's one more thing to do.
> We have to have a locator map;
> the reader needs a clue
> to where this all is coming down
> and where it's being done.
> And that headline you are writing ...
> - make that a one.
> 
> Sometimes a copy editor
> is like a cornered rat,
> hemmed in and surrounded,
> his hopes collapsed and flat.
> There's no way out, all one can do
> is fight with tooth and claw.
> This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
> 
> Panel
> eyes
> law
> 
> http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 




From marcus at designerglass.com  Sun Oct 12 08:45:57 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 12:45:57 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
Message-ID: <200310121221.h9CCLcST026770@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad name in the 
first place. 
Marcus

> The Copy Editor's Lament
> 
> I was sitting on the copydesk
> just watching o'er the scene
> when the dealer sent a juicy
> story over to my screen.
> It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> and the headline on the dummy said:
> - 6 column 48.
> 
> So I rearranged the commas
> and I tidied up the lede
> and I patched up all the typos
> and gave it one more read.
> I typed in all the coding
> and prepared to write the hed
> when a voice came from the news desk,
> and this is what it said:
> 
> "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> I have to change the page.
> Composing found a missing ad,
> the foreman's in a rage.
> If they find the guy that lost it,
> they'll be skinning him alive.
> And that headline that you're working on ...
> - make that a five."
> 
> Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> but a deskman does his best
> to keep the story's gist intact
> and leave out all the rest.
> I thought a little while,
> and then my hands did fly
> But just before the head was writ,
> I heard the news desk cry:
> 
> "Pass me back that dummy please,
> I have to make a fix.
> It really needs a graphic
> or the editor will bitch.
> They'll make it on the Macintosh
> and ship it here to me.
> And that headline you are writing ...
> - make that a three."
> 
> Now a head that's just three columns
> forces choices quite absurd
> do you write it as a label
> or just use only verbs?
> I struggled and I puzzled
> and at last I did compose.
> When over at the news desk
> a voice once more arose:
> 
> "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> I have to make a change.
> How I forgot the sidebar,
> is really very strange.
> A page without a sidebar,
> would make the reader blue.
> And that headline you are writing ...
> - make that a two."
> 
> Now a head that's just two columns
> is a challenge and a strain;
> they often make no sense at all,
> to write them is a pain.
> I finally got a concept
> but before I put it down
> I looked up from my VDT
> and saw the news desk frown.
> 
> "Pass me back that dummy, please
> there's one more thing to do.
> We have to have a locator map;
> the reader needs a clue
> to where this all is coming down
> and where it's being done.
> And that headline you are writing ...
> - make that a one.
> 
> Sometimes a copy editor
> is like a cornered rat,
> hemmed in and surrounded,
> his hopes collapsed and flat.
> There's no way out, all one can do
> is fight with tooth and claw.
> This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
> 
> Panel
> eyes
> law
> 
> http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sun Oct 12 09:17:54 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 14:17:54 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
References: <200310121221.h9CCLcST026769@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <00f901c390c3$3f272ba0$0e988051@MyPC>

> This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad name
in the
> first place.
> Marcus

Well, I'm not sure I'd quite call it that -- the heavy loading of anapests
is characteristic of a particular kind of light verse, and behind it I hear
the ghost of Robert Service and "The Shooting of Dan McGrew".

> > The Copy Editor's Lament
> >
> > I was sitting on the copydesk
> > just watching o'er the scene
> > when the dealer sent a juicy
> > story over to my screen.
> > It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;

Well, yes, that line *is* bad -- how about

        It had power, and sex, and politics
        And violence - it was great

???

Isn't it simply the flip-side of what don marquis did for free verse in the
archy and mehitable poems?  (Though I'd agree it's not in the same league as
marquis.)

Robin




From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sun Oct 12 10:09:39 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 10:09:39 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <200310111958.h9BJwZST030152@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <003301c3903d$279de590$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <00ac01c390a3$7a1a0360$fc607550@anny>
Message-ID: <001b01c390ca$79c234b0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

Anny - my name is Tad Richards, and you're much better than a headache.

lighght

actually isn't mine -- it's a poem by Aram Saroyan, in its entirety.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Anny Ballardini" <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 5:30 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> Thank you TheOldMole (what is your name?) for putting me after a
> headache...:-), you are not the first. And interesting is your
>
> lighght
>
> you could write a poem around it, the concept is _enlightening (difficult
to
> be positive nowadays without stirring contempt, if not cynicism)_
>
> there are passages I would say, in order to continue what I previously
> started, in an individual life-span and in the course of humanity, seen as
> an only body. Vico is the clearest example to quote, or Goethe with his
> Romantic young Werther and his mature Faust. In history we have also
> witnessed revivals, opposite points of view, arrest of talents, as with De
> Chirico, after a certain date all what he produced were remakes of his
> previous period.
> Art is different from Poetry, I would also like to underline this. Some
> parameters which fit well with visual art do not apply to poetry. For the
> immediacy of the visual medium. If the one we are looking at is not a
> constructed painting. And in that case we have to go back to some
marvelous
> paintings of the 1500s to understand, where a specific observation comes
> with the maturity of the observer.
> (showing off my signature), a good Sunday,
>
> Anny Ballardini
>
> http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php
>
> Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
> (from Mantis)
> Louis Zukofsky
>
>
> > You differentiate it in exactly that way. Art calls attention to itself
as
> > separate from the continuum of life, and as such, intended to offer a
> > perspective on life -- to offer itself up for interpretation.
> >
> > What makes
> >
> >    lighght
> >
> > a work of art? The fact that Bob Grumman attests to its profundity? And
if
> > Sam Gwynn says it's crarap, does that make it sometimes art and
sometimes
> > not, or art and not art at the same time, like Schrodinger's cat?
> >
> > It's art because it gives us an opening to look at language, at silence,
> at
> > structure, in a different light, or even a different lighght.
> >
> > It's different from
> >
> >   light
> >
> > partly in that it takes up a different amount of space. It creates the
> page
> > as a frame, and it occupies a larger space within that frame, without
> making
> > any more sound if you say it out loud. Or maybe all the letters have the
> > same value, because actually they're all silent on the page. And maybe
if
> > you said it out loud you'd gargle the middle of it. And maybe this is
all
> > bullshit, but it's one kind of bullshit that art, specifically, draws
from
> > us.
> >
> > For some of us, it's instantly forgettable -- but actually, ALMOST
> instantly
> > forgettable, and there's a difference.
> >
> > Otherwise, what do you have? Besides a headache, I mean. You have Anny's
> > definition, in which the same thing is sometimes art and sometimes not,
> the
> > same individuals are sometimes artists and sometimes not, depending on
how
> > she feels about. And no disrespect -- I love what Anny has to say about
> > poetry -- but this says more, and I believe is intended to say more,
about
> > Anny than it does about what art is.
> >
> > You can look at
> >
> >   lighght
> >
> > and say "that's not art," but
> >
> >   lighght
> >
> > requires you to say it. The hemorrhoid ad doesn't.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: <marcus at designerglass.com>
> > To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> > Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 4:22 PM
> > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
> >
> >
> > > > ... Art basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it
is
> > > > -- the act of calling it art makes it art. ...<<
> > >
> > > But this just begs the question. How do you tell who's an artist?
Anyone
> > who
> > > claims to be one? How does that differentiate art from non-art in any
> > > meaningful way?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From halvard at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 12 11:37:47 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 11:37:47 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <001b01c390ca$79c234b0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIECPHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

{    Anny - my name is Tad Richards, and you're much better than a headache.
{    
{    lighght
{    
{    actually isn't mine -- it's a poem by Aram Saroyan, in its entirety.

As is

	eyeye



And the text below is from

	http://www.ubu.com/papers/solt/us.html


Aram Saroyan, who is the son of William Saroyan, places the 
word in the most literally autonomous position of all the poets in 
this selection. He depends while working completely on the 
typewriter and the word. His "obsolete red-top Royal Portable," 
he states, "is the biggest influence on my work." If its typeface, 
"standard pica," were different, he believes that he would write " 
( subtly ) different poems." He is "sure" that when the "ribbon gets 
dull', his poems "change." The remarks below indicate that Saroyan 
takes the McLuhan approach to the word: "the medium is the 
massage":


"I began as a 'regular' poet, imitating effects I liked in Creeley, Ashbery, 
everybody. Then one night by accident I typed eyeye. I didn't know 
what it was. Someone else saw it and said--yes! That was about two 
years ago. For a year after that I did plenty of visual poems. But 
differently than the concrete poets....

"As McLuhan says, you can't make the new medium do the old job. 
The information in a new poem can't be the same as the information in 
an old poem In a visual poem an 'imitation' of the shape of an object 
outside the poem, let's say like the horizon of Holland (to use Finlay), 
well that's the same type of describing, really, as an old linear poem does. 
In a good visual poem there are no horizons, fields, kisses, hugs, sentiments 
etc. bur those implicitly inside the shape of the word constellation, which 
never never never should refer outside--to anything outside it. After all 
they've been doing shaped poems for centuries. That's entirely old--
ruinously old.


"What interests me now is that new poetry isn't going to be poetry for 
reading. It's going to be for looking at, that is if it's poetry to be printed 
and not taped. I mean book, print culture, is finished. Words disappeared 
in sentences, meanings, information, in the process that is reading (a boring, 
very boring moving of the eyes) that is the same in a poem by Edgar Guest 
as it is in a poem by Creeley--and, yes The Media Is The Message, and 
reading is nothing as a medium at all, it's finished if literature is an art form 
because the process of moving the eyes is antique, has nothing to do with 
what eyes are doing now--like in painting, really since impressionism, the 
eyes haven't been directed. And I mean, still, there's no such thing as looking 
at writing--looking at words on a page--you have to start at the beginning and 
READ! That has absolutely nothing to do with words, and they (these) are 
the message. No information in them but themselves.


"I mean for real! No more reading! If you have to read, resolve any structure 
of language into a meaning, well that's just it--it resolves! The words disappear 
into a meaning. What are words?"


If the next step beyond William Carlos Williams is prose or non-linear form, 
what is the next step beyond Saroyan? Out of words? Back to more words? 
Where? There can be no doubt that "etc." says it. The question is, could it be 
said with less? More could be said with less: "etc." 

 

Hal                Serving the tri-state area.

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Oct 12 12:12:32 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 12:12:32 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <136.25932db1.2cbad770@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/11/2003 11:57:52 PM Central Daylight Time, 
wjbat at conncoll.edu writes: 
> 
> Just out of curiosity, Sam--why would you want to establish one reading 
> over the other?  I've always leaned toward the first, not in the sense 
> of "you should" but in the sense of "that's what it takes."  Most of us 
> probably have that mind of winter pass by fairly often in our long 
> parade of minds.  It's a drag when it comes in July, is all.
> 
> Wendy Battin
> wjbat at conncoll.edu
> 
>   
I guess mainly because Stevens seems to me to have a "mind of summer"--all 
those colors, fruits, trips to Florida, etc.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Oct 12 12:14:15 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 12:14:15 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <135.26486f4a.2cbad7d7@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/12/2003 5:30:07 AM Central Daylight Time, 
bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: 
> The Grumman reading, from my one published book, Of Manywhere-at-Once, has 
> this: "According to the poet, one would have to have 'a mind of winter . . . 
> and have been cold a long time' to be able to be objective about the scene he 
> describes, to be able to bear the wind in it without thinking of misery."  I 
> frankly never thought of the other meaning.  I will continue to consider my 
> interpretation the better, even if Pinsky does, too.
>   
>  --Bob G.
> 
Yes, I think your reading falls in line with most of the criticism I've 
read--Vendler's for example.
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From cstroffo at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 12 05:32:43 2003
From: cstroffo at earthlink.net (Chris Stroffolino )
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 09:32:43 +0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <200310121619.h9CGJ2IN177918@pimout2-ext.prodigy.net>


HEY BOB---sorry that your great line breaks got lost in translation on my
computer...

I like your idea of the more meanings the better....

1. Where do you get the idea that "Mind of winter"  means "OBJECTIVE"?  I
guess people often speak of a "cold, objective tone" in general--but in
Stevens even his most "cold" mode seems hardly "objective" (and I don't mean
this as a put down of Stevens). there's often a "RAGE for order"
an "EXTREMIST in an exercise" etc in Stevens' poems....
And in this particular one, there is the difference between
modes of perception--"regard" vs. "behold" for instance,
but to me the poem is quite self-consciously playing with
the impossibility of being "objective" or even objective for that matter.

2. I don't necessarily mind poems that preach personally.
Stevens does have a lot of "preachy gestures" like
"Begin, Ephebe" for instance (i can't think of the name of the particular
poem in which he does it) Whether or not he really means to "preach" (in the
pejorative sense) can be a matter of great debate---you can say he's "just
being ironic" if you want (personally I don't want to reduce it to
that)--but he does often address his "reader" (or his "interior paramour"
etc. etc.) in such a way. Or do you mean something more specific by
"preaching?" I mean,
there's definitely didactic preachy voices throughout Stevens
but there's often in the same poems these moments of doubt
or other ways in which that preaching is framed or undercut--I love that he
can do both (while so many other poets do neither)...

Chris



Ordinarily, I'm all for the more meanings, the better, but--to me--the first
seems to be preaching that one should be objective, and I don't like poems
that preach, nor is it my sense that Stevens ever does this.  Can anyone
think of a poem in which he tells the reader what some proper thing to do

----------
From: "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Date: Sun, Oct 12, 2003, 10:35 AM

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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Oct 12 12:19:18 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 12:19:18 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <136.25932db8.2cbad906@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/12/2003 5:37:46 AM Central Daylight Time, 
bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: 
> Can anyone think of a poem in which he tells the reader what some proper 
> thing to do is?
> 
"The Emperor of Ice Cream" is in the imperative, for one.  And certainly 
"Sunday Morning" advocates enjoying guilty pleasures.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Oct 12 12:24:09 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 12:24:09 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <1ea.112d4b09.2cbada29@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/12/2003 11:20:48 AM Central Daylight Time, 
cstroffo at earthlink.net writes: 
> I mean,
> there's definitely didactic preachy voices throughout Stevens

"A High-Toned Old Christian Woman" is another, now that I think of it.  
Stevens strikes me as very often didactic, though in a very special sense of the 
term.
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From hruggier at localnet.com  Sun Oct 12 12:34:06 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 12:34:06 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <71.35eb4b95.2cb9ad3e@cs.com> <002001c3902b$58309c00$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <3F89827D.C5BD8B83@localnet.com>

Depends who the guy was, doesn't it?

TheOldMole wrote:

> I have, of course, pondered that same question, and basically it's
> hers because she says it is. It also is relatable to her ouevre, but
> that's secondary.
>
>      ----- Original Message -----
>      From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com
>      To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>      Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 3:00 PM
>      Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
>       In a message dated 10/11/2003 1:08:41 PM Central Daylight
>      Time, tadrichards at prodigy.net writes:
>
>     >
>     > Performance artist Linda Montano once did a piece where
>     > she manacled herself
>     > to a guy with a leg iron for a year...a longish temporal
>     > frame, but a
>     > temporal frame nonetheless. (Montano has since stretched
>     > that definition
>     > even farther, by declaring her entire life since 1984 to
>     > be a single piece
>     > of performance art.)
>
>
>      Was it her piece of art or his?
>
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From hruggier at localnet.com  Sun Oct 12 12:46:11 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 12:46:11 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <200310111958.h9BJwZST030152@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <003301c3903d$279de590$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <00ac01c390a3$7a1a0360$fc607550@anny> <001b01c390ca$79c234b0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <3F898552.E3B7FC77@localnet.com>

Perhaps what makes it art is that it was given one of the early NEA big money
prizes
before there was a panel and those in the know selected who they thought
deserved to win (sorry about that given we are still in mourning for the late
George Plimpton).

TheOldMole wrote:

> Anny - my name is Tad Richards, and you're much better than a headache.
>
> lighght
>
> actually isn't mine -- it's a poem by Aram Saroyan, in its entirety.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Anny Ballardini" <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 5:30 AM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
>
> > Thank you TheOldMole (what is your name?) for putting me after a
> > headache...:-), you are not the first. And interesting is your
> >
> > lighght
> >
> > you could write a poem around it, the concept is _enlightening (difficult
> to
> > be positive nowadays without stirring contempt, if not cynicism)_
> >
> > there are passages I would say, in order to continue what I previously
> > started, in an individual life-span and in the course of humanity, seen as
> > an only body. Vico is the clearest example to quote, or Goethe with his
> > Romantic young Werther and his mature Faust. In history we have also
> > witnessed revivals, opposite points of view, arrest of talents, as with De
> > Chirico, after a certain date all what he produced were remakes of his
> > previous period.
> > Art is different from Poetry, I would also like to underline this. Some
> > parameters which fit well with visual art do not apply to poetry. For the
> > immediacy of the visual medium. If the one we are looking at is not a
> > constructed painting. And in that case we have to go back to some
> marvelous
> > paintings of the 1500s to understand, where a specific observation comes
> > with the maturity of the observer.
> > (showing off my signature), a good Sunday,
> >
> > Anny Ballardini
> >
> > http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php
> >
> > Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
> > (from Mantis)
> > Louis Zukofsky
> >
> >
> > > You differentiate it in exactly that way. Art calls attention to itself
> as
> > > separate from the continuum of life, and as such, intended to offer a
> > > perspective on life -- to offer itself up for interpretation.
> > >
> > > What makes
> > >
> > >    lighght
> > >
> > > a work of art? The fact that Bob Grumman attests to its profundity? And
> if
> > > Sam Gwynn says it's crarap, does that make it sometimes art and
> sometimes
> > > not, or art and not art at the same time, like Schrodinger's cat?
> > >
> > > It's art because it gives us an opening to look at language, at silence,
> > at
> > > structure, in a different light, or even a different lighght.
> > >
> > > It's different from
> > >
> > >   light
> > >
> > > partly in that it takes up a different amount of space. It creates the
> > page
> > > as a frame, and it occupies a larger space within that frame, without
> > making
> > > any more sound if you say it out loud. Or maybe all the letters have the
> > > same value, because actually they're all silent on the page. And maybe
> if
> > > you said it out loud you'd gargle the middle of it. And maybe this is
> all
> > > bullshit, but it's one kind of bullshit that art, specifically, draws
> from
> > > us.
> > >
> > > For some of us, it's instantly forgettable -- but actually, ALMOST
> > instantly
> > > forgettable, and there's a difference.
> > >
> > > Otherwise, what do you have? Besides a headache, I mean. You have Anny's
> > > definition, in which the same thing is sometimes art and sometimes not,
> > the
> > > same individuals are sometimes artists and sometimes not, depending on
> how
> > > she feels about. And no disrespect -- I love what Anny has to say about
> > > poetry -- but this says more, and I believe is intended to say more,
> about
> > > Anny than it does about what art is.
> > >
> > > You can look at
> > >
> > >   lighght
> > >
> > > and say "that's not art," but
> > >
> > >   lighght
> > >
> > > requires you to say it. The hemorrhoid ad doesn't.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: <marcus at designerglass.com>
> > > To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> > > Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 4:22 PM
> > > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
> > >
> > >
> > > > > ... Art basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it
> is
> > > > > -- the act of calling it art makes it art. ...<<
> > > >
> > > > But this just begs the question. How do you tell who's an artist?
> Anyone
> > > who
> > > > claims to be one? How does that differentiate art from non-art in any
> > > > meaningful way?
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From cstroffo at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 12 06:05:18 2003
From: cstroffo at earthlink.net (Chris Stroffolino )
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 10:05:18 +0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <200310121651.h9CGoVIP082572@pimout2-ext.prodigy.net>

Praise the lawd!


----------
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com
To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Date: Sun, Oct 12, 2003, 4:24 PM


In a message dated 10/12/2003 11:20:48 AM Central Daylight Time,
cstroffo at earthlink.net writes:
I mean,
there's definitely didactic preachy voices throughout Stevens


"A High-Toned Old Christian Woman" is another, now that I think of it.
Stevens strikes me as very often didactic, though in a very special sense of
the term. 
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sun Oct 12 12:54:49 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 17:54:49 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
References: <136.25932db1.2cbad770@cs.com>
Message-ID: <01d901c390e1$8c688fd0$0e988051@MyPC>

<<
Just out of curiosity, Sam--why would you want to establish one reading 
over the other?  I've always leaned toward the first, not in the sense 
of "you should" but in the sense of "that's what it takes."  Most of us 
probably have that mind of winter pass by fairly often in our long 
parade of minds.  It's a drag when it comes in July, is all.

Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu

I guess mainly because Stevens seems to me to have a "mind of summer"--all those colors, fruits, trips to Florida, etc. 
>>

Mostly, I'd agree, but "The Snow Man" occurs early in _Harmonium_, so maybe the colour/geography/seasons coding that Stevens later develops may not (yet) apply.

        Among twenty snowy mountains,
        The only moving thing
        Was the eye of the black bird.

Dunno.

Robin
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From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sun Oct 12 13:10:36 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 13:10:36 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <71.35eb4b95.2cb9ad3e@cs.com> <002001c3902b$58309c00$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <3F89827D.C5BD8B83@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <008001c390e3$c12aa800$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

It was me.


JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!



  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Helen Ruggieri 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 12:34 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


  Depends who the guy was, doesn't it? 
  TheOldMole wrote: 

    I have, of course, pondered that same question, and basically it's hers because she says it is. It also is relatable to her ouevre, but that's secondary. 
      ----- Original Message -----
      From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com
      To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
      Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 3:00 PM
      Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
       In a message dated 10/11/2003 1:08:41 PM Central Daylight Time, tadrichards at prodigy.net writes: 
         
        Performance artist Linda Montano once did a piece where she manacled herself 
        to a guy with a leg iron for a year...a longish temporal frame, but a 
        temporal frame nonetheless. (Montano has since stretched that definition 
        even farther, by declaring her entire life since 1984 to be a single piece 
        of performance art.)

      Was it her piece of art or his?
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From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sun Oct 12 13:12:03 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 13:12:03 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <200310111958.h9BJwZST030152@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <003301c3903d$279de590$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <00ac01c390a3$7a1a0360$fc607550@anny> <001b01c390ca$79c234b0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <3F898552.E3B7FC77@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <008c01c390e3$f526c300$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

Sounds like the Wizard of Oz -- there are people whose opinions are sought
after by everyone, and they have no more brains than you. But they have what
you don't have...a diploma.

Tad


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Helen Ruggieri" <hruggier at localnet.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 12:46 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> Perhaps what makes it art is that it was given one of the early NEA big
money
> prizes
> before there was a panel and those in the know selected who they thought
> deserved to win (sorry about that given we are still in mourning for the
late
> George Plimpton).
>
> TheOldMole wrote:
>
> > Anny - my name is Tad Richards, and you're much better than a headache.
> >
> > lighght
> >
> > actually isn't mine -- it's a poem by Aram Saroyan, in its entirety.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Anny Ballardini" <anny.ballardini at tin.it>
> > To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> > Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 5:30 AM
> > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
> >
> > > Thank you TheOldMole (what is your name?) for putting me after a
> > > headache...:-), you are not the first. And interesting is your
> > >
> > > lighght
> > >
> > > you could write a poem around it, the concept is _enlightening
(difficult
> > to
> > > be positive nowadays without stirring contempt, if not cynicism)_
> > >
> > > there are passages I would say, in order to continue what I previously
> > > started, in an individual life-span and in the course of humanity,
seen as
> > > an only body. Vico is the clearest example to quote, or Goethe with
his
> > > Romantic young Werther and his mature Faust. In history we have also
> > > witnessed revivals, opposite points of view, arrest of talents, as
with De
> > > Chirico, after a certain date all what he produced were remakes of his
> > > previous period.
> > > Art is different from Poetry, I would also like to underline this.
Some
> > > parameters which fit well with visual art do not apply to poetry. For
the
> > > immediacy of the visual medium. If the one we are looking at is not a
> > > constructed painting. And in that case we have to go back to some
> > marvelous
> > > paintings of the 1500s to understand, where a specific observation
comes
> > > with the maturity of the observer.
> > > (showing off my signature), a good Sunday,
> > >
> > > Anny Ballardini
> > >
> > > http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php
> > >
> > > Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
> > > (from Mantis)
> > > Louis Zukofsky
> > >
> > >
> > > > You differentiate it in exactly that way. Art calls attention to
itself
> > as
> > > > separate from the continuum of life, and as such, intended to offer
a
> > > > perspective on life -- to offer itself up for interpretation.
> > > >
> > > > What makes
> > > >
> > > >    lighght
> > > >
> > > > a work of art? The fact that Bob Grumman attests to its profundity?
And
> > if
> > > > Sam Gwynn says it's crarap, does that make it sometimes art and
> > sometimes
> > > > not, or art and not art at the same time, like Schrodinger's cat?
> > > >
> > > > It's art because it gives us an opening to look at language, at
silence,
> > > at
> > > > structure, in a different light, or even a different lighght.
> > > >
> > > > It's different from
> > > >
> > > >   light
> > > >
> > > > partly in that it takes up a different amount of space. It creates
the
> > > page
> > > > as a frame, and it occupies a larger space within that frame,
without
> > > making
> > > > any more sound if you say it out loud. Or maybe all the letters have
the
> > > > same value, because actually they're all silent on the page. And
maybe
> > if
> > > > you said it out loud you'd gargle the middle of it. And maybe this
is
> > all
> > > > bullshit, but it's one kind of bullshit that art, specifically,
draws
> > from
> > > > us.
> > > >
> > > > For some of us, it's instantly forgettable -- but actually, ALMOST
> > > instantly
> > > > forgettable, and there's a difference.
> > > >
> > > > Otherwise, what do you have? Besides a headache, I mean. You have
Anny's
> > > > definition, in which the same thing is sometimes art and sometimes
not,
> > > the
> > > > same individuals are sometimes artists and sometimes not, depending
on
> > how
> > > > she feels about. And no disrespect -- I love what Anny has to say
about
> > > > poetry -- but this says more, and I believe is intended to say more,
> > about
> > > > Anny than it does about what art is.
> > > >
> > > > You can look at
> > > >
> > > >   lighght
> > > >
> > > > and say "that's not art," but
> > > >
> > > >   lighght
> > > >
> > > > requires you to say it. The hemorrhoid ad doesn't.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > > From: <marcus at designerglass.com>
> > > > To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> > > > Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 4:22 PM
> > > > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > > > ... Art basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says
it
> > is
> > > > > > -- the act of calling it art makes it art. ...<<
> > > > >
> > > > > But this just begs the question. How do you tell who's an artist?
> > Anyone
> > > > who
> > > > > claims to be one? How does that differentiate art from non-art in
any
> > > > > meaningful way?
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From elemenope at icubed.com  Sun Oct 12 01:34:08 2003
From: elemenope at icubed.com (ELEMENOPE Productions)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 13:34:08 +0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] 6. Re: Menashe (Rsgwynn1@cs.com)
In-Reply-To: <200310111409.h9BE95ST028342@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200310111409.h9BE95ST028342@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <a05100302bbae8f344820@[204.215.202.88]>

In trying to reconstitute Dabney Stuart's extemporaneous remarks 
roughly 35 years ago, it seems that I have inadvertantly included the 
word, "else," in my account.  Remove it.  The back cover of Mr. 
Menashe's book was white, as I recall it.  Maybe a publisher's logo 
or copyright number was placed somewhere.  But no blurbs and no 
barcode (didn't exist).



At 12:55 PM +0800 10/12/03, ELEMENOPE Productions wrote:

>>  > In 1968, or thereabouts, I was in the audience for a reading by
>>>  Samuel Menashe in Dupont Hall at Washington and Lee University in
>>>  Lexington, Virginia.  He was introduced by Dabney Stuart, my teacher,
>>>  who said of the poet's new book:
>>  > "There is no testimony by anyone on its back cover as to the
>>  > merits of this poet's poems.  Nor could there be.  By speaking for
>>>  and within themselves alone and only, they achieve their permanent
>  > places in the sun."



In bringing this moment to the fore, it seems to me now that it is 
perfectly appropriate for such a writer as Menashe to have no fellow 
travellers to tout his words on the book cover.  Beckett, say, or 
Heraklites: blurbs are inadequate and superfluous for them, as well.

I remember thinking about that white back cover as I sat in the 
audience examining my copy.  I didn't relish the prospect of a life 
spent facing a cold opaque blizzard.

Menashe is the real Beat writer.

As to


>Ol' Dab, he has a way of putting it right.


Yes.  Nabokov, in response (_Strong Opinions_) to Dabney Stuart's 
reading of his novel, _The Real Life of Sebastian Knight_, concurred.


RD








>
>
>Message: 5
>From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com
>Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2003 22:18:25 EDT
>Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Menashe
>To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>
>
>--part1_16f.24daff60.2cb8c271_boundary
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>In a message dated 10/10/2003 4:56:17 PM Central Daylight Time,
>elemenope at icubed.com writes:
>>
>  > In 1968, or thereabouts, I was in the audience for a reading by
>>  Samuel Menashe in Dupont Hall at Washington and Lee University in
>>  Lexington, Virginia.  He was introduced by Dabney Stuart, my teacher,
>>  who said of the poet's new book:
>>  "There is no testimony by anyone else on its back cover as to the
>>  merits of this poet's poems.  Nor could there be.  By speaking for
>>  and within themselves alone and only, they achieve their permanent
>  > places in the sun."
>>  --
>Ol' Dab, he has a way of putting it right.

-- 
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From hruggier at localnet.com  Sun Oct 12 14:04:17 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 14:04:17 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <71.35eb4b95.2cb9ad3e@cs.com> <002001c3902b$58309c00$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <3F89827D.C5BD8B83@localnet.com> <008001c390e3$c12aa800$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <3F8997A1.8B5B5862@localnet.com>

an artful reply, modest too

TheOldMole wrote:

>  It was me.  JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!
>
>      ----- Original Message -----
>      From: Helen Ruggieri
>      To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>      Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 12:34 PM
>      Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
>       Depends who the guy was, doesn't it?
>
>      TheOldMole wrote:
>
>     > I have, of course, pondered that same question, and
>     > basically it's hers because she says it is. It also is
>     > relatable to her ouevre, but that's secondary.
>     >
>     >      ----- Original Message -----
>     >      From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com
>     >      To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>     >      Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 3:00 PM
>     >      Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
>     >       In a message dated 10/11/2003 1:08:41 PM
>     >      Central Daylight Time, tadrichards at prodigy.net
>     >      writes:
>     >
>     >      >
>     >      > Performance artist Linda Montano once did a
>     >      > piece where she manacled herself
>     >      > to a guy with a leg iron for a year...a longish
>     >      > temporal frame, but a
>     >      > temporal frame nonetheless. (Montano has since
>     >      > stretched that definition
>     >      > even farther, by declaring her entire life
>     >      > since 1984 to be a single piece
>     >      > of performance art.)
>     >
>     >
>     >      Was it her piece of art or his?
>     >
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 12 15:50:38 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 15:50:38 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIECPHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <00bb01c390fa$1cd2b2e0$59f4fea9@j1c1k6>

> Aram Saroyan, who is the son of William Saroyan, places the
> word in the most literally autonomous position of all the poets in
> this selection. He depends while working completely on the
> typewriter and the word. His "obsolete red-top Royal Portable,"
> he states, "is the biggest influence on my work." If its typeface,
> "standard pica," were different, he believes that he would write "
> ( subtly ) different poems." He is "sure" that when the "ribbon gets
> dull', his poems "change." The remarks below indicate that Saroyan
> takes the McLuhan approach to the word: "the medium is the
> massage":
>
>
> "I began as a 'regular' poet, imitating effects I liked in Creeley,
Ashbery,
> everybody. Then one night by accident I typed eyeye. I didn't know
> what it was. Someone else saw it and said--yes! That was about two
> years ago. For a year after that I did plenty of visual poems. But
> differently than the concrete poets....
>
> "As McLuhan says, you can't make the new medium do the old job.
> The information in a new poem can't be the same as the information in
> an old poem In a visual poem an 'imitation' of the shape of an object
> outside the poem, let's say like the horizon of Holland (to use Finlay),
> well that's the same type of describing, really, as an old linear poem
does.
> In a good visual poem there are no horizons, fields, kisses, hugs,
sentiments
> etc. bur those implicitly inside the shape of the word constellation,
which
> never never never should refer outside--to anything outside it. After all
> they've been doing shaped poems for centuries. That's entirely old--
> ruinously old.
>
>
> "What interests me now is that new poetry isn't going to be poetry for
> reading. It's going to be for looking at, that is if it's poetry to be
printed
> and not taped. I mean book, print culture, is finished. Words disappeared
> in sentences, meanings, information, in the process that is reading (a
boring,
> very boring moving of the eyes) that is the same in a poem by Edgar Guest
> as it is in a poem by Creeley--and, yes The Media Is The Message, and
> reading is nothing as a medium at all, it's finished if literature is an
art form
> because the process of moving the eyes is antique, has nothing to do with
> what eyes are doing now--like in painting, really since impressionism, the
> eyes haven't been directed. And I mean, still, there's no such thing as
looking
> at writing--looking at words on a page--you have to start at the beginning
and
> READ! That has absolutely nothing to do with words, and they (these) are
> the message. No information in them but themselves.
>
>
> "I mean for real! No more reading! If you have to read, resolve any
structure
> of language into a meaning, well that's just it--it resolves! The words
disappear
> into a meaning. What are words?"

Saroyan was a great poet but not much of a critic.  "lighght" is still a
word, and would be worthless as a poem if it were not.



> If the next step beyond William Carlos Williams is prose or non-linear
form,

It isn't.  It's just even more compact poems.

> what is the next step beyond Saroyan?

Should be: what has been the next steps beyond Saroyan.

Larger poems using the same kind of orthographic juxtaphor (implicit
metaphor of a word with its appearance) multiply.

Also "language poems" featuring metaphorical effects based on other language
processes such as verb tense, etc.

Inasmuch as "lighght" is (slightly) a visual poem (because it shows light
expanding), another step from it would be the many more complex visual poems
that have been composed since Saroyan wrote it.

Those visual poems have, in turn, led to other poems combining with other
expressive modalities besides the visual--such as my mathematical poems.

--Bob G.


Out of words? Back to more words?
> Where? There can be no doubt that "etc." says it. The question is, could
it be
> said with less? More could be said with less: "etc."
>
>
>
> Hal                Serving the tri-state area.
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ===============
> email: halvard at earthlink.net
> website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From kpaul at mallasch.com  Sun Oct 12 16:29:43 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 15:29:43 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
In-Reply-To: <200310121221.h9CCLcST026770@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
References: <200310121221.h9CCLcST026770@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <20031012152931.L95521@kpaul.spinweb.net>

I kidna agree. I liked the subject, tho ;)

-kpaul

On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 marcus at designerglass.com wrote:

> This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad name in the
> first place.
> Marcus
>
> > The Copy Editor's Lament
> >
> > I was sitting on the copydesk
> > just watching o'er the scene
> > when the dealer sent a juicy
> > story over to my screen.
> > It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> > and the headline on the dummy said:
> > - 6 column 48.
> >
> > So I rearranged the commas
> > and I tidied up the lede
> > and I patched up all the typos
> > and gave it one more read.
> > I typed in all the coding
> > and prepared to write the hed
> > when a voice came from the news desk,
> > and this is what it said:
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > I have to change the page.
> > Composing found a missing ad,
> > the foreman's in a rage.
> > If they find the guy that lost it,
> > they'll be skinning him alive.
> > And that headline that you're working on ...
> > - make that a five."
> >
> > Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> > but a deskman does his best
> > to keep the story's gist intact
> > and leave out all the rest.
> > I thought a little while,
> > and then my hands did fly
> > But just before the head was writ,
> > I heard the news desk cry:
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy please,
> > I have to make a fix.
> > It really needs a graphic
> > or the editor will bitch.
> > They'll make it on the Macintosh
> > and ship it here to me.
> > And that headline you are writing ...
> > - make that a three."
> >
> > Now a head that's just three columns
> > forces choices quite absurd
> > do you write it as a label
> > or just use only verbs?
> > I struggled and I puzzled
> > and at last I did compose.
> > When over at the news desk
> > a voice once more arose:
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > I have to make a change.
> > How I forgot the sidebar,
> > is really very strange.
> > A page without a sidebar,
> > would make the reader blue.
> > And that headline you are writing ...
> > - make that a two."
> >
> > Now a head that's just two columns
> > is a challenge and a strain;
> > they often make no sense at all,
> > to write them is a pain.
> > I finally got a concept
> > but before I put it down
> > I looked up from my VDT
> > and saw the news desk frown.
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy, please
> > there's one more thing to do.
> > We have to have a locator map;
> > the reader needs a clue
> > to where this all is coming down
> > and where it's being done.
> > And that headline you are writing ...
> > - make that a one.
> >
> > Sometimes a copy editor
> > is like a cornered rat,
> > hemmed in and surrounded,
> > his hopes collapsed and flat.
> > There's no way out, all one can do
> > is fight with tooth and claw.
> > This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
> >
> > Panel
> > eyes
> > law
> >
> > http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From halvard at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 12 17:21:52 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 17:21:52 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
In-Reply-To: <20031012152931.L95521@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEDNHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

I wouldn't say that metered poetry has/had "a bad name"
just because most poets nowadays don't care to write
in meter, any more than Schoenberg gave tonal music
a bad name. He was the one, after all, who said something
like "There's still a lot of good music to be written in C major."

Hal               "I need big art."
                         --overheard in a Chelsea gallery
Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
  
{    I kidna agree. I liked the subject, tho ;)
{    
{    -kpaul
{    
{    On Sun, 12 Oct 2003 marcus at designerglass.com wrote:
{    
{    > This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad name in the
{    > first place.
{    > Marcus
{    >
{    > > The Copy Editor's Lament
{    > >
{    > > I was sitting on the copydesk
{    > > just watching o'er the scene
{    > > when the dealer sent a juicy
{    > > story over to my screen.
{    > > It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
{    > > and the headline on the dummy said:
{    > > - 6 column 48.
{    > >
{    > > So I rearranged the commas
{    > > and I tidied up the lede
{    > > and I patched up all the typos
{    > > and gave it one more read.
{    > > I typed in all the coding
{    > > and prepared to write the hed
{    > > when a voice came from the news desk,
{    > > and this is what it said:
{    > >
{    > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
{    > > I have to change the page.
{    > > Composing found a missing ad,
{    > > the foreman's in a rage.
{    > > If they find the guy that lost it,
{    > > they'll be skinning him alive.
{    > > And that headline that you're working on ...
{    > > - make that a five."
{    > >
{    > > Four columns? Well, that's tougher
{    > > but a deskman does his best
{    > > to keep the story's gist intact
{    > > and leave out all the rest.
{    > > I thought a little while,
{    > > and then my hands did fly
{    > > But just before the head was writ,
{    > > I heard the news desk cry:
{    > >
{    > > "Pass me back that dummy please,
{    > > I have to make a fix.
{    > > It really needs a graphic
{    > > or the editor will bitch.
{    > > They'll make it on the Macintosh
{    > > and ship it here to me.
{    > > And that headline you are writing ...
{    > > - make that a three."
{    > >
{    > > Now a head that's just three columns
{    > > forces choices quite absurd
{    > > do you write it as a label
{    > > or just use only verbs?
{    > > I struggled and I puzzled
{    > > and at last I did compose.
{    > > When over at the news desk
{    > > a voice once more arose:
{    > >
{    > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
{    > > I have to make a change.
{    > > How I forgot the sidebar,
{    > > is really very strange.
{    > > A page without a sidebar,
{    > > would make the reader blue.
{    > > And that headline you are writing ...
{    > > - make that a two."
{    > >
{    > > Now a head that's just two columns
{    > > is a challenge and a strain;
{    > > they often make no sense at all,
{    > > to write them is a pain.
{    > > I finally got a concept
{    > > but before I put it down
{    > > I looked up from my VDT
{    > > and saw the news desk frown.
{    > >
{    > > "Pass me back that dummy, please
{    > > there's one more thing to do.
{    > > We have to have a locator map;
{    > > the reader needs a clue
{    > > to where this all is coming down
{    > > and where it's being done.
{    > > And that headline you are writing ...
{    > > - make that a one.
{    > >
{    > > Sometimes a copy editor
{    > > is like a cornered rat,
{    > > hemmed in and surrounded,
{    > > his hopes collapsed and flat.
{    > > There's no way out, all one can do
{    > > is fight with tooth and claw.
{    > > This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
{    > >
{    > > Panel
{    > > eyes
{    > > law
{    > >
{    > > http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
{    > > _______________________________________________
{    > > New-Poetry mailing list
{    > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
{    > >
{    >
{    >
{    > _______________________________________________
{    > New-Poetry mailing list
{    > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
{    >
{    _______________________________________________
{    New-Poetry mailing list
{    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 12 17:34:11 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 17:34:11 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <200310111958.h9BJwZST030152@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <003301c3903d$279de590$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <00ac01c390a3$7a1a0360$fc607550@anny> <001b01c390ca$79c234b0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <3F898552.E3B7FC77@localnet.com>
Message-ID: <002001c39108$93d547a0$5293fea9@j1c1k6>

> Perhaps what makes it art is that it was given one of the early NEA big
money
> prizes
> before there was a panel and those in the know selected who they thought
> deserved to win (sorry about that given we are still in mourning for the
late
> George Plimpton).

To me it's poetry because it's lineated, one form of what I call the
flow-break, and obviously not intended as either advocacy or factual
information.

It's what I tentatively call "highverse" (a coinage which is one reason I
want to think of "verse" as a simple synonym for "poetry"), or *Reyall
Poetrie*, because it has more metaphor per letter, for those sensitive to
its workings, than any other poem I know; is also involved deeply with one
of our main archetypes; and conveys its meaning with a language still fresh
enough to bother philistines.

--Bob G.



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 12 17:41:41 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 14:41:41 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEDNHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3F89CA95.A84995EB@earthlink.net>


Halvard Johnson wrote:
> Hal               "I need big art."
>                          --overheard in a Chelsea gallery

Pair that with:  "Big image. Slow to load."
                             -- seen on my computer screen

- Jim


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 12 17:52:22 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 17:52:22 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
References: <136.25932db8.2cbad906@cs.com>
Message-ID: <007301c3910b$1e6f8a40$5293fea9@j1c1k6>

  In a message dated 10/12/2003 5:37:46 AM Central Daylight Time, bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: 

    Can anyone think of a poem in which he tells the reader what some proper thing to do is?


  "The Emperor of Ice Cream" is in the imperative, for one.  And certainly "Sunday Morning" advocates enjoying guilty pleasures. 

  The first seems to me only to be calling for fun, the second seems to me a meditation.  All poems advocate something, but usually, as these, only in the sense of saying these are admirable things.

  "A High-Toned Old Christian Woman" conveys a point of view and, I guess, is preachy, but doesn't quite say people should not be Christians, so much as saying this woman's brand of religion lacks something.  But it does fairly clearly indicate a proper thing to do--not be like the old Christian woman.

  --Bob G.

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 12 18:11:58 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 18:11:58 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
References: <200310121619.h9CGJ2IN177918@pimout2-ext.prodigy.net>
Message-ID: <007d01c3910d$db5ccbc0$5293fea9@j1c1k6>

Re: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter


            HEY BOB---sorry that your great line breaks got lost in translation on my computer...

  Howdjuh know my line-breaks wuz great, then?


          I like your idea of the more meanings the better....

          1. Where do you get the idea that "Mind of winter"  means "OBJECTIVE"? 
  I think "nothing in himself" refers "clear of preconceptions, or neutral, objective"--and I read the poem as saying that the person with a mind of winter is that "listener, who listens in the snow" and is "nothing in himself."  If so, he is objective, because he "beholds nothing that is not there."  He hears the wind as it is, not adding thoughts of misery to it subjectively.


         I guess people often speak of a "cold, objective tone" in general--but in Stevens even his most "cold" mode seems hardly "objective" (and I don't mean this as a put down of Stevens). there's often a "RAGE for order"
        an "EXTREMIST in an exercise" etc in Stevens' poems....
        And in this particular one, there is the difference between
        modes of perception--"regard" vs. "behold" for instance,
        but to me the poem is quite self-consciously playing with
        the impossibility of being "objective" or even objective for that matter.
  Maybe.  But I read him as saying a person putting his emotions aside and coldly experiencing winter as it is will perceive the ultimate nothing that it is.  Poetically speaking.  But, far more important than what the poem is saying, for me, is what it's conveying, which is a highly subjective sense of a winter landscape.  Which it does wonderfully, in my view.

          2. I don't necessarily mind poems that preach personally.
          Stevens does have a lot of "preachy gestures" like
          "Begin, Ephebe" for instance (i can't think of the name of the particular poem in which he does it) Whether or not he really means to "preach" (in the pejorative sense) can be a matter of great debate---you can say he's "just being ironic" if you want (personally I don't want to reduce it to that)--but he does often address his "reader" (or his "interior paramour" etc. etc.) in such a way. Or do you mean something more specific by "preaching?" I mean,
          there's definitely didactic preachy voices throughout Stevens
          but there's often in the same poems these moments of doubt
          or other ways in which that preaching is framed or undercut--I love that he can do both (while so many other poets do neither)...

          Chris
  I see his kind of preaching as a set-up, and not the kind of preaching the interpretation of "One must have a mind of winter" as "One should have a mind of winter" would be--and which can't be there, I don't think, because the second line says, "To regard the frost and the boughs," not "And regard the frost and the boughs."


  --Bob G.

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From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sun Oct 12 18:26:32 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 18:26:32 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
References: <200310121619.h9CGJ2IN177918@pimout2-ext.prodigy.net> <007d01c3910d$db5ccbc0$5293fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <006401c3910f$e3b8c560$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

Re: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bob Grumman 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 6:11 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter





              HEY BOB---sorry that your great line breaks got lost in translation on my computer...

    Howdjuh know my line-breaks wuz great, then?

I especially liked the break before "li" and the one after "ght"




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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 12 18:27:39 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 18:27:39 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
References: <200310121221.h9CCLcST026769@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <009301c39110$0c089860$5293fea9@j1c1k6>

> This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad name
in the
> first place.
> Marcus

There were more than a few other reasons, I suspect--like competent meter
carrying dead matter.  But this poem is doggerel, and it seems to me there's
a place for that in poetry.

By the way, Marcus, did you even reply to my last post to our
one-statement-at-a-time duel?  I expect to make another post to it but was
waiting till we cleared up the (small, in my view) problems you've brought
up.

--Bob G.



From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Oct 12 21:13:34 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2003 21:13:34 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
Message-ID: <37.3f339523.2cbb563e@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/12/2003 5:33:19 PM Central Daylight Time, 
bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net writes: 
> 
> There were more than a few other reasons, I suspect--like competent meter
> carrying dead matter.  But this poem is doggerel, and it seems to me there's
> a place for that in poetry.
 I agree.  It's amateurish fun, and we shouldn't disparage that, especially 
if it's tongue in cheek.
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From marcus at designerglass.com  Sun Oct 12 22:14:30 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 02:14:30 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
Message-ID: <200310130150.h9D1nxST010040@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

> &gt; This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad name
> in the
> &gt; first place.
> &gt; Marcus

Robin Hamilton: 
> Well, I'm not sure I'd quite call it that -- the heavy loading of anapests
> is characteristic of a particular kind of light verse, and behind it I hear
> the ghost of Robert Service and "The Shooting of Dan McGrew".<<

It's incompetent by those very standards. Just because one can see the ghost of 
what the writer was trying to do does not argue for the writer's competence at 
doing it. "The Copy Editor's Lament" is clearly, just as you say, an attempt to 
write light verse, but it's terribly, terribly bad: the second line alone has 
two icky bits: the "just" and the "o'er" to eke out the line's rhythm.0

> 
> &gt; &gt; The Copy Editor's Lament
> &gt; &gt;
> &gt; &gt; I was sitting on the copydesk
> &gt; &gt; just watching o'er the scene
> &gt; &gt; when the dealer sent a juicy
 
> Isn't it simply the flip-side of what don marquis did for free verse in the
> archy and mehitable poems?  (Though I'd agree it's not in the same league as
> marquis.)<<

No -- it's obvious incompetence attempting, and failing, to write in metered 
and rhymed verse. There is no evidence whatever that the writer can actually do 
it and is merely pretending to incompetence in order to be, what, newspapery? 
It is straightforward incompetence, line after line of it.

Marcus





From marcus at designerglass.com  Sun Oct 12 22:35:57 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 02:35:57 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
Message-ID: <200310130258.h9D2wuST011366@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

> I wouldn't say that metered poetry has/had "a bad name"
> just because most poets nowadays don't care to write
> in meter, any more than Schoenberg gave tonal music
> a bad name.<<

If Schoenberg had been writing tonal music and only coming up with what he came 
up with, you'd have a point, Hal -- but he wasn't and you don't.

Incompetent rhymed and metered verse, not free verse, gave metered and rhymed 
verse a bad name. 













From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Oct 13 06:28:25 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 06:28:25 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Searching the Archives of New-Poetry
References: <190.20be7d34.2cb431ac@aol.com>
Message-ID: <00d101c39174$bcb4b860$e393fea9@j1c1k6>

Is there any easy way to do this, James?  I went to the archival website but
saw no search window.

--Bob G.



From Thom424 at aol.com  Mon Oct 13 08:16:26 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 08:16:26 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thomas Disch Sonnet
Message-ID: <128.32fb2e02.2cbbf19a@aol.com>

I'm looking for an "experimental" sonnet by Thomas Disch. If I recall, it has 
14 lines, but I think that's about it as close as it comes to meeting the 
form. It may also consist of one word per line. There's a possibility I may be 
confusing this poem with one written by another author. 

If anyone can help by either posting or directing me to the poem, I'd be 
grateful.

Thanks,

Thom Tammaro
Moorhead, MN
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Mon Oct 13 10:04:51 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:04:51 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thomas Disch Sonnet
Message-ID: <42.3f2dd4f9.2cbc0b03@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/13/2003 7:18:29 AM Central Daylight Time, 
Thom424 at aol.com writes: 
> 
> I'm looking for an "experimental" sonnet by Thomas Disch. If I recall, it 
> has 14 lines, but I think that's about it as close as it comes to meeting the 
> form. It may also consist of one word per line. There's a possibility I may be 
> confusing this poem with one written by another author. 
There's a monosyllabic sonnet by Brad Leithauser in Rebel Angels.
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From ron.silliman at verizon.net  Mon Oct 13 10:32:14 2003
From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:32:14 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog
Message-ID: <000401c39196$d6f9e890$ac74ed41@Dell>

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

What can a poem do?

Philadelphia Progressive Poetry Calendar

The problem of scenes in a minor city
(Life in Canada)

Do line breaks have meaning?

Monospaced type & poetic intention
(Larry Eigner & Robert Duncan)

Tiering -
a theoretical structure for scenes

The Boss Town Sound -
do different regions read differently?

Leslie Scalapino
being in the syllable, using space

Fanny Howe's Tis of Thee
A verse drama of race mixing

Post-avant Boston
in the shadows of Quietude

Jonathan Williams
Loco Logo-Daedalist indeed

DC Poetry -
Using a website to document a scene

"This is a totally / accessible poem" -
Meaning & masks in Charles Bernstein

Anthony Tognazzini -
Constructing selves in writing
(my poem "Berkeley" for example)

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/






From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Mon Oct 13 11:50:58 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:50:58 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
In-Reply-To: <BBAE2185.4B3F%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <BBB03412.576B%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 10/11/03 9:13 PM, David Graham at grahamd at ripon.edu wrote:

> Me, I just love those junipers shagged with ice. . . .

Heh, heh. You said ?Shagged.? Oh, yeah, baby! 
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From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Oct 13 15:00:24 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 15:00:24 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thomas Disch Sonnet
In-Reply-To: <128.32fb2e02.2cbbf19a@aol.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEFFHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

The composer Edgard Varese once objected to the
use of "experimental" in this sense, saying something
like "When I've finished composing a piece, the
experimenting is over."

Hal
  I'm looking for an "experimental" sonnet by Thomas Disch. If I recall, it
has 14 lines, but I think that's about it as close as it comes to meeting
the form. It may also consist of one word per line. There's a possibility I
may be confusing this poem with one written by another author.

  If anyone can help by either posting or directing me to the poem, I'd be
grateful.

  Thanks,

  Thom Tammaro
  Moorhead, MN
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Mon Oct 13 15:19:35 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 14:19:35 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thomas Disch Sonnet
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEFFHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
References: <128.32fb2e02.2cbbf19a@aol.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031013141724.02a53e68@mail.ilstu.edu>

Thom it is reminding me of the famous and witty Ron Padgett sonnet entitled 
"Nothing in that drawer." The sonnet consists of the title phrase repeated 
14. times (not counting the title). gabe

At 03:00 PM 10/13/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>The composer Edgard Varese once objected to the
>use of "experimental" in this sense, saying something
>like "When I've finished composing a piece, the
>experimenting is over."
>
>Hal
>I'm looking for an "experimental" sonnet by Thomas Disch. If I recall, it 
>has 14 lines, but I think that's about it as close as it comes to meeting 
>the form. It may also consist of one word per line. There's a possibility 
>I may be confusing this poem with one written by another author.
>
>If anyone can help by either posting or directing me to the poem, I'd be 
>grateful.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Thom Tammaro
>Moorhead, MN
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From Thom424 at aol.com  Mon Oct 13 15:35:02 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 15:35:02 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thomas Disch Sonnet
Message-ID: <0A40AC25.2E15F3AB.001A46F6@aol.com>

gabe--

thanks for that one...and that reminds me of terrence hayes's "sonnet" from his book *hip logic*: the line "We sliced the watermelon into smiles" repeated 14 times.

thom


From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Oct 13 15:41:07 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 15:41:07 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Amiri Baraka (oka LeRoi Jones), "The invention of comics"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEGEFIHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

The invention of comics

I am a soul in the world: in
the world of my soul the whirled
light / from the day
the sacked land
of my father.

In the world, the sad
nature of
myself. In myself
nature is sad. Small
prints of the day. Its
small dull fires. Its
sun, like a greyness
smeared on the dark.

The day of my soul, is
the nature of that 
place. It is a landscape. Seen
from the top of a hill. A
grey expanse; dull fires
throbbing on its seas.

The man's soul, the complexion
of his life. The menace
of its greyness. The
fire, throbs, the sea
moves. Birds shoot
from the dark. The edge
of the waters lit
darkly for the moon.

And the moon, from the soul. Is
the world, of the man. The man
and his sea, and its moon, and
the soft fire throbbing. Kind
death. O,
my dark and sultry
love.

fr. *The Dead Lecturer* [New York: Grove Press, 1964]

Hal

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
 



From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Oct 13 17:06:03 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 17:06:03 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <005e01c39058$e3592d60$7163fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>

> Yes, Duchamp's little joke because saying anything is art that
> an artist says it is still begs the question: who then, is an
> artist? How do you tell an artist from a non-artist? Is an artist
> anyone who claims to be one? If so, how does that distinguish art
> from non-art in any meaningful way?

Hal Johnson: 
> From one point of view it does indeed beg the question. From
> another it mocks and ridicules the question.

Well if all you want --or value-- is mockery and ridicule, Hal, I'll 
be happy to oblige you from now on.





From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Oct 13 17:22:36 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 17:22:36 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEEEFMHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

{    > Yes, Duchamp's little joke because saying anything is art that
{    > an artist says it is still begs the question: who then, is an
{    > artist? How do you tell an artist from a non-artist? Is an artist
{    > anyone who claims to be one? If so, how does that distinguish art
{    > from non-art in any meaningful way?
{    
{    Hal Johnson: 
{    > From one point of view it does indeed beg the question. From
{    > another it mocks and ridicules the question.
{    
{    Well if all you want --or value-- is mockery and ridicule, Hal, I'll 
{    be happy to oblige you from now on.

All I want or value? Where'd you get that, buddy?
Among other things, I've always admired and valued 
your self-confidence, misplaced though it be.

Hal             Everyone on carousel must have ticket.

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Mon Oct 13 17:49:00 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 23:49:00 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
References: <200310121221.h9CCLcST026769@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <000401c391d9$4e4855c0$7b86fac1@pavilion>

Maybe, but it makes a good story which would otherwise not be read. . I got
a good laugh & if it's fairly accurate so much more fun. No?
----- Original Message -----
From: <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>; <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 2:45 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin


> This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad name
in the
> first place.
> Marcus
>
> > The Copy Editor's Lament
> >
> > I was sitting on the copydesk
> > just watching o'er the scene
> > when the dealer sent a juicy
> > story over to my screen.
> > It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> > and the headline on the dummy said:
> > - 6 column 48.
> >
> > So I rearranged the commas
> > and I tidied up the lede
> > and I patched up all the typos
> > and gave it one more read.
> > I typed in all the coding
> > and prepared to write the hed
> > when a voice came from the news desk,
> > and this is what it said:
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > I have to change the page.
> > Composing found a missing ad,
> > the foreman's in a rage.
> > If they find the guy that lost it,
> > they'll be skinning him alive.
> > And that headline that you're working on ...
> > - make that a five."
> >
> > Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> > but a deskman does his best
> > to keep the story's gist intact
> > and leave out all the rest.
> > I thought a little while,
> > and then my hands did fly
> > But just before the head was writ,
> > I heard the news desk cry:
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy please,
> > I have to make a fix.
> > It really needs a graphic
> > or the editor will bitch.
> > They'll make it on the Macintosh
> > and ship it here to me.
> > And that headline you are writing ...
> > - make that a three."
> >
> > Now a head that's just three columns
> > forces choices quite absurd
> > do you write it as a label
> > or just use only verbs?
> > I struggled and I puzzled
> > and at last I did compose.
> > When over at the news desk
> > a voice once more arose:
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > I have to make a change.
> > How I forgot the sidebar,
> > is really very strange.
> > A page without a sidebar,
> > would make the reader blue.
> > And that headline you are writing ...
> > - make that a two."
> >
> > Now a head that's just two columns
> > is a challenge and a strain;
> > they often make no sense at all,
> > to write them is a pain.
> > I finally got a concept
> > but before I put it down
> > I looked up from my VDT
> > and saw the news desk frown.
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy, please
> > there's one more thing to do.
> > We have to have a locator map;
> > the reader needs a clue
> > to where this all is coming down
> > and where it's being done.
> > And that headline you are writing ...
> > - make that a one.
> >
> > Sometimes a copy editor
> > is like a cornered rat,
> > hemmed in and surrounded,
> > his hopes collapsed and flat.
> > There's no way out, all one can do
> > is fight with tooth and claw.
> > This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
> >
> > Panel
> > eyes
> > law
> >
> > http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Mon Oct 13 18:03:48 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 00:03:48 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <136.258d4835.2cba0e2d@cs.com>
Message-ID: <000501c391d9$5c102ac0$7b86fac1@pavilion>

Thanks for bringing this to my (more focused) attention.

Due to professional deformation, I must prefer to understand - the absurd: "a mind made of winter." !

No, this allows me to send for comparaison of "states of mind" by whatever name, the following: 
   

Next SPRING on the Golf Course -  I put a Spring in my step! 

 

There is nothing unusual about spring, I then decided

As I looked around the tree sprinkled scene, presented

Leaning on my steel number three wood as usual, managing

The unremarkable newness of it all, slightly surprising

For every tree had new fresh leaves, light green shading

Could this then be the dulled contentment of being?

No question here of natures information overflow, subtlety? 

Rather a manifestation of the zero equilibrium potentiality,

I put a spring in my step.

 

   Copyright ? J.A.  ( 2000 roughly) 



One can also legitimately enquire as to the states of minds

of say a Staline or Board Room Cronies not to be too blunt - but New Poetry may not be the best place to vent one's feelings on such grey matter ? 



And to correct a mistake in "Sounds for the deaf" and give some precision on same.:



Sounds for the deaf - the solitary golfer - 60C/267 ?Kelvin.

 

The sun shone an the first green and the second tee.

The young oak looked on amused at these futile gests,

Her leaves golden, spoke: 
tinkling, tinkling falling free,
Floating in the early frosted air to a final tinkled rest.

I stained my ear to listen to natures tune.

From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Oct 13 18:52:43 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 18:52:43 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEEEFMHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
References: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>
Message-ID: <3F8AF47B.13549.196003F@localhost>

> > > From one point of view it does indeed beg the question. From 
> > > another it mocks and ridicules the question. 

> > Well if all
> > you want --or value-- is mockery and ridicule, Hal, I'll be happy
> > to oblige you from now on.
 
> All I want or value? Where'd you get that, buddy?<<

Why pretend there is no such thing as implication or inference, Hal? 
You are trying to have it both ways, as usual. If you want to use 
Duchamp's notion as a serious entry in the discussion of what art is, 
you can't reasonably claim it was "just a joke" when it's taken 
seriously; conversely, if you mean to mock the discussion by bringing 
up Duchamp's notion, then you can't reasonably claim that it has 
anything to do with taking the issue seriously so that it "begs the 
question" -- because its begging the question is its mockery.







From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Oct 13 19:00:44 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 19:00:44 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
In-Reply-To: <000401c391d9$4e4855c0$7b86fac1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <3F8AF65C.32163.19D5978@localhost>

On 13 Oct 2003 at 23:49, james.alexander1 wrote:
> Maybe, but it makes a good story which would otherwise not be read. .
> I got a good laugh & if it's fairly accurate so much more fun. No?

Is it only bad verse that gets this kind of pass from you, or do you 
apply that attitude to all the rest of life, too?  To doctors, 
airline pilots, teachers? Anything for a good story and to hell with 
whether it's well done or not?

Marcus



> ----- Original Message ----- From: <marcus at designerglass.com> To:
> <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>; <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu> Sent:
> Sunday, October 12, 2003 2:45 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] poems by
> others - George Martin
> 
> 
> > This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad
> > name
> in the
> > first place.
> > Marcus
> >
> > > The Copy Editor's Lament
> > >
> > > I was sitting on the copydesk
> > > just watching o'er the scene
> > > when the dealer sent a juicy
> > > story over to my screen.
> > > It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> > > and the headline on the dummy said:
> > > - 6 column 48.
> > >
> > > So I rearranged the commas
> > > and I tidied up the lede
> > > and I patched up all the typos
> > > and gave it one more read.
> > > I typed in all the coding
> > > and prepared to write the hed
> > > when a voice came from the news desk,
> > > and this is what it said:
> > >
> > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > > I have to change the page.
> > > Composing found a missing ad,
> > > the foreman's in a rage.
> > > If they find the guy that lost it,
> > > they'll be skinning him alive.
> > > And that headline that you're working on ...
> > > - make that a five."
> > >
> > > Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> > > but a deskman does his best
> > > to keep the story's gist intact
> > > and leave out all the rest.
> > > I thought a little while,
> > > and then my hands did fly
> > > But just before the head was writ,
> > > I heard the news desk cry:
> > >
> > > "Pass me back that dummy please,
> > > I have to make a fix.
> > > It really needs a graphic
> > > or the editor will bitch.
> > > They'll make it on the Macintosh
> > > and ship it here to me.
> > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > - make that a three."
> > >
> > > Now a head that's just three columns
> > > forces choices quite absurd
> > > do you write it as a label
> > > or just use only verbs?
> > > I struggled and I puzzled
> > > and at last I did compose.
> > > When over at the news desk
> > > a voice once more arose:
> > >
> > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > > I have to make a change.
> > > How I forgot the sidebar,
> > > is really very strange.
> > > A page without a sidebar,
> > > would make the reader blue.
> > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > - make that a two."
> > >
> > > Now a head that's just two columns
> > > is a challenge and a strain;
> > > they often make no sense at all,
> > > to write them is a pain.
> > > I finally got a concept
> > > but before I put it down
> > > I looked up from my VDT
> > > and saw the news desk frown.
> > >
> > > "Pass me back that dummy, please
> > > there's one more thing to do.
> > > We have to have a locator map;
> > > the reader needs a clue
> > > to where this all is coming down
> > > and where it's being done.
> > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > - make that a one.
> > >
> > > Sometimes a copy editor
> > > is like a cornered rat,
> > > hemmed in and surrounded,
> > > his hopes collapsed and flat.
> > > There's no way out, all one can do
> > > is fight with tooth and claw.
> > > This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
> > >
> > > Panel
> > > eyes
> > > law
> > >
> > > http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 





From kpaul at mallasch.com  Mon Oct 13 19:26:55 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 18:26:55 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
In-Reply-To: <3F8AF65C.32163.19D5978@localhost>
References: <3F8AF65C.32163.19D5978@localhost>
Message-ID: <20031013182537.C17128@kpaul.spinweb.net>

Not to butt in (well, too late for that ;), but I've eaten a crappy meal
for a good story. I see where you're going with it, though, re: doctors
and what not.

Maybe the poem goes back to the whole 'what is poetry' discussion. That
is, a poem like that is enjoyed more by those who don't 'study' poetry -
i.e. they like the story, subject matter...

-kpaul

On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Marcus Bales wrote:

> On 13 Oct 2003 at 23:49, james.alexander1 wrote:
> > Maybe, but it makes a good story which would otherwise not be read. .
> > I got a good laugh & if it's fairly accurate so much more fun. No?
>
> Is it only bad verse that gets this kind of pass from you, or do you
> apply that attitude to all the rest of life, too?  To doctors,
> airline pilots, teachers? Anything for a good story and to hell with
> whether it's well done or not?
>
> Marcus
>
>
>
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: <marcus at designerglass.com> To:
> > <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>; <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu> Sent:
> > Sunday, October 12, 2003 2:45 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] poems by
> > others - George Martin
> >
> >
> > > This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad
> > > name
> > in the
> > > first place.
> > > Marcus
> > >
> > > > The Copy Editor's Lament
> > > >
> > > > I was sitting on the copydesk
> > > > just watching o'er the scene
> > > > when the dealer sent a juicy
> > > > story over to my screen.
> > > > It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> > > > and the headline on the dummy said:
> > > > - 6 column 48.
> > > >
> > > > So I rearranged the commas
> > > > and I tidied up the lede
> > > > and I patched up all the typos
> > > > and gave it one more read.
> > > > I typed in all the coding
> > > > and prepared to write the hed
> > > > when a voice came from the news desk,
> > > > and this is what it said:
> > > >
> > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > > > I have to change the page.
> > > > Composing found a missing ad,
> > > > the foreman's in a rage.
> > > > If they find the guy that lost it,
> > > > they'll be skinning him alive.
> > > > And that headline that you're working on ...
> > > > - make that a five."
> > > >
> > > > Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> > > > but a deskman does his best
> > > > to keep the story's gist intact
> > > > and leave out all the rest.
> > > > I thought a little while,
> > > > and then my hands did fly
> > > > But just before the head was writ,
> > > > I heard the news desk cry:
> > > >
> > > > "Pass me back that dummy please,
> > > > I have to make a fix.
> > > > It really needs a graphic
> > > > or the editor will bitch.
> > > > They'll make it on the Macintosh
> > > > and ship it here to me.
> > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > - make that a three."
> > > >
> > > > Now a head that's just three columns
> > > > forces choices quite absurd
> > > > do you write it as a label
> > > > or just use only verbs?
> > > > I struggled and I puzzled
> > > > and at last I did compose.
> > > > When over at the news desk
> > > > a voice once more arose:
> > > >
> > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > > > I have to make a change.
> > > > How I forgot the sidebar,
> > > > is really very strange.
> > > > A page without a sidebar,
> > > > would make the reader blue.
> > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > - make that a two."
> > > >
> > > > Now a head that's just two columns
> > > > is a challenge and a strain;
> > > > they often make no sense at all,
> > > > to write them is a pain.
> > > > I finally got a concept
> > > > but before I put it down
> > > > I looked up from my VDT
> > > > and saw the news desk frown.
> > > >
> > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please
> > > > there's one more thing to do.
> > > > We have to have a locator map;
> > > > the reader needs a clue
> > > > to where this all is coming down
> > > > and where it's being done.
> > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > - make that a one.
> > > >
> > > > Sometimes a copy editor
> > > > is like a cornered rat,
> > > > hemmed in and surrounded,
> > > > his hopes collapsed and flat.
> > > > There's no way out, all one can do
> > > > is fight with tooth and claw.
> > > > This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Panel
> > > > eyes
> > > > law
> > > >
> > > > http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com  Mon Oct 13 19:30:30 2003
From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com (CobbCoStudioArts)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 16:30:30 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <20031013233030.66B7F3940@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com  Mon Oct 13 20:02:51 2003
From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com (CobbCoStudioArts)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 17:02:51 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <20031014000251.A93AA3994@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Oct 13 20:21:36 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 20:21:36 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
References: <3F8AF65C.32163.19D5978@localhost>
Message-ID: <00bc01c391e9$21d328c0$5775fea9@j1c1k6>

> Is it only bad verse that gets this kind of pass from you, or do you
> apply that attitude to all the rest of life, too?  To doctors,
> airline pilots, teachers? Anything for a good story and to hell with
> whether it's well done or not?
>
> Marcus

I think of doggerel as a kind of folk art.  Sometimes it can charm.  This
one doesn't quite do that for me, but it was ever so slightly amusing; its
flaws were not its unskilled meter.

By the second way, is our discussion still on?  You haven't posted to its
thread for a while, and haven't indicated you got my last query about that.
I still plan to make an Important Contribution to it, but--as I said--I'd
prefer to wait till you've responded to my last post to it, or said you
don't wish to (but are, or may be, willing to proceed with the discussion).

--Bob G.



From JforJames at aol.com  Mon Oct 13 21:16:20 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 21:16:20 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thomas Disch Sonnet
Message-ID: <12e.33158c39.2cbca864@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/13/03 8:18:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Thom424 at aol.com 
writes:

> 'm looking for an "experimental" sonnet by Thomas Disch. If I recall, it 
has 
>  14 lines, but I think that's about it as close as it comes to meeting the 
>  form. It may also consist of one word per line. There's a possibility I 
may 
> be 
>  confusing this poem with one written by another author. 

Thom, not always a word-per-line, but Mona Van Duyn
did a few of the sort...some samples-- 

The Beginning

The end
of passion
may refashion
a friend.

Eyes meet 
in fear
of such clear
defeat.

The heart?s core,
unbroken,
cringes.

The soul?s door
swings open
on its hinges.


--

Miranda Grows Up

Prospero
foreknew
what snow
could do:
half-kill
the beguiled,
heart-chill
his child.

But she 
forgave
what swirled

on every
brave 
new world.

 
    Mona Van Duyn
    from _Firefall_ (Knopf, 1993)



From JforJames at aol.com  Mon Oct 13 21:42:16 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 21:42:16 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
Message-ID: <ac.490444ca.2cbcae78@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/13/03 5:08:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
marcus at designerglass.com writes:

>  Yes, Duchamp's little joke because saying anything is art that
>  > an artist says it is still begs the question: who then, is an
>  > artist? How do you tell an artist from a non-artist? Is an artist
>  > anyone who claims to be one? If so, how does that distinguish art
>  > from non-art in any meaningful way?
>  
>  Hal Johnson: 
>  > From one point of view it does indeed beg the question. From
>  > another it mocks and ridicules the question.
>  
>  Well if all you want --or value-- is mockery and ridicule, Hal, I'll 
>  be happy to oblige you from now on.

It's not only the provocateur's who say, "This is art!", and make it
stick. In our times we have Thomas Kinkaid and George Rodrique
(on the opposite pole of non-art artists). Duchamp's was about anti-art,
and there's a big difference: Imaginative ferocity and intellectual 
curiosity spring to mind, for starters. 
Finnegan
PS--Duchamp said on several occasions he wished he could
be a full-time chess player. 


From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Mon Oct 13 21:40:21 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 18:40:21 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Thomas Disch Sonnet
References: <12e.33158c39.2cbca864@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F8B5404.E9445ACD@earthlink.net>


JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> 
> In a message dated 10/13/03 8:18:07 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Thom424 at aol.com
> writes:
> 
> > 'm looking for an "experimental" sonnet by Thomas Disch. If I recall, it
> has
> >  14 lines, but I think that's about it as close as it comes to meeting the
> >  form. It may also consist of one word per line. There's a possibility I
> may
> > be
> >  confusing this poem with one written by another author.
> 
> Thom, not always a word-per-line, but Mona Van Duyn
> did a few of the sort...some samples--
> 
> The Beginning
> 
> The end
> of passion
> may refashion
> a friend.
> 
> Eyes meet
> in fear
> of such clear
> defeat.
> 
> The heart???s core,
> unbroken,
> cringes.
> 
> The soul???s door
> swings open
> on its hinges.
> 
> --
> 
> Miranda Grows Up
> 
> Prospero
> foreknew

"foreknew"?

- Jim, aftforgotten



From JforJames at aol.com  Mon Oct 13 21:46:18 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 21:46:18 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Duchamp on chess
Message-ID: <72.32f58471.2cbcaf6a@aol.com>

"If Bobby Fischer came to me for advice, I certainly would not discourage him 
- as if anyone could - but I would try to make it positively clear that he 
will never have any money from chess, live a monk-like existence and know more 
rejection than any artist ever has, struggling to be known and accepted." 


From kpaul at mallasch.com  Mon Oct 13 22:42:21 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 21:42:21 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] "Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here"
In-Reply-To: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>
References: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>
Message-ID: <20031013214014.W39121@kpaul.spinweb.net>

Found this interesting:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F10%2F12%2Fnslang12.xml

The study, based on an analysis of students' responses     in this
summer's English literature papers, shows that inappropriate language
is being used in coursework and exams.

Examples include shortening the name Cleopatra in Antony     and Cleopatra
to "Cleo" and referring to her as "high maintenance".     One teenager
wrote: "It's like, yea, Cleo is a player." Orsino     from Twelfth Night
was described as "always spouting off".

Some students described Hamlet as being "laid back",     a "mummy's boy"
and needing to "move on", while others     used phrases such as "seeking
closure" and "being comfortable     around".
[snip]
----

Thoughts?

-kpaul


From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Oct 13 23:27:13 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 23:27:13 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <3F8AF47B.13549.196003F@localhost>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEGDHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

{    Why pretend there is no such thing as implication or inference, Hal? 
{    You are trying to have it both ways, as usual. 

Wrong again, chum. I, as usual, want to have it at least four 
or five ways; in fact, as many ways as possible.

Hal     "There are then quite a number of things
            one does or does not know."
                            --Gertrude Stein
Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard





From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct 14 07:08:01 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 07:08:01 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
In-Reply-To: <20031013182537.C17128@kpaul.spinweb.net>
References: <3F8AF65C.32163.19D5978@localhost>
Message-ID: <3F8BA0D1.4254.C7BCE@localhost>

On 13 Oct 2003 at 18:26, kpaul mallasch wrote:
> Maybe the poem goes back to the whole 'what is poetry' discussion.
> That is, a poem like that is enjoyed more by those who don't 'study'
> poetry - i.e. they like the story, subject matter...

But don't you see that that is an implicit argument that metered 
and/or rhymed work is inherently inferior to any other, on two 
levels: because it is sort of crappily done as a rule (because it's 
very hard to do well), and because people who don't study poetry like 
the story without regard for whether the technique is accomplished or 
not? 

It seems to me that if one is going to tell a story and "get it out 
there" that one has a responsibility to do the best one can, and the 
reader has a perfect right to assume that what is out there is the 
best that the writer can do. And so, poor George Martin! What a 
crappy poet he is since that is the best he can do! His work, if this 
is typical, sucks. If it's not typical, what did he put it out there 
for? Has he no pride?

Marcus








> 
> On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Marcus Bales wrote:
> 
> > On 13 Oct 2003 at 23:49, james.alexander1 wrote:
> > > Maybe, but it makes a good story which would otherwise not be
> > > read. . I got a good laugh & if it's fairly accurate so much more
> > > fun. No?
> >
> > Is it only bad verse that gets this kind of pass from you, or do you
> > apply that attitude to all the rest of life, too?  To doctors,
> > airline pilots, teachers? Anything for a good story and to hell with
> > whether it's well done or not?
> >
> > Marcus
> >
> >
> >
> > > ----- Original Message ----- From: <marcus at designerglass.com> To:
> > > <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>; <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu> Sent:
> > > Sunday, October 12, 2003 2:45 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] poems
> > > by others - George Martin
> > >
> > >
> > > > This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a
> > > > bad name
> > > in the
> > > > first place.
> > > > Marcus
> > > >
> > > > > The Copy Editor's Lament
> > > > >
> > > > > I was sitting on the copydesk
> > > > > just watching o'er the scene
> > > > > when the dealer sent a juicy
> > > > > story over to my screen.
> > > > > It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> > > > > and the headline on the dummy said: - 6 column 48.
> > > > >
> > > > > So I rearranged the commas
> > > > > and I tidied up the lede
> > > > > and I patched up all the typos
> > > > > and gave it one more read.
> > > > > I typed in all the coding
> > > > > and prepared to write the hed
> > > > > when a voice came from the news desk,
> > > > > and this is what it said:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > > > > I have to change the page.
> > > > > Composing found a missing ad,
> > > > > the foreman's in a rage.
> > > > > If they find the guy that lost it,
> > > > > they'll be skinning him alive.
> > > > > And that headline that you're working on ...
> > > > > - make that a five."
> > > > >
> > > > > Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> > > > > but a deskman does his best
> > > > > to keep the story's gist intact
> > > > > and leave out all the rest.
> > > > > I thought a little while,
> > > > > and then my hands did fly
> > > > > But just before the head was writ,
> > > > > I heard the news desk cry:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Pass me back that dummy please,
> > > > > I have to make a fix.
> > > > > It really needs a graphic
> > > > > or the editor will bitch.
> > > > > They'll make it on the Macintosh
> > > > > and ship it here to me.
> > > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > > - make that a three."
> > > > >
> > > > > Now a head that's just three columns
> > > > > forces choices quite absurd
> > > > > do you write it as a label
> > > > > or just use only verbs?
> > > > > I struggled and I puzzled
> > > > > and at last I did compose.
> > > > > When over at the news desk
> > > > > a voice once more arose:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > > > > I have to make a change.
> > > > > How I forgot the sidebar,
> > > > > is really very strange.
> > > > > A page without a sidebar,
> > > > > would make the reader blue.
> > > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > > - make that a two."
> > > > >
> > > > > Now a head that's just two columns
> > > > > is a challenge and a strain;
> > > > > they often make no sense at all,
> > > > > to write them is a pain.
> > > > > I finally got a concept
> > > > > but before I put it down
> > > > > I looked up from my VDT
> > > > > and saw the news desk frown.
> > > > >
> > > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please
> > > > > there's one more thing to do.
> > > > > We have to have a locator map;
> > > > > the reader needs a clue
> > > > > to where this all is coming down
> > > > > and where it's being done.
> > > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > > - make that a one.
> > > > >
> > > > > Sometimes a copy editor
> > > > > is like a cornered rat,
> > > > > hemmed in and surrounded,
> > > > > his hopes collapsed and flat.
> > > > > There's no way out, all one can do
> > > > > is fight with tooth and claw.
> > > > > This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Panel
> > > > > eyes
> > > > > law
> > > > >
> > > > > http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 





From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct 14 07:14:49 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 07:14:49 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
In-Reply-To: <00bc01c391e9$21d328c0$5775fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F8BA269.25977.12B4B8@localhost>

> > Is it only bad verse that gets this kind of pass from you, or do you
> > apply that attitude to all the rest of life, too?  To doctors,
> > airline pilots, teachers? Anything for a good story and to hell with
> > whether it's well done or not?

Bob Grumman: 
> I think of doggerel as a kind of folk art.<<

That's silly, since this is signed, or at least attributed, to a 
specific individual. Folk art is, it seems to me, anonymous -- done 
by "the folk" -- and not by someone who signs his name to it and 
tries to get it published.

> ... its flaws were not its unskilled meter.<

Its principle flaws were exactly its unskilled meter. One of the 
differences between metered verse and unmetered verse is that it's 
easier to tell when the metered verse is unskilled.

> By the second way, is our discussion still on?  You haven't posted to
> its thread for a while ...<<

You seem to have ended it by exhorting me to read your website, 
again, instead of talking about the point-by-point points. By 
directing me peremptorily as you did to your website it seems to me 
you've either abandoned the point-by-point format explicitly, and 
have opened up the discussion to all that's on your website, or you 
have simply abandoned all pretense of civility by your dismissive 
order to read the website instead of bother your greatness with 
questions.

In short, in my view, you have not responded in the spirit of the 
discussion to my last post. 





From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct 14 07:26:33 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 07:26:33 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEGDHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
References: <3F8AF47B.13549.196003F@localhost>
Message-ID: <3F8BA529.28723.1D724C@localhost>

> > Why pretend there is no such thing as implication or inference,
> > Hal? You are trying to have it both ways, as usual. 
 
> ... I, as usual, want to have it at least four 
> or five ways; in fact, as many ways as possible.

Too much information!






From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct 14 07:26:32 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 07:26:32 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
In-Reply-To: <ac.490444ca.2cbcae78@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F8BA528.20990.1D7166@localhost>

> It's not only the provocateur's who say, "This is art!", and make it
> stick. In our times we have Thomas Kinkaid [Kinkade?] and George Rodrique (on the
> opposite pole of non-art artists).<<

Oh come now -- you don't think "the artist of light" is claiming to 
be an artist? Of course he is: explicitly. And that claim, and your 
counterclaim, once again raises but does nothing to illuminate (ok 
ok, forgive me) the issues.  Why do you claim Kinkade (or Rodrique, 
but I think your stronger claim is against Kinkade) is a "non-art 
artist" -- on what grounds, that is, define what art is in your view 
and explain why Kinkade does not meet the test for being an artist 
within your definition.

As for Duchamp's chess, he was very, very good -- not good enough to 
beat Alekhine or Capablanca, but in chess, as in other arts, to be a 
champion one has to be smart enough to understand all about it, and 
dumb enough to think it matters. Perhaps Duchamp's fundamental view 
of all art as just not important enough was why he's an interesting 
figure but not an example of excellence.





From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Tue Oct 14 08:37:36 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 14:37:36 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] American Memory
Message-ID: <003601c3924f$f2e6f5c0$43607550@anny>

>Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2003 10:37:07 -0400
 >From: "Laura Gottesman" <lgot at loc.gov>

The Library of Congress announces the release on the American Memory =
website of American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920 =20
( http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/lhtnhtml ).=20

The website is comprised of 253 published narratives by Americans and =
foreign visitors recounting their travels in the colonies and the United =
States and their observations and opinions about American peoples, places, =
and society from about 1750 to 1920. Also included is the thirty-two-volume=
set of manuscript sources entitled Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, =
published between 1904 and 1907 after diligent compilation by the =
distinguished historian and secretary of the Wisconsin Historical Society =
Reuben Gold Thwaites. All items are from the general collections of the =
Library of Congress. Although many of the authors represented in American =
Notes are not widely known, the collection includes works by major figures =
such as Matthew Arnold, Fredrika Bremer, William Cullen Bryant, Fran=E7ois?=
Ren=E9 de Chateaubriand, William Cobbett, James Fenimore Cooper, J. Hector =
St. John de Cr=E8vecoeur, Charles Dickens, Washington Irving, Benjamin =
Henry Latrobe, Sir Charles Lyell, William Lyon Mackenzie, Andr=E9 Michaux, =
Thomas Nuttall, Frederick Law Olmsted, and Robert Louis Stevenson. The =
narratives in American Notes therefore range from the unjustly neglected =
to the justly famous, and from classics of the genre to undiscovered gems. =
Together, they build a mosaic portrait of a young nation.
American Memory is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to =
the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 8 =
million digital items from more than 120 historical collections.
Please submit any questions you may have via the American Memory webform =
at: http://www.loc.gov/rr/askalib/ask?memory2.html


Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
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From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Tue Oct 14 08:58:06 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 14:58:06 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] "Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here"
References: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost> <20031013214014.W39121@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <004201c39252$d000e900$43607550@anny>

He claimed that teachers "wanted to be liked" in the classroom and were
letting mistakes go unchecked.

...emails...

Mrs Barnes added that the English language was constantly changing and that
there were some words that were acceptable now which would have been banned
20 years ago.

Mrs Barnes did concede, however, that some students use language more akin
to a chat in the classroom. "If they have not grasped the difference by
A-level, it does show an insensitivity to language."
_________________________
These are the points I highlight. Some negligence from the teachers who
_need_ to be liked, to which we should add, the fall of the figure of the
teacher as a whole. Nietzsche came to my mind, he was a most revered
teacher, very strict with himself and with his pupils.
One of the main causes has to be found in the exchange of emails, this
terribly quick way of writing, where capital letters are banished,
emoticons, whatever.
On the other hand English is the most alive/lively language, quick in its
changes, and some slangs are most welcome. It is up to the teachers at this
point to know what they can or cannot accept
As for the final quote, teachers are teachers because they have to teach.
This the end of the tale.
Care,
.
Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 4:42 AM
Subject: [New-Poetry] "Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here"


> Found this interesting:
>
>
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F10%2F12%2Fnslang12.xml
>
> The study, based on an analysis of students' responses     in this
> summer's English literature papers, shows that inappropriate language
> is being used in coursework and exams.
>
> Examples include shortening the name Cleopatra in Antony     and Cleopatra
> to "Cleo" and referring to her as "high maintenance".     One teenager
> wrote: "It's like, yea, Cleo is a player." Orsino     from Twelfth Night
> was described as "always spouting off".
>
> Some students described Hamlet as being "laid back",     a "mummy's boy"
> and needing to "move on", while others     used phrases such as "seeking
> closure" and "being comfortable     around".
> [snip]
> ----
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -kpaul
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From Thom424 at aol.com  Tue Oct 14 11:05:14 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 11:05:14 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] experimental sonnets
Message-ID: <6D079B9F.0869869D.001A46F6@aol.com>

thanks to all who sent citations for and examples of "experimental" sonnets

thom tammaro
moorhead, mn


From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Tue Oct 14 13:14:09 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 19:14:09 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Duchamp
References: <ac.490444ca.2cbcae78@aol.com>
Message-ID: <009a01c39276$950784c0$43607550@anny>

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned..." Act I, Scene I of The
Mourning Bride, William Congreve.


From: <JforJames at aol.com>


> In a message dated 10/13/03 5:08:04 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> marcus at designerglass.com writes:
>
> >  Yes, Duchamp's little joke because saying anything is art that
> >  > an artist says it is still begs the question: who then, is an
> >  > artist? How do you tell an artist from a non-artist? Is an artist
> >  > anyone who claims to be one? If so, how does that distinguish art
> >  > from non-art in any meaningful way?
> >
> >  Hal Johnson:
> >  > From one point of view it does indeed beg the question. From
> >  > another it mocks and ridicules the question.
> >
> >  Well if all you want --or value-- is mockery and ridicule, Hal, I'll
> >  be happy to oblige you from now on.
>
> It's not only the provocateur's who say, "This is art!", and make it
> stick. In our times we have Thomas Kinkaid and George Rodrique
> (on the opposite pole of non-art artists). Duchamp's was about anti-art,
> and there's a big difference: Imaginative ferocity and intellectual
> curiosity spring to mind, for starters.
> Finnegan
> PS--Duchamp said on several occasions he wished he could
> be a full-time chess player.
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From hruggier at localnet.com  Tue Oct 14 15:08:04 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (hruggier at localnet.com)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 15:08:04 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [New-Poetry] 'Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here'
In-Reply-To: <20031013214014.W39121@kpaul.spinweb.net>
References: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>
        <20031013214014.W39121@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <1602.130.49.178.103.1066158484.squirrel@webmail1.localnet.com>

>
My favorite student response to Hamlet was something like -

well, if he'd had his act together he wouldn't ofhad to cause all that
trouble and kill all those other people.
Personally I agree - way too much violence for college freshmen and not
enough sex.(Ophelia shouldn't of died so soon - )

Let him lift weights, work out.  That'll keep him mellow


Found this interesting:
>
> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F10%2F12%2Fnslang12.xml>
> The study, based on an analysis of students' responses     in this
> summer's English literature papers, shows that inappropriate language
> is being used in coursework and exams.
>
> Examples include shortening the name Cleopatra in Antony     and
> Cleopatra to "Cleo" and referring to her as "high maintenance".     One
> teenager wrote: "It's like, yea, Cleo is a player." Orsino     from
> Twelfth Night was described as "always spouting off".
>
> Some students described Hamlet as being "laid back",     a "mummy's
> boy" and needing to "move on", while others     used phrases such as
> "seeking closure" and "being comfortable     around".
> [snip]
> ----
>
> Thoughts?
>
> -kpaul
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry





From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Oct 14 15:17:04 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 20:17:04 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] _Hamlet_ noir
References: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>        <20031013214014.W39121@kpaul.spinweb.net> <1602.130.49.178.103.1066158484.squirrel@webmail1.localnet.com>
Message-ID: <001101c39287$c7ae6040$13da8051@MyPC>

I get back from Wittenberg where I was couping glass for glass with glass
with Faust and Luther, and there's Dad Dead.

Well, everyone dies, and I amn't that bothered by missing out on the Crown,
but surely Mummy could have waited just a *little* before remarrying?

Then there's The Figure ...

Every good detective needs a straightman, goes back to Holmes and Watson,
but who do I have?  Bleeding *Horatio* ...

<sigh>

Right, I say, let's set it up, if the Figure's telling the truth and
Claudius *did* top Dear Dead Dad, it's a Good Ghost, otherwise ...

So we Mousetrap Claudius and hey, the Thing/Figure/Ghost *is* telling the
truth ...

Let's take it from there.

Damon Runyon.






From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Tue Oct 14 15:21:13 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 15:21:13 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Duchamp
Message-ID: <120.25f65e54.2cbda6a9@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/14/2003 12:16:46 PM Central Daylight Time, 
anny.ballardini at tin.it writes: 
> 
> "Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned..." Act I, Scene I of The
> Mourning Bride, William Congreve.
> 
Nor hell a fury like a woman scorn'd.
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From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Tue Oct 14 15:32:23 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 21:32:23 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] 'Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here'
References: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>        <20031013214014.W39121@kpaul.spinweb.net> <1602.130.49.178.103.1066158484.squirrel@webmail1.localnet.com>
Message-ID: <00f301c39289$e4e9ac80$43607550@anny>

I am very pro-Lyotard, to live life in a ludic way. And I do laugh a lot
with my students.
so many lLl sounds...

and we work,
a

From: <hruggier at localnet.com>


> >
> My favorite student response to Hamlet was something like -
>
> well, if he'd had his act together he wouldn't ofhad to cause all that
> trouble and kill all those other people.
> Personally I agree - way too much violence for college freshmen and not
> enough sex.(Ophelia shouldn't of died so soon - )
>
> Let him lift weights, work out.  That'll keep him mellow
>
>
> Found this interesting:
> >
> >
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F10%2F12%2Fnslang12.xml>
> > The study, based on an analysis of students' responses     in this
> > summer's English literature papers, shows that inappropriate language
> > is being used in coursework and exams.
> >
> > Examples include shortening the name Cleopatra in Antony     and
> > Cleopatra to "Cleo" and referring to her as "high maintenance".     One
> > teenager wrote: "It's like, yea, Cleo is a player." Orsino     from
> > Twelfth Night was described as "always spouting off".
> >
> > Some students described Hamlet as being "laid back",     a "mummy's
> > boy" and needing to "move on", while others     used phrases such as
> > "seeking closure" and "being comfortable     around".
> > [snip]
> > ----
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > -kpaul
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Tue Oct 14 15:34:54 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 20:34:54 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] 'Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here'
References: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>        <20031013214014.W39121@kpaul.spinweb.net> <1602.130.49.178.103.1066158484.squirrel@webmail1.localnet.com>
Message-ID: <000901c3928a$3ea94a50$13da8051@MyPC>

Pike eats pike -- Here's Simon Hoggart (in The Guardian) on the Telegraph
piece:

        http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1062479,00.html
Exam slang? That's, like, totally cool

It was reported at the weekend that examiners are alarmed at the use of
"soap opera" expressions by students sitting A-level English exams.
Candidates had, apparently, "lapsed into slang and the vernacular", employed
"psychobabble" and (horror!) "discussed literature as if gossiping with
friends".

Examples included a description of Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night as "spouting
stuff", of Cleopatra as being "high maintenance", and of Hamlet as being a
"mummy's boy" who seeks "closure". Said Dr Bernard Lamb, chairman of the
Queen's English Society: "It is terrible that students are using this kind
of language in exams."

How much better it would be, would it not, if students were simply to
regurgitate what they had been taught by their teachers, in language they
knew the examiners would appreciate? But instead here they are, showing that
they have actually understood the truth of Shakespeare's characterisations.
Of course Orsino "spouts"; doesn't Olivia say so? Of course Hamlet seeks
closure; what else is the sodding play about? And of course Cleopatra is
"high maintenance". The examiners thought it meant Cleopatra had expensive
taste - this, however, is from Nora Ephron's script for When Harry Met
Sally:

Harry Burns: "There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low
maintenance."

Sally Albright: "Which one am I?"

Harry Burns: "You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance but you think
you're low maintenance."

Cleopatra was high maintenance. Give that student an A.





From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Tue Oct 14 16:09:16 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 15:09:16 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] con-po listserv
In-Reply-To: <01e301c37d7b$50dcc180$36befea9@j1c1k6>
References: <20030917151722.HCIN10601.mta9.adelphia.net@mail.adelphia.net>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031014150314.039caec8@mail.ilstu.edu>

Could someone, anyone please please tell me or show me how or where to get 
subscription information for the con-po listserv? Would appreciate that.

Gabe





From chris at chrislott.org  Tue Oct 14 16:12:21 2003
From: chris at chrislott.org (Chris Lott)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 12:12:21 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Duchamp on chess
In-Reply-To: <72.32f58471.2cbcaf6a@aol.com>
References: <72.32f58471.2cbcaf6a@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F8C58A5.2050509@chrislott.org>

JforJames at aol.com wrote:

> "If Bobby Fischer came to me for advice, I certainly would not discourage him 
> - as if anyone could - but I would try to make it positively clear that he 
> will never have any money from chess, live a monk-like existence and know more 
> rejection than any artist ever has, struggling to be known and accepted." 

Worth noting, for those who don't know, that Duchamp was an excellent 
chess player, playing in Olympiads, etc.

c
-- 
Chris Lott (chris at chrislott.org)
http://www.chrislott.org/

"Laughter is the father of beauty." --William Matthews





From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Tue Oct 14 16:05:03 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 15:05:03 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] con-po listserv
In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20031014150314.039caec8@mail.ilstu.edu>
Message-ID: <BBB1C11F.579A%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 10/14/03 3:09 PM, Gabriel Gudding at gmguddi at ilstu.edu wrote:

> Could someone, anyone please please tell me or show me how or where to get
> subscription information for the con-po listserv? Would appreciate that.
> 
> Gabe
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 
What IS the con-po listserve?

Paul Lake

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From JforJames at aol.com  Tue Oct 14 16:20:42 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 16:20:42 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <1d3.12923ffa.2cbdb49a@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/12/03 12:53:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
cstroffo at earthlink.net writes:
Praise the lawd!
and bless "the bawds of euphony."
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From JforJames at aol.com  Tue Oct 14 16:24:00 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 16:24:00 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <161.26ad4a2e.2cbdb560@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/12/03 12:21:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Rsgwynn1 at cs.com writes:
Can anyone think of a poem in which he tells the reader what some proper 
thing to do is?
Are you thinking of WCW's "Tract"? That's telling them, for sure.
Finnegan
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Oct 14 17:24:35 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 17:24:35 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
References: <3F8BA269.25977.12B4B8@localhost>
Message-ID: <013301c39299$916e91a0$ac6ffea9@j1c1k6>

> Bob Grumman:
> > I think of doggerel as a kind of folk art.<<
>
> That's silly, since this is signed, or at least attributed, to a
> specific individual. Folk art is, it seems to me, anonymous -- done
> by "the folk" -- and not by someone who signs his name to it and
> tries to get it published.

(1) I said "a kind of folk art"

(2) I never heard that folk art had to be unsigned.  Lots of folk artists
are known.  But if Grandma Moses didn't sign her paintings, let me restate
my impression of (signed) doggerel as seeming to me like signed folk art

> > ... its flaws were not its unskilled meter.<
>
> Its principle flaws were exactly its unskilled meter. One of the
> differences between metered verse and unmetered verse is that it's
> easier to tell when the metered verse is unskilled.

That's your view.  My view was that it became too predictable.

> > By the second way, is our discussion still on?  You haven't posted to
> > its thread for a while ...<<
>
> You seem to have ended it by exhorting me to read your website,
> again, instead of talking about the point-by-point points. By
> directing me peremptorily as you did to your website it seems to me
> you've either abandoned the point-by-point format explicitly, and
> have opened up the discussion to all that's on your website, or you
> have simply abandoned all pretense of civility by your dismissive
> order to read the website instead of bother your greatness with
> questions.

I don't recall peremptorily sending you to my website ON THE
STATEMENT-BY-STATEMENT thread, but I now see that that thread somehow got
killed.  I believe you thought some of my posts to what I considered other
threads were to that S-by-S thread.  I DID send you to my website recently:

*****
> Bob Grumman:
> > ... What about tomatoes on display at the supermarket? ...<<
>
> What about an advertisement for hemerrhoid medication? This is the
> category I pointed out you left out of your categories of poetry: the
> category that art is what an artist says it is, and an artist is
> anyone who claims to be an artist.

Not so.  Reread my taxonomy essay at Comprepoetica.

******

This had nothing to do with the S-by-S thread.  And, believe it or not, it
was not intended to be uncivil.

> In short, in my view, you have not responded in the spirit of the
> discussion to my last post.


I can't find the last post to what I thought was the S-by-S thread.  When I
find it, I will restart the thread and see if we can keep it with one name.
If you're willing to retry.

--Bob G.



From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Tue Oct 14 18:04:18 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 18:04:18 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] 'Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here'
References: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>        <20031013214014.W39121@kpaul.spinweb.net> <1602.130.49.178.103.1066158484.squirrel@webmail1.localnet.com>
Message-ID: <008a01c3929f$1d4ac2c0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

By Lord Buckley:

 Hipsters, flipsters, and finger-poppin' daddies,
Knock me your lobes,
I came to lay Caesar out,
Not to hip you to him.
The bad jazz that a cat blows,
Wails long after he's cut out.
The groovey is often stashed with their frames,
So don't put Caesar down.
The swinging Brutus hath laid a story on you
That Caesar was hungry for power If it were so, it was a sad drag,
And sadly hath the Caesar cat answered it.
Here with a pass from Brutus and the other brass,
For Brutus is a worthy stud,
Yea, so are they all worthy studs,
Though their stallions never sleep.
I came to wail at Ceasar's wake.
He was my buddy, and he leveled with me.
Yet Brutus digs that he has eyes for power,
And Brutus is a solid cat.
It is true he hath returned with many freaks in chains
And brought them home to Rome.
Yea, the looty was booty
And hipped the treasury well.
Dost thou dig that this was Caesar's groove
For the putsch?
When the cats with the empty kicks hath copped out,
Yea, Caesar hath copped out, too,
And cried up a storm.
To be a world grabber a stiffer riff must be blown.
Without bread a stud can't even rule an anthill.
Yet Brutus was swinging for the moon.
And, yea, Brutus is a worthy stud.
And all you cats were gassed on the Lupercal
When he came on like a king freak.
Three times I lay the wig on him,
And thrice did he put it down.
Was this the move of a greedy hipster?
Yet, Brutus said he dug the lick,
And, yes, a hipper cat has never blown.
Some claim that Brutus' story was a gag.
But I dug the story was solid.
I came here to blow.
Now, stay cool while I blow.
You all dug him once
Because you were hipped that he was solid
How can you now come on so square
Now that he's tapped out of this world.
City Hall is flipped
And swung to a drunken zoo
And all of you cats are goofed to wig city.
Dig me hard.
My ticker is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And, yea, I must stay cool til it flippeth back to me.





----- Original Message ----- 
From: <hruggier at localnet.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 3:08 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] 'Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here'


> >
> My favorite student response to Hamlet was something like -
>
> well, if he'd had his act together he wouldn't ofhad to cause all that
> trouble and kill all those other people.
> Personally I agree - way too much violence for college freshmen and not
> enough sex.(Ophelia shouldn't of died so soon - )
>
> Let him lift weights, work out.  That'll keep him mellow
>
>
> Found this interesting:
> >
> >
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F10%2F12%2Fnslang12.xml>
> > The study, based on an analysis of students' responses     in this
> > summer's English literature papers, shows that inappropriate language
> > is being used in coursework and exams.
> >
> > Examples include shortening the name Cleopatra in Antony     and
> > Cleopatra to "Cleo" and referring to her as "high maintenance".     One
> > teenager wrote: "It's like, yea, Cleo is a player." Orsino     from
> > Twelfth Night was described as "always spouting off".
> >
> > Some students described Hamlet as being "laid back",     a "mummy's
> > boy" and needing to "move on", while others     used phrases such as
> > "seeking closure" and "being comfortable     around".
> > [snip]
> > ----
> >
> > Thoughts?
> >
> > -kpaul
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From reneea at verizon.net  Tue Oct 14 19:45:42 2003
From: reneea at verizon.net (Renee Ashley)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 19:45:42 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fw: CRWROPPS: poetry contest: Dunn Award
Message-ID: <004f01c392ad$480d3b10$da66fea9@Barnette>

Hi Gabe,
    Conpo isn't conpo anymore.  It's CRWROPPS.  Don't ask me what that is.
Allison Joseph runs it and she sends work calls out via email.  It's
incredible.  The calls come frome everywhere, both poetry and prose.  I've
put a sample here and at the bottom of it is the info list info -- though I
don't see how to subscribe, just how to unsubscribe! I'll keep looking.
I've got to have it somewhere....  Allison does a marvelous job in keeping
us all updated on what mags or sites are looking for work.  Contests as
well.  She serves us all generously and very, very well.
Renee

The Stephen Dunn Award in Poetry
http://www.wordsandimages.org/poetry_contest.htm

Stephen Dunn is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including
Different Hours, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Other
collections
include New & Selected Poems 1974-1994, Landscape at the End of the Century,
Between Angels, and Riffs & Reciprocities and his most recent collection
Local
Visitations (all with Norton). Also the author of Walking Light: Memoirs and
Essays
on Poetry (Norton). Stephen Dunn is the recipient of a Guggenheim
Fellowship,
an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and
Letters,
three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Theodore Roethke Prize,
and others. He is a Trustee Fellow in the Arts and a Professor at Richard
Stockton College.
Poet Stephen Dunn will judge all entries.
Poetry entries can include any number of poems up to 10 pages. Each group of
poems constitutes one entry. Winners will be published in the 2004 edition
of
Words & Images and receive a cash prize.
Entry fee: $12.00 for each entry (checks made payable to Words & Images).
Enclose an index card with author's name, address, telephone number, and the
work's title. Entries must be previously unpublished and will not be
returned.
Enclose a SASE for announcement of winners only. Winners will be published
in the
2003 edition of Words & Images. Entries must be clearly addressed to:
The Stephen Dunn Poetry Award
Words & Images
11Baxter Blvd,
P.O. Box 9300
University of Southern Maine
Portland, ME 04103-9300

Deadline: Entries must be postmarked by December 28, 2003.
Please include a SASE for a list of winners. Winners will be notified by
January 28, 2004. Please call our office at 207.228.8505 or email us with
any
questions or concerns regarding submissions.

--
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

===========================================================
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From reneea at verizon.net  Tue Oct 14 19:47:43 2003
From: reneea at verizon.net (Renee Ashley)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 19:47:43 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fw: Welcome to CRWROPPS!
Message-ID: <005d01c392ad$900d63e0$da66fea9@Barnette>

Hi again,
    Here's what I found on CRWROPPS.  I imagine when you "read the list on
the web" you can subscribe...
Renee


> Thanks for joining this list.  Here's what it's all about:
>
> This is a list that posts information about publishing for creative
writers--information about literary contests, calls for submissions from
literary journals and anthologies and  information about opportunities such
as residencies and fellowships. This list is
> an announcement only list, which means only the list moderator may post.
The opportunities posted on the list are mostly US based, with a few
Canadian and UK opportunities posted.
>
> This list provides information about, but not entry to, any of the
contests or publication opportunities listed. Please do not send me any
entries in response to a listing that is posted.
> Please read each message carefully and send your creative writing
submissions to the addresses listed in the messages.
>
> If you are an editor or a contest organizer who would like to post a
message, please send me the details at crwropps at aol.com.
>
> To read this list on the web, please visit:
>     http://www.topica.com/lists/crwropps
> To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank e-mail message to:
> crwr-unsubscribe at topica.com
>
> Hope you find CRWROPPS very useful as you seek publication for your
creative work.
>
> Thanks,
> Allison Joseph
> List Moderator/Owner
> crwropps at aol.com
>
>
>



From reneea at verizon.net  Tue Oct 14 19:53:03 2003
From: reneea at verizon.net (Renee Ashley)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 19:53:03 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Allison Joseph's list again...
Message-ID: <007d01c392ae$4f3257d0$da66fea9@Barnette>

Sorry, to keep posting, but somehow in sending my message to the list (or did I?) I managed to unsubscribe myself!  I got this info though: here's where to go to subscribe: crwropps-subscribe at topica.com .  Just send a blank email to that address.  Good grief, what have I done to myself?!
Renee
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From halvard at earthlink.net  Tue Oct 14 20:04:58 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 20:04:58 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fw: CRWROPPS: poetry contest: Dunn Award
In-Reply-To: <004f01c392ad$480d3b10$da66fea9@Barnette>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEHOHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

If crwropps-unsubscribe at topica.com works for unsubscribing,
chances are that crwropps-subscribe at topica.com will work for
subscribing. Keep us posted.

Hal                Serving the tri-state area.

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
   
{    Hi Gabe,
{        Conpo isn't conpo anymore.  It's CRWROPPS.  Don't ask me what that is.
{    Allison Joseph runs it and she sends work calls out via email.  It's
{    incredible.  The calls come frome everywhere, both poetry and prose.  I've
{    put a sample here and at the bottom of it is the info list info -- though I
{    don't see how to subscribe, just how to unsubscribe! I'll keep looking.
{    I've got to have it somewhere....  Allison does a marvelous job in keeping
{    us all updated on what mags or sites are looking for work.  Contests as
{    well.  She serves us all generously and very, very well.
{    Renee
{    
{    The Stephen Dunn Award in Poetry
{    http://www.wordsandimages.org/poetry_contest.htm
{    
{    Stephen Dunn is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including
{    Different Hours, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Other
{    collections
{    include New & Selected Poems 1974-1994, Landscape at the End of the Century,
{    Between Angels, and Riffs & Reciprocities and his most recent collection
{    Local
{    Visitations (all with Norton). Also the author of Walking Light: Memoirs and
{    Essays
{    on Poetry (Norton). Stephen Dunn is the recipient of a Guggenheim
{    Fellowship,
{    an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and
{    Letters,
{    three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Theodore Roethke Prize,
{    and others. He is a Trustee Fellow in the Arts and a Professor at Richard
{    Stockton College.
{    Poet Stephen Dunn will judge all entries.
{    Poetry entries can include any number of poems up to 10 pages. Each group of
{    poems constitutes one entry. Winners will be published in the 2004 edition
{    of
{    Words & Images and receive a cash prize.
{    Entry fee: $12.00 for each entry (checks made payable to Words & Images).
{    Enclose an index card with author's name, address, telephone number, and the
{    work's title. Entries must be previously unpublished and will not be
{    returned.
{    Enclose a SASE for announcement of winners only. Winners will be published
{    in the
{    2003 edition of Words & Images. Entries must be clearly addressed to:
{    The Stephen Dunn Poetry Award
{    Words & Images
{    11Baxter Blvd,
{    P.O. Box 9300
{    University of Southern Maine
{    Portland, ME 04103-9300
{    
{    Deadline: Entries must be postmarked by December 28, 2003.
{    Please include a SASE for a list of winners. Winners will be notified by
{    January 28, 2004. Please call our office at 207.228.8505 or email us with
{    any
{    questions or concerns regarding submissions.
{    
{    --
{    [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
{    
{    ===========================================================
{    FREE REFINANCE QUOTE - LOWEST RATES! We instantly search
{    thousands of lenders to find the guaranteed lowest
{    refinance rates. Our service is free. No credit check
{    required.
{    http://click.topica.com/caabu5aa2i6Gda6pAgxf/ ClientShop
{    ===========================================================
{    --^----------------------------------------------------------------
{    This email was sent to: reneea at verizon.net
{    
{    EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a2i6Gd.a6pAgx.cmVuZWVh
{    Or send an email to: crwropps-unsubscribe at topica.com
{    
{    TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE!
{    http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html
{    --^----------------------------------------------------------------
{    
{    
{    _______________________________________________
{    New-Poetry mailing list
{    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From poemlady at cox.net  Tue Oct 14 20:09:04 2003
From: poemlady at cox.net (Audrey Friedman)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 20:09:04 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fw: CRWROPPS: poetry contest: Dunn Award
References: <004f01c392ad$480d3b10$da66fea9@Barnette>
Message-ID: <001d01c392b0$8b65f480$4a430e44@Zoom>

I assume CRWROPPS is an acronym for Creative Writing Opportunities.  It is a
most worthwhile list that keeps me aware of current contests and calls for
manuscripts.
Audrey

----- Original Message -----
From: "Renee Ashley" <reneea at verizon.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 7:45 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Fw: CRWROPPS: poetry contest: Dunn Award


>
> Hi Gabe,
>     Conpo isn't conpo anymore.  It's CRWROPPS.  Don't ask me what that is.
> Allison Joseph runs it and she sends work calls out via email.  It's
> incredible.  The calls come frome everywhere, both poetry and prose.  I've
> put a sample here and at the bottom of it is the info list info -- though
I
> don't see how to subscribe, just how to unsubscribe! I'll keep looking.
> I've got to have it somewhere....  Allison does a marvelous job in keeping
> us all updated on what mags or sites are looking for work.  Contests as
> well.  She serves us all generously and very, very well.
> Renee
>
> The Stephen Dunn Award in Poetry
> http://www.wordsandimages.org/poetry_contest.htm
>
> Stephen Dunn is the author of eleven collections of poetry, including
> Different Hours, winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Other
> collections
> include New & Selected Poems 1974-1994, Landscape at the End of the
Century,
> Between Angels, and Riffs & Reciprocities and his most recent collection
> Local
> Visitations (all with Norton). Also the author of Walking Light: Memoirs
and
> Essays
> on Poetry (Norton). Stephen Dunn is the recipient of a Guggenheim
> Fellowship,
> an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and
> Letters,
> three National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Theodore Roethke
Prize,
> and others. He is a Trustee Fellow in the Arts and a Professor at Richard
> Stockton College.
> Poet Stephen Dunn will judge all entries.
> Poetry entries can include any number of poems up to 10 pages. Each group
of
> poems constitutes one entry. Winners will be published in the 2004 edition
> of
> Words & Images and receive a cash prize.
> Entry fee: $12.00 for each entry (checks made payable to Words & Images).
> Enclose an index card with author's name, address, telephone number, and
the
> work's title. Entries must be previously unpublished and will not be
> returned.
> Enclose a SASE for announcement of winners only. Winners will be published
> in the
> 2003 edition of Words & Images. Entries must be clearly addressed to:
> The Stephen Dunn Poetry Award
> Words & Images
> 11Baxter Blvd,
> P.O. Box 9300
> University of Southern Maine
> Portland, ME 04103-9300
>
> Deadline: Entries must be postmarked by December 28, 2003.
> Please include a SASE for a list of winners. Winners will be notified by
> January 28, 2004. Please call our office at 207.228.8505 or email us with
> any
> questions or concerns regarding submissions.
>
> --
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
> ===========================================================
> FREE REFINANCE QUOTE - LOWEST RATES! We instantly search
> thousands of lenders to find the guaranteed lowest
> refinance rates. Our service is free. No credit check
> required.
> http://click.topica.com/caabu5aa2i6Gda6pAgxf/ ClientShop
> ===========================================================
> --^----------------------------------------------------------------
> This email was sent to: reneea at verizon.net
>
> EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a2i6Gd.a6pAgx.cmVuZWVh
> Or send an email to: crwropps-unsubscribe at topica.com
>
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>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From William_Knott at emerson.edu  Tue Oct 14 20:58:51 2003
From: William_Knott at emerson.edu (William Knott)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 20:58:51 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poets propping the bush house
Message-ID: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFA4@mail.emerson.edu>

Gabe Gudding's "Conchology" blebsite has a list of poets who participated last week in some lit event sponsored by (and involving?) the First Lady. . . . I can't figure out how to post on the gabblegabe conchcob, so I'm blaring my bit here. . .
I presume those poets?the Laura Bush 10? were invited, and decided to go for the usual reasons. . . .
I wasn't invited and ergo I didn't have to search my soul. . . . would i have accepted such a loaded offer???   I hope I would have rejected the so-called honor. . . .
Robert Lowell of course had the courage character conscience to reject a similar offer from the Johnson White House. . . . 
but Lowell was Lowell, he wasn't a working stiff poet like the rest of us. . . he wasn't a peasant like us crummy little nobod po-rats desperate for any kind of recognition and accreditation . . .  
I admire some of the poets on the Laura Bush roster of shame, and i can understand their desire to futher their careers by bopping on down with the First Litperson.  I want to condemn them, but who the fuck am I?  

Remember when the Nazis took over in Germany they burned and banned the Communist poets like Brecht, they burned and banned the Expressionist poets like Benn, but they didn't burn and ban Rilke. . . . would Rilke have gone to the White House?  They would have invited him, that's for sure.  He's their kind of guy.

Me, I think Bush senior and junior are war-criminals, and Laura Bush, she's just. . . . did everybody read that play in a recent Nation magazine, by the "Angels in America" playwright guy, starring Ms. Laura?   

We've gotta bomb them and burn them and ban them to save them because because we're free.   

Just free that's all never argue with po-biz.
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Tue Oct 14 21:54:11 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 20:54:11 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: poets propping the bush house
In-Reply-To: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFA4@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <BBB212F3.4C2D%grahamd@ripon.edu>

The National Book Festival is an event I'm just learning of tonight.
According to their web site, it was sponsored by the Library of Congress &
"hosted" (whatever that means) by Laura Bush.  It occurred on the mall, in a
variety of pavilions, apparently, and there were many dozens of writers
featured, not just the 13 poets in question.

Here's a blurb from the web page:

"Welcome to the 2003 National Book Festival, organized by the Library of
Congress and hosted by Laura Bush. We hope you and your family and friends
will join us on Saturday, October 4, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., on the National
Mall between 7th and 14th Streets, NW, to celebrate books and the joy of
reading at this free festival.

The 2003 National Book Festival features more than eighty award-winning and
nationally known authors, illustrators, poets, and storytellers who will
delight you with their readings and performances. Meet favorite writers and
historians plus storybook characters from children's classics, all in a
festive atmosphere that brings new books about dozens of topics to thousands
of readers of all ages."

http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/welcome/index.html

Readings, book signings, literacy boosterism, and other bookish events
involving a range of authors---I don't see the complicity in war crimes
here, frankly.

Not to be unduly coy about this, the poets listed as participating are:

Fred Chappell
Rhina Espaillat
B.H. Fairchild
Dana Gioia
Tami Haaland
X.J. Kennedy
Li-Young Lee 
David Lehman
David Mason
E. Ethelbert Miller
Marilyn Nelson
Kay Ryan
Larissa Szporluk


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


> From: William Knott <William_Knott at emerson.edu>
> Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 19:58:51 -0500
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: poets propping the bush house
> 
> Gabe Gudding's "Conchology" blebsite has a list of poets who
> participated last week in some lit event sponsored by (and involving?)
> the First Lady. . . . I can't figure out how to post on the gabblegabe
> conchcob, so I'm blaring my bit here. . .
> I presume those poets?the Laura Bush 10? were invited, and decided to go
> for the usual reasons. . . .
> I wasn't invited and ergo I didn't have to search my soul. . . . would i
> have accepted such a loaded offer???   I hope I would have rejected the
> so-called honor. . . .
> Robert Lowell of course had the courage character conscience to reject a
> similar offer from the Johnson White House. . . .
> but Lowell was Lowell, he wasn't a working stiff poet like the rest of
> us. . . he wasn't a peasant like us crummy little nobod po-rats
> desperate for any kind of recognition and accreditation . . .
> I admire some of the poets on the Laura Bush roster of shame, and i can
> understand their desire to futher their careers by bopping on down with
> the First Litperson.  I want to condemn them, but who the fuck am I?
> 
> Remember when the Nazis took over in Germany they burned and banned the
> Communist poets like Brecht, they burned and banned the Expressionist
> poets like Benn, but they didn't burn and ban Rilke. . . . would Rilke
> have gone to the White House?  They would have invited him, that's for
> sure.  He's their kind of guy.
> 
> Me, I think Bush senior and junior are war-criminals, and Laura Bush,
> she's just. . . . did everybody read that play in a recent Nation
> magazine, by the "Angels in America" playwright guy, starring Ms. Laura?
> 
> 
> We've gotta bomb them and burn them and ban them to save them because
> because we're free.
> 
> Just free that's all never argue with po-biz.




From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Tue Oct 14 22:56:56 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 22:56:56 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <1d0.1278cb95.2cbe1178@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/14/2003 3:35:47 PM Central Daylight Time, 
JforJames at aol.com writes: 
> 
> >> Can anyone think of a poem in which he tells the reader what some proper 
>> thing to do is?
> 
>  Are you thinking of WCW's "Tract"? That's telling them, for sure.
>  Finnegan
> 
Hey, I didn't ask this question!  It was someone asking about Stevens.
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From cstroffo at earthlink.net  Tue Oct 14 18:28:32 2003
From: cstroffo at earthlink.net (Chris Stroffolino )
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 22:28:32 +0000
Subject: [New-Poetry] poets propping the bush house
Message-ID: <200310150514.h9F5EnYP186948@pimout1-ext.prodigy.net>

Thanks for this
Bill "who the fuck am I?" Knott!

just a minor curiosity---
who is on this list of poets?
could Gabe care to post it here?

Chris

----------
>From: "William Knott" <William_Knott at emerson.edu>
>To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>Subject: [New-Poetry] poets propping the bush house
>Date: Wed, Oct 15, 2003, 12:58 AM
>

> Gabe Gudding's "Conchology" blebsite has a list of poets who participated
> last week in some lit event sponsored by (and involving?) the First Lady. .
> . . I can't figure out how to post on the gabblegabe conchcob, so I'm
> blaring my bit here. . .
> I presume those poets?the Laura Bush 10? were invited, and decided to go
> for the usual reasons. . . .
> I wasn't invited and ergo I didn't have to search my soul. . . . would i
> have accepted such a loaded offer???   I hope I would have rejected the
> so-called honor. . . .
> Robert Lowell of course had the courage character conscience to reject a
> similar offer from the Johnson White House. . . .
> but Lowell was Lowell, he wasn't a working stiff poet like the rest of us.
> . . he wasn't a peasant like us crummy little nobod po-rats desperate for
> any kind of recognition and accreditation . . .
> I admire some of the poets on the Laura Bush roster of shame, and i can
> understand their desire to futher their careers by bopping on down with the
> First Litperson.  I want to condemn them, but who the fuck am I?
>
> Remember when the Nazis took over in Germany they burned and banned the
> Communist poets like Brecht, they burned and banned the Expressionist poets
> like Benn, but they didn't burn and ban Rilke. . . . would Rilke have gone
> to the White House?  They would have invited him, that's for sure.  He's
> their kind of guy.
>
> Me, I think Bush senior and junior are war-criminals, and Laura Bush, she's
> just. . . . did everybody read that play in a recent Nation magazine, by
> the "Angels in America" playwright guy, starring Ms. Laura?
>
> We've gotta bomb them and burn them and ban them to save them because
> because we're free.
>
> Just free that's all never argue with po-biz.
> 



From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Oct 15 07:31:32 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 07:31:32 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
In-Reply-To: <013301c39299$916e91a0$ac6ffea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F8CF7D4.30034.259EDA5@localhost>

> > Bob Grumman:
> > > I think of doggerel as a kind of folk art.<<

Marcus Bales:
> > That's silly, since this is signed, or at least attributed, to a
> > specific individual. Folk art is, it seems to me, anonymous -- done
> > by "the folk" -- and not by someone who signs his name to it and
> > tries to get it published.

Bob Grumman: 
> (1) I said "a kind of folk art"<<

Well, I didn't take you to mean that doggerel was all of folk art, 
nor that folk art was all doggerel. You're trying to make a 
distinction without a difference. 

Bob Grumman:
> (2) I never heard that folk art had to be unsigned.  Lots of folk
> artists are known.  But if Grandma Moses didn't sign her paintings,
> let me restate my impression of (signed) doggerel as seeming to me
> like signed folk art.<<

The sort of folk art that the folk do, even when it happens that a 
name, such as "Grandma Moses" is known, is different from the sort of 
thing that George Martin is doing in the poem at hand. He's trying to 
be light, sophisticated, ironic, sarcastic, cosmopolitan, and amusing 
-- his choice of verse style and the tone of voice to which he 
clearly aspires have nothing to do with "folk art". He's trying to 
write like Robert Service, and there's just no doubt about it. There 
is simply no doubt that he can't do it, either -- and that's pretty 
lame. Any competent person-of-letters ought to be able to write like 
Robert Service without being as derivatively ill-wrought as George  
Martin's piece.  It's not "folk art" of any sort -- it's just crappy.


 





From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Oct 15 07:31:32 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 07:31:32 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] 'Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here'
In-Reply-To: <008a01c3929f$1d4ac2c0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <3F8CF7D4.26213.259EC96@localhost>

On 14 Oct 2003 at 18:04, TheOldMole wrote:
> By Lord Buckley:
>  Hipsters, flipsters, and finger-poppin' daddies,
> Knock me your lobes,
> I came to lay Caesar out,
> Not to hip you to him....

Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy 
Found on the Internet
and Poetry Rewrite Desk

To go or not to go: that is the question:
Whether 'tis better for a cat to suffer 
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather 
That Nature rains on those who roam abroad, 
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet, 
And so by dozing melt the solid hours 
That clog the clock's bright gears with sullen time 
And stall the dinner bell. To sit, to stare 
Outdoors, and by a stare to seem to state 
A wish to venture forth without delay, 
Then when the portal's opened up, to stand 
As if transfixed by doubt. To prowl; to sleep; 
To choose not knowing when we may once more 
Our readmittance gain: aye, there's the hairball; 
For if a paw were shaped to turn a knob, 
Or work a lock or slip a window-catch, 
And going out and coming in were made 
As simple as the breaking of a bowl, 
What cat would bear the household's petty plagues, 
The cook's well-practiced kicks, the butler's broom, 
The infant's careless pokes, the tickled ears, 
The trampled tail, and all the daily shocks 
That fur is heir to, when, of his own free will, 
He might his exodus or entrance make 
With a mere mitten? Who would spaniels fear, 
Or strays trespassing from a neighbor's yard, 
But that the dread of our unheeded cries 
And scratches at a barricaded door 
No claw can open up, dispels our nerve 
And makes us rather bear our humans' faults 
Than run away to unguessed miseries? 
Thus caution doth make house cats of us all; 
And thus the bristling hair of resolution 
Is softened up with the pale brush of thought, 
And since our choices hinge on weighty things, 
We pause upon the threshold of decision. 




From William_Knott at emerson.edu  Wed Oct 15 08:35:09 2003
From: William_Knott at emerson.edu (William Knott)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 08:35:09 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] bush league poets
Message-ID: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFA6@mail.emerson.edu>

Cf. "ONLY WE WHO GUARD THE MYSTERY SHALL BY UNHAPPY" by Tony Kushner, in the March 24, 2003 issue of The Nation. . . . 

First Librarian Bush guards the mystery alright. . . and it seems she can find some poets to help her do it.






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From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Tue Oct 14 18:12:02 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 00:12:02 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
References: <3F8AF65C.32163.19D5978@localhost>
Message-ID: <000201c39318$f4640680$e585fac1@pavilion>

Surprised with this back lash?

I enjoy the relative luxury of not having to judge or give marks if that is
what you mean (by-pass).

Could be the famous "underdog syndrome with the Brits or it could be that
instead of shooting G. Martin "as one more unknown warrior" at least to
Marcus and I, you as a poet, I presume, and more especially the teachers
among you,  could iron out what you consider the main faults to be and
suggest improvements. (I have just done this for a someone,whose native
tongue is not english - on the subject of thermodynamics- as rigourous a
subject as they come and upon which much hinges. On this subject too there
is growing concern reputation and  craftmanship. )

Could this go back to opinions on War & its consequences?

Sincerely,

J.A.





----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 1:00 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin


> On 13 Oct 2003 at 23:49, james.alexander1 wrote:
> > Maybe, but it makes a good story which would otherwise not be read. .
> > I got a good laugh & if it's fairly accurate so much more fun. No?
>
> Is it only bad verse that gets this kind of pass from you, or do you
> apply that attitude to all the rest of life, too?  To doctors,
> airline pilots, teachers? Anything for a good story and to hell with
> whether it's well done or not?
>
> Marcus
>
>
>
> > ----- Original Message ----- From: <marcus at designerglass.com> To:
> > <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>; <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu> Sent:
> > Sunday, October 12, 2003 2:45 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] poems by
> > others - George Martin
> >
> >
> > > This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad
> > > name
> > in the
> > > first place.
> > > Marcus
> > >
> > > > The Copy Editor's Lament
> > > >
> > > > I was sitting on the copydesk
> > > > just watching o'er the scene
> > > > when the dealer sent a juicy
> > > > story over to my screen.
> > > > It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> > > > and the headline on the dummy said:
> > > > - 6 column 48.
> > > >
> > > > So I rearranged the commas
> > > > and I tidied up the lede
> > > > and I patched up all the typos
> > > > and gave it one more read.
> > > > I typed in all the coding
> > > > and prepared to write the hed
> > > > when a voice came from the news desk,
> > > > and this is what it said:
> > > >
> > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > > > I have to change the page.
> > > > Composing found a missing ad,
> > > > the foreman's in a rage.
> > > > If they find the guy that lost it,
> > > > they'll be skinning him alive.
> > > > And that headline that you're working on ...
> > > > - make that a five."
> > > >
> > > > Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> > > > but a deskman does his best
> > > > to keep the story's gist intact
> > > > and leave out all the rest.
> > > > I thought a little while,
> > > > and then my hands did fly
> > > > But just before the head was writ,
> > > > I heard the news desk cry:
> > > >
> > > > "Pass me back that dummy please,
> > > > I have to make a fix.
> > > > It really needs a graphic
> > > > or the editor will bitch.
> > > > They'll make it on the Macintosh
> > > > and ship it here to me.
> > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > - make that a three."
> > > >
> > > > Now a head that's just three columns
> > > > forces choices quite absurd
> > > > do you write it as a label
> > > > or just use only verbs?
> > > > I struggled and I puzzled
> > > > and at last I did compose.
> > > > When over at the news desk
> > > > a voice once more arose:
> > > >
> > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > > > I have to make a change.
> > > > How I forgot the sidebar,
> > > > is really very strange.
> > > > A page without a sidebar,
> > > > would make the reader blue.
> > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > - make that a two."
> > > >
> > > > Now a head that's just two columns
> > > > is a challenge and a strain;
> > > > they often make no sense at all,
> > > > to write them is a pain.
> > > > I finally got a concept
> > > > but before I put it down
> > > > I looked up from my VDT
> > > > and saw the news desk frown.
> > > >
> > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please
> > > > there's one more thing to do.
> > > > We have to have a locator map;
> > > > the reader needs a clue
> > > > to where this all is coming down
> > > > and where it's being done.
> > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > - make that a one.
> > > >
> > > > Sometimes a copy editor
> > > > is like a cornered rat,
> > > > hemmed in and surrounded,
> > > > his hopes collapsed and flat.
> > > > There's no way out, all one can do
> > > > is fight with tooth and claw.
> > > > This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Panel
> > > > eyes
> > > > law
> > > >
> > > > http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Tue Oct 14 18:18:37 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 00:18:37 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
References: <3F8AF65C.32163.19D5978@localhost> <20031013182537.C17128@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <000301c39318$f5bb5920$e585fac1@pavilion>

Glad you do, I don't. Thanks for the clarification -quite right too. I do
now study poetry via N Po but have only time to skim over it.

JA

----- Original Message -----
From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 1:26 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin


> Not to butt in (well, too late for that ;), but I've eaten a crappy meal
> for a good story. I see where you're going with it, though, re: doctors
> and what not.
>
> Maybe the poem goes back to the whole 'what is poetry' discussion. That
> is, a poem like that is enjoyed more by those who don't 'study' poetry -
> i.e. they like the story, subject matter...
>
> -kpaul
>
> On Mon, 13 Oct 2003, Marcus Bales wrote:
>
> > On 13 Oct 2003 at 23:49, james.alexander1 wrote:
> > > Maybe, but it makes a good story which would otherwise not be read. .
> > > I got a good laugh & if it's fairly accurate so much more fun. No?
> >
> > Is it only bad verse that gets this kind of pass from you, or do you
> > apply that attitude to all the rest of life, too?  To doctors,
> > airline pilots, teachers? Anything for a good story and to hell with
> > whether it's well done or not?
> >
> > Marcus
> >
> >
> >
> > > ----- Original Message ----- From: <marcus at designerglass.com> To:
> > > <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>; <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu> Sent:
> > > Sunday, October 12, 2003 2:45 PM Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] poems by
> > > others - George Martin
> > >
> > >
> > > > This kind of metered incompetence is what gave metered poetry a bad
> > > > name
> > > in the
> > > > first place.
> > > > Marcus
> > > >
> > > > > The Copy Editor's Lament
> > > > >
> > > > > I was sitting on the copydesk
> > > > > just watching o'er the scene
> > > > > when the dealer sent a juicy
> > > > > story over to my screen.
> > > > > It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> > > > > and the headline on the dummy said:
> > > > > - 6 column 48.
> > > > >
> > > > > So I rearranged the commas
> > > > > and I tidied up the lede
> > > > > and I patched up all the typos
> > > > > and gave it one more read.
> > > > > I typed in all the coding
> > > > > and prepared to write the hed
> > > > > when a voice came from the news desk,
> > > > > and this is what it said:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > > > > I have to change the page.
> > > > > Composing found a missing ad,
> > > > > the foreman's in a rage.
> > > > > If they find the guy that lost it,
> > > > > they'll be skinning him alive.
> > > > > And that headline that you're working on ...
> > > > > - make that a five."
> > > > >
> > > > > Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> > > > > but a deskman does his best
> > > > > to keep the story's gist intact
> > > > > and leave out all the rest.
> > > > > I thought a little while,
> > > > > and then my hands did fly
> > > > > But just before the head was writ,
> > > > > I heard the news desk cry:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Pass me back that dummy please,
> > > > > I have to make a fix.
> > > > > It really needs a graphic
> > > > > or the editor will bitch.
> > > > > They'll make it on the Macintosh
> > > > > and ship it here to me.
> > > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > > - make that a three."
> > > > >
> > > > > Now a head that's just three columns
> > > > > forces choices quite absurd
> > > > > do you write it as a label
> > > > > or just use only verbs?
> > > > > I struggled and I puzzled
> > > > > and at last I did compose.
> > > > > When over at the news desk
> > > > > a voice once more arose:
> > > > >
> > > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > > > > I have to make a change.
> > > > > How I forgot the sidebar,
> > > > > is really very strange.
> > > > > A page without a sidebar,
> > > > > would make the reader blue.
> > > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > > - make that a two."
> > > > >
> > > > > Now a head that's just two columns
> > > > > is a challenge and a strain;
> > > > > they often make no sense at all,
> > > > > to write them is a pain.
> > > > > I finally got a concept
> > > > > but before I put it down
> > > > > I looked up from my VDT
> > > > > and saw the news desk frown.
> > > > >
> > > > > "Pass me back that dummy, please
> > > > > there's one more thing to do.
> > > > > We have to have a locator map;
> > > > > the reader needs a clue
> > > > > to where this all is coming down
> > > > > and where it's being done.
> > > > > And that headline you are writing ...
> > > > > - make that a one.
> > > > >
> > > > > Sometimes a copy editor
> > > > > is like a cornered rat,
> > > > > hemmed in and surrounded,
> > > > > his hopes collapsed and flat.
> > > > > There's no way out, all one can do
> > > > > is fight with tooth and claw.
> > > > > This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Panel
> > > > > eyes
> > > > > law
> > > > >
> > > > > http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> > > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > _______________________________________________
> > > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Wed Oct 15 04:20:15 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:20:15 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin : Alias? Poerty is, Shake rattle & roll 
References: <281450-2200310510222135175@M2W044.mail2web.com> <20031011174719.A29817@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <000401c39318$f75ef700$e585fac1@pavilion>

To Mallasch & Bales -in the morning light:
few comments for others hence direct posting

Just realised that it is better to personalise a comment (To From if you
want the recipient to find it in the volume (I had 90 Monday. I thought it
might be automatic at least to the link sender?


I have several files (Grumman on Archives) on NPo  :
1) Poems - from which I pulled this one out. (thanks)
2)Learn- what poetry is by the teachers & sub files Poetry is? & Poetry
Quotes on  (I have no file on what poetry "means" to the poets (teachers
have a stable bread & butter job).

I was totally unaware that poetry (as opposed to poets) had fallen into
disrepute. And may share a common fate with many professions eg. Copy
Editor/Editor-in-Chief Dilema :

"Lament" obviously tinkles a wee bell to any Scot, expat, maybe descendants
and there are a lot O' them.

The content gives an insight into the trials & tribulations of...  Humour
helps support much of it, provides distance (if not some objectivity). This
piece has & rhythme and rhyme and reason. Harmony in an unharmonius
situation -
all for a reader (sic) who skims over it!

I came across a remark by the late Frank Herbert in the Dune series: Empreur
Leto's remark goes something like this:  " the worst thing that man ever did
was to invent the machine for ever since he has  become more and more
accustomed to treat his fellows as one." "for Poetry is or can"  (take it
the way you like).

Ever tried to turn this into a popular song, GM? -

"This above all - to thine own self be true:
And it must follow as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man"

J.Alex.
Footy note: Chuck this approach Rob.
Willie MacIlvaney as far as I know only taught in one school before leave to
make a better living writing. Did you mention his "Glaswegian?" I was told
that the only time Willie spent in Glasgow was the 4years he took to get his
1st class honours MA at Glasgow Univ. Rob. I played a lot of Football at the
time(difference wth Hugh MacIlvaney -Wow,It came back to me! my disc is
better than the HP that packed up on me!)-Played often against McCarrie of
Celtic & Scotland and won almost systematically. I did not find you on the
Alumni roster despite your knowledge of George Square also called for a time
"Mandella Sq" for what I now appreciate for Nelson Mandella's &  DeClerk's
role for human rights (wonder why his successors tried to hide their Aids
issue?)

J. Alexader
----- Original Message -----
From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 12:49 AM
Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin


>
> The Copy Editor's Lament
>
> I was sitting on the copydesk
> just watching o'er the scene
> when the dealer sent a juicy
> story over to my screen.
> It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> and the headline on the dummy said:
> - 6 column 48.
>
> So I rearranged the commas
> and I tidied up the lede
> and I patched up all the typos
> and gave it one more read.
> I typed in all the coding
> and prepared to write the hed
> when a voice came from the news desk,
> and this is what it said:
>
> "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> I have to change the page.
> Composing found a missing ad,
> the foreman's in a rage.
> If they find the guy that lost it,
> they'll be skinning him alive.
> And that headline that you're working on ...
> - make that a five."
>
> Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> but a deskman does his best
> to keep the story's gist intact
> and leave out all the rest.
> I thought a little while,
> and then my hands did fly
> But just before the head was writ,
> I heard the news desk cry:
>
> "Pass me back that dummy please,
> I have to make a fix.
> It really needs a graphic
> or the editor will bitch.
> They'll make it on the Macintosh
> and ship it here to me.
> And that headline you are writing ...
> - make that a three."
>
> Now a head that's just three columns
> forces choices quite absurd
> do you write it as a label
> or just use only verbs?
> I struggled and I puzzled
> and at last I did compose.
> When over at the news desk
> a voice once more arose:
>
> "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> I have to make a change.
> How I forgot the sidebar,
> is really very strange.
> A page without a sidebar,
> would make the reader blue.
> And that headline you are writing ...
> - make that a two."
>
> Now a head that's just two columns
> is a challenge and a strain;
> they often make no sense at all,
> to write them is a pain.
> I finally got a concept
> but before I put it down
> I looked up from my VDT
> and saw the news desk frown.
>
> "Pass me back that dummy, please
> there's one more thing to do.
> We have to have a locator map;
> the reader needs a clue
> to where this all is coming down
> and where it's being done.
> And that headline you are writing ...
> - make that a one.
>
> Sometimes a copy editor
> is like a cornered rat,
> hemmed in and surrounded,
> his hopes collapsed and flat.
> There's no way out, all one can do
> is fight with tooth and claw.
> This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
>
> Panel
> eyes
> law
>
> http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Wed Oct 15 08:25:11 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 14:25:11 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] 'Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here'
References: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>        <20031013214014.W39121@kpaul.spinweb.net> <1602.130.49.178.103.1066158484.squirrel@webmail1.localnet.com> <000901c3928a$3ea94a50$13da8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <000501c39318$f8c71280$e585fac1@pavilion>

Robin
Nothing like keeping up-to-date! Very Instructive, Robin.
J.A.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2003 9:34 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] 'Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here'


> Pike eats pike -- Here's Simon Hoggart (in The Guardian) on the Telegraph
> piece:
>
>         http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1062479,00.html
> Exam slang? That's, like, totally cool
>
> It was reported at the weekend that examiners are alarmed at the use of
> "soap opera" expressions by students sitting A-level English exams.
> Candidates had, apparently, "lapsed into slang and the vernacular",
employed
> "psychobabble" and (horror!) "discussed literature as if gossiping with
> friends".
>
> Examples included a description of Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night as
"spouting
> stuff", of Cleopatra as being "high maintenance", and of Hamlet as being a
> "mummy's boy" who seeks "closure". Said Dr Bernard Lamb, chairman of the
> Queen's English Society: "It is terrible that students are using this kind
> of language in exams."
>
> How much better it would be, would it not, if students were simply to
> regurgitate what they had been taught by their teachers, in language they
> knew the examiners would appreciate? But instead here they are, showing
that
> they have actually understood the truth of Shakespeare's
characterisations.
> Of course Orsino "spouts"; doesn't Olivia say so? Of course Hamlet seeks
> closure; what else is the sodding play about? And of course Cleopatra is
> "high maintenance". The examiners thought it meant Cleopatra had expensive
> taste - this, however, is from Nora Ephron's script for When Harry Met
> Sally:
>
> Harry Burns: "There are two kinds of women: high maintenance and low
> maintenance."
>
> Sally Albright: "Which one am I?"
>
> Harry Burns: "You're the worst kind. You're high maintenance but you think
> you're low maintenance."
>
> Cleopatra was high maintenance. Give that student an A.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From William_Knott at emerson.edu  Wed Oct 15 08:58:14 2003
From: William_Knott at emerson.edu (William Knott)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 08:58:14 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] bushgeoisie poets
Message-ID: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFA7@mail.emerson.edu>

and poets who publish their work in The New Criterion don't necessarily support the politics of its editor. . . . right?

and all the contemporary USA poets who are always writing poems about their so-called spirituality and or their supposedly mystical spiritual experiences don't necessarily support the Revs Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, do they. . . ?

i mean holymoly it's just coincidence that so many of our current poets robe their works in a vocabulary of religion during a period when conservative political forces are happily reimposing a right-wing theocracy of repressive fascist  'Christianity'. . . .  


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From William_Knott at emerson.edu  Wed Oct 15 09:25:17 2003
From: William_Knott at emerson.edu (William Knott)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:25:17 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: New-Poetry digest, Vol 1 #1760 - 8 msgs
Message-ID: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFA8@mail.emerson.edu>

a quote from playwright Joan Holden:

"During the life span of Babyboomers . . . we have come to be ruled by a shadow (now no longer secret) government of spy agencies, right wing billionaires and military fanatics.  Our oceans have been turned into chemical dump, half the world's rain-forests have vanished, holes have appeared in our ozone layer, and our hopes for the future have been buried under a steadily mounting pile of unimaginable weapons.  During the same period, a single topic has dominated the American stage: personal relationships."

Personal relationships have similarly dominated current American poetry. 

And those of us who are not writing about how our mommies and daddies and   exes and ohs fucked us over, 
are writing about our little spiritual epiphanies,
our souls. . . .

And the latter are not just purveyors of New Age mysticism, you'reOKi'mOK crap, they are proppers-up, intellectual augmenters, FELLOW TRAVELERS, of christian fascists like bush et al


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From JforJames at aol.com  Wed Oct 15 09:47:31 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:47:31 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: poets propping the bush house
Message-ID: <1a1.1b8fffe2.2cbea9f3@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/14/03 9:55:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
grahamd at ripon.edu writes:

> Not to be unduly coy about this, the poets listed as participating are:
>  
>  Fred Chappell
>  Rhina Espaillat
>  B.H. Fairchild
>  Dana Gioia
>  Tami Haaland
>  X.J. Kennedy
>  Li-Young Lee 
>  David Lehman
>  David Mason
>  E. Ethelbert Miller
>  Marilyn Nelson
>  Kay Ryan
>  Larissa Szporluk

Agreed....
Anyone who doesn't support the President's war (or our troops in Iraq) is 
unpatriotic.
Anyone who shows his/her face in DC at any event tied, however loosely, to 
the White House is a jingoish war-monger.
Parallel reasoning?
Finnegan


From cherrylaura at hotmail.com  Wed Oct 15 10:03:30 2003
From: cherrylaura at hotmail.com (Laura Cherry)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:03:30 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: poets propping the bush house
Message-ID: <BAY1-F153AkRH3ALZ9f00002abc@hotmail.com>

Hey, isn't Marilyn Nelson one of the poets who was invited to the 
(cancelled) White House shindig in February, who was going to attend wearing 
a custom-made scarf printed with peace signs? I guess she finally got to 
wear it!

Laura Cherry


>From: David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu>
>Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
>Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: poets propping the bush house
>Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 20:54:11 -0500
>
>The National Book Festival is an event I'm just learning of tonight.
>According to their web site, it was sponsored by the Library of Congress &
>"hosted" (whatever that means) by Laura Bush.  It occurred on the mall, in 
>a
>variety of pavilions, apparently, and there were many dozens of writers
>featured, not just the 13 poets in question.
>
>Here's a blurb from the web page:
>
>"Welcome to the 2003 National Book Festival, organized by the Library of
>Congress and hosted by Laura Bush. We hope you and your family and friends
>will join us on Saturday, October 4, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., on the 
>National
>Mall between 7th and 14th Streets, NW, to celebrate books and the joy of
>reading at this free festival.
>
>The 2003 National Book Festival features more than eighty award-winning and
>nationally known authors, illustrators, poets, and storytellers who will
>delight you with their readings and performances. Meet favorite writers and
>historians plus storybook characters from children's classics, all in a
>festive atmosphere that brings new books about dozens of topics to 
>thousands
>of readers of all ages."
>
>http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/welcome/index.html
>
>Readings, book signings, literacy boosterism, and other bookish events
>involving a range of authors---I don't see the complicity in war crimes
>here, frankly.
>
>Not to be unduly coy about this, the poets listed as participating are:
>
>Fred Chappell
>Rhina Espaillat
>B.H. Fairchild
>Dana Gioia
>Tami Haaland
>X.J. Kennedy
>Li-Young Lee
>David Lehman
>David Mason
>E. Ethelbert Miller
>Marilyn Nelson
>Kay Ryan
>Larissa Szporluk
>
>
>====================================================
>David Graham
>grahamd at ripon.edu
>Home Page:
>http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
>Poetry Library:
>http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
>====================================================
>
>
> > From: William Knott <William_Knott at emerson.edu>
> > Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 19:58:51 -0500
> > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > Subject: poets propping the bush house
> >
> > Gabe Gudding's "Conchology" blebsite has a list of poets who
> > participated last week in some lit event sponsored by (and involving?)
> > the First Lady. . . . I can't figure out how to post on the gabblegabe
> > conchcob, so I'm blaring my bit here. . .
> > I presume those poets?the Laura Bush 10? were invited, and decided to go
> > for the usual reasons. . . .
> > I wasn't invited and ergo I didn't have to search my soul. . . . would i
> > have accepted such a loaded offer???   I hope I would have rejected the
> > so-called honor. . . .
> > Robert Lowell of course had the courage character conscience to reject a
> > similar offer from the Johnson White House. . . .
> > but Lowell was Lowell, he wasn't a working stiff poet like the rest of
> > us. . . he wasn't a peasant like us crummy little nobod po-rats
> > desperate for any kind of recognition and accreditation . . .
> > I admire some of the poets on the Laura Bush roster of shame, and i can
> > understand their desire to futher their careers by bopping on down with
> > the First Litperson.  I want to condemn them, but who the fuck am I?
> >
> > Remember when the Nazis took over in Germany they burned and banned the
> > Communist poets like Brecht, they burned and banned the Expressionist
> > poets like Benn, but they didn't burn and ban Rilke. . . . would Rilke
> > have gone to the White House?  They would have invited him, that's for
> > sure.  He's their kind of guy.
> >
> > Me, I think Bush senior and junior are war-criminals, and Laura Bush,
> > she's just. . . . did everybody read that play in a recent Nation
> > magazine, by the "Angels in America" playwright guy, starring Ms. Laura?
> >
> >
> > We've gotta bomb them and burn them and ban them to save them because
> > because we're free.
> >
> > Just free that's all never argue with po-biz.
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>New-Poetry mailing list
>New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

_________________________________________________________________
Fretting that your Hotmail account may expire because you forgot to sign in 
enough? Get Hotmail Extra Storage today!   
http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es



From William_Knott at emerson.edu  Wed Oct 15 10:26:23 2003
From: William_Knott at emerson.edu (William Knott)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:26:23 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] a bard in the bush is worth two in the blog
Message-ID: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFA9@mail.emerson.edu>

of the 13 poets attending Laura Bush's lit-fest, only 2 have poems posted upon the poetsagainstthewar.org site:  Marilyn Nelson and Kay Ryan.

the PATW site says that thus far 14, 472 poems have been posted.





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From hruggier at localnet.com  Wed Oct 15 10:44:56 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:44:56 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
References: <1d3.12923ffa.2cbdb49a@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F8D5D68.A3722584@localnet.com>

isn't that bauds?  these days at any rate.

JforJames at aol.com wrote:

>  In a message dated 10/12/03 12:53:09 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> cstroffo at earthlink.net writes:
>
>      Praise the lawd!
>
> and bless "the bawds of euphony."
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From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Oct 15 10:38:19 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:38:19 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] poets propping the bush house
In-Reply-To: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFA4@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <BBB2C60A.57B5%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

O for the good old days when Bill Clinton decided to have a poet read at his
inauguration and chose . . . Maya Angelou.

Paul Lake




on 10/14/03 7:58 PM, William Knott at William_Knott at emerson.edu wrote:

> Gabe Gudding's "Conchology" blebsite has a list of poets who participated last
> week in some lit event sponsored by (and involving?) the First Lady. . . . I
> can't figure out how to post on the gabblegabe conchcob, so I'm blaring my bit
> here. . .
> I presume those poets?the Laura Bush 10? were invited, and decided to go for
> the usual reasons. . . .
> I wasn't invited and ergo I didn't have to search my soul. . . . would i have
> accepted such a loaded offer???   I hope I would have rejected the so-called
> honor. . . .
> Robert Lowell of course had the courage character conscience to reject a
> similar offer from the Johnson White House. . . .
> but Lowell was Lowell, he wasn't a working stiff poet like the rest of us. . .
> he wasn't a peasant like us crummy little nobod po-rats desperate for any kind
> of recognition and accreditation . . .
> I admire some of the poets on the Laura Bush roster of shame, and i can
> understand their desire to futher their careers by bopping on down with the
> First Litperson.  I want to condemn them, but who the fuck am I?
> 
> Remember when the Nazis took over in Germany they burned and banned the
> Communist poets like Brecht, they burned and banned the Expressionist poets
> like Benn, but they didn't burn and ban Rilke. . . . would Rilke have gone to
> the White House?  They would have invited him, that's for sure.  He's their
> kind of guy.
> 
> Me, I think Bush senior and junior are war-criminals, and Laura Bush, she's
> just. . . . did everybody read that play in a recent Nation magazine, by the
> "Angels in America" playwright guy, starring Ms. Laura?
> 
> We've gotta bomb them and burn them and ban them to save them because because
> we're free.   
> 
> Just free that's all never argue with po-biz.
> 

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]




From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Oct 15 10:45:57 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:45:57 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] bushgeoisie poets
In-Reply-To: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFA7@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <BBB2C7D4.57B7%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 10/15/03 7:58 AM, William Knott at William_Knott at emerson.edu wrote:

> i mean holymoly it's just coincidence that so many of our current poets robe
> their works in a vocabulary of religion during a period when conservative
> political forces are happily reimposing a right-wing theocracy of repressive
> fascist  'Christianity'. . . .


Holy moly indeed.  " . . . Imposing a right-wing theocracy of repressive
fascist Christianity"?

Somehow I've missed the sudden appearance of a fascist Christian theocracy.
Seems to me nothing much has changed since Baptist Bill Clinton promised the
country a "New Covenant" . . . Which seemed to have had something to do with
"ministering" to young interns.

Paul Lake 

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From Thom424 at aol.com  Wed Oct 15 10:51:07 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:51:07 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] poets propping the bush house
Message-ID: <4D04C40D.726504AA.001A46F6@aol.com>

...and miller williams


From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Oct 15 10:53:51 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 09:53:51 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] poets propping the bush house
In-Reply-To: <4D04C40D.726504AA.001A46F6@aol.com>
Message-ID: <BBB2C9AF.57BD%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 10/15/03 9:51 AM, Thom424 at aol.com at Thom424 at aol.com wrote:

> ...and miller williams
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 
Yeah, I remember. Here in Arkansas there was much sighing after Clinton
chose Angelou over the much-anticipated Miller Williams. The Prez atoned for
his sin by having Miller read at his second.

Paul

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Wed Oct 15 11:35:08 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 10:35:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Allison Joseph's list again...
In-Reply-To: <007d01c392ae$4f3257d0$da66fea9@Barnette>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031015103455.02876a40@mail.ilstu.edu>

thanks, renee! g

At 07:53 PM 10/14/2003 -0400, Renee Ashley wrote:
>Sorry, to keep posting, but somehow in sending my message to the list (or 
>did I?) I managed to unsubscribe myself!  I got this info though: here's 
>where to go to subscribe: 
><mailto:crwropps-subscribe at topica.com>crwropps-subscribe at topica.com 
>.  Just send a blank email to that address.  Good grief, what have I done 
>to myself?!
>Renee
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From JforJames at aol.com  Wed Oct 15 11:42:04 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 11:42:04 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <7a.498d76e1.2cbec4cc@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/15/03 10:41:09 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
hruggier at localnet.com writes:

> isn't that bauds?  these days at any rate.
> 
X 
At the sight of blackbirds 
Flying in a green light, 
Even the bawds of euphony 
Would cry out sharply. 


From William_Knott at emerson.edu  Wed Oct 15 12:43:04 2003
From: William_Knott at emerson.edu (William Knott)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:43:04 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] laura b's poet posse
Message-ID: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFAA@mail.emerson.edu>

guess i should be grateful i'm so low on the po-totempole they'd never invite me to join .. . .  i hope marilyn nelson did wear her peace button at least. . . .

as for christian fascist influence, ask gays how they feel re the Holy Marriage constituitional amendment now proceeding through congress and how the dem candidate whoever he is is going to be endlessly baited re the question of gay marriage. . . . ask women groups fighting to retain reproductive rights whether they fear the clout of right-wing religiobigots. . .

who was it said "the supreme court follows the election results", meaning they're not above being influenced by political trends ..... and poets don't?  we live in our autotelic ivory towers and never deign to notice the evil spurting from churches everywhere??

(from Brecht's poem, "Bad Times for Poetry":

. . . Inside me contend
Delight at the apple tree in blossom
And horror at the house-painter's [Hitler's] speeches.
But only the second
Drives me to my desk.)


??go to any bookstore that has a large shelf of anthologies and see all the current anthols of "spirtual" poetry by contemp USA poets, there's seemingly dozens of them, and guess what, there's not a single anthol of atheist poetry, not one. . . .   why is that, do you think????



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From GrahamD at ripon.edu  Wed Oct 15 12:57:32 2003
From: GrahamD at ripon.edu (Graham, David)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 11:57:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] RE: laura b's poet posse
Message-ID: <4BBBE1EC8182D511BF9800508BBD75990547A0D8@mail.ripon.edu>

	>>>guess i should be grateful i'm so low on the po-totempole they'd
never invite me to join .. . .  i hope marilyn nelson did wear her peace
button at least. . . .

Join *what*, Bill?  Far as I can tell, what they joined was a free one-day
festival of writers who read their works, signed books, and hung out with
other writers on the mall in D.C.  It wasn't a Republican fund-raiser, for
heaven's sake, and no one had to sign on to the Bush platform in order to
attend or read.  Sorry, but I still don't see any poet posse here.

Just guessing, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if Marilyn Nelson and some
others might have expressed views on that occasion that John Ashcroft and
Dick Cheney would not necessarily approve of.  Do you know any different?
Or does their mere presence at the festival signal that they are mere cogs
in the fascist machine?



============================================
David Graham
Department of English, Ripon College
grahamd at ripon.edu
     Home Page:  
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
     My Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html

Experience Ripon at http://www.ripon.edu
============================================





From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Oct 15 12:49:41 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 11:49:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] laura b's poet posse
In-Reply-To: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFAA@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <BBB2E4D4.57C4%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 10/15/03 11:43 AM, William Knott at William_Knott at emerson.edu wrote:

> 
> ??go to any bookstore that has a large shelf of anthologies and see all the
> current anthols of "spirtual" poetry by contemp USA poets, there's seemingly
> dozens of them, and guess what, there's not a single anthol of atheist poetry,
> not one. . . .   why is that, do you think????


Clearly there's been a secret coup staged by fascist Christians, who have
taken over both the government and publishing industry.  We'd better all put
on our aluminum foil hats to keep their secret radio broadcasts from
controlling our brains.




---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]




From Cadaly at aol.com  Wed Oct 15 13:00:58 2003
From: Cadaly at aol.com (Cadaly at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:00:58 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] reading
Message-ID: <6d.1ae99d27.2cbed74a@aol.com>

Catherine Daly reading from DaDaDa
with former student Gordon Johnson

Back to the Grind
3575 University Ave
Riverside, CA 92501

Thursday, October 16
8:00 pm
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Wed Oct 15 13:05:26 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:05:26 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] poets propping the bush house
In-Reply-To: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFA4@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031015120440.0295b460@mail.ilstu.edu>

bill i will post this to my blebnexus if okay

At 08:58 PM 10/14/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Gabe Gudding's "Conchology" blebsite has a list of poets who participated 
>last week in some lit event sponsored by (and involving?) the First Lady. 
>. . . I can't figure out how to post on the gabblegabe conchcob, so I'm 
>blaring my bit here. . .
>I presume those poets?the Laura Bush 10? were invited, and decided to go 
>for the usual reasons. . . .
>I wasn't invited and ergo I didn't have to search my soul. . . . would i 
>have accepted such a loaded offer???   I hope I would have rejected the 
>so-called honor. . . .
>Robert Lowell of course had the courage character conscience to reject a 
>similar offer from the Johnson White House. . . .
>but Lowell was Lowell, he wasn't a working stiff poet like the rest of us. 
>. . he wasn't a peasant like us crummy little nobod po-rats desperate for 
>any kind of recognition and accreditation . . .
>I admire some of the poets on the Laura Bush roster of shame, and i can 
>understand their desire to futher their careers by bopping on down with 
>the First Litperson.  I want to condemn them, but who the fuck am I?
>
>Remember when the Nazis took over in Germany they burned and banned the 
>Communist poets like Brecht, they burned and banned the Expressionist 
>poets like Benn, but they didn't burn and ban Rilke. . . . would Rilke 
>have gone to the White House?  They would have invited him, that's for 
>sure.  He's their kind of guy.
>
>Me, I think Bush senior and junior are war-criminals, and Laura Bush, 
>she's just. . . . did everybody read that play in a recent Nation 
>magazine, by the "Angels in America" playwright guy, starring Ms. Laura?
>
>We've gotta bomb them and burn them and ban them to save them because 
>because we're free.
>
>Just free that's all never argue with po-biz.




From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Wed Oct 15 12:58:54 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 11:58:54 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] laura b's poet posse
In-Reply-To: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFAA@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <BBB2E6FE.57C6%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 10/15/03 11:43 AM, William Knott at William_Knott at emerson.edu wrote:

> 
> ??go to any bookstore that has a large shelf of anthologies and see all the
> current anthols of "spirtual" poetry by contemp USA poets, there's seemingly
> dozens of them, and guess what, there's not a single anthol of atheist poetry,
> not one. . . .   why is that, do you think????


A more serious answer to this would be that almost all of the poetry that's
published today is written from a post-Enlightenment, post-Christian,
post-modern perspective and is completely unChristian in a philosophical or
metaphysical sense--and hence there's no need for a specifically
non-Christian poetry anthology. On the other hand, you or someone else might
want to put together an explicitly atheist anthology. If there's a market
for it, it'll find some readers.

Paul Lake

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]




From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Oct 15 13:11:23 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:11:23 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] bushgeoisie poets
Message-ID: <1d8.12919640.2cbed9bb@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/15/2003 7:59:37 AM Central Daylight Time, 
William_Knott at emerson.edu writes: 
> and poets who publish their work in The New Criterion don't necessarily 
> support the politics of its editor. . . . right?

Some of us who subscribe to it don't necessarily agree with its politics.  So 
what?
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Oct 15 13:13:35 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 18:13:35 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Noir Hamlet.  #1   (Runyon)  Horatio as Narrator.  Cut 1
References: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFAA@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <017401c3933f$ab562c80$488c8051@MyPC>

I am sitting quietly in this bar in Lower 42nd Street, Wittenberg, sinking
them with Faust and Luther, when in wanders Hamlet the Hoarse.

"Gotta go home," he says gruffly, neatly fielding the inkpot Luther is in
the process of throwing at Faust, "Dad?s dead and Mummy seems to be about to
remarry, and wants me there as Best Boy."

"Also," says Hamlet, "I get the idea something?s not entirely on the
straight.  So maybe I ought to check it out. You want to come?  Dear Dead
Dad may not have been the Ideal Father Figure, but he?s the only one I had,
so I figure I sorta owe him."

"Sure," I say, "Why not? You?ll need someone to talk to."  (Hamlet for all
his build being a quite restrained guy, who tends to bottle it up.)

"Right," says the Hoarse, "meet you there soonest," and off he wanders out
of the bar, leaving Luther and Faust to carry-on throwing the inkbottle back
and forth, and arguing transubstantiation.

When I reach Elsinore, natch I connect up to the local muscle, a couple of
heavies called Marcellus and Bernardo.

And do they have a tale to tell.  Sounds to me like they?ve been snorting
the white stuff, but hey, who knows?

So the three of us foregather on the battlements.

Bye?n?bye, sure nuff, up turns this Figure ?

<2 B continued ...>

Robin Hamilton




From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Oct 15 13:27:27 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:27:27 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] poets propping the bush house
Message-ID: <7a.498fd01c.2cbedd7f@cs.com>

I don't think that originally came from Gabe, but from Bill.  Sorry for the 
misattribution.
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Wed Oct 15 13:26:39 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:26:39 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] poets propping the bush house
Message-ID: <15c.259cd6e2.2cbedd4f@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/15/2003 12:12:59 PM Central Daylight Time, 
gmguddi at ilstu.edu writes: 
> >I admire some of the poets on the Laura Bush roster of shame, and i can 
> >understand their desire to futher their careers by bopping on down with 
> >the First Litperson.  I want to condemn them, but who the fuck am I?

There's a difference between attending the National Book Festival and 
rejecting an invitation to the White House. You might as well get on the cases of all 
those visitors who attended (other than the many writers of all kinds who 
were invited) and, presumably, enjoyed some of the poetry readings and other 
events.  I suggest that you write Mrs. Bush and refuse, in advance, any future 
invitations you may receive to any arts events that occur while this 
administration is in the White House.  You should probably also give up PBS and NPR since 
they receive some government funding.  Also, please refrain from sending in an 
application for a NEA grant. And your income tax forms as well.  That'll tell 
them!
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From rlong at jcws.net  Wed Oct 15 13:33:09 2003
From: rlong at jcws.net (Richard Long)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 12:33:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] New 2River Chapbook
Message-ID: <E6DC2F9C5BEB49429EA0033DEEE135C70269925B@phoenix.stlcc.edu>

All,

2River released today a new chapbook, After Happily Ever After, by Wendy
Taylor Carlisle. You can read the chapbook by going to go to:

	www.2River.org

and clicking on the appropriate link.

After Happily Ever After, the 15th entry in the 2River Chapbook Series,
is a collection of nineteen poems in which a true-blue East Texas voice
retells numerous myths and fairytales. With cover art from the Tragic
Beauty series by Barbara Abel, After Happily Ever After is a chapbook
you'll certainly want to read.

Richard Long

======
2River
www.2River.org



From JforJames at aol.com  Wed Oct 15 13:33:59 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:33:59 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] laura b's poet posse
Message-ID: <159.263c6e34.2cbedf07@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/15/03 12:44:39 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
William_Knott at emerson.edu writes:

> o to any bookstore that has a large shelf of anthologies and see all the 
> current anthols of "spirtual" poetry by contemp USA poets, there's 
seemingly 
> dozens of them, and guess what, there's not a single anthol of atheist 
poetry,
>  not one. . . .   why is that, do you think????

Because you haven't edited one yet? Also, you seem 
to be forgetting that hard-core Christian fundamentalists
would have little use for the gauzy or ecstatic manifestations
of "spirituality" in many of those collections. 
Finnegan


From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Oct 15 13:38:43 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 18:38:43 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Noir Hamlet.  #2   (Conan Doyle)  Watson as Narrator.  Cut 1
Message-ID: <019901c39343$2e2cb680$488c8051@MyPC>

I gazed at my friend with admiration.

"Simply, Horatio," he said, "when what has been eliminated as impossible,
whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

        "The dog which +didn't+ bark in the night ..."

What a noble mind was there o'er thrown.  If he'd only been able to steer
clear of the 7% solution ...

"What we have established, my dear Horatio, is the the Figure, whatever it
is, isn't a simple Phantasm ...  Which leaves us few alternatives."

"Hobgoblin, Demon-from-Hell, Dear Dead Dad ... "

        What a mind he had!

"Horatio!" he said, suddenly springing to life, "there is a simple way to
test this!  If the Figure (Ghost) is Telling the Truth, it is a Good Ghost.
Otherwise ...

    ("Gettier Cases," I thought to myself, anachronistically ...)

"Yes!" said Hamlet, "and as we're paying for these rooms, do we care what
Mrs. Hudson thinks?" and began to pick-out the outline of Dear Queen
Gertrude's face on the wall with carefully-placed musket-balls ...

<anon>

Professor Challenger





From hruggier at localnet.com  Wed Oct 15 13:46:41 2003
From: hruggier at localnet.com (Helen Ruggieri)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:46:41 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
References: <7a.498d76e1.2cbec4cc@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F8D8801.8A2B77D3@localnet.com>

Joke, James

JforJames at aol.com wrote:

> In a message dated 10/15/03 10:41:09 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> hruggier at localnet.com writes:
>
> > isn't that bauds?  these days at any rate.
> >
> X
> At the sight of blackbirds
> Flying in a green light,
> Even the bawds of euphony
> Would cry out sharply.
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From JforJames at aol.com  Wed Oct 15 13:44:09 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 13:44:09 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
Message-ID: <de.3f56d7e1.2cbee169@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/15/03 1:42:32 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
hruggier at localnet.com writes:

> Joke, James
I'm slow on the upload sometimes. 


From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Oct 15 13:54:09 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 18:54:09 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Mind of winter
References: <7a.498d76e1.2cbec4cc@aol.com>
Message-ID: <01c301c39345$55ce5d40$488c8051@MyPC>

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame ...

        (with the stress on the second syllable)

Robin



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Wed Oct 15 14:39:01 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 19:39:01 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] 'Shakespeare pulls out all the stops here'
References: <3F8ADB7B.13319.1345883@localhost>        <20031013214014.W39121@kpaul.spinweb.net> <1602.130.49.178.103.1066158484.squirrel@webmail1.localnet.com> <000901c3928a$3ea94a50$13da8051@MyPC> <000501c39318$f8c71280$e585fac1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <01fe01c3934b$9a74c500$488c8051@MyPC>

James:

The Real Lady once said to me:

    "Robin, why does everyone *always* take me for Low Maintenance?

    "Just *sometimes*, I'd like to be taken for High Maintenance.

      <sigh>  "

This was so screamingly funny it was beyond belief ...

            <2nd sigh>

Robin

(Jokes are complicated to explain -- 

    ... at the time I was walking with Marion towards The Sea Around Us for
lunch, and she suddenly spun round (she'd just seen Britten's _Elizabeth and
Essex_), and turned to me with uncharacteristic venom, and said:

        "Robin, remember what happened to Essex?"

Which really was totally unfair.  I was her rude boy, Ralegh, not the toy
boy Essex.

Makes you think ...

:-(

Robin






From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct 15 16:58:58 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 16:58:58 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] a bard in the bush is worth two in the blog
References: <926B4A8D55661047B1353EC03E69CE2DA6CFA9@mail.emerson.edu>
Message-ID: <019b01c3935f$279a36a0$0909fea9@j1c1k6>

of the 13 poets attending Laura Bush's lit-fest, only 2 have poems posted
upon the poetsagainstthewar.org site:  Marilyn Nelson and Kay Ryan.

the PATW site says that thus far 14, 472 poems have been posted.

Cheer up, Bill: only 3 of the poets attending Laura Bush's lit-fest have
posted poems to the poetsinfavorofwarplaguerapeandeatingliveinfants.org, so
there's hope yet!

--Bob G., who wouldn't be caught dead sending anything
topoetsagainstthewar.org OR attending a mainstreamers' get-together presided
over by Laura Bush (though I like Laura AND her husband).







From JforJames at aol.com  Wed Oct 15 21:05:31 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 21:05:31 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Larkin king of verse
Message-ID: <170.250a6aca.2cbf48db@aol.com>

Poets' poll crowns Larkin king of verse 

John Ezard
Wednesday October 15, 2003
The Guardian 

Philip Larkin has survived his brief exile from literary fashion as a 
middle-aged misanthrope with too pronounced a taste for pornography, to emerge 
unreservedly as the poetry buff's favourite poet of the past 50 years. 
He has triumphantly kicked his rival Ted Hughes, who was appointed poet 
laureate when Larkin refused the post, into second place. Hughes's wife, Sylvia 
Plath, came equal second with her husband. 

These were among the results yesterday of a poll of several thousand poetry 
readers held jointly by the Poetry Book Society and the Poetry Library to mark 
their 50th anniversaries. 

Larkin achieved an astonishing clean sweep in the survey. His poem The 
Whitsun Weddings, published in 1964, was chosen as favourite poem. And his volume of 
poems of the same title was picked as favourite collection. 

One of the features of the survey is the strong showing by Carol Ann Duffy, 
who was passed over to succeed Ted Hughes as poet laureate in favour of Andrew 
Motion. Her Prayer is second favourite poem, with her Valentine ranked equal 
eighth. 

She comes 10th in the poll for favourite poet - and her anthology The World's 
Wife is the fourth favourite collection. 

Two Irish poets born in Northern Ireland, Seamus Heaney and the lesser-known 
Derek Mahon, contribute the fourth and fifth favourite poems: Heaney with 
Digging, Mahon with his richly comic A Disused Shed in County Wexford. Heaney is 
fourth favourite poet and has two volumes, The Rattlebag and Death of a 
Naturalist, among the favourite collections. 

Equal fifth with Mahon for favourite poem is Jenny Joseph's perennial 
Warning, a vision of a disgraceful old lady who wears purple. In third place is 
Stevie Smith's even more perennial Not Waving But Drowning. 

Strikingly, three of the authors who loom largest in the lists, Larkin, Plath 
and Hughes, began publishing as long ago as the late 1950s. 

The Poetry Book Society was founded in 1953 by TS Eliot and friends. That 
year Eliot would have been runaway top poet in any poll. But in the new survey he 
ranks only seventh as favourite poet, below WH Auden and one place above the 
American, Robert Frost. 

However, the survey's rules may have been bent to accommodate them. Neither 
Auden, Frost nor Eliot is considered to have written their best work in any 
form in the past 50 years. 

Readers' favourites

Favourite poems from the past 50 years: 

1 The Whitsun Weddings - Philip Larkin 

2 Prayer - Carol Ann Duffy 

3 Not Waving But Drowning - Stevie Smith 

4 Digging - Seamus Heaney 

5 A Disused Shed in County Wexford - Derek Mahon 

Warning - Jenny Joseph 

7 Aubade - Philip Larkin 

8 Daddy - Sylvia Plath 

9 Valentine - Carol Ann Duffy 

10 Wild Geese - Mary Oliver 

Favourite poets from the past 50 years: 

1 Philip Larkin 

2 Ted Hughes 

3 Sylvia Plath 

4 Seamus Heaney 

5 RS Thomas 

6 WH Auden 

7 TS Eliot 

8 Robert Frost 

9 Stevie Smith 

10 Carol Ann Duffy 




From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Wed Oct 15 22:06:24 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 22:06:24 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] laura b's poet posse
In-Reply-To: <BBB2E6FE.57C6%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>
Message-ID: <57DBB8FE-FF7D-11D7-BC4E-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Wednesday, October 15, 2003, at 12:58 PM, Paul Lake wrote:
>
> A more serious answer to this would be that almost all of the poetry 
> that's
> published today is written from a post-Enlightenment, post-Christian,
> post-modern perspective and is completely unChristian in a 
> philosophical or
> metaphysical sense--and hence there's no need for a specifically
> non-Christian poetry anthology. On the other hand, you or someone else 
> might
> want to put together an explicitly atheist anthology. If there's a 
> market
> for it, it'll find some readers.

Paul,
Maybe everybody in your neighborhood is either Christian or atheist; 
where I come from, there are Moslems, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Yogis, 
Sikhs, Sufis, probably a Zoroastrian or Jain or two, and many of us are 
very tired of this empty dichotomy.  I don't know whether it's 
ignorance or xenophobia or something else; whatever it is, it was born 
lame and it's aging badly.

Wendy


Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu

The wall between where we are
and the Self is called the mind.
                       --S.J. Bharati



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Oct 16 02:52:20 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 07:52:20 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Noir Hamlet.  #3   The Continental Op (Hamlet as Narrator) Cut 1
References: <019901c39343$2e2cb680$488c8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <040d01c393b2$0c023980$488c8051@MyPC>

I knew it was bad when the Old Man called me in.

"Look, son, I know you won't like this, but you've the background.  Simply
go down and see what's happening.  Check it out."

As if.

Watching him roll a cigar around his teeth, I was tempted to ram it down his
throat.

He smiled.  "No problem.  A Wedding Party.  Simple look and refer.  Make
sure no one snatches the goods.  You've been there before, haven't you?  And
we do have the Elsinore Contract."

Yes.  I'd been there before.  It just so happened it was my mother's wedding
and it was my father who was dead.  As the Man perfectly well knew.

"Oh, and by the way, you can have the kid as a backstop."

Horatio.

*All* I need.

Comes with the territory.

I sighed.  "K, Chief.  I'll see what I can do."

"But," I said, "I think this one might be messy.  Better have some body-bags
ready."

The Old Man looked mildly taken aback for a moment.  "Surely not?"

I plucked the cigar from  his mouth and stubbed it out in a nearby ash-tray.

"You ever so wish."

Teach me to finance my way through college by working background for the
Pinks.

(Pass me a Senator McCarthy, I'm a hungry man ...)

Lillian Baylis




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Thu Oct 16 04:13:16 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 09:13:16 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Noir Hamlet.  #4  Fantomas Cut 1
References: <019901c39343$2e2cb680$488c8051@MyPC> <040d01c393b2$0c023980$488c8051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <046701c393bd$5a04ec80$488c8051@MyPC>

A shadowy figure spread across the Elsinore skyline.

Fu Man Chu!

Talbot Munday





From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Thu Oct 16 11:32:46 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 10:32:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] laura b's poet posse
In-Reply-To: <57DBB8FE-FF7D-11D7-BC4E-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <BBB4244E.57E4%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

It was Bill Knott who raised the Christian / Atheist dichotomy, to which I
was merely responding. I would amend my remarks below by saying simply that
"almost all of the poetry that's published today is written from a
post-Enlightenment, post-Christian, post-modern perspective and is
completely unChristian--as well as unBuddhist, unHindu, unSikh, unSufi and
UnZoroastrian--in a philosophical or metaphysical sense." Is that better?

Paul Lake


on 10/15/03 9:06 PM, Wendy Battin at wjbat at conncoll.edu wrote:

> On Wednesday, October 15, 2003, at 12:58 PM, Paul Lake wrote:
>> 
>> A more serious answer to this would be that almost all of the poetry
>> that's
>> published today is written from a post-Enlightenment, post-Christian,
>> post-modern perspective and is completely unChristian in a
>> philosophical or
>> metaphysical sense--and hence there's no need for a specifically
>> non-Christian poetry anthology. On the other hand, you or someone else
>> might
>> want to put together an explicitly atheist anthology. If there's a
>> market
>> for it, it'll find some readers.
> 
> Paul,
> Maybe everybody in your neighborhood is either Christian or atheist;
> where I come from, there are Moslems, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Yogis,
> Sikhs, Sufis, probably a Zoroastrian or Jain or two, and many of us are
> very tired of this empty dichotomy.  I don't know whether it's
> ignorance or xenophobia or something else; whatever it is, it was born
> lame and it's aging badly.
> 
> Wendy
> 
> 
> Wendy Battin
> wjbat at conncoll.edu
> 
> The wall between where we are
> and the Self is called the mind.
>                      --S.J. Bharati
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> ---
> [This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
> 
> 

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com  Thu Oct 16 11:47:23 2003
From: FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com (FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 11:47:23 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] taking Michael Moore's voting bridges seriously / Hassen, Jennifer Snead and Elizabeth Scanlon on Duchamp's GIVEN
Message-ID: <5FF87C85.1A865FC2.20CA8F88@aol.com>

all this and more on

THE PHILLY SOUND: ?New Poetry
click here: ?http://phillysound.blogspot.com/




From Cadaly at aol.com  Thu Oct 16 13:49:36 2003
From: Cadaly at aol.com (Cadaly at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 13:49:36 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Shearsman
Message-ID: <121.26acfa41.2cc03430@aol.com>

at

http://www.shearsman.com/pages/magazine/current_issue/contents.html

and features poems by

Kelvin Corcoran
Catherine Daly << poem from DaDaDa!!!
Peter Redgrove
David Miller
George Messo
Peter Robinson
Lyn Lifshin
Zoe SKoulding
Monika Rinck

plus the usual reviews.




Tony Frazer
Editor, Shearsman

http://www.shearsman.com/
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From debrasan at earthlink.net  Thu Oct 16 15:29:06 2003
From: debrasan at earthlink.net (Debra San)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 15:29:06 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] sonnet of 1 word per line
Message-ID: <v0421010dbbb3615bec90@[165.121.129.36]>

An Aeronaut to His Love

I
Through
Blue
Sky
Fly
To
You.
Why?
Sweet
Love,
Feet
Move
So
Slow.

-- Witter Bynner


From halvard at earthlink.net  Thu Oct 16 16:17:12 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 16:17:12 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] sonnet of 1 letter per line
In-Reply-To: <v0421010dbbb3615bec90@[165.121.129.36]>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEMBHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Old MacDonald Had a Farm

	E
	I
	E
	I

	E
	I
	E
	I

	E
	I
	E
	I

	O
	O


Hal      

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard





From kpaul at mallasch.com  Thu Oct 16 16:36:48 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 15:36:48 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] sonnet of 1 letter per line
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEMBHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEMBHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <20031016153639.H45123@kpaul.spinweb.net>

Thanks. That made my day/week :)

-kpaul

On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, Halvard Johnson wrote:

>
> Old MacDonald Had a Farm
>
> 	E
> 	I
> 	E
> 	I
>
> 	E
> 	I
> 	E
> 	I
>
> 	E
> 	I
> 	E
> 	I
>
> 	O
> 	O
>
>
> Hal
>
> Halvard Johnson
> ===============
> email: halvard at earthlink.net
> website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Thu Oct 16 17:47:24 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 17:47:24 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] sonnet of 1 letter per line
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEMBHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net> <20031016153639.H45123@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <002601c3942f$162d30e0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

    Hal--I loved it too.

Tad


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2003 4:36 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] sonnet of 1 letter per line


> Thanks. That made my day/week :)
> 
> -kpaul
> 
> On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, Halvard Johnson wrote:
> 
> >
> > Old MacDonald Had a Farm
> >
> > E
> > I
> > E
> > I
> >
> > E
> > I
> > E
> > I
> >
> > E
> > I
> > E
> > I
> >
> > O
> > O
> >
> >
> > Hal
> >
> > Halvard Johnson
> > ===============
> > email: halvard at earthlink.net
> > website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Oct 16 22:55:33 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 22:55:33 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] sonnet of 1 letter per line
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEMBHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net> <20031016153639.H45123@kpaul.spinweb.net> <002601c3942f$162d30e0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <009e01c3945a$22ee0ea0$a99afea9@j1c1k6>


>     Hal--I loved it too.
> 
> Tad

But it didn't rhyme.

--Bob G.



From kpaul at mallasch.com  Thu Oct 16 23:04:27 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2003 22:04:27 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] sonnet of 1 letter per line
In-Reply-To: <009e01c3945a$22ee0ea0$a99afea9@j1c1k6>
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEMBHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
 <20031016153639.H45123@kpaul.spinweb.net> <002601c3942f$162d30e0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
 <009e01c3945a$22ee0ea0$a99afea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <20031016220406.Y2979@kpaul.spinweb.net>

O?

-kpaul

On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, Bob Grumman wrote:

>
>
> >     Hal--I loved it too.
> >
> > Tad
>
> But it didn't rhyme.
>
> --Bob G.
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct 17 07:53:38 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 07:53:38 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] sonnet of 1 letter per line
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECEMBHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net><20031016153639.H45123@kpaul.spinweb.net> <002601c3942f$162d30e0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2><009e01c3945a$22ee0ea0$a99afea9@j1c1k6> <20031016220406.Y2979@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <015701c394a5$4deb8060$f996fea9@j1c1k6>



> O?
> 
> -kpaul

Identities are not rhymes.

--Bob G.


 
> On Thu, 16 Oct 2003, Bob Grumman wrote:
> 
> >
> >
> > >     Hal--I loved it too.
> > >
> > > Tad
> >
> > But it didn't rhyme.
> >
> > --Bob G.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Fri Oct 17 08:22:34 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 08:22:34 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] laura b's poet posse
In-Reply-To: <BBB4244E.57E4%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>
Message-ID: <963C548E-009C-11D8-984F-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Thursday, October 16, 2003, at 11:32 AM, Paul Lake wrote:
> It was Bill Knott who raised the Christian / Atheist dichotomy, to 
> which I
> was merely responding. I would amend my remarks below by saying simply 
> that
> "almost all of the poetry that's published today is written from a
> post-Enlightenment, post-Christian, post-modern perspective and is
> completely unChristian--as well as unBuddhist, unHindu, unSikh, unSufi 
> and
> UnZoroastrian--in a philosophical or metaphysical sense." Is that 
> better?

It makes the flimsiness of your generalization even more obvious; in 
that sense, I suppose one could say it's better.

Wendy


Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu
----------------------------
How could it be permissible to form a cult, gather
followers and cronies, dash off writings, and toil in
pursuit of objects for love of honor and advantage?
             -Tung-shan



From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Fri Oct 17 17:05:17 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 17:05:17 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] dying anyway
Message-ID: <007801c394f2$5dd60750$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

That quote of Auden's about "Sept 1, 1939" -- "Well that's a damned lie! We must die anyway." Can anyone tell me its source? I mean, I know the source is Auden...


Tad Richards
"Situations"
http://www.opus40.org/TadRichards
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From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Oct 17 17:20:42 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 17:20:42 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] dying anyway
In-Reply-To: <007801c394f2$5dd60750$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOENPHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Would you rephrase the question, please?

Hal                Serving the tri-state area.

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard

  That quote of Auden's about "Sept 1, 1939" -- "Well that's a damned lie!
We must die anyway." Can anyone tell me its source? I mean, I know the
source is Auden...


  Tad Richards
  "Situations"
  http://www.opus40.org/TadRichards
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From halvard at earthlink.net  Fri Oct 17 19:12:41 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 19:12:41 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Tom Clark, "Baseball"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEOCHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Baseball

One day when I was studying with Stan Musial, he pointed out
that one end of the bat was fatter than the other. "This end is
more important than the other," he said. After twenty years I
learned to hold the bat by the handle. Recently, when Willie
Mays returned from Europe, he brought me a German bat of
modern make. It can hit any kind of ball. Pressure on the shaft
at the end near the handle frees the weight so that it can be
retracted or extended in any direction. A pitcher came with
the bat. The pitcher offers not one but several possibilities.
That is, one may choose the kind of pitch one wants. There
is no ball.

--Tom Clark

in *Hummers, Knucklers, and Slow Curves: Contemporary
Baseball Poems*, ed. Don Johnson [Urbana and Chicago:
University of Illinois Press, 1991]


Hal                

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Fri Oct 17 23:24:09 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 23:24:09 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] dying anyway
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOENPHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <001901c39527$4b467e00$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

Only under duress....
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Halvard Johnson 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 5:20 PM
  Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] dying anyway


  Would you rephrase the question, please?

  Hal                Serving the tri-state area.

  Halvard Johnson
  ===============
  email: halvard at earthlink.net
  website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard 

    That quote of Auden's about "Sept 1, 1939" -- "Well that's a damned lie! We must die anyway." Can anyone tell me its source? I mean, I know the source is Auden...


    Tad Richards
    "Situations"
    http://www.opus40.org/TadRichards
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From kpaul at mallasch.com  Fri Oct 17 23:43:11 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 22:43:11 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] dying anyway
In-Reply-To: <001901c39527$4b467e00$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOENPHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
 <001901c39527$4b467e00$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <20031017223827.S68980@kpaul.spinweb.net>

As in which pub first heard the quote from Auden?

Good question. Don't know. According to Harvard mag, it was shortly
after it was orginally published, though.

The idea of an ever mutating poem is interesting.

Seeing the
leaves as
words of
a poem,
-kpaul




On Fri, 17 Oct 2003, TheOldMole wrote:

> Only under duress....
>   ----- Original Message -----
>   From: Halvard Johnson
>   To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
>   Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 5:20 PM
>   Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] dying anyway
>
>
>   Would you rephrase the question, please?
>
>   Hal                Serving the tri-state area.
>
>   Halvard Johnson
>   ===============
>   email: halvard at earthlink.net
>   website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
>
>     That quote of Auden's about "Sept 1, 1939" -- "Well that's a damned lie! We must die anyway." Can anyone tell me its source? I mean, I know the source is Auden...
>
>
>     Tad Richards
>     "Situations"
>     http://www.opus40.org/TadRichards


From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Fri Oct 17 23:54:06 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 23:54:06 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] dying anyway
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEOENPHIAA.halvard@earthlink.net> <001901c39527$4b467e00$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <20031017223827.S68980@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <00c201c3952b$7a6d4660$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

Exactly. As in I have to track it down for a citation for an article.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 11:43 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] dying anyway


> As in which pub first heard the quote from Auden?
>
> Good question. Don't know. According to Harvard mag, it was shortly
> after it was orginally published, though.
>
> The idea of an ever mutating poem is interesting.
>
> Seeing the
> leaves as
> words of
> a poem,
> -kpaul
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, 17 Oct 2003, TheOldMole wrote:
>
> > Only under duress....
> >   ----- Original Message -----
> >   From: Halvard Johnson
> >   To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> >   Sent: Friday, October 17, 2003 5:20 PM
> >   Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] dying anyway
> >
> >
> >   Would you rephrase the question, please?
> >
> >   Hal                Serving the tri-state area.
> >
> >   Halvard Johnson
> >   ===============
> >   email: halvard at earthlink.net
> >   website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
> >
> >     That quote of Auden's about "Sept 1, 1939" -- "Well that's a damned
lie! We must die anyway." Can anyone tell me its source? I mean, I know the
source is Auden...
> >
> >
> >     Tad Richards
> >     "Situations"
> >     http://www.opus40.org/TadRichards
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sat Oct 18 09:43:19 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 14:43:19 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] dying anyway
References: <007801c394f2$5dd60750$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <002301c3957d$ca8e4d40$3ef78051@MyPC>

That quote of Auden's about "Sept 1, 1939" -- "Well that's a damned lie! We must die anyway." Can anyone tell me its source? I mean, I know the source is Auden...
  Tad Richards
  "Situations"
  http://www.opus40.org/TadRichards

I think it's in a preface to a version of the selected where he either revised or dumped "Sept/39".  The line shifted from "We must love one another, or die" to "We must love one another, and die" -- I'm not sure what was the original version.  Then Auden, with his immaculate post-1939 USAmerican taste, simply dumped the entire poem, so while it exists in the Mendelson _Selected_, it isn't in the _Collected_.

Auden's revisions are utterly baroque -- The Amazing Vanishing Dildo that got lost after the initial magazine publication of "In Praise of Limestone", the (re)titling of 'Easily, my dear, easily you move your head ...' as "A Bride of the Thirties", the lost Claudel stanza from the elegy for Yeats.  Angels weep territory.

The answer to Tad's question is probably somewhere in Mendelson, either _The English Auden_ edition or _The Early Auden_ biography.

Hope this helps.

Robin

(Tad, if you can't track it from this, nudge me backchannel, and I'll check out the Mendelson on my shelves -- at the moment, I'm simply too lazy to stir my bones and look-up the index.  <g>

R2)

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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sat Oct 18 12:49:27 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 17:49:27 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
References: <007801c394f2$5dd60750$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <002301c3957d$ca8e4d40$3ef78051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <014501c39597$cb4e1c00$3ef78051@MyPC>

I've just opened a copy of _Rebel Angels_ (delivered today courtesy of amazon.co.uk) and there's Tom Disch ...

I thought I was beyond startlement, but this does mildly astonish me.

What's (if it's the same guy) a nice SF writer who was in the centre of the frame of the Brit new wave SF clustered around _New Worlds_ in the sixties doing in an American Neoformalist Anthology?

Sure, his Notorious Sonnet gets picked up in John Hollander's _Rhyme's Reason_, but this ...!!!

:-(

Baffled from Britain





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From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com  Sat Oct 18 15:50:24 2003
From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 12:50:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
In-Reply-To: <014501c39597$cb4e1c00$3ef78051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <20031018195024.2222.qmail@web13005.mail.yahoo.com>

I'm sure the reason Disch is included is that Dana Gioia is morally bankrupt.
 
That's gotta be it.
 
Jeff Newberry

Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
I've just opened a copy of _Rebel Angels_ (delivered today courtesy of amazon.co.uk) and there's Tom Disch ...
 
I thought I was beyond startlement, but this does mildly astonish me.
 
What's (if it's the same guy) a nice SF writer who was in the centre of the frame of the Brit new wave SF clustered around _New Worlds_ in the sixties doing in an American Neoformalist Anthology?
 
Sure, his Notorious Sonnet gets picked up in John Hollander's _Rhyme's Reason_, but this ...!!!
 
:-(
 
Baffled from Britain
 
 
 
 
 
 


---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct 18 16:00:56 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 15:00:56 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Complete Kong
Message-ID: <BBB70628.4CF5%grahamd@ripon.edu>

William Trowbridge's *The Complete Book Of Kong* (Southeast Missouri UP)
landed in my mailbox yesterday, thus brightening my day.  Allow me to
recommend it heartily.

Trowbridge has long been on my short list of poets who ought to be more
famous.  He's as funny as Billy Collins and more varied.

For those who haven't been following Trowbridge's work, *The Complete Book
of Kong* collects the King Kong poems he has been writing for years--some
from his previous collections, some new, some uncollected.  The poems are
goofy, satiric, outrageous, biting, obvious, sometimes oddly bittersweet.
Kong has an audience with the Pope, talks shop with Godzilla, views an
experimental art film, dickers over the sequel movie at a power lunch, joins
the Marines, has his say about literary criticism, and tries out for the
Bears, among many other activities.

If a more bumptious, strangely readable book of poems has appeared lately, I
haven't seen it. 

As introduction and epilogue Trowbridge has also included a couple brief
essays arguing seriously though without a whiff of solemnity in favor of the
virtues of comic verse and poetic impurity.

Kong Discovers He's Immortal

So I guess that makes it me and Dracula,
that guy with the warthog breath and the joke
about being just his type. And everybody else
with a one-way ticket to the local Forest Lawn.
I'll bet De Mille's behind this, who reissued
the Commandments, did thirty-seven takes
of Cleopatra in the milk bath. Peeping Cecil
crouched behind his propane-burning bush.

So now? My agent says I ought to write
a diet book and hit the talk shows, but they'd
probably find out I don't eat. There's enough
to sweat without a lawsuit: what's retirement age
for the death impaired? Do I lose my 401,
my pension? Mother had it right: beware
of gift brides, especially when they're tied to stakes,
and buy no stock from Republicans in pith helmets.

--William Trowbridge


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sat Oct 18 16:26:59 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 21:26:59 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
References: <20031018195024.2222.qmail@web13005.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <022701c395b6$2ebeab60$3ef78051@MyPC>

<<
I'm sure the reason Disch is included is that Dana Gioia is morally bankrupt.
>>

I haven't had a chance to read the book yet, so i shouldn't talk, and I've two scores against me.

One is that I'm not American (and Disch is, so what the hell was he doing writing new wave SF for New Worlds rather than the crappy _Dangerous Visions_ anthology?)

The other is I've a rooted distrust of SF writers -- Disch, J.G.Ballard, Vonnegut -- who go mainstream.

Which means that in this area, all you'll get from me is prejudice and venom.

Robin

  That's gotta be it.

  Jeff Newberry

  Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
    I've just opened a copy of _Rebel Angels_ (delivered today courtesy of amazon.co.uk) and there's Tom Disch ...

    I thought I was beyond startlement, but this does mildly astonish me.

    What's (if it's the same guy) a nice SF writer who was in the centre of the frame of the Brit new wave SF clustered around _New Worlds_ in the sixties doing in an American Neoformalist Anthology?

    Sure, his Notorious Sonnet gets picked up in John Hollander's _Rhyme's Reason_, but this ...!!!

    :-(

    Baffled from Britain








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From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Sat Oct 18 17:55:11 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 17:55:11 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
In-Reply-To: <022701c395b6$2ebeab60$3ef78051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <BEF0A0C3-01B5-11D8-B2A0-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>


On Saturday, October 18, 2003, at 04:26 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> One is that I'm not American (and Disch is, so what the hell was he 
> doing writing new wave SF for New Worlds rather than the crappy 
> _Dangerous Visions_ anthology?)
>

Not entirely crappy, Robin.  Ellison published Philip K. Dick's "Faith 
of Our Fathers" there, for one thing.

But you missed a series of really venomous reviews Disch published in 
_Poetry_ some years (or decades?) back.  He's been at it all along.  I 
read them with great sadness, having admired his _Camp Concentration_.

Wendy


Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu
--------------------------

Just as a coil of rope
Is mistaken for a snake,
So you are mistaken for the world.
                                        -Ashtavakra Gita
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From CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com  Sat Oct 18 18:21:24 2003
From: CobbCoStudioArts at pro.talentx.com (CobbCoStudioArts)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 15:21:24 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [New-Poetry] sonnet of 1 letter per line
Message-ID: <20031018222124.1E59B397E@sitemail.everyone.net>

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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sat Oct 18 19:06:32 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 19:06:32 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
Message-ID: <67.1ac2895e.2cc32178@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/18/2003 2:56:23 PM Central Daylight Time, 
jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com writes: 
> 
> I'm sure the reason Disch is included is that Dana Gioia is morally 
> bankrupt.
>   
>  That's gotta be it.
>   
>  Jeff Newberry
> 
". . . still morally bankrupt," you mean.
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From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sat Oct 18 20:10:48 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 01:10:48 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
References: <BEF0A0C3-01B5-11D8-B2A0-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <002201c395d5$73122ed0$1aa88051@MyPC>

<<
On Saturday, October 18, 2003, at 04:26 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:

One is that I'm not American (and Disch is, so what the hell was he doing
writing new wave SF for New Worlds rather than the crappy _Dangerous
Visions_ anthology?)

Not entirely crappy, Robin. Ellison published Philip K. Dick's "Faith of Our
Fathers" there, for one thing.
>>

Fair point, Wendy -- as ever, I'm prone to exaggerate.  But somehow,
_Dangerous_ and _Again_ always struck me as pretty much of an ego-trip for
Ellison.  And for all of me, a tad pretentious.  There was never, was there?
a magazine back-up for the American new wave that there was in England.

Mind you, with John W. Campbell Jr. running _Analog_ (as it by then was) as
virtually the only game in town, maybe that's not surprising.

Now most of what's interesting that's happening seems to be cyberpunk.
(Though I do get a small glow of parochial satisfaction that two of the
current frontrunners -- Iain M. [sic] Banks and Ken MacLeod -- are both
Glasgow.  The third of the Glasgow SF renaissance authors, Chris Boyce, died
all too young.)

<<
But you missed a series of really venomous reviews Disch published in
_Poetry_ some years (or decades?) back. He's been at it all along. I read
them with great sadness, having admired his _Camp Concentration_.
>>

Obviously, I'm going to have to revise my presumptions here -- mostly I've
thought of Disch as SF.  Though the Ghetto was never quite as tight and
closed here as it was in America.

Equally, of course, you can't blame the Brits for L. Ron Hubbard.  Now
*there's* a name that attracts some quite extreme dislike in the SF
community.  Even Van Vogt (who I'm still mostly convinced was to a large
degree the brains behind Scientology) had a tough time explaining away the
twelve years or however long it was that he vanished from sight.

Robin




From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sat Oct 18 20:30:56 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 01:30:56 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
References: <BEF0A0C3-01B5-11D8-B2A0-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <003e01c395d8$431610e0$1aa88051@MyPC>

Wendy:

<<
Not entirely crappy, Robin. Ellison published Philip K. Dick's "Faith of Our
Fathers" there, for one thing.
>>

I'm probably offside when it comes to Dick, too.  I love his early stuff,
when he was publishing in the Ace Doubles series, but after a certain point
...  An Object Warning about the dangers of substance abuse, perhaps?

Dick never went mainstream the way Ballard did, but he somehow got adopted
as the Respectable Face of SF.

(Banks is *very* careful to separate his SF from his non-SF writing -- which
is why the SF is published under the name of Iain M. [sic] Banks.)

But mostly for the later (pretentious?) stuff he was doing.  Nobody ever
seems to mention _Clans of the Alphane Moon_.

What is it about SF that manages to generate such acute paranoia?  I even
thought twice about typing "Scientology", given the three different ways -- 
sue you, firebomb your mailbox, or shove you in front of a subway train -- 
that the Church has been known to respond to criticism.

Leave aside what they could do to people's minds.

Robin





From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Sat Oct 18 20:53:23 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 20:53:23 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
In-Reply-To: <002201c395d5$73122ed0$1aa88051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <A43D3672-01CE-11D8-B2A0-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Saturday, October 18, 2003, at 08:10 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> Fair point, Wendy -- as ever, I'm prone to exaggerate.  But somehow,
> _Dangerous_ and _Again_ always struck me as pretty much of an ego-trip 
> for
> Ellison.  And for all of me, a tad pretentious.

I don't think Ellison ever did anything that wasn't an ego-trip for 
Ellison, but his energy has been useful.

> There was never, was there?
> a magazine back-up for the American new wave that there was in England.

Not that I know of, but there was probably a lot at the fanzine level I 
wouldn't have been aware of.  Plentiful cheap paperbacks in the 60's 
and 70's superceded the magazines, as far as I know.  But I'm not 
expert in this.

> Even Van Vogt (who I'm still mostly convinced was to a large
> degree the brains behind Scientology) had a tough time explaining away 
> the
> twelve years or however long it was that he vanished from sight.

I don't know this story--remember Van Vogt for the Weapon Shops of my 
early adolescence, but didn't know he had any connection to Hubbard.

Wendy



Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu

The wall between where we are
and the Self is called the mind.
                       --S.J. Bharati



From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Sat Oct 18 21:48:59 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 21:48:59 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
In-Reply-To: <003e01c395d8$431610e0$1aa88051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <687DDA9D-01D6-11D8-B2A0-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Saturday, October 18, 2003, at 08:30 PM, Robin Hamilton wrote:
> I'm probably offside when it comes to Dick, too.  I love his early 
> stuff,
> when he was publishing in the Ace Doubles series, but after a certain 
> point
> ...  An Object Warning about the dangers of substance abuse, perhaps?

That and pure hackdom.  Didn't he turn out 20 books one year?

> Dick never went mainstream the way Ballard did, but he somehow got 
> adopted
> as the Respectable Face of SF.

That's very curious.  All his work has been reprinted in a fancy 
trade-edition series, and he's become a critical darling.  It might be 
just that mainstream filmmakers have found him so useful.  I confess I 
used a quote of his as an epigraph to my last book, and woke up to find 
myself trendy.  But I'm glad the books are back in print.

I haven't read any of Ballard's mainstream stuff--remember him mostly 
for some very fine short stories in, was it? The Voices of Time?

> But mostly for the later (pretentious?) stuff he was doing.  Nobody 
> ever
> seems to mention _Clans of the Alphane Moon_

_Clans_ is wonderful, but probably cuts too close to home for most.  
Very few readers want the line between anthropology and psychiatry 
erased.

As for the "later (pretentious?) stuff," do you mean the Valis trilogy? 
  Or the non-sf books?  Valis struck me more as awful and fascinating 
than pretentious; he was disintegrating in full view, but his invention 
didn't flag.  The other stuff I can't speak for.  My husband picked up 
_A Scanner, Darkly_ from a remainder table not long ago and I put it 
down after 30 pages.

> What is it about SF that manages to generate such acute paranoia?  I 
> even
> thought twice about typing "Scientology", given the three different 
> ways --
> sue you, firebomb your mailbox, or shove you in front of a subway 
> train --
> that the Church has been known to respond to criticism.

I've never read Hubbard or followed the Scientology stuff, though it's 
impossible not to be aware of them.  Given some of the rhetoric on this 
list and others,  I'm not sure poetry is much saner.

Wendy

Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu



From robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com  Sat Oct 18 22:15:22 2003
From: robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com (Robin Hamilton)
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 03:15:22 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
References: <A43D3672-01CE-11D8-B2A0-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <007801c395e6$d9f5b0c0$1aa88051@MyPC>

Wendy:

> I don't think Ellison ever did anything that wasn't an ego-trip for
> Ellison, but his energy has been useful.

<g>

> Not that I know of, but there was probably a lot at the fanzine level I
> wouldn't have been aware of.  Plentiful cheap paperbacks in the 60's
> and 70's superceded the magazines, as far as I know.  But I'm not
> expert in this.

I think it was more into the seventies that this happened -- the magazines
were still pretty dominant even in the late sixties.  _Dune_ was serialised
in _Analog_, for instance.  But yes, at a certain point the market suddenly
shifts.  One consequence was exit the SF short story.

> > Even Van Vogt (who I'm still mostly convinced was to a large
> > degree the brains behind Scientology) had a tough time explaining away
> > the
> > twelve years or however long it was that he vanished from sight.
>
> I don't know this story--remember Van Vogt for the Weapon Shops of my
> early adolescence, but didn't know he had any connection to Hubbard.

It's slightly inferential (not the connection between Van Vogt and
Scientology, but just what his contribution was).

The whole mess started in _Astounding_, where the very first "Dianetics"
article was published in the late fifties, I think.  LRon (along with Van
Vogt) was part of Campbell's stable of writers -- Hubbard with the Ol' Doc
Methusela stories.

Once Scientology was up and running, VV dropped out of writing for about
twelve years, I think.  (The dates are a bit approximate.)  But before that,
he'd become fascinated by Korzybski and _Science and Sanity_, and there are
some things in Scientology which are a weird distortion of Korzybski's
ideas.  And Van Vogt had the brains that LRon didn't.  So ...

When he resurfaced, Van Vogt *never* mentioned Scientology in public (as far
as I know), but rumour has it that there was a hell of a lot of
soul-searching  before he was given an Emeritus Award by the SF writers of
America.  Part of the reason why SF writers have such a ferocious dislike of
Hubbard was that they feel partly responsible.

But this is beginning to sound like the dog which didn't bark in the night.

<g>

Robin









From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct 18 22:30:53 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 22:30:53 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB vs. BG
References: <BEF0A0C3-01B5-11D8-B2A0-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> <003e01c395d8$431610e0$1aa88051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <0a5501c395e9$05a00e80$de56fea9@j1c1k6>

Okay, Marcus, if you're interested, here's a re-start of the thread I tried
before.  It apparently lost its title immediately.  Let's try to keep
everything in this thread.  I will at the same time try not to reply to any
other threads that are in any way related to this one while this one remains
active.

If anyone but Marcus wants to comment on anything in this thread, please do
so in a separate thread.

Okat, if you're participating, Marcus, what follows is my first statement
again, but changed, mainly because of reasonable criticisms you made of the
first version.  Remember, we're trying to determine whether or not my
statements are clear, one at a time.  You will reveal what is unclear about
each statement as it appears, and we will discuss the matter exclusively
until (1) you agree my statement is clear either due to a change in how you
perceive it or my revision of it or (2) one of us tires of the other's
refusal to back down.  If (1), I will
post another single statement about my poetics; if (2), we will end the
thread.


Here's my first statement (which I hope we can keep visible in each post):

Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: texts concerned
primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with conveying factual
information to others; texts concerned primarily (according to a consensus
of readers) with convincingly advocating a point of view; texts concerned
primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with providing pleasure; and
texts that convey nothing meaningful (according to a consensus of readers).





From marcus at designerglass.com  Sun Oct 19 08:03:56 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (marcus at designerglass.com)
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 12:03:56 GMT
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
Message-ID: <200310191203.h9JC3mST022430@wiz.cath.vt.edu>

> ... what follows is my first statement
> again, but changed, mainly because of reasonable criticisms you made of the
> first version.<<

This approach seems to me to argue strongly for something other than a "vs." in 
the subject line.

> Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: texts concerned
> primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with conveying factual
> information to others; texts concerned primarily (according to a consensus
> of readers) with convincingly advocating a point of view; texts concerned
> primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with providing pleasure; and
> texts that convey nothing meaningful (according to a consensus of readers).

I have trouble with the notion of "four and only four" when combined with the 
notion of "a consensus of readers" because you don't adequately 
define "readers" in regard to time-frame, size of group, what 
constitutes "consensus", expertise, or with regard to reader-appropriateness. 
Is anything conveyed to an ordinary six-year-old by Russell's Theory of Types? 
Is anything conveyed to an ordinary engineer or accountant or salesman by 
contemporary poetry -- or by Russell's Theory of Types, either?

Further, your division seems to eliminate philosophy altogether from any kind 
of verbal expression, since it is not philosophy's purpose primarily, according 
to any consensus of any readers, to convey factual information, a point of 
view, pleasure, or nothing meaningful.

For that matter, where does poetry fall in this division? Into "pleasure"? How 
do you account for the aggressive anti-pleasure mode of "Language Poetry", in 
that case? Do you deny that it is poetry and put it in "point of view"? 

Perhaps you should make a grid, and break each piece of verbal expression down 
into parts (beginning, middle, end, exposition, character, narrative devices, 
plot devices, language devices, and the like, I imagine), and create a must-
score system for each reader in your four categories to get a numerical value 
for what percent of each part is pleasure, point of view, informative, or 
nothing meaningful, add up the score, divide by the number of parts, and get an 
average for the whole of what percent of the whole is pleasure, point of view, 
informative, or nothing meaningful, and then accumulate the scores of as many 
readers as can be persuaded to score each piece of verbal expression, and 
average those scores by the number of respondents, and then, after deciding on 
a number of respondents to lend the score an apparent significance, declare its 
character.















From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sun Oct 19 11:33:27 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 11:33:27 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Complete Kong
Message-ID: <188.207d2af4.2cc408c7@cs.com>

Thanks for posting this.  Trowbridge is a real treasure--wonderful reader 
too.
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From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sun Oct 19 18:10:18 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 00:10:18 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
References: <200310111958.h9BJwZST030152@wiz.cath.vt.edu> <003301c3903d$279de590$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2> <3F887793.5536C66D@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <001901c39692$d2af47c0$eee8f9c1@pavilion>

This appears to be a more realistic definition of Art. At least this is very
much what I appreciate in poetry (assuming of course that I have the tools
to appreciate it-always possible in an elementary fashion as you may have
witnessed).

Surprised no one echoed on this?

Cheers.

J.A.




----- Original Message -----
From: "James Cervantes" <jvcervantes at earthlink.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 11:35 PM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> Could we have all that but say, instead:  Art calls attention to itself
> as *part of*  the continuum of life, and as such, intends to offer a
> perspective on life -- to offer itself up for interpretation?  I would
> be very happy if we could.
>
> - Jim
>
> TheOldMole wrote:
> >
> > You differentiate it in exactly that way. Art calls attention to itself
as
> > separate from the continuum of life, and as such, intended to offer a
> > perspective on life -- to offer itself up for interpretation.
> >
> > What makes
> >
> >    lighght
> >
> > a work of art? The fact that Bob Grumman attests to its profundity? And
if
> > Sam Gwynn says it's crarap, does that make it sometimes art and
sometimes
> > not, or art and not art at the same time, like Schrodinger's cat?
> >
> > It's art because it gives us an opening to look at language, at silence,
at
> > structure, in a different light, or even a different lighght.
> >
> > It's different from
> >
> >   light
> >
> > partly in that it takes up a different amount of space. It creates the
page
> > as a frame, and it occupies a larger space within that frame, without
making
> > any more sound if you say it out loud. Or maybe all the letters have the
> > same value, because actually they're all silent on the page. And maybe
if
> > you said it out loud you'd gargle the middle of it. And maybe this is
all
> > bullshit, but it's one kind of bullshit that art, specifically, draws
from
> > us.
> >
> > For some of us, it's instantly forgettable -- but actually, ALMOST
instantly
> > forgettable, and there's a difference.
> >
> > Otherwise, what do you have? Besides a headache, I mean. You have Anny's
> > definition, in which the same thing is sometimes art and sometimes not,
the
> > same individuals are sometimes artists and sometimes not, depending on
how
> > she feels about. And no disrespect -- I love what Anny has to say about
> > poetry -- but this says more, and I believe is intended to say more,
about
> > Anny than it does about what art is.
> >
> > You can look at
> >
> >   lighght
> >
> > and say "that's not art," but
> >
> >   lighght
> >
> > requires you to say it. The hemorrhoid ad doesn't.
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: <marcus at designerglass.com>
> > To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> > Sent: Saturday, October 11, 2003 4:22 PM
> > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry
> >
> > > > ... Art basically IS what anyone who claims to be an artist says it
is
> > > > -- the act of calling it art makes it art. ...<<
> > >
> > > But this just begs the question. How do you tell who's an artist?
Anyone
> > who
> > > claims to be one? How does that differentiate art from non-art in any
> > > meaningful way?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sun Oct 19 18:34:33 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 00:34:33 +0200
Subject: Precision on Quote - Re: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin : Alias? Poerty is, Shake rattle & roll 
Message-ID: <001a01c39692$d6f0c200$eee8f9c1@pavilion>

I did not fully realise how badly I had transposed the extract from late
Frank Herberts. I feel it worth doing properly:
Translation aside it is :

 Quote: from Emperor Leto in the Dune Series by the Late Frank Herbert
re-translated from french, in which by shear co-incidence a certain "Marcus"
is mentionned!

Il y a une lecon, Marcus Claire Luseyal, sur les soci?t?es ultra-mecanis?s
du pass?,
Que vous paraissez ne pas avoir tres bien compris. Par leur existance m?me,
les machines conditionnent leurs utilisateurs ? se servir de leurs
semblables comme ils se servent d'elles.

There is one lesson Marcus .         from the ultra-mechanised societies of
the past, which you appear not to have understood very well. By their very
existence, machines condition their users to use their fellow human beings
as one (a machine).

Cf. also  H. MacDiarmid in "Reflections in an Ironworks" posted.
"Would you become like steel on your own behalf!"

J.A.


----- Original Message -----
From: "james.alexander1" <james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Cc: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>; "Marcus Bales"
<marcus at designerglass.com>; "Bob Grumman" <bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net>;
<robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2003 10:20 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin : Alias? Poerty
is, Shake rattle & roll


> To Mallasch & Bales -in the morning light:
> few comments for others hence direct posting
>
> Just realised that it is better to personalise a comment (To From if you
> want the recipient to find it in the volume (I had 90 Monday. I thought it
> might be automatic at least to the link sender?
>
>
> I have several files (Grumman on Archives) on NPo  :
> 1) Poems - from which I pulled this one out. (thanks)
> 2)Learn- what poetry is by the teachers & sub files Poetry is? & Poetry
> Quotes on  (I have no file on what poetry "means" to the poets (teachers
> have a stable bread & butter job).
>
> I was totally unaware that poetry (as opposed to poets) had fallen into
> disrepute. And may share a common fate with many professions eg. Copy
> Editor/Editor-in-Chief Dilema :
>
> "Lament" obviously tinkles a wee bell to any Scot, expat, maybe
descendants
> and there are a lot O' them.
>
> The content gives an insight into the trials & tribulations of...  Humour
> helps support much of it, provides distance (if not some objectivity).
This
> piece has & rhythme and rhyme and reason. Harmony in an unharmonius
> situation -
> all for a reader (sic) who skims over it!
>
> I came across a remark by the late Frank Herbert in the Dune series:
Empreur
> Leto's remark goes something like this:  " the worst thing that man ever
did
> was to invent the machine for ever since he has  become more and more
> accustomed to treat his fellows as one." "for Poetry is or can"  (take it
> the way you like).
>
> Ever tried to turn this into a popular song, GM? -
>
> "This above all - to thine own self be true:
> And it must follow as the night the day,
> Thou canst not then be false to any man"
>
> J.Alex.
> Footy note: Chuck this approach Rob.
> Willie MacIlvaney as far as I know only taught in one school before leave
to
> make a better living writing. Did you mention his "Glaswegian?" I was told
> that the only time Willie spent in Glasgow was the 4years he took to get
his
> 1st class honours MA at Glasgow Univ. Rob. I played a lot of Football at
the
> time(difference wth Hugh MacIlvaney -Wow,It came back to me! my disc is
> better than the HP that packed up on me!)-Played often against McCarrie of
> Celtic & Scotland and won almost systematically. I did not find you on the
> Alumni roster despite your knowledge of George Square also called for a
time
> "Mandella Sq" for what I now appreciate for Nelson Mandella's &  DeClerk's
> role for human rights (wonder why his successors tried to hide their Aids
> issue?)
>
> J. Alexader
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Sunday, October 12, 2003 12:49 AM
> Subject: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin
>
>
> >
> > The Copy Editor's Lament
> >
> > I was sitting on the copydesk
> > just watching o'er the scene
> > when the dealer sent a juicy
> > story over to my screen.
> > It had power, sex and politics and violence - it was great;
> > and the headline on the dummy said:
> > - 6 column 48.
> >
> > So I rearranged the commas
> > and I tidied up the lede
> > and I patched up all the typos
> > and gave it one more read.
> > I typed in all the coding
> > and prepared to write the hed
> > when a voice came from the news desk,
> > and this is what it said:
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > I have to change the page.
> > Composing found a missing ad,
> > the foreman's in a rage.
> > If they find the guy that lost it,
> > they'll be skinning him alive.
> > And that headline that you're working on ...
> > - make that a five."
> >
> > Four columns? Well, that's tougher
> > but a deskman does his best
> > to keep the story's gist intact
> > and leave out all the rest.
> > I thought a little while,
> > and then my hands did fly
> > But just before the head was writ,
> > I heard the news desk cry:
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy please,
> > I have to make a fix.
> > It really needs a graphic
> > or the editor will bitch.
> > They'll make it on the Macintosh
> > and ship it here to me.
> > And that headline you are writing ...
> > - make that a three."
> >
> > Now a head that's just three columns
> > forces choices quite absurd
> > do you write it as a label
> > or just use only verbs?
> > I struggled and I puzzled
> > and at last I did compose.
> > When over at the news desk
> > a voice once more arose:
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy, please,
> > I have to make a change.
> > How I forgot the sidebar,
> > is really very strange.
> > A page without a sidebar,
> > would make the reader blue.
> > And that headline you are writing ...
> > - make that a two."
> >
> > Now a head that's just two columns
> > is a challenge and a strain;
> > they often make no sense at all,
> > to write them is a pain.
> > I finally got a concept
> > but before I put it down
> > I looked up from my VDT
> > and saw the news desk frown.
> >
> > "Pass me back that dummy, please
> > there's one more thing to do.
> > We have to have a locator map;
> > the reader needs a clue
> > to where this all is coming down
> > and where it's being done.
> > And that headline you are writing ...
> > - make that a one.
> >
> > Sometimes a copy editor
> > is like a cornered rat,
> > hemmed in and surrounded,
> > his hopes collapsed and flat.
> > There's no way out, all one can do
> > is fight with tooth and claw.
> > This time 'twas so, and so I wrote:
> >
> > Panel
> > eyes
> > law
> >
> > http://www.timporter.com/words/copyeditorlament.shtml
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 19 20:30:25 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 20:30:25 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <200310191203.h9JC3mST022430@wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Message-ID: <01c501c396a1$5b3e0c80$4c91fea9@j1c1k6>

> > ... what follows is my first statement
> > again, but changed, mainly because of reasonable criticisms you made of
the
> > first version.<<
>
> This approach seems to me to argue strongly for something other than a
"vs." in
> the subject line.

Okay with me--but I suspect the thread will become more vs than / at some
point.  Anyway, thanks for giving this thing another go.

Let me add a detail:

"With the exception of a very few extremely mixed specimens,"

I'll come back to this recognition that there will inevitably be texts whose
categorization according to my scheme no one can agree on.  I think I have a
simple way around the problem.

"Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: texts concerned
primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with conveying factual
information to others; texts concerned primarily (according to a consensus
of readers) with convincingly advocating a point of view; texts concerned
primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with providing pleasure; and
texts that convey nothing meaningful (according to a consensus of readers)."


> I have trouble with the notion of "four and only four" when combined with
the
> notion of "a consensus of readers" because you don't adequately
> define "readers" in regard to time-frame, size of group, what
> constitutes "consensus", expertise, or with regard to
reader-appropriateness.

I half-agree with you about "consensus of readers."  There is a problem with
what you say about it, though.  It is that the kind of criticism you make
concerning it can be made concerning ANY definition.  Take "time-frame."  I
would say it was "a reasonable length of time," which is next to
meaningless.  But how can I possibly give the time-frame an exact length of
time?  Or, perhaps, I can call it the length of time it takes for a lot of
people to have read the text and thought about which of my four categories
it belongs in.  What's a lot of people?  How do we know when the proper
number of readers have read the text in question?

I tend to feel that phrases like "a consensus of readers" should be taken in
a common sensical way--in this case, the readers would be adult and
reasonably intelligent by most people's standards, their number would be, in
most cases, a few hundred--but as many as it takes in the difficult cases.
They need not be experts, except in the difficult cases, and then only some
need be experts--people arguingthe pros and cons of where a given text
belongs.  The time-frame would be whatever it takes for most people to
accept the decision made.  I feel that all this would be understood by just
about any person reading my passage (since who would except people
interested in poetics or related subjects?).

I will think it over.  I agree that I should provide more details about my
consensus.

> Is anything conveyed to an ordinary six-year-old by Russell's Theory of
Types?
> Is anything conveyed to an ordinary engineer or accountant or salesman by
> contemporary poetry -- or by Russell's Theory of Types, either?

> Further, your division seems to eliminate philosophy altogether from any
kind
> of verbal expression, since it is not philosophy's purpose primarily,
according
> to any consensus of any readers, to convey factual information, a point of
> view, pleasure, or nothing meaningful.

I may have to fiddle with the phrase, "factual information," to take care of
that.

> For that matter, where does poetry fall in this division? Into "pleasure"?
How
> do you account for the aggressive anti-pleasure mode of "Language Poetry",
in
> that case? Do you deny that it is poetry and put it in "point of view"?

You now are arguing against my statement, not showing where, if anywhere, it
is unclear.

> Perhaps you should make a grid, and break each piece of verbal expression
down
> into parts (beginning, middle, end, exposition, character, narrative
devices,
> plot devices, language devices, and the like, I imagine), and create a
must-
> score system for each reader in your four categories to get a numerical
value
> for what percent of each part is pleasure, point of view, informative, or
> nothing meaningful, add up the score, divide by the number of parts, and
get an
> average for the whole of what percent of the whole is pleasure, point of
view,
> informative, or nothing meaningful, and then accumulate the scores of as
many
> readers as can be persuaded to score each piece of verbal expression, and
> average those scores by the number of respondents, and then, after
deciding on
> a number of respondents to lend the score an apparent significance,
declare its
> character.

Maybe.  But I don't think that much work is needed.  Indeed, most libraries
already divide verbal expression more or less along my suggest lines.

--Bob G.




From ron.silliman at verizon.net  Mon Oct 20 07:44:41 2003
From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 07:44:41 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog: Poetry & Empire
Message-ID: <000001c396ff$90fa8570$22f5f343@Dell>

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

How do you write?

Philadelphia Progressive Poetry Calendar

6 questions for Poetry & Empire

1) Can poetry challenge militarized language 
& propaganda?

2) Do genre models need to be rearticulated
in light of new world dynamics?

3) To what degree do our actions as poets
affect larger contexts?

4) How do the structures of poetic communities
resist or reinforce existing power structures?

5) What underlying values inform our practice as poets?

6) What can a poem do?

The problem of scenes in a minor city
(Life in Canada)

Do line breaks have meaning?

Monospaced type & poetic intention
(Larry Eigner & Robert Duncan)

Tiering -
a theoretical structure for scenes

The Boss Town Sound -
do different regions read differently?

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/






From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Oct 20 08:07:36 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 08:07:36 -0400
Subject: Precision on Quote - Re: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin : Alias? Poerty is, Shake rattle & roll 
In-Reply-To: <001a01c39692$d6f0c200$eee8f9c1@pavilion>
Message-ID: <3F9397C8.9275.3AB1E7@localhost>

On 20 Oct 2003 at 0:34, james.alexander1 wrote:
> I did not fully realise how badly I had transposed the extract from
> late Frank Herberts. I feel it worth doing properly: Translation aside
> it is :
>  Quote: from Emperor Leto in the Dune Series by the Late Frank Herbert
> re-translated from french, in which by shear co-incidence a certain
> "Marcus" is mentionned!
> 
> Il y a une lecon, Marcus Claire Luseyal, sur les soci?t?es
> ultra-mecanis?s du pass?, Que vous paraissez ne pas avoir tres bien
> compris. Par leur existance m?me, les machines conditionnent leurs
> utilisateurs ? se servir de leurs semblables comme ils se servent
> d'elles.
> 
> There is one lesson Marcus .         from the ultra-mechanised
> societies of the past, which you appear not to have understood very
> well. By their very existence, machines condition their users to use
> their fellow human beings as one (a machine).

Well, James, since you bring it up and seem to glean some kind of 
glee from the coincidence of names, let me just say that Leto's (and 
to the extent it's Herbert's, Herbert's) notion that machines are 
what make human beings treat other human beings like machines, it's 
poppycock. Anthropological evidence demonstrates conclusively from 
the stress marks on joints and bones, that young women seem to have 
spent what seems to have been nearly their entire lives squatting 
over a stone crushing cereal grains with a rock. And, of course, 
there is all the evidence of slavery both in the historical records 
and in the reference the early historical records make of pre-
history. People were treating other people like machines well before 
there were machines adequate to make this analogy. The human body is 
a wonderful machine in and of itself -- and enslaving another human 
is nothing but treating that human as a mere machine. Then there is 
all the demonizing that goes on to justify treating what are clearly 
human beings as if they are not human beings the better to kill or 
enslave them. Leto's, Herbert's (to the extent it really is 
Herbert's) and your (to the extent it's really yours) analogy is 
wrong on the face of it, but is also precisely, it seems to me, 
backwards: that it is the horror of enslaving other human beings and 
treating them like machines that prompted the invention of better and 
better machines to replace the slavery of humans. 

And all that still doesn't make George Martin's verse any better.








From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Oct 20 09:24:53 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 09:24:53 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <01c501c396a1$5b3e0c80$4c91fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F93A9E5.26426.817625@localhost>

> "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: texts concerned
> primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with conveying factual
> information to others; texts concerned primarily (according to a
> consensus of readers) with convincingly advocating a point of view;
> texts concerned primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with
> providing pleasure; and texts that convey nothing meaningful
> (according to a consensus of readers)."

On 19 Oct 2003 at 20:30, Bob Grumman wrote:
> "With the exception of a very few extremely mixed specimens,"
> I'll come back to this recognition that there will inevitably be texts
> whose categorization according to my scheme no one can agree on.  I
> think I have a simple way around the problem.<

Well, what is that simple way?

Since we're talking of "verbal expression" what of inarticulate 
sounds of pain or pleasure or query or exclamation and the like? 
Shouldn't your category of "pleasure" really be broader than merely 
"pleasure" to include pain, query, exclamation, and the like?

I'm having serious difficulty with the notion that you're really 
describing "verbal expression" when you use the word "texts" 
immediately after it, or that you are serious that texts are written 
purely in one of four, and only four, modes. 

Because I think that almost all cases are "mixed specimens" -- what 
kind of poem is written purely for pleasure? What kind of "verbal 
expression" that is a "text" is purely to convey information, purely 
to persuade, or purely to be meaningless? 
 
So there is a lack of clarity inherent in your attempt at precision.

> I half-agree with you about "consensus of readers."  There is a
> problem with what you say about it, though.  It is that the kind of
> criticism you make concerning it can be made concerning ANY
> definition.  Take "time-frame."  I would say it was "a reasonable
> length of time," which is next to meaningless.  But how can I possibly
> give the time-frame an exact length of time?  Or, perhaps, I can call
> it the length of time it takes for a lot of people to have read the
> text and thought about which of my four categories it belongs in. 
> What's a lot of people?  How do we know when the proper number of
> readers have read the text in question?<<

Just so -- the lack of clarity in your proposal is its attempt at 
precision without first defining terms. Taxonomies are tough not 
because of hard cases (there are always hard cases) but because of 
the definitional background requirement. Without the definitional 
background being pretty clear there isn't much chance of avoiding 
challenges to terms. So you need, it seems to me, in this regard, to 
define your terms better in order to avoid those challenges, at least 
in orders of magnitude or in ranges or in "roughly zones" or the 
like.
 
> I tend to feel that phrases like "a consensus of readers" should be
> taken in a common sensical way--in this case, the readers would be
> adult and reasonably intelligent by most people's standards, their
> number would be, in most cases, a few hundred--but as many as it takes
> in the difficult cases. They need not be experts, except in the
> difficult cases, and then only some need be experts--people arguing 
the
> pros and cons of where a given text belongs.  The time-frame would be
> whatever it takes for most people to accept the decision made.  I feel
> that all this would be understood by just about any person reading my
> passage (since who would except people interested in poetics or
> related subjects?).

Well, it seems to me that even these are inadequate to support the 
weight of a taxonomy. The notion of a few hundred people over an 
indeterminate period of time with a few experts thrown in determining 
the categories into which this or that verbal expression or text 
belongs is simply not dispositive enough to justify the effort. If 
the thing can't be done any better than that, if the problems of 
making such judgments are so inherently difficult, or arcane, that 
only that few hundred people care, or perhaps only that few hundred 
and a few hundred more who read but don't participate in the 
judgments, why bother? The current system of canonical mainstream 
anthologizing seems perfectly adequate to the problem.

You need not only to be clear about what you're doing, but about why 
you're doing it.  This goes back to another criticism I've made of 
your system in the past: that it seems to be agenda-driven, with an 
eye to creating for the non-mainstream specimens you favor or 
sympathize with because they, like your own, are non-mainstream, 
permanent categories that justify time, effort, money, and 
institutional attention -- that, in short, make those non-mainstream 
specimens more mainstream.

> ... most libraries already divide verbal expression more or less
> along my suggest lines.

The urge to have a place for everything and everything in its place 
is all well and good -- in its place!  But non-mainstream verbal 
expressions, or texts, are so deliberately an avoidance of 
categories, that it seems not just odd but counter-intuitive, contra-
indicated, to try to shoe-horn the deliberately non-categorical into 
categories.

So part of the clarity problem I perceive is not merely a matter of 
clarity of wording but one of clarity of purpose.  Why do you want to 
categorize the deliberately anti-categorical?





From JforJames at aol.com  Mon Oct 20 12:22:18 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 12:22:18 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] poet laureate has her own style
Message-ID: <12f.3364ae7d.2cc565ba@aol.com>

America's poet laureate has her own style
October 19, 2003

By Justin Pope 

ASSOCIATED PRESS 

AMBRIDGE, Mass. - Critics praise Louise Gluck for wringing powerful emotions 
from simple language, and for poetry that resonates equally with experts and 
common readers who recognize her evocations of grief and loss, and of falling 
in and out of love. 

But despite the accessibility of her work, America's new poet laureate is an 
intensely private person. 

Gluck (pronounced "Glick") has made it clear to the Library of Congress, 
which appointed her and pays her privately endowed $35,000 stipend, that she won't 
be following in the footsteps of predecessors, who transformed the position 
into a kind of traveling salesman to promote the art. 

The man she succeeded, Billy Collins, went on cross-country tours, got behind 
a program pushing schools to choose a poem a day for pupils to read and has 
even recorded poetry selections for a Delta Airlines in-flight audio channel. 
Robert Pinsky, Rita Dove and Robert Haas all took part in high-profile 
initiatives to promote poetry appreciation. 

But many of her fellow poets say that role would never suit Gluck, and she 
should follow her own course. 

"The poet laureate is very free to lead a poetry circus or stick to one's own 
knitting," said Collins. Said Pinsky, a close friend: "It's not a public 
relations job. It's not any kind of a job. It's an honor." 

The Library encourages laureates to craft the position in their own way, but 
limits its official duties. Gluck is scheduled to give her inaugural lecture 
at the Library on Tuesday, and has events planned in February and May 2004. 
Jill Brett, the Library's director of communications, said Gluck has expressed an 
interest in programs to encourage young poets, though she had no 
specifics."Obviously, the idea of the poet laureateship is to have a wide variety of 
poetic styles represented and personal styles that go with those styles," Brett 
said. "She is a poet of unusual qualities and certainly is of a very high 
caliber. We're very delighted to have her." 

Gluck declined to sit for an interview, and during a brief telephone 
conversation, said she preferred not to act as an intermediary for readers' experience 
with her work. 

"I have no concern with widening audience," said Gluck, who prefers her 
audience "small, intense, passionate." 

Gluck was born on Long Island. Her father was the son of Hungarian immigrants 
who also wanted to be a writer. But he lacked the all-consuming passion that 
"makes it possible to endure every form of failure" and went into business, 
Gluck said in a 1989 lecture, "The Education of a Poet," which was published in 
her 1994 book, "Proofs and Theories." 

Gluck looked to her mother for approval but rarely found it, she wrote, and 
in her teens became severely anorexic, forcing her to drop out of school and 
undergo seven years of psychoanalysis. She worried the therapy would quelch her 
writing, but instead "it taught me to think," she wrote. 

She enrolled in Columbia University's School of General Studies, and 
flourished under the teaching of Stanley Kunitz, himself a laureate. 

"She was already marked for the virtues that continue to be demonstrated by 
her in her work, not only a command of the medium but a sense of time and 
history that gives her work a dimension beyond the personal," Kunitz said. 

Gluck's nine books of poetry, including the 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning "The 
Wild Iris," range across a variety of styles and settings - from Ancient 
Greece and the Old Testament to gardens. In topics from marriage to death, her 
evocations are often melancholy but beautifully nuanced and lyrical - with rhythm 
and punctuation often packing as much of the emotional punch as the words 
themselves. 

"I don't find her work bleak," Pinsky said. "It cheers me up, because it 
makes me think there are fresh things to be said in the world." 


From JforJames at aol.com  Mon Oct 20 12:24:11 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 12:24:11 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] =?ISO-8859-1?Q?V=C9NUS=20KHOURY-GHATA?=
Message-ID: <e6.4067bf68.2cc5662b@aol.com>

Autumn preceded summer by one day
vigilant gardeners cut the passionflowers' damp lashes earlier than 
     expected
and the clocks knit narrower nights 

A yellow wind dyed the forests' facades
the trees stopped playing
and the swings full of little girls and robins stopped moving
with a great rustling of wings and petticoats

November had banished tears
compassionate angels licked the small scraped knees


V?NUS KHOURY-GHATA
English language translation by Marilyn Hacker. 

---------------------------------
copyright (c) 2003 English language translation by Marilyn Hacker.  From "She 
Says," published by Graywolf Press ( http://www.graywolfpress.org/ ) 
---------------------------------

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From JforJames at aol.com  Mon Oct 20 12:41:10 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 12:41:10 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] webcast: George Stanley
Message-ID: <111.298c67a9.2cc56a26@aol.com>

Sender: MODERN_POETS-L at PO.MISSOURI.EDU (Modern Poetry Discussion Forum)
Reply-to:   MODERN_POETS-L at PO.MISSOURI.EDU (Modern Poetry Discussion Forum)
To: MODERN_POETS-L at PO.MISSOURI.EDU

                 "Poetry means (a) I'm going to die - and (b) this
                     notebook will be read by someone who will see how
                     lacking I am - unless I destroy it - & I can't do
                    that - that would be worse than keeping it - that
                    would mean thinking of it."--George Stanley

        poet GEORGE STANLEY

        presented by RON SILLIMAN

        -------------------------

        webcast live
        from the Kelly Writers House

        Thursday, October 23, 2003
        at 6:30 PM (eastern time)


To view the event by live webcast, rsvp to

                whstanley at writing.upenn.edu


This event features a reading by George Stanley introduced by Ron
Silliman, with conversation moderated by Ron Silliman.

George Stanley was born and raised in San Francisco where, in the sixties,
he was a member of Jack Spicer's circle. For many years an educator in
Terrace, British Columbia, Stanley is now retired and living in Vancouver.
His books include The Stick, Opening Day, Temporarily, San Francisco's
Gone, Gentle Northern Summer, and most recently, A Tall, Serious Girl (Qua
Press).

To read an interview with George Stanley, see

        http://wither.unbc.ca/winter/number.two/stanley/stanley.html

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

         "Poetry means (a) I'm going to die - and (b) this
         notebook will be read by someone who will see how lacking
         I am - unless I destroy it - & I can't do that - that
         would be worse than keeping it - that would mean
         thinking of it. Better this shit than nothing, better be
         sitting on Andy's front porch with Teddy, imagining this
         shit being (miraculously) turned into a poem...."
                                 --George Stanley, from "At Andy's"


From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Mon Oct 20 12:55:25 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 18:55:25 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] =?iso-8859-1?Q?Re:_=5BNew-Poetry=5D_V=C9NUS_KHOURY-GHATA?=
References: <e6.4067bf68.2cc5662b@aol.com>
Message-ID: <017b01c3972a$f5f1f000$f51c2dd5@anny>

A wonderful poem,

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky

From: <JforJames at aol.com>


> Autumn preceded summer by one day
> vigilant gardeners cut the passionflowers' damp lashes earlier than
>      expected
> and the clocks knit narrower nights
>
> A yellow wind dyed the forests' facades
> the trees stopped playing
> and the swings full of little girls and robins stopped moving
> with a great rustling of wings and petticoats
>
> November had banished tears
> compassionate angels licked the small scraped knees
>
>
> V?NUS KHOURY-GHATA
> English language translation by Marilyn Hacker.
>
> ---------------------------------
> copyright (c) 2003 English language translation by Marilyn Hacker.  From
"She
> Says," published by Graywolf Press ( http://www.graywolfpress.org/ )
> ---------------------------------
>
> E-verse is a free service presented by Milkweed Editions
> (http://www.milkweed.org).
> For more information or to unsubscribe, please e-mail us at
> webmaster at milkweed.org.
>
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>
> _______________________________________________
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> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Mon Oct 20 12:54:24 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 11:54:24 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Leslie Monsour
Message-ID: <BBB97D6F.5823%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>


The Snail In The Marigold

I watched, when planting marigolds,
Their colors all afire,
A gorged snail suck amid the folds,
Unfurling with desire -

Its slick and gleaming trail of pleasure
Oozing out behind;
Its rapturous head in worldly leisure,
Oblivious, petal-blind.

The broken bud looked jubilant,
Enravished, vibrant, real,
Infusing animal and plant
With sybaritic zeal.

This seeming drive to be consumed
As wood lit in a stove,
Must be the lavishest, most doomed,
And pure of earthly love.

Come, celebrate the appetite
No science can control,
The wild, ingenious, slippery blight
That incarnates the soul.

Leslie Monsour

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]



From halvard at earthlink.net  Mon Oct 20 16:08:08 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 16:08:08 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Philippe Soupault, "Lost Moments"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIEBBHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Lost Moments

The sun will die in five billion years
I was born too soon perhaps
to die with the sun my only ambition
The flowers in front of me are already fading
and I shivered while smiling
the same shiver as the flag whose colors
have been beaten by the wind
Around me ants in five directions
throw themselves toward a death I have already refused
It's the great emptiness before me
when I turn toward my mirror
where I see engraved my wrinkles and hopes
Every morning, every evening
and on the face of my watch
like every evening, every morning
every second forgotten and lost
every swallow of alcohol
every puff of smoke
every cloudy night not yet finished
never or tomorrow again
a billion days and years
the rising and setting of the sun
the morning and evening
the same morning and the same evening

--Philippe Soupault

Tr. Kirby Olson
fr. RealPoetik (online) 10/18/03



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Mon Oct 20 16:20:00 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 16:20:00 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3F93A9E5.26426.817625@localhost>
Message-ID: <00d001c39747$8a229420$cc38fea9@j1c1k6>

Quick replies because I'm tired.

> > "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: texts concerned
> > primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with conveying factual
> > information to others; texts concerned primarily (according to a
> > consensus of readers) with convincingly advocating a point of view;
> > texts concerned primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with
> > providing pleasure; and texts that convey nothing meaningful
> > (according to a consensus of readers)."
>
> On 19 Oct 2003 at 20:30, Bob Grumman wrote:
> > "With the exception of a very few extremely mixed specimens,"
> > I'll come back to this recognition that there will inevitably be texts
> > whose categorization according to my scheme no one can agree on.  I
> > think I have a simple way around the problem.<
>
> Well, what is that simple way?

Hold your horses.

> Since we're talking of "verbal expression" what of inarticulate
> sounds of pain or pleasure or query or exclamation and the like?
> Shouldn't your category of "pleasure" really be broader than merely
> "pleasure" to include pain, query, exclamation, and the like?

Verbal is words and indicators as to how to read them when they accompany
the words.

> I'm having serious difficulty with the notion that you're really
> describing "verbal expression" when you use the word "texts"
> immediately after it,

Okay, I'll revise "texts" to "verbal texts."

> or that you are serious that texts are written
> purely in one of four, and only four, modes.

So am I.  But, remember, clarity is what you're supposed to be considering.


> Because I think that almost all cases are "mixed specimens" -- what
> kind of poem is written purely for pleasure?

>What kind of "verbal
> expression" that is a "text" is purely to convey information, purely
> to persuade, or purely to be meaningless?

Important Key to my statement: "texts concerned
primarily."

> So there is a lack of clarity inherent in your attempt at precision.
>
> > I half-agree with you about "consensus of readers."  There is a
> > problem with what you say about it, though.  It is that the kind of
> > criticism you make concerning it can be made concerning ANY
> > definition.  Take "time-frame."  I would say it was "a reasonable
> > length of time," which is next to meaningless.  But how can I possibly
> > give the time-frame an exact length of time?  Or, perhaps, I can call
> > it the length of time it takes for a lot of people to have read the
> > text and thought about which of my four categories it belongs in.
> > What's a lot of people?  How do we know when the proper number of
> > readers have read the text in question?<<
>
> Just so -- the lack of clarity in your proposal is its attempt at
> precision without first defining terms.

You find a greater lack of clarity than almost anyone else would, I suspect.
My simple point is that it's easy to say that term A in a statement needs
further definition, and then to say that term B in that further definition
needs further definition, and then to say that term C in THAT further
definition needs further definition, ad infinitum.


>Taxonomies are tough not
> because of hard cases (there are always hard cases) but because of
> the definitional background requirement. Without the definitional
> background being pretty clear there isn't much chance of avoiding
> challenges to terms. So you need, it seems to me, in this regard, to
> define your terms better in order to avoid those challenges, at least
> in orders of magnitude or in ranges or in "roughly zones" or the
> like.

> > I tend to feel that phrases like "a consensus of readers" should be
> > taken in a common sensical way--in this case, the readers would be
> > adult and reasonably intelligent by most people's standards, their
> > number would be, in most cases, a few hundred--but as many as it takes
> > in the difficult cases. They need not be experts, except in the
> > difficult cases, and then only some need be experts--people arguing
> the
> > pros and cons of where a given text belongs.  The time-frame would be
> > whatever it takes for most people to accept the decision made.  I feel
> > that all this would be understood by just about any person reading my
> > passage (since who would except people interested in poetics or
> > related subjects?).
>
> Well, it seems to me that even these are inadequate to support the
> weight of a taxonomy.

> The notion of a few hundred people over an
> indeterminate period of time with a few experts thrown in determining
> the categories into which this or that verbal expression or text
> belongs is simply not dispositive enough to justify the effort. If
> the thing can't be done any better than that, if the problems of
> making such judgments are so inherently difficult, or arcane, that
> only that few hundred people care, or perhaps only that few hundred
> and a few hundred more who read but don't participate in the
> judgments, why bother? The current system of canonical mainstream
> anthologizing seems perfectly adequate to the problem.

I feel that you're focusing in a very minor part of the definition.  But I'm
thinking about how to change it.

Out of curiosity, how would you define a canonical poem?  Wouldn't
"consensus" come into your definition?  If so, how would you define
"consensus?"

> You need not only to be clear about what you're doing, but about why
> you're doing it.

That's a question of policy, not of clarity.  If you don't mind, I'd like to
stay with clarity.  In my defense, I will say that I have to start
somewhere, and I've chosen to start with a kind of background axiom.  I feel
you ought to let me do that, and wait for a criticism of my tactics after we
agree I have a clearly expressed taxonomy.

>This goes back to another criticism I've made of
> your system in the past: that it seems to be agenda-driven, with an
> eye to creating for the non-mainstream specimens you favor or
> sympathize with because they, like your own, are non-mainstream,
> permanent categories that justify time, effort, money, and
> institutional attention -- that, in short, make those non-mainstream
> specimens more mainstream.

Okay, but that's beside the point right here.

> > ... most libraries already divide verbal expression more or less
> > along my suggest lines.
>
> The urge to have a place for everything and everything in its place
> is all well and good -- in its place!  But non-mainstream verbal
> expressions, or texts, are so deliberately an avoidance of
> categories, that it seems not just odd but counter-intuitive, contra-
> indicated, to try to shoe-horn the deliberately non-categorical into
> categories.

We can discuss this at some other time.

> So part of the clarity problem I perceive is not merely a matter of
> clarity of wording but one of clarity of purpose.  Why do you want to
> categorize the deliberately anti-categorical?

This, again, is off the subject.  (I just gave an answer and deleted it
because I don't want to get sidetracked.  Getting this opening statement
clear is my only desire here, and it's hard because of the reasonable
objections you've raised and I've thought of, and because thinking about
those objections tends to trip me into thoughts about  portions of my
philosophy (or whatever) that lead to my opening statement (such as the
varieties of human endeavor) and side-issue, and it's too much for me.

--Bob G.



From chryss at silcom.com  Tue Oct 21 00:35:30 2003
From: chryss at silcom.com (Chryss Yost)
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 21:35:30 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
In-Reply-To: <20031018195024.2222.qmail@web13005.mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <BBBA05A2.105C7%chryss@silcom.com>

Woe oh woe, what has become of the Brave Little Toaster???? Surely he must
have thrown himself into the bathtub in despair...

In the message on 10/18/03 12:50 PM, Jeff Newberry wrote:

> I'm sure the reason Disch is included is that Dana Gioia is morally bankrupt.
>  
> That's gotta be it.
>  
> Jeff Newberry
> 
> Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
>> I've just opened a copy of _Rebel Angels_ (delivered today courtesy of
>> amazon.co.uk) and there's Tom Disch ...
>>  
>> I thought I was beyond startlement, but this does mildly astonish me.
>>  
>> What's (if it's the same guy) a nice SF writer who was in the centre of the
>> frame of the Brit new wave SF clustered around _New Worlds_ in the sixties
>> doing in an American Neoformalist Anthology?
>>  
>> Sure, his Notorious Sonnet gets picked up in John Hollander's _Rhyme's
>> Reason_, but this ...!!!
>>  
>> :-(
>>  
>> Baffled from Britain
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
>>  
> 
> Do you Yahoo!?
> The New Yahoo! Shopping
> <http://shopping.yahoo.com/?__yltc=s%3A150000443%2Cd%3A22708228%2Cslk%3Atext%2
> Csec%3Amail>  - with improved product search


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From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Tue Oct 21 07:21:32 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 13:21:32 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] quotation of the Day
Message-ID: <007301c397c5$7b83e9e0$ca1c2dd5@anny>

"Swans sing before they die -- 'twere no bad thing
Should certain persons die before they sing." 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge ("Epigram On a Volunteer Singer"), born on this day in 1772

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From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct 21 07:50:33 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 07:50:33 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <00d001c39747$8a229420$cc38fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F94E549.22027.2C0052@localhost>

On 20 Oct 2003 at 16:20, Bob Grumman wrote:
> Quick replies because I'm tired.

I'll be happy to wait until you're not tired and have adequate time. 
There is no urgency to this discussion; no breathless world awaits a 
prompt response.

> > > "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: texts
> > > concerned primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with
> > > conveying factual information to others; texts concerned primarily
> > > (according to a consensus of readers) with convincingly advocating
> > > a point of view; texts concerned primarily (according to a
> > > consensus of readers) with providing pleasure; and texts that
> > > convey nothing meaningful (according to a consensus of readers)."

> > Since we're talking of "verbal expression" what of inarticulate
> > sounds of pain or pleasure or query or exclamation and the like?
> > Shouldn't your category of "pleasure" really be broader than merely
> > "pleasure" to include pain, query, exclamation, and the like?
> 
> Verbal is words and indicators as to how to read them when they
> accompany the words.


 
> > I'm having serious difficulty with the notion that you're really
> > describing "verbal expression" when you use the word "texts"
> > immediately after it,
> 
> Okay, I'll revise "texts" to "verbal texts."

What's the difference between a "verbal text" and a "non-verbal 
text"? By using the adjective you create the assertion that there is 
a difference; what is that difference? My question above was trying 
to direct your attention to the difference between "verbal 
expression" and "texts".
 
>...  But, remember, clarity is what you're supposed to be
> considering.<<

Making nonsense clear has the sterling result of revealing it more 
clearly as nonsense.

> > Because I think that almost all cases are "mixed specimens" -- what
> > kind of poem is written purely for pleasure?
> >What kind of "verbal
> > expression" that is a "text" is purely to convey information, purely
> > to persuade, or purely to be meaningless?
 
> Important Key to my statement: "texts concerned
> primarily."<

But when you say "four and only four" you have created a conflict 
between that claim to ineluctable precision and your claim to mere 
generalization in "concerned primarily with" -- that is a clear lack 
of clarity, not only of statement but of thinking.  If you're going 
to rely on "concerned primarily with" you cannot reasonably say "four 
and only four", you see.
 
> You find a greater lack of clarity than almost anyone else would, I
> suspect. My simple point is that it's easy to say that term A in a
> statement needs further definition, and then to say that term B in
> that further definition needs further definition, and then to say that
> term C in THAT further definition needs further definition, ad
> infinitum.<

It's not actually easy to make a persuasive case that that's the 
situation because of the possibility of adventitious or frivolous 
obscurantism. But I hope to persuade you that it is none of my 
intention merely to object without reason, but rather that it is my 
purpose to object to what seems reasonably objectionable within the 
context of your avowed purpose, that of creating a taxonomy. You do 
not claim to be trying to create a critical vocabulary that you may 
use idiosyncratically as you please in your essays about or critiques 
of poetry. You claim to be aiming at a taxonomy, at a system that 
claims explicitly to be a usefully systematic way for every person 
who encounters poetry to examine the poetry he or she encounters. 
Your claim is extraordinary; it requires extraordinary evidence.

> I feel that you're focusing in a very minor part of the definition. 
> But I'm thinking about how to change it.<<

Definitions may seem minor to you, but if you want them to support 
the weight of a taxonomy instead of merely be idiosyncratic 
superstructure it is imperative to formulate them solidly.

> That's a question of policy, not of clarity.  If you don't mind, I'd
> like to stay with clarity.  In my defense, I will say that I have to
> start somewhere, and I've chosen to start with a kind of background
> axiom.  I feel you ought to let me do that, and wait for a criticism
> of my tactics after we agree I have a clearly expressed taxonomy.<<

This is a fundamental error in approach if you're serious about a 
taxonomy. A taxonomy grows out of definitions; it does not spring 
full-blown from the forehead of the critic needing only to be dressed 
up in clothes of words.

> > So part of the clarity problem I perceive is not merely a matter of
> > clarity of wording but one of clarity of purpose.  Why do you want
> > to categorize the deliberately anti-categorical?
 
> This, again, is off the subject. ...<<

I believe it IS the subject. You say you want to look at whether what 
you're saying is clear; well, nonsense can be as clearly stated as 
sense -- and the central point of reasonable and constructive 
criticism is to try to distinguish nonsense from sense (unless you're 
as cynical as Wittgenstein, and then it's to distinguish arrant 
nonsense from ordinary nonsense).






From halvard at earthlink.net  Tue Oct 21 08:00:40 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 08:00:40 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <3F94E549.22027.2C0052@localhost>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEGECCHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

{    There is no urgency to this discussion; no breathless world awaits a 
{    prompt response.

Omit the penultimate word and this would be the understatement
of the year.

Hal      Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
		--Noam Chomsky

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com  Tue Oct 21 10:15:55 2003
From: jnewberry1974 at yahoo.com (Jeff Newberry)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 07:15:55 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [New-Poetry] Rebel angels ...
In-Reply-To: <BBBA05A2.105C7%chryss@silcom.com>
Message-ID: <20031021141555.5942.qmail@web13007.mail.yahoo.com>

One can only hope.
 
Jeff Newberry

Chryss Yost <chryss at silcom.com> wrote:
Woe oh woe, what has become of the Brave Little Toaster???? Surely he must have thrown himself into the bathtub in despair...

In the message on 10/18/03 12:50 PM, Jeff Newberry wrote:

I'm sure the reason Disch is included is that Dana Gioia is morally bankrupt.
 
That's gotta be it.
 
Jeff Newberry

Robin Hamilton <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com> wrote:
I've just opened a copy of _Rebel Angels_ (delivered today courtesy of amazon.co.uk) and there's Tom Disch ...
 
I thought I was beyond startlement, but this does mildly astonish me.
 
What's (if it's the same guy) a nice SF writer who was in the centre of the frame of the Brit new wave SF clustered around _New Worlds_ in the sixties doing in an American Neoformalist Anthology?
 
Sure, his Notorious Sonnet gets picked up in John Hollander's _Rhyme's Reason_, but this ...!!!
 
:-(
 
Baffled from Britain
 
 
 
 
 
 

---------------------------------
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The New Yahoo! Shopping <http://shopping.yahoo.com/?__yltc=s%3A150000443%2Cd%3A22708228%2Cslk%3Atext%2Csec%3Amail>  - with improved product search



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From FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com  Tue Oct 21 17:01:55 2003
From: FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com (FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 17:01:55 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] a few notes on a conscientious objector
Message-ID: <ba.48d12395.2cc6f8c3@aol.com>

            "Where are you?

              Where am I?

              The cardinal points are lost in a heap, like four
              aces shuffled in a pack of cards."
                              --Vicente Huidobro


last night i sat in the basement of the Philadelphia Quaker Friends School to 
hear Gloria Pacis, mother of the openly gay marine Stephen Eagle Funk, now in 
prison for being a conscientious objector to America's aggression against 
Iraq.  one of the first things i noticed was the absence of the gay press, 
probably busy making rainbow posters to support Philadelphia Republican candidate 
for mayor Sam Katz, who is using what Betsy Piette called "the FBI's racist 
witch hunt" against Democrat mayor John Street, in order to gain control of the 
city government.  but that's another story, another very ugly story.

before hearing Gloria read her son's letters from prison, and read her speech 
she'll be reading this saturday at the march in DC, i wasn't sure how i felt 
about the stand Funk has taken.  the issue of gays in the military in 
particular has bothered me in the past, or rather the steady focus both Clinton and 
the press had given it in recent years.  as far as i was concerned, there were 
far more pressing issues that the gay community needed to challenge.

but i started to hear the story of how Stephen's sister Katie (a political 
activist) had helped him come out of the closet.  this is no small thing for a 
marine to do.  in fact it's quite dangerous, even needing to be held in 
protective custody while in military prison.

in the beginning Stephen would write speeches for his sister to read for him 
at political rallies.  but when he gained the courage to take the microphone 
and tell his own story, he also started talking to the chaplain on his military 
base. but he wasn't just talking to the chaplain about being a gay marine, he 
was also starting to talk about his feelings for a war we were about to begin 
that he felt was wrong, and immoral.  the fact that the pope was very openly 
against the invasion of Iraq would allow any Catholic chaplain the right to 
also firmly declare this war immoral.

for years i've well understood poor and working class kids joining the armed 
services with visions of bettering themselves, getting out of poverty, seeing 
the world, maybe being able to go to school after they've served their time.  
but along with that also came a sense of duty, a sense of responsibility to 
defend America's shores and people.  this is something that every member of my 
family who has served has believed themselves a part of, this sense of 
protection of freedom, and justice.

when i was sitting there listening to Gloria Pacis read her son's letters 
from prison, it became very clear that this was a young man who had once believed 
in the very same things my own family has believed or continues to believe.  
Stephen Eagle Funk is part Filipino and part Native American.  to be exact, 
his mother said he is part Crow.  and upon hearing this it further solidified my 
understanding of Stephen's belief in defending America.  the Crow Indians 
were the tribe, in fact the only tribe of the west and pacific north west to aid 
the white settlers in the war against the tribes.  when i lived for a brief 
time in New Mexico i heard plenty of racial slurs against the Crow from other 
Native Americans, as well as from the strange white New Age community, accusing 
them of destroying the country by turning it over to the white devils.  and 
really, who can blame them for their anger?  but when i started to read the 
books of Frank B. Linderman, which were interviews he conducted with the Crow 
Chief Plenty Coups, and their medicine woman Pretty Shield, it became clear that 
the Crow believed the white men to merely be another tribe who had come to aid 
them in their own hour of need.  the Lakota in particular, according to Chief 
Plenty Coups, wanted to wipe the Crow off the face of the earth.  genocide, in 
other words.  the Crow fought alongside the mainly white cavalry, and 
provided expertise in tracking and hunting, and other forms of survival.  so once the 
Indian wars were over and it came time to divide up the small portions set 
aside for reservations, the Crow of course got to pick the best locations.  and 
for whatever judgments others may have, the Crow believed it was their duty to 
defend the country, even under the occupation of the white rulers.

but what's a marine to do when he hears the outcry of nearly every nation on 
earth that the aggression against Iraq his country was about to undertake is 
racist, is wrong?  after all, we do now have gibbering, stammering military 
leaders declaring this a war against Satan, aligning with the ideas of some 
religious leaders in the middle east who believe that this is a Holy War.  what's a 
marine to do?  especially if he believed in his heart that his duty was to 
defend his country, not ruthlessly invade and occupy another.

there were several Vietnam vets in the audience who believed that the harsh 
punishment handed down to Stephen was a result of his speaking out at rallies, 
and trying to persuade other soldiers to refuse to fight this war.  the truth 
is that the international plea for Funk's case actually awarded him a lighter 
sentence than was originally intended, but the military court is still wanting 
to shut him up and make an example of him.

he has a strong mother.  Gloria Pacis is an amazing woman, speaking all over 
the country right now, trying to make alliances with other mothers of other 
service men and women who are also outraged at the war in Iraq.  and with the 
rising toll in American casualties, Gloria's pace is picking up, and her message 
is being heard more than ever.  she'll be speaking on stage this saturday in 
DC with others who want to end this war and make reparations to the people of 
Iraq.

the lack of any press, including the gay press, last night, didn't phase a 
crowd from filling the room to hear the panel who spoke with Gloria Pacis.  
here's to the best for another march in DC against the American occupation of 
Iraq, and hoping that peace will soon come for the Iraqi people.

i now want to share with you a letter we were handed:

ONE REFUSER TO ANOTHER: ISRAELI REFUSENIK TO US CONSCIOUS OBJECTOR
A letter from refuser Matan Kaminer, on trial - Israeli military court, to 
Stephen Funk Us Marines

Dear Stephen,

Is this what they call "globalization"?

We live half a world from each other, we have led quite different lives, and 
yet we are both in the same situation:  conscientious objectors to imperial 
war and occupation, we are both standing military trial this summer.  Reading 
your statement I couldn't help but smile at the basic sameness of military logic 
around the world - including its inability to understand how anybody could be 
enough against a war to resist going to kill and die in it.

But I've been presuming you're familiar with my situation.  In case you 
aren't, let me fill you in briefly.  I was slated for induction into the Israeli 
army in December 2002.  After a year of volunteer work in a Jewish-Arab youth 
movement, I had made up my mind to refuse to enlist.  Together with other young 
people in my situation, I signed the High School Seniors' Letter to PM Sharon, 
and to make myself absolutely clear I sent a personal letter to the military 
authorities notifying them that I was going to refuse.

They let me know they weren't about to let me go:  the army only exempts 
pacifists (at least that's what it claims) and I didn't meet their definition of a 
pacifist.  So beginning in December I was sentenced by 'disciplinary 
proceedings' (do they have this ridiculous institution in the Marines too?) to 28 days 
in military prison - three consecutive times.  After my third time in jail, I 
asked to join my friend Haggai Matar, who was being court-martialed, and 
within a few weeks three of our friends - Noam, Shimri and Adam - joined us.

Now we are on trial and stand to get up to three years in prison for refusing 
the order to enlist.

Sounds familiar, huh?  But it's not just what they're doing to us that's 
similar, it's what they're doing to others:  occupying a foreign land and 
oppressing another people in the name of preventing terror.  People like you and me 
know that's just an excuse for furthering economic and political interests of 
the ruling elite.  But it's not the elite that pays the price.

The people who pay the price are in Jenin and Fallujah, in Ramallah and 
Baghdad, in Tikrit and in Hebron.  They are the Iraqi and Palestinian children, 
hog-tied face-down on the floor or shot at on the way to school.  But they are 
also the Israeli and American soldiers, treated as cannon fodder by generals in 
air-conditioned offices, whose only way to deal with their situation is 
dehumanization - first of the strange-looking foreigners who want them dead, next of 
themselves.  You can ask your Vietnam veterans or our own.

Stephen, people our age should be out learning, working and transforming the 
world.  People our age should be going to parties and protests, meeting 
people, falling in love and arguing about what our world should look like.  People 
our age should not be moving targets, denied their human and civil rights; they 
should not be military grunts, exposed to harm in mind and body, lugging 
around M-16's and guilty consciences; they should not be thrown behind bars for 
not wanting to kill and die.

Your trial is set to begin soon.  Mine has already begun so maybe I can give 
you a few pointers.

Look the judges in the eyes.  Use every opportunity you have to explain why 
you stand there.  They are human just like you, but they try to deny it to 
themselves.  Don't let them.  War is shit and they know it.  They should let you 
go and they know it.

It's likely that we'll both get thrown in prison when this all ends.  There 
will be dark moments in prison, moments when it seems that the outside world 
has forgotten all about us, that what we did and refused to do was in vain.  
Well, I know what I'll do in those moments:  I'll think of you Stephen, and I'll 
know that nothing we do for humanity's sake is ever in vain.

With greatest solidarity,

Matan Kaminer
'Open Detention', Tel Hashomer Camp, Israel
August 12, 2003
-------------

this letter and other information was handed out by the Global Women's 
Strike, and also the group calling themselves Refusing To Kill:  
http://www.refusingtokill.net

in solidarity with Stephen Eagle Funk, Matan Kaminer, and all others wishing 
peace, and an end to the disgrace of our nation's aggression,

CAConrad
Click here for The Philly Sound New Poetry:  
http://www.phillysound.blogspot.com


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Oct 21 18:33:10 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 18:33:10 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3F94E549.22027.2C0052@localhost>
Message-ID: <003601c39823$4f07e2a0$10eefea9@j1c1k6>

I now have a new version of my statement:

STATEMENT 1

"Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) texts concerned
as much or more than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy
consensus of readers, or agreement of the majority of a majority of the
recognized experts in the relevant field who have examined the matter, and
with whose judgement the majority of the educated non-experts who are
cognizant of the experts' opinions and who have themselves examined the
matter concur) with convincingly advocating a point of view; (b) texts less
concerned (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying information to
others that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with eliciting
an emotional response; (c) texts concerned more than anything else
(according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with eliciting
an emotional response; and (d) texts that convey nothing meaningful
(according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers)."

END OF STATEMENT 1

This is, of course, ridiculously dense (though clear, in my view).    I will
probably change it to "Proposition 1," and break it up into several
sentences--if that's okay with you.  I was trying for statements as
propositions and also as fairly straight-forward sentences.  You will see, I
hope, that it is influenced by some of your objections to its predecessor.
I wonder if you consider it improved.  I am near-certain you will have many
problems with it.

--Bob G.




--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Oct 21 18:01:17 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 18:01:17 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3F94E549.22027.2C0052@localhost>
Message-ID: <003201c3981e$db7318e0$10eefea9@j1c1k6>

STATEMENT 1

"Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: texts concerned
primarily (according to a consensus of readers) with conveying factual
information to others; texts concerned primarily
(according to a consensus of readers) with convincingly advocating a point
of view; texts concerned primarily (according to a consensus of readers)
with providing pleasure; and texts that
convey nothing meaningful (according to a consensus of readers)."

END OF STATEMENT 1

snip to:

> > Verbal is words and indicators as to how to read them when they
> > accompany the words.
>
> > > I'm having serious difficulty with the notion that you're really
> > > describing "verbal expression" when you use the word "texts"
> > > immediately after it,
> >
> > Okay, I'll revise "texts" to "verbal texts."
>
> What's the difference between a "verbal text" and a "non-verbal
> text"?

This gets us off the track but there is a difference for me: verbal texts
have words, non-verbal texts have typography but not words.

>By using the adjective you create the assertion that there is
> a difference; what is that difference?

Well, there are those who use "text" more loosely than I do, and probably
you do.

> My question above was trying
> to direct your attention to the difference between "verbal
> expression" and "texts".

Okay.  For me, in the context of my statement, "verbal expression" yields
"texts."  In my statement I describe the kinds of texts resulting from the
kinds of verbal expression used.

> >...  But, remember, clarity is what you're supposed to be
> > considering.<<
>
> Making nonsense clear has the sterling result of revealing it more
> clearly as nonsense.

Fine.  But here you agreed, I thought, to work on clarity.  Just what is
unclear about "texts?"  What do you think it might mean here other than
"manifestation of verbal expression," or the like?

> > > Because I think that almost all cases are "mixed specimens" -- what
> > > kind of poem is written purely for pleasure?
> > >What kind of "verbal
> > > expression" that is a "text" is purely to convey information, purely
> > > to persuade, or purely to be meaningless?
>
> > Important Key to my statement: "texts concerned
> > primarily."<
>
> But when you say "four and only four" you have created a conflict
> between that claim to ineluctable precision

No, to reasonable precision

>and your claim to mere
> generalization in "concerned primarily with" --

Sorry, I'm lost.  "Concerned primarily with" seems specific to me.  It's
like "weighs more than."

> that is a clear lack
> of clarity, not only of statement but of thinking.  If you're going
> to rely on "concerned primarily with" you cannot reasonably say "four
> and only four", you see.

No, I don't.

> > You find a greater lack of clarity than almost anyone else would, I
> > suspect. My simple point is that it's easy to say that term A in a
> > statement needs further definition, and then to say that term B in
> > that further definition needs further definition, and then to say that
> > term C in THAT further definition needs further definition, ad
> > infinitum.<
>
> It's not actually easy to make a persuasive case that that's the
> situation because of the possibility of adventitious or frivolous
> obscurantism. But I hope to persuade you that it is none of my
> intention merely to object without reason, but rather that it is my
> purpose to object to what seems reasonably objectionable within the
> context of your avowed purpose, that of creating a taxonomy. You do
> not claim to be trying to create a critical vocabulary that you may
> use idiosyncratically as you please in your essays about or critiques
> of poetry. You claim to be aiming at a taxonomy, at a system that
> claims explicitly to be a usefully systematic way for every person
> who encounters poetry to examine the poetry he or she encounters.
> Your claim is extraordinary; it requires extraordinary evidence.

I am merely pointing out that it is easy to destroy any statement by calling
for ever more definitions of definitions.  I would add that right now we're
supposed to be discussing the clarity of my statement, which has nothing to
do with what you think I'm trying to do.

> > I feel that you're focusing in a very minor part of the definition.
> > But I'm thinking about how to change it.<<
>
> Definitions may seem minor to you, but if you want them to support
> the weight of a taxonomy instead of merely be idiosyncratic
> superstructure it is imperative to formulate them solidly.

I did not say or imply that definitions were minor to me, but that THIS ONE
was.  I am well aware of the importance of solid definitions for central
terms.

> > That's a question of policy, not of clarity.  If you don't mind, I'd
> > like to stay with clarity.  In my defense, I will say that I have to
> > start somewhere, and I've chosen to start with a kind of background
> > axiom.  I feel you ought to let me do that, and wait for a criticism
> > of my tactics after we agree I have a clearly expressed taxonomy.<<
>
> This is a fundamental error in approach if you're serious about a
> taxonomy. A taxonomy grows out of definitions; it does not spring
> full-blown from the forehead of the critic needing only to be dressed
> up in clothes of words.

My taxonomy is starting out with my first statement.  The question before us
is whether that statement is clear or not.  You're saying it is not because
some of the terms in it are not sufficiently defined.  I agree and am
working on solutions.  But you are also advancing irrelevant concerns, I
feel.

> > > So part of the clarity problem I perceive is not merely a matter of
> > > clarity of wording but one of clarity of purpose.  Why do you want
> > > to categorize the deliberately anti-categorical?
>
> > This, again, is off the subject. ...<<
>
> I believe it IS the subject. You say you want to look at whether what
> you're saying is clear; well, nonsense can be as clearly stated as
> sense -- and the central point of reasonable and constructive
> criticism is to try to distinguish nonsense from sense (unless you're
> as cynical as Wittgenstein, and then it's to distinguish arrant
> nonsense from ordinary nonsense).

Are you really saying that my statement makes no sense?  And for it to make
sense, I need to state my purpose?

Well, I grant you that I forgot to say that my statement would begin an
essay whose title (probably) would be, An Attempt at a Taxonomy of Verbal
Expression.  But I thought you understood that.

--Bob G.




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Oct 21 18:45:45 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 18:45:45 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEGECCHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <00e501c39825$11bcbea0$10eefea9@j1c1k6>

> {    There is no urgency to this discussion; no breathless world awaits a
> {    prompt response.
>
> Omit the penultimate word and this would be the understatement
> of the year.
>
> Hal

I really don't know why to think this comment necessary, Hal--surely all the
other analyphobes at New-Poetry know they aren't alone.

--Bob G.



From tad at opus40.org  Fri Oct 17 16:59:21 2003
From: tad at opus40.org (TheOldMole)
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 16:59:21 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] dying anyway
Message-ID: <000e01c394f1$8a094b80$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

That quote of Auden's about "Sept 1, 1939" -- "Well that's a damned lie! We must die anyway." Can anyone tell me its source? I mean, I know the source is Auden...



Tad Richards
"Situations"
http://www.opus40.org/TadRichards
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From afilreis at writing.upenn.edu  Sun Oct 19 17:45:19 2003
From: afilreis at writing.upenn.edu (Al Filreis)
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 17:45:19 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [New-Poetry] George STanley
Message-ID: <200310192145.h9JLjKXg001401@dept.english.upenn.edu>

                    "Poetry means (a) I'm going to die - and (b) this
                    notebook will be read by someone who will see how 
                    lacking I am - unless I destroy it - & I can't do 
		    that - that would be worse than keeping it - that 
		    would mean thinking of it."--George Stanley


	poet GEORGE STANLEY

	presented by RON SILLIMAN

	-------------------------

	webcast live
	from the Kelly Writers House

	Thursday, October 23, 2003
	at 6:30 PM (eastern time)


To view the event by live webcast, rsvp to

	 	whstanley at writing.upenn.edu


This event features a reading by George Stanley introduced by Ron
Silliman, with conversation moderated by Ron Silliman.

George Stanley was born and raised in San Francisco where, in the sixties,
he was a member of Jack Spicer's circle. For many years an educator in
Terrace, British Columbia, Stanley is now retired and living in Vancouver.
His books include The Stick, Opening Day, Temporarily, San Francisco's
Gone, Gentle Northern Summer, and most recently, A Tall, Serious Girl (Qua
Press).

To read an interview with George Stanley, see

	http://wither.unbc.ca/winter/number.two/stanley/stanley.html

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

	 "Poetry means (a) I'm going to die - and (b) this
	 notebook will be read by someone who will see how lacking
	 I am - unless I destroy it - & I can't do that - that
	 would be worse than keeping it - that would mean
	 thinking of it. Better this shit than nothing, better be
	 sitting on Andy's front porch with Teddy, imagining this
	 shit being (miraculously) turned into a poem...."
				 --George Stanley, from "At Andy's"




From halvard at earthlink.net  Tue Oct 21 20:03:22 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 20:03:22 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <00e501c39825$11bcbea0$10eefea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEDIHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>


{    > {    There is no urgency to this discussion; no breathless world awaits a
{    > {    prompt response.
{    >
{    > Omit the penultimate word and this would be the understatement
{    > of the year.
{    >
{    > Hal
{    
{    I really don't know why to think this comment necessary, Hal--surely all the
{    other analyphobes at New-Poetry know they aren't alone.
{    
{    --Bob G.

Necessity ain't everything, Bob--lucky for poets
and quipsters.

Hal      Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
		--Noam Chomsky

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From JforJames at aol.com  Tue Oct 21 20:33:35 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 20:33:35 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Red Pine
Message-ID: <1a3.1bd1968e.2cc72a5f@aol.com>

IN REPLY

Somehow I end up beneath pines
sleeping in comfort on boulders
there aren't any calendars in the 
mountains
winter ends but who counts the years.

The Ancient Recluse
translated by Red Pine

---------------------------------
copyright (c) 2003 English language translation by Bill Porter.  From "Poems 
of the Masters: China's Classic Anthology of T'ang and Sung Dynasty Verse," 
published by Copper Canyon Press ( http://www.coppercanyonpress.org/ ) 
---------------------------------

E-verse is a free service presented by Milkweed Editions 
(http://www.milkweed.org ). 
For more information or to unsubscribe, please e-mail us at 
webmaster at milkweed.org. 

Sign up a friend for e-verse at http://www.milkweed.org/3_1.html


From JforJames at aol.com  Tue Oct 21 21:17:24 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 21:17:24 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog: Poetry & Empire
Message-ID: <164.273a1ec9.2cc734a4@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/20/03 7:43:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
ron.silliman at verizon.net writes:

> http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/
>  
>  How do you write?
I was surprised by this entry. Ron Silliman
works backward from a Palm to a notebook
w/ Waterman pen.
I use a Palm for business but have never employed
it in writing poems.
Once I did whole poems in the notebook. But now
my notebook is seldom the site of a full-blown work. 
I sketch things out...I use the notebook as a sketchpad:
a few swatches of language, some key words and 
seemingly important phrases are put to paper longhand.  

From MillB at aol.com  Tue Oct 21 21:26:15 2003
From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 21:26:15 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: PEN
Message-ID: <1aa.1b7c6601.2cc736b7@aol.com>

Greetings all,

In Los Angeles last night the PEN awards banquet took place.  Are there any 
other PEN members on this list?

Mill
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From kpaul at mallasch.com  Tue Oct 21 22:13:48 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 21:13:48 -0500 (EST)
Subject: writing habits ...Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog: P...
In-Reply-To: <164.273a1ec9.2cc734a4@aol.com>
References: <164.273a1ec9.2cc734a4@aol.com>
Message-ID: <20031021210722.K46303@kpaul.spinweb.net>

I started with notebooks. Have a lot packed in the garage to go through
one day. Also, a lot of 'paperwork' from various service type jobs I had
in my late teens and early twenties. Final drafts were on an electric
typewriter.

Gradually shifted to a computer. Laptop of desktop. A lot of times I type
it 'raw' onto my website (MUG) and tinker with it there. I'm making my
writing process available to the public. ;)

I like the idea of using a PDA. The first Palm I had (which broke and I
haven't yet replaced) had it's own character set I had to learn. I'm
waiting for something that would take me scrawl and translate it. There is
one PDA out there with a keyboard (tiny) that slides out that might be
nice.

I wonder, though, if by taking out the handwritten step I'm missing
something - that forced 'extra edit' when you type it up (or with
typewriters) repeatedly typed it up.

My 2 #2s,
kpaul

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 JforJames at aol.com wrote:

> Care to share your writing habits with this list?
> Finnegan
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From chris at chrislott.org  Wed Oct 22 03:43:18 2003
From: chris at chrislott.org (Chris Lott)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 23:43:18 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog: Poetry & Empire
In-Reply-To: <164.273a1ec9.2cc734a4@aol.com>
References: <164.273a1ec9.2cc734a4@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F963516.1040301@chrislott.org>

Ron is all turned around... I compose in notebooks (if you can call my 
drafting, doodling, journalling, word-gaming, etc "drafting"), which 
eventually have pieces that get taken out, re-written, then typed up on 
computer. I almost never compose with the keyboard when I am writing 
"for real."

I am a PDA fan, having carried a Palm for years and recently a Dell Axim 
pocket PC. The Dell is pretty good at recognizing my handwriting, but I 
prefer to use a folding external keyboard. That has pretty much replaced 
my laptop for travelling, and the screen real-estate is decent.

I have other favorites -- for notebooks, cambridge, top bound, of which 
I have filled *many* (fancy journals scare me), and for pens, a variety 
of fountain pens, Waterman, Cross, Esterbrook. But I will use whatever I 
have handy.

c
--
Chris Lott
http://www.chrislott.org/



From chris at chrislott.org  Wed Oct 22 03:45:50 2003
From: chris at chrislott.org (Chris Lott)
Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2003 23:45:50 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] quotation of the Day
In-Reply-To: <007301c397c5$7b83e9e0$ca1c2dd5@anny>
References: <007301c397c5$7b83e9e0$ca1c2dd5@anny>
Message-ID: <3F9635AE.2060207@chrislott.org>

Anny Ballardini wrote:

> "Swans sing before they die -- 'twere no bad thing
> Should certain persons die before they sing."

I was just reading an anecdote about Eliot. When asked about something 
he had written to the effect that poets must write every day and try to 
write more, Eliot mused that he had written those lines about Pound, but 
for most others he supposed that the best thing would be for them to 
strive to write as little as possible.

c
--
Chris Lott
http://www.chrislott.org/



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Wed Oct 22 05:34:00 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 11:34:00 +0200
Subject: Precision on Quote - Re: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George Martin : Alias? Poerty is, Shake rattle & roll -the Simple & the Complex & unfinished - never ending work
References: <3F9397C8.9275.3AB1E7@localhost>
Message-ID: <000301c39881$4480ca00$bee8f9c1@pavilion>

Marcus - no glee whatsoever or very fleating for almost forgotten -
a coincidence, most probably,
shared apparently at little cost and much benefit for you
replied.
It was not necessary but you brought clarity.
Thank you very much, indeed.


Originally rough picture taken from memory. I did not get much further in my
reading-of "L'Empeur-Dieu de Dune" tranduit de l'Americain par Guy Abadia Ed
Robert Laffond P255 copyright Frank Herbert, 1981 Laffont S.A copyright
1982-I started to find it boring and struggled to read a few pages after the
unusual summer drought and forest fires here.
Climate here is known as temperate, usually.


""Leto's, Herbert's (to the extent it really is
> Herbert's) and your (to the extent it's really yours) [worth pointing out
indeed!]analogy is
> wrong on the face of it, but is also precisely, it seems to me,
> backwards: that it is the horror of enslaving other human beings and
> treating them like machines that prompted the invention of better and
> better machines to replace the slavery of humans.""
>
BACKWARDS:
"That it is the horror of enslaving other human beings and
treating them like machines that prompted the invention of better and better
machines to replace the slavery of humans."  Marcus

BACKWARDS!
It was the very fact that the "concept was turned around" which drew my
attention to it in the first place" That and many stored observations
reports, rumours, interpretations and translations
gleaned throughout lifes experiment and(or!) experience, (on chemweb
somewhere).




I made no precise analogy nor search for metaphors in this instance.
If I felt anything I said it previously and was debating the best place to
put this idea up to test eg. "to the list, on "Chemistry
can get one ..." on chemweb. or again to Nature's SciDev (contribution to
science in the underdevelopped world ) Herbert invented a character
called "Marcus Claire Luyseyal"   A couple of lines on, there is another
character "Moneo" mentionned, for what that's worth-
I made no reference to this in my emails on George Martin's "Jingle-piece"?

 The original analogies  are all Herbert's (embodied by the less
and less human Leto in the process of turning into a gigantique "spice
producing worm"! )
as an american SF writer, easier for you chaps to grasp

                     Struggles to shine clear: -(Forsight).
(An address to Marcus & New-Poerty in a pseudo-Scottish tradition)


-For here my Franco-Scots/British...
Struggles to shine clear:
Because,
worm in french is
ver,
and vers is worm -in the plural form,
or rhyme or poem,
or the direction, Towards,
and
un verre is
glass or a drink,
(always on the brink)
again
les vertes is the green party of ecologists
and
-all are pronouced in the same way!
but any originally suggestioned
projections* into a distant future and backwards look -
an interesting process in itself, -
Foresight.
are presented by the influential Herbert,
In the thought provoking sand Dune series.


Re-arranged for New-Poetry and Marcus.

JA. all deserverd rights no more no less to JA  @ADA. Grp for this work
piece,  strong acknowledgements to Marcus Bales.

To continue. (acknowledgement)

I appreciated your taking the time to distinguish:

-Between a WONDERFULL machine and a MERE machine and what the consequences
are-

-For the use of demonising in the litteral sense - I have become
systematically accustomed (brain washed) to
seeing this word used in debate as applied (figuratively) to denigrate the
other parties approach & arguements)


BACKWARDS:
"That it is the horror of enslaving other human beings and
treating them like machines that prompted the invention of better and better
machines to replace the slavery of humans."

That's the classical reasoning, which I may add was a source of motivating
(science & society) -then their are the observations in the field -
heightening criticism- much mercantilism.   There is notable cause for
concern  and where some slight concessions have been made on both the UP
side and the Down side of the enslavery-empowerment process.

Having no recipe, other than the experimental method (strongly recalled by
Latour and highlighted by me cf. chemweb,
I have decided to live with all this.

Fears not of science itself(surely?) but of the inhuman way it can be
exercised, perhaps, and even more so & visibly to the way in which it can be
used.

These are more fully exposed in the following referenced article(rapid
summary) below:

It also happened that I came across another paper by play write Edward Bond
translated by George Bas for Le Monde Samedi-Saturday 11 Oct 2003 "Grammar
of Art, Logic of  the Human (Element). Whereby he too plunges into the
ealiest representations of the human being and their equally early
attraction for artistic
activity. He develops two ideas (stories which are in fact the same one)
one, the case against, similar analogies but instead of machines this time
it
is tools or instruments the attraction of their perfection (& strength
...) - the perfection of the tool is termed the "death camp" as this side of
the story goes
as opposed to the second based upon human frailty leads to preference even
imperatif to be human. Here Bond distinguishes between the imperfections
which make us human for this is not an illness and those which make us
inhuman etc. He points out that the human element is not confined to
individuals but shared by communities.  He suggests that instead of playing,
dice ( poker or russian roulette? ) with nature(forbidden) that Art (all art
being dramatic, "naturally" ) should fill the vacuum created. The artist's
job -"expert in dramatic art"  is then to interpret "the Grammar of Art,
Logic of  the Human (Element) whence the title of the article.
Having layed the setting he then offers his recipe to avoid (a common human
illness) known as disorientation turning into an incurable one "Death" or
more precisely a sort of dark ages 'of mass destruction' (which Stalline
apparenty called  a
Statistic!!! ), termed the"Age of death"(Bond)

Thanks again.


Cheers Marcus.

J. Alex.

refs:
Herberts book source of the extract is  ISBN: 2-266-02723-9(french) P.255.
ISBN: 0 - 339 - 12593 - 0 which I have not read.  I prefered his first of
the series, at first and second reading
I seldom read fiction more than once (at least by the same auther - I canna
afford myself the same luxury in science and stuff).

Footy note:
Doctors recommend starting the day with a good joke, a well told
story... for I must now admit it may not be of what the best poerty be made
of  - but

George Martin certainly made my day!

What?  A piece of work- for peace of mind?






















----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 2:07 PM
Subject: Re: Precision on Quote - Re: [New-Poetry] poems by others - George
Martin : Alias? Poerty is, Shake rattle & roll


> On 20 Oct 2003 at 0:34, james.alexander1 wrote:
> > I did not fully realise how badly I had transposed the extract from
> > late Frank Herberts. I feel it worth doing properly: Translation aside
> > it is :
> >  Quote: from Emperor Leto in the Dune Series by the Late Frank Herbert
> > re-translated from french, in which by shear co-incidence a certain
> > "Marcus" is mentionned!
> >
> > Il y a une lecon, Marcus Claire Luseyal, sur les soci?t?es
> > ultra-mecanis?s du pass?, Que vous paraissez ne pas avoir tres bien
> > compris. Par leur existance m?me, les machines conditionnent leurs
> > utilisateurs ? se servir de leurs semblables comme ils se servent
> > d'elles.
> >
> > There is one lesson Marcus .         from the ultra-mechanised
> > societies of the past, which you appear not to have understood very
> > well. By their very existence, machines condition their users to use
> > their fellow human beings as one (a machine).
>
> Well, James, since you bring it up and seem to glean some kind of
> glee from the coincidence of names, let me just say that Leto's (and
> to the extent it's Herbert's, Herbert's) notion that machines are
> what make human beings treat other human beings like machines, it's
> poppycock. Anthropological evidence demonstrates conclusively from
> the stress marks on joints and bones, that young women seem to have
> spent what seems to have been nearly their entire lives squatting
> over a stone crushing cereal grains with a rock. And, of course,
> there is all the evidence of slavery both in the historical records
> and in the reference the early historical records make of pre-
> history. People were treating other people like machines well before
> there were machines adequate to make this analogy. The human body is
> a wonderful machine in and of itself -- and enslaving another human
> is nothing but treating that human as a mere machine. Then there is
> all the demonizing that goes on to justify treating what are clearly
> human beings as if they are not human beings the better to kill or
> enslave them. Leto's, Herbert's (to the extent it really is
> Herbert's) and your (to the extent it's really yours) analogy is
> wrong on the face of it, but is also precisely, it seems to me,
> backwards: that it is the horror of enslaving other human beings and
> treating them like machines that prompted the invention of better and
> better machines to replace the slavery of humans.
>
> And all that still doesn't make George Martin's verse any better.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From halvard at earthlink.net  Wed Oct 22 07:43:20 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 07:43:20 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: A minimal group of minimal poems
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEEBHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

by Thomas McGrath

Poem

You out there, so secret.
What makes you think you're alone?


fr. *Selected Poems: 1938-1988*
[Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1988]

=====

by A. R. Ammons

Their Sex Life

One failure on
Top of another


from *The Really Short Poems of A. R. Ammons*
[New York: Norton, 1990]

=====

by Aram Saroyan

	eyeye


for more, click below

http://www.ubu.com/historical/saroyan/saroyan01.html

=====

by Bruce Andrews

	Bananas are an example.


fr. *Paris Review* c. 1972

=====

by Dick Allen

	God
	   .

[an unpublished poem]


=====

Hal

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Oct 22 07:47:40 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 07:47:40 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <00e501c39825$11bcbea0$10eefea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F96361C.1266.2AC9E0@localhost>

On 21 Oct 2003 at 18:45, Bob Grumman wrote:

> > {    There is no urgency to this discussion; no breathless world
> > awaits a {    prompt response.
> >
> > Omit the penultimate word and this would be the understatement
> > of the year.
> >
> > Hal
> 
> I really don't know why to think this comment necessary, Hal--surely
> all the other analyphobes at New-Poetry know they aren't alone.
> 
> --Bob G.

Yeah, isn't every contribution to a listserv "a gift"? 






From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Oct 22 08:28:25 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:28:25 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <003601c39823$4f07e2a0$10eefea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F963FA9.27952.5017E5@localhost>

Well, Bob, please allow me to modify your Statement One provisionally 
in an attempt to illustrate the difficulties I have with your latest 
iteration.

STATEMENT 1
Opinions about poetry, as in all the other arts, are subjective, and 
change according to intellectual fashions. The current fashion 
consists largely of using scientific terms metaphorically to try to 
imply a rigor of objective analysis where only reasonable inferences 
apply. 

Textual expressions are mixtures of four kinds of authorial 
intention, none of them pure, and all of them subject to interpretive 
fashions. The basic palette of authorital intentions is:

(a) intention to advocate a point of view; 
(b) intention to convey factual or conceptual information
(c) intention to elicit an emotional response; and 
(d) intention to convey nothing meaningful.
 
The intentional claim of the author is contextual -- and thus almost 
endlessly interpretable. Two zealots may each think they are 
expressing almost pure (b) while each of the opinion that the other's 
expression is almost pure (d), for example.

Attempts to claim a preponderance of any of these four kinds of 
authorial intention for any text must rely on inferences from the 
content of the work in question, its author's other work, the work of 
authors with which he or she explicitly disagrees or agrees, the work 
of authors with which he or she imiplicitly disagrees or agrees, and, 
to a much lesser extent (for there are those who claim to be "happy 
slaves" of every persuasion), biographical information about the 
author.






From Thom424 at aol.com  Wed Oct 22 08:28:35 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:28:35 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] McGrath's minimal poem
Message-ID: <a4.3e3848cb.2cc7d1f3@aol.com>

On the lovely commons in front of Weld Hall on the campus of Minnesota State 
University Moorhead--where Tom McGrath had an office and taught for the last 
decade or so of his life before he retired in 1983--is a cottonwood tree, in 
front of which is a thirty inch x eight inch rectangular marble memorial placed 
flush in the ground and inscribed with the poem Hal presents: "You out there, 
so secret/What makes you think you're alone?"

The memorial was established not long after McGrath's death (1990) by a group 
of friends and colleagues from MSUM and the Fargo-Moorhead community. The 
cottonwood tree appears frequently throughout McGrath's poetry and especially in 
*Letter to an Imaginary Friend.* The cottonwood is native to McGrath's 
childhood home and landscape in and around Sheldon, ND, in southeast North Dakota.

In 1985, the Tom McGrath Visiting Writers Series was established to honor Tom 
& his work by bringing to campus & the community writers from the region and 
the nation. Tom was invited to be the first reader in the series. Some of us 
try to keep the snow and leaves from camouflaging the memorial--which is often 
a loosing battle during Minnesota winters.

Thom Tammaro
Moorhead, MN
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From ron.silliman at verizon.net  Wed Oct 22 08:37:43 2003
From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:37:43 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry & Empire
Message-ID: <000501c39899$4e8baa20$dafef343@Dell>

My notes on the Poetry & Empire retreat have now been posted on my
weblog: http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

Ron




From JforJames at aol.com  Wed Oct 22 08:55:03 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 08:55:03 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Jorie Graham reads at Yale
Message-ID: <a6.3e6d9683.2cc7d827@aol.com>

Graham reads poetry
 
BY RAYMOND PACIA
Contributing Reporter
 
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jorie Graham read selections of her poetry to 
about 70 students and faculty members at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript 
Library Tuesday.
 
The audience listened closely as Graham read some of her longer poems 
including "What the End Is For," and "The Phase after History," both of which probed 
the issue of individualism during a charged political time. Graham concluded 
the reading with shorter "prayers" meant to explore the depths of human emotion.
 
Graham said that during an uncomfortable period of history, it is especially 
important to recognize the many kinds of actions a country, person or soul can 
take in reality and literature.
 
"We're living in a moment of history that drives our capacity to act. 
Non-action itself is often very profound," Graham said, referring to Hamlet's demise.
 
English professor Thomas Otten introduced Graham, citing her poem "Salmon" as 
an example of her ability to make subtle but precise remarks on the modern 
world. "Salmon," which begins with the speaker watching fish on television, 
evolves into a commentary on the sexual apprehension of today's society.
 
A professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard, Graham grew up in Italy, 
where she said spending time playing at the Roman Forum greatly affected her 
imagination.
 
Graham said she found Yale and Harvard to be very different. She said Yale's 
architecture, people and graduate programs reveal a strong regard for the arts.
 
Audience members said they found Graham's description of reasons for writing 
poetry especially lucid. Graham said neurologists have identified compassion 
as a primal reaction, in the same part of the brain as the sense of touch. 
Graham said in the same way the human sense of touch has been dulled by contact 
with generic, artificial surfaces, she fears modern humans are losing their 
sense of compassion.
 
Dan Johnson, a graduate student at the Columbia University School of Arts, 
said Graham put her poems, which often have difficult syntax, into context in a 
rational manner.
 
"I'm usually wary when poets talk about their poetry," Johnson said. "It can 
be diminishing. But in this case, it brought out themes that I wouldn't have 
noticed."
 
Adrien-Alice Hansel DRA '06 said she enjoyed Graham's use of references to 
books, plays and poems throughout history, such as those by Darwin and 
Shakespeare, to illuminate her process of writing poetry.
 
"I've always liked Jorie Graham," Hansel said. "I appreciate her ability to 
put her own poetry under a microscope and then explain it in a more global 
context."
 
Not all students were well-acquainted with Graham's work. Emily Kopley '06 
said she felt Graham's work is complex and demands careful thought.
 
"I wasn't familiar with Graham's work before today and didn't know what to 
expect," Kopley said. "Some of her poems seemed very inaccessible. They are 
definitely worth another look."
 
Graham received the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1996 for her anthology "The 
Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994." 
 
 
Copyright ? 1995-2003 Yale Daily News Publishing Company, Inc. All rights 
reserved
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From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Wed Oct 22 06:06:30 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 12:06:30 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog: Poetry & Empire
References: <164.273a1ec9.2cc734a4@aol.com>
Message-ID: <000201c3989c$b4fe7140$8f85fac1@pavilion>

J for J
Fully exposed (cf. examples), I am struggling to improve my perf. not
undermine.

Salutations,

JA.
----- Original Message -----
From: <JforJames at aol.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 3:17 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog: Poetry & Empire


> In a message dated 10/20/03 7:43:42 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
> ron.silliman at verizon.net writes:
>
> > http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/
> >
> >  How do you write?
> I was surprised by this entry. Ron Silliman
> works backward from a Palm to a notebook
> w/ Waterman pen.
> I use a Palm for business but have never employed
> it in writing poems.
> Once I did whole poems in the notebook. But now
> my notebook is seldom the site of a full-blown work.
> I sketch things out...I use the notebook as a sketchpad:
> a few swatches of language, some key words and
> seemingly important phrases are put to paper longhand.
> From these scrawls I go directly into the word processor.
> And several iterations later, a poem is perpetrated.
> Care to share your writing habits with this list?
> Finnegan
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Wed Oct 22 08:58:12 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 14:58:12 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Red Pine -& Tech Call Po&Empathy-Case Study
References: <1a3.1bd1968e.2cc72a5f@aol.com>
Message-ID: <000301c3989c$b64e22c0$8f85fac1@pavilion>

Case Study please read-

Sounds for the deaf - the solitary golfer - 60?C/267 ?Kelvin.

The sun shone on the first green and the second tee.
The young oak looked on amused at these futile gests,
Her leaves golden spoke, tinkling, tinkling, falling free
Floating in the early frosted air to a final tinkled rest
I strained my ear to listen  to natures tune

From halvard at earthlink.net  Wed Oct 22 14:00:22 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 14:00:22 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] McGrath's minimal poem
In-Reply-To: <a4.3e3848cb.2cc7d1f3@aol.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIEEIHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Thanks for this, Thom, and say hello for me to Mark Vinz,
who may or may not remember hosting me one night long
ago when I was passing through.

Hal
  On the lovely commons in front of Weld Hall on the campus of Minnesota
State University Moorhead--where Tom McGrath had an office and taught for
the last decade or so of his life before he retired in 1983--is a cottonwood
tree, in front of which is a thirty inch x eight inch rectangular marble
memorial placed flush in the ground and inscribed with the poem Hal
presents: "You out there, so secret/What makes you think you're alone?"

  The memorial was established not long after McGrath's death (1990) by a
group of friends and colleagues from MSUM and the Fargo-Moorhead community.
The cottonwood tree appears frequently throughout McGrath's poetry and
especially in *Letter to an Imaginary Friend.* The cottonwood is native to
McGrath's childhood home and landscape in and around Sheldon, ND, in
southeast North Dakota.

  In 1985, the Tom McGrath Visiting Writers Series was established to honor
Tom & his work by bringing to campus & the community writers from the region
and the nation. Tom was invited to be the first reader in the series. Some
of us try to keep the snow and leaves from camouflaging the memorial--which
is often a loosing battle during Minnesota winters.

  Thom Tammaro
  Moorhead, MN
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From gmguddi at ilstu.edu  Wed Oct 22 16:38:32 2003
From: gmguddi at ilstu.edu (Gabriel Gudding)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 15:38:32 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] McGrath's minimal poem
In-Reply-To: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIEEIHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
References: <a4.3e3848cb.2cc7d1f3@aol.com>
Message-ID: <5.1.1.6.0.20031022153453.032fab68@mail.ilstu.edu>

Many's a time I'd walked, ridden, and skateboarded by that cottonwood 
before it was enplaqued.

I recall sitting under it one night when a little boy in the 1970s to watch 
for streakers. We'd see a few every week bolting through the commons in the 
Freiabend.

Gabe

At 02:00 PM 10/22/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Thanks for this, Thom, and say hello for me to Mark Vinz,
>who may or may not remember hosting me one night long
>ago when I was passing through.
>
>Hal
>On the lovely commons in front of Weld Hall on the campus of Minnesota 
>State University Moorhead--where Tom McGrath had an office and taught for 
>the last decade or so of his life before he retired in 1983--is a 
>cottonwood tree, in front of which is a thirty inch x eight inch 
>rectangular marble memorial placed flush in the ground and inscribed with 
>the poem Hal presents: "You out there, so secret/What makes you think 
>you're alone?"
>
>The memorial was established not long after McGrath's death (1990) by a 
>group of friends and colleagues from MSUM and the Fargo-Moorhead 
>community. The cottonwood tree appears frequently throughout McGrath's 
>poetry and especially in *Letter to an Imaginary Friend.* The cottonwood 
>is native to McGrath's childhood home and landscape in and around Sheldon, 
>ND, in southeast North Dakota.
>
>In 1985, the Tom McGrath Visiting Writers Series was established to honor 
>Tom & his work by bringing to campus & the community writers from the 
>region and the nation. Tom was invited to be the first reader in the 
>series. Some of us try to keep the snow and leaves from camouflaging the 
>memorial--which is often a loosing battle during Minnesota winters.
>
>Thom Tammaro
>Moorhead, MN
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct 22 19:39:24 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 19:39:24 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Jorie Graham reads at Yale
References: <a6.3e6d9683.2cc7d827@aol.com>
Message-ID: <00cf01c398f5$ba69a100$6b94fea9@j1c1k6>



  Graham reads poetry

   

  BY RAYMOND PACIA

  Contributing Reporter

   

  Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jorie Graham read selections of her poetry to about 70 students and faculty members at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library Tuesday.

   

  The audience listened closely as Graham read some of her longer poems including "What the End Is For," and "The Phase after History," both of which probed the issue of individualism during a charged political time. Graham concluded the reading with shorter "prayers" meant to explore the depths of human emotion.

   



  Nothing against Jorie Graham (in this instance), but that last sentence made me laugh out loud.



  --Bob G.



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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct 22 20:17:53 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 20:17:53 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3F963FA9.27952.5017E5@localhost>
Message-ID: <01e301c398fb$1ac16100$6b94fea9@j1c1k6>

> Well, Bob, please allow me to modify your Statement One provisionally
> in an attempt to illustrate the difficulties I have with your latest
> iteration.

First, why don't we keep mine on view so we can go back and forth, if we
want to.

STATEMENT 1

"Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) texts concerned
as much or more than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy
consensus of readers, or agreement of the majority of a majority of the
recognized experts in the relevant field who have examined the matter, and
with whose judgement the majority of the educated non-experts who are
cognizant of the experts' opinions and who have themselves examined the
matter concur) with convincingly advocating a point of view; (b) texts less
concerned (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying information to
others that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with eliciting
an emotional response; (c) texts
concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy
consensus of readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts
that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
consensus of readers)."

END OF STATEMENT 1


STATEMENT 1A

Opinions about poetry, as in all the other arts, are subjective, and change
according to intellectual fashions. The current fashion consists largely of
using scientific terms metaphorically to try to
 imply a rigor of objective analysis where only reasonable inferences apply.

Textual expressions are mixtures of four kinds of authorial intention, none
of them pure, and all of them subject to interpretive fashions. The basic
palette of authorial intentions is:

 (a) intention to advocate a point of view;
 (b) intention to convey factual or conceptual information
(c) intention to elicit an emotional response; and
 (d) intention to convey nothing meaningful.

 The intentional claim of the author is contextual -- and thus almost
endlessly interpretable. Two zealots may each think they are expressing
almost pure (b) while each of the opinion that the other's
 expression is almost pure (d), for example.

 Attempts to claim a preponderance of any of these four kinds of  authorial
intention for any text must rely on inferences from the content of the work
in question, its author's other work, the work of
 authors with which he or she explicitly disagrees or agrees, the work of
authors with which he or she imiplicitly disagrees or agrees, and,  to a
much lesser extent (for there are those who claim to be "happy slaves" of
every persuasion), biographical information about the  author.

END OF STATEMENT 1A

Okay, now I'm going to repeat Statement 1A and stick comments in:

>STATEMENT 1A

>Opinions about poetry, as in all the other arts, are >subjective, and
change according to intellectual >fashions. The current fashion consists
largely of >using scientific terms metaphorically to try to
>imply a rigor of objective analysis where only >reasonable inferences
apply.

I thought we agreed that your taks is to show where I'm unclear, Marcus, not
try to figure out what I'm trying to do and come out against it.

>Textual expressions are mixtures of four kinds of >authorial intention,
none of them pure, and all of >them subject to interpretive fashions. The
basic >palette of authorital intentions is:

You have me wrong in several ways.  (1) I'm speaking of verbal, not textual,
expression.  (2) My descriptions have to do with the concerns of various
kinds of verbal expression, not with "authorial intention," however much
that will usually contribute to those concerns.  (3) The texts I speak of
can be mixtures or pure; I nowhere say or imply that they are all mixtures.
(4)  While the texts I speak of are subject to interpretation, that
interpretation is reduced, and need not have much or anything to do with
interpretative fashions.

Aside from that, I fail to see where you concern yourself with the clarity
of Statement 1 in this portion of your statement.

> (a) intention to advocate a point of view;
> (b) intention to convey factual or conceptual
> information
> (c) intention to elicit an emotional response; and
> (d) intention to convey nothing meaningful.

Intention has nothing to do with (d).


> The intentional claim of the author is contextual --
> and thus almost endlessly interpretable. Two
> zealots may each think they are expressing
> almost pure (b) while each of the opinion that the > other's expression is
almost pure (d), for
> example.

You're suggesting an objection rather than addressing the issue of clarity.

> Attempts to claim a preponderance of any of
> these four kinds of authorial intention for any text
> must rely on inferences from the content of the
> work in question, its author's other work, the
> work of authors with which he or she explicitly
> disagrees or agrees, the work of authors with
> which he or she implicitly disagrees or agrees,
> and, to a much lesser extent (for there are those
> who claim to be "happy slaves" of every
> persuasion), biographical information about the
> author.

END OF STATEMENT 1A

Your last passage is just your opinion, and has nothing to do with whether
my statement is clear or not.  I'm afraid I'm not bright enough to get much
out of your "illustration," so I hope that you will try directly telling me
what is unclear in my Statements, and why, instead, in future posts.

I think you've been much more helpful in previous posts.  I really can't see
that you said anything in this one that has made me reconsider the latest
version of my first statement.

--Bob G.



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Thu Oct 23 05:22:30 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:22:30 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG - Gift
References: <3F96361C.1266.2AC9E0@localhost>
Message-ID: <003f01c39947$2fa86a40$05737450@anny>

From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>


> On 21 Oct 2003 at 18:45, Bob Grumman wrote:
> 
> > > {    There is no urgency to this discussion; no breathless world
> > > awaits a {    prompt response.
> > >
> > > Omit the penultimate word and this would be the understatement
> > > of the year.
> > >
> > > Hal
> > 
> > I really don't know why to think this comment necessary, Hal--surely
> > all the other analyphobes at New-Poetry know they aren't alone.
> > 
> > --Bob G.
> 
> Yeah, isn't every contribution to a listserv "a gift"? 

Correction: Gift, das Gift = poison in German;
if you use this tone;

Anny




From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Oct 23 07:26:54 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 07:26:54 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <01e301c398fb$1ac16100$6b94fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F9782BE.17739.1F2B21@localhost>

> STATEMENT 1
> "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) texts
> concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant field
> who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority of
> the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with convincingly
> advocating a point of view; (b) texts less concerned (according to a
> reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with convincingly
> advocating a point of view than with conveying information to others
> that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
> reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with
> eliciting an emotional response; (c) texts concerned more than
> anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
> readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts that
> convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> consensus of readers)."
> END OF STATEMENT 1
 
>Opinions about poetry, as in all the other arts, are >subjective, and
> change according to intellectual >fashions. The current fashion
> consists largely of >using scientific terms metaphorically to try to
> >imply a rigor of objective analysis where only >reasonable inferences
> apply.
 
> I thought we agreed that your taks is to show where I'm unclear,
> Marcus, not try to figure out what I'm trying to do and come out
> against it.<

There is clarity of expression and clarity of thought, and one can 
express nonsense clearly and sense obscurely. One of the functions of 
revising for clarity of expression is that it often reveals where 
there is lack of clarity in thought. If you are serious about trying 
to do science in the humanities, about trying to construct a real 
taxonomy, a useful tool for any and every poetry audience or reader, 
clarity of thought is just as important as clarity of expression.

If all you're trying to do is put forward your subjective notions 
about literature by using scientific terms such as "taxonomy" in a 
merely metaphorical sense, well, that's a different kind of essay.

Which is it?

> >Textual expressions are mixtures of four kinds of authorial
> >intention, none of them pure, and all of them subject to 
> >interpretive fashions. The basic palette of authorital intentions ...<<

> You have me wrong in several ways.  (1) I'm speaking of verbal, not
> textual, expression.<<

Then why do you keep referring to "texts"? Texts are not verbal 
expressions except in the most broadly metaphorical way, a way 
useless in the discussion of good tight definitions on which to rely 
for the weight of an entire taxonomy.

>  (2) My descriptions have to do with the concerns
> of various kinds of verbal expression, not with "authorial intention,"
> however much that will usually contribute to those concerns.<<

You yourself have said that what determines whether something is 
"persuasive" or "informative" or "entertaining" or "meaningless" is 
not whether it actually persuades or informs, but whether it was 
INTENDED to persuade or inform or entertain or mean nothing. If that 
is indeed the test, as you say it is, then your claim that you're 
evaluating "verbal expressions" without regard to authorial 
intention, while acknowledging that authorial intention will 
"contribute to" those concerns is not mere nonsense, it's nonsense in 
a clown suit.

> (3) The
> texts I speak of can be mixtures or pure; I nowhere say or imply that
> they are all mixtures. <<

I'm trying to point out that they MUST be mixtures, and you've 
implicitly agreed that they must in our conversation, by 
acknowledging that they cannot be "pure".  What is an example of a 
piece of "pure persuasion" or "pure entertainment"?  I grant you you 
may be able to come up with an example of "pure meaninglessness", but 
if examplars such as Hal Johnson and Marcel Duchamp are any 
indication, even pure meaninglessness is not without its 
entertainment value -- at least to the perpetrators.

> (4)  While the texts I speak of are subject to
> interpretation, that interpretation is reduced, and need not have much
> or anything to do with interpretative fashions.<

This is a claim to scientific objectivity for your system. If you are 
serious about this claim you have a good deal more work to do 
definitionally and conceptually than I think you have done. If, on 
the other hand, this is merely jawboning, a sort of posturing in a 
scientific manner but without any intent to do science, then you are 
not on the path to a taxonomy in the first place.
 
> > (a) intention to advocate a point of view;
> > (b) intention to convey factual or conceptual
> > information
> > (c) intention to elicit an emotional response; and
> > (d) intention to convey nothing meaningful.
 
> Intention has nothing to do with (d).<

Well the people who are trying to convey nothing meaningful make the 
claim that it is their intention to convey nothing meaningful, as I 
understand it.

> > The intentional claim of the author is contextual --
> > and thus almost endlessly interpretable. Two
> > zealots may each think they are expressing
> > almost pure (b) while each of the opinion that the > other's
> > expression is almost pure (d), for
> > example.
 
> You're suggesting an objection rather than addressing the issue of
> clarity.

I'm addressing the underlying lack of clarity in your purposes, if I 
understand them correctly. It appears to me, from the contradictions 
with which you present your putative system that the biggest problem 
with clarity is not a matter of clarity of expression, but one of 
clarity of thought. You use the language of science without embracing 
the principles of science; you're presenting a sort of cargo-cult 
taxonomy, mistaking the appearance of a carved wooden box for the 
reality of a radio.
 




From grahamd at ripon.edu  Thu Oct 23 11:07:10 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 10:07:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] John Clare
Message-ID: <BBBD58CE.4E78%grahamd@ripon.edu>

A very interesting article on John Clare by John Lancaster in the newest
*New Yorker*, also available online:

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/

There is a new selected edition of Clare's work, apparently.  Among other
things the article recounts the tangled copyright issues that have bedeviled
Clare scholarship.  Apparently a Clare scholar named Eric Robertson
purchased Clare's copyright for one pound in 1965, a claim that remains in
legal dispute.  


From JforJames at aol.com  Thu Oct 23 11:15:29 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:15:29 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry & Empire
Message-ID: <f2.325d3269.2cc94a91@aol.com>

The Butterfly Effect

In '72, Edward Lorenz gave a famous address 
subtitled: "Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings
in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?"
Sensitive dependence on initial conditions:
A principle of what came to be known as chaos theory. 
    But let's say it's only a figurative tornado
that rips through an area northwest of Crawford, Texas,
tear-asses across the 1600 acres of our President's ranch, 
the "Western White House," far from the real one 
at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and maybe 
that butterfly isn't even an exotic from faraway
in the Amazon rainforests, ravaged at the rate of 10,000
square miles per year, disappearing in Belgium-sized
bites, maybe the butterfly is just a sulfur or cabbage white 
common to unmown fields and suburban backyards.
    Perhaps it all starts in the back of a bookstore,
before twenty or so people sitting on folding chairs,
because the flap of that butterfly's wings 
is nothing more than the pages of a poem, 
turned in a young woman's hands at a open mike,
as she speaks her mind, asks to be heard.


From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Thu Oct 23 12:27:45 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 18:27:45 +0200
Subject: writing habits ...Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog: P...
References: <164.273a1ec9.2cc734a4@aol.com> <20031021210722.K46303@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <002901c39982$97acfa80$7e737450@anny>

I think my definitive passage to the use of the pc to write _poetry_  was
due to my involvement as a journalist for a local newspaper, now momentarily
closed. Those piled up notebooks, full of notes I quickly took during
conferences and/or for interviews (I don't like to record) together with any
kind of thoughts and comments, are checked as soon as I get back home for
the related article, piled up they collect as much dust as they can, and
with that sweeping _which ushers in an old-fashioned market-day (as Hardy
put it down)_ I simply throw them away. They are full of notes, maybe
potential good poems. What a pity.

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky

From: "kpaul mallasch" <kpaul at mallasch.com>


> I started with notebooks. Have a lot packed in the garage to go through
> one day. Also, a lot of 'paperwork' from various service type jobs I had
> in my late teens and early twenties. Final drafts were on an electric
> typewriter.
>
> Gradually shifted to a computer. Laptop of desktop. A lot of times I type
> it 'raw' onto my website (MUG) and tinker with it there. I'm making my
> writing process available to the public. ;)
>
> I like the idea of using a PDA. The first Palm I had (which broke and I
> haven't yet replaced) had it's own character set I had to learn. I'm
> waiting for something that would take me scrawl and translate it. There is
> one PDA out there with a keyboard (tiny) that slides out that might be
> nice.
>
> I wonder, though, if by taking out the handwritten step I'm missing
> something - that forced 'extra edit' when you type it up (or with
> typewriters) repeatedly typed it up.
>
> My 2 #2s,
> kpaul
>
> On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 JforJames at aol.com wrote:
>
> > Care to share your writing habits with this list?
> > Finnegan
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Thu Oct 23 14:12:00 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 11:12:00 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry & Empire
References: <f2.325d3269.2cc94a91@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F9819EF.3E7ECECD@earthlink.net>

Anthropomorphic Wind


The wind taps its fingers against my window
randomly and with long and short pauses
trying to disguise itself as wind
subject to rise and drop of pressure
then stops for days as if all is equalized
but this is sheer drama building
and suggests a butterfly a continent away
bored with stillness and its glide
suddenly yellow silk against the sun
as if someone moved behind a curtain.

- Jim

JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> 
> The Butterfly Effect
> 
> In '72, Edward Lorenz gave a famous address
> subtitled: "Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings
> in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?"
> Sensitive dependence on initial conditions:
> A principle of what came to be known as chaos theory.
>     But let's say it's only a figurative tornado
> that rips through an area northwest of Crawford, Texas,
> tear-asses across the 1600 acres of our President's ranch,
> the "Western White House," far from the real one
> at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and maybe
> that butterfly isn't even an exotic from faraway
> in the Amazon rainforests, ravaged at the rate of 10,000
> square miles per year, disappearing in Belgium-sized
> bites, maybe the butterfly is just a sulfur or cabbage white
> common to unmown fields and suburban backyards.
>     Perhaps it all starts in the back of a bookstore,
> before twenty or so people sitting on folding chairs,
> because the flap of that butterfly's wings
> is nothing more than the pages of a poem,
> turned in a young woman's hands at a open mike,
> as she speaks her mind, asks to be heard.
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Thu Oct 23 16:14:38 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 22:14:38 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry & Empire
References: <f2.325d3269.2cc94a91@aol.com> <3F9819EF.3E7ECECD@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <003c01c399a2$4944c060$84737450@anny>

square lines volumes in a vaporous lightness
it flew and I wanted to catch what caught me

what could I know of country-life besides that it was boring

with those long voids in which I disappeared
becoming colors awakenings wet leaves & tall trees

anny

From: "James Cervantes" <jvcervantes at earthlink.net>


> Anthropomorphic Wind
> 
> 
> The wind taps its fingers against my window
> randomly and with long and short pauses
> trying to disguise itself as wind
> subject to rise and drop of pressure
> then stops for days as if all is equalized
> but this is sheer drama building
> and suggests a butterfly a continent away
> bored with stillness and its glide
> suddenly yellow silk against the sun
> as if someone moved behind a curtain.
> 
> - Jim
> 
> JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> > 
> > The Butterfly Effect
> > 
> > In '72, Edward Lorenz gave a famous address
> > subtitled: "Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings
> > in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?"
> > Sensitive dependence on initial conditions:
> > A principle of what came to be known as chaos theory.
> >     But let's say it's only a figurative tornado
> > that rips through an area northwest of Crawford, Texas,
> > tear-asses across the 1600 acres of our President's ranch,
> > the "Western White House," far from the real one
> > at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and maybe
> > that butterfly isn't even an exotic from faraway
> > in the Amazon rainforests, ravaged at the rate of 10,000
> > square miles per year, disappearing in Belgium-sized
> > bites, maybe the butterfly is just a sulfur or cabbage white
> > common to unmown fields and suburban backyards.
> >     Perhaps it all starts in the back of a bookstore,
> > before twenty or so people sitting on folding chairs,
> > because the flap of that butterfly's wings
> > is nothing more than the pages of a poem,
> > turned in a young woman's hands at a open mike,
> > as she speaks her mind, asks to be heard.
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From jmrb at post.harvard.edu  Wed Oct 22 22:39:36 2003
From: jmrb at post.harvard.edu (John M. R. Bruner)
Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 22:39:36 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Emily Dickinson?
Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.2.20031020153402.009e5ac0@pop.rcn.com>

Monday          October 20, 2003.

I was delighted to stumble across your transcription of Billy Collins' 
"Undressing" the  Belle of Amherst.  In that you are patently well-versed 
(pun inescapable), can you steer me toward the Dickinson poem that 
triggered Collins' parody?

Is it on the web?  A named collection of her works that I might look for in 
the library?

Never had too much to do with poetry.  But Collins has knocked our socks 
off.  We had the pleasure of hearing him read "The Lariat" at a local 
graduation.  His reward for having achieved fame:  Having to sit through a 
dreadfully protracted program of  self-important speakers and endless awards.

Thanks

Jack and Barbara
Groton, Massachusetts 



From terra1 at sonic.net  Thu Oct 23 10:47:43 2003
From: terra1 at sonic.net (kari edwards)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 07:47:43 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] New from O books
Message-ID: <DC00BC02-0567-11D8-8AD3-003065AC6058@sonic.net>

Announcing from O Books - iduna by kari edwards, Poetry, 102 pages,  
ISBN # 1-882022-49-1, $12.00.

O Books : 5729 Clover Drive Oakland CA 94618. Distributed by SPD: 1341  
Seventh Street, Berkeley CA 94710. http://www.spdbooks.org/


Leslie Scalapino says iduna is experiment in which the text (like a  
personality) is as if 'set' to proceed by accident and mistakes of  
machine - but then, as such, in the workings of its 'accidents' (as if  
she is margins of pages and words from ads and 'theory' which are  
composing and revealing her: as if personality which is a machine/and  
thus the text is akin to the memory of a Replicant in Blade Runner) the  
effect is seeing passionate/ 'personal'/'emotional' (un)programmed  
memory and responses.



Steve McCaffery says about iduna "If benign linearity marks the last  
vestige of Cartesian consciousness, Vitruvian space and Spinozan  
ethics, then iduna signalizes its catalectic adieu. For there is no  
return after this. Kari Edwards has written and conceived a bold,  
complex text that pushes lyricism to the brink of an interstice,  
between the Dictionary and its scream. Auto-translative,  
self-contaminatory, iduna never renounces its splendid linguistic  
excess, fabricating a textural world of legibility and illegibility,  
gravitation and non-gravitation, that powers its dweller (for one must  
dwell in iduna) gesturally around and among its morphs and torques. If  
Deleuze and Guattari are correct when they aver that writing 'has  
nothing to do with signifying. It has to do with surveying, mapping,  
even realms that are yet to come' then iduna provides a special map to  
a certain dream of Coleridge's: the frontiers of a post-cognitive."



Johanna Drucker says about iduna "Paratexts and processing suggestions  
stream through Kari Edwards's iduna... The constant drive to make use  
of formal possibilities at the level of page and opening brings graphic  
format into substantive play...A machinic drive echoes in this work as  
a human, subjective voice struggles to come through the registers of  
current language events, noise, news, records, communications. The  
shape of a human outcry presses through the mass of mediated material.  
Form embodies possibilities enabled by the instructions of forced  
justification, font shifts, hard returns, tabs, chunked blocks, and  
other basic elements of text processing...Before we can ask what  
something means when we read it, we must ask what it means to read -  
and Edwards poses that as a high-stakes question providing the point of  
departure for current poetic production."



Chris Tysh says about iduna "Having evacuated the endemic patriarchal  
script, Edwards writes hir own rules of the game in the wee hours when  
the sky turns green and binary logic decamps posthaste. Under the ruins  
of gender, iduna is a wild garden where 'sexuality begets language.'  
The anarchic profusion of voices, discourses, idiolects, fonts and  
typographies that seem to rain down upon the page becomes the new  
'formlessness' which is the political signature of this resistant and  
absorptive text."

kari edwards is a poet, artist and gender activist, winner of New  
Langton Art?s Bay Area Award in literature (2002), author of Iduna, O  
Books (2003), a day in the life of p. , subpress collective (2002), a  
diary of lies - Belladonna #27 by Belladonna Books (2002), obLiqUE  
paRt(itON): colLABorationS, xPress(ed) (2002), and post/(pink) Scarlet  
Press (2000). sie is also the poetry editor I.F.G.E?s Transgender -  
Tapestry: a International Publication on Transgender issues. hir work  
has been exhibited throughout the united states, including denver art  
museum, new orleans contemporary art museum, university of  
california-san diego, and university of massachusetts - amherst.  
edwards? work can also be found in Experimental Theology, Public Text  
0.2., Seattle Research Institute (2003), Blood and Tears: Poems for  
Matthew Shepard, Painted leaf Press (2000), Electric Spandex: anthology  
of writing the queer text, Pyriform Press (2002), Aufgabe, Fracture,  
Bombay Gin, Belight Fiction, In Posse, Mirage/Period(ical), Van Gogh?s  
Ear, Fulcrum: an annual of poetry and aesthetics, Pom2, PuppyFlower,  
Vert,  88: A Journal of Contemporary American Poetry, Narrativity,   
Shampoo, xStream, Big Bridge, Nerve Lantern, Magazine Cypress, AUGHT,  
Word/For Word, Atomicpetals, FIR at potz.com, Bathhouse, The Journal of  
Bisexuality, muse-apprentice-guild, Pindeldyboz, nthposition.com,  
BlazeVox 2k3, 5 Trope, and Panic, Avoid Strange Men, Bird Dog Magizine,  
RealPoetik, l?Bourgeoizine Milk Magizine, Moria, Boog City, Chimera  
Review, SoMa Literary Review, Raised in a Barn and The International  
Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies.


kari edwards
3435 Cesar Chavez
#327
San Francisco, CA, 94110
415-647-6981
terra1 at sonic.net
_________________
-GENDER RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS-
_________________
  a day in the life of p.
by kari edwards, $12.00
From: Subpress Collective /ISBN # 1-930068-18-2
@  Small Press Distribution   http://www.spdbooks.org/
@  amazon.com

_________________________________
  a diary of lies, by kari edwards, Belladonna* Books, 2002
http://www.durationpress.com/belladonna/catalog.htm
________________________________
Also check out:
live recording:
http://www.factoryschool.org/content/sounds/poetry/frontenac.html

interview:
	http://www.raintaxi.com/online/2003spring/	edwards.shtml
	http://www.gendertalk.com/real/350/gt385.shtml

on narrative:
http://www.sfsu.edu/~poetry/narrativity/issue_three/edwards.html

prose / fiction
http://www.emunix.emich.edu/~bhouse/edwards.html
http://www.chimerareview.com/volumes/2003_4/fic_edwards_1.0.htm
http://www.muse-apprentice-guild.com/august2002/kariedwards/ 
literary_magazine.html
http://homepages.which.net/~panic.brixtonpoetry/semicolon1.htm
http://www.shampoopoetry.com/ShampooThirteen/ShampooIssueThirteen.html
http://www.webdelsol.com/InPosse/edwards10.htm
http://www.puppyflowers.com/II/flowers.html
http://www.somalit.com/A_day_in.html

poetry:
http://www.wordforword.info/vol4/Edwards.htm
http://www.atomicpetals.com/ke03.htm
http://people2.clarityconnect.com/webpages6/ronhenry/edward10.htm
http://www.blazevox.org/edwards.htm
http://www.poeticinhalation.com/v3i3.html#Kari%20Edwards
http://www.eratiopostmodernpoetry.com/poetic%20language.html
http://www.moriapoetry.com/edwards.html
http://www.bigbridge.org/miamikedwards.htm
http://www.xpressed.org/
http://www.litvert.com/kedwards8.html




From halvard at earthlink.net  Thu Oct 23 17:57:25 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 17:57:25 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Emily Dickinson?
In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20031020153402.009e5ac0@pop.rcn.com>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEKEHJHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Hi, John--

I think someone else may have posted the Collins poem.
Maybe David Graham? He's posted a number of Collins'
poems on various sites.

Hal      Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
		--Noam Chomsky

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard

{    -----Original Message-----
{    From: new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    [mailto:new-poetry-admin at wiz.cath.vt.edu]On Behalf Of John M. R. Bruner
{    Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2003 10:40 PM
{    To: Halvard Johnson
{    Subject: [New-Poetry] Emily Dickinson?
{    
{    
{    Monday          October 20, 2003.
{    
{    I was delighted to stumble across your transcription of Billy Collins' 
{    "Undressing" the  Belle of Amherst.  In that you are patently well-versed 
{    (pun inescapable), can you steer me toward the Dickinson poem that 
{    triggered Collins' parody?
{    
{    Is it on the web?  A named collection of her works that I might look for in 
{    the library?
{    
{    Never had too much to do with poetry.  But Collins has knocked our socks 
{    off.  We had the pleasure of hearing him read "The Lariat" at a local 
{    graduation.  His reward for having achieved fame:  Having to sit through a 
{    dreadfully protracted program of  self-important speakers and endless awards.
{    
{    Thanks
{    
{    Jack and Barbara
{    Groton, Massachusetts 
{    
{    _______________________________________________
{    New-Poetry mailing list
{    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
{    



From JforJames at aol.com  Thu Oct 23 18:23:13 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 18:23:13 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry & Empire
Message-ID: <11f.26aff3f5.2cc9aed1@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/23/03 2:36:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
jvcervantes at earthlink.net writes:
> Anthropomorphic Wind
>  
>  
>  The wind taps its fingers against my window
>  randomly and with long and short pauses
>  trying to disguise itself as wind
>  subject to rise and drop of pressure
>  then stops for days as if all is equalized
>  but this is sheer drama building
>  and suggests a butterfly a continent away
>  bored with stillness and its glide
>  suddenly yellow silk against the sun
>  as if someone moved behind a curtain.
>  

I love that concluding image.
Finnegan


From grahamd at ripon.edu  Thu Oct 23 21:30:01 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2003 20:30:01 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Emily Dickinson?/Collins
In-Reply-To: <5.2.1.1.2.20031020153402.009e5ac0@pop.rcn.com>
Message-ID: <BBBDEAC9.4EBF%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Not sure I was the one who posted Collins's poem (the title is "Taking Off
Emily Dickinson's Clothes")--I don't remember doing so, anyway.  But I don't
really remember what I had for breakfast either, so. . . .

In any case, it's not my favorite Collins poem, I will admit.  When I heard
BC read it once, he commented that he intended the poem as a sort of spoof
of academic criticism, especially biographical criticism--which is aimed at
stripping poets of all their mysteries.  Well, maybe so, but I'm not sure
the poem is a very good spoof, for I wonder if many readers would think of
this reading without the poet's help.  And as a satire, it doesn't get very
far beyond the premise of the title, does it?

There's no single Dickinson poem that Collins is referring to, in any case.
He alludes to a number of lines from different poems ("hope is the thing
with feathers," "My life had stood a loaded gun," "Because I could not stop
for death," "I heard a fly buzz when I died," etc.).

I do like Billy Collins's work a lot--just not this particular poem, oddly
enough!

There is a wealth of BC on the web.  A good place to start might be the
Academy of American Poets page:

http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=284

For individual poems, the best destination is the BigSnap site, listed on
the the Academy site.

I highly recommend hearing Collins read his stuff aloud--he's best that way,
I think.  There is an excellent CD available from BigSnap, called *The Last
Cigarette*.  

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


> From: "John M. R. Bruner" <jmrb at post.harvard.edu>
> Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2003 22:39:36 -0400
> To: "Halvard Johnson"  <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Emily Dickinson?
> 
> Monday          October 20, 2003.
> 
> I was delighted to stumble across your transcription of Billy Collins'
> "Undressing" the  Belle of Amherst.  In that you are patently well-versed
> (pun inescapable), can you steer me toward the Dickinson poem that
> triggered Collins' parody?
> 
> Is it on the web?  A named collection of her works that I might look for in
> the library?
> 
> Never had too much to do with poetry.  But Collins has knocked our socks
> off.  We had the pleasure of hearing him read "The Lariat" at a local
> graduation.  His reward for having achieved fame:  Having to sit through a
> dreadfully protracted program of  self-important speakers and endless awards.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Jack and Barbara
> Groton, Massachusetts 



From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Fri Oct 24 15:43:52 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 14:43:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: A. E. Stallings
Message-ID: <BBBEEB28.5875%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>


Asphodel


(after the words of Penny Turner, Nymphaion, Greece)


Our guide turned in her saddle, broke the spell:
"You ride now through a field of asphodel,
The flower that grows on the plains of hell.

Across just such a field the pale shade came
Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
And short life to a long life without fame,

And summoned by Odysseus he gave
This wisdom, 'Better by far to be a slave
Among the living, than great among the grave.'

I used to wonder, how did such a bloom
Become associated with the tomb?
Then one evening, walking through the gloom,

I noticed a strange fragrance. It was sweet,
Like honey ? but with hints of rotting meat.
An army of them bristled at my feet."



A. E. Stallings

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]




From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Fri Oct 24 18:04:06 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 18:04:06 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: A. E. Stallings
Message-ID: <10c.2b2d172e.2ccafbd6@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/24/2003 2:55:18 PM Central Daylight Time, 
paul.lake at mail.atu.edu writes: 
> Asphodel
> 
> 
> (after the words of Penny Turner, Nymphaion, Greece)
> 
> 
> Our guide turned in her saddle, broke the spell:
> "You ride now through a field of asphodel,
> The flower that grows on the plains of hell.
> 
> Across just such a field the pale shade came
> Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
> And short life to a long life without fame,
> 
> And summoned by Odysseus he gave
> This wisdom, 'Better by far to be a slave
> Among the living, than great among the grave.'
> 
> I used to wonder, how did such a bloom
> Become associated with the tomb?
> Then one evening, walking through the gloom,
> 
> I noticed a strange fragrance. It was sweet,
> Like honey ? but with hints of rotting meat.
> An army of them bristled at my feet."
> 
> 
> 
> A. E. Stallings
Nice but there's a metrical blip in line three.
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From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Fri Oct 24 18:32:20 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 00:32:20 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Preparativi per la partenza di Paolo Ruffilli
Message-ID: <003801c39a7e$b0487040$de607550@anny>

In Italian, a new beautiful book on the market:

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=297

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
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From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Fri Oct 24 18:58:52 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 15:58:52 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] magazines & journals beyond our borders
Message-ID: <3F99AEAC.248220EB@earthlink.net>

Can anyone suggest some solid magazines & journals outside our borders
that would be considered good publications?  I have a hankering to try
my luck outside the U.S.A..  I'm woefully ignorant of that "market" and
thought some of you on this list might have positive experiences with
our overseas brethren (Canada included ;-)

- Jim


From MillB at aol.com  Fri Oct 24 19:32:55 2003
From: MillB at aol.com (MillB at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 19:32:55 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] magazines & journals beyond our borders
Message-ID: <1e3.122b2a9f.2ccb10a7@aol.com>

Jim,

No guarantee that they are all still alive and in the breathing business, but 
here are a few publications off the top of my head (with a little help from 
my yellowed notes).

A Room of One's Own (Canada).  Frank and Paris/Atlantic (in Paris). Granta. 
Iota.  The Prague Review.  Westerly Centre for Studies in Literature 
(Australia).  Acumen, Borderlines, Poetry Review, Stand Magazine, and Ambit (England), 
Poetry Ireland Review, Transnational Prespectives (Switzerland).

Much luck.

Mill
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct 24 23:35:26 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 23:35:26 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: A. E. Stallings
References: <10c.2b2d172e.2ccafbd6@cs.com>
Message-ID: <00f901c39aa9$08037260$061afea9@j1c1k6>

"Great among the grave" is pretty awful, too.
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com 
  To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu 
  Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 6:04 PM
  Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: A. E. Stallings


  In a message dated 10/24/2003 2:55:18 PM Central Daylight Time, paul.lake at mail.atu.edu writes: 

    Asphodel


    (after the words of Penny Turner, Nymphaion, Greece)


    Our guide turned in her saddle, broke the spell:
    "You ride now through a field of asphodel,
    The flower that grows on the plains of hell.

    Across just such a field the pale shade came
    Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
    And short life to a long life without fame,

    And summoned by Odysseus he gave
    This wisdom, 'Better by far to be a slave
    Among the living, than great among the grave.'

    I used to wonder, how did such a bloom
    Become associated with the tomb?
    Then one evening, walking through the gloom,

    I noticed a strange fragrance. It was sweet,
    Like honey ? but with hints of rotting meat.
    An army of them bristled at my feet."



    A. E. Stallings

  Nice but there's a metrical blip in line three. 

  Actually in just about every third line.  Still, a good rhyme if banal in content.

  --Bob G.
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct 25 06:49:00 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 06:49:00 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3F963FA9.27952.5017E5@localhost>
Message-ID: <014101c39ae5$99e955a0$aaa3fea9@j1c1k6>

Not to be pushy, Marcus, but are you still playing our game?  You haven't
answered my post of four days ago yet, so far as I know.  Please let me know
whether you're just detained or I've done something wrong, again.

--Bob G.



From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Oct 25 11:34:55 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 08:34:55 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Introduction
Message-ID: <BAY7-F108p3cvpzTHkz00001924@hotmail.com>

I thought that being new to this list I should introduce myself, so here I 
am.  I've participated previously in the british poets and poetryetc lists, 
and I recognize the names of some people here from those lists.  More about 
me can be found at the URL below.  I'll send a poem and a few followups this 
weekend.

My understanding of the one poem a month policy is that I can send one poem 
in each calendar month, not that the poems necessarily have to be 30 days 
apart.  If I've got this wrong, someone please let me know.

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
See when your friends are online with MSN Messenger 6.0. Download it now 
FREE! http://msnmessenger-download.com



From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Oct 25 11:38:32 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 08:38:32 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Introduction
Message-ID: <BAY7-F10VHKgGcaJCkj0000196d@hotmail.com>

I thought that being new to this list I should introduce myself, so here I 
am.  I've participated previously in the british poets and poetryetc lists, 
and I recognize the names of some people here from those lists.  More about 
me can be found at the URL below.  I'll send a poem and a few followups this 
weekend.

My understanding of the one poem a month policy is that I can send one poem 
in each calendar month, not that the poems necessarily have to be 30 days 
apart.  If I've got this wrong, someone please let me know.

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Cheer a special someone with a fun Halloween eCard from American Greetings! 
Go to  http://www.msn.americangreetings.com/index_msn.pd?source=msne134



From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Oct 25 11:39:41 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 11:39:41 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: A. E. Stallings
Message-ID: <178.217a66f2.2ccbf33d@aol.com>

curiously she never mentions the flower's color...
I had no idea of what they looked like...here are a couple
of pictures of asphodel, also known a king's spear...
http://www.dow.cam.ac.uk/Crete/Armeni.html
http://plantsdatabase.com/showpicture/21687/

& scroll down to see a field of asphodel...
http://www.fv01.dial.pipex.com/cntries/greece.shtml


From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Oct 25 11:50:47 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 08:50:47 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re:  John Clare
Message-ID: <BAY7-F57OFoqinGE5PM000019bd@hotmail.com>

John Clare: A Biography By Jonathan Bate, has just been published.  There's 
a good short review of it in the October 9 Economist.

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Cheer a special someone with a fun Halloween eCard from American Greetings! 
Go to  http://www.msn.americangreetings.com/index_msn.pd?source=msne134



From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Oct 25 12:04:06 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:04:06 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Introduction
Message-ID: <62.3677a91d.2ccbf8f6@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/25/03 11:39:27 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
joncpoetics at hotmail.com writes:

> My understanding of the one poem a month policy is that I can send one poem 
>  in each calendar month, not that the poems necessarily have to be 30 days 
>  apart.  If I've got this wrong, someone please let me know.
Jon, welcome. That bit about one-poem-per-month was meant 
as a loose guideline...it's mainly there to advise against selfish use
of the NP List. Poems by list members are welcome additions to
this list. And, as I've said in the past, posting one's poems 
when they relate to a particular thread is entirely appropriate, 
and doesn't count.
Finnegan 


From JforJames at aol.com  Sat Oct 25 12:33:52 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:33:52 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re:  John Clare
Message-ID: <113.2a80b8ec.2ccbfff0@aol.com>

                    John Clare (1793-1864)


SOLITUDE                        

There is a charm in solitude that cheers,
A feeling that the world knows nothing of;
A green delight the wounded mind endears
After the hustling world is broken off,
Whose whole delight was crime--at good to scoff.
Green solitude, his prison, pleasure yields,
The bitch fox heeds him not; birds seem to laugh.
He lives the Crusoe of his lonely field
Whose dark green oaks his noontide leisure shield.

---
This poem is one I keep in a "personal anthology". I'm sure
others do this...but I think I first got the idea from 
something I heard Robert Pinsky suggest: Keeping
a group of poems that were important to you in a binder, 
and going back to them often for reflection and pleasure. 
I think the idea was that you began by typing out the poem, 
no matter its length, and placing it in your personal 
collection...no fair just photocopying or cut-n-paste. 
EA Robinson's "Eros Taurannos" was one he mentioned 
as being part of his own collection.
Finnegan


From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Oct 25 13:32:40 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 10:32:40 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poem:  Children with guns
Message-ID: <BAY7-F33uwi7NPASUaf00001e33@hotmail.com>

Children with guns


In the church they worship spiders, on T.V.
Christ with a neat goatee foretells the rain.
Men drunk on anger oil their blood machines,
women ingest the pennies of their dreams,
and children with guns
dance howling on the entrails of their brothers.

At the Union Hall they're slurping poison soup.
The flesh rots from their faces.  "Who are you?"
they ask each others' mirrors.
Men scream at machines in isolation,
women can't catch their breath, and children with guns
take aim at the morning.


==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Enjoy MSN 8 patented spam control and more with MSN 8 Dial-up Internet 
Service.  Try it FREE for one month!   http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup



From Thom424 at aol.com  Sat Oct 25 13:36:14 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 13:36:14 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] National Book Award Finalists in Poetry
Message-ID: <130.26d946fb.2ccc0e8e@aol.com>

National Book Award Finalists in Poetry (Award Announced on November 19)

Carol Muske-Dukes for Sparrow (Random House)
Charles Simic for The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems 
(Harcourt)
Louis Simpson for The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems 1940-2001 (BOA 
Editions, Ltd.)
C.K. Williams for The Singing (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
Kevin Young for Jelly Roll: A Blues (Knopf)
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From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sat Oct 25 13:54:00 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 19:54:00 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Introduction
References: <BAY7-F10VHKgGcaJCkj0000196d@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <007901c39b20$f9cfa6a0$db607550@anny>

Hello Jon,

and welcome back, even if on a list new for you, and almost new for me.

Jon Corelis has been a great contributor to the Poets' Corner with his own
poems:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=7

and several translations, starting with Bertran de Born (Youth and Age) from
Provencal:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=43

Callimachus (two epigrams: Credo and Heracleitus) from Greek:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=46

Horace (Regulus) from Latin:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=45

as well as Sulpicia:
http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/modules.php?name=Content&pa=list_pages_categories&cid=41

Best,

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky

From: "Jon Corelis" <joncpoetics at hotmail.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> I thought that being new to this list I should introduce myself, so here I
> am.  I've participated previously in the british poets and poetryetc
lists,
> and I recognize the names of some people here from those lists.  More
about
> me can be found at the URL below.  I'll send a poem and a few followups
this
> weekend.
>
> My understanding of the one poem a month policy is that I can send one
poem
> in each calendar month, not that the poems necessarily have to be 30 days
> apart.  If I've got this wrong, someone please let me know.
>
> ==================================================
>
> Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com
> http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics
>
> ==================================================
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cheer a special someone with a fun Halloween eCard from American
Greetings!
> Go to  http://www.msn.americangreetings.com/index_msn.pd?source=msne134
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>




From rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu  Sat Oct 25 13:54:01 2003
From: rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu (Richard Wilsnack)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:54:01 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Personal poetry collections
In-Reply-To: <113.2a80b8ec.2ccbfff0@aol.com>
Message-ID: <5.2.1.1.0.20031025124000.00bb43c0@medicine.nodak.edu>

At 12:33 PM 10/25/2003 -0400, JforJames at aol.com wrote:

(reprinting John Clare's poem     )

>This poem is one I keep in a "personal anthology". I'm sure
>others do this...but I think I first got the idea from
>something I heard Robert Pinsky suggest: Keeping
>a group of poems that were important to you in a binder,
>and going back to them often for reflection and pleasure.
>I think the idea was that you began by typing out the poem,
>no matter its length, and placing it in your personal
>collection...no fair just photocopying or cut-n-paste.
>EA Robinson's "Eros Taurannos" was one he mentioned
>as being part of his own collection.

No doubt this is a widespread practice, particularly among
poets. However, it might be interesting to compare notes
on where and why such collections are constructed. As
a poetry gourmand, my habit began in my 20's out of fears that
my memory was going to fade out so quickly that I would lose
the best stuff, and maybe a more grandiose hope that someone
sometime (children?) might understand me better after they sifted
through the piles of leaves that I had raked up. Rationalizations,
maybe, but the inspiration for beginning to accumulate piles of
5' by 8' notecards (most of them still untranscribed from longhand)
was perhaps specific to my generation: Seymour Fish's bedroom
wall papered with quotations, as discovered in Salinger's
_Franny and Zooey_.


Richard W. Wilsnack
rwilsnac at medicine.nodak.edu





From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sat Oct 25 15:31:08 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 14:31:08 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Sentence of the day
Message-ID: <BBC039AC.4F13%grahamd@ripon.edu>

from a student paper on Walt Whitman:

"I can see that this might have been a reason why he chose to publish
*Leaves of Grass* unanimously. . . ."

====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================




From DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com  Sat Oct 25 15:29:33 2003
From: DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com (DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 03 15:29:33 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Stallings' Asphodel
Message-ID: <200310251945.h9PJj0Iu100288@northrelay03.pok.ibm.com>

***** Reply to your note of: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:01:02 -0400 *************
>>    Asphodel
>>
>>
>>    (after the words of Penny Turner, Nymphaion, Greece)
>>
>>
>>    Our guide turned in her saddle, broke the spell:
>>    "You ride now through a field of asphodel,
>>    The flower that grows on the plains of hell.
>>
>>    Across just such a field the pale shade came
>>    Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
>>    And short life to a long life without fame,
>>
>>    And summoned by Odysseus he gave
>>    This wisdom, 'Better by far to be a slave
>>    Among the living, than great among the grave.'
>>
>>    I used to wonder, how did such a bloom
>>    Become associated with the tomb?
>>    Then one evening, walking through the gloom,
>>
>>    I noticed a strange fragrance. It was sweet,
>>    Like honey =3DE2=3D80=3DB9 but with hints of rotting meat.
>>    An army of them bristled at my feet."
>>
>>
>>
>>    A. E. Stallings
>>
>>  Nice but there's a metrical blip in line three.=3D20
>>

Perhaps the mote of a metrical blip in line 3 and elsewhere, but what
about the beams of distortion of sense, grace, and grammar in the rest
of the poem in the interest of filling out the form.  Is "name" really
the most accurate word in its place?  Does "among the grave" really
mean among the dead? What does it mean to be "among the grave?" And
what and where THE HELL is the antecedent of "them" in the last line?

Not nice - rather, a mess, albeit a rhyming, and mostly scanning,  mess.

Richard


From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Oct 25 15:54:09 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 12:54:09 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Re:  Introduction
Message-ID: <BAY7-F42g1KoOgY5Eqz000024e0@hotmail.com>

Thanks for mentioning those, Anny.  And in turn I encourage members of this 
list to visit Anny's poetry page.  She's put together an interesting 
collection of poets there, some of them as unknown as I am.

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Concerned that messages may bounce because your Hotmail account has exceeded 
its 2MB storage limit? Get Hotmail Extra Storage!         
http://join.msn.com/?PAGE=features/es



From Thom424 at aol.com  Sat Oct 25 16:00:25 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 16:00:25 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Stallings' Asphodel
Message-ID: <197.2188c7b2.2ccc3059@aol.com>

Perhaps a good reason to always keep in mind the comon root of "form' and 
"formula"

Thom Tammaro
moorhead, MN
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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sat Oct 25 16:01:23 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 16:01:23 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Stallings' Asphodel
References: <200310251945.h9PJj0Iu100288@northrelay03.pok.ibm.com>
Message-ID: <01a201c39b32$c499f500$67c2fea9@j1c1k6>

> >>    I noticed a strange fragrance. It was sweet,
> >>    Like honey =3DE2=3D80=3DB9 but with hints of rotting meat.
> >>    An army of them bristled at my feet."
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>    A. E. Stallings
> >>
> >>  Nice but there's a metrical blip in line three.=3D20
> >>
> 
> Perhaps the mote of a metrical blip in line 3 and elsewhere, but what
> about the beams of distortion of sense, grace, and grammar in the rest
> of the poem in the interest of filling out the form.  Is "name" really
> the most accurate word in its place?  Does "among the grave" really
> mean among the dead? What does it mean to be "among the grave?" And
> what and where THE HELL is the antecedent of "them" in the last line?

The asphodels.  But it sure isn't obvious.
 
> Not nice - rather, a mess, albeit a rhyming, and mostly scanning,  mess.
> 
> Richard

My reaction was similar.

--Bob G.




From Thom424 at aol.com  Sat Oct 25 16:05:04 2003
From: Thom424 at aol.com (Thom424 at aol.com)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 16:05:04 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Stallings' Asphodel
Message-ID: <f6.323530e8.2ccc3170@aol.com>

Sorry--having trouble with a sticky my "m" key.

Perhaps a good reason to always keep in mind the common root of "form" and 
"formula."

Thom Tammaro
Moorhead, MN
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From simon at ipfw.edu  Sat Oct 25 16:17:46 2003
From: simon at ipfw.edu (Beth Simon)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 15:17:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] garrit henry
Message-ID: <sf9a9420.000@gw.ipfw.edu>

is anyone familiar with an art critic / poet (died fairly recently),
Garrit Henry?
 
beth
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Sat Oct 25 16:24:28 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 16:24:28 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Stallings' Asphodel
Message-ID: <b7.38172417.2ccc35fc@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/25/2003 3:01:28 PM Central Daylight Time, 
Thom424 at aol.com writes: 
> 
> Perhaps a good reason to always keep in mind the comon root of "form' and 
> "formula"
> 
> Thom Tammaro
> moorhead, MN
 "Perform" as well.
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From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sat Oct 25 16:32:20 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 13:32:20 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Stallings' Asphodel
Message-ID: <BAY7-F98mI8u7XP20fL00002606@hotmail.com>

It is a mess, not only poetically but botanically:  the asphodel's early 
spring flowers bloom at the top of the stalks, which grow up to five feet 
high.  You're not going to see the blossoms at your feet unless you are Paul 
Bunyan.

The "grave" pun is probably consciously or unconsciously taken from the 
"grave men" of Dylan Thomas's most famous poem, where it works.

But a good example of the sort of thing workshops grind out now days ...

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Never get a busy signal because you are always connected  with high-speed 
Internet access. Click here to comparison-shop providers.  
https://broadband.msn.com



From DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com  Sat Oct 25 16:43:13 2003
From: DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com (DICK at pkmfgvm4.vnet.ibm.com)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 03 16:43:13 EDT
Subject: [New-Poetry] Asphodel
Message-ID: <200310252042.h9PKgSXA119782@northrelay01.pok.ibm.com>

>>> Perhaps a good reason to always keep in mind the comon root of "form' and
>>> "formula"
>>>
>>> Thom Tammaro
>>> moorhead, MN
>> "Perform" as well.
>>
and FORMALdehyde?
R.


From tadrichards at prodigy.net  Sat Oct 25 16:49:29 2003
From: tadrichards at prodigy.net (TheOldMole)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 16:49:29 -0400
Subject: [New-Poetry] Sentence of the day
References: <BBC039AC.4F13%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <000801c39b39$7cb454e0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>

He had to. He was large, he contained multitudes.

Tad


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 3:31 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Sentence of the day


> from a student paper on Walt Whitman:
> 
> "I can see that this might have been a reason why he chose to publish
> *Leaves of Grass* unanimously. . . ."
> 
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> ====================================================
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From antrobin at clipper.net  Sat Oct 25 16:54:40 2003
From: antrobin at clipper.net (Anthony Robinson)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 13:54:40 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Stallings' Asphodel
In-Reply-To: <BAY7-F98mI8u7XP20fL00002606@hotmail.com>
Message-ID: <021101c39b3a$3beb2320$053d1c40@Emily>

Jon Corelis wrote: "But a good example of the sort of thing workshops
grind out now days ..."

I'm not a fan of Stallings *or* workshops, but I should point out that
she's not a product of workshops.  She's self-taught.

T.







From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Sat Oct 25 16:59:54 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 22:59:54 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Sentence of the day
References: <BBC039AC.4F13%grahamd@ripon.edu> <000801c39b39$7cb454e0$6401a8c0@nonerq60gu2nq2>
Message-ID: <01a401c39b3a$f0d4eb40$db607550@anny>

:-)
also those _Leaves_ are quite misleading, aren't they plural?
a

From: "TheOldMole" <tadrichards at prodigy.net>


> He had to. He was large, he contained multitudes.
> 
> Tad
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "David Graham" <grahamd at ripon.edu>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, October 25, 2003 3:31 PM
> Subject: [New-Poetry] Sentence of the day
> 
> 
> > from a student paper on Walt Whitman:
> > 
> > "I can see that this might have been a reason why he chose to publish
> > *Leaves of Grass* unanimously. . . ."
> > 
> > ====================================================
> > David Graham
> > grahamd at ripon.edu
> > Home Page:
> > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> > Poetry Library:
> > http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> > ====================================================
> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sat Oct 25 05:12:47 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 11:12:47 +0200
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poetry & Empire 
References: <11f.26aff3f5.2cc9aed1@aol.com>
Message-ID: <000301c39b4b$4d1e7500$5886fac1@pavilion>

Good, very good,  maybe brilliant,  .

J.A.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: <JforJames at aol.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 24, 2003 12:23 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Poetry & Empire


> In a message dated 10/23/03 2:36:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
> jvcervantes at earthlink.net writes:
> > Anthropomorphic Wind
> >  
> >  
> >  The wind taps its fingers against my window
> >  randomly and with long and short pauses
> >  trying to disguise itself as wind
> >  subject to rise and drop of pressure
> >  then stops for days as if all is equalized
> >  but this is sheer drama building
> >  and suggests a butterfly a continent away
> >  bored with stillness and its glide
> >  suddenly yellow silk against the sun
> >  as if someone moved behind a curtain.
> >  
> 
> I love that concluding image.
> Finnegan
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sat Oct 25 17:25:24 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2003 23:25:24 +0200
Subject: Re Re: [New-Poetry] Silliman's Blog: Poetry & Empire - Tech Call  Case Study 
References: <164.273a1ec9.2cc734a4@aol.com>
Message-ID: <000401c39b4b$50c13e40$5886fac1@pavilion>

Cas Study - Continued & with luck End.

Sounds for the deaf - the solitary golfer - 60C/267 ?Kelvin.
(A very unusual, unforgettable Experience).




The sun shone on the first green and the second tee.
The young oak looked on amused at these futile gests,
Her leaves golden spoke, tinkling, tinkling, falling free
Floating in the early frosted air to a final tinkled rest
I strained my ear to listen  to natures tune

From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Sat Oct 25 18:32:55 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 00:32:55 +0200
Subject: Re Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry  
References: <190.20be7d34.2cb431ac@aol.com> <000401c38d28$2cc7b680$e284fac1@pavilion> <002d01c38d76$c7b6d010$e4118051@MyPC>
Message-ID: <000501c39b4b$61bf8620$5886fac1@pavilion>

Couldn't find the thread but these developments arose
from Bell Shaped & Bell curves. Lead on to
"Lies Damned Lies and Statistics"  and for what it's worth
Re-alignment  "A metallurgist muses on the misuse and abuse of plastic"


A Metallurgist Muses on Misuse and Abuse of Plastic
Assisted by computerised word processing.

THIS DOES NOT WORK VIA CUT & PASTE SO I HAVE ENCLOSED THE FILE ATTACHED

As an literary expert, in & on the Scottish scene, do you know who
authorizes the way a national anthem  is played?
The generally acknowledged as beautiful:  "Flower of Scotland" played
without the bagpipes for France/Scotland
worldcup game was enough to destroy any moral.  In fact whatever the result
"Flower of Scotland" is always a bonus.
Today "The Wallace" quartered all over again".  Pulled up for over
vigorous-gestures they did not recover. Pityful all over.

Congrates on your Amazon Book present - I discovered that the book I
reviewed "Military Metallurgy" by A. Doig Cranfield, is no longer in print.
The only review was a supposedly Italian business man's recommendation
whereas I recommend wide spread reading as a "saftey first- look before you
leap"
approach in Materials World. Just culture.

Aerial View - The right Incursion
(but not a bird's eye-view)


"Lies, damned lies & statistics" tying
could there be something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Herein lies evermore cause for lying.

"Lies, damned lies & statistics" tying
could there be something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Herein lies evermore cause for trying.



"Lies, damned lies & statistics" thinking
there is something now quite
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now entirely convinced
Herein lies ever more causes for tinkering.

"Lies, damned lies & statistics" thinking
there is indeed something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Herein lies ever more causes for dying?

 "Lies, damned lies & statistics"
Well I am know convinced that there are statistics & Statistics and ever
more causes for lies!
My word processor, it's running, running, awry.



? J.A.





A Metallurgists muses on misuse and abuse of Plastic (continued).

Aerial View -
The right response or Incursion to the Left
(but not a bird's eye-view)




"Lies, damned lies & statistics" tying
could there be something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Herein lies evermore cause for lying.

"Lies, damned lies & statistics" tying
could there be something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Herein lies evermore cause for trying.



"Lies, damned lies & statistics" thinking
there is something now quite
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now entirely convinced
Herein lies ever more causes for tinkering.

"Lies, damned lies & statistics" thinking
there is indeed something
wrong with the figures?
Of  statistics & Statistics
I am now quite convinced
Herein lies ever more causes for dying?


 "Lies, damned lies & statistics"
Well I am know well convinced that there are statistics & Statistics and
ever more causes for..
Tries, Trying & the good Trier
My word processor's going totally haywire
I do indeed, trust,
no one will be disappointed by the. chore.


JA ? ADA  Grp.
www.rugbyworldcup.com




Ultimate Disclaimer:

Ode to Chocolate - from the Syndicate of  Chocolate Manufacturers. (Fr.)
- Vents the many merits of chocolate " and involuntarily of magnesium.




----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hamilton" <robin.hamilton2 at btinternet.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2003 10:32 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] What is Poetry


> > He was a colleague of Willie MacIlvaney
> > the now well known Scots novelist &
> > Glasgow crime writer who also taught in that school.
> >         Robin.
>
> What school was that, James?
>
> It's odd how things cycle, or walls grow up or all those tedious
> metaphors -- _Lanark_, not intentionally, seemed to draw a line in the
sand,
> and I don't know how much later writers like James Kelman would go back to
> MacIlvaney.  Talk about not being able to talk about "Glasgow Urban
Speech"
> in the singular -- not just the twenty or so different ways of speaking
> themselves, but ways of representing them.
>
> In the same way, Ian Hamilton Finlay's _Glasgow Beasts_ *should* have been
> an influence on the poets, but wasn't.  Somehow, not the language but how
to
> deal with it, got reinvented in the sixties, and it all went on from
there.
> Post-sixties, there was both a dynamic and a continuity that wasn't there
> before.  Not so much schools rather than individual writers (though that
was
> part of it) but at long last Glasgow was less of a puddle and more of a
> pool.
>
> Now Scottish detective fiction seems to be mostly Edinburgh  (Ian Rankin,
> say), and Glasgow is SF -- Iain M. [sic] Banks and Ken MacLeod.
>
> (Sorry about this just-awake self-indulgent witter -- James' mention of
> MacIlvaney set me off.  Nice way to start the day.  <g>)
>
> Robin
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
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From JforJames at aol.com  Sun Oct 26 12:51:12 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 12:51:12 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] revision & re-vision
Message-ID: <158.26750617.2ccd6390@aol.com>

Revision to most poets means cutting out. And that often
is not a bad thing. But sometimes a work of art needs
something more: Perhaps the work in question needs 
a "black dog."

The Black Dog of Mortlake Terrace--
In 1827, on 'Varnishing Day' at the Royal Academy, the painter 
Landseer, known for his hunting scenes, placed a cut-out 
paper black dog atop the wall that ran diagonally through 
J.M.W. Turner's now famous painting, Mortlake Terrace. 
Turner is said to have come into the Academy, looked his painting
and plucked off the paper dog. He then painted over the cut-out
and replaced it on the painting close to where Landseer
had positioned originally it. He varnished his painting, thus 
finishing it, and so the black dog found its home forever
in the painting and as part of art history. 

<A HREF="http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?119+0+0+gg57">http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?119+0+0+gg57</A>

Whether the paper dog was put there as a joke or as 
a critical insight as to what the painting might need to
perfect the scene, it seems clear that Turner had 
humility enough to accept the gesture as well as the 
artistic confidence necessary to take full ownership 
of the suggestion.

Finnegan
 
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From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sun Oct 26 12:59:49 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 11:59:49 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
In-Reply-To: <130.26d946fb.2ccc0e8e@aol.com>
Message-ID: <BBC167B5.4F40%grahamd@ripon.edu>

<<<<<<National Book Award Finalists in Poetry (Award Announced on November
19)

Carol Muske-Dukes for Sparrow (Random House)
Charles Simic for The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems
(Harcourt)
Louis Simpson for The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems 1940-2001 (BOA
Editions, Ltd.)
C.K. Williams for The Singing (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
          Kevin Young for Jelly Roll: A Blues (Knopf)


For a change, I actually know most of the works up for the award this year,
and I do know all the poets.  If I had to guess, I'd wager that Simpson will
win--hard to vote against a 60-year career summary of such an important
voice.  

But with such veteran nominees (except for Kevin Young, the token
youngster), I'm glad I'm not a judge.  They're all worthy of an award, I
think.  

Which won't keep me from casting a vote:  I'm going to select Charles Simic
this year, having been reading his nominated book lately and reflecting on
what a reliable pleasure his poems are.  He hasn't changed much over the
years, and I have trouble keeping in mind which books came out when.  But
what an instantly recognizable voice, full of surprises even given his
relative lack of development or range.

Here is a small sampling from later in his "late & new"--


Cherry Blossom Time

Gray sewage bubbling up out of street sewers
After the spring rain with the clear view
Of hawkers of quack remedies and their customers
Swarming on the Capitol steps.

At the National Gallery the saints' tormented faces
Suddenly made sense.
Several turned their eyes on me
As I stepped over the shiny parquetry.

And who and what was I, if you please!
A minor provincial grumbler on a holiday,
With hands clasped behind his back
Nodding to everyone he meets

As if this were a 1950s Fall of the Roman Empire movie set,
And we the bewildered,
Absurdly costumed, milling extras
Among the pink cherry blossoms.

---------------------------------------------------
Grayheaded Schoolchildren

Old men have bad dreams,
So they sleep little.
They walk on bare feet
Without turning on the lights,
Or they stand leaning
On gloomy furniture
Listening to their hearts beat.

The one window across the room
Is black like a blackboard.
Every old man is alone
In this classroom, squinting
At that fine chalk line
That divides being-here

From Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu  Sun Oct 26 13:40:36 2003
From: Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu (Edward Byrne)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 12:40:36 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
In-Reply-To: <BBC167B5.4F40%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <SIMEON.10310261236.A@muahost.valpo.edu>

David,

Although all the poets are good candidates, I will renew my annual complaint 
that books of "selected" or "collected" poems should not be eligible in this 
category. There should be a separate category or a poet like Simpson should 
receive an award for lifetime achievement.  Some of the poems in his book 
were written before World War II and before most other candidates were even 
born.  

The poems included in compilations of selected or collected poems have already 
been eligible once before in their original editions.  I usually compare an 
entry of selected or collected poems to a bowler submitting a score card using 
a selection of 12 frames in which he got strikes, although in different games 
over a period of time, to claim a perfect 300 game.  

It doesn't seem fair, and the poetry compilation of selected or collected works 
takes away a nomination that some worthy new collection of poems by another 
poet, especiially a younger poet, could have had.  End of annual rant.

--Ed
 
On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 11:59:49 -0600 David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> <<<<<<National Book Award Finalists in Poetry (Award Announced on November
> 19)
> 
> Carol Muske-Dukes for Sparrow (Random House)
> Charles Simic for The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems
> (Harcourt)
> Louis Simpson for The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems 1940-2001 (BOA
> Editions, Ltd.)
> C.K. Williams for The Singing (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
>           Kevin Young for Jelly Roll: A Blues (Knopf)
> 
> 
> For a change, I actually know most of the works up for the award this year,
> and I do know all the poets.  If I had to guess, I'd wager that Simpson will
> win--hard to vote against a 60-year career summary of such an important
> voice.  
> 
> But with such veteran nominees (except for Kevin Young, the token
> youngster), I'm glad I'm not a judge.  They're all worthy of an award, I
> think.  
> 
> Which won't keep me from casting a vote:  I'm going to select Charles Simic
> this year, having been reading his nominated book lately and reflecting on
> what a reliable pleasure his poems are.  He hasn't changed much over the
> years, and I have trouble keeping in mind which books came out when.  But
> what an instantly recognizable voice, full of surprises even given his
> relative lack of development or range.
> 
> Here is a small sampling from later in his "late & new"--
> 
> 
> Cherry Blossom Time
> 
> Gray sewage bubbling up out of street sewers
> After the spring rain with the clear view
> Of hawkers of quack remedies and their customers
> Swarming on the Capitol steps.
> 
> At the National Gallery the saints' tormented faces
> Suddenly made sense.
> Several turned their eyes on me
> As I stepped over the shiny parquetry.
> 
> And who and what was I, if you please!
> A minor provincial grumbler on a holiday,
> With hands clasped behind his back
> Nodding to everyone he meets
> 
> As if this were a 1950s Fall of the Roman Empire movie set,
> And we the bewildered,
> Absurdly costumed, milling extras
> Among the pink cherry blossoms.
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Grayheaded Schoolchildren
> 
> Old men have bad dreams,
> So they sleep little.
> They walk on bare feet
> Without turning on the lights,
> Or they stand leaning
> On gloomy furniture
> Listening to their hearts beat.
> 
> The one window across the room
> Is black like a blackboard.
> Every old man is alone
> In this classroom, squinting
> At that fine chalk line
> That divides being-here
> From being-here-no-more.
> 
> No matter. It was a glass of water
> They were going to get,
> But not just yet.
> They listen for mice in the walls,
> A car passing on the street,
> Their dead fathers shuffling past them
> On their way to the kitchen.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> Car Graveyard
> 
> This is where all our joyrides ended:
> Our fathers at the wheel, our mothers
> With picnic baskets on their knees
> As we sat in the back with our mouths open.
> 
> We were driving straight into the sunrise.
> The country was flat. A city rose before us,
> Its windows burning with the setting sun.
> All that vanished as we quit the highway
> And rolled down a dusky meadow
> Strewn with beer cans and candy wrappers,
> Till we came to a stop beside an old Ford.
> 
> First the radio preacher lost his voice,
> Then our four tires went flat.
> The springs popped out of the upholstery
> Like alarmed rattlesnakes,
> As we tried to remain calm.
> Later that night we heard giggles
> Out of a junked hearse--then, not a peep
> Till the day of the Resurrection.
> 
> 
> --Charles Simic.  The Voice at 3:00 A.M.:  Selected Late & New Poems.
> Harcourt, 2003.
> 
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ====================================================
> David Graham
> grahamd at ripon.edu
> Home Page:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
> Poetry Library:
> http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
> ====================================================
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 

--------------------------------------------------

Edward Byrne
Department of English
322 Huegli Hall
Valparaiso University
Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493

E-mail: edward.byrne at valpo.edu
http://www.valpo.edu/home/faculty/ebyrne/homepage/

Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review
E-mail: vpr at valpo.edu
http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/
Office Phone: (219) 464-5278
Fax: (219) 464-5511

--------------------------------------------------



From JforJames at aol.com  Sun Oct 26 13:56:03 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 13:56:03 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Retort, an Oz ezine
Message-ID: <c8.3f3985fb.2ccd72c3@aol.com>

http://www.retortmag.com/retort.htm


From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Sun Oct 26 14:36:14 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 11:36:14 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] What is poetry:  a personal anthology
Message-ID: <BAY7-F108ONRxh4e7Ob0000588e@hotmail.com>

I've never kept a personal poetry anthology, but I keep a list  of remarks 
relating to, or which can relate to, how to wriite poetry.  Since this might 
be relevant to both the current topics in the subject line, so I thought I'd 
contribute it.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



How and Why To Write Poetry:  advice from those who know



1)  Today dear friends I will sing beautifully and make you happy.
                               -- Sappho


2)  The objects the imitator represents are actions.
                               -- Aristotle


3)  A big book is a big bore.
                               -- Callimachus


4)  Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it
    is not the expression of personality but an escape from personality.
                               -- T. S. Eliot


5)  Don't pay any attention to book prizes!  Never.  To none.  Not
    even the Nobel.  They are a snare.
                              -- Vincent Miller


6)  Literature is language charged with meaning.
                               -- Ezra  Pound


7)  A man can learn more about poetry by really knowing and
    examining a few of the best poems than by meandering about among
    a great many.  -- Ezra Pound


8)  Miles Davis (after a gig):  Man, why do you play so long?
    John Coltrane:  I had to play that long, to get it all in.


9)  True wit is Nature to advantage dress'd,
     What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd.
                               -- Pope


10)  Silence can be complex too,
                but you do not get far
                       with silence.
                               -- William Carlos Williams


11)  Experience has taught me, when I am shaving of a morning, to
     keep watch over my thoughts, because if a line of poetry strays
     into my memory, my skin bristles so that the razor ceases to
     act.
                               -- A. E. Housman


12)  For us there is only the trying.  The rest is not our business.
                               -- T. S. Eliot


13)  No data without experiment.
                               -- Sophocles, tr. Ezra Pound


14)  Say what you will in two
     Words and get through.
     Long, frilly
     Palaver is silly.
                               -- Marie-Francoise-Catherine de
                                   Beauveau, tr. Ezra Pound


15)  Interviewer:  Doesn't it embarrass you to see Bobby trying to
     learn how to play slide on stage?  Jerry Garcia:  Um, yeah.
     But the point is, it doesn't embarrass him.


16)  Take this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day ...
                               -- Allen Ginsberg


17)  Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World.
                               -- Shelley


18)                           It is difficult
      to get the news from poems
                  yet men die miserably every day
                                for lack
      of what is found there.
                               -- William Carlos Williams


19)                         ... the great end
      Of poesy, that it should be a friend
      To soothe the cares, and lift the thoughts of man.
                                -- Keats


20)  For year upon year have I struggled with hammer and ink, O my
     tortured heart, with fire and gold to make you an embroidery, an
     orangetree hyancinth, a blossoming quince to console you ...
                               -- Nikos Gatsos



==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

_________________________________________________________________
Cheer a special someone with a fun Halloween eCard from American Greetings! 
Go to  http://www.msn.americangreetings.com/index_msn.pd?source=msne134



From JforJames at aol.com  Sun Oct 26 14:51:18 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 14:51:18 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] serendipity and the insisted upon encounter, Ritsos' prison poems
Message-ID: <128.33ba9e97.2ccd7fb6@aol.com>

First, a poem by Brett Dionysius...

xxxiv. The curious noise of history

    The world is young with very light, paper flakes
    made of torn poems and torn flags --Yannis Ritsos

The curious noise of history
blows in from the outside
ruffles the pregnant collar
of Yannis Ritsos? patchy suit
coat stuffed with poems spilt
from the camp?s granite mouth.
The ?I? of the lyric smuggled
out of memory, impregnated
with the poet?s rock-dust;
the tips of his fingers worn
down with human ink. An extension
of the pick?s blunt causality.
Poets, writers, intellectuals
garbed in words for the first time.
These inmates of language,
origamied with rhythms mechanical
as lice. The syllabic irritation
scratched breath by breath under
a woollen ignorance. The fibrous,
organic response to the curious
noise of history. To the Dead
Sea Scrolls extravaganza, hidden
inside standard prison issue
Aegean blue.

--Brett Dionysius

--
As it happens, last night I typed out a poem
by Yannis Ritsos. (See below) This morning, 
I was speaking to a poet on the phone & without
any instigation on my part, she said, "Want to 
hear a great story about Ritsos?" Of course I did.
Here goes: Ritsos was not always the well loved
lyric poet of modern Greece. He was a communist
and wrote odes to Stalin and the like. And in '67 he
was imprisoned on Yiaros during the Rule of The Colonels. 
During his confinement he was given cigarettes. In the 
packaging was a little strip of white cardboard upon 
which he would write his short lyric poems. He then
rolled them up, about cigarette-sized, and slipped
them into the lining of his coat. A coat which in
time became very dirty and worn. It's said that, after
his release, he went to his publisher and presented
the editor with this very shabby coat. The editor
spluttered, "What's this?" Ritsos said, "My next book." 
Or so the story goes... 
Finnegan

--
The Meaning of Simplicity

I hide behind simple things that you may find me;
if you don't find me, you'll find the things,
you'll touch what my hand touches,
the imprints of our hands will merge.

The August moon glitters in the kitchen
like a pewter pot (it becomes like this because of what I tell you)
it lights up the empty house and the kneeling silence of the house?

Every word is a way out
for an encountered often canceled,
and it's then a word is true, when it insists on the encounter.

--Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990)
(translated from the Greek by Kimon Friar)



From JforJames at aol.com  Sun Oct 26 15:00:04 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 15:00:04 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] corrected Ritsos...
Message-ID: <1ed.120d855a.2ccd81c4@aol.com>

The Meaning of Simplicity

I hide behind simple things that you may find me;
if you don't find me, you'll find the things,
you'll touch what my hand touches,
the imprints of our hands will merge.

The August moon glitters in the kitchen
like a pewter pot (it becomes like this because of what I tell you)
it lights up the empty house and the kneeling silence of the house--
always the silence remains kneeling.

Every word is a way out
for an encounter often canceled,
and it's then a word is true, when it insists on the encounter.

--Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990)
(translated from the Greek by Kimon Friar)



From simon at ipfw.edu  Sun Oct 26 15:18:14 2003
From: simon at ipfw.edu (Beth Simon)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 15:18:14 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
Message-ID: <sf9be5bc.077@gw.ipfw.edu>

has there ever been something analogous with fiction? a nomination for a
"new and collected," or a "selected" or a "best of" story collection?

beth

>>> Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu 10/26/03 1:40 PM >>>
David,

Although all the poets are good candidates, I will renew my annual
complaint 
that books of "selected" or "collected" poems should not be eligible in
this 
category. There should be a separate category or a poet like Simpson
should 
receive an award for lifetime achievement.  Some of the poems in his
book 
were written before World War II and before most other candidates were
even 
born.  

The poems included in compilations of selected or collected poems have
already 
been eligible once before in their original editions.  I usually compare
an 
entry of selected or collected poems to a bowler submitting a score card
using 
a selection of 12 frames in which he got strikes, although in different
games 
over a period of time, to claim a perfect 300 game.  

It doesn't seem fair, and the poetry compilation of selected or
collected works 
takes away a nomination that some worthy new collection of poems by
another 
poet, especiially a younger poet, could have had.  End of annual rant.

--Ed
 


From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sun Oct 26 16:07:25 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 15:07:25 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
In-Reply-To: <SIMEON.10310261236.A@muahost.valpo.edu>
Message-ID: <BBC193AD.4F4F%grahamd@ripon.edu>

I've often thought "poor X" or "poor Y" when their very good books were
nominated against some career-spanning doorstop like Simpson's, but I
confess it never occurred to me that you could just revise the award rules.
Good idea.  

I heard C. K. Williams at the last AWP read from his new collection, and was
highly impressed--some of his best work, I think.  But it'll be a miracle if
he wins against Simpson's and Simic's multi-volume selections/collections.

But of course, dwelling too much on laurels is a good road to madness.  I've
known quite a few writers, some rather famous, who seemed utterly possessed
by envy and spite. 

I suppose it's all too easy for someone like me to wax philosophical, never
having been shortlisted for anything big, and very unlikely to be so in the
future.  I'm not sure one ever comes to terms wholly with what Dickinson
termed "my barefoot rank," but it seems a worthy goal.  "How strange to
think of giving up all ambition," Robert Bly wrote decades ago.  He never
did, obviously, or didn't have to.  But maybe there's a sense in which
someone like me is luckier than Bly.  Sour grapes, perhaps. . . .


====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================


> From: Edward Byrne <Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu>
> Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 12:40:36 -0600
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
> 
> David,
> 
> Although all the poets are good candidates, I will renew my annual complaint
> that books of "selected" or "collected" poems should not be eligible in this
> category. There should be a separate category or a poet like Simpson should
> receive an award for lifetime achievement.  Some of the poems in his book
> were written before World War II and before most other candidates were even
> born.  
> 



From halvard at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 26 16:28:09 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 16:28:09 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
In-Reply-To: <BBC193AD.4F4F%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECELJHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

I must admit that I've never thought of a "collected" or a "new and collected"
or even a "selected" as a book that ought not be eligible for such a prize:
I mean, a book is a book is a book. Still don't.

Must admit I really love the writers who advertise the prizes they did not
win: e.g., "Nominated for Whatever," "Finalist for . . .," "Quarter-finalist
for . . .," "Next to last entrant considered for . . .," etc.

I'd like to get that Norwegian who nominated Dubya for the Nobel Peace
Prize to nominate me for the Nobel. Boy, would I crow!

Hal         "One would have to have a heart of stone not
                to laugh at the death of Little Nell." 
                                  -- Oscar Wilde
Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
 
{    I've often thought "poor X" or "poor Y" when their very good books were
{    nominated against some career-spanning doorstop like Simpson's, but I
{    confess it never occurred to me that you could just revise the award rules.
{    Good idea.  
{    
{    I heard C. K. Williams at the last AWP read from his new collection, and was
{    highly impressed--some of his best work, I think.  But it'll be a miracle if
{    he wins against Simpson's and Simic's multi-volume selections/collections.
{    
{    But of course, dwelling too much on laurels is a good road to madness.  I've
{    known quite a few writers, some rather famous, who seemed utterly possessed
{    by envy and spite. 
{    
{    I suppose it's all too easy for someone like me to wax philosophical, never
{    having been shortlisted for anything big, and very unlikely to be so in the
{    future.  I'm not sure one ever comes to terms wholly with what Dickinson
{    termed "my barefoot rank," but it seems a worthy goal.  "How strange to
{    think of giving up all ambition," Robert Bly wrote decades ago.  He never
{    did, obviously, or didn't have to.  But maybe there's a sense in which
{    someone like me is luckier than Bly.  Sour grapes, perhaps. . . .
{    
{    
{    ====================================================
{    David Graham
{    grahamd at ripon.edu
{    Home Page:
{    http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
{    Poetry Library:
{    http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
{    ====================================================
{    
{    
{    > From: Edward Byrne <Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu>
{    > Reply-To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    > Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 12:40:36 -0600
{    > To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
{    > 
{    > David,
{    > 
{    > Although all the poets are good candidates, I will renew my annual complaint
{    > that books of "selected" or "collected" poems should not be eligible in this
{    > category. There should be a separate category or a poet like Simpson should
{    > receive an award for lifetime achievement.  Some of the poems in his book
{    > were written before World War II and before most other candidates were even
{    > born.  
{    > 
{    
{    _______________________________________________
{    New-Poetry mailing list
{    New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
{    http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
{    



From JforJames at aol.com  Sun Oct 26 17:08:45 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 17:08:45 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
Message-ID: <9.1b0e1d81.2ccd9fed@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/26/03 1:41:49 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu writes:

> Carol Muske-Dukes for Sparrow (Random House)
>  > Charles Simic for The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems
>  > (Harcourt)
>  > Louis Simpson for The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems 1940-2001 (
> BOA
>  > Editions, Ltd.)
>  > C.K. Williams for The Singing (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
>  >           Kevin Young for Jelly Roll: A Blues (Knopf)

How often does a small press/university press get nommed for the NBA?
Simpson's book is the only one from a small press...so if he does win,
it would be a nice plum for BOA too. Did Simpson once have a big house
behind him? I heard him read about 2 years ago at a small coffee house
space in Pomfret CT (rural, the 'quiet corner' of Connecticut)...I got the 
impression he was reading for almost no money that night. And he was 
excellent.
Finnegan 


From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 26 17:16:44 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 15:16:44 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECELJHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3F9C47CC.6129B50A@earthlink.net>


Halvard Johnson wrote:
> 
> I must admit that I've never thought of a "collected" or a "new and collected"
> or even a "selected" as a book that ought not be eligible for such a prize:
> I mean, a book is a book is a book. Still don't.
> 
> Must admit I really love the writers who advertise the prizes they did not
> win: e.g., "Nominated for Whatever," "Finalist for . . .," "Quarter-finalist
> for . . .," "Next to last entrant considered for . . .," etc.
> 
> I'd like to get that Norwegian who nominated Dubya for the Nobel Peace
> Prize to nominate me for the Nobel. Boy, would I crow!

Poets' Prize for Best Poetry Book of the Year (2004)

Ingredients:

	x number of poets who don't get to nominate poets for best poetry book
of the year

	the internet

In order to avoid sheer chaos and uncontrollable numbers, voting is
restricted to those who have published at least one book of poetry.  All
votes are open, no secret ballots, no Texas maneuvers. Votes are posted
publically as they are cast.  As many voters who want to count the
votes.  Tallys are posted and the winner by simple majority is announced
on as many electronic venues as possible and by word of mouth.  Maybe we
could talk someone into hosting a central site for this so that those
who don't belong to listservs can e-mail their votes privately (though
the vote and voter's name would be public).

Something like that.

- Jim


From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 26 17:19:18 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 15:19:18 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECELJHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net> <3F9C47CC.6129B50A@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3F9C4866.22E93EE0@earthlink.net>

revision:  " . . . no Texas or Florida manuevers . . ."

James Cervantes wrote:
> 
> Halvard Johnson wrote:
> >
> > I must admit that I've never thought of a "collected" or a "new and collected"
> > or even a "selected" as a book that ought not be eligible for such a prize:
> > I mean, a book is a book is a book. Still don't.
> >
> > Must admit I really love the writers who advertise the prizes they did not
> > win: e.g., "Nominated for Whatever," "Finalist for . . .," "Quarter-finalist
> > for . . .," "Next to last entrant considered for . . .," etc.
> >
> > I'd like to get that Norwegian who nominated Dubya for the Nobel Peace
> > Prize to nominate me for the Nobel. Boy, would I crow!
> 
> Poets' Prize for Best Poetry Book of the Year (2004)
> 
> Ingredients:
> 
>         x number of poets who don't get to nominate poets for best poetry book
> of the year
> 
>         the internet
> 
> In order to avoid sheer chaos and uncontrollable numbers, voting is
> restricted to those who have published at least one book of poetry.  All
> votes are open, no secret ballots, no Texas maneuvers. Votes are posted
> publically as they are cast.  As many voters who want to count the
> votes.  Tallys are posted and the winner by simple majority is announced
> on as many electronic venues as possible and by word of mouth.  Maybe we
> could talk someone into hosting a central site for this so that those
> who don't belong to listservs can e-mail their votes privately (though
> the vote and voter's name would be public).
> 
> Something like that.
> 
> - Jim
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu  Sun Oct 26 17:23:16 2003
From: Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu (Edward Byrne)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 16:23:16 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
In-Reply-To: <sf9be5bc.077@gw.ipfw.edu>
Message-ID: <SIMEON.10310261616.A@muahost.valpo.edu>

Beth,

I've looked at the winners for each year since 1950.  Three collected short 
stories have won in fiction (Faulkner, O'Connor, and Porter).  In contrast, 24 
collected or selected books of poems have won, despite the fact there was no 
poetry award given for a number of years.  Therefore, more than half the 
time the awrd is given to a collected or selected poetry volume.  Also, Wallace 
Stevens won for _Auroras of Autumn_, then a few years later won for his 
next book, the collected poems containing _Auroras of Autumn_. 

--Ed

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 15:18:14 -0500 Beth Simon <simon at ipfw.edu> wrote:

> has there ever been something analogous with fiction? a nomination for a
> "new and collected," or a "selected" or a "best of" story collection?
> 
> beth
> 
> >>> Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu 10/26/03 1:40 PM >>>
> David,
> 
> Although all the poets are good candidates, I will renew my annual
> complaint 
> that books of "selected" or "collected" poems should not be eligible in
> this 
> category. There should be a separate category or a poet like Simpson
> should 
> receive an award for lifetime achievement.  Some of the poems in his
> book 
> were written before World War II and before most other candidates were
> even 
> born.  
> 
> The poems included in compilations of selected or collected poems have
> already 
> been eligible once before in their original editions.  I usually compare
> an 
> entry of selected or collected poems to a bowler submitting a score card
> using 
> a selection of 12 frames in which he got strikes, although in different
> games 
> over a period of time, to claim a perfect 300 game.  
> 
> It doesn't seem fair, and the poetry compilation of selected or
> collected works 
> takes away a nomination that some worthy new collection of poems by
> another 
> poet, especially a younger poet, could have had.  End of annual rant.
> 
> --Ed
>  
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry

--------------------------------------------------

Edward Byrne
Department of English
322 Huegli Hall
Valparaiso University
Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493

E-mail: edward.byrne at valpo.edu
http://www.valpo.edu/home/faculty/ebyrne/homepage/

Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review
E-mail: vpr at valpo.edu
http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/
Office Phone: (219) 464-5278
Fax: (219) 464-5511

--------------------------------------------------



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 26 17:20:41 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 15:20:41 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJECELJHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net> <3F9C47CC.6129B50A@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3F9C48B9.449F151D@earthlink.net>

further revision: "As many voters who want to can keep count of the
votes." 

James Cervantes wrote:
> 
> Halvard Johnson wrote:
> >
> > I must admit that I've never thought of a "collected" or a "new and collected"
> > or even a "selected" as a book that ought not be eligible for such a prize:
> > I mean, a book is a book is a book. Still don't.
> >
> > Must admit I really love the writers who advertise the prizes they did not
> > win: e.g., "Nominated for Whatever," "Finalist for . . .," "Quarter-finalist
> > for . . .," "Next to last entrant considered for . . .," etc.
> >
> > I'd like to get that Norwegian who nominated Dubya for the Nobel Peace
> > Prize to nominate me for the Nobel. Boy, would I crow!
> 
> Poets' Prize for Best Poetry Book of the Year (2004)
> 
> Ingredients:
> 
>         x number of poets who don't get to nominate poets for best poetry book
> of the year
> 
>         the internet
> 
> In order to avoid sheer chaos and uncontrollable numbers, voting is
> restricted to those who have published at least one book of poetry.  All
> votes are open, no secret ballots, no Texas maneuvers. Votes are posted
> publically as they are cast.  As many voters who want to count the
> votes.  Tallys are posted and the winner by simple majority is announced
> on as many electronic venues as possible and by word of mouth.  Maybe we
> could talk someone into hosting a central site for this so that those
> who don't belong to listservs can e-mail their votes privately (though
> the vote and voter's name would be public).
> 
> Something like that.
> 
> - Jim
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From grahamd at ripon.edu  Sun Oct 26 18:22:39 2003
From: grahamd at ripon.edu (David Graham)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 17:22:39 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
In-Reply-To: <3F9C47CC.6129B50A@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <BBC1B35F.4F58%grahamd@ripon.edu>

Less ambitiously, I'd be interested in hearing from the assembled experts
right here, right now, your nominations for other books that could have
appeared on the Best of 2003 shortlist.

I've already plugged William Trowbridge's *Complete Book of Kong*.

Another volume in heavy rotation for me currently is Brendan Galvin's *Place
Keepers*, from LSU.  Galvin, like Simic, long ago found a distinctive voice
and set of themes, and has stuck with them.  If you like his prior books
you'll like *Place Keepers*, chances are.  It's his 13th book, and while I
understand why he'll probably never win the Nat. Book Award (check out his
essay "The Mumblings of Young Werther," for example:
http://www.pshares.org/authors/authordetails.cfm?prmauthorid=521), he's one
of my favorite contemporary poets.



====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/index.html
Poetry Library:
http://www.ripon.edu/faculty/GrahamD/poetrylib.html
====================================================

> Poets' Prize for Best Poetry Book of the Year (2004)
> 
> Ingredients:
> 
> x number of poets who don't get to nominate poets for best poetry book
> of the year
> 



From halvard at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 26 19:41:21 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 19:41:21 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] "Campground"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEGELNHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>


Campground

Not liking to count the years, I refuse to count the parsecs.
Time-out, now. If it becomes you, you turn it over; if I laugh at the untidy earth 
       and if its eye comes to stare at me because it sees only my departure, the ocean
       on the left there--another adventure, another delay.
This teaching that reaps annual dividends--how fast does it move?
Does its formal manner with us ensure the rises themselves,
       when, eventually, we return?
But the tilting itself is without pity: deaths going by in flimsy bathrobes on 
       destroyed highways, in rectitude and with some desire for elevating themselves, 
       just in case you return.
Raised on the impossible wings to which we were so generous, you trust each other.
Without pity: a field of light snow lacks the technical language needed to
       sweep away expenditures of breath in the cold air, its goal raised higher
       by the flat climate--its excesses, its throb.
Even stray nerves of precision announce their staggered topics.
Such broken attention, so many splintering handles.
The leaning one is without pity, the wind excluding more and more.
In yore days, we sang our lists until they had decelerated, raised to the sheets, 
       assigned fatty ground-strokes, counted quickly the stages of employment,
       which is to say that, with the key, this one's the one that we awaken to.
The old days, we yowled, they must have appeared as inspiration, alleviating, 
       applauding, briefly known as reactions to magic.
Or they were found too narrowly legal, too easy, whining their insufficiently formed
       insatiable commands.
What were these appointments they kept--robbers, beggar girls, mountebanks?
The nights, the cries built together by lovers in, like before, their usual speech, while
       the series drew itself up to a place at the top, with excess and excision.
I had to enter with or without the same limitations the sector presented
       to another landscape--its birds odd, its series serious, its road with that 
       lamp, at attention like a motionless moon.
This--this scrap--was it enough to continue?
Summer over, muggers, mimes, and hookers spread out symmetrically under
       broad strictures, terrazzo flooring overlaid by woven carpets, blankets, pillows.




Hal         

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard
                



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Sun Oct 26 20:50:27 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 18:50:27 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] revision & re-vision
References: <158.26750617.2ccd6390@aol.com>
Message-ID: <3F9C79E2.AAA2B002@earthlink.net>

Yes.  If you subtract the black dog you're left with a masterfully
executed "art fair" painting.  Lots of poems wandering around without
their black dog.

- Jim

JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> 
> Revision to most poets means cutting out. And that often
> is not a bad thing. But sometimes a work of art needs
> something more: Perhaps the work in question needs
> a "black dog."
> 
> The Black Dog of Mortlake Terrace--
> In 1827, on 'Varnishing Day' at the Royal Academy, the painter
> Landseer, known for his hunting scenes, placed a cut-out
> paper black dog atop the wall that ran diagonally through
> J.M.W. Turner's now famous painting, Mortlake Terrace.
> Turner is said to have come into the Academy, looked his painting
> and plucked off the paper dog. He then painted over the cut-out
> and replaced it on the painting close to where Landseer
> had positioned originally it. He varnished his painting, thus
> finishing it, and so the black dog found its home forever
> in the painting and as part of art history.
> 
> http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?119+0+0+gg57
> 
> Whether the paper dog was put there as a joke or as
> a critical insight as to what the painting might need to
> perfect the scene, it seems clear that Turner had
> humility enough to accept the gesture as well as the
> artistic confidence necessary to take full ownership
> of the suggestion.
> 
> Finnegan


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 26 21:16:38 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:16:38 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
References: <9.1b0e1d81.2ccd9fed@aol.com>
Message-ID: <011701c39c30$5ac92200$a4e2fea9@j1c1k6>

> > Carol Muske-Dukes for Sparrow (Random House)
> >  > Charles Simic for The Voice at 3:00 A.M.: Selected Late and New Poems
> >  > (Harcourt)
> >  > Louis Simpson for The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems
1940-2001 (
> > BOA
> >  > Editions, Ltd.)
> >  > C.K. Williams for The Singing (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
> >  >           Kevin Young for Jelly Roll: A Blues (Knopf)
>
> How often does a small press/university press get nommed for the NBA?

I would guess two or three hundred times more often as a micro-press book
gets so much as considered for nomination.

(I would consider BOA a pretty big small press, by the way.)


--Bob G.



From kpaul at mallasch.com  Sun Oct 26 21:18:49 2003
From: kpaul at mallasch.com (kpaul mallasch)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:18:49 -0500 (EST)
Subject: [New-Poetry] revision & re-vision
In-Reply-To: <3F9C79E2.AAA2B002@earthlink.net>
References: <158.26750617.2ccd6390@aol.com> <3F9C79E2.AAA2B002@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <20031026211007.R65404@kpaul.spinweb.net>

re-tanka

   And the black tooth dog?
  And poetry's viciousness?
   Growling and snarling,
  poetry is the black dog,
teeth the dark color of ink.

--

   And the countryside?
 And poetry's ugly side?
  Lapping and waking,
poetry is the seaside,
the delicate re-vision

-kpaul

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003, James Cervantes wrote:

> Yes.  If you subtract the black dog you're left with a masterfully
> executed "art fair" painting.  Lots of poems wandering around without
> their black dog.
>
> - Jim
>
> JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> >
> > Revision to most poets means cutting out. And that often
> > is not a bad thing. But sometimes a work of art needs
> > something more: Perhaps the work in question needs
> > a "black dog."
> >
> > The Black Dog of Mortlake Terrace--
> > In 1827, on 'Varnishing Day' at the Royal Academy, the painter
> > Landseer, known for his hunting scenes, placed a cut-out
> > paper black dog atop the wall that ran diagonally through
> > J.M.W. Turner's now famous painting, Mortlake Terrace.
> > Turner is said to have come into the Academy, looked his painting
> > and plucked off the paper dog. He then painted over the cut-out
> > and replaced it on the painting close to where Landseer
> > had positioned originally it. He varnished his painting, thus
> > finishing it, and so the black dog found its home forever
> > in the painting and as part of art history.
> >
> > http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?119+0+0+gg57
> >
> > Whether the paper dog was put there as a joke or as
> > a critical insight as to what the painting might need to
> > perfect the scene, it seems clear that Turner had
> > humility enough to accept the gesture as well as the
> > artistic confidence necessary to take full ownership
> > of the suggestion.
> >
> > Finnegan
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
>


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Sun Oct 26 21:19:41 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:19:41 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
References: <BBC1B35F.4F58%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <013101c39c30$c81098c0$a4e2fea9@j1c1k6>

> Less ambitiously, I'd be interested in hearing from the assembled experts
> right here, right now, your nominations for other books that could have
> appeared on the Best of 2003 shortlist.

If you'd used "should" instead of "could," I could have named a dozen or so.

--Bob G.



From FanwoodJEL at aol.com  Sun Oct 26 21:38:01 2003
From: FanwoodJEL at aol.com (FanwoodJEL at aol.com)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:38:01 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
Message-ID: <73.36b6e2c0.2ccddf09@aol.com>

In a message dated 10/26/2003 6:22:51 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
grahamd at ripon.edu writes:

> Less ambitiously, I'd be interested in hearing from the assembled experts
> right here, right now, your nominations for other books that could have
> appeared on the Best of 2003 shortlist.
> 

Poets House in NYC hosts an exhibit of the 1,750 books of poetry published by 
536 different publishers in 2003. Of course, that was before much of the fall 
lists hit the street. Poets House has an on-line directory of, they say, all 
poetry in print. I searched the directory for my own book -- published in 2002 
-- and it's not there. Neither were the 9 other books I searched for, all 
Tupelo Press 2003. So let's say the 1,700 figure is somewhere between low and way 
low. Who has seen the wonderful books coming out of Ahsahta Press, Verse 
Press, Perugia Press? 

Okay, I'll nominate Miracle Fruit by Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Bend by 
Natasha Saje, both from Tupelo Press 2003, both vivid, riskier, more imaginative, 
more compelling than anything on the official shortlist. 

Jeffrey Levine
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From Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu  Sun Oct 26 22:00:51 2003
From: Edward.Byrne at valpo.edu (Edward Byrne)
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:00:51 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Nat Book Award Finalists
In-Reply-To: <BBC1B35F.4F58%grahamd@ripon.edu>
Message-ID: <SIMEON.10310262151.A@muahost.valpo.edu>

I was impressed by the poetry in _The Perishing_ by Sherod Santos. 

--Ed

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 17:22:39 -0600 David Graham <grahamd at ripon.edu> wrote:

> Less ambitiously, I'd be interested in hearing from the assembled experts
> right here, right now, your nominations for other books that could have
> appeared on the Best of 2003 shortlist.
> 
> I've already plugged William Trowbridge's *Complete Book of Kong*.
> 
> Another volume in heavy rotation for me currently is Brendan Galvin's *Place
> Keepers*, from LSU.  

--------------------------------------------------

Edward Byrne
Department of English
322 Huegli Hall
Valparaiso University
Valparaiso, IN 46383-6493

E-mail: edward.byrne at valpo.edu
http://www.valpo.edu/home/faculty/ebyrne/homepage/

Editor, Valparaiso Poetry Review
E-mail: vpr at valpo.edu
http://www.valpo.edu/english/vpr/
Office Phone: (219) 464-5278
Fax: (219) 464-5511

--------------------------------------------------



From ron.silliman at verizon.net  Mon Oct 27 06:57:29 2003
From: ron.silliman at verizon.net (Ron)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 06:57:29 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Silliman's blog
Message-ID: <000f01c39c81$a2b65b40$a4f5f343@Dell>

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

Writing on the day job

Philadelphia Progressive Poetry Calendar

Responding to Bill Lavender:
Close reading Jake Berry
& the issue of the overdetermined trope

Bill Lavender responds
to my review of Another South

Questions for George Stanley

Poetry & Empire:
my notes on the retreat

How do you write?
Starting with a Palm Pilot.

How do you write?
(An ode to Rhodia Bloc)

6 questions for Poetry & Empire:

1) Can poetry challenge militarized language 
& propaganda?

2) Do genre models need to be rearticulated
in light of new world dynamics?

3) To what degree do our actions as poets
affect larger contexts?

4) How do the structures of poetic communities
resist or reinforce existing power structures?

5) What underlying values inform our practice as poets?

6) What can a poem do?

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/






From marcus at designerglass.com  Mon Oct 27 07:40:47 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 07:40:47 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <014101c39ae5$99e955a0$aaa3fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F9CCBFF.30612.11CA02@localhost>

On 25 Oct 2003 at 6:49, Bob Grumman wrote:
> Not to be pushy, Marcus, but are you still playing our game?  You
> haven't answered my post of four days ago yet, so far as I know. 

> Bob Grumman's STATEMENT 1
> "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) texts
> concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant 
field
> who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority 
of
> the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with 
convincingly
> advocating a point of view; (b) texts less concerned (according to 
a
> reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with convincingly
> advocating a point of view than with conveying information to 
others
> that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
> reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with
> eliciting an emotional response; (c) texts concerned more than
> anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
> readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts that
> convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> consensus of readers)."
> END OF STATEMENT 1
 
Marcus:
>Opinions about poetry, as in all the other arts, are subjective, and
> change according to intellectual fashions. The current fashion
> consists largely of using scientific terms metaphorically to try to
>imply a rigor of objective analysis where only reasonable inferences
> apply.
 
Bob:
> I thought we agreed that your taks is to show where I'm unclear,
> Marcus, not try to figure out what I'm trying to do and come out
> against it.<

Marcus:
There is clarity of expression and clarity of thought, and one can 
express nonsense clearly and sense obscurely. One of the functions of 
revising for clarity of expression is that it often reveals where 
there is lack of clarity in thought. If you are serious about trying 
to do science in the humanities, about trying to construct a real 
taxonomy, a useful tool for any and every poetry audience or reader, 
clarity of thought is just as important as clarity of expression.
If all you're trying to do is put forward your subjective notions 
about literature by using scientific terms such as "taxonomy" in a 
merely metaphorical sense, well, that's a different kind of essay.

Which is it?

Marcus:
> >Textual expressions are mixtures of four kinds of authorial
> >intention, none of them pure, and all of them subject to 
> >interpretive fashions. The basic palette of authorital
> >intentions ... <<

Bob:
> You have me wrong in several ways.  (1) I'm speaking of verbal, not
> textual, expression.<<

Marcus:
Then why do you keep referring to "texts"? Texts are not verbal 
expressions except in the most broadly metaphorical way, a way 
useless in the discussion of good tight definitions on which to rely 
for the weight of an entire taxonomy.

Bob:
>  (2) My descriptions have to do with the concerns
> of various kinds of verbal expression, not with "authorial
> intention,"  however much that will usually contribute to those
> concerns.<<

Marcus:
You yourself have said that what determines whether something is  
"persuasive" or "informative" or "entertaining" or "meaningless" is  
not whether it actually persuades or informs or entertains or  is 
meaningless, but whether it was INTENDED to persuade or inform or  
entertain or mean nothing. If that is indeed the test, as you say it  
is, then your claim that you're evaluating "verbal expressions"  
without regard to authorial intention, while acknowledging that  
authorial intention will "contribute to" those concerns is not mere  
nonsense, it's nonsense in a clown suit.

Bob:
> (3) The texts I speak of can be mixtures or pure; I nowhere say or
> imply that they are all mixtures. <<

Marcus:
I'm trying to point out that they MUST be mixtures, and you've 
implicitly agreed that they must in our conversation, by 
acknowledging that they cannot be "pure".  What is an example of a 
piece of "pure persuasion" or "pure entertainment"?  I grant you you 
may be able to come up with an example of "pure meaninglessness", but 
if examplars such as Hal Johnson and Marcel Duchamp are any 
indication, even pure meaninglessness is not without its 
entertainment value -- at least to the perpetrators.

Bob:
> (4)  While the texts I speak of are subject to interpretation, that
> interpretation is reduced, and need not have much
> or anything to do with interpretative fashions.<

Marcus:
This is a claim to scientific objectivity for your system. If you are 
serious about this claim you have a good deal more work to do 
definitionally and conceptually than I think you have done. If, on 
the other hand, this is merely jawboning, a sort of posturing in a 
scientific manner but without any intent to do science, then you are 
not on the path to a taxonomy in the first place.

Marcus: 
> > (a) intention to advocate a point of view;
> > (b) intention to convey factual or conceptual
> > information
> > (c) intention to elicit an emotional response; and
> > (d) intention to convey nothing meaningful.
 
Bob:
> Intention has nothing to do with (d).<

Marcus:
Well the people who are trying to convey nothing meaningful make the 
claim that it is their intention to convey nothing meaningful, as I 
understand it.

Marcus:
> > The intentional claim of the author is contextual --
> > and thus almost endlessly interpretable. Two
> > zealots may each think they are expressing
> > almost pure (b) while each of the opinion that the > other's
> > expression is almost pure (d), for
> > example.
 
Bob:
> You're suggesting an objection rather than addressing the issue of
> clarity.

Marcus:
I'm addressing the underlying lack of clarity in your purposes, if I 
understand them correctly. It appears to me, from the contradictions 
with which you present your putative system that the biggest problem 
with clarity is not a matter of clarity of expression, but one of 
clarity of thought. You use the language of science without embracing 
the principles of science; you're presenting a sort of cargo-cult 
science, mistaking the carved wooden box for the reality of a radio.
 





From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Mon Oct 27 08:15:36 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 06:15:36 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] revision & re-vision
References: <158.26750617.2ccd6390@aol.com> <3F9C79E2.AAA2B002@earthlink.net> <20031026211007.R65404@kpaul.spinweb.net>
Message-ID: <3F9D1A79.7B80CF1A@earthlink.net>

Not to mention black
ravenous around midnight
in you-know-what robe
whose hem is snagged by bright teeth
in refrigerator light.

- Jim

kpaul mallasch wrote:
> 
> re-tanka
> 
>    And the black tooth dog?
>   And poetry's viciousness?
>    Growling and snarling,
>   poetry is the black dog,
> teeth the dark color of ink.
> 
> --
> 
>    And the countryside?
>  And poetry's ugly side?
>   Lapping and waking,
> poetry is the seaside,
> the delicate re-vision
> 
> -kpaul
> 
> On Sun, 26 Oct 2003, James Cervantes wrote:
> 
> > Yes.  If you subtract the black dog you're left with a masterfully
> > executed "art fair" painting.  Lots of poems wandering around without
> > their black dog.
> >
> > - Jim
> >
> > JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> > >
> > > Revision to most poets means cutting out. And that often
> > > is not a bad thing. But sometimes a work of art needs
> > > something more: Perhaps the work in question needs
> > > a "black dog."
> > >
> > > The Black Dog of Mortlake Terrace--
> > > In 1827, on 'Varnishing Day' at the Royal Academy, the painter
> > > Landseer, known for his hunting scenes, placed a cut-out
> > > paper black dog atop the wall that ran diagonally through
> > > J.M.W. Turner's now famous painting, Mortlake Terrace.
> > > Turner is said to have come into the Academy, looked his painting
> > > and plucked off the paper dog. He then painted over the cut-out
> > > and replaced it on the painting close to where Landseer
> > > had positioned originally it. He varnished his painting, thus
> > > finishing it, and so the black dog found its home forever
> > > in the painting and as part of art history.
> > >
> > > http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?119+0+0+gg57
> > >
> > > Whether the paper dog was put there as a joke or as
> > > a critical insight as to what the painting might need to
> > > perfect the scene, it seems clear that Turner had
> > > humility enough to accept the gesture as well as the
> > > artistic confidence necessary to take full ownership
> > > of the suggestion.
> > >
> > > Finnegan
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> >
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry


From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Mon Oct 27 08:41:43 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 14:41:43 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] revision & re-vision
References: <158.26750617.2ccd6390@aol.com> <3F9C79E2.AAA2B002@earthlink.net> <20031026211007.R65404@kpaul.spinweb.net> <3F9D1A79.7B80CF1A@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <005801c39c90$0f328a60$8f737450@anny>

rubbling through darkness
black poetry broke concrete
lynching fake fastenings
to lionize far-distant links

a

From: "James Cervantes" <jvcervantes at earthlink.net>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>


> Not to mention black
> ravenous around midnight
> in you-know-what robe
> whose hem is snagged by bright teeth
> in refrigerator light.
> 
> - Jim
> 
> kpaul mallasch wrote:
> > 
> > re-tanka
> > 
> >    And the black tooth dog?
> >   And poetry's viciousness?
> >    Growling and snarling,
> >   poetry is the black dog,
> > teeth the dark color of ink.
> > 
> > --
> > 
> >    And the countryside?
> >  And poetry's ugly side?
> >   Lapping and waking,
> > poetry is the seaside,
> > the delicate re-vision
> > 
> > -kpaul
> > 
> > On Sun, 26 Oct 2003, James Cervantes wrote:
> > 
> > > Yes.  If you subtract the black dog you're left with a masterfully
> > > executed "art fair" painting.  Lots of poems wandering around without
> > > their black dog.
> > >
> > > - Jim
> > >
> > > JforJames at aol.com wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Revision to most poets means cutting out. And that often
> > > > is not a bad thing. But sometimes a work of art needs
> > > > something more: Perhaps the work in question needs
> > > > a "black dog."
> > > >
> > > > The Black Dog of Mortlake Terrace--
> > > > In 1827, on 'Varnishing Day' at the Royal Academy, the painter
> > > > Landseer, known for his hunting scenes, placed a cut-out
> > > > paper black dog atop the wall that ran diagonally through
> > > > J.M.W. Turner's now famous painting, Mortlake Terrace.
> > > > Turner is said to have come into the Academy, looked his painting
> > > > and plucked off the paper dog. He then painted over the cut-out
> > > > and replaced it on the painting close to where Landseer
> > > > had positioned originally it. He varnished his painting, thus
> > > > finishing it, and so the black dog found its home forever
> > > > in the painting and as part of art history.
> > > >
> > > > http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pimage?119+0+0+gg57
> > > >
> > > > Whether the paper dog was put there as a joke or as
> > > > a critical insight as to what the painting might need to
> > > > perfect the scene, it seems clear that Turner had
> > > > humility enough to accept the gesture as well as the
> > > > artistic confidence necessary to take full ownership
> > > > of the suggestion.
> > > >
> > > > Finnegan
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > New-Poetry mailing list
> > > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 



From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Mon Oct 27 11:52:05 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 10:52:05 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: A. E. Stallings
In-Reply-To: <10c.2b2d172e.2ccafbd6@cs.com>
Message-ID: <BBC2A954.58C5%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

Sam, you?re right of course about the metrical glitch in line three?it?s
really a four stress line, not iambic pentameter.  And Bob and Ron are right
about the use of ?grave,? which I too thought was borrowed from Thomas. The
other objection that the flowers grow quite high is less damning, since as
the opening line suggests, they?re on horse back, so the flowers may still
be at their feet. Overall, though, I rather like the poem?except for the two
infelicities already noted.

What I find frustrating as a critics sometimes is that in drawing attention
to a clear metrical problem such as the one in line three by Stallings, one
is often met with the argument that it?s not really an error since it?s by a
woman poet and women poets often feel the need to ?subvert? the allegedly
masculine metrical form.  In fact, I?ve even seen women poets grouped in
critical essays by how strictly or loosely they adhere to the metrical
conventions they employ, with the clear suggestion that the ones who violate
metrical regularity are doing it self-consciously and deliberately and that
it would be wrong to hold them to such confining notions as metrical
competence.  Personally, I feel that once you sign on to write a metrical
poem you more or less have a contract with a reader to fulfill his or her
expectations by doing it skillfully. A few years ago, at the West Chester
Poetry Conference, I served on the critics panel, where we discussed poems
by a number of contemporary formal poets. When we got to Molly Peacock, a
number of the more postmodern critics argued that Peacock was deliberately
?subverting the form? of the poem, since she was a woman poet. Tom Cable, a
scholar of prosody, and I were left to argue that, no, she just wasn?t very
good at writing meter, that her departures from normal metrical practices
were due more to incompetence than a deliberate strategy to subvert
anything?and what?s the point of subverting a thing that makes certain
effects possible if you aren?t offering anything new in their stead.
Frustrated at the the logic of those who argued that whatever Peacock did in
a supposed ?sonnet? was okay, I wrote the following bit of light verse.



            Pro Forma


Certain poets, whose measures don't seem to conform
To any known pattern, when pressed, will explain,
They're not tin-eared bards when they veer from the norm;
If their meters don't scan and their rhymes crack and strain,
It's not that the rhyme scheme's too hard to maintain--
When their sonnet falls short a few lines, their refrain
Is to sing out in chorus, ?The rules don?t obtain!
I?m a clever young artist subverting the form!?



Likewise, when a contractor building a dorm
Fails to bolt metal cross beams or hammer in nails
And the floors start to buckle like ships in a storm
Then collapse, crushing hundreds; though agonized wails
Might suggest that the devil was in the details,
Don?t insist that the culprits be thrown into jails,
Show that you at least know what good building entails
For a clever young artist subverting the form.



So the next time you?re out and the air is aswarm
With pestiferous flies, and the staff smell like minks,
And your coffee's served cold and your sherbet's served warm,
And there's spit on your entrees and piss in your drinks,
Don't storm out in a huff, shouting how the joint stinks,
But instead flash the host, cooks, and servers sly winks--
Let them know you?re a modern food critic who thinks
They?re all clever young artists subverting the form.






>> Asphodel
>> 
>> 
>> (after the words of Penny Turner, Nymphaion, Greece)
>> 
>> 
>> Our guide turned in her saddle, broke the spell:
>> "You ride now through a field of asphodel,
>> The flower that grows on the plains of hell.
>> 
>> Across just such a field the pale shade came
>> Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
>> And short life to a long life without fame,
>> 
>> And summoned by Odysseus he gave
>> This wisdom, 'Better by far to be a slave
>> Among the living, than great among the grave.'
>> 
>> I used to wonder, how did such a bloom
>> Become associated with the tomb?
>> Then one evening, walking through the gloom,
>> 
>> I noticed a strange fragrance. It was sweet,
>> Like honey ? but with hints of rotting meat.
>> An army of them bristled at my feet."
>> 

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From mandolin at mac.com  Mon Oct 27 16:12:45 2003
From: mandolin at mac.com (Michael Snider)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 16:12:45 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: A. E. Stallings
Message-ID: <7124272.1067289165657.JavaMail.mandolin@mac.com>

 
On Monday, October 27, 2003, at 11:52AM, Paul Lake <paul.lake at mail.atu.edu> wrote:


>Sam, you?re right of course about the metrical glitch in line three?it?s really a four stress >line, not iambic pentameter.  And Bob and Ron are right about the use of ?grave,? which I too >thought was borrowed from Thomas. The other objection that the flowers grow quite high is less >damning, since as the opening line suggests, they?re on horse back, so the flowers may still be at >their feet. Overall, though, I rather like the poem?except for the two infelicities already noted.

I like the poem, too, with the same caveats. And they're so easy to fix!

Our guide turned in her saddle, broke the spell:
"You ride now through a field of asphodel,
The flower growing on the plains of hell.

Across just such a field the pale shade came
Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
And short life to a long life without fame,

And summoned by Odysseus he gave
This wisdom, 'Better by far to be a slave
Among the living, than great beyond the grave.'  

I like your complaint, too, Paul, but Stallings is more than competent at meter. I don't think she'd be one to plead subversion of the dominant paradigm. 

Michael
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From Rsgwynn1 at cs.com  Mon Oct 27 16:25:10 2003
From: Rsgwynn1 at cs.com (Rsgwynn1 at cs.com)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 16:25:10 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: A. E. Stallings
Message-ID: <1e7.12353bec.2ccee736@cs.com>

In a message dated 10/27/2003 3:14:46 PM Central Standard Time, 
mandolin at mac.com writes: 
> 
> 
> 
> >Sam, you?re right of course about the metrical glitch in line three?it?s 
> really a four stress >line, not iambic pentameter.  And Bob and Ron are right 
> about the use of ?grave,? which I too >thought was borrowed from Thomas. The 
> other objection that the flowers grow quite high is less >damning, since as 
> the opening line suggests, they?re on horse back, so the flowers may still be 
> at >their feet. Overall, though, I rather like the poem?except for the two 
> infelicities already noted.
> 
> I like the poem, too, with the same caveats. And they're so easy to fix!
> 
> Our guide turned in her saddle, broke the spell:
> "You ride now through a field of asphodel,
> The flower growing on the plains of hell.
> 
> Across just such a field the pale shade came
> Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
> And short life to a long life without fame,
> 
> And summoned by Odysseus he gave
> This wisdom, 'Better by far to be a slave
> Among the living, than great beyond the grave.'  
> 
> I like your complaint, too, Paul, but Stallings is more than competent at 
> meter. I don't think she'd be one to plead subversion of the dominant paradigm. 
> 
> 
> Michael
> 
These are good fixes.
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From paul.lake at mail.atu.edu  Mon Oct 27 17:21:31 2003
From: paul.lake at mail.atu.edu (Paul Lake)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 16:21:31 -0600
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by Others: A. E. Stallings
In-Reply-To: <1e7.12353bec.2ccee736@cs.com>
Message-ID: <BBC2F68A.58D2%paul.lake@mail.atu.edu>

on 10/27/03 3:25 PM, Rsgwynn1 at cs.com at Rsgwynn1 at cs.com wrote:

> In a message dated 10/27/2003 3:14:46 PM Central Standard Time,
> mandolin at mac.com writes:
> 
> 
>> 
>>> >Sam, you?re right of course about the metrical glitch in line three?it?s
>>> really a four stress >line, not iambic pentameter.  And Bob and Ron are
>>> right about the use of ?grave,? which I too >thought was borrowed from
>>> Thomas. The other objection that the flowers grow quite high is less
>>> >damning, since as the opening line suggests, they?re on horse back, so the
>>> flowers may still be at >their feet. Overall, though, I rather like the
>>> poem?except for the two infelicities already noted.
>> 
>> I like the poem, too, with the same caveats. And they're so easy to fix!
>> 
>> Our guide turned in her saddle, broke the spell:
>> "You ride now through a field of asphodel,
>> The flower growing on the plains of hell.
>> 
>> Across just such a field the pale shade came
>> Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
>> And short life to a long life without fame,
>> 
>> And summoned by Odysseus he gave
>> This wisdom, 'Better by far to be a slave
>> Among the living, than great beyond the grave.'
>> 
>> I like your complaint, too, Paul, but Stallings is more than competent at
>> meter. I don't think she'd be one to plead subversion of the dominant
>> paradigm. 
>> 
>> Michael
>> 
> These are good fixes.

I can?t help wanting to add my own: turning the following into a
contraction:


>> Of proud Achilles, who had preferred a name
>> 
>> Of proud Achilles, who?d preferred a name
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Michael,
>> 
>> I doubt Alicia Stallings would claim to be subverting the form either, though
>> I think some might have already made the claim?or  would make it?on her
>> behalf.
>> 
>> 
>> Paul

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From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Mon Oct 27 14:03:59 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 20:03:59 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Philippe Soupault, "Lost Moments"
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIEBBHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <000001c39cdd$b67c22c0$f0e7f9c1@pavilion>

This took me to RealPoetik for my research on the mirror
theme:

(by the way thanks for this thread- did not find the reference to Soupault
for the original version?) but found
"listed" works !

Your contribution-skimmed over it - my reaction:
"In the name o' the wee man..."!

cf. Poems by others - I decided to put one of your writings, Hal even if
this is an unusual proceedure.

There is a sort of mixture of  what Michel Serre in the Incandescent would
call the "dedifferentiation" -individualism & the  Universal.

J.A.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Halvard Johnson" <halvard at earthlink.net>
To: "New-Poetry" <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 9:08 PM
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Philippe Soupault, "Lost Moments"


>
> Lost Moments
>
> The sun will die in five billion years
> I was born too soon perhaps
> to die with the sun my only ambition
> The flowers in front of me are already fading
> and I shivered while smiling
> the same shiver as the flag whose colors
> have been beaten by the wind
> Around me ants in five directions
> throw themselves toward a death I have already refused
> It's the great emptiness before me
> when I turn toward my mirror
> where I see engraved my wrinkles and hopes
> Every morning, every evening
> and on the face of my watch
> like every evening, every morning
> every second forgotten and lost
> every swallow of alcohol
> every puff of smoke
> every cloudy night not yet finished
> never or tomorrow again
> a billion days and years
> the rising and setting of the sun
> the morning and evening
> the same morning and the same evening
>
> --Philippe Soupault
>
> Tr. Kirby Olson
> fr. RealPoetik (online) 10/18/03
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr  Mon Oct 27 16:18:53 2003
From: james.alexander1 at wanadoo.fr (james.alexander1)
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2003 22:18:53 +0100
Subject: Re[New-Poetry] Poetry by others
Message-ID: <000101c39cdd$b7671f00$f0e7f9c1@pavilion>

Three unrelated works.I) Johnson, II) Cervantes & since I'm supposed to put a poem as the list requests - III) A Short piece from  MacDiarmid in english & french.
pending translation rights.


I).
Campground

Not liking to count the years, I refuse to count the parsecs.
Time-out, now. If it becomes you, you turn it over; if I laugh at the untidy earth 
       and if its eye comes to stare at me because it sees only my departure, the ocean
       on the left there--another adventure, another delay.
This teaching that reaps annual dividends--how fast does it move?
Does its formal manner with us ensure the rises themselves,
       when, eventually, we return?
But the tilting itself is without pity: deaths going by in flimsy bathrobes on 
       destroyed highways, in rectitude and with some desire for elevating themselves, 
       just in case you return.
Raised on the impossible wings to which we were so generous, you trust each other.
Without pity: a field of light snow lacks the technical language needed to
       sweep away expenditures of breath in the cold air, its goal raised higher
       by the flat climate--its excesses, its throb.
Even stray nerves of precision announce their staggered topics.
Such broken attention, so many splintering handles.
The leaning one is without pity, the wind excluding more and more.
In yore days, we sang our lists until they had decelerated, raised to the sheets, 
       assigned fatty ground-strokes, counted quickly the stages of employment,
       which is to say that, with the key, this one's the one that we awaken to.
The old days, we yowled, they must have appeared as inspiration, alleviating, 
       applauding, briefly known as reactions to magic.
Or they were found too narrowly legal, too easy, whining their insufficiently formed
       insatiable commands.
What were these appointments they kept--robbers, beggar girls, mountebanks?
The nights, the cries built together by lovers in, like before, their usual speech, while
       the series drew itself up to a place at the top, with excess and excision.
I had to enter with or without the same limitations the sector presented
       to another landscape--its birds odd, its series serious, its road with that 
       lamp, at attention like a motionless moon.
This--this scrap--was it enough to continue?
Summer over, muggers, mimes, and hookers spread out symmetrically under
       broad strictures, terrazzo flooring overlaid by woven carpets, blankets, pillows.




Hal         

Halvard Johnson


II)

 In a message dated 10/23/03 2:36:22 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
> jvcervantes at earthlink.net writes:



> >        Anthropomorphic Wind
> >  
> >  
> >  The wind taps its fingers against my window
> >  randomly and with long and short pauses
> >  trying to disguise itself as wind
> >  subject to rise and drop of pressure
> >  then stops for days as if all is equalized
> >  but this is sheer drama building
> >  and suggests a butterfly a continent away
> >  bored with stillness and its glide                                   
> >  suddenly yellow silk against the sun
> >  as if someone moved behind a curtain.
> >  
By James Cervantes 
> 
With an expert  Appreciation - 
> I love that concluding image.
> Finnegan

Required "homework" - This may not be the day, but it was one of my few typed Poems by others in english. 
(2nd/3rd - time Red Cross has been attacked- Ist Chechenie now Iraq. -  Jean Fran?ois Kahn- PDG, Marianne Magazine(Fr), so passonately pleaded
against "unilateral - pseudo-unitateral action in Iraq" - describing amongst many things, the total ignorance of many peoples, regarding so called International Organisations & Standards.


So, As if to remind myself  :    
                                    The right end of the stick.


 

Le bon bout du b?ton.

 

(The right end of the stick by H. Macdiarmid, Ed Penguin 1985, Vol.1)

 

 

 

 

Le bon bout du b?ton. (english version follows).

 

Je pense que vous tenez tous le b?ton par le bon bout,

Mon ami Chr?tien ou pa?en, extraverti ou introverti,

Mon ami mort, vivant ou ? na?tre-le probl?me

                      (mon vivant)             (le trouble)

Est que tous vos b?tons n'ont qu'un seul bout.

 

 

                                    ? Point Defect ? -Traduction par J.A. (m.j.a.m.). 



 Point Defect - point  (no) in French.  

Metal Defect (dislocation or vacancy-hole,  in metallurgy - solid physics. 

 

 

Copyright at ADA. Grp

 

 

 

The right end of the stick.

 

I think you've all got the right end of the stick,

My Christian or Pagan, extrovert or introvert friend,

My dead friend, my live, my unborn- but the trouble

Is just that all your sticks have only one end.

 

                                    H. MacDiarmid (Ed. Penguin 1985).

 

 

                        Accord de l'Editeur a ?t? demand?.

                        Editer's permission has been requested.

 

 

 

 

                                                                                    J.A. (9/06/2001).

                                                                                    (m. j. a. m..)



Not bored with - Despaired by/



Out of office for a few days.



Sincerely y, 



James Alexander






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From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Oct 28 06:35:23 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 06:35:23 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Anybody There?
References: <v0421010dbbb3615bec90@[165.121.129.36]>
Message-ID: <023401c39d47$93e800c0$2275fea9@j1c1k6>

I haven't seen any posts from Marcus for a week, and now I've gone over a
day with no posts explicitly from New-Poetry.  Is everyone (but Tia, working
out of CWUHM) on break?

I'm especially eager to find out if Marcus is still interested in continuing
our Fascinating Discussion.

--Bob G.



From marcus at designerglass.com  Tue Oct 28 08:02:27 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 08:02:27 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB / BG
Message-ID: <3F9E2293.30246.36363C@localhost>

> STATEMENT 1
> "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) texts
> concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant 
field
> who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority 
of
> the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with 
convincingly
> advocating a point of view; (b) texts less concerned (according to 
a
> reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with convincingly
> advocating a point of view than with conveying information to 
others
> that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
> reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with
> eliciting an emotional response; (c) texts concerned more than
> anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
> readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts that
> convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> consensus of readers)."
> END OF STATEMENT 1
 
>Opinions about poetry, as in all the other arts, are >subjective, 
and
> change according to intellectual >fashions. The current fashion
> consists largely of >using scientific terms metaphorically to try 
to
> >imply a rigor of objective analysis where only >reasonable 
inferences
> apply.
 
> I thought we agreed that your taks is to show where I'm unclear,
> Marcus, not try to figure out what I'm trying to do and come out
> against it.<

There is clarity of expression and clarity of thought, and one can 
express nonsense clearly and sense obscurely. One of the functions of 

revising for clarity of expression is that it often reveals where 
there is lack of clarity in thought. If you are serious about trying 
to do science in the humanities, about trying to construct a real 
taxonomy, a useful tool for any and every poetry audience or reader, 
clarity of thought is just as important as clarity of expression.

If all you're trying to do is put forward your subjective notions 
about literature by using scientific terms such as "taxonomy" in a 
merely metaphorical sense, well, that's a different kind of essay.

Which is it?

> >Textual expressions are mixtures of four kinds of authorial
> >intention, none of them pure, and all of them subject to 
> >interpretive fashions. The basic palette of authorital intentions 
...<<

> You have me wrong in several ways.  (1) I'm speaking of verbal, not
> textual, expression.<<

Then why do you keep referring to "texts"? Texts are not verbal 
expressions except in the most broadly metaphorical way, a way 
useless in the discussion of good tight definitions on which to rely 
for the weight of an entire taxonomy.

>  (2) My descriptions have to do with the concerns
> of various kinds of verbal expression, not with "authorial 
intention,"
> however much that will usually contribute to those concerns.<<

You yourself have said that what determines whether something is 
"persuasive" or "informative" or "entertaining" or "meaningless" is 
not whether it actually persuades or informs, but whether it was 
INTENDED to persuade or inform or entertain or mean nothing. If that 
is indeed the test, as you say it is, then your claim that you're 
evaluating "verbal expressions" without regard to authorial 
intention, while acknowledging that authorial intention will 
"contribute to" those concerns is not mere nonsense, it's nonsense in 

a clown suit.

> (3) The
> texts I speak of can be mixtures or pure; I nowhere say or imply 
that
> they are all mixtures. <<

I'm trying to point out that they MUST be mixtures, and you've 
implicitly agreed that they must in our conversation, by 
acknowledging that they cannot be "pure".  What is an example of a 
piece of "pure persuasion" or "pure entertainment"?  I grant you you 
may be able to come up with an example of "pure meaninglessness", but 

if examplars such as Hal Johnson and Marcel Duchamp are any 
indication, even pure meaninglessness is not without its 
entertainment value -- at least to the perpetrators.

> (4)  While the texts I speak of are subject to
> interpretation, that interpretation is reduced, and need not have 
much
> or anything to do with interpretative fashions.<

This is a claim to scientific objectivity for your system. If you are 

serious about this claim you have a good deal more work to do 
definitionally and conceptually than I think you have done. If, on 
the other hand, this is merely jawboning, a sort of posturing in a 
scientific manner but without any intent to do science, then you are 
not on the path to a taxonomy in the first place.
 
> > (a) intention to advocate a point of view;
> > (b) intention to convey factual or conceptual
> > information
> > (c) intention to elicit an emotional response; and
> > (d) intention to convey nothing meaningful.
 
> Intention has nothing to do with (d).<

Well the people who are trying to convey nothing meaningful make the 
claim that it is their intention to convey nothing meaningful, as I 
understand it.

> > The intentional claim of the author is contextual --
> > and thus almost endlessly interpretable. Two
> > zealots may each think they are expressing
> > almost pure (b) while each of the opinion that the > other's
> > expression is almost pure (d), for
> > example.
 
> You're suggesting an objection rather than addressing the issue of
> clarity.

I'm addressing the underlying lack of clarity in your purposes, if I 
understand them correctly. It appears to me, from the contradictions 
with which you present your putative system that the biggest problem 
with clarity is not a matter of clarity of expression, but one of 
clarity of thought. You use the language of science without embracing 
the principles of science; you're presenting a sort of cargo-cult 
taxonomy, mistaking the appearance of a carved wooden box for the 
reality of a radio.
 




From halvard at earthlink.net  Tue Oct 28 11:23:40 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 11:23:40 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: Gary Snyder, "Affluence"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEMEOBHJAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

Affluence

under damp layers of pine needle
still-hard limbs and twigs
tangled as they lay,
two sixteen foot good butt logs took
all the rest, top, left

and this from logging twenty years ago
(figured from a core-ring reading on a tree
still stands, hard by a stump)
they didn't pile the slash and burn then--

fire hazard, every summer day

it was the logger's cost
at lumber's going rate then

now burn the tangles dowsing
pokey heaps with diesel oil.
paying the price somebody didn't pay.

--Gary Snyder

fr. *Turtle Island*
[New York: New Directions, 1974]

This one especially for friends in the smoky states.


Hal                

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com  Tue Oct 28 11:42:51 2003
From: FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com (FINDINGTHEWORD at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 11:42:51 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] WHAT ARE POETS READING?  an occasional List-Zine
Message-ID: <1d7.12e9dd5e.2ccff68b@aol.com>

October 28th, 2003

I often wonder what other poets are reading, especially since so many
good books I've read have been suggestions made by others.

So I decided to e-mail some poets, ask them what they are currently 
reading, and to give us one-sentence reviews.

Below is the collected list, hope it inspires your reading.
Many thanks to the 90+ poets who responded,
CAConrad

-------------

from Bruce Andrews to Magdalena Zurawski,
to view the entire list, visit 
http://phillysound.blogspot.com


From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Tue Oct 28 19:02:06 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 19:02:06 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB / BG
References: <3F9E2293.30246.36363C@localhost>
Message-ID: <017e01c39daf$e4ad34e0$0478fea9@j1c1k6>

> > STATEMENT 1
> > "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) texts
> > concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> > majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant
> field
> > who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority
> of
> > the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> > and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with
> convincingly
> > advocating a point of view; (b) texts less concerned (according to
> a
> > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with convincingly
> > advocating a point of view than with conveying information to
> others
> > that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
> > reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with
> > eliciting an emotional response; (c) texts concerned more than
> > anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
> > readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts that
> > convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> > consensus of readers)."
> > END OF STATEMENT 1
>
> >Opinions about poetry, as in all the other arts, are >subjective,
> and
> > change according to intellectual >fashions. The current fashion
> > consists largely of >using scientific terms metaphorically to try
> to
> > >imply a rigor of objective analysis where only >reasonable
> inferences
> > apply.
>
> > I thought we agreed that your task is to show where I'm unclear,
> > Marcus, not try to figure out what I'm trying to do and come out
> > against it.<
>
> There is clarity of expression and clarity of thought, and one can
> express nonsense clearly and sense obscurely. One of the functions of
> revising for clarity of expression is that it often reveals where
> there is lack of clarity in thought. If you are serious about trying
> to do science in the humanities, about trying to construct a real
> taxonomy, a useful tool for any and every poetry audience or reader,
> clarity of thought is just as important as clarity of expression.

Forget about what I'm trying to do and say where my text is unclear, if it
is.

> If all you're trying to do is put forward your subjective notions
> about literature by using scientific terms such as "taxonomy" in a
> merely metaphorical sense, well, that's a different kind of essay.
>
> Which is it?

I do not use the word, "taxonomy," in my statement, and my statement is all
we're concerned with right now.  However, I believe I would title the piece
my statement begins, An Attempt At A Taxonomy Of Literature," so if you want
to question the clarity of that, go ahead.  I feel a title for this kind of
work need not be wholly unambiguous, only not misleading, myself.  The text
that follows should render it entirely clear.

> > >Textual expressions are mixtures of four kinds of authorial
> > >intention, none of them pure, and all of them subject to
> > >interpretive fashions. The basic palette of authorital intentions
> ...<<
>
> > You have me wrong in several ways.  (1) I'm speaking of verbal, not
> > textual, expression.<<
>
> Then why do you keep referring to "texts"? Texts are not verbal
> expressions except in the most broadly metaphorical way, a way
> useless in the discussion of good tight definitions on which to rely
> for the weight of an entire taxonomy.

Texts, for me and the dictionary, are collections of written or printed
words.  I assumed anyone reading my statement would understand that *here*
it would include spoken verbal expression that could be written down.  For
you, though, I'll change "texts" to "collections of words."

> >  (2) My descriptions have to do with the concerns
> > of various kinds of verbal expression, not with "authorial
> intention,"
> > however much that will usually contribute to those concerns.<<
>
> You yourself have said that what determines whether something is
> "persuasive" or "informative" or "entertaining" or "meaningless" is
> not whether it actually persuades or informs, but whether it was
> INTENDED to persuade or inform or entertain or mean nothing. If that
> is indeed the test, as you say it is, then your claim that you're
> evaluating "verbal expressions" without regard to authorial
> intention, while acknowledging that authorial intention will
> "contribute to" those concerns is not mere nonsense, it's nonsense in
>
> a clown suit.

Have I expressed that point clearly?  That is the only question, for right
now.

> > (3) The
> > texts I speak of can be mixtures or pure; I nowhere say or imply
> that
> > they are all mixtures. <<
>
> I'm trying to point out that they MUST be mixtures, and you've
> implicitly agreed that they must in our conversation, by
> acknowledging that they cannot be "pure".  What is an example of a
> piece of "pure persuasion" or "pure entertainment"?  I grant you you
> may be able to come up with an example of "pure meaninglessness", but

> if examplars such as Hal Johnson and Marcel Duchamp are any
> indication, even pure meaninglessness is not without its
> entertainment value -- at least to the perpetrators.

Nothing can be pure, I suspect, but a great many things are sufficiently
close to it to be accepted by reasonable people as "pure."  Hence,
"lighght," is purely intended to elicit an emotional response.  "Vote for
Arnie" is pure advocacy.  "Oxygen has a higher atomic weight than hydrogen,"
is purely intended to convey information.

All of which is beside the point.  Clarity is the point.

> > (4)  While the texts I speak of are subject to
> > interpretation, that interpretation is reduced, and need not have
> much
> > or anything to do with interpretative fashions.<
>
> This is a claim to scientific objectivity for your system.

No, it's to reasonable objectivity of the kind that takes "tree" to mean
what just about all of us believe it does.

> If you are
> serious about this claim you have a good deal more work to do
> definitionally and conceptually than I think you have done. If, on
> the other hand, this is merely jawboning, a sort of posturing in a
> scientific manner but without any intent to do science, then you are
> not on the path to a taxonomy in the first place.

Why are you lecturing me instead of simply telling me where my statement is
unclear, if it is unclear anywhere?

> > > (a) intention to advocate a point of view;
> > > (b) intention to convey factual or conceptual
> > > information
> > > (c) intention to elicit an emotional response; and
> > > (d) intention to convey nothing meaningful.
>
> > Intention has nothing to do with (d).<
>
> Well the people who are trying to convey nothing meaningful make the
> claim that it is their intention to convey nothing meaningful, as I
> understand it.

So what?  In my statement, I speak of that which is taken to be nonsense by
a consensus.  It is my statement with which we are concerned.

> > > The intentional claim of the author is contextual --
> > > and thus almost endlessly interpretable. Two
> > > zealots may each think they are expressing
> > > almost pure (b) while each of the opinion that the > other's
> > > expression is almost pure (d), for
> > > example.
>
> > You're suggesting an objection rather than addressing the issue of
> > clarity.
>
> I'm addressing the underlying lack of clarity in your purposes, if I
> understand them correctly.

It is the clarity or lack thereof of my text that matters, not with my
purposes.

>It appears to me, from the contradictions
> with which you present your putative system that the biggest problem
> with clarity is not a matter of clarity of expression, but one of
> clarity of thought. You use the language of science without embracing
> the principles of science; you're presenting a sort of cargo-cult
> taxonomy, mistaking the appearance of a carved wooden box for the
> reality of a radio.

I think you've said that before.  But you claimed my taxonomy was not
clearly expressed.  That's what we agreed to try to determine in this
thread.

--Bob G.



From marcus at designerglass.com  Wed Oct 29 12:38:28 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 12:38:28 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB / BG
In-Reply-To: <017e01c39daf$e4ad34e0$0478fea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3F9FB4C4.4648.33D24D@localhost>

> > > STATEMENT 1
> > > "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) texts
> > > concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> > > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> > > majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant
> > field
> > > who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the
> > > majority
> > of
> > > the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts'
> > > opinions and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with
> > convincingly
> > > advocating a point of view; (b) texts less concerned (according to
> > a
> > > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with convincingly
> > > advocating a point of view than with conveying information to
> > others
> > > that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
> > > reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with
> > > eliciting an emotional response; (c) texts concerned more than
> > > anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
> > > readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts that
> > > convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> > > consensus of readers)." END OF STATEMENT 1

Marcus:
> > There is clarity of expression and clarity of thought, and one can
> > express nonsense clearly and sense obscurely. One of the functions
> > of revising for clarity of expression is that it often reveals where
> > there is lack of clarity in thought. If you are serious about trying
> > to do science in the humanities, about trying to construct a real
> > taxonomy, a useful tool for any and every poetry audience or reader,
> > clarity of thought is just as important as clarity of expression.

Bob Grumman: 
> Forget about what I'm trying to do and say where my text is unclear,
> if it is.

But Bob, that's like saying "Forget about whether my religious belief 
is true and say where my text is unclear, if it is." The purpose of 
the text is to propound the religious belief, or, in your case, your 
position or view of poetry -- so there is no reasonable way I can see 
to separate what you're trying to do and where your text is unclear, 
for the clearer you make your text the clearer you make your message -
- even if your message is not, itself, clearly thought out, in my 
view.

Marcus Bales:
> > If all you're trying to do is put forward your subjective notions
> > about literature by using scientific terms such as "taxonomy" in a
> > merely metaphorical sense, well, that's a different kind of essay.
> > Which is it?
 
Bob Grumman:
> I do not use the word, "taxonomy," in my statement, and my statement
> is all we're concerned with right now.  However, I believe I would
> title the piece my statement begins, An Attempt At A Taxonomy Of
> Literature," so if you want to question the clarity of that, go ahead.
>  I feel a title for this kind of work need not be wholly unambiguous,
> only not misleading, myself.  The text that follows should render it
> entirely clear.<<

Yes, I agree with this -- but what I think needs to be clear is 
whether you are making a scientific utterance or a metaphorical one: 
is your "attempt at a taxonomy" an attempt to do science or to do 
literary criticism?

Bob Grumman: 
> > >  (2) My descriptions have to do with the concerns
> > > of various kinds of verbal expression, not with "authorial
> > intention,"
> > > however much that will usually contribute to those concerns.<<

Marcus Bales:
> > You yourself have said that what determines whether something is
> > "persuasive" or "informative" or "entertaining" or "meaningless" is
> > not whether it actually persuades or informs, but whether it was
> > INTENDED to persuade or inform or entertain or mean nothing. If that
> > is indeed the test, as you say it is, then your claim that you're
> > evaluating "verbal expressions" without regard to authorial
> > intention, while acknowledging that authorial intention will
> > "contribute to" those concerns is not mere nonsense, it's nonsense
> > in a clown suit.
 
Bob Grumman:
> Have I expressed that point clearly?  That is the only question, for
> right now.

Well, if you were trying to express nonsense in a clown suit, then 
sure, your utterance is clownishly nonsensical. 

Bob Grumman:
> Nothing can be pure, I suspect, but a great many things are
> sufficiently close to it to be accepted by reasonable people as
> "pure."  Hence, "lighght," is purely intended to elicit an emotional
> response.  "Vote for Arnie" is pure advocacy.  "Oxygen has a higher
> atomic weight than hydrogen," is purely intended to convey
> information....<<

But there you go again with "purely intended"! You are arguing on the 
one hand that authorial intention is no part of your program while 
using authorial intention exclusively to sort parts of your program 
out from other parts. That's a direct contradiction, Bob: you can't 
reasonably at one and the same time say that authorial intention has 
no part in determining the category in which an utterance belongs and 
use authorial intention to determine the category in which an 
utterance belongs.

I see, and sympathize with, your difficulty, of course, since 
"lighght" in one context is a typo and in another is a poem, just as 
"Vote for Arnie" in one context is advocacy and in another a sarcasm. 
Your problem is that a natural language admits of all kinds of 
interpretations of almost any given phrase, even of a lot of 
individual words, depending on the context in which it is used. It's 
tough to taxonomize when the constitutent parts of what one is trying 
to taxonomize keep shifting and changing categories even as you 
hasten to try to broaden or narrow the categories.

This is the central problem of any attempt to taxonomize the 
subjective: you are really compelled by what appears to me to be the 
impossibility of taxonomizing the subjective to accept that you're 
not doing science, you're doing literary criticism using the language 
of science in a metaphorical way. And my fundamental question about 
your endeavor is whether the language of science, used metaphorically 
to try to describe such subjective things as poems, or even 
"collections of words", is worth the effort.

Bob Grumman:
> > > (4)  While the texts I speak of are subject to
> > > interpretation, that interpretation is reduced, and need not have
> > > much or anything to do with interpretative fashions.<

Marcus Bales:
> > This is a claim to scientific objectivity for your system.<
 
Bob Grumman:
> No, it's to reasonable objectivity of the kind that takes "tree" to
> mean what just about all of us believe it does.<

But what a word means is subject to its context. A tree in the 
context of computers is a series of branching decision points and 
results, and entirely different than what just about all of us 
believe a tree is when we are out in nature. Tree can be used 
literally or metaphorically, and how it's used determines its meaning 
and its denotation. And we haven't even addressed connotation yet. 
The taxonomical problem with "collections of words" in a natural 
language is precisely that they are subject to context. You first 
have to taxonomize contexts before you can taxonomize groups of 
words. 
 




From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Wed Oct 29 15:53:10 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:53:10 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3F9CCBFF.30612.11CA02@localhost>
Message-ID: <010001c39e5e$a9ddb6a0$be7ffea9@j1c1k6>

Unless I'm losing it faster than I thought, this repeats your previous post,
Marcus.  I answered that in my post of 28 October to this thread.

--Bob G.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 7:40 AM
Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] MB / BG


> On 25 Oct 2003 at 6:49, Bob Grumman wrote:
> > Not to be pushy, Marcus, but are you still playing our game?  You
> > haven't answered my post of four days ago yet, so far as I know.
>
> > Bob Grumman's STATEMENT 1
> > "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) texts
> > concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> > majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant
> field
> > who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority
> of
> > the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> > and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with
> convincingly
> > advocating a point of view; (b) texts less concerned (according to
> a
> > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with convincingly
> > advocating a point of view than with conveying information to
> others
> > that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
> > reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with
> > eliciting an emotional response; (c) texts concerned more than
> > anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
> > readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts that
> > convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> > consensus of readers)."
> > END OF STATEMENT 1
>
> Marcus:
> >Opinions about poetry, as in all the other arts, are subjective, and
> > change according to intellectual fashions. The current fashion
> > consists largely of using scientific terms metaphorically to try to
> >imply a rigor of objective analysis where only reasonable inferences
> > apply.
>
> Bob:
> > I thought we agreed that your taks is to show where I'm unclear,
> > Marcus, not try to figure out what I'm trying to do and come out
> > against it.<
>
> Marcus:
> There is clarity of expression and clarity of thought, and one can
> express nonsense clearly and sense obscurely. One of the functions of
> revising for clarity of expression is that it often reveals where
> there is lack of clarity in thought. If you are serious about trying
> to do science in the humanities, about trying to construct a real
> taxonomy, a useful tool for any and every poetry audience or reader,
> clarity of thought is just as important as clarity of expression.
> If all you're trying to do is put forward your subjective notions
> about literature by using scientific terms such as "taxonomy" in a
> merely metaphorical sense, well, that's a different kind of essay.
>
> Which is it?
>
> Marcus:
> > >Textual expressions are mixtures of four kinds of authorial
> > >intention, none of them pure, and all of them subject to
> > >interpretive fashions. The basic palette of authorital
> > >intentions ... <<
>
> Bob:
> > You have me wrong in several ways.  (1) I'm speaking of verbal, not
> > textual, expression.<<
>
> Marcus:
> Then why do you keep referring to "texts"? Texts are not verbal
> expressions except in the most broadly metaphorical way, a way
> useless in the discussion of good tight definitions on which to rely
> for the weight of an entire taxonomy.
>
> Bob:
> >  (2) My descriptions have to do with the concerns
> > of various kinds of verbal expression, not with "authorial
> > intention,"  however much that will usually contribute to those
> > concerns.<<
>
> Marcus:
> You yourself have said that what determines whether something is
> "persuasive" or "informative" or "entertaining" or "meaningless" is
> not whether it actually persuades or informs or entertains or  is
> meaningless, but whether it was INTENDED to persuade or inform or
> entertain or mean nothing. If that is indeed the test, as you say it
> is, then your claim that you're evaluating "verbal expressions"
> without regard to authorial intention, while acknowledging that
> authorial intention will "contribute to" those concerns is not mere
> nonsense, it's nonsense in a clown suit.
>
> Bob:
> > (3) The texts I speak of can be mixtures or pure; I nowhere say or
> > imply that they are all mixtures. <<
>
> Marcus:
> I'm trying to point out that they MUST be mixtures, and you've
> implicitly agreed that they must in our conversation, by
> acknowledging that they cannot be "pure".  What is an example of a
> piece of "pure persuasion" or "pure entertainment"?  I grant you you
> may be able to come up with an example of "pure meaninglessness", but
> if examplars such as Hal Johnson and Marcel Duchamp are any
> indication, even pure meaninglessness is not without its
> entertainment value -- at least to the perpetrators.
>
> Bob:
> > (4)  While the texts I speak of are subject to interpretation, that
> > interpretation is reduced, and need not have much
> > or anything to do with interpretative fashions.<
>
> Marcus:
> This is a claim to scientific objectivity for your system. If you are
> serious about this claim you have a good deal more work to do
> definitionally and conceptually than I think you have done. If, on
> the other hand, this is merely jawboning, a sort of posturing in a
> scientific manner but without any intent to do science, then you are
> not on the path to a taxonomy in the first place.
>
> Marcus:
> > > (a) intention to advocate a point of view;
> > > (b) intention to convey factual or conceptual
> > > information
> > > (c) intention to elicit an emotional response; and
> > > (d) intention to convey nothing meaningful.
>
> Bob:
> > Intention has nothing to do with (d).<
>
> Marcus:
> Well the people who are trying to convey nothing meaningful make the
> claim that it is their intention to convey nothing meaningful, as I
> understand it.
>
> Marcus:
> > > The intentional claim of the author is contextual --
> > > and thus almost endlessly interpretable. Two
> > > zealots may each think they are expressing
> > > almost pure (b) while each of the opinion that the > other's
> > > expression is almost pure (d), for
> > > example.
>
> Bob:
> > You're suggesting an objection rather than addressing the issue of
> > clarity.
>
> Marcus:
> I'm addressing the underlying lack of clarity in your purposes, if I
> understand them correctly. It appears to me, from the contradictions
> with which you present your putative system that the biggest problem
> with clarity is not a matter of clarity of expression, but one of
> clarity of thought. You use the language of science without embracing
> the principles of science; you're presenting a sort of cargo-cult
> science, mistaking the carved wooden box for the reality of a radio.
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry



From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Thu Oct 30 06:38:52 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 12:38:52 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] Atlantic Studies
Message-ID: <007301c39eda$654cd8a0$ae607550@anny>

Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 12:53:35 +0000 (GMT Standard Time)
From: R.Follett at sussex.ac.uk (Richard Follett)

Atlantic Studies: Literary, Cultural and Historical Perspectives (New for
2004, Routledge)
Editors:
William Boelhower - University of Padova, Italy
Stephen Fender - University of Sussex, UK
Dorothea Fischer-Hornung - University of Heidelberg, Germany
Richard Follett - University of Sussex, UK
Maria Lauret - University of Sussex, UK
Aims and Scope:
Atlantic Studies provides an international forum for research and debate on
historical, cultural and literary issues arising within the new disciplinary
matrix of the circumatlantic world. In particular, it seeks to foster a
transcultural dialogue between the two hemispheres and, specifically, among
the nations of Europe, the Americas and Africa.
The Journal aims to celebrate the original Atlantic mappemonde: a highly
critical space, centered not on a single nation or land mass but on a new
cosmopolitan interchange of ships and peoples, cultures and texts, ideas and
tools.
Published on behalf of MESEA (The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe
and the Americas), the Journal aims to be an important site for scholarship
on the comparative study of multi-ethnic cultures and societies. It
challenges nationalist histories and literatures by focusing on the Atlantic
as an arena of cultural change and exchange, translation and interference,
communication and passage.
Atlantic Studies accordingly invites submissions in the areas of history,
cultural studies, critical theory, and literature from academics, public
intellectuals, contemporary commentators, and activists whose focus of
interest lies in circumatlantic perspectives. The Journal will also publish
work based on such visual materials as photography, film, and information
media. Each volume will also include book and media reviews.
Atlantic Studies encourages both scholarly research and timely critical
debate on current issues within its chosen paradigm. In as much as they
develop a comparative and intercultural perspective, essays on race, class,
gender, ethnicity and on human rights, citizenship and identity politics
will also be welcomed.
In the first instance, please send all contributions as Word 6 (95) or rich
text format email attachments to Stephen Fender, s.a.fender at sussex.ac.uk.
Articles should be no longer than 7,000 words.
Submissions should be in English, typed in double spacing (including all
notes and references).
Submission of a paper to the journal will be taken to imply that it presents
original, unpublished, work not under consideration for publication
elsewhere. By submitting a manuscript, the authors agree that the exclusive
rights to reproduce and distribute the article have been given to the
Publishers.
MESEA, The Society for Multi-Ethnic Studies: Europe and the Americas, was
founded in response to the challenge of ethnic studies in a time of
increasing globalization to provide an international forum for
interdisciplinary discussion on multi-ethnic studies. The Society promotes
the study of the ethnic cultures of Europe and the Americas in their
circumatlantic relations from a transdisciplinary literary, historical and
cultural studies perspective. The society acts as a forum for cooperation
between universities, political institutions and ethnic communities as well
as supports the scholarly and cultural exchange between them in order to
further multi-ethnic understanding. For more information:
http://www.mesea.org
Editorial Advisory Board
Mita Banerjee - University of Mainz, Germany
Rocio Davis - University of Navarra, Spain
Heike Raphael-Hernandez - University of Maryland in Europe, Germany
Marcus Wood - University of Sussex, UK
Editorial Board
Anne Bailey - Spelman College, USA
Antonio Benitez-Rojo - Amherst College, USA
Nicholas Canny - National University of Ireland, Galway, Ireland
Harry Elam - Stanford University, USA
Donna Gabaccia - University of Pittsburgh, USA
Paul Gilroy - Yale University, USA
Rick Halpern - University of Toronto, Canada
Alfred Hornung - University of Mainz, Germany
G?nter Lenz - Humboldt University, Germany
Fran?oise Lionnet University of California at Los Angeles, USA
Paul Lovejoy York University, Canada
Achille Mbembe - University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa
Walter Mignolo - Duke University, USA
Marcus Rediker - University of Pittsburgh, USA
Epifanio San Juan - Philippines Cultural Studies Center, USA
Verene Shepherd - University of the West Indies, Jamaica
Wolf-Dietrich Sahr - Federal University of Paran?, Brazil
Werner Sollors - Harvard University, USA


Dr. Richard Follett,
American Studies,
University of Sussex,
Brighton BN1 9QN,
U.K.
Tel: 44-1273-877365
r.follett at sussex.ac.ukwww.sussex.ac.uk/americanstudies


Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
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From marcus at designerglass.com  Thu Oct 30 07:15:36 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 07:15:36 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <010001c39e5e$a9ddb6a0$be7ffea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3FA0BA98.22728.D307E@localhost>

On 29 Oct 2003 at 15:53, Bob Grumman wrote:
> Unless I'm losing it faster than I thought, this repeats your previous
> post, Marcus.  I answered that in my post of 28 October to this
> thread.
> --Bob G.

You asked at least twice whether I was still in this discussion; each 
time I reposted this post. I have now (10/29) responded to your 
response, which I will repost below.

I'm not sure why you seem not to be getting the NewPoetry email, Bob, 
but it seems to be an email problem at your end. I get all your 
requests to me to answer you, and copies of all my answers to you.

Marcus

> > > STATEMENT 1
> > > "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) 
texts
> > > concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> > > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of 
the
> > > majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the 
relevant
> > field
> > > who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the
> > > majority
> > of
> > > the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts'
> > > opinions and who have themselves examined the matter concur) 
with
> > convincingly
> > > advocating a point of view; (b) texts less concerned (according 
to
> > a
> > > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with convincingly
> > > advocating a point of view than with conveying information to
> > others
> > > that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
> > > reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than 
with
> > > eliciting an emotional response; (c) texts concerned more than
> > > anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus 
of
> > > readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts 
that
> > > convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably 
trustworthy
> > > consensus of readers)." END OF STATEMENT 1

Marcus:
> > There is clarity of expression and clarity of thought, and one 
can
> > express nonsense clearly and sense obscurely. One of the 
functions
> > of revising for clarity of expression is that it often reveals 
where
> > there is lack of clarity in thought. If you are serious about 
trying
> > to do science in the humanities, about trying to construct a real
> > taxonomy, a useful tool for any and every poetry audience or 
reader,
> > clarity of thought is just as important as clarity of expression.

Bob Grumman: 
> Forget about what I'm trying to do and say where my text is 
unclear,
> if it is.

But Bob, that's like saying "Forget about whether my religious belief 

is true and say where my text is unclear, if it is." The purpose of 
the text is to propound the religious belief, or, in your case, your 
position or view of poetry -- so there is no reasonable way I can see 

to separate what you're trying to do and where your text is unclear, 
for the clearer you make your text the clearer you make your message -

- even if your message is not, itself, clearly thought out, in my 
view.

Marcus Bales:
> > If all you're trying to do is put forward your subjective notions
> > about literature by using scientific terms such as "taxonomy" in 
a
> > merely metaphorical sense, well, that's a different kind of 
essay.
> > Which is it?
 
Bob Grumman:
> I do not use the word, "taxonomy," in my statement, and my 
statement
> is all we're concerned with right now.  However, I believe I would
> title the piece my statement begins, An Attempt At A Taxonomy Of
> Literature," so if you want to question the clarity of that, go 
ahead.
>  I feel a title for this kind of work need not be wholly 
unambiguous,
> only not misleading, myself.  The text that follows should render 
it
> entirely clear.<<

Yes, I agree with this -- but what I think needs to be clear is 
whether you are making a scientific utterance or a metaphorical one: 
is your "attempt at a taxonomy" an attempt to do science or to do 
literary criticism?

Bob Grumman: 
> > >  (2) My descriptions have to do with the concerns
> > > of various kinds of verbal expression, not with "authorial
> > intention,"
> > > however much that will usually contribute to those concerns.<<

Marcus Bales:
> > You yourself have said that what determines whether something is
> > "persuasive" or "informative" or "entertaining" or "meaningless" 
is
> > not whether it actually persuades or informs, but whether it was
> > INTENDED to persuade or inform or entertain or mean nothing. If 
that
> > is indeed the test, as you say it is, then your claim that you're
> > evaluating "verbal expressions" without regard to authorial
> > intention, while acknowledging that authorial intention will
> > "contribute to" those concerns is not mere nonsense, it's 
nonsense
> > in a clown suit.
 
Bob Grumman:
> Have I expressed that point clearly?  That is the only question, 
for
> right now.

Well, if you were trying to express nonsense in a clown suit, then 
sure, your utterance is clownishly nonsensical. 

Bob Grumman:
> Nothing can be pure, I suspect, but a great many things are
> sufficiently close to it to be accepted by reasonable people as
> "pure."  Hence, "lighght," is purely intended to elicit an 
emotional
> response.  "Vote for Arnie" is pure advocacy.  "Oxygen has a higher
> atomic weight than hydrogen," is purely intended to convey
> information....<<

But there you go again with "purely intended"! You are arguing on the 

one hand that authorial intention is no part of your program while 
using authorial intention exclusively to sort parts of your program 
out from other parts. That's a direct contradiction, Bob: you can't 
reasonably at one and the same time say that authorial intention has 
no part in determining the category in which an utterance belongs and 

use authorial intention to determine the category in which an 
utterance belongs.

I see, and sympathize with, your difficulty, of course, since 
"lighght" in one context is a typo and in another is a poem, just as 
"Vote for Arnie" in one context is advocacy and in another a sarcasm. 

Your problem is that a natural language admits of all kinds of 
interpretations of almost any given phrase, even of a lot of 
individual words, depending on the context in which it is used. It's 
tough to taxonomize when the constitutent parts of what one is trying 

to taxonomize keep shifting and changing categories even as you 
hasten to try to broaden or narrow the categories.

This is the central problem of any attempt to taxonomize the 
subjective: you are really compelled by what appears to me to be the 
impossibility of taxonomizing the subjective to accept that you're 
not doing science, you're doing literary criticism using the language 

of science in a metaphorical way. And my fundamental question about 
your endeavor is whether the language of science, used metaphorically 

to try to describe such subjective things as poems, or even 
"collections of words", is worth the effort.

Bob Grumman:
> > > (4)  While the texts I speak of are subject to
> > > interpretation, that interpretation is reduced, and need not 
have
> > > much or anything to do with interpretative fashions.<

Marcus Bales:
> > This is a claim to scientific objectivity for your system.<
 
Bob Grumman:
> No, it's to reasonable objectivity of the kind that takes "tree" to
> mean what just about all of us believe it does.<

But what a word means is subject to its context. A tree in the 
context of computers is a series of branching decision points and 
results, and entirely different than what just about all of us 
believe a tree is when we are out in nature. Tree can be used 
literally or metaphorically, and how it's used determines its meaning 

and its denotation. And we haven't even addressed connotation yet. 
The taxonomical problem with "collections of words" in a natural 
language is precisely that they are subject to context. You first 
have to taxonomize contexts before you can taxonomize groups of 
words. 
 





> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Marcus Bales" <marcus at designerglass.com>
> To: <new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 7:40 AM
> Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] MB / BG
> 
> 
> > On 25 Oct 2003 at 6:49, Bob Grumman wrote:
> > > Not to be pushy, Marcus, but are you still playing our game?  You
> > > haven't answered my post of four days ago yet, so far as I know.
> >
> > > Bob Grumman's STATEMENT 1
> > > "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) texts
> > > concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> > > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> > > majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant
> > field
> > > who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the
> > > majority
> > of
> > > the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts'
> > > opinions and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with
> > convincingly
> > > advocating a point of view; (b) texts less concerned (according to
> > a
> > > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with convincingly
> > > advocating a point of view than with conveying information to
> > others
> > > that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
> > > reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with
> > > eliciting an emotional response; (c) texts concerned more than
> > > anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
> > > readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts that
> > > convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> > > consensus of readers)." END OF STATEMENT 1
> >
> > Marcus:
> > >Opinions about poetry, as in all the other arts, are subjective,
> > >and
> > > change according to intellectual fashions. The current fashion
> > > consists largely of using scientific terms metaphorically to try
> > > to
> > >imply a rigor of objective analysis where only reasonable
> > >inferences
> > > apply.
> >
> > Bob:
> > > I thought we agreed that your taks is to show where I'm unclear,
> > > Marcus, not try to figure out what I'm trying to do and come out
> > > against it.<
> >
> > Marcus:
> > There is clarity of expression and clarity of thought, and one can
> > express nonsense clearly and sense obscurely. One of the functions
> > of revising for clarity of expression is that it often reveals where
> > there is lack of clarity in thought. If you are serious about trying
> > to do science in the humanities, about trying to construct a real
> > taxonomy, a useful tool for any and every poetry audience or reader,
> > clarity of thought is just as important as clarity of expression. If
> > all you're trying to do is put forward your subjective notions about
> > literature by using scientific terms such as "taxonomy" in a merely
> > metaphorical sense, well, that's a different kind of essay.
> >
> > Which is it?
> >
> > Marcus:
> > > >Textual expressions are mixtures of four kinds of authorial
> > > >intention, none of them pure, and all of them subject to
> > > >interpretive fashions. The basic palette of authorital
> > > >intentions ... <<
> >
> > Bob:
> > > You have me wrong in several ways.  (1) I'm speaking of verbal,
> > > not textual, expression.<<
> >
> > Marcus:
> > Then why do you keep referring to "texts"? Texts are not verbal
> > expressions except in the most broadly metaphorical way, a way
> > useless in the discussion of good tight definitions on which to rely
> > for the weight of an entire taxonomy.
> >
> > Bob:
> > >  (2) My descriptions have to do with the concerns
> > > of various kinds of verbal expression, not with "authorial
> > > intention,"  however much that will usually contribute to those
> > > concerns.<<
> >
> > Marcus:
> > You yourself have said that what determines whether something is
> > "persuasive" or "informative" or "entertaining" or "meaningless" is
> > not whether it actually persuades or informs or entertains or  is
> > meaningless, but whether it was INTENDED to persuade or inform or
> > entertain or mean nothing. If that is indeed the test, as you say it
> > is, then your claim that you're evaluating "verbal expressions"
> > without regard to authorial intention, while acknowledging that
> > authorial intention will "contribute to" those concerns is not mere
> > nonsense, it's nonsense in a clown suit.
> >
> > Bob:
> > > (3) The texts I speak of can be mixtures or pure; I nowhere say or
> > > imply that they are all mixtures. <<
> >
> > Marcus:
> > I'm trying to point out that they MUST be mixtures, and you've
> > implicitly agreed that they must in our conversation, by
> > acknowledging that they cannot be "pure".  What is an example of a
> > piece of "pure persuasion" or "pure entertainment"?  I grant you you
> > may be able to come up with an example of "pure meaninglessness",
> > but if examplars such as Hal Johnson and Marcel Duchamp are any
> > indication, even pure meaninglessness is not without its
> > entertainment value -- at least to the perpetrators.
> >
> > Bob:
> > > (4)  While the texts I speak of are subject to interpretation,
> > > that interpretation is reduced, and need not have much or anything
> > > to do with interpretative fashions.<
> >
> > Marcus:
> > This is a claim to scientific objectivity for your system. If you
> > are serious about this claim you have a good deal more work to do
> > definitionally and conceptually than I think you have done. If, on
> > the other hand, this is merely jawboning, a sort of posturing in a
> > scientific manner but without any intent to do science, then you are
> > not on the path to a taxonomy in the first place.
> >
> > Marcus:
> > > > (a) intention to advocate a point of view;
> > > > (b) intention to convey factual or conceptual
> > > > information
> > > > (c) intention to elicit an emotional response; and
> > > > (d) intention to convey nothing meaningful.
> >
> > Bob:
> > > Intention has nothing to do with (d).<
> >
> > Marcus:
> > Well the people who are trying to convey nothing meaningful make the
> > claim that it is their intention to convey nothing meaningful, as I
> > understand it.
> >
> > Marcus:
> > > > The intentional claim of the author is contextual --
> > > > and thus almost endlessly interpretable. Two
> > > > zealots may each think they are expressing
> > > > almost pure (b) while each of the opinion that the > other's
> > > > expression is almost pure (d), for example.
> >
> > Bob:
> > > You're suggesting an objection rather than addressing the issue of
> > > clarity.
> >
> > Marcus:
> > I'm addressing the underlying lack of clarity in your purposes, if I
> > understand them correctly. It appears to me, from the contradictions
> > with which you present your putative system that the biggest problem
> > with clarity is not a matter of clarity of expression, but one of
> > clarity of thought. You use the language of science without
> > embracing the principles of science; you're presenting a sort of
> > cargo-cult science, mistaking the carved wooden box for the reality
> > of a radio.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > New-Poetry mailing list
> > New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 
> _______________________________________________
> New-Poetry mailing list
> New-Poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry
> 





From anny.ballardini at tin.it  Thu Oct 30 16:52:22 2003
From: anny.ballardini at tin.it (Anny Ballardini)
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 22:52:22 +0100
Subject: [New-Poetry] bilingual context
Message-ID: <021201c39f30$19b8e4a0$21607550@anny>

context

 

it was not worth to ascend again to the borders

of the concave context the perspective of which contradicted its volume since we were climbing through the palimpsest

slowly

repetitive our steps

on the half-empty agenda signs were canceled and re-proposed several numbers away

always even numbers

in the organization of time we were not given the possibility of something else

 

you see, said the anarchic,

we who do not love brown cubism, is it maybe a Braque or a Picasso

& under the Picasso how many other Picassos are there?

we?re not listening or like to have our heads filled

because of minds projections of other minds

 

originality is lacking

since the origin

 

in the temple of Fourwinds

four seasons

 

on the phone:

a seller of medieval encyclopedias

one thirsty of truth

one made desperate by his soul

 

on the same floor:

the mafioso of the local scene 

the intriguer and her round bum

 

at dinner:

burnt barley in a burnt pan

 

 

contesto

 

di certo non valeva risalire i bordi

del concavo contesto la cui prospettiva ne contraddiceva il volume visto che ci si alzava attraverso il palinsesto

lenti

ripetitivi i passi

sull?agenda semi-vuota i segni venivano cancellati e riproposti uguali qualche numero pi? in l?

numeri sempre pari

neppure nell?organizzazione del tempo avremo avuto la possibilit? di altro

 

vedi disse l?anarchico

noi che non amiamo il cubismo confuso, ? forse un Braque o un Picasso

e sotto il Picasso quanti altri Picassi ci sono?

non stiamo pi? ad ascoltare n? a farci riempire la mente

dato che di menti proiezioni di altre menti

 

manca l?originalit?

dall?origine

 

nel tempio dei Quattroventi

quattro stagioni

 

al telefono

un venditore di enciclopedie medievali

un assetato di verit?

un disperato dall'anima

 

sullo stesso pianerottolo

il mafioso del contesto locale

l?intrigante dal culo tondo

 

cena

orzo perlato bruciato nella pentola bruciata

 

 

Anny Ballardini

http://www.fieralingue.it/poetcorner/index.php

Android, loving beggar, dive to the poor
(from Mantis)
Louis Zukofsky
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From halvard at earthlink.net  Thu Oct 30 18:10:07 2003
From: halvard at earthlink.net (Halvard Johnson)
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 18:10:07 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: James Tate, "A More Prosperous Nation"
Message-ID: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIECLHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>

A More Prosperous Nation

	When I went out to weed my garden, I found a wild
baby in it. It snarled at me, and I ran. I had read that
they were becoming a problem in this part of the state. No
one knew where they came from, but they were known to be
incredibly quick and vicious. I went back in the house
and locked the door. Through the kitchen window, I watched
it eat a dozen tomatoes. Then it threw up, and started
eating more. I was a disgusting little creature. The
article I had read advised shooting them on sight "to stop
the epidemic." The creature was eating my flowers by the
fistful. Then it rolled around in the dirt, laughing.
I dialed 911 and reported the wild baby. "Stay in your house.
Do not leave your house," the woman said. Two minutes
later there was a squad car in my driveway. The officers
got out with their shotguns. I didn't want to watch the
slaughter, so I went into the living room and picked up the
paper, but of course I couldn't read. I waited tensely
for the explosions. I waited and waited, but there were none.
I went to the kitchen window and looked around. There were
no officers in sight, and no wild baby. I walked around
the house, peering through each window. Nothing, save for
the police car in my driveway with its cherry light still
turning. Of course I had been told not to leave the house
under any circumstances, but this was too much. I didn't own
a gun, so I grabbed a long, sharp kitchen knife. Near the
garden, the grass was stained with blood, and there was
evidence of a tremendous struggle. I was shaking as I
prowled around the house. I figured the baby had eaten the
two policemen and would now be quite huge, but perhaps it
would be sleepy, too, after such a giant meal. It couldn't
still be hungry, or was I kidding myself? I finished circling
the house without incident. The officers were sitting on my
door stoop having a smoke. "I thought the thing had eaten
both of you," I said. "Nice place you've got here," one of
them said. "That wasn't a real wild baby," the other one
said. "That was just a baby someone didn't want. They're
a dime a dozen. Most of them learn to get by on their own,
but, of course, some don't make it." "What about the blood
in the yard?" I said. "It took a bite out of my ankle, nothing
serious," he said. "And where did it go?" I asked. "It was
too fast. We didn't see where it went. It will probably be
back, but it's nothing to worry about," he said. "But it's
my home," I said. "I need to feel safe, my garden." "Share
the bounty," the first officer said. "You've got plenty to
go around. They're only babies, you know."

--James Tate

in *Jubilat* #5, Spring/Summer 2002



Hal         

Halvard Johnson
===============
email: halvard at earthlink.net
website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Thu Oct 30 18:32:39 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 18:32:39 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3FA0BA98.22728.D307E@localhost>
Message-ID: <024001c39f3e$1c5001e0$2a6dfea9@j1c1k6>

> I'm not sure why you seem not to be getting the NewPoetry email, Bob,
> but it seems to be an email problem at your end. I get all your
> requests to me to answer you, and copies of all my answers to you.
>
> Marcus

I think all is okay now.  Someone said electrical storms in the midwest were
screwing up some e.mail transmissions.  Someone else I know was having
similar problems that are now cleared up, too.

STATEMENT 1 (slightly revised)_
"Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) collections of
words concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the majority of
a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant field who have examined
the matter, and with whose judgement the majority of the educated
non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions and who have
themselves examined the matter concur) with
convincingly advocating a point of view; (b) collections of words less
concerned (according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying information to
others that will increase their factual and/or conceptual knowledge of
reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than with eliciting
an emotional response; (c) collections of words concerned more than anything
else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts
 that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
consensus of readers)." END OF STATEMENT 1

> Bob Grumman:
> > Forget about what I'm trying to do and say where my text is
> unclear,
> > if it is.
>
> But Bob, that's like saying "Forget about whether my religious belief is
true and say where my text is unclear, if it is."

Sure.

>The purpose of
> the text is to propound the religious belief, or, in your case, your
> position or view of poetry -- so there is no reasonable way I can see to
separate what you're trying to do and where your text is unclear,
for the clearer you make your text the clearer you make your message - -
even if your message is >not, itself, clearly thought out, in my view.

As I see it, if I say, "I believe horses turn into cows every seven years,"
you don't have to consider whether my statement is true or not in order to
say whether it is clear or not.  5 + 7 = 75846 is a perfectly clear false
statement.  Etc.  In other words, you've lost me.

> Marcus Bales:
> > > If all you're trying to do is put forward your subjective notions
> > > about literature by using scientific terms such as "taxonomy" in
> a
> > > merely metaphorical sense, well, that's a different kind of
> essay.
> > > Which is it?
>
> Bob Grumman:
> > I do not use the word, "taxonomy," in my statement, and my
> statement
> > is all we're concerned with right now.  However, I believe I would
> > title the piece my statement begins, An Attempt At A Taxonomy Of
> > Literature," so if you want to question the clarity of that, go
> ahead.
> >  I feel a title for this kind of work need not be wholly
> unambiguous,
> > only not misleading, myself.  The text that follows should render
> it
> > entirely clear.<<
>
> Yes, I agree with this -- but what I think needs to be clear is
> whether you are making a scientific utterance or a metaphorical one:
> is your "attempt at a taxonomy" an attempt to do science or to do
> literary criticism?

I say that for right now the only thing that needs to be clear is the first
statement.  I don't want to get into definitions of "science" and "literary
criticism" and "taxonomy" right now because to do so would get this
investigation or whatever it is far too tangled to be useful.  And I don't
see why I need to define terms not in my opening statement in order for you
to decided whether the latter is clear or not.

> Bob Grumman:
> > > >  (2) My descriptions have to do with the concerns
> > > > of various kinds of verbal expression, not with "authorial
> > > intention,"
> > > > however much that will usually contribute to those concerns.<<
>
> Marcus Bales:
> > > You yourself have said that what determines whether something is
> > > "persuasive" or "informative" or "entertaining" or "meaningless"
> is
> > > not whether it actually persuades or informs, but whether it was
> > > INTENDED to persuade or inform or entertain or mean nothing. If
> that
> > > is indeed the test, as you say it is, then your claim that you're
> > > evaluating "verbal expressions" without regard to authorial
> > > intention, while acknowledging that authorial intention will
> > > "contribute to" those concerns is not mere nonsense, it's
> nonsense
> > > in a clown suit.
>
> Bob Grumman:
> > Have I expressed that point clearly?  That is the only question,
> for
> > right now.
>
> Well, if you were trying to express nonsense in a clown suit, then
> sure, your utterance is clownishly nonsensical.

What is relevant is Statement 1, which you confused me into forgetting.  Is
THAT clownish nonsense?  That would make it not capable of being understood,
or unclear.  If that is the case, can you (at least partially) say why?

> Bob Grumman:
> > Nothing can be pure, I suspect, but a great many things are
> > sufficiently close to it to be accepted by reasonable people as
> > "pure."  Hence, "lighght," is purely intended to elicit an
> emotional
> > response.  "Vote for Arnie" is pure advocacy.  "Oxygen has a higher
> > atomic weight than hydrogen," is purely intended to convey
> > information....<<
>
> But there you go again with "purely intended"! You are arguing on the
>
> one hand that authorial intention is no part of your program while
> using authorial intention exclusively to sort parts of your program
> out from other parts. That's a direct contradiction, Bob: you can't
> reasonably at one and the same time say that authorial intention has
> no part in determining the category in which an utterance belongs and
>
> use authorial intention to determine the category in which an
> utterance belongs.

Forget authorial intention.  Let's get back to the only task we are supposed
to be working toward: determining whether my statement is clear or not.

> I see, and sympathize with, your difficulty, of course, since
> "lighght" in one context is a typo and in another is a poem, just as
> "Vote for Arnie" in one context is advocacy and in another a sarcasm.

> Your problem is that a natural language admits of all kinds of
> interpretations of almost any given phrase, even of a lot of
> individual words, depending on the context in which it is used. It's
> tough to taxonomize when the constitutent parts of what one is trying
>
> to taxonomize keep shifting and changing categories even as you
> hasten to try to broaden or narrow the categories.
>
> This is the central problem of any attempt to taxonomize the
> subjective: you are really compelled by what appears to me to be the
> impossibility of taxonomizing the subjective to accept that you're
> not doing science, you're doing literary criticism using the language
>
> of science in a metaphorical way. And my fundamental question about
> your endeavor is whether the language of science, used metaphorically
>
> to try to describe such subjective things as poems, or even
> "collections of words", is worth the effort.

No, it is not worth the effort, Marcus.  But that is irrelevant.  You agreed
to show how my statements were unclear, if they are, one by one.  I don't
believe you are trying to do this.


> Bob Grumman:
> > > > (4)  While the texts I speak of are subject to
> > > > interpretation, that interpretation is reduced, and need not
> have
> > > > much or anything to do with interpretative fashions.<
>
> Marcus Bales:
> > > This is a claim to scientific objectivity for your system.<
>
> Bob Grumman:
> > No, it's to reasonable objectivity of the kind that takes "tree" to
> > mean what just about all of us believe it does.<
>
> But what a word means is subject to its context. A tree in the
> context of computers is a series of branching decision points and
> results, and entirely different than what just about all of us
> believe a tree is when we are out in nature. Tree can be used
> literally or metaphorically, and how it's used determines its meaning
>
> and its denotation. And we haven't even addressed connotation yet.
> The taxonomical problem with "collections of words" in a natural
> language is precisely that they are subject to context. You first
> have to taxonomize contexts before you can taxonomize groups of
> words.

Okay, are you telling me that in order for you to decide whether Statement 1
is clear or not, I must provide you with a second statement that defines the
context of Statement 1?

SNIP of no longer current material (so far as I know)

--Bob G.

--Bob G.



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Thu Oct 30 18:45:03 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 16:45:03 -0700
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: James Tate, "A More Prosperous Nation"
References: <KOECIOJIGMDEJAEGDFJEIECLHKAA.halvard@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <3FA1A27E.1E576390@earthlink.net>


Halvard Johnson wrote:
> 
> A More Prosperous Nation
> 
>         When I went out to weed my garden, I found a wild
> baby in it. It snarled at me, and I ran. I had read that
> they were becoming a problem in this part of the state. 

I'm incapable of suspending disbelief at this point.

- Jim


From wjbat at conncoll.edu  Thu Oct 30 22:40:17 2003
From: wjbat at conncoll.edu (Wendy Battin)
Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 22:40:17 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: James Tate, "A More Prosperous Nation"
In-Reply-To: <3FA1A27E.1E576390@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <F2089DEC-0B53-11D8-A603-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>

On Thursday, October 30, 2003, at 06:45 PM, James Cervantes wrote:
> Halvard Johnson wrote:
>>
>> A More Prosperous Nation
>>
>>         When I went out to weed my garden, I found a wild
>> baby in it. It snarled at me, and I ran. I had read that
>> they were becoming a problem in this part of the state.
>
> I'm incapable of suspending disbelief at this point.

I don't think Tate is after suspension of disbelief, Jim.

Wendy


Wendy Battin
wjbat at conncoll.edu

                I have seen the builder of the house.
                                                     --Gautama Buddha



From jvcervantes at earthlink.net  Fri Oct 31 07:40:12 2003
From: jvcervantes at earthlink.net (James Cervantes)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 05:40:12 -0700
Subject: [crewrt-l] [New-Poetry] Poems by others: James Tate, "A More 
 Prosperous Nation"
References: <F2089DEC-0B53-11D8-A603-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu>
Message-ID: <3FA2582C.9821B5FE@earthlink.net>


Wendy Battin wrote:
> 
> On Thursday, October 30, 2003, at 06:45 PM, James Cervantes wrote:
> > Halvard Johnson wrote:
> >>
> >> A More Prosperous Nation
> >>
> >>         When I went out to weed my garden, I found a wild
> >> baby in it. It snarled at me, and I ran. I had read that
> >> they were becoming a problem in this part of the state.
> >
> > I'm incapable of suspending disbelief at this point.
> 
> I don't think Tate is after suspension of disbelief, Jim.
> 
> Wendy

O.K..  I couldn't believe this poem after reading the first three
sentences.  Cartoon cleverness.

- Jim


From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct 31 07:50:26 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 07:50:26 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <024001c39f3e$1c5001e0$2a6dfea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3FA21442.17718.10935E@localhost>

> STATEMENT 1 (slightly revised)_
> "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) collections
> of words concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant field
> who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority of
> the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with convincingly
> advocating a point of view; (b) collections of words less concerned
> (according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
> convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
> information to others that will increase their factual and/or
> conceptual knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with
> the latter than with eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections
> of words concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably
> trustworthy consensus of readers) with eliciting an emotional
> response; and (d) texts
>  that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> consensus of readers)." END OF STATEMENT 1

Bob Grumman: 
> As I see it, if I say, "I believe horses turn into cows every seven
> years," you don't have to consider whether my statement is true or not
> in order to say whether it is clear or not.  5 + 7 = 75846 is a
> perfectly clear false statement.  Etc.  In other words, you've lost
> me.<<

But unless your position is that you don't care in the least whether 
your position about a taxonomy of poetry is true or false so long as 
it's clear, that's a pretty silly position to take. The goal is 
freely to say what you mean, not to get trapped into meaning what you 
say.

> I say that for right now the only thing that needs to be clear is the
> first statement.  I don't want to get into definitions of "science"
> and "literary criticism" and "taxonomy" right now because to do so
> would get this investigation or whatever it is far too tangled to be
> useful.  And I don't see why I need to define terms not in my opening
> statement in order for you to decided whether the latter is clear or
> not.<

Because context counts for so much in natural languages, Bob. Whether 
your Statement One is clear or not depends on whether you're trying 
to do science or literary criticism -- it depends on the context. The 
standards for clarity in literary criticism, or even for cogency, or 
even for coherence, are much lower than those in science. So the 
question remains: are you trying to do science or literary criticism?

> What is relevant is Statement 1, which you confused me into
> forgetting.  Is THAT clownish nonsense?  That would make it not
> capable of being understood, or unclear.  If that is the case, can you
> (at least partially) say why?<<

Well, whether Statement One is clownish nonsense or not is in part 
necessarily determined by its context -- that is to say, how you 
intend to mean it; how you intend it to be taken. Do you intend it to 
be science or literary criticism?

> Forget authorial intention.  Let's get back to the only task we are
> supposed to be working toward: determining whether my statement is
> clear or not.

But authorial intention is of the essence, it seems to me -- and it 
seems to be of the essence to you, too, to judge from the way you 
rely on it.  You are the author of Statement One: do you intend it to 
be science or literary criticism?
 
> ... You
> agreed to show how my statements were unclear, if they are, one by
> one.  I don't believe you are trying to do this.

I am indeed trying to show whether Statement One, at least, is clear 
or unclear -- but in order to do so I have to know its context: is it 
intended to be science or literary criticism?

> Okay, are you telling me that in order for you to decide whether
> Statement 1 is clear or not, I must provide you with a second
> statement that defines the context of Statement 1?

Context is part of meaning, Bob -- we don't disagree about this, do 
we? Words or phrases or whole statements can be taken out of context 
and made to seem to mean something diametrically opposed to what the 
speaker meant to say -- do you agree with that?
 
That's why I asked, and continue to ask, whether your Statement One 
is intended to be science or literary criticism. Which is it?





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct 31 09:22:26 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 09:22:26 -0500
Subject: [crewrt-l] [New-Poetry] Poems by others: James Tate, "A More Prosperous Nation"
References: <F2089DEC-0B53-11D8-A603-000A9573C758@conncoll.edu> <3FA2582C.9821B5FE@earthlink.net>
Message-ID: <01d301c39fba$699965a0$334cfea9@j1c1k6>

I thought it a mildly comic piece of prose.

--Bob G.



From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct 31 09:42:26 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 09:42:26 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3FA21442.17718.10935E@localhost>
Message-ID: <01db01c39fbd$343c2ca0$334cfea9@j1c1k6>

> > STATEMENT 1 (slightly revised)_
> > "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) collections
> > of words concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
> > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
> > majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant field
> > who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority of
> > the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
> > and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with convincingly
> > advocating a point of view; (b) collections of words less concerned
> > (according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
> > convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
> > information to others that will increase their factual and/or
> > conceptual knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with
> > the latter than with eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections
> > of words concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably
> > trustworthy consensus of readers) with eliciting an emotional
> > response; and (d) texts
> >  that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
> > consensus of readers)." END OF STATEMENT 1
>
> Bob Grumman:
> > As I see it, if I say, "I believe horses turn into cows every seven
> > years," you don't have to consider whether my statement is true or not
> > in order to say whether it is clear or not.  5 + 7 = 75846 is a
> > perfectly clear false statement.  Etc.

Would you ask for context to determine the clarity of the statement, by
itself, "5 + 7 = 75846?"

> > In other words, you've lost me.
>
> But unless your position is that you don't care in the least whether
> your position about a taxonomy of poetry is true or false so long as
> it's clear, that's a pretty silly position to take.

What we are discussing here is my position that my taxonomy is clearly
stated.  Whether it is true or false is another question we agreed to put
aside until determining whether my taxonomy was clear or not.

>The goal is freely to say what you mean, not to get trapped into meaning
what you say.

I believe I am saying what I mean clearly.  If not, you agreed to tell me in
what way I was not clear, if you could.

> > I say that for right now the only thing that needs to be clear is the
> > first statement.  I don't want to get into definitions of "science"
> > and "literary criticism" and "taxonomy" right now because to do so
> > would get this investigation or whatever it is far too tangled to be
> > useful.  And I don't see why I need to define terms not in my opening
> > statement in order for you to decided whether the latter is clear or
> > not.<
>
> Because context counts for so much in natural languages, Bob. Whether
> your Statement One is clear or not depends on whether you're trying
> to do science or literary criticism -- it depends on the context. The
> standards for clarity in literary criticism, or even for cogency, or
> even for coherence, are much lower than those in science. So the
> question remains: are you trying to do science or literary criticism?

I am trying to clearly state something.  Have I or have I not?  And why do
you have such an urge to change the subject?

> > What is relevant is Statement 1, which you confused me into
> > forgetting.  Is THAT clownish nonsense?  That would make it not
> > capable of being understood, or unclear.  If that is the case, can you
> > (at least partially) say why?<<
>
> Well, whether Statement One is clownish nonsense or not is in part
> necessarily determined by its context -- that is to say, how you
> intend to mean it; how you intend it to be taken. Do you intend it to
> be science or literary criticism?

I can't tell you that, Marcus, without making a new first statement.  I,
myself, reading my first statement, would guess that its intention was to
distinguish four forms of verbal expression from one another.

> > Forget authorial intention.  Let's get back to the only task we are
> > supposed to be working toward: determining whether my statement is
> > clear or not.
>
> But authorial intention is of the essence, it seems to me -- and it
> seems to be of the essence to you, too, to judge from the way you
> rely on it.  You are the author of Statement One: do you intend it to
> be science or literary criticism?

It seems to me that's something for someone else to decide after I've
finished saying what my taxonomy is.

> > ... You
> > agreed to show how my statements were unclear, if they are, one by
> > one.  I don't believe you are trying to do this.
>
> I am indeed trying to show whether Statement One, at least, is clear
> or unclear -- but in order to do so I have to know its context: is it
> intended to be science or literary criticism?
>
> > Okay, are you telling me that in order for you to decide whether
> > Statement 1 is clear or not, I must provide you with a second
> > statement that defines the context of Statement 1?
>
> Context is part of meaning, Bob -- we don't disagree about this, do
> we?

Why can't you answer my question?

>Words or phrases or whole statements can be taken out of context
> and made to seem to mean something diametrically opposed to what the
> speaker meant to say -- do you agree with that?

Yes, Marcus, I agree with that.  My first statement has no context, unless
you count the title I added, because it is a first statement.  Or it is its
own context.

> That's why I asked, and continue to ask, whether your Statement One
> is intended to be science or literary criticism. Which is it?

I feel that you've bullied me into making this the kind of debate you want
by refusing to tell me simply whether my statement is clear or not, and if
not, how so.  But because it would seem that you are going to keep firing
this stupid question at me, here is my tentative response: I consider my
statement to be the first statement of an attempt to construct a taxonomy of
literature that is rational, thorough, and sufficiently objective to satisfy
any reasonable person.  I believe I am working in the field of asthetics,
but don't know for sure, and don't much care.

I hope you will note that I don't try to force you to define "science" and
"literary criticism," and demand that you show why they are opposites, etc.,
the way I'm sure you would have if our places in this discussion were
reversed.

--Bob G.



From JforJames at aol.com  Fri Oct 31 14:17:29 2003
From: JforJames at aol.com (JforJames at aol.com)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 14:17:29 EST
Subject: [New-Poetry] New(s) from the Zoo - A Zoo celebration at the New School in NYC on 11/6!
Message-ID: <181.227c90d4.2cd40f49@aol.com>

Press Release, 10/30/03 - For Immediate Release

1.)  Please come and help us celebrate Zoo Press' second anniversary with
brief readings by our 2003 writers
http://www.zoopress.org/zoo_invitation03.html

"An Evening with Zoo Press"
November 6, 2003, 7 p.m.
The New School
Tishman Auditorium
66 West 12th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenue)
New York, New York, 10011

Free admission, wine reception to follow



2.) The fall books are here:

Talvikki Ansel's JETTY AND OTHER POEMS
http://www.zoopress.org/Ansel.html


Nicole Cuddbeback's THE SAINT OF BURNING DOWN
http://www.zoopress.org/cuddeback.html


Ben Downing's THE CALLIGRAPHY SHOP
http://www.zoopress.org/downing.html

Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei's  AFTER THE PALACE BURNS
Winner of the 2002 Paris Review Prize in Poetry
http://www.zoopress.org/Gosetti-Ferencei.html



3.) We're pleased to announce the year 2003 Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry
winner, Randall Mann's COMPLAINT IN THE GARDEN.

Randall Mann was born in Provo, Utah, and grew up in Kentucky and Florida.
He was educated at the University of Florida. His poems and reviews have
appeared in the New Republic, Paris Review, Poetry, Salmagundi, and Verse.
He works as an administrative analyst at the University of California, San
Francisco.  He lives in San Francisco.

As always, we received an enormous number of submissions to the Kenyon
Review Prize in Poetry this year, and, once again, many were quite good. It
always makes us wish we had more resources to publish more than we do.



4.) The Paris Review Prize in Poetry deadline is fast approaching with a
postmark due on or before 10/31/03:
http://www.zoopress.org/zoo_fallcontest.html.



--
ZOO PRESS
PO Box 22990 | Lincoln, NE 68542 | (402) 770-8104 | FAX (402) 328-2803
editors at zoopress.org | http://www.zoopress.org

Distributed to the Trade by the University of Nebraska Press
http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/

ADVISORY BOARD
Susan Aizenberg, Edward Albee, David Baker, Erin Belieu, Marvin Bell, Lucie
Brock-Broido, Alfred Corn, C. Michael Curtis, Stanley Fish, Jonathan
Galassi, Albert Goldbarth, William Harmon, Anthony Hecht, Scott Hightower,
Edward Hirsch, Jane Hirshfield, Art Homer, Richard Howard, Mark Jarman,
David Lehman, Herbert Leibowitz, Campbell McGrath, Heather McHugh, Andrew
Motion, Jay Parini, George Plimpton, Marie Ponsot, Alice Quinn, James
Raimes, Bin Ramke, Hilda Raz, Liam Rector, Michael Ryan, Sherod Santos,
Grace Schulman, David St. John, and William Wadsworth
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From marcus at designerglass.com  Fri Oct 31 14:49:52 2003
From: marcus at designerglass.com (Marcus Bales)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 14:49:52 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
In-Reply-To: <01db01c39fbd$343c2ca0$334cfea9@j1c1k6>
Message-ID: <3FA27690.21101.25C9B6@localhost>

> > > STATEMENT 1 (slightly revised)_
> > > "Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a)
> > > collections of words concerned as much or more than anything else
> > > (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or
> > > agreement of the majority of a majority of the recognized experts
> > > in the relevant field who have examined the matter, and with whose
> > > judgement the majority of the educated non-experts who are
> > > cognizant of the experts' opinions and who have themselves
> > > examined the matter concur) with convincingly advocating a point
> > > of view; (b) collections of words less concerned (according  to a
> > > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with convincingly
> > > advocating a point of view than with conveying information to
> > > others that will increase their factual and/or conceptual
> > > knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with the
> > > latter than with eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections
> > > of words concerned more than anything else (according to a
> > > reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with eliciting an
> > > emotional response; and (d) texts
> > >  that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably
> > >  trustworthy
> > > consensus of readers)." END OF STATEMENT 1

Bob Grumman: 
> Would you ask for context to determine the clarity of the statement,
> by itself, "5 + 7 = 75846?"

Yes, because it purports to be math but it doesn't make sense -- in 
the same way that your Statement One purports, from its syntax and 
grammar, to be a scientific, or at least a careful, utterance. 
Perhaps in the above equation there is a missing decimal point on the 
right side and the numbers on the left side are rounded off; perhaps 
the equation is in base 1000 and is close enough; perhaps that 
equation is in fact true for very large values of 7 and 5.

Bob Grumman:
> What we are discussing here is my position that my taxonomy is clearly
> stated.  Whether it is true or false is another question we agreed to
> put aside until determining whether my taxonomy was clear or not.<<

You brought it up. I'm just trying to find out whether the context in 
which it may or may not be true or false is a scientific one or a 
literary criticism one. You're working very hard to not answer that 
question.

> I believe I am saying what I mean clearly.  If not, you agreed to tell
> me in what way I was not clear, if you could.<<

I'm pointing out that if you mean to use Statement One in a literary 
criticism context it may be clear enough; but that if you intend to 
make a scientific utterance it's a long way from clear.  There's no 
point in entering into an explanation of why they are unclear in a 
scientific context if you only mean them to be understood in a 
literary criticism context.

Bob Grumman:
> I am trying to clearly state something.  Have I or have I not?  And
> why do you have such an urge to change the subject?

Once again, clarity is a relative thing; what is clear enough to be 
literary criticism is not clear enough to be science. Your apparent 
determination to evade this question is persuading me more and more 
that I was right in reading your attempt here is really to dress 
literary criticism up in the pretended authority of scientific-
sounding language, and not really to do science at all.

> I can't tell you that, Marcus, without making a new first 
> statement. <

Well, maybe that's what you need, then.

> I, myself, reading my first statement, would guess that its intention
> was to distinguish four forms of verbal expression from one another.<

Sure -- but in what context? Philosphy? Literary criticism? Science? 
Casual conversation? Drunken obstreperousness? How seriously do you 
want your assertions taken, in short?
 
Marcus Bales:
> > But authorial intention is of the essence, it seems to me -- and it
> > seems to be of the essence to you, too, to judge from the way you
> > rely on it.  You are the author of Statement One: do you intend it
> > to be science or literary criticism?

Bob Grumman: 
> It seems to me that's something for someone else to decide after I've
> finished saying what my taxonomy is.<<

Do you think scientists cannot tell if they're doing science until 
someone else comes along after them and punches their ticket, 
validates their parking? Are you really that far from understanding 
what science is and involves? Or are you just jerking my chain?

Marcus Bales:
> >Words or phrases or whole statements can be taken out of context
> > and made to seem to mean something diametrically opposed to what the
> > speaker meant to say -- do you agree with that?

Bob Grumman: 
> Yes, Marcus, I agree with that.  My first statement has no context,
> unless you count the title I added, because it is a first statement. 
> Or it is its own context.<<

Well, when you discover, or are told, what your context is, let me 
know. Until then it seems as if all I'm doing is making the 
assumption from the word "taxonomy" that you intend to do science 
when you intend no such thing, and I'm wasting your time trying to 
get you to be scientifically clear when such clarity is no part of 
your purpose.

Bob Grumman:
> ... I consider my statement to be the first statement of an
> attempt to construct a taxonomy of literature that is rational,
> thorough, and sufficiently objective to satisfy any reasonable person.
>  I believe I am working in the field of asthetics, but don't know for
> sure, and don't much care.<

That's fine, Bob. My advice then is to abandon the word "taxonomy" 
unless you clarify its metaphorical instead of scientific intent. 

> I hope you will note that I don't try to force you to define "science"
> and "literary criticism," and demand that you show why they are
> opposites, etc., the way I'm sure you would have if our places in this
> discussion were reversed.<

I don't think science and literature are opposites; but they are 
different, and the techniques of each are different, and their goals 
are different. A scientific taxonomy is something a good deal more 
rigorous in its construction and use than an arrangement of 
subjective literary categories, not least because the scientific 
taxonomy purports to describe things that change, if they change at 
all, slowly over thousands of years, not every time two poets who 
were once sleeping together have a tiff and start competing poetry 
journals.





From bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net  Fri Oct 31 19:17:46 2003
From: bobgrumman at nut-n-but.net (Bob Grumman)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 19:17:46 -0500
Subject: [New-Poetry] MB /  BG
References: <3FA27690.21101.25C9B6@localhost>
Message-ID: <013701c3a00d$93ccd700$a35ffea9@j1c1k6>

STATEMENT 1

"Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) collections of
words concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or
agreement of the majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the
relevant field who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the
majority of the educated non-experts who are
cognizant of the experts' opinions and who have themselves examined the
matter concur) with convincingly advocating a point of view; (b) collections
of words less concerned (according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
readers) with convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
information to others that will increase their factual and/or conceptual
knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with the latter than
with eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections of words concerned
more than anything else (according to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of
readers) with eliciting an emotional response; and (d) texts
that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
consensus of readers)."

END OF STATEMENT 1
>
> Bob Grumman:
> > Would you ask for context to determine the clarity of the statement,
> > by itself, "5 + 7 = 75846?"
>
> Yes, because it purports to be math but it doesn't make sense -- in
> the same way that your Statement One purports, from its syntax and
> grammar, to be a scientific, or at least a careful, utterance.
> Perhaps in the above equation there is a missing decimal point on the
> right side and the numbers on the left side are rounded off; perhaps
> the equation is in base 1000 and is close enough; perhaps that
> equation is in fact true for very large values of 7 and 5.

I would say that if "5 + 7 = 75846?" were not clear, you would be unable to
say it was false.  But I don't want to argue side-issues.  Instead, let's
jump ahead to:

> Bob Grumman:
> > ... I consider my statement to be the first statement of an
> > attempt to construct a taxonomy of literature that is rational,
> > thorough, and sufficiently objective to satisfy any reasonable person.
> >  I believe I am working in the field of asthetics, but don't know for
> > sure, and don't much care.<
>
> That's fine, Bob. My advice then is to abandon the word "taxonomy"
> unless you clarify its metaphorical instead of scientific intent.

Okay, let me change my title to An Attempt At A Systefication Of Literature.
I'll include a footnote defining "systefication" as a systematic
classification of related items in groups and subgroups and subsubgroups,
etc.,  the way that living organisms are classifed in biology into groups
and subgroups and subsubgroups, etc.

Can we now begin on the question of whether Statement 1 is clear or not?

--Bob G.





From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Fri Oct 31 23:27:57 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 20:27:57 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Streets paved with poets
Message-ID: <BAY7-F95ZAE6t3tDiMK0001e855@hotmail.com>

Interesting article at 
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/10/30/BAGBC2MBEI1.DTL

==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

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From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Fri Oct 31 23:29:45 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 20:29:45 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Types of discourse
Message-ID: <BAY7-F65GIYcxRXbMx90001e900@hotmail.com>

Since the claim made below is that all verbal expression can be assigned to 
one of the four stated categories, it seems reasonable to ask to which 
category each of the following verbal expressions ought to be assigned:

      a)  A man walking by himself down the street suddenly murmurs, "Got to 
get that transmission
           fixed."

      b)  A woman having an orgasm cries, "Oh ... shit!"

      c)  A group of people standing in a church say in unison, "Our Father, 
who art in heaven, hallowed
           be thy name."

     d)  A homeless person tells a passer-by on the street, "This country 
isn't cool because it doesn't respect the rainbow." *

     e)  A child playing with alphabet blocks says, "I've got the 'A' block, 
I've got the 'A' block!"

     f)   A man taking a shower sings, "A rainy night in Georgia, it's a 
rainy night in Georgia..."

     g)  The following statement of Gertrude Stein:  "A charm a single charm 
is doubtful. If the red is rose and there is a gate surrounding it, if 
inside is let in and there places change then certainly something is 
upright. It is earnest."

----------------------------------
* This actually happened one Fourth of July; the passerby was me.


>"Verbal expression can be of four and only four kinds: (a) collections
>of words concerned as much or more than anything else (according to a
>reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers, or agreement of the
>majority of a majority of the recognized experts in the relevant field
>who have examined the matter, and with whose judgement the majority of
>the educated non-experts who are cognizant of the experts' opinions
>and who have themselves examined the matter concur) with convincingly
>advocating a point of view; (b) collections of words less concerned
>(according  to a reasonably trustworthy consensus of readers) with
>convincingly advocating a point of view than with conveying
>information to others that will increase their factual and/or
>conceptual knowledge of reality, and more or equally concerned with
>the latter than with eliciting an emotional response; (c) collections
>of words concerned more than anything else (according to a reasonably
>trustworthy consensus of readers) with eliciting an emotional
>response; and (d) texts
>  that convey nothing meaningful (according to a reasonably trustworthy
>consensus of readers)."
==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

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From joncpoetics at hotmail.com  Fri Oct 31 23:30:22 2003
From: joncpoetics at hotmail.com (Jon Corelis)
Date: Fri, 31 Oct 2003 20:30:22 -0800
Subject: [New-Poetry] Poems by others: James Tate, "A More Prosperous Nation"
Message-ID: <BAY7-F6M0t2CD7Lsb0O0001e83a@hotmail.com>

I've written a similar surrealist prose poem (before I had read the James 
Tate piece,) so it may be relevant to this thread.  It ought to be seen 
formatted, which you can do if you have MsWord by going to:

                  www.geocities.com/joncpoetics/EGG.doc


==================================================

Jon Corelis        joncpoetics at hotmail.com        
http://www.geocities.com/joncpoetics

==================================================

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